Polyhymnia's dragon Xedrex

Personal Style

Apparel

Skin

Scene

Physical Attributes

Battle Stats

Measurements

Length

22.94 m

Wingspan

24.25 m

Weight

8343.89 kg

Genetics

White
Crystal

Azure
Butterfly

White
Glimmer

Hatchday

Jan 27, 2017
(7 years)

Breed

Adult
Imperial

Eye Type

Water
Common

Level 1 Imperial

EXP: 0 / 245

STR

AGI

DEF

QCK

INT

VIT

MND

Lineage

Parents

Brax
Kas

Offspring

Biography

Xedrex

|| Mad Scientist||

Water is the source of all life!

For centuries, the eleven Flights of Sornieth have been locked in the endless debate: Which Flight is the best of them all, really? “Our deity is the oldest, which makes us the best!” more combative Earth dragons may cry. This results in the other Flights attempting to drown them in a cascade of self-praise: “We’re the newest!” “We’re the most innovative!” “We’re the richest!” And so on.

The Water Flight’s defense is simple: “Water is the source of all life!” This the white Imperial thundered, stalking to and fro, his blue eyes wide with something very close to fanaticism. In a stentorian timbre, he declared, “Everything comes from water. Everything! Do you understand, son?!”

“Umm,” said Xedrex, who was but a hatchling at that time. He looked up at his googly-eyed father and the diagrams scrawled behind him. Something about dragons crawling out of the sea.

In their defense, there hadn’t been much to go on. The official lore simply said, “Dragonkind was born.” It had also explained that the deities had “used their respective magics to create children in their image”, which was still really kind of vague. Bolder and nosier scholars had clamored to their gods, asking how exactly this had happened, but the gods had been rather coy on this matter. One might say “prim”. Even “prudish”.

The older Imperial remembered this, and he patted his son on the head. “Never mind, my child. It may be too much for you yet. But someday, you will understand. So you must remember this – you are a dragon of the Water Flight. Remember: Water is the source of all life!”

The words made quite an impression on little Xedrex, almost as if they’d been hammered into his brain. Years later, he had grown into a splendid Imperial. He looked much like his father: pale skin, deep blue wings. His eyes were as blue as the depths of the sea.

Ahh, yes, the sea. While his eyes didn’t have quite the same googly-eyed cast his father’d had, it must be said that the two drakes shared obsessions. “WATER IS THE SOURCE OF ALL LIFE!” Xedrex thundered. His immense voice shook the room.

His neighbor, a Coatling girl who had recently moved in, started to cry. A door banged as the hatchling caretaker went to check on her. And from the other room, the lady Wildclaw – Xedrex didn’t know her name – thumped on the wall and yelled at him to shut up. He was always being told to shut up...a lot. It got sort of wearing after a while.

Xedrex didn’t know his neighbors’ names; well, it was not important. (Did they even have names?) Instead, what was important right now – and as always – was science!

In his long years of living, Xedrex had seen many things. The Dominance competitions, week after week...So exhausting. So frivolous! “The world would turn a lot more smoothly”, he’d once purred, “if all the Flights didn’t waste time struggling over this weekly ‘who’s better’ competition. It’s most definitely a waste! – especially since we all know the answer to be...” At this point, his clanmates had given him “What the huh?” looks, and he had muttered something suspiciously like, “Water Flight is best Flight.”

He had learned to be careful with his words. But he repeated them over and over again, in the safety of his mind....No, not “Water Flight is best Flight,” although it did come pretty close. Come on, say it with me: “Water is the source of all life!”

Xedrex flounced down the stairs. His lair was taller than it was wide; it bored deep into the ground and ended at an underwater cavern. The Imperial didn’t know if his clanmates knew about the cavern, and he really didn’t care. Nobody came down here and bothered him, and that suited him just fine.

For you see, over the past few years, he had been laboring on a great device. A magnificent machine of technosorcery, one that would make his childhood dreams come true.

“Water is the best Flight,” Xedrex told himself for the umpteenth time. In his mind, he saw himself standing before and above a crowd of other dragons. (Ridgebacks were notably absent. Of course they were. Ridgebacks, even of the Water flight, did not really like water.)

Xedrex imagined himself proclaiming, “Water nourishes all other Flights. Nature, Shadow...even Fire. It quenches the thirst of all.

“In olden times, this planet was naught but a mass of water. It was water that birthed the continent of Sornieth, and thus all of dragonkind. I tell you truly – water is the source of all life!”

