Diode

The lightning that once sang in his blood is now cold. Once he built creatures so fearsome it sent the bravest warrior dragon running in fear. The spark in his eye and his heart are now gone. Once he reveled in the sound of thunder, the power he could command. Now he cowers.

Once he was quiet and shy, his powers dedicated to tiny clockwork creatures and bits of gear and cog. He tinkered with wire and metal, making automatons that took a few steps before collapsing under their own weight. He tried more durable materials, stone, metal, wood. They became stronger, and larger. His workshop grew from a tiny chamber to an echoing expanse, filled with hulking monstrosities. But the power he could give them was not enough. He needed something more. Then, he found Asrai.

She was strong, and intelligent, and powerful. She wore magic like a cloak, the golden ink speckled on her skin was more akin to precious jewels. But even her beauty was second to the power of her spells. And when she agreed to help him, Diode was speechless. This goddess of magic reached down and deigned to lay her touch on his creations. When the first runes melted into their surfaces, when their eyes opened and their mouths spoke words, he was hooked. This was true power.

They were inseparable, Diode and Asrai. They formed a bond greater than anything he had ever shared before - she was the missing piece. Both he and his creations were fulfilled.

But he grew reckless. In his high tower, the workshop filled with mechanisms and automatons and golems, creatures both created and organic, they were the masters. He grasped lightning in his palm and commanded where it would go. Until once, it didn't listen.

The lightning broke away from his control, striking instead for the one thing he cared about most - Asrai. His love lay on the floor of his workshop, her spirit trapped in a body that would no longer answer to her commands. Her eyes met his and filled with tears, but she could not move to wipe them away.

Diode took her to a place he knew would be safe, and in the shadows of the great hulking Imperial skeleton, he continues to work. In his atonement he fits Asrai with augmented wings, stretching her beautiful feathers, working her arms. Trying to bring life back into her shattered body. And, when the magic within her threatened to break her mind as well, he gave her a gift of his own making. A copper spider who danced on the keys of a writing machine, tapping out the spells that she cannot. Someday, he swears, she will fly again. And if it is away from him, so be it.