Back when the realm was rich and filled with magic, humans of old imagined what an apocalypse would look like. They conceived it scorched and scarred, filled with indomitable monstruosities on which their arts would prove useless.
Then the mana drain taught them all.
And after many years of lingering death even the monsters were broken.
Miserable scavengers starving to hunt, hunting to starve had adapted to survive, turned to myths and pretense just to deny their fate. Those that did not, by selection, simply faded away. Could a human understand? Just the scale of misery?
No, he could not.
That human was watching over the wounded beast he had put on his bed, black blood seeping into the mattress. A rocky lizard who fought the pain in silence.
Someone knocked. He went to open and the monster on the other side, closer in shape to him than to the lizard, offered him the healing paste he had requested. She had to explain to him what it was, then held him a moment.
"We worry about you." That humanoid lizard looked at him in his fierce black eyes. "None of your actions make sense. You treat a nobody better than us and now you want to weaken him?"
"Is this medicine or not?!"
"It is!" She protested.
"Then I am going to heal my wounded friend!"
He left her to close the door on herself and walked back to the bed to apply the past on those cracked wounds. But the beast squirmed and pushed back.
"Please!" It coughed. "Not when I am so close!"
"Dude you are bleeding! Stand still and let me help!"
"I can stand it! I will stand it! Human, don't you want me to ascend?!"
"You can ascend all you want after your wounds have closed!"
There was no fighting the human will. He was but a nobody after all, in no position to refuse no matter the urge. So the teenager applied his paste and watched it dry quickly, turning to a soft gravel that solidified further.
He thought the greyhound would be relieved but that lizard only curled up in terror. There was the urge to tear himself open again for his transgression.
"Here! Take a rest." The human tapped his friend's massive shoulder. "When you feel better, you and me are going to visit that bird girl and talk it out the adult way!"
He was rubbing his fist.
That made the monster shudder. He forced himself up, fighting back the pain, hopped down on the floor despite his new friend's weak protests.
"I can go..." He promised. "I will take you to the priestess."
She resided at the back of the Parao, on the ship's second stern castle. No one guarded the entrance, yet none dared intrude there.
None had a reason either. Once they climbed up, both the human and monster felt the music fade, the perfumes wane, replaced by the cold scent of wood. Creaking sounds mixed with the single notes of a harp.
They reached the cabin where the priestess was playing her instrument. She still could not get the notes right.
A bed, a dressing table, two small fountains, small tables with flowers, a dais with the harp and a piano... all in the rich wooden style of the Parao.
The priestess herself did not stop at their arrival. The bird monster kept her head turned to the chords and her feathered hands to the task.
"Come in." She ordered.
"Nice place you have here! I bet it's cozy as hell!"
"You healed the wounds." She stated. "That will make the ascension harder."
At those words the greyhound fell back and lay on the ground. He wanted to plead but dared not talk.
"Look, lady, this circus has gone for long enough! You have people toiling while you bunch enjoy a good time! And that's getting on my nerves!"
"And who are you to judge?"
"I'm Nzinga! I'll be the one who saves the world!"
She stopped playing. Got up and picked her scepter. Her warded eyes turned to his black pupils.
"There is nothing to save. The realm is as it should."
"We'll see about that."
The priestess had walked up to him and started pacing to the side. The scepter added a third thud to her weightless footsteps.
"Kaele taught you nothing." Unfair. "Monsters vie for mana. They kill and get killed, tearing each other endlessly in a realm deprived of life."
She stopped again, to look away.
"The mana drain sets a hunger in you that no hunt can calm. Your very essence slowly deperishes. This was our fate before the ascension."
And she turned to the greyhound.
"Tell him, Copain."
That made him get up in a burst of surprised warmth: "Y... yes, priestess!" And to the human: "Nzinga, the ascension removes the pain! You have ascended, you have escaped the clutches of the realm!"
The teenager was taken aback. He quickly hid it under a new burst of anger.
"Then why don't you ascend everyone?!"
"Because the realm is merciful."
That phrase again. A poetic way of saying that magic answered all wishes, that whatever one willed would be made true. In the golden age, humans considered it a fairy tale; under the mana drain, there was no lack of evidence to prove it was indeed nothing but a myth.
Yet the priestess, even after accessing the secrets of Hashal, was among those believing it.
So what the human could not possibly grasp in that exchange was what she said: the combined wishes of all those onboard made it impossible for more than a tenth to ascend.
"Ascension requires pain and sacrifice. You will understand with the ceremony. The theater is being prepared as we speak."
"And you think I will just let you get away with it?"
"Ask your friend what you should do."
He had come face to face with her. She did not fret. Behind him the greyhound was scratching the floor anxiously, wanting to stop the human while too afraid to budge.
So the teenager relented.
He turned away, told his friend that they were out and went back through the door. The beast trailing him. Behind them the bird monster still talked.
