Apart

To fly open sky is to taste freedom, even if for a little while. She streamed through low clouds and dove back closer to safer atmosphere. Her shape glimmers in the living daylight, appearing as a brown hawk. She circles around tree tops, a hairs reach to brush some of the leaves and twinges. Swiftly making adjustments and still she missed the branch that she was about to land on, gripping into the out stretched arm of someone stood in shelter of this large oak tree. She lands with being confused, looking up to the branch she could have landed on and the arm of the Prince. She folds up and sighed.

"Why are you doing this?" Daniel glared in flex his arm for her to face him. She gets comfortable, "No. Don't get comfortable." He shook his arm to try to disbalance her. She was really stuck on like glue, holding not his human form but his shadow she sits on.

"Clever... your just borrowing his route." The Lord landing to an actual branch above and she bows, "Young Daniel does travel through the most uncomfortable parts of Sigil." She climbs around to Daniel's right shoulder. Settling with glaring around him, watching over him in seeing not many dreams dare to bother him. The dreamer walkers out right flinch in being nearby within sight, fleeing quickly away.

"I don't need a travelling companion. Shoo." Daniel being all bothered.

"Tough luck. I am here to sit on your shoulders and eat the things that attack you." She grumped in the Ender language and clicked at the end in a tut. The mask of omens laughs at not being able translate what was said but knew from the click that she grumbled right back at the child. She even used her tail at sweeping the shadow away from her, the attempted of Daniel trying to get her off him. Her scales scratch him and he looked in shock of how both shadow and human bodies shared that scratch. He stared dazed watching a little drip of blood beaded in the deepest. She wasn't even interested in him, peering sharp to another sort creeping about from the shade of the tree. Her jaw slightly shuffled in adjustment to then stopped with knowing who that is really. She glares in being disappointed to not eat the guy.

"Young Elder, you requested to borrow me." The demon was Wilkinson, a demon Lord without land or power within hell. But instead had power in his connections between mundane world leaders and the mages. The mage king made an exclusive demon contract due to this demons connections. This demon has at least one useful gateway into hell, a gate that sends souls to the cursed objects layer of hell. The landscape of souls being turned into objects, its the prime place that Dahlias will get her fill of eating monsters with nurturing value for her tome form.

The human vessel this demon borrows is a springy Young adult man with plenty of etiquette training behind him. Clearly there must be about 5 year difference between the Prince and the vessel of the demon. Height of the demon felt nothing compared to the tree shading them. Or rather the tree shade was filled with the gloomy broken giant of the young Ender. There is a short moment of sparks flying. The two don't get along for one reason or another. Yet Dahlias made a sin chain flick and they both stopped glaring. She made quiet a low deep growl, making the demon act on his need for survival. Wilkinson forced the doorway right underneath them in fear of hearing such a sound in the living world. She snickers in getting exactly what she wanted. Her talons snatched the young elder and the demon. Falling into a flight dive, she altered sizing to accommodate for the realm they were about to enter. A foot each collars the two young men in her talons. She uses the gate to dive and ready herself to take snap of whatever dares blocks her entry.

"Your insane!" Daniel hissed freaking out about being handled like a tool. He never let's anyone but James or Silver ever do such things. He can't break out of her hold, no matter the struggle in her claws.

"I didn't want to be here." The demon also screaming in fear. The human host was left behind in the living world they left. She screeched glad that these two were the perfect bait to bring along.

The landscape before them was a world of flesh and crystal. Half forms that were animal mind drive world, a place of survival of the fittest. Glimmers in roughed unpolished gemstones. Her real voice came to sing out, shuddering the hell landscape to flinch in fear. Her jaw clicked, dragging her lower lip to surface - skimming for the tasty fish to take bait. She had to make a soft turn, her scale along her wing span and spine shines beams across the merged atmosphere. It spring larger monsters from the pool surface bellow her, they are tricked by the false light to jump for nothing. It was then that something larger devourer the small fry jumping for this false light. And she took a sharp dive into stabbing flesh right off the bone of this big monster. She clamps in tearing as much as possible. She lifted back to air, holding this long length of fleshy crystal in her teeth. She circles the air eyeing out those that flee of how the light disappeared. The strip of bacon gulped down in one flicked motion. Among the run aways were creatures looking for that light source. Her bait in her talons was all the more silent now, she tilts in seeing both young elder and demon knocked colding in her claws.

She flutters and breaks surface in lifting to a layer of hell above them. She lands on the edge of the hole she made, then laying them along the floor. She then nested in shielding them under wing and she now can enjoying the meat she had hunted for herself. Her attempt to gulp it was not as successful, more that she managed to pocket the chunck between jaw layers. She dislodge to now eat it properly. She pried small pieces enjoying her meal in peace. She makes constant clicking tones in her natural expressions of joy. She tilts at watching the hole and the surroundings of the now empty landscape. She blow air at the two under her wing to make them wake up.

