Flying

PROLOGUE: He Could Win

The creature came hurtling towards Nadaris and his stallion. Heart racing, Nadaris moved to urge Blackfleet further, but the horse had already started galloping across the plains. At least one of us knows what to do, Nadaris thought grimly, trembling hands struggling to keep hold of the reins. A loud screech sounded behind him, piercing the air like a discordant trumpet. His breath quickening, Nadaris was painfully aware of the creature getting closer; its flapping wings sent out a harsh wind that buffeted against his skin. 

Eldest protect me, he thought, gritting his teeth. Although Nadaris was positioned far from the intensity of the real battle, he still was forced to dodge clumps of soldiers blocking his path. The makeshift tents where his generals conversed came into view, whirring past him in a blur of brown canvas. Soldiers dressed in blue and white uniforms let out startled cries as Blackfleet thundered past them. 

“Guardians above!” one of the men swore, narrowly avoiding being trampled by the black warhorse. “Watch where you’re going, you-” 

A disgusting splatter ended that sentence. Nadaris winced. Looks like the bastard brought reinforcements. That creature’s shadow still hung over the fields of grass, but the silhouettes of more winged shapes joined the fray. Some of them circled like vultures; others swooped downwards with talons aimed at uniformed men. The screams of the soldiers were somehow worse than the unnatural screeches the Feathin made as they killed. 

Blackfleet whinnied, his eyes flitting around wildly. Spit frothed at his mouth, and he moved unsteadily as if he were losing control. Or stamina. “Easy,” Nadaris said, patting the horse’s mane. “We’re going to be alright.” 

Those words didn’t seem to match the ones in the distance. “King Nadaris!” dying men pleaded, their terrified voices aimed at a rider who was racing farther away. “Please!” 

No time to turn back, Nadaris thought, desperately trying to stay in his saddle. His only hope was to survive long enough to figure out a way to save his people. Hopefully the men on the battlefield are doing better than I am. 

They should be doing better. His soldiers were fighting the Celen, and while the Celen might know the Celegoth landscape better, Nadaris had sent Malrien’s Rainracers to help the Kluvorians. The only thing Nadaris could do was pray that it would be enough. Pray, and survive.

His eyes widened. The tall grass hid many things, but he’d barely noticed the gray forms blocking his path. Mere moments in front of him, a collection of large boulders littered the ground in a scattered heap. Nadaris knew that, in seconds, his horse would collide with the massive stones. Panicking, Blackfleet attempted to change direction. The horse shifted to the left, abandoning the path he’d been following. Nadaris yelped, the momentum forcing him to cling to his seat. “Careful!” he hissed, but somehow he sensed that it was too late.

Distracted by the boulders, Blackfleet had wasted a few precious seconds. Sweat beaded on Nadaris’s forehead. He took a deep breath, hesitantly turning his head to look behind him. The talons aimed straight at his face, and the first thing he saw was the monster’s black gaze shining hungrily in the sunlight. Reacting without time to think, Nadaris leapt out of his saddle. For a second, he was flying through the air, his black hair whipping around his head. Then he was rolling through the grass, a sickening crunch coming from his ribcage. Gasping, the wind knocked out of his lungs, he put a hand to his chest. Pain flared instantly, pulsating in waves. Everything seemed darker. Struggling to see through the darkness creeping over his vision, he watched the blurry form of the Feathin. Something black and red hung from its mouth, dripping a liquid that Nadaris had seen many times before. Clutching his fractured ribs, he let out an anguished whimper. “Blackfleet…” he sobbed, barely able to see what was now left of his horse. “Please.” 

All he saw before losing consciousness was a flash of white light.

***

Malrien threw himself at the creature. He slammed into its feathered body, knocking it away from the unconscious king sprawled on the ground. Screeching, it clawed at him frantically. One of its talons sliced through his navy uniform, reaching the skin beneath and drawing a crimson line of blood. The cut stung against Malrien’s left arm. Smirking, Malrien allowed glowing Essence to crawl near the wound. This variant of the newfound substance, white and foggy, enveloped his whole body and illuminated him like a bonfire. Within seconds, it entered the cut and began reknitting the wound. He didn’t look, but he knew that if he did, he would find clear skin that seemed untouched. It was almost like he’d never been hurt.

