Albion

"Face it Slitherus, you're old. Your ways are old. You have no place teaching the ways of battle magic."
The Potionmaster grimaced and lapsed into silence. The younger alchemist, Tharssus, wasn't entirely wrong; Slitherus had survived two assimilations of new generations, though he had never sired offspring himself. He kept himself busy by teaching the young. Though he was incredibly adept at wielding shadow magic, no one was interested and he was relegated to teaching potions. Ever since Talona began uniting the Beastclans he sought to extend his teachings to his favoured subject, but he was passed up in favor of younger albeit less experienced mages.

"Besides, we've all heard the stories," Tharssus' twin Carl mused. "You trained under dragons, didn't you? Who's to say you don't hold a fondness for them still? I wouldn't risk it, learning from someone in cahoots with the enemy."

The twins, eager to prove themselves, pushed ahead through dense brush, forcing Slitherus to fall behind. A tense hush came over the group as they approached their target; three dragons gathered by the mouth of a river that let into the delta. Two of the dragons, a diminuitive Skydancer and a beastly Imperial, had their snouts in the water searching for fish and seaweed, while a Spiral rolled in the sand behind them. Easy prey.

As Tharssus and Carl silently drew their weapons and moved forward, something about these dragons gave Slitherus pause. Two bore crowns of bone and the scars of battles past, while the third wore armor that crackled with magically contained lightning. They were obviously very skilled and seasoned fighters, only an inexperienced fool would think to cross them.

Two such inexperienced fools were about to learn a deadly lesson. As a teacher, Slitherus felt it would be dishonorable to get in the way of this learning experience.

He turned his back on the delta and slithered away without a word.

Perhaps it was his age that belied him, Slitherus thought when the Spiral swooped in and snatched him off the ground.

---

"Albion Albion Albion Albion Albion Albion Albion look look what I found!"

Albion pointedly ignored the noisy noodle flying above him. He never liked the noodles, less so when he was freshly molted.

"Albiooooon come ooooooooon!"

Azurite, on the other hand, liked everyone and everything, especially Albion. Albion was fun to poke and prod and pester and sometimes give things to.

"Come on come on come on come on lookit the thing!"

Albion did not look at the thing. He had much work to do, and no shadow dragon to aid in his research. If he ignored Azurite long enough, the obnoxious Spiral would leave eventually. Albion stuck his nose back in his books, but was soon interrupted when the thing fell out of the air and landed on his back. He looked up to chew Azurite out, but Azurite had already flown off.

Already disgruntled, the Ridgeback shook himself until the thing fell to the ground. When he went to inspect it he found a very shaken Serthis who looked like he'd just been carried half a mile up over an entire continent.

When the snake didn't introduce himself, Albion kneeled down to deliver the most intimidating, book-weary glare he could muster. "You'd better be comprised entirely of shadow essence or I'm feeding you to my Mirror mate."

The snake did not respond immediately or even flee, but took a moment to dust himself off and straighten his wind-torn tunic. Once settled, he met Albion's eye and answered, "My name is Slitherus. Unfortunately I am corporeal, but I do know a thing or two about shadow magic if you seek a professor."

"A professor? You teach?"

"Well, I teach potions, but my specialty is really the art of shadow. My colleagues wouldnt-"

"You're hired."

"I- What?"

"I said, you're hired. Do snakes not have ears?" Albion scoffed and stood, shoving his nose straight back into his research. "I need someone who can do shadow magic, maybe someone to teach my interns."

Slitherus hardly listened as his new partner rattled off the details of upcoming experiments, he had never been so happy.

He wasn't going to be eaten.
And best of all, he finally got to teach shadow magic.

---

Slitherus wasn't entirely sure he liked his new home.

It turned out the experiment he was needed for involved enchanting an Arcane nest with shadow magic to see if it made the eggs stop floating away. The experiment was cut short after the resulting explosion and cleanup. Afterward, the professor was tasked with training young Shadow dragons who found their way to Starwood Strand.

Eager as he was to begin teaching, the aged Serthis found it difficult to adjust to a cramped, cavernous study hall filled to the brim with Imperials who could barely fit through the doors and Spirals trying to mimic his method of balancing upright on the thickest part of his tail, with every empty space packed with Fae of all the wrong elements. Under any other circumstance he would have thought he was a meal being studied by ravenous beasts. Luckily this clan had a much larger appetite for knowledge. The assembled dragons were so easily distractable that he spent just as much time scolding hatchlings as he did teaching. Oddly enough, the students grew more excited every time he berated them for goofing off.

