Dragonchild of Darkness

[Questwolf]

Despite her general tiredness she forced herself to stay awake. She was worried Zavia or Saffia would pick a fight after they woke. Perhaps she should have gotten some sleep herself? Yet ever since the night she touched the infinite void she had never slept well in darkness. She suppressed her fluttering anxiety as Zavia began to sit uncoiling from her corner to move towards the cave opening. She tensed as Zavia approached but the other dragon completely ignored them strolling right past her and Nixia as if they were beneath her notice, before leaping into the air and flying down past the cloudline.

Saffia acted very differently when she rose, her single eye glued to Nixia's still sleeping form as her tail twitched speculatively, yet a low growl made her sister flinch and back away. Yet even as Saffia flew away a part of her was still scared one of her sisters would return to try and kill her as she slept. She had never considered the idea that one of her siblings could kill her or even attack her outside of a lesson but now her eyes were opened to the possibility and she had managed to annoy half of her remaining siblings she found it difficult to stop thinking about it. She knew from experience that it was unlikely one of her siblings could snuff her out in a single blow as the Devourer could but still she struggled to relax enough to sleep as she kept feeling tense, like any moment she would have to leap into action. Yet she had to sleep sometime for her tiredness weighed down on her like a physical thing.

As she looked down at the overcast cloud far below she realized she was being foolish. "Zephyr? Can you wake me up if one of my sisters comes to kill me?" She asked into the wind. Briefly she felt abashed that she had skipped over all the flowery language that Zephyr had taught her to use when entreating a wind spirit for aid yet Zephyr they did not seem to mind her casualness. "Fear not Lanarithia, for I will watch over you." The wind spirit's soft voice seemed almost amused by her request. As she felt the wind spirit swirl around her she slowly let the tension drain away as she took solace in the warmth of the sun on her scales. Before she knew it consciousness had fled her and she slipped into the relaxing oblivion of dreamless sleep.

It felt like a moment was all that had passed when she flicked her eyes open once more but the sun was now high in the sky and she was alone in the caverns opening, the spot where Nixia once lay empty and her scent faded. "Zephyr?" she asked, confused and hoping the wind spirit was still nearby. While she did not doubt that Zephyr was watching over her she knew wind spirits could feel a dragon moving through the air a great distance away and that they loved to wander. A quiet moment passed before she heard Zephyr's voice from surprisingly nearby. "No void dragons approached you and the one by your side ceased their stillness and flew off a while ago."

She felt herself relax a bit as Zephyr told her everything was alright. As she wearily blinked her inner eyelids a great yawn exploded out of her jaws. She took a moment to stretch herself out, trying to wring the drowsiness from her body even as she took stock of how well she had healed during her nap. As she worked kinks out of abused muscles she found she felt better than she had last night, if still not truly well. Her whole body twinged with pain but it did not burn with white hot agony and that was clearly a step in the right direction. She even looked better, her wounds scarred over and beginning to fade. She even spotted the obsidian gleam of tiny new growth scales in the dull melted splotches that covered her hide. Yet she hissed in distress as she unfurled her right wing and saw its state. As she slept the delicate membranes that stretched between her wing fingers had partially regrown, fusing back together into a single cohesive piece but her wing was still riddled with holes and crisscrossed with angry red lines that marked weak, still healing areas. She might be able to fly on this wing. It could conceivably hold her aloft. It could also be torn apart by the rigors of flight and send her tumbling to her death.

She looked down at what she could see of the forests far below the cloudline and whined. She was hungry and thirsty and worried. It shocked her, that last feeling. She was concerned about Nixia being down there, even weaker and more wounded than she was as Zavia and Saffia hunted for her. It seemed strange to have such feelings for one of her sisters. From the moment they had hatched all of them had fought against each other under the gaze of the devourer. Yet despite that fact the idea of seeing Nixia dead distressed her. Evidently it distressed her enough for her to stick her own neck out to stop it. Why, though? Why did she care? She spent a while just standing there untangling her thoughts and working through her emotions as she looked out at the world.

A part of it she thought was bound up in her own fear of death. She had first realized her chances of surviving for any great length of time were low as she observed more and more of her siblings die. It made her understand how desperately she wanted to live, how much she feared ending up in the devourers maw like the others had. Valexia and Terria and all her other sisters killed before they could gain a name - she did not want to wind up like them. Looking back she saw the cautious optimism she had built up as days passed and no more of her sisters died. It had felt as if she had passed through a great trial and now her whole life lay ahead of her. Perhaps that was why Nixia's near death distressed her so. It had crushed her extremely fragile illusion of safety. She peered at this hypothesis, turning it over in her head as she examined it from different mental angles. It felt… not wrong exactly but perhaps incomplete?

