[MysteriousAges]: 495.Untitled.Prologue

A lone bird flew above the shimmering sea that spread out below reflecting the early morning's pale light. Along the tails of a cold south westerly wind it rode on the thin air, flying away from the land it had left behind this morning, the land it had escaped. It knew that only death and torment lay there now, that it had to flee across the sea to the mainland where it would be safe; where it could hide.
The bird's feathers caught the pale light of the sunrise, and shimmered a cobalt hue along its back and wings, not more than a metre from tip to tip. It was a rare one, its species was only found on one island – the one from which it fled. A slight crosswind rustled its long crest as the bird listed for a moment, then sought to right itself as the breeze subsided. A steady gale began to push it forwards, faster into the south west. Slowly, the menacing land behind it began to sink low into the horizon, leaving nothing but the ocean's swells beneath it, and a scantly clouded sky above, but it could not rest yet. Even now as the island began to vanish behind the line of the horizon, the bird felt its looming danger close behind. It would not be much longer now before it was found missing, and then it could only hope the land was far enough away, that it had flown out of its reach.
A darkening on the horizon before it encouraged it on farther, even as the wind behind it tapered off it pushed on faster. Slowly, steadily the darkening became longer, and spread out before the bird. A coastline began to rise against a backdrop of low hills.
It was close now, to escaping. Farther, faster it had to fly. Its thoughts were focused now; escape, fly, farther.
Three distinct pulses ripped its focus and shattered its composure. The single-minded focus it had moments ago now fell to pieces, replaced by an overwhelming sense of danger, panic and worse of all, failure. On the horizon behind it, a glowing red spark appeared, and began to grow larger. It had been discovered it was missing, and now the retribution was swiftly on its way. The bird suddenly swooped downwards into the ocean's swells, quickly navigating between the churning waters. It was now nearly grazing the surface of the water, but was now moving faster from the dive. The spark that was tailing it became three distinct lights, streaking ever nearer.
The swells around it began to whitecap as the sounds of waves breaking against a shore began to get louder, just as the sounds of crackling flame began to reach the bird's ears. The three sparks now streaked towards it as three balls of bright orange and crimson flame following the unfortunate bird, barely grazing the surface of the swells now giving way to waves. The water hissed as the fireballs passed close above it, sending up steam from their intense heat. The shore was close, yet it seemed barely out of reach as the fireballs closed in. A swell began to break into a wave on the bird's right, and it quickly seized the opportunity and broke off behind the wave. Two of the three fireballs cut through the wave, and only one emerged, barely lit, thin flames streaming off a small stone cube at the centre. The last one swung wide avoiding the crest of the wave, still burning intensely. The bird quickly shot past the end of the wave flying parallel to the shore. It swung sharply upwards and swooped to its left, back towards the shore. The weaker of the two remaining fireballs quickly adjusted its direction and rose above the waters, directly into an oncoming gust of wind which extinguished its fading flames. The small stone cube continued along for a moment, and began to plummet towards the waters, defunct. The last flame arched high into the air missing the bird, and soaring high into the air.
The cobalt bird navigated the crests and troughs of the ocean waves, and quickly flew past the shoreline which broke into a rocky grassland. A river wound its way across the plain from the mountains in the distance, still capped with snow. All at once, the bird felt weary from its long morning flight. There was a settlement near the mouth of the river, but that was not concerning it at the moment. Nothing could be much worse than where it had come from, it knew. It fluttered down to the ground, and landed on a rock, gripping the speckled granite with large black talons. Hopping along the ground, it began to look for somewhere to rest a moment before it started to look for food. It would rest, and then- The third fireball slammed into the ground before the bird could finish its thought. A bright blue dome of light appeared and quickly faded.