Aureus
(#54125332)
Level 1 Pearlcatcher
Sphagnum
Moss-Covered Golem
Click or tap to view this dragon in Predict Morphology.
Energy: 50/50
This dragon’s natural inborn element is Plague.
Male Pearlcatcher
This dragon is hibernating.
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Personal Style
Apparel
Skin
Scene
Measurements
Length
6.53 m
Wingspan
7 m
Weight
544.45 kg
Genetics
Tarnish
Iridescent
Iridescent
Tarnish
Saturn
Saturn
Tarnish
Koi
Koi
Hatchday
Breed
Eye Type
Level 1 Pearlcatcher
EXP: 0 / 245
STR
6
AGI
6
DEF
6
QCK
7
INT
7
VIT
6
MND
7
Biography
PROFILE
Name: Aureus
Gender: Male Pronouns: He/Him Profession: Research Assistant Interests: Repaying the debt he owes Pleurisy and Pestilentia. TREASURES
His mother had once used bones to predict the future. He had not the presence of mind to take her bone chimes when he left, but he has recreated them since his curing.
The skull he carries in place of a pearl is one that most do not look too closely at, finding it upsetting. He has not told anyone it is his mother's. 
Aureus was not all there when he was first cured and it took him some time to come back to himself. Processing bones helped him with that and this skull was the first he completed. 
When he's not working, Aureus has taken up crafting as a hobby, enjoying the ability to create something new. This was one of his first creations. 
TRINKETS 
FAVOURITE FOODS 
FROM WHENCE HE CAME  Aureus' birth clan was a small, nomadic group, wandering the Scarred Wasteland. He grew up in tents and yurts, always somewhere new. Of course his mother was relied on to guide them. Of course, he supposes, his mother became arrogant in that authority. THE TERRIBLE TRIALS  He should not have listened. He should not have listened. He should not have listened. But he did, and he let his mother appeal to his desire for respect and so he took Trials he was not strong enough to take. His mother could See the future. He knows she lied. HOW HE RETURNED  He returned angry. He returned pestilent. He returned for one last reading, one last look at a possible truth, and he returned for revenge. His plague had been necrotic and putrefying. There was not much left of his mother at the end of that meeting. WHERE HE WANDERED  The Plaguelands would only challenge him, pushing him to be better - stronger. He did not want to be better. He wanted, in truth, to die. Nothing burns out disease as well as Fire. The ash-laden winds and deadly gases of the Ashfall Wastes coated his lungs, and he sought some semblance of peace. HOW HE WAS HELPED  He had not expected to be found, in the areas he wandered. He had not expected to be found by one who would know what he was. He had not expected to be helped. Pestilentia offered all three and, weak as he was, he could not help but accept. HIS NEW HOME  Tethys' clan is full of failures. He supposes that is why he fits in so well. They do not judge him for what he is or has been or has done; instead they let him decide what he will become. He has things to grieve - his family, his birth clan, what he thought his mother was. What has been taken from him by the Trials he should not have attempted. He does not know how to feel about the fact he cannot have nests. He does not think he ever will. FAMILIAR 
Familiar: Moss-Covered Golem
Name: Sphagnum About: Stone and clay are not easily corrupted by even truly pestilent plague magic, let alone what lingering lashing threads Aureus holds. Sphagnum is good company for him in other ways too - a perfect example of fine craftsmanship, he sets Aureus a goal to achieve. Sphagnum would like a companion. Aureus would like to create one for him. |
What one is...
