Twilight of a Hybrid

by Ryan Johnson

  On the lower ends showed more humanlike figures living peacefully while the animals above the human figures showing signs of bitterness and hostility.

  Valverno couldn’t believe his eyes as he was seeing ancient paintings reaching so high above the ground and how nicely detailed each picture represented violent, despair, and death being caused how evil can be.

  However, the three pictures in the central point of the tavern’s ceiling were shown to be having a great peaceful and shown no signs of hostility; it had to be the Three Gods the islanders worship: Adelpha, Origenes, and the Crystal Dragon.

  The Three Gods have been believed to have created everything and all living things some hundreds of thousands of years ago, and they had been shown to be creating everything. Chaos soon came after their creations have been created. The paintings Valverno’s eyes were looking at he could tell these evil sprung from what’s supposed to be beautiful creations turned up the complete opposite.

  Valverno was standing in the center of the mile long cavern. He brain was absorbing the images in the blink of an eye and then he could see them moving in his mind. Monsters and magic rebelling against the gods: the created fighting the creators over godlike power. He could see the long distance past of the gods’ first creations, however he couldn’t find see his personal past.

  “It’s the Titans you’re seeing,” said Sora.

  Valverno let his sister come close to a shoulder length from him, even he plainly said to her and Marina to keep a distance away. “I remember the Titans rebelling against the gods, their own creators.”

  “Yes, my brother. Long ago, the Titans were the first living beings ever being and sometimes I easily mistaken it was the Titans that created the gods. How wrong I was.”

  “Yeah, I was the one who kept reminding you it was the gods that created everything,” said Valverno, distancing himself away from Sora. “How even the mighty can fall: the Titans that is. I remember our loveable mother telling us those stories. The Titans were the first creations, and all of a sudden they rebelled against the gods. They wanted to have the vast knowledge and power the gods have. Basically, the Titans wanted to be gods themselves and went to war against the immortals.

  “However, the gods had superior power than the Titans and easily casted them away. The gods drove the Titans away and casted them underground. In doing so, the gods created the land of Pangaea and the seas to conceal their first children in an underground prison to be held for all time to come.

  “After the Titans were imprisoned beneath the lands and seas of Pangaea, other living beings came into place: the Second Generation of the Living Life. Elves, Sorcerers, Wizards, Witches. Nonhuman beings that almost looked human but with rock-watery skin, scales like Dragons had once inherited these lands. For about a hundred thousand years, that Generation became a prosperity age and peace was everywhere.”

  Sora walked over to the arch they entered through. “Unfortunately, we were born during the final years of that great age. Then everything fell out of place and we both had witness the beginning of the new age, along with the other three survivors.”

  Valverno looked passed Sora’s head and saw paintings that didn’t look like animals but more human looking. Three in particular Valverno looked like a happy family of three: a tall figure and two small kids, with one with wings and a small dragon tail.

  Valverno walked passed his sister to have a closer look. “That is me again, and is that would be our mother?” Valverno looked closely at the paintings showing two small children and one tall woman holding a red staff. He strolled down several more pictures showing the same paintings in the same positions; the only differences were the children growing up and drawn closer with each picture showing the kids becoming one.

  From left to right, the two children showed them as toddlers at a foot apart; showing there was some distrust between the siblings. Then as Valverno walked past several more, he saw the two children growing higher in size and becoming closer, from the foot apart to close as smaller than half an inch; depicting the two kids were treating each other as true siblings and eventually becoming closer in each passing year.

  Then the pictures of the mother and her growing children changed to a large city with domed towers. To the right of the city of domed towers was the same city but in great flames. Below was a map of a big land painted three times the size of the two islands of Shimabellia and Isla Maeli combined.

  Moving more to the right was the large land splitting into two different halves. The two smaller land masses took the form of the islands of Shimabellia and Isla Maeli.

  “The ancient contention of Pangaea is transforming into the islands of Shimabellia and Isla Maeli,” said Valverno. “And we’re, unknowingly, are walking into the last remnants of the long-lost, forgotten continent of Pangaea. I barely remember surviving the Formation of the Third Generation of the Living Life.”

  “We were kids back then, Valverno,” said Sora, “And mother gave her life to save us when we were teenagers. Now we’re adults, thanks to mother.” Sora started to swell back tears and she tried to hide them from her brother, for she was seeing him as a strong, prideful warrior and not a weak, wimp, little girl.

  Valverno’s left eye took notice of his sister trying to conceal her eyes from him. Then he remembered one time; when he was a kid with wings smaller than a baby’s arm and a tail small as a baby snake, he saw Sora crying very loudly.

  The memory crossing in Valverno’s mind was about Sora taking a long stumble over a large tree root and rolling down a large hill. Valverno could see his child form quickly rushing to her aid and stopped her rolling down the hill, which did result them hitting a large tree and Valverno was the one taking the impact and blocking his little sister from being pounded by the tree. Sora would cry loudly for a terrifying experience, but the kid Valverno would calm her and heal the pain she was feeling in her body, which made her stop crying.

  Valverno wasn’t shedding any tears, but he could feel his evil-like form twinkly from this strong emotional memory. He now couldn’t resist reaching out his arm and hug Sora holding her close to him.

