@Marakai Trin Home.
It had been far too long since she'd thought of the foothills of the Thunderblacks as home, even when she'd actually lived here. Azalea circled above the small village below her, her wings stalling to catch a particularly strong updraft that lifted her another few feet without effort.
She really should land. It had been three years since she'd seen her father, but that letter had requested she take leave from her training to come home for a visit. He'd
never done something like that before- she couldn't shake the feeling that it must be something important.
But she just couldn't being herself to land. She snorted, chilling the air around her with a blast of frosty breath, before banking away, climbing higher into the clouds to trace the edges of the mountains. Hopefully no one down below had seen her, she hadn't been over the village that long.
Or if they had seen her, hopefully she hadn't been recognized.
A sharp sigh and she banked wide to avoid an outcropping of rock, continuing her climb into the mountains. She honestly didn't know where she was going, but she was convinced if she just kept flying she'd get there eventually.
This wasn't home anymore. But one day, it would be a battlefield - the man in black could feel it in the depths of what twisted thing served as his heart.
Kranath stood on the shattered peak of what was once the Aerie, gazing down at a clearing of paved stone far below. He'd already tried to access the secret entrance far below, but found he'd been locked passage. His brother had been smart. And so, he'd scales the mountain only to remember the upper reaches had long been destroyed - that battle when Tiamat had finally worked total control over him, making him Hers.
A black long-coat and long, silk-like whipped in the wind suddenly as a large form flew by, only to rise over the clouds. Glowing crimson eyes followed the outline of a dragon, the sun casting it's shadow through the clouds. Beneath those eyes, two marks seemingly formed of shadow wavered and writhed across a thin, pale face, expressionless in its visage.
After a moments decision, the avatar of Tiamat broke into a run, leaping off the peak with great strength, following after the dragon by jumping the distance between peaks, flying through the air and across stone with inhuman speed.
She didn't know how long she flew, but when she glanced down to get her bearings- Azalea realized she'd flown into a section of the mountains she'd never seen before.
It wasn't that hard to do; her time in the Thunderblacks had usually been confined to her own village in the foothills around it. Still, she was surprised she hadn't even noticed the change in landscape. She stalled in the air, glancing around. Well, she'd come from the southwest, so home was...that way.
Okay, good. At least she could find her way back home. Probably.
Another huffed breath and the icy white dragon folded her wings to her back, dropping like a stone toward the ground. She snapped her wings open at the last moment to keep herself from crashing into the rough stone of the mountainside, grabbing at the jutting rocks with her front paws and scrabbling to get proper purchase from her sudden landing.
Her head bowed and she panted, only then realizing just how tired she was. She'd been flying since sunup, and a quick glance skyward confirmed that dusk was fast approaching. Her breath fogged the air, icy crystals slowly covering the stone in front of her.
The dragon had finally ceases it's flight. Kranath stopped as well, drawing his black bladed wakizashi and plunging it into the stone with a screech, stopping his momentum as he came to a final landing. He observed the creature below him, watching as it's breath frosted the stone in front of it.
Ice dragon. Species was...unknown to him.
Drawing his blade from the earth, he continued to observe. The scent brought on by the breeze was strange - both dragon and somehow not.
Despite the constant running and jumping, if one was looking they'd find he wasn't out if breath - in fact, his chest rose and fell so shallowly, it would be difficult to tell if he were breathing at all.
Uncaring about the chance of detection, he stepped forward to peer over the edge of the cliff, watching the dragon below.
A strange scent hit her nose and Azalea tensed. Her head snapped up, eyes narrowed as she searched for the source of the smell. Dragon, she thought.
A...man? She shook her head, bemused. No, definitely not human. Maybe another dragon's avatar?
"Um...hello?" She blinked and flexed her claws, making the stone groan under her. "I, ah- didn't mean to intrude."
She'd met enough wild dragons to know how territorial they could be, particularly the males.
