Creative Corner

4251

October 11, 2019 22:41:39

Stories from Il Mheg
vignettes and shorts from the Kingdom of Rainbows

>(lair tab link)<

> The Kingdom

Court of Faeries wrote:

"Created and ruled by the whimsical and capricious child king, Eve, other spiral hatchlings who meet untimely demises frequently wake upon its verdant coastline and find themselves joyfully welcomed into the trickster's lordship. Adult dragons are banned from living within the dreamsphere, but with the aid of a trusted guide may enter to trade for its plentiful magical reagents.

They come at their own risk, of course--these are neither hatchlings nor dragons anymore. These are fey."

> The Fey

His Eternal Majesty, Lord Eve wrote:

The founder. No dragon to ever set foot within his realm has been able to learn a thing about the mysterious spiral--from his origins to his true name. Despite an ego befitting a much larger dragon than himself, an immense appetite for mischief, and near godlike magical prowess, he appears content to keep his kingdom in isolation--leaving his subjects free to wile away their endless days playing games and tricks on anyone unlucky enough to stumble within its borders.

Atlas

Wendy

Callan

Saya

Fleur

Ronno

Sebastian

Errol

Pluto

Alistair

Charlie

Velvet

Jevel

Lark

Siobhan

Tomas

Gwynne

Kai

Piper

Rory

Merrin

Elody

Bijou

Lysette

Aleksi

Silas

Tyr

Soren

Ruby

Anais

Of Subjects and Secrets wrote:

The fey dragons who make the Kingdom their home are a varied bunch. They maintain both the innocence and detached cruelty of young children, but being long-lived and possessing a wealth of experience with mortals from the outside world means many of them also lack the naivety that can temper the sharp edges of such things. Some can be shockingly witty, with barbed tongues and colorful vocabularies that would put a sailor to shame. Some are well-read, prodigies in their former lives. Still others behave in the way a hatchling ostensibly ought, but what variety of dragon a traveler encounters is down to luck. (And, often, the extent of their own manners.)

You see, while the ranks of Il Mheg are bloated with souls both old and new, when outsiders are permitted to enter the Kingdom there are a handful of its people who have come to think of themselves as the 'welcoming committee.' They run the gamut from amicable to outright dangerous to treat with, and even those who aren't usually disagreeable are mercurial enough to cause serious harm if they feel slighted or even just 'bored' that day. Because of this, visitors are advised to treat each and every denizen of the dreamsphere with utmost caution.

Members of the Kingdom lose their memory upon joining the ranks of the Fey, as they have no need of mortal memories or the baggage that comes with them when they're no longer mortal, themselves. Despite this, King Eve is candid about their origins if they ask. Most don't care--the past has no bearing on the present in Il Mheg. They live only for the pleasure of the moment and don't make plans or look back the way mortals do. Some find the knowledge a novelty, if only because visitors to the kingdom tend to react in entertaining ways when it's laid out in such a blasé manner.

Still others, mostly those who died slightly older, are aware on a surface level of the tragedy in which many of their former lives were steeped. While in a mortal dragon this would create a thread of emotional connection to others through things like empathy, they exist now unbound by such altruistic impulses. They can and will leverage the feelings of softer-hearted mortals for their own amusement. While guides will do their best to prepare travelers for the possibility if they seem likely to fall into such a trap, the fey themselves take such joy in having fresh "outsiders" to "play" with that ill-suited visitors are often allowed to pass into Il Mheg with no expectation that they'll return to the dragon who showed them the way.

Conversely, though, those few and far between who are able to abide by the rules and leave a positive impression on the spirals of the Kingdom may find themselves invited back. Knowing when this is an earnest offer of a job as a guide and when this is a ploy to encourage a dragon to remain forever is, of course, tantamount to survival, as selfishness is another trait shared by most of the citizens of Il Mheg.

Whyever would they want to lose a newly treasured plaything to the outside world, after all?

> The Trade System

A Land of Plenty wrote:

The spirals of Il Mheg have little use for crafting materials and reagents beyond what they can use to get up to mischief or fulfill their fickle wants. Despite this, the Kingdom's very existence encourages the growth and proliferation of numerous magically-charged resources that dragons inclined toward arcanima are willing to pay a hefty price to obtain. Moreover, because the inhabitants have little use for many of them, they're more than willing to trade with outsiders for things that are of comparatively little worth when it comes to coin.

Of course, this also means their price is sometimes a thing immaterial or borderline impossible to obtain. Would-be traders would do well to prepare for any eventuality when seeking out reagents in the Kingdom. Just in case.

Following the Stars wrote:

Because the Kingdom exists in a dreamsphere borderline separate from earthly Sornieth, the only dragons who can reach it except by accident are those who already know where it is. These trusted few eke out a living as guides, ferrying non-subjects to and from Il Mheg to trade with its people.

Visitors are advised to heed any advice the guides have for them, as most dragons who enter these strange lands never leave. Those who follow the strict and numerous rules impressed upon them can find their stay within the Kingdom downright pleasant, or at the very least not particularly harrowing. They may return empty-handed, but their hands will still be attached and in the same place they were when they entered the portal. The fates that befall more stubborn dragons are best left to the imagination.

"Take only as much as is taken. Create as much as is destroyed. Give as much as is received. And for the love of all that's holy, don't eat the food!"

Story Quicklinks:

The Unlucky Traveler
World to World
Prometheus
The First of Many

X art assets courtesy of PoisonedPaper
X based loosely on the zone & lore of 'Il Mheg' from FFXIV

