When Dragons Sleep
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Pan’s entry won second place in the North America category of our Chronicles of Tyria anniversary contest for 2019. You can find out more about Pan on Twitter: @Keir_p_an
Pan is also joining the Chronicles of Tyria team as a writer. Keep an eye on our social media, his first chapter will be uploaded on July 21st. Stay tuned!
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Glint's blue claws clicked against the floor of her lair, joining the slightly discordant melody of crystalline cracking that never quite seemed to leave the place these days. She kept her pace slow, so that Josso could keep up with her. His voice contrasted the surrounding ringing nicely, adding a warm biological note to the impassive chill of the lair.
"Vlast's physical maturation is coming along quite well. He is routinely outperforming the standards of the aerial tests you laid out for him," the Forgotten noted, while looking over the notes written upon the scroll he held, "and he's still growing, despite matching your size already."
The prophetess nodded, though they both knew that was not the aspect of Vlast's development she was worried about. "How is his temperament?"
This, Josso had a harder time answering. "He understands his importance to the world and has not expressed interest in shirking his duties. To his caretakers, anyhow. However…" he trailed off and his tongue stuttered in his mouth, producing a high hissing sound. Glint waited patiently: she already knew when he would answer. "We have tried to introduce him to other mortals, but we fear that this should have been done immediately. You had the unique benefit of contact and a telepathic bond with mortals immediately following your-"
"Purification, yes." She had not foreseen this. Her legacy had developed so many moving parts — so many pieces designed to stave off oblivion at every avenue — that facets were falling through the cracks. "Very well. There is no time to correct that problem now, but at least we can better prepare Aurene. The Exalted yet rest, but we can ensure that they adjust their handling of her to ensure she forms a more personal investment in the preservation of this world and its people."
"And what of Vlast? Even if we can ensure that Drakkar, Kuunavang, and Albax each replace one of the Elder Dragons, we have no spares prepared." While Josso's lower pair of hands held the scroll, his upper right readied itself to write adjustments to the legacy. Over the last ten thousand years, adjustments had been mercifully scarce.
"Leave him as he is for now. Do not allow him to regress further into himself, try to draw him from his own thoughts, and reward him for engaging with his attendants. It won't be enough, but at least we can prevent further damage until I replace Kralkatorrik. Once that is done, I will focus on ensuring he bonds with this world as I did."
Josso wrote a brief note and rolled his scroll. There was a moment of silence, during which Glint cast her mind forward into the immediate future.
"You are not your father."
"I know."
"You had no choice but to engage your scions in this legacy."
"I know."
"Replacing Kralkatorrik will not make you Kralkatorrik."
"I know."
She could not risk appearing weak to the other architects of her legacy. Sensing Josso's fears through her empathetic bond, she spoke first and shattered that potential future.
"I know you are scared, Josso Essher." The dragon looked down at her attendant, face strangely radiant under the mysteriously omnipresent glow in the lair. His face softened, a rare sight that she mentally cataloged as yet another reason to preserve the world.
"I am sorry, mistress, I did not mean to imply that I doubted you." The usual stoicism spread over his features once more, and he bowed his head.
"Do not apologize. The world would be a far crueler place if every powerful entity considered doubt equivalent to disloyalty." Glint resumed her measured pace through the crystalline hallways, once more allowing Josso to break eye contact. They were nearing the trial chambers now, with their potent, almost palpable, aura of magic. Where the energy in the rest of the lair felt like an extension of Glint herself, these paths gave off a wholly separate sensation. Josso could only hope they would survive until the end of the world, whenever that should come.
Glint led the way to the forge at the heart of the trial chambers and stood before the violet tendrils snaking across its surface. Her breath, twinkling with fragments of newly-summoned crystal, washed over the surface and poured new energy throughout the machinery. The Forge vibrated as a resonant tone reverberated through the surrounding crystals — a new dragonsblood spear sat upon the pedestal. She took it, turned to face Josso, and rose onto her hind legs. "Would you say this spear is powerful?" she asked, voice betraying no obvious answer to the serpent.
