Halcyon

the prophet.
THE FIRST, THE LAST, AND FOREVER SHALL BE.

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"But why does the Old One wear a mask? What does it have to hide?” Lilith snapped, spittle dripped from her maw as freely as contempt. “All it does is hide and eat. We should throw it into the sea.”

"Silence!" Leliel hissed in return, the self-proclaimed matriarch Imperial coiled and readied to snap at the elder Ridgeback’s vulnerable neck or face had she wandered closer. The obsidian creature’s ignorance, as always, was astounding. "We shall do no such thing."

No one knew the Prophet as Leliel did.

Once upon a time, the Eldest once went by the name Halcyon. In time she’d meet a male, Coelacanth, and they’d wandered together with no one but the world behind them. Their forms took the image first of a common breed, large and dominant and hungry, all of which they displayed in wanton fervor. Their passage through the many lands continued aimlessly at first and then, once settled inside the stronghold of The Shifting Expanse, reciprocated their innate emotions into several clutches. Together, they were happy.

Most of their children had gone by the time Leliel wandered across the pair, all but a child whose wings were too undeveloped to be of much use. Together they’d nursed her back to health.

She remembered the day when Coelacanth didn’t return.

Halcyon was distressed for days and when she’d returned, the once Guardian was no more. Later through whispers and rumors, Leliel heard that the dragon had found her mate on the shore, deceased after an unsuccessful hunt. She’d naturally mourned for days, pacing the area as she watched her mate’s remains turn skeletal and ragged. Some say that she’d gone mad - clawing up her face, while others day she’d been struck by lightning. Needless to say, the armor was to hide the scars, pain, and blindness. She saw through her children, birds, and the pearl now.

Her final cry on her return was one of sorrow but of bittersweet hope - a testament to all the wayward souls who could find solace in one another. Leliel knew that she’d brought them together, and so they would remain. She’d done the same for her sister, Lilith, as well.

Lilith was too proud to admit when she was wrong, though.