Chapter 26: Ch.22: Interlude: Past and Present

“The Occidanian Incursion refers to the wars fought between 1003 AC and 1050 AC. They were the bloody culmination for the violence that was wrought on the Occidanian continent, usurpers rose up in arms to lay claim to the legacy of those who went before; the Scions. One would’ve thought standing against a greater evil, a thousand years afore would’ve forged greater bonds, but greed, it seemed, was a curse that humans had to contend with in spite of prevailing circumstances. What folly. Civilization was once again, plunged into a continent spanning war, serving naught but alienating humans from other races.” Unknown [Historical Chronicler], Records of Kingsfell, The Bibliotheca Vesperarum.

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From the beginning, Aeskyre’s life straddled the tenuous threads of fate. Before she hatched, the odds had been stacked against her. In fact, she would not have existed at all but this, she did not know. She did not know that her egg had been a dud. For a dragon, there was one in a million chances that it'd happen in a clutch of six to eight. Despite that, there were worse things that could happen to a dragon whelp, like becoming a runt as a result of improper incubation. A runt had a hard road ahead of them.

Fortunately , Aeskyre was not a runt. Unfortunately, whatever had happened during her incubation had affected her hatching and made her an almost dud.

Bad dragon eggs got eaten, and that was not a metaphor.

For some, eating your unhatched offspring might have seemed barbaric,but dragons were more pragmatic than anything. Their eggs contained some of the most potent magical nourishment for their young and rather than waste those that did not hatch, they would be used to feed the rest of the clutch. Nothing got left behind, not even the shell.

Besides that, dragons were prideful creatures. They were loath to leave such a store of magical essence for would be scavengers. They also had an image of perfectionism in every facet of their lives. It was how they culled weaknesses before they emerged.

Having the means to peer at their unhatched whelps was how Aeskyre’s parents had known that there was something wrong with her arcane heart. A dragon’s second heart was to dragons what a monster core was to monsters. And though her other heart beat just fine, to her sire, she might have as well been dead. For what was a dragon without their magic? To them she might as well have been crippled.

To the very end, her sire was stubborn and too proud to imprint on defective offspring. Only her dam’s mercies had ensured that she gained anything at all; a half legacy from her parentage. Her dam remained hopeful that the last of her clutch would hatch. But it was not to be. Something happened and the dragons left.

Aeskyre’s egg was left behind. But what could have caused such great beings to leave the realm? Where'd they go? No one knew. But something they deemed even more precious than their coveted hoards of treasures was left behind.

---

And so, it was that a dragon’s egg was abandoned. Were someone to have chanced upon it, it would have been a valuable find. Inside of it was a whelp who teetered between life and death. She was dead to her kin but alive to others. A stark difference in moral philosophy. Arthur would've likened it to the quandary of the kitten in a box. Schrodinger's cat.

The circumstances of her hatching seemed, more than anything, a satire of stochastic machinations. Threads of fate? tangled and looping on themselves. Oonaris, it seemed, was playing a game of cosmic cat's cradle with her destiny.

Then to cap it all off, arcane lightning struck her egg, not once or twice but thrice. Rather than kill her, it saved her. Her arcane heart started beating, for it was not mundane lightning but a magical discharge. Aeskyre hatched.

The rest that followed after breaking through an egg shell as tough as an enchanted shield was a nightmare that would define her for years to follow. But she fought through and survived. Barely.

So a whelp grew and her arcane heart kept going, gathering magic to fuel her growth. The circumstances of her hatchling became a boon, granting her some sway over the wrath of storms. And life was good.

She would have gone on living in the wilds, a naive whelp who knew not the ways of the world, half a legacy and nothing more left to her. However, meeting a runaway prince, saddled with a ruler's burden, seemed like the start of another chapter of her life's story.

An occidanian prince, tired of court machinations, factions moving against one another with cloak and literal dagger had run away from the palace.

Thus it was that two children, one impetuous and weighed down by their legacy, the other trying and fumbling to live up to the broken parts of what was left to her. A tragedy made in the heavens and, truly, one for the children's bedtime stories.

The unlikeliest of friendships bloomed. Of course it had happened before, mere centuries hence. A dragon and a prince. The only commonality between them was that both grew up in castles, though one was empty, almost haunted.

