Runestone

The Clan runestone represents devotion, loyalty and unity. While parallels can be drawn between it and the Pillar stone, the Clan runestone is more insular and usually indicates a smaller scale. Reversed, it can indicate disharmony, dysfunctional relationships, or treachery, as well as loneliness and isolation.

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OwO Solilojay was here

"The clan founder and leader. Softspoken, perhaps, but with a quiet confidence that exudes from her. She is not shy - I scoff at the thought. Merely a Mirror of few words, as many of her kind. There is no need to parade her superiority like a more insecure leader might. She merely leads, and the members of her clan respect her decisions. Including, much to my chagrin, her decision to keep certain details private. She is calm and decisive, though do not mistake her for an idle threat. When the fevered pitch of battle arrives, she sharpens her claw-blades and fights with a near feral zeal to protect. She sees Clan Lucerna as a shelter, I am told by her son, for the broken and abandoned. I'm quite offended by the implication that I'd fall into this category. I have no need for her pity. But I digress. Clan Lucerna was originally founded as ambassadors between Beastclans and dragonkind, aiming to strike peace in a war that Hollowmaw saw her species as responsible for. An odd belief, albeit one that most of this similarly-odd clan tends to share. It did not make them the most popular of clans, needless to say, and while they did try to live up to their ambition to be peacemakers, they would not have lasted this long if they were weak or willing to bow easily. While these peace-brokering initiatives are still active, particularly being the life's work of her daughter Enoth, ambassadorial work has taken a backseat. Perhaps they've finally realized that one measly clan can do nothing to heal a centuries long rift. And indeed, I'm told stories of another Hollowmaw, before I arrived. One who looked out upon her clan with a quiet pride. Who guarded her charges life and limb, and who gently tried to nudge them in a healthier direction - affirmed the lost of their personhood, offered the broken a soft place to fall. From the way the oldest clanmates speak of her, she sounds so benevolent. She wanted Clan Lucerna to be a place of healing. It's... a naive goal, for so solemn a dragon, isn't it? Perhaps she's finally learned better, and accepted it cannot last. From the whispers I've heard, she has grown more jaded, more solemn, over the moons. Her proud smiles and gentle assurances have dwindled, retreating into the shell of a hardened and secretive leader. What sparked this change in her? Is it related to why less ambassadorial work comes from Clan Lucerna in the more recent moons? Who are you, Hollowmaw? Why is your clan's trust in you so absolute? For their sake, I dearly hope you deserve it, but... I have the most awful suspicion you aren't what you seem. End report."

OwO Solilojay was here

Once upon a time, a Mirror dragon escaped from the Scarred Wasteland with her lover, and left to travel the world.

It's a treasured memory, when she first crawled out of the creeping contagion she was born in. She remembers feeling the first touch of grass below her claws. It's a world apart from the squishy, fleshlike ground that she walked on all her life in the wastelands, until she finally reached it, and it suddenly all fell into frame. The wind smells clean.

Oh. She remembers thinking. This is what he means.

She broke from the Scarred Wasteland into a wide-eyed haze, and then into a run, laughing and rolling in the grass under her black scales were stained green, a rare smile claiming her face.

She was an adult, then. But looking back, she seems so young.

She wandered the world, and Carmine wandered with her, gawking at every new wonder, every new sight, every new friend. They settled down at the base of a lighthouse, still in love with each other, still in love with the world. They raised two beautiful children, a son and a daughter, her sun and her moon.

And they all lived happily ever after.

But that's not it, is it?

Fine. Let's try again.

Once upon a time, there lived a mirror dragon with scales as black as void and wings as clear as ice. Her parents gave her no name. They did not hate her. Quite the opposite. They loved her as much as they could, kept her well-fed in her youth. But for a pack of Mirrors in the wastes, there was no time for names. No time for anything except survival.

The young Mirrow grew into a fledgling, bold and strong and hungry. She survived the trials of the wasteland, and grew into her wings, her claws, her teeth. She ran with packs, at times. But when she had gone on that fateful hunt, she walked alone.