Kranath continued to stare downwards, eyes unblinking and face utterly emotionless. He listened to the dragon speak. Intrude? Not so.
With deliberate slowness, Kranath moved his foot over the edge if the cliff, settling the bottom of his shoe on the solid surface.
With a flash of movement, he was gone from that space. A sound behind the other dragon would reveal his presence there.
When he spoke, he was facing the direction opposite her.
"....if you are intruding, then so am I."
He slowly turned his head to allow one blazing eye to look over his shoulder at her.
"....your scent is strange. You look like a dragon. You almost smell like one. What are you?"
Azalea yelped and had to renew her grip on the stone, startled by his sudden presence behind her.
"What- what are you?" she retorted. "I've never met a dragon who could do...well, that." She managed to get her back feet braced on a ledge below her and let go of the mountainside so she could crouch properly, watching him warily.
Kranath lifted a brow, and turned fully to face her.
"What am I? I am a dragon. I was once of the Aerie, thousands of years ago. I am also....more. More than you need know. Now....you have a question to answer. And you will answer it."
His eyes flared brightly with primal, hellish light to punctuate his remark.
An instinctive thrill of rear ran down her spine and Azalea felt a growl rise up in her chest. She swallowed it down and ruffled her wings, trying to make herself appear a bit larger than she was.
"I am a dragon," she defended automatically. "I mean- half. I just- look, if I'm in you're territory I'll go, alright? I didn't mean anything by it."
The mans eyes faded slightly, and he regarded her for a long moment, that grim, expressionless look unchanging.
"I have no territory. You intrude on another's, perhaps, but I claim none. I have grander designs, larger than a few large rocks and a cave."
Kranath could smell her fear, nearly taste it like a sweet wine, and it took no small amount of restraint on his part to take advantage of it. Despite this, his tone remained flat.
"Have no fear, half-dragon. You're not worth the kill, tainted as your soul is."
The ice dragon snorted and jerked her head up, eyes narrowing. "Tainted?" she snarled, soft purple eyes hardening to sharp amethyst. "The bloody hell is that supposed to mean?"
Aggression showed in every tense line of her body- after the day she'd had, she was really not in the mood to be insulted.
Kranath snorted at her show of aggression, tilting his head upward slightly and looking down at her, his eyes glowing brightly once again.
"You'd do well to calm yourself. If you attack, I will defend myself. And I will kill you. By tainted, I mean as half a dragon, you have half of a Dragons soul. Tiamat wouldn't accept it as it is. But..."
For the first time during this encounter, he smiled. Such a smile upon that thin face with those hellish eyes could only be described as nightmarish.
"....I would. So calm down, lest you taste my blade."
Azalea growled, but she certainly made no move to attack. Her stance was more defensive than anything else, irritation still clear in every line of her body.
"You're talking nonsense," she muttered, shuffling her wings before letting them fold against her back properly. "I don't have half of anything- my soul is my own."
Who the hell was Tiamat? For that matter- who the hell was this stranger?
She tossed her head and looked out over the mountains. She was still wary, ready to spring into action if he showed any real sign of aggression. "What are you?"
"Nonsense to you, perhaps, but to me it would be a grand mistake." His race resumed it's grim visage, then, that bloodthirsty smile vanishing.
"And I am...what I am. I have been called fear itself, in ages past. The Wings of Night. He who precedes the Reaper. I am a Black Dragon, and I am avatar of the Dread Queen herself."
She blinked at him.
"Uh-huh. Aaaand, I believe this is where I back away slowly..." She shuffled back a bit on the small ledge, glancing around for an easy way to take off. "Lovely meeting you and all, Mister Wings of Night or Dread Queen or whatever you are, but I think I'll just be on my way."
This dragon was crazy. Even so, she could practically feel power radiating off of him- insulting he may have been, but she wasn't about to risk getting into a fight with a creature that was so obviously dangerous.
There it was again - that fear, that sweet, sweet fear that he could almost live off of. She was scared of him, and he supposed she was right to be.