"Yes," answered the Forgotten. "I can feel your energy in it. You are powerful, so it is powerful."
Glint held the spear in both of her forelegs and snapped it. Liquid crystals sprayed the ground, while Josso's face stayed blank. "I admit that I am confused." The Forgotten was reminded, not for the first time, that thousands of years of experience were nothing compared to being an Elder Dragon's scion.
"That spear was untested. You put your faith in it, and it let you down. An ornamental spear may feel comforting in the light of day, but it is only through testing it that we can be sure it will protect us come night. By confronting your fears and indulging in the darkness within them, you temper yourself." Glint's diction was rhythmic. She had an ascended method of speaking that called to mind the boundlessness of her existence: the faith it inspired caused Josso's back to straighten. "Do not hesitate to share your fears, lest we overlook a critical flaw within the legacy."
Josso mulled this over for a moment, before slowly smiling. Glint could feel his resolve solidifying once more. "Thank you. I don't think mortals were made to contemplate oblivion for this long."
Glint whistled a slow, labored, sigh, "No. No, you were not."
Sensing a potential misstep, Josso cleared his throat, "I will send someone to Tarir right away, to leave instructions on how the Exalted should raise Aurene."
Glint nodded, and the ambient magic in the chamber coalesced into a portal, "It will take you to Tarir. I trust you know the way back."
Josso bowed - a fluid, coiling, motion for the snake - and disappeared through the portal.
Physically and spiritually, Glint was alone.
This fact had lay, cancerous and malignant, within her since her beginning. Not Glaust's beginning, but her own. As Glaust, she had never considered herself to be alone: her father was always commanding her, and she would act in his stead. This was all that she needed, and the voices of mortals in her head, crying out in fear or plotting her demise, hardly seemed like something she would ever seek out.
A blast of light had changed all of that.
~~~
The Forgotten and Mursaat, accompanied by their construct armies, pressed towards the center of the Orrian peninsula and the brooding dragon that called that land home. Spotting an opportunity to devastate the armies, Kralkatorrik sent Glaust to wreak havoc amidst them. They were already hard-pressed with the waves of Risen that were nipping at their ranks and corrupting their mortal members.
She would not fail her creator. Even as she recalled him, the mind-penetrating crackles of his voice sparked through her memory.
"The mortal races march. You will destroy them."
"Yes, Father."
"The prophecy will not come to pass."
"Yes, Father."
"My existence must not be challenged."
"Yes, Father."
Her mind formed the memory into concrete thoughts, where before there had been nothing but feelings and sensations. Kralkatorrik was above words, just as he was above her. To prove the imperfection of mortal speech, abstracted as it was from the raw divinity possessed by Kralkatorrik, she only had to listen to the pitiful screams of the people below. Though they blustered at her and fired arcane volleys into the air, she could feel the fear deep within their temporary, fleeting, forms. A grinding roar erupted from her throat and spilled into the world, growing a spire of deep blue crystal in the middle of the mortal armies. Branded turned on their former comrades, forcing the army to deal with threats from within and without.
Glaust swooped for the primary command contingent and parried further magical shots with the thick crystal spikes upon her shoulders. The feeling of invincibility filled her as she dodged and rolled above the throng of troops, occasionally diving down to Brand more of their living members. As she sped towards a peculiar mobile platform with a circular top, she made eye contact with the Forgotten manning it. The creature stood alone in the center of six small stone turrets and stared up at her. As she neared the structure, claws extended, the figure quietly spoke. She didn't need to hear it, as the resolve behind the words echoed through her scrying link.
"You'll do." spoke Sholoss Essher, immediately activating the Altar.
Beams of light shot from the Altar's spires into the murky Orrian skies. Webs of glittering incandescence spun themselves into existence, entangling the beams and forming a translucent cage around Glaust and Sholoss. More importantly, they formed a barrier between Glaust and Kralkatorrik.
