Zeno

A skilled assassin hailing from the Windswept Plateau, few have seen Zeno, and none have escaped him. He does not claim to be bloodthirsty, but at the same time, he enjoys his dark profession the same way one would a hobby. As a primal, he believes he inherently deserves the respect of every dragon he comes across, especially if they value their life. The only exception is if they they can hold their own against him in a fight. Otherwise, he dislikes being challenged with his ideas, and hates being proven wrong.

Ironically, murder and arrogance is not in his blood. Zeno was born to a family of pacifists in the Zephyr Steppes, whose lair was a resting point for travelers. The hatching of this primal came as a shocking surprise to the small clan. They did not know how to handle raising such a powerful child due to their lack of magical knowledge. Thus, they raised Zeno with strict orders to never use his magic, fearing that his power would go out of control if he ever attempted to. It bothered Zeno, but as a hatchling, he never thought it possible to go against what his parents ordered. He spent his infancy harmonizing with the rest of his family members, who were prepared to raise him as a full-fledged member of the clan.

However, he was never meant to live a peaceful life. While still a juvenile, a mysterious enemy attacked his family's lair. This ridgeback, a powerful warrior, tore through the hospice in search of his target. That target happened to be the young Zeno. His terrified screams summoned a fully-formed tornado on his attacker. Yet, this failed to stop the warrior, who dispelled the tornado before knocking Zeno unconscious and taking his body with him to the skies. The last thing Zeno saw were the devastated, but resigned faces of his family, who had done nothing to help him due to their vow to never harm a living thing. To this day, he wonders why they were so willing to stand back as their son was taken from them. Why maintaining their diligence held precedence over protecting their son. Why his parents didn't even try to negotiate with the enemy and simply let him be taken. Was their oath to not harm more important than he was?

If it so, then they failed to uphold it, because they managed to hurt someone by following their vow: Zeno himself. The wildclaw still holds resentment toward his family and especially his parents to this day.

The warrior took Zeno back to his home of mercenaries and assassins, the Mystic Bark clan, and introduced himself as Blitz. A traveler who stayed at Zeno's hospice tipped off the clan about a young, untrained primal. They dispatched one of their more skilled members to kidnap Zeno from his family and train him to become one of their own. With his primal magic, he should've been able slice enemies in half with a single thought and destroy whole lairs with a whisper. Keeping him with his family would be wasting his potential.

Initially, training made little progress due to Zeno's resistance. He had been taught never to inflict harm since hatching. Rather than forcing him to learn, the clan left him alone until he changed his mind.

At home, his family always bought food because hunting would break their vow. However, the Mystic Bark required everyone to feed themselves, and as a wildclaw, Zeno had to kills animals if he wanted meat. During the first few days, he remained loyal to his family and decided he would rather starve than give in. However, as the hunger in his stomach turned into terrible pain worse than anything he had ever felt, he became desperate, and tried catching rabbits at a nearby field. Despite his speed, the rabbits always fled to their burrows before he nabbed them in time. He tried using magic, but realized that he didn't know the proper way to cast spells. If he didn't eat soon, he realized he would die of starvation, and with every day that passed, the terrifying thought of death grew closer to reality.

Finally, he returned to Blitz and begged him to teach him how to hunt. Blitz led Zeno back to the rabbit field by air. Folding his wings, Blitz swooped down, grabbed a rabbit, and flew back to Zeno. He fed the rabbit to Zeno before ordering him to repeat what he did.

Zeno braced himself and plummeted downward, feeling the wind flowing past his wings. He caught a rabbit in his hind talons, but he failed to control his speed and crash-landed into a mess of grass and dirt. He needed practice, but with his first life taken, Zeno had officially severed the bond with his family. Rather than guilt, he felt elated. The hunt was more exhilarating than anything he had experienced before. He attempted the trick again, and again, and again until the rabbits refused to leave their burrows for fear of the swooping wildclaw.

From then on, Zeno was willing to do whatever Blitz told him to. He had determined that the older, more knowledgeable ridgeback knew what was best for him. They started with the basics in physical combat and magic. Zeno struggled keeping up with the seasoned warrior, but he kept at it each day until he was exhausted to the point of collapsing. Once he mastered the basics of wielding his body, he was introduced to weapons. At the same time, the clan's book-smart individuals taught him how to read and write, but Zeno much preferred training over studying.

He grew adept in every field Blitz taught him (this means his poor studies do not count, as he was tutored by different individuals than Blitz). At times, Blitz was caught off guard with how quickly the wildclaw was progressing. Zeno was starting to move faster than he could keep up with, and he crushed boulders without so much as flinching. Not surprisingly, as a primal, Zeno was also a master of wind magic whose abilities overshadowed that of the clan's strongest mage.

