Three people were in the room. Reality spoke of a different actuality. Of the three, one was leaning on another. While a fourth was standing off to the side, looking at the collapsed individual with worry. Jessica was currently unconscious as she lay in the old man’s arms. Both of them were looking at her with different emotions. Beast mostly did the same, still as a dwarf and a smith nonetheless he had a large interest in Leo.
A glint of obsession would appear for a fraction of a second. Each time it appeared, he would steal a glance at the very small discernible air. Unlike the old man, he wasn’t able to perfectly see him. Before he knew, he had noticed something, however it wasn’t very discernible. At the current moment, something had changed greatly, not only was there a disturbance in the air, he could actually feel a very weak presence.
“You need to seal her dragon blood.” Leo spoke to the old man. Completely ignoring the short individual. Though, short wasn’t the best description. He was slightly shorter than Jessica, taller than him. Only the old man was fairly tall, making him appear short in comparison. Jessica might of not noticed in her current strange inebriated state. On the way back, he noticed a strangeness about her.
“You knew?” As the dwarf watched the two. He seemed a bit confused. His sensitivity to mana allowed for him to pick up on the two having a conversation. It took a great amount of effort for him to copy the old man’s method. Granted, making it harder by the fact he had to intrude into the conversation.
Giving the dwarf a side glance, noticing the calm on his face, he started to ignore the eavesdropper and continued to talk to the old man. The care shown by this man was high, while there was a special connection between the two, he by nature just didn’t yet trust the dwarf, seeing that the man that clearly cared about her didn’t mind, he wasn’t in a position to complain. “A little.”
Thinking about everything that had happened lately, “She was in this strange rush. Since the moment I met her, likely by your intervention, she wanted to learn the method I use to compressed mana. Ignoring your petty tricks, I was willing to teach her. Considering she would receive something she always wanted from you, I was fine with the trade. Only, constantly failing even the most basic steps, as she couldn’t take her time.”
With a dark expression he continued, “Back then it wasn’t very abnormal. Or, from what I observed, there wasn’t anything very strange around being in a hurry to learn something new. Something that could help her protect herself. Strength that those around her would have great difficulty to deal with. Yet, this was too dangerous. How could I possibly teach her something that was going to kill her in her current state. Instead, I focused on allowing her to feel the process through me, this way she could feel it when she stopped hurrying.”
Almost hesitating for a time, words kept coming, “Without physical connection, I could feel her emotions. Only hurrying isn’t an emotion. At any given time, I could feel many things, only not enough to tell something was wrong. Slowly, continually, one event at a time. Signs were leaking through the tight dam known as her inner heart. First, a lack of patience. Following were mistakes here or there. Finally on the last leg of the journey. She almost died, partially to the excitement to her breakthrough.”
Finding the right words, “Jessica rushed out of the city. While I could see it, her physical senses became overly sensitive. They should have been annoying, only not something at a level that required leaving the city. Doing so was usually not deadly, only winter was at full bloom. If I didn’t use a large amount of my reserves, she likely would have never woken. The worst part in all of this was, she couldn’t even see it. That was when I saw it. The specialness of her blood was becoming more and more apparent.”
Sighing deeply, a heaviness was flowing through the room. “What do you know about dragon blood?”
Being affected by the atmosphere of the room. Leo thought long and hard, “Nothing, we very rarely talked about it. In fact, she was extremely reluctant to speak about it. Therefore, most of what I knew was that she could seek out safe passage, in one way or another because of its existence. This was something I pried out of her by observation and conclusion from her words. Not something she told me herself.”
Surprisingly, the one to speak wasn’t the old man. Beast sitting at the table slammed the glass onto the table after guzzling the liquor inside. Opening his mouth, he feebly copied the method they were using, from start to finish. Miraculously, he went from a beginner to a seasoned user, making it easy to know what he was saying, “Dragon blood is not a blessing but a curse. Those with more than a single part out of a hundred of their genetic code…”
Seemingly unwilling to say it, he could only sigh, before he kept going, “Not normal in any way. Dragon blood isn’t in the blood at all. While the blood is originally normal. Those with dragon blood have something in their heart. Slowly, dragon blood is reproduced slowly. When a child has prominent blood from a particular dragon, they will produce scales as a baby. Lightly over their body. In that situation, a parent will do one of two things, tell nobody, or abandon the baby. For this reason, it isn’t uncommon for the parents to not know they are the cause of the scales themselves.”
There was a look on his face as he looked at his friend. Not even he seemed to know this, though having long guessed the truth himself, “Yeah, it was the middle of the night…”
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The moon was high in the sky. Tired, that was all he could feel. Oh, so tired. Tried not in body but soul. Looking outside his large hut, what else would you call this building. He didn’t build it. Rather, the house was built and kept maintained by these people. Not by the people inside the other houses. No, they were just the descendants. People that didn’t know who they were. Living in this cut out space in the woods.