She could feel the connection tearing. Her source, her creator, her father, being cut from her mind with a scalpel. She wasn't losing her origin, but she was losing the tie she had been born with, the unique tether binding them together. Glaust had never been alone, she had been part of Kralkatorrik. As the beams of light around her snapped, so too did the cord within her mind. She reached out for him, and found nothing but the minds of the mortals around her. Darkness descended over her, plunging her thoughts into the thickest of nights, unlit by the shadow of a new moon.
She felt sick and disoriented. She stumbled once but managed to keep from falling to the grey rock beneath her. She turned towards Sholoss, whose four arms had spread wide to greet her, "Welcome, Glaust. How does freedom feel?"
She gutted him.
Glaust's claws tore through his flesh and left nothing but a soulless form behind. She didn't even bother Branding him first: if she couldn't have that connection with Kralkatorrik, she certainly wouldn't bestow it upon the mortal who had stolen that from her.
Silence on the battlefield was less the total absence of noise, and more the lack of any meaningful sound. As screams and battlecries rose from the staggered forces, Glaust felt deafened by the abyssal depths of the silence around her. The one who had done this to her was dead, and so she flung herself aloft and towards her master, hoping she could regain what she had lost.
~~~
So much of Glaust's mind had been Kralkatorrik, that Glint often had great difficulty remembering anything from before the day she was severed from him. The day itself stood out in stark contrast, outlined in the crystalline clarity born from remembering it millions of times in the intervening millennia. The separation between her and Kralkatorrik had only grown wider as she took in the thoughts and emotions of mortals without his tempering influence in her mind. Even as the chasm began to yawn wide, she yearned for it to close, but dared not tell him of her shifting allegiance. And then she was beyond the point of no return and turned her back on her master.
Now, she turned back to the task of defeating him. The familiar doubts spread through her mind once more, and she allowed their trespass.
If his thoughts are so alien as to be nearly impossible to parse even in memory, how can his actions be predictable?
Will Destiny's Edge alone be enough?
Will the asura's technology be compatible with the eldritch depths of Kralkatorrik's mind?
Why can't I see beyond this confrontation?
She allowed the night to wash over her. The sun, while comforting, had the effect of washing out the stars she was seeking out.
If Kralkatorrik was allowed to awaken without opposition, the mortal races of Tyria would be pushed even closer to the brink of extinction. She had a moral obligation to do everything within her power to oppose her sire, even if the deep-seated fear within her begged and pleaded for her to avoid this confrontation. The trick she had learned over the many thousands of years since she first felt fear, was not to reject it. Stare at the sun too long: you would go blind. Accepting it as part of yourself and still making your mark on the world was the only way forwards.
With her resolve steely once more, she set to planning. It would only be a few years before Destiny's Edge arrived, and she still had a few things to prepare. Empathy had brought her closer to the mortal races of Tyria and given her something to fight for. Perhaps the same would apply to these heroes.
~~~
"You are loved in a way I was not. You will be better than me."
Deep beneath Tarir, in a chamber crafted for her centuries before her birth, Aurene stirred. Memories of a lifespan much longer than her own had seeped into her dreams once more and left her uneasy. The ridge of her nose, inherited from her early absorption of Mordremoth's magic, rubbed against the soft membrane between her wing joints. The two features contrasted one another, refusing to fit the outline of her whole. Disparate pieces pressed together by heritage and the path laid before her, rather than by her own identity.
Of course, she could not have put these concepts into words. Instead they floated, ephemeral, in the recesses of her mind. Without the ability to challenge them, they would build to a breaking point.
Caithe placed her hand upon the young dragon's shoulder. Unlike Aurene, she couldn't read minds, but nocturnal uneasiness was no stranger to her. She didn't tell her to hush, to be still, or to settle down. Ignoring the darkness in those you love would only let it grow. Instead, she spread her fingers wide across Aurene's blue scales, just to let her know she wouldn't have to spend the night alone.
Aurene's breathing levelled out, as she settled in to sleep. Come morning, she would spend time with Caithe and her Exalted attendants, listening to stories of the world beyond her golden chambers. Soon, they said, she would start meeting the people she would save.
"Yes, Mother."