Oblivion
(#79609576)
Level 1 Wildclaw
Click or tap to view this dragon in Predict Morphology.
Energy: 50/50
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Personal Style
Apparel
Skin
Scene
Measurements
Length
5.39 m
Wingspan
8.83 m
Weight
665.54 kg
Genetics
Dust
Flaunt
Flaunt
Silver
Flair
Flair
Orca
Keel
Keel
Hatchday
Breed
Eye Type
Level 1 Wildclaw
EXP: 0 / 245
STR
8
AGI
9
DEF
6
QCK
5
INT
5
VIT
6
MND
6
Biography
NOT FOR SALE, TRADE, OR LENDING
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The bottle swirled with thick, syrupy-looking smoke. It sparkled faintly, and if Lucien listened hard enough, he fancied he could hear bright laughter, glimpse the swish of a silken mane...
“Drink it down, Mr. Gilded,” the Imperial said, and Lucien watched as his future father-in-law — or the Bogsneak who would have been his father-in-law — upended the bottle. The memories didn’t flow down his throat like wine; they instead unrolled over him like a shroud, spreading over his skin.
They seeped through his scales like water through ice. And as they did, Juneflower Gilded gave a shudder, as though swept by a sudden chill breeze. “My daughter,” he whispered, tears pooling in his golden eyes.
Evanescent look on with sympathy. “Yes, sir. It’s good that you remember her. Tell me what she looks like, what she’s doing in this particular memory. Tell me everything you can recall...”
For now.
Lucien sat nearby, listening in silence. His heart remained heavy as Juneflower’s words rolled over him — describing Kirea, the love of Lucien’s life, in happy, bygone days.
She had disappeared some years ago. A fire had broken out in the family home, and while her family and servants had managed to escape, she had gone missing. It would have been easy to assume that she had perished in the conflagration. But no remains had been found — and stranger still, no one in the household had been able to recall her existence.
But others had, including the dragons in neighboring clans. Word of the strange incident had quickly spread, and the Lightweaver’s exalted forces had sent dragons to investigate.
They had eventually concluded that hostile enchantments had been set against the Gilded family in an attempt to destroy their lives and home. The assassination had failed; Juneflower and his son, Konnor, were still alive. But what had become of his daughter, Kirea?
Lucien still hoped he would find out. Even after the Gilded family had exhausted their resources, after all the other investigators had given up, he persisted — combing through records, interviewing others, reading about various enchantments...
Anything, anything at all, that might help him find Kirea Gilded.
“She’s alive, she must be! I’m certain that she is...”
These visits to the Story-Taker were his latest attempt to find more answers. Evanescent had the ability to extract other dragons’ memories — and while he couldn’t modify them, he could examine and then return them. Lucien hoped that they would be able to use this ability to uncover what had happened to Kirea.
It had been difficult to convince Juneflower to help him. The old Bogsneak had been terribly afraid that something would go wrong with his mind. And yet...
Juneflower’s voice finally trailed off. The quill continued scratching for a few seconds longer, and then it, too, halted. Silence filled the room.
“Thank you so much, Mr. Gilded.”
“Yes, of course. If there’s anything...anything I can...” Tears were welling up in his eyes again.
Lucien looked kindly at the Bogsneak and then reached out, patted his shoulder. “I can take it from here, sir.”
“Of course...” Juneflower turned to waddle out of the room. Even before the door shut behind him, Lucien saw how his eyes were brightening. Already, he was beginning to forget...
Evanescent sighed. He looked at the notes he’d compiled during this and the previous sessions. “Every memory of his daughter has been obscured,” he murmured. “Every single one. The memories are in there, and pulling them out, then putting them back in, enables him to recall them. But only for a few minutes. After that...”
“They are obscured again.” Lucien looked gravely at him. “Have you ever encountered anything like this?”
The Imperial shook his head. “I’ve been discussing it with my colleagues. I can’t figure out why Ms. Gilded was targeted specifically, though. Which is why I’ve decided to look through even the earliest memories. Perhaps someone mentioned something to her father...or she might have seen something she wasn’t supposed to...or perhaps she...”
