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Post by MP on Mar 14, 2019 9:55:57 GMT -6
There had been lightning the night before - a great thunder over the mountain that set his ears ringing and his crests aching from the sting of it. Kanagi, who wanted no part of dragon squabbles and considered this abuse beyond his scope of duty, retreated to a comfortable distance and was away from the mountain for several days. It didn’t smell like his kind of trouble anyways. He hunted. He watched little packs of humans scurry this way and that. He kept a careful eye out for signs of decay or corruption. But the hunting was good, and the weave seemed acceptably stable, open worlds being what they were. It would not, he decided, and was willing to bet his teeth on it when word came from Runor, come from a natural source. He could be wrong - something had clearly upset the local dragons - but it was hard to say for sure. They were territorial things, and he was careful to keep out of their way, Walker or no.
When the air cleared, he returned to the region and resumed his patrolling. There was dragon blood on the wind, he noted, and the scent of early rot. The Rimguard was not concerned with these internal conflicts. Their business was with the weave between worlds, the membrane that kept each reality in its place, and with whatever was bleeding corrosive stress from this remote reality into the ones under their jurisdiction. He was not concerned with the dragons themselves. But he was more alert from then on. Something had certainly happened - a catalyst, perhaps, for whatever calamity their Seer had sensed. And besides, any remaining dragons in the area were likely to be highly alert and aggressive.
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Post by Sharei on Mar 14, 2019 10:09:01 GMT -6
The relative silence of Kanagi’s flight was interrupted by the sound of a distant call that sent colorful birds fluttering away. It was a high pitched, distressed barking noise that although different from the one made by Icarim pups, could not be mistaken for anything but a babe’s call.
It had been four days. The scent of death still lingered in his nose and his belly was sunken with hunger. The hatchling’s tail dragged through the dense foliage as he trundled along, tracking the fading scent of a mountain sheep that had passed through the lower forest. He’d caught a rabbit yesterday, but for a growing hatchling it had hardly been enough.
The hatchling lifted his head and called out again. He couldn’t explain why he kept doing it, or who he expected to hear him, because he'd seen them all die. The sound of it lived in his memory.
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Post by MP on Mar 14, 2019 10:12:07 GMT -6
When he heard the mother call, Sarkany turned a little in his flight, veering away from both the mountain and the cry. If the hatchlings were scattered, an adult was sure to be on the way, and the last thing he could afford was a scrap with an angry mother dragon.
He skirted the territory in his circuit - a high, direct flight. Aside from the commotion near dragon territory and some local human presence - a battle, he assumed - there were no notable changes. The weave of the place remained as solid as ever, and there was no sign yet of that ominous pressure. Content for the moment, he descended from above the cloud bank. It was uncommonly quiet over the mountain, but that meant no hostile eyes. He took a roc on the wing and descended with it to pluck and gnaw at the kill in a sheltered clearing. Every so often, he glanced skyward as he ate. Thinking when word might come from the Guard. Thinking of the eerily silent skies. He supposed the surviving dragons had gone away. All the same, a stooping dragon would be a threat to a grounded tiercel, and it paid to keep an eye out.
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Post by Sharei on Mar 14, 2019 10:21:31 GMT -6
The sheep had gone, likely scared away by his bumbling through the undergrowth. His stubby legs and large paws hadn’t been made for picking one’s way delicately through the jungle, but he wasn’t good enough yet with his wings to try a dive. The first and only time he’d done it, he’d face-planted into some rocks. Too young to have learned better, the hatchling turned instead to scavenging. After a day of searching, only one kill in the area looked like it might provide any kind of reasonable meal, but he had not been the first to notice it. A group of wolves swarmed the half-eaten roc and snarled him away when he tried to snag the edge of a wing. While desperate for food as he was, the shy hatchling was nowhere near bold enough to start a tussle - especially one he couldn’t win. So he sat and watched the wolves devour what was left from a safe distance. His gut ached, and he hoped they’d leave even something small. They didn’t. He lost the only kill he managed to make the next day, a large otter, to a group of foxes. The taste of it in his mouth as they ran off with their stolen food left him with a bitter disappointment. Then while looking for another, he’d had to waste the last of his energy running from a leopard as hard up for a kill as he was. Two days later found the hatchling lying beneath the wide leaves of a tree, speckled with sunlight and shadow as he struggled with a fitful rest. The calling had returned, more desperate in tone, but weaker. cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/343045341861642252/558443718693355520/BabyDerg.png
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Post by MP on Mar 14, 2019 10:37:22 GMT -6
Kanagi tracked the humans, for the most part. They were often the culprits, with their clever hands and their inquisitive, grasping minds. That and they offered the only activity worth notice of late. The dragons showed no sign of returning. The rest of the mountain life lived as it always did, chasing and fleeing and dying.
