Flavelo

---

By all rights, Flavelo should have been ousted from Briarshike's territory from day one. He certainly wasn't capable of hiding it, discovered with in the day. If he'd only known that the lands he'd entered belonged to someone so favored -

"Please," he'd said, ("please!"), "I promise -"

"You can promise nothing," Diamphra said with contempt, an unnatural light in her green eyes. "Let the dead rot as is their right, and feed new growth."

"I mean no harm," he protested. "I am not one of the Plague! No - no ally or disciple of the Plaguebringer! Please, I am not your enemy, Great Mother!"

(It had been a gamble. Young and ambitious, Flavelo had frequently ignored his mother's talk of the deities. At the time, he'd had no reason to pay mind to her her history lessons mind. What did he care for super-powerful beings that so carelessly created living creatures and then discarded them. Something must have stuck, though, for he recognized -)

The contempt didn't fade from Diamphra's face, but the harsh luminescence of her eyes dimmed slightly. "Don't not call me 'Mother,'" she said. "You do not have my favor, Child of Light, nor will you garner it with such pathetic pleas while practicing such vile arts on my lands. Have your mentors taught you nothing? You callously risk the entire realm with your meddling!"

"Please," he begged, "understand my position! The disease that Xylona has ... if it's not cured -"

"Then she will die, as all things do," Diamphra said, unmoved. "All life comes to an end, Flavelo. To fight against that, to reject the natural order of things, is to embrace a darkness more foul than any thing that has crawled from the Wyrmwound or the darkest of the tangled woods. To practice necromancy with the intent of using it on one such as yourself ...?" The small Tundra shook her head.

"But what," another voice spoke, "is death? Really?"

Flavelo turned his head, warily eyeing the dark Guardian who had lurked on the outskirts of the troop. He'd tried to meet the force with dignity, but he had stopped counting their force the moment he'd noticed there were three Guardians within it - the only dragon that could match an Imperial, if not by size, then by sheer weight and muscle mass.

"Khasamae," Diamphra said coolly. "You have something of value to say?"

"With all respect, Mother," Khasamae said, "very little is understood about death. You know I have my own reasons for being interested in this subject."

"I am aware of your predilections," the Tundra said, the luminescence of her eyes harshening. "If you have something of value ...?"

"I say let him do his research," Khasamae said mildly. "One dead Imperial on her own is no large concern, and it would be nice to have someone here who is more interested in remedies than poisons." She moved her massive bulk closer, curling her body in an unsubtle sort of wall.

Judging by the way that Diamphra's head tilted and her nostrils flared, it had not gone unnoticed.

"Put this one and his dying sweetheart beneath my watch," Khasamae continued, her black scales glittering, the twisting white patterns seeming to ripple over muscle. "I'll make sure he pays the Great Mother the respect she is due. Send Sagivia to check in on her. None could withstand her righteousness."

There was a derisive twist in the words, but Flavelo had met Sagivia, and he was not unmoved by the threat. She may as well have been a sword foraged in the fires of the Ashfall Wastes for how sharp her claws were and how unyielding her determination.

"You wish me to permit a necromancer in my lands?" the avatar asked flatly.

"We would stand to gain much from his research," the dark guardian reasoned.

"And should news of this research spread, opportunist from every flight would be chopping down our forests," she said.

The guardian gaped with toothy humor. "Are you saying that we are such soft-claws that we can't even defend our own home? Let them try. They'll be nothing more than fertilizer to feed the growth of our home."

The avatar huffed, a low and long billow of breath. "Fine," she said at last, her pride as a deity pricked. "He and his ... research ... are now your responsibility. Be it on your head if he fails or does wrong."

"By the Gladekeeper's glory," the guardian said, dipping her head before holding it high in pride, as any guardian would, given charge.

The avatar turned to leave, and the others slowly, reluctantly followed suit: a rainbow of glittering eyes. Once the glen was mostly clear, Flavelo finally felt it safe to pull himself out of the crouch he'd sunken into.

"You have my gratitude," he said softly to the Guardian. "I thought - for a moment there - well. But now I have a chance, maybe I can find a - cure. Or some kind of answer for Xylona's illness."

The guardian's head turned, and she regarded him out of one narrow green eye. "Gratitude," she echoed, and chuffed. "Gratitude? I don't want your gratitude, you ignorant fleck of pyrite -"

She leaned forward, scales and spines and darkness and glowing eyes.

"I want you to raise the dead."

---

b:4kt