We’re almost literally center stage as we sit on either side of the throne in this circular room. The two of us make up the opposite flanks of the five people gathered about the throne, Lady Kinzul of course sits poised atop its cushions, as if she were light as a feather. The half-back throne’s rear is near the wedge that’s missing from the giant circular table, like a polished concentric ring carved from the mountain itself that takes up most of the room’s space, at least the space that isn’t occupied by kobolds, Draconiacs, and dragons in their human forms. We’re positioned such that everyone can get a good look at us, and I’ve never, ever been comfortable under the scrutiny of large numbers of people. Then again, who is? Well, other than Teuila, and Kinzul, and—. Okay, so it’s really just me, because I’m an anxious introvert.
The last few moments continue replaying in my mind. Teuila and I stating our titles in unison, sending a wave of energy through the crowd as the titles activated our honoris causa, producing the aura of the personification of dragons. We were given titles, and empowered, by the leader of the Order of the Onyx Dawn, Lil’s mother, Kinzul, in order to cement our status among the dragon society as equals to adult dragons.
Teuila’s announcement was of course, “I am Teuila Shellcracker, Guardian of the Onyx Dawn, knight, and sky dragon honoris causa, I shall be known as Tenith”
My announcement was of course, “I am Reggie Shellcracker, Hero of the Onyx Dawn, archmage, and void dragon honoris causa. I shall be known as Schism.”
It sort of feels pretentious, but now it makes a bit of sense why dragons and certain beings talk about themselves in third person, or introduce themselves, or brag about themselves. The names literally have power. Plus, we didn’t pick or empower the names, Lady Kinzul did.
When our honoris causa was unleashed, Teuila virtually lit up like a star, casting a radiant glow out into the crowd, while mine was more akin to the absence of everything, a hungry void that drained the color and light from around me, expanding akin to a black hole. The juxtaposition would be hilarious, if it weren’t so accurate on so many levels. Even just the fact that Teuila is an extrovert, and I’m an introvert, sweating anxiously under the scrutiny of the dozens, perhaps hundreds of kobolds, Draconiacs, and dragons in human guise gathered. My anxiety is still palpable, as the five of us remain seated in the innermost circle of this room of many circles, situated around Kinzul, with Lucky at her feet.
Telepathically reaching out to me, across the link I had established for her, our leader, Lady Kinzul, Administrator of the Onyx Dawn, requests, “Other than the unfortunate, and exceedingly inappropriate infatuation with our Spymaster, have you managed to progress in any meaningful ways?”
I gulp, and blush hot enough to fry eggs. That particular interruption certainly stops me replaying the scene over and over, agonizing and scrutinizing about that minor anxiety. Now instead I’m mortified that I’ve displeased Lil’s mother, our leader. I try not to think about the fact that it’s a bit unfair to call out my infatuation, when it was accidentally created by the magical Latent of our one and only Tenith, my beloved Teuila.
Rattling my skull to dislodge the thoughts, even though Lady Kinzul has already heard my inner monologue, I answer, “I’m four runes closer to the Detect Thoughts spell, up to nineteen out of thirty three. I’ve fourteen more runes to master, which will take the better part of three days, and all of my safe-to-spend Sorcerous Potential, my S P, during those days.”
Thinking more esoterically about my accomplishments during that time, I add, “I did get acquainted with Nala, and I think I brokered some trust from her, by offering to aid in her organization and categorization efforts. She afforded me the acknowledgment of the necessity of categorizing spellbooks and similar with a higher relevancy score, based on her Latent. She also gave me a brief rundown on members of the Onyx Dawn, the region, the forces we’re up against in the might of the Terrorzin Loyalists, and she clued me in as to why Terrorzin is set to act sooner rather than later. He wants to watch the world burn, because his divining pool says he dies within the year, if I’m not mistaken.”
The regal woman in the center of our formation, two spaces to my left, between Lil and Luni, nods in confirmation of the knowledge I’ve gained. I fight to keep myself from gazing upon the sublime matte midnight-black skin of her shoulder that’s exposed by her loose-styled dragon-silk garments. I gulp as my gaze drifts up her equally bare, statuesque back, and the cascading waves of shining onyx hair. The nape of her slender, picturesque neck is perfectly rounded where it meets her cranium—. I mentally facepalm, because Lil is frowning at my mental description of his mother.