"I am...not the queen. I am infused with her essence. I am her will on the world." Even as she spoke of departure, his eyes suddenly swirled with blackness, snuffing out the brilliant red light.
"Every death I cause is for her. The blood I spill is hers to bathe in. She promises power beyond any living creatures ken, and I will wield it..."
He stepped toward her, one single step, and the next words he spoke positively dripped with dark magic, imbued with the darkest fathomable parts of ones mind.
Powerful, inescapable fear.
"Those that share not in the darkness her wings create will drown in that darkness. Fear and shadow will reign supreme. These mountains will be bathed in the blood of man, dragons, elves, all who do not share in the darkness."
Another step. An aura like that of black fog rolled off his body, and those nearby could hear the whispers of the void, tormented and full of hate, crying out against the light.
His next words came in his own voice, but the display of power did not cease.
".....will you revel in the shadow, half-breed... or will it consume you? I will offer you this chance....stand with us today....or die tomorrow."
Azalea's eyes went wide and she scrambled backward. Her back leg slipped off the ledge and her wings flared out in an effort to counterbalance herself.
Yeah. He was definitely insane.
And dangerous.
She nearly slipped off the ledge and with a desperate little cry just barely managed to shift to her human form before she tumbled off the mountainside. Perhaps not her smartest move, but ration thought seemed to hard for her currently.
She managed to get her feet under herself as she toed the edge of the ledge, getting more distance between them now that she was human sized. "I- I don't- what?"
Kranath took one more step forward, one hand reaching over his shoulder to take hold of the wrapped handle of his daikatana. In one fluid movement, he unsheathed the six foot blade - as it arched through the air, a plume of pure shadow followed it, it's black crystalline blade reflecting no light
The tip of said blade suddenly leveled at her face, and he stared down its length to see it pointed directly at her left eye.
"....to put it simply....join me, serve the Lady, or you will die. Your mind and soul will be twisted and tormented until She comes for you. Or you can share in Her power. I offer you power in servitude....or death."
The half dragon felt her heart stop. Her mouth went dry as she stared up at him with wide eyes.
Oh gods she was terrified. But she couldn't let him do this- she had to stop him, whatever he was planning. It's what her mother would have done, right?
But she couldn't. She wasn't strong enough and she knew it.
"I- I don't even know who your Lady is," she gasped in a desperate bid for time.
"She is Tiamat, the Dread Queen, one of three responsible for the shaping of the world as you know it. A dark God, one might say." The shadows in Kranath's eyes seemed to pulse and writhe, almost alive with malevolence.
"My patience wears thin, half-breed. Enough questions - date me with an answer, or flee and know you turned down the unimaginable. You won't get far...."
Azalea scrambled backwards and almost fell off the ledge. "Wh-why so I only have two choices?" She tried to sound belligerent, but her voice was shaking- and she knew he could probably sense the fear coiled tight in her stomach.
"Just...let me go. I wasn't even supposed to be here, please..."
(date was supposed to be sate, wtf phone)
"Because in the end of all things, those are the only choices anyone will have. Live, and stand in darkness. Or die with the light. You can save yourself now....or flee now, and die when She comes. That is the choice you have."
He glared, and now the dark marks on his cheeks spread out to form Eldritch lines, writhing and alive, moving in time with his speech.
"Choose....or I will choose for you."
[Haha, it happens]
She pressed back against the stone, staring up at him. Her blood ran cold in her veins and for a moment she swore her heart stopped.
She couldn't fight him. The power rolling off him was too great, she wouldn't last more than a few seconds.
But...maybe she could stall him.
She had taken it upon herself to follow her mother's path. To be a defender of innocents. But maybe this was the best she could do- play along until someone who could defeat this threat appeared. At least if she was near him, she could watch and learn.
Heart in her throat, she whispered, "I...will stand...with you."
