Touvar
(#25834414)
Level 1 Ridgeback
Razorus
Webwing Alpha
Click or tap to view this dragon in Predict Morphology.
Energy: 50/50
This dragon’s natural inborn element is Light.
Female Ridgeback
This dragon is hibernating.
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Personal Style
Apparel
Skin
Scene
Measurements
Length
16.38 m
Wingspan
13.67 m
Weight
9046.15 kg
Genetics
Obsidian
Vipera
Vipera
Raspberry
Toxin
Toxin
White
Underbelly
Underbelly
Hatchday
Breed
Eye Type
Level 1 Ridgeback
EXP: 0 / 245
STR
8
AGI
7
DEF
7
QCK
6
INT
5
VIT
7
MND
5
Biography
NOT FOR SALE, TRADE, OR LENDING
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Touvar
(TOE-var) Clan Remembrancer ♣ firstborn of Adrastos & Hemera 
╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮
Those Who Remain (written by Disillusionist) ╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯ |
The two sons showed promise. They were rowdy from the very beginning, always squabbling and wrestling with each other. Their sister, the eldest child, was quiet and retiring. Her parents and the clan's fighters took a long, careful look at her and summarily shook their heads.
And so, while her brothers went out to train for exaltation, Touvar stayed at home. There were no other hatchlings in the lair at that time, and so her only companions were books and toys. Mostly books, later on, as her facility with letters increased. Her father and mother were the keepers of the clan's wishlist, and they drilled into her the importance of organization, promptness, and memory. "Write it down or you'll forget!" they said, and Touvar did as they advised.
The days passed. Touvar grew into a rather plain young Ridgeback, as gentle and meek as she'd been the day she'd come out of the egg. Her two brothers grew strong. They were loud and boisterous boys -- but they always treated her very kindly. She always came to talk with them after their training sessions, even though more often than not they stank of blood and death. Even when the training sessions were less than successful and they came back bloody and beaten, they always managed to smile, and they always urged her to do the same. "Chin up, we ain't dead!" they always said, before bursting into laughter. They brought her gifts, too -- fresh seafood, interesting toys. On one of their training runs they came back with a Ruby Webwing, a familiar. It remained unnamed for a long time.
"Dragons don't die when they are exalted," Touvar's mother said one day. She sat down next to her daughter and started grooming her, flicking dirt and grease from her wings. Touvar and her brothers resembled their mother more, and perhaps that was why they were close to her; even though Touvar didn't approve of her brothers being exalted, she didn't speak out against it.
But Hemera could tell what her daughter was thinking. She soothed Touvar, "They go and serve our god. Can you imagine how amazing that must be? --The Lightweaver in all her glory, and my sons, your brothers, serving her!"
"They have to fight the Shade," Touvar said softly. She'd learned that a long time ago, and it still scared her.
Hemera shrugged. "So do all the dragon gods. They'll be fine, Touvar."
"But they could die."
"Yes. And...?"
Touvar stared at her mother. It was an unbelievably callous response.
Hemera laughed softly, but it was a low, wistful laugh, almost a sigh. She cuddled close to her daughter. "Everybody dies, Touvar," she said quietly. "There are those who say that how you live is more important -- but I don't buy that. How you die, or choose to die, can be very important, too.
"And what better way to die than protecting those you love, or even those you don't know?" Her smile was sad but warm. "Sornieth, and all who live in it, deserve that much. It would be very bad if we didn't at least try."
Touvar wasn't surprised by her mother's words now. It seemed she had known all along....But she was only just beginning to accept it.
She asked, with just a hint of desperation, "Will we ever see them again?"
"We can certainly try," her mother repeated to her.
Her father later spoke to her, telling her about two other dragons who had been exalted before. "You were just about to hatch from the egg," he rumbled reflectively, flicking his tail. "Your mother and I didn't want to leave the nest, so we didn't see them very often....There was a Fae female, a small slip of a thing. She was the first Fae in this clan. Veritas didn't think she'd be able to hold her own, but she did. She was very brave.
"And there was Helina, a Wildclaw -- also the first in our clan. A speedy little trickster, that one. She was a great fighter. It was a shame she couldn't stay."
He'd said he hadn't seen them very often, but -- "You remember them very well."
