Freeing Kimothy from her extremely long bio (gotta revise)
The Goddess Chronicles: Entry #2
Kimothy quickly adjusted to life in the clan of Infinite Dreams. Her faked amnesia garnered much apparent sympathy from her new clanmates as they helped her find a job during her stay. It didn't take long before the first few dragons witnessed her having a Glimpse, and when she explained the phenomenon to the rest of the clan, faking any and all surprise that it had happened to her, the magic development team took her in. Funnily enough, this was exactly what she foresaw in her Glimpse.
To the team's disappointment, Kimothy displayed little magical aptitude beyond her ability to spontaneously see into the future. Before anyone else could dub these visions for her, she suggested calling them Glimpses. The magic research team dismissed her, and co-leader Rose placed her in a standard foraging team.
Three weeks into her stay, it was while foraging in the Starwood Strands that Kimothy first caught word of a dragon known as The Goddess. While two foragers in her team known as Aequaliter and Mariol were gossiping about this supposed messiah, she butted her head into the conversation.
"What are you guys talking about?" she asked, feigning innocence as though she hadn't been eavesdropping on them a few moments prior. The two dragons either didn't realize that, or couldn't be bothered to hold her accountable.
"Oh, you know, just 'The Goddess' that everyone's been raving about," the pink spiral replied. Her nostrils flared in annoyance, but not at Kimothy. "You know that fae named Sylvia? The purple one? She claims she can speak to the Eleven. Doesn't that sound like a load of dung?"
Kimothy was inclined to agree. However, Mariol thought otherwise.
"Please, if you listened to her just for one night, you'll realize she's not like any ordinary dragon. Even if you don't like what she says, her presence is just so wonderful! She has this soothing aura that tells you you're in good company."
Aequaliter rolled her eyes. "As you can see, Sylvia's enrapturing dragons like this poor sod with flowers for brains through her nightly sermons. I plan on visiting the one tonight just to get Mariol to shut up about it next gathering session."
Kimothy found it amusing. If anyone could believe one random dragon to be the messenger of the deities that easily, she would rule the world by now. However, she hadn't realized how many dragons were talking about The Goddess until dinner that night. Passing a table here and there in the dining hall, she caught too many mentions of this so called Goddess and the fae known as Sylvia.
Three days later when her team was sent out to forage again, she encountered the same two dragons gossiping. This time, Kimothy elected not to take part in their conversation and pretended to search for bugs within their vicinity.
"I can't believe it!" Aequaliter hissed, her cloak tangled in the tightening knot she made with her own body. "She sounds legit, and I hate that I think that. It doesn't sound like she's lying even though it's so blatantly obvious!"
Giggling, Mariol plucked a fruit from the branches hanging above them. "I told you she was special. Why don't you visit her a view more times? The Goddess might even grant you an audience."
"I already have! Every night since we last talked about it. I'm so mad at myself for it, but I can't stop. I swear, it's driving me insane!"
Kimothy plucked a mana thief from the bushes and observed the way its legs squirmed in her talons. She contemplated attending one of Sylvia's sermons to see why everyone believed this fae was so special. However, a powerful Glimpse throwing her consciousness out of this world ensured that idea would never be actualized.
War ravages the land. Exalted followers of the deities fight back against waves of manic devotees. The Goddess rests on her throne, an opulent nest weaved from gold on the highest floor of the Observatory. The Starfall Isles no longer worships the Arcanist. The Goddess is their only deity.
"I am your salvation."
Her followers will spread all throughout Sornieth, a blight more dangerous than any of the Wrymwound's concoctions. After the isles, the second to fall under The Goddess's domain will be the Sea of a Thousand Currents. It is easy to sway the aimless water dragons when their own god has abandoned them. From there on, the infestation of her cult will reach even the farthest regions of the continent. Every dragon from the frigid inmates in the Fortress of Ends, to the clans nestled deep within the Greatwrym's Breach, will hear about The Goddess.
Before long, she will hold Sorneith in her claws.
As Sylvia's shadow eclipsed the continent, Kimothy's Glimpse shifted elsewhere.
Two librarians speak in hushed whispers where only the thousands of collected books, tomes, and scrolls can hear them. The head librarian, a rare, grey coatl, stops his companion at a certain bookcase and pulls out two books from their shelf. The bookcase silently rotates to reveal a hidden room. The librarians disappear inside, and the bookcase swings back into its original position.
The most disorienting part came when her Glimpse took her through 11 different locations. Each location featured one primal-eyed dragon she had never met before.