The sound of her stomach growling knocked her out of her contemplations. She huffed in annoyance. surely it should not be so difficult to untangle why she felt something? Yet she felt the way she felt, regardless of her own internal objections. Some days she wondered if she would ever understand herself. Even now she was tempted to leap into the air and race after Nixia. Well Nixia and a deer but she understood her hunger much better than her feelings about her sister. Yet hunger or worry, it was all foolishness. Even leaving aside the risk to her life, how would she even find Nixia? She supposed she might be able to get a direction from Zephyr but the mountains and the forests below them were vast and Nixia would likely be hiding from their other sisters anyway. No Nixia would survive or she wouldn't and there was nothing she could do about it. As for her hunger she could survive a day without food she had done it before.

With a sigh she turned away from the outside world and looked inward at the cavern of her hatching. It was kind of a mess, covered in blood stains, shed scales and dragon excrement. She walked deeper traveling into the dark recess at the far end of the cavern where water gathered in stagnant pools. This place had seemed much larger when she had been a hatchling. She lowered her head to a pool and began to lap up water even as she cringed at the taste. The clear waters of the alpine lake were far superior but she forced herself to drink her fill anyway. She dearly wished she had something to fill her empty stomach, she would settle for tree bark but not even moss grew in the cavern and so she tried to turn her thoughts to something other than food. She tried to think of what she would do before the Devourers lesson and nervousness bubbled up within her. She was always afraid of the lessons but tonight's session with the Devourer seemed to loom over her. Shamanism. Zephyr would teach her shamanism until nightfall.

Yet despite her best efforts to relax and listen to Zephyr's stories her anxiety about the coming night bubbled up again and again. She loved shamanism but in addition to the distraction of worry and hunger it was hard to muster her normal excitement for techniques she might not even get the chance to practice. There would be no spirit dance this afternoon. "Zephyr?" she finally asked when she could bear it no more. "Can we try to cast lightning bolts? Ones like the windspeaker used to defeat dragons. I know you said that doing it properly requires a bunch of wind spirits or a much more powerful wind spirit but I think I might need something like lightning soon." There was a long pause before Zephyr answered. "Alright, we can attempt it. Just keep in mind that I've never done anything like this before." It was the most hesitant she had ever heard the wind spirit sound, but before she could comment Zephyr charged ahead. "This is a spell. Unlike a gust of wind you will have to cast it yourself but it will use my magic. I will give power and you will receive it. To do this you will entreat me and then focus upon our bond. With a random spirit it is apparently difficult but as you have given me my name it should be easy for us."

Zephyr seemed anxious yet determined the same as they had been when they had said that they would be willing to accept a name from her. With a deep breath she centered herself and prepared to launch into her first attempt at shamanic spellcasting before she paused. Briefly she flashed her void sense and searched the cavern for an invisible Devourer but it was only her and Zephyr here as far as she could tell. She did not know how the Devourer would react to her learning shamanism. She was certain it was not a traditional void dragon magic but would the Devourer care if she used it to smite her enemies? She was unsure. Hopefully she would not have to find out today. She knew that she would have to face the Devourers reaction if she ever used this in a lesson but that was a problem for latter.

After taking a moment to recenter herself she launched into an incantation. "Swift Zephyr, you brave and racing wind. You have given me so much. You have caught me when I fell. You lifted me up when I felt far too heavy to reach the sky. You have listed when I spoke and told me fascinating tales of things far beyond what I thought to be possible. Noble and curious Zephyr I beseech you! Will you grant me lightning? I promise I will do something amusing with it!" As Zephyr's laughter rolled over her she focused on her bond with the wind spirit, on all the time she had spent with them. Zephyr had been with her most of her life. Ever since she met them they were there, on the good days and the bad days, reliable like nothing else had been. She struggled to imagine what her life would have been like without Zephyr in it. Without late night stargazing discussions of shamanism and afternoon spirit dances. She was surprised by the intensity of her feelings but there was no time for self reflection for that was when she felt it.

It was the feeling she sometimes got where she just knew Zephyr was near but far more intense. She felt Zephyr's existence as she never had before, as a great vortex of swirling magic on the very edge of her perception, more intuited than sensed. They were made of wind and the wind was made of them. They were beautiful, a magic so different from her own hungry void. She opened herself up to the feeling and she felt a small fragment of Zephyr flow into her, energy unlike anything she had ever felt pouring into her body. Instinctively her void-self opened up, absorbing the energy into herself. She felt the power flow into that empty hollow place deep within her. A purr escaped her as the most amazing feeling washed over her. She felt full and complete in a way she never had before, like a terrible wound she had felt all her life was suddenly healed. Her void-self flourished, regenerating from the cannibalization it had endured last night. Then the power much diminished by her attentions began to flinch back, jerking in her grasp. She wanted desperately to pull upon it, to wrench it inside her void and make herself more complete yet something stopped her. She was pretty sure this was not how shamanic spellcasting was supposed to work. In her uncertainty she loosened her grip and in an instant the power fled her.