"I try to remember," Adrastos said seriously. "It's part of my job. And of course, exaltation is no small thing. We'd be doing our clanmates a disservice if we forgot them after exalting them."
Ophiuchus and Helina hadn't had any family members in the clan, but they were still remembered. "So I should remember, too," Touvar vowed.
She talked to her father again, asking for some supplies. He raised an eyeridge, but complied. He gave her several rolls of parchment, battered old books, and pots of ink, muttering all the while how he "just happened" to have them lying around. It was no secret that Adrastos was something of a kleptomaniac, but Touvar didn't care. She nuzzled her father in thanks and then returned to her den.
They had been born in the lair together and trained together, and they left together. They flew off into gathering darkness, squabbling merrily all the way. Touvar strained to hear their voices long after they'd left, and then she huddled in her den for a while. By and by, some of her clanmates came by to cheer her up. Exaltation was a great honor, but it always left an equally great void, and for a while everybody struggled to fill it.
When Touvar was feeling better, she opened up her book. She began the list of exaltees, including the ones who'd gone before she'd been born. Ophiuchus, Helina...Darkscale...Razon and Spyrus.
There would be other names. She closed the book.
Her Ruby Webwing, gifted by her brothers so long ago, has bonded closely to her. It has a name now: Razorus, after Razon and Spyrus. It's pronounced "rah-zo-RUS" and is a silly-sounding name, but Touvar doesn't mind. Her brothers were -- are -- rather silly, too.
There are new trainees. They are young, strong, and eager to serve. The clan fighters question them, determining if they are worthy of exaltation, and they nod in agreement. They turn to look at Touvar. She nods back, and she opens her book to record the newcomers' names.
Those Who Remember
(special thanks to awaicu)
Long after her first two brothers were exalted, Touvar continued her task as the clan's Remembrancer. She spoke to new trainees. She recorded their original Flights, so that praises could also be sung to those deities who had allowed their children to serve the Lightweaver. But mostly she remembered their names, their lives.
Most dragons came from other clans. They had signed themselves up for exaltation and their leaders, lacking the time and resources to train them, had sent them to the Disillusionists. Then there were those among the Disillusionists who decided to put their careers and families aside and aid in the fight against the Shade. Many had been born in the lair: hatchlings who'd grown up hearing tales of battles and glory, who'd had it in their minds, practically since Day One, to be warriors representing their clan.
These individuals were always a bit jarring to Touvar -- she kept remembering her own siblings, Razon and Spyrus. (Her next set of siblings, Spearmint and Bazooka, had happily gone on to serve the Lightweaver as well.) She had come to terms with the necessity of exaltation, had stopped questioning it long ago -- but the uneasy feeling had never really gone away.
Then one day, a letter arrived.
"The Cathedral of Eyes," Frostlyn whispered. She turned the letter over. It gleamed brightly against the white of her palm. As the Disillusionists looked on, she clarified, "They asked me about my wings once. They were very intrigued...."
Nachtstreiter chimed in, "They are an ancient, revered clan. When our clan was still small and weak, they approached us....They were curious. They wanted to know where I had come from and how the clan had gained a foothold here."
He looked around as he spoke, and his eyes fastened on the Remembrancer. "Touvar," he said gently, "the messenger came to you."
"Yes," Touvar agreed. She had been in her den, updating the list of Exaltees: the Shade had been troublesome not too long ago, and the Disillusionists had trained several fighters and sent them to fight against it. The windows of the den had been closed, but that hadn't stopped the smoke from oozing through. The vaporous tendrils had twisted together, forming the shape of a spectral crow. It had folded its wings and raised its head to reveal the gleaming golden invitation held in its beak.
It had not moved as Touvar had taken the invitation and read it. The crow was still where she'd left it, sitting patiently on her desk. The Disillusionists peeked curiously at it, but none of them wanted to poke it and see if it was really made of smoke. It seemed disrespectful to do that somehow.
"Frostlyn and I have heard rumors of the Cathedral. We've picked up hints here and there on our travels," Rofthoffer said quietly. "The clan often remains shut in the Cathedral -- for centuries at a time, it's said. But occasionally the doors creak open...and a flock of crows flies out. They are sent to other places, other clans, bearing those invitations."
He took a deep breath and admitted, "It's said that the invitations are sent to relatives of those who have passed on."
"Invitations to what?" Touvar asked. Her voice sounded loud and far-away, even to her own ears. The room seemed to tremble and blur.
