Forgiven

Belongs to Starstalker!

sister of Forsaken

the following lore is an unedited ode to my extremely complicated relationship with the oxford comma and punctuation in general lol (it also gets worse as it goes bc that's what happens when I write without stopping, especially when the story takes a completely different turn than I was intending, but I'll fix it eventually)

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The moment she managed to get her horns and claws through the translucent veil of her egg, taking in a desperate gasp that burned her nose and lungs and skin (and sometimes she thinks about that, about how the first experience hatchlings have is the utter agony of staying alive), Forgiven locked eyes with Forsaken, already out of his egg and cleaning himself off with the softer parts of their nest, and she knew with a bone-deep kind of certainty that their lives would be entangled together forever.

For a long time, she considered this simple truth to be her greatest blessing in life. Forsaken helped her out of her egg, helped her get dry, and by the end the two of them were so desperately grateful to not be alone that they just huddled in a heap for a while. Their brother hatched, and died, and they somehow managed to catch and eat the few creatures that were stupid enough to cross paths with them long enough to learn how to dig, to find water in the unforgiving desert. They survived due to sheer luck, but Forgiven has always privately thought that if they hadn't done it together, neither of them would have made it to adulthood. Overcoming odds so severe required a kind of single-minded determination, a willingness to fight and claw and crawl and bleed and kill just to see another day, that Forgiven doesn't think she would have been able to sustain if they hadn't had each other to fight for. There were plenty of bigger, more experienced predators in the desert that were just as desperate for a meal as anything else in the Shifting Expanse.

At night, shivering together in the bitter chill that settled over the canyon as the sun died, Forgiven would trace the countless freckles on Forsaken's body, trying to match the shapes she imagined in the sky on his skin. She told him once, as he was still bleeding from a harpy attack and he was so limp and cold that she was terrified he wouldn't survive the night, that his speckles were more beautiful and precious than stars, than diamonds. She hadn't even known for sure that he was conscious, but suddenly she was all but babbling with things she had never been able to bring herself to say out loud, all spilling out of her with the panicked realization that she may never have another chance. That she loved him. That she would die for him. That his were the only stars she would ever follow, how grateful she was that they had each other, how sorry she was that she couldn't protect him, dozens of things that they both knew to be true in their hearts, but that she needed to make sure that he knew. If he were to die with even a shred of doubt that he was her entire world, Forgiven would never know another moment of peace.

In the end, her makeshift stitching (done with a bone and length of sinew from the harpy, whom Forgiven had attacked with such a ferocity that she somehow managed to kill by herself) held well enough to keep the wounds from attracting predators, and to keep Forsaken's blood where it belonged. Between that and the water she kept diligently dripping into his mouth, he woke up dazed midmorning the next day. Forgiven fetched him more water, carrying it in the harpy's carved skull, dug up the meat she'd buried a few hundred meters away, and bullied him into consuming as much as he could. She draped her wing carefully over his back and laid her head next to his foreleg, praying that he didn't see the tears of relief that she couldn't stop, that he didn't know how close she'd come to really losing him. Exhaustion hit her like a fainting Imperial, and she barely had time to tell Forsaken to wake her in a few hours so she could keep watch before she was falling asleep.

(She woke up as the sun was creeping below the canyon line. She didn't admonish Forsaken for letting her sleep all day; they knew each other too well to need words for things like this. He knew that she was displeased and unnerved by the possibility that he could have fallen asleep and the both of them could have died. She knew that he did it out of guilt for her suffering, and that he would have woken her up log before he left them that vulnerable. A single look was all that was needed to say, I'm sorry I almost left you, and the returning I forgive you. And when Forsaken, looking up into the darkening sky, quietly said "you know, I think your hide is more beautiful than the sunset... I like that it makes you harder to see than I am," Forgiven heard everything he meant. I heard what you said last night, and I love you, too. I'm glad it was me and not you. Thank you for saving me. I will be stronger next time. And this time, Forgiven didn't try to hide her tears.)

As they grew, they bled less and less. Their scars didn't disappear, but they faded. To Forsaken's everlasting exasperation, Forgiven grew very large, very quickly, and he never quite caught up (though Forgiven never teases him for it- for her part, she wonders if he ended up smaller despite being older and male because he always tried to give her more than her share of the food). They stopped worrying about the adult Ridgebacks nearby, since the two of them went hungry less often and had the rather unique advantage of being able to fight as a team. Most of their brethren couldn't fight with an ally nearby, let alone move with one like they were one body. They were left alone. They wandered, staying in the canyon they were born in.

