Creative Corner

Uh. So. I had some ideas for lore for my lair as a whole, so that's going to go here. If you have any comments, questions, or critique, you can shoot me a private message, say something on my clan profile, or find me on discord. This is forever a wip [rule] [center][size=7][font=fantasy]CHARACTERS SO FAR[/font][/size][/center] [columns][img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/portraits/455240/45523975p.png[/img] CAESREN [nextcol] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/portraits/455240/45523976p.png[/img] TAIGAN

[center][size=7][font=fantasy]PROLOGUE[/font][/size][/center] On days like this, with the sun beating down with no remorse, and water scarce, you think that the Scarred Wasteland is much like the Ashfall Waste. Dry. Arid. Barren. You've been walking for days now. The Wandering Contagion is miles behind you, and Rotrock Rim years ahead. You can't remember the last time you even saw water. You can't remember the last time you ate. You can't remember the last time you had the luxury of rest. The one thing you do remember, even in the delirium of emaciation and thirst, is your God. You remember the glowing red eyes and rotting skin. You remember the stench of death and decay. You remember the bone-chilling grin as she brings you into existence. Your name is CAESREN, and you have been brought into existence by the PLAGUEBRINGER. What will you do? [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=45523975] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/455240/45523975_350.png[/img] [/url]

[center][size=7][font=fantasy]CHAPTER 1 WANDERING THE WASTELAND[/font][/size][/center] [center][img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/portraits/455240/45523975p.png[/img] CAESREN[/center] You decide to keep going. What self-respecting daughter of the Plaguebringer would be daunted by vacuous conditions like hunger and dehydration? Being lost is not a good enough excuse to succumb. You will endure. Again, the grinning visage of the Plaguebringer surfaces in your mind. Her horns are sharp, and her teeth sharper. She looks proud. As if your determination reached Her deep in the Wyrmwound. As if your very thoughts were accessible to Her, as if She can read you like an open book. The thought is more comforting than it is invasive. You feel Her magic coursing through you, volatile and untamed. You don't have the ability to harness it. The native fauna channeled Her will through spells of rot. You can only soldier on as Her Plagues failed to harm you. Other dragons mastered the art of twisting their magics to fester everything it touches. You can only breathe in the faint mist from the Wyrmwound, unharmed as it slowly corrodes the lungs of every living creature not able to endure. Sometimes, you wonder if the Plaguebringer favored you less among her many children. After all, you can only roam immune to her Plague. With each day you wander, you see animals sheathing their claws in viruses that felled beasts twice as large as they were. You see dragons who spread contagion by merely brushing they claws against the earth. Sometimes, you question if the Plaguebringer wanted you or not. Your thoughts are always quelled each night, with the visage of the Plaguebringer staring into your soul. Her eyes ever red, grin ever terrifying. In your dreams, you stand at the center of Her contagion, watching the festering landscape shift and twist. Lesser dragons fall under the sickness, even as you stand tall and adamant. Each morning, doubt seeps back into your mind as you resume a futile search for your purpose in Sornieth. You learned how to fight, how to kill, how to defend yourself and whatever food you happen to find. Any fauna you encounter is immediately killed and consumed. Any lone dragons you find is fought in a vicious battle of fangs and claws. Any large group of roving dragons you avoid. You learned when to fight and when to back away. You have enough scars in the years you spent wandering the Boneyard. You walk alone. That is, until you felt a pulse of magical energy so strong that it launched you backwards, driving you into the ground. The Plaguebringer's aura intensified, the mist thickening until everything was coloured red. Whatever surviving plants immediately withered brown, any animals convulsed and dropped as thousands of infections rooted in their bodies. Only you remain, struggling to stand as everything around you died. The aura only grew stronger, the rot spreading faster. It took you precious seconds to right yourself into a standing position. And then you ran.

