"Young Madam Stormshadow, it positively tickles my heart to see you still so... spirited... after so many years. I can still see that a special spark of yours hasn't been quite snuffed out yet. The brave commander of the Valkyries truly lives up to her reputation. Oh! Where are my manners? I do apologize for barging in unannounced, as I have. Do forgive me." The dark figure across from Loch's mother said, his body dipping in a slight bow. His voice was refined but scratchy, as if one use to talking in another language, with several words having a certain tilt to them like he was over-pronouncing the o.
The figure didn't appear imposing in form, appearing to have a slight build and standing at roughly six feet tall. He, however, oozed menace. Just staring at the man made Loch's eyes water, feeling like several needles were prickling his entire body. Even with the figure's entire body cloaked in an impenetrable darkness, the man's eyes were brightly lit, like two spotlights. They were overly large and had a more oval shape to them. It made the man appear as if he was looking at everything and nothing at the same time.
Loch paused his perusal of the figure as the man continued talking into the silent hall, "Once I heard that my dear friends had started a little family of their own, I just positively had to make a stop and see. Just like your husband had done for me in the past, one must always repay a favor. Isn't that right, milady?"
Loch's mother, who had appeared frozen before, appeared to shudder at the man's words, even though they were all said plainly with barley a rise in tone or pitch throughout. The man's final words stoked the floundering aura surrounding her, transforming it from a small ember into a majestic flame several feet wide. Ominously, the floorboards underneath her creaked, as if bearing more weight. The air around the straight back woman took on a hazy shine. At the center of her spine, a set of pale-yellow tentacles, as thick as a forearm, began to crawl out of her spine, bypassing the armour, and extending out to her left and right. Once they reached the walls of the hall, the tentacles took the form of a set of squirming wings, with the tentacles connect by her aura spreading throughout the hall. They still moved and flailed independently, but appeared as one solid appendage.
"Oh! Oh! Hehe. A Valkyrie indeed. Seeing you like this does make me wonder, though." The man appeared to not care for the sudden flare of power from the woman in front of him and just tapped his chin casually as he continued, "A little birdy had told me that your core was damaged. I'm now interested to see if they were mistaken or you're doing something very, very stupid." The figure said, with his O's once again coming across like a hoot. The nonchalance of his voice whilst standing before the imposing sight of his mother made Loch shake. 'It's exactly the same. It's the same. Nothing's truly changed. I can't...' Loch's mind begun to shut down as a familiar scene he had witnessed many a long night. He was once again nothing but a spectator to the devastation that was to come. A sense of crisis welled up within him, and even with the newfound power rumbling in the pit of his stomach, he felt hopeless. Loch could even hear the totem screeching and cawing out in anger inside his mind, as if it felt affronted at the deep fear welling up. Nothing could stop the deep dread that filled his core, while a feeling of weakness locked his body in place.
"Fools. So many fools. I always told Luther it was a mistake allowing you to escape, no matter what the Conclave of fools said. Balance? Pfft! Only the cowed need balance. You wanted to see a Valkyrie, right? Let your loyal vermin witness the escort of another carrion feeder to the underworld then." Loch's mother said. Her fatigued voice appeared to gather strength the longer she talked until the very world began to resonate with her. The hall's wall flexed and bent outwards, as if just containing her aura was almost more than they could bare. She didn't grow in height or width, but her presence felt to Loch as if she was now as large as a mountain.
The shadowed figure didn't reply to Loch's mother's words or her show of power, but instead his oval-shaped eyes began to fill with a murderous red. As if they were pooled with blood, covering the pupil entirely. The shadows behind the slim figure also condensed all around him with jagged streaks of red shooting out from behind him, joining the shadows together in their own macabre version of black and red wings. Unlike Loch's mother, when the black and red wings made contact with the walls on either side of him, they simply kept extending. The force wasn't impactful however, the mere contact with the wings turned the hardened wood into dust.