Lucien had wondered about that too. The Gilded family was wealthy, but not spectacularly so; and as far as he knew, Kirea and her parents had lived blameless lives.
“But that’s assuming whoever did this thinks the same way we do. Perhaps their minds are completely different...”
Something Evanescent said struck him. He straightened up, slowly blinking. “Begging your pardon...could you repeat that?”
“Certainly. I mentioned that my colleagues and I were discussing how such an enchantment might be activated. Is it tied to Ms. Gilded’s image? The mention of her name? Or perhaps Juneflower himself?”
Lucien nodded. Suddenly he felt very tired. Evanescent gave him a sympathetic look and then started gathering up his papers.
“We still have four more sessions scheduled. At the end of those, we can look our findings over and discuss how to proceed from there. For now,” he said, his voice becoming sterner and less clinical, “I think it’s time we let your father-in-law go home.”
Lucien saw Juneflower off. He helped the Bogsneak onto his litter and watched as his servants carried him away. The litter soon disappeared into the crowd, and Lucien turned and made his way back to his room.
He was not one of the Disillusionists. His search for aid had led him here, to the Story-Taker, and it was fortunate that the clan also offered rooms for rent. Here, Lucien could go over his research in private. The clan scribes had made copies of today’s reports, and he now added them to his collection.
Bleakly, he recalled that distant point in time when his search had begun. Every note added to his dossier had seemed like a great stride forward: He was getting somewhere! He’d find the answers soon! He would see her again...
Now he regarded the papers without any particular joy, maybe even a bit of dread. To hope so strongly — only to have those hopes cruelly dashed whenever he reached the last page and realized there was nothing...
But he had to try. He had to.
“Maybe I can go over some of the older notes, try to cross-reference them with the newer information,” he told himself. In the past, it had sufficed as a pep talk. Now it was just a dull, worn-out tangle of words.
(But still, he had to...)
The Wildclaw leaned over his desk. His pale eyes moved steadily from side to side, reading line after line....Time ticked past, the noise from outside lessened. Shadows slowly lengthened across the floor.
Lucien paused and lit a lamp. And sat, staring at nothing for a while.
The idea had been percolating in his mind for the last few hours. I had seemed unthinkable before. But now...?
Numb, he felt so numb. Beyond outrage, beyond sorrow. There was only the hollow ache of loss; even a drop, just the tiniest hint of progress, would suffice.
“Four more scheduled sessions, Lucien.” Evanescent’s voice, deep and soothing, echoed in his mind. But Lucien did not feel soothed. In fact, the memory of those words only made him more impatient. The thought blazed brighter in his mind: “No, I have to try...!”
The next appointment was three days hence, and Juneflower’s litter soon appeared, bobbing through the crowd. The old Bogsneak couldn’t travel far without assistance, and even these trips, with his Gaoler servants to carry him, were obviously taxing.
Still, he was on time, and he even managed a wan smile when he saw Lucien waiting at the entrance to the main lair. It almost made the Wildclaw feel guilty about what would soon transpire, but he forced that down.
He guided Juneflower into the infirmary, towards Evanescent’s office. They didn’t have to wait long; the receptionist soon called for them to come in.
“Welcome back, both of you. I trust your trip went well, Mr. Gilded?”
“Yes, sir.” Another faint smile lit Juneflower’s face. He carefully eased his bulk onto a couch.
Evanescent engaged him in idle chatter, designed to put him at ease. Lucien knew this, but it still took all he could to keep his tension from rising. He tried to recall the time he’d spent training to serve the Icewarden. He’d learned so many techniques to calm himself, to ignore the thundering of his heart...
“Now, let’s review the memory we’ll be examining today, shall we?”
“If I may...” Lucien spoke up then. The others turned to look at him, and inwardly, he managed to marvel at how calm he sounded.
“I’m aware that today, the plan was to look at an older memory. But with all due respect,” and he made a half-bow towards Juneflower, “We’ve tried that thrice already and yielded no significant information.”
Juneflower’s face briefly creased in regret, but he admitted, “That’s true.”
“Very well. What do you suggest, Lucien?”
