The sun was eclipsed by the body of the moon. Darkness blanketed the land and no light save torchlight illuminated the forest. Deadly beasts relying on smell and sound prowled at such times but there were few nocturnal beasts fit to actually see in this dark domain.

Despite the many kinds of dangers all around her, Beatrix stood alone in the depths of the dark forest accompanied only by the crackling torch lights and the rustling leaves.

She looked over her shoulder, back towards her floating home. Her son had not come to join her, he had not come to see her off in this final moment of her life. She was not shocked by this, in a way she was hurt by it but in another she was relieved. Rapture had not come over to try and stop her nor had her disciple, Amelia, who should still be hiding out in the bushes nearby.

She turned her gaze away from the house, away from her life until now and then yanked the Beacon from her neck. She knew from the tales that summoning Rognir would be a simple thing in and off itself, she merely had to mix her Ash, what little there was of it, in with the Ash that the Beacon contained. She had no hesitation in doing this, she called forth her meagre power and enveloped the pitch black Beacon's body with it.

"Goodbye...Rapture." Whether by fortune good or ill the Beacon started to glow then. That glow shone through the dark night with colour that was both black as night yet more radiant than the sun, it was well and truly the most perplexing thing she had ever beheld. Finally the Beacon shattered to dust in her hands as its power was set free. The signal was sent out from the shattered Beacon to call upon the god who created it, the same god her ancestors had worshipped in times long past, the one called Rognir.

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Amelia peered towards the black light that paradoxically illuminated the night. Her heart ached with sorrow and grief then, for she knew that nothing normal could generate such a contradictory sight. She had hoped that her master's attempt to summon Rognir would fail and she would not have to die but sadly reality had dashed that hope in this instant. Beatrix had succeeded, she had called down Rognir and thus her life was soon to end.

Amelia turned back to face the lake, she faced the wooden home that lay thereupon. Her emotions turned to righteous fury as she stepped forward towards the place where Rapture lay. She was fast, so fast in fact that she appeared there at that place within an instant of time. She reached out and pushed open the door. Her footsteps were silent, as one would expect of a masterful assassin like herself.

With her senses sharp as a knife she found the boy, Rapture, laying in the next room over with his body slumped over lifelessly on his bed. She did not hesitate to barge in, but then her righteous fury faded as she looked upon him. His cheeks were wet with tears and he slumbered without solace, it was clear to her that exhaustion had claimed him some time ago, he was worn out both emotionally and mentally.

Her rage evaporated, she stood frozen and lost in thought at the doorway without knowing what to do. Pitiful, sad, unconsolable, that was how he looked, same as her. She could not bare to remain angry. Her misery had no outlet now. She turned to face the hall from whence she came and paced around inside of the living room.

She stopped in place as she found what she sought and then she kicked open a box that was shut tight and locked. That box was filled to the brim with bottles of wine, each of sublime vintage. she did not hesitate to seize three such bottles with the swipe of her hand. When all else failed, when grief, anger and misery overcame her there was one place she could always turn.

She sat herself down upon the sofa that was carved from the body of a tree and popped the cork of the first bottle. She began to drink, her body was as superhuman as they come, it took a lot to drown her sorrows.

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Beatrix clenched her heart tightly as her face flashed with suffocation and agony. With the Beacon shattered and turned to dust she had lost the one thing that was supporting her life until now.

She fell to her knees and tried to speak her wish in the hopes that Rognir might hear it before her life came to an end. She heard a sound, a familiar sound, the sound of children playing. She raised her head and peered forward into a nostalgic scene.

What she saw with her eyes in that final moment was not her forest home but instead the long buried city and once prosperous people she had known long ago. She saw herself sitting amongst them dressed in lavish black garments and a crown adorning the emblem of many wolves resting upon her brow. Her lips then were red as a foxes coat, her hair was tied in an elaborate manner beneath her crown of silver. She had fair skin and a beauty unmatched in its own eerie, gentle way.

Beatrix reached out towards that image of her people long dead. She did so desperately and pitifully, her chest full of longing towards something that was gone since a generation passed. The vision vanished in a flash. The people and the buildings burned, her own likeness among them. Many people died that day, the streets ran red with blood and bodies. The heartache she felt as she recalled this scene was too much to endure. Men, women, children, friends, family and lovers were all slain with impunity and left in piles like someone's discarded trash by the knights garbed in armour of silver.

Everything faded to black, her final thoughts were of home, a home she could never go back to. She reached out her hand, time turned back and the city stood proud and prosperous once again. Those people looked back at her and her heart ached as if in longing. One of the people reached out his hand to her with a smile. He held in his other arm a young baby, it was her child, the child whom she bore, but had never met since. She collapsed, her outstretched hand only managed to brush against the illusion before her.

Around that time, ushered forth by her summons, something was looming in the skies above. Darkness encased her as the god began to take his chosen form.

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Amelia turned her gaze towards the open door. She bore witness to the god's descending shadow. Humongous clouds of silver-black colour began to cluster in the heavens accompanied by the rumbling of thunder and the quaking of the earth. The scene preceded a chaotic wind that threatened to rend the trees from their roots if it were to be generated down upon the ground. She scoffed at it, the immortal being who called itself a god, and then took another sizable gulp from what was now her third bottle of wine. She held that creature in contempt for the way it looked down upon the world and the people living in it.

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Far off in the distance, over an expansive crimson desert, sounds of conflict raged. The bellows of a dragon's roar, the screams of warriors with blades drawn, the shockwaves as they clashed, such sounds echoed across the land.

There, in the heart of this place, Avance and his dragon, Fafnir, remained locked in combat with the airborne knights who had hounded them since the day before. Their bodies were battered and battleworn, it was no easy task to best these knights, that much was sure.

Avance felt an ill omen, his body broke out in goosebumps and he turned to face the northern direction. They were taking too long, far too long. He clenched his fists tightly shut and then glared towards his fifteen remaining foes in fury. That sight made those men tremble with fear, not one of them could comprehend the wrath of the giant they had awoken with their meddling.

"I no longer have time to play with you." Avance whispered in a rage. The black dragon opened its maw then and bellowed towards the men with a sky shattering roar. The beast leapt forward and in its rage five of the silver knights were near instantly made to fall from the skies, they were dead, just like that. Only their ashes hit the ground, the rest of them long swallowed by fire.