In the Shattered Plain, the bloodstone priestess Frugretor awaits your call.
A volcano lies dormant by the Magma Sanctum. Erebus's flames will melt ashes.
Do not be deceived by the deadly Aconitum hidden between Earth and Nature.
The assassin from a distant land has not come for a visit. Confront Zeno in the Reedclift Ascent.
Peace does not come for the radiant knight. You must reach Halcyon before the Emperor does.
The warden's eye Frostlock is the cruelest mistress in the Fortress of Ends.
Beware the tricks of this demonic dealer. Do not play by Mephy's rules at the Obscured Crescent.
It takes a master of plague to stop an infection. Seek the cure Korak at the Rim.
The spark of creativity is not limited to the brightest of minds. Find Scintilla at its Source.
Seeking vengeance, the oracle Certes sabotages the Shoredeep Presage.
As for the arcane, seek Gemini among your otherworldly kin.
The ghostly visage of an Arcane fae was the last thing she saw before being pulled out of her Glimpse. Rather than the glittering Starwood Strands, she awoke under the stone ceiling of her clan's cavernous lair.
In spite of her pounding headache, she slowly lifted her head from the fur bedding she laid upon. Across the room, a healer whom she recognized as Verbena sorted through the plants Kimothy had gathered. The healer must have heard her stir because she immediately turned around.
"You've been out for ten hours. Your teammates carried you back to the lair after you passed out. If you are able, do you mind telling me what happened?"
Kimothy rolled out the cricks in her neck. "I just had another Glimpse again. You know, like that one time when I fainted in the dining hall. Same thing."
"Not the same thing," Verbena snapped. "You were unconscious for at most five minutes the first time it happened. This time, you were out for significantly longer. If these Glimpses actually affect you negatively, your body or your mind could have been destroyed as you slumbered. We need to learn more about this phenomenon before we can determine if it's safe or not. Please tell me, does the amount of time you spend asleep perhaps have to do with the duration of your Glimpses?"
Kimothy wished she could slip out through the door and avoid questioning, but Verbena had a fearsome reputation behind her. The guardian could have easily been a warrior with her monstrous strength, but she had sworn off violence due to personal reasons. Besides, Verbena was more than double Kimothy's size.
"It all happened pretty quickly, so I'd say no."
"Then how far in the future did it happen?"
Kimothy almost spilled the contents of her Glimpse until she realized the potential consequences. What if Verbena believed in Sylvia? Telling a follower of The Goddess that the future had a contingency plan for her was probably as good as telling Sylvia herself.
"Hmm, now that I think about it, I think it was happening this evening because I was checking out one of Sylvia's sermons. And I passed out in the morning, so maybe it does have to do with time."
Verbena turned her snout up and the mention of Sylvia. "Don't listen to a word that wretched fae tells you. I can't believe the amount of fanatics among my clanmates who support her. I would suggest you don't go, but I know that changing fate is futile."
She asked Kimothy a few more questions related to her health before dismissing her. Verbena informed her that dinner had started half an hour ago, so Kimothy hurried to the dining hall. The chefs always made sure there was enough food for everyone, but being one of the last dragons to arrive meant she got the worst bites of the dish.
At the end of dinner, she contemplated actually attending Sylvia's sermons. Some dragons were already waiting at their dining tables for her arrival. However, she heeded Verbena's warning and left before the fae arrived. If fate hadn't bound her to The Goddess, then it was best she didn't make the conscious choice to let that happen. Instead, she visited the library. If her memory was accurate, then she should've been able to find the librarians' hidden room. Between Sylvia's conquest of Sornieth and the primals, the room had to be important somehow.
Speaking of the primals, she needed to start gathering clues as to their whereabouts. All she knew were their names and their general locations based on their surroundings. She needed more information to track them down. The wind primal was probably going to be the hardest to find since he was the only one not found near some sort of abode. She didn't even know why they were important, but they had to be significant if the Glimpse showed them to her.
She went to find the hidden room first. She passed by the front desk, where head librarian Luceat was too busy burying his snout in a tome to notice her. She climbed the stairs to the second floor, turned right into a hallway, and stopped at the sixth bookcase down to the left. She pulled out a black book on the third shelf and a green one on the second. The bookcase started rotating, all in accordance with her Glimpse, and revealed a dark room.