The shadowed wings were thin at first but like a hand fan opening they sprung out wide, melting through the floor and roof above. The overall structure of the house had taken a battering in the last thirty minutes, especially the second-floor hall. Along with two tangible flexing's of power, the entire building began to break down. Starting with the floor Loch was standing on and the roof above. Hearing the cracking of the floorboards, Loch couldn't help but look down and take several steps back, as several pieces of wood splintered and fell to the floor below. With the new gaps in the floor, Loch could see multiple bodies littered everywhere, some of smartly dressed maids and armour plated guards. The one thing they all had in common, though, was not one of them had a complete body. All missing an appendage or several. Most of the maids also sported large bite marks on their exposed skin. The sight horrified Loch and caused him to take another step back.
Feeling his heel hitting empty air, Loch spun his head around and saw that he was now standing at the precipice of the hole he made in the wall. "Uncle Wayne!" Loch's mother's voice roared out accompanied with the bang sound of two thick stones slamming into each other. Loch snapped his head back to his mother and couldn't stop the water pooling in his eyes. The pale-yellow tentacle supported wings of his mother had slammed into the red and black fan wings of the shadowed figure. Each one grinding against the other, with one gaining ground and pushing the other back, before the roles were reversed. The floorboards below both of them had disintegrated into nothing. The missing floor did not comprise either of their positions, however. As they both stood in midair as if standing upon solid ground, at closer inspection Loch could see that two of his mother's tentacle appendages had lodged itself into a supporting pillar either side of her. While the shadowed man was simply floating there, held up by some unseen force.
Loch focused all his attention on his mother's face, who even now, while clearly struggling with all her might in a contest of will, had turned her head back and was staring at the child in his grasp. The affection radiating from her appeared brighter to Loch than the yellow wings behind her that were lighting up this darkened night. She took one last look, then lifted her head and made eye contact with Loch. Alongside a sad smile adorning her face she said, "Take him away from here and don't look back." Loch felt his heart clench at the words and a feeling of hot fiery rage began to burn from within him, he gritted his teeth and his eyes shined with resolve as he looked at the figure behind his mother. Even outlined in shadow, he could tell the man had his arms crossed and a relaxed bearing as his red and black wings fought a tug of war against the woman across from him. 'Maybe this time. With this power I can... I can change it.'
He only managed to take one heavy step forwards away from the breach behind him before Loch's mother's voice brought his rage filled gaze from the shadowed figure and back to her. "Don't. It's okay. It's all going to be okay. Somethings you can't change, no matter how much you want to. Loch, my darling. My boy." This time, when she said his name, she wasn't looking at the boy in his grasp but right into his own eyes. 'She's looking at me. At the… real me.' Loch's mind broke into chaos at the sight. What was real and fake had become so topsy-turvy over the last couple of hours that he was worried that what he was seeing was all just in his head. As soft as a whisper, as if he was afraid the word spoken aloud would hurt more than it never being said. "Mum?"
A thunder crack rang throughout the sky at that one word. Like a key finding its destined lock, the foggy feeling Loch had felt ever since finding himself upon the wasteland before the storm covered mountain began to clear. As bits and pieces of his mind gathered back together, the presence of the boy clutched in his chest disappeared, as if merging with him. Loch's vision also changed. Not like when he had entered the purple infused world before, but instead, his depth perception changed. Originally standing a little taller than his mother, he could look straight into her eyes without moving his head, but suddenly, he now found himself looking up at her instead. Loch swiftly realised that he had taken the form of the sandy-haired child previously in his grasp.
The angelic woman smiled down at him, her pale and blood speckled face unable to hide the radiant beauty that she was. The face that had previously been only a blurry figure in his memories, except for a few more detailed nightmares he tried hard not to recall, now became his entire world again. With even the dread inducing existence behind his mother, becoming another simple piece of background to the shine coming from the woman before him. "It's going to get better, my beautiful baby boy. You don't have to forget your pain, but you can't let it become a shackle. To fly free, you must rise, you must transform. Your past need not define your future." The black and red wings began to slowly override the pale-yellow tentacles before them. Appearing much like leeches, they were sucking the color out of them and filling in the space with more cracks of shadowed red. Loch's mother paused her words to cough up a glob of blood, but even then she continued to smile, even as thick veins began to crawl up her neck and the sides of her head.
