For too long monsters had lingered in a ravaged realm without humans. When they heard the humans would come back, they built an underground lair to welcome them and called this place their utopia.
For a day the earthquakes ravaged Utopia until little was left but narrow caves and collapsed sections.
When it started, as all crumbled around them the monsters rushed to their altars, to protect the godly statues from harm, thinking not that it would protect them but that they would protect the holy presence.
Yet those statues depicting a four-horned badger were tied to a ritual, linked by magical patterns that the shockwaves followed like fire.
They watched with horror their idols shake and break, crumble to pieces until nothing was left.
By then caves and tunnels everywhere were caving in, waking up to their size and weight. Massive blocks, entire sections of their ceilings fell, shattered and filled the ground below in a mess of rocks and rubbles.
Then more follow, and more after that. The smaller galleries were buried entirely, with monsters retreating instinctively to the safer areas and seeing everything around them collapse and crumble.
After a few hours nearly all the caves had been wiped out and still the earthquakes would not let up. They rippled, bashed against each other and tore more rocks, shattered more stone to fill the gaps.
For the beasts trapped under that wrath it felt like an eternity.
But while the tremors remained, a continuous rumble that still snatched blocks off the walls and ceiling, eventually the shaking calmed down and creatures could emerge in the new light.
Of the myriad Utopia had contained, a few hundred remained.
The hare was among them. All he could feel was his numb arms, the ache in his neck and the stench of black blood on his muzzle. As consciousness came back he tried to open his eyes, only to be met by a sharp brightness.
Before him lay the open neck of his magnal friend.
He realized it was his teeth tearing on those scales, his fangs biting the flesh and he pushed back. The lizard grunted.
"Keep feeding, you are still weak..." He muttered.
Around him the gigantic cave had been reduced to less than a den, just a small space under large rocks that had kept the collapse from burying him alive. And light pierced through the cracks, bright rays that seared the air.
He pushed himself on the back, felt his head throbbing and, after a moment to hold back that fever, approached a finger to the closest beam of light.
"Don't!" The crow monster warned him.
Crow or eagle, the read beak was perched on a rock nearby. His right wings hung broken, but he paid no attention to that.
"Those are from Alunra. The light destroys all it touches."
With that, the humanoid hare understood that he had done it. He had, in one strike, destroyed an entire lair, the equivalent of a dungeon in size. And he didn't feel powerful.
The two glassy blades still stood struck in the ground, intact.
Again the magnal approached and put his neck near the beast's head. The scent of black blood had him slightly thrilled. It was true he felt weak and famished.
But he looked away.
"Don't be so difficult!" The red beak scolded him. "It is all we can do, so let us be useful!"
"Shut up." Their warrior groaned.
Part of him was still stuck in those moments when the realm felt so vivid, his burning body so invincible. Part of him wanted that to have lasted forever. Now the cold reality was forcing him to shudder and twitch again against a new wave of pain.
He put his hand on his forefront and, by habit, the fingers slipped around where his horn should have been.
"Look at him, so proud!" The red beak mocked. "Some savior you are in that state!"
"How come you call him a savior?"
The fire lizard could not help himself but to ask. He quickly corrected himself.
"I mean, he clearly is, but then why..."
"Don't give him ideas! That's what he called himself when I met him! Just a fool without a shred of good sense in him!"
"True." The hare coughed. "Without you I would have been long dead."
That forced the crow-like beast to silence. He scraped the rock with his talons, almost embarrassed. Not at being praised, but at the idea that he had done anything of worth.
And the magnal, curious, turned to the crow.
"You saved him? Tell me more! Come on, I want to know!"
"Ask him!" The crow rebuffed.
And the hare, hardly in a mood to talk, just pushed himself, crawled to the wall to sit there, exhausted. He didn't know how much time had passed and still felt the past battle straining his muscles.
Once more, his fingers missed the spot for his horn. All he saw on them was the dry black blood that had trickled to his eyes and muzzle.
So they huddled there, in the cavity, between the rays of light and the tremors.
"I was unchallenged back then."
The hare had started to talk. Maybe to spend time, maybe to fill the silence. Maybe because his head was throbbing so much.
"Others said there was a powerful monster at Bayankam, and that the travel alone would kill me. So of course I went."
"And? What happened?!" The lizard pressed.
"Ah!" It was the crow's turn to talk. "You don't know Bayankam, do you? The monsters there only get one fight before they die! I was one of them."
And he hopped down his rock to approach the lizard.
"I was barely born and already dying, perched high and looking for a prey. And here he was, so I plunged and pecked at his neck!"
"I was too weak to chase him off, so I let him."
"You're pulling my tail. There is no way, you had already fallen?"