Last edited on May 17, 2022 18:53:53 by cantrip

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/8yKVbQ8.png[/img] [columns] [nextcol][img]https://i.imgur.com/dUPSoxg.png[/img][nextcol][center][b][size=6]The Unlucky Traveler[/size][/b] [i][size=3]or, How Not to Treat With Fairies[/size][/i][nextcol][img]https://i.imgur.com/sQKCxPM.png[/img][/columns] [img]https://i.imgur.com/F3A6KS8.png[/img][/center] [size=2][center][b]Onward[/b][/center] [size=2]"...and remember, regardless of what they look like, treat them as equals. Dangerous equals. Superiors, even, if it helps you remember to [i]be as polite as possi[/i]--" "Right right right. This is the hundredth time you've said that," the skydancer grouses, shouldering his burgeoning pack more comfortably and glaring daggers at the brightly-colored nocturne leading him along through the woods. They had been walking for two days, and his poor talons were aching and crusted-over with dust. At this point he couldn't care less about the thousand-and-one rules his guide had been rattling off since they set out--he just wanted to [i]find[/i] the darned place. "It's just as important the hundredth time," the nocturne, Pierrot, assures him, "Especially considering I've bent my own policy here not taking payment up front." "Pardon the bluntness, but it's because I don't trust any of this one iota," the skydancer replies through his teeth. "I've heard of the place, but it all reads as--frankly--absurd. Magical portals. Dragons that are actually fairies. I'm not here to get shaken down for my last bit of treasure and left for dead; I'm here to collect the reward for those herbs, and I don't care if they grow here or there or on the Icewarden's fuzzy back end. In fact, I don't plan on meeting [i]anybody at all[/i] while I'm there. And to give you and yours good reason to show me back, the coin will come after." He can feel Pierrot's eyes on him, boring holes in the back of his head, and is about to speak up again when he hears him sigh. "Very good, Mister Pollux." -- They travel in silence, then, until the wan light making it through the leaves turns silver and Pollux's legs are threatening to give out beneath him. Twice the nocturne had tapped his shoulder and held out a glass bottle, sloshing with some sort of bright pink draught that was ostensibly to help prevent just that, since he'd been sipping on one the entire length of their trip and hadn't paused to rest even once. Twice the skydancer had refused, glaring with eyes full of mistrust. He had, of course, heard the stories. The reason for the hefty sack of treasure on offer for anyone brave enough to make the trip to this... this 'Il Mheg' for herbs. Supposedly the last few fools who set out after them had yet to turn back up. Supposedly the next few were expected not to, either. It's while he's mulling this over once again that his guide calls him to a halt, startling him back to reality in front of... something. Sitting at the end of the overgrown path, an ovular shape rises from crudely-carved stairs. The portal is woven of scrawny, dried-out green vines that look out of place against the almost blue color of the native flora, and closed flowerbuds droop here and there along its circumference. At the foot of the stairs, a worn clay bowl sits empty but for a scattering of dead, dry leaves. "...We came all this way for [i]this?[/i]" he asks incredulously, one foreclaw immediately reaching for his pack--for the knife he had been told time and time again not to bring, but now felt glad to have. "Well of course it doesn't look like much [i]now[/i]. It isn't open yet," the nocturne chides, and scuttles forward in that strange, unbalanced way that nocturnes do. He, too, is reaching for something in his pack. Pollux catches a glimpse of a vial full of glowing blue liquid before it's upended into the little bowl. He can't see what else Pierrot draws out, but he adds two more reagents and gives the whole thing a good swirl before he sets it back down at the foot of the steps. For a moment, nothing happens. Pollux again itches to grab his weapon. And then... It's as though the Gladekeeper herself has blessed the vines. They swell to life like writhing snakes, the buds all popping open to reveal flowers in colors he's never seen before in his life. Glowing beads of pollen drip from them and begin to drift through the air--and the space within the circle begins to warp. The trees on the other side dance as though in a heat haze, and then vanish in favor of a different landscape all together. "Pillar shards," he rasps, eyes wide. In the land through the portal, the sun still shines. Tall, verdant grasses sway in the wind across hills that seem to stretch for miles, dotted hither and tither with trees colored candy pink and blue and purple and orange and every color but what they ought to be. The very air seems to shimmer with pastel shades. "Il Mheg," Pierrot says, bowing his head and stepping to the side. "I'll make camp here. You have two days, and then I'll be giving you up for lost and making my way back without you." "I won't need two days," Pollux snaps, adjusting his pack once more and striding all the way to the top of the rough-hewn stairs to peer at the portal face-to-face. If it's illusion magic, it's [i]good[/i] illusion magic. This close he can smell the sunny grass. "One last time, if you'd let me--because the rules in the Kingdom are different from--" Pierrot starts. "Oh, enough with the [i]rules[/i]! I've heard them all a dozen times over! Just wait here. I'll be in and out by morning at most." And Pollux charges through the portal with a snarl over his shoulder. ----- [br] [center][b]Inward[/b][/center] [size=2]He's not sure what he was expecting, stepping through, but the other side feels bizarrely [i]normal[/i] once he's passed beyond the portal. The sun has warmed the stairs on this side. The breeze carries the scent of wildflowers. Pollux looks warily over his shoulder only to see the nocturne on the other side of the portal beginning to gather up sticks for a fire. Two days, indeed. He reaches into his pack and withdraws the scrap of paper he had taken notes on when he'd offered to make the trip--just a few lines. Pierrot's contact information. The professor's. Some directions to this pond where the plants supposedly grow. It had felt so shady, before, and he's oddly unsettled at the idea that the whole thing could truly be above-board. That would mean all the stories were true, after all. The skydancer shivers despite the sun, and sets out at a meandering walk. "Right," he tells himself, "Get it together, you great turkey. Pick some flowers, leave some candy, come back, get rich. Easy." And for a time, it is. He treks slowly, taking time to compare landmarks with his notes. Il Mheg is more beautiful than he could have imagined--even the grass is kissed with shades of this color, that color. Fat bees buzz between the wildflowers, and even in the daylight he can see the luminescence of the pollen coating their fluffy rears, marking them with purple and orange and yellow and blue. One flower in particular catches his attention: an orchid, sitting in the shade of a tree, whose petals seem to color shift as he watches, flowing between the whole visible spectrum and half hypnotizing him. He hadn't intended to take souvenirs, but it's just [i]so beautiful.[/i] His mind flashes to home--to a pearly-scaled coworker whose mane would just look so lovely with a flower like that tied in it. [i]"Take only what you've come for,"[/i] Pierrot's voice echos in his head, [i]"And be prepared to pay for it.[/i] "Tch. No one is even here," he mumbles to himself, strolling right on over to the foot of the tree and plucking the orchid right off at the stem. He's tucking it away in his pack when a voice startles him so badly he trips over his own feet and lands in the grass. "Stop! Who goes there?!" a high voice demands from above. Pollux's eyes dart around until they find the source--and immediately all the tension flows right out of him. He grins up at the little green-and-brown spiral hatchling coiled on a low-slung branch above him, brandishing perhaps the world's tiniest rapier. [i]"They aren't hatchlings, at least, not anymore."[/i] "Gave me a scare there, kiddo," he laughs, brushing himself off and shaking out his wings and feathers as he stands back up. The spiral unwinds himself, all six wings fluttering, and he descends to begin circling around the skydancer with eyes narrowed critically. "Outsider!" he hisses, "What are you doing here?" Fully charmed by his would-be intimidator, Pollux chuckles and waves a dismissive talon. "Never you mind, junior. I'm on business." [i]"They're fairies, through and through."[/i] The rapier is, quite suddenly, poked directly under his chin. He finds himself face-to-face with the little spiral. "Come to parley, have you?!" The end of the rapier is so blunt it does little more than separate his feathers. He arches a brow, and the spiral glowers at him, all but vibrating in indignation before turning and yelling up at the treetop instead. "Fleur! Fleur, this big, ugly outsider took one of your orchids and he's not scared of my sword!" Pollux's attention flits back to the tree, from whose leafy canopy another figure descends--this one much more serpentine and graceful. Another diminutive spiral, this one with scales to match the stolen flower and wide orange eyes. "Ronno, it's not a real sword," she tells her comrade, voice so soft and quiet Pollux struggles to hear it, "No one is scared of it." While he pouts, the one called Fleur settles herself on the ground next to the orchid's broken stem, and frowns deeply. When her eyes find him again, Pollux feels the short hairs of his mane bristle up. "You didn't ask if you could take my flowers." There's a deeply unsettling edge in her voice. The skydancer clears his throat and sets about shifting his bag around for want of an excuse not to look at her. "It's a flower. You'll grow more. Listen--I wasn't joking. I'm here on business--trade. I've been sent to, uh, give... uhh..." She hasn't stopped staring at him. He can feel her eyes like hands resting on him. Ronno, too, is now watching him again, and he squirms under their combined scrutiny. "Listen. Is there anybody, y'know, older, that I can speak to? We can work something out for the flower while I'm trading for what I need, all right?" Immediately, the little boy pipes up. "Older? I can take you to someone older, yeah! Come with me! Fleur, when I come back I'll help you plant more flowers, okay??" "Okay." -- If listening to Pierrot had been bad, listening to Ronno is an entirely new level of suffering. The spiral hasn't paused for so much as a breath since they started over the hills. "--real sword. Of course it's not a real sword! King Eve doesn't allow real weapons into the Kingdom. But it [i]looks[/i] like a real sword, and sometimes that's good enough, right? Like you were surprised, right? I hope you have something good in your bag, because Fleur loves her flowers. I help her plant them all over the hills when I'm not practicing fencing! That's what the funny sword is for, by the way. I don't know if it's still a thing you guys do outside here. I picked it up because I wanted to impress Fleur, but the thing is... she's way, waaaay better at it than I am. You're lucky it wasn't her who had it when you came past, because real or not she would have drubbed you good!" "Shade take me," Pollux mutters to himself, trying to block the words out. "What was that?" His patience worn thin, he opens his mouth to snap when Ronno lets out a gleeful cheer and zips ahead. "Up here, Outsider! They're up here!" The idea of speaking with another adult is enough to glue his mouth shut, and Pollux hurries up to the crest of the hill where his new guide has paused. "Uh-oh, they're busy..." Down where the hills become flat, sitting at the edge of a lily pond, another pair of spiral hatchlings is busy playing what looks like a very intense version of chess. Ronno motions him to come forward in silence, and, taken aback as he is, he follows along. -- "Aaaand that's check-mate!" the pale blue one declares, snatching her opponent's king (a delicately-carved obsidian pearlcatcher) right off the board and cracking it in half with her hands. "Wendy!" the other groans, "Do you [i]have[/i] to break them every time? We're going to have to get a whole new set. [i]Again![/i]" "The winner kills the enemy's king! I [i]have[/i] to break him. If I just put him in the gaol he might cause a riot and try to unseat the king that won," Wendy answers cheerfully, going so far as to bring her thick tail down on the broken halves of the king and shattering it into even more pieces. "Learn how to lose better, Callan." The disgraced spiral curls his lip and shows her his teeth, middle set of wings flapping angrily. "Next time I win, I'm going to take every single piece I capture and break them all into pebbles. Sharp ones. And I'm going to line your nest with them." Wendy cackles. "You'd better find a new king someplace, first." "--hey!" Pollux starts as Ronno's little talons snatch one of his and begin dragging him bodily down the hill. The two others turn sharply to stare up at the pair of them with annoyance writ across both faces. "Outsider, this is Wendy and Callan. Wendy, Callan, me and Fleur found this outsider picking flowers in the field! He said he wanted to talk to someone older, so I brought him to you guys." Ronno turns and grins triumphantly at Pollux. "Wendy and Callan were the oldest when they died, and they've been here the longest other than King Eve!" "Ronno, why are you touching that thing?" Callan spits, rising to his feet and staring up at the skydancer with disdain. "Fleur won't hold hands with you anymore if you get yours gross like that." "'That [i]thing[/i]'?! Now listen here, you brats, I--" Pollux begins, only to find his mouth suddenly stuck shut. Eyes wide and pulse hammering, he tries in vain to pry it open with his claws, only to be spun around on the spot to face the little group coming down the hill on the other side. -- The little pearly one, Fleur, flutters in the air at the side of yet another spiral--this one donning a tiny golden crown and circus diamonds on one side of his face. All at once the rest of the dragons around him drop into stately bows. Suddenly, he thinks, he may have gotten in well and truly over his head. "Euch, 'thing' is right," the King says, settling on all fours in the grass and giving Pollux a thorough looking-over. The skydancer, incensed, tries to reach for his bag only to have his limbs locked in place along with his jaws. The crowned spiral hums thoughtfully and then tilts his head at the pack, at which point the elder pair of hatchlings rise and take it right off Pollux's shoulders. They set it down before the King with reverence and back away rather than turn from him. "Let's see what you brought with you to give Fleur for killing one of her flowers! It had better be something worth it--those orchids take a hundred years to bloom!" Pollux swallows thickly as his belongings are upturned and dumped on the grass--the orchid, lightly crushed, his notebooks, the jars of sweets, the satchel for collecting the herbs... and his knife. "I should take your head, Outsider. You're not using it anyway!" the King howls with laughter, reaching out and snatching the little blade up. "If you came to trade with us that means someone showed you the way! That means you [i]knew[/i] about the rules." The knife's blade begins to glow, first lightly red, then orange, yellow, finally a dazzling blue as all the metal of it hisses and sputters and melts. "Outsiders don't get to bring weapons into [i]my[/i] kingdom. And they definitely don't get to steal!" The skydancer's eyes are wide. His heart is in his throat. The rules. Pierrot had been so insistent, so repetitive, hammering them home again and again and again... "Fleur," the King speaks again, finally, when the last of the knife's blade has evaporated and only the wooden handle remains. "It was you he stole from. You can pick what you want him to do for you if he wants to leave." Pollux locks his gaze with hers, pleading silently for mercy. "Well..." Beads of sweat are trickling down the leathery skin of his wings. "I think he should have to play with us." His whole body sags with relief. Games. Of course it would just be games. The King's spell flees from him and he crumples into a heap. "Games. Yeah. Right. Okay. What kind of games?" "Whatever they want," the King tells him boredly, already turning and beginning to walk back the way he'd come. In the far-off distance, Pollux can see a castle of shining ivory. "I have an idea!" Wendy declares, leaning over and draping a wing over Fleur to tug her close. The two girls whisper awhile, and try as he might the skydancer can't make out a word until they break apart. "Okay," Fleur says, smiling softly, "Outsider, Wendy wants you to play chess with her and Callan." "Chess? But that's only two peo--oh. Oh no." His eyes fall on their board. Each and every piece is so lovingly detailed that here, up close, he can still see the looks of horror on the dragons' faces. "No..." He scrambles to his feet even as the spirals form a little half-circle around him. "No..." His arms fly up to protect himself. Wendy's eyes begin to glow. "NO!" ----- [br] [center][b]And Never to Return[/b][/center] [size=2]"Check!" Wendy announces with delight, waggling her queen--an ivory imperial--and setting it down near to Callan's black king. [/size][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/8yKVbQ8.png[/img][/center]