When Zeno reached adolescence, the Mystic Bark put him up for hire, and his first employer soon contacted him. An anonymous dragon under the codename Thorn requested the elimination of five scholars residing in a prominent Light clan. Although his targets were all the way in the Sunbeam Ruins, Zeno combined his physical speed with wind magic and reached his destination in under an hour. He took out his targets and left before the clan even discovered their first corpse. Once he returned to the Mystic Bark's lair, he sent the bloody proof of his success to Thorn, and the next parcel held a generous reward.

Blitz asked Zeno how he felt about his first mission. The veteran expected feelings of remorse or guilt, the normal response for newbies taking the life of another individual like themselves for the first time. He prepared his speech about getting used to the pain, and how the guilt will fade eventually.

Instead, Zeno looked at Blitz with the same excited grin as when he killed his first rabbit. "It was fun," he said, "and I can't wait to do it again."






By Hawkeyyee



By Excalib0r




- No. 4: Wind -

Wind magic blew around his leather wings. Like green smoke, it poured from Zeno's eyes and pooled at his talons. He exhaled, shuddering in excitement from excess adrenaline. Before him laid the many bodies of skydancers who fought, and failed, to defend themselves against him. All were dismembered by the same magic leaking from him.

All except for one.

"That's some impressive work there, Primal."

The green overcoat of a skydancer born of nature brushed against his fallen kin. Three verdant lanterns floated ominously on either side of him. Zeno raised his talons to wield the gale within him once more, but the skydancer halted his approach.

"My days of combat are long over, Primal. I do not seek violence. I merely wish to request your services."

Zeno nearly snorted. The skydancer's words were ironic because if anything, the both of them probably shared the same profession. His special eyes allowed him to see what other dragons could not, and right now, they were showing him the aura of spilt blood that trailed this rather old, white and green skydancer. But none of it came from a primal, which meant this new enemy of his was either foolish or cocky if he wished to pose a threat to him.

He pointed at the skydancer, green wind fuming from his eyes. "It appears I haven't finished my job yet."

He expected the skydancer to show a familiar face of pure terror. This was the part where everyone fled. Sometimes he shot them down, and sometimes he didn't if he was in a good mood. However, the skydancer remained about as confident as the wildclaw was.

"I'll cut to the chase, Primal. Or should I call you Zeno?"

Zeno's gaze hardened. "How do you know my name?" Assassins always kept their true names a secret. He assumed it was to prevent enemies from finding information about their background, but he never bothered reading that part of his studies.

"I will explain if you are willing to listen. Quell your magic, and then we'll talk."

With his interest piqued, Zeno complied. The wind sucked back into his eyes, but remained exhuming from them in their natural form.

"My name is Loreheart. I come from Rêves Infinis, a clan in the Arcane flight. Our seer has received visions of a devastating future that will wreck havoc across all of Sorneith. You are key in preventing that future."

Zeno scoffed. "A seer? Do I look like a fool to you? The Tidelord hasn't spoken to any oracle since his disappearance."

Loreheart all but smirked. "A good thing our seer is not a water oracle, then. Her gift of foresight is hers alone and does not rely on any deity's cooperation. How else would I know your name, if not for her?"

"Then what is this future she sees?" He might be willing to go along with them for a hefty price. They could discuss payment after he knew the details. That was assuming he would accept the mission in the first place.

Loreheart cleared his throat. "Our seer has foretold the rise of a false deity known as The Goddess. This fae supposedly communicates with the Eleven and gives her followers orders in their name. She also possess the key to a land of enlightenment called Paradise. One can only travel to this world after their immediate death, provided The Goddess sees them as worthy.

"The main issue is that this false deity resides in my clan. She is a fae known as Sylvia, and she has already enraptured half of its residents, including our own leader." Loreheart shook his head. "My clan and its warmongering nature is acting as the very catalyst for this disaster. That is why on behalf of the Anti-Sylvia Coalition, made up of some of our remaining non-followers, we ask you to please help us prevent her from disrupting the societal balance of Sornieth."

Interesting, but he was still missing some details. "How does your clan's 'warmongering' help the spread? And where do I come into this?"

Loreheart's expression remained neutral. "When my clan goes on raids, our leader gives the survivors two options. They either listen to The Goddess and join her cult, or they die. The clan is also a nexus for dragons who wish to be exalted due to its high number of available trainers. Those trainees get caught in The Goddess's influence, and when they leave, their mission is to spread her word wherever they go. As for you, Zeno, our seer foretells that only cooperation between 11 primals, one from each flight, will be able to take down The Goddess. You are the wind primal that she saw, and you are to wage a fierce battle against The Goddess's guards."