A flutter on the rock beside him. The tiercel turned a yellow eye on it, where a small sparrow was ruffling dark green wings and preening its blue-tinted tail.
[ News? ] he asked.
The sparrow flicked its feathers at him. [ None. Runor can’t feel it in any of the other branches. I checked with the mountain cats and the leopards and the tigers. They say there’s nothing happening, that we’d bother with, anyway. I think we’re early. ]
[ A good thing. ]
[ You can say, ] said the sparrow, fluffing disheveled plumage. [ They don’t try to eat you when the going’s good. The leopard took a piece off. ]
[ Poor thing, ] he cooed sympathetically. [ Must have the worst indigestion. ]
The sparrow pecked him on the nose, rather affectionately, and hopped onto his crests. He flew with her a short way while they conversed - just far enough to reach their next search area. There the sparrow left him, and Kanagi rose to the cover of a cloud bank to sleep. That was often the way of it these days: one awake, the other dormant. Between the two of them, a constant watch.
Only, Kanagi didn’t sleep long. He was awoken soon after by a faint, familiar sound. The mother call. He turned his head, blinking in surprise. Still? It had been days since he’d been this close to dragon territory. Surely someone had come for it.
The tiercel hesitated. Membrane clicked over fierce yellow eyes as he listened. Another cry, more tired than he remembered. It wasn’t his responsibility. But skies, it wouldn’t hurt to look. With a faint rumble, Kanagi flowed into motion. The sound carried a long way over the woods and was easy to follow. He flew silently, gliding, leaving no aether scent to announce him. He could see as he approached that the dragon pup showed no such caution. It was a wonder nothing had got it by now.
He touched down softly, some distance away. A quick glance to the skies. Then back to the pup. He parted his jaws slightly, the better to scent the air. But if its mother had been returning to feed it, he caught no scent of her. Kanagi closed his jaws and looked at the pup. The narrow sides. The dusty, ungroomed scales. It wasn’t a promising sign.
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Post by Sharei on Mar 14, 2019 10:39:17 GMT -6
The keening sound continued for another few moments as the hatchling lay there in semi-consciousness, sides rising and falling with each weakening call. It was only when he happened to open an eye that he realized there was another presence downwind from him, a large grey shape against the green forest.
The hatchling shot up, stumbling over its tail and paws as it darted into the undergrowth and took refuge in the large gnarled roots of a mountain shrub big enough to hide him. It was poor cover, however, since Kanagi had already seen him. The hatchling seemed to know it, too, because the part of the snout that could be seen parted with a low hiss. Granted, it wasn’t any more intimidating than the spitting of a kitten.
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Post by MP on Mar 14, 2019 10:44:36 GMT -6
Kanagi made no move to follow the fleeing pup. But he sniffed after it from where he stood, assessing its condition. Perhaps it was sick. A runt, too frail for travel. Perhaps they’d left it behind. But it didn’t smell like to dying, and this didn’t seem their way.
The tiercel turned and stared toward the mountain - toward the high aeries where, only days before, the sky had been dark with dragons. His tail swished once, twice over the ground. Then he padded away and kicked off the ground in flight. The mother must be gone - dead or departed with any surviving dragons. Whatever had happened up there, he thought he should see for himself. It could be something important.
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Post by Sharei on Mar 14, 2019 10:46:42 GMT -6
The aerie of the storm dragons was not a single den, but a collection of pillar-like plateau mountains painted with jungle greenery. They were packed relatively close together and pockmarked by ancient caves carved by experienced claws and worn smooth by age. Ledges and rocky inclines acted like natural stairwells along the mountain sides, and where the ledges could not go flight connected the rest.
The tops of the plateaus were flat and round, bare of trees but for the occasional tough trunk bearing the scars of many young dragons clawing at its bark. The vegetation here was hardy, but no less lush, fueled by the bountiful ecosystem of mountain lizards, birds, and insects that coexisted with the aerie’s dragons. The area made for great sunning, and the best dens were closest to the top.