The Feathin’s mouth twisted into a snarl. It pulled away, breaking free of his grasp. But it didn’t advance; it just stared at him, inhuman features contorted with rage. Everything about these things disgusted Malrien. Its slender form could have maybe passed for human, but the feathers along its body and the talons in place of fingers made him sick. The wings on its back flapped harshly, imitating that of a bird’s. “Guardian,” it hissed, words coming out in a thick drawl. 

“Rainracer,” Malrien corrected, still hovering midair. “We’re different from the rest.”

The Feathin’s black eyes flashed dangerously. “Different?” it mocked, letting out a succession of chirps from the back of its throat. Malrien couldn’t guess what it meant; the monsters apparently had a whole language composed of strange chirps and whistles set in different patterns. “Worse. Men should not fly.”

Malrien scoffed. “You’re the one who just ate a horse alive. You’re the savage.”

“You not know. You play with gods’ deaths.” Malrien frowned. The language barrier often made it difficult to understand the Feathin. It would be even more impossible to come to a peace agreement. The Celen did it, though, a voice in the back of his head whispered. The Feathin are only fighting us because we threatened their human allies first. He shook his head. He couldn’t allow himself to feel sympathy for these beasts.

Refusing to continue the conversation, Malrien focused on controlling the Essence that clung to his skin. He flew straight at the Feathin, ignoring its protests. He thought he could see sadness momentarily flashing across its face, but he knew that he was probably imagining things. Surely the only emotion they ever showed was hatred. 

The Feathin decided to move upwards and avoid the attack, soaring with its wings outstretched. Malrien grinned. Finally a good chase. He followed, clothes rippling as he flew higher. The creature kept glancing back at him, then quickening its pace. They went on like that for minutes. Man and monster challenging each other, nothing but the sky and the summer heat to distract them. Malrien had plenty of Essence, too. If he didn’t push his limits too much, the mist would allow him to keep flying for hours. 

Glowing forms settled into formation next to him. Exhilarated, Malrien turned to smile at the group of Rainracers who’d joined him. Wearing the same blue clothes as him, they would have appeared to be the perfect Kluvorian soldiers. Their faces told a different story. They looked upwards, following the Feathin, but their expressions were dazed. Gazes unfocused. Lips drawn into tight lines. They shone gloriously like him, Essence trailing behind them as they flew, but something was wrong. They…weren’t laughing like they normally did. His grin faded. 

Those grim faces were a reminder of the orders he’d given moments before. The once happy faces of his friends had now become a constant reminder of the sins he had been forced to commit. Eldest help the others understand.

***

Nadaris awoke with a groan. His head pounded, and trying to think proved difficult. His thoughts formed as a groggy mess of words. Trying to glance around the room, he became dimly aware of where he was. People gathered near his bedside, eyebrows creased and voices low with worry. Others scurried around the room, grabbing items and frantically carrying them outside. He caught a glimpse of a girl wearing a white apron and heading out the room, a pile of bandages and bottles gathered in her arms. The medic tent, Nadaris guessed. 

He tried to sit up. Pushing upwards with weak arms, he whimpered as the pain in his side flared up again. A man sitting on the ground nearby frowned. Quickly, the man gasped and leapt to his feet. “He’s awake!” he announced. “Everyone get over here.” 

Men and women came rushing at Nadaris, asking panicked questions. 

“Are you alright, Your Majesty?” one person said.

“What happened out there?” another demanded. 

Nadaris could barely think. Whenever they asked a question, he just croaked out the same word. “Water,” he begged, his throat dry as if he hadn’t drunk anything for weeks.

A woman pressed a cup of cold water against his lips, and he desperately drank it. As fast as he could, at least. He closed his eyes against the pain. His breaths were ragged, but the medics kept assuring him that he would be fine. His ribs were the only thing that had been damaged. Sure feels like death, though. 

Still forcing water down his throat, Nadaris heard the rustle of cloth as someone entered the tent. He squinted, struggling to see clearly, but he recognized that tall man immediately. Nadaris himself had appointed that man to be the leader of the Rainracers. Standing straight-backed, proudly wearing a blue uniform that he’d designed himself, Malrien Rogulous demanded attention. His tanned Kluvorian skin gleamed with sweat, but glowing Essence clung to him as curling wisps. Both hair and short-trimmed beard were wild after he’d been flying, but somehow he still found a way to appear dignified. Nadaris was suddenly aware of how he looked; he was the king of Kluvoria, and here he was sitting in a sickbed with grass sticking to his clammy skin. 

