There's only one person you should be talking to tonight - and if not now, you might never get the chance. So it is with a heavy heart that you step back out of the calming rain, shutting out the sounds of the storm behind the soundproofed glass-paned doors. Your bed remains where you left it, not a thread out of place since you arrived. You didn't even touch the welcoming bowl of fruit. You tap an apple with one claw contemplatively, but you leave it where it lies. You don't want any food on your stomach tonight, it's liable to sit like a stone.
It doesn't take you long wandering the many halls of the vast temple-complex to bump into some clerics taking the night-shift. They're more than accommodating, asking what concerns you so to be up at this hour, no doubt imagining and pre-flinching away from whatever it is about your reception that displeased you so. You're too tired to be delicate about it and too wired to seem like nothing's bothering you, so you bluntly ask them to just show you to the dungeons. They seem more than happy to escort you across the complex. Good thing there's probably no assassins creeping in to kill Ljósingar while they're away from their posts.
The sound of thunder is muted in here, muffled by layers of stone and soundproofing - constant lightning's all well and good for the likes of a storm-god or blue dragon but mortals don't like going deaf in a week. The complex is laid out like a many-pointed star, each corridor leading to a set of double doors left open during clearer weather to let the winds sweep clean through bearing the scent of rains to come. The complex is subdivided into temples-within-temples, places to pray if you seek favour from any specific aspect of the storm-god's domain; rains to water your crops here, winds to bear you safely and quickly on your voyage here, lightning to grant you light and warmth in your home during the colder season here, or a terrible storm to wreak havoc on your enemies there. In the centre a more general prayer area for those who only seek the storm-god's blessing in whatever manner they seek to bestow it. Or the ones who just live here and want to pay their taxes but that's a bit of a bluntly pessimistic way to put it and the clerics would definitely frown upon it. The two escorting you lead you out of the main building and into the grounds, four lawns split by four paved paths, the green spaces allowed to flourish almost wild, plants and flowers and even trees growing safe as anything in the looming shadow of the temple spire.
The three of you head off the most well-travelled of the paths, along the perimeter walls past one of the staff dormitories and through a side-door hidden in a shadowed nook. Down and down you go beneath the skin of the plateau around a spiral staircase, one cleric ahead and one cleric behind. The one in front lights the way with a sizzling, crackling stream of electricity arcing back and forth between the outer finger and thumb of one steel-plated hand, but it's for their benefit more than yours. When at last you reach the bottom, the man ahead of you steps through the door only to hold it open for you. It's the cell at the far end of the hall, he tells you. You can't miss it.
You walk down that hall, step by long, measured step. The click of your talons on the stone floor seems to echo all the way up and down the cell block, back and forth, back and forth until at last it's too weak to go on. Each footfall is heavy, purposeful. You're taller than most mortals could ever hope to be and far heavier too, every kilogram of draconic muscle wrapped in dense scales that could turn almost any weapon. One so invincible couldn't possibly be so light as to fly, and yet with only a few beats of the great blue wings of the finest leather folded on your back you could soar from ground level all the way to the top of that blazing lightning-rod spire. There are other prisoners in the cells, in for lesser crimes like theft or blasphemy or some such, one drunk leaning against the bars and snoring only to start awake when he hears you approach. They all shrink back as you come into view, scrambling to the far side of their cells as if expecting you to lunge and your jaws to snap shut around trailing limbs. The drunk actually mumbles "your lordship" as you pass - is he so bleary-eyed he thinks you're actually Ljósingar? You can't blame him really. You're no brother of theirs, but 'cousin' wouldn't be inaccurate.
Takara's waiting for you at the far end. Standing right there at the bars, bold as brass. Hell they even look like they fluffed themself up in preparation. Their long snow-white locks are perfectly coiffed and arranged around their shoulders, their eyes bright with life and cunning, their vulpine ears rotated forward and pricked up at attention. Their shaman robes seem almost freshly-pressed, certainly not as crumpled and dirtied as they were after your fight a few hours ago. Their hands are folded in front of them, completely hidden by their long sleeves, but you will not be surprised if and when they reveal they slipped their cuffs too. A smile splits their lavender lips from ear-to-ear as you finally come within earshot.