She spoke more loudly, as if that would stabilize the room: "Invitations to what?"
"Some sort of performance," Rofthoffer mumbled. Touvar didn't know what she'd expected to hear, but she hadn't expected that. She pushed through the crowd and lumbered away. The Disillusionists exchanged uneasy looks, and Nachtstreiter patted Rofthoffer clumsily on the shoulder. They went away, leaving the crow on the desk.
Touvar drifted around the lair for a while. She needed someone to talk to -- her parents were away on gathering and auctioneering duties, and she didn't feel like approaching any of her friends. Eventually, as troubled Disillusionists always did, she found her way down into the darkness of the lair. She saw a pale, moon-like glow ahead, and she slowed down, unsure of what to do.
Shalimar knew she was there. Touvar heard the genius locus' sweet, breathy voice telling her it was safe to come in. She entered the cell. The enormous statue stood on her plinth by the door, but Touvar was looking warily at Rhadamanthes. He had retreated to the far side of the cell. He was curled up in his nest of cloth strips and bandages, and after seeing the expression on her face, he hid his head under one wing.
"What's the trouble?" Shalimar asked. Her wing creaked and crackled as the stone rearranged itself; she put it around Touvar and drew the Ridgeback close.
Touvar sighed. And then she started to talk. It had been a long time since her siblings had been sent away, and the nature of exaltation was such that the clan had not received word from them in a long time. There had been letters at first -- sporadic ones, but letters nonetheless -- and then as they had progressed in their duties, the correspondence had stopped. They had gone away to war; it was impossible to keep writing letters, given the nature of their work. Then, too, there was the strong possibility that...eventually...dragons died in the line of duty.
Shalimar did not speak. She only listened. Rhadamanthes, the shining dragon, did not move from where he lay with his head beneath his wing.
It was a couple of hours later when Touvar returned to the upper levels of the lair. She asked to speak with the Lord and Lady, and she held out the invitation. "I will go to the Cathedral of Eyes," she declared.
The progenitors hesitated. Adrastos and Hemera had not yet returned from their missions; how would they react upon hearing news of one of their children's possible death, and also that their remaining child had gone to investigate? The Cathedral of Eyes was a mysterious, otherworldly place, and they did not know if Touvar would be safe there.
But her name, and her name alone, was on the invitation. All the rumors said that the invitation would grant safe passage to the dragon whose name had been inscribed on it. And Touvar had been with the clan for a long time and had never been anything but a conscientious, reliable worker. They would trust her.
Touvar packed some provisions, for she did not know how long she would be at the Cathedral. She returned to her room. The crow looked expectantly at her.
"I will go to the Cathedral of Eyes," she repeated. "Take me there."
And then the crow turned back into vapor and flitted through the slit between the doors. Touvar landed before them, not knowing if she should knock. She clutched her invitation before her like a shield.
The doors opened with a creak so low, it sounded like a howl -- just enough to admit a beautiful black Imperial dressed in dapper clothing. Blood-red roses festooned his wings, and he held another one in his mouth. He smiled around it, his teeth glittering, and somehow he managed to speak to her--
"What is your name?"
"My name is Touvar," Touvar said. Her Ruby Webwing poked its head out of her bag.
The doorkeeper intoned: "Touvar the Remembrancer. Touvar of the Disillusionists. Touvar, firstborn and daughter of Adrastos and Hemera. Sister to those who serve the Lightweaver. Sister to Razon."
The last name sent a foreboding shiver through her. The Imperial did not see the look on her face, for he was already bowing, and turning away to open the door. "We have been expecting you," he said, and his smile didn't seem as crooked as it'd been before. "Come and see."
Touvar found herself surrounded by a gathering of dragons....Only, were they really dragons? The steely reek of blood clung to some of them, though their scales were clean, their garb pristine. Others smelled of the sea: not of salt spray, but of the leaden coldness of deep, dark waters where even the sun's light does not reach. There were dragons in clothes so beautiful, her head spun from the sheer brilliance of it. There were others who were dressed simply, in the rough garb of forest-dwellers, twigs still clinging to their hair.
This panoply of dragons...Where had it come from? There had been no one outside earlier....Touvar released Razorus from the bag.