It was on a hunt like any other. The nameless Mirror found a small creature, hardly the size of her head. She was not one to turn down prey, but this was hardly a substantial meal, and disappointment pinged through her stomach alongside the hunger. Still, she was hardly one to turn up her nose at a meal, and this creature was small. Weak. Half-dead already, ravaged by the viruses that squirmed through the land.

"P-please!" He squeaked, weakly peddling back. "Don't eat me!"

She knew how to speak, understood the words perfectly well. For all that they were predators and survivalists, they were still sapient. They could speak just fine. Still, it was a rarity to need language, and so she did not speak back. She only closed her maw, flattening her head fins - a gesture of wary peace. Apprehensive, but not hostile.

This creature kept whimpering, though. He didn't understand her body language, for all it spoke loud and clear. It was a waste of precious water, speaking. Horribly inefficient. He would need to learn that quickly to survive in the wasteland.

She was surprised by how scratched and dull her voice was when she forced out the words, jagged as glass. "I won't." She answered simply, turning to leave the strange creature. It was not prey, but nor was it pack. She didn't make it a few steps before that piping, annoying voice sprung through the air again.

"W-wait, please, don't- don't leave me alone!" There was that word again, please. If there was room in her bones for pity, she would have pitied him. It truly must be in desperate straights, to say it so plainly, so... pleadingly. She hoped she would never be in his position. It was an uncomfortable thought, how far she would have to be reduced that her best chance of survival would be to plead.

"Please, the other dragons, you're the only one-" He stuttered, managing a weak flutter after her on his thin, vein-y wings. He lacked weight. Not surprising, but nor was it ideal. "- you're the only one who... talked to me." He finished lamely. "And I don't, I don't think I can get very far on my own. Can I stay with you? J-just until I can find my way out?"

It took a moment for her to translate the words into a sentiment she more easily understood. He was begging to join her pack. He would not survive without a pack. Her survival instincts warned against it, he would only be dead weight. He was loud and tiny and would be worthless in a fight.

... but he was also light enough to ride on her without causing her strain. She doubted she would feel his weight at all, truthfully. Nor could a creature that size consume much in the way of food. Food was scarce, yes, but no more scarce than normal.

She would give him a chance to prove his worth. Perhaps she would be pleasantly surprised. It was unlikely, but not impossible. He must have some strength, for the Plaguebringer's tests to not have killed him yet. Her goddess found potential in unexpected places, at times.

But one thing the stranger said stuck in her mind. Out of here. She could have snorted a laugh at that, almost, but instead she stayed statue still, weighing her options. There is no out. The wastes stretch into the horizon, and if there is a world beyond, it is not one that mortal wings can reach.

But she did not care to waste the water explaining that.

She jerks her head and flicks her tail in a motion that he thankfully understands means 'follow', and he is part of her pack.

It is a decision she regrets that night while she is trying to sleep.

Her annoying packmate has taken the liberty of curling up on her back, right between her wings. Where she has an itch, at that. She nudges him off, and he looks... sad, at that. She was expecting an annoyed growl or perhaps a warning snap, which she would return with a growl of her own and a flash of teeth; a show of her strength, a warning to keep their distance.

"Sorry." He mutters instead, looking down at the ground with watery eyes. She doesn't know why he looks so... sad? Is that what that expression is? It's hard to tell, especially when he's so much smaller than her, and his frills twist and fan out in a complex motion that she can't understand.

Is this how he felt about her body language? Perhaps this is where words are important. "Itch." She rumbles in her cracked, uneven voice, twisting her hind leg to try and scratch the annoying speck that has wedged itself between her scales. She didn't think her voice would sound like that, but then again, she hasn't cause to use it in a long while.

He perks up at that, seeing her struggle to twist her leg into quite the right place. "Oh! I can get it!" He offers. "If that's okay?" She has nothing against it - this seems the kind of thing that packmates are for, in fact - and nods her assent, turning her back towards him. It's a gesture of trust for Mirrors, though she knows it will be lost on him.

