The Inferno | Scybilline Mass RP

It happened when summer gave way to autumn.

Roth, panicked at the thought of what Actaeos’s chill would do with the looming threat of cooler fall days, brought the battle of wills to a head.  As the last suns of summer pierced the night sky, he focused every ounce of his fire upon the world.  Grasses and shrubs shriveled beneath the intense heat of Roth’s will, casting a golden hue of dried grasses wherever the light of the sun touched.  The desert itself, accustomed to such conditions, thrived.

The land of Roth’s sister did not.

While the sons and daughters of Induala slept, Roth’s sun shone brighter and stronger than it ever had before.  Induala’s land held as long as it could until it could fight the fire no more.

It began as something small, something that could be contained, but as it feasted upon the dried plants it grew into a monster.

The children of the moon could see the golden hues cast into the night sky.  There had been fires before and Induala had never allowed her brother to burn more than what was needed for the health of the land.  They cautiously watched the flames, fear beginning to curl in their hearts as the flames got larger and more ravenous.

Her brother had always been fair to her.  Perhaps not to the others.  But always to her.  Never before had Roth burned too much of her land, using his fires as a gift to revive the shrublands and promote new growth.  It was upon the fourth day of burning, when the sun and the moon passed each other at twilight, that she finally asked the sun when the burning would cease.

“Roth… Brother…  Your flames have feasted upon much of my land.  Are they not satisfied?”  She strode toward the sun, her starlit tail billowing behind her like the smoke that rose from her land.  But Roth, so consumed by his rage and his arrogance, did not hear his sister’s request, and he left the sky with the ethereal moon staring in disbelief after him.

She tried to warn them, her children.  To the Moon Stone she whispered, its smooth, pearlescent curves pulsing in warning.  But they were without a guide, a voice to lead them.  They did not hear her warnings.

Not until it was already too late.

The fire consumed everything in its path, sparks acting as beacons for it to follow as they burst into the sky and set the flames anew.  Smoke rose as a pillar into the sky, an ominous cloud of black and ash as the fires spread forth.  It moved quickly, leaving hardly any time for those in its sights to escape.

There was little the Scybillines could do but flee; Induala’s cries joined theirs as unhatched eggs, much too large to carry, burned.

It wasn’t until there was nothing left to burn that the flames finally ceased.

Where once a beautiful shrubland had stood now only a charred, black wasteland remained.  The smell of death hung heavy in the sky, the sky grey for days even after the massive burning had ceased.  When the smoke cleared and Induala saw the extent of the devastation for the first time, she cried out in agony, shedding crimson tears that stained her pristine coat.