The daikatana lowered, slowly, and he turned his body to offer his other hand. Without warning, a swirling cloud of darkness wrapped around his fingers, flickering almost like a black torch.
That darkness held power - infectious, dangerous power. A tiny part of the essence of Tiamat, a measure of her will. Something that she would have to fight for control. But she didn't have to know that.
"Take my hand then....and welcome the darkness, as it welcomes you."
Azalea stared up at him for a few moments longer- then took his hand.
Pain shot down her arm and she cried out, trying to snatch her hand back...but she couldn't seem to let go.
The darkness flowed forth from Kranath, wrapping up and around Azalea's arm and disappearing into her flesh.
Suddenly, her mind would lock to the world around, and it would be as if she were in a great, dark plane, surroundings barely visible with the absence of nothing more than Eldritch flames. Her senses would be assaulted with an overwhelming feeling of wrongness, her mind filled with heated whispers of hate, torment, and anguish. Wisps of darkness would flow all around her, indistinguishable in their form, but if one listened, they may surmise the whispers emanated from them.
In the darkness, a truly massive form would emerge, features difficult to distinguish - all that would be seen would be the outline of a truly titanic dragon, covered in mismatched spikes curved like blades. From its mouth emanated a soft, blue otherworldly fog, glowing slightly.
Above this was a massive pair of red eyes, burning bright as twin suns, filled with a malevolence and enough hatred to set the world aflame.
Then all would be silent, but for a mental voice in Azalea's mind, feminine and smooth as silk.
You are Azalea...You would seek to turn this tide away from the world...even now, I can see your goals as easily as I see my own....
The great dragon stalked forward one step, cleaning a distance that seemed unlikely in his abyssal space.
But you cannot resist...You will play as the second pawn in my conquest. I am Tiamat. And you will submit to me...
And then, like a great whirlwind, the darkness would be blown away, great dragon and all, to reveal reality once again.
Kranath held her hand still, unprivy to these proceedings. At arms length, he stared at her unblinkingly, waiting for her reaction, the transfer of power complete.
The half dragon was frozen, not even breathing as the world went black and cold around her. She wanted to run, to scream, to fight back, to so something, but she was held immobile.
If wasn't until the real world rushed back in around her that she felt she could breathe. She gasped and pitched sideways, barely managing to brace her hand on the rock beside her to keep herself from cracking her skull against the stone.
"Wh-what...why?"
Kranath held a grip still, staring at her through eyes now colored red, his face expressionless before a single brow slanted upward.
The marks and darkness of his eyes, one would note, was gone.
"....what do you mean, 'why?' What did she say to you?"
Azalea snatched her hand back. Ignoring his question, she spat, "What was that? Why did you...?"
Her stomach roiled and she suddenly twisted away, retching as her body tried to expel whatever had just happened to her to no avail.
"That...was Tiamat. The Dread Queen. And I didn't - She did. I gave you a small portion of her essence. A small piece of her power. To live in the darkness....the darkness must live in you. Or it will consume you. All I did was give Her the opportunity to accept you...and since your mind is not broken...it would seem as if she has."
His hand laid down at his side, relaxed. Slowly, the dark marks reappeared on his face, fading into view as the piece of power he had given her, once lost, grew full again.
"The physical ailment you feel is your body attempting to adapt to the very essence of death and fear. I know not the power you will get...but it will be great."
He turned away from her, then, and took several steps away.
"You may even become as powerful as me...if you don't fight it. If you do fight it....well, you'll get a reminder every now and then why you shouldn't. And it'll be alot worse than what you're feeling right now. Trust me....I know. I fought her once, for so many years did I fight her....but the power she gives is endless. All you have to do is give in."
She stared at him in silence, breathing ragged.
"Why? What does she want?" she asked quietly after several long moments.
"From you? I cannot say. Her will is Her own - I simply carry it out. But her goal...her goal is, ultimately, to darken the world for her Children, the denizens of the dark. At the end of all things, the world will be left only for us and Her."
