Quicksand

The stars are burning out. Soon, the tide of darkness will reach this galaxy, signaling the end of all things. In anticipation of this, the galaxy has fractured, factions rising headed by warlords and peacemakers, dictators and idealists, each trying to have the last word by molding the world in their own image before it vanishes forever.

Quicksand is finally free of her past. Some days, she can hardly believe it. The crimes of a long-forgotten family have always been there for as long as she can remember, weighing her down like mental shackles. She alone was allowed to live; the magistrates deemed that she was far too young to have been complicit, and so she was spared execution. She stares out over the sands of her home and wonders why. Execution would have at least been quick; the punishment she lives through every day of her life spent in this city, her very name synonymous with wrongdoing, has lasted her entire life so far.
At least she can spend most of her time in seclusion, studying magic. Even with her family’s reputation, they could not bar her from that; her innate power was far too great, and the masters refused to allow the magistrates to deny her admission into the Academy. She found solace in the gentle light and the smell of paper, the other initiates leaving her to her work out of either politeness or disdain.
It doesn’t save her when the city turns on her. Someone else does, though.
When the dust has settled and she is free of her bonds, the massive black dragon with stars in his hide introduces himself as Quasar, and offers her two simple words.
“Join me.”
He saved her from certain death, perhaps the first person she ever knew of to care if she lived or died. She needs no time to consider before she gives her response.
“I will follow you until the stars burn out.”
“If you follow me, they never will.”
From then on, she is at Quasar’s side. She comes to believe his words that he will halt the advancing gloom, something that she had discounted as grandiose self-justification when they first met. His territory is large and growing by the day, but she finds that somehow, she never leaves his side. His true belief in the righteousness of his better world challenges her cynicism, just as she challenges him. From him, she learns of politics, and sees firsthand how her growing reputation and mere presence by his side can cow a world into diplomacy, preserving lives and states as the light spreads across the galaxy in anticipation of the darkness. It is no surprise that he loves her; this she knows easily from the wonder in his eyes as he looks at her in the light of dawn. The true wonder, she thinks, is that she might love him too.

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