"Eldingar!" they say cheerily. "It's marvellous that you've come. I was just about to break out, so we'd have missed each other had you waited 'til morning. Can't sleep?"
"Where's the map?" you ask.
"Ooh," they say, scandalised. "Not even a 'hello Takara', what has happened to your manners?"
"Where. Is. The map," you repeat. You clasp your hands behind your back - you can hide the tension in your knuckles but you swear they can probably hear the creak of tension in the muscle and sinew beneath the scales all the same. "If it was on you or you left it on your lodgings the clerics will have confiscated it - I can just pick it up from them but I want to hear it from you."
"Who's to say I still had it?" Takara counters. They turn slightly, pacing back and forth behind the bars. "Perhaps I thought ahead like a clever fox, dug myself a nice deep hole under a tree somewhere and threw it in so it'd be safe even if I got caught? Could be almost anywhere on the continent. A lovely little buried bargaining chip to secure my release."
"Liar," you say. Flat. Cold. "You thought I was going to kill you tonight. If you hid it it was nearby, to pick it up once you beat me. If it wasn't among your things then where?"
Takara pauses and takes a long, deep breath. They part their sleeves and flick one hand dismissively - you knew it, no cuffs. "I don't know where it is now. I lost it. That's the truth."
"You lost it?" you snarl through gritted teeth. You don't know what prospect enrages you more, that they really did just misplace it down the back of a couch or that they're insulting you with the laziest lie conceivable.
"I'm no happier about it than you, believe me!" Takara retorts, flicking their head to look at you over their shoulder. "I'd have loved nothing more than to show up tonight with the map with a jaunty 'no harm done' and toss it over my shoulder while I ran back off, but that just wasn't an option. There was an incident down in Stagroot, maybe you heard of it while you were chasing me higgledy-piggledy all over the continent."
"And are you planning to enlighten me further about this 'incident'?" you ask.
They shrug. "Don't see much point really. Map's gone, I'm here -for the moment at least- and you wouldn't believe me even if I told you. Why waste the breath, y'know?"
Now it's your turn to take a breath, nostrils flaring at the tip of your snout. You take a glance left and a glance right, into the greyscale gloom of the rest of the prison block. Can't be much left to search.
"Fine by me," you say at last. "All I have to do is go ask Petros."
Takara stiffens, stills. You press on, the corner of your mouth curling up in a fanged smirk.
"I visited his old home, learned quite a bit about him. Seems Petros and I will have quite a lot to discuss. I'm sure he'd be more than happy to tell me all about everything you two saw and did in your travels together. After all - he was one of the beacons on the map. I'm sure we'll be fast friends."
Takara's head tilts slightly. From the glimpsed flex in their throat you think they swallow. "Well," they say, "when you put it like that I s'pose I can just direct you to Petros if you try to call me a liar again."
They turn to face you again, arms folded. They stopped pacing at the far left corner of their cell - you turn crisply and stride over until you're level again.
"It all started when I was in the middle of chatting up Xiomara when your djinn teleported in and made a pig's ear of the whole endeavour," Takara explains.
You laugh. A short, sharp bark married to a rumbling, predator undercurrent that vibrates deep in your chest. A flash of ivory fangs, resisting the urge to throw your head back. You turn to face Takara properly. "I thought I told you to stop lying to me."
"Believe me or not, just let me finish the story!" Takara snaps. You remain silent until they resume on their own. They adjust, folding their arms tighter, and glance away.
"The map led me to Xiomara. Yeah, I know, it's the worst lie I could ever come up with, so why would I bother to use it unless it was true?" they go on. "Trust me, I was just as confused as you would've been. So I had to check, you know? No way I was going to pass up a mystery like that. Curiosity may kill cats, but foxes don't need nine lives to do stupid things and live to tell the tale. We were really starting to hit it off, too. Honestly she seemed like a nice lady, bit lonely-"
"Xiomara the Invincible?" you interject. "The dragonslayer who swears allegiance to no banner but her own blood-soaked crusade of revenge?"
