Nalipse

In her first encounter with land dragons, Nalipse was mere weeks old, separated from her pod by a fierce storm. The tides washed her upon a deserted foreign shore, the sun so bright it stung her eyes, gritty sand lodged between every crevice. Ominous ruins loomed in the distance, not a soul in sight. Waves buffeted her back each time she tried to return to the sea.

She didn't stand a chance against the ocean's fury. Too small, too new to this world. The wind screamed its amusement in her ears each time she failed.

Afternoon had crawled well into evening before a anyone passed by the young merfae. By then she was panting against the sand, sleek scales so dry a violent movement could crack them, storm clouds doing nothing to block out the unforgiving glare of sunlight.

Through hazy, half-delirious eyes, she made out the form of an old pearlcatcher walking along the shore. "Please," she called out, "I'm in need of aid. Can you help me?"

Offering nothing more than a sideways glance, the dragon made to skirt around her. In desperation, she stretched her talons towards him, pleading in a broken voice. "I'll grant you a favor, if only you'll help me back into the sea. A promise, on my honor."

He paused, gave a snort of derision. "What worth is the word of a merfae?" Haughty disdain in every feature, yellow eyes glaring down at her with the slightest hint of disgust.

Despite her weakness, her fins flared wide in indignation. "A lot more than your life, old one." She hissed, tail lashing. "I would not mock it so."

The pearlcatcher merely spat at her feet in response. She watched him leave through slitted eyes, anger and shock vying for dominance, slowly giving way to a baffled sort of hurt.

She didn't know how much longer she lay on that beach before the demand for survival spurred her into action again. Pure grit or bitter spite burning a hole in her chest, she dragged herself into the water again and again. Finally catching a lull in storm.

Nalipse did not die on that sun-cursed shore, through nobody's power but her own. The senseless cruelty within many a dragon's nature was a harsh reality to face so young.

It would be reinforced by experiences and years to come.

At five months old, a crew of illegal bounty hunters chased her all the way to the edge of the Scarred Wasteland. Even with a harpoon embedded deep within her side, she managed to evade them in the end. Only to find herself utterly lost and rapidly weakening.

Teeth gritted, she pulled herself out of the water, onto a tangle of briers. From her perch, she glared at the razor-toothed sea monsters circling just below the surface. She turned that fierce look upon the spear jutting from her ribs with a dark satisfaction, even as her claws curled from the pain.

She would die on her own terms, and nobody else's.

Nalipse could already feel infection settling into the wound, weeping from this plagued land. Better a quick death by dehydration than a slow, drawn-out contagion eating her alive from the inside. As best she could, she curled up between the thorned tendrils. There, she waited to die.

Bleeding out, losing consciousness, the cold claws of never-waking sleep stretched over her. The end was calling to her. It laid its claim over her flesh and bones, cold as the gaps between the stars. She closed her eyes, and let it in.

Nalipse awoke to footsteps and clattering pots, punctuated by the occasional murmur of words too low for even her keen ears to make out. Her ribs ached, but when she reached for them, her claw-tips bumped against taut bandages.

Blinking, she took in the interior of what looked to be a haphazardly constructed hut. Beast pelts stretched over massive, clean-picked bones, the makeshift walls bare of any sort of decoration. Glancing down, she was startled to find herself submerged in a basin of saltwater. Granted, it wasn't hard to find a container her size, but why was she whole and relatively hale instead of a corpse on the Plaguebringer's shores?

Her answer arrived in the form of a silver head stretching around the corner. Four alarmingly red eyes scanned her from head to toe, and she curled about herself in instinctive alarm. The mirror made no move to approach, only nodded to herself with a, "I see, still alive. Good. I'll bring you dinner." And disappeared.

She returned shortly with a bowl of stew carefully balanced in one claw. Depositing it on the ground, she sniffed at the linens from a healthy distance away. Nalipse watched her warily. Apparently deeming them satisfactory, she left again.

That night, Nalipse did not sleep. Snatches of conversation drifted from the other room, a collection of new voices not so carefully muted as the healer's.

"..an outsider, and a merfae at that! Saroya, what were you thinking?"

"...wounded, so severely..."

"...we wait, she isn't going to last long anyways..."

"...fins go for a pretty penny..."

"...butcher her now and be done with..."

Grimly, she waited out the pack, listening for the tell-tale sounds of sleep. In the dark, she gathered up her magic, pulling from the slumbering lines buried within the earth. Even in these rotting lands, power flowed, deep and true. She coaxed it out, gathered it in the core of her. Biding her time.

