An Instructive Conversation

[rix_scaedu]

I wrote this to ysabetwordsmith's first prompt.

“There are angels,” explained Lasrial, “and there are vard.  Angels are servants of the gods.  It’s what we’re created for.  We have free will, a desire to serve, a propensity to support the functioning of the universe and a talent for singing.  The vard are miniatures of their masters, the Vardmasters.”

“Wait, those things are miniatures?”  Tala interrupted him.  “But the one fighting Gadiah was as big as you are!  How big is a Vardmaster?”

“I’ve only ever seem them arrayed for war, manifesting to battle the gods themselves,” he admitted.  “Of course, the gods can manifest at any size they desire.  I’ve seen them large enough to hold a human or angel on the palm of a hand.”

Tala got a faraway look on her face, “That would be awe inspiring, to be held like that.”  She snapped back, “But the Vardmasters can do that too?  What are they?”

Lasrial nodded.  “They can.  The Vardmasters aren’t gods, they’re unmakers.  A lot of the gods have destructive aspects but the Vardmasters are different.  The gods and their angels support the sphere of creation we know as the universe.  The Vardmasters don’t want to destroy the universe but to subvert the principles of its creation so that it not only never was but never could be.  Everything they do is aimed at that.”

“Everything?”  The younger angel was astonished.  Lasrial sometimes thought that she was too open in letting her every emotion show on her face but when her thoughts were on their divine master he remembered what he had been like before the First Swordlord had fallen.

“Everything,” confirmed Lasrial.  “The Death War.  Stealing the souls of human dead.  Encouraging good men to worship dead gods.  Killing angels.  I don’t know how it all fits together but I know they’re doing something out there in the spaces beyond creation.”

“But what?  Why?”  Tala was confused.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged.  “Perhaps it is their nature.”