"Yes that exact one, good boy," they reply flippantly. "And that was when your djinn teleported in out of nowhere demanding I return the map, and even that wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't blabbed about the whole situation to her! So he outed himself as the servant of a dragon and me as something 'close enough' to a dragon that she started trying to kill the both of us."
"... you're saying you didn't hurt Makram."
Takara glances at you out of the corner of their eye. "Yeah. Xiomara did it, froze him over then hit him so hard he just kind of cracked open. He got distracted trying to get me to cough up the map - didn't realise she busted him up so bad he couldn't even tell you what happened 'til you showed up tonight. Think the map fell out of my pocket while we were leaping about in the bar, who knows where it's got to now."
You shake your head, finally unclasping your hands so you can bring one to your brow. Takara uses your brief silence to start pacing again. "Alright. Fine. Let's... entertain the notion for a moment that you're telling the truth about Xiomara being one of the beacons on the map, and you went to Stagroot to try and sway her like you did Petros. That leaves only one unaccounted for. Tell me about that one."
"Beg pardon?" they ask, another glance tossed back over their shoulder.
"The Söfnun beacon," you repeat. "There was one practically on my doorstep, I just never got around to pursuing it until losing the map meant I'd never have a hope of finding the needle in that particular haystack. You'd have had to go out of your way to miss it after you left the spire, so tell me who it was."
"Who said I went there?" Takara counters. "The map was hot and I had no idea when you'd be back at the spire, or what you'd do when you got back. Soft little yappy dog of a dragon you seemed like from our heist, how was I to know you wouldn't turn on a dime and start scorching all of Söfnun from on high were I to linger there?"
"Oh don't give me that," you snap. "I had no way to track you, even if I were going to lose my head to the extent I'd attack Söfnun just to get at you. You would have had ample time to track down the beacon there. Could have even made a show of saving them from the big bad dragon. Could have even waited a few days until I tired myself out and moved on. You had every opportunity to take a target practically gift-wrapped for you, now stop insulting my intelligence."
And they don't even leap at the bait. They stop pacing again, tipping their head back to stare at the ceiling as they search for a reply. "Alright, fine, you caught me. I did duck into Söfnun real quick while I was fleeing the scene of my crime. It was a man named Cheis, he ran a bar called The Bear Hug which funnily enough was a sly comment on the fact that he's been living with being a werebear for years. I did my best to pierce that large and cuddly exterior of his but sadly it just wasn't meant to be, so I bade him a fond farewell and left. I'm sure you and he would be much more to each other's liking, what with his height and his huge strong arms and the way he-"
You drive your hand against the bars with an almighty CLANG. "Enough with the lies!" you shout, startling the fox out of their rambling reply. "Why are you still acting like this? What do you possibly have left to gain from leading me around in circles and keeping me from the last one? Is it just spite? You're acting like you were one of the people on the-"
And as you say the words, it finally hits you. Silence falls in the cell block, your hand resting in the bent divot you made in the bar. Takara stares back at you, wide-eyed, with nothing to say in reply. Something comes to you. A flash of supernatural insight perhaps, some buried draconic instinct. Perhaps you just know Takara better than you thought.
You reach through the bars and plunge your hand into Takara's chest. Paper crumples and creases, folding and shearing around your claws. The false fox freezes in place, face twisted in a look of shock as it burns up from the inside. And when it burns, it takes the painted backdrop that looked so frighteningly lifelike only moments ago with it.
"... map," you finish, far softer.
The cell is a mess. It looks like it was used to cage a wild animal, an animal that scratched and clawed and threw itself against the walls in helpless fury at its capture. The bed frame, old and economical but still quite solid iron, has been kicked to pieces, the mattress and bedding shredded into so many rags and clumps of feathers to match. Even the toilet has a foot-sized chunk knocked out of the bowl. And amid it all lies Takara, curled up in a ball amid the remains of their bedding, lying on their side facing the far wall. Their hair is tangled and bedraggled, their robes ripped and dirtied just as they were after your fight. You don't spy a twitch out of their limp tail or their flattened ears.