Back then, she had no name with which to call herself. Her name was just one syllable. Ae, a last gift from her mother. Skyre came later. She remembered how it all began, how it led up to the other half of her name.

“You remind me of the sky, Ae,” he said, grinning impishly. He met her heterochromatic gaze with his grey and added,“ One side is gold, the colour of lightning...stormy skies…”

The girl snorted, biting into an apple. A frilly sundress, her first gift from the prince after their scandalous first encounter, rumpled in the breeze as her hair blew into the boy's face. Apple juice dripped down her wrists.

“Ugh, Ae! Are you even listening?” The boy sputtered and spat out locks of her silver hair. The wind had blown it into his face. “Seriously, you have to listen.” The prince was red in the face. His cheeks were puffed up. Teenagers.

---

It was not until many years later that the boy who became [King] would tell her the rest of what he’d wanted to tell her. It was two decades and then some that they stood on a battlefield. Both had grown wiser with age, the runaway [Prince] who became kings. The young [Prince] had finally finally grown into the trappings of his power and shed the frivolities of youth. Besides him was the dragon with half a legacy. She appeared as a young woman with silver hair and heterochromatic eyes and elfin ears.

On that day, the two stood on the battlefield against a great host.

“ Ready Archmage Ae? “ the King’s baritone voice called. Ae, the young woman in mage robes, nodded silently. Her eyes were far away, watching the opposing army from atop a grassy knoll. The grass was trampled by rain and there was mud and puddles in the gentle vale between the two sides. Banners flapped in the wind and a storm brewed above.

The woman had no mount because she hated the damn things. Who needed a horse when you had a movement spell like [Air Step]? [Levitation? The mages of the era would have tutted at such brazen use of magic. Everywhere she went, not once did her feet touch the ground.

Four hundred and seventy years ago, that was the last she ever saw of his smile. After that, the [King] grew weary of the rigours of war over the next decade. Creases were sculpted onto his face, worry lines brought about not by time but fighting a long campaign. His once salt and pepper hair had lost some of its sheen and there were streaks of white in his grey.

The war was long and protracted. The armies from the mainland kept assailing, breaking against their bulwarks to get to the coast. The king’s army was part of the rearguard, and they held, thanks to Ae’s magic. Aeskyre cared not for the minutiae of what the war was all about but wherever her friend went, she did too.

She pitted the stormy weather against them time and again, dealing them debilitating blows, ambushes in the fog, crippling their charge by creating mires with heavy cloudbursts or setting fire to their caravans using lightning.

Things were going well and there might have just been one more battle and they would have left the war torn continent behind, to head for better land. To Alkerd.

Perhaps things were going so well that they did not see betrayal when it came too quickly. They had grown complacent, and as a result, their position was given away. One thing about war was that it always pushed progress. That was the only upside. People levelled, new classes emerged, magic grew.

Things went wrong in the last campaign before the last of the Occidanian refugees escaped across the Straits of Yrcinthe. Things were dire as they were waylaid by Sahuagin ahead and being pursued by Occidanian armies behind. The army fought on two fronts.

Of all the times, her arcane heart began to act up and started to flag. It could not keep up with the drawn out battles she’d fought. On the day when the third moon, Yrcinthe the Blue, made her appearance, their camp came under heavy bombardment from artillery spells.

While their army had grown overbold, their enemies had been sharpening their fangs and the result was the unleashing of their new magic. [Lysbringer’s Skyfall] made its debut. Her barrier failed against the onslaught of rocks larger than a house, peppering their bulwark from the sky, like heaven’s wrath wrought on the land. For quartz at a time, her heart strained until finally, her magic petered out to a trickle.

“ Prithee my fair mestresse,” Despite the arrow shot between hisgorgetst, he still joked around. He always heated the court's diction. She choked a sobbing laugh. Ae didn't know any healing magic. She scorned the discipline that failed to heal her heart. The abrupt battle had bled their reserves of potions dry, and none were left, even for the King to use.

The army was already lost, save for the two people on the battlefield, covered in a shimmering barrier of gold. Long range spells kicked up clods of dirt and gouged furrows on the battlefield. Some battered against the lone spell barrier. She watched as her friend bled his life into her palms.

“Tis not proper for a maiden such as you to weep for me,” he rasped. Blood flowed from the sides of his mouth; he was already drowning in it. Yet, he had the energy to wipe one last tear from the woman hunched protectively over him even as the offensive continued. His hand smeared blood across her cheek.

