Olipheus

His eyes kept drifting to the large tear in his clothes. He had already discarded his overcoat, his purple shirt was torn all the way from his right shoulder to the left side of his stomach. It exposed his scarred skin beneath; one clean cut, mended but not invisible. It looked like someone repaired a broken statue using a different material.

There were half a dozen such cuts all over his body. Half a dozen gateways that allowed death to slip inside his body, mere hours before. He could still feel the bone chilling darkness slowly eating away at him.

Ollie stepped inside a narrow side street away from the bright moonlight. He took in a careful breath and let it out his nose, trying to calm down. The streets were relatively empty. People were presumably holed up in their homes afraid and shaken. They would be holding onto their loved ones, the ones that remained that is. Ollie couldn’t even guess at the toll the days’ attack had taken on his people. He felt dirty, getting hung up on his own near-death experience, as the people he was supposed to protect fell victim to monsters.

He harshly shook his head, fighting back tears. He stepped back on the main street. His home, the Bastion stood on the southwestern corner of the Citadel. It overlooked the city from a perched position. A large lighthouse stood atop it, crimson light came bleeding from its windows, signaling Seventh Spire as a haven for cloudships and dragons alike. It contrasted the white marble house itself was carved from, shining under the stars like a badge of purity.

As Ollie approached his house, the sound of music came sizzling through the air. It was a festive tune accompanied by bouts of conversation coming from the front yard. He angrily rolled his eyes as he adjusted his path to round the estate, towards the small opening in the back wall. It was a twenty feet climb, which Ollie scaled without breaking a sweat. His body knew where the handholds were better than he knew his own body right now, plus the physical exertion felt good.

With a long jump, he grabbed the tree that stood closest the wall in the back yard, the only real tree on the spire. It was a privilege of living in the Lord’s manor, one that Ollie truly despised. He dropped down, right as a stone throwing knife struck the tree, dangerously close to his head.

“You are distracted.” A voice came from the shadows.

“No shit,” Ollie answered as he yanked the knife from the bark and threw it back to his brother.

Everybody said Ezekiel and he looked exactly the same, which Ollie understood. Other than the two of them, no one realized how Zeke’s eyes were just a bit narrower and Ollie’s shoulders sagged a little bit lower. Well, that wouldn’t be a problem anymore. Just like the large scar on Ollie’s chest, Ezekiel had two long lines on his face; all the way from his right temple to the side of his mouth, crossing each other right over his eye.

“Makes you look regal,” Ollie mused. His smile slowly disappeared under the weight of his twin’s one-eyed glare.

“I leave at first light,” his brother replied. He sheathed the stone throwing knife in one of the dozen hidden pockets in his coat. “The lords gathered while you were with your new friends, I shall ask the iron spire for their protection they offered last month.”

Ollie took out a pair of dice from his pocket and started fidgeting. “That would mean the Seventh would go under martial law. We all decided that was unacceptable.”

“Well,” Zeke snapped, “that was before a bunch of monsters made the sun disappear and dragons did more harm than good.” He turned his face away from his brother in anger.

“Are you mad or something Zeke?” Ollie asked, grabbing his brother’s arm. “I’m confused, we both almost died today. Talk to me, please.”

Zeke glared at him for one second before he shifted his gaze away again. “Of course I’m mad, Ollie. I am scared shitless. I lost my eye, almost lost you, then father orders me to go beg for a militaristic body to come rule us while he throws a party in your honor?” His voice was almost down to a whisper, hurt seeping from every syllable. “We were supposed to do it together, side by side. Either as High Lords of the Seventh Spire or dragon riders. You think, I fight, remember? Not ‘I struggle with bureaucracy and you fly away and go on some fucking adventure’.”

“You are acting like I had a choice in this shitshow,” Ollie said, fighting back the tears welling up in his eyes. Ezekiel’s words resonated within, shaking him to his newly mended bones. “If freaking Skybreaker grabs you and tells you to be a rider, I’m excited to see how you decline that order.”

Ollie pulled his brother’s stiff body into a forceful embrace. For the one second Zeke resisted, he was reminded how different their bodies were, even though they looked so similar. Zeke’s slender frame was tight with trained muscles, while Ollie tinkered in his workshop.

