User:SunlitSmoothie/sandbox/Tale:Indigo Sun

Chromagaia's time moves forward with ours! Today's date is:
Embresday, Serelakkan 3, 1133 LE

Oh, oh, this my master said. The shards will crown his severed head. Their lights will carry his rage eternal, that the stars might dye the nighttime red. But oh, oh, who can know, the treacherous three-knife heavenly throe: the moons, the rings, the place they broke, forbidden to go? What stains the halfway-sky that somber indigo?
—Striepaurheei Törrhyatz, Prophecy of the Stars

Prologue

Rarely sung, it is, of Ailell. Know then, this Isle of Flames which floats above the clouds is one of Dragons Infernal, the remnants of the Red Army who scorched the world till the era of the calendar turned. Isolate and festering, their hatred of humans and foreign races rings, even through their peaceful history, and their strange faith persists in self-consumptive reverence of their own flame.

High and far away from the surface, all clans of the Flame reside, but none such venerated as the sun. Their king, Thannan Cyntaf-Haul, holds peace through the management of the solar Houses, given each an aspect of the divine Fire of their faith. One such house, that Afon-Tan clan said to hold the River of Flame that dictates fate and auspicion, remained in a faltering state, lower in the ranks of favor and vying to return. A good omen was born to them, a first child with a rare color, a vibrant indigo which symbolized peace at last. A son, they thought, and so they named this child Elgan, an omen of the rings around the world which held the same hue.

This child, now named by no power beyond their own as Seren Afon-Tan, would go on to be an omen, certainly. A powerful force of change, as the hopes of their family demanded. But while change can be stoked, it cannot often be directed or controlled so easily.

The Flight

The wind was cold and brutal. Even now, at the tail-end of summer, the stratospheric gales were unbearably sharp. The young runaway, just barely eighteen years of age, just barely recognized amongst that league of actors that called themselves high society, just barely good enough to put on a facade of perfection and pretend for a day that everything was according to plan, according to expectation, under control and on schedule. Barely, barely, BARELY! It never fucking ended! Even appearing effortless and restful just wore down on his psyche! Never even a short reprieve from the performance! The winds felt like glass on the not-a-whelp's feathers and the skin beneath, but even that was as smooth and warm as fine pyresilks compared to the fear of what would happen if he was still there when the family discovered his burned and battered room. The gaze alone, as he imagined it, was enough to cause his flames to sputter and himself to shiver. The words were usually empty, but oh, if they weren't, death would seem like a paradise.

I HATE THEM!!! he thought, louder than any thought in the past year. Everything would have been hopeless up there anyways. What was he supposed to do, supposed to say or demonstrate or marry into, to save the Afon-Tan family from its slow ruination? All that mattered was favor with that DAMNED Sun King, who clearly wasn't going to give it to them. He was hiding something, and that just made all the Tai Haul anxious about his next moves. Damn you, Thannan, you opulent fool! Expectations were ramping up on all the young of the Houses, and Elgan assumed that he was just the worst at managing it.

It was a long way down, wasn't it? Off the lofty cliffedge of Ailell, down to the infinitely expansive surface of Keppel, below all the clouds. Surely none could survive the fall without the power of flight. Even factoring in the half-weight that the Sun clan was blessed with, the impact would still obliterate the half-ton of flesh, bone, feather and magic that was considering this now. The hatchday feast began to rise up his gullet at the thought. Yet I have flight, he thought, attempting to break the cycle. What was done was done. The icy gale as he fell was proof of that, flaming Ailell shrinking above him. The sglyfathau still up there would expect him in the morning, now a "proper distinguished gentleman", to fulfill even more duties than he had already been. Something about that last word struck a nerve.

"And now I'll never have to see them again," this Elgan said, muffled by the raging atmosphere around himself. But he knew this to be untrue. The bastards—no, they placed too much importance on courtship and breeding to have ever slipped up and produced a true bastard—they would be searching for him. A sun dragon of unusual color, an heir to an entire family of the most distinguished clan in the land. The most distinguished of ten, eight of which were all even. What a joke. They'd be searching, at least until the threat of becoming sympathetic to the surface people outweighed the loss of an ascendant sunling.

Clouds rushed by, the air felt thicker. Elgan's inner ears popped several times, and he looked down to see rapidly approaching fields and forests. It had been a long time since he had last flown, but the instincts of a dragon are loath to leave. Disrobing enough to give room for the upper four wings, the glowing ball of indigo flame erupted in size, returning to the true form a dragon of his clan takes. Unfurling all six of his luminous indigo wings, he slowed down almost enough to not crash into the fields below. Almost. With a thud, he felt the ground hit his face, and something in his left hindpaw snapped.

Still in a quadrupedal gait, Elgan wandered as the sun rose. How was he supposed to walk on just one foot, after all? In pain, he grumbled about how it should have been a forepaw. It would still hurt like hell, but it wouldn't require this awkward three-legged limp about it. Without free hands, applications of magic were extremely limited for a sun dragon. Combat? What am I even going on about? No one's dumb enough to fight off a dragon. Indeed, Elgan himself had chosen to run instead of face the older dragons that held the gilded throne of Afon-Tan. It was just common sense to flee from one so much more powerful than yourself.

"But where I flee, they will follow," Elgan said to nobody, then citing a passage from the Creed of Flame. "And to not be followed, you must flee where they cannot, and be stronger than them. And by then, you need not flee at all." He grimaced. Such passages always had a way of wrapping around to the opposite of his ideas. But I've gone where they cannot, and where I need not be strong. Everyone fears the surface world and its impurities, but I've been tainted since my first breath! Forgetting his position briefly, he put the broken foot down on the ground and yelped in pain. Jadethrone was high overhead now, and the day had only begun.