It isn't that meaningful, anyhow, when he's so small. Perhaps he is venomous? His bright, gaudy colors might be a form of aposematism. She doesn't mean to sound overconfident, but he would not be her first run-in with a venomous creature, and this would doubtfully be her last. But there is no stinger or fang in her back, just a slight slump of her shoulders when he finally gets that ever-present itch.

She allows herself to relax, laying on her side. When her odd packmate gently leans against her back, she allows him. Perhaps her warmth is some comfort on the chilly night, and it is a simple allowance to a packmate.

They wander for a while. "My name is Carmine!" The strange insect-packmate hums, holding out a spiny, frilled hand. It's nothing like her paws. It's smaller with long, extended fingers, with only small visible claws at the tips, ill-suited for fighting. "What's your name, by the way?"

She shakes her head. His face scrunches up with confusion at her response. "Don't want to give me yours? That's fine." He pips, and after a brief pause, Hollowmaw shakes her head. It's not that she doesn't want to. If she had one, she would share it. She just... doesn't have one to give.

But he doesn't understand this, tilting his head. "D'you... not remember it?" He guesses, and Hollowmaw shakes her head once more, feeling a pang of pity for the small creature. She would enlighten him, but there seems to only be one more answer to land on. And as she predicts, he guesses it, perching on her nose with his wings outstretched.

"... do you not have a name?"

She nods, bringing her packmate up and down with her muzzle. It's hard to focus on him, but he's making that odd expression again. She believes it's sadness, but it's hard to say. "Oh." He deflates, his voice soft. "Do you want one?"

There's no real point, but if it will amuse her small packmate, why not? She offers a shrug, and a mischievous smile breaks across his face. "Hmm. So I get to name you! Wow, lots of pressure." It isn't, really, but he's having... fun? Perhaps? There's something to that smile of his that she can't place. She doesn't really care what her name is, but if he wishes for something to call her, she doesn't see the harm.

"Okay. Nice to meet you, Snappy!"

"No." She huffs aloud. Absolutely not. He can choose something more dignified than that. He blinks in surprise, and she's worried he will be sad again, but instead a high-pitched, joyous bark escapes from him.

"Aww. Spoilsport. Okay, how abooooout... Killer!" She shakes her head, cocking up one fin in an expression of disbelief. "Sure, let's try again. Lightning round. Toothy. Rex! No? I thought that one was pretty good. War? Aspen? Chompy?"

He was trying to fool her into picking something stupid, wasn't he. She wasn't dumb. If he insisted on her having a name, and she wanted to avoid a terrible one, it seems her only option was to pick one herself - or else listen to him spout his terrible ideas all day.

"Hollowmaw." She said simply, and kept walking. The look of shock on his face was... a little bit amusing, she'd admit.

"Like, as a- as a name? That's your name?"

She nods, and he makes a few more of those high-pitched, happy barks. She would learn much later that he was laughing. "Yeah, y'know what, sure. Why not? I like it. Nice to meet you, Hollowmaw."

You know that's not what I meant either. You're dragging it out.

Did you forget who your employer is? My story, my pace, Archivist.

Apparently, Carmine is also a dragon. This is news to her, but it at least explains their shared language. He calls himself a Fae, which isn't a species she's encountered before. He speaks of many more species she hasn't met yet, either, though truthfully, she can't hold the mental image of them in her mind as he tries to describe it. There are far more types of dragon than she expected, she thinks dully - though she never gave it much thought before.

He chatters on and on about many things. He's an animated storyteller, his voice swelling with the flow of the story. Hollowmaw still doesn't talk, but she likes to listen. He spins tales of the lands beyond the Scarred Wasteland, lands that she's never spared a thought before now.

"There's Mirrors out there like you, you know!" He chimes, and that does spark her curiosity, her hindeyes squinting while her foreeyes remain quizzically focused on the tiny storyteller. "A lot of 'em. You guys spread like rabbits and eat like dogs." He rambles on, but she isn't listening. If there are Mirrors beyond the Scarred Wasteland, then they must truly be the Plaguebringer's greatest children, to rise above the challenges long enough to live to leave.