So many fashions, so many styles....Antiquated clothing or not? Some of it looked new. "Perhaps from other times," Touvar thought, shivering again. Perhaps the Cathedral existed outside time. She remembered the mist-shrouded exterior, the tree whose branches she could not see, the groaning, crashing waves. A place such as this...It seemed absurd to think it existed on the same plane she did. Maybe that was why...She clutched her invitation close.
Other dragons bore invitations, carried conspicuously like badges. Promises of safe passage. They did not speak with each other. There were curt, tight-lipped nods, a few uneasy smiles. Touvar found her seat and sat down. Her Webwing perched on her shoulder.
After long, uncomfortable moments, the performance began.
As nearly as Touvar could tell, it was a life story. Dragons swirled around each other, playing, working. One of them was costumed like her own dear brother: bright blue scales splattered with orange, mottled brown wings. He tussled with a purple Ridgeback who represented their brother, Spyrus. When the two of them approached a black Ridgeback and a red bird fluttered from their outstretched paws, Touvar felt her heart clench deep inside her. Her Webwing shifted uneasily upon her shoulder.
She had to look away. When she did, she saw other members of the audience leaning forward, their faces rapt with attention. Some eyes shone with unshed tears. Now she realized they were all of different ages: some were younger then she was, others were ancient. Fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers? -- "Everybody who receives an invitation is related to someone who died," Rofthoffer had said.
She tried to pick out a main character and realized there was none. All the dragons were of equal importance in this play.
She and the rest of the audience found out why soon enough. The dragons onstage left their homes...and they went to serve the Lightweaver.
The goddess appeared onstage, beautifully costumed, singing words of comfort and praise. She was glad to receive such stalwart fighters. They would be treated well, rewarded for their noble service. The dragons trained together, were slowly molded into lethal warriors. Then their battles began.
Slicing through black smoke, trying to pierce the dark. Shadows engulfed the stage, dispelled by rays of light. There were glimpses of dragons falling, being carried away. Some of the audience cried out: gasps of horror, anguished screams. The worst were those who crumpled down in their seats, silent and inert, tears flowing, unchecked, from their eyes.
"It's a life story," Touvar realized. "But all lives must end in death."
She steeled her heart, though her body was trembling.
The play went on. When the warriors were not battling against the Shade, they were sent out on special missions. They fought against eldritch beasts; they put down clans who harbored fragments of the Shade. Razon was one of those sent away.
A battle fought in darkness, amidst a thundering storm. Dragons dressed in deep black clothing, their eyes blank and pale, limbs grotesquely twisted by alien magic. Servants of the Shade.
They attacked the Lightweaver's servants, throwing the brave warriors down into the crashing sea. Touvar watched as her brother fell. Other fighters, similarly injured, tried to aid him, but the waves were too rough, the winds relentless. They were dragged apart from each other, carried to distant lands.
The audience watched as the warriors died. One of them drifted down into the darkness. He opened his eyes to a pale glimmer and was engulfed in crystal. A perfect, glittering ice sculpture, his fluttering heart halted with his last, feeble gasp.
Another was rocked to and fro upon the surface. A small, slender Nocturne. Easy prey. A pair of gleaming red jaws opened beneath her, and then she was no more. The stage briefly shone in scarlet. Touvar closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, she saw her brother washed up on a shore. Crashing waves, a shingled beach...The Cathedral's tree towered just beyond the mists.
An Imperial approached him: not the black butler with his ruby roses, but a pale creature, white as bone, with red blotches upon his scales. He bent over the Ridgeback lying broken and bleeding on the shore. "What is your name? he questioned repeatedly. "Light drake, what is your name?"
He worked to save the Ridgeback's life. As he did, the stage blurred around him. Minutes stretching into hours, which turned into days. The Ridgeback was now lying on a comfortable bed, well cared-for, his wounds bandaged. But it was too late; he was beyond even the Cathedral's reach. He slipped away, and the dragons of the Cathedral folded white, feathered wings over his peaceful face. The surgeon shuddered and groaned in grief.
Touvar left the hall. She moved away from it till the music was faint and she was sure she was alone. Like the surgeon who had tried so hard, she folded her wings around her, and she wept for a while.
She wasn't sure how much time passed. Eventually she heard the click of claws, and she looked up. The black Imperial was before her again. "I am sorry," he said to her. "Did you not like the play?"
