Bringer of Entropy

The stars drifted slowly outside the observation chamber’s viewing dome, their light soft and celestial, casting a muted glow across the quiet room. Zethraxis stood near the window, arms crossed, his gaze distant and lost in the endless night. A short distance away, Aria watched him quietly, sensing the subtle shift in his demeanour.

“You’ve been staring out there a while,” she said softly.

Zethraxis didn’t turn, still watching the stars. “Yeah… just thinking.”

Aria stepped closer. “About what?”

He took a slow breath, then let it out gently. “It’s Elyria. I don’t know why, but… I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s been years, yet I keep seeing my mother’s face.”

His eyes flicked to Aria, searching for understanding. “I told myself leaving her was for the greater path, for everything I had to do. But now? It just feels wrong that she’s still there, and I haven’t even—”

His voice faltered. Words caught like a weight in his throat. “She deserved more than silence.”

Aria’s expression softened, and she moved even closer. “You think it’s too late?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I keep wondering… what if she’s still waiting for me to come back home?”

“Then go, Zeth,” she encouraged gently. “If that feeling’s pulling at your side—”

“I’m not sure what I’ll say. Or if I can even face it.”

Aria smiled faintly. “Then don’t plan it. Just be there. That’s what mothers want more than anything.”

A long silence passed. Zethraxis looked down for a moment, then back out the window. The stars beyond seemed quieter somehow.

“Would you come with me?” he asked quietly.

“Of course.”

Their eyes met, warm and deep—no further words needed.

Outside, the vessel began to shift course, heading toward Elyria.

Elyria shimmered with otherworldly beauty. Cascading waterfalls hummed with Lyrium, skies were painted in soft gradients of gold and lavender, and the entire realm seemed to exhale in peaceful stillness, untouched by time.

Zethraxis stood at the threshold of his childhood home, a place both familiar and distant. The wind carried the scent of warm moss and starlilies—just as he remembered.

Aria stayed a few paces behind, giving him space to take in the moment.

Inside the modest home, a soft hum filled the air, like a lullaby. In the centre chamber, lying peacefully beneath silken covers, was his mother.

Once radiant and strong, she now lay still, her skin pale with a faint glow, as if even her light struggled to stay anchored.

Zethraxis stepped forward slowly, each breath growing heavier. His voice cracked before he could fully speak. “Mother?”

Her eyes fluttered open—dim but unmistakably warm. She smiled weakly.

“Zeth…? My starlight. You came home.”

He knelt beside her, taking her hand in his, now so much smaller.

“I’m sorry it took me this long.”

“No… You came when it mattered most. That’s all I ever wanted.”

Aria watched silently from the doorway, her expression soft, heart quietly breaking. Zethraxis lowered his head and pressed it gently against his mother’s hand.

The serenity of Elyria stood in sharp contrast to the quiet battle she now faced. A grand ailment beyond simple cure, rooted in the fading connection between her soul and the Lyrium light that had once nourished her deeply.

Despite all his cosmic strength, Zethraxis felt powerless.

“You were always meant to walk among stars, my moonchild…” she whispered. “But never forget who you are when you take off the armour… when the universe is silent.”

He lowered his head, jaw tight, eyes burning. Darkness rose gently from his shoulders, tendrils curling like smoke before fading.

“I’ve conquered void beasts. Wielded the Abyss. But I can’t save you.”

His mother reached weakly to touch his cheek.

“Because this was never yours to conquer… My boy…”

Zethraxis clenched his fists, trembling. The shadows flared briefly—his sorrow made manifest.

“There must be a way… I’ve bent the dark to my will before. I can take the sickness, bury it in me—”

“No. That’s not healing… that’s sacrifice.”

His eyes filled. A tear dark as night, shimmering like obsidian, slipped down his face.

“I don’t care. I’d trade my soul if it meant you’d stay.”

She smiled lovingly.

“Don’t. The world needs your soul intact.”

Her ability to speak dwindled, fading into broken whispers.