Slowly the feeling of completeness left and she whined in anguish as the hollowness returned, even stronger than before. She wanted to rage and curse, she wanted to throw herself to the ground in hopeless despair as a great tide of negative emotion washed over her. Then Zephyr spoke. "That was very rude, Lanarithia." She heard a slight tremble in Zephyr's soft voice. "Normally when Wind spirits give magic to a shaman they get it back after the shaman completes their spell. Subsuming a spirit's magic within themselves is a good way to not get any more magic." Her heart sank even further as she realized what she had just done. "I am sorry, I -" Zephyr interrupted her. "I know you didn't do it on purpose. We can try again if you want"

She stared at the air incredulously. "You gave a very good incantation. I very much want to see something amusing." the wind spirit said, sounding almost defensive. "Just give me a moment." Zephyr's trust helped raise her spirits even if she could not truly understand it. She focused inward taking slow, deep breaths as Zephyr had once told her too so many days ago. Slowly the clawing hollowness faded into the background of her awareness and she started to feel normal again. "I am sorry Zephyr. I really did not intend to diminish you. I will not do it again. If you still want to do this I think I am ready to try again." The words seemed painfully insufficient to her, yet Zephyr gave their assent and so she spoke a second incantation. It took longer this time to find the bond between them and once more feel Zephyr's existence on such a deep level but she managed it once more.

This time as she felt Zephyr flow into her she kept a tight grasp upon her voidself, determined not to screw up again. She focused upon the flowing beauty of Zephyr's magic as she carefully guided it within herself. Once again she felt the hollowness within the core of her voidself rise up as the desire to subsume, to complete herself, to not feel so very empty and alone flared within her. She fought against the instincts of her voidself for she knew that ultimately it was a part of her and that she could control it. It was difficult. It felt like observing Zephyr with her voidsense except much worse as the power now lay within her, unignorable and already enveloped by her voidself. Yet bit by bit she managed it, as the power moved within her she kept a firm but not devouring grasp upon it with her voidself. She felt as Zephyr handed off the bundle of magic to her and suddenly this strange alien power became her own. It was not a part of her and yet it moved to her will. She wanted to marvel at the strange sensation of controlling wind magic, of having what almost seemed a windself but she knew instinctively that this was temporary. Zephyr was letting her borrow a small sliver of their magic and in a few moments this power would return to them.

So she focused on using the magic while she had it, trying to cast the lightning spell Zephyr had taught her about. This turned out to be more difficult than she had foreseen. Wind magic moved differently to void magic. It felt and acted differently. More than that, while void spells flowed together almost intuitively spellcasting with wind felt like fumbling around in the dark. It did not help that she was distracted by the desire to eat the spell she was trying to cast. She let out a yelp as her half-formed mini lighting bolt activated prematurely and she felt a painful jolt as her body spasmed involuntarily. She heard Zephyr laugh as their magic flowed back to them. "That was certainly amusing." they said, their soft voice full of mirth.

She glared out at the wind but there was no heat in it. In truth she wanted to roar in triumph. She had done it! Well not exactly, but she hadn't screwed up awfully! "Can I try again?" she asked excitedly. For the rest of the afternoon she practiced the difficult art of shamanic spellcasting working with Zephyr to cast wind magic. She was not yet good enough to actually cast a proper lightning bolt but she still felt more prepared as dusk began to grow closer.

 

[Questwolf]

With the Devourers lesson nearing Zephyr left wishing her luck as they flew away into the sky. She wished desperately to join them in flight but she had a wounded wing and little time before sunset besides so she started to practice her void magic in preparation for the lesson. Normally this was her time to try and delve into the underlying mechanics of void magic but right now she focused on more direct applications. She ran through sequences of low power spells trying to cast them one after the other as quickly as possible.

When her mind ached from the mental fatigue of spellcasting she tried once more to figure out the Devourers' invisibility spell. She delved into the dark abyss of whisper-sent thought and painstakingly examined her memory of the Devourers void yet tonight, just as before she made little progress. The invisibility spell seemed fiendishly complicated compared to the void magic she knew and no matter what she tried it didn't seem to work right. Perhaps she needed to observe the spell more? Since she was here early perhaps she could catch the Devourer as they appeared.

With an exertion of will she froze her voidself in place and cast her senses outwards probing for magic within the cavern just as she did before every attempt at shamanism. Yet instead of dropping the spell once she sensed it was just her within the cavern she held it waiting for the Devourer to appear. It was surprisingly difficult. Her voidself wanted to move, to flow along an infinite number of twisting fractal paths that all began and ended within her. Maintaining the stillness required for her void-sight was exhausting, making her head throb in pain and her voidself ache with a hollow empty feeling. Time passed and she struggled to keep her grasp on the spell from slipping determined to discover the secrets of invisibility.

Just as she was about to give up she felt the unmistakable weight of the Devourers void at the edge of her senses. Yet the vast nexus of roiling power that was the Devourer was not coming from the opening of the cavern as she would have expected, but from deep in the back of the cavern far behind and below the stagnant pools of cave water. The place her void-sense told her the Devourer was should have been solid rock and yet that did not seem to stop the Devourer from moving through it. She very carefully did not turn and look behind her as she sensed the Devourer move close enough to enter the cavern apparently unimpeded by the cavern's wall.

