PERSONALITY
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Inkwell is a very melancholy, stoic and quiet type of dragon. Despite their gigantic size and imposing aura, they’re a very gentle dragon who rarely speaks. It’s very patient with the new dragons that have arrived in its home and while the sudden influx of dragons making their home in the underneath of the foxfire brambles makes them anxious, they worry about their more violent impulses, things that despite the years that have passed they’ve never been able to quite suppress. Inkwell, the first, hasn’t had much consistent interaction with dragons other than Hollow and Treachery in many, many years and its social skills are incredibly rusty. It has a deep care for the new arrivals, the wanders who made its home theirs as well, especially the hatchlings, and takes the protection of its clan seriously.
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STORY
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At first there was nothing. At first there was only silence, and then from the darkness, it was born. In the first moments after its birth it floated in the silent void, blissfully unaware as the world around it crawled and squirmed with darkness. Maws and claws moved as it slowly came to awareness, the creature slowly broke free from the shadowy cocoon, tendrils sticking to its wings and claws as it stumbled, hatchling like movements strange from a creature at least twice the size of an average dragon.
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The claws surrounding it carefully peeled the shadows from its large body and its short thick-furred wings. It was alive. The void surrounding it squirmed with what was almost delight as its project flexed its powerful wings, tilting its head, ears twitching as it tried to listen. The void flickered with amusement, it’s creation didn’t yet realise it had eyes. When it did it opened them almost hesitantly, it barely startled as the shadows greeted it, whispering eagerly in the tongue of chaos, the void’s project of course didn’t know how to speak in any tongue, let alone it’s mother one, this was something that had to be fixed of course, and fairly quickly if the void wished to seek leverage once more.
At the end of the third age, the void made itself a project, to start over anew, letting its reach slowly seep into the land once more. The Beastclan folk were angry as the gods’ children began to destroy what they had worked so long to mend, they were resentful, the void could work with resentment. The world would belong it it once more. It pondered which of the tribes to leave its project to and eventually settled on the nearby Talonok group the dwelled in the shadow-worm’s domain. They were cautious but receptive, which was fine, its creation was required to look like any other worm and their innate fear of the worms after what was done to their civilisation was expected.
Project First came to itself slowly it was everywhere and nowhere, everything and nothing, every shadow that crawled around the realms of Sornieth, it was all- the shadows’ whispers had fed it what it would need to know, it was being told, in the tongue that belonged solely to it and the shadows, to open its eyes. A small creature, (was the First just large?) gazed down at it with some sort of interest lighting across its- face? That was the word- wasn’t it? First shook its head briefly, that was unimportant in the face of its purpose. The Talonok were interesting creatures, they rode small cat creatures into battle and made them fancy cloaks to wear. The first had a rider of its own now, Khyzhak, a bird warrior in her own right, who led First into its first battle.
In the beginning the First felt nothing, yet, when it first set its claws on the battlefield, the void whispered, and it felt. Now it began what it was placed here to do, it was hungry, in less than a moment the First was consumed by whispers, by hunger, by RED.
Its existence, between battles, was just that and nothing more, it was not sentient to the Talonok beings, and that was fine, it didn’t need them to believe it was sentient, it merely had to do as the shadows required. Well that was the belief, until Khyzhak began to talk to it, calm and strange, she did not whisper like the shadows, the hoots and coos were different, unusual. The First did not understand, so it asked to shadows to teach it what she said, then, it listened. Khyzhak spoke to it in the same manner that the others of her kind spoke to their cat creatures (Foo, its mind supplied). Khyzhak grew kinder towards it, instead of fear based indifference, she was kind, and the First didn’t know what to do with that, so it resolved to do nothing, for now at least.
Khyzhak was the one who crafted what the First wore its coat a mirror of her own and its mask carved intricately. They, slowly, moved on from the place were they simply had to work together, the shadows grew quieter with their whispers when it spoke with her, they never seemed pleased when it returned to listen to them, but this was different and interesting, new. This was when it learnt what it was to have a “friend”. The First found itself quite enjoying the feeling. The shadows grew restless, it was losing control of its project but First bore it little mind, the whispers took second place now, next to having a friend, next to finally learning about Khyzhak’s people, their culture, learning more about its friend.
First opened its eyes for the first time during a battle, feeling something that wasn’t blackout rage red, red RED, RED- the emperor shrieked underneath its claws, it was giant, larger almost than the First itself, it felt no fear as it threw itself at the emperor once again with a furious battle squawk of its own. For four long days the pair clashed violently, snapping and snarling and drawing blood RED RED RED. Then instead of a wordless scream, the emperor spoke in a rasping roar, the shadows screamed in its ears NO NO NO IT WAS LOSING CONTROL—- and the First faltered for a moment, trying to figure out what the creature said, a mistake.
When it opened its eyes again, the emperor was bleeding heavily, and so was First, Khyzhak was shrieking, the level of its injury must have been bad if she was calling for retreat. It didn’t move away, it waited for the emperor to rise, when it didn’t move to fight First once more it moved closer, sniffing lightly at its injuries, First felt strangely unsettled, cut away from a harbour to float at sea, it had never heard a worm wyrm speak before it had never been mentally present to here one speak before. First chirped quietly, more to Khyzhak than the emperor as it could feel her clinging to its fur in terror, getting this close to a wyrm wasn’t generally considered safe.