[center][size=7][font=fantasy]CHAPTER 2 RED[/font][/size][/center] She calls to you. Beckoning. Beckoning. Her voice is like honey, dripping from her lips much like the violent mist she churns in her Wyrmwound. You have been awakened inside a nest of green and red. Dried leaves and poisonous mushrooms surround you as you unfurl your wings and stand, eyes adjusting to the light. Soft ground cling to your legs like chains, desperate to keep you slumbering. You don't know just how long you've been asleep, but you really don't want to sink back into the loamy soil. Dregs of the earth stain every inch of you, sapping your strength and hindering your mobility. Although you are conscious, you feel as if you have not completely awoken, like parts of yourself remain buried in the mud. Your memory seems to be the part that the Wasteland claimed. You can't remember anything. You know you're in the Abiding Boneyard, and you know that you are a son of the Plaguebringer. Though none of it is through your own memory. It is through the whispers in your mind, a voice inside your head that refuses to leave you alone. She speaks, and you listen. Her voice like sharp teeth on bone, and the sweet taste of flesh after a long trek without having a single bite. She calls, and She beckons. She gives you commands that you can only barely interpret. "Walk," She orders imperiously. "Come to Me. Walk. Walk. Walk." Despite your mind being in a haze after waking from your slumber, you obey, like your body is being puppeteered by someone else. The nest you were kept in was secluded. Although it was as dead as the rest of the landscape surrounding you, the Mist that pervaded every corner of this Wasteland curved around it, as if the nest you were in protected you from the vapor that would undoubtedly corrupt anything it touched. An image forms in your mind: A great Wyrm, sitting amongst bones and rotten flesh, a Goddess of Decay that furthered growth by weeding out the weak. She smiles at you, her teeth stained red. Again, the voice stirs up in your mind and this time, you see the Wyrm's fanged maw move with the words. "Come to me." She stretches her wings, and releases a cloud of red mist with the gesture. "Accept my gift." You see less and less of the landscape in front of you as your mind blacks out, filled with images of Her. She is all that you see. Her wings, Her eyes, Her teeth. She breaths a cloud of noxious gas that rapidly creeps towards you, climbing your legs, coiling around your neck, tangling itself with your soul. It embraces you. You feel a surge of power. Rotten, grotesque, it wells up inside you like a dam about to burst. The Plaguebringer's image wavers as you yourself breathe out the red gas that she enveloped you with. Her body fades from your mind, and the Abiding Boneyard makes itself known again. It is redder than you remembered, and the thick mist that once avoided you grips you tightly. Even though you were the one releasing the contagion, you feel yourself sway under the immense magical pressure. The red mist covers the area like a blanket of rot. It killed the plants and animals, dragons collapsed under the sheer weight, water turned green and bubbled with disease. Your power only increased. You can't control it. The Plaguebringer vanished completely from your mind. She left only her voice behind, whispering commands you could no longer hear as you drowned in your newfound power. The last thing you heard before the magic knocked you unconscious was the Plaguebringer whispering your name. "Taigan." [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=45523976] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/455240/45523976_350.png[/img] [/url]

[center][size=7][font=fantasy]CHAPTER 3 THE BINDING OF FATES[/font][/size][/center] [center][img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/portraits/455240/45523975p.png[/img] CAESREN[/center] It was only when you noticed the bubbling green pustules that erupted from the ground that you realized that the Plague mist was going to destroy the Scarred Wasteland. Even Plague's denizens can't withstand it. The flow of magic was too constant, too unmitigated, that even those born of rot withered away. All except you. You stood firm, rushing headfirst into the mist. It tried to kill you. Tendrils of smoke so thick they might as well be solid curled around your ankles. They tugged, and sank low to the ground, hoping to bring you down with them. Like iron chains, they weighed you down. More than once did you stumble, but you never let yourself hit the ground. Somewhere, you knew, that once you fell, you'd never get back up. Your body would corrode and fester until it was nothing but a pile of bones. Your claws dug into the earth, your tail propelled you forward, and your wings heavily beat against the mist, driving it back as you continue running. The very ground rots. You need to stop the cause before it turns the only home you've ever known into dust. The mist thickened as you ran for the center. Even as you violently flap your wings, it refused to move. You're forced to slow down and walk. The mist became more persistent. It clawed at you now, digging into your skin, your scales. It wrapped around your neck like a vice, bound your wings tight to your body. It was as if the mist tried to keep you from approaching its maker. Which meant that you were close. But instead of a large shadowy beast as you expected, you merely find a small, unmoving body. It slumped onto the ground, its wings wrapped tight around it like a cocoon. It was like you. He was like you. His hair was splayed out, like he just dropped in the middle of a walk. His eyes clenched shut. Red mist poured from his open mouth. The same red mist that threatened to turn the Wasteland to dust. He had to die. You lunged, hand aimed for his heart. Your claws were sharp. Sharper than beastclan weapons, sharp enough to pierce through flesh and tear through the wings that shielded him. The mist dragged your hand to the left. Instead of his heart, your hand buried in the dirt beside his head. A red scratch blooms on his pale skin as your claws grazed his shoulder. You pulled your hand back, ready to try again. But the mist stopped spreading. The tendrils wrapped around your body fell away like branches of a tree. The oppressive weight disappeared. And slowly, the mist began to part. It moved slowly, billowing out like lazy red clouds. You watched, mesmerized as the mist that seemed so intent on corroding everything it touched fade out of existence. Once every trace of mist faded, you turned back. And you freeze. Blood-red eyes stared at you, unflinching. The wound you inflicted on his shoulder had long since healed, leaving behind a jagged scar. He tilted his head, eyes boring into yours. Looking for something. Then, he smiled. Vicious and gleeful. "Caesren. You found me."