The moment stretches on forever. You feel like you should say something, but what can you say? What could someone possibly say in a situation like this to... fix it? All of it? You could peel these bars apart and step into the cell with Takara if you so chose but you can't. All your strength and it fails you. You can't even move. All you can do is stare at their back and imagine the what-ifs, the could-haves and might-have-beens. All you had to do was go looking for the Söfnun beacon before that heist that started it all.
And at last Takara decides to speak first.
"Y'know," they murmur - their voice is soft and hoarse, perhaps they've worn out their real throat shouting already, "I've been thinking about it a lot. Ever since I first checked the map when I stole it and saw the compass pointing right at me. Been thinking about it even more since Makram talked to me that night in Stagroot. He said it wasn't just a love-radar, y'know? And I think I get it now."
You don't move. You don't speak. You scarcely dare to breathe.
"I think you needed me to be your 'bad guy'. The one who transgresses and finally provokes you enough to make you cut loose like a real dragon." A soft, dry-throated chuckle. "And you were a real dragon tonight, weren't you Eldingar? Every bit the unstoppable force of nature they say your kind are. 'til someone did stop you, I s'pose. But it sure wasn't me. Didn't matter what trick I threw at you, you just kept on coming. And you didn't even have to transform, heh."
Your hand slowly trails down the bars of their cell. Down and down and down until it falls limply by your side again. Somewhere, in someone's cell, water slowly falls from above with a steady drip... drip... drip...
"And maybe that's why she was on your list too," Takara murmurs. "What greater challenge could a dragon ever want? Wouldn't that be one for the history books? You'd be the greatest dragon in the world. Get all the fear and respect and adoration you could ever want. Maybe she's the one you finally kill. Maybe that's the last thing you need to be happy."
In the end you don't say a word. You turn and walk away. Takara never calls you back.
You make it back to your room unaided. If you sleep, it's not enough to notice at all.
Morning light streams in through your balcony door. Last night's storm has finally broken, and the local god has seen fit to let the sun shine down for once. You don't know how early Ljósingar takes visitors so you don't budge. You just lie there, flat on your back atop the still-made sheets, hands clasped over your chest and staring at the ceiling.
What are you supposed to do?
There's a knock at your door. You don't move. There's a second knock at your door. You still don't move.
"It's only me," comes Issachar's muffled voice through the door.
"It's unlocked," you reply.
The door swings open. He makes no effort to cross the threshold. You swivel one eye in his direction - he's in his human form still. He just looks at you in turn, one hand resting on the doorframe. What he sees must speak volumes.
"You went to see them, didn't you?"
"Yeah."
What else is there to say? Plenty you suppose, but nothing that can be said in the ambiguously short time between now and when a god is planning to call on you, so the matter slowly falls out of view like a gently-wafting feather. Instead Issachar's expression only grows softer, and he lets his hand fall from the doorframe to his side.
"I only wanted to say that... I'm with you, Eldingar," he says at last. "Whatever deal Ljósingar offers you about last night, whatever you decide, I want to help you however I can."
"... 'anks," you croak at last. Your voice sounds like it belongs to a stranger. Issachar smiles kindly and shuts the door again. Somehow you just feel worse.
It's not long after that when the clerics come to escort you to Ljósingar's private chambers. The only real surprise is that they only escort you half the way - they take you to the centre of the temple, where devotees are already filing in to make their offerings and send their prayers, and bid you to stand dead centre in the room atop what appears to be a simple iron disc, one of many shapes in the elaborate mosaic of the storm-god himself emblazoned across the temple floor. There's a low hum, an electric tingle in the air, little arcs and sparks of lightning flaring up all over your scales in sympathy as the iron disc begins to rise. Templegoers turn to stare and point and murmur amongst each other in hushed tones as you rise right into the ceiling and beyond, rocketing up the length of the temple-spire towards the very apex where Ljósingar dwells. It's something like the lifts you see in taller Plutocracy buildings, only using some kind of electrical field of immense power rather than cables and pulleys. Quite impressive. And probably utterly terrifying to anyone who can't fly.
