The Aulor

This is an excerpt from my first draft of Absolution.  I'll finish it someday, I promise.

The stars above illuminated the tranquil water below, infinite and ancient fireflies dancing within the subtle waves. The stars were never so bright before the world fell, and they were veiled for a long time after as well. Volcanoes and ash and meteor strikes, the beloved children of Wildfire, had left the sky dark and the ground sooty for a decade after she succumbed to her own flames. It was a ruined world, but strangely beautiful, and everywhere, once magnificent cities were being devoured by nature and time. Nature was not the realm of the Aulor, but time was.

He was a young Aulor, maybe one hundred years old, maybe a little more, but he had chosen to lose track of the years since they did not matter so much anymore. Some Aulors had perfect sense of time, but he didn't, and was glad for it. Years only reminded him of the things he lost, the friends who fell to their age, and the children who grew elderly as he remained constant. He was a phantom, dancing lightly through time while time never danced with him in return. The curse of an Aulor was to never age, never grow old, but also to always love and always be hurt because of it.

The inky black and starry mist saturated his skin until he was coated in a dark embrace. They painted him with their glittering light. It was the space between the stars which intrigued him, the nihility of oblivion, but he tried not to think about why. It still stung his heart to remember, so he focused on the brightness of the stars instead of the vast nothingness embracing them.