Kimothy traced her claws along the wall to find some sort of switch. She found one, but instead of turning on the lights, it closed the bookcase and what little light the hallway offered. Total darkness shrouded her. The skydancer began to panic, but the next switch she felt turned on a magic light bulb hanging off the ceiling. Why couldn't the librarians enchant the bulb to activate whenever someone entered the room? Then again, perhaps the darkness was there on purpose to give trespassers second thoughts on entering. Not that it stopped her.
The room didn't appear to hold anything special. There was a square table and one sparse bookcase holding less books than she did talons. She thought about leaving until she heard ruffling clothes approaching her from the hallway. The librarians were here. This was bad timing—although her Glimpses told her what would happen, they never specified when. More importantly, she was stuck in a room with only one exit and no places to hide. Escape was impossible, and she was better off explaining herself.
Might as well play it up like the mysterious, amnestic seer she was. She stood behind the farthest edge of the table from the door and watched as the bookcase rotated inward.
None of the librarians immediately entered, probably surprised by light in a room that was supposed to be dark. Rather than Luceat, it was the green skydancer Loreheart who strode into the room first. His verdant lanterns hovered protectively by his sides. He met Kimothy's gaze.
"You."
Kimothy ignored his intimidating glare. "Yeah, it's me. I'm sure you know my name,
Loreheart, so why don't you use it?"
"What are you doing here?"
Not only did he ignore her previous statement, his accusatory tone ticked her off. "Standing. Am I not allowed to? You should've put a 'No loitering' sign on the wall if that's the case."
From outside, a frightened voice asked, "Who's inside?"
Loreheart snorted. "It's Kimothy. The newcomer with amnesia."
Luceat tentatively stuck his head inside. He breathed a sigh of relief seeing it was just her. What was he expecting, an onyx cobra?
"I'll take it from here, Loreheart." Luceat stepped in front of the skydancer, whose expression twisted with bemusement similar to hers. Where did the sudden change in courage come from? Loreheart shrugged it off and went to close the bookcase as Luceat began.
"How did you find this room? It should be bound under Loreheart's illusory spell. No one should be able to observe us coming in here unless they know to use magic tools."
Unable to provide any alternative explanation, Kimothy decided to tell the truth. "Did you hear about me passing out again this morning? Well, I saw this room and you two entering it in my Glimpse. And I don't have amnesia, I've been faking it this entire time."
Luceat gawked. Loreheart merely grunted as if she had confirmed his suspicions.
"Well, that's new. I'd like to know why you pretended to have amnesia, but that's actually not my biggest concern, believe it or not," Luceat said. "You can tell us why on your own time. Loreheart and I will keep this a secret, because what happens in this room stays in this room. Right, Loreheart?" Luceat took Loreheart's silence as agreement and continued on. "I mean, even if you had any ulterior motives, like infiltration, I feel like the clan would have found out the hard way already."
Kimothy's gaze hardened with the way he joked about his last sentence. The fall of the Mistycloud clan and Istana's betrayal were still fresh in her memory, and they were going to be for a while. "Don't joke with me about traitors. They're the whole reason why I'm here in the first place."
Luceat flicked his tongue uncomfortably and bowed his head. "I apologize—I was not trying to make light of traitors. But speaking personally, I am saying that as the lead tactician of a clan that often raids groups bigger than itself, I am very confident in our chances of victory in the event of a planned invasion brought about by betrayal. We have some occult defenses that only our leaders know about, and color me surprised if someone ever figures out how to bypass them."
"By occult, do you mean dark magic?"
"Maybe, but it isn't our clan's fault." Luceat scratched the feathers on his head. "It's a long story for another time."
Kimothy preened her own wing feathers. This room was rather stuffy. "Fine, I forgive you. What were you going to say next?"
"Since you said your amnesia's fake, I assume this also means you knew about your ability to see Glimpses this entire time."
"Yeah, but I can't control them, not when they happen nor what I want to know. I don't even know why I get them in the first place."
"Interesting, that and the fact that a magical phenomenon such as yours can bypass illusions. Loreheart, are you taking note of this?"
"Yes, and it means I need to strengthen my wards," he growled. He pulled a book from the bookcase, pulled a pen out of his coat pocket, and started editing what she assumed were his "wards."
"He's not always like this. I think its a mage thing to want to be perfect."
"You're a mage yourself."
"Knowing the bare minimum about casting magic doesn't make me a mage! Besides, I research the physical world, not magecraft." Luceat turned his attention back to Kimothy. "Anyway, and this relates to the nature of your Glimpses, I really doubt you came here just to tell us you faked your amnesia. By any chance, was your original plan just to see if you could find this room?"
The coatl's intuition surprised her. "How did you know it was the latter?"