And then Forgiven met Olokun.

He was unlike anyone she had ever met, all bright colors and gentle disposition. When she pinned him to the dirt and held her massive claw to his throat, she was struck by the open fear in his eyes and his complete unwillingness to fight back. Unnerved, she snarled at him, taunting him to get up and fight, to die a warrior's death, not in the dust like a coward. She needed him to be full of the white hot rage that festered under the surface of every creature in the canyon, the wild animal need to fight no matter what, that couldn't ever truly dissipate, not really. If you let yourself let go of the fire, you wouldn't be able to conjure it again in time to save yourself (and later, she would realize that the rage was so necessary because out there, they sometimes had to do unspeakable things to survive, and they could not be the ones to hesitate).

She'd never seen any living thing without it, and it intrigued her even as her hackles rose. But even as she insulted him, threatened him, got more agitated on top of him and let her claws actually draw his blood, enough that he knew she was serious, he stayed still and calm. And then he looked her in the eye and said that if she was going to kill him, he could not stop her, but that he would not inflict pain upon her or anyone else in his lifetime. That his convictions were the one thing nobody could ever take from him, so she should do what she was going to do and be done with it. And Forgiven, who had killed almost every day of her life, for food, for self-defense, for honor, and who had maimed dragons for less disrespect than that, only had one option.

She let go.

Navigating the aftermath was a tentative process, full of misunderstandings, but by the time Forsaken landed near their current encampment with a half dozen hares, they'd settled into a somewhat comfortable conversation (which is to say that Olokun was talking enthusiastically about his travels, and Forgiven was listening with the occasional question or 'hmm'). His spines rippled with surprise and barely contained hostility, but settled quickly with a glance between them. He'd always been protective, but knew that Forgiven could hold her own. (It helped that Olokun behaved more like an oddly-colored bird than a dragon, if he's honest, but Forgiven has always regarded that little tidbit with warm amusement rather than offense. She likes that about Olokun, that kind of harmlessness that is still so foreign to her all these years later.)

Eventually, Olokun had to move on (there are only so many edible plants in the canyon, and he was more or less useless at catching insects). He hated to burden them with the responsibility of protecting him from the dangers of the desert, and he started to itch, anyway. He hadn't left his home in the first place for no reason. Forgiven and Forsaken, for their part, felt a deep sense of apprehension at the mere thought of leaving the only home they'd ever known. But Forgiven had begun to admire him by this point, and Forsaken didn't want to hold her back. Besides, they could always come back. So they left, heading north. In Arcane, Forsaken met Avril, and by the time they reached the border, she decided to join them. The four of them travelled together for months... and then they stumbled upon the clan. Forsaken and Forgiven had their first taste of fish, and the two of them had to take a trip by themselves to process the strange panic of feeling like they wouldn't be able to go back to their previous diet of whatever they could catch, if they needed to. They had a lot of moments like that. But they worked through it, all of them, and they decided this was their home now, safe and well-fed, with friends and community.

When Forsaken and Avril took a trip to Arcane together and didn't return on time, Forgiven flew there as fast as she could, only to find them watching over a nest. Avril was happy, content and at peace. Forsaken was happy as well, but Forgiven saw a darkness that nobody else in the world would be able to perceive from him. In the dark, standing watch over a sleeping Avril (and it was almost comical, their enormous bodies protecting a nest smaller than either of their heads), and for the first time they talked about their parents. It was one of those things that they didn't have time to dwell on in the desert, but here, they talked through Forsaken's sudden panic, like they'd been learning to. Whether their own parents had died, abandoned them, or met some other unknowable fate, it didn't matter: they would raise all of their children together, the four of them, and they would be safe. They knew that the majority of their children would be sacrificed to one god or another, but Forsaken and Forgiven handled that truth much better than Olokun and Avril, who had a much different relationship with death than most of their clanmates.

The four of them are at ease, now, finally. Every so often, Olokun and Forgiven will seek shelter in Ice territory, near Olokun's former home, and Avril and Forsaken will go to Arcane and find a place. They time it so they will all leave and arrive home at the same time, where they can raise their children together. The four of them love and raise the hatchlings as if they were one clutch, and when the time comes, they are content in the knowledge that they loved them as deeply as possible, gave them a good life, and then give them a far kinder death than any they would experience in the wilds. It's far from perfect, but finally, Forgiven understands that Forsaken is not her greatest blessing. He no longer has to bear the weight of that devotion alone. The two of them are each other's best friends and neither of them could hope for anything different, but now, they have a home filled with dragons that love them.