cantrip

4251

October 12, 2019 01:09:07

The Unlucky Traveler
or, How Not to Treat With Fairies

Onward

"...and remember, regardless of what they look like, treat them as equals. Dangerous equals. Superiors, even, if it helps you remember to be as polite as possi--"

"Right right right. This is the hundredth time you've said that," the skydancer grouses, shouldering his burgeoning pack more comfortably and glaring daggers at the brightly-colored nocturne leading him along through the woods. They had been walking for two days, and his poor talons were aching and crusted-over with dust. At this point he couldn't care less about the thousand-and-one rules his guide had been rattling off since they set out--he just wanted to find the darned place.

"It's just as important the hundredth time," the nocturne, Pierrot, assures him, "Especially considering I've bent my own policy here not taking payment up front."

"Pardon the bluntness, but it's because I don't trust any of this one iota," the skydancer replies through his teeth. "I've heard of the place, but it all reads as--frankly--absurd. Magical portals. Dragons that are actually fairies. I'm not here to get shaken down for my last bit of treasure and left for dead; I'm here to collect the reward for those herbs, and I don't care if they grow here or there or on the Icewarden's fuzzy back end. In fact, I don't plan on meeting anybody at all while I'm there. And to give you and yours good reason to show me back, the coin will come after."

He can feel Pierrot's eyes on him, boring holes in the back of his head, and is about to speak up again when he hears him sigh.

"Very good, Mister Pollux."

--

They travel in silence, then, until the wan light making it through the leaves turns silver and Pollux's legs are threatening to give out beneath him. Twice the nocturne had tapped his shoulder and held out a glass bottle, sloshing with some sort of bright pink draught that was ostensibly to help prevent just that, since he'd been sipping on one the entire length of their trip and hadn't paused to rest even once. Twice the skydancer had refused, glaring with eyes full of mistrust.

He had, of course, heard the stories. The reason for the hefty sack of treasure on offer for anyone brave enough to make the trip to this... this 'Il Mheg' for herbs. Supposedly the last few fools who set out after them had yet to turn back up.

Supposedly the next few were expected not to, either.

It's while he's mulling this over once again that his guide calls him to a halt, startling him back to reality in front of... something.

Sitting at the end of the overgrown path, an ovular shape rises from crudely-carved stairs. The portal is woven of scrawny, dried-out green vines that look out of place against the almost blue color of the native flora, and closed flowerbuds droop here and there along its circumference. At the foot of the stairs, a worn clay bowl sits empty but for a scattering of dead, dry leaves.

"...We came all this way for this?" he asks incredulously, one foreclaw immediately reaching for his pack--for the knife he had been told time and time again not to bring, but now felt glad to have.

"Well of course it doesn't look like much now. It isn't open yet," the nocturne chides, and scuttles forward in that strange, unbalanced way that nocturnes do. He, too, is reaching for something in his pack. Pollux catches a glimpse of a vial full of glowing blue liquid before it's upended into the little bowl. He can't see what else Pierrot draws out, but he adds two more reagents and gives the whole thing a good swirl before he sets it back down at the foot of the steps.

For a moment, nothing happens. Pollux again itches to grab his weapon. And then...

It's as though the Gladekeeper herself has blessed the vines. They swell to life like writhing snakes, the buds all popping open to reveal flowers in colors he's never seen before in his life. Glowing beads of pollen drip from them and begin to drift through the air--and the space within the circle begins to warp. The trees on the other side dance as though in a heat haze, and then vanish in favor of a different landscape all together.

"Pillar shards," he rasps, eyes wide. In the land through the portal, the sun still shines. Tall, verdant grasses sway in the wind across hills that seem to stretch for miles, dotted hither and tither with trees colored candy pink and blue and purple and orange and every color but what they ought to be. The very air seems to shimmer with pastel shades.

"Il Mheg," Pierrot says, bowing his head and stepping to the side.

"I'll make camp here. You have two days, and then I'll be giving you up for lost and making my way back without you."

"I won't need two days," Pollux snaps, adjusting his pack once more and striding all the way to the top of the rough-hewn stairs to peer at the portal face-to-face. If it's illusion magic, it's good illusion magic. This close he can smell the sunny grass.

"One last time, if you'd let me--because the rules in the Kingdom are different from--" Pierrot starts.

"Oh, enough with the rules! I've heard them all a dozen times over! Just wait here. I'll be in and out by morning at most."

And Pollux charges through the portal with a snarl over his shoulder.

Inward

He's not sure what he was expecting, stepping through, but the other side feels bizarrely normal once he's passed beyond the portal. The sun has warmed the stairs on this side. The breeze carries the scent of wildflowers. Pollux looks warily over his shoulder only to see the nocturne on the other side of the portal beginning to gather up sticks for a fire.

Two days, indeed.

He reaches into his pack and withdraws the scrap of paper he had taken notes on when he'd offered to make the trip--just a few lines. Pierrot's contact information. The professor's. Some directions to this pond where the plants supposedly grow. It had felt so shady, before, and he's oddly unsettled at the idea that the whole thing could truly be above-board.

That would mean all the stories were true, after all.

The skydancer shivers despite the sun, and sets out at a meandering walk.

"Right," he tells himself, "Get it together, you great turkey. Pick some flowers, leave some candy, come back, get rich. Easy."

And for a time, it is. He treks slowly, taking time to compare landmarks with his notes. Il Mheg is more beautiful than he could have imagined--even the grass is kissed with shades of this color, that color. Fat bees buzz between the wildflowers, and even in the daylight he can see the luminescence of the pollen coating their fluffy rears, marking them with purple and orange and yellow and blue.

One flower in particular catches his attention: an orchid, sitting in the shade of a tree, whose petals seem to color shift as he watches, flowing between the whole visible spectrum and half hypnotizing him.

