She could no longer walk, so her claws dug deeply into the ground, helping her pull herself forward on the muddy soil. One leg was ravaged down to the bone, another was missing, but it was exhaustion that reduced her to such a hideous joke. As she gazed around, trying to make it home, she mourned the eyes she lost, which now left her lacking the vibrancy and range of colors. She could barely differentiate between mud, grass, wood and stone. Everything blended together, especially the blood. Still, her nose was working and home was close. At least here there was enough mana to see even without her eyes.

She kept dragging herself over the hall that she had wandered a million times over since she claimed this place as her home. She went past the many destroyed lamps she had painstakingly carved and enchanted herself. Past the utterly ruined hanging garden she adorned her walls with. Death, so much death filled her halls, replacing the life she gave to this forsaken foreigner of land.

Death… She sniffed at the air and looked down at the puddle of blood which was all that was left of that woman. Hundreds of boots imprimed their existence into the stone, from her liquid life. Of course, she simply sighed and kept on crawling, only to see more and more destruction further in. She had seen her child’s attack, the explosion powered by the remains of that unborn elemental. It did more than simply burn some people or throw them about. Even in the temple, pieces of the ceiling had fallen over men, leaving their half-crushed remains thrown about.

If only they had all been dead, she wouldn’t have minded it too much. But instead of being able to get to the vault, she was blocked by little quivering men, wearing cloth and some iron, clearly having been busy brutalizing the precious artworks. their screams were drowned by her wrathful roar and half a minute later they all joined the tens of thousands of corpses she had made.

Monsters, giant weapons that would take generations of craftsmen to properly make in this part of the world, slavers that could bend countless exotic kins to their will using hideous tools to compensate for their otherwise mediocrity… they even weaponised the shame of her kin, all to bring her down.

And they failed, because they didn’t bring one more monster, one more weapon, one more danger… Or maybe because they spread their forces too thin. The strongest of humans were out in the forest, running after her children. Had she met them… She’d take one or two with her, but she would be as good as dead, especially since she hadn’t killed all the slavers. The “Masters”... She was angered that they dared use such valiant words to describe themselves, despite being little more than living leashes.

The angered mother roared and dusted a blockade of fallen boulders, her patience spread too thin to contain all her worries. At least she reached it. Her vault. Open and wrecked, like a storm passed through. Trinkets, instruments, scrolls and books, all destroyed. There were more corpses here, with splinters of gems peppering their mangled flesh. The mana was manifesting by itself, partly from the explosion, partly from the small amount of chaos mana that had formed.

The woman cursed the gods for their petty interference, and then cursed again when she felt the presence of one made manifest. It wasn’t like before, when she killed that small avatar, this was a lawful act that allowed her enemy to bring her power in truth. No chains were binding Rirshka anymore, which meant her children were in more danger than ever before.

Thankfully, in spite of everything else being destroyed, the complex mechanisms below her were still functional. The mana that had been stored for so long, the power that was always waiting, exactly in case of something like this, was finally being called upon. A long string of words of power followed, the world trembling ever so slightly, the mana roiling and fighting against being made to change from its static state, but it could not ignore a dragon’s will, so it obeyed.

The earth outside cracked. Whatever poor sod decided to loiter about found himself kneeling in the mud quite quickly, the sheer power of a mountain taking flight being enough to knock anyone off their feet. The ones most unlucky were swallowed by the crater left behind, then got promptly buried underneath the earth that followed. Terror reigned as the waves of mana that held up the impossibly large floating island were pouring out and crashing against the humans below, making most of them collapse lifeless. It was a power that unearthed trees, withered life for its sin of weakness, and ruined the plans of self important goddesses.

The last of her will was spent on a final roar, empowered only by the fragments of mana still in her heart, weak by itself, yet taken by the flood of mana and amplified to echo through the open air. A roar that called her children home… Whatever children were still alive, at least.

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They had slept for too long, but it was needed. They knew, of course, that it was their purpose as the most unfit of them all. Sometimes the dragons forgot that, of course, that they too had a purpose, but they followed their instincts regardless, with few exceptions. They were the things nobody truly liked. Not innately. That is why they always had to work together, fulfil their roles.

The few that became dragons had to, well, be dragons. The most unfit didn’t know why being a dragon was so important, but it was the dragon’s duty to be a dragon. The living failures then had to make it easier for the dragons to grow undisturbed, so they had to grow faster and ravage the lands, draw away attention from the few important ones and if they survive long enough and got lucky to find a kind one, they were to serve a dragon until they died. They pitied the living failures, for their crucial duties were often forgotten. Still they couldn’t pity them too hard, since the most unfit had even more complex duties.

Merge, grow, in spite of not being truly alive, in spite of being denied that right, they had to become bigger, accumulate their power. They had to also spread it about, make food for the successful ones, teach the thoughtless how to think. They had to also be a source of power for the little ones, making it easy for them to take away from the chaos so that they might learn. Finally, if something were to happen and an outside threat were to harm the developing dragons, they were to use their accumulated power to help, despite the fact that the most unfit would not exist any longer.