The Healing Spring

It had been a long ocht of wandering, setting and resetting bones like those old wartime books had said, crying for a bit from the pain, and looking for any sign of civilization. Elgan had been unsuccessful so far, sticking to the forested areas that would be hard to navigate for travellers. Wild beasts seemed to instinctively ignore the dragon, fitting of their understanding of their place in the world. All living things existed by the whims of dragonkind, after all. And speaking of dragons, he smelled one. Definitely not a clan he had caught the scent of before, but it had that distinct weight to it. Limping towards it, excited by the prospect of actually meeting another person again, he tried with more effort to pick up the notes of that smell. Water, steam by the way it resonated, mixed with some soft stone. He'd never bothered to learn the names of all the types of rock that weren't gemstones, but it was definitely one that could become sand.

As he approached, the sounds of rushing water became apparent. The night wasn't particularly cool, but a mist seemed to be getting thicker the closer to this water and dragon Elgan got. Hunger was beginning to get to him again; the last few minor bonfires had barely sufficed for sustenance while keeping cover. Just as he found the body—a spring!—the other dragon hurled a spear in his direction. Strengthened by the compressed musculature they wore, Elgan barely managed to roll out of the way. He'd always been better at running than hiding. Not like hiding is really possible when you're a walking lantern.

"Stay back! Or else I'll... I'll boil you alive!" A scared sort of vibrato diluted the threat from this mint-scaled dragon, who was readying another spear, inconsistent with their threat. Elgan, quite set off from the bone-soreness that roll had induced, snapped back.

"Oh please, go right the fuck ahead! Threaten the fire dragon with burning!"

"Wait, you're— shit!" Another spear throw, another dodge. This time Elgan's foot snapped again. He cried out, cursing in the three tongues known to him.

The other dragon, some aquatic variety that the high society of Ailell dared not even remember in their single-Discipline reverence, nervously exited the spring-pool in compressed bipedal form, a third spear in hand. Very slightly clothed, they slowly circled the sun dragon, whose attempts to control his flame's heat were failing through the pain of the mangled paw. It felt like needles of pure pressure being twirled inside the musculature, bringing an awareness of the minute anatomy within it that Elgan may have appreciated if not for the reason.

The other dragon had gained some confidence, having retrieved one of the spears. No context told the lost sun nothing. What clan, what affiliation, what this place was, even the state of surface civilization. The assailing spring-dweller, now cornering the injured, immobile and much less naturally armored Elgan, began questioning him.

"Answer me without hesitation and I may let you purchase what you're here for. What is your name and allegiance?"

Elgan shuddered. Such a question would have been trivial for almost anyone else, but him? Well, he hadn't had a moment to think about it that wasn't also in pain from the broken foot. A lie, anything at all to keep this mad warrior off him.

"N-none. No lord to serve, no—damn, this thing hurts—no name from any house." The other dragon twirled the spear and smacked Elgan over the horns with the blunt end.

"Don't be so damn obtuse! What city or town do you hail from, and what are you called?! Gods, the nerve..."

"...Oh. I didn't... I'm from... I'm from the Red City."

The other dragon grimaced. "I am going to give you a proper example, and then you had better follow it and spill before I spill your guts. My name is Eliese, and I hail from no settlement but here. I am the presiding lady of this spring and have no other titles." Elgan's mind blurred with speed. Titles, names, cities that cannot be known and information he did not wish to reveal. No clues, no trace, nothing could be left lest Ailell came searching.

"You don't know the Red City? Caer Rhuddgoch? I must have traveled further than I thought, hehe." A narrowing of Eliese's pupils. Name, she seemed to be chanting internally. Pseudonyms, just words, began flooding in. Flowers, places, old friends and foes. No, it had to be something strange and lofty. Rivers—too obvious, sun—no. Suns, ring, stars, star. Star, Seren.

"I told you name and city. Maybe you can't be boiled, but I hear it feels real cold to get bled." She pointed the spearhead toward him again.

"Seren! Please, that's it! Don't... don't threaten me please." Pain and anger were both subsiding to fear. Eliese stepped away. She'd grown suspiciously more confident the worse shape Elgan—Seren, to throw off Ailell, was in.

Putting a hand over the spring, she drew up a globule of water. The daylight drowned it out, but it had a similar hue and glow to her own scales, which Seren had ample view of through the thin and sparse cloth she wore. Eliese directed the water into a bowl of quartz, and hobbled over to the injured dragon.

"What are you going to do with that?" He asked.

"Do broken paws normally make you an idiot? You came here for spring elixir, no?" She raised a scaled brow at this, oak eyes glittering in something between curiosity and irritation. Seren quickly considered the options, nobly-trained rhetoric and disobedient silver-gilded tongue sorting through the most plausible seventy dozen lies in seconds.

""

In which Seren picks that as a pseudonym and starts trying to hide from potential Ailelli forces. Covers a lot of early wanderings through Remna.

In which Seren gets freak nasty in the Starshattered Desert and causes minor political consequences. party member acquired, and also gender crisis episode. Resolves itself very quickly and is this early on because i would like to stop misgendering my self insert please.

In which Seren meets Veltárinn and several other people in Maytara, and lives for quite some time there. Starts picking up music and bardery here.

In which Seren has a not-so-fun time at the eclipse-watching event with Veltárinn. Political consequences are moderate to severe this time.

In which Seren and Thaorel deal with the consequences of exile again and meet a strange young witch.

In which Seren meets a scarily familiar figure from Ailelli rumors, the fabled Rhafos the Disgraced. Rhafos offers Seren the ultimate solution to their problems.

In which Seren begins to have strange dreams after a magic-induced sickness. Dreams which persist after they recover.