[center][size=7][font=fantasy]CHAPTER 3 I KNOW ABOUT WHISPERS[/font][/size][/center] [center][img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/portraits/455240/45523976p.png[/img] TAIGAN [/center] Your shoulder stings. The pulsing magic energy inside your sealed it up seconds after you awoke, but it still hurts. Caesren has sharp claws. She's angrier than you expected, too. The Plaguebringer warned you as you wandered the Wasteland, Her image flickering in your mind's eye, that Caesren is dangerous. She is capricious, unpredictable. She could love something completely, to the point where it stole all her attention, and utterly loathe it within the span of a day, sometimes even less. She is distrustful. Maybe it was because she was born in a world where it was kill or be killed, or maybe it was because she has been betrayed one too many times. You don't really know. But most importantly, the Plaguebringer warned you about Caesren's very nature. There is nothing in all of Sornieth that was even half as aggressive as she. So you weren't even surprised when she leaped towards you, claws tipped forward. Even with your awareness, she still moved faster. Her claws tore three lines into your wings. Again, the magic pulsed in you, red energy crawling over the membrane of your wing and knitting it back together before you even managed to stand up straight again. Your wing aches. Aiming low, Caesren slashed at your feet. You jump in the air, wings unfurling to carry you into the air. Without hesitating, Caesren followed you in the air. She's not as maneuverable as you in flight. But what she lacks in accuracy, she makes up for in tenacity. She attacks viciously, never giving you enough room to back away. You were confident that she would recognize your shared origins, realize that the Plaguebringer brought you two together for a reason. You lose a little bit of that confidence each time you narrowly avoid her claws. "Wait!" you cry desperately. Caesren might not know why she's here, why she found you. She needs to know. And you would really like it if she didn't rake those claws over your skin. Caesren, however, didn't seem to care. She pressed on, steadily gaining distance on you through sheer force of will. That's what you like about her; the drive and passion and unbridled lust to survive. She saw you as a threat. It's honestly kind of flattering, and you can't help but grin in pride. Caesren was immune to your magic, and you will absolutely die if you tried to fight her physically. The fact that she saw you as an enemy she needed to beat in order to preserve herself was really endearing. (Not so much when she finally caught up with you and knocked you back to the ground with just a single swipe of her tail.) You crashed to the ground wings first. Any damage you might have gotten was quickly healed by your magic, and you quickly jumped away as Caesren dove after you. Her claws gouged deep scars in the earth. "Caesren listen to me!" you try again. She snarled and swept her tail up in a circle. Dust flew in your eyes, and you just barely managed to avoid those vicious claws of hers. The Plaguebringer whispered in your mind again. Once, her presence would have been overwhelming, enough to choke out all your senses and incapacitate you just by speaking in your head. Now, you had to strain to even hear her murmurs. It made you sluggish, and Caesren capitalized on that. You dodge too late, and while your magic helped keep you alive, it still hurt. With an enraged yell, Caesren grabbed you by the arm and slammed you into the ground. Before you could move away, she was on you, pinning you down and those claws were barreling straight for your heart. "I know the Plague Mother spoke to you!" you cry out in panic. The change was...mesmerizing. In an instant, her hand stilled, mere inches from your neck. The very tip of her claw grazed your skin, but she moved no further. Her eyes, burning red with rage, dulled to confusion. She looked lost. Caesren darted away from you as though she was burned, her wings circled around her protectively, and her tail wrapped around her legs in an uneasy coil. She glared at you, but it had no bite. "What do you know about the Plaguebringer?" Her voice was soft. "She speaks to me -spoke to me," you hastily correct yourself. "I know your name because she told me. About you." Caesren didn't help you up, but she didn't attack either. Progress! You quickly stand up and beam. (Your tail might have wagged just slightly, but shush.) Caesren doesn't respond, so you continue. "I see her in my mind, during the day, when I'm walking. She told me to find you, so here I am! I'm Taigan. That's all I really know about myself. She told me that, my name, but nothing else. I was hoping you'd know more. Maybe she speaks to you more?" You don't know why. Maybe you said something wrong, or maybe you didn't say what she wanted to hear. Whatever the reason, Caesren's face contorted into what you can only describe as overwhelming fury. You want to run. When you tried to, however, you found that you couldn't. For the first time in your life, you were afraid. And you stood paralyzed as Caesren stalked towards you with murder in her eyes and glistening fangs bared.