Mantelia

//// M A N T E L I A ━━━━━━━━━━━◇━━━━━━━━━━━ Small Block of Granite Minerals & Ores Members of the earth flight collect granite, and enjoy quizzing each other on each of the Igneous rocks that may make up a particular piece. 79 Potted Deepmine Fungi Organics A favored sign or distance marker used by clans living in the undersea cave networks that connect the Tangled Wood and Dragonhome. 29 There is no pretending. I love you,and I will love you until I die, and if there's a life after that, I'll love you then." ━━━━━━━━━━━◇━━━━━━━━━━━ link / link / link / link / link ━━━━━━━━━━━◇━━━━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

s t o r y A plague dragon who fell in love with Phthalo, a nature dragon- he flew miles every night to see her, until he was caught by his clan and narrowly escaped exaltation to the Plaguebringer. Both of them fled to Lockesol, knowing that their clans wouldn’t follow him there, but Mantelia was shunned in the city, bright purple wings marking him as a potential arcade-touched dragon. He eventually found a job with Ghostlight, another dragon with purple scales, in her haunted plant nursery. Though the plants dislike him, he excels in the maintenance jobs around the gardens, and is trying to save up enough money so he and Phthalo can leave Lockesol. He doesn’t know that by this point, he and Phthalo cannot leave.

'Just… a little more.'

The words weren't mine. They barely escaped my cracked, frosty lips, and yet I felt them in my bones. I didn't know what they meant. I knew cold. I knew the ice that crawled beneath the skin, heedless of even Imperial scales. But I had never known it like this. I had always known that home was close- far, far away to other dragons, perhaps, but an Imperial is not easily put down. A beat of my wings and I could cross miles- a blink of my eyes and I was home, and the ice became a distant friend, sweetening my food and drink, warming my fire. My finest nights were spent with those familiar white wolves at my door, and yet firelight persisting next to me.

But now I could not see anything. There was no light and no shadow. Just white.

'…I can lay down… I just want to rest. Let me rest for a second, and I can get up later…'

My body was beginning to break down. I watched the scales on my foot crack and slide off with detached interest, barely seeing the blackened, frostbitten skin underneath. Finally, something that wasn’t white. The metallic pink glittered like little flowers. I wanted to see flowers again.

'…I'll find the flowers later…'

'YOU WILL NOT.'

A snarl ripped itself from my chest in a growl I didn’t recognize as I started to list over. With a startled, clumsy righting, like a hatchling, I straightened up and put another foot forward. And then another. My ears were no longer full of the howling wind. They were muffled, as if a heavy blanket was draped over them, and yet I could hear the edge of a low growl from very far away. Something was watching me, and I felt my ears pop.

It had been a simple mistake. I had been flying to the frozen sanctum, just winging my way over the mountains, when the blizzard had set in. The wind had come from the territory of fire- the legendarily rare warm air currents had wreathed my wings like angels, and I had felt invincible. I had flown faster than I had in years. How could I turn back then? I was naïve, and childish- how those mages would stare! They would not be expecting me to show up in such a deadly blizzard. I would land and spread my wings in the fog, as vast as the deities themselves, and they would know they were right to trust me with the chance to study their most ancient magic.

I would be invincible.

But the winds turned. I heard the howling of them first, and knew that they could only be sent from the gaoler's prison, that forbidden territory of cruel ice and crueller depths. But I persisted. I didn’t know that I had staked my life on it being a temporary switch. I was too absorbed with my dreams.

It was when I had to land, wings no longer able to beat, that I knew my fate was sealed. There were no tears. The slow trudge forward was not mine. I was a walking corpse, and by the time my scales had started sloughing off, I had already accepted it.

'I just want to lay down. There is nothing out here for me.'

I thought desperately. Why could I not stop walking? When would the pain cease?

The voice did not answer again.

Then across the white I saw something. Grey, then black. Something different. Nestled against a cliff face that appeared from the mist like a mirage, my mind didn’t recognize it at first, until I was nose-to-nose with a cave mouth, buried almost completely under piles of snow. My clumsy paw batted at it, and the clumps fell away. A strained gasp left my mouth.

Dragons were here.

Steps of stone descended into the crevasse, some hewn, some natural and rounded. Dripping water had carved deep furrows into the floor, all leading towards a pit that I could not see the end of. But it was not large enough for an Imperial. My claws carved deep gouges into the rock as I scrabbled desperately at it, trying to create a cave I could seek shelter in. I wanted to live. I was so close to living. Had I been anything else, a mirror, a spiral, anything, I could have fit inside. But I was cursed to die inches from life.

Just as despair threatened to engulf the brief flame of hope I had borne, the voice spoke again, this time with an earth-shattering resolution.

'UP.'

Up?

I stared upwards, heedless of the way the stark white blinded me. The grey cliffs rose into nothingness, too high to see the tops of. With a movement that was equal duty and my own hope, I spread my stiff, blackened wings, and prayed.

The climb was relentless. I could not feel my wings- only my shoulders were still intact, and they were my only guides of how to flap. I rose higher and higher still, until I could no longer tell up from down. There was only the white surrounding me, and the rising grey in front. There was nothing else. I flew for what felt like days. Every beat of my wings brought me closer to death. I knew that if they seized, I would be helpless to do anything but fall. I wouldn’t even see the ground coming- there was no ground, lost to the endless snow.

The last beats of my wings and my heart brought me to a place where there was no grey. I could see only white- my only compass gone. The voice had lied. There was nothing waiting for me.

I felt myself fall.

There was warmth. And then there was nothing.



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