She turned her focus to examining the writhing void behind her mentally comparing it to the glimpses she had gotten of how the Devourer void appeared while they were visible. She could see the spell and it was as complicated as she feared. All the void spells she knew involved simple manipulations. She made her voidself stop moving, or she pushed more of it into a specific spot and even that was difficult enough. The Devourers' void moved in impossible patterns that once identified hurt to even think about. Yet she forced herself to meticulously categorize every paradoxical movement headless of the pain. She knew this spell could save her life one day. As she toiled at her painstaking work the Devourer prowled around the cavern though what it was doing was difficult to tell.

When the unfathomably powerful vortex of amorphous void began to approach her, she felt her heart skip a beat, yet she held herself frozen in place. The Devourer came so close its void nearly brushed up against her and she felt it turn its ineffable focus upon her. It was as if a mountain had turned to look down at her and she had to suppress a shiver. She itched to turn and look behind her, even as she knew she would see nothing. She flicked her tongue out to taste the air but she smelt nothing of the devourer except for the bland fact that it had been here sometime yesterday. Eventually after an indeterminate amount of time had passed the Devourer moved away and very carefully did not let out a breath of air in relief. She kept her breathing perfectly steady as she slowly released her aching voidself. She felt her void-sense fade away and with it her awareness of the Devourer. She was glad to be ignorant of its existence once more.

She sat there, coiled on the cold stone of the cavern floor until Zavia flew in. Her sister sized her up, peering down at her still healing body with open speculation in her eyes. She swiftly moved into a ready stance preparing for violence even as she worried. Where was Nixia? She knew it was foolish. Zavia almost always arrived first yet she could not help but be concerned. With an exertion of will she suppressed her anxiety as pointless. Nixia would show up or she wouldn't right now her focus needed to be on Zavia. She and her sister circled one another, Zavia searching for weaknesses she was determined not to provide even as she looked at Zavia and considered the benefits of a preemptive strike. Unfortunately Zavia had been less heavily wounded than she, and unless she could inflict a telling wound in the first exchange she knew she would be at a marked disadvantage.

Yet for all her posturing the normally aggressive Zavia seemed hesitant to commit to an attack and so they circled one another, the tension between them palpable as they watched each other's movements attentively. This careful dance was disrupted when a familiar dragon flew into the cavern, traveling so fast they were a blur. The speeding dragon flared her wings rising almost to the cavern's roof as the dragon right on their tail flew under them and slammed into the far wall of the cavern with a thunderous crash. Nixia in an impressive feat of midair acrobatics managed to bleed off enough speed to land safely. She promptly ruined any impression of grace by flopping to the ground to pant heavily but Lanarithia didn't care. Nixia was still alive!

Of course her excitement was cut short by the sound of Saffia's angry growl as she peeled herself off the far wall and began to move toward them. As she prepared herself for imminent combat the Devourer abruptly appeared out of thin air startling all of them into stillness. "Tonight I will begin teaching you whelps the rudiments of magical theory. Now begin fighting!" The Devourer did not specify opponents but Zavia lunged forward to strike her and so she moved against her, faking a void-breath only to charge in with void infused talons, slicing into Zavia's foreleg as they flinched back from a void-breath that never came. Though first blood went to her, the injury was unfortunately minor and so not nearly enough to tip the scales in a fight with Zavia.

Zavia attacked ferociously, relentless in her aggression as she tried to tear apart her still healing wing and rip into the vulnerable unscaled portions of her hide. As she fought for her life the Devourer gave an extremely interesting lecture on the underlying nature of the void yet she only half listened as tonight the Devourer spent much more of its time speaking rather than pressing them to answer questions and so most of her attention was by necessity focused on Zavia. She kept a sliver of attention on Saffia and Nixia's fight but in truth there was little she could do to influence it as she was fully engaged fighting Zavia and she was pretty sure she wouldn't full for the same trick twice, letting her go save Nixia again.

The night dragged on and on and still she fought Zavia the other dragon refusing to let up as they pressed in relentlessly wearing her down and tearing her up as their fight continued. Her only advantage was that she could flash out her void-sense to see where Zavia was concentrating her void and move to counter her. Still the fighting was brutal. Normally she got rotated to fight Saffia and Nixia allowing her to recover slightly with lower intensity fights but tonight she acquired many major wounds and spent her voidself nearly dry before the Devourer finally ended the lesson. She was afraid Zavia would continue fighting but fortunately it seemed they wanted to sleep tonight for after only a short while Zavia broke off and she was able to retrieve Nixia.

Her sister was still alive but she looked even worse than she did last night her wing membranes shredded and her body even more mauled. She had to drag Nixia to the opening for she did not have the energy to walk. As she licked her wounded sister's wounds clean she thought of tonight and what it met. If Zavia and Saffia were not conspiring together to kill her before her accusation they certainly were now. Worse, she and Nixia could not win against Saffia and Zavia. She knew Zavia had inflicted greater wounds upon her than she had upon Zavia. Between Saffia and Nixia it was even worse. Eventually they would be worn down and killed and that was assuming Zavia and Saffia didn't swap opponents. If Saffia distracted her while Zavia fought Nixia… she could not let that happen. It would be the death of her just as she had described to the Devourer, after Nixia they would come for her. The cold equations flashed through her mind and she came to an inescapable conclusion. If she and Nixia wanted to survive they had to kill one of their sisters before tomorrow night.

