Rainbow soared upwards, her body finally decelerating. Only at the end of her ascent did her figure stop shimmering. The prismatic light ribboned into her core, leaving a dull pulse in the center of her pendant. Wings and arms spread, she hovered briefly at the roof of the world, higher than any cloud or explosive or word could reach.
Her eyes fluttered shut, trailing with icy tears.
And she fell.
Her body toppeled, twirled, then fell limply towards the sunlit world-scar below.
Her plunge consumed the better part of a minute. When she was low enough to smell the faint traces of smoke, her eyes drifted open. She became aware of her terminal velocity, and she struggled weakly to spread her wings and glide to safety.
That's when the gnarled talon of claws grasped tightly around her.
"Hrkkkkk!" Rainbow's face turned ten times bluer. Her eyes bulged as pain wracked her torso.
Fiercely, she was raised towards the angry face of a diseased monster. Barely carrying herself aloft with spiderwebbed wings, Nevlamas levitated in place, gripping Rainbow Dash tighter. "You..." She hissed, sputtered for breath, and spat bloodied saliva past Rainbow's wincing figure. "I may notttt-skskkkktt have ended Harmony..." Her slimy irises narrowed. The Dark Divine's face was practically melting as she spoke. "But... I-I have enough ssssstrength in me to end the Harmony Bearer..."
Rainbow Dash didn't even have half-a-breath to retort. She gritted her teeth, tears forming in the corners of her pained eyes.
Nevlamas' fractured jaws opened wide, spitting spoke and aquamarine embers. "Behold... the death of Ausssstreaoh..."
Thunder boomed in the distance, taking on a voice as large as mountains. "Not until her journey is complete, Nevlamas."
"Scrkkkk!" The Divine's snout jerked towards the blinding sunrise. "Ssssister?"
Flying in like a comet, a pair of violet-red jaws with two sets of teeth clasped tight over Nevlamas' neck. The Dark Divine shrieked, instantly dropping Rainbow Dash.
The pegasus body flew, toppled—only to be caught in a larger, healthier pair of claws. These enormous fingers did not crush Rainbow, but instead held her safely as the rest of the behemoth's body shoved Nevlamas clear across the sky and into the southern face of the torn valley's bordering mountains in the north.
"Hraaaaaauckkkt!" Nevlamas' shrieked, tossing her neck back and forth in the jaws of its sudden adversary. She yelped and howled like a rabid canine as slowly the strength was leaked from her body. "Sisssster! Sister, let me go! Hrkkkk! I can... I-I can still solve this! I can ssssssstill patch up this f-fesssssstering wound in the cosmossssskkkttt!"
"There is nothing left to solve, Nevlamas," the majestic voice boomed back. Rainbow, weary and fading, felt herself being lowered gently to the edge of the mountainside. "Not by us, at least. It is up to Austraeoh now. She will bring the wind to the far ends of this ruptured world, just as she's brought the wind to you..." A pronounced snarl. "A task that I could not accomplish, as you very well know, beloved sister..."
Nevlamas tossed her head back, her body slumped against the crumbling mountain as if it was a giant bed of wilted roses. Her breath came out in ragged whines, piercing the ear that was already hazy from her dissolving life blood. "I fought so hard, Axan. I fought sssssso hard and for so long..." Nevlamas's eyeslits quivered, steaming in the far corners as she bled through every crackling scale. "Hckkkkttt... I sssssssought to succeed where Endrax failed..." She gurgled, spat out an oozing fountain of aquamarine blood, and whimpered like a whelp. "Thisssss world... is m-more diseased than I am. Tell me, Axan, where did we g-go wrong? Where did we fail?"
"We became old, Nevlamas. Old and jaded, and now even the mortals outshine us." A deep, fuming breath, and Rainbow caught sight of a pair of massive scarlet wings enshrouding the mountain like a veil, obscuring both behemoths. "Endrax waits for a spark, and Austraeoh carries it. There was a time when I didn't believe this, and it nearly cost this world everything."
The Dark Divine's voice was a whisper now, fractured and flimsy like the last vestiges of night. "She's one of them, Axan. A phantom of the betrayer'sssss blood-Hckkkkt!" A weathering shy. "What hope is left... under the cloudssss of chaos...?"
"Shhhhhh. Sleep forever, Goddess of Magic. If even you can find peace, then so can harmony." The sky heated up. Axan's wings glowed from the inside like a leather lantern, and Nevlamas' suffering shrieks were no more.
The silence reined Rainbow into tranquil blackness. She collapsed with a sigh.
1) Frack. You talked about Khao again
2) Dramatic Entrance!
3) East? Moon? Anyone have their toaster malfunction in Equestria? Tardis's dropping out of the sky?
4) Ebon Mane?
And so the Ledomare arc is finally ending. It'll be a while, but I can't wait to see where they go next.
Axan: 2
Rainbow: 1
Nevlamas: 0
And by the sounds of things...
Endrax: 0
Oohhhhhhhhhhhhhh shit!
and the Shell joins the party x,X
H'oh shit! Double dragon!
Draco ex machina.