He hadn't intended to take souvenirs, but it's just so beautiful. His mind flashes to home--to a pearly-scaled coworker whose mane would just look so lovely with a flower like that tied in it.

"Take only what you've come for," Pierrot's voice echos in his head, "And be prepared to pay for it.

"Tch. No one is even here," he mumbles to himself, strolling right on over to the foot of the tree and plucking the orchid right off at the stem. He's tucking it away in his pack when a voice startles him so badly he trips over his own feet and lands in the grass.

"Stop! Who goes there?!" a high voice demands from above.

Pollux's eyes dart around until they find the source--and immediately all the tension flows right out of him. He grins up at the little green-and-brown spiral hatchling coiled on a low-slung branch above him, brandishing perhaps the world's tiniest rapier.

"They aren't hatchlings, at least, not anymore."

"Gave me a scare there, kiddo," he laughs, brushing himself off and shaking out his wings and feathers as he stands back up.

The spiral unwinds himself, all six wings fluttering, and he descends to begin circling around the skydancer with eyes narrowed critically.

"Outsider!" he hisses, "What are you doing here?"

Fully charmed by his would-be intimidator, Pollux chuckles and waves a dismissive talon.

"Never you mind, junior. I'm on business."

"They're fairies, through and through."

The rapier is, quite suddenly, poked directly under his chin. He finds himself face-to-face with the little spiral.

"Come to parley, have you?!"

The end of the rapier is so blunt it does little more than separate his feathers. He arches a brow, and the spiral glowers at him, all but vibrating in indignation before turning and yelling up at the treetop instead.

"Fleur! Fleur, this big, ugly outsider took one of your orchids and he's not scared of my sword!"

Pollux's attention flits back to the tree, from whose leafy canopy another figure descends--this one much more serpentine and graceful. Another diminutive spiral, this one with scales to match the stolen flower and wide orange eyes.

"Ronno, it's not a real sword," she tells her comrade, voice so soft and quiet Pollux struggles to hear it, "No one is scared of it."

While he pouts, the one called Fleur settles herself on the ground next to the orchid's broken stem, and frowns deeply. When her eyes find him again, Pollux feels the short hairs of his mane bristle up.

"You didn't ask if you could take my flowers."

There's a deeply unsettling edge in her voice. The skydancer clears his throat and sets about shifting his bag around for want of an excuse not to look at her.

"It's a flower. You'll grow more. Listen--I wasn't joking. I'm here on business--trade. I've been sent to, uh, give... uhh..."

She hasn't stopped staring at him. He can feel her eyes like hands resting on him. Ronno, too, is now watching him again, and he squirms under their combined scrutiny.

"Listen. Is there anybody, y'know, older, that I can speak to? We can work something out for the flower while I'm trading for what I need, all right?"

Immediately, the little boy pipes up.

"Older? I can take you to someone older, yeah! Come with me! Fleur, when I come back I'll help you plant more flowers, okay??"

"Okay."

--

If listening to Pierrot had been bad, listening to Ronno is an entirely new level of suffering. The spiral hasn't paused for so much as a breath since they started over the hills.

"--real sword. Of course it's not a real sword! King Eve doesn't allow real weapons into the Kingdom. But it looks like a real sword, and sometimes that's good enough, right? Like you were surprised, right? I hope you have something good in your bag, because Fleur loves her flowers. I help her plant them all over the hills when I'm not practicing fencing! That's what the funny sword is for, by the way. I don't know if it's still a thing you guys do outside here. I picked it up because I wanted to impress Fleur, but the thing is... she's way, waaaay better at it than I am. You're lucky it wasn't her who had it when you came past, because real or not she would have drubbed you good!"

"Shade take me," Pollux mutters to himself, trying to block the words out.

"What was that?"

His patience worn thin, he opens his mouth to snap when Ronno lets out a gleeful cheer and zips ahead.

"Up here, Outsider! They're up here!"

The idea of speaking with another adult is enough to glue his mouth shut, and Pollux hurries up to the crest of the hill where his new guide has paused.

"Uh-oh, they're busy..."

Down where the hills become flat, sitting at the edge of a lily pond, another pair of spiral hatchlings is busy playing what looks like a very intense version of chess. Ronno motions him to come forward in silence, and, taken aback as he is, he follows along.

--

"Aaaand that's check-mate!" the pale blue one declares, snatching her opponent's king (a delicately-carved obsidian pearlcatcher) right off the board and cracking it in half with her hands.

"Wendy!" the other groans, "Do you have to break them every time? We're going to have to get a whole new set. Again!"

"The winner kills the enemy's king! I have to break him. If I just put him in the gaol he might cause a riot and try to unseat the king that won," Wendy answers cheerfully, going so far as to bring her thick tail down on the broken halves of the king and shattering it into even more pieces.

"Learn how to lose better, Callan."

The disgraced spiral curls his lip and shows her his teeth, middle set of wings flapping angrily.

"Next time I win, I'm going to take every single piece I capture and break them all into pebbles. Sharp ones. And I'm going to line your nest with them."

Wendy cackles.

"You'd better find a new king someplace, first."

"--hey!"

Pollux starts as Ronno's little talons snatch one of his and begin dragging him bodily down the hill. The two others turn sharply to stare up at the pair of them with annoyance writ across both faces.

"Outsider, this is Wendy and Callan. Wendy, Callan, me and Fleur found this outsider picking flowers in the field! He said he wanted to talk to someone older, so I brought him to you guys."

Ronno turns and grins triumphantly at Pollux.

"Wendy and Callan were the oldest when they died, and they've been here the longest other than King Eve!"

"Ronno, why are you touching that thing?" Callan spits, rising to his feet and staring up at the skydancer with disdain.

"Fleur won't hold hands with you anymore if you get yours gross like that."

"'That thing'?! Now listen here, you brats, I--" Pollux begins, only to find his mouth suddenly stuck shut. Eyes wide and pulse hammering, he tries in vain to pry it open with his claws, only to be spun around on the spot to face the little group coming down the hill on the other side.

--

The little pearly one, Fleur, flutters in the air at the side of yet another spiral--this one donning a tiny golden crown and circus diamonds on one side of his face. All at once the rest of the dragons around him drop into stately bows.

Suddenly, he thinks, he may have gotten in well and truly over his head.

"Euch, 'thing' is right," the King says, settling on all fours in the grass and giving Pollux a thorough looking-over. The skydancer, incensed, tries to reach for his bag only to have his limbs locked in place along with his jaws. The crowned spiral hums thoughtfully and then tilts his head at the pack, at which point the elder pair of hatchlings rise and take it right off Pollux's shoulders.

They set it down before the King with reverence and back away rather than turn from him.

"Let's see what you brought with you to give Fleur for killing one of her flowers! It had better be something worth it--those orchids take a hundred years to bloom!"

Pollux swallows thickly as his belongings are upturned and dumped on the grass--the orchid, lightly crushed, his notebooks, the jars of sweets, the satchel for collecting the herbs... and his knife.

"I should take your head, Outsider. You're not using it anyway!" the King howls with laughter, reaching out and snatching the little blade up.

"If you came to trade with us that means someone showed you the way! That means you knew about the rules."

The knife's blade begins to glow, first lightly red, then orange, yellow, finally a dazzling blue as all the metal of it hisses and sputters and melts.

"Outsiders don't get to bring weapons into my kingdom. And they definitely don't get to steal!"

The skydancer's eyes are wide. His heart is in his throat. The rules. Pierrot had been so insistent, so repetitive, hammering them home again and again and again...

"Fleur," the King speaks again, finally, when the last of the knife's blade has evaporated and only the wooden handle remains.

"It was you he stole from. You can pick what you want him to do for you if he wants to leave."

Pollux locks his gaze with hers, pleading silently for mercy.

"Well..."

Beads of sweat are trickling down the leathery skin of his wings.

"I think he should have to play with us."

His whole body sags with relief. Games. Of course it would just be games. The King's spell flees from him and he crumples into a heap.

"Games. Yeah. Right. Okay. What kind of games?"

"Whatever they want," the King tells him boredly, already turning and beginning to walk back the way he'd come. In the far-off distance, Pollux can see a castle of shining ivory.

"I have an idea!" Wendy declares, leaning over and draping a wing over Fleur to tug her close. The two girls whisper awhile, and try as he might the skydancer can't make out a word until they break apart.

"Okay," Fleur says, smiling softly, "Outsider, Wendy wants you to play chess with her and Callan."

"Chess? But that's only two peo--oh. Oh no."

His eyes fall on their board. Each and every piece is so lovingly detailed that here, up close, he can still see the looks of horror on the dragons' faces.

"No..."

He scrambles to his feet even as the spirals form a little half-circle around him.

"No..."

His arms fly up to protect himself. Wendy's eyes begin to glow.

"NO!"

And Never to Return

"Check!" Wendy announces with delight, waggling her queen--an ivory imperial--and setting it down near to Callan's black king.

