Prologue

“More! More!”

Firflaert’s eyes glimmered, his floppy ears swinging wildly as he jumped about his creaky bedroom within the Kingscier Province Orphanage for Rejected Dragonlings. While there were usually two others he shared the room with, the moon and stars looked through the small windows to see only the pale red and dusty gray dragonling and Nyaldri, his favorite caretaker in the entire orphanage.

The maroon-scaled adult tapped their tail on the wooden floor softly. “Hm, did I tell you the story about the dragonling that dug under the mountain?”

“Yes!”

“What about…” They hummed. “The story of the ograv and the dragon? The Kitai that circled the world? What about the folk of the Kingscier Forest?”

“Yes! Yes!” Firflaert stamped his tiny little paw. “One more! Please?”

“Well, I can think of one more story...”

“Yeah! Tell me!”

“I don’t know, it might be better to wait until you’re a bit older-”

“No! I’m big enough!”

A flicker of… something revealed itself in Nyaldri’s expression. “Very well, but you need to settle down first,” the caretaker said. “You’re supposed to be tired, not excited.”

The little dragonling dutifully sat in front of the caretaker, though his tail betrayed his excitement, heartily smacking against the floor with reverberating thuds.

“Alright.” Nyaldri leaned in and took a deep breath. “Far away, beyond the Arasin Kingdom, beyond Morkina, beyond the domain of the Kin, lies a strange land, bathed in purple, white, and black. A land where time rests, and doesn’t move, as it does here.”

Firflaert’s jaw dropped open.

“In fact, to say it’s a land isn’t correct, as there isn’t any real land at all.”

“Whaddaya mean, there isn’t any land?!”

“The…” Nyaldri’s eyes flicked about for a moment, “- world there, just before, drops away to show an endless… void, for lack of a better word. And instead of land, there’s a multitude of floating islands, like the one above the orphanage right now.”

“Does anyone live there?”

Nyaldri inhaled, but stayed their snout for a moment. “There are… some, who call it home. But they’re a strange type, nothing like us Arasins. I’d wager they wouldn’t get along well with any of us, even someone as sweet as you.”

“Why?”

“It’s… just the way they are.”

“But if they’re beyond the Great Barrier, how do you know of them?”

“I’m surprised you’ve forgotten about the Breachers.”

“Oh, yeah!”

Nyaldri chuckled, a smooth and soothing sound. “Sometimes, they bring back tales of the Faraway Lands, as you know.”

“What’s this place called?”

“They call it… The Void. Others gave it different yet similar names. The Expanse. The End of Time. But most just call it the Void.”

Firflaert furrowed his brow. “But why’d you wanna wait till I was older to tell me about it?”

Nyaldri huffed, swishing their tail to and fro. “Because it’s a scary place.”

“But time doesn’t go, right? So I’d have forever to do everything!”

The caretaker sadly smiled. “But what would you do once you’ve done everything?”

“I’d-” Firflaert fell quiet, deep in thought.

“It’s easy to think that having eternity is wonderful, but it takes maturity to see it for what it is: a curse. It’s an accursed place, Firflaert, filled with those who have lost all purpose, yet cannot move on and join the Kin.”

“No… purpose?”

“No purpose. They can’t do what they want, and they have forever to think about all the things they can never do.” Nyaldri then smiled and re-settled their wings. “Now, let me tell you a story about the dragon who journeyed to the Void to slay a great, evil villain…”

Purple and black.

Swirls of color danced around Firflaert’s vision, obeying powers beyond him. It was terrifying, yet oddly peaceful. 

I’ve never seen it, but I’ve always seen it.

The colors then shifted, to reveal flickers of dreams… or were they memories of unfamiliar faces? They were painfully abstract, almost comprehensible yet-

If I try to make sense out of it, it goes away.

And then the red came into view, poisoning the purple and infusing it with shiny, slimy blood.

Is it mine, or their’s?

Who was ‘they’ again?

I can’t… remember.

Remembering hurt. His mind refused him answers, punishing him with a growing ache in his head and a numbness that began in his extremities and crept inwards.

The pain grew, as did the numbness. The red thickened further. The whispers became voices, then shouts, a growing cacophony that threatened to deafen him.

Make it stop. Make it stop!

“Stop!” He cried out into the void.

And stop, it did. The space fell silent, a deafening yet painful silence. It only lasted for a scant moment before a single voice, deep and feminine, carried out.

“Where are you?” It crooned. “Come back. We have so much to… do.”

The clouds of purple and red closed in. The dragonling choked on the blood and syrupy fluid as the mixture poured into his throat, denying him much needed air. He couldn’t shout, no matter how hard he tried. His flank burned as if someone had thrust their claws into his scars, gouging them open yet again.

As his vision faded, a teary face came out of the darkness, almost blending in with the red clouds before morphing into a rich black with blue tints. It looked… familiar, in a strange way.

“I’m sorry, Firflaert,” it whimpered, before everything suddenly constricted and crushed the little one into-

Read the rest in Wildhearts of the Kin: Whispers from the Void!