Nalipse left under the cover of a moonless night, wings lifted by a storm of her own making. For the sake of the healer, she spared their lives. For the hunters and their treachery, she tore the village down.

At five months old, she learned that there was kindness in the world after all. Rare kindness, so easily ruined by the greed and evil of others. Perhaps an exercise in futility from the very start.

She was so young, and she'd already seen too much more of the world's darkness than its light. No father to shield her, no mother to nurse her wounds, she had found out the hard way exactly how unwelcoming the world could be for a lonesome creature.

Nothing filled the hole inside of her, though hatred did its best. Despising every creature to mask her ever-present fear. Striking first, striking fast, before they could turn on her.

Fight, because she did not know how else to survive. Live, because she did not know how to die quietly. Hunter and hunted in turn; a bestial existence and nothing more. It was no sort of life for any creature.

She was a right terror of the seas; it gave her no satisfaction. No amount of ships sunken could make up for the sleepless nights. A thousand drowned sailors did nothing to wipe away the shadows permanently smeared beneath jaded eyes.

Her hunting grounds stretched from the Frigid Floes to the Fortress of Ends, a barren land for a cold, empty heart. Even the hungriest of beasts knew to stay well clear of the dead-eyed thing patrolling these depths.

Fate gives no warning when it comes calling, as Nalipse well knew. It was a day like any other, a ship like any other. Phantom winds ripped sails and masts free from above, shards of ice tore into the hull of the ship below. Wood cracked open, spilling frantic seafarers into the frigid ocean.

Nalipse lay at the bottom of the seabed, watching pandemonium unfold with unblinking, fathomless eyes. Drinking in their familiar terror, this seductive illusion of power.

Except...

Her eyes narrowed as a chillingly pale gaze caught hers. No panic on this fae's features, only laughing defiance. Magic crackled at her clawtips, a bubble of iridescent energy encasing her slight form. She beckoned in unmistakable challenge. Propelling herself up with a swift kick of her fins, Nalipse rose to meet it.

Perfunctory blows were exchanged as they took in the other's measure, bolts of magic streaking through the water. Blocks and dodges, counter-blasts, faster and faster as they circled each other. It was soon apparent that neither was a stranger to this dance of battle.

Far above, sailors struggled to the surface, away from the clashing behemoths. Leagues below, the war raged on.

Barriers were thrown up in rapid succession, shining crystalline. Shattering just as quickly under an unyielding barrage of magical blows. They painted the world a dreamy white-blue, sharp-edged and glittering. Drawing blood with any careless motion, staining the water with clouds of red.

They were leagues below by now, so deep the sunlight could not penetrated. The only source of lumination was the glow of their spells, lightning bursts that drew in all sorts of predators from the merciless deep. In the edges of the gloom, nameless, faceless ancient beasts swam steady, ever-advancing loops. Still, her opponent remained fierce and grinning, untouchable, a thing that knew neither fear nor limits.

This was Nalipse's domain. She did not know how this air-breather could remain so undaunted, enclosed within a hostile, watery void.

As soon as she ran out of magic, or her protective bubble was pierced, she would drown. If the pressure didn't kill her first. And for all her might while living, in death, she would be reduced to another set of bones for Nalipse to decorate her den with.

Fool, she telegraphed, crest rippling. The fae's response was a blade-sharp smile and a lance of ice thrown her way. And the battle resumed.

Seconds melted into minutes, perhaps hours or days. Time stretched into something strange and unknowable beneath the waves, as foreign as sound and light.

They'd worn each other down, blow by blow, bit by bloody bit. The fae was bleeding from her leg, panting hard. Her oxygen bubble shuddered with every inhale.

She'd gotten a lucky hit in, though, sliding past Nalipse's shield and tearing her open from shoulder to hip. Plumes of crimson billowed out with every frantic pulse of her heart, the first hints of lethal cold beginning to seep in.

Gills fluttering, she drew in deep lungfuls of blood-tinged seawater. Tasted the iron on her tongue. She had crafted herself into a force of nature, a calamity to be weathered. And today, she had finally met her match.

How? Teeth bared, she snarled soundlessly into the abyss.

A dull blue glow illuminated her opponent's form. Exhausted eyes found her own, still faintly smiling. Not an attack. A message. Her crest twitched, lips mouthing the words. Nalipse understood instantly.

Come with me, and I'll show you. How to be more than a broken thing wearing the mask of a monster. How to be something so vicious and indestructible that fear itself shied away.

Come with me. Frozen eyes looked at her, looked through her, did not shy from the bloodstained, haunted soul beneath. I'll show you.

She weighted the truth of that silent promise. Slowly, she let her shield fizzle out.

Alright.

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