Last edited on Oct 12, 2019 01:35:20 by cantrip

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/8yKVbQ8.png[/img] [columns] [nextcol][img]https://i.imgur.com/dUPSoxg.png[/img][nextcol][center][b][size=6]World to World[/size][/b] [i][size=3]or, Rebirth (TW: Hatchling Death)[/size][/i][nextcol][img]https://i.imgur.com/sQKCxPM.png[/img][/columns] [img]https://i.imgur.com/F3A6KS8.png[/img][/center] [size=2][center][b]Fragile[/b][/center] [size=2]Outside the stone burrow housed deep within their lair, a pair of grown spirals fuss and fret and twist themselves in knots with anxiety. The heavy boulder that serves as a door to their clan's medicine den sits ajar, and from inside drifts the smell of herbs and an alkaline bite of magic. Occasionally the soft candlelight inside will flare into something more substantial, more draconic in origin, and they twine their necks and tails into painfully tight loops and steal worried glances between each other. "How much longer?" one, female, blessed with beautiful ochre eyes croaks to her mate. "Don't rush him," he whispers back, "He... Remember what the last one said." "I can't lose him. I can't. My heart won't--I'll--" He winds himself around her now, instead, tangling their long bodies together like strands of yarn, and sets his cheek on her forehead. "We'll get through this." ----- [br] [center][b]Splintered[/b][/center] [size=2]Inside the medicine den, a fae flitters back and forth furiously over the stretched-out form of a third spiral--this one so newly hatched his wings are still semi-transparent. Too soon. The adopted egg had been cracked when a great tremor shook the lair's walls and sent it tumbling, and though the little drake inside had survived the first few days of a life not yet meant to have begun, his eyes had only opened a handful of times. Despite his parents' every frantic effort he had only lasted this long on sips of thin broth. The fae's crests flick and fold with concentration as he weaves another spell that by now he knows is all in vain. ----- [br] [center][b]Shattered[/b][/center] [size=2]They hadn't even named him yet--so he only knows when the doctor leaves his side that he's 'the boy,' 'the child,' 'the poor thing' they hiss to one another about beyond the door, two voices choking sobbed words between grit teeth. Something is wrong with him to make them sound so fearful. So broken. He knows this, too. His body doesn't move quite right if he tries to tell it to--though he can lift his head and twitch his wings his legs won't fold under him to take his weight. The strangers outside the door are so familiar but so alien to him, for when their voices had carried through the shell of his egg they had been full of hope and joy and love, and now they're ragged and scratchy and hurt his ears. He's so tired, but they won't let him sleep. The doctor keeps coming in, burning smoke that clogs his throat and makes his chest feel tight, or making sparks dance across his thin scales that make his muscles twitch. That the fae has abandoned his side for the first time in three days is a blessed relief, and the hatchling heaves a wispy sigh and lets himself go ragdoll limp in the nest of leaves and furs. Finally, a chance to rest. Or so he thinks. "Hey. Hey! Wake up!" a new voice calls, but this one doesn't echo against the stony walls and rattle in his skull. [i]Don' wanna,[/i] he thinks. "Don't be boring. You don't have to go to sleep, stupid." [i]Mm not stup--you heard that??[/i] The hatchling twitches where he lies, eyes shut tight, and if he had the energy to gape he just might. A minute later the voice rings out again, and he comes to the realization that it's coming not from somewhere in the room, but his own head. "Duh. I came to see if you wanted to play!" He mulls this over for a time, breathing growing steadily more shallow as the minutes tick along. [i]I can't. I'm sick.[/i] "You are not." [i]Am so.[/i] "Nuh-uh. King Eve said you're ours, and we don't get sick." [i]King... who?[/i] "Come play with us and you'll meet him. He says you have 'a claw in both worlds' and sent me to bring you where you belong." [i]Where I belong?[/i] "To the Kingdom of Rainbows! Hurry up! This room is so boring and stuffy, no wonder you don't feel good. I'd shrivel up like a worm too if I had to stay in here." He doesn't answer, not right away. His brain feels foggy and his little chest is tight and it makes his thoughts bend pear-shaped... but finally, he gets it out. [i]How?[/i] "Take my hand!" And despite the fact that his eyes are still closed, he can see everything--the candles burning on the stone bedside table, the hanging herbs and charms over his nest, the way the shadows swallow up most of the room, somber and sorrowful. Most of all, though, he can see the other dragon sitting curled up on the floor, a smear of rich purple with shockingly green eyes. And the hatchling reaches out with a hand that isn't really a hand, because his is still curled up in the leaves. [i]What's your name?[/i] The stranger grins wide. "Pluto. Now c'mon! The mortals are coming back!" Their claws lace together, and the whole world turns upside-down and inside-out and then goes black. ----- [br] [center][b]Kintsukuroi[/b][/center] [size=2]He groans, rolling over in the sand. Warm, frothy water laps playfully at the spaded tip of his tail, and for the first time ever his eyes snap wide open and he's able to fling himself upright. His wings spread automatically, all three pairs thick and leathery and immediately setting about keeping him airborne and away from the gently-rolling tide. "Huh... Where..." Brown eyes roll over the landscape before him--sand, colored pale white but flecked with grains of every pastel shade he can identify. Foamy blue ocean at his back. A beach stretching up to tall, waving grass and sloping hills, and in front of him, giggling up a fit, is Pluto. "Water's cold huh? You jumped like three whole feet!" The hatchling blinks. Something is... different. Even as he hovers there, his memory of the before is starting to fade. The beat of his wings feels good--like he'd been sleeping too long and his muscles had gone stiff. "Uhm. Uh," he stammers, reaching one leg up to rub at his spinning head. "What, you okay?" Pluto asks, taking to the air alongside him. "...This sounds funny but. Where are we? I don't remember... Who am I?" And the purple spiral falls into another bubbly fit of giggling. "Yep, you were out wayyyy too long. This is Il Mheg, dummy. Home. And you're Atlas. Remember now?" "Atlas?" "The King said that's your name, cuz you're all brown and stripey like a really big rock." "Oh... Oh! Okay!" Atlas grins back, a sparkle of magic coming to life in his eyes, darkening with the banishment of the last ounce of his mortality. What a silly thing to ask. He must have been asleep for[i]ever[/i] to get that confused. "That's right... I'm Atlas... and this is... home... and we were going to play, right?" Pluto applauds and ties himself deftly into (and then out of) a knot, right there in the air. "Yeah!!! C'mon, it'll be more fun with everybody else! Race you!" He takes off as a streak of darkness against the pale landscape, and Atlas merely laughs and flicks his wings and twists his body--so strong, so agile--to dive after him. There is nothing else--just the endless spring and the magic dancing through him and through the air, and the thought to look back at the water never even crosses his mind. [/size][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/8yKVbQ8.png[/img][/center]

cantrip

4251

October 15, 2019 08:45:57

World to World
or, Rebirth (TW: Hatchling Death)

Fragile

Outside the stone burrow housed deep within their lair, a pair of grown spirals fuss and fret and twist themselves in knots with anxiety. The heavy boulder that serves as a door to their clan's medicine den sits ajar, and from inside drifts the smell of herbs and an alkaline bite of magic. Occasionally the soft candlelight inside will flare into something more substantial, more draconic in origin, and they twine their necks and tails into painfully tight loops and steal worried glances between each other.

"How much longer?" one, female, blessed with beautiful ochre eyes croaks to her mate.

"Don't rush him," he whispers back, "He... Remember what the last one said."

"I can't lose him. I can't. My heart won't--I'll--"

He winds himself around her now, instead, tangling their long bodies together like strands of yarn, and sets his cheek on her forehead.

"We'll get through this."

Splintered

Inside the medicine den, a fae flitters back and forth furiously over the stretched-out form of a third spiral--this one so newly hatched his wings are still semi-transparent.

Too soon. The adopted egg had been cracked when a great tremor shook the lair's walls and sent it tumbling, and though the little drake inside had survived the first few days of a life not yet meant to have begun, his eyes had only opened a handful of times. Despite his parents' every frantic effort he had only lasted this long on sips of thin broth.

The fae's crests flick and fold with concentration as he weaves another spell that by now he knows is all in vain.

Shattered

They hadn't even named him yet--so he only knows when the doctor leaves his side that he's 'the boy,' 'the child,' 'the poor thing' they hiss to one another about beyond the door, two voices choking sobbed words between grit teeth.

Something is wrong with him to make them sound so fearful. So broken. He knows this, too.

His body doesn't move quite right if he tries to tell it to--though he can lift his head and twitch his wings his legs won't fold under him to take his weight. The strangers outside the door are so familiar but so alien to him, for when their voices had carried through the shell of his egg they had been full of hope and joy and love, and now they're ragged and scratchy and hurt his ears.

