Matzayani

"So, let's start again. From the top. What is it you dream of?"

"Flickering shadows, springy strands of living breathing land, brilliant red eyes staring out as something that is me, but also isn't me, waits for the chance to strike. Claws, teeth, tattered wings and lost feathers. Survivors fighting over scraps one could hardly call food anymore. Dual heads rearing back. An opportunity. A blur of something moving, the feeling of fangs so dangerously close, the abandoned food in a pair of jaws. My jaws. Victory. Another day of survival, another day to live. A world to thrive in, vicious and cruel. A tugging sensation, both jaws mine yet not mine, both throats growling, bickering. The food is mine, but not mine. A fight. Pain that I feel but also inflict at once. A flash from above, yet also beside and below, something splitting, voices that are mine and somehow aren't. The world seeming to split, knowing it shouldn't, that it couldn't. Darkness creeping in along the edges, down the divide, making the two images one again, knowing that they never should've been two, that this darkness is the very thing I stand against. Knowing as everything fades out, both mouths, both sets of eyes, both minds are mine, fighting against this thing taking us, taking me away..."

"... And then?"

"And then it starts all over again, or I wake up. I don't know what to tell you. It's never changed, and at this point I'd be afraid if it did."

"Why's that?"

"Because if this is the one thing I have of myself, if it changes... How do I even know I'm really me? If that changes, then I'm not even who I was. I'm just... me."

---

Matzayani does not know who gave them life, nor do they care. They did, once. It was what had drawn them from the Scarred Waste, that strange tugging sensation deep within their chest. They'd thought once that it was some disease, some infection toying with their mind. They'd sought help, answers. They got answers, though none felt quite right. A parasite? If it was one, it wasn't one discovered by those around the Rim. A fever? The Necromancers knew of such things, but not one could draw out this feeling from them. A higher calling? From who? The Plaguebringer rested in the Wyrmwound, and this wasn't bringing them there. The Tidelord? It drew the drake closer to the ocean, sure, but everyone knew he had gone silent long ago. The Shade? This was something everyone apparently had, but even the most lenient of Gaolers hadn't heard of it doing this, and they dared not seek out those that would lock them away.

They'd gone to the scholars of Laternlea Port, the largest city in the Lightweaver's domain. The scholars had poured over their tomes and scrolls, searching for answers those of their home had already guessed at. Some had new ideas, from a Guardian scroll gone wrong to some magical seal left on them from someone in their past. Their lack of knowledge on their own history seemed to be more interesting to the Lightflight drakes than their dilemma. They had left with more questions than answers, in the end.

They'd gone to Flotsam Town, where the seers practiced forms of seeing that didn't involve their missing god. Some had seemed to be good at it, and the feeling had seemed to bring the lost drake here. Or near here at least. They'd brought their ideas, their theories, the notions given to them by so many others. Some seers had been truly false, guessing at things even the drake with no memories knew to be wrong. Others might've had an idea, but they seemed just as lost as their deity. Just as lost as their poor client was.

It was their visit to the Divided Spire that had given them a clue. A real idea. Blown in from the Twisting Crescendo, lost and searching, practically mad from this drive that simply never left them. Fished up by a trawler in the river, concerned and confused voices bringing the Fae to someplace safe. If they hadn't known any better, they'd have thought their life until then was a dream in and of itself, struggling with dreams of dreams. It was only when they woke in some strange bed, some strange room draped in plants, that they realized it was real. The dreams had come again, the pull still there, making them want to scream.

"Rather emotive for a Fae, aren't you?"

There, in the Spire itself, they had found the closest thing they had to an answer. Old scholars, from concerned ancient drakes to other elders acting as though they'd hatched yesterday, all with the drive to learn and discover something more. They had thought they were strange until they met the others who lived there. Hounds that hunted in the dreams of others, creatures of demure stature seemingly creating matter anew, living statues and so much more. Compared to those who dwelled under the Naomi line, they were as plain as a plantain. And yet, the scholars tackled their case with vigor, searching for who and what Matzayani truly was.

It was their own seer who caught the trail, with a hoard of scholars delving into records to connect the dots. They dug through scrolls so ancient they swore it could rival the Eleven themselves. They spent countless nights translating text that no drake left, sans perhaps the Eleven, knew what they sounded like off the page. Stone slabs were studied, carvings and tales, until one finally hit a chord.

An Aberration, one of the first, squabbling over the land of their Mother. Two heads rearing, snapping, stealing from each other. One head would snap his fangs, the other would watch her double's back. An amalgamation of sorts, thriving, surviving, serving as a tale of caution for those who hindered themselves. Plagueland stories were always brutal in the end, their lessons often showing others what really happens when you do something that compromises your chances at surviving. And with this tale of an Aberration... Well, it fell in line with their dream.

The world hadn't split apart. They had.

They don't know if they're the story brought to life, the memory of some poor drake who'd not taken to the tale well, or even the Aberration themselves. In the end, they don't quite know if they care. They just want to live their life, learn how to handle this new perspective on what they were. They only know they want to live by how they'd lived since they'd woken up; Survival Over All. They teach a course as one of the scholars, exposing students to the many dangers of Sornieth and seeing where the cards fall. When they aren't teaching others lessons in survival, they're searching for more fragments of what could be their past.

Even if the seer looks at them with a sadness that's achingly familiar, as if he had seen who they had once been as clear as day.

As if he knows exactly what Matzayani truly is, and mourns every moment of the life they live now.

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Aberration Matzayani