He had tried variations of these ideas before, but they had not been received well, even by fellow Water drakes. Something something about all the Flights being united against the Shade and blah blah blah. Also it was bad to mock other Flights. Whatever. Xedrex had realized that he would need to act alone. And so he had. He patted the side of his newfangled machine and whispered to it, as if in benediction: “Control the water and you control the world.”

And now it was time – yes, time to take over the world!

The machine was not that large, as Imperial sizes went. A broad dish dipped into the water of the subterranean cavern. It faced outward into the depths of the sea.

The dish was connected to a technosorcerous generator that used both electricity and magic – Xedrex was not beneath recognizing the strengths of other elements. They could be useful. Sometimes. This generator provided the power needed to run the machine. It also acted as the refiner for the energies received from Xedrex himself.

The final part of the machine was the helmet. It fitted snugly on Xedrex’s head and had a visor that shielded his eyes.

This was how the machine was supposed to work: First, Xedrex would settle down comfortably and strap on his helmet. He would think deep, magical thoughts about controlling the ocean. His thoughts would go up into the helmet and along the cords connecting it to the generator.

Whilst running the machine, the generator would also transform Xedrex’s brain waves, make them into magical energies that could be used to manipulate water. (Yes, there were talented hydromancers and hydrokinetics among dragonkind – but Xedrex was not one of those dragons. He was an engineer. Hence the machine.)

Once his brain waves had been “translated”, they would be channeled to the dish that had been submerged in the sea. This dish would amplify Xedrex’s thoughts, projecting them over a wider distance. He would have a thousand times the range the greatest hydrokinetic had ever had. He would control the waters of the world!

“It’s so simple!” Xedrex thought gleefully as he settled down. “I can’t think why no one ever tried it before....Should I test it first? A little something to show my clan who’s boss? No, no, never mind. They’ll fall over themselves in fright and go straight to the Tidelord’s sycophants, and all my dreams will be for naught.”

It never crossed Xedrex’s mind that there were reasons no one had tried this before. (Like the Tidelord – that was one big reason. If not the biggest one.) And no, he had not tested the machine before, either. As far as he cared, he could do no wrong. The machine would work; it was certain. By sunrise tomorrow, the world would be in awe of Water!

These were the thoughts running through Xedrex’s mind as he put the helmet on at last. The machine hummed to life, the generator thrumming thickly, cords shivering to and fro. Xedrex closed his deep blue eyes, and he turned his thoughts to control and domination.

“Rise up, water,” he snarled through gritted teeth. He could hear the sea, but the noise was unchanged – just that gentle lapping sound that told him nothing was happening.

He tried harder – which is to say, he thought some more. He thought louder – come now, you know how it goes. Have you ever tried to get someone’s attention by screaming super loudly? This was what it was like for Xedrex, except it was internal screaming.

“Water!” he bellowed (silently, in his mind), “Obey me! I am Xedrex of the Sea of a Thousand Currents!

“I command you to rise up!” Yes, that was a good idea. Rise up in a towering curtain, threatening all the land-bound dragons. Show them who was boss. “Rise up and come to me! Know your master! Let us bring the world to its knees!”

It was working – he could feel it! The amplifying dish started to hum; the generator began a low, droning whine. It burned with bright blue electricity. Above the ground, Xedrex’s clanmates let out annoyed exclamations as lights flickered and some devices shut down. All the electricity was getting funneled into his project, thoughts turned into sorcerous energy that could not be ignored....

And now something, inevitably, was wrong.

Xedrex could feel it – the rocky floor was vibrating. He could hear a distant, churning rumble.

It was the sound of the roiling sea.

Too late, he realized his folly: “Rise up and come to me!” And of course the sea was coming towards him – all 4,350 quadrillion short tons of it, fish and ships and all.

He would be swamped. Even a Water drake such as himself would not survive the impact! Xedrex gurgled in fear and tried to pry the helmet off his head. It clung stubbornly, stuck around the prongs of his antlers. He couldn’t see what was happening, but he could imagine: a tremendous wall of water bearing down on him, smashing the lair, pulling him under. He would be buried under silt and fish....Not the fish! He abhorred fish!

All those slimy, scaly fish – he imagined them bursting out of the water and smashing into his face. What an ignominious death it would be.

And with tremendous impact, something cold and wet smashed into him. It was like a hammer walloping the underside of his jaw. Stars exploded behind Xedrex’s eyes. The helmet popped off at last and clanged against the floor...too late. His vision was already going dark. The last thing he heard was the horrid crumpling noise of the machine as it finally imploded, all its energies spent and discharged.

water_shield_divider_4_by_starkindlerstudio-dajuqmo.png

Xedrex woke up slowly, feeling something gently pecking his cheek. That was weird. He’d never had a mate before. It went without saying it was because most other drakes found him insufferable.

