Lock without a key

"How odd."

Looking down Koel was mesmerized by the soil beneath his feet, a novelty for a being who had spent the last few millenniums trapped in a single dark hall.

"I thought it would feel… different."

Holding Koel's skeletal hand was Lyrea as she stood by his side, never saying a word but listening intently, still coming to terms with the changes within herself and who she now was.

Behind Koel was the grand castle, or prison, that had contained him. Now finally free of its insides, Koel could see the world he had been trapped in, a sight that even saddened demise.

"Of all the worlds to choose as my captor..."

"It was your home."

Her eyes open Lyrea revealed the two purple galaxies that she possessed. Rather than the dead and necrotic world she had seen as Luhra she now saw a wondrous paradise as Lyrea.

"It's beautiful."

"It was beautiful."

"Come my dear," drawing his hand gently over Lyrea's brow, Koel shut her eyelids, "do not look upon what this place once was, for it is now nothing but a lost world, that can't even leave a shadow. For once I am gone, it will cease all purpose entirely."

"But the history, how does such a place deserve such a fate?"

"The fate has already been written and enacted upon, you my dear, are only seeing a picture of before."

Removing his hand from her brow Koel let the pure black hair run through his bony fingers, watching it slide through the dust that he wore as a coat.

"Your eyes let you see a great many things, but they will blind you to so much more. You must learn to pick out the present from the past."

"It sounds painful to exist in such a way."

"It will be."

Without looking around any more Koel held Lyrea in his arms as he slowly floated up, breaching the purple clouds above.

Never once did he look back.

He had no more love for his home.

Like a demon ascending with a captured beauty in his arms Koel traveled ever upwards to reach the boundary of this world.

Before Koel was the end of the sky, a wide expanse of roiling purple clouds below and above… nothing. As if some god had taken a knife to the world and sliced it apart, it was a clean cut of a missing sky where only a rippling fracture remained as far as the eye could see, marring all colour and vision.

Even Lyrea's already inhuman white grew paler at the sight.

"What did they do to this world?"

"They butchered it. They cut and sliced it, shaving more and more off, throwing the remains to the inevitable swirl, I doubt there is anything left where it once was. They only needed one part of it to contain me."

Looking around Lyrea opened her eyes, only to see nothing, no past up here to be found.

"When they cut it, they cut off its past. Not all things are so easily seen my dear… now come, it is time to finally leave."

Looking upon Koel once more Lyrea rested into his embrace, an undoubtedly odd sight if there were any to see it. For all they would see is an aged and beaten down skeleton embracing an otherworldly beauty whilst through Lyrea's eyes she saw the man that Koel once was.

She could even see the man as he revealed what his heart truly felt at the sight of his home now gone forever.

"You are crying again."

"I can't help it. I can see and feel all of your pain," raising her hand Lyrea gently soothed Koel's skull like a mother tending to her child, "does it still hurt?"

"I don't know… I ran out of pain so long ago."

"Tell me Lyrea, when you look at me do you see the fool I was or the remains that I am."

"I see both, but I choose to embrace this one."

Closing her eyes again Lyrea wrapped her arms around Koel, an action she was growing used too.

"Hold tight, we begin our journey."

With careful, almost loving movements Koel plucked a single strand of Lyrea's hair. The pure black wisp now torn from its bed slowly lost its vitality, no longer playing in the stiff winds as it lay in death's grasp.

Clutching it tightly in his bony fist Koel struck fiercely onto the fractured ripple, causing the air around him to pulse and explode, clearing the purple clouds from beneath. Again and again Koel struck his fist forward, never stopping even as his bones began to fracture from the rebound.

Lyrea's frantic voice cut in as she wanted to stop Koel's actions, was he trying to kill himself.

"Be calm. This does not hurt, these bones have not shattered yet. But I must find the door, for what use is a key without the lock."

Even as the dust fell from his figure Koel kept lashing out, ignoring the storms that were now brewing around him as the fracture began to glow brighter.

With an audible crack the already broken sky was torn apart, revealing a long path of white light. Ignoring his fractured and broken bones, Koel strolled forward with Lyrea held carefully in his grasp.

"It is time to see what a mess they have made of all."

In a blink both figures were gone as the world below grew dark, all light expunged as a castle sat on its own. Its cold stone throne empty and cracked, a mockery of the ones that had just escaped.