Prince Laashe, the Morning Star


Prince Laashe was a Fair Folk nobleman who acceded to lordship of the Court of the Ocher Mandrake when his predecessor, Fragile Waif, was vaporized while attempting to catch the Godspear. At the time, Ocher Mandrake was waging a devastating war with Creation. When Fragile Waif fell, the court’s legions were stronger than ever, poised and ready to spring on Creation backed by hadhayosh of such power that they might challenge even the titans. As Ignis Divine turned his attention to Waif’s successor, Prince Laashe wisely and immediately surrendered, putting an end to the war. Laashe then demonstrated legendary charisma, convincing the Unconquered Sun that he wished to live in peace with Creation and that he would force the Ocher Mandrake to abide by his wishes…in exchange for a boon.


Prince Laashe told the Guarding Star that the raksha were terrified by his unimaginable might, but knew him to be the most honorable being in all existence, with a word that was as unbreakable as his body. Thus, Laashe said, they would be in terror of Creation and he would be unable to prevent them from attacking it, unless they believed the Unconquered Sun was not a threat to him. With the power of such a pact, Laashe would be seen as a powerful and important leader, and his command would carry the strength it needed to hold back the hordes. Furthermore, such a peace would ease their fears about the Daystar, and make it easier to coexist.


The Unconquered Sun was impressed by the raksha’s genuine seeming, and swore that he would never so much as raise his hand against Prince Laashe, so long as he never sent his forces to invade Creation. Thus Ignis Divine gave rise to one of his greatest enemies.


His legend catalyzed by the Unconquered Sun’s support, in the decades that followed, Prince Laashe grew in power and scope. He then began to use the Ocher Mandrake’s tremendous power to wage war on other courts. Reaping countless slaves from thwarted courts, Prince Laashe then changed his narrative to one of tyrannical horror, becoming a monstrous devourer of his enemies, a torturer, a murderer, one who was without mercy and had a lust for blood and tears. For years he built the Ocher Mandrake into a carnival of atrocities, from which not even his own subjects were exempt. Then he formed a narrative of such force and meaning that it would sear his blasphemy and his legend into the annals of time. He claimed that one day the Unconquered Sun would come and strike him down with the Godspear, but he would return from the ashes of himself to become a being of vast, unimaginable power.


Eventually word of the atrocities Prince Laashe was committing made their way back to the Unconquered Sun, who had also heard of the raksha’s arrogant narrative. Ignis Divine knew that he had been deceived, and was enraged. He took his wrath to the Court of the Ocher Mandrake, where he saw the horror, the torture and the murder Prince Laashe had wrought, and felt compassion for the raksha whom the beast had victimized. In that instant, Sol Incarnate denied his temperance, shattering the oath and his Aegis in the same thrust of his lance. Prince Laashe screamed in horror as the tip of the Godspear struck through his breast. He writhed for an instant, as infinite energy tore through his body, and then he was not but a curl of smoke and a pile of ash…or so it seemed.


His Aegis broken, Ignis Divine did not notice the red dragon sigil of Laashe which had Shaped itself onto the back of his shoulder like a tattoo.


Later, as the Unconquered Sun slept aboard the Daystar, Prince Laashe slipped out of the sigil in which he had been hiding, shook hands with the Sun’s shadow, and crept slowly from the room. Quickly and quietly he stole away to the Furnace Empyrean, where he bore witness to the stage of which he had long dreamt. It was time for the final, pivotal act of his great play, one that would proclaim him to be the greatest raksha for all time. Taking up the controls of the forge, Laashe stepped into the flames of the Furnace and dissolved into the heart of the sun.


In the Den of Reason, the Unconquered Sun’s eyes cracked open, as he felt something suddenly amiss. Somewhere in the universe, something had gone terribly wrong.


In the flames of the sun, Prince Laashe was not destroyed, for in the moment he traded himself to the forge, he became what he most wanted. He was now a living narrative moving through the Daystar’s hallowed blazes, playing out his final and most important scene: resurrection. There in the sun’s forge, Prince Laashe built himself anew. He reached into the heart of the universe and grasped a narrative so rare, complex, and powerful that it transformed him into a form of pure power such that it rivaled the Unconquered Sun.


Prince Laashe rose from the sun’s surface on a torrent of fire, reborn from solar flames, brilliant garda wings spreading from his back. He had subsumed the elemental force of light which the sun represents, absorbing and internalizing it, redefining himself around it. Laashe had become one of a kind—something such as there never was before, and never would be again.


Then hurling a tree over the horizon, he caused the sun to set, displacing his greatest enemy. For a bare moment there was morning, and the only star in the sky was him who had ejected Creation’s defender. Then the Morning Star descended upon Creation to reap a harvest of souls.


When the Unconquered Sun finished peeling himself out of the horizon, a reverse sunset revealed the red rage of his wrath as his Daystar ascended back to its rightful place. Ignis Divine fell to earth like a star, shattering the road before Prince Laashe. But he was too late, for the Morning Star had already battened upon the souls of a number of humans.


“They are not dead. Not yet at least,” said Laashe.


“Strike me down,” warned Laashe, “and they surely will be.”


Then the battle was joined, and as the two furiously fought, the Unconquered Sun felt his valor fail him, for at each moment where he had the opportunity to slay his enemy, he could think only of the mortal lives swimming within him: those people he wished to save. Nor could his Aegis avail him, as Laashe still had not set his forces upon Creation. Drawing in light such that he darkened the world, Laashe gathered his forces to seal the Unconquered Sun in a tomb of jade ripped from the womb of Creation. Ignis Divine dropped his Godspear as he fought against this entombment, and Laashe seized it, feeling his heart soar with triumph such that it only made him stronger.


Then the Godspear fell to the ground, and Laashe was gone.


The Morning Star found himself in a place he did not know. “Where is this?” he asked, and his voice became a beast which swallowed its own echoes and swam away. All around him were floating worldscapes; upside-down places, angled places, in-and-out places. Existence seemed to have the quality of a cube winding in toward a central locus, and all through the air floated things unguessed and never before seen. Prince Laashe flexed his mighty wings. “Where am I?” he cried.


Luna’s voice came back to him from here, there, everywhere: “The conceptual Without. The forge of Oramus. You are in the Beyond,” said she.


“How?” asked the enraged prince.


Luna stepped out from behind a bubbling spring of names and stood before him with the falcastra of Zatesh. “This is the blade which pulls and cuts the Wyld. While you were distracted, I caught the Wyld in you with its edge, and pulled you here. This is my cradle, my birthplace. The place for things which are cast out. Congratulations, Prince Laashe. You were a rare and splendid thing, such that you never existed.”


Then Luna winked out of existence, leaving Prince Laashe to rage for all eternity.