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They were a bit angry that despite having so many duties, they stumbled across a new one that they were not told about. Not that anyone particularly told them about these duties, still they liked to pretend that they were angry. What was this duty? Why, their eldest brother had a saddening talent. He was talented in the same thing as the most unfit ones, despite being fit. So then, why was that their trouble? Because the only way for that talent to truly blossom, for that heart in his chest to fully embrace and begin developing his own path, the only way for him to get a proper name was to devour a living crystal, like the other siblings. Devour it whole, take in the soul of that which had yet to be born…

But how could he find such a thing? Chaos didn’t have proper elementals, just wild storms that happened and unhappened. So they had to be devoured. But they had to stay alive to protect. It was a painful process to come to a conclusion, it was even more painful to watch him struggle while they were thinking of their decision.

And then danger came, so their struggle was moot. They called for the eldest, they called for their brother, because they had to fulfil their purpose and help him and they had to do both at once. That is how they ended up protecting him from that young goddess, even if they had to cheat.

It was nice, getting to see him properly in their true death. It was nicer still to be capable of fulfilling his wish… a pity then that they didn’t know how. Therein laid the problem, for they knew what they had to do but not how, so instead they latched onto his dream, his wish, his thoughts and his heart. They latched on and they saw how best to make it come true.

The fragmented gemstone melted into nothingness, bit by bit, as their vision unfolded. The most unfit fragmented as well, splitting off while they still could, eager to save all from the death that awaited them. They heard the mother’s call, and they knew they had to bring the children home safely.

If only it was that easy.

Three small fragments flew away, eager to find the siblings and deliver them to safety. They found their sister the furthest away, running on the bottom of the river, evading attacks from the men outside. She wouldn’t have heard the shout and the mana pittered off by the time it reached these invaders, so they had to act. The water around her exploded outwards, searing through them. The last they saw, a blue blur took to the sky, following the mountain.

The brother of flames was followed by a man of holy lightning. A strong being, a dangerous one. Ultimately, something that they need not kill for him, just hold off, so they did. They melted into the man, poisoning his thunder with concepts too foreign to his mind, just as their sibling took to the skies, obeying their mother.

The sibling of stone… they couldn’t save him. Not fully. He was dying and he was being held captive by powerful humans. They could take him to mother and see him die, or heal him and see him chained, they did not have enough power for both and did not have decades to contemplate, so they followed their most powerful instinct. Keep him alive.

And finally, their first target, saved last. Their sibling that was in the most dire danger. The one that, even if healed did not have energy to fly, even if taken up to mother, would only be followed by the gods, the one who just wanted to be anywhere else, anywhere safe. They took him away. His wish was, in fact, meant for everyone. Not just himself or the siblings, he had wanted the three humans to be safe too, so they did as asked and used most of their power to whisk them away, while also imprinting themselves on his heart. He will hate them for it, when he wakes up, but they had to do it, or else he might not have survived for long.

They were almost reluctantly happy to be of use in their final moments… right up until the monstrous man sliced at their spell.

They vanished into nothingness weeping over their failure.

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Ayrah was dead. She had to be. She had been dead for a long time and just did not notice it, or else why would she suddenly find herself in the fields west of her home? She could even see a man with horns like an ox that she had once called “boy” standing a few paces away, gaping at her appearance. Her eye trailed to the side, in the tall grass, and there he found a girl that seemed to have barely aged, yet changed so much more to resemble her rat–like guardian. She held a sharpened stick while letting out sharp sounds of alarm, no doubt calling over every hunter from even beyond what her eyes could see.

Her arms wrapped tighter against the small crippled boy that felt too cold to the touch. They were home. Children of her clan still lived and wandered the fields. She was whole and could feel her beloved Muur watching over her again.

And yet she cried. She cried as she was embraced by those children that had changed so much, she cried for she was safe but the one that helped her be safe, the one that got her here, was not with her and neither was that young girl.

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Night had fallen. No one was really happy over what ended up happening. Well, most weren’t happy, but Eadgar was plenty satisfied. Sure, lots of folks died, but him and Gunvar managed to haul out way more than they expected and ran out to hide what they got before the Mistress went back home.

If they manage to smuggle this to a fencer, they could live like kings until they died, so that is why they split off to look for where they hid the damn things. They didn’t think about the fact that they’d have to find it again after being so busy hiding it well.

“Any luck, brother? They’ll start asking questions if they don’t see us soon!” In truth, Eadgar was terrified that his friend, his brother, his bestest bud would take everything for himself and run away. Gunvar was always the wittier and crueler of the two, so maybe he should have expected that from the start. Now… if only he would only have to worry about his friend running with the money, and not about him silencing the only guy that knows he is running with the money.

After all, two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.

When he heard a splintering sound behind him, he quickly turned, knife in hand, ready to kill his brother… only to see him look like he had seen a ghost, no, like he himself was one.

“Ru-” He did not even get to say anything as his breath seized and he collapsed, gasping and bleeding from his eyes.

“GUNVAR! I’m here brother, what happened!? Breathe, man, breathe… shit…” He held the man tightly as he breathed so heavily, struggling and clawing at his neck, until he felt him go limp. He laid the man down, cursing as he closed his eyes, not sure what could have killed him in such a horrible way…

He got his answer when he realized that those heavy, labored breaths hadn’t stopped. He didn’t even get to turn as a spear poked through his throat, a burning sensation spreading from the wound and making his body freeze instead of attacking the assassin.

His eyes trembled as he got to see her, however. The way she tried to talk but all she did was hiss, the way her throat looked like it was rotting away, the way her green eyes held only hate.

In spite of his anger at his death, for a moment he pitied her for not following him to the afterlife.