 

[Chronic]

If she and Zavia wanted to survive they had to kill one of their sisters before tomorrow night.

Click to shrink...

Chilling. I assume you meant she and Nixia though?

 

[Questwolf]

Chilling. I assume you meant she and Nixia though?

Click to shrink...

Yes. Fixed now thanks for pointing it out!

 

[Questwolf]

She was afraid. As the enormity of what she faced grasped her, she felt the cold sting of fear in her gut. She feared that she would fail and she feared that she would die. Her body shook and her claws dug into the stone beneath her paws. She wanted to fly away, and she wanted to fight, and most of all she wanted not to be in this situation. Tending to Nixia's wounds helped ground her, as did the gentle touch of the night breeze that could only be Zephyr. The wind spirit did not speak and yet the feeling of their presence was strong. Slowly the panic passed and distantly she wondered why her fear always seemed to overwhelm her in the quiet moments. She never shook in combat or when she faced down the Devourer.

She tried to focus. To grasp the calm that came to her as she fought. As she finished licking Nixia's wounds and turned to her own she tried to plan what to do next. Plan how she was going to kill one of her sisters. Because if she didn't want to die she definitely had to do that. It would have to be Saffia that she and Nixia tried to kill for she was the weaker one. She briefly considered trying something tonight as Saffia slept, but immediately shied away from the possibility. Nixia was in no shape to do any more fighting tonight and Zavia was right here with them. They would have to do it during the day when Zavia and Saffia separated to hunt. That meant she had to wait for the two of them to separate and then track down Saffia. Could she follow her somehow without Zavia noticing? Would Nixia even be well enough to fight by then? How would they pin Saffia down so she could not flee?

Questions and uncertainties seemed to swirl around her and before she knew it she had finished licking her wounds. So she began to speak to the wind in a soft low whisper. She told Zephyr what happened and she told Zephyr what she had to do. She spoke of her fears and her plans to Zephyr and without hesitation the wind spirit spoke back. Apparently the only experience they had with void dragons was running away from them. They knew little about fighting void dragons and nothing of how to kill one. Still they tried to help her, offering suggestions and support. She bounced idea's off of Zephyr and slowly the two of them came up with a plan. She yawned before glancing up at the beauty of the stars above her one last time. She tried to absorb some of the twinkling starlight as she curled up to try and sleep. There would be no time for naps tomorrow and she would need all the sleep she could get.

Despite her exhaustion, sleep was difficult to grasp. Once more Zephyr had volunteered to stand watch so she did not have to fear an attack as she slept. Still she fidgeted and shifted on her coils, her injuries aching as she searched in vain for a comfortable spot. She was anxious and more than that she felt the lack of sunlight on her scales. Just as she thought she would get no sleep at all, darkness claimed her. She almost wished it didn't. The nightmare began almost immediately and no matter what she did it didn't let her go. She was back in the infinite void. It was all around her, an unending sea of inky blackness and it was pulling her ever deeper into its fathomless depths. It drowned her, dissolving her very being. It would take her name, take everything she was and everything she had ever been until she became just another drop in the ocean. Then she would pull herself together only for the infinite void to dissolve her again as it pulled her ever deeper.

Her awareness of the unreality of the dream came and went. When she was lucid she tried to remain calm. To stay still and breathe deeply and think of something else, something better. She always wound up in a panicked struggle towards the end, as the very core of who she was dissolved. It made no difference. She reformed and she was dissolved again. And again. And again. And ag - She jolted to her paws as she the indescribable feeling of cold air blowing directly into her ear hole washed over her. Briefly she was disoriented before the familiar scents and sight of the cavern washed over her. She tried to calm her racing heart but for all the nightmares were a pale imitation of the infinite void they still terrified her. There was no room for terror right now because she saw Saffia and Zavia advancing toward her in the predawn twilight.

She growled, the sound rumbling in her chest even as she lightly knocked Nixia over the head with her club tail. In moments she and Nixia stood ready to meet their foes. Hissing, growling, threats and curses were all traded back and forth. It was clear that with the opportunity for a surprise attack denied, Saffia and Zavia were weighing their desire to fight them. Saffia looked keen, ready to jump into the fray yet unwilling to commit without Zavia, who seemed undecided. Lanarithia hopped from paw to paw, feeling antsy.

She struggled with what to say to discourage them from fighting while not seeming weak and thus inviting attack. After posturing a bit more Zavia called upon her to "submit or die". She hit back with the best line she could think of. "Fight me, and I will hurt you." Simple, direct and absolutely true. Zavia let out a growl and flared her wings. She called Lanaritia a coward and a weakling more akin to a worldborn than a void dragon of Penumbria's line. She found this rather confusing as neither of them had even seen a worldborn and all the stories said they looked extremely different to dragons so mistaking her for one should be quite impossible. When she said as much Zavia snorted and turned away. In a mark of deliberate contempt they exposed their flank as they sauntered off to the cave opening all but daring her to attack. She did not take the bait. She desperately needed to not fight both of them here and now so she turned focus to Saffia.