He looked to her again. "Do not remain prostrate on the ground. Stand, and be strong. Feel the power now within you, and revel in it."
After another moment of trying to get her bearings, Azalea awkwardly got to her feet. She certainly didn't feel strong- she felt lost and nauseous and terrified.
She stared at the other dragon, eyes blank as shivers rippled her frame. Her body seemed to be shutting down, physical and mental shock setting in.
"Relax. If you don't, you will die. Breathe as you normally would. It may even help if you transform - dragons have much more vitality than humans, anyway."
Kranath was getting impatient - he wasn't a helper, he was a killer. If need be, he'd simply put her out of her misery.
Azalea shook her head, but it was more a gesture of shock than denial. Her knees almost gave out and she squeaked, taking her dragon from.
Her legs were no stronger when she had four of them, and she collapsed to the stone. However, she seemed to be able to get her bearings better in this shape and managed to clamber back to her feet. She focused on breathing, her sides working like a bellows and she closed her eyes.
What had he done to her. "I- I have to go," she whispered, unable to form another conscious thought. "I have to go home..."
Kranath snorted derisively, turning away and crossing his arms over his thin chest. It was a moment before he spoke.
"Fine. Fly off, and whimper like a whelp until you waste away to nothing - that's your concern, I care not. But, if you survive....you'll know how to find me, if you use your gifts."
In a movement that was barely perceptible, he was then almost thirty feet above, standing on a story ledge, looking down at her.
"Don't say I didn't warn you. Don't resist."
Azalea scrambled toward the edge of the ledge, flaring her wings wide before she launched herself out into open space.
She didn't look back, just flew like her life depended on it. She wasn't even sure she knew which direction she was going, but gods she hoped she was headed home.
(-pokes this thread- YOU WILL LIVE AGAIN!!!)
Kranath smirked as Azalea's form eventually became naught more than a diminutive dot above the horizon, and turned away.
"She's strong...she'll be back." He chuckled darkly to himself, and vanished with a sudden burst of speed, leaping from mountaintop to mountaintop.
She is strong, my pawn, but you must watch her. She is not to be trusted...not yet. But in time, she will break.
"Indeed. We shall see what happens when she returns."
[Lol]
It was three weeks before Azalea returned.
She tried to stay with her father, home in her village, but it was too painful. The memories and the distance between them only seemed to have grown, and with a darkness curling inside her it was too much to bear.
So she left, intending to return to her new home, to the capital, but something held her back. She found herself making continuous stops, camping in the shadows of the mountains, then in the mountains themselves.
Finally, she somehow found herself back where she'd first met the dark dragon. She honestly had no idea how she got there, but somehow she was standing near the top of one of the higher peaks, staring around in bewilderment.
In human form, she stalked to the edge of her ledge and looked out over the jagged mountaintops, wind ripping at her hair and clothes. "Where are you?!"
Her voice echoed back to her.
From behind her came the whispered word of night, an echo of her fears.
"I'm here. I've been waiting for you to call for me."
He stepped from the shadows behind her, eyes glowing balefully, staring holes in the back of her head. "I see you're still alive...how does the darkness treat you, half-breed?"
She whirled, eyes flaring amethyst rather than the soft purple of the flower she was named for. "Don't. Call. Me. That," she hissed, baring her teeth in an instinctive threat display.
"I want it gone. Take it back!"
[Sorry! Laptop is being dumb :/]
Kranath stepped forward, a thin smile curling his lips as the dark marks on his face twisted and writhed. "Why would you want it gone? Look at you - where once there was fear, there is nothing but strength. I can feel it within you, like a separate heartbeat."
In a flash, he was directly behind her, and his whispered voice would haunt her once more.
"Deal with it."
Something about what he said rang scarily true and she whirled, grabbing for the front of his shirt with a snarl still on her lips.
"I never asked for this!" Ice gathered at her fingertips, her breath so cold it fogged the air.
