Seychelles

"My faith is the strongest power I have. I believe that we will prevail,
because I cannot accept any other end."



She stood alone on the shore, in a world
where her beloved deity had grown silent and
his absence filled by the chaos of a changing
realm. But the guardian in her prophecy was
held steady by the Tidelord's echoing whispers...
a memory in the vision, but a very real presence
to the young hatchling seeing and hearing this
all for the first time.

In the hour that you find yourself without me,
you will be met by someone new. Someone who
brings you tidings of hope and purpose.

She could see this 'someone new' so vividly in
her mind's eye. Strange and captivating, unlike
any breed of dragon she had ever seen before.
But for a heartbeat, someone else was there--
someone neither she nor her god had expected,
their mere existence making her bones tremble.
She could not shake off the feeling that her
vision had been intruded on (or perhaps she
was the intruder? A lonely entity's dreams
and a child's divinations colliding by chance
in the starscape?)

But the depths of the Leviathan Trench are
meant for soothsaying, not for the questions
that follow. The dragon was left alone in the
darkness once more.


An oracle's first prophecy is a gift; a sacred glimpse of fate known only between them and their god for the rest of their days. Even as a young child new to the training, Seychelles remembered this well. So when she finally resurfaced from her first dive, she kept her newfound troubling revelation to herself. She didn't tell her proud and loving parents that one day life as they knew it would be irrevocably changed, or that the waters from which she had emerged would someday cease to speak. She told them nothing and guarded it all with a small smile and an oath to continue her studies.

And so she carried herself for years, in solitary diligence and deliberation, wondering when this foretold chapter of her life would begin.

But that is not to say that she viewed her life outside of it as meaningless. To the guardian, it was full of meaning. Seychelles divined many a vision for the denizens of the Sea in her years as an oracle, and grew to be a wise and honored religious counselor within her community. In times of strife and struggle against the invading beastclans, she also gained recognition for her formidable courage-- rallying her brethren with the doctrines of the Tidelord even as she met the enemy with her own fangs and claws. To her people, she was a true paladin in everything but name. She protected their hearts as fiercely as she did their scales, and for that she was admired and esteemed.

Beyond these accomplishments, Seychelles maintained a close relationship with her family... and most especially with her little sister, Fissure. Her life was whole. It was happy. It was fulfilling.

But as she already knew, it could not last forever.

In the first few days following the great hurricane, it would have been easy to fall into the same despair as her fellow sea dwellers-- to let her spirit be torn apart by the sheer weight of their deity's disappearance. But there remained in her heart one last nudge of direction from the god she so loved and missed, and she held onto it like a lifeline as the days blurred into weeks, the weeks into months.

Years.

She remembered her prayers, recalled her teachings for the masses, and reassured dragons seeking solace to not give up hope... all the while waiting for her own ordained answer.

One day, on a pale rosey dawn that she had long since committed to memory, the oracle excused herself from her familial clan and did as she knew she would years ago. She walked along the shore. And there, the guardian met Galdho.

It was an almost inconceivable moment for her. To see her own recognition and wonder and disbelief reflected in his eyes, in his slightly agape jaw, was at once bewildering and cathartic. She had braced herself to meet him nearly her whole life, but never once had she considered that the soul standing before her might have been searching for her, too.

"It's you!" the newcomer exclaimed, with a face that for all the world looked starstruck.

"You're here," she answered softly, her own awe tempered by a lifetime's worth of patience. "So, then.
What happens now?"







ABOUT SEYCHELLES