The Legend of Spyro

Warriors of the Fallen

Chapter 07 Paths go both ways

Spyro had to struggle not to gape. They had not even arrived at their destination, and already he was entering a state of surprise. He thought he had seen large, but the new trees they were moving next to were something else.

The trees were giant; the only comparison he could make was that they were wooden mountains. The lowest branch was so high that Spyro was not even sure the top of an average tree would reach its height. And do not even get him started on the mess that was the roots for these trees. Spyro was almost sure he could hide his childhood home in there, and that thing had barely been able to fit him before he started to hit his growth spurts!

They had not gone straight into this Giant's Forest. Instead, they skirted just inside it, following what was plainly a known path to the locals. To him, it looked nothing like a path; he could not even claim it to be a game trail. But with every step they took, each new direction shown, he was able to look behind him and now see the directions they had taken. Spyro would almost equate the path they took to a Smuggling Route or a Hidden Entrance type thing with how hard it was to figure out where they were going.

None of them spoke, not wanting to risk being heard by, well Spyro was not entirely sure. He figured the Dark Army might have been hunting these people. So they must be using this path to get in and out of their homes, and anything they could do to make it that much harder for the Dark Forces, the better.

To the Purple Dragon, it made the most amount of sense. And it appeared to have been working; they were alive after all. Right now though, the silence was getting to him. They had been traveling for at least an hour, and not a single word had been spoken the entire time. A few curious looks and strange expression exchanges, but no actual words.

So having enough, Spyro moved closer towards Marshal. He was directly behind the natives, trailing behind the two dragons they had met earlier who were leading the group.

Once closer to the older male, he spoke, "Marshal, I know you said details would wait. But can you at least tell us what you can?"

Marshal looked at Spyro quickly, but just for a moment before he was looking ahead again. Spyro was almost worried there would be no response when he heard the wind user sigh and respond quietly.

"Honestly, I can't say much. Not because I don't want to, but more because we did not have time to get more than the barest of info. I was happier to see that they were alright, and they were...rambling in response. As I said, they were hunting, probably far from where the locals usually would, given the Dark Army, which is nearby. They had thought the last ones who had successfully escaped were already at the local village; the scouting groups had not run across any more signs of anyone else for a few days now."

They had not been as quiet as they had liked, for one of the foxes removed himself from helping his injured companion to talk to them. " You all came from a direction near opposite of where we've been finding the others. It also helped that most of them were grouped up once they reached us."

Marshal nodded, "Understable when we...escaped, I made a point of going a completely different direction to most others. Then for a time, I tried to make an overly obvious trail while profusely getting lost. It made figuring out a direction difficult, especially with how thick the forest got."

The fox stared hard at Marshal, his animal ears pressed hard against his head in a sign of some form of irritation. "Lot of good that did you. And them."

Spyro almost flinched when he looked back at Marshal; the young man was glairing with near malicious intent at the fox-man. He was almost about to try and intercede when Marshal spoke in a very unnerving but calm voice.

"I was banking on the enemy wanting to chase me more than the rest. I forgot how the dark forces like hostages. A mistake I won't make again."

A small gulp emanated from the fox-man, who quickly moved away from them and back towards his fellows. To Spyro, it looked like he did not want to try and anger a dragon any more than he probably already had.

Spyro looked back at Marshal in time to see the older male take a deep breath before he spoke again, "I'm sorry about that. Certain emotions are running wild today."

A light chuckle came from behind them as Cynder chimed in, "That seems to be a theme today. And it's not likely to change given the company."

Before Spyro could respond, a shout from the two dragons in front reached their ears. They had arrived.

Every day was and is pain. From the first needle, from the first breath, it is pain. Even now. But pain, like many things, is learned. It is both an instinctual response and a learned judgment. Our body sends the signals saying something is wrong, and we call it pain. But when your entire existence is wrong, every part of your body crying out that what it is should not be, then all you could ever know is pain. Through time, one learns to ignore it; with experience, you find how to tell what is the new baseline.

We learned fast. Or we died. We ignored, or we died. We adapted, or we died. We lived, and we died. Some in inches, others in miles, and others still all at once. Even now, we who others say have survived, we are dieing. The only question is, will be the slow death of those inches, or will we finally break and let the pain stop.

We did not ask to be remembered. We should be forgotten. Not because of what we have done, but because of who we are, What we are. By us being, others think they can too. We do not speak, for the hope we will be forgotten. But now, that is no longer possible. So now we speak, so that all can know the cursed existence of those they call the Forgotten Generation, though we much more prefer: Warriors of the Fallen.

For that is what we are, Warriors for those who went before, fighters who are unable, too stubborn, or just not ready to follow those who have already left. And so we go on, doing the only thing we know how to do. We fight. And unlike what most think, War is far worse.

-The War of Renewal - The Fallen Perspective By Marshal "Stormrunner" Fabree, The Dark-Storm General; Chapter 0 - In Silence or In Voice, we know pain

In front of her was a small sea of bodies. Not dead, thankfully. But to Cynder, that only provided so much comfort. They now knew why hunting was so badly needed.

