Davoris

Lore

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There’s the common phrase: “Life is short.” It was almost too true for a young nocturne born in the Murkbarrow Close to a large clan of crooks and cons. After only a few years of his life, the adage became an ironic joke.

The Murkbarrow Close has garnered a reputation since the villages were packed into that forsaken tree trunk. A reputation for jesters who sell you curses and rogues who swipe every coin on your belt. A reputation well earned and upheld. While many sectors are safe and full of dragons who simply mind their own, other sectors do not share that serenity and solitude. One such sector found itself the birthplace of a tiny gray nocturne named Davoris. His immediate family was made of thieves and bandits. Their clan was no different.

Perhaps he would have grown up to be just like them. However, for an inexplicable reason, when he was a child, the nocturne did not mimic his parents, as would have been his nature to do. As it was, nature did not seem to be a force that controlled the hatchling. He could often be found speaking to what seemed like nothing at all. At first, this odd behavior was brushed off as an imaginary friend, but Davoris was insistent that he was speaking to a creature made of stars and sky.

None of his family paid him much mind. In fact, he was widely regarded as the clan nuisance, with a ‘goody-two-shoes’ personality, as the other hatchlings would accuse. It was true. When they bit, when they stole, and when they lied, Davoris always spoke against it. And while he often felt the urge to copy them, his friend of stars- a being he referred to as ‘Astrum’- convinced him that he should remain true to his heart.

However, try as he might to avoid temptation, he certainly picked up the sharp tongue of the other shadow dragons. Davoris had quite the attitude, with a tendency for sarcastic and witty quips where they should not be. It frequently got him into trouble. When that trouble tangled him up with the leader of the thieves, his father’s best friend, Davoris realized he was in over his head this time. To avoid being treated even more harshly by the others, he ran away from him and asked Astrum to guide him.

The little nocturne traveled many days across the Tangled Wood. He was far too young to thrive on his own, but he managed to collect enough food to keep his body nourished. Protection, however, was a very different story.

Davoris was traveling past the Wispwillow Grove one evening, with a heavy blanket of fog coating the ground so it obscured most creatures outside of a five foot radius. The air was thick, acrid with the scent of rotting meat permeating the space around him. This was not a rare occurrence, likely just a kill left over from some other predator who had come this way. What Davoris was not counting on was that those predators were still in the area.

A twig snapped under his front leg, and like a churning waterfall descending onto a shifting pool, a pack of winter wolves descended upon him. They did not hesitate, and they did not bother to circle him first. Each of them were scrawny, with wild looks in their eyes… shadetouched, most likely. No matter what motivated the savage creatures, the last thing Davoris felt before everything fell utterly dark and silent was several pairs of fangs sinking deep into the flesh of his thin neck.

~

“Am I… Is this heaven?” Davoris whispered, blinking against the light of billions and billions of stars, ever shifting and sparkling various shades of silver and black. Bolts of magnificent violet, sapphire, and magenta streaked through the air around him, lively swatches of energy. Purified color right in front of his very eyes, dancing in a manner that no living being could ever replicate.

“No,” answered a thousand voices. “We are Astrum. We have been watching you since the day you were born.”

“I don’t understand,” Davoris looked down at himself. His scales were transparent, reflecting the shifting, swirling space around him, dotted with gleaming white stars. “Why me?”

“Your physical form is that of a nocturne. A dragon so inclined to copy others that they often become distressed if they have no example to lead by. Yet the strength of your heart was powerful enough to not only deny your very nature, but to deny the upbringing by which you were surrounded. You impressed us, Davoris, no other reason.”

“Who are you?”

“We cannot tell you everything. Not as yet. First, you must return to Sornieth and prove to us that we are making the right decision by revealing ourselves to you. Continue to follow your heart, and you cannot disappoint us.”

“But-”

~

When he regained consciousness, he was surprised to find a rather potent sting in his neck. Other than that, Davoris found himself unharmed. However, upon dragging himself over to the river, desperate for a drink to soothe his dry throat, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the murky water. A pair of hypnotic violet eyes stared back at him, and he saw his scales had retained the look of the space in which he’d met Astrum. Ever turning, shifting, spinning.

As if it weren’t enough to have his appearance altered so entirely, it took only a few days for Davoris to realize he’d been granted a set of supernatural abilities. Portals would disappear and reappear when he mustered them, able to take him to various locations. However, he did not discover he could control this until several weeks later. The first few times were unfortunate and inconvenient random circumstances where he ended up in some of the worst possible locations in Sornieth.

