Khaimeroth

The air reeks of wet ash, like burnt dirt sodden from a morning rain against his tongue, revolting and familiar. His nose scrunches involuntarily at the smell, and he turns in the direction of the wind, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom between the trees. Winter-bare branches do little to hide the wraith-like form lurking among the boughs, barely-there and more than see-through, only by knowing what he is looking for does it jump out to his eyes. A Shade figment.

It rides the wind on wisps of what might have been wings, almost gracefully dancing through the air as it heads north, and he can hear its faint cackling even from here. Ausiris watches a moment longer, debating with himself. This is not his problem, it's not hurting anyone - at the moment - and he is tired. It has been a long few days, a long week, a long month even, and he has no obligations to deal with that thing. But he is one of the few who can do so relatively safely, and even if it is not a problem now, it will be eventually if it is allowed to persist.

Then, as if the world itself had sensed his inner turmoil, the Shade creature gives a high-pitched, delighted screech and dashes off out of sight. Before he can even think to heave a sigh of relief, an unmistakably draconic cry of alarm goes up in the direction the Shade wraith took off in. Well, it looks like it is his problem now. He doesn't waste another moment, lunging in the direction the wraith went, preparing with a barrier spell on his tongue.

He is by no means a small dragon, and the smooth-barked tree trunks often only have narrow gaps between them, but physical space has never been an issue for him. Ausiris dashes through the small openings, never disturbing the trees save with the breeze of his passing no matter the actuality that he should be crashing through the hardwood. It reminds him of his days as a hatchling running through the wending alleyways of the Necropolis, laughing madly as he evaded the day's minder, though never for very long.

As the world parts easily around him, he follows the panicked sounds of rising battle, finishing his incantation and feeling the prickly buzz of the barrier come to life against his scales. He turns sharply to his left as he nears the commotion, intending to come up behind where the Shade abomination should be, and as he rounds the tree trunk, comes nearly nose-to-nose with the thing. Its pale eyes widen at the sight of him, and it turns toward him as quickly as it can, claws raised and jaw unhinging for an attack.

But Ausiris is faster. He makes good use of his momentum to ram himself into the figment, barrier screeching like claws on slate at the collision. The Shade squawks in surprise and pain as he carries it with him further into the small clearing. There is barely enough space for him to coil and turn his long body back so he can snap his fangs at the creature, tearing into smoky not-flesh and grimacing at the foul taste of it.

To his right, a half-strangled gasp sounds as the Shade dissipates around his maw, its essence consumed. He shakes himself a bit, almost a shiver, as the subsumed power of the Shade settles about him, almost-audible whispers of power and glory fading as its power becomes his. He will never quite get used to that, he thinks. A glance confirms that a mirror - pale with fear - shudders against the treeline, eyeing him with just as much suspicion and fear as he is sure they did the Shade.

"W-what are you?" The mirror whispers, more to themself than to him. "You can't eat those things; they eat people." Then, with more force, "You can't eat those things." Their voice is still more of a whisper than anything, not really directed at him, more just disbelieving shock than anything else.

He answers anyway, not quite sure why he hasn't just left them to pick themselves up and go home yet. "I am Ausiris, a Shade-eater. It is an uncommon skill to be sure, " that's putting it mildly; he hasn't seen the ability outside of his own bloodline, and not all of them have it, "but not impossible. I suggest you make your way back to your clan to recover."

The mirror just blinks their eyes at him.

There isn't much else he can do here, so he turns - awkwardly - and heads off into the gloom, leaving the mirror behind.

He dreams that night. He often does after consuming pieces of the Shade. It's a chase through the mist, near-blind in the pale and scales coated with water. A voice, almost familiar, calls out from the swirling mass, calling his name fervently, almost as if it were a prayer. He runs from the sound, uneasy at the uncomfortable feeling it evokes in his chest. But no matter where he goes, how many leagues of distances he puts between himself and the source, he can always hear it as if the speaker were just out of sight.

Waking the next morning is unpleasant, damp. It must have rained at some point during the night, and his clothes and bags are all soaked through. He takes the first hours of wakefulness to dry it all out as best he can before he moves on, travelling east and toward Plague's border with Shadow. While most days he might have walked - better to encounter strangers with rumors and small settlements he might have otherwise missed - today he spends flying high above the clouds, invisible to all but the most keen observer. After that dream, he finds he doesn't want to talk to anyone.