Lil, my best-buddy who entered my life as a red spheriform dragonoid, sits at my side, in a shrunken version of his full dragon form. His impressive, rigid, square jaw, and its underbite, still manage to deliver the frown that expresses his discontent with my train of thought. Even the dactyl leather of his wings appears to be taught with tension despite them being folded against the spiky green dorsal ridge that runs down his back. Still, I can’t help but be impressed that my best bud has managed to morph into such a magnificent, firm-scaled red dragon. A twitch on the floor tears my gaze from Lil, directing it at Lucky.
Lucky’s back is pressed up against Kinzul’s left leg, leaving him laying at an angle. Lucky frolics lazily about the mindscape of the thinkspace that I share privately with Teuila, Lil, and Luni, while he maintains a vigilant-yet-subdued facade in meatspace while laying on his side at Kinzul’s feet. I hardly recognize this form of Lucky, and I’m a bit startled by just how much shapeshifting he’s become capable of over our two lifetimes. Our Hound, our Hunter, I have to say I’m proud of him. He is after all, Luni and my son.
At this assertion, Kinzul raises her immaculate right eyebrow, and I flush with embarrassment that she is stuck listening to every line of my internal narrative monologue. Luni, one of my beloveds, blushes and hides her face within the bob of her haircut, as she feigns a need to straighten her bangs. Teuila on the other hand, my first beloved, to Luni’s left, grins derpily.
Teuila delights in the attention, the subtle looks of appraisal, and the recognition of her talents and powers, due to our announcement only a few moments ago. My Wings proudly beams her brilliant smile out into the assembled crowd seated in the inner and outer ring of the table. Teuila has maintained her Valkyrie form for quite some time on Can’Z’aas, but has been adding subtle tweaks to it. In this world, where there’s an abundance of humans, and humanoids, the average height is closer to between five and six feet tall, and she’s adjusted her form to meet the center of that range.
The contours of Teuila’s armor barely hint at the toned, rippling-muscled physique hidden beneath. Where Luni’s body is all soft curves, and full figure, Te’s body is athletic, and honed to perfection with constant training. Her gorgeous red, faded, teased, spiky undercut hairdo hangs flopped mostly to her right side, obscuring much of her face from my view in our current arrangement. Still, I know every detail, ever contour, every pore on Teuila’s face, and the slight freckling that will return now that we’ve access to sunlight. I can picture her sublime, vibrant, verdant eyes, like sparkling mineshafts of pure emerald with utmost clarity in my mind’s eye, despite them behind hidden on the other side of her hair from my current position.
Teuila and Luni, still otterfolk sisters, no matter the forms they take, have the barest sheen of peach fuzz that hints at their nature. Teuila’s is coppery, reddish, while Luni’s is a dark, dark chocolate brown, accentuating the tone of her skin beneath. Teuila’s mocha skin is unimaginably smooth, even without the silky fine nature of the peach fuzz adorning it, which only enhances the velvety, silken texture of every bit of her—.
Teuila you butt. I’m still whammied by your Latent. When the heck does this wear off? Teuila cackles across our shared telepathic wavelength. I fight the smile and laughter, that are warring to reach my face, in order to maintain the air of poise and dignity I’m supposed to be displaying as the Hero of the Onyx Dawn, archmage Schism.
Teuila grumps telepathically, “Reggie, no fun. Have at least a little laugh in thinkspace. My Airhead. My Air, please just let yourself be yourself?”
My telepathic avatar wears a half-frown at Teuila’s request, but it quickly contorts into a partial smile that I’m unable to deny. Teuila’s mental avatar flashes me her miles-wide closed-eyed grin, and I shake my head in a mix of incredulity and exasperation as my own smile spreads wide to my eyes. I loose a chuckle and a sigh in thinkspace, barely able to maintain my calm in meatspace with the anxiety of being the center of attention.
At least it’s better than if I were to notice Errissa, our Spymaster again. Teuila’s Latent accidentally built up, and hit me so hard, that my brain goes utterly crazy every moment I see, or think of Spymaster’s soft slate-gray scales, or her enrapturing, liquid-mercury, shimmering silver eyes, or the firm fit of the tight leathers she wears about her slender, serpentine body with its supple curves and her sauntering, sashaying walk. Imagining those moments when our eyes held contact for far too long, hinting at something that filled me with anticipation, I—. Gorramit Teuila.
It starts with a titter, then a giggle, then the others can’t fight at least snorting a laugh, and those laughs become a chuckle, until everyone’s laughing across our telepathic wavelength. Everyone except Lady Kinzul. There is a slight smirk, the acknowledgment of humor that floats beneath her presence in the telepathic wavelength, but nothing more. At least she isn’t thinking of me with disgust or disdain.
