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Cut Scene: In The Previous Episode Of Sythkyllya

Immortality is a long business, and when you live forever, the world becomes something like a game. Cleo and Terrowne play house in various corners of the earth, walking back and forth and up and down upon it, because the next civilization is a long way off. It is possible, should they will it, to sleep for decades, waiting on more interesting events. Cleo is reluctant at first, with bad memories of the time she spent sleeping in the tank, but eventually she is persuaded.

Khem is something of a favourite, a place where they can be revered as gods though they are surely not, and as a culture it is almost as long lived as they are, but it is not the only place they seek to dwell. For a time they live upon the swampy shores of the newly formed Dead Sea, chasing traces of Terrownes most enigmatic adoptive father, who seems to have survived the destruction of Azatlan somehow.

Further adventures take them ever more distantly afield, as they get to know the earth and explore it. Cleo disappears into the vastness of Greater Libya and then is found again, having been driven to distraction by the surprise discovery that she may in fact be fertile after all, but that her cycle is tied to some vast length of time, perhaps related to the Sothic Cycle. She is lost and found, bought and sold, used and pleasured, and does the same to others in her turn.

At one point, the two of them take over a small feudal queendom just for fun, to rapidly realize that the desire to rule is a trap, and attempting to fix society by the application of force inevitably fails. They skip out one step ahead of rage and madness, as repressed desires for violence break free and the cycle of rise and fall continues.

For the most part, they try to avoid just wars and great deeds for the ages. There are quite enough of those to go round already, and they've seen how it ends. To live well is their best revenge against the remorseless turning of the wheel of fate.

And all this time, the werewolves have been continuing to breed, stimulated to reproduction by the emptiness of the new world they have been born into. They have changed and adapted, evolution in overdrive with every shapeshift, all going native in their own way. Some have embraced the best of their wild side, others the worst. The dominant expression are known as Wolves, while the counter-culture aspect of the society are known as Hounds.

As the world continues to open up, and growth and change come to more distant places, Cleo chases rumours of dragons to a newly opened territory in the cold and distant north. She is still in search of Vriyx, the much changed dragon of living stone plates who in his youth indulged a twisted streak that saw him fetishistically consume and trample living creatures, a descent into rampant vore and crush that culminated in some unidentified number of human kills including Cleo's first serious girlfriend.

Cleo eventually encounters Vriyx, but only briefly, atop the great mountain that dominates the new territory. Vriyx has become ever more enveloped in stone and plates, like a creature of living black scoriated concrete with a firey glow at its heart, and it seems unlikely that he can ever be killed by any conventional weapon. He has finally become less than an animal, more like some sort of elemental force, and shows no desire to battle her when she finally engages him. Instead he simply turns and flees, heading for one of the distant island volcanoes whose smoke can be seen rising faintly over the edge of the horizon, presumably to nest inside the crater and eventually lose any remnants of his individual identity to the flames.

Cleo ultimately decides to discontinue her vengeance. Vriyx is now being gradually consumed and crushed by the fires of the earth in a manner far worse than any retaliation she could contrive. She resolves to try and live in peace instead, and make a home for herself in the new territory, at least for a while. The world outside continues to change, and she remains vigilant for signs of meddling as the modern age approaches.