He is exhausted when he lands in a small copse of fir trees that evening. This close to the border, the wildlife has started to spread over, and he beds down on a firm carpet of fallen pine needles. Whether it is the exhaustion or the aftereffects of his last dream, that night is spent in quiet nothing until the sun wakes him the next day. Ausiris returns to his habit of terrestrial travel after that.

Ever since the initial journey north with his nest-sisters and Koschei so long ago, he has enjoyed traveling by land. You learn so much more by speaking with fellow travelers, by visiting little hole-in-the-wall destinations than is possible passing it all over above. In the weeks that follow his run-in with the Shade figment, he hears many rumors and tall tales. Some, he is quite sure to be nothing more than local folktales, little stories long told to explain some phenomena or other. But one or two have a distinct ring of truth to them.

It is one of those that sends him away from the east-bound path he had chosen and once more north. Here, so far from the Wyrmwound, north is still towards the border with Shadow, but it will be closer to the Muckbarrow Close than the Sunportal, his original destination. An older dragon he met in a tavern in the last town had told him an interesting tale over the course of the night, fragmented and difficult to properly string together, but the picture he got when he held the pieces together in just the right way was not one he could ignore.

Apparently, there stood a ruin just on the Shadow side of the border there; a series of standing stones carved with runes so ancient no one knew what they meant anymore. And it was said to be the gateway to another world if one could crack the code.

It was too familiar. Too like the stories told of his own birthplace, of the realms and powers unique to those of his bloodline, to Naomi, to Ignis, to ignore. So he went, almost a week's journey out of his way, just to see what truth stood behind a failing memory and too much to drink. He asked questions of the local clans as he drew near, looking for clarification, a hint, anything that might help him determine what exactly he would be looking at when he arrived.

Each answer was more confusing than the next. Some told him that only a demon dwelled there, that it was a site of the Shade that everyone knew better to avoid. A scholar's apprentice claimed the stones were so crumbled into nothing that it was impossible to tell what they had been meant to be, but that an aura of something other clung to them none-the-less. Yet others said that there was no such place, confused at his questions and concerned for his sanity. All things that increased the drive to see the place with his own eyes.

He finds it just as the sun has begun to set, casting harsh shadows and bolts of light between the close-set pines. Ausiris' claws crack against the stone inlay along the ground as he nears, eyes gleaming. It is a circle of standing stones. Each towers up into the dark canopy, ensconced with overgrowing moss and vines, the carved runes almost unreadable. There are eight in all, arranged in an oblong east-to-west shape, the stones at the far ends taller and thinner than the ones toward the center. He is dwarfed by each of them,

Only as he reaches the center of the circle does he notice the quiet. He stops, listening, and hears nothing. It's eerie, unsettling, and he glances around and feels the flow of aether around him, searching for something amiss. There should be at least the chirps of insects or late-night birds, and he can sense their little life-forces in the surrounding forest, but they remain silent. More troubling, is that none cross the circle. He is the only living being within.

The wind gusts, from the wrong direction for the prevailing winds of the area, bringing with it the distinct, acrid scent of wet ash. Ausiris immediately leaps back from the center of the circle as a dark limb swipes down right where his head would have been only a moment ago, cracking the stone inlay beneath. He has only a moment to be concerned about the sheer size and strength of his attacker before he senses a second blow coming from his right and ducks just in time to avoid it.

As he reels back, familiar barrier spell half-formed around him, he gets a real sense for just how powerful this creature is. It is several times his own size, shaped like a massive guardian drake, solid where the foe he encountered a short while ago was barely corporeal, eyes gleaming malice as it bears down on him. This is not a wraith. This is the remnants of a dragon's soul sold to the Shade for power. Something he has only heard stories about, and dreaded.

But now is no time to be caught up in reputation and dread. The behemoth takes another swipe at him, its claws skittering against his barrier when he doesn't move quite in time to avoid the blow entirely. He gives himself a mental shake, grits his teeth, and sets about winning.