“Distance can’t separate us, brother mine,” Ollie whispered, tears finally overcoming his will. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

They stood under the tree arm in arm. Both cried silently under the bright starlight, letting their tears say the goodbyes that their words failed to do.

Doppan

The way from the summit to the lower city was long, filled with twists and turns, perfect for quiet reflection. Doppan took advantage of the last one during his walk, turning the events over and over in his head.

He wished to talk with his fellow recruits a bit longer, but the High Lord’s boy and the blue haired girl disappeared almost immediately when they were dismissed. He offered to carry the shaken looking Lilia to the lower city. She was fast asleep, even before they were out of the Citadel.

His memories of the day were all over the place. First there was the bliss of that golden dragon rider’s light. Its gentle whisper as it told Doppan he would make a fine rider, only if it weren’t for his aversion to violence. Doppan felt content with it, even happy that his devotion to the way of the peaceful sparrow could be seen with only a look into his soul.

Then the attack happened and Doppan found himself fighting. He was kicking and punching, screaming and grunting. In that moment of life and death, fifteen years’ worth of quiet meditation disappeared in an instant. When Doppan was faced with monsters, he was little more than an animal himself.

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Skybreaker coming to ask him to join the riders afterwards was little consolation for his shattered faith.

Lilia shifted uncomfortably in his arms. She looked even more like a child in Doppan’s oversized arms, like a colorful bird perched on an ugly boulder. The pair pulled strange gazes from all over as they made their way through the maze-like streets of the city, carved inside the spire itself.

“Wake up, little Lilia,” he whispered. The girl’s eyes slowly fluttered open.

“Are we home?” she asked as she yawned and jumped down to the cobblestone street, looking around at the buildings. She pointed to a narrow pathway that led to the wider part of the giant cave. “My house is that way.”

Doppan nodded and followed the small girl silently, his sheer size still pulled careful glances from the citizens.

Lilia’s house was exactly as Doppan imagined it would be. An almost overwhelmingly colorful, little two-story building stood out like a sore thumb. The street was filled with houses of similar build, but none other than Lilia’s had colored fabrics as decoration and paintings of flowers and animals straight out of a children’s book. Five smaller versions of Lilia, complete with frilly clothes and pink hair were scattered around the yard looking worried. An older woman, though not much bigger in stature, sat on a rocking chair, holding old wooden prayer beads in her hands. As Lilia approached the house, a silver haired tall man appeared at the front door. At the sight of the little girl, he dropped the tray he was holding, spilling tea all over the painted stone of the front yard.

He rushed to hug Lilia, followed closely by what Doppan assumed were Lilia’s mother and siblings. Feeling his work completed, Doppan turned and walked down a side street marked by a sparrow towards the temple. A soft shadow of a smile appeared on his face, as the sight of Lilia’s loving family pierced through the wall of darkness created by his fallen principles.

The cave system that led down to the temple district was littered with refugees from the Citadel. People afraid of the sky after the attack no doubt. Doppan had little trouble getting through the crowd, which parted to let his large frame pass, in his bloodied clothes.

Out of the fifteen temples in the circular cave, the Temple of Sparrows was the smallest one. As such, it was the one with the smallest line of refugees in front of it. Near the large arch that led into the communal meditation area, Doppan spotted one of the older members of his congregation, brother Methi talking to a group of ragged looking refugees.

Methi had a muscular build similar to that of Doppan, although he lacked the size. Monks of the peaceful ways spent their days breaking stone and helping out in the mines, and it gave them distinctly strong bodies.

As he approached, Doppan realized the refugees’ voices rise over the calm voice of Methi, who was trying to deescalate the situation. The men were gripping crude, untampered stone blades in their hands.

“You can’t bring weapons into our house of peace, good people,” Methi pleaded. His hands were hidden in the broad sleeves of his robes in front of him, no doubt holding his blessed medallion tightly. Doppan felt the comforting presence of his own medallion dangling from the chain wrapped around his neck.

“We should poke ‘im a couple times.” One of the refugees, a thin man with dirty whiskers for a beard said. “He can’t retaliate ya know. Other cheek and that.” His accent was thick, almost too thick to understand. His companions snickered in response and lifted their blades, clearly enjoying the lack of response from the monk.