Apparently unwilling to stand alone against the both of them, Saffia fled flying out of the cavern almost at Zavia's tail as Nixia hurled insults at her. She watched as the two dragons broke apart and flew down towards the cloudline. She considered flying after Saffia but discarded the notion almost immediately. She would stick to the plan. That would give her the best chance of success. The best chance of not dying. She took a deep, calming breath and gave herself a moment to settle. "Thank you, Zephyr for alerting me to their approach." She said, casting her words out into the wind. Moments later she felt a playful gust of wind swirl around her in response. By habit she chased the wind, trying to catch Zephyr without sensing where they were. It was a game they usually played in the air and even flying it was impossible for her to win unless she cheated with void-sense.

She only stopped when she noticed Nixia was giving her a rather odd look. She looked back at Nixia and the other dragon seemed suddenly shy, curling in on herself under her gaze. As the silence stretched she found herself awkward and unsure of what to say. She felt so many things toward the dragon in front of her. Anger for getting them into this mess by almost being killed. Triumph for successfully keeping her alive. A fragile tenderness that felt difficult to explain to herself, yet alone a whole other dragon.

In the end it was Nixia who spoke first. "What do you want?" she asked, hesitance in her voice. Lanarithia blinked her inner eyelids. "To live" she said, naming the first desire that came to mind. "What do you want from me?" her sister sounded almost exasperated and Lanarithia realized she was being foolish. She had to focus. Plan first, feelings later. "If we work together the two of us can beat Zavia. The problem is Saffia. If we hunt down and kill her today, before the Devourers lesson begins we can both survive." Nixia looked surprised before spreading her tattered wings. Saffia had torn into both of them last night and the damage while healing was severe. "I cannot fly." The admission seemed to cause her sister almost physical pain as she folded in on herself. "Do not worry Nixia. I have a plan!"

Nixia, it turned out, was not a fan of the plan. "Stop squirming! You are making it very difficult to carry you." her cargo squirmed in her foreclaws trying to extend wings pushed tight up against her belly. "Stop clawing me then! It hurts." Complained Nixia. Her sister was not very heavy but they were basically the same size as she was which, it turned out, made her extremely awkward to carry while flying. Realy she was less flying and more slowly gliding downward while desperately trying to keep hold of a rather unhappy sister. If Saffia or Zavia caught them like this they were both as good as dead but Zephyr had told her neither dragon was nearby so they should be fine. As long as her freshly healed wing didn't tear under the strain anyway. As they closed in on the alpine lake she felt Nixia's already racing heart rate accelerate. Fortunately as she came in for a landing Nixia froze in terror rather than descending into panicked flailing.

The snowy ground approached with deceptive speed even as she struggled to maneuver herself while burdened with the bulk of a whole other dragon. She wound up overcompensating for their speed, stalling out and then crash landing Nixia first into the snowy rocks of the alpine valley. Fortunately they both survived though she winced when she saw the fresh claw wounds on Nixia's flanks where she had held her during their brief flight. She thought her sister might remonstrate her for causing the wound but Nixia just spug to her paws and shook herself off. "So this is the lake with the magic invisible water creature in it that can fix my wings?" Nixia sounded notably dubious. Lanarithia on the other hand was optimistic. One of the few things Zephyr knew about water spirits was that in all the stories they were good at healing. She knew there were water spirits in the alpine lake, she just had to convince one to help them. She had a few ideas she hoped would work.

Nixia did not seem particularly heartened by her assurances but she followed her down to the lakeshore nonetheless so Lanarithia considered it a win. She really hoped she could make this work. Nixia had been extremely reluctant to be carried through the air and was before their less than stellar landing and they had a lot more flying to do. More than that Nixia was still hurt from last night. If they wanted to defeat Saffia they needed to be in the best condition possible.

 

[Enthusiast#117]

That's quite the longshot, but they are desperate I suppose.

 

[Questwolf]

The alpine lake was frozen and covered in snow to the point where it appeared nothing more than a stretch of strangely flat ground to one who didn't know of the crystal clear waters that lay beneath the expanse of fluffy white snow. She took a moment to entreat Zephyr for aid, gaining a tiny sliver of wind magic that she squirreled away within the hollow space inside her bones. She thanked the wind spirit profusely for their help and then without hesitation she walked up to the lakeshore and brought her tail club down upon the ice and snow. The ice was thick. It took five strikes of her tail club to shatter a hole big enough for her and Nixia to pass through. She took a moment to lap up some of the cool refreshing lake water. With her thirst quenched she inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with crisp winter air before diving headfirst into the water.

It took a bit of scrambling but she was eventually able to sink her claws into the underside of the ice and pull herself fully underwater. She dragged her body a small distance from the hole and paused to wait for Nixia. She felt the glacial chill of the water surrounding her on the many still healing scars that crisscrossed her body, the sensation a strange mix of soothing and painful. It took a rather long moment before her sister began to slip in under the ice after her. The muted sound of garbled curses met her ears as Nixia flailed about underwater before she got her claws into the ice and was able to pull herself deeper.