Daniel gasped and got right up on to his feet. He shivers looking for threats and sort of his barings. Wilkinson could only sit up and stare blank of peering at the wing that was sheltering him, he can feel the eyes of many names of the tomes looking back at him. She made a whistle and lowered her head to stare at them both. Daniel cursed at her, rudely in many ways with the Ender language. She pats his head with a scale, softly in letting him let go of his anger. Her chuckle was like rubbing chains in a mechanism. It made him mute. She glared about the hole as something caught her sights edge. She turned very slow and soft. She gently posed into a crouch. Like a bullet, she shot her beak into the hole and breaks the very life out the prey monster. She pulls the corpse to the edge, continues pulling strands and clamping into eating.

To her internal content and her broken sigil, these creatures are half crystal spul objects and half 'living dweller'. Those unable to complete conversion from dead to reborn, onset to the stages of being made into god eaters. These incomplete beings that were formed by the broken time and space that the erasing three universes caused. This was the meal she needed to fix the tome pages that make her form. The predator among the prey in this sealed section of hell. She pulls the head off and held it up in looking into the eyes of the thing she's killed. She gently weighted it between teeth and then throws it up above. She gave them so much air time to see the land beyond this layer. The head falls looking away from her, and was crushed instantly for not further stress. A quick death that had a pleasant distraction before the instant without pain. It is the hope the passing under her care would make the monsters appreciates the prayer she gave them in passing souls into her pages.

The two men under wing stare in miming about a sort of conversation without words. It turned into bickering that Dahlias tilts to make sure they weren't hurting each other. They froze up like statues when she lowers to their view. She tilts with making a gently click, mirror that of Matthew or Omens. The sound clearly made them flinch but it also relaxed them slightly. Recognised her finally.

"What in the land has been brought to my domain?" A local god or demon of authority. In full plate and approaching from the direction that the two lads shelter under her wing. She quickly scans the hole and jabs edges and throwing bits that she has no interest in eating. The creatures bellow are utterly distracted by these free flying gifts from her. A real concophany of noise by the hole of monsters. She used her beak stirring them about and breaking any trying to latch on the hole edges. She shook off any that stuck on her and tilts with checking the two lads being spoken at by the local god.

"Ummm...." Having heard the two explain themselves to the demon god. The demon god in plate made eye contact with her. She click a noise with a follow of a whistle. She was whistling out a tune that most hosts of gods know. She sways softly in the beat and had her foot shot at using a talon to tear a creature back down the hole. The clatter of monster bellow her only added to her music timing. It made the demon god smile in worry and that she smiles in finally having a more friendly reaction from someone. She tilts back to glaring at the hole and hissed at them all down there. The sounds down there stopped, she nods and stands. Kicked the last bit of the corpse down the hole, she had her fill now. She then used her own scale, pulling one off her and breaking it into dust. The cloud sealing the hole strong as if never happened. She makes sure it neat with tapping her foot. She nods good at this was plenty, wafted her free wing once at settle the cloud to soild floor. She then tilts at checking the lads, they are bickering again.

"Boys. You are being so ill mannered today." She shakes in clicking her scales flat. It made her sleek and very much a dragon looking down on them. She speaks freely with no worry about her jaw showing. No longer is shape contain as a bird but instead a snaking scaled form that gently coils protective of her bait. Hovered a wing that shelters light from burning them and a tail whip that draw the line between the demon god and her friends. Popping line of jaws to better flex to speak smoothly and with a clear throat to sing a warm and cautious voice. She flexed her free wing to bat away another sinners chain in her way, reaching at blocking the meer scratching of the two lads bickering each other. Between them she claws marks a scorching blazing light that sepreated them.

"The bringer of light, I ask why you came." She tilts down at the kneeling demon god, helmet removed in reverence.

"Light that shines through many darkness does not make the many trival under its weight. Instead the light shows splendor in all the souls have craved and grown. That all souls are individually a compressed storage of memories, experiences, emotions and captured grains of time. That each a treasure to behold. For where there are gemstones of beauty, I am the dragon that harvests and hoards such beautiful things. A bringer of light is no more then just a phoenix in scales bejewelled by such souls." She plucked the two in her claws once more, "For now I have picked enough, I must let my treasure settle in my care. I will continue finding rough unpolished stones to be perfected in care in due time." She peer onwards, "Your garden is full of wonderful worms to recycle shells of empty vessels. Truly a marvellous system, efficiency at the finest quality."