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“ I never told you the rest of what I wanted to say,” Ae was silent. His gauntleted hand in her small palms. His expression brooked no interruption. “ I don't know where you go off telling yourself you’re lacking. You are more than a half of a legacy, Ae.” He looked at her blue iris.

Ae’s cheek began to crack. The tether to her arcane heart was failing. Another volley broke against her barrier, cracking the scintillating panels. She caught an arrow in the back. Yet both remained unfazed, trapped in their little moment of time.

“All these years, I didn't know. I hope you will forgive me, Ae. I hope you deem a name from a king a worthy parting gift. Live long, my friend, Aeskyre Stormdragon.” he mumbled with the last of his dying breath.

The light went out of his eyes. An area of effect bombardment volley wiped them out. Man and simulacrum. Naught but ash and one set of bones remained.

When she came to, in her old castle in the sky, she was Aeskyre Stormdragon. For the first time, she felt an ache in both of her hearts. Having lost something to live for, she moved, flying across the straits to new lands where she would slink into obscurity just like the rest of her race. Surreptitiously, she had been searching for them for close to two decades, but she was nowhere close to finding hide or claw of them.

---

But even a dragon could only mope in a ruin for so long, and Aeskyre was young. She sought to make something out of her Keep, Sturm’s Keep. Perhaps the human sensibilities of her friend the [King] had influenced her for she did not know which other way to live. Many wouldn’t even have known they’d met a dragon.

She saw the growth of the first human cities, from humble fishing villages. She also saw the war that followed, when old enemies from across the Hesperian Ocean. If the dragon had her way, she would have razed their armadas but her well was not what it used to be.

The flags flown by the ships had the same coat of arms that she’d seen during that fateful time across the strait had given her heartache but she had not the power to rage. After her first simulacrum had been obliterated, the backlash had transferred to an already ailing arcane heart that continued to deteriorate in the years to come.

Naturally, she had to adapt by leaching off the chaotic mana storms that surrounded her Keep. She even acquired an ancient artefact of a civilization that had learnt to move entire aerlands, a magier engine. It gave her at most, two centuries of wanderlusting as she used it as a mana source until her moving aerland stagnated in the No Man Skies.

She saw the coming of the aerships. They encroached her skies, a perceived slight in her opinion but she could do naught but watch them move around. If she taxed her arcane heart by bringing her might to bear she would no longer be able to go gallivanting.

However, that was not to say that she did not take liberties to intruders encroaching on her turf, adding to the hoard that she’d already gathered. But even then she was conservative about it because Alkerd had its own powers, some old if not older than her.

It would not have been wise to garner their attention. Before adventurers, there were witches, mad wizards and other sapient elder races like the oft-forgotten Arachne and the Illvari before their recent decline. She knew a few Arachne were around, integrated to human society and bereft of their baser instincts. They made the best weaving, she had some of their clothe artefacts after all. But between them, they were nothing but fair weather friends.

And after the feverish entry of the aerships had simmered down there was also the Dreimarch of Dwar, the federation of dwarven holds that would grow in threat because of their cannons and ships. Whether it was pirates who appropriated ships of overzealous sailors or her, they were a power that would have taken offence to disappearances. She was not looking to draw any more attention to her lair than she already had so for years at a time, she would go underground, hibernating and letting events pass her by.

Regardless, her growing body was more vulnerable than ever. When she was younger and smaller, it was easier, but as she got older, well, it became too hard to fly. How else did people think dragons were able to carry their bulk?

Despite the size of their wings, they had nowhere near the amount of power needed to make manoeuvrability as easy as it was supposed to be. Or how else did people think dragons breathed fire, lightning or frost?

Aeskyre had cut down her movements, gathering her power for something else now. She was still hung up on fighting a cure to her ailing arcane heart, looking at the myriad tomes she’d gathered. She looked for magic that would remedy her situation, if not cure her, then make sure that her body would not be vulnerable. She was despairing until the human came. The [Lost Worlder].

---

The [Lost Worlder] had unknowingly bumbled into her lair. She would have glassed him right there and then, like the overbold people who called themselves adventurers. For some reason, she had hesitated, firstly because he was strange in a way that he did not belong.

