Screamer

When the first shard of crystal had shot through Screamer’s wing membrane, she remembered thinking little of it. Or thinking to think little of it. It was getting harder to tell by the day what she should and shouldn’t think about - what was the vestige of the dragon she once was, and the responsibility of the dragon she was now. She had thought in those days that archeology was her charge. It was, after all, her life’s passion. Something that got her out of the bed at Icewarden-knows-o-clock to race her peers to the dig sites. Archeology isn’t a game of speed by any means, but the patience with which she shifted inch after inch of dirt with a toolkit clearly not built for a guardian’s hands in mind...how could it not be her charge?

There was nothing to describe the moment that she first put the locket to her neck. Not out of the weight of the moment, but because it simply didn’t exist to her anymore. Hilariously enough, Screamer could mentally note the day and location of just about every artifact that she had been lucky enough to unearth - the pottery shard in the month of the Arcanist, some sort of strange striped contraption that had flung a rock at her when she touched it with her pick under the month of the Greenskeeper. The locket had long evaded her memory. She sometimes questions if it was even her that found it, or put it on her neck. Then again, none of her colleagues would have been fool enough to risk contaminating history even by poking it lightly with a shovel, no less by wearing it. She had thought herself among them. The locket knew otherwise.

The locket, in fact, knew a lot of things. It took the sting out of Screamer no longer being permitted among her fellow archaeologists. It was not their decision nor hers. As most things in the guardian’s life soon shaped up to be, it was the decision of the locket itself. It did not speak words, but it emitted intention against the skin of her neck and forced her feet into action. No sooner had the locket found its way onto her did Screamer take to the sky, never to be seen again by her peers. It told her that there were better places to go - soils far more fertile with ancient secrets than the ones she was so used to toiling around within.

When it led her to her first discovery site, located in some inhabitable section of Dragonhome, the shard appeared. It felt as if a small butterknife had been crocheted into her skin - a sharp pain that did not stop her from digging, but was intense enough to warrant a wince. As her explorations continued, lead on by the hints of the locket, so too did the growth of the crystal. The pain had not grown worse, but the crystal did, ever inching towards her body with every discovery. About twenty sites in, she even questioned her ability to fly.

The locket is not seared to the guardian’s neck. She is free to remove it at any time. But at what cost? As Dragonhome continues to deteriorate, so too does the history its layers of sediment hold. Historians need every bit of advantage they can take before the shared past becomes dust.

This, Screamer realized, was her true charge. She was to bear the burden of the pendant at the benefit of her craft. There was no use in complaining about the pain it brought, and it was set aside in favor of her explorative spirit. Not that you would be able to see it. Screamer’s personality looms darkly over those who interact with her, without a shred of emotion to accompany it. What good what come of letting others know her pain? They would only try to stop her. None besides her would understand the significance of her charge, and the guardian had made peace with that. The great unknown now occupies her time, ignoring the ever-growing weight on her back.



Written by Hyzenthlaay




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