He was utterly convinced that he’d died – more so when he peeked through his eyelids and saw a pair of googly eyes staring back. “F...Father?” he asked. But no – his father was alive. Or at his father had been alive last time he’d checked. He thought, “Oh dear gods, did I kill my father?”

He sat bolt upright – and then stared in horror. It wasn’t his father. It wasn’t even another dragon. No...

It was a blacksaddle wrasse. It had been nibbling tentatively on his cheek. As Xedrex stared, another fish, a bright blue one, drifted past. “Ya gotta go for them eyes, ’cause they’s softer,” it said, clicking its beak.

“Um...what?” asked the wrasse. Xedrex himself was silent, save for a gurgling sound crawling up from deep within his throat. He sounded like a drain being unblocked.

“Ya gotta go for them eyes. They’s softer, y’know; they’s like jelly.” The eyebiter gave Xedrex a contemptuous look. “Yeah, ya close yer maw now, draggy. Yer breath’s a-stinkin’ up the place.”

Xedrex did not close his maw. He looked around, his soft, jelly-like eyes wide in growing horror.

Fish. They were everywhere. Crowding around the room, flitting past like birds, getting their slime and stink on everything! No, they weren’t underwater – they were in the air. Floating past Xedrex, gulping down oxygen...What was happening?

“W...Where...” Xedrex rasped. He got shakily to his feet. “How...?”

Immediately, the myriad small wet noises stopped. All the fish ceased going about their business and turned to stare at him.

“Excuse me, are you Xedrex?”

“Oi! You’re Xedrex, aren’cha?”

“’Tis Xedrex! –Verily?”

“Oh, I say...” A grizzled old warmouth flicked its tail at the Imperial. “It’s incredibly rude to just stare at us like this, especially since you were the one who pulled us from the sea.”

“Though it was nice of him to give us air-powers so we don’t suffocate like all the others,” another fish muttered.

“True.” And there was a moment of silence as the fish acknowledged their eaten comrades and Xedrex just dithered some more.

The silence was broken by a clanking noise. Xedrex turned. His dented helmet lay on the floor, where a dragonfish and a flametail loach were each trying to vacuum it into their maws.

His brain jump-started itself. “That’s MINE!” he howled, swiping the helmet away. The dragonfish bounced off and burped, and the loach waved its fins. “That was really quite rude of you!” it scolded in dulcet tones.

Xedrex clutched the helmet with cold fingers. He was beginning to understand: his machine had worked....Just not the way he’d wanted it to. Instead of controlling the sea, he’d summoned all the nearby fish instead. And he had given them air-breathing, air-floating powers....How had that happened?

“Rise up and come to me!” – the words came back to him, and he groaned. Of course it would turn out this way. The fish had indeed risen up and come to him. As for the air-breathing, it must have been a side effect of the magic. The fish couldn’t propel themselves out of the water and go to him if they couldn’t breathe air. So the magic had changed that, too.

A germ of hope wriggled in Xedrex’s mind: if the machine had worked, there was still hope!

Or there had been, rather. Xedrex turned around to look at the machine, and he let out another dismayed cry. A huge marlin was buried nose-first in it. Its tail wiggled limply.

“Yo,” it grunted, “couldja get me outta here?”

Xedrex flung it away with a single swipe. It tumbled off, muttering, “Thanks!” before it crashed into a stack of brack bloat.

Xedrex ignored the puffy little fish as they bobbed and bumped around his head. He crouched down, sifting through the wrecked machine with trembling fingers. All his work...years of hard work...gone! It had collapsed in on itself, just like his dreams of watery domination.

His lower jaw quivered. The fish, sensing his distress, crowded around him. They drifted through the air as easily as they did through the sea.

“What’s up?”

“His poor toy...It’s broken!”

“I had one o’ those once. A hermit crab. But it ran away.”

“There now, buddy, it’s not so bad!” Xedrex looked up into the demonic visage of an angler fish. It spoke in a bright, chirpy voice, and its needle-sharp teeth were bared in a permanent grin.

It reminded him, “At least you’ve got us now!”

That was when Xedrex let out a wail of anguish. He really, really disliked fish.

water_shield_divider_4_by_starkindlerstudio-dajuqmo.png

It did not take long for the rest of the clan to find out what had happened. The earth tremors, the underground explosion, and Xedrex’s subsequent caterwauling – all the dragons were waiting expectantly outside his room, just waiting to see what was up.