A loud cry of an eagle rang out from far away, alongside of something large whistling through the wind. The nonchalant shadowed figure's body shook at the noise, as his large oval eyes looked into the storm covered sky above. With the now crumbling roof, the man had a fairly unobstructive view of the surroundings. The figure could also clearly see a black dot far away, hurtling in their direction, getting larger with every second that passed. "Soil it. What a nosey prick." The Shadowed man muttered to the sky, as his red and black wings paused their consuming of Loch's mother's wing wall. "Well Madam. I do apologize, but it appears a pesky bird is swooping down to interrupt us. And here I thought we would have more time together. I've always been told to stop playing with my food, in case I get caught, but Oh, Oh. What a shame." After the man's words, the semi stalemate appeared to be flipped on its head. The slim figure began to elongate, the shadows twisting and turning around it, while the surrounding building disintegrated at a faster rate. It appeared like the large eyed man was absorbing the very essence of the world around him and using its life to grow in size and strength.
Loch's mother appeared to take no notice of the figure's words and instead kept her back to him, retrieving her tentacles and walking right up to Loch. Once there, she crouched down and wrapped his small form into a tight embrace, as tears began to run down his face. "My sweet little Loch. I'm so, so sorry. Mummy won't be there to accompany you for all those big moments in your life. I'm glad I took your father's advice and managed to be here for your first awakening. There is so much I want to tell you, but there is not enough time. Just remember what I'm about to tell you and keep it deep inside. You have the blood of the Stormshadow within you, just like your mother. Our blood lets us journey through the clouds, but the only way to fly freely in the air is to be as light as a feather. Free from the heavy burdens of the Earth below. Stormshadows don't wallow in past pains, do not let them shackle you, my son. You must instead embrace it. Embrace it all, the pain, the sadness and the grief. Use them as fuel to ignite the tempest within you. Let it nourish your core, but don't allow it to consume you." Loch's mother's serious expression once again morphed into a happy smile as she embraced her son in one final fierce hug. "Now go and don't ever look back. Your path is forward now, to dance among the clouds." Loch's mother whispered into his ear.
After releasing him from her embrace, she stood back up and, with a face of deep concentration, her tentacled wings took on a more solid form and lost their independent squirming. Now appearing as a sheet of pale-yellow light blocking out everything behind her. Even the shadowed man's figure, who had taken on a more beastly oversized form and was now hurtling in their direction. Appeared to meet a brick wall and slammed into the yellow sheet. The force of the impact sent Loch's mother stumbling forwards a step, as another large mouthful of blood leaked out of her mouth. Several enormous bangs echoed from behind the conjured wall, each one sending out ripples that made the wall fade in color slightly, becoming more transparent.
Loch looked up into his mother's clear eyes and felt something inside of him break, but this time it was not his heart. It felt more as if a heavy chain of guilt that had wrapped around his soul had shattered. Giving him an overall feeling of lightness. Loch took a step backwards under the watchful eyes of his mother. Her pale face and blood-stained body brought him a great sense of grief, but instead of it, feeling stifling and wanting to bury the image behind a mental wall like he always did. He instead absorbed it all for what it truly was, an act of motherly love freely given with no regrets. Loch would stop soiling her sacrifice and instead embrace it, let it fuel him, so he can make her soul in the heavens raise her head in pride. Bequeathing to all denizens of the afterlife that he was her son. Taking one more step back, Loch's heels now hanged over the edge of the hole in the wall and, giving his mother as large a smile as he could on his face, he fell backwards. The power surrounding his Totem that had sputtered at the sight of the shadowed figure began to rise viciously.
Even with the air whistling in his ears and the ground rushing up to meet his small frame, Loch's heart felt light. The whole time he fell, he didn't take his eyes off his mother's face for even one moment. He was attempting to sear her image in his mind. Loch never wanted to forget her face again. Even though he was only falling from the second floor, he felt like he was in slow motion and his descent continued far past the point he should have made contact with the ground. A deafening crack of thunder rang out from above, followed by the thickest lightning bolt Loch had seen until this point. The bolt appeared as if it would fall a few feet away from Loch but a resonating crack of thunder rang out from within his stomach, almost as if in calling. The larger bolt deviated from its course and lanced towards Loch, slamming into his belly. A blinding flash of white encompassed Loch's vision as he felt himself losing consciousness, with the last image he saw being effectively burned into his brain. His mother, with her gentle eyes crinkled in joy while a grotesque figure loomed behind her, its details still wreathed in shadow, except for its giant oval shaped eyes.