It makes sense. She would only let her smartest and strongest represent her Flight in the world. Her most durable creations, proven and hardened by the myriad of tests she unleashes upon them.

Hollowmaw is durable. She is strong and smart, but one of the greatest? No. She falls short. She was around the middle-top of her pack hierarchy, in most packs she has belonged to. No disease or infection has taken her yet, but it's a simple fact of nature that one will, someday. No one lives old in the wasteland, even the best of them. Even if she beats the odds, one day her teeth will grow dull, her reactions slowed, her immune system weaker.

And she will feed the world, as she has fed upon it.

She hasn't ever stopped to think about how she feels about that. She still doesn't know how she feels about it, deep in thought as Carmine speaks.

He coughs, ragged and low, and something deep in her bones turns to ice. There is a reason that she has only ever seen other Mirror dragons in the wastes. Only the Plaguebringer's children could endure the slew of viruses and disease and scarcity that ruled their homelands. Most died, but those who didn't were the strongest, and the strongest of that generation gave birth to the strongest of the next, as it had been for millennia.

Carmine was not from a hundred bloodlines who fought the ever-evolving diseases of her home. She didn't know where he came from, but he seemed so... small. So weak. He was not a Mirror. He was not built for this. Only the Plaguebringer's children could walk her domain, and even then, only the finest of them.

Her packmate did not make the cut, and natural selection was coming to deliver. She could wrap around him and snarl, show her razor-sharp teeth and scare off the other Mirrors who looked at her packmate with hungry eyes. She could maim the predators that chased him, she could let him lean against her to ward off the nightly chill, she could even find him insects to eat. He complained about their bitter taste, their oversized spines and jagged claws, but they kept him alive.

But if - when - his body gave out, Hollowmaw would be helpless. She could not protect him from that. Her blood ran cold.

She pretended not to see the trembling of his wings, the way his naturally yellow sclera grew cloudy and dim, the way his pitifully short claws yellowed at the end of his bony fingers. He was always small, but had he always been so thin? Had she always been able to trace the outline of his ribs through his scales?

She pretended not to watch him fight off the Plague Mother's trials.

She pretended not to see that he was losing.

His voice grew shakier over the days. He'd lost that beautiful lilt to his voice whenever he told a story, the way it sang and weaved alongside the sentences, but the melody of the story itself remained, even as their storyteller wilted.

There's a lighthouse at the end of the world, he says, that looks out over the ocean, carved in marble bricks. The goddess of light looks over the ocean, there, placing herself as a beacon, guiding all who are lost back home.

Some of the oldest clans in the world live on a massive kite, he says, made in the image of a laughing god of wind and travel and freedom. The Cloudsong weaves through the sky, with balconies and bridges connecting the communities together. They are allies in adventure, as they wait eagerly to see where the wind takes them.

The Starwood Strand is beautiful, he says, The trees stretch up, up, up towards the sky, and at the touch of moonlight, flowers blossom from cotton-candy colored leaves, lighting up the world like stars.

With every story, his voice sounds more strained. Hollowmaw keeps walking. She doesn't want it to end.

"There's a bustling city in... i-in-" He cuts himself off with a cough, and Hollowmaw stops, statue still. He's coughed toward the ground, and something came out of his throat - mucus and blood, from the looks of it, she observes dimly, distantly, not wanting to process what it truly means.

"... Hollowmaw?" He speaks, sounding so, so small. She looks at him as he flutters to the ground, all four eyes never once leaving her small packmate. "Hey. Hollowmaw, once you get out of here, where are you gonna go?"

A complicated question, that. One that can't be answered with body language. She's grown a newfound respect for the spoken word, in the time she's known Carmine. She only shrugs. "It's all the same to me. You can pick where we go." It's the most she's spoken at once in... she doesn't know how long. Ever, maybe. Carmine looks up at her and smiles wistfully.

"C'mon. Let's not dance around it, Hollowmaw. It hurts."

She doesn't know if he's talking about their conversation, or whatever is ripping apart his body from the inside. If she could peer into his chest, sink her teeth into the invisible foe that dared to harm her packmate, she would.