He's so tired, but they won't let him sleep. The doctor keeps coming in, burning smoke that clogs his throat and makes his chest feel tight, or making sparks dance across his thin scales that make his muscles twitch. That the fae has abandoned his side for the first time in three days is a blessed relief, and the hatchling heaves a wispy sigh and lets himself go ragdoll limp in the nest of leaves and furs.

Finally, a chance to rest.

Or so he thinks.

"Hey. Hey! Wake up!" a new voice calls, but this one doesn't echo against the stony walls and rattle in his skull.

Don' wanna, he thinks.

"Don't be boring. You don't have to go to sleep, stupid."

Mm not stup--you heard that??

The hatchling twitches where he lies, eyes shut tight, and if he had the energy to gape he just might. A minute later the voice rings out again, and he comes to the realization that it's coming not from somewhere in the room, but his own head.

"Duh. I came to see if you wanted to play!"

He mulls this over for a time, breathing growing steadily more shallow as the minutes tick along.

I can't. I'm sick.

"You are not."

Am so.

"Nuh-uh. King Eve said you're ours, and we don't get sick."

King... who?

"Come play with us and you'll meet him. He says you have 'a claw in both worlds' and sent me to bring you where you belong."

Where I belong?

"To the Kingdom of Rainbows! Hurry up! This room is so boring and stuffy, no wonder you don't feel good. I'd shrivel up like a worm too if I had to stay in here."

He doesn't answer, not right away. His brain feels foggy and his little chest is tight and it makes his thoughts bend pear-shaped... but finally, he gets it out.

How?

"Take my hand!"

And despite the fact that his eyes are still closed, he can see everything--the candles burning on the stone bedside table, the hanging herbs and charms over his nest, the way the shadows swallow up most of the room, somber and sorrowful. Most of all, though, he can see the other dragon sitting curled up on the floor, a smear of rich purple with shockingly green eyes.

And the hatchling reaches out with a hand that isn't really a hand, because his is still curled up in the leaves.

What's your name?

The stranger grins wide.

"Pluto. Now c'mon! The mortals are coming back!"

Their claws lace together, and the whole world turns upside-down and inside-out and then goes black.

Kintsukuroi

He groans, rolling over in the sand. Warm, frothy water laps playfully at the spaded tip of his tail, and for the first time ever his eyes snap wide open and he's able to fling himself upright. His wings spread automatically, all three pairs thick and leathery and immediately setting about keeping him airborne and away from the gently-rolling tide.

"Huh... Where..."

Brown eyes roll over the landscape before him--sand, colored pale white but flecked with grains of every pastel shade he can identify. Foamy blue ocean at his back. A beach stretching up to tall, waving grass and sloping hills, and in front of him, giggling up a fit, is Pluto.

"Water's cold huh? You jumped like three whole feet!"

The hatchling blinks. Something is... different. Even as he hovers there, his memory of the before is starting to fade. The beat of his wings feels good--like he'd been sleeping too long and his muscles had gone stiff.

"Uhm. Uh," he stammers, reaching one leg up to rub at his spinning head.

"What, you okay?" Pluto asks, taking to the air alongside him.

"...This sounds funny but. Where are we? I don't remember... Who am I?"

And the purple spiral falls into another bubbly fit of giggling.

"Yep, you were out wayyyy too long. This is Il Mheg, dummy. Home. And you're Atlas. Remember now?"

"Atlas?"

"The King said that's your name, cuz you're all brown and stripey like a really big rock."

"Oh... Oh! Okay!"

Atlas grins back, a sparkle of magic coming to life in his eyes, darkening with the banishment of the last ounce of his mortality. What a silly thing to ask. He must have been asleep forever to get that confused.

"That's right... I'm Atlas... and this is... home... and we were going to play, right?"

Pluto applauds and ties himself deftly into (and then out of) a knot, right there in the air.

"Yeah!!! C'mon, it'll be more fun with everybody else! Race you!"

He takes off as a streak of darkness against the pale landscape, and Atlas merely laughs and flicks his wings and twists his body--so strong, so agile--to dive after him. There is nothing else--just the endless spring and the magic dancing through him and through the air, and the thought to look back at the water never even crosses his mind.

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/8yKVbQ8.png[/img] [columns] [nextcol][img]https://i.imgur.com/dUPSoxg.png[/img][nextcol][center][b][size=6]Prometheus[/size][/b] [i][size=3]or, Hail to the King[/size][/i][nextcol][img]https://i.imgur.com/sQKCxPM.png[/img][/columns] [img]https://i.imgur.com/F3A6KS8.png[/img][/center] [size=2][center][b]Void[/b][/center] [size=2]Are his eyes open or closed? Everything is black on black on black. "Mmph--Mum? Dad?" He can move, if he tries. Eyes are definitely open, but he can see nothing and his body meets no resistance in any direction. The little spiral gasps, near twists himself into a knot and realizes the coiling loops of his body are free of all the aches and pains that have been dogging him for moons, now. In fact, he can't feel his body at all. "Mum?! Dad?! Hello??!" His voice works--better than it has for some time, in fact. But the all-encompassing blackness swallows it up and it doesn't even echo. "[i]Someone? Anyone?![/i]" The uncaring dark offers no reply. ----- [br] [center][b]Ache[/b][/center] [size=2]The young spiral dissolved into weeping at some point. He hadn't been strong enough to cry in his last few days on Sornieth, and it would be cathartic if his mind weren't fragmenting with fear and loneliness. His wails had started out as cries for help. Cries for deliverance. That was uncountable hours ago. He misses his nest, dusty and ratty as it had grown from spending all his time lying in it. He misses his clan, mismatched and strange a group as they had been. He misses his clutchmates, though they were all so much stronger than him, and had paid him less and less mind once the sickness had taken root behind his ribs and he could fain lift himself to eat anymore, much less go out to play. His parents, who had never given up on him even when the stress began to wear them thin. Even the menders, with their bitter tonics and prickly magicks. Even the ones from far-away lands who spoke in tongues he couldn't understand. He misses-- He misses-- Time tick-tick-ticks on by, unceasing. Hours. Days. Weeks. He slowly runs out of new things to miss, somewhere just past 'the feeling of gritty sand in the creases of his wings' and 'when pieces of beetle carapace stick in his gums.' His throat--does he have one anymore?--isn't sore. He has no nose to drip. No lungs to burn. How long has he been crying? It's getting harder and harder to remember a time when he wasn't, and the thought is so bemusing that it finally silences him. He hangs in void, incorporeal and silent, consciousness folded in on itself, and considers. He will be considering for a very long time. ----- [br] [center][b]Ache, II[/b][/center] [size=2]He has, perhaps, been considering for even longer than he was crying. Though there is no gauge of time here in the Vast Empty (as he has come to think of it) he's beginning to wonder if he hadn't always been here. If the things that had seemed so very important weren't some kind of cosmic dream he'd awakened from. Certainly even between the two--Then and Now--he's been here much, much longer. His memories of the Highlands span only a handful of years, after all. Maybe he isn't a dragon at all. Maybe he's a denizen of the Vast Empty who had suffered a nightmare. And surely it had to have been a nightmare, because the dark is infinite but in the dark there is no pain. He isn't wheezing with a chest full of water, or blistering his tongue on too-hot haunches of meat he can't even chew, or listening to his clutchmates argue over who's turn it is to babysit their boring, weak, useless, damaged little brother while his heart tears itself in two. Surely no one would [i]willingly[/i] subject themselves to [i]that[/i]. ----- [br] [center][b]Ponder[/b][/center] [size=2]He wonders if it's possible to run out of thoughts to think. That would be curious, wouldn't it? Will he cease to exist if it happens? Thoughts are all he is, after all. ----- [br] [center][b]And Ponder[/b][/center] [size=2]Whose thoughts is he?----- [br] [center][b]Contact[/b][/center] [size=2]There is a light. He cannot see the light, because he is a thought, a concept, and concepts don't have organs like eyes with which to see things like lights. Not even lights that pierce a thousand thousand years of darkness. But he's aware of it. "How did [i]you[/i] get here, little one?" "I've always been here," he answers. "Hmm, no, that doesn't seem right. Tell me, little one, do you have a name?" And that gives him pause. In his nightmare he had had a name, but it's been decades since he thought of himself that way. As a thing with a name. "...When I was dreaming, I was called 'Nadeem.'" "Well met, Little Nadeem." "And who are you?" And that gives [i]it[/i] pause. "All Things." "Sorry to hear that." "Whyever for?" "Because that's a terrible name." And All Things laughs, and the Vast Empty is suddenly alight with the twinkling of a billion billion stars. ----- [br] [center][b]Star-Touched[/b][/center] [size=2]"I've done you a great disservice, my funny Little Nadeem," All Things tells him, "Your soul should have passed Beyond when you died, and instead you fell into the Dark. My Dark. And in all my inattentive wandering I left you there." "...you mean all of those nightmares were really memories?" "Yes. You lived and died, as all mortal things ought--though perhaps earlier than most. Why do you call them nightmares?" "My life was short, and I was sickly, and if that's all that living is it's hardly worth it at all! Just a feverdream full of suffering!" And All Things is very quiet for a very long time. Stars burn to life and wink out in staggered turns before either of them says another word. "You made me laugh, Funny Little Nadeem. And I have done you harm. To that end, I will make you an offer. To correct the injustice done to you by myself and by the fates that sent you to me, because you are funny and you are fearless in the face of All That Is And All That Will Be. "You will have a world to shape as you please, free of the sickness and suffering you revile." "A whole world? All to myself?" "If you so desire." "What if I want to fill it with people?" "Then you may do so." "How?" "However you please." "What if I want to fill it with souls like mine? And what if I want us to live forever, and never grow old or die? It wasn't all that fun the first time." "Shape the world however you see fit, Funny Little Nadeem. All That Is And All That Will Be is much larger than one star, one planet, one congregation of souls." "...Okay." ----- [br] [center][b]Coronation[/b][/center] [size=2]He groans and rolls over in the dirt. All that time spent floating and formless had dulled the memory of having muscles to twist the wrong way, and he grumbles as he struggles to figure out how to maneuver four legs, six wings, and a tail after being free of them for so long. Bright teal eyes scan the endless expanse of empty dirt upon which All Things had set him down, and at first he bristles with rage. This is no paradise. This is nothing! A [i]wasteland[/i]-- But even as he stares down at the loose, dusty soil under his talons, grass begins to sprout, little shoots of blue and green that rise from beneath the earth. It starts beneath him, until he's standing on a lush carpet of leaves, and then begins to spread. The sky, orange and hazy with clouds of dust, fades to blue and pastel shades of pink and purple as tiny roots pin down the sediment. He stares, mouth fallen open. "'A world to shape as you please,'" he repeats to himself as the land begins to quake and twist. Hills begin to rise. Springs bubble to the surface and cascade down the fresh grass. He closes his eyes and reaches out a hand and feels the weight of metal drop into it from nowhere. A crown. His crown. The little spiral grins wide. There's so much work to do. [/size][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/8yKVbQ8.png[/img][/center]

