I turned away from the children’s pasts, along with the devil’s, returning my attention to the present. I immediately slowed it, made it run at a billionth of a second as I ruminated on what was to come. I’d told no one, not even Sarenrae or Shalyn, of this pet project of mine. One put in motion by the slightest flapping of one of my many wings. The resulting breeze sent the scent of one particularly indifferent donkey in the direction of a haughty, self-righteous unicorn.
One could call me the spiritual grandmother of their resulting babe.
A misshapen, magical babe with the potential to free a planet from the clutches of not just one great evil, but four.
But first he and the other Players needed to survive the Shadow of the Sea’s pettiness. The gunslinger had tapped into a power as ancient as my own. Perhaps older. The Shadow was drifting back to sleep, but its lingering consciousness was sucking them towards its teeth, its many mouths.
I flapped my wing once more.
Enough to wretch them from the Shadow’s mouths and whisk them to another world. A green one. One where they’d fight against monsters, puppets, and abominations. Where friendship lasts only as long as it if convenient. Where souls are regularly ripped apart and stitched back together to satisfy sick curiosity. Where the barriers between reality and nightmare are regularly gnashed to ribbons by psychic teeth.
I sent them to Castrovel.
And now I resume the clock. I look on, baring witness to that which my grandson cannot. Yet, before I set him free to find his fate, I whisper…