It was a very unexpected question. She was not sure how to react. She took a while to answer, and so when she finally spoke, her answer was surer, more refined than it normally would have been: "You tried to save him. You all did."
"Yes," the Imperial admitted. He cocked an eye at the invitation poking out of her bag. "Occasionally travelers stray near and require our aid. We are not unkind", and he smiled faintly, "within reason."
By the time Touvar got back to her seat, the play was nearly over. The dragons who had been slain in the service of the Lightweaver assembled onstage once more. This time, Touvar did not have to pick Razon out of the crowd; she knew he was there. She watched as the Lightweaver gathered her faithful warriors. Again she sang her songs of comfort and praise, but she was joined by the chorus of warriors this time. They had served her well. She was proud of them, and always would be. Nobody would be forgotten.
The Lightweaver drew her wings around her brave Acolights, and their story came to an end. There was brief, startled silence. And then the theater broke into thunderous applause. Touvar was among those who stood up, clapping loudly, tears shining in her eyes even as she smiled.
And there it was. But as she drew nearer, she slowly started to realize something. It was not an "Oh!" sort of moment....Rather, as she approached, a shape near the door began to resolve itself. Arched wings. Glimmering runes. A spectral Guardian dragon.
Touvar slowed down. This dragon was somewhat smaller than she was, but her wings were vast and seemed easily capable of shading acres...maybe worlds. She looked into the dragon's eyes for their elemental allegiance, but there was none. The old Guardian's face was partly obscured by a blindfold.
Nonetheless, the Remembrancer was polite. "I greet you, matron," she said, bowing slightly. She pushed her Webwing back into her bag.
The Guardian matron nodded back to her. "You were here for a performance," she noted. The smile on her craggy face was faint and warm.
"Yes, ma'am. I was."
"Did you enjoy it?"
"No," Touvar admitted. Her answer was spontaneous this time. She immediately regretted it, even though it was true; it seemed very impolite. But the Guardian did not take umbrage. She seemed to be waiting.
Touvar took a deep breath. "It was not a performance to be enjoyed," she stated softly and clearly. "It was almost like...a hymn. A paean. It was a tribute. Yes..." She remembered the warriors gathering one last time, the Lightweaver folding her wings around them. She concluded, "It was a performance to be revered," and this time, she was smiling.
The Guardian's chuckle was soft and deep. "That is one way of looking at it," she agreed. Her wings moved again, faint shapes gleaming against them, like eyes opening and closing....In her glowing paws, she held a book. Touvar reached out to it instinctively.
And the Guardian pushed it into her grasp. "I think this belongs to you," she rumbled, her voice right next to Touvar's ear. Touvar blinked and looked at the book; she'd never seen it before....But there was something deeply familiar about the indigo leather binding it, the bright orange jewels worked into the cover, the brown ink washing across the pages. She opened the front page. The first words were: There were three of them to begin with...
Touvar's heart gave a mighty thud, and she looked up again. But the spectral Guardian had gone; instead, there was only Sebastian, bowing to her even as he opened the door.
The doorkeeper had not been surprised. "Once you have an invitation," he told her, "you are always welcome back."
Touvar flew home. Somehow, she knew the way. The memory of her first visit to the Cathedral was firmly etched into her mind and heart now. Strangely, it wasn't all that unpleasant. They had not known her brother's name, but they had done their best for him, and they had remembered him. They remembered everyone.
The Remembrancer returned home to find her parents waiting for her. They embraced her tightly and then listened to her story. There were long moments of grief when they received the news that they had lost one of their sons -- but there was comfort in knowing that he would never be forgotten by the deity and the dragons he'd served.
Touvar occasionally visits the Cathedral of Eyes. The place calls to her in a way that she, a Remembrancer, can understand. She listens to other dragons' tales and watches the plays. Occasionally, she tells a story of her own, too.
Among the Disillusionists, she continues her usual tasks: She speaks to new trainees. She writes down their Flights, their names. She does not write down their stories as obsessively as she did in the past, however. She knows they will be remembered. Souls gathered into the wings of the Lightweaver...life stories crowning the Cathedral and its Tree. Books gathered in the Library, waiting to be read. Waiting to be turned into plays. Waiting for the moment when they, too, can shine.
~ The End
* The Light Tome was a gift from awaicu.
* dividers were made by me
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