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“Zethraxis… I— I love…”

“Don’t leave me, ma’, not now.”

Her light flickered once more, then dimmed.

Zethraxis froze as her hand fell away. He stayed kneeling, breath ragged, shadows heavy with grief swirling around him.

Behind him, Aria stood silently in the doorway, watching as the strongest person she knew let the darkness inside speak the truth he never could: he loved deeply, and it broke him.

She didn’t speak. She stepped forward and placed her hand over his.

For a moment, the shadows didn’t feel so cold. But only for a moment.

Stillness gripped the room. Zethraxis remained beside his mother’s body, head bowed, shadows rippling violently around him like a storm held at bay.

Then something broke.

A low sound—half sob, half growl—escaped his throat.

“I was too late. I could have saved her!”

The shadows surged. The floor cracked beneath him. Darkness bled from his skin, his aura expanding like a collapsed star, thick with sorrow and rage.

Aria stepped forward, concern clear in her eyes.

“Zethraxis… stop. Please. I’m here.”

But he didn’t hear her.

The shadows twisted, forming jagged wings and a crown of flickering void. His form contorted—not monstrous, but fallen. A being carved from loss.

His once familiar face was now veiled in shadowed fury.

“I could’ve saved her! If I’d embraced the power sooner… if I’d abandoned light entirely—!”

“No! This isn’t what she would’ve wanted. Look at me—look at me!”

He turned. But his eyes, once glowing with controlled shadow, now brimmed with wild abyssal fire. He didn’t see Aria—only a world that let his mother die.

“You don’t understand. You never could. You still believe in balance… but balance failed my father and now my mother too!”

He stepped away from the bed and from Aria, body tense like a bowstring about to snap.

“I can’t stay here. Not like this.”

Aria started after him, then stopped as his form began to shift again.

“Zethraxis—where will you go?”

He said nothing.

Shadows gathered beneath his feet, lifting him upward like a mantle of grief. His figure rose, carried by threads of shadow that shimmered like black flame. Against the clouds, his silhouette grew smaller as he ascended.

Zethraxis drifted into the cosmic void, no vessel, no direction. Only the shadows carried him now—silent, suffocating, loyal.

They clung like ethereal shackles, tendrils of sorrow and fury wrapping around his limbs, chest, and back. His form, once radiant in shadowed elegance, was now twisted and worn. His leonine features stretched thin by anguish, eyes glowing with haunted intensity.

His aura radiated desolation.

He drifted through galaxies, nebulae, and empty fields of stars like a fallen celestial, exiled by grief. The echoes of his mother’s farewell looped endlessly, carved into the marrow of his soul—an eternal reminder of loss, power, and responsibility.

Across the boundless reaches of space, stars dimmed as if in mourning. Nebulae trembled with unspoken tension. Celestial entities—keepers of balance and watchers of fate—observed the unravelling of one touched by light and shadow.

They did not intervene, but they witnessed.

Zethraxis drifted like a dark comet—directionless, veiled in writhing shadows. His power rippled across the astral web, an echo that unsettled harmony itself. Planets slowed, cosmic currents shifted, whispers of unrest stirring like winds in the soul of creation.

He was no longer just a man of shadow.

He had become an omen.

Yet through the starlight, past the veil of entropy and silence, a voice found him.

“Zethraxis… even in shadows… I will find you.”

The words cut through the dark—not with light, but with remembrance.

The shadows flickered briefly, a blink of stillness amid the storm. Somewhere deep within sorrow’s cocoon, something heard her—a heartbeat. Faint, but still his own.

Undeterred by the abyss’s vast silence, Aria pressed forward, drifting through nebulae.

Astral winds danced around her ship, each rift shimmering with residual echoes of forgotten stars.

As she ventured deeper, celestial guides appeared—figures woven of light, time, and memory.

They spoke not in words but harmonies, their resonance felt more than heard.

From them, Aria glimpsed fragments of something greater—a prophecy hidden in cosmic strands, the silhouette of a darkened figure standing at fate’s fulcrum.