Trying to distract myself from thoughts of the deadly, lithe, gorgeous, enchanting— ack. Trying to distract myself, I attempt to focus my thoughts on other things. There’s been a lot of talk about Latents recently, something I hadn’t even heard about until now, but the people here seem to act as if they might be common knowledge. Does everyone have a Latent? Are they all awakened?
Kinzul manages to answer my question telepathically, “No, and no. As much as I pour nearly all of my heart and soul, my lifeforce, my dragonforce into the Order— and the other necessities it is tied up in, I would not have enough to augment or awaken, much less empower all who have dormant Latents. Most of our primary foes possess Latents, some powerful, some not, especially the first, most active targets.”
Kinzul seethes ever so slightly as she continues, “Targets which we will strike as the vanguard, to regain the edge we’ve lost by losing Seer and Scholar, Aymestu, and Dimitriv, two so very precious members of our family, before the fighting even began. We will deliver a decisive blow to their forces, striking back against the overwhelming odds stacked against us.”
My mind flashes to Astridus and Olashax. I’m almost overwhelmed with the fury I feel at the brazen actions of two of Terrorzin’s loyalists that have already sewn panic and destruction across a large scale along a swath of Rayileklia’s primary continent. Kinzul nods, admitting that they’re the targets. I blush, not having meant to be presumptuous, having let my anger and desire for revenge get the better of me. It’s difficult to catch a presumption before it forms mentally.
Thinking about my run-ins with the pair, I caution, “Astridus and Olashax are cowardly, they fled almost the moment either of them had faced any real threat of harm, or took an injury.”
Kinzul corrects me, “Astridus and Olashax are but a fraction of the targets we will be facing in the first engagement of our offensive. They will be far less cowardly when backed by the full might of their allies. They won’t be able to afford losing face for fear of inevitable betrayal.”
Ah, an asset to our side, while many of the enemies are cunning, some of that cunning is aimed within, to act on envy, jealousy, desire for power, and so on. Which reminds me of—.
Kinzul finishes my thought, “Ka’thuul, our inevitably erstwhile ally. Yes, she is the very embodiment of the green-eyed monster that is envy. She mimics my tactics, my Order, even its very name, but instead of offering love and compassion, a shared desire for justice, she offers riches for loyalty. It leaves her coffers weaning, and she has already made plays that strain our tenuous alliance, such as her claiming of Yisstendahl’s hoard, in the supposed name of our alliance. A hoard which is rightfully yours, my Schism. My Sun and my Hunter did manage to retrieve a significant portion of his library however, which should please you.”
Kinzul’s right, it does please me. I’m a bit excited about the idea that I’ll have access to a dragon archmage’s trove of knowledge, even a portion of it. My eyes slide from Lil, the best friend who holds the nickname, My Heart. My eyes land on Lucky and then flit back to Lil and back again. Aliases Sun, and Hunter of the Onyx Dawn. Their titles are the Star of the Onyx Dawn, and the Hound of the Onyx Dawn. To bestow titles, positions like Sun to Lil, and Hero to me, words with such powerful connotations, costs Kinzul dearly in her fractioned dragonforce, spread thin as it is.
Worse, to grant both Teuila and me each an honoris causa as dragons, she essentially used her own dragonforce to promote us to the standing of adult dragons within the community. I can’t begin to express how in awe I am of the lengths that Kinzul is willing to go to invest in her cause, our cause, saving the freakin’ world from no less than three apocalypses. Heck, it might possibly be four apocalypses, depending on if you count the released Felgre horde as part of the dragon-based apocalypse or not, since it was Astridus the acid dragon who unleashed them.
At my mention of Astridus, I sense emotional turmoil beneath Kinzul’s regal, calm, collected exterior. There is enmity, hurt, betrayal simmering to a boil within her. Kinzul politely demands, “If you would, Hero, please refrain from peering too deeply into my mind. We will shortly make use of your psionic talents, when you’ve mastered the spell. There are far better targets for you to examine for our cause. Targets that are less likely to harm you merely by looking.”
I nod, gulping nervously about the not-so-subtle warning of the fact that Kinzul holds a great deal of secrets that need to stay secret. There’s also the overt implication that simply gaining knowledge of some of them may harm me in some fashion. For some reason, that sounds familiar. Gaining knowledge, or memories hurting me—. I glance towards Luni, and her telepathic avatar quickly drags mine to a private thinkspace.