The first few lessons went off relatively without a hitch. Several students stayed after class to watch Slitherus tidy up the few belongings he'd amassed. Of these, it was a tiny Fae who first approached him.

"Are you a snake Mr. Severus, I always liked snakes but you look like a people, snakes are nicer though they don't make as many strange noises," the Fae droned. She waited only a heartbeat before continuing, "My momma was eaten by snakepeople and the other eggs were too then the pink dragons adopted me, they didn't say a snakepeople would be here though. Are you going to eat me Mr. Severus?"

"It's Slitherus," the professor corrected, momentarily taken aback by the unbroken, monotone buzz. "And I've never eaten Fae, you're hardly large enough to constitute a meal." To his surprise, the Fae continued to stare at him with wide, unblinking eyes, her head frills undulating in what Slitherus could only interpret as either boredom or fear. "You do realize dragons eat more of my kind than we do of yours, don't you?"

"Yes." The Fae's crest flattened against her head. She stared at the professor for another awkward moment. It was the last word she said that day, and for many lessons afterward; however, she always hovered closest to the Professor's desk, listened raptly to his every word, and stayed after every class to learn more.

Or, she could have just been hungry. It was hard to tell with Fae.

Then one day she stopped visiting. She no longer came to classes, seemingly disappeared.
Slitherus soon began to notice a trend of students no longer attending after a couple of months. Perhaps some higher-up in the Clan decided that was their graduation date. He had little contact with dragons outside of class, discounting the Ridgeback he shared a tunnel with, and knew even less about what happened to his students when they left. Still, he began to miss the company of that Fae, loathe as he was to admit it.

When he was told his students were being exalted to the Arcanist, presumably to fuel the dragon war, Slitherus was furious. He refused to teach, or even leave his tunnel. Long nights he spent bent over a cauldron, muttering to himself as he fell back on his old specialty of poisons. The aged Serthis took no issue with willingly leaving rivals of his own kind to die, but being used to raise an army to fight a war he wanted no part of went too far.
He thought this Clan was different. He thought they valued knowledge in its purest form, the pursuit of practical applications of magic. He thought-

THUMP.
Slitherus jolted away from his cauldron, brandishing a half-empty bottle of skunk eye juice and a pair of tongs as his sword and shield. He thought he heard something massive fall right outside his tunnel.
A lone dead snowshoe rabbit flopped down the side of a huge, lumpy burlap sack and came to a rest just inside the entryway. Slitherus warily lowered his tongs and crept forward to inspect the sack. It was large enough to fit a Guardian and smelled of sharp blood. He leaned in to poke the bag but his view was immediately obscured by a familiar tiny face and a feverishly undulating frill.

"Mr. Severus look I brought you a thing, the Observatory is full of bunnies everywhere I think someone accidentally one of Marva's hats and there were so many so I brought them for you to eat," the Fae droned. Now, at least, Slitherus could recognize her expression of excitement and fondness.

"You- It's Slitherus," he stammered, mouth agape. "Didn't they send you off to war?"

The Fae tilted her head and blinked all three eyes- Wait, three?
Slitherus did a double-take, but sure enough a third eye had sprouted in the middle of his old student's forehead, bright pink and more pupil than anything. Her crest was different too, seemingly framed by spines of fluid rock from the Crystalspine Reaches.
"Spacedad is too busy to bother with the battle but he does need lots and lots of help at the place with the telescope to keep the bunnies from multiplying and cull the mutants that fall off the meteors, I was lonely though he said I could come visit you if I caught enough bunnies."

"Then, the others? Are you alone there?"

The Fae shook her head, frills flapping about. "No they moved into the library, some are trying to remove a mutant that snuck in and welded itself to Spacedad's tail he can't get it off without destroying everything, do you think maybe you have a thing to melt it off, you're the best at melting things."

A wave of relief rushed over Slitherus. His students were safe after all. Well, as safe as they could be in a region chaotic as this.
"Come, let me teach you a thing or two. I think we can brew something up that might help."

All things said, Slitherus found he rather liked his new home, extra eyes and all.