She walked upside down upon the underside of the frozen lake, charting a course towards the lake's center. Away from the hole she had broken in the ice the darkness quickly became absolute and she shivered as she was reminded of the infinite void. She clutched tightly to the feeling of the ice beneath her paws and the sound of her sister following after her. Soon she made it to her destination. She dug her hind claws deep into the ice above her paws and heaved her body upright against the push of buoyancy. She spread her wings outward dramatically even as she kept her forepaws pressed against her chest. She peered into the darkness towards the lake bottom below her before shutting her eyes and casting out her void-sense.

She felt Nixia beside her, a glob of swirling void that felt so very similar to herself. She felt Zephyr right above her, just on the other side of the ice, the wind spirit clearly having followed the movement of the sliver of magic they had gifted her. Most of all though she felt the power all around her, vast alien energies whirling in the dark water. It was nothing like the infinite void. This power awakened a desperate hunger within her voidself, a desire to subsume so strong it made her tail twitch. She did not act upon her urges, for to do so would surely doom any chance of success. Instead she began to speak. Talking underwater was hard but she had practiced. She focused not on the hissing, growling, warbling sounds that made up most speech but instead on low humming almost songlike vocalizations with sharp trills interspersed between them. It made her sound soft and almost incompressible but the noises carried and Zephyr assured her that the intent within was the most important part of any appeal for aid. She hoped they were right.

"Water-spirits of the alpine lake. Even a voidborn skybound creature such as I have heard of water's great power and healing potential. I must humbly beseech you for the power to heal my sister's wounds. Please! I promise not to abuse your magic and to return it to you fully intact after I have finished. If you think I am incapable of fulfilling such a pledge, observe!" She pulled on the power Zephyr had given her and moved it. What she did was less a spell and more awkwardly thrusting magic away from her body but it worked. She felt the magic shot upwards right through the ice where it recoined Zephyr once more. She shifted her tail anxiously as she waited for a response to her plea. She had debated endlessly over compliments and flattery she could regale the water spirits with but she had no idea what would be taken as an insult or provocation and so she went with this. She really hoped it worked. She had some more ideas for getting the attention of the water spirits all around her but they were much riskier.

Just when she feared she would have to resort to pushing her void into the water to get a response the power below her moved. It was not the movement of innumerable individual water-spirits but instead the tuning of a single vast being to regard her. For the second time in her life she felt as if a mountain had turned to look down upon her. Before she could think of what to do the spirit began to speak. The voice of the alpine lake was like nothing she had ever heard. It came from the water all around her, a flowing almost lyrical sound so loud that it drowned out everything else. "I am the lake-spirit Alnaque, mother of the river Firanivia whose waters flow all the way to the great ocean and daughter of the unstoppable mountain glacier. You are a little life-eater lizard, unknown to me and not welcomed to call upon my magic."

Fear and uncertainty warred within her as the lake spirits words washed over her but she held herself in place trying not to let her emotions show. Trying to project unshaken calmness and to let none of her bitter disappointment through as she once more cast speech into the dark waters around her. "I understand. Thank you for speaking with me, lake-spirit Alnaque. It was a pleasure to meet you properly for the first time. I will endeavor to be a shaman worthy of your magic." She considered smashing her way right up and out of the lake but thought better of it as it was possible the powerful lake spirit she was currently within might see that as an insult. She was just about to turn and head for the hole she and Nixia had entered from when Alnaque surprised her by speaking again.

"You wish to be a water shaman?" came the question from the lake spirit. "Well, yes." she responded. "I want to be a wind shaman, a water shaman and an earth shaman." Silence fell across the lake for a time as suddenly she felt the water magic of the lake spirit swirl around her, pressing against her from all sides. She held herself still and submitted to the lake spirit's touch despite the hunger it inspired within her voidself. If water spirits were anything like wind spirits then this was their equivalent of sight. As the feeling of vast alien power running along her voidself persisted she began to fidget shifting from side to side.

Finally Alnaque's magic withdrew and the spirit spoke once more. "What do you know, little lizard, of fish?" The question caught her off guard and she immediately focused on the last word trying to decipher its meaning. After a moment's furious thinking she admitted that she knew nothing about fish. "Fish are water animals." spoke the lake spirit. "Once, long ago worldborn carried fish up to me and life bloomed within me as the animals multiplied until they filled the whole breath of my waters. The worldborn would take fish from me during the summers and leave me offerings in exchange. In time I came to accept my name from one of their shamans, and for many years this was the way of things. Then a great flying lizard of your ilk came here and they ate worldborn and fish both. If you are willing to bring living fish back to me, perhaps I could share some of my magic with you."

