Thelius

second banescale completed


Avogadro has a tendency to take midnight walks.

It's something they've all grown used to. The vibrant strategist, despite his focus during workdays and his readiness to learn, is after all practically still a teenager. The desert is painfully hot for them during the day, every adaptation they had for the Icefields a curse beneath the sun, and so Avogadro walks hours after sunset, at least four times a week and often six or seven, to satisfy his need for outside air and privacy. Sometimes Kaavie waits for him, stoically watching over the dunes, Roden often curled nearby trying to sleep. Other times Haze will abandon her nightly dream-dancing to twirl a beautiful ballet by the hidden entrance to the lab. Even Rhew and Hearth have met his return, the two pressed flank-to-flank, one or the other often drifting off before he reaches home.

Lichen doesn't usually partake. He's a strong believer in a regimented sleeping schedule, and he always feels terrible if he gets less than six hours. If he is] hit by a bout of insomnia, he usually spends the extra time in the lab.

But tonight, for the first time since Peat broke seventeen samples in one fall and was banned from the lab until she'd learned to keep her balance, there is nothing at all to study. And Lichen just can't sleep.

He drags one claw through the sand, bored. Numerous mathematical equations are laid out in front of him. He's mostly just reciting, drawing without meaning, but he thinks he might have picked up on one interesting correlation he's already memorizing for future tests. It'll be far too complicated for a sand-drawing, he thinks, if it even works at all.

A little doodle comes to life under his claw. Two huge wings. A long, twisting tail. A pair of vicious claws.

"Oh, hey."

Lichen looks up just as Avogadro tramples all over his equations.

The younger dragon catches his glare almost immediately, eyes widening. He looks down and hurriedly steps away from the scrawl. In the process, half of the remaining notes are wiped away by his unruly tail. "Ah! Sorry, I didn't notice..."

Lichen has half a mind to be angry about it, but it's too little substance to be worth fighting over. Instead, he sighs. "It's all right."

All that's left, really, is his tiny doodle of a long-extinct foe, as though it had been the one to raze everything he had actually cared about.

"This is good, actually, that you're out here, Lichen-"

"Doctor."

"-doctor. Anyways, there's something I needed to... Show you? I figured you'd be more open to it than Kaavie."

"I'm no pushover, you know."

"I know! But you're more open minded, usually."

Lichen raises an eyebrow. "...Okay. So it's already something I'll have to fight my mate on."

"Well... Probably." Avogadro has the good sense to look sheepish, at least.

Lichen sighs. "...well?"

Avo pauses, then lifts his leg carefully. "Go introduce yourself."

And Lichen's very first thought is 'oh no, Avogadro has adopted the shade.'

What pops out is arguably worse.

A small dragon, no bigger than Avo's head, approaches. It is visibly cautious, feathers pressed down flat, focused entirely on Lichen, spines quivering. Even revealed it sticks to Avo like the colorful dragon is a lifeline, and with a little jolt Lichen realizes why.

"Hi," it says, voice barely a whisper.

Lichen looks down at his drawing, then at the hatchling, then up to Avo. "...Do you have any idea what this is?" His voice flickers with both disbelief and horror. The hatchling flinches back under the gaoler.

"Of course. It's one of the young dragon breeds, probably one of those while-claws." Avo frowns, tilting his head. "I thought you'd be more open to one after Roden joined up."

"That is not a young breed." Lichen stands up, pauses, then approaches, eyeing the tiny dragon. He isn't sure, yet, what to do with it.

"That's a banescale."

"...What?" Avo's voice is full of disbelief. He looks down at the hatchling, seeing it with new eyes.

The hatchling backs up, curling in on itself, wings spreading as though ready for takeoff at any moment. It's thin, painfully thin like it's never seen a good meal. It has no forearms, a sure tell that it isn't any sort of Wildclaw.

"I-I don't... Don't h-hurt me..."

Lichen wonders if he should.

The Banescales nearly destroyed the Gaolers, or so the history books say. They are displayed as monsters, ruthless and destructive, capable of surviving on their own and killing a grown dragon from the moment of their hatching. They were supposedly so terrible that any sacrifice was worth their removal from the world. Up until his school years, the Gaoler youth were still being taught to eradicate any Banescales they saw, and the beasts had been extinct for generations. It had even caused some tensions in the new Seekers, as others saw the Wildclaws and made dangerous assumptions.

"...Come over here." Lichen keeps his tone purposefully neutral, motioning the hatchling forward. For a second it looks like the child is just going to take flight, but then it steps up on shaking feet.

Lichen stands, stretching, and sighs. He carefully etches a rune into the sand, infusing it with elemental magic, and doesn't miss the way the hatchling's eyes widen in awe. He mutters a phrase under his breath, and the symbol flashes. A diagnostic spell goes off. Information fills his mind.

...The hatchling is, indeed, a Banescale, a male. There is little to no hint of the Shade in its body, about as much as had accumulated in his people after a week outside of their icy fortress. Its- his- heart rate is elevated, but he senses nothing malicious about his intentions. He thrums with Arcane energy, bubbling and erupting more in the manner of fire. A low, thrumming, mournful song in a long-dead language begins to echo in Lichen's head, perfectly matched to the twisting and turning of the hatchling's magic. It's a last farewell, a tune resonating with regrets and hopes for the future, fear of ice and love of sky.

Lichen blinks, and suddenly gets the sensation that he has nearly lost himself to the music. He looks down at the child and frowns. "Was that intentional?"

"I-- what?" The hatchling squeaks. "I didn't do anything."

Lichen pauses, considering. He quickly etches a rune of dispelling in the sand, and finds that his feelings do not change. He isn't under any sort of compulsion.

All he's feeling is a natural sympathy, for a child who had lost his species centuries before his birth.

He sighs. "...If you would like, you can stay."

The hatchling squeaks again, losing his balance and falling over.

Avo blinks. "Really? Even though he's a... a..."

"Kaavie will have my head for this, but yes. She won't hurt you if I explicitly tell her not to." Lichen pauses. "You have strong magic, child. Strange magic. Do you want to learn to use it?"

Avo's jaw drops.

The hatchling looks between the two dragons. "I... use my magic?"

Lichen's lips twist into a half-smile. He remembers being this young, once. "Yes. You would be my apprentice." He pauses. "It would also help solidify your place in my order, should we come under inspection by our Warden. What do you know about Gaolers?"

"Um." The hatchling looks away, hunching down. "T-the songs said you were all big and mean and scary, and we should run if we saw you. B-but Avo is nice. He warmed me up. And you want to teach me magic, so I guess not all of you are mean..."

Lichen hums. "Every other Gaoler I know would see you as the monster. There was a war, generations ago, between our species. We have long memories and short tempers. I am not surprised that your... songs see us as evil instead."

"So... we're both wrong?"

"...You could say so." A wind blows over the desert. The hatchling shivers. Lichen suddenly remembers that fire-element dragons are used to lava, and that this child doesn't have fur or any other sort of insulation to protect it. "Come inside. It's too cold here for you." He turns, plodding for the entrance to their cavernous home.

There is a pause, and then two little feet patter after him, and Avo pads quietly behind.