Luni orders, “Hold it, don’t think. Shh, don’t follow that train of thought that you were just thinking. Please Reggie? It’s not time yet. I’m, I’m sure that, well, at some point, it will be the right time, and it’ll all come naturally. I swear. I think. Please trust me, for a while longer yet? You’re My Hero, from even way before ever getting an official title, you always have been, and always will be.”
I flash Luni, My Anchor, a sad smile as I nod, acquiescing to her request. Of course I trust her. I saddled her with the secrets of the timeline by sending her personality ghosts back in time to the moment of her first evolution. She managed to keep so many secrets, all the ones necessary for our timeline to play out as it did, the one in a million chance that we might save Can’Z’aas, and our family. Trust me, if Luni says something isn’t ready to be uncovered, or learned, it isn’t. One wrong move, learn one thing at the wrong time, something that changes my perception of, or reaction to events, and it’s a cascade of dominoes from the wrong location. If I learned of a betrayal, and tried to cut it off at the pass, so many changes would spin out of control.
Still, Lu frequently admits she doesn’t know everything, and I’m pretty certain there’s no way she has any personality ghosts guiding her now, since I thought I reached into her Can’Z’aasian future. Also, most of our stuff like logs from Can’Z’aas don’t work here on Rayileklia. Still, she’s always been a bit prescient, always hinted at knowing a little more in times when that knowledge shouldn’t have been available. I guess that’s why her Latent earned her the Alias of Muse.
Luni blushes while nodding, and she demurely rocks side to side while gazing down, digging her toe tips into the featureless expanse that makes up our current private thinkspace. Well, her telepathic avatar does anyway. It doesn’t take prescience to understand the emotions Luni’s experiencing, the desire for us to be close again, after so long, when we had to part ways after dying together, it broke both of our hearts. Teuila and I fled Daffodil’s home in order to wail in despair, to cry our eyes out at the Triple L Squad having left us.
Luni looks aghast, not having realized we took it so hard, that we, myself and her sister *both* took it so hard. I try my best to comfort her, my telepathic avatar wrapping hers in a warm embrace.
Luni makes an odd request, “Could you, maybe, um, stop saying sister, or um, well, thinking, the sister thing?”
My brow furrows in concern, worries for Teuila’s bond with Luni, and Te's emotions, are painted across my face as I stutter, “I, I mean, anything you request, but, err, well, what do you mean?”
Luni chews on the inside of her cheek as she ponders what she’s able to admit without hurting either me, or maybe Teuila, or maybe the flow of events. Lu finally decides, “It’s, it’s a weird thing. A— at least on Rayileklia. We’re entirely new people here. We died on Can’Z’aas, and got new bodies, copies of our old bodies, but new bodies, here. We’re—, none of us are related, hell, none of us were ever related, because we spawned as individual eggs in individual locations, at different times, we didn’t even have names, other than a loose clan, until you came along, and the whole— Um, forget it. We’ll, well, we’ll always be family, always have been, always will be, but we’re not related.”
My genre sense is buzzing like crazy that Luni is feeding me at best, half-truths. Lu frowns, knowing exactly what I’m able to deduce. Still. If that is the reasoning that Luni wants to use, and that’s what I’m allowed to know, or believe as of now, then that’s how I’ll have to let this play out. I almost plead as I ask, “You won’t hurt her, right? You still love her, don’t you?”
Luni’s telepathic avatar sniffles, and rubs its wet eyes as she nods. She explains, “No, of course not, hurt her that is, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t. Not intentionally. Of course I still love her. I—, I’ll figure something out, how to tell her. Don’t mention it to her yet, please? I— still have to figure it out. Ac-actually, could you maybe just forget this whole conversation for now? It wasn’t, isn’t a big deal, I feel stupid for bringing it up.”
I acquiesce, nodding to her request, but I admonish her, “You’ve no reason to feel stupid Lu. I treasure you, and your feelings are important to me, to all of us. I love you, My Anchor.”
Luni flashes me a weak smile, and floods our private thinkspace with enough love and enough turmoil from other emotions to shunt me back to meatspace. I cast a glance her way, and she’s keeping her head down, playing with her bangs as she attempts to look inconspicuous. Breathing through my nose, I sigh slowly. All I can do for the people I love is what they ask of me. Whatever that may be, well, within reason.