They were quietly taking bets on what had happened. Nobody won – nothing could have prepared them for the cloud of fish whirling around Xedrex’s head when he finally stumbled out. Jaws dropped. Seath absently wiped some drool away.

“Xedrex?” Sealbriyi asked. She blinked behind her glasses. “What happened?”

The other dragons leaned in closer. Seath pressed a little bit too close, his stomach rumbling, until he was sharply nudged by Zuria.

Xedrex began to blubber. All his broken dreams and this tremendous, outrageous setback – it was too much for him, and his mind was starting to fray. He stammered out an explanation of how he’d been working on a machine to control all the world’s waters, because he wanted to control the world (there, he’d said it at last), but something had gone wrong and he still couldn’t control water and worse yet, there were now all these magical fish following him around, stinking up the air, and just generally being noisy and annoying and oh, gods, he hated fish, so why did it have to end up like this??!

The fish drifted closer, too. They stayed well away from Wilhelmina’s cats, who’d come to investigate the delicious fishy smell. That gave Xedrex some hope. Between the cats and the seafood-gobbling Seath, the fish would be out of here in no time!

Then Tieamat reached out and patted an eel on the snout. It chuckled back, and she grinned broadly. “I think they’re cute!”

The same enraptured look appeared in all the other dragons’ eyes. And at that moment, Xedrex knew it was hopeless.

“We’ll keep them!” Molly crowed. He spread his black wings wide, and the fish all snuggled up to him. They oohed and aahed over his soft feathers as he continued, “More friends are always welcome, whether they’re large or small. Oh, hello, you.” He tickled a weedy seadragon under the chin. It burbled happily and wagged its tail.

Xedrex gasped in horror. “You’re not serious!”

“Oh, yes we are,” Tieamat pouted. Her arms were already full of happy fish. “Come on, they only just got here!”

“But—”

“That is not what responsible pet owners do,” Wilhelmina said. She looked at him with sad, pale eyes. “So many dragons get a pet and then throw it away when the novelty wears off. We thought you were better than that, Xedrex.” Her cats meowed reproachfully at him.

“But they are—”

“You’ve made a mistake, Xedrex,” huffed Zuria. “You’d best own up to it. Take responsibility.”

Xedrex shut his trap. Beset on all sides by his clan...He couldn’t believe it! He couldn’t even throw the fish out anymore!

“All right, Zuria,” he snarled through a fake, pasted-on smile. “I’ll do my best.”

water_shield_divider_4_by_starkindlerstudio-dajuqmo.png

Xedrex retreated back to his den. He carefully gathered up the scraps of his machine. The fish were sympathetic and helpful; they picked up pieces and brought him tools when he asked for them. They were quite agreeable, really, except for the smell and their constant chattering.

And so Xedrex kept on trying to get rid of them. On one occasion, he threw a tantrum and sent them away to Seath. He surreptitiously peeked around the corner later on to check if the blind Ridgeback had devoured them. His heart sank – Seath, under Zuria’s watchful eye, was playing peacefully with the fish. They spun around his snout and bounced on his outstretched wings.

“But then again,” Xedrex thought grimly, “some people keep hogs as pets instead of eating them.” So Seath was off the fish-disposal list.

Next, he tried Wilhelmina’s cats. But the fish were wise and stayed well out of reach of the felines. It was another reason they stuck close to Xedrex: they were confident that the huge Imperial could keep them safe. “And ’sides, you called us, so you’s gotta take care of us!”

They helped Xedrex tidy up his lab and build things, but they strenuously refused to help him build another water-controlling machine. “You’re going to put us back?!” they gasped in righteous rage.

Xedrex stammered, “N-no! It’s just...What I want to do is...”

“Xed, we thought you were our friend!” The fish began wailing in harmony. This prompted the rest of the clan to sit outside the door and listen. Xedrex looked at them with baleful eyes, and he quieted the fish down.

And so the fish stayed on. They liked the world above the waves too much and weren’t going anywhere. Xedrex continued to grin and bear it. “Someday!” he promised himself fervently. “Someday I’ll make my dreams come true!”

A brack bloat sailed past his head. It got tangled in some wires and started peeping for help. Xedrex went to untangle it, scowling blackly, as the other fish gathered round to cheer him on.

He’d make his dreams come true, all right – but first, it would probably be a good idea if he got rid of the fish. Somehow.

~ written by Disillusionist (254672)

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