Dust stepped unhurriedly through the archway and into the light of Aun, his drake-like feet barely making a sound on the warm stone floor.  He offered a cursory glance around the room.  Aett, Ceyr, Hades, representatives of all, preening and dancing around one another with their powerful words and furtive gazes.  Dust recognized Danives, who sometimes accompanied him on his endless path; and another, Hiraga, one of the oldest gods whose pitying eyes he felt on him in centuries past.

He turned away and took a seat, his short stature making his legs hang some ways from the floor.  Dust drew his ashen sword from the loop in his belt.  He turned it in the light of the sun, the cracks weaving an intricate pattern in the burnt wood, glowing as the cooled embers within reflected the light without.  He thought of the time, ages ago, when he found it in the ruins of a castle from a civilization long-dead.  It was a curious thing, short enough for him to wield and in one piece, burnt to ash as it was.  He knew its history of course, as he knew all blasted vistas and desolate ruins of his wastelands, but much of it was for him alone, as a keeper of the dead places of his world.

He placed it sideways on the table before him as a silent display of disarmament.  They were there to discuss the fate of the worlds, hopefully without weapons in hand.