slugwormsnail » Lair » Robin

Robin

(#19725299)

Level 25 Skydancer

Familiar

Scroll Stealer

Energy: 0/50

Personal Style

Apparel

Skin

Scene

Physical Attributes

Battle Stats

Measurements

Length

3.94 m

Wingspan

6.24 m

Weight

439.48 kg

Genetics

White
Savannah

White
Seraph

Chocolate
Runes

Hatchday

Dec 31, 2015
(8 years)

Breed

Adult
Skydancer

Eye Type

Earth
Uncommon

Level 25 Skydancer

Max Level

STR

117

AGI

DEF

QCK

INT

VIT

MND

Lineage

Parents

Hades
Sugar

Offspring

none

Biography

Who am I?

Written by Silverhame

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“By the light of the sun and moon I will walk, for ever and ever.”
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Slave. That is what he responds to most readily. Even here, in the peace and quiet of the free forest, should one call him by name, it would take him a moment to remember… Yes. He has a name. That is his name. He exists, not as a working machine, but a living, breathing being with soul and spirit. He exists. He matters, and he laughs and he cries and he loves.

On an eternal search for his mate, wandering in the vastness between the world and his mind, he forgets and he dreams in a glorious haze of gold and white. But it is deceptive. As a child of the Earthshaker, he is charged with weaving the tales of time into the great Tapestry that holds the sky together. Without it, everything is gone. The elements of Sornieth are a void; names and memories are nothing. And he is nothing without his name and memories.

Robin. Robin. How long ago was it since he last heard his name spoken by The Voice? Because that is his name. Robin. He is he, and she is his. It’s been so many cycles—day after day, month after month, year after year, he stood among the sizzling spires, gazing at the sky where dragons and deities fought—and none of that mattered, because She never appeared in that sky fractured with lightning.

He has always been calm and soft-spoken, perhaps to a fault. Even as a slave, beaten and cursed, he did his work quietly and without complaint. So few have ever seen him angry, or even raise his voice, to the point where many believe him mentally debilitated. Yet despite his fragile appearance, he is steadfast and determined as the oldest mountains, a guardian angel in a clan sleeping under a false peace.

Neither death, nor suffering, nor pain does he fear as long as hope lies ahead. Whether dead or alive, he will rejoin his love. Dead, they will fly beyond the circles of this world, to a land greater and higher. Alive, he will be blessed to live again, for she will be with him.

It has been a long road, a hard road. Torn from his mate, taken cruel advantage of for his gentle, patient nature, he has suffered much. But if it means seeing her again, he will bend himself to a thousand years of torture, and not a groan will escape his lips. This is desperation. He will chase down the wind to find his love. He will do anything. Everything.
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Some time ago...

Written by Silverhame
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“Avalon, Avalon! I’m seeking you, seeking the moon and the land over the sea. I’m seeking my love and my life—seeking an end.”
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Among the dry, barren lands of the Shattered Plain, where the earth itself opens its jaws to swallow dragons whole and the sun devours flesh faster than the Wyrmwound, he made his home. Though neither of his parents were native to the Dragonhome, they were drawn by the call of the ancient runes and the allure of the oldest mountains in Sornieth. So Robin was born under the pale sun of a desert winter, beneath the blessing of the Earthshaker.

As soon as he was old enough to think, he knew that the glimmering golden threads winding about him like living fire were unusual. Visible to no one else, he could not explain them to his clan and over time, given his peacable, relenting nature, he fell to the bottom of the social ladder. Curiously enough, his gentleness also made him a favorite among his relatives. He was the patient, easy-going halfwit, the plaything of the hatchlings. The butt of jokes they thought he surely could not understand.

How it hurt, but even then, young as he was, he restrained himself, forced himself to pass them by with a nod and a smile. A bland, stupid smile. He thought it was the hardest thing in the world to keep his amicable façade, but oh, how innocent he was.