No names spoken. No end revealed.

All pointed toward a singular convergence—one shadow, lost and wandering, whose choices would ripple through the stars.

Still, she did not chase prophecy.

She searched for Zethraxis.

The one who had once taken her hand beneath starfire skies.

The one whose soul still pulsed beneath the veil of shadows.

The one she believed could return.

Drifting beyond time and form, Zethraxis passed into a realm unseen by mortal eyes—a sphere where thought and essence wove into one. The stars here did not burn—they remembered.

There, he encountered them: The Divine Assembly.

Elders older than galaxies, their forms shifting constellations—threads of starlight moving with intention, echoing creation’s resonance.

They did not speak with voices. Instead, the celestial ether bent and spiralled, forming memories in motion—cosmic chronicles of ancient trials, cataclysms, and intertwined destinies.

One constellation shimmered into a scene: a shadowed being at a crossroads between light and void.

Another morphed into the visage of a once-radiant goddess who defied order to birth her own dominion.

A third pulsed with haunting familiarity—a warped reflection of Zethraxis himself, crowned not by divinity but by the consequences of untethered sorrow.

The elders watched not with judgment but understanding. They offered no answers—only clarity.

“Embrace the harmonies within, for the cosmic symphony awaits your cadence.”

The words echoed not in his ears, but in his bones.

As the visions faded, a final constellation lingered—two hands reaching for each other across a vast star-chasm.

The astral skies shimmered with iridescent hues, constellations spiralling like breath drawn by the universe.

The nexus—a sacred convergence where light and shadow danced in delicate tension—pulsed in time with the cosmic heartbeat.

Zethraxis stood at its centre, drifting amidst spiralling shadows, shrouded in sorrow.

Aria stood at the viewport, one hand pressed against the glass, the other gripping the control panel as if to anchor herself.

She opened the comm-link, voice steady but breath shaky.

“Zethraxis… I see you. I feel you. Even after all this time… you’re still in there.”

No answer.

Outside, Zethraxis turned his head slowly, his noble figure cloaked in darkness. His mane had lost its celestial glow, now frayed and muted. Shadows rippled along his limbs like tendrils of regret.

“You shouldn’t have come,” he said, voice distorted and low. “You don’t know what I’ve become.”

Aria’s brow furrowed. Her voice cracked, gentle and pained.

“I know exactly who you are. You’re the one who stayed on the hull of our ship when I was afraid to jump. The one who taught me to listen to the stars. The one who still mourns his mother, because he loved her more than words could hold.”

She pressed the comm tighter, eyes shimmering with tears.

“You think you’re lost… but Zethraxis, I still see the light flickering inside you. I always have.”

Zethraxis drifted closer, shadows trailing like tattered wings. His voice cracked with agony.

“I couldn’t save her… I tried. I used everything I had. I thought maybe—if I gave in to the shadows—they would listen. But all it gave me was silence.”

“And now you’re punishing yourself for not being a god?”

He was silent a moment.

“You’re not meant to carry this pain alone.”

The void held still.

Then Zethraxis reached toward the ship, toward her, with one trembling, clawed hand. Shadows pulsed violently around his wrist, resisting.

His voice was low and hoarse.

“I want to come back… but I don’t know if I deserve to.”

Aria’s eyes widened. She placed her hand on the glass again, as if she could touch him.

“You do. You always did.”

He hesitated.

But then the shadows pulled him back, wrapping his form like a cocoon. His hand lowered. His gaze fell.

Without another word, he turned from the ship and drifted—ascending into the starless void, alone.

Aria’s voice broke through sobs.

“Zethraxis—wait! Please—!”

But he was gone.

Only shadows lingered.

She stood frozen in the cockpit, tears streaking her face, breath shallow.

Then softly, a vow whispered in starlight.

“Even in shadows… I’ll find you.”

She set the ship’s course for Astra Major, toward the council masters—hoping they had answers.