Behold the Sky-Breaker

It had been a night of panic for the poros. They had lived their docile, mindless little lives for, probably, thousands of years. Eat. Explode. Multiply. That was pretty much the life cycle. The frostgrass was really lovely this time of year, and in the night it practically glowed as moons shimmered down upons it, as well as stars from afar. The Howling Abyss never really changed weather much, though there were tiny fluctuations which contributed to the poros' sense of passing time. Tonight, the poros knew that it was the time of the distant stars. Those burning balls of fire were spread out far as they ever got during the year, light reflecting and refracting at such an angle that the Howling Abyss became several degrees colder. And the grass was shinier.

So, as the poros wandered around the Howling Abyss, they enjoyed the glimmering blades of icy grass, oblivious to what was to come. For the most part, all of the poros kept to themselves - after all, no one wanted to have to fight and kill another of their kind. There was really no purpose, and it greatly decreased their lifespan. That was quite a large meal - depending on the fight, really. Besides, one couldn't just leave a poro body. There were poros to create. That being said, the little creatures with their fuzzy blue bodies, glinting horns, and lolling tongues grazed the depths for their favorite meal, enjoying what time they had before everything was to change.

Several poros were clustered around deposits of frostgrass, some of it buried, as part of the Abyss' cliffside had been shaken lose by the playing of two newly created poros. The creatures nosed through the dirt, lapping up whatever silvery blades they could find and getting their fill. As their life or death depended on how much they ate, there was really no rush. If an easily accessible deposit of frostgrass was consumed, a poro just left, content to wait another day to eat. There was no pushing or shoving trying to get to a meal, no crowding, no rushing. Tonight was peaceful as usual. The six poros who remained near the debris of the landslide just nibbled and licked whatever they pleased.

However, something changed. The Abyss rose maybe a degree. Two. Some poros throughout paused to look up at the sky. What is this? What is changing? And though the feeling stuck with them, they could see and understand nothing. Less than a minute had passed before the earth began to vibrate. The poros began to make their little chuffing and huffing sounds, whimpering, groaning, and overall becoming uneasy. Some paced. Some immediately took off for cover. Others were too interested in their meals to care, but this could not be ignored for long. It became louder. The vibrating turned from a soft little shake to a violent tremor, and all of a sudden the sky exploded into fire and light.

The poros screamed - every single one - as their world changed rapidly around them. They took off, fleeing from wherever they were, scrambling helplessly over each other. The light in the sky subsided, but heat flooded into the Abyss and a gushing wind through about dirt and dust and shattered the remaining frostgrass where it stood. Poros trampled each other, if not to death then to the brink of it. They continued to scream: the cries echoed through the Abyss and into the burning sky above, and they were afraid. They ran from the fire. That is, most of them. Blinded by dust and dirt and the gleam of the sky, one poro ran after the light, shrieking like a stuck pig.

It ran and ran - oh, how fast its little legs could take it - and scrambled up the steep cliff face, through ravines and over boulders, its black eyes streaming as the wind hit its face hard. It ran fearfully, trying to escape the anger of the sky. Something has broken the sky, what was it, why was it burning, what is happening? But no question could be answered as the poro ran and ran. The world boomed suddenly; the poro skidded to a halt and continued yelping and shrieking in terror as it flung its little body about trying to escape the madness. Trees collapsed and snapped like frostgrass under the monstrous sky-breaker, the waters shook, the wind screamed, flying creatures flew and creatures of the earth ran away. The poro, however, in its terror, continued running in the direction of the sky-breaker as the world became eerily silent.

The poro could not understand. It continued running, though its body grew tired. As it drew nearer to the sky-breaker, sounds came from it; groaning and creaking, like strained boulders, and some strange call. It sounded like a scream starting and stopping again. What could this be? Maybe it was a giant creature from the stars, hurting, lost, scared, in pain. The poro began to falter, its legs tiring, and it slowed, its beady eyes gazing at the hot shimmering object that loomed over it. What was this? The poro did not know. It continued to wander towards it, fearful, but widely curious. What did the sky-breaker want?

Nearly an hour passed; the sky grew lighter as dawn began to rear its head. The poro was weary, but it was within half a mile of this strange thing now. It was even bigger up close. What could this be? The poro had never seen something like it before. It picked up the pace, for it could smell the tang of fire and spark, of strange chemicals and just of a strange world. What a monstrous mountain this thing was; what majesty, what strangeness. The poro found itself quite entranced and within no time was near enough to lick it. And it did. What a peculiar flavor this thing had. It tasted so... full of things, almost overwhelming like frostgrass, except much more so, since this was a completely foreign thing. Completely unfamiliar.

What was familiar, however, was the scent of food. This was a different kind of food, to be sure, but poros just knew when there was something edible, and the poro was close to edibles. He was going to have a meal. But where? How? The poro wandered, some places the smell being stronger and other places it being overwhelmed by the muggy smoke and chemical fumes. This thing had many smells, but poros were great at following scents. It was overwhelming, though. So many changes in the natural landscape caused smoke and fumes and the smell of broken trees and crushed leaves and smudged grasses and splashed water and dead things - but what was dead?

It took two days after the crash of the sky-breaker for the poro to find what it needed: the purest of scents. At last the creature found several crevices through which food smell was abundant. It poured out and the poro took no time finding a good way in. One of the cracks was near the ground, so the poro stepped back and took a running leap, scrambling through the metal and into the darkness. Wind rushed through from inside to outside: it was much warmer in the ship than outside. The poro rather liked it. What it did not like, however, was that there were strange flashes. Sparks occasionally, and some liquid streaming around its hooves. It moved quickly towards light and found itself in a very large open area, and right across the room? Food.

The little blue creature wasted no time; with its tongue sucked tightly into its gaping mouth, it sprinted towards the food and took a flying leap onto a strange little cliff-like thing (a table, in human terms). There were colorful things - gray and green and brown and orange and red and yellow and blue and black - and the poro could not decide. With the strange chemical still on its hooves, it walked over the table, oblivious to its surroundings, sniffing at all the lovely-looking eatables.