"It was a hunch, but now I know for sure your Glimpses don't tell you everything. You may have seen Loreheart and I enter this room, but you don't know why we did, do you?"
Kimothy shook her head. Luceat leaned over the table, tongue flicking as he whispered, "What do you think about Sylvia?"
She gave him an honest answer. "I've never met her before, so I can't judge her. But I think dragons are exaggerating how great she is." When Luceat said nothing, she added, "I'd like to visit her just to knock her down a peg."
On cue, Loreheart closed his book, and Luceat smiled. "Good. Because this room is for the recently formed Anti-Sylvia Coalition, consisting of just Loreheart and me. We think Sylvia is a force that needs to be reckoned with while her following is still manageable, because I believe there is something greater behind that charismatic nature of hers."
Kimothy's eyes widened. Not only was she relieved to know the two librarians didn't believe Sylvia, they were taking a stand against her. If she was going to tell anyone what her Glimpse foretold regarding The Goddess, they were probably her best bet. "Then you're not gonna like what I tell you next."
Luceat tilted his head to the side. "Why?"
She told him and Loreheart about the rest of her Glimpse, about Sylvia's influence taking hold of the continent, and about the primals. When she finished, the coatl's grey plumage seemed paler than normal, and Loreheart was grimacing in disgust.
"That's awful," was all Luceat could say about it.
"Awful is an understatement," Loreheart said. "The biggest question now is whether this future is just one of many. If yes, then we have a chance at preventing it. But if it is set in stone, then I am leaving this place at dawn." Even to Kimothy, the one who saw that future, that sounded like an exaggeration.
Luceat's feathers bristled. He didn't believe it was one, however. "We can't answer a question like that in a single night, so chill out! Even in the worst case scenario, you'll have time to pack up and leave."
"Will I? Are you sure you know what the worst case scenario is? We don't know the full extent of Sylvia's power. She has to be hiding something, and in the event it is beyond our control, I plan on fleeing this continent before it is too late."
"I thought you were braver than this. You're overreacting right now!"
"You are the one not taking this threat seriously."
Kimothy batted her tail impatiently against the floor. "Guys, I'm still here, in case you've forgotten."
They stopped. Loreheart turned away from Luceat and huffed. "Fine, I will wait at least a week for this question to be answered before I am leaving." Luceat gave up arguing and didn't retort.
"Why do you think Sylvia is so powerful?" she asked. "I understand I'm the one who literally saw her take over the world, but I didn't see performing any crazy magic in that process."
Luceat tapped his claws together nervously. "Okay, so, hear me out, but I am certain that Sylvia is the reincarnation of one of this clan's founding members."
She scrunched her nose at the absurdity. "What?"
"Says the one that can see into the future without the Tidelord," Loreheart murmered.
"At least seeing into the future is an established ability. I've never heard of real reincarnation before!"
Luceat shuddered. "Oh, but this is real. I wish it wasn't, but there's no other explanation to it. You see, this clan is considerably new. We're still led by our first generation of leaders, founders of the clan such as myself. When I first joined Ender, we had less than ten dragons in his following. One of them was a fae born of arcane named Alnuit, and she looked eerily similar to Sylvia. She had the same appearance, same preferences, even the same eating habits back when Sylvia still ate in the dining hall. But Sylvia, Alnuit had an affinity for taking care of hatchlings, so she was tasked with running the hatchery."
The coatl paused. He took a deep breath. His voice began to tremble as he spoke. "One day, however, a massive storm broke out and flooded our lair. In hindsight, it should've been obvious we needed some runes around our lair entrance to protect us from the elements, but we had just settled into this cave at the time. Alnuit was in the hatchery when the flood destroyed everything, including..." Luceat trailed off. His eyes regressed into a distant and dull state.
It was Loreheart who finished the story. "The flood killed Alnuit, along with Luceat's first and only children."
She gazed at the coatl with newfound empathy. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't find anything more profound to say than, "That's awful."
"There's more. When Sylvia first joined us, we interviewed her about her past, the same thing we do with all dragons. Her birthdate was the same number and year as Alnuit's death. With everything we know about the two of them, that cannot be a coincidence. Hence, Luceat's theory that Sylvia is the reincarnation of Alnuit."
"So she's a reincarnation. How does that explain why she's trying to form some kind of cult?" Luceat never specified if Alnuit tried to do the same, but it was safe to assume that a hatchling caretaker wouldn't have such lofty goals.
Loreheart sighed. "You would have to ask Sylvia herself to know the answer to that."
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