Cynder sat at the edge of a village nestled within roots of trees bigger than some mountains looking over a space that sat underneath by and far the largest overhang cave she had ever heard of. The area looked like it had once been a cultivation field once, but now it was more of a refugee camp with more people than she could count.

From next to her, an awed and horrified voice sprung up, "There must be thousands of them."

Cynder looked only briefly at the complex expression on her boyfriend's face before looking back and responding. "Probably, and notice that the oldest one can't be much older than us."

Spyro shook his head slightly, "I, I hadn't. I was more concerned about the fact that all of them looked injured. Or had as many scares as Marshal. And say nothing of lack of actual clothing, or even anything but the most basic of Arms or armor."

Cynder sighed lightly; there was a horrified tone to it, "And I don't know about you, but they all look so…." She could not finish the sentence.

Thankfully she was saved by a new voice. "Defeated. The word you're looking for Was Defeated. And you're right, we were."

The couple turned to quickly look at the person who had interceded into their conversation. It was a male, maybe a bit older than Marshal himself; the most striking thing about him was the sharp green eyes and dirt-brown hair. Marshal had damn near embraced this man when they had arrived, calling him Harild.

Harild leaned himself up against one of the roots next to the couple before he kept talking. "Every one of us is tired. Sore, and in many cases, lost. Not just physically, but mentally." He motioned briefly to the gathering of apparently Awakened, who were steadily gathering around wherever Marshal was. Said dragon was going around talking to various others and, in some places, healing those who seemed worse off. "Marshal, how to explain to him and what he is."

The couple looked at each other quickly before back to Harild, Cynder leading off. "He's more than just one of you. He's someone you all care about, isn't he."

A light but also slightly dark chuckle bubbled out before Harild responded, "Care about? Depends on how you use the word. Relied on is a better word. He was, Is a...He's a Lighthouse in a Raging Storm. He can and has offered calm to center ourselves or a place we know will be there long after we could not. We all relied on him to be the one to act, to do what must be done so that the majority could live, in every sense of the word. He is our immovable rock, the source of the curse of our sanity."

The couple was both shocked and horrified at the emotion contained within Harild, but a word caught Spyro's ear, "Curse? Not Source?"

Harild shook his head, "Both, but neither. Without him, many of us would have Fallen long ago. To some, myself included at my worst times, that is a curse. It meant we had to stay, it meant...it reminds us. Reminds us of things, of things most should never be forced to remember. So to them, to us, it is a Curse. In time, it might be something else, but that is yet to come."

A hand reached out of the shadow behind Harild, resting lightly on his shoulder. With the hand landing on him, the male started to breathe a little heavy as it looked like he expunged pent-up emotions. Along with the hand came the rest of the body soon after. The owner was a female shadow awakened about the same age as Marshal. The couple was unsure if it was natural or an effect of her being awakened, but the female was one color except for her eyes, her skin and hair was black as the night but her eyes, those eyes were but a single shade of grey, a grey just this side of white. The couple could not even make it if she had a pupil. They assumed she had them, just that some sort of magical anomaly covered them.

The new arrival looked at Harild with a soft but firm expression. And the male seemed to draw strength from that. He recovered himself, looked to the new arrival, and said, "Thank you, Georgia, thank you for the centering." He then looked back towards the couple. "My apologies. Being the go-to leader has been… challenging. We all got so used to having a Light Bearer that no longer having one, well it affected all of us more than we thought it would."

Cynder's head twitched in curiosity, "Light Bearer?"

The shadow female, Georgia, apparently responded, "It's what we call Marshal those who were like him. They were and are the holders of...many things. The two biggest being The Memories of Those Lost and the...Spirit of the group." Each pause was prominent, a second as she seemed to think of how to word it. And say nothing of the creepily calm tone, almost as if she was not entirely there, like a piece of her was somewhere far and needed to travel further to reach the air.

Spyro was staring hard at Georgia, his magic instinctually reaching out, trying to make sense of her. From the expression on his face, Cynder could tell that while the other female was not directly fighting this, more than just a few pieces of the shadow user might have been lost to the Darkest Shadows. Cynder had heard of it, but never seen it or experienced it, and Spyro was probably finding out what that felt like magically wise. It was a primordial place from which many shadow users drew power, but going too deeply was liken to being lost in a cave, magically speaking.

But that was not what caught Cynder's attention. "You said 'were'? That implies…"

A slow nod from Georgia stopped Cynder, "Yes. There were more. Only a handful was known to us all. Only Marshal knows for sure; he remembers them all. From my darkest place, I saw more than the rest. But they were never bright enough to dim the darkness. At least until…." She trailed off again.

The manor in which the shadow user trailed off and the far-away expression and drifting eyes scared not only the couple but also Harild.

Harild reacted swiftly; he spun around, his hands going to her shoulders while he flared lightly with bright earth magic. He spoke firmly, "Georgia. Eyes back, Don't look into the Far Shadows. We are here; You are here."