Davoris tried to speak to Astrum, but it appeared the entity had gone silent. Watching him and waiting for him to ‘prove’ himself. He had no idea what that would entail, but he decided to wander. For a while, he did try. He did generally good things, but Astrum still did not reach out to him. Did not encourage or scold him. So eventually, Davoris gave in. But, he kept wandering, because he had nothing else to do.

Over the years, he noticed something else. His body was not aging. He had not grown from the size he was when the wolves killed him. Experimentally, he once returned to the Grove, just for a moment. And swiftly found himself a wolf’s chew toy. Despite being bitten in just about every lethal artery, all he ended up with was an extremely sore throat.

“In retrospect, that was stupid,” he muttered aloud after the incident. However, it confirmed one thing for him. He couldn’t be killed.

~

Davoris traveled for a long time, often finding himself at the mercy of very irritating random portals that dragged him all over the world. He had the prickling suspicion that the cause of these occurrences was none other than Astrum, but of course, Davoris had no proof of this. Instead, he would simply carry a bag with all his belongings and set up wherever the portals tossed him. He had nowhere to return to anyway.

One morning, he was sulking in Dragonhome when one of his shifting violet portals appeared, drawing the small nocturne into it. He merely crossed his wings and glared, allowing the transportation to happen, knowing full well there was nothing he could do to stop it anyway.

Roughly, he was thrown on a freezing cold snowbank. A soft puff of white powder billowed up around him as he was nearly buried in it.

“Damn it!” He snapped, shivering as he pushed himself to his feet. “It’s snow. Of f***ing course it’s snow!”

He looked up then, to survey his surroundings and start to find a way out of the Southern Icefield, then froze.

Over a dozen larger dragons were staring at him, gathered around a massive iron table set in the center of what appeared to be a large ice cavern. The dragons were all seated, as if prepared for some sort of game or meeting.

For several moments, no one moved, no one spoke.

Finally, an obelisk among them looked between the others and offered a sheepish smile. “Alright, for once, I did not see that coming.”

Davoris swallowed. “Hey… sorry to barge in… like that.”

A large, rather intimidating-looking ridgeback tilted their head at him. They sported armor, indicating their status as some sort of warrior. Davoris tried not to back down from their stone cold gaze. “Hello, little dragon… May I inquire what sort of portal magic that was? I’ve never seen anything quite like it… least of all from a dragon so young as you.”

Davoris had gathered a bit of his resolve and offered a snide little smirk. He sauntered up to the table and hopped on top of it so he could actually meet the ridgeback’s eyes, peeking through their helmet. “I’m told I look a bit younger than I am,” he grinned.

“Sources tell me he’s got a lot in common with our Bones, here,” the obelisk who’d quipped earlier spoke up then. Davoris cocked his head curiously at that remark.

“Bruno, don’t listen to strangers’ thoughts,” hissed the pale blue Imperial seated next to him. She was tall, elegant, and commanded attention. Obviously the leader of whatever sort of meeting Davoris had unwittingly dropped in upon.

“In common with me?” A voice drifted across the table.

Davoris had to squint to the end of the seemingly-endless table, but seated there at the head of it was a tiny ridgeback hatchling. With jet black markings over pale-colored scales, he looked no older than a yearling. And yet. Davoris was instantly sure he knew exactly what the obelisk meant when he spoke of their commonality.

“The whole growing up thing never stuck with you either?” Davoris guessed as he padded down the length of the table to meet the ridgeback, who’d done the same.

A chuckle came in response. “How’d you know?”

“Lucky guess.”

“I was just saying you’re both short,” Bruno snickered. Wave tipped their head at him, scolding. He shrugged. “What? Am I wrong?”

Davoris turned back to the ridgeback. “I’m Davoris.”

“Bones.”

~

After meeting the dragons of Glasis, Davoris came to stay with them permanently. Not a reason in the world for him to keep wandering trying to prove himself to an entity he hadn’t even truly met. After several months, he and Bones were inseparable, and he’d sort of adopted the ridgeback as his little brother. He stayed with the clan for a while, knowing it wouldn’t be forever. Even if he lived forever, no clan could weather that sort of test of time.

Bones is always there to remind him that even when time keeps crawling by, he won’t be alone. And that’s enough for now. Maybe enough for always.

Written by HappyAccidents

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