It might have been hard to smile, but it was harder to love. She was dancing among the fireflies, beautiful and lively as the festive lights with which she flew. Hidden in the shadows, young Robin watched her, enraptured, and his heart crumbled inside him. Impossible. No one would approve of a relationship between a daughter of the auspicious Jasper family and the stupid son of two wandering migrants. She was practically a princess; he an alleged idiot.

At that moment the Skydancer turned towards him, tilting her head in query. With a sheepish grin Robin stepped forward, expecting to be scolded out of sight, but the young female sat down and looked at him with curiosity.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, wordlessly, the way Skydancers instinctively do when they are alone together. It was not so much an audible sentence as a questioning feeling, attached to a whirl of myriad sensastions. He could hear her voice as clearly as if she had spoken aloud, though through it, he also heard the world of emotions and thoughts concealed in her head. She…wasn’t angry, yet at least.

To avoid standing over her, he sat down too, whacking her in the head with his wings in his haste. She ducked. He blushed and said nothing, though he could feel his emotions spilling rather impolitely into her senses.

“You’re Robin, right? They say you’re the lastborn.”

The dragoness’s voice was innocent and not accusing, but the meaning was there, and Robin dropped his gaze. Her next words startled him into looking up again.

“I don’t think you’re dumb.”

“Y-you don’t?” Had Robin spoken aloud, he would have spluttered in astonishment. As it was, he hid his reddening face, feeling as though his reputation had become a self-fulfilling prophecy. She could feel his confusion and embarrassment. Attempting to hold himself inside his own head only increased his fluster, and he ended by gaping at her like an idiot once more.

A little puzzled, the other Skydancer looked at him, taken aback by the hurricane of nonsense he had poured on her, but her reply was civil and friendly. “You can recite all the history of Sornieth without a catch, and you can fly as well as any Skydancer, and you seem a lot more normal than they said you were. Also a bit nicer than those stiff-collared royalties strutting around me all the time.”

Sitting on his paws which had suddenly gone warm to keep them from fidgeting, Robin stared at the female for several long moments before he realized he didn’t know her name. “Ah…I don’t think you’re introduced youself…?”

“Avalon Ymethystian, a daughter of the original Jasper line once removed. It’s quite a mouthful.” Her laugh sounded like a mountain stream in the sunlight, clear and bubbly, like silver bells tinkling at his ears.

“I’m Robin.” No, that was redundant. She already knew that. And compared to her grand title, his name sounded plain and dull, befitting of the simple birdbrain he was. “An honor to meet you…Avalon Y-Yme…Ymethyst—” Couldn’t he even pronounce her name in his head?

“Just call me Avalon,” interrupted the dancer, supressing another giggle. “You needn’t bow and scrape the way everyone thinks they must.” As she shook her wings in amusement, Robin realized, with a hot shock, that the two Skydancers had been sitting side by side, their fur all but touching, on the cracked cobbletones of the courtyard. He scrambled to put some distance between them. Before he realized what he was doing, he had bolted out of the old ruins altogether, flushed and shaky.

“Where are you going?” Avalon called after him aloud, her voice masking a slight disappointment. “I liked you. You’re normal and a lot more genuine than everyone I’ve ever met.” But he kept going, taking flight into the cool darkness of the caves where he could still his trembling limbs and make sense of his heated face.

Despite his better judgement, he was there at the ruins the next day, and the next and the next, and his face grew less warm with every visit as they danced together with the fireflies, laughing and singing. But somehow or other rumors spread across the canyons, and dragons stumbled upon the two youngsters wrestling on the ground in between fits of giggles. As Robin predicted, the Jaspers refused to allow such a disparity between castes. Avalon was confined to the upper mountains, and the resident simpleton was in disgrace.

Years passed. Robin roamed his birthplace alone, still the placid halfwit, forgotten by all but those who still cracked jokes about him once in a while. He never forgot Avalon, but now, as an adult, he supposed she had been one of those childhood fancies that ought to be left behind. Little did he know she would end up haunting him for the rest of his life.