Something in the room changed. Nadaris tilted his head to the side, watching everything speculatively. The same people who had been rushing about paused, now barely moving. The low voices trickled to occasional whispers. Nadaris thought it was awe. Their hero is here. Maybe they’ve stopped working because they want to admire him. But the tensed shoulders and hardened expressions didn’t belong to people who were standing before someone who better belonged in legends. The near silence that blanketed the room was dangerous, and it was something that Nadaris had seen before. It was the moment of quiet before two men started attacking each other in a cold rage.

“Malrien?” Nadaris asked, propping himself up with agonizing effort. “What’s going on here? Are your Rainracers still with my soldiers?” 

The Guardian stared at him, saying nothing. The man resembled a sculpture. Everything about him was what the Kluvorians admired. Still, the nauseous dread in Nadaris’s stomach told him that something was terribly, horribly wrong. 

“Malrien,” Nadaris repeated, “where are the rest of the Rainracers?”

“Not here,” the other man said stiffly. 

“Well, then, where are they? And how are my soldiers?”

Malrien paused for a moment, watching Nadaris with a gaze as intense as a hawk’s. “The Rainracers have retreated,” he declared. “They’re already flying back to Kluvoria.”

Nadaris felt a cold realization creeping down his spine. If the Rainracers had left… “You’re saying we lost the war. You’re saying we weren’t able to take control of Celegoth. How… how many soldiers did we lose?”

The medics in the room shifted, refusing to look at Nadaris. He could see the pain on their faces. Some fought back tears. Others had balled their hands into fists. The dangerous silence had returned. This time, Malrien was the one to break it. “Your soldiers still fight, Nadaris,” he spat, raising his chin stubbornly. “The Rainracers have just chosen to leave early.”

“You left them alone out there to die!” Nadaris roared, ignoring the jolts of pain it sent through his chest. “Your people were our greatest advantage. You said you could win the war for us!”

Malrien stared at his king’s outraged face. Nadaris sat in his bed, trembling with the shock of the betrayal. The images of men left alone against a stronger army flashed through his mind. He didn’t know if Malrien even had the humanity to imagine those terrified faces. When the Rainracer finally spoke, all he responded with was, “I said I could win. That never meant I intended to.”

The Kluvorians in the room gasped, and this time, their silence completely shattered. Some of them rushed towards Malrien, screaming out, calling him a bastard and a traitor. Women let out tears of anger, their voices telling frantic stories about brothers and husbands abandoned to fight to their deaths in that grassy field. Malrien let it all wash over him, doing nothing to stop the screaming and wailing. Nadaris could make out the faint image of Malrien summoning glowing Essence to protect himself in case the people turned violent. If he wasn’t bedridden, Nadaris would have turned violent seconds ago. 

Someone else entered the tent, eyes widening at the sight of the chaos. He wore a blue uniform similar to the one Malrien wore, but his frame was considerably slimmer. More frail. His brown hair was a curled mess on his head, and he anxiously pushed his spectacles back up his nose. “Father,” he said, struggling to make his voice loud enough to be heard in the noise. “I’m staying behind. I’m going back to the battlefield. Tempest says he thinks this is wrong.”

Nadaris’s jaw dropped. Everyone in the room turned to stare at the boy. Some of them even snickered. And for the first time, Malrien’s cool composure erupted. “Evanmir!” he shouted, growing redder by the second. “Quit acting like a useless child and get back with the other Rainracers! You of all people should know that what I did was necessary, so don’t start pretending like you believe I’m a traitor too.”

  The boy’s lip trembled. His skin glowed softly like his father’s, but Nadaris didn’t think it looked threatening on him. Despite the pain and anguish on his face, Nadaris could see that the boy still held a measure of respect for his father. He desperately wanted to please him, and maybe a part of him still believed that Malrien was a good man. Saying nothing, Evanmir Rogulous, scholar and son of the most powerful Guardian in the world, solemnly exited the tent, not even trying to hide his shaking hands.

