"It looks like it hit you," Udon said solemnly. "No Alliance, no matter how powerful, can resist the Goddess of Conquest when she sets her eyes on a prize. I cannot fathom as to why your planet was chosen, but considering what you told me about how helpless your cities were against the initial assaults, your planet is doomed to fall the very instant she launches an attack in earnest. She's merely toying with you for now. If you have anything you wish to do with your family before they die, I urge you to do it with them as soon as you can. Odds are they won't survive her invasion."
Alesha ran her hands through her hair, clutching it tightly. "No, no no no no, no!" She murmured, a mix of denial, fear, and sadness in her eyes.
Udon moved closer, just enough to rest one large hand on her back. He was so big that the length of one hand was enough to cover both of her shoulders. He was careful, making sure that his claws went nowhere near her fragile skin and clothes. "I wish I had more comforting words to tell you," he said softly. "Alas, I have naught to share on this subject but bad news. I pray, for your sake, that the Goddess does not launch her final attacks whilst you are here."
The idea that Toltura might take over her home while she was summoned to another planet only made Alesha more distressed, and she started to hyperventilate. What if she returned home only to find her apartment destroyed, her family gone, the planet crawling with Chaotic Beasts? Would she be able to survive in such a post-apocalyptic world? How would she find food, would the Chaotic Beasts see her as food? The panicked thoughts continued in spirals and branches, until she was trying to find solutions for problems she would probably never face to begin with.
Noticing her distress was nowhere near dying down, Udon began to sing. His baritone voice chirped a solemn, gentle tune, the meaning of the words lost as he sang in a language the translation magic couldn't comprehend. Smooth waves of notes ebbed and flowed, wearing away at the panicky shell Alesha found herself trapped in. The exquisite melody calmed her mind, allowing her fear of the unknown to recede into the background, and her mind to think clearly once again. His mournful tune ended with a long, low note fading off until it disappeared.
"Was that song imbued with magic?" Alesha asked when it was done.
"A little," Udon admitted. "It's a special kind of taming magic unique to my species. I hope you don't mind that I used it," he added sheepishly.
"Thank you," Alesha told him sincerely. "Without your help, that panic attack would have lasted a lot longer than it did. I'm still worried for my family, of course, but at least now I can think clearly and focus on what I can do, instead of worrying endlessly over what I can't."
He smiled. "I'm glad."
Alesha laid back on the grass, closing her eyes and enjoying the feel of the shade on her skin. It was a little warm outside but the shade made it the perfect temperature.
A few minutes later, Udon stood. "I feel my Contractor is calling me. Fare well, Alesha, and may we meet again soon. It was a pleasure to meet you." He gave her a bow, then left.
Alesha, for her part, was already half asleep, so she gave him an absentminded wave without opening her eyes. "See you later," she said.
It didn't take much longer for her to lose consciousness entirely.
----
There was only darkness--- black, unfeeling, and impenetrably, deathly cold. Then a spark, a dim, red flame wavering in the darkness. It was warm, though so weak it barely existed at all.
A fist of profound, malevolent cold snuffs it out.
Another flame, then another, both as dim as the first, puff into existence, only to be extinguished in quick succession. More little flames, hundreds, then thousands, each appearing only to die mere milliseconds after birth.
Then, a larger, stronger flame, continually shifting in color and position, winking impossibly quickly from place to place. The hand strikes once, catching nothing. Strikes twice, nothing again. On the chase goes, the hand focusing on this newest, elusive conflagration of ever-shifting color.
Elsewhere, while the fist of cold remains fixated on its impossible chase, tentative red flames spring up. Neglected by the preoccupied fist, they begin to grow. First, one increases to twice its original size. Another, three times. In waves, the flames start to flourish. Hundreds of little fires illuminate the once-impenetrable blackness, filling the empty space with their slowly growing light.
In time, the flames fill all space there is, the fist of malevolent coldness having been too focused on the elusive, color-shifting flame to bother with any of the others. It had arrogantly assumed that these flames, stationary and minute as they were, could be eliminated at any time.
Only now, as these once-helpless flames began to coalesce into a massive sphere of heat and light, did the hand begin to know fear. The newly born star, formed from a congregation of millions of little fires, causes the hand to thaw, then melt, as the tricky multicolored flame draws it ever closer to the forming mass.
The hand shrieks in dismay and agony as it enters the ball of fire in its dogged pursuit of its chosen prey. All sensation is overpowered by Heat -- overwhelming and all-enveloping; by Light -- blinding, scalding, inescapable; by Betrayal, Anger, Confusion; and above all, a thwarted sense of purpose…
A shudder ripples through the newly birthed sphere of flame as the hand dies inside of it.
The fires, having conquered their foe, separate from one another and disperse across space and time.
One flame still stands out from the rest: the ever shifting, ever changing flame of both infinite and unpredictable potential. That flame exudes spontaneity, change, and inspiration. That flame is improbability and evolution, chance and coincidence.
That flame is Chaos.
----
Alesha awoke from her nap with a start, heart racing as the memory of what she had dreamt faded quickly. Something about a chaotic fire and deathly cold? Maybe?
Though it was almost entirely gone from her recollection, she had a lingering feeling that it had been an important dream, as well as a strange one.