His voice seemed to do enough as the target took a breath and turned her gaze back to the earth user, "I am here, Harild. In truth, I had not left. You all are too bright for the Shadows to claim me again. I just got distracted; the dark one was reaching again." She smiled, and her tone lightened up, and to Cynder, it looked like her eyes started to look less grey and more Silver-Onix, with the Onix looking about right for a pupil. "I have a feeling our new friends are going to make his darkness much softer."

Harild sighed lightly, "Darkness or no, Please stay with us. You're probably the only reason half the rest of the shadow users haven't gone all Glassed Eye on us."

A chuckle was the response, "You downplay yourself too much. But fine, I'll keep my eyes firmly here from now on."

Harild nodded sharply before turning back to Spyro and Cynder, "Sorry about that, as you can see. We're not exactly at our best around here."

A forced and nervous chuckle escaped Spyro, "That's, Ah, Fine. You've all been through a lot from what little we've heard. I think some...quirks are understandable."

A chuckle rang out from Georgia, "Quirks. I like that. I wonder if I can get Stecra to start calling it that?"

Harild sighed and rubbed his face, "Go ahead, anything has to be better than calling them our 'Mutilations.' I mean, that word implies we're all mission body parts or something."

Georgia gave him a look out of the corner of her eye, "Given that more than a few have lost physical and magical 'Parts,' it's not far off."

Spyro made a slight hold on motion, "Let's just go with Quirks. Mutilation makes it sound like you should be in a hospital ward for most of your life. Quirks at least make it feel less...I'm going to go with…."

"Crazy. Or maybe even disgusting."

A new voice drew all four of their attention to another new arrival. This one looked to be one of the oldest awakened, still not out of his teens, but almost. Of most of them there, he also looked like he had gotten the shortest stick. His skin was a patchwork of scars, not just cuts, and scrapes, but also what looked to be acid burns and remnants of what were probably cysts on most of his body. And then there were what looked like the male's veins prominent on most of his arms but a nasty pail-green and with a net-like pattern up the entire arm. And the expression on his face and in his pale-green eyes, Cynder could not tell if it was hatred or loathing.

Spyro took in the new arrival quickly before responding, "Crazy? No. If you are, most of you are hiding it very well. Disgusting, only to those who haven't fought in battle. No, the word I was looking for was more along the lines of Harsh. Quirks sound less harsh than Mutilations by a long shot."

The new male stared hard at Spyro for a moment before grunting; he turned to Harild and Georgia, "Marshal wanted to see us, something about having a good enough idea of what is going on." His piece said, he turned and walked back the way he came without waiting for a response.

Harild sighed while Georgia spoke softly, more calming than calmly, "Don't mind Kean too much. Many of his siblings did not survive. It's not the whole reason why he's so...blunt. But it is the major reason."

Cynder shrugged in response, "If that's him being blunt, I'll take it. As far as Blunt goes, it is probably one of the better ones we've run into."

Spyro nodded to her statement, "War makes a lot of people change. We've dealt with all kinds. His is par for the course. It doesn't make things easier, just more understandable."

Harild let out a hm, before responding, "Welp, either way. Let's go see what Marshal has in mind. At this point, him being here is already more than I could have ever hoped for."

With Spyro motioning 'after you,' that conversation was made. Now it was time to see a way forward.

AN: So ah, yea has been a bit on this one. Not for lack of trying, mind you. Most lost the muse, and with not wanting to get ahead of Double-Jointed, it's kind of set by the wayside. Welp, I was doing some ready and got inspired, so I forced through some bits. Most notably, the snip of the "book." It's the first of what I've decided will be a means of seeing the world through other people's eyes, majority wise those like Marshal and other significant players, but in such as way as it seems like far in the future after they've all had time to look back and think about what happened, what could have happened.

The Main story will always be from the perspective of Spyro and Cynder, so using the book sections, I'll be able to bring in others and show hints of things going on outside what they would typically know. Honestly, I'm doing this because it's killing me not to show what is going on in other people's heads, so I came up with this. We'll see more of the "Fallen Perspective," with parts being written by others, and some features will be more along the lines of snips of conversations that the couple was/can't be aware of. We'll probably see other versions/perspectives in the "The War of the Renewal" series of books, some by "historians," others by those on the line, and a few others as sorts of biographies. I'm even departing from having sections created by Spyro or Cynder, depending on the situation (or if someone wants more info/an in-character explanation of something). Let me know what you all think.

Fun Fact, I could not spell Purple at a point; my brain hates me. In other news, I did think about extending this a little more. But I wanted a bit of an enormous time skip to happen next. So this is where it ends. Next chapter, I'll have my time skip and explain away some things so that we can get the story moving a bit more. Exposition style, I know, but looking back is helping me from stalling this story too much. Hopefully, that will change, but no promises.

Anyways, that's all I got for now. So until we meet again, Happy Reading.