No Return — Bonus: The Last To Leave

The final days of the last age were filled with sadness...but for some... cosmic calamity was new...

Across many worlds and many lands, amongst many creatures... The Fall brought many ends and many beginnings... these are the tragic words of 'One of Many', 'The Last to Leave'.

Content warnings

• Violence, injury and blood
• Death and mortality
• Sexual references or nudity

Cast

One of Many — Justin Fife
Angau — Kier Zhou

Listen and support

https://noreturn.buzzsprout.com/14047185
https://www.patreon.com/NoReturnAD

Transcript

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The Arrival of a Powerful Alien

Speaker 2 0:09

Do we have to go right away ? There is no rush here . I never thought I'd come here . I always thought that it would bedifferent . Yes , do you know when it all changed for us ? I have been watching .

Speaker 1 0:29

I am always watching , but I can see you are not ready and I would like to hear your tale .

Speaker 2 0:39

Things were good for a time , for a long time as the stories go . Our people had learned early to coexist with the natural and with the supernatural . We were as kin to the birds and the grass , the rivers and the sky , and we were as neighbors to the spirits on high which dwelled below and in between . There was no talk of you gods in those days . Sure , we knew power beyond ourselves , but the thinking was different somehow . I met a schooled man in the time after who I told this very story . He put it in a way that stuck with me . We were all of the same sort , just different in degrees . You could recognize the power of the great storm in the sky , the storm below and the earth which could transform the land and transform the life which depended upon it . You could recognize the same power in our people , who could be whipped up by a frenzied passion to visit the same ill or good fortune upon life and soil . You were , all of us , forces of nature , just as the spirits on high , those which dwelled below and those in between , forces which would intermingle , weave together , crash against one another , overwhelm or displace one another , some greater , some lesser in power , but always of the same sort and type . Some of the young who don't remember the time before they think different . Now they put us and them in different places , attached to each their own rules and respect , some greater , some lesser , but always of a different sort , as if the very essence of each was somehow ordained by laws which ought to be known to the soul of every creature that some are made lesser and some are made greater with mud and copper in the soul , as though the earth and her metals are worthless . But I was telling you about the Harbingers , wasn't I ? They were not our harbingers . Well , that's what they were . To us , it was a day like any other . We had been amongst the Starleaf Bramble Foraging . We had listened to the wind for days to find it and the winds had been kind and generous not a hungry belly amongst us for a good long while . Lunos , selene and Astra had all passed overhead before we were encouraged to move on . Forty glorious days of food , comfort and healing . We made sure to bury the seeds and are dead amongst them , and thanks giving for the bounty . And we burned the thicket under the guidance of Zephyr , making sure that they and any others might enjoy a new bounty . At the dawn of the convergence On the third day of the burnings , when we had planned to depart and speak with the rivers , zephyr was quiet . There was a stillness to the air , but not a calm stillness and uneasy silence . Nothing had disrupted the balance . This was not the first time something like this had happened . Of course , it is the naivety of youth that thinks balance and harmony are the way of things . Chaos and violence are in all things too . These kids think it's an aberration , as if they're entitled to it , that they are old and peace for their piety , that it is against the nature of things to be otherwise . But I digress . I do apologize , I get myself all tied up in knots about this new generation . So there we were , ready to start the burning and Zephyr , either hiding or gone . We knew something was approaching , only stood to reason it was something powerful if it had the winds worried . So we did as we do in these moments . We made ourselves small , dispersed ourselves amongst the trees and hills , in the caves and in the places of shade and shadow . If a storm was blowing through , it would find ample space between us to pass . It was my time to play century , to keep my eye on what was coming and hope the winds would carry my warnings to our kin . There isn't a creature alive who seeks this duty , but it falls to all of us eventually , and , as I say this time , it was my time . A few cycles of light and darkness passed and I had begun to wonder if anything was coming at all . As I grew tired of my watch , my optimism began to wane . However , it had not dawned on my well-fed and rested mind that a force which the Zephyr could feel from days away . Well , that might be all the more worrisome , but as my patience died and my hunger grew and left alone with my thoughts , the darkness set in , has a dawn to do , and I contemplated my return to soil , ashes and countless painful ways , and so you can imagine my surprise when he showed up . Now , he was a strong specimen for sure , and an odd-looking creature to my eyes . He lifted ears and round eyes , with a violet hue , pinkish-white skin and not a horn or an antler to be found , looked unfinished to my eyes , but that was before we met the others with his form . He was clearly an alien to this land , but I could not sense the power which had so frightened the winds . He was alone . I watched him from a distance for a time and solitude seeped from him . Solitude with a simmering fire just below the surface . Sadness tinged with rage . His soul bore impotence , impotent rage and frustration . It was all so uncanny because the leaves rustled warning and the ground grumbled in displeasure at his presence . The spirits on high who dwelled below and in between did not welcome him in this place . None moved against him . I . I pained to see him . He was uprooted , rejected . The pain he carried , which simmered within him was such and I even found myself chastising the spirits for their cruelty To double this creature's injury by repeating it in our lands . I pondered going to greet him , to welcome him , to accommodate his power in this place , but that was not my call . I was but one amongst many , and that many was but a single force amongst the sundry which shared that place . I asked the winds to carry to my people and let them know what I saw . I don't know if the Zephyr ever took my message . I mean , I don't think anyone ever felt the presence of Zephyr again . The winds of all places are empty now , their whispers silent , and I saw his power for the first time . Now I give the young and the hard time for their way of thinking , but I get it . The raw power of this creature was like nothing I had seen and well , even his power paled in comparison to those things . Well , your lot . Before you all came along , we had our ways of working , nature of asking and encouraging and , when we needed to , bending it to our will and our design . But this creature , with its violet eyes ablaze , reshaped the world around him , alone and solitary , without an utterance of a word . The trees and grass turned gray and wilted , the earth and rocks reformed , torn from the ground and piled high . Such destruction , violence and death world around the creature . But it bore no signs of exertion , no signs of effort . And when he was done , I sat in silent winds , amongst silent leaves , with only the sound of the whimpering soil recalling in my ears , and I gazed upon what he had created . I couldn't make any sense of what it was . At that time , the purpose of its design seemed absurd A single great tower of stone and clay and wood , pulsing with the life it had stripped from this place , our place , our home . The tower stretched into the sky as though it was trying to tear into the realm of Celestra . I was sure the spirits of the sky would not tolerate such an intrusion and I prepared myself for their burning light to rend it and him , and possibly me , a sunder . But nothing came . Even sky spirits would not challenge this creature and its beacon pulsed , pulsed and pulsed and with a decaying stone and life , the distortion of the whispers of the sepher radiating from its sounds of anguish , its little tinkadence kin with the wind spirits , but otherwise as alien as the creature itself . I turned to the trees and grasped to ask for their aid , but they were silent too . I pleaded with earth to carry my words to my kin , but the land was absorbed in its pain . No comfort I gave it could quiet its despair . There I was alone , hungered and wept for many more cycles of light and darkness . As an elder of our people , I had undertaken many of the rites of passing , as was our way . I was not unprepared to return to soil and ash , or rather I was prepared , as any of our people could be , but in the silence and solitude that this creature brought , I am shamed to say that I was entirely unmaned . I was uprooted , afraid that I might become nothing and that no return awaited me . I've tried to explain this feeling to the others , this separation . The elders couldn't even grasp it . They didn't want to . They kept to those places where the connection was deep , where life and the spirit still held sway , for however long that lasted . And the young ends well , I'm not sure that they know anything different . It's like telling the water it's wet .