Not like he could kill them. They were the descendants of his people. Only they annoyed him greatly. The generation that started to die off, those who were once children. He loved them as if they were his own. Only they weren’t. No matter how he tried, they couldn’t fill the void in his heart. Therefore, he decided to pour all his love out. Maybe he was successful. That could explain why he no longer had any love to give. Old and bitter. He could only smile warily.
Moving into the house, he went to the room. Taking out items, he stuffed a few sets of clothes into his spacious bag. He didn’t need much, nor did he want much. He couldn’t help but start laughing at his actions. How a great general went from hero to zero, that was one he did himself. After the war, he left. His men left with him. The elders were trying everything they could to keep him. Partially because of everything he had done, he was literally an elven hero. Secondly, he was too powerful. Both desire and fear.
An almost nonexistent emotion in elves. And yet, those cold-blooded buffoons were truly scared. Though, he couldn’t blame them. Peace was a time that brought out the greatness in many. War was the fire that forged out people’s darkness. It was the only fire large enough to truly show how deep a person’s shadow went. And lo and behold, nobody knew his shadow spanned the great distance between the Elven Forests to Draken Aiguille, deep within the Dragon Mountain Range.
By that point, the damage had been done. Dragon’s knew they went too far. This was the reason for the split between the two. Those that stayed numbered the majority. A lessor portion just shy of that majority left long before he came. When he reached the first group. A small number were able to escape as he grew tired, that number likely made them an endangered species. He didn’t come out unharmed himself.
For someone like him, he shouldn’t look nearly as old as he does. Still not as old as he actually is, but that isn’t here or there. Walking through, he couldn’t help laugh as he looked back. The house was large, so large in fact, there was a second room for guests. Or maybe that was the way his people were encouraging him to find someone to settle down with. After that event he became an outlier, therefore it wasn’t impossible. Only, he would never find anyone to fill that hole in his chest.
One last look, he left. Nobody heard him, nobody could, these people were soft. Ironically the species that were known as cold, akin to lizards and other cold-blooded creatures, they were simply creatures closest to nature. Still it was funny an outlier like himself seen them as soft, they were simply weak as he never taught anyone, the kids of his people were slowly dying out and their children while not the worst. Weren’t up to his standard, their children in turn were worse.
Two guards at the entrance could do nothing. They weren’t even able to notice someone stood in front of them. Looking with one last glance. Moving forward, he took a step in a random direction and kept going. His steps were silent and even if he did make any noise he could easily suppress it. After a number of steps, the large wooden walls to his back seemed small. His steps came to a pause.
With a frown on his face, his brows twitched slightly as they slowly slid together. He had heard a cry, it was loud and hysterical. This was the sound of a baby. He frowned and turned away, he didn’t know what was going on. Only not wishing to meet an elf or something else. As he was walking further away, he could keep hearing the cry. He started to feel his annoyance reach a new peak.
This was partly why he left. He was tired of being annoyed and angry, he was taking a page from an enemy. His greatest enemy, in fact, abandon everything and wander aimlessly. Turning around, his heart was on fire. Cries continued to pierce into his ears. When he reached the sound, he saw nothing. There was nobody to chew out, not anyone to kill, only a single bundle to silence. With cold eyes, he looked down and reached forward.
As his fingers were only inches from the bundle, they shook. Having leaned over to bend down, he saw the face of the child. Never having stopped, cries continued to pour out of the bundle. He didn’t understand why he himself, the man that nearly caused a fractured race to nearly go extinct. He was now hesitant to silence the cries. Scales could be seen covering the face like fish scales. He had so much dragon blood on his hands, what did one more matter. The child wouldn’t survive. Since the child had more than one in hundred parts dragon blood. These scales would only go away with time.
Even if he brought the child to an orphanage, life might be worse than just dying. Let alone an obvious fact, with the scales, this child would be left out to die. While endlessly cruel, what was more cruel, leaving the child to suffer, or tying a black string around the two of them. Prolonging its suffering and making its existence a living hell.
Basically, nobody would take the child. Not humans, nor dragons. No part of it was wanted. Not when it was tainted by the other. If somehow it managed to survive, all that remained was endless torment. Dragon blood was not something a human could withstand. While by the age of one, scales will go away sometime between then and now. From ages ten to twenty, they will experience a boost in physical coordination. Around fifteen, they will reach their pinnacle, with advanced physical prospects they will start to produce slight warning.
As time would go, from fifteen to twenty, they will likely experience their first premonition. From there was a different type of hell. If she could somehow survive to lose her scales, she would appear normal, yet that didn’t mean her life would become better. To survive that long, she needed outside help she was never likely to receive. Once twenty rolled around slowly, the blood would evolve as the premonitions grew out of control.
Once thirty rolled around, lights and shadows would start to morph. Danger lurked behind any corner. From a pea to a grape, the possibility of choking. Air could possibly have some type of sickness. Light could blind her, darkness could hide an assailant. From thirty to forty, anything that could weaken to outright kill was dangerous. Paranoia would spike, if one survived to forty, they will experience a sweet moment of reprieve. Sometime in between was sudden and instant death.