Roleplay

[b]ABOUT: This thread may contain statements expressing hostility or ill will towards flights other than plague. These feelings are on the part of the characters in this roleplay in a manner that reflects the lore of the clans and the characters of the dragons, and are not reflective of the attitudes of the actual players and their behaviors in the metagame (such as buying, trading, other mechanics of the game, ect.) Also, please note that all characters interacting in this must live in or be traveling through Plague territory, with the former being preferable.[/b] [i]"TO WAR! TO WAR!"[/i] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/81507/8150678_350.png[/img] The Spiral weaves and dives over the bleak expanse of the Abiding Boneyard, driving up dust in his wake and leaving behind a trail of sickly sweet-smelling, rotting petals. The Corruption of Beauty was intent to make this day the beginning of the end of the Askani clan faction known as the Secularists, and any other groups like them. There was no place for their soft-heartedness in the diseased wastes of Plague territory, but Chiru knew there were all too many dragons that survived in this unforgiving place only because of the coddling and misplaced charity of others. Such was not the way of the Plaguebringer. But in this place, beyond the not-entirely-inhospitable borderlands, he might find those willing to take up arms against those that chose to forsake the ways of rot. [i]"ALL WHO SEEK TO PURGE THIS LAND OF WEAKNESS, TO ME, TO ME! HEAR ME, MY BRETHREN, FOR PLAGUE IS AT A SECRET WAR WITH ITSELF!"[/i]

[img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/96710/9670973_350.png[/img] An irritable flick of his ear, drew itself to the Spiral's call. The long bodied beast stirred, one eye opening to peer upward at the creature which summoned a proclamation of a war... and a peculiar one at that, if his words were to be believed. A low grumble, like the bubbling of a festering pit, reverberated from within the Imperial's mass as he rose, daubed wings unfurling, the leathery hide of the appendages stretching between their skeletal bindings as with a single rotating sweep, he used them to push the rest of his hide to a stand. "[b]A secret war[/b]?" the male's voice sounded nearly like a whisper, the hushed tones of a dying dragons final breath, or ill made gasps for untainted air. Yet it carried all the same, slithering across stone and air in equal measure, as he settled before the spiral with slow patient steps, curious to the words the stranger claimed. Weakness? He wondered at what kind this sickly sweet scented dragon meant, as his own musk of decay and rot magic incubated the air around his deceptively vivid hide. @Ghostheart

@Lemming

"My Imperial brother," Chiru settles to a position in the air where he is facing the massive dragon, top half still while his lower half continues to oscillate around some fixed point in a repetitive, whirling pattern; the Spiral equivalent of sitting still. "I pray that you will hear my plea. Bear with me, for my tale is long, but I must tell all if you are to understand our struggle."

"I was born of Lady Jashin of the Hundred Eyes and her mate, Hemotenshi, the Angel of Plague. While my clutch was intended for sacrifice, I was chosen, as the strongest amongst those hatchlings, to live on and to spread the influence of the Plaguebringer. But as I grew, I came to learn that it was not for strength alone that kept me from being cast into the Wyrmwound as an offering of flesh."

"A time ago, both my father and my mother resided in another clan, called Askani. Both left in their own time, my father as a hatchling and my mother... my mother was driven out by a rival. A Coatl who seeks to contaminate the ways of the weak-hearted, those who brave disease but cannot bear the thought of destruction, even as a form of catharsis. He hides behind a Fae called Hindame, the last Shadowborn child of my home clan before their territory was overtaken by the spread of Plague's territory."

"As my birth clan struggled to survive, many hatchlings were sent to the care of the better-adapted Clan Askani, including Hindame. As a child of Lady Jashin, who was then the Leader of the Faith in Askani and left her home only every so often to be with my father, he was treated with respect and heralded as an instrument through which disease might thrive. Time passed, and it was decided that he would be offered up to the Plaguemother as a sacrifice of flesh, a vessel of decay that might promote the growth of pathogens, during the Riot of Rot. But at the height of the ceremony, Hindame- my elder brother- did something unheard of. He refused. My mother herself attempted to force him bodily into the festering pit of the Wyrmwound, but he was shielded by that accursed Coatl. Disgusted, my mother fled the scene and settled with her mate in Ghostheart, the clan of my birth. Hindame was named Lord of the Faith in her place, entrusted to interpret the will and ways of the Plaguemother. And so the Coatl gained a mouthpiece through which to speak."

"He threatens to overthrow our ways. First in his own clan, then in others. He knows that the more meager clans of our flight are prone to mercy, to pitying the weak and the dying, and thus they breed bad blood into their broods. Our way is one of natural selection, so that only the strong survive. The propagation of diseases help to cull weak bloodlines, and to make our Flight what it is. But the soft-hearted fools only prolong their own peoples' suffering. Ghostheart nearly disappeared after its territory was contaminated, but the survivors grew resilient, and thrived."