***

“Robin!” The whisper echoed in the empty lair, rebounding against the walls, multiplying his name into myriad syllables that fled along the roof and vanished into the darkness. Raising his head, he blinked in the direction of the cave entrance. The moon was waxing, shedding a white circle on the floor. Amongst the light an even paler mass moved, stark against the black stone.

She shouldn’t be here. “Leave me, Avalon,” he said softly. “I’ll only ruin your standing at court.”

“You shall not,” she hissed, coming towards him with her hackles lifted. Startled, Robin rose to his feet. They had both grown. She was radiant now, glowing with a beauty like unto the full moon—glorious, ethereal, queenly. His heart swelled and broke with a pain that was both warm and cold. She was so far above him. He was a puppy in love with an angel.

“I cannot stand the court anymore. I’ll die before I return,” continued Avalon in a low, gasping voice, her eyes burning with a wild fire. “The Jasper Lord is hosting the Scorian for a week. At the end of this week he means to give me to this—this monster! The Scorian, Robin!” Her voice rose. “He’s a cruel tyrant. He’ll make me a queen, all right—a queen of a wasteland.”

Wordless, Robin tipped his head and looked quietly at her. He knew the Scorian. The hulking Imperial, with his narrow, piercing eyes, had always sent a chill down his spine. Handsome, perhaps, and rich indeed, but Robin would never serve him. They said he beat his servants to death. But during the time he had spent with Avalon, he had learned more, even more than the nobles had allowed the commoners to hear…that the Scorian was no true dragon but a child of the shadows. Some thought that was a powerful legacy, but not Robin. And not Avalon who would soon be wedded to him.

Reading his mind, she pushed her head up against his flank. This close to her, he could feel her body quivering, hear her mind swamped with images of blood and bones and darkness, and the Scorian standing in the midst of it all. He spread out a wing and pulled her to him. “It will be all right in the end, my lady.”

“Robin.” Her eyes were clear and luminous like polished amber. A queen. An angel. “Let us go.”

Robin’s heart did a somersault as he took in the full meaning of her words. Us? A golden glow seemed to dance about her, a glow that gave off no light and was invisible to all eyes but his. Taking a deep breath, Robin reached out and knotted her light to his, twisting the separate strands into a single gilded thread. He led the way, out into the moonlight, out into the vast, cold world. She followed, and there at the mouth of the cave two drops of blood fell and mingled with their hushed whispers. A long silence fell.

Then Robin turned his claw over and let the stars expose the wound drawn across his palm. His mate did the same, pressing her paw to his, connecting the ends of the thread Robin had created, so that they now shared a single blood running in their veins—a bond unbreakable. Inseparable.

As one, they spread their wings, light and pale as gossamer in the moon, and they were away. Taking in a deep breath of the rich, cold air, Robin, his eyes brimming with joy, gazed down at the sleeping world bathed in moonbeams falling behind them, like a land in a fairy tale.

“We’re really leaving home,” he uttered in disbelief, and Avalon glanced at him. Before he knew it she had swooped in above him, and their tails were entwined in the frosted sky and her lips were pressed to his; and they hung, suspended by the stars and the heavenly threads, like the intricate silver filigree twisted among the Cainstones.

In his ear, Avalon whispered, “Not all tales end in sorrow.”

***

With the leaving of his home, Robin left behind a world of frustration and restlessness he never knew he had carried. Behind him lay the old, the mundane, and the scorn of his clan and family. Before him lay Sornieth fresh and new, a canvas ready for the paint of an interwined beginning. And paint it he would, with Avalon at his side.

Filled with exuberant joy, they travelled the moon down and rode the red-gold of the sunrise, as the dawning sun spread out the Dragonhome below them. In the brilliance of morning his dreaminess fled—this was real. He was no longer the smiling idiot, the pathetic, dumb runt of the litter, but Robin, mated to the lady Avalon.

