Seth and the Soul
In the interminable blackness of the Void, the two figures sat in quiet contemplation, one with his legs folded such that the tops of his feet rested on his knees and his paws hanging just above them, and the other on his armored knees, blazing sword the color of the azure sky clasped by the hilt.
Seth's eyes were shut, yet he could feel the blazing power that glowed from the eyes of his erstwhile companion. He ignored the specter for an age and more, certain it was simply another delusion sent to tempt him away from his meditation. His seeking of the heart, after all, was the last thing they had failed to strip from him. His titles were gone, his household, his honor in the eyes of his people, his wife, his child, his world.
All they had left for him was black silence, and he made the best use of it he could. Behind him, emerging from the white silk of his blousy pants, his paired tiger tails had never ceased to squirm and thrash, angrily playing out their rage at his situation, their furious rampage of motion no longer any form of distraction after so many centuries entombed in the endless black.
The armored figure before him was truly massive, and clearly no mortal. As a demon of sorts, Seth knew the feel of a celestial harbinger when he saw one, and this was far more potent than most. He mused on the idea that the Maharajah had sent this illusion personally, to tempt him with fear that would draw the demon Seth away from his seeking, away from the contemplation that was his one peaceful solace in his prison of seamless black.
Perhaps curiosity, he would consider years later, was the intended lure. He had no interest in the thing before him. If it were real, it would have long ago addressed him, attacked him with that great burning sword, or simply left. Celestial creatures of such power never had time for simple waiting about. They were far too busy meddling in the affairs of mortal men, or fighting great and ancient battles across the stars with such as his own twisted people.
Then, one moment after a hundred hundred million other moments, in a flash of clarity that rang like a bell across his soul, Seth considered one option that had never occurred to him before. What if the creature before him was real?
"Why have you come, slayer of the damned?" Seth's voice purred out, emotionless and uninflected. It matched his long, lean form, that of a white tiger proud and upright to the point of seeming to bend the world around his own dignity. His chest was bare, stripped of the luxurious silken wrap and engraved silvery armor of his former station, and it resonated in the blackness like fine crystal strummed half-full of clear cold water.
As he asked, he did not bother to open his eyes. Long ago, he had discovered, all that needed perceiving could be taken in through understanding the flow of energy all around him. Sight and sound and scent were distractions, illusions, trickeries left behind long ago to cover all realities with impenetrable layers of illusion.
The creature before him was somehow damaged, and thus no pure Celestial creature. Its armor was pristine, glorious, plate mail that was covered in embossed images of battle that swirled about it in an eddy of time, showing its great victories over centuries perhaps eons of warfare in the worlds beyond what man could perceive.
Its wings were shreds and shards, long tendrils of bone-chip riddled flesh that were covered in patches of scabrous flesh and rent feathers. Yet its sword was clean, shining the cerulean blue he had been taught, as a kit, to fear and loathe and destroy with all of his sinister might.
When it spoke, it made no sound, yet he could feel it thrumming through his chest and across his skin as if he were standing too close to a tolling bell and feeling the sear of the sun in his skin on an over-bright day.
"I am here to learn. I am here to teach. I am here bearing and seeking opportunity."