Doppan felt a fire light up in his veins, jolting him aware. The same fire that overtook him up on the summit when the starbeasts attacked, was still alive as if it had never left. He looked for a center of calm. The dam he built up through years of hard work and sacrifice to hold his impulses, was no longer there and emotions ran rampant.

One of the men struck Methi with the back of his hand. The monk turned to face his attacker immediately. His eyes were cold and emotionless like stone, his face a mask of compassion.

Doppan tasted blood as his teeth sank into his lips. He could hear a bestial roar rise in his heart. A roar he mistook for the sound of starbeasts before, but now realized originated from his own spirit.

When the man laughed and drew his sword for a second blow, Doppan’s hand moved on its own. Fragile stone cracked and exploded inside his fist. His other hand crashed into the man’s gut, making him fly and crash into the temple wall.

“Oi,” screamed the one that initiated the whole thing. “It’s a giant-blood.” He swung his blade, opening a deep cut in his arm where the blade got stuck.

“I am human!” Doppan screamed as he grabbed the small man and threw him where his friend was lying unconscious. He turned to face the two remaining aggravators.

Still feeling the flame of rage inside him, he felt someone grab his arm from behind and Doppan responded with another punch with his bloodied hand that destroyed the stone blade.

“Enough, brother!” Methi said. Blood was dripping down his face from his busted eyebrow, painting his face red.

Doppan fell to his knees, bringing him to eye level with Methi and started sobbing uncontrollably. In the fifteen years he knew the monk, he had never heard brother Methi raise his voice before. It was enough to quench the flames that near consumed his being.

“I need atonement,” he said forcefully through his sobbing. “Help me, brother.”

Lilia

“But I don’t know if I can do it,” Lilia said. It took her about an hour to gather the courage to break through her family’s happiness, both for the fact that she made it back home in one piece and pride for her becoming a dragon rider. Her parents were largely overwhelmed with the former, while her little siblings were excited for the latter. “I couldn’t even get to the summit without help today, and now I am supposed to fly?”

Her mother tenderly caressed her hair as her father lovingly squeezed her hand. Her three sisters and brother were in their beds upstairs, tired from running around mimicking dragons and chasing each other.

“Tell us who helped you, love,” her father said calmly. His eyes were calm, understanding as they ever were. Lilia felt a longing for his gaze already, even before she had a chance to miss them.

“There was this really pretty girl, her name is Dahlia. She had kind eyes like mother’s,” she said. “She sat with me when I was scared, and then walked with me the rest of the way. Ollie and Doppan, they are the other recruits and are also very cool, they also said she helped bring us back when starbeasts attacked and we almost died.”

She felt her mother’s body shiver next to her, and her father’s grasp tighten on her hand.

“She had nice hair; black and white, like the pictures of snow in the books you read to us, mom.” She glanced at her mother and saw her kind eyes look at her, brimming with tears . Her parents shared a worried look. “She didn’t make fun of me at all and said everyone lies their asses off about not being afraid.”

Her father chuckled at that. “That’s one way to put it,” he said.

“Well dove,” her mother said. She paused to kiss the top of her head, another thing for her to miss already. “It seems to me like you have good companions on this new adventure of yours, no?”

“But will you be okay?” Lilia asked, almost pleading. “Dad said last month I was helping very well in the shop you know.”

“We will be fine baby,” her mother said.

“Being a dragon rider is a great honor, love,” her father added. Lilia searched for a hint of sadness in his voice, a sliver to hold on to, that her family needed her here but found none. “It is not only an honor for you, but also your family.”

“You will become a hero, dove.” Her mother pressed her closer. “Your siblings get a better education too, even a place in the Citadel maybe.”

Lilia swallowed a knot of pleas and cries. She was a responsible girl, and it was her responsibility to take care of her siblings. They deserved a better big sister than one who cried, not wanting to leave home.

“Can you tell me a story mother?” she asked, trying her best to mimic her mother’s way of talking. It was the best impression of a grown-up she could manage. “I want to hear about snow and rain and oceans, all the wonders of the surface.”

One last time, she added inside her head and laid on her mother’s lap.