Or it would have been, except that there was nothing in the aerie left alive except insects fat on the rotting carcasses of hundreds of dragons. Some could be seen in the mouths of dens, half-hanging out of caves. Others were slumped where they had fallen like dead leaves on the tops of the mountains in piled heaps, their bellies and chests slit for the precious organs. Most of the bodies had bled dry.
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Post by MP on Mar 14, 2019 10:49:40 GMT -6
He smelled the slaughter long before he saw it. The smell of old blood, carrion, and a sour stench of eggs, overpowering now that he was closer. Instinct warned him to stop, but it was the sight of the first dragons that did it. Kanagi coasted to a standstill when he saw them, too stunned even to brake. Bodies butchered and carved, stripped for their scales and hollowed of their organs and left in their nests as so many sunken husks. Even the pups. Even their half developed eggs. The tiercel stared. The eyes had been taken too. The bodies couldn’t even stare back.
He hovered there for a long time. Mane listless. Limbs trailing. He thought, with a black pang, of a long ago aerie. The final sight of his mother. The sound of her battle song. He’d never gone back to that place afterwards. His memory of her had been one of power and protective wrath and a pup-like faith in her strength. Looking at the bodies, he remembered the lonely aftermath - visualized, for the first time, an Icarim husk in the place of these dragons.
[ Hawk? ] a voice said again. [ Hawk, I hear you. What is it? ]
The sparrow fluttered to his ear, perching on one of his crests. She was slow to notice them at first. A Dreamer saw with its mind, and hers had never experienced such horrors. She couldn’t imagine it, and so she couldn’t see it. Not fully. When she looked at them, she stared for a long time.
[ Oh, ] she said at last. And then she said, [ Just the one? ]
They stared at the scene together. The tiercel numbly. The sparrow in solemn concentration, as if reading a very difficult passage.
The bird lowered her head to his. There was too much in the gesture for words. Comfort. Sympathy. Understanding. The touch was a prompt, and also a reprieve. She didn’t ask what he would do. Az simply knew. She darted away over the woods, taking up their patrol in wordless agreement, turning a blind eye to his thoughts.
After a few staring moments, Kanagi turned away as well. He flew slowly at first, debating. They were allowed, he reassured himself, these little deeds. No Guardian could stay truly impartial in their work. They watched, and they remembered, and sometimes they broke. A small, guilty impulse. As long as they were temperate, these acts were understood and overlooked. One would go mad otherwise. It was one lost pup. To do this small thing seemed harmless enough.
He killed another roc. The bird flesh was lean and easier on a fasting stomach, and he had seen the dragons hunt them before. He killed it in the air, plucked it there, snorting down and feathers from between his teeth. With the kill was more or less de-feathered, he took it in his jaws and coasted back to the tree where he had last seen the pup. The scent of blood and musty feathers clogged his nostrils, but he sniffed and glanced around, looking for some sign of it.
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Post by Sharei on Mar 14, 2019 10:55:15 GMT -6
The bush that Kanagi had left the dragon in was empty when he returned, but a quick look showed that the hatchling hadn’t gone far. It was still too clumsy to mask its trail through the underbrush and the tiercel soon found it curled up a half hour’s lazy flight toward the north.
This time it had made at least an attempt at concealment. It had dug itself a small rut in the ground beneath another bush to hide in and its natural coloring lent it some camouflage; ruined entirely by the glowing eye peering out of the burrow, of course. It watched Kanagi warily as he approached with his carcass, jaws parted in hissing warning, and tried not to think about the smell of the kill and how very hungry he was.
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Post by MP on Mar 14, 2019 11:04:16 GMT -6
He stopped obediently at the warning, relaxing his mane and frills in what he hoped would come across as a peaceable gesture. He didn’t expect the pup to understand his intentions, or even what he was. So he simply stood at the tree line and, lowering his head, dropped the kill between them.
He scuffed the ground about it a little, venting aether, lashing his tail to better spread his scent. Lesser beasts, he knew, would be wary of the foreign scent. A thinking one could learn better.
Kanagi chuffed at the pup. He had known Draconic once, back in the Age of Fable. But that had been generations of time. His grasp of the language had faded, and the dialects he had known had likely changed or died out altogether. He spoke very gently, hardly more than a rumble through his teeth, enunciating.
“Good.” He flicked his tail at the bird, inviting. “Eat.”