“Shall we try a more recent memory?” He addressed Juneflower directly. Even reached out, patted one of his paws. “I can understand that it might be difficult, but maybe if...”
“I suppose it could do no harm.” Juneflower sounded rather nonchalant about it. The Wildclaw felt a quick stab of irritation, and he had to calm himself again: “He doesn’t remember. As far as he’s concerned, none of it ever happened. He’s just a friendly old dragon who understands something’s wrong with him, and he’s doing his best to help me...”
“All right. Then let us begin, shall we?”
It was always a bit unnerving to watch the Story-Taker at work. Lucien sat on the other side of the room, and Evanescent hunkered down, facing Juneflower directly. He stared deep into the Bogsneak’s golden eyes.
His face seemed to waver, becoming more distorted...and then his mouth opened as he sucked in a slow, audible inhalation. He leaned back, his claws sketching strange, graceful shapes in the air as he rose.
And out of Juneflower’s nose and mouth flowed the darkly sparkling tendrils of another obscured memory.
A twitch of the claws, and now Evanescent was holding a large glass cylinder. He gestured with his free paw, and the memory flowed smoothly in. And there it settled, like some strange, dark soup, still undulating sluggishly.
“It’ll be ready soon,” he said, placing the cylinder on the nearby table. “Give your mind time to open up, get used to the empty space...”
Lucien cleared his throat. “Begging your pardon, sir, but I just remembered...the Skydancer outside...”
“Minuit?”
“Yes. He said that if you had a moment, there was a patient he wanted to ask you about.”
Evanescent’s brow furrowed again. “Now, who could that be? I thought we’d gone over today’s appointments...” he muttered as he lumbered out the door.
He didn’t go far, but Lucien knew he couldn’t wait long. “His back has to be turned. That’s all I need.”
“What’re you doing?” Juneflower lifted his head sleepily, watching as Lucien grabbed the cylinder. And then he jerked up with a start as he realized what was happening. “Wait, no! That’s mine—”
Lucien didn’t even know if it would work. Would the memory disappear? Flow back into its owner? Perhaps something else would happen?
He pushed these thoughts out of his mind and upended the glass over his head. Cool, dark vapor cascaded over his body. He watched it settle into his skin, ignoring Juneflower’s wails all the while. And then—
It was dawn.
He could see the edges of it: faint light seeping in around the doors, brightening steadily beyond the windows. He was headed for another, brighter light, however. He walked down a hallway, and at the end of it, a golden lamp shone.
His heart ached with memory: This was the Gilded family’s home, and he was heading towards Kirea’s room. He remembered the large, comfortable chamber with the big, round windows overlooking the garden. Remembered sitting there with her, watching her brother playing in the grass or the clouds rolling by...
“Have to check on her.” The voice, cavernously loud, rattled his bones. He jumped, expecting Juneflower to be looming above him — until he realized the words were bubbling up from deep inside of him. He was immersed in Juneflower’s memory, and therefore hearing the Bogsneak’s thoughts.
And feeling his emotions, too. There was weariness mixed with concern as he waddled towards his daughter’s door. “She’s been ill for too long. It should have left her by now, but...”
The Bogsneak carefully opened the door. He looked right, to the curtained-off sleeping chamber. As he approached, a low voice murmured from beyond—
“Who’s...there?”
“It’s her!” Lucien’s heart gave a mighty leap. He rushed forward, but couldn’t — he was tethered to Juneflower’s memory, and so he could only groan in anxiety as the Bogsneak paused.
“It’s only me, child. I’m sorry, did I wake you? Only the priest said—”
“I know what the priest said,” Kirea sighed. Lucien, through Juneflower’s eyes, could dimly see her moving beyond the curtains.
“I’m coming out, Father. Let’s...talk.”
“But of course,” Juneflower said. Those words overlapped with a puzzled thought — “‘Father’? She says ‘Papa’ most of the time. Is she cross?” — as he politely drew back. His gaze moved idly over the decorative fans and wall hangings, the gleaming mirror...
Movement in the reflection. The curtains parted, and Kirea’s golden eye peered through.
And a wave of absolute terror tore through Juneflower then, his entire being at once cold and electrified—
“No.”