She brushed the ground with both free wings, a last mark before taking lift into the air. She focuses, she makes one flutter of balance to hover. The way back home is gloomy ahead of her and she folds tight back to small pitiful hawk form. She is swallow up in the shadow doorway. She drops both boy elder and demon back under the old oak garden tree and smoothly claws taking a chunk of gloom with her in the closing of such doorway. The mass under her foot thuds hard as solid mass on the branch that she lands upon safely. A perfect landing unto a real tree branch. She posed bow to her Lord of omens that stay seated in this same tree, likely perplexed by passing dreamers. The raven coos in near heart attack of seeing her in bow to him.

"Www-was that wise?" The Lord stutters.

"He makes good soul bait. He was under my wing and claws, no harm but his own pride. Maybe some bickering with the little demon I nicked on accident." She hold the stone in her talon and points beak the direction of the two sitting dazed at the floor, "Such a successful harvest of souls that need some refined polishing. The small fry was just perfect for some missing pages." She tilts how that explanation was not enough for the god to fathom, "I could have took you instead but you didn't seem as ready as he was." The Lord of omens hissed at such notions but softly it came to his thoughts that it was likely wise to not question things.

"Dragonic Phoenix whom carries flame of creation within every scale upon its body. Such myth. It can't be." Wilkinson was very quick to suddenly be bowing to her, "I hardly believe such things until now. There must really be a fountain of time out there." She fits that she tilted at that odd notion.

"More like a endless horizon of sand." Lord omens hissed and she nods at that. The once sand dunes barrier that protected her universe, that must have been the fountain the demon claims ad mythical status.

"The world of dune is quiet accurate in the creation of such place. The very worms are the start of the life and end of life in those sand pools." She nods gently with certainty, "Poor Silver crossing the heart of the dunes. A trial only god blades can accomplish in soul judgment." She shook at the thought.

"How does someone like you know that?" Omens asking.

"Everyone talks secerts even when forgetting they are literally hold the tome of souls. You can say I am still haunted by the sound of thundering pages and loud foreign languages." She picked up the stone at her foot to hit it to the branch again. She checks the hardness. She snarls at how that does nothing. She huffed, "Solid... say. There a bit of obsidian nearby?" She asked and the god shook dismissively. She looks around again. She stops a neat chain of regertful remorse, the metal is meant to judge souls like a scythe and so cuts anything else. This is the working theory she assumes, "That would work." She used both feet to hold the stone and dove feet first into this chain. The chain was indeed stronger and she now has two havles. The force of breaking the two halves jolts her to a gracious landing. She shuffles off the floor and wags her tail impressed with the results, looking at the stone bits. She doesn't care for the dirt getting all over her back and wings.

"Dahlias." She scooped with wings held closed. Her feet holding her stone bits, she coos in looking at the made god host. He has that plain veil of angry. He indeed picked her up.

"So sorry for stone finding for your sister. Sheesh master, notch it down a tone. I might bite." She offered one of two halves and he looks at it. Clearly it was impressive enough because his eyes sparkled, "See and I had a big peice to break into small. Now there is two halves. If I find a suitable theard and you have matching necklaces or bracelets." He shakes out of the moment and pockets the stone for himself and he took the other one.

"Well you are excused for being late and stealing Daniel." She huffed at not being sure of the big deal, "Your the prime being to this next task." He continues carrying her but he tucked her to one arm, "You know nightmares. You can sort this one out." He used a god door summons. A frame lifted by a legion of hands that grow from the ground and sunk behind them once they were through. She sees the mask of omens placed itself on his face.

"Omens!" The room of gods from the same saxon celt circles as Omens. They all were fashion of the era and the clothing to match it. Lords and ladies that mythical stories made by humans would have you believe. Steadfast hard working hands, and plenty of drama love circles. Omens makes it right over to a table of a drunk god, man is muttering feverish and sweaty as the grease he lays in. He poses Dahlias in presented this sleeper.

"So his been cursed into sleeping in a never ending nightmare. I know you know a short cut to break the curse quicker."

"Master, you wish to piss off the soul that makes the curse or under pay the nightmares? You are literally cutting lives if you do. I mean, sure I can make for their lost wages but your still going to piss of the soul made by the curse." She posed a talon, "I guess it depends on the strength the curse was given and the krama disruption to have the spell rebound upon the caster of the curse." He puts her onto the table with not caring about these details. She huffed.

"So ungrateful to your duty." She hops onto the man's back and makes eye contact with the nightmare cling to him, "So whats the sort of salary we talking here? Is it gold grade?" She shakes tail excited for juicy details.

"Nah, this was a black list. No one was expecting pay out of it." She nods in knowing a bold lie.

