Gargoyle

Silver Pocketwatch Trinkets This pocketwatch is in excellent condition, but the time it keeps is always too early. 90

GARGOYLE "What is dead may never die."

Memento Mori Generation 4 Child-like | Neutral | Intelligent

Memento mori (Latin: "remember that you have to die") is the medieval Latin Christian theory and practice of reflection on mortality, especially as a means of considering the vanity of earthly life and the transient nature of all earthly goods and pursuits. Memento mori has been an important part of ascetic disciplines as a means of perfecting the character by cultivating detachment and other virtues, and by turning the attention towards the immortality of the soul and the afterlife. This curse would be traced down his lineage. All Moros' children were destined to die, like any dragon. But they would be given a second chance. It was up to the children if they would accept the bargain.

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Gargoyle's birth, was his death.
He awoke to darkness, as if he wasn't even awake at all. A cold, numb darkness, in comparison to the warm one he had slept in for days and nights, the kind he waited in.

Waited for a day now never to come.

He tried to move, to shiver, but his body refused, remaining in its stiff, curled position. He felt both heavy and light, and somewhere beyond the numbness, he could feel his home bob up and down.

He himself though, was confused. Is this what he had been waiting for? What was supposed to greet his first thoughts?

Was this life?

He heard something, yet didn't. He remember sounds in his sleep, warm and comforting and familiar. Now he heard unfamiliar muffled sounds, that were soft yet sad.

"Poor thing"

"How did it even end up all the way out here anyways?"

"Matters not, it won't hatch now."

An icier cold crept up his back, a fear he should have been feeling if he weren't so numb. Was he stuck like this? Was he going to remain numb and blind forever? He didn't want this. He wanted the warm again! He wanted to see! He wanted life, to live, to-

Warm, he felt warm, and a singular, once-muffled sound, one different from the sad ones, cleared into a voice.

"Such a shame" it whispered, echoing all around him "you would have been beautiful."

"This is not life?" he spoke, yet his mouth didn't move.

"It is not."

He felt even colder, panic and grief tearing through the numbness to grip him. He wanted to live, to see what lays beyond his egg, feel air and wind, he wanted to-

"Do you want to live?" It inquired. His thoughts stopped in their tracks.

"I can? I do, I do!" He cried.

"What price will you pay?"

He went quiet again. Price? What is a price? It sounded scary, yet he thought about the sounds, the warmth. He resolved himself and reached toward the formless voice.

"Anything"

"Very well" it simply said and he felt himself rising, toward a light and a warmth he hadn't felt before.

---

Raya looked toward Aster with sympathy, the two Skydancers had been conversing in the nursery with each other before Avisa burst in. She carried an egg in her claws, an earth egg. Someone had apparently found it floating in the middle of the sea and brought it to the Spiral, but it was too late.

The egg was dead cold.

Aster still tucked it into a nest, in honor. The three of them surrounded it, mourning it before Avisa turned to get Flick.

Only to stop when the egg shook.

Raya checked the egg. It was still cold, but warmth had begun to blossom from within, and it was shaking with far more energy than the investigator had seen in healthier eggs.
Raya felt the spirit's presence before she saw it and it instantly clicked.

Memento Mori.

Like her.

Pretty soon, a tiny Fae peeked out from the egg. His eyes were as cold of a grey as his body, but they were filled with wonder and life. And he was already speaking his first word.

"Li... Life! Life!"

"He looks like he's made of stone, fitting for an Earth Dragon" Avisa observed.

"He looks like a little gargoyle" Aster chuckled.

"It could be his name!"

Aster tried to protest the name before the hatchling spoke its next word.

"Gaa... Gagoye!"

"Guess we're calling him Gargoyle" Aster lamented, but Raya didn't hear her.

"Hello cousin" she whispered, stroking the now dubbed Gargoyle's head with a claw. She gently lifted the hatchling up to level with her face.

Gargoyle's life had ended.

And then it begun.

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