Lucien struggled to understand what was happening. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, and he watched in uncomprehending fascination as the pupil slowly contracted, like a perfectly round, black pearl...
“NO!” Juneflower tore his gaze away. He shot out the door, slamming into the far wall in his panic; there was a crash behind him as the lamp, knocked loose from its holder, fell onto the floor.
The Bogsneak was blubbering now, screaming incoherently — panic and anguish and grief all compressed into those wordless wails. Answering shouts rang from deep inside the house—
—and behind him, wood splintered. Something was trying to get through the door...the walls...no, the glass!
They had been wrong. It was in the glass. It would come through...!
And suddenly, as though he were rising from underwater, the vision was sluiced away. Lucien let out a deep, shuddering gasp. He looked up, saw the memory vapors rising — being spun back into a smaller, more compressed cloud by the Story-Taker.
Juneflower was still blubbering incoherently, and for a brief shock, Lucien thought he was somehow still in the memory — until Evanescent snapped his claws. Immediately, the whimpering stopped; Juneflower’s head slumped down. His face was suddenly peaceful and composed, and he even let out a gentle snore.
“That should help,” Evanescent growled. Lucien croaked, “I—”
“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!” the Imperial thundered, loud enough to rattle the windows. Lucien instinctively shrank back, and he didn’t dare move as Evanescent turned and stuck his head through the doorway. “Call the guards!” he barked. There was a brief, startled silence, and then a squeak as the receptionist wheeled out of the room.
Evanescent snatched up the glass. He studied the memory vapors with a critical eye. His demeanor darkened visibly: Suddenly he seemed like a completely different dragon; so grotesquely creased with rage were his features.
“You insolent, ignorant fool,” he snarled at Lucien, pure venom dripping from his words. “You thief.”
“I didn’t mean to...I mean...I only wanted to—”
“You sent me out on a fool’s errand so you could steal this old drake’s memory!” Evanescent gestured towards Juneflower. The Bogsneak snored on as Lucien retreated from the Imperial’s towering rage, back into the anteroom.
“Did you pause to think of the possible consequences? You could have permanently damaged his mind! He has already lost so much — you would take even those fleeting scraps away from him?!”
“He doesn’t even remember her!” Lucien hardly recognized his own voice; it came out as a thin, cracked wail. “I’ve tried so hard, and for so long...and she was there! I saw her! I saw her at last...”
He replayed that fleeting memory over and over: Kirea’s voice, then the movement beyond the curtains. That brief glimpse of her face...
“It wasn’t her face.” Was Lucien telling himself that, or was it a faint trace of Juneflower’s mind? “It wasn’t her face...!”
“‘He doesn’t even’...The audacity! We’ll be having a word with you, Lucien — several words, actually.”
Lucien’s skin went cold. He remembered Evanescent’s earlier order to call the guards. “Am I being taken into custody?”
The Story-Taker didn’t reply. And really, did he need to? Lucien already knew the answer: He’d harmed a patient; of course his hosts wouldn’t let this slide! And with every second that ticked past, the guards were drawing nearer...
Evanescent moved to block the doorway. He swung his tail, but Lucien was still faster, and he scrambled over it and ran down the hall.
“Stop him!” Evanescent bellowed, thundering out of the infirmary. Ahead of him, Lucien burst out onto the grounds. He raced across the grass, wings already stroking the air, clearly intending to take off—
And then sheets of ice, several feet thick, sprang up around him. They enclosed him completely, freezing him in place.
“Hah!” One of the guards, a glittering Guardian, had arrived at last. His crests flared with pride as he sneered, “This one isn’t going anywhere.”
“Metalicana, no! His magic—”
The Guardian’s jaw dropped. But even as he turned, Lucien burst out of the ice, sending shards flying everywhere. He leaped up — Metalicana yelped as a clawed foot came down hard on his helmet, knocking it over his eyes — and spread his wings.
And then Lucien was gone, flying frantically away. The shouts quickly receded behind him, but he didn’t dare look back.
He knew they would come after him.
It started to rain soon after. Lucien was grateful for the concealment it provided, but he knew he would have to stop soon — to sleep, if nothing else.
