Drone

Drone #279 "Eridanus" =============================== Somewhere weakness is our strength.

Azure Yuccarope Dragonmade This strong rope can hold an impressive amount of weight before breaking. 41 Plumed Anticipate Energy Stone The caster steels themselves behind a wall of plumage, reducing the damage of attacks made against them for the next turn, and generating 15 Breath when hit. Same effect as Anticipate. 250 Required Level: 1

Her nestmate is sick.

The minder doesn't care. Later she thinks he did care and she was too young to see it, and he was too exhausted and frightened to display it. The result is the same: her nestmate is sick and the person who's supposed to be taking care of them... Isn't.

The other nestmates learn to ignore 281. They roughouse - playfights that will prepare them for the real thing, when their training as drones begins. For now, though, it's just playing... and 281 is too sick to join. 279 joins in with the others at first, though she does try to encourage her nestmate to play too. Even then she's aware that the world they've been born into has no place for weakness.

281 gets sicker. She stops playing, and then she stops moving around much at all. She's getting weaker.

279 shares food with her. At first openly, because it doesn't occur to her that she needs to hide it. Both of them go hungry that night, when 279's caught. She tries to bring grass to her nestmate - something, anything - but 281's a Mirror. She's hungry enough to try it, but she can't even force herself to swallow it. 279 eats the meagre grass once it's clear her nestmate can't, and keeps the small, shivering pup tucked close to her side for warmth all night. They continue on like that for what she will realize in hindsight is a near miraculous period of time. 279 gets very good at smuggling food to her nestmate. 281 isn't getting less sick, but she's getting better at saving what strength she can muster for when there is an inspection. Her limbs still tremble, but she's small and they can position themselves so that 279 is blocking her from view without being obvious about it. (They are not yet a year old. A lesson that a child should never have to learn: how to keep your sister safe from your parents.) Their numbers are just barely distant enough that they are brought to their first training session separately. 279 goes with the 270s; 281 is with the 280s. 279 does well enough, a little better than average even maybe. She's a little bigger than her other nestmates at that age - early growth spurt. 281 never comes back.

---

As she grows, 279 quietly observes the world around her. Her nestmate was not the first to disappear, and she won't be the last. Something in 279 is desperately unhappy with the way her world is, even if she's never known anything else. Still, she knows that in her world happiness is irrelevant to survival. She buries the unhappiness, the sense of unfairness - but she does not forget.

279 never does grow out of her quiet phase. It's not really that unusual - a lot of the drones don't talk very much, or at least not to non-drones. So neither Alcor nor any of the other commanders ever see anything unusual about her. If they remember that the quietness started with the death of her nestmate - and 279 very much doubts they do - they do not care. She is a model drone, stoic and subservient, and model drones do not suffer from things such as sadness.

She accepts that role - and still she quietly turns the way her world works over and over in her head.

---

Aziraphale has no love for the drones, they all know this. A lot of them can't read, anyway, and those who can have only a basic level of comprehension, 279 included. So they rarely deal with him and he rarely deals with them, and both parties are content with this arrangement.

279 is not content. She wants to read. The acolytes speak of knowledge as power; 279 is not stupid, but she knows her knowledge is limited. Books could teach her more than she can even conceive of right now. There are guards posted at the library. It's considered a mediocre posting - they're really just there because the High Priestess has concerns about Giada or her mercenaries damaging the library in some way. None of them have displayed any inclination to do such a thing, but what the High Priestess wants the High Priestess gets, and so there is at least one guard there at all times. 279 gets herself into the rotation of them. It's not exactly difficult - it's a boring posting, and even the most stoic of drones have their limits. And none of them enjoy the occasional encounters with Aziraphale. 279 doesn't know how she's going to deal with him, but she figures she'll figure that out when she gets that far. It goes better than expected. Aziraphale scowls at her, same as he scowls at all the drones, and 279 doesn't have to pretend to find him unnerving. He leaves her alone, though, even when she's in the library itself. Many of her fellow drones don't receive that kind of trust. 279 can only assume even Aziraphale is aware of her status as a model drone; a model drone would never dream of damaging the library, not unless ordered to, and even the Empress on her most erratic days has no interest in that. And so, slowly, 279 teaches herself to read.