  Sora was taken by surprise; she was being held by her close to him. She found herself being wrapped in Valverno’s arms. Sora was being hugged tightly and found her head close to his neck. Valverno seemed a few inches taller than her, but she didn’t seem to mind. “What are you…”

  “What’s the matter, Sora?” said Valverno, smiling big. “You always liked when I hugged like this. It made you feel so secured and safe, never feeling of being alone or unwanted or unneeded. Or do you not love your dotting, big brother’s comfort?”

  Sora smiled with great joy, to hear Valverno was comforting her as he did when they were indeed kids. This great warmth I’m feeling, the softness of his rock skin, and his scent has never changed, thought Sora. This time Sora had let her tears rolled down her checks and she hugged him back.

  “I’ve said this once and I’ll say it again: I’m going to be watching over you until the day I die, if I ever do die. Look at what happen to the enemies that wanted me dead.”

  Sora snuggled her tearing eyes on Valverno’s part-scaly chest.

  “You maybe a fierce fighter, but you always do show a soft side to me. Can’t you ever live your own life without me, I always wonder.”

  “Hmm, just look at those two,” said Geraldus.

  Valverno glared at Geraldus, Flarefur, and Marina leaning against the wall. They were staring at him not thinking to say of a corrupt hybrid showing brotherly love to a fierce, bloodthirsty female warrior.

  “A dotting brother,” said Flarefur. “And I only saw Griffins looking after the younger generation.”

  “And I thought I was the hybrid’s only love life and never thought him trying to show some affection to his little sister,” said Marina.

  Valverno ignored the group. Ten thousand years of being apart from his sister was starting to make him feel lonely. Now Sora was there with him like they both us
ed to be when the world was younger, and Valverno’s heart was starting to warm up. Valverno stroke Sora’s hair twice, feeling it was different the last time he touched it. He remembered it was smooth like lotion, but now it felt more sandy and moist.

  Then Valverno moved Sora away of a few inches. “Okay,” said the hybrid. Valverno walked toward the center and stopped. He looked back at his sister and the group glaring at him. “What are you standing around for? We have a body part of mine to find and reattach to my foot. Let’s go.” Valverno had turned to walk to the other side of the cavern, with his corrupt form dimming from the dark to a dim light.

  Sora smiled bigger and charged after her dotting, bigger brother idol.

  Marina slowly walked behind Sora. “And he told me and that girl to keep our distance from him, yet he is allowing to her to crowd him. What is wrong with his mind?”

  “He is a hybrid after all,” said Geraldus. “Half of it is going to be human and the other a dragon. But they mentioned humans didn’t excite some ten thousand years ago. And whoever their mother is has a human of some kind, but who knows. Just try to go with it?”

  “How can I?” asked Marina.

  “You mustn’t worry,” said Geraldus. “My wife, before she passed away a year ago, was always jealous when other girls came crowding around me. Human girls always fall for powerful men with powerful abilities or rich people. But family bonds are just strong as magic can be.”

  “Get we just get moving?” asked Flarefur. The impatient Griffin trailed passed Marina and Geraldus. “I hate being underground. Griffins can’t tolerate being underground for a long time.”

  Valverno could retaliate to that. He remembered the last time going into a cave. He did find the first armor artifact underground, but he never thought he would find two serpent Dragons sleeping in the cave that would later become a dragon with five heads. He had high hopes they will not find any sleeping Dragons or prowling monsters lurking in the great darkness.

  The group walked toward the other side of the cavern. They walked through another archway like the one they entered from the other side of the cavern.

  However, this time they didn’t see a large tunnel or a narrow hallway to walk through but a giant hole half as big as the cavern. It dropped deeper down. More stairs descended downward into the plundering darkness and the ceiling above stretched outward and widened upward like a cave.

  The torches floated down and about two feet down was a large wall. The ceiling and walls narrowly stretched upward before curving down to a the torches showed from below.

  “How much further down?” asked Marina.

  Valverno shook his head of walking into even more darkness. A thought occurred to him they could be walking toward a tomb of a horrible person meant not to return to the realm of the light. “More than a hundred feet but less than a thousand feet,” he answered Marina’s question.

  “Is that supposed to be funny or a statement toward a divorce?” asked Marina.

  Valverno could guess Maria had let himself be touch by Sora when he told them to stay away from them, and he was breaking his own order he gave to the two females. “There are a few ways to find out.” Valverno quickly soared in the air with the flap of his wings. Then he grabbed Marina on his left side.

  Marina was caught by surprise by Valverno’s grip. “Hey, what are you doing?”

  “I’m making this underground journey go a lot faster than just to walk the entire length on our legs, and I have bad experience underground. I nearly died the last time we went underground.” Valverno rushed over and grabbed Sora with his free arm. He was holding his two members of his newfound Household name, Mordnarù, in his arms and he descended down by flying down instead of walking down the staircase like houseguests.

  After Valverno went flying into the darkness while carrying two female passengers, he saw another but smaller hole if it had been smashed with brute force into the wall. The hybrid had slowly drifted to that manmade hole and he suddenly fell. He landed at the base of the staircase without losing his balance from his feet. Valverno released Marina and Sora from his arms as he tried to fly again.

