Zaniah

Generation IV

Bright and Torrin > Dream > Anzena > Ampere > Me
Unregistered

Suzaku is light.

Suzaku is resilience.

Suzaku is resurrection.

All that followed should not have been a surprise given those three fundamental truths.

As Zaniah lay bleeding, staring up at what little remained of his new home- what little remained that made sense, at the very least- he didn't weep. Not a single thought crossed his mind that pertained to what should have been aer final moments.

Nay, what the Avariel was concerned with as the red-stained, contorted world around him faded into grey was an assessment of what- in all that time leading up to the disaster that had befallen aer and aer compatriots- had led to such a result, and what had been learned.

...

Let us recall the three greatest successes, and three greatest failures.

The first success: the Sungazer, the first ship of mortal construction to reach the shores of his homeland. Zaniah was among the first on the docks, to watch, awestruck, as the imposing vessel of fir reached the port. Ae, personally, caught one of the ropes that would tie the Sungazer up during its time in Waterdeep. Ae stood right at the foot of the gangplank as it descended, studying those who emerged from the ship for intentions, offering to each the most genial greeting the Suzaku-blessed could concoct on short notice. For the light in aer blood and the silver of aer tongue, aer "hello"s earned their weight in smiles and responses.

The second: Praline. The Imperial was the last to descend from the ship, and as Zaniah's eyes scanned their face, expression of determination written in their handsome features, he became aware, in an instant, that they were doing the same to him. Understanding flashed in their eyes for a moment, a clear, frigid blue where the others' had been gold, and then they pressed on.

They had approached him, later, after all the initial hullabaloo over Sornieth's ambassadors had begun to die down into a more dignified welcome. Their conversation opened with a simple statement of fact.

Zaniah wanted perfection.

...Certainly.

It was a yearning inscribed into his soul from the beginning, one that was born with aer under the same perfectly symmetrical fractals of colorful glass, that had followed aer into the halls and libraries of Crestflame, that had pursued aer out into the open air, searching for the impossible.

Praline carried perfection in a small leather-bound pocketbook, the emblem of a sun encased in a hexagonal cell glittering from its front cover in gold. Inside were hundreds of sketches, neatly-organized notes, and complex alchemical formulas, intricacies ae could parse despite being incapable of grasping their true scope, which even at that ignorant state spoke to aer in a way no treatise on magic could. A single word shone from the pages like rays of sunlight, almost blinding him for a brief moment each time as if he was just now seeing the day for the first time.

Emperor.

A perfect being, unburdened by the concerns of mortal existence.

The third and greatest success: that dream of perfection, carrying Zaniah across the waves into the Perihelion. Of course the



The first, and most pernicious failure flowed through the veins of dragonkind, originating from the deities who created them. That the Lightweaver would discover the secret of perfection through her first creations, and then promptly dash all hope of any other species ever achieving exaltation, was an affront. And, unfortunately, one that would have to be worked around, a tragedy irreparable.

In the mainland's eternal struggle for dominance, corpses were in no short supply. One of the perfected marched across the horizon, providing ample opportunities for observation and sample-gathering. The substances and processes that bound the resurrected matter together were easy to understand if you knew anything worth knowing at all. Zaniah could charm a full team of assistants into the sprawling underground facility in no time. With a wealth of resources, knowledge and personnel, perfection seemed right at hand.

And yet the dead did not rise.

The second failure was a far more recent occurrence. Work was dull, prognosis was bleak. And the despairing grow careless as they play at normalcy. The corpses that failed to fuse, still treated and processed, were piled into an out-of-the-way container to be disposed of. There was none of the meticulous separation and categorization that Praline and Zaniah had requested- but neither felt at all inclined to enforce it.







The third failure

What little remained in the last seconds he saw of it looked distinctly insectoid.





Zaniah extracted a pocketbook from his coat. Though the pages were warped and buckled and soaked through with inky blood, the sun emblem shone through all the same. Ae opened it to an "unmarked' page, gathering some of the wavering, colourful light on the tip of a claw and inscribing in the book, in small, neat runes that glowed like sunlight to show up against the soaked paper:

Trial 320 proved a partial success. Full report pending.

Ae stood up, surveying what was left for usable resources.