Looking north, he watched the Pillar emerge from the morning mist, rooted in the hazy hills and reaching to the clouds. From the moment he hatched he had seen and known that relic of the old times, a beacon for those who were lost. As he gazed at it now, he felt the threads wrap around his wings, tight and firm.

Something shook him—or shook his mind, though not his body. He felt it. He heard it in his heart.

“Twist these filaments wisely, weaver of light. They hold up the sky of our minds.”

“Oh,” whispered Robin in awe. “My lord?”

His only answer was in the final, royal leap of the sun above the horizon.

And the world was gilded with rose, and together they lit on a high, sunlight ridge, a thousand miles distant from any habitation, and their laughter rang out like bells in the unstirred air. Avalon pounced on him first, like a playful kitten, and he shoved back until they rolled across the ground, their feathers, wings, and fur all merging into one. They came to rest on a tuft of soft, tawny grass, worn out by their long flight. Curled up next to Avalon, Robin fell asleep to the sound of the wind on the rocks.

There on the lonely ridge they made their new home. So far from dragon and Beastclan, they did not bother to carve out a lair, instead sleeping under the stars as the moon marked out cycle after cycle till a whole year had slipped away. The golden threads hung in the sky again and again, and they danced the dance of the Sky and Earth beneath the full moons. No dragons had ever been sighted upon the horizon until the day Avalon began to search for a den.

Small, dark dots at first. Birds, maybe. But they grew large as Rocs, and then bigger. Dragons, then. Robin looked at Avalon. She was slender and playful as ever, but the tilt of her wings, the twitch of her tail, the brightness in her eyes; they all told him she was ready to breed now. She wanted to be a mother. Placing a wing over her back, Robin touched his chin to her head as he spread out the threads before him, counting them. And then he glanced back at the fast-approaching specks.

It happened too quick for thought.

Two were not enough against a hundred, one of which was an Imperial.

He screamed in wild desperation, struggling against the claws that held him back, writhing to escape, to reach her. Those were her cries; it was her voice, fading into the distance. That was their home lying in a scorched wreck. He screamed his throat raw, lashing out blindly at his captors, and the last thing he saw was a blue flash.

When he opened his eyes, he was staring up at a strange, steel-grey sky of clouds rimmed with cyan. Beneath him, the ground felt oddly cold and smooth, humming with a bizarre metallic vibration, as if the whole earth held a barely-contained power that was straining to break free.

Blood. There was so much blood, splashed on him, scattered on the ground around him. Whose was it? His head ached, his whole body ached, but the single thought he had was for Avalon.

Where was Avalon?

This couldn’t be her blood, could it? What had happened to her? Where was he? Robin tried to raise himself, but his legs would not obey his will, and his wings were bound with chains. Pain speared him, provoking a moan from his dry throat.

“Hold still, chicken,” an unfamiliar voice ordered as rough paws pressed down on him, wrapping his body in tough, thin cloths. He panicked, thinking they would bind him again, but a moment’s observation showed him that they were bandages. This was his blood. He was lucky to be alive after losing so much of it.

A large claw lifted him and set him on his feet as bodies around him moved forward, jostling him along with them. Stumbling for his balance, Robin glanced up at his Ridgeback captors, and they stared back with vibrant blue eyes, emanating triumph and cool disinterest. As he looked at the blinding arcs of electricity leaping from spire to spire in the distance, a hole opened in his heart. This wasn’t home.

Scorces of other equally battered dragons trudged or lay chained on the scrubby desert around him, their eyes dull and defeated. Scanning them, Robin searched their faces for a familiar one, but his mate was not among the despairing, downcast faces of the captives. He dared not explore their minds further, for they were filled with pain and blood, fear and anger. Instead, he listened to the humming of the spires, the Lightning dwellers, and through the clouds even caught a glimpse of the Stormcatcher himself.