cantrip

4251

June 08, 2020 10:22:05

Prometheus
or, Hail to the King

Void

Are his eyes open or closed? Everything is black on black on black.

"Mmph--Mum? Dad?"

He can move, if he tries. Eyes are definitely open, but he can see nothing and his body meets no resistance in any direction. The little spiral gasps, near twists himself into a knot and realizes the coiling loops of his body are free of all the aches and pains that have been dogging him for moons, now.

In fact, he can't feel his body at all.

"Mum?! Dad?! Hello??!"

His voice works--better than it has for some time, in fact. But the all-encompassing blackness swallows it up and it doesn't even echo.

"Someone? Anyone?!"

The uncaring dark offers no reply.

Ache

The young spiral dissolved into weeping at some point. He hadn't been strong enough to cry in his last few days on Sornieth, and it would be cathartic if his mind weren't fragmenting with fear and loneliness. His wails had started out as cries for help. Cries for deliverance. That was uncountable hours ago.

He misses his nest, dusty and ratty as it had grown from spending all his time lying in it.

He misses his clan, mismatched and strange a group as they had been.

He misses his clutchmates, though they were all so much stronger than him, and had paid him less and less mind once the sickness had taken root behind his ribs and he could fain lift himself to eat anymore, much less go out to play.

His parents, who had never given up on him even when the stress began to wear them thin.

Even the menders, with their bitter tonics and prickly magicks. Even the ones from far-away lands who spoke in tongues he couldn't understand.

He misses--

He misses--

Time tick-tick-ticks on by, unceasing.

Hours.

Days.

Weeks.

He slowly runs out of new things to miss, somewhere just past 'the feeling of gritty sand in the creases of his wings' and 'when pieces of beetle carapace stick in his gums.' His throat--does he have one anymore?--isn't sore. He has no nose to drip. No lungs to burn.

How long has he been crying? It's getting harder and harder to remember a time when he wasn't, and the thought is so bemusing that it finally silences him.

He hangs in void, incorporeal and silent, consciousness folded in on itself, and considers.

He will be considering for a very long time.

Ache, II

He has, perhaps, been considering for even longer than he was crying. Though there is no gauge of time here in the Vast Empty (as he has come to think of it) he's beginning to wonder if he hadn't always been here. If the things that had seemed so very important weren't some kind of cosmic dream he'd awakened from.

Certainly even between the two--Then and Now--he's been here much, much longer. His memories of the Highlands span only a handful of years, after all.

Maybe he isn't a dragon at all.

Maybe he's a denizen of the Vast Empty who had suffered a nightmare.

And surely it had to have been a nightmare, because the dark is infinite but in the dark there is no pain. He isn't wheezing with a chest full of water, or blistering his tongue on too-hot haunches of meat he can't even chew, or listening to his clutchmates argue over who's turn it is to babysit their boring, weak, useless, damaged little brother while his heart tears itself in two.

Surely no one would willingly subject themselves to that.

Ponder

He wonders if it's possible to run out of thoughts to think.

That would be curious, wouldn't it?

Will he cease to exist if it happens? Thoughts are all he is, after all.

And Ponder

Whose thoughts is he?

Contact

There is a light.

He cannot see the light, because he is a thought, a concept, and concepts don't have organs like eyes with which to see things like lights. Not even lights that pierce a thousand thousand years of darkness.

But he's aware of it.

"How did you get here, little one?"

"I've always been here," he answers.

"Hmm, no, that doesn't seem right. Tell me, little one, do you have a name?"

And that gives him pause. In his nightmare he had had a name, but it's been decades since he thought of himself that way. As a thing with a name.

"...When I was dreaming, I was called 'Nadeem.'"

"Well met, Little Nadeem."

"And who are you?"

And that gives it pause.

"All Things."

"Sorry to hear that."

"Whyever for?"

"Because that's a terrible name."

And All Things laughs, and the Vast Empty is suddenly alight with the twinkling of a billion billion stars.

Star-Touched

"I've done you a great disservice, my funny Little Nadeem," All Things tells him, "Your soul should have passed Beyond when you died, and instead you fell into the Dark. My Dark. And in all my inattentive wandering I left you there."

"...you mean all of those nightmares were really memories?"

"Yes. You lived and died, as all mortal things ought--though perhaps earlier than most. Why do you call them nightmares?"

"My life was short, and I was sickly, and if that's all that living is it's hardly worth it at all! Just a feverdream full of suffering!"

And All Things is very quiet for a very long time. Stars burn to life and wink out in staggered turns before either of them says another word.

"You made me laugh, Funny Little Nadeem. And I have done you harm. To that end, I will make you an offer. To correct the injustice done to you by myself and by the fates that sent you to me, because you are funny and you are fearless in the face of All That Is And All That Will Be.

"You will have a world to shape as you please, free of the sickness and suffering you revile."

"A whole world? All to myself?"

"If you so desire."

"What if I want to fill it with people?"

"Then you may do so."

"How?"

"However you please."

"What if I want to fill it with souls like mine? And what if I want us to live forever, and never grow old or die? It wasn't all that fun the first time."

"Shape the world however you see fit, Funny Little Nadeem. All That Is And All That Will Be is much larger than one star, one planet, one congregation of souls."

"...Okay."

Coronation

He groans and rolls over in the dirt. All that time spent floating and formless had dulled the memory of having muscles to twist the wrong way, and he grumbles as he struggles to figure out how to maneuver four legs, six wings, and a tail after being free of them for so long.

Bright teal eyes scan the endless expanse of empty dirt upon which All Things had set him down, and at first he bristles with rage. This is no paradise. This is nothing! A wasteland--

But even as he stares down at the loose, dusty soil under his talons, grass begins to sprout, little shoots of blue and green that rise from beneath the earth. It starts beneath him, until he's standing on a lush carpet of leaves, and then begins to spread. The sky, orange and hazy with clouds of dust, fades to blue and pastel shades of pink and purple as tiny roots pin down the sediment.

He stares, mouth fallen open.

"'A world to shape as you please,'" he repeats to himself as the land begins to quake and twist. Hills begin to rise. Springs bubble to the surface and cascade down the fresh grass.

He closes his eyes and reaches out a hand and feels the weight of metal drop into it from nowhere.

A crown.

His crown.

The little spiral grins wide.

There's so much work to do.

