Everything ends with fire. That, I have learned.

Up there, planets are burning, and the fires are coming to us.

I am Memiphillae, Messenger of the Unfallen, first bearer of this title. It is ironic that my first duty was to retrieve a message that has been delivered to us. A message of fire and violence.

First, it greeted me with the smell of ashes and burned earth. Then, I witnessed the spectacle of splinters and charcoal that it had prepared for me. The destruction of the forest was so vast that, before I reached the center of the destruction, lines and lines of stumps had paraded all around me until both our moons had vanished beyond the horizon. The message still rested in its cradle of death, at the scorched heart of a once great forest. In the great crater, the metal of the ship was still crying in agony, as if it were alive like one of ours. I knew better. I ordered my sisters to open a way inside the battle-worn wreck, to see if the riders inside still lived. Again, I knew better.

The blackened figures of the alien beings inside, tangled in their latest moments of suffering, could not have delivered a clearer message. Violence and pain are burning in the sky, and they are going to rain down on our world. The last cry of the devastated forest still echoed in the earth, rising in my body and soul to scream: “The Fire is coming back, to burn us and to dominate us!”

I tried to stay calm, let the rustle of my leaves cover the crackling of the fire. Is this the doing of the old Scorchers that enslaved and killed us long ago, or has a new race been taken by the deathly allure of the Fire? Does it even matter?

What will my people do? Will they be scared, or angry? Will they forget courage, or patience? Will I? No, they must- WE must understand that this only makes our mission, and our message, all the more important. I will still lead my people to that black and unforgiving sky, to deliver our message of peace and to stop the burning madness of war before it engulfs all that lives.

The first light of the sun wakes me up from my thoughts. In due time, our star will let new life bloom from these ashes. That thought gives me back the hope I will need in my mission. Not everything that burns does so to take life.

Up there, other stars are burning and we are ready to reach them.

Everything begins with fire. That, I have learned.

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Hi everyone, here is my proposition, I hope you like it!

The Unfallen background, with their themes of slavery and self-sacrifice, made me think that they might have become quite a fatalistic and pessimistic race. So I thought a nice starting point for their quest might be the mission of an hopeful and idealistic leader, trying to push the population away from a wary isolationism into a quest of galactic peacekeeping.

Great story. Cool submission. I like how it goes full circle with the clever phrasing at the beginning and end. I also really like how you hint at a deeper history by alluding to things like the "old Scorchers", something which I attempted in my story too.

I want to make sure I understand the story, because you don't say in outright, are you describing a crater that is the impact site of a very large warship from another faction?

Also, you may have room for another sentence or so, so use it to add some more flavor. I for one want to know who appointed our hero to his title? Who are the "sisters" you mentioned? Also, was the forest that was destroyed normal trees or sentient Unfallen?

Anyway, keep it up and best of luck!  

Hi there, many thanks for your feedback! I actually meant to keep the story a bit cryptic and to leave some things mostly to the readers' imagination. 

However, for the sake of clarity:

- Yes, it is in fact the crater created by a ship from another, unspecified race (a scene not unlike the Tunguska event). It doesn't have to be a warship, however. It was simply shot down by a third race, a sign that wars are raging and might affect the Unfallen.

- The forest is made of normal, non-sentient trees, but this is purposefully left ambiguous, due to the hero's psychic link with all plant life, which lets it feel their deaths almost as if they were actually sentient.

- The hero has been appointed by the Unfallen as a whole, as an emissary for an incoming space mission of exploration and diplomacy. 

- The sisters are simply the hero's special attendants. For now, I'll leave the details to your imagination, but if I have the time I might reveal some other ideas I had after the voting concludes, as suggested by Frogsquadron in the rules thread, as this might go beyond simple clarification.

"Once more unto the breach, my friends", but for peace? I quite like it, too.

Thank you!

Love the first person narration and the calm pace of the tale: it really fits the "trent-like" creatures stepping into something bigger than them for a nobler cause.Now I want to read more!

Great writing style!

Really showcases the personality of the Unfallen as a peaceful yet ambitious and a courageous faction. 

Man these submissions! I can never write like this.....

Many thanks Dragunav! Truth be told, there are at least a couple of things that I REALLY don't like about my own submission, if we consider writing technique on its own, but with the time and space at my disposal this seems to be my limit

And, as digitalhawk said, like anything else, it comes with practice. I work with fiction texts almost every day, so hopefully I learned something from it.

I started with stickmen battlescape chaos - draw a distorted line across page and then fill said page with stickmen murdering each other.

In terms of writing, I read a lot of books which is why I would consider myself decent; it also helps when it comes to writing essays and the like.

Hook me up when Amplitude decides to have a competition on best essay about Shakespeare characters' motives...

I think we're done with Dungeon of the Endless already...