Unlike the rich, warm, patient presence of the Earthshaker, the Lord of Lightning was deadly and sharper than a blade, pinning down thoughts and ideas with breathtaking speed and precision. Constantly on the move, he flickered between the thunderclouds, bold and active, hungry for power and motion. If a mind turned toward him, he pounced on it, searching for a potential piece of interesting information. It could be anything, as long as it was new and fascinating. Dartlike, the elemental leader’s momentum nearly knocked Robin off his feet. Overwhelmed, gasping and choking, the Skydancer shut himself down at once, pressing his paws to his head.

“The skychicken doesn’t seem to like our home, does he?” commented the dragon nearest him, eliciting a series of short, scornful laughs from her companions. Robin got to his feet and continued walking on, blocking out their mockery, blocking out the grasping presence of the Stormcatcher, blocking out everything except for the image of Avalon waiting for him.

Sunk in a haze of pain and bewilderment, he roused to find himself in a dark, cold place, walled with metal that echoed with every step. Dim blue lights lit the broad tunnel as it stretched before him, branching off into alcoves and pathways. Robin halted and tried to back out of the darkness, but his chains caught on other chains, and the prisoners behind him shoved at his haunches.

“Go on.”

There was a nest on the ground before him, twisted with wires. In it, an unfamiliar Skydancer huddled with her dusty brown paws over her head, letting out a faint whimper as he approached. Confused, Robin glanced at the nest, then at the Lightning-born Mirror lying across the doorway of the corridor. The Mirror bared its teeth in a vicious grin. “That’s for you, my little featherball.”

Returning his blank stare to the dull brown Skydancer, Robin stood dumbly over the metal nest until someone pushed him in, and realization dawned on him.

“No,” he said.

The Mirror licked its teeth at him, slavering. “What did you say, chicken?” When was the last time it had eaten? It was ravenous. Surely it wouldn’t resort to murder and cannibalism.

“My mate is Avalon, and no one else. I’m sorry, but I can’t do this.” Slowly, Robin turned to face his captor, letting down his guard—open and defenseless—and closed his eyes. The golden filaments danced in his mind; clutching at them, he picked out Avalon’s and held onto it, his last lifeline. The ones that could have been their children’s spun around him and faded, but hers was still there. He wrapped his heart and soul around it.

When the Lightning officer pulled the Mirror’s hungry jaws away from Robin and carried the Skydancer’s bloodied, broken body to the prisoners’ infirmary, there was still a ghost of that gentle, sorrowful smile upon his face.

***

It took Robin nearly a month to recover from the combined wounds he had received, during his capture and those the Mirror had inflicted. 2057, the officer overseeing his division, watched him from atop a storage tower. The white Skydancer, stark against the steely grey landscape, shifted boxes with slow, laborious movements. He did not look up when a Wildclaw nearly landed on top of him.

“Hey, what are you doing here, slave?” bawled the Wildclaw. Slave. That was what he was. Not Robin. He had no name now.

The slave glanced up at the speaker, fixing him in a weary, patient brown gaze. “Working. Like all the rest of them.”

“You’re in the way, skychicken. Get out.”

2057 winced at the clatter of metal as the slave, knocked backwards by the blow, stumbled against a pile of tools. When he rose, there was a crimson gash across his thin back, but he bent his head and resumed the long process of pushing the container twice his size across the canyon. Like all the prisoners, he had learned not to retaliate. It tended to cause more harm than good. They all labored in bowed silence, all the same, all alike. Except that as he struggled toward the storage tower, he did what no other prisoner had done: he raised his head and met the officer’s eyes.

His sad, gentle smile, no more than a wistful curve of the lips, pierced 2057’s heart. She looked away to hide the sudden twist in her gut—a soldier had to be strong. When she turned back to the slave, he had disappeared into the tower, leaving a dusty gouge in his trail. All across the desert, similar captives toiled, their heads bowed and their tails dragging, their wings weighed down by the heavy chains that bound them from the sky. As the Skydancer emerged from the tower, those he passed called out a parched but heartfelt greeting to the smiling slave.

The smiling slave. Though some used the title in mockery, the other slaves referred to him with mingled pity and admiration. Silent and uncomplaining, he never spoke a word against his captors, answering both cruelty and rare kindess with that same longsuffering, heart-breakingly tender expression.