Kranath stared at her as she snarled into his face, red eyes flat and staring. They narrowed almost imperceptibly, and suddenly he shoved her away from him with a strength unbecoming a thin man of his size.
Though he'd put distance between them, he took small steps forward. "You did ask for it. You didn't want to die, so you made your choice." His steps slowed, and when he smiled, his eyes swirled again with a familiar darkness.
As they did, Azalea would feel something within her pulling, physically moving inside her body. What she didn't know was that Kranath could feel it, too.
"...you live, yet you haven't accepted it. Why do you still live, half-breed?"
Azalea's eyes widened, then she gave a sharp cry, bending forward and pressing her hands against her middle as though that could stop the power moving inside her.
"I don't know," she gasped. "I just want it to stop! Please!"
Kranath continued walking towards her, stopping only when he was no more than a foot away.
He grabbed her by the hair, and pulled her up to be face to face with him. When she would see him, she'd see a different face than what she recognized, this one twisted and hard, teeth like needles inside his mouth with his lips pulled inti a snarl.
The soulless black eyes, though, were the same, staring into her violet ones, as if peering into her very soul.
"Then give in," he hissed.
"No." She struggled weakly, slamming her eyes shut. "No no no no! Just let me go, please, let me go!"
But he wouldn't. He continued speaking, and as he did so the darkness in her would writhe, twisting her insides.
"Do you know why I can do this to you? I can manipulate the darkness inside you because it's mine. If you want it to stop, then make it yours!"
He tossed her lightly to the ground, and turned away. "It doesn't come out. You let it in - it stays until it kills you, or something else does."
Azalea cried out, curling in on herself.
"How?" she screamed, unable to stand it anymore. "I don't know how!"
"Use it! Welcome it, and stop hating it!" He whirled on her with glowing eyes, the darkness having gone away and his face normal again.
"Accept it as a part of yourself! Let it be a part of you. You'll be so much stronger...to have survived these last few weeks despite fighting it tells of your strength. That strength will only multiply."
He walked to stand over her, looking down at her with bis eyes alight. "I was the same way, and look at my strength now. You could be just as powerful..."
Panting, she glared up at him.
"Alright," she rasped out. "Alright! But I won't be like you. This doesn't own me!"
She stopped fighting, allowing the power to wash through her body. A sharp cry tore out of her and she pressed her hands to her temples.
She wouldn't let this own her, she controlled it, not the other way around!
I am not anIT.And no one controls me, Azalea.
The voice echoing within her mind was as soft as silk, very feminine, and yet very commanding. The writhing in Azalea's body would cease, and she would instead feel a sudden pressure in her extremities as it spread throughout, perhaps painful for a single second before the feeling disappeared.
You have but to further my goals, and you will never feel that pain, that sickness, ever again. I will not make you my slave....but you will not fight me. Give me souls, half-dragon, and I will give you power beyond what you could imagine.
As the voice was echoing within Azalea's head, Kranath listened with a smile.
It was about damn time.
Kranath. Test her. Make her use the strength I have given her...but do not kill her, or I will return you to the void that I pulled you from.
Kranath's smile disappeared, and his gaze flicked to the woman in front of him.
Calmly, he reached over his shoulder, and unsheathed the unusually long daikatana from his back, the light playing across the black, crystalline blade.
"Your will be done, my Lady...."
Azalea's eyes widened. "Are you fucking kidding me?!" She glared at him, but imagined she was glaring at the voice in her head.
She growled, teeth bared as she sank back into a defensive crouch on bare feet. "Your time is over, lady. I'm not giving you anything."
Kranath sighed, and lowered his sword. "That's a mistake. Are you incapable of listening? To insult a Goddess with a piece of herself inside you.... That's true stupidity."
Indeed. Do you need a reminder of the agony I just gave you relief from, half-dragon?
Her teeth felt together as she growled softly. "You haven't killed me yet, which makes me think I'm more use to you alive than dead. You can hurt, but you don't want to kill me."