Everything about him was wrong, the language, the lack of magic in his blood and the taint of a great working on him. Whether it was the work of the Primals or an accidental happenstance, she did not know but she found camaraderie in a being lower than her that had been like her, lost.

She picked him up, like one of those exotic creatures populating her caves that she had appropriated from a smuggler’s vessel. Maybe it was a passing fancy or maybe her outlook on things had been skewed, but she acquainted him with magic. Just enough to get him one foot on a long road.

Aeskyre had expected surprises because he’d dropped out of a rift, which she might have detected if she wasn’t hibernating. But the way the human thought, if he was even human at all, was so unconventional, especially regarding magic. He took to magitech like a fish to water that she was half-inclined to believe he had been taught by the dwarves if it weren't for his lack of mana at the beginning.

Then everything was well in hand until the whelp almost killed himself and she had to do something drastic. For what reasons she even attempted to save him from the consequences of his follies she did not know.

Maybe she was holding out the hope that with his unconventional way of thinking, she might glean something that would fix her arcane heart. In some way he did, though inadvertently. It made her realise that she was looking in the wrong place. She had another avenue of looking for a solution by looking at spatial magic.

After that, with each day he recovered, she felt as though she was interacting with the human through a haze of delirium. Like a fever dream. She saw part of her old friend in him. Her sense of possessiveness grew, at some point she thought of confining him to a gilded cage when he began to yearn for the outside.

Aeskyre was no [Ward Master] or [Aegis Caster], but she could have put up a barrier that kept him in the Keep where he was safe. But then again, she knew that if he wanted to grow, he would have to go elsewhere. Only levelling in adversity would make him truly strong. Staying cooped up in the Keep would make him too complacent regardless of how much magic and swordcraft he practised.

All she could hope for was to expedite his growth, so she used her old contacts to get him outfitted and send him on his merry way. The human meant well, but telling him what ailed her was weakness. Her draconic pride could not stand for it.

But loath as she was to admit it when the last of Arthur disappeared beneath the fallstreak and the clouds moved to cover the gap, she truly felt alone. For some time, the dinner table was more desolate than usual, despite the fact that it had been set up for the sake of her guest.

Perhaps Arthur would've stayed in the keep for the entirety of his life, which would've meant a couple of centuries at the least because of the blood running through his veins. He wasn't supposed to have survived the infusion of dragon blood at all, that he did meant that perhaps Oonaris was on his side. Irony of ironies, she was the one with all the bad luck.

After that, well it didn’t get easier. Days passed, then nundines and though her sense of time was diminished she felt as though she was waiting for something. Apprehension gnawed at her.

Was it melancholy? Perhaps her [Emotional Detachment] skill was insufficient. That must have been it; impetuous, mercurial nature of her body, even [Emotional Detachment] failed sometimes. The pride of dragons was not meant to dwell overlong in a small vessel like a simulacra. Despite the allure of it, it was so prone to sudden emotional shifts. Also, a head many sizes too small meant a one track mind. Brash and brutish, even she realised that.

Or perhaps that was just denial, just like the human had done, just like the one before him had also done. Running away from what was right in front of them. She should have admitted that she was indeed, forlorn. That was the feeling the dragon felt in that waifish body.

It felt like something was stuck in her throat, something she couldn't spit out or swallow, or a pain in her breast that would not go away. She could understand attachment to her hoard, but to another being of flesh and bone? Aeskyre shook her head at the thought, absurd. Yet it had happened, and for the second time.

There was nothing more. She could go back to the cave, hibernate and recover her strength but to what end? She had no other recourse for her ailing heart. The magier core no longer gathered power for her to leach as the antecian artefact had already failed.

The dragon abhorred the thought she would be stuck in the cave until her heart gave out and she died. She could not go out like that, she too had dreams beyond gathering hoards, there was much Eryth had yet to offer to her. And so it was that she wholeheartedly gave herself to her own study of the arcane, spurred on by the human’s inspiration.

Amber hats and steel stilettoed boots did look good on her; Aeskyre could not wait to go on another shopping spree, range further from her Keep and stay anywhere she wanted without feeling tethered to her main body. Or fight a whole weyr of wyverns with the freedom of a humanoid form, enjoy the food and liquor without the encumbrances of a ridiculous constitution. With such things being her motivation, mundane perhaps, finding the magic to create a [Dimension Pocket] seemed like a surmountable goal. Lofty, yes, but worthwhile.

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