Nuytsia

Living Fires subspecies


They said they would be friends forever, that nothing would stop them but how innocent they were blinded by their reality.

He didn't mean to break the pot it was an accident but his parents weren't hearing any of his pleas. They were enraged, hissing, screaming and slashing at his body for his clumsiness; he had broken one to many pots. His father got ahold of his leg and pinned him to the ground as his mother ripped into his arms. Blood pooled around his body with him only being able to scream as pain shot out from where his arms were meant to be. His father let go and stood next to his mother before spitting on him, picking up the arms in his mouth and walking away.

****
The sounds of screaming and pain reached her fluffy ears as she travelled back to her forge. She move closer to the noise but stayed hidden for safety behind a boulder. While the view was mostly blocked, she could see the now armless young wildclaw cry and screaming in pain. She didn't know what to do, was it even safe to come out yet? She decided to go over and comfort the dragon slowly, not trying to startle it. The poor thing was bleeding heavily and clearly was fading out fast. She touched the back of its neck and buzzed lowly. The wildclaw looked back weakly before turning back. She was lucky that the wildclaw was so young and small as she gently put her arms under it and carried as fast as she could to her place.

She was glad that she knew the basic of cauterizing from seeing some forgers she once worked with acting silly and accidentally cutting fingers and flesh off. She brought them inside, carefully placing the dozy wildclaw on top of one of the workbenches and prepared a hot rod. She buzzed calmly while stroking his head before placing the rod on the wound. Sizzling and the smell of burnt flesh filled the room and the wildclaw started screaming once more. They didn't last long as the youngling passed out due to the pain. She carefully dressed the wound, making sure she took all steps to not get it infected and took him to her bed for rest.

****

He woke up smelling crease, metal and smoke. As he moved in to stand, a small silver and orange wing pushed his head and forced him to lay down once more. He heard shuffling as a small mirror climbed onto his belly and grinned. "Hello wildclaw I'm Calleum and I live here with my new mum! Are you my new brother because you're tall and fun to jump on!" He didn't know how to respond and simply gave a quiet hum. "Yay! I like your orangeness, makes you look toasty!" He sat there and listened to the mirror squabble, giving head nods and hums. It wasn't too long before the site of a familiar mith entered and moved to his side. She carefully observed and probed where his arms were suppose to be before buzzing at Calleum who immediately left the room. She sat with him buzzing at him but he didn't understand mith. The one sided conversation was interrupted when Calleum ran back into the room holding a book saying " Hey mum I got the book for him! Want me to play translator?" The mith buzzed and Calleum giggled. He looked quizzically at Calleum who shot back "I've been with mum for a while and she taught be mith! Don't worry you'll get it soon and this book will help speed thing up! It's all in the tone!" He nodded to that and allowed time for the mith to speak. The mith buzzed a lot and once finished Calleum relayed "I'm sorry I couldn't save your arms but at least you're alive. I don't want to push you or anything but if you don't have anywhere else to go I would gladly take another wing under my house. I can teach you how to forge once your wounds heal and don't worry about needing to get me anything, saving you is all I need." He was bewildered. He had done nothing to this mith and she was already treating him better than anyone else he had met. He quietly spoke "i would love to stay here miss but how could I forge or help without arms?" More buzzing followed by "please don't call me miss, if anything call me Irid or mum! Don't worry about your missing arms I've got it covered." He didn't know what that meant but he believed her and thanked her. Irid ask for him to stand so that she could hug him before showing him his new home.

****

"Lets have a forge battle!" "Why?" "Because I wanna see who's the best! You're just scared I'll beat you already!" "Am not! I'm just still getting use to my new arms..." "Sure you are. Looks like you'll have to call me master blacksmith for the rest of your life." "No way! Fine we'll do this tomorrow starting at 6 and if you don't get up it's not my fault." "Oh it's on Nu." The next day Calleum and Nuytsia went into the forge and started working on their masterpieces. The night before they gained permission from mum to use any materials they needed for their 'great' forge battle so they could build anything of their dreams. The whole day was mainly a blur for both sides through the sweat, steam and smoke to create the best they could. They worked until late night when they both deems their work perfect and called for their mum to judge. Irid calmly flew into the forge she had been kept out of all day and observed her workplace and children. Nuytsia was chosen to go first and showed Irid a whole set of gold filigree armour beautifully cleaned and fit for most small dragons. Irid buzzed many great praises at his works before moving onto Calleum. "Well I could've made armour like Nu but I decided to do something more crazy; I created life!" Behind a cloth Callum put up moved an iron golem which she quickly jumped on and hugged. The iron golem gave a metallic neigh and bowed its head towards Irid. Irid buzzed towards the golem and examined its structure and design. "I think my signature is going to be having a heap of swirls on the top thirds of all my works, that way we'll know that it was made by the best!" Irid didn't even know her little girl could do circuits! Irid buzzed excitedly at her creation and declared her the winner but not before giving Nuytsia a hug for his efforts (but he too was very impressed at his sisters creation.) Irid welcomed the golem into their home and allowed to wander wherever it pleased.

