SUMMERKNIGHT

Two spirits of war and fate, Warstruck and Battleborn watch over the conflicts written in the stars and the individuals destined to figure in them. Their children are also spirits of battle, sent out to quietly influence mayhem and slaughter across Sornieth. What do you call a war spirit who dreams of peace? Summerknight, as it turns out. While her parents see war as necessary, as their calling, Summerknight would rather watch sunsets over fields of golden wheat -- but she cannot deny her nature. She is still called to sites of battle. But she does have some choice in how she expresses that nature, and thus Summerknight chooses to favor and follow warriors who fight for peace, who strive and bleed so that those left behind can live their lives without violence.

The world is beautiful.

That is her first thought as she swims free from the astral sea and feels a warm wind crest over her scales. She steps forward, nudging her way through the towering golden stalks, to the orange sky on the horizon. Orange. She knows that color, she wears it herself, in the cracks between her skin where her divinity slips out. On her, orange is the color of a gash, molten sunlight pumping through her heart, somewhat akin to what blood would be to a mortal.

But this is not the orange of infection, or of flames burning through a village. Those are things she knows, and this is a world apart from it. This is not her orange. This is the orange of ripe fruit and children’s laughter, of sunny glows over endless fields of wheat. It’s so warm, here, so much warmer than the astral sea. She was not cold before this, but she has never been warm before.

It is wonderful.

She does not need to breathe, but for the first time in her short life, she understands what it means to be breathless. She stands in the field of wheat, facing the setting sun.

She learns true wonder seven minutes and fifteen seconds before she learns true horror. Horns and draconic cries break through the peace of her beautiful sky. It is only then that the daughter of fate and war remembers what she is here to do.

She drifts quietly towards the gathering army. Some of them seem much too young, holding their weapons in shaky claws, nervously weaving bundles of magic between their fingertips. Others are stoic and steely-faced. If they feel anything in the face of death, it is beyond her reach to tell.

Another wields fire. A bright orange fire, the color of the orange she knows. It's the fire of war that runs below her scales.

She beats through the air on invisible wings, more floating than flying. She is not meant to interfere, not like this, not to this end. But she wraps her claws around the torch, softly snuffs it, kills it with all the ruthlessness her nature gives her. It isn’t easy. It hurts. She tastes the bitter, acidic smoke deep at the back of her throat.

She is still young, then. She is naive. She thought she had saved something. She could not stop the encroaching army, but if she could kill their fire, perhaps she could save this precious food source. Fight off starvation for the village who relied on it. Maybe she could save this beautiful place. She dared to think, for a moment, that she had.

She learns true horror when she sees the general’s eyes, ember-orange, even as she stands proudly under a banner of the Lightweaver. She looks into the general’s eyes. They're orange, but not the orange of the setting sun. There is only death in those eyes.

It left her weak to snuff out a single torch. When the general exhales a plume of flame, the wheat field catches fire in a heartbeat. The weather is hot and dry. They waited for it to be hot and dry, she realizes, somehow. She watches the precious food source, the precious view, go up in smoke, smoke so thick and dark that it blots out the sun.

She does not know whether to laugh or scream.

Her name is Summerknight, and she is a spirit of war.