---

The library is not off limits to anyone in Goldwood, drones or otherwise - not officially, at least. The primary aim of Light is to collect and maintain repositories of information after all, and a library is nothing without patrons.

In reality, the drones are barred from entry when they aren't on guard duty. Mizar can't have her army learning to think for themselves after all. Of course the library isn't supposed to have any sort of... Questionable materials - Aziraphale was supposed to have either sold or destroyed them all after Mizar came to power. Mizar clearly hadn't trusted him to actually do that, though, and thus the drones are not meant to go to the library when they aren't guarding it.

279 is not surprised to learn that Aziraphale had indeed kept all the books. The sort of literature that Mizar would like to not have around is well hidden and 279 thinks that most wouldn't even spot them - certainly Aine and her acolytes haven't, even after all this time. Aziraphale apparently has a knack for hiding them in plain sight. Maybe it's some kind of magic; like most drones, 279 is entirely magic-null.

She likes to pick books at random, though - every one teaches her something new, and knowledge is power. Something nebulous is starting to form at the back of her mind, and whatever it will become... She knows she'll need all the knowledge she can get.

The book she's chosen today is bound in hide and its paper is thicker than they usually are. It's more like canvas - she'd learned that they did that sometimes in Wind territory, in order to use the thick inks they preferred for their calligraphy. The book is sized more for one of the mid-size breeds, like Mirrors, but most books are and 279 has plenty of experience handling them at this point. Mythical Spirits of Sornieth, the title proclaims in calligraphic font. A stylized rendition of a map is drawn beneath it. 279 flips the book open to a random page. Eridanus, the author has written, A Water Spirit. This Spirit is found anywhere there is water, and is the catalyst and driver behind slow-building change. Just as the currents slowly erode all over time, this Spirit slowly changes all they come in contact with - for good or ill. They can be manipulated, but never directly controlled. If given enough time, they can build monuments - or turn them to sand. Something in her that she wasn't quite aware existed slots into place. Eridanus, she thinks, and between one breath and the next she gains a name - and her purpose crystallizes. Mizar's Empire stands tall and unmoving, a mountain that no one can fight. Eridanus will not fight. She will wear away at it, so slowly that it is invisible, and then one day - it will crumble into sand.

Character Notes
♫ Worker Bees, Let the Flames Begin, We All Lift Together
• Drone 279 is a trusted lieutenant-commander in Mizar's army. Eridanus is a huge pain in Mizar's backside. Somehow the double life hasn't tripped her up yet.
• Eridan's influence is spreading among the drone ranks, slowly but surely. She communicates her message of quiet rebellion through writings hidden in places where only drones are likely to see them, written in a mix of draconic and pictograms/symbols/metaphors that the drones will understand but their leaders won't.
• While no one actually knows which drone Eridan is on account of her method of communication, she's still managed to gain loyalists and even a very small command structure of her own. In this way the identity of Eridan is even further obscured - and if she was to be discovered, there are others who would take her place.

• Eridan is noted to look very similar to her nestmate, 278. The two of them are regularly confused for one another even as adults; their similar ranks don't help matters. Thankfully this hasn't caused issues for Eridan when it comes to her rebellion... at least not yet.

OOC Notes
• Dragon version of a Jet Force Gemini OC!



Charge is the concept of the aspect Eridanus? Though this would mean she's driven to cause change... Maybe it manifests as being basically a therapist for all the ex drones/slaves? And later I can have her go wandering, if I want/need to

note to self: We All Lift Together aesthetic for the drone uprising??

also, future eridan outfit probably https://www1.flightrising.com/dressing/outfit/2339423