  “What happened?” asked Sora.

  Valverno had tried and tried again to fly again, but he couldn’t find himself to fly. It seems he may have entered a familiar magic force field that disabled his ability to fly. “I can’t fly, my sister. This happened the same way when I traveled with some other people to the Northern Region. I couldn’t fly until I felt the sense of endangerment.”

  “To go ahead of yourself,” called out Geraldus.

  Geraldus was seen riding on Flarefur’s back. The Griffin glided down after Valverno had flown from above the staircase. Geraldus dismounted from the Griffin’s back and own his own two feet.

  “Trying to get ahead again?” asked Geraldus. “It seems staying together must be difficult to you.”

  “By any means necessary, and I hate being underground,” said Valverno. “I nearly died when a bite was taken from my tail.”

  Sora was awestruck by her brother’s tail being bitten. “Wait. You tail was bitten? By what?”

  “I don’t need to mention what happened there,” said Valverno.

  “Why can’t you tell her?” asked Marina.

  “Because it happened it the past.”

  Marina told Sora of what happened to Valverno after requiring the first armor artifact. Marina explained the one wild flying ride Valverno was on while the group was sitting on a boulder, and during the final moments of the high flying ride, Valverno hurled the group toward the cave entrance and then being taken down into the crumbling cave with the Earth Dragon biting on Valverno’s tail.

  “And Vaeludar gave his life to save other people he considered to be a family, however he says he slipped the thingy on his arm before he could die in the falling rocks of that dreadful cave,” Marina finished.

  Sora was trying to hold back a laugh. This funny tale of a hybrid had sounded like a true legendary warrior, but the ending part where the warrior dies out instead of living to tell the tale. She was laughing of how powerful Valverno sounded but was dragged down from a single, unlethal, harmless bite.

  Valverno could hear whispering laughs coming from Sora. He knew she was laughing of how powerful he sounded but was easily defeated by a single bite he could have easily freed himself from. “What seems to be funny?” he asked.

  Sora resisted looking at Valverno’s eyes, trying to conceal her hiding her laughs from the hybrid. “The way you looked high and mighty and powerful, and of course, you’re a demigod, and your father is believed to be the Ruler of the Gods, thus making you the Prince of the Gods. I just can’t imagine how powerful you are, but you’re easily get defeated by a harmless bite from a small, brainless lizard.” Then Sora burst in laughter, the thought of her legendary brother being brought down of a bite from a lizard.

  “Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, sister, laugh it up.” Valverno shook his head, even though he didn’t seem annoyed of Sora laughing at this embarrassing moment. Apparently, he heard her laugh plenty of times in the long thousand year past at embarrassing stories, so he is quite used to hear his sister’s laughing. “Laugh at all the points I could find those humiliating for me.”

  Eventually, Sora calmed her laughter and went to her usually self and she stood up like a true female warrior. “All my life I saw you fought fiercely, bravely, and ferociously, and you were taken down by one non-legendary bite. How the high and mighty can fall in one move.”

  Valverno wouldn’t have considered himself to be “high and mighty.” He wasn’t at his full potential of his true power, and he was only a half god, so he couldn’t be “high and mighty.” If he only was, he would be an immortal, physical god living among mortal creatures.

  Then the floating torches around the group went through the small hole in the wall. Valverno was the first to enter through soon followed by Sora, then Marina, then Geraldus, and lastly the Griffin.

  They walked into another dark ro
om, but this time bigger than the cavern they exited behind them. Darkness was everywhere of what looked like miles stretching upward and forward. The floating torches only lit a few feet ahead of the group entering into another dark room. There was just no end: after one dark corner there is another. It was like exploring an underground maze.

  “I hate the darkness,” said Marina. “Couldn’t have these Shadow Men casted your body armor more toward the surface?”

  “If they did, then it would have made it easier for me to find them and reconnect my body to them,” said Valverno. “The Shadow Men were cunning and hid them across this entire island, making sure I would never find them. And I’m afraid to admit it, but they did a good job in hiding them: underground in complete darkness. Ralenskrit and Belverda had traced where the Shadow Men hid those three items. Now we’re close and…”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” said Geraldus, “but can you light this darkness? I can’t see well.”

  Valverno gave Geraldus a glare. “Are you getting old already? And do you know who you’re talking to? I’m a demigod. Of course, I can light anything.” Valverno drew his eyes back in the new dark room and casted out more magic torches from his hands and wings.

  The torches shot from his hand soon disappeared into the darkness, dimming lightly far away from what the human eye can eye. Then Valverno raised his hands and kept silent. His eyes tossed and rolled at each torch he had lit, and telepathy ordered each of the floating fireball to grow ten times bigger and grew brighter a hundred more times.

  The floating torches near and far grew up to be twice as bigger than a chandelier. More than two dozen of these fireballs, sometimes seen from what is literally miles away small as an ant, lit the darkness. These fireballs seemed to be forming bright and big as the sun; they had emerged into one giant fireball, which glowed brightly as the sun, and soared to the dead center.