Editing Shattered Sun (section)

==The Runner==
''Running.''

''Seconds stretch into minutes. Minutes into hours. Hours into days. It feels like I've been running for so long, yet I know that there's no way that I could run for that long without my heart bursting first. At first I was looking behind me every so often to make sure that I was well ahead of my pursuers. Over time though, I gave up on looking back, only looking forward as I kept on running. I knew that if I did anything to stop myself from running as fast as I could, they would catch me.''

''In my incessant stride, I felt the heat of exertion ravage my frame, even as I slowly, but surely evaded the heat of the Shardstream. I slipped into the wilderness of the Strobelands, feeling the cold of the intermittent dusk lick greedily at my bronzed skin, envious of the Light I once soaked in. But even as the temperatures lowered around me, I felt more and more heat building up within me than I ever felt back in the City.''

''I had to escape the Light.''

----

Everyone was young once, myself included. And when you were young, there was a nigh irresistible propensity to do things that the elders told you not to do. Don't stray from your studies. Don't drink too much of the vintage. Don't bed her just for her looks. I was generally good with resisting such base temptations (with the exception of that one girl who I just couldn't pass up...). I couldn't waste years of training under the High Astronomer Merlophon himself just to live out a needless childhood. I had a lifetime of prestige and power ahead of me in its stead.

But I wasn't quite up to snuff with the High Astronomer's expectations. I would draw out countless Shard Charts to prove my worth. I would take on more difficult assignments than my peers, in hopes to become his protege. But the slightest flaw, the tiniest error would provoke His anger. His rage would burn a thousand times brighter than even the Shard of Gargonel as he would destroy my carefully crafted Charts with his crushing grip. He would then analogize my repeated failures with the utter and complete destruction of the City were I to be in the employ of His Luminance.

There was just something that I was missing from the hopelessly complex equations, something that made the paths in my Charts zig rather than zag. I needed an edge, something that would vault me above the work of my peers. It was then as I learned of one of the High Astronomer's dirtiest secrets.

While most of the populace knows the Astronomers as stodgy old men forever swathed in the most suffocating robes one could imagine under the never-setting Light of the Shardstream, it doesn't take much common sense to know that even said stodgy old men need to change clothes and bathe once in a while. With the rare exception of the High Astronomer, of course. Perhaps it was a perk of His lofty position, but He never used any of the communal facilities the rest of the Astronomers and their Students are provided by His Luminance.

But once, I saw a glint of light from the corner of my eye from outside my dormitory window - it takes a lot to notice something like that when your surroundings are bathed in a seemingly eternal Light. I took a closer look for just a moment and saw the High Astronomer without his robes upon His being. It wasn't the discovery that He was above using the communal baths which His underlings had to use. That was to be expected of someone of His station. But it was the starkness of the shimmering golden lines and glyphs which ran across the High Astronomer's umbral body. It was as if I had set eyes upon a progeny of the Phoenix itself.

----

''By now I have passed a traveling tribe of Strobes, panting raggedly as I forsaken the welcoming Light of the passing Shard under their constant vigil, leaving it for their taking. I'm sure that they were perplexed with my passing, but my plight is far more serious than their pursuit of the Light. The urge to keep running has far more importance than the fleeting warmth which will always evade the forever wandering Strobes.''

''By now, I have lost the footfalls of the tribe, the clamor of my pursuers, everything. The only sound now was the hostile winds of the approaching Twilight muffling out my weary grunts, my muted cries, the stomps of my calloused feet against the dead earth. What was it that I was running from was entirely beyond me now. All I knew was that I had to keep running away from where it all began. In a world obsessed with seeking the vestiges of cerulean heavens long since shattered by the Phoenix's Awakening, I must have been the only one who was straying away from the Light, trying to dim it within and without.''

''The Light had to die.''

----

There was only one person whom I could trust my discovery with, my best friend Alair. While Students of the Astronomers generally don't make contact outside of their cloisters, we do get visits from our colleagues, the Alchemists. While the Astronomers discover the power of the Shards, the Alchemists craft the power of the Shards into the City's blessings. Alair was one of the brightest Students of Alchemy who I often worked with when crafting my Shard Charts. He also seated a bit of a dislike for the Astronomers in general, given their political pandering, but he seemed to trust me well enough.

Upon my description of the High Astronomer's glowing body, it only took Alair a couple moments before he came up with an explanation.

Stardust.

Any Astronomer or Alchemist, even a plain Citizen knows about Stardust. It's common knowledge that there are varying sizes of Shards, from those that can eclipse the size of the City in the case of the Shard of Gargonel, to those finer than a grain of sand but equally as potent when collected together. In small amounts however, the strength of the golden powder is only enough to where it will cause brief hallucinations when ingested. It isn't much of a vice though, as too much will cause the body to boil from the inside out from the concentrated heat and Light - a gruesome fate for those desperate for a slightly longer round of visions and sensations.

As our skin is resistant to the Light for prolonged periods of time, it is also resistant to small amounts of Stardust. As Alair explained, the resistance is usually enough to take in larger amounts of the powder before the high is reached. However, contact with the skin has a potentially beneficial side effect: a stronger understanding of the nature of the Shards, as if the user felt the movement of the Shards themselves. But that also wears off once the Stardust passes off of the skin. Unless it was put into the skin itself with no where to pass off to.

This is where things get especially difficult. And illegal. Brandishers, while commonly called upon to imbue symbols of reputation and significance upon their clients, are also heavily regulated. There is strong regulation of Brandery, especially when it comes to the use of Stardust in their inks. Extremely tiny amounts were allowed to make the inks brighter. Moderate amounts led to scarring burns where the inks are applied. Larger amounts led to irreversible damage of the skin. And woe be to the client who bled too much when the ink was laid upon the skin.