But she can't. And she feels so, so helpless.

"If I... don't get better. I want you to keep going until you get out of here, okay?" He murmurs, low and urgent. His voice sounds so strained. It shouldn't sound like that. It isn't right, isn't fair. "There's a lotta cool things to see out there. I think you deserve to see 'em. Maybe I don't know a lot about you, but - you were nice enough to take in a wimp like me. So I think you should see what it has to offer, the rest of the world. I think you'd like it. Give it a shot for me, okay?"

She doesn't answer. Her eyes are growing blurry, and she blinks to clear the fog clouding her vision, but it doesn't. She feels something wet run down her face. It hurts. Her throat hurts, like she's swallowed something rotten and her throat has tied itself into knots. Is she getting sick, too? She can't bring herself to care.

But she won't deny the reality before her. Hollowmaw nods, but it doesn't feel like enough. She needs to do more. Needs to make sure the message is truly understood. "I promise." She murmurs, her voice still rough from disuse.

Even through the sickly film covering them, his eyes light up, and all feels right in the world. She gently bumps her nose to his forehead as he slumps over quietly, claimed by a deep, dreamless sleep.

Her poor, foolish, weak packmate. The world was unkind to him, and she tried to fight the world, but she was only mortal. She looks up at the stars, and for the first time in her life, she prays.

"Plague Mother. If you have any mercy, take me and not him." She rumbles, low and broken.

The stars offer no answer. Just another sickly wheeze from Carmine in his unconsciousness. And Hollowmaw knows, deep in her soul, that her prayer will not be answered. He failed the trials of the Plaguebringer. He was not one of her true children.

He never stood a chance.

She does not whine like a pup at the unfairness of it all, even as her eyes brim with tears. She forces them back. A waste of water. And she must survive. She will honor her packmate's last wish. She will see the beautiful world he weaved in his stories. It is all she can do for him now.

His warmth has not fully faded from his perch on her back, her wings angled awkwardly to keep him from falling. No, in fact, he feels much too hot. His breathing is shallow and unsteadily, his heartbeat weak and rapid. She feels it race and fears at any moment it will give out.

No. It is not fear she feels; it is dread. She is resigned to it. She cannot fear something so inevitable, no more than she can fear the sun vanishing below the horizon at dusk. All these things simply will happen. She cannot fight them, cannot escape, no matter how the dread pulls and weighs at her heart. She knows the truth.

Hollowmaw has seen much death in her short life, and something about that slumber he fell into felt final. Her gut was rarely wrong.

She does not sleep. She merely walks across the wasteland, always in the same direction, inching painfully towards that dream of a better life. No matter how grief weighs at her feet, she will not stop.

She will not leave him alone. He will not enter his final sleep without companionship. This is her final vigil to him.

She apologizes silently that she cannot do more, and the knowledge that he would forgive her does nothing to lessen the guilt.

She walks until her legs ache and her feet bleed, and then she walks more. She walks until the sun dares to peak over the horizon, painting the sky in furious crimson gashes. She walks as Carmine's breathing grows softer, softer, still, until she can no longer feel his heartbeat against her back, and the only indication that he hasn't yet passed is the faintest feeling of breath against her wing.

She walks until she sees a spiraling shape loping through the air, like nothing she has ever seen. A predator, it must be, who smelled weakness and blood. She fans out her wings as wide as she can and emits a horrible shriek, tongue brushing hungrily against her razor-sharp fangs. The message is clear, even without words.

Approach me and one of us will die.

Her warning is not headed, and the shape twirls closer. She can make out some of the details now. It has six wings, blue and navy, all seeming much too small to keep it's body aloft. It's body is plain and black, with orange wrapping around it like fire-smoke. It is long and serpentine, spiraling through the air.

It reminds her, dimly, of Carmine's story of the Cloudsong. A giant serpent weaving through the sky. The serpent puts up her frontmost pair of hands in a gesture that Hollowmaw doesn't understand, but it's gaze is low and submissive. "Hey, I don't want to hurt you." Her eyes are a bright, viral red - the mark of a fellow daughter of the Plaguebringer.

