Ordas

My name is Ordas, and I come from a long line of sorcerers. My parents revel in destruction; my brother too, though less. It was in my blood, I suppose, to destroy.

but I never meant to hurt anyone.


Ordas has always had horrible luck, and that was before the problem. Some say he was cursed, some roll their eyes and say that they're being melodramatic. But still, they was something eerie about his fortune or rather, lack of fortune.


His family had always pressured Ordas into committing crimes with them, some small, some big. They made his life miserable when he tried to get out of it, until it got so bad that he was forced to join them. He never enjoyed the screaming, the chaos, the pain, the blood. His family, pursuing the dream of an empire, conquered the Ashfall Waste, Shifting Expanse, and the Windswept Plateau before they were met with resistance from the Gaolers.

Eventually they lost the Shifting Expanse and the Windswept Plateau to the Gaolers and bloody battles were fought, each side losing countless dragons until they were both run ragged. The songs of war and the brittle cracking of ice was the theme song of that period of time, cascading into the roars and shrieks of impending doom. The last battle was near, and everyone knew it.

Ordas was kept within one of their plundered palaces to be kept safe, for love does not disappear even when we wish it would. His parents left on their last flight after keeping him safe in the palace with some of his younger brothers, including his twin Vieran.

They could hear the cries of bloodlust as the Gaoler ranks were decimated, then a silence. The brittle noises of ice grew louder and louder, and then just as suddenly it was the banescales who were losing. Ordas and Vieran huddled down with their siblings in fear for hours, shedding tears when they heard one Galoer say, "It's over. They're gone."


They rarely left the palace except to hunt, but now Ordas had a sharp, painful hurt in his chest, and he knew what he wanted. Revenge.

Ordas left the castle one day with some of his siblings, intending to hunt but getting sidetracked when he saw a Gaoler village. It was small, and he intended to pass by the village but his sibling, Io, noticed it first. An old banescale skull on one of the doors, blending in and hardly big enough to be seen. Ordas let out a cry of pain and zig-zagged downward in the air, landing on a pile of moss and bamboo. His siblings stared at the village with hate in their eyes, then prodded Ordas and asked him if he was coming. He didn't have to ask to know what they meant.

He disagreed, pleaded and raged, but they wouldn't listen. They eventually forced him to look at the village, to notice the Gaoler hatchlings wrinkling their noses and running off in fear at the sight of the skull. "They think we're monsters," Io said. "They don't realize that some banescales didn't want to fight, but look where it got them now. Mounted on a door like some trophy!"

He wilted then, and felt anger take hold of his fear. He thought it would be good to destroy some buildings, to show them that they weren't dead and that they were not going to be crushed. And so they marched on to the village, then flew above raining fire, death and destruction on the villagers. Ordas didn't mind until he noticed his siblings didn't make a distinction between dragons and buildings, just breathing fire on the shrieking dragons. He flew above with growing horror and noticed the extent of their destruction. A whole countryside, littered with burning buildings and charred trees, not to mention the injured.

The pain of those villagers.. he could feel it as well as hear it in his bones. He flew off towards the Sea of a Thousand Currents, not noticing the flood of despair he felt as he flew to his doom. He tumbled down, down into the depths of the sea once his energy was spent, and noticed the conspicuous lack of feeling anything as he sunk down like a stone.

Later he woke up, feeling strangely.. empty. He tried to look around, tried to say something, but to no avail. He looked at his body and noticed he was slightly transparent. Panic overtook him, just as he noticed the purple obelisk knitting with her claws in the corner. "Patience, love. You can leave just as soon as I finish this stitch.. perfect! Now what can I do for you, pet?" He tried to speak but couldn't, prompting an amused smile from the obelisk. "You aren't a ghost if that's what you were wondering. Your body drowned, but I found your soul and noticed how interesting you are, so I brought you back. All that I asked of you was a little of your opacity! And sorry pet, but you also can't go to the mortal plane of Sornieth. You can see it fine, but the mortals can't see you and you will be in the immortal plane of Sornieth now. You also can't die again, so you will live forever. Isn't that great, lovie?" She smiled, obviously proud of herself. "Well, you will be able to be seen in the Infelix Portium. Y'know, the veil being blurred there and whatnot."

He thanked the obelisk and left, over the years getting used to essentially being a ghost. He thought how tough it would be, wandering the lands forever and seeing the bonds between mortals, seeing his banescale siblings dwindle down and eventually die out.





That was five thousand years ago.