"And you think that I am not going to eat you. Very adorable." She tuts and the nightmares jolts, "You make a neat cherry on top from my meal I had over at the cult zone."

"Hell no. I am not being ate by you. Screw this." They left and was about to be replaced but the next one that looked at her. A shared nod and they stand away from the dream sleeper.

"Right... nightmare off the menu." She peers about the sleeping guy and plucked the charm causing the sleeper to be such. She moved it off the skin and the drunk was instantly awake. He flails about and the chair tips backwards, crashing the god on the floor in a heap. He gets up and was about to use that bottle to strike her. She had seen that coming, the god literally would have attacked even death in his state, she used his own sin chain at hanging the man upside-down from the ceiling. She doesn't have to bother with the god and had a look at the charm used. She scratched her foot on her side as she was toying her knowledge from the tome.

"I guess it works on a sinner with a drinking problem." She simplified it with ignoring the fact its a god she has hung upside-down, "He can find a way to break his own sin chains someday and it would make such a pity curse useless." She peaked it hard in shattering the talisman focus. She sprays about the useless black sand in order to finds the core. Enough digger shows a neat soft gem in this sand She plucked it and the just sort of ate it. Crushed between her inner jaws. She chews the speck of soul like candy, even with being pleased in the flavours. She smacked a scythe coming her direction. She of course hissed at the go's blades rudeness. The blade turned away from her.

"Yeah... she's not worth working out." Master Raven quick at snatching her away from the perplexed death god. The poor grim can't even understand the pages his accessed.

"Get me down!" The drunk guy growled and she flexed a wing with loosens the chain movements. He back to being a heap on the floor, "Omens! What is wrong with you?"

"Says a guy that was literally been sleeping entire decade in this hall in a fevered nightmare. Something about being married into some family in the east." Omens crossed arms and she was climbed to his left shoulder, "You lucky that my follower and his companion are into dream reading. Otherwise you be still stinking this place as a corpse."

"Nah, the local god eater would have snatched the meal opportunity for sure. The lizard a consumer of odd things." She shurgs, "Besides, you cheated me out from eating your dreams. You little god own both of us. I wouldn't be here if not for Master but I would've not bothered if I knew I wasn't going to eat something out of this."

"I own nothing!" The drunk declared.

"Don't worry Master, if he wants to add another sin to his coil. You might as well let the poor fool fall to hell. It's cold and filled of goat piss." She shurg nonchalantly.

"No. I still want something from this." She sits in not listening to them two bickering. She peers at the on lookers and the exit of the grim. She chews over the small fragments that slowly turn to dust, like eating glass in texture. Fizzy like popping candy. Sour cherry.

"Black sand for a talisman, more like you been tricked. Wake up." Slams the table surface and she jolts in the loudness. She folds wing tight around herself, "If you let them run you over, then they aren't worthy of your miracles." Omens flips the table on the drunk, "You insult the title of god. It means something and clearly your not worthy of the responsibility. Unworthy of succession." kicked the god to the wall, "Mark my words in heed to all that think being a god or goddess means you have the right to fool around. Because it doesn't. It means your worthy of responsibility and duty to hold turth. To hold light that the lesser souls need guidance to follow through. You are the hope of a society or culture. Being given a name is a privilege to rise to the challenges." He grappled the drunk callor, "Do not bring the rest of us hard workers down by being the minority they make assumptions about. Its hard enough being remember or recognised in the changing eras. Entire faiths have vanished, we barely hold on thanks to the human historians and TV dramas. Maybe we can be lucky have a revival of the faith, if you can find the right humans to save."

"I don't care." The drunk is released but the punch omen made to the wall narrowly missed the guy as he fell. She pats her Master with a wing, softly reminding him that she here in witness of this. Omens stays dazed a moment looking at the wall, yes. He and the title was indeed angry of this fool. She really did make him take a doubt. He scoops her off and back to being tucked under arm. He gives a gently embarrassed throat clear, stiffly leaves the room in holding her dearly. He stops short from a fruit bowl, taking a plum or small nectarine. He gifted it to her and she accepted the god host food. She saved in for emergency in a sealed jar, using her shadow to do all the fiddly bits.

They were back to the living world, she was put onto Matthew's shoulder. He was papers deep at the Kings desk, reading mage accidents and trying to right advisory for what be some angles to worry about for each case. She cuddles right into his neck and sleeps. The Lord of omens leans at putting some these cases together in suggesting solutions or the tell of outcomes if the advice is followed through. The mages have mundane world lives and these hidden duties behind closed doors. At a guess, the king was working a normal job somewhere. The young elder at University or educational practice. It was assuring someone man's this desk during empty hours of the day.