Hollowmaw does not know whether that is good news or not.

"I'm Smolder. I go around the wastes trying to help people. 'm a healer, and thanks to a certain someone, there's a lot of people who need healing." She explains. "Can you understand me? I won't come closer." She still spins through the air - that must be how she stays aloft - but she comes no closer. Nor does she flinch as Hollowmaw steps forward. She nudges Carmine to the ground gingerly, placing him in front of the floating serpent with a quiet reverence. Her gaze is low and submissive, her fins flattened. She goes as far as to tilt up her head and bare her neck.

"Please," She rumbles, "Help him."

She does not know if the stranger understands the significance of the word, the gesture. There is no trust from Hollowmaw, but there is a lack of other options. How pathetic of her, grasping for the slightest hope. But before she can second guess her judgement, the stranger - Smolder - wastes no time, poking and prodding, opening one of his closed eyelids.

Her heart sinks. His eye looks so glazed. She does not like it. Smolder, too, shakes her head. "I'm so sorry." She has the dignity to sound dejected. Heartbroken, even. Hollowmaw is angry, yes - but the anger is not at the healer who could have done too little, too late. "Blight Fever. A real nasty piece of work. It's in stage four - that's the last one, uh, the most serious one." The heretic clicks her claws together, while her back claws sort through the bag slung over her waist.

"It's... that means it's progressed far, basically. No cure for it either. It's a new strain of hers." She explains, and in that moment when she stutters over her words, Hollowmaw is shocked by how young she looks. A juvenile of her species, she suspects, whatever that means. Smolder sighs. "I'll give him antibiotics. And I'm so sorry, I don't have any medicine to spare, but if he wakes back up - look for Vineshrooms. It's an invasive species from Wind's territory, and it has some medicinal properties. Don't cook them! Eating them raw is fine. The only way they'll work, actually, heat kills the bits you need."

Hollowmaw nods dimly as the serpent sketches makes a messy sketch of Vineshrooms in the dirt, listing off how to identify them. It isn't hard. They're bright green with vines on their caps in spiral shapes. It's nothing like any plant she's seen. It has no bumps, no scabs, if you cut it, it won't bleed. "I can't promise he'll get better. I'm so sorry. But- that's how you can give him the best chance he'll get."

It isn't optimistic. But nor is it the death sentence she expected to hear, and so she only nods numbly, gently (if awkwardly) placing her packmate on her back after Smolder is finished forcefeeding him a pair of capsules.

"Thank you." Hollowmaw says simply, quietly. The Spiral places a clawed hand on her shoulder - but her claws do not sink in, do not try to tear past her natural armor. It's meant to be... comforting, perhaps? But still, a question burns at her mind. "Why? Many of the Plaguebringer's children think medicine is heresy." And still Smolder's eyes burn bright red, the color of lifeblood, and she laughs.

Hollowmaw never would have asked such a nosy question before Carmine. Truly, he's been a terrible influence. "Never was a great daughter." She teases as a response. "Call it a teenage rebellion. And you accepted the medicine, so we're partners in crime now, right?"

She cannot deny that logic, as much as she wishes. Is Hollowmaw a heretic too, now? It settles as an uneasy lump in her stomach, but when she thinks of Carmine's melodic voice and glassy eyes and truly terrible names for her, she decides it was a price worth paying. "Join our pack?" She offers. "We are leaving this place." Smolder has already proved her worth tenfold, and Hollowmaw... fears she will dislike being alone, now. She was fine with it before meeting Carmine, but...

Smolder gently shakes her head, though, dashing her hopes. "Sorry. I need to pick up more materials here, and it looks like you don't have any time to waste." Smolder beams, bright and daring. "You know how you can make antidotes out of a snake's venom? Turns out some of the life around the Wandering Contagion is a lot like that. It's really interesting!" She rambles, and Hollowmaw can only think of Carmine, sleeping soundly on her back. Her heart hurts.

"Right." She cuts her savior off. "No time to waste. Thank you."