****

The war was getting intense. With more soldiers heading out to protect the nesting grounds, the more supplies of armour and weapons had to be produced. Nuytsia, Calleum and Irid knew they were needed to produce needs and stayed majority of their time in the forge creating quick and strong sets of all types of armour. Dragons would rush in, get what they needed and would never return. They never did know the status of the outside fight until they heard the sreeches of harpies boom near the forge. Any windows they had were now shattered across the ground and harpies had moved in. They all banded together and gathered some of their forged equipment.The first set of harpies that came at them were quick work but they were learning and mentally tiring them. Swing after block after kill and no progress was being made, they knew they weren't making it out alive. That is until Nuytsia felt something missing. He wasn't being attacked at the moment and quickly looked for his disturbance. Everything seemed to be in place except for one thing; Calleum wasn't fighting next to him anymore. Nuytsia quickly gave a shout of her name and heard no reply before being forced into battle once more. He fought many and was expecting another to come at him but it never did. The harpies in the forge and moved on from attacking them and started gathering anything they could grab their talons on. Nuytsia saw this as an opportunity to search for Calleum and headed towards the front side. He turned the corner to see Calleum clutched in a harpies talons. He went for the swing but the harpy simply raised its claws at him forcing him to stop his attack. "This dragon gave up its will to fight to save you foes. Don't make us break its promise." With that the harpy made a loud screech and flew off with Calleum, followed by the others carrying nearly everything they had. Nuytsia stood in shock and stayed that way until Irid carefully hugged him and asked what happened to Calleum. Nuytsia burst into tears and hiccuped "she made the ultimate deal and sacrifice herself for our safety." Irid kept hugging him and made a silent wish to keep Calleum safe.

****

Many, many years passed since the war and most had moved on from the battlefields to more inland environments or grew too old to remember. Nuytsia, the golem and Irid also moved but not inwards like the others, but into a local clan that decided to claim the battlefield as their home. Both sides benifited from them joining the clan; Nuytsia could do so much more with the clans large amount of ores and gernerosity of space to work, and products made were handed out to residents or sold for a good price. The clan also benifited as in those 5 years Nuytsia and Irid had gained a positive reputation of having some of the best armours and weapons produced for any occasion. Things were going fine for them until the harpies attacked again. The fight was more even as he made sure his products couldn't be penetrated by harpy claws and weapons could slice as thin as their handlers needed. He didn't participate once more in the war but watched from inside his forge. Wings and claws clashed and he even managed to see the glimpse of something golden fighting Granith on their way to the ground. The whole war was won far quicker than expected and the harpies called a retreat, leaving the dragons victorious for once.

Once the all clear was called from clan leader Granith, Nuytsia left the forge and went to gather both sides supplies that were aimlessly lossed around. With each harpy equipment gathered he noticed something unique about their designs. They we're created by a skilled forger as seen with the strength and shine on each part but the main thing that stood out was the swirls. The were swirls all located on the thirst third of the equipment, wheather it was a sword or armour. The design was sitting in his mind, trying to remind him of what it reminded him of until the once iron golem now rusted golem walked up to him and nudge the equipment. The golem too had swirls on the top third of each piece of work. Nuytsia went into freeze, was his sister still alive? He forced himself out of his trance and kept examine the golem and the works, hoping his mind wasn't true.

****

He lock himself in his forge for 2 days of ongoing examining before a harpy was spotted heading for the clan. The sirens were set and the guards were off, shortly followed by Granith. His itch to know who was making their armour filled his mind as he headed towards scene. He didn't get close but was just in hearing range to hear Granith agree to attack the harpy base. He rushed over to Granith and begged to come with. Granith asked why and Nuytsia stayed he needed to find who was making the armour. Granith sighed and said he could come if he stayed back and waited for the fighting part to end. He agreed and allowed Granith to set up her warriors for the final push on the harpies.

****

He hid behind a rock with the harpy and watched his third battle. The opposers were clearly not ready to face Granith and co in their homes and were easily being defeated with Fairyflame being captured and the harpy commander calling the retreat. Some of the warriors helped take Fairyflame back to base while the rest checked the insides. Granith gave a signal for them both to come out and allowed Nuytsia to check around. He didn't go where most of the warriors were gathering, that wasn't his problem; what got his attention was a small but long crawl way towards the end of the main hallway. He started to crawl down the path, feeling the change in temperature the more he travelled. When he finally pushed himself out he found himself at a metal door. The door wasn't lock and carefully pushed it open. When he opened the door a heap of smoke filled the air and some manage to burn his lungs. He slightly walked in and saw his fears. The room was covered in ashes, soot and grime. There was equipment scattered all round the ground and a small furnace in the back corner. But the real horror was seeing a small, very skinny orange and silver coloured mirror laying next to the furnace, facing away from him with its back legs chained to the wall. Nuytsia very carefully approached the mirror and poked it but it didn't move. He poked it a couple more times before physically faced it towards him. The mirror was quite clearly not well and was unconscious. Nuytsia managed to break the chains with all of his might and carefully crawled and ran back towards Granith. Granith tried asking how things were but was immediately shut down and asked her to get the mirror to the doctors. Granith gently picked up the mirror and without a word quickly flew back to base with him close behind.

*****

The doctor said it could take weeks for her to wake up but there she was, eyes wide and very scared after 4 days of rest. The doctor didn't immediately let Nuytsia in as she listed her many problems that still needed treatment. His obedience of the doctors orders only lasted for a day before he made the doctor allow him in. The doctor did warn him of her trauma for disobeying so no loud noises or commands were to be said. They walked in and immediately Calleum eyes fell in his they stared for a while before Nuytsia crumbled and went in for a hug. At first Calleum flinched, visibly not used to touch but the more he stayed close around her the more she would move closer to him. She didn't speak but that was fine for him, his sister was now safe and home.

*****

Calleum wasn't allowed to go with Nuytsia until all physical injuries healed up so everyday he visited her, telling his stories of the day and making sure to not look intimidating when she spoke. Regularly Irid and the rusted golem visit her room to check up on their child. The first time they came the rusted golem expressed so much happiness it kept rubbing its head along her cheeck and neighing. Irid calmly sat beside her before dragging her into a massive hug. While Calleum is now petrified of harpies, her progress to speak and behave like a true forger is staring to show once more and her family will be there for every step and fall along the way.