Speaker 1 13:26

Sorry , I'm digressing again this is your time , use it as you wish .

Speaker 2 13:37

After a few days and the deep stillness of night , the sky caught fire . The stars hidden behind the blazing light that could have fooled the glimmer-wisp that it was time to rise . I was certain that the celestial were making their presence known to the creature , issuing their warnings or casting him out . But once again , I was wrong . Everything about this was alien and nothing I understood held true , and so my predictions and my hopes were dashed upon the rocks like broken reeds on a river's turn . Another foreign creature appeared from the light in the sky like a fireball from the heavens , drawn to the towering beacon , the violet-eyed creature had torn from our place . She was different to the other creature glowing with light , shimmering skin like the aura stone , the hair from her head like threaded strands of starlight . I could have looked upon her for an eternity and still never have drank in the depths of her beauty . It was endless , but I didn't have an eternity because , well , the tempest unleashed its fury . I don't know how I survived . Honestly , I have withered storms , seasons of ice and famine , great fires through our shared place , which have left the world scarred . I thought I had seen power , but when these two creatures fought , I thought the very world had ended , but that came later , I suppose . I don't know how long it went on . I was almost skin and bone before the cacophony died . I had not slept or eaten . I had lost all sense of the passage of time , unsure what was the light of heaven and what was simply their power . Unchained , the Celestra must have washed me with rain . I cannot think of any other way I could have survived if my body had not absorbed the life-giving water of the skies . I was taken by a fugue . I don't know how long I had been laying in silence amongst the wilted star leaf bramble before my senses returned . But when I did , I was in a stupor . I thought perhaps injury , hunger or illness had numbed me to the sounds of the world . But as I stumbled upon the two creatures , naked as babes , tangle of limbs and deep loving embrace , I realized this place . There was nothing left beyond what the eyes could see , what the ears could hear , scents and flavors on the air and the touch of flesh . But my other senses were not numbed . They had simply stripped the world of anything else . In their violence , they had severed this place from anything but what was base . I stood over them , worried , exhausted , near death . They seemed so vulnerable , eyes closed , their unprotected bodies exposed to the world . I didn't have strength to think upon it then . Why these two who had battled amongst and to the ending of the world , why they could now be laying in a lovers embrace ? I didn't care .

The Last Conversation

Speaker 2 17:28

I used the last of my strength to pick up a rock , determined to dash out their brains and feed the earth their lifebloods , but my strength failed me again . I collapsed to the ground and what came next was a blur of color and sound . When I came to , I found myself staring into those round violet eyes . The creature wore a scowl and I was certain it was to return me to soil and ash , but he did not . His hand rested on my shoulder and a faint dark light emanated from it , and I felt my strength beginning to return . It spoke with ugly sounds that I could not comprehend . Well , until now , the words have always echoed within me , but it isn't until now that I grasp their meaning . I suppose that is your doing , I see . He told me . He told her that this was not a mercy , that what was to come would be worse . But when she placed her hand on his , his face changed . It softened , as if all the loneliness and pain he had brought to this place had washed away . She said . She said that she would ask you to take me when my time came . You , you , you .

Speaker 1 19:18

I too am not long for this world . I will be spent as your world is spent you gods , you poison everything you touch .

Speaker 2 19:33

May you forgive us .

Speaker 1 19:38

I will offer the mercy I promised . Other world awaits . What will it be like ? I do not know more than this . It is better than what is coming here , can I ?

Speaker 2 19:59

ever return ? I think you know the answer to this my people , those who left before return to the soil and the air .

Speaker 1 20:15

Those who leave after cannot follow they , as I , will be spent .

Speaker 2 20:26

So I will die alone .

Speaker 1 20:32

I am sorry , one amongst many . I am truly sorry .