A Petal

The Essence of Beauty.

A gigantic tree on the highest floor of Horace Tower, the Essence of Beauty symbolizes Lord Dominion's power in his realm. As long as the tree stands, life around it would flourish. And as long as Lord Dominion grants it a bit of his mana, it would never fall. Once, Skystead Keep is a burgeoning enigma that reminds the realm of Lord Dominion's miracle. Colorful flowers, bountiful crops, and thick roots embraced the snow-capped walls of the Keep, and cracks would appear all over the stone mountains where vines and leaves would sprout from, crowning the rocks with the caress of nature's beauty. Now, one could barely even imagine a grain of grass ever living in these dismal mountains.

Even a fool would know that the Essence of Beauty is weakening; the life around it is dying, and the realm it nourishes is growing crueler. The tree longs for Lord Dominion's power, but the god is nowhere to be found. Now, it shrinks a few centimeters every second, and its roots are slowly turning into dust. There's no shadow of a doubt in General Times' mind that the tree will soon disappear, and only then will the Vyurbornes know that their god had abandoned them.

General Times is not losing hope, not even for a bit!

But what was he supposed to do?

Without the sovereign god, General Times cannot attack the kapres. The Vyurborne warlord was ordered never to harm his father's people no matter the reason. That was Lord Dominion's last order before venturing into the Abyss of the End, the realm where the spirits of the dead roam free. General Times often wondered: would he find his father there if he killed himself? He hasn't known the answers yet.

But one must not mistake General Times' commitment to upholding his father's orders as a sign of weakness. Life will return to Skystead Keep again, for Lord Dominion will most definitely deliver his people from evil. The Essence of Beauty will touch the clouds once more, and the flowers shall bloom in the stark walls of the Keep. And with his father's approval, General Times is more than willing to drive the kapres, those renegade buffoons, to extinction. If damnation is what they pray for, then General Times is ready and capable to rain down the full might of Skystead Keep upon the apostate giants.

But not without Lord Dominion.

Not until flowers bloom all over Skystead Keep again.

And so until that time arrives, Times will continue with his paperwork.

Well, that's what he intended to do until a curious discovery attracted his attention.

A petal.

A white daffodil's petal, falling leisurely in front of the now stunned Vyurborne general, gliding ever so slowly until it fell flat onto the surface of one of his ink bowls. General Times observed the petal as it sent waves into the corners of the wooden bowl. Raising his head slowly, the Vyurborne warlord followed the origin of the petal. And there he saw it, four daffodils growing swiftly around the groaning root on his ceiling.

Roses followed thereafter. Its thorny stems slithered on the wall, and their petals bloomed like the glistening morning star. Grass rose from the ground, and vines slipped out of the small crevices in the bricks. General Times looked out of his window and saw greens intertwining its titillating fingers around the unsuspecting blanket of snow.

And then someone sprang into his room without knocking!

"Gertrude!" General Times stood from his wooden chair with a scowl after seeing his daughter's ungraceful entrance. "How many times do I have to tell you to knock before—"

"He's gone." Gertrude merely gasped with exasperated breathings.

"…what?"

"The human, no, I mean, Aleph! He's gone! His room is open, and he's not inside!" Gertrude swallowed his saliva as sweat trickled down her bare skin. "He escaped."

"Sound the bells. Wake up your mother, so she could help you."

"The bells?" A wave of confusion painted Gertrude's face. "Which bells?"

"The one in our room."

"You mean those three giant bells? Aren't we only supposed to touch those when Lord Dominion returns from—"

General Times didn't answer; he just stood still as the breeze encircled their unmoving figure. Realization slowly crept up on Gertrude's face.

"The bells…" Gertrude took a step back. "MOM! THE BELLS! RING THE BELLS!" She said as she ran into their room next door.

General Times fell onto his seat with his jaws dropped. Without looking down, he pulled one of the drawers on his table and took a violet shawl inside; it hasn't been used for so long that it's now collecting dust. He then placed it on her neck while he took deep breaths.

"I knew it… I knew it was you. It took you long enough… You asshole. How dare you make me wait this long!?"

And as General Times flew into the great tree called Essence of Beauty, the bells of Horace Tower rang, waking the world into an uproar. Before long, lights gleamed within the stone houses beneath the balete trees, and the kapres looked upon the sky to see countless winged men soaring towards the highest tower in the Keep.