Zeno pondered Loreheart's words. Something still didn't sit right with him. "Any reason why primal dragons are needed specifically?"

"Because The Goddess is that powerful. Her charisma is like magic, every word she speaks you perceive as the truth. If she told you the sky is green, then the sky is green. And you don't just know it—you are certain of it, like the world has always been that way. Even some of our most logical and intuitive have fallen for her words."

"And are primal dragons capable of resisting this charm?" He was still skeptical. What Loreheart described sounded like a magical phenomenon that any spellcaster could counter with the right ward.

"Yes, and in all honestly, we don't know why. But there is a bigger risk involved." Loreheart hesitated. Zeno was about to understand why his instincts were warning him.

"We—I have observed The Goddess absorb the life force of our clan's own arcane primal and gain his power. Her followers covered up the incident so that it looked like he died in an accident, but The Goddess, who was born of water, has been seen casting arcane spells she would never have been able to cast otherwise. This means that if we fail to eliminate her according to the seer's vision, we will have given her all the primals she needs to wield the 11 elemental forces, sealing us in a timeline where she takes over the world."

Zeno barred his fangs. Wind flooded out of his eyes as powerful gales whipped past him and across the field. Now he knew why his instincts were telling him to refuse. This had to be a trap where he was going to be sacrificed! "I will take no part in this arcane nonsense. Even if your seer is authentic, and this goddess you speak of is a real threat, you have no proof that you are not working for her under the guise that you are her enemy. Leave before I decide you were part of the group I was sent to dispatch!"

Loreheart merely blinked in the face of Zeno's threatening magic. "What if I offered you—"

"Do you really think I will be swayed so easily by money?"

The skydancer ruffled his wings in annoyance. "You didn't let me finish. What if I offered you the chance to find your parents?"

Rather than pacifying him, Zeno's magnified rage tore through the earth as his wind magic raced toward Loreheart. It should have been faster than most dragons could perceive, the skydancer included.

However, Loreheart hadn't come alone. A beam of light ripped through the clouds and sliced Zeno's spell in half. He caught a brief glimpse of his new enemy, a blue spiral clad in golden armor, before she zipped toward him in a blinding flash. With the aid of an updraft, Zeno leaped over his opponent. By the time he landed, the spiral was already back with Loreheart, twisting around him like a bodyguard. He realized the source of the radiant glow coming from her head was from her light-element primal eyes.

"If you won't listen to him, then listen to me," the spiral said, still circling around Loreheart. "My eyes can see through lies, and another member of that Anti-Sylvee-whatever came up to me sayin' the same thing. I thought they were babbling nonsense until I realized they hadn't told a single lie!"

"What makes you think I'll believe you? What are you talking about with your eyes being able to see things?"

"Wha—are you kiddin' me here? You, a primal of all dragons, should know what I'm talkin' about! All primals have got special abilities depending on their element. Yours is wind, meaning you can see someone's hidden nature that they keep secret. Water primals can determine the entire future of anyone they look at. And light primals like me can detect lies and half-truths to get the truest info outta someone."

The spiral accurately described his ability. He was seeing her inner nature in the form of paper shreds trailing her tail, usually a sign of low self-esteem. There was reason to believe her after all, and he was surprised by this new information. "Why haven't I heard of this before?"

"I dunno, 'cause yer stupid?"

"Or he wasn't raised in a clan that knew about these things," Loreheart chimed in, sensing Zeno's anger. "Halcyon, you need to tone it down."

"First of all," Zeno growled, "nobody disrespects my clan. Second of all, I'm curious as to what else you know about primals." Admittedly, it was true that he never learned much about dragons like himself. "Loreheart, I have decided I am willing to cooperate with you and your coalition under two conditions. You must supply me with information about primals and magic, which I assume you arcane clans are very familiar with. The other thing is that you must pay me a lot of money for my services because I can't return to my clan empty-handed, especially if this is going to be a long-term job. And I need to meet back with my clan about this new job and claim my reward for the one I just finished before we can do anything else."

Loreheart nodded. "I'll make sure we have everything supplied for you. You are correct in assuming that you will be in this for the long haul, as we will be helping you infiltrate and become a member of the clan while we assemble the rest of the primals. Until then, I'll have to cast an illusion spell on you that will hide your primal eyes. Your powers won't be restrained, but using too much magic at once will dispel the illusion."

"Are you telling me to I have to keep my head down?" If he had to act passive without anyone knowing of his true power, then perhaps this job was going to be harder than he initially thought. He rarely accepted long-term jobs, and this was reminding him why. "Who am I meant to fight, anyway?"

"Only the most vicious faes born of plague that you'll ever have the pleasure of meeting. I'll tell you more on the way there."