He could see the lights of lairs in the distance, and he briefly considered approaching them for aid. But he quickly shook the idea off. The exalted guards would have been notified by now, and they would be out looking for him regardless of the weather.
And so he flew deeper into the darkness, moving deeper into the swamp where the border between Light and Shadow blurred. The freezing rain and muck would have turned most dragons away, but he was an Ice dragon, and he barely felt the cold.
Barely felt it over the sting of failure, the bitterness of coming so close to...
Success? Answers? He couldn’t even say for certain.
But there had been something there, after all the long years of futile searching and failure. Something that told him he was now closer — just a little bit, but closer nonetheless! — to learning what had happened to his beloved.
Lucien froze as something suddenly burst out of the rushes before him. A dragon?! —No, it was just a large bird. He let out a ragged gasp and only just then realized how tired he was.
A massive tree loomed in the darkness. Its branches were heavily draped with moss, tangling with the boughs of nearby trees, and he scrambled up among them. There he lay, shivering and aching, until sleep claimed him at last.
But even then, there was no rest for him.
Perhaps shreds of Juneflower’s memory still lingered in his mind, for once again he found himself trudging down the hallway. The lantern gleamed at the end, but he turned away from it, instead facing the red-draped door. Its latch clicked open beneath his touch.
He moved inside. Directly across from him, the windows gleamed, as large and round as full moons. Light shimmered beyond the glass, and he realized he was looking at shooting stars: a multitude of shooting stars, falling in a seemingly endless rain.
Inside the room, all was quiet. And then he heard a hushed swish, as of scales against fabric. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the curtains part.
“Here.” The voice was low and husky...
And familiar. So terribly familiar.
But though his heart did skip a beat when he heard it, it wasn’t out of love. It was...
“I’m here, my darling. I’m right here.”
It was coming from his right, beyond the curtains. But he forced his gaze to the left instead, towards the mirror upon the wall. Again, he saw the curtains part. Again the golden eye peered through.
And now he realized what was wrong, what had sent Juneflower running in terror down the hall. The pupil that peered at him, slowly contracting, wasn’t the vertical slit that most Imperials had.
It was round.
Lucien awoke with a start, his talons digging into the branches. He lay perfectly still, not even daring to breathe, taking stock of his surroundings.
Even the world around him seemed to be holding its breath. It was very, very quiet. The rain had stopped some time ago, and now a thick fog lay over everything. It dampened what little noise there was.
He could tell by the dim gray light that dawn wasn’t too far off. Were the exalted guards nearby? It didn’t seem likely — even in such thick fog, he would be able to perceive them coming. There seemed to be nobody—
“Here.”
Suddenly, Lucien remembered the dream. His feathers stood on end as it began trickling back: the falling stars, the curtains, the eye. Juneflower had been right. It hadn’t been—!
And then he spied movement.
Just a faint eddy against the greater motion of the fog, like the ripples of a fish trying to swim upstream. Lucien lifted his head. He peered down through the drapes of moss.
And across the water...a large, pale shape disappearing into the fog.
That lithe movement. The swish of that tufted tail...
“Kirea!” The name left his throat as a gasp. He scrambled down the tree and into the water, wading towards the marshy shore.
Even as he did that, he knew it couldn’t be her; there was no way it could be her. All those years, all that time spent searching...Surely it couldn’t be her!
But he still followed her, because he wanted to believe...
He struggled up onto the shore. And from there, he followed the deep footprints his love had left behind. They led him away from the waters and through glades of short, sere grass. The trees here were slimmer and farther between. Sunbeams were now beginning to break through their branches, burning away the fog.
And there she was, up ahead, standing among the twisted saplings and sparse drapes of moss. Her neck arced forward, and the corners of her mouth turned up in a small smile.
“Kirea?” But now the name was even fainter, and any hope Lucien had died as he said it. For as he looked up, he saw how the footprints upon the ground changed along the way to the tracks of something else.
Something bestial. More doglike.
And even as he stared at his beloved’s face, he saw how the slit pupils trembled...and then quivered back into round, black orbs. Suddenly the face was entirely canine, wreathed in a mane of silver hair. The smile grew wider, lips sliding up to show sharp teeth — and the creature laughed at him.