At night, in the darkness below the spires, he searched the stars for her. The threads, frayed and worn, nonetheless remained as mystical and bright as ever. Avalon’s memory lived in them, whether she herself lived or died. By them, his life had a purpose—to weave them as the Earthsaker had instructed him. Without these invisible threads, he would have lain down to die long ago. Months. Years. Time passed in an eternal blur.

His tears fell unnoticed, hidden in the shadows. And he never let them show. Too far gone from innocence to pine, the longing grew inside him till he could stand it no more. It wasn’t only his love he missed. He missed his home. With each turn of the moon, he watched the Cycle of Earth draw closer, unable to join in the festivities of his homeland.

The air grew warm, golden brown and hazy, as distant sandstorms flung the dust of the Dragonhome into the airstreams across the continent. He couldn’t bear it. At the brink of the canyon, he looked north with a breaking heart as the thunderclouds parted for the first time in months, to reveal the ever so faraway Pillar on the horizon. As he watched the sun illuminate the shattered relic, hope died in him. He was so long lost. So powerless to do anything. Without his love, he was nothing.

“My king,” he whispered in a ragged voice, “If Avalon is dead already, what am I doing here alone?”

He had not asked for an answer, nor expected one. But it came, the faintest tremor, as he heard the deep bass mutter roll like drums in the distance.

“The stones … never … fail …”

With a crash, the first spire fell as the earth suddenly heaved like a storm-tossed sea. Thrown off his feet, the slave flung a chained wing over his head to shield himself as debris came raining down on him from the wreck of the exploding land. Lightning bolts stabbed the ground as the spires short-circuited, clashing and grinding with shrill, electric death-knells. The storage tower collapsed into the yawning maw of the ground.

And he was free. Bloodied, bruised, and crushed, but free. The building that fell on him was the building that shattered his chains. And he raced into the sky without a second thought.

The ambush so long ago had left nothing of the ridge where they had made their home, and he could find no trace of Avalon there. As he wandered the Dragonhome, the golden threads expanded till they filled his vision. They were his to weave, and he would weave them. It was his duty. And if there was any chance that they would somehow lead him to his mate, he would twist them for a thousand years.

His search led him from the land of Earth and stones into a green place, a lush place filled with rivers and trees. Here, the threads took on the color of the flowers. They spelled his name in his heart and tied his sanity to his soul. Avalon was out there. In another world perhaps, just as her name stood for the land across the sea, but wherever she was, he would find her. He had to find her.

Chasing down unfounded rumors in his desperation, he stumbled, weary, worn, and tired, deep into the shadows of the trees, upon a clan lost in a darkness they could not see. No one knew Avalon here. And Robin, as the smiling slave no longer, but the weaver of light and the holder of gold, found another task before him. To twist together the broken ends of their souls. To weave a tapestry that would block out the shadows once and for all. For the first time in his life, he would need to make a choice to fight, and not for himself.

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RELATIONSHIPS
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________

Seiceamar—Friend
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As the voice of reason to Seiceamar's reckless thirst for adventure, Robin has saved the Daughter of Memory from possible disaster more than once. While he sometimes longs to fly by his own right, he never leaves the airship for long out of respect towards the flightless Spiral. Seiceamar has granted Robin permission to probe his mind at will, and with this the two often hold silent conversation.
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________

On the first day of Rockbreaker's, he came to the clan with the number 12,000 branded into his flesh.

Top 5 Dragons Above You: |

phoenixoflegend wrote on 2017-09-13:

Oh, Robin. His lore breaks my heart. This boy deserves to be happy.

On a happier note, I love his outfit! All the gold goes great with his colors and his lore. He almost looks like an angel! Also, I'm a sucker for runes. While I usually prefer lighter-colored runes, the darker chocolate contrasts beautifully with his lighter body color. They also seem like a visual tie to the Earthshaker.

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