Why do I have a feeling that Endrax is doing her waiting at the Midnight Armory?
Rest now Nevlamas. Rest in peace.
The concept of draconic divines is faintly reminiscent of Warcraft.
31.media.tumblr.com/8cb046e6f16e05f8521e15de31927f52/tumblr_mt80mvKYGn1rqfhi2o1_500.gif
What a great death. It somewhat saddens me that it is kind of drowned out by the flood of chapters, but it still fills me with joy to see an appropriately epic end where it belongs.
3796332 Not faintly, immensely. Nevlamas is literally Neltharion on the inside and Malygos on the outside, Axan is almost completely Nozdormu on the inside and Alexstrasza on the outside.
Axans back! yay!
oh, and about the like button, why is it a thumbs up? It should be a hoof
Nice Dredgemane reference
>I fought so hard, Axan. I fought sssssso hard and for so long...
i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/330/729/20f.jpg
Hoh my gawd yes. Axan
ABOUT GODDAMN TIME
Wow. The dragon who had first sought to destroy Rainbow,comes to her rescue. She truly is a beacon of Hope and Harmony.
"You know at the end of lord of the rings when Gandalf save Frodo and Sam? Why didn't they just fly the eagles to Mordor"
How I feel right now.
IIIIIt's Dashie's evaluation time!
Yeah, kinda figured that Axan would show up at some point to stop Nevlamas herself. However powerful Dash is, she's still not yet strong enough to reliably defeat a Divine. I'm pretty sure that this means that Dash will be continuing her journey east from here on out.
Huzzah for the face-turned superdragon!
I'm so confused. These past three chapters have been EXTREMELY revealing and yet there was a sudden drop off in comments.
4080650
That's probably because chapters 141-150 were all published in one go. I suspect 150 has more comments.
Axan and Nevlamas. Two Divines met. 3 to go. Now, let's go toward the Midnight Armoury once again!
-SPirit
great save axan. is this covert? or are you gonna show yourself to the eyes of this continent?
And then another divine comes around, and now Nevlamas is dead, Khao is dead, we've seen a changeling conspiracy in the works, Nightshade is on her own and probably going to die, and . . . man, it's like we reached the end of an arc or something.
There have been less and less comments as this story carries on....and far fewer carry any information that is full of insight as they used to be.
Find thee peace, Nevlamas
IN THE END IT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER
And at last, Nevlamas' pain is over. Unfortunately, we still have Lasifairon to deal with (who I am betting was actually Chrysalis in disguise). However, this whole changeling twist has actually surprised me six ways to Sunday. No more boss battles for this fic? Hell, no more war here, at this point. What's going to happen from here?
b-b-b-but it's not the last chapter yeeeeeet ;~;
Darn, I held out a sliver of hope that Khao would live somehow with her newfound goodness. At least she got an outro as beautiful as that.
You know what, this is why this series is so good. At the beginning of this fic I was screaming for Khao to bite the dust and by the end I'm made to feel bad for her. There aren't many characters that aren't fleshed out in many dimensions of personality.
Now there is a statement with multiple meanings.
Something they don't seem to get, just because you are mortal or normal does not make you any lesser than one without those things, the brightest stars burn out the quickest. The very age that makes them wise also blinds them to new ideas. Maybe that is why the world chose not the academic and intelligent, nor the humble and steadfast, but the brash, impulsive, and absolutely refuses to accept things as they are.
You're late for the party, Axan.
6284782 Ah, she showed up when she was needed, and not a moment sooner. Damned wizards...
Dash just defeated Magic.
6997595
If you thought meddling with the affairs of wizards was bad, just try messing with a dragon.
(We can't all be prismatic pegasi.)
This ending was as unfulfilling, unnecessarily twisted, redundent, nonsensical and POINTLESS as I have learned to expect from this story.
Seriously the ride is a blast.
But the plot is manure literally what the fu-
I can't even.
Garbage.
How can a story be so thrilling, moving and beautiful and still throw shit like this out?
I guess Nevlamas blames the pegasi for breaking the world?
I'm so confused now.
As dramatic and touching as this death scene was, I'm going to call Never Found The Body on this one.
(Well, not literally, the body is right there. She just isn't unambiguously shown to be dead, and I suspect that primordial dragon gods don't die quite that easily. Fucking Shell has survived a beating like that almost half a dozen times.)
8084589 My reading is that she's saying that Endrax became an agent of chaos too. No way to be sure at this point though.
EAST WARRRRRDS
(i seriously just want to catch up with berrytone :P.)
July 26, 2017
7:54 PM
EAST WAAAAAARDS!
(i seriously just want to catch up with berrytone :P.)
July 26, 2017
7:54 PM
Dragon fiiiiiiiiiight!
This is....one pathetic ending for the goddess of magic. It's shuch a shame, that a being so old and powerful would end at the ha&hooves of mortals with more intuition then herself.
Axan is an incredible soul, and her fires burn with more then just destructive fire if what I just read meant anything.
8324249
And I want to get to the book I accidentally skipped on my first read. But the only way to do that is to KEEP READING!!