“You’re the one who’s been hunting her,” it said. And it laughed again, more raucously this time, at how Lucien recoiled.
Not just from her appearance, but also her voice. The voices: Kirea’s warm, quiet tones, hideously underlain by the beast’s husky rasp.
Those grotesquely twinned voices...and her face, Kirea’s face, shifting as he watched! He had to suppress his stomach from heaving. His knees were actually trembling.
Not just from horror, but from rage.
“What have you...What...” Words failed Lucien. His tail lashed, slicing the tops off the grass, and a single word burst from his throat.
“Why?!”
“Why? Why?” The beast repeated the words mockingly. A dark tongue snaked out, sliding over those jagged teeth.
“Her name came to me at night,” it told him, “woven into threads of dreams. Not from the father, from the brother, or from any of those other worms who shared her home.
“Your voice. Yours. Hunting for her, as surely as a hound pursues its prey.”
It stepped closer, and though it left deep footprints in the grass, it moved with nearly no sound. “Her name must not be spoken again. Nobody must remember.”
“But why?” Lucien repeated. Tears stung his eyes as the jaws gaped wide, strings of saliva stretching from those fangs. “Why her?”
“For the same reason you chose her. Because she was beautiful,” the Barghest sneered. She loomed above Lucien now, and like a mouse before a snake, he felt unable to run or look away. He found himself fixated on those pupils again, and he felt himself falling...
...down a tunnel of light. Colors washed past him, shapes weirdly angled and distorted. He twisted around as he fell, searching madly for an exit. Any exit!
And up ahead was a wide rectangle. He saw the foot of Kirea’s bed, though the curtains this time had been tied back. Kirea herself was off to the left, looking out the window at a shimmering silver sky.
A night filled with shooting stars. Aurorae dancing across the heavens.
And the mirror, gaping wide like a door, allowing the insidious beast to spill through.
Lucien wrenched his mind loose with a gasp. He came fully awake; the creature was chuckling to itself, lost in reminiscence.
“How brilliant she was, how beautiful! Such a sleek and supple form...I wanted that shape for myself.”
“Get away from me!” Lucien choked out — he was horrified to realize that the creature had been slowly coiling around him. It now looked directly at him, lips still peeled back in that too-wide grin.
“Awake again? I know you’re tired, little wyrm, so tired of searching....Rest awhile, relax into my embrace. Isn’t that what you’ve longed for, my darling?”
And Lucien screamed: all his grief and anger and heartbreak, distilled into a single, drawn-out howl of utter agony. His beloved was truly gone. He’d been chasing nothing more than this thing, this abomination, that wore her form the way a hunter wears a skinned pelt.
Nothing but a dead, lifeless trophy.
And it flaunted her shape like one. Her face, morphing into that well-loved visage and to the horrible Barghest and every monstrous thing in between. Leering, beckoning, driving him into a frenzy—
So it could prey upon his mind as well.
Lucien struck with all the magic he had. The saplings were blasted into twigs as huge shards of ice erupted from the ground, spearing towards the creature.
She contorted her body to avoid them, and in the process loosened her coils. The Wildclaw rolled away, avoiding the creature’s ravenous gaze.
“Oh? Now it’s I who must hunt you?” She tittered, sliding around the ice crags, her body low to the ground. And she crooned, again in that cruel mockery of Kirea’s voice, “My darling, where do you hide? Come, my love, I know you’ve searched for me for so long!”
Lucien leaped out of hiding. Spears of ice extended before him, driving towards the creature’s eyes. She ducked, shielding her head with one wing, and Lucien slammed into her. They fell heavily, breaking the icy crags into melting shards.
The Wildclaw screamed again — and suddenly the shards were razor-sharp, leaping into the air. They slashed into the creature, scoring deep gashes into her hide.
And now he saw that what was beneath wasn’t flesh and blood. It gleamed silver instead, like moonlight or mercury.
Mirrored glass.