She carries Carmine in her mouth and breaks into a run.

Years later, she would regret not saying goodbye. Not thanking her, properly, truly thanking her for what she had done. But this is not years later, and now, Hollowmaw runs.

She runs until the air thickens with rot and decay. Perhaps if she had run earlier, run faster, she could have made it before disease claimed her packmate. But there was no time for regrets, no time for what-ifs - all she knew was that she needed to escape before something else horrible happened to them.

And it will end. It would end. The Plaguebringer values, above all else, survival, and Hollowmaw makes a vow to every god that dared to listen: She will outlast the wasteland. It will end before she does.

You aren't usually this verbose.

Didn't you hear? Carmine is a horrible influence.

But she hasn't slept in so long, and her breaking point is looming. She needs to sleep. Her eyes are too heavy, and her legs are too sore. She does not... give up. Hollowmaw does not give up. But she allows herself to rest. Perhaps when she awakens, Carmine will have chosen which side of life or death he stands on, and she can choose her actions from there.

She curls around her sickly packmate, like her mother did to her when she was a pup, and she sleeps, dark and dreamless.

She wakes to soft, quiet humming. She does not know the song. But she does know the voice.

Carmine has moved, and when his eyes flicker open, they are so much clearer. Involuntarily, she makes a weak, choked sound that she doesn't recognize, gently bumping her forehead against her much smaller packmate's.

"... 'low? G'morning, you big softie. You were cuddling me when you woke up! You slept for hours, too."

"You're one to talk!" She huffs back. She doesn't recognize her voice as she bites back to his teasing. "Rude of you to sleep that long. Worried me."

"Sorry." He murmurs, and it sounds genuine. Painfully so. He's still sick, but he's awake, and he seems stronger. Strong enough, at least, to fight again. Smolder gave her the foothold and weapons she needs to fight this sickness, and Hollowmaw would sooner die than let it go to waste. And she fights, tooth and claw, for that is all she ever learned how to do.

She will never forget the kindly heretic.

Her heart beats quicker when the invasive mushrooms grow thicker and more numerous. Carmine complains about the taste, as always, but she just narrows her eyes until he eats. She can't keep herself from hoping that her suspicion is right, that they're growing closer to the home of the invasive fungus.

They thicken in number, forcing their way out of the fleshy ground like the world's most beautiful weeds. Perhaps it's just her imagination, but she swears the air feels cleaner, the ever-present musk of mold and decay and sickness lessens it's stranglehold on her. Carmine seems to perk up, too, his frills fanned out to catch a pleasant breeze.

The first time that Hollowmaw sees grass, she breaks out into a sprint. It's so soft beneath her claws, and yet nothing like she imagined. For all the wonders that Carmine described, he never thought to talk about grass. The Wandering Contagion stretches on hungrily, spikes of disease always waiting to infect, to expand, to consume - but it ends, and beyond it stretches the world.

And Hollowmaw breaks past the boundary of the Plaguebringer's lands and lands onto the soft ground. That high-pitched, joyous sound that Carmine sometimes makes comes from her throat in loud, joyous barks, rolling on the grass until her scales are stained green. She can't stop smiling. Carmine hoots his delight, soaring up into the clean westward air. He lets himself tumble, his fall cushioned by the grass and loose soil. He is laughing, too.

Her mouth hurts from laughing and smiling, and yet she can't stop. She rests next to him when the two of them have finally exhausted all their energy, running and soaring like pups after completing their first hunt.

No... no, that wasn't right. She was nowhere near this happy after her first hunt. Proud and accomplished, yes, but not this happy. She lays next to her packmate, and he perches proudly on her snout, fanning out his wings.

There is no need for words. None could have captured the moment regardless, and so Hollowmaw did not try. She merely smiles at the odd dragon on her snout and trusts that he, too, feels the same: so free that they could have flown forever.

For once, Carmine doesn't speak, either, only staring at her with wide, wondrous eyes.

"So," He finally says, eyes gleaming with tears and mischief and joy, "Where should we go first?"




Featured in this story:

- Carmine
- Smolder