Becherovka

Becherovka isn’t a mage, let’s get that out there first. She trained for it her whole youth, magic has run strong in her family line for countless generations. In her, the elemental magic has culminated. She is the strongest recorded mage in her entire lineage- or she would be, had the practical application of it all eluded her completely. Despite her and her whole family’s best efforts, Becherovka is not capable of casting a single spell despite knowing the theory of everything and having the power. She is incapable of even safely discharging some of her enormous internal storage to keep it from overwhelming her.


Art by me

Becherovka spent all of her youth walking on eggshells, as the untamable energy would find unsafe ways to escape. She would bump into things and cause explosions, lightning would arc off her and onto other dragons, and nothing she could do would stop it. For a long time she had to live quarantined in a lightning-only environment, as she could accidentally kill dragons from any other flight. In the end a solution was invented- not ideal, but it made her less of a danger to herself and others; trained mages would leech some of her magic away, bringing it down to manageable levels and then leeching it again and again as it became unbearable once more.

Becherovka’s life became livable, though she still lived in partial isolation. She could not stray far from home as she would always have to come back to be leeched, and none of the few elders who possessed the skill and finesse needed for the procedure wanted to go anywhere, really. Becherovka became happier with her newfound increased freedom, but it left her malcontented. What more could there be, beyond the lightning farms of the horizon? What was on the other edge of the Mesa? The farther Becherovka could go, the farther she wanted to go, or at least be able to go. After a life of isolation she didn’t know how far she’d dare, but day by day being bound to a certain area by the incorporeal tether of her own traitorous magic and only partially cooperative elders was not only frustrating but downright infuriating.

For days and days at a time Becherovka teetered on the edge on uncertainty, mulling over whether to stay or try to go and risk everything to experience the world, but the knowledge that if things went wrong she might accidentally kill other dragons kept her home. She stayed, tended the lightning rods, meditated, reinforced ridgeback tunnels, studied in vain more magic, grew more disgruntled by every setting sun and rising moon.

The days blended together, as Becherovka started spending more time inside her head, wondering about all the things that might await her just out of her reach. She barely even bothered to react when the rumor that one of the crystals used to to help leech her seemingly boundless energy had been stolen.

Becherovka barely even noticed when a passed-out traveler turned up on the village green one morning, and even then only because someone took the trouble of directly telling her to keep her distance while the foreign fae recovered, just in case dear, you know. She’d fully planned to waste away in the underground tunnel system since that seemed to be all she was good for, but a few errands kept her and then there was a very small rapidly flapping something right in front of her face.

A fae, probably the one she’d been told to keep away from, so close she had to cross her eyes. The fae seemed dazed, or shocked, or perhaps utterly bewildered, hovering in place with wingbeats blurring together, stony face, and a fin-crest that was standing on end as if electrified.

You’re it, the fae said and her fins began first to quiver like one’s lip does before crying, then flap about uncontrollably as if she was trying to fly with them, making whatever mood she was experiencing utterly indecipherable. It’s you, the fae said, and promptly in a burst of fins and wings and teeny little claws landed on Becherovka’s snout.

Lightning arced between them in a blinding flash of light so bright that Becherovka screwed her eyes shut and flinched back violently, but the little fae clung to her nose still. Arcs of light still danced in front of her closed eyelids and Becherovka could already hear the dressing-down she would get for carelessly frying someone to a crisp, but that... didn’t seem to be happening.

Becherovka barely dared to open her eyes, but once she could peek between the lids they flew wide open; the fae was not only not burning up from the inside out, but she was haloed by an electromagnetic aura and sparks were dancing in the air around the fae and Becherovka’s head; smaller arches of electricity slithered, sparked, and danced in the space between them.

The fae let out a deep sigh, as deep as such a small body could muster. The sparks and arcs and auras seemed to breathe with her.

I’ve been looking for you for so long, she said, I’ve finally found you.

Who are you, Becherovka asked, staring cross-eyed at the sparking fae sitting on her snout and only barely registering the crowd watching the two of them from a safe distance.

I am Deyasmera, the Scorched Earth, the fae said.