"Kaele hasn't told you everything. There are more than one way for you to reach immortality."
"What kind of nut is she to think I would listen to her?!"
He thought he was talking to the greyhound, only to notice how his friend was still worried sick. Like a beaten dog. So his tone changed rapidly.
"Don't fret it! I'm not letting anyone lay a hand on you anymore, promise!"
"You... really only do as you please, don't you?"
"Of course I do! And so should you! Lowering your head only gets you hurt, trust me! Pick your fights and when push comes to shove, go all in!"
They had come down through the castle and were now back into the port's hallway. Music was floating with ample perfume.
Further ahead a group of ascended had showed up, the humanoid beasts laughing together and talking excitedly. At their head was the horned hare, his clothes torn and covered in black blood. He was wounded himself and enjoying his time.
They saw the human with his nobody. The others wanted to avoid that encounter but the hare walked right up to him with a smile.
"Master Nzinga!" He rejoiced. "Here with your pet! Would you like to enjoy the latest?"
Facing that blood and the beastly smile on top of insults to his friend, the human only clenched his teeth and offered a smirk.
"Sure! What you got?"
The others had joined them, making the greyhound back away.
"Piaf just won his duel!" They explained.
The hare rubbed his fingers, pleased at the praise.
"And he let us enjoy the carcass!"
"What can I say, I aim to please."
At this very second nobody understood anybody. The hare sought flattery from their most prestigious passenger. That passenger just realized what that whole group found so enjoyable. The greyhound behind was envious of such potency.
And the other monsters all thought it would finally make their new friend abandon his nobody.
"I see, so duels are a thing, eh?" The human threatened. "Maybe I should get one myself!"
"All things in good time! Once I have recovered, I may accept."
And a rat at the hare's side: "You would challenge master Nzinga?!"
"Why not? Potency is not everything. In fact," the horned beast glared, "I would even let you drag your toy in the pit."
Bells rang in the corridors, silencing everything. This broke their little feud. As the crowd explained, it announced an ascension.
So they converged to the theater.
There, at the stern of the ship lay the largest room. Human-like beasts crowded at the balconies while the promised approached from below and kept standing, darkness hiding them mostly from those above.
On the scene before them all was an altar dominating three steps. Two statues stood on the sides, holding daggers.
When the human understood his friend would have to come from below, he followed him there. They waited at the back of the hunched crowd that hissed and growled.
Mist filled the scene and the priestess emerged behind the altar, scepter in hand.
"Beasts of the Parao! Heed my warning! You seek power and peace beyond your reach. Our realm will not forgive the craven! Yet one of you wishes to defy fate. Come forth!"
"I will ascend." The greyhound told his friend.
Hundreds of eyes watched him pass through a crowd that reviled him. They saw his healed wounds and heckled the beast. Normally they would have hit and slashed that body as he passed but word as gone around not to anger the human.
So the greyhound came on the scene, before the three steps.
"You have reneged a body that only brought you suffering." The priestess raised her scepter.
He walked one step and she hit the ground. All the small bells on her staff rang at once.
"You have reneged a mind bound to the old ways."
He walked a second step and she hit the ground once more.
"You are ready to ascend."
"A human body!" The beasts screamed all around, from the ground below and from the balconies. "A monster heart!" They were drooling in advance.
The rocky lizard climbed the last step and onto the altar, lay down before looking where the human battled the urge to rush in. He offered him a meek smile.
The statues moved. The daggers rose. It took minutes.
For minutes the crowd chanted, heckled, praised and mocked with equal excitement. "A human body!" As black blood pooled on the steps. They were clawing their own body at the spectacle.
The bird monster had her warded face, her thin beak turned on the altar, calm as the statues at work.
Black blood spilled even onto her.
When it all stopped, the ascension had failed. Forelegs had turned into arms, hind legs less bent, the beast's neck had lowered and rock only remained in patches around keratin scales.
He lay panting on the altar, broken.
"He failed!" The crowd laughed. "Weakling!" - "Failure!" - "Die already!" - "Serves you well!"
"You are a promised." The priestess sentenced.
The beast's heart missed a beat - not that monster hearts really beat anyway but, anyway. He beat the pain, stumbled off the altar and rushed out in shame. The human after him.
"Copain! Wait up! Wait a sec', damn it!"
They were in the lower deck, running through the oil and cold of frozen meat. The greyhound had, by habit, run on four until his new body naturally moved to two and slowed down. The human caught up with him.
He was ripping his metallic skull in despair.
"I failed! I failed!" The beast winced. "I could not ascend!"
"Eh, look at me! Look me in the eyes! I'm just glad you're okay! I can't believe... Doesn't matter, you are okay now, that's all that counts!"
And the beast, seeing that worried face, hearing those warm words, almost weeped.
"You... don't resent me?"
"Of course not! You are my friend! No matter what happens, I'll still be there for you!"
"Nzinga!"
The monster had the audacity to hug him.