The remaining scraps of hide shriveled away. The beast rose from the wreckage, almost blinding in the morning light, but Lucien didn’t look away this time. It ran from him, heading back the way it’d come. Hoping, evidently, to find cover under the trees.
But it was too big and too brilliant; there was no place to hide. Lucien pressed the attack home. He took to the air, and then he hurled himself down, slamming into the creature’s side like a wrecking ball.
Something broke — was it within him or her? He couldn’t tell, and he didn’t care.
The creature lost its footing and tumbled down the bank, dragging the Wildclaw with it. They plunged into the water. It fought back, coiling around him again, but that was exactly what he wanted now.
Water was all around them. It wasn’t ice, but it would do.
The water froze — not into a single great block of ice, but into layers of blades, digging into the creature. Lucien smiled grimly to himself as he heard the beast’s muffled screams, felt the direction of its struggles change. He envisioned the blades digging into it, slicing it into gleaming pieces of silver.
Instead, the creature shattered.
It was like a bomb going off; he felt everything around him burst. Pain, searing and bloody, filled his world.
And then after that, there was nothing. No more memories. No more dreams.
Dawn finally broke over the Sunbeam Ruins. In his den, Evanescent rose from sleep with gloom in his heart and a frown on his face.
“Here we go. After yesterday’s events, I expect that...”
But even as the thought formed in his mind, the gloom faded away, till he was frowning merely in puzzlement. He’d been thinking that he would have a particularly tough day ahead after what had happened yesterday....
But insofar as he could recall, yesterday had been perfectly uneventful.
An hour later, he was standing outside his office, going over the day’s appointments with Minuit. Everything seemed to be in order, but he still had to ask—
“Did anything happen yesterday, Minuit? Did I ask you to take note of any reminders? It’s just...” He scratched a bewhiskered cheek. “I have a nagging feeling that I’ve forgotten something.”
“How odd. I was just thinking the same thing,” Minuit admitted. He began burrowing through the documents on his desk, pulling out drawers and looking at papers. Evanescent, meanwhile, studied the appointment log on his desk. He went over the patients’ profiles in his mind: a weary ex-soldier...a rambunctious child...a whimsical musician...an old merchant...
“It’s probably nothing important,” he found himself saying...and the moment the words left his mouth, he was convinced that they were true. He even managed to smile — why, he was feeling lighter already!
“Of course, Evan. If something comes up, I’ll let you know.”
Evanescent entered his office, and Minuit began tidying up. He lingered over one of the folders, however. “An old dragon. Mister...”
But there were so many other folders to put away. He figured it could wait until later.
By the time noon came, he and Evanescent had forgotten completely. He did glance at the folder again, but it was only so that he could pick it up and put it in the trash.
They normally didn’t dispose of client records so quickly, but no one could even remember what this one had been about. Surely it wasn’t important.
It never had been.
The sun moved on and once again, the sky began to darken. Out in the marshes, all was silent, the very world seeming to hold its breath.
Watching. Listening. Waiting...
The being that struggled up onto the marshy shore still had Lucien’s size and shape. But it wasn’t Lucien. Not entirely. Not anymore.
His head hung low, nearly dragging upon the ground. His eyes were clouded and listless.
Occasionally, a spark of something that had once been thought glimmered within them, and he lifted his hands, attempting to pluck out the shards of glass embedded in his body.
But no blood flowed from beneath the shards — and faces moved in the glass. All of them pale and hungry, the movements of the mouth not quite matching the words that whispered in Lucien’s mind.
“I am here, my darling. I am here...”
His hands dropped, and he stumbled on. All he knew in those moments was that his beloved was with him, and all was right with the world.
The beast that had embedded itself within him thought differently. Its search was not at an end. Perhaps it never would be. For there was no love, no friends or family, that this beast desired.
There was only prey.
The End
Click or tap a food type to individually feed this dragon only. The other dragons in your lair will not have their energy replenished.
This dragon doesn't eat Insects.
Feed this dragon Meat.
This dragon doesn't eat Seafood.
This dragon doesn't eat Plants.
Exalting Oblivion to the service of the Lightweaver will remove them from your lair forever. They will leave behind a small sum of riches that they have accumulated. This action is irreversible.
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