There are stories of Strobes who take into their skin a great deal of Phoenix's Blood - a mixture of ink with unfathomably high concentrations of Stardust - as a rite of passage. Survivors eventually become the Shamans of their tribes, able to predict the movement of the Shards without the sophisticated tools of the Astronomers, while those who die in the process are merely chalked up as unfit to be in the tribe in the first place.

Given all that Alair expounded upon me, it was evident that the High Astronomer had more than just a passing curiosity of Stardust and Phoenix's Blood. He partook the trial Himself and survived to become more than just an Astronomer - He became a veritable God among men. There was only one way I was ever going to meet or exceed His expectations, and I might not live long enough to get there.

But I was young once, and I had a nigh irresistible propensity to go through with this.

----

''The traces of the faintest violet in the sky soon disappeared behind me, leaving me to the inky darkness of the Void ahead of me. I embraced the black as it did myself. As the world around me got colder still, I felt far more vigorous than I ever did under the Light. The combination of my sun-soaked heritage and the persistent urge to run was too much to resist, instinctively charting my own way through a myriad of otherwise unintelligible geography. My eyes eventually learned to adjust to the abject nothingness around me, devoid of others, devoid of life, devoid of Light.''

''The Light was no more.''

----

For as much help as Alair was with his information, and his sheer knowledge of Alchemy, he wouldn't dare commit his abilities to my ambitions. He was just as focused on his studies and his own hopeful rise to prominence as I was, perhaps even more so at this point. I had eschewed the nourishing hope to rise to greater heights. I have replaced it with a relentless guarantee to get there in its stead. I would set forth the fall of the Golden God among Astronomers and replace his existence with my own. I would undergo the Rite of Phoenix's Blood and become one with the Shards. His Luminance would seek no further expert on the matter than myself.

It took me the greater part of the year, working a steadily growing network of connections whilst maintaining my duties as a Student under the High Astronomer. But I eventually got a meeting with a passing Strobe merchant who also happened to be a renowned Master Brandisher. At first, he wouldn't budge to my demands, claiming that the Rite was only exclusive to his tribe. He wouldn't dare defile the sacred art of the Rite for a Basker's whims.

However, I had come prepared for this.

I had worked with other Alchemists during the year, Alchemists less scrupulous than Alair. While Stardust is natural in the world, a skilled Alchemist can purify the golden powder into a concoction far more appropriate for Phoenix's Blood than anything a Strobe can rustle up in the wild. Little by little, I would come into possession of enough of the stuff to make for a convincing trade with a passing Strobe. Especially one who knows how to use it.

Half of it would be used for the Rite. The other half would go with the Strobe.

The deal was made. There was no going back now. I was soon in the wagon that the Master doubled as a Brandery parlor. I endured the most indescribable pain that no one should ever go through. It was as if a weaponsmith worked white-hot needles of steel through every inch of my quivering body, coursing through my mind, body, and soul all at once. As prepared as I was to make the trade, there was absolutely no way I could have prepared for this experience.

Seconds stretched into minutes. Minutes into hours. Hours into days. Even as the deed was done and I laid recovering in my dormitory (I still have no idea how I got up there,) the pain continued to work its way ever deeper into my being. I was surely not going to make it through the Rite in one piece. On the third day, the pain seemed to suddenly disappear, only to become replaced with a rush of information into my mind. The rush was painful, but it was more... enlightening than anything else. A brand new exhilaration filled my being, a new feeling which overcame any and all discouragement the High Astronomer could ever dish out at me. Soon enough, I felt the warmth of the Shard of Gargonel radiate from my breast. I could even swear that my heartbeat became that of the Phoenix itself.

----

''There was no more Light for miles around me. I had finally slowed down to a stop to take in the awe of the Twilight's splendor. The sheer silence enveloping me would be deafening to a disoriented Citizen's ears, threatening to those of an alert Strobe.''

''It was then as the darkness surrounding me was broken by a pair of crimson eyes, seemingly piercing through the Void to peer into my spirit. It was undoubtedly the eyes of one of Them, a being who was human once before being taken by the thrall of the Light and transformed into a monster of pure hunger. Imbued with so much of the Light throughout its existence, the monster's eyes emanated with a unholy light all of its own. As more of the eyes appeared in the darkness, their collective Ghostlight illuminated my now being, worn to a mere sack of skin and bones from my running, paled to the milkiest white from my escape from the Light.''

''I had become one with the Twilight.''

----

I opened my eyes in horror as the bliss began to subside. Great pillars of flame emerged from the ancestral marks placed upon me by the Master Brandisher. My dormitory was ablaze from the inferno, a cacophony of terrified voices washing with the ebb and flow of the wind whipped up by the intense fire. For some reason, the flames didn't affect me in the least, my movements seemingly increasing the danger of the blaze exponentially. I tried to make my way through the labyrinthine halls of the complex, incidentally setting more of the place on fire. For just a moment I basked in a perverted satisfaction with bringing down what I saw as a hypocritical institution, tasked with the survival of the City, but in truth seeking to further their own ambitions.

That was until I saw the contorted face of Alair before one of my flares devoured him whole, leaving only a charred husk of his former self mere seconds afterwards. I must have stood there in the hall, looking blankly into a self-aware abyss, my fires raging without my knowledge for hours before the instinct kicked in, the true, metaphysical heat of the Light driving me away from it. I bursted forth from the wall in a smoldering fireball, ravaging my way through the City until I broke free from the main gate.

The urge to run became stronger than any of the Phoenix's Blood that coursed through me. I had to run until the Light died. Until it became no more. I couldn't return until I became one with the Twilight. By then, I knew that my fate would be consigned to They who would see me as the ultimate sacrifice to prolong their Ghostlight.

But inside, my Light resurfaced. I had indeed become one with the Phoenix.