Last edited on Jun 08, 2020 10:27:34 by cantrip

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/8yKVbQ8.png[/img] [columns] [nextcol][img]https://i.imgur.com/dUPSoxg.png[/img][nextcol][center][b][size=6]The First of Many[/size][/b] [i][size=3](TW: Fear, Peril, Near-drowning)[/size][/i][nextcol][img]https://i.imgur.com/sQKCxPM.png[/img][/columns] [img]https://i.imgur.com/F3A6KS8.png[/img][/center] [size=2][center][b]A Mad Scramble[/b][/center] [size=2]"Wendy?! Get back in the hold!" A scarred, cerulean-colored mirror snaps, stomping one clawed foot and flinging one wing out to cover the creeping spiral as a shower of smoldering wooden debris washes over the both of them. Four yellow eyes fix on her, wide with shock. A cannon blast explodes the railing not ten feet from where they stand. The mirror swears loudly. "Fie on the hold, Gull, I can [i]fight![/i] I'm not a hatchling anymore!" "Near enough to!" Gulliver hisses, shaking splinters off his hide and crowding her more aggressively into the floor. Wendy snarls at him, baring all her sharp little teeth, and tries to wriggle her serpentine body around his limbs toward the rest of the deck where the crew is in a panic manning cannons of their own. The merchant ship had been set upon moments before by what they can only assume are pirates, and while at first the Icebound's mages had been able to keep them at bay by magic alone, the two vessels had drifted closer in the commotion. Now in range of munitions fire and unable to maneuver free and escape (enclosed as they are in the narrow channels between floating chunks of glacier this far south), her crew has resolved to fight for their cargo. As minutes slip by, though, it becomes more and more apparent that they're outmanned and underprepared. "Gull, just let me--Gull they're boarding!!" The little spiral shrieks as, with a THUMP that rocks the ship, a guardian touches down on the deck, all clad in armor and with a red sash about her hat that ripples as a bloody streak in the wind. Her weight alone is enough to rock the Icebound dangerously to one side. She snorts, spreads her wings, and stirs a gust that knocks two of the much-smaller crew right off their feet. The melee begins. "Wendy! The hold. [i]Now.[/i]" Gulliver seizes the spiral with his teeth around her ribs, makes to throw her toward the still-open doors leading below deck-- There's another resounding boom. The ship shudders. Wood groans. Gulliver's teeth close so tight Wendy feels her scales threatening to give beneath his jaws, and then they're both weightless and tumbling off the side of the ship. Black water rushes up to meet them, her wings unable to catch enough air in time to keep her from slamming into the churning dark. ----- [br] [center][b]The Quiet Deep[/b][/center] [size=2]Wendy's eyes crack open as much as they dare beneath the waves. The water's chill current swirls around her, threatens to carry her away tumbling head-over-tail, and she only barely paddles herself upright. Never before has she been so grateful for the Icewarden's blessing--the abyss caresses her scales with frigid fingers that would wring the life from another dragon, and find no purchase. Gulliver, though-- [i]Gulliver![/i] White-blue eyes cast frantically around in the darkness, view obscured by burning salt and debris from the ship that rains around her like meteors. With just one feeble breath in her lungs she works her tail and corkscrews not toward the surface, but down deeper, in search of the mirror. Something drifts in the blackness far below her, but between the seawater and the sheer dark she can't tell if it's her adoptive brother or detritus from the broken Icebound. Her chest burns. Still, she sets her jaw and descends--and the blotchy shadow beneath continues to sink. And she descends. Blackness winks in her field of vision, separate from the ache of sea salt and the fading light so deep beneath. With a lump in her throat and her head starting to spin she fights down a sob of despair that would cost her the rest of her air and realizes she can't chase it. Can't chase him. But maybe it isn't him at all, she reasons. Maybe the water [i]didn't[/i] shock him to sinking. He's a strong dragon, and he may not be of the Icefields like she is but he's lived here most of his life. Maybe he's already climbed back aboard the ship and is fighting without her. With that feeble hope alive in her heart she contorts and begins to ascend, tail waving frantically to propel her upward, back toward the murky shape of the ship's hull. Something heavy lands on her back. She gasps a tiny bubble and clutches her throat to keep from giving up more breath. She feels broken wood against her spine, ragged splinters catching her hide, tugging at two of her wings on one side, and realizes as she thrashes herself free of it that she's starting to feel dizzy-- ----- [br] [center][b]Elsewhere[/b][/center] [size=2]Her eyes snap open. "Gulliver!?!" the name rasps from her aching throat before she even registers that she's not aboard the Icebound. She's not even adrift in the water any longer. There's soft sand beneath her body, and when she raises her head to look around sees miles of pastel sky and, behind her, a gently-rolling ocean that looks to be anything but a part of the Frigid Floes. Not a glacier in sight. And though she knows instinctively the weather is beautiful and mild here after her dip in the sea it feels like she's melting in the heat. "What... where..." "It [i]worked,[/i]" a voice says, awestruck. She whips her head around. Stood in the grass atop one sandy dune a ways away is another young spiral, his body a disorienting blend of colors she struggles to fully identify. A little gold crown rests at an angle on his head. "Who are you??" "Don't worry about that right now--I still can't believe it worked!" "[i]What[/i] worked? Where am I?" Her hackles are up, now. She lashes her tail in the sand and hefts herself clumsily to her feet and, in a comically mirror-like gesture shakes herself off without taking her eyes off the stranger. "You're here. You were there, and now you're here," he answers cryptically, looking her over in appraisal, "And it looks like all of you made it, even!" "What are you [i]talking about?[/i]" she snarls, and though her limbs yet feel unsteady she flings herself aloft and goes flying at him. They collide in a mad tangle of too-long bodies and go rolling down the dunes, him yelling and her spitting and two sets of claws raking uselessly at the sand to try and stop the tumble. At the bottom he at last wrenches her from him with the iron grip of magic so strong she tastes it, alkaline across the back of her tongue when she sucks in her next breath. She's held uselessly in the air, squirming herself in circles as the strange dragon collects his crown and dusts the sand from himself. He glares at her. "Ugh! There's no need to behave like a beast! After I saved you--" "Saved me?!? I don't know who you are or where I am! I have to go back. Gull needs me. The crew needs me!" she screeches, slashing at the air in his direction but utterly unable to move from the spot she's been floated. "You don't want to be back there." "Yes I do, you pompous worm!! Put me back where I was!!" "Are you sssuuuuure?" "YES." He stares at her, expression going disappointed for a moment until he schools it into something flatter. One shoulder shrugs. "Let me show you what will happen, then, if you think you know best." Wendy bares her teeth at him, about to speak, and what comes from her mouth instead is a gush of salty water. Her chest sears painfully. Her eyes start to stream. She coughs and sputters, fear clouding her eyes. And just as quickly as it happens, it stops. She can breathe. The first lungful is painful but sweet. "What--what did you..." "I found you because you had a claw in two worlds," he says casually, like he's talking about the weather, "You hadn't [i]really[/i] drowned, at least not yet, but if I send you back you go back exactly how you were when I reached out and pulled you into this world." He chews at one claw. "And, you know, I [i]suppose[/i] you have the right to go back and see if somebody else can save you, but..." Wendy is still, quiet. Contemplative. He must know it, too, because whatever spell holds her aloft ends and she sinks to the sand in a tiny heap of coils. "You're saying if I go back, I'll--then. What is [i]this[/i] place and [i]who are you?[/i]" she demands, looking sharply back to him with her brows furrowed. Not wanting to believe but uncertain how else to explain any of this. "Eve," he says with a nod, like he's affirming it to himself, "And this is [i]my[/i] world. It isn't much. Not yet. I've only been a god for--maybe a century or two? I don't know how time works on Sornieth anymore. I was a dragon like you, at first. Now I'm not." "...you still look like a dragon to me." "I played with the idea of making myself another body, but it's hard to part with something you've broken in so well, you know?" He grins and swivels his ears forward. The way he watches her is full of a strange, intent excitement. "Why bring me here, then? Why not leave me to drown?" "Because until now I was the only one here," is his answer, "and I'm [i]bored.[/i]" ----- [br] [center][b]Closed Chapters, Open Books[/b][/center] [size=2]"And King Eve asked me my name, and I told him 'Wendy.' He told me it was boring and stuffy, and I ought to pick something else. So I kept it." The spiral says with a casual shrug, flexing a delicately pink wing and gesturing behind her, down the winding road to where the castle gleams. Before her sit a pair of dark-green dragons, mismatched orange and bright green eyes locked on her with rapt attention. "If you haven't got a name already, he'll give one to you. And soon you'll know us all by name, too." The green-eyed spiral raises his hand nervously. "So you [i]were[/i] a real dragon once. --were we real dragons, too?" "Probably. It doesn't matter anymore, though. You aren't now. If you decide you want to remember if you were, you can just ask King Eve. He thinks it's stupid, but he won't say no." She arches her back and glances skyward, at the sun lazily drifting toward the horizon. "--I think we're done here! I want to go and bother Lark and Rory." "...so. So what do we do now?" the orange-eyed new arrival asks, her ears flipped forward and her eyes gone dinnerplate round. "This is the Kingdom of Rainbows. You can do absolutely anything you like. Forever." [/size][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/8yKVbQ8.png[/img][/center]

cantrip