The emperor cowered slightly the shadows SCREAMED- and then suddenly they were silent First watched, it didn’t know what to do in a situation like this, then Khyzhak moved, slowly towards the emperor by herself. For the first time in this battle, the First felt fear, it growled quietly at the emperor as its friend approached him, a warning promise, if he hurt her, the First would not be responsible for what he did to it in retaliation. This was how something new began, the First liked new things. Well, it liked them until the others of Khyzhak’s flock refused to let them close anymore, it liked this strange new thing, until it made Khyzhak turn to it with a grim sort of smile on her beak and tell it that this was inevitable, that she was always to soft on drakes in battle for her own good.
She was the one to insist that they stay with the injured emperor, that since the drake had interested it they should stay by his side until he was healed, First didn’t particularly understand that logic but it wasn’t about to complain not when Khyzhak and her companion Kage were leaving their roosts to stay by their sides not when the shadows were so blissfully silent. First found itself liking Treachery eventually, speaking with him was strange, First had never spoken to drakes before, it found itself enjoying it. Learning to speak the language of dragons and learning about dragons in general.
The small group made themselves a safe corner in the brambles underneath and the group slowly grew tighter knit, Kage was fine, lest opinionated, quieter, First quite enjoyed his company as well, so did the empe- so did Treachery, it seemed. It was slow going, confusion and cultural clashes, but the group of four settled down and began to build, Treachery it turned out didn’t remember much about himself before he became an emperor, and what he did remember they didn’t talk about. But he sympathised with the whisperings of the shadows, it seemed Treachery too experienced voices, the echoes of who the other heads used to be.
First he made his way forward into the freezing cold of the Icewarden’s domain to take readings from the Frozen Sanctum himself, he camped by it for weeks, trading with nearby clans on the harsh glaciers. Then he carefully made his way to the Rimebone Stockade to speak with researchers and artificers, he was almost sent away, and was allowed inside the upper areas of the stockade to take notes and share research, and was eager to continue on to the Fortress of Ends. But was advised very strictly against it, something about creatures and watchers, he was interested yes, but headed their warnings and returned along the frigid floes back to arcane.
First liked the emperor, he liked the home that they’d made here, with Kage and Khyzhak, the peace. They didn’t remember liking things at the beginning, this was better, much better. That was when the creature came from the swamp, well, creature was probably considered rude, she looked kind of like the first itself except thin and gangly where he was bulk and muscle, there were weeds and swamp water that clung to her form as she lifted herself to land, the drake (they were a dragon? Weren’t they?) coughed up some swamp water as the group tensed, watching her uneasily, Khyzhak squawked a warning, raising her staff. Treachery’s three heads snarled and Kage, from where he rested at the base of one of Treachery’s necks, raised his scythe warily. This all turned out to be pointless when the dragon in question waggled her burning tail and greeted them with cheery excitement.
Inkwell curled into the soft tangles of Hollow’s fur, while she was still dozing in what was, probably, the early morning, it would take advantage of her softness and general warmer temperature because of her flaming tail for as long as physically possible before she woke and devoted her time to her work with her apprentice, guiding wanderers away from the treacherous corners of the swamp, well technically all corners of the swamp were rather treacherous, but only some of them were almost exclusively life threatening.
The morning sun in his fur was soft and warm, Inkwell lounges in the quiet soft feelings thrumming in its chest when the (incredibly large) door creaks open and Inkwell feels itself smile when Treachery ambles over to curl up around them on the floor in the blankets, the let out a quiet huff and, clearly seeing that Inkwell is in fact awake and taking huge advantage of Hollow still being sound asleep instead of waking her up, leans down and nudges it’s head softly with his own.
“Morning.” Even after all these centuries, his voice remains a quiet rasp. Instead of an actual response Inkwell just grumbles unintelligibly and turns his head to the side to receive a quick nuzzle, Inkwell taps it’s pad lightly on the blankets Hollow and it are lying on, as close as ‘lay down’ as Inkwell is going to get this early in the morning.
The emperor curls around both of them calmly, all three heads yawning in tandem, Inkwell finally, lazily lifts its head, ‘not sleep well?’ They gesture, slightly worried, sometimes Treachery had bad nights were he didn’t like being in the same room as them for fear they’d get injured, Inkwell couldn’t blame him, they all had nights like that sometimes.
Inkwell shuddered at the vague memory of its last night ‘like that’ it had been barely a month ago, bloodlust had consumed it again and while it had it under control it worried about the amount of new dragons arriving, it assumed Treachery was the same.
Its mate shook his three heads “Last night was not good to me.”
Inkwell blinked up at him, concern flaring in its mind ‘hurt?’
Treachery huffed “I’m alright, I promise, go back to sleep.” Inkwell nodded, but it made sure to curl up closer to Treachery’s side as well as Hollow’s, the emperor let out a quiet, amused huff but allowed it without comment, it was comforting to both of them after all.
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RELATIONSHIPS
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HOLLOW
Mate
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TREACHERY
Mate
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YAHAIRA
Friend | Mentee
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BRIMSTONE
Friend | Name-giver
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AMAIA
Daughter
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LILITU
Daughter
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MORANA
Friend | Mentee
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WRAITH
Friend | Mentee
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