After that, Malrien left too, and Nadaris was left to figure out a plan. In the next few hours, he brought every general he had with him into the medic tent, working with them to find a way to save the men left behind. They plotted and they planned. In the end, the Kluvorians were forced to surrender and head home with an army five times smaller than the one they’d arrived with. The surviving soldiers complained about having to go back to the world of storms and rifts that they’d left behind.

Days later, Nadaris sat in the saddle of an unfamiliar mare, doing his best to ignore the searing pain in his side and the thoughts about the black stallion he’d left lying in a grassy field. At the front of the procession, he could hear the people following him whispering among themselves, claiming he had shown tremendous bravery in the face of betrayal. In their eyes, Nadaris was regal and courageous. A hero. 

No one saw the tears rolling down his face. 

The first page of an untitled journal found left at the Rift:

I wish I could say this story has a happy ending. I’ve had centuries to think about my past, and the seemingly never-ending days have been spent haunted by the same memories. For hundreds of years, I’ve thought about what might have happened if we’d stayed and fought. I’m certain you have asked those same questions too. 

Some of you may be wondering if we ever really were the heroes everyone believed us to be. The honest, plain truth is this: I’m not sure. Maybe our intentions were honorable in the very beginning. Another possibility is that our ranks have been corrupt since our founding. 

I will never be able to know the full truth, since my birth was nearly two decades before we abandoned you. In the days of the final battles, I was still a young man. But I was, understandably, a fool. I had unlimited knowledge at my fingertips; I could ask any question and search freely for an answer. I didn’t realize how much I had been given until that power had been stripped away from me. 

After we were banished into the Rift, every book we had once been given access to was taken from us. My father, Malrien, destroyed all our written records. No one really knows why he did it. Most of my people say he had gone mad, but others have a more dangerous theory. These few claim my father was trying to hide something dark; something that should have been left, undiscovered, in the shadows. 

Even I, Malrien’s own son, risk my life by writing down these words. I’m not sure if the rumors about my father are true, but I know that I must be cautious. If the speculations do turn out to be correct, then it is proof that Malrien is no longer the righteous man he used to be. Once he does not have the Eldest’s reasoning guiding his decisions, then surely the side of him that is cruel and reckless will be able to take control. When it comes to this, my father will, undoubtedly, be willing to destroy everyone, and anything, that stands in his way. And that includes me. 

As I sit at my desk, tightly clutching my quill in fear, know that I do this because I feel like I have no other choice. I may not completely understand why our leaders commanded us to retreat, but I have ideas. And the Kluvorians deserve to be given a reason as to why their heroes abandoned them. They deserve to know why they are trapped in the world of tempests and slavery that we put them in. 

Through my words, you will be able to find a few answers to your questions. Be warned, however; along with these answers comes some very uncomfortable truths. And, like I mentioned before, this story does not have a happy ending. 

-E. Rogulous 

The war within one’s mind is often more difficult than the wars between men. The soldier never freezes on the battlefield simply because of the enemy around him; nor does he freeze because of the mere clashing of swords. He freezes because his own thoughts have betrayed him. Fighting to control what goes on in your head is going to be a difficult battle, Vashkril. Perhaps it will be the most difficult one of all.

And to tell you the truth, life is nothing more than a sequence of battles in one prolonged war. There are victories, and there are losses. There are days when you stand undefeated after a hard-won fight. And then there are days when your thoughts weigh down on you, seeming like they will finally overwhelm your best defenses. But on the rare days when you see your despair and hopelessness holding the white flag of surrender, you will realize that there’s still enough hope. There’s always a reason to keep fighting.

I'm also not sure how I feel about the witch stuff. It felt like it kind of contrasts against the general tone of the MCU, but I guess that they're trying to do new things with Wandavision. I'm interested to see where they take it, but I'm really hoping that it's not as cheesy in the future.

And I also agree that Agatha's screaming sounds fake. She works as a cheerful character, but it feels kind of odd/forced when she's trying to act super serious. Other than the weird witch stuff and Agatha's acting at certain parts, I thought the rest of the episode was pretty good.

And that Vision at the end is probably going to be a villain who Wanda has to fight. I'm guessing that right now.