Iorath

There isn’t much that Iorath finds memorable about his childhood—not much that lingers in his mind like the faintly glowing embers of a once burning fire—or perhaps it is better to say that there is not much Iorath actually remembers.

The loss—is it loss if he doesn’t miss it?—of memory doesn’t affect him, doesn’t keep him up at night, no thoughts of what if and maybe flittering about his mind. After all, what use did he have for something he did not know? _{A lie. No matter how small, it was still a lie but that life had thrown him away and he was merely returning the favor.} Perhaps earlier in life, a hatchling whose world was limited to those of blood and clan and no, no. How could he have blood and clan when he didn’t remember them in the slightest? Who had known him, young and impressionable and so vulnerable that he managed to simply forget? _{A part of him fears, dreads that it wasn’t of his own violation but the world had always been cruel and he knew that. Still, it meant the world had forsaken him before he could remember—had he never been worth anything in this life?} They had not searched, had evidently not wanted him. That was fine. He didn’t care. _{But he did. He wanted answers} They hadn’t thought he was worth the trouble.

No, no. They were wrong; whoever they may be, he long stopped caring. Still they were wrong. He was worth something, anything—even if it was merely physical.

He remembers the strange entity that he found, once upon a time, still alone, still proving to the world that his life was worth something, if only because he was still alive. Still breathing. _{The world could not, would not take that from him. Iorath was worth this life and the world would learn it.} He remembers, doesn’t really know whether or not that is his first memory—it had to be if he remembered nothing else. Or perhaps, he simple didn’t want to remember. “Do you wish to be worth something to this world?” it asked, intangible and like smoke, caught by his eyes for the shortest of moments before fleeing someplace else.

Like a game of hide and seek where he was seeking and losing. But for all the strangeness and suspicions that arose, Iorath wasn’t the type of dragon to let anything fall from his grasp—“yes,” he said, clear and even and unintentionally soft as if any louder would chase the odd entity away. “Hm, I shall grant you this then; waste not the opportunity, young dragon.” Then it was gone, like an illusion of his own creation. But it had been there. Had heard his hearts utmost desire and had done something unlike the world that turned it’s back over and over. _{It proved the world wrong and Iorath would do the same.}

Had given him something, made him worth something.

As the strange entity ordered, as Iorath obeyed. Still obeys even now, having risen from lost thoughts and forgotten origin to something worthy. “Waste not the opportunity.” So the Spiral wandered, once upon a time, through the Shifting Expanse to Sunbeam Ruins to the Tangled Wood to the Scarred Wasteland. Where the inhabitants cringed upon his visage, scorning and turning away anything remotely different than normal. Where he wandered, alone with no willing companion, no kindness given to his different looks, no villagers willing to associate with such a cursed being. _{It was ironic, he thinks, that they believe him to be cursed when, really, it is them and their monotone life, routine ways, void of anything worthwhile. Or perhaps he is cursed, a blessing in disguise it may be, that saved him from such a life.} He sneered, temper reigning as it wont to do, unwilling to just take it laying down. He would not bow to the insults, words like a knife and claws even sharper.

He never apologized. Never saw the need to—lessons needed to be taught. Iorath would make sure the world, and consequently it’s inhabitants, learned. After all, pain proved to be a wonderful teacher.

How cruel was the world. Then again, Iorath had learned long ago; it didn’t stop the world from proving that fact over and over again. Instead of hiding away, of covering himself with a cloak, Iorath moves forward with a snap of his fangs and electric blue eyes narrowed with distaste at the mere commoners who were nothing more than copies of one another.

“How sad a life, to be nothing more than simply just another” he laments on his own, thoughts aloud where none could hear still, words carried by the wind. A life he had never once lived nor shall ever live—Iorath was proven worthy, he needs prove nothing else to the world that scorned him since the beginning.

The Spiral wandered _{had he always wandered? Drawn by something more but unable to locate the exact destination. Perhaps it was life, leading him to his clan, no longer alone. No longer wandering} until he reached Starfall Isles, land of the Arcanist. The only deity scorned by dragons from other flights if only due to his mistakes. Mistakes that they, surely, could’ve—would’ve, Iorath believed they would’ve done worse without anyone to guide their mindless follower ways—made. Or perhaps it was Iorath against the world, choosing to side with the so-called underdogs because no one else will. No one else had. _{Maybe if someone had chosen to side with him things could’ve been different but, no, no. He would not change his nonexistent past for a chance to become a dull, mindless follower. This was his life, his path. The world would not change that. Could not.} “How dreadfully dull these masses are,” he mutters as he stares out into open space, untouched by the cruelty that lingered on dragons like poison.

“How predictable in their ways,” he adds with a sigh, thoughts spoken aloud with little care as to whose ears they reach. “Well, I wouldn’t say we’re a predictable sort, but, if you think so, we can prove you wrong.” And so was the beginning of his time with the Arcane clan.

With dragons that, since he made the deal with the entity, had not once flinched from his strange appearance, instead welcoming him with grace and kindness he couldn’t remember he last received. ‘How odd, these dragons,’ he’d think to himself, electric blue eyes wandering as the dragons hustled back and forth, content at where they were but not yet so normal. And it struck him, then, that this clan wasn’t normal; that they, for one reason or another, outshone all others he met on his travels by virtue of not falling into the crowd, so to speak. It was different, realizing this and attempting to keep himself distanced. Life wasn’t kind to him, after all. He’d rather not remember having something then losing it—was it kinder to just not have it? They were an odd bunch; an odd enough clan that even without realizing it, they managed to burrow beneath his walls and his contentment caught him off guard.

How had they managed to integrate him to thoroughly into their clan that even he hadn’t known when it started? “We’re all a little mad here,” he laughs under his breath, eyes stuck on the stars, appearance otherworldly and a warmth that cruised through his chest, comforting and welcoming. It was something he enjoyed savoring, that feeling.

They had proved him wrong; unpredictable and separate from the dull masses that scorned him and taught the world cruelty. _{Or perhaps it was the world that taught them cruelty, and only the few who knew it were saved from such common hurt.} Iorath had never been quite the type of dragon that enjoyed being proved wrong—rather, he enjoyed proving others wrong—but this once, just this once, he’d let it go.

Iorath would not change anything; the world would learn to heed him.