... is never what one was PERSONALITY Quiet and contemplative, Aureus is far from the rage-filled, lashing creature he was when first infested. Some might attribute that to his curing and, certainly, he thinks that plays a part, but he does not think that is all there is to it. After all, it is hard to be the same person when one's whole worldview is changed - hard to survive that betrayal and loss and come out the other side. Aureus does not entirely know who he is anymore, or what he wants to be, or even what he's capable of, entirely, given what he's lost. After his time infested, he cannot have nests - and he does not know what else he might have lost or gained. It is something he thinks about a great deal, when not working to repay the debt he feels he owes Pleurisy and Pestilentia. ABOUT It twists in him. It coils in him. It writhes in his belly and his blood, it twists along his bones and twists him down to his very core. You lied, mother. He hauls himself up. His pearl is gone. His memories and life and very soul with it. Doesn't matter. The pestilence swirls through his veins, twisting and turning and twining around his very tendons. He shakes. He quakes. He will not bend. He steps, he stumbles, he pushes on. Take the trials. The voice is insidious. Twisting. His mother always had known what to say. You have the potential. The strength. The resilience. Lift our family from these pits. She'd made something like pride swell in his chest. Something like hope. He steps, he stumbles. He shakes, he quakes. He pushes on. He can feel the disease eating at his jaw. Feel the sores on his body, the scars on his skin, the rot in his flesh, eating at him. It might as well. Without his pearl he's soulless, and no thing without a soul can live. He steps, he stumbles. He shakes, he quakes. He hacks and he coughs and he snarls to the storming sky raining down soot and skin from a rotwind to the south. He will make his way home. His mother - a seer, he knows, the Sibyl of the Southern Sands, touched by way of fever-plague to see what the Plaguebringer will show. She had said he could do this. That he would pass the trials. He has not. The plague eats his bones. Eats his body. Eats his blood. Two options are open to him: His mother knew he would fail, and lied, and he is right to seek vengeance. Or: The Plaguebringer lied to her and knew this would happen and knew he would seek vengeance. He lifts his head to the skies and snarls and screams and bows his head to cough and cry. He steps, he stumbles. He shakes, he quakes. Slowly, he makes his way south.
--
"Mother." The curtain of bones and beads rings as he pushes it to one side. Her hut is a beautiful thing, it always has been. Decorations and gifts from those seeking her wisdom and her insight, her visions and her seerings. Her lies. She turns where she sits, casting bones from one hand, runes upside and down to the ceiling and the lamps. He sees the one in the centre: a skull. Death. She almost frames the word of his name before the plague that floats around him hits. It is no normal thing. Even those born to plague cannot stand it. Even those trained to it, even those shown the cures of it. It ripples out from him singing like a Tideseers stormsong, and all the curing his mother has survived does not save her. When he leaves the destroyed village, he takes her head.
--
He's not sure where he is. How far he's travelled. The plague eating his body has caked his eyes: he wanders blind. His mother is dead by his hand and his plague. He has no pearl but carries the battered remains of her head. He steps. He stumbles. He shakes. He quakes. He falls onto soft ground - fine sand, he thinks, or ashes - and he does not have the strength to rise.
--
"Come with me." The voice he hears is soft. Gentle, almost. "Small one. Can you hear me?" He snarls, coughs, cries, speaks. It comes out a snarl anyway. "Yes." "You are a Ghoul." "Yes." "Will you come with me?" The voice is gentle. The voice, he thinks, knows. He can feel plague brushing along his own. Disease strong enough to counter his own, well-trained and well-taught. "You're not dead," is what he says instead of answering. "No. Small one. Will you come with me?" He laughs. Coughs. Clears his throat as best he can. "I cannot walk." "I will carry you," the voice says. "If you wish it. Will you come with me?" He says, "Why?" Almost in answer a hand brushes over his eyes, soft with a salve. The ache, the burn, the blisters, all at once they soothe. When he pries his eyes open he sees: an imperial, long of body, vast of wingspan, calm of eyes. Thylacine slashes down her back mark her strongly, her colours keep her in the caste. "'servus," he croaks. "Yes." The voice is soft. Gentle. "Come with me. My master will cure you." He looks over her length. She is strong. Well-fed. Unafraid. She wears a mistral mask, swirls of plague-scented wind coiled around her body, but her eyes are clearly plague through the mask's eye holes. Snakes coil on her body, belted along her side are satchels and vials, an opened jar scented the same as the salve she'd spread on his face. "Why?" he asks again. "My master wishes to cure a ghoul. He believes, if he can, he might have an answer for the clan he was born to. He believes, if he can, he can help the clan we are of now. And I would help him." She pauses. Looks him over. Speaks softly and more kindly. "You are a pearlcatcher with no pearl. You are a Ghoul in lands of fire and the territory of a clan which knows well what you are. Death will come for you soon if I do not." She is quiet. Sincere. There is no cruelty to her, no callousness, just a calm steadying presence as she watches down through her mask. Her snakes rise and twist around her, hissing. She hisses back. "They say it is your choice," she says after a moment. "Small one. Will you make one?" He closes his eyes. Considers. His claws tighten around the ruined skull of his mother: what he has, now, instead of a pearl. He has taken vengeance. He has survived this long. And his mother saw something even if it was a lie. The Plaguebringer has decided his fate. His fate has led him here. "Yes," he says, sibilant as the snakes. He hears the huff of a laugh. "I cannot walk," he reminds her. "Let alone fly. But I would like to live, if your master can cure me." "Come," she says, and strong arms lift him. Under his side a snake writhes, twisting away from him. "Hush," the imperial says, then hisses something. "Up here, if you don't like him. There we go." She adjusts him carefully, the skull he clutches, the armour he still wears. "This will be a long flight," she warns. "And not the most gentle. There is a storm of ash and fire to come tonight. Eschar has Seen." The arms shift, lifting his head, and he cracks his eyes open to see huge red ones watching down at him. "She Saw you, too."