It slows, and finally comes to a stop within the 'cap' at the top of the spire, just below the vast array of gleaming metal rods that draw down the fury of each storm that passes over Hálendi and turn it into a blessing from its god. The 'private' room is completely open-air, the 'walls' naught but silver spires to keep the roof from falling. The wind whistles and washes freely through this lofty perch, but neither you nor its occupant notice. There is no impressively-carved old desk made of some precious wood for Ljósingar to be sitting behind, nor shelves of books dotted around to look distinguished, but there is a raised dais at the other end of the circular room, accessible only by a series of horizontal silver rods that are no doubt as good as stairs to the grasping talons of the storm-god. They stand upon this dais, peering down at you with eyes that are no less bright and brimming with power in the light of day.
"Eldingar," they say. "I'm glad to see you remained to keep our appointment. Were the accommodations to your liking?"
"Of course," you lie automatically. "Shall we wait for my associate or-?"
"No need," Ljósingar replies, waving a claw dismissively. "While I'm sure the angel has been of great service to you, he has little to offer in the affairs of our kind."
You blink, but you keep your surprise in check easily. After all, who better to tell at a glance if someone is an angel or not than a god? You almost wish you could ask which one Issachar likely serves, but you have far more pressing matters to deal with. "Yes, quite. On to business then?"
"Business, then." Ljósingar descends at a slow, loping gait, hands folded behind their back, curling their great blade-feathered wings around their body like an excessively lethal cloak. "You may be pleased to learn that I have decided to let the bull go. He cooperated readily enough when interrogated that I had him moved to a proper room during the night, as his only crimes are naivete, ignorance, and the company he keeps - although I have instructed the guards not to let him leave until we are done deliberating his fate. The fox, however, is another story."
They reach the floor and turn to face you, coming a few strides closer. Their wingtips trail along the steel floor like a hundred keening knives, matching the more staccato click-click of their talons.
"The fox is a shapeshifting trickster of some infamy," they go on. "The more I learn the more their list of crimes stretches on, and should I cast my attention across the sea to their homeland I may yet find even greater sins to add to it. More presently, there is most of a city block and adjacent park in need of repairs thanks to their antagonism. By offending me in my own domain, their fate is ultimately my will. However, as the crime they committed against you is what drew both of you here, it is your right by nature to decide on their fate with me."
"Of course," you say, pretending you know the first thing about dragon-god relations.
"My view is very simple," Ljósingar says. "This fox may be a stranger to me, but I know those of its type very well. A shapeshifter that leaps from place to place, never putting down roots, never lingering long enough for the consequences of its evil to catch up to it. The greatest punishment a being such as that could suffer is to be confined. I would see this 'Takara' remain here under my watch, until such a time as I can contact relevant authorities across the sea to further discuss the matter. Or perhaps leave it to languish until I feel it has served its penance. What say you?"
You have a lot to say, and also no idea how to phrase it. Especially to a god whose patience you are in no hurry to test right now. So... what do you want? Here, now, with Takara finally in your grasp, nowhere left to run.
[ ] Wash your hands of the whole thing. Let Ljósingar keep Takara imprisoned and leave with Issachar and Petros. From the sounds of it Takara has done a lot more harm than just stealing from you - and besides, they can probably break out before anything drastic like an execution happens. This is just a final farewell, an assurance that Takara will never bother you again.
[ ] Suggest that Takara be released into Issachar's custody. He has his ranch, nice and isolated with plenty of time to keep an eye on them, and since Ljósingar already knows he's some sort of angel they might be inclined to trust in his abilities. And Issachar did say he'd help however he could. Maybe he can direct some of his 'being good to people' energies into Takara? You'll likely have to sweeten the pot a little somehow.
[ ] Suggest that Takara be released into your custody. You have the spire, and a lot of lovers living there who'd be perfectly capable of keeping an eye on them, as well as your own personal draconic might and authority. Mostly just a sideways move compared to being jailed here. You'll likely have to sweeten the pot a little somehow.
[ ] Tell them to just let Takara go. You don't care any more, or don't want to care, or something along those lines but the point is you want Takara out of your life. If Ljósingar lets them go they'll have to disappear, go into hiding and wait until whatever fuss got kicked up in the god community dies down. And, most likely, they'll never bother you again. You'll definitely have to bribe Ljósingar somehow to get them to agree to pardon.
