Nysthermos

Owned by dancingcrane.

Gladekeeper’s Call chapter 2 - The Search for the Speaker

The sky was red, the crimson orb spreading its light, smoke dimmed, as the earth and water returned its reflection. The two dragons, looking like apparitions risen from the bloodied earth, given breath by the choking air itself, red war made manifest, stalked the streets. If any remained alive in that afternath, they did not show themselves. Monsters walked here.

“Son of Plague, are you done yet?” The larger asked his companion, who chuckled grimly.

“What need have they of me?” The Bogsneak’s crest and wings flared high, looking much like the flames which surrounded them. “They have plenty of rot on their own. But even my mistress turns from foulness such as this. Why are we still here?”

“Treachery.” The Guardian agreed, fanning bloody fins, his body embered coal. “Over now, at least. Except…”

“Except?”

The Guardian did not answer. Shouldered open doors left agape in a small-windowed prison. No one had bothered to lock them. There were no locked doors anymore, here.

“Empty. I told you.”

The Guardian did not answer. His companion saw no need to follow him below. There was treasure for the taking, up here, if one was not squeamish. The Sons of Plaguebringer never were, of course.

Darkness, Broken doors where they were not open, save one. It didn’t matter. When the red Guardian added another broken door, even the rays of the setting sun illuminated only blackness within. Blackness that shifted,and rumbled ominously.

“Have you come to kill me then?” Arcane eyes opened in the impossible darkness, narrowed, lifted, seeming disembodied. “Or are you a spirit come to fetch me to our Father?”

“Neither. The Usurper is dead, and the Monster who laid him low stands before you. Yet is the King your charge, and the Prince dead with him. My Search is over.”

The blackness rumbled again. “To no purpose then, for there is nothing left to guard. The Shade has won.”

“There is you. Nysthermos, the One Who Spoke.”

“To deaf ears.” To search out a place to guard, a grand thing. To guard one who was meant to tip the balance of the world an even greater one. But he had failed. The King his charge, and the youth after him, who had been meant to heal the land, lay dead. That a single minion of Shade was gone, as well, was no solace. “I am no one.”

The red Guardian was silent.

Between the strength of two, the chains were broken. Where one had come, two emerged. A solid shadow, deeper than night, more than twice his size, fins touched with the breath of twilight left after the sunset.

Three climbed to the pinnacle overlooking the city. The land, lost despite everything. The Guardian who had become war, dipped his head, shamed by the victory won too late, and worthless. His cry, despairing.

“I have become what I should not be. By our Father, speak again, to Bram who needs you!”

The blackness gazed into the west, towards a home left long ago. Words remembered, once spoken to a reluctant jailer, returned again, solace for both him and his deliverer. Nysthermos could not see this last flicker of hope die out again, that had almost died in him. He spoke.

"I can see the sun from here. Look how bright, how beautiful. Can you feel its promise on your scales, in your heart? I can. It promises another day, and life in this one. I'll never give up as long as I can see the sun.”




(Story inspired by original quote from Schingiuire "I can see the sun from here. Look how bright, how beautiful. Can you feel its promise on your scales, in your heart? I can. It promises another day, and life in this one. I'll never give up as long as I can see the sun.")
(Origin lair: Schingiuire. See The Writer’s Hatchery in Forum: Raffles)
[Of Clans and Shade protagonist]