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Post by Sharei on Mar 14, 2019 11:07:16 GMT -6
No matter how frightened he was of the larger predator there was no arguing with his hunger. Ultimately, mistrust was won over by need.
He slunk out of his burrow with wary movements. Every odd sound had the hatchling stopping like a twitchy rabbit until finally, he’d crept close enough to the bird to grab it. Jaws secure, the hatching scrambled backward with his prize to the protection of the burrow. There was no way that it was getting the thing in there, though, so it contented itself with stopping right outside.
That was as far as the hunger was willing to wait. With the vigor of someone completely starved, the dragon launched into the meat, tearing flesh and gnawing bone. It's gaze occasionally flickered upward to make sure that Kanagi hadn’t moved, but when he found the tiercel where he’d left him, the eating resumed.
When his stomach was full, he curled into the burrow and slept. When he woke he ate again, first checking that the strange grey shape hadn’t come any closer. It was still there, but on the edge of the area now, and the dragon relaxed. It ate, and then slept. And so on it went until the carcass had been picked clean to the bone.
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Post by MP on Mar 14, 2019 11:08:37 GMT -6
Something in him unwound to see the hatchling eat. A kind of peace. And maybe regret. If someone had been there for his sisters, things might have gone differently. But there was no point picking over old bones. And he couldn’t change things for the pup, in the end. Not where it mattered.
Sometime after the pup’s second feeding, he left it to the kill. Kanagi remained in the area while it slept, looking, scenting, taking no particular pains to be discreet. Where he found animal traces - wolf scents or the spray of some big cat - he left his own traces to match: hot vented aether and a distinct carnivore scent. Once he found a leopard sniffing about the vicinity and saw it off with a few sharp words. He made it clear to the lesser beasts, by sight and scent and sound, that there was an apex predator about, and that any prey in the vicinity was his to claim.
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Post by Sharei on Mar 14, 2019 11:19:37 GMT -6
It was the next morning when the hatchling emerged from his burrow refreshed and rejuvenated. The first rays of dawn danced over the horizon and there was a smell of rain in the air that lent the earth a richness that hadn’t been there the day before.
Or maybe he was just noticing it now because his hunger was sated for the first time in almost a week. One of his front paws knocked at the skeletal remains of the roc, watching as the bones came apart under his touch. He considered the pile for a long moment and remembered the tiercel that had brought it. It was gone now, but that didn’t make what it had done any less generous.
There was only one real way to thank someone for a good deed, in Storm society.
It took the hatchling an overlong time to find the right river stone. He was picky about it, as any dragon should be when examining a treasure. It had to be perfect, sleek and black and round and flat, otherwise, it just wouldn’t do.
When he did find it he collected it in his teeth, being exceptionally gentle, but there was still no sign of the tiercel. The hatchling found its scent trails easily enough, but they led nowhere. Up, probably, and out of his flightless reach. He stared into the sky and let out a barking call, but received no answer. A keen. Nothing.
The hatchling huffed and laid down, spitting the rock onto the ground in front of him. The tiercel had gone, just like everyone else. His dark head lowered, stub spines flattening. He was all alone.
Again.
After several long minutes of disappointment, the dragon pushed to his feet. Maybe there would be more dragons in the next place he looked. There had to be someone else who’d survived. One of the adults. Surely not everyone had been at the aerie, right?
Right?
The hatchling turned listlessly but paused after a few steps. Unable to quite abandon his gift, the dragon ran back to get the rock before moving on. He left the area then, covering ground with a better pace now that he was in a healthier condition, and continued his migration north.
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Post by MP on Mar 14, 2019 11:21:39 GMT -6
The pup stayed on the move, he was pleased to see. Kanagi didn’t have time for babysitting, but he kept track of it between their patrols. The humans were scurrying about the area as busily as ever, and it wasn’t going so far out of his way.
Az came out of dormancy over those next few days, taking more flights, ranging farther, extending her vision in an unseen web over the forest. So he could rest his old wyrm bones, she said, but he knew the truth and was grateful. It meant that, when he might otherwise have been patrolling, he had the luxury for a little extra hunting instead - this time a wild goat, tenderized to a pleasant texture when he ran it off the edge of a cliff.
He found the pup’s latest tracks easily enough, and the pup itself soon after. He touched down in a click of claws and uttered a greeting chuff through the carcass in his jaws.
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