"No," the red beak answered, "he just kept walking with me on his shoulder!"
Bayankam was one of the most mana-deprived places in the realm. It left the monsters so exhausted that to walk took all they had. Had the hare fought back at the time, he would probably have collapsed soon after.
It had been, indeed, the better call to just ignore the beast eating him alive. Although the better call would have been to never foot there at all.
"I guided him out of this hell and he took me to better lands! He may not be much of a savior, but he saved me! So feed on us already, you child!"
"Enough with that." The hare grunted, hand on his face. "This is nothing to me. Dig us out already."
And the lizard, at those words, got up and rushed to find a good spot for his claws to do their work.
Even after the caves had collapsed, monsters still found some strength to fight. But most had been so stunned by the destruction as to not care for black blood anymore. In the sharp light they too were digging their way out, carefully opening passages in the tremors.
Pockets of survivors would find each other, defiant, only to gather and keep digging further. It wasn't really purpose or understanding as much as every single beast down there being past the point of exhaustion. Too weak to fight. Still recovering from the shock.
The hare and crow wanted to help, but one could not even stand and the other had only his red beak to offer. So they stayed put while the magnal worked.
And he, in turn, screamed and rushed back inside the narrow den at the sight of pink and white fur.
Before them emerged the legged rapt, her flat tail still stuck behind for a bit but she pulled free and greeted them with joy.
"There you are! Yay, we all lived!"
"You..." The human-like hare was trying to get up.
He could not tell what his feelings were, a mix of confusion and anger, of curiosity, of humiliation. There had been a presence back then and he could not help but think this magical beast was related to it.
"Don't move!" The others rushed to him. "You need to rest!"
"Who are you really?" He ignored them, but was pushed down all the same. "A priestess? Are you just toying with us?"
"Caline is just Caline!" She protested. "Can priestesses save the realm? If so, Caline wants to be one!"
"Leave it!"
The crow had hurriedly warned his friend against pressing her anymore. He had seen more than any other and knew what not to ask.
"She can heal you, only that matters!"
"Oh, uh..." She rubbed her tiny forelegs together. "Actually, Kaele is not here right now... But I can share mana!"
And she walked to him, put her head against his belly with almost a purr. He felt the magic flow in him, purge what anti-magic was left and slowly close his wounds.
That only made the throbbing on his head worse, but he feigned to ignore it and just held it with his hand while she shared her strength.
"Eh, we were discussing our pasts!" The fire lizard told her. "How about you? Where do you come from?"
"Me? Woohoo! Someone wants to learn about me! But Caline doesn't remember. All I know is that I had a big brother and I will never see him again... But it's okay because we are saving the realm! So Caline will find a lot of friends who will pet her!"
"What happened..." The lizard attempted, but dropped it. "How come you don't remember?"
"Old monsters all share that."
It was the hare's voice. He was looking away, partly because of the headache and mostly due to his own thoughts. But those words had escaped him.
"At some point, it feels like the realm is slipping through your fingers. Your own life is a blur and you can't even remember who you were or who you met. Or your own name."
The two others said nothing. The legged rapt, for her part, was too busy cozying against his belly.
"When that happens," he mused, "you'll know you've lived too long."
"Nuh uh! We are alive, and we can meet friends and save monsters and see humans maybe so we'll make tons and tons of new memories! And one day, someone says your name and you feel all fuzzy inside!"
"I'll go back to digging." The magnal cut all of that short.
Compared to the others, he felt like a newborn. Like all newborns, the monster disliked ignorance. He already felt like he understood everything and to him, forgetting the past sounded sweet. A liberation even.
He had yet to experience being a stranger to himself, inheriting a body that was not his, motives he did not understand in a realm he could not recognize anymore. This alienation was still far removed from his concerns.
But the hare knew it too well and found himself caressing the fluffy fur of his healer.
And she could not feel it because his hand skimmed above her, never quite touching the hair. She would not even be aware that he was making that motion, or she would have melted with pleasure at that contact.
The red beak interrupted them all.
"Gather close! We are going to be rescued!"
"Rescued?" The hare frowned. "By whom?"
But the crow-like monster hopped to the center of the cavity and gestured for them to follow. So the magnal came back, then the hare limping forth, crouching there with the rapt at his side.
A small mist started to filter, sizzling and burning when touching the rays of light but otherwise growing in strength, covering the ground and billowing up into a fog.
Then in a swirl it dissipated and they found themselves in a larger cavern, among dozens of wounded beasts that prostrated around them.
And mere meters away, with the fog still covering most of her, stood a bird monster in priestess attires, a scepter in hand whose end bore tiny silent bells.