Glitchwing

What is a glitch?

Any gamer or engineer will tell you that it is a spontaneous error, a brief hiccup in the workings of a code or machine. “It does creepy things sometimes,” adolescent drakes will tease you. They’ll tip their heads slyly towards their gaming systems. “Don’t play at night—especially if you’re alone!”

It sounds strange enough, but what about glitches in reality? There are in fact many dragons who are able to bend the laws of time and space. This talent requires years of study, and there are those who give up or go mad before attaining their goal. In all of Sornieth, only one dragon has, without training or intent, managed to briefly splinter reality’s laws.

Her name is Naomi. For a short period of time, her visage was everywhere in Sornieth: plastered across bulletin boards, flickering upon Auction House messages....She could appear anywhere and without warning: in the black spaces between letters and lines upon students’ schoolwork, in the patches of paint on an old stone wall, even in flower petals drifting on the breeze. The clans of Sornieth began whispering about her, and rumors quickly spread: that she was an embodiment of the Shade, or a hitherto-unknown goddess about to launch a twelfth Flight...or perhaps she was a sinister sorceress intent on conquering the world. There were those who swore they had seen her with an army of apostate dragons, once-exalted warriors who had turned against their own deities and sworn allegiance to her.

“It’s nonsense,” more eminent clans declared. “It’s all a mistake....It’ll blow over soon, you’ll see.”

So Sornieth paused, held its breath...and waited. In time, the strange phenomena died away. It was acknowledged that something had in fact gone wrong, but that it was no longer worth worrying about. A glitch—a brief hiccup in reality, nothing more. As for Naomi herself, she continued to live quietly. Her strange abilities never manifested again...in herself, at least.

~ ~ ~
Naomi had several descendants, all of whom were regarded with awe—or fear. It was said that they had inherited her reality-bending powers, and most of them commanded much respect when they moved to other clans. After all, were they not descendants of the Glitch Queen herself? Charming and sly, able to bend reality with a flick of their claws—maybe it was true and maybe it wasn’t, but no one really wanted to find out. With enough luck and skill, these savvy individuals could make use of their ancestress’ name and carve out comfortable lives for themselves. But others were not so fortunate.

One of these descendants shared Naomi’s strange abilities. Shortly after he hatched, he opened his little mouth as if to take a breath. Instead, his caretakers were startled by a strange, mechanical screech that issued not from his throat, but from the very air around them. Louder and louder it became, until they had to put him down so that they could cover their own ears. And then, as suddenly as the sound had begun, it disappeared, taking the little Fae with it.

His caretakers were horrified. They had never heard a sound like that before, and despite their misgivings, they searched frantically for him, turning the nursery inside-out. It was only two hours later, after they’d given up, that he reappeared: he blurred back into view upon the carpet, right before the terrified eyes of the babysitters. Although he mewled piteously for their attention, it was futile: No one wanted to go near him now.

Thereafter, he was left alone. Even his father, himself a descendant of Naomi, was leery of him. That unearthly screech, his flitting in and out of reality...It was something alien, something that did not belong. For that, he was called “Glitchwing”. He withdrew from other dragons, and couldn’t have reached out even if he’d wanted to, for he was completely mute, unable to speak.

He was not treated well. Most dragons were surprised to realize he was a living glitch, but after the initial shock wore off, they openly displayed their dislike of him. He was a glitch, and so he was an error: “An abomination,” some dragons hissed, their eyes dark with distaste. “An affront to the natural order of things, an insult to our gods!”

They did not bother to lower their voices. They tended to forget that just because Glitchwing was mute, it didn’t mean he was deaf as well. The poor glitch heard their poisonous words, and he retreated even further into himself. He was therefore easy prey for those who wished to take advantage of those who were lonely, afraid, and weak.

He ended up in Clan Novula by way of a rescue mission. A band of slavers had made the mistake of trespassing on the Arcanist’s domain, and intervention was swift, for the eyes of the Arcane dragons are not always trained on the sky, as one might think. The underground hideout of the slavers was ripped open and they were swiftly immobilized, imprisoned in walls of magic or bound by chains of pure energy. Only when they were under control did attention turn to the captives.

One by one the prisoners were assessed. Those among them who were helpless, lost and scared, were quickly freed, spirited away to receive proper care. For others, freedom was slow in coming. There were maddened, broken creatures who lashed out at anyone who came near them. Some had lost their hold on their magic, and it burst loose from them in thunderclaps of energy and rage. The mages corralled them one by one, studying them all the while. Could they be redeemed? Or were they irreparably damaged by now?