--
He's not sure how much later it is when the imperial lands. She lands in a scatter, clearly unused to settling down with a burden in her arms, but she is careful all the same: he is scarcely jostled, even as she dances three paces around as she sets her wings and stance to rights. "Back!" she calls, clear and quick, and there's the sound of many feet clearing away. "Syncytia! Have Nosoi and Kythera check everyone for infection. This one's plague is not yet bound." "Yes, second 'servus!" The voice is almost chirping, quick and determined. A mirror, he thinks. Only they sound like that, chittering in packs. "Ondine! Where is my master?" "His catacombs." This voice is deep. Clear. Determined. "I will guard those here while Cytie runs for the others. You will keep grandmother clear?" "No one will see harm come to Haema." "I will have Miasm clear the air when Cytie returns. Best get your burden below." He feels the imperial start to move. Eyes closed, he cannot track the movement but he knows: they move inside a structure. The shadows deepen, the air stills and shifts differently. The imperial strides with sure steps. When he is set down, it is on a bed of soft rags. "Master!" Her voice rings out, echoing, he thinks, off stone. "Hurry, if you please!" He hears quick small footsteps, claws on stone. Whomever the imperial's master is, they are smaller. He suspects they are no less powerful. "'tia." The voice is quick. Almost curt. "Master." "Why did you bring him?" The voice is quick still, almost curt still, but there is a gentleness to the scolding, a disappointment backed by a steady understanding. "Tia. You know we have not the space." "I know." The imperial pauses. Tia, he supposes. When she continues her voice is clear. "Master. Myo may never be cured. Eschar does not seek it. Slough is.... Our Lady alone knows what she is. But this one wants it." "And you think we can?" "I withstood him," she says. "And he is unbound. At the very least, we have the means to in my blood." There is a pause. Neither speaks, but he can hear the small clicks and clatter of clawed feet on stone as the imperial's small master paces. "To me," the imperial's master says. "Quickly. Your plague. Your curses and your cures." "To you, master." He hears: a sigh, an inhale, feels the plagues of both shift and swirl, and sing, some terrible twisted harmony that bells through this echoing chamber as though it's a cathedral. "Small one," the imperial says. "Are you ready? Are you sure?" He cracks his eyes open. She's staring down at him, her snakes coiled up around her antlers and their eyes on him too. Her hand is linked with that of a small mirror beside her - masked too, in paint this time, a bone-white paint and bloodied slashes. The smoke that clings to her master is grey as soot and ashes. His mother Saw something. The Plaguebringer knows his fate. One here has Seen too, a ghoul which warned them of his coming and led to this choice. His fate is known. Whatever he chooses, the Plaguebringer knows. If she knows, he thinks, she will not be angry what he chooses. "Yes," he says, a hiss, a snarl, a desperate cry, and as the hands of Necromancer and Necroservus plant on his shoulders he braces himself for the pain. He screams, he writhes, he thrashes. Plague seeps from his pores, from his sores, from every open wound on his body, the rags of the bed ruined beyond all reckoning. He knows when it is over. It is the first time he has been without pain in two years. RELATIONSHIPS
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Lore & Code by EssayOfThoughts. Graphics are hyperlinked. Colour codes from Mikann's Font Color Picker. Avatar icons from Starrlight's Icon BBCoder.
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