Universe's End

Essenya had failed.

Her home was burning around her, and people she had helped raise up were dead or dying.

She had failed.

Again.

"Of any I faced in the past, be it monster or not," The source of her failure said, looking down at her from above. "You have proven the most resilient. To that, you have my praise."

Essenya wanted to respond, but her throat had been torn out, her Voice that she prided herself upon, lost.

"When we first met, it was you who spoke, and I who was voiceless. An amusing and interesting twist of fate, is it not?"

Essenya didn't find it interesting, nor did she find it amusing.

"Decades we have clashed, but victory was always mine to claim. Resilient as you may have been, you were short-sighted, too content to advance a status quo without noticing the ground shifting beneath your feet."

Essenya wanted to scowl, to glare, to do something, but she had nothing left in her; she was on her knees, arms hanging limply to her side.

Failure. Again.

Her mistake had been believing too strongly in their ability to overcome an enemy that always had the upper hand, an upper hand she failed to recognize. Once more, the ultimate demise, all because she hadn't learned from the mistakes of the past universe.

And where had it led her? To the same fate.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

She was the Voice of the Precursors.

But maybe that was the problem. Over the years, she had allowed herself to believe that her title meant something. Really, what was a vocation? A title that also shaped what skills you were offered?

Essenya had let herself believe it was something nearly divine —a gift handed down from above.

She was the Voice.

And she was going to die anyway.

This is not my story.

It was a harsh realization that passed through her mind, and had her vocal cords not been torn from her, she would have found herself laughing as her reality crumbled around her.

Everyone was the main character of their own story, but that didn't mean their story was the story. Really, no one's story was the story.

Arrogance.

It had started simple enough. The Invasion of Brilliant Feathers, the arrival of a monster that had been recognized as a fellow 'founder' after claiming the life of one of the original founders.

Over the years, they would clash, and for some time, Essenya had thought of the bird as little more than a rather intelligent monster.

But she hadn't seen the obvious, the noose tightening around their neck. While she and her people, along with some tamed beasts, fortified their location, the bird had conquered the lands around them, forcing the monsters in the area into submission. Never fully committing, always slowly probing, leading them into a false sense of security.

And then they had finally struck with a calculated execution that they hadn't been ready for. Every 'assault' until now had been nothing but a buildup. It started as a wave of monsters that assaulted their home, a not-unusual occurrence given the presence of the Bird. Still, it never ceased, like a steady tide that prevented them from gathering the resources they needed to restock.

A siege of monsters that wasn't a desperate, hungering assault, but a well-led military operation, as conquerors of old led to claim lands for themselves. It was something they had failed to consider truly.

Their fortifications were worn down, eroded over time –not that they were immensely powerful to begin with. Then their people began to slowly fall. They weren't a large conclave, shy of a thousand strong, so each loss was felt more strongly. The tamed beasts, whom they had come to respect as partners, even began to turn on them. It was only Essenya and her most elite retainers who found their partnerships unflagging; the monsters they had tamed never wavered.

Or, so they had assumed.

Essenya's throat, torn out, was proof otherwise.

The endless siege had reached its fifth month, and, exhausted but not especially vigilant for a sudden uptick in the assault that had otherwise remained steady, the hammer blow finally struck.

A small army of elite tier seven monsters had ravaged their defenses and were tearing through their small community. Buildings ablaze, Essenya rushed to the scene, accompanied by her most trusted monster, Eidos, who had been by her side for almost the entirety of her time on Aelia.

Dealing with the monsters, her Voice, empowered by the magics of this universe, had blown apart even powerful tier seven monsters.

And yet, it wasn't a powerful tier seven monster that did her in.

Or, rather, it wasn't an opposing tier seven monster.

Turning around to kill another of the monsters, she'd been too slow to react, far too surprised at what was happening, to avoid the serrated, chitin-clad tail as it ripped through her throat.

Eidos, her long-time partner, had turned on her.

It had been a betrayal most painful, both physically and emotionally, but she wasn't completely defenseless. Spinning up some magic, that was when it appeared.

Descending from the light of the suns, like a bringer of heavenly judgment, Essenya could only stare in horror as the Bird descended.

No, calling it just 'The Bird' was doing a disservice to their harbinger of destruction.