"The weak are soft-spoken and meek, but they gain sympathy, and so they breed. And so in their weakness they are manipulated by those that offer them protection, such as the Coatl who now controls Askani from behind his puppet, Hindame. I know that this is but one of many such cases. This mindset is the one form of infection I will not tolerate."

"And as I was born with such similar coloration to my brother, I believe I am sent to mend what he failed to fix. But I am but words on the wind. I have seen the signs, I have read the warnings. We are at war with our own weakness, and if Plague is a body, we must make sure that it can combat this illness. With words and wits if we are able, and with tooth and talon if necessary."

"What say you, brother?"

@Ghostheart

In silence he listened to this dragon's tale. Of the rite he avoided when hatched, only to rise as a fine example of the Plaguebringer's herald, and the betrayal and heresy that followed. With ears lifted and eyes unmoving, he said no word nor sound until the stranger had finished his story, and ultimately his goal. Then he was silent for but a moment, wings curling around his frame as he considered what was spoken. It was entirely possible, that what was said could be fable, an elaborate scheme in which this male had been slighted by the mentioned Askani clan. In which case, he was committing his own heresy by calling to action the work of the great deity of disease and decay...

However, if he did speak truth, then it was troubling news indeed. But then came the question of this Spiral. The size of this dragon was scarcely an issue, the scars on his own body were not formed by another Imperial or Guardian after all, but a powerful fighter and rot festerer, did not a leader make. And if he were the one calling to arms plague dragons to rise against this weak clan and others like it, then he could only assume that this Spiral would lead them. Even so-

"If what you say is true, then this is not a matter in which to let the natural plague in which we inhabit take it's coarse. This is foul breath, and can not be tolerated. Unless you prove false, I will rise alongside you. A soft rot, does not belong among the ill wings of our denizen."

The blood colored eyes of his sworn claim to the Plaguebringer, shone sharply beneath his hood, as his crown tilted back to give full sight to the spiral above, "I am Devode, and I belong to no clan but my own, choosing to follow the true faith of the beautiful sickness with only the Plaguemother to guide my claws. But for this... the plague will not lay host to these betrayers who act more like a cure, than proper disease" His gaze locked with those of the red before him, his fangs briefly flashing as he gave his own statement. If this were a trick, there'd be a reckoning of it's own. "For this heresy, I would end my solitude."

(( Edited/Added just a bit more, and alright @Askani / Hello~ ))

@Ghostheart @Lemming

((Staying offscreen for now, but I'll be watching the thread if anyone feels the need to enter my clan's territory. This looks amazing so far))

@Lemming

"I assure you, brother, my words are true enough. Simply look about you. Travel to other clans and you will find them. The weak, the sheltering, the suffering. The sickness to sickness, those that carry the weakest strains and prevent viruses from needing to adapt. Go forth and act as you see fit. I must go, to carry my message as I carry disease. May the Plaguemother bless you a thousandfold, and if it is her will, may you endure every blessing so as to be made strongerr. Otherwise, should you perish, may your body nobly become a vessel for rot and give rise to new strains of life. Farewell."

Without another word, he moves out of his hovering coil pattern and begins streaming across the wastes again, once again sending out his call.

"TO WAR! TO WAR!"

@Ghostheart

He watched the Spiral depart in silence, wings slowly folding along his side as the male's call echoed across the wastes. It had been some time since he wandered by choice among the others, though with this troubling news he would gladly seek out other clans, and peer about their masses. When he did so, judgement may soon reign upon them. But he was merely one lone drake for now, depending upon who this Spiral, this son of Jashin and Hemotenshi might rally to this coming purge. He would need to prepare... and call upon a friend. An unlikely one, but species scarcely mattered when they both served the Plague. His mind drifted to the Spiral's departing words. Yes, it would be a blessing for his passing to serve the Plaguemother's pathogens, but he sent up his own silent prayer, that he would bring fresh hosts and sacrifices to her pit in droves, before that should happen.

Spreading his wings, he took to the skies to fly to the den of his comrade, to share these words, and see if she would aid him. Or at the least, help him prepare for what was to come.

(open for other scenes/interactions)

The land he traversed was littered with corpses in varying states of decay. From the bleached bones of the long dead to the fresh, reeking ruins of those who had succumbed to exposure, starvation, and disease, all were equally useful, and all were equally dead. Scavenging mammals and reptiles tore strips of diseased meat from rancid hulks of dragon flesh. Insects, the Plaguemother's great carriers, burrowed into soft tissues to deposit their young. Skittering, cautious creatures sheltered from the elements inside scattered dragon skulls. Those that knew how to survive were aided by the remains of those that had not. All was beautiful, corruption and decay intertwined with life. He paused, circling about a single point, and thought.