Outside the tower, the end of days was fast approaching.
Or, anyway, that's certainly how it appeared. For the villagers who huddled in their houses, fearful of the shattering reality outside, of the monsters that spilled out into the world...times had never seemed so bleak.
So why, then, was Pascale smiling?
"Are you familiar, Ashur, with the tale of Ozymandias?"
"No, sir, I cannot say that I am."
"Ask Egypt sometime. I'm sure he would delight in the telling."
The skydancer pulled away from his advisor, gazing out over the shadow-swept ruins, a slight smirk upon his lips. The sky was an angry purplish hue, blue cut through with streaks of red, and the black clouds that seemed to ooze from the broken sky hung like tar, dripping from the wounds of a damaged reality.
"Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair," Pascale murmured to himself.
"What was that, sir?"
"Nothing. Fetch Nightvale. It is time."
Ashur nodded, dipping his head in deference before turning and heading down for the alchemist.
The tundra arrived shortly after, followed by a handful of miscellaneous staff members -- Rafadel and Egypt, the professors; Ashur, the bookkeeper; Storm and Darrin, curious graduate students.
And then, of course, nervously, the parents. Cressida and Jaime, the latest in a generation, standing at the head of a swell of young dragons, all of them useful...in their time.
"Will the number be sufficient?" Pascale asked Nightvale. The sun, or what passed for the sun through the reddish haze, shivered behind a black cloud. Darkness loomed at the edges of their vision. They stood in midday and felt the gloom settle down upon them.
"It should, my lord," Nightvale agreed, counting them off one by one.
"Will it matter that Pearl and her kind are not present?"
"It should make little difference. She is inconsequential."
A wry twist of lips. "Not so very inconsequential. Recall that our heir is the product of her...dalliances."
"The elder gods work in mysterious ways, my lord."
"Indeed they do."
Cressida hugged her son tightly, then nudged him forward, collapsing to tremble alongside her other children, rejects. They would not fall in battle, as the forebears had. No...she knew what would happen, as Pascale had given her that courtesy.
The same was not true of all the others assembled here to witness the crowning of the academy's young prince.
"Dispatch them swiftly, then," Pascale said, at length, lifting a talon to signal the guards who stood in the shadows. "They have served me well, and deserve as much."
~*~
In total, there were 19 dragons sacrificed that day, reduced to their magical essence by Pascale's unique ability and brewed, carefully, into the tonic that would complete the ritual.
"Ozymandias," Pascale said, holding the goblet out to the young imperial. "Your body is the vessel."
"May his magic shine against the darkness!" Came the answering call, from those left in the crowd to murmur it.
"Drink deep, and be reborn."
Ozzy took the goblet, drinking down the magical liquid in a long, breathless gulp. He tried hard not to think about what had gone into making it. He closed his eyes and waited. He expected for nothing to happen.
But something
did happen. A fierce burning, like a fire opened in his belly, burning through his graceful long neck and threatening to consume him from the inside out. It spread all through him, causing the runic markings on his scales to glow, opening cracks of bright light from some place beneath his flesh, and he threw back his head and howled.
Something not-himself crawled up into his body, filling every part of him as though he were merely a costume for something...ancient, and powerful, and poorly contained.
He screeched out into the night.
And the monsters, entering the world from their rifts in the fabric of space, hesitated, ears attuned to the call.
They heard his scream, and they were...afraid.
||
They/them
+3 FR time