Her mind raced as she tried to think of where she could find these fish and if she had time to do so before nightfall. She would have to leave Nixia here alone as her sister could not fly. Desperate, she pleaded. "Please Alnaque, my sister needs healing now. Would you be willing to lend me your magic if I promised to find fishes and bring them to you?" There was a long pause as the lake spirit considered her counteroffer. "This is acceptable", said Alnaque and she slumped in relief. The negotiations completed then came the difficult task of actually completing the spellcasting itself. Even the first step of accepting the foreign power, a feat so easy with zephyr, was difficult in the extreme. I took a lot of talking and trying different incantations before she was finally able to accept a tiny droplet of power from Alnaque.

Actually casting a healing spell was much more difficult especially since she had no idea what she was doing and she had to defend the healing spell from Nixia's hungry void with her own voidself. After the fourth failure Alnaque began to insult her spellcraft and offer advice. The lake spirit was a good teacher and Nixia quickly learned how to restrain herself and so before too long they began to make progress. Slowly, awkwardly she began to pump healing lakewater into her sister's veins and to use that power to encourage Nixia's shattered wing membranes to grow back together. With a great deal of time and effort she managed to glue her sisters wings back together and even start to heal some of her most grievous wounds. There was so much more work to do but her brain felt like it would melt and flow out her ears and her lungs burned for air. Reluctantly she told Alnaque that what she had done would do. She thanked the lake spirit profusely for their aid and swore once again that she would find and deliver a great many living fish to their waters.

For a time there was silence from Alnaque. Then without warning she felt the lake spirit's magic move. Before she could react a great bolt of speeding water magic shot toward her. She felt the speed and power of the sudden attack as it passed by her and shattered a nearby section of ice ripping a gargantuan hole in it within the space of an instant. With her void-sense she felt the magic infused water rise high into the air before falling back towards the alpine lake. That strike could have easily crushed her. As she stood there stunned, Alnaque spoke. "Good luck little life eating lizard. Do not return to my waters without my fish." When it was clear the lake spirit was done speaking with her she scrambled up and out of the new hole in the ice.

 

[ptbptb]

and swore once again that she would find and deliver a great many living fish to their waters.

Click to shrink...

Cue dozens of salt water fish floating belly up on top of the lake.

MC is sent back to remedial fish-school.

 

[Altom]

Then a great flying lizard of your ilk came here and they ate worldborn and fish both

Click to shrink...

Let me guess: our abusive cunt of a mother?

 

[Enthusiast#117]

I'm kind of impressed her mother managed to overfish a whole lake to exctinction all by herself.

Is it a smallish lake? Seemed like a big elemental.

 

[Jyggalag]

I'm kind of impressed her mother managed to overfish a whole lake to exctinction all by herself.

Is it a smallish lake? Seemed like a big elemental.

Click to shrink...

Alpine lakes tend to be on the smaller and less populated side, fishwise. Theres a lot of ways to murder an entire lake worth of fish and void dragons seem to be uniquely suited to magically poisoning things by just breathing pure entropy into them.

 

[Questwolf]

For a while she simply lay upon the ice and panted drawing air into herself until her lungs no longer burned. Despite everything she felt amazing. She had done it! Talking to a powerful spirit, bargaining for their aid, even casting healing magic! She felt like a shaman from one of Zephyr stories. She wanted to roar with triumph but before she got the breath for it Nixia beat her to it unleashing a roar so loud and joyous that the sound of it hit her chest like a physical blow. She looked up and saw her sister flying above her. For a moment she was worried that Nixia was flying away, abandoning the plan and leaving her alone. Then her sister banked gracefully and flew back towards her. For a time Nixia seemed to bask in the joy of flight before they swooped down to land in front of her.

"You actually did it." Nixia's voice was disbelieving as she ran a paw along her healed wing. Lanirithia snorted in surprise. "Did you believe I was being dishonest? Why did you follow me then?" she asked, suddenly curious. She knew so little about how her sister thought. Nixia flicked her tail dismissively. "It is not like I had much of a choice. You might kill me but Saffia certainly would." Her sister fixed her with an intense look and Lanarithia saw the question shining in her crimson eyes. Why? Why had she saved them? Implicit in the question was the belief that she had been dishonest with the Devourer when she told it why, an even more insane risk. Yet after a moment of awkward eye contact Nixia looked away, tilting her head down toward the snow laden ice beneath their paws.

"How did you heal me? The magic you used, it was so different." said Nixia. That was a lot easier to answer than the question of why. It was simple after all. "It was water magic. I talked to the lake and the lake talked to me. We worked out a deal where I could borrow some of their magic in order to heal you." Nixia appeared highly skeptical of this explanation which made no sense to her. Was her sister not there? Did she not hear? She was about to launch into a more detailed explanation when her gaze drifted to the sky. When they had entered the alpine lake it had been dawn. Now it was nearing noon. She had spent more time under the ice than she had thought. "Explanations later." She declared. "We have to move quickly to catch Saffia. Follow my lead." Wordlessly she called out to Zephyr and when she leaped into the air the wind caught her winds pulling her up into the sky.

She flew and nervousness fluttered in her chest. She did not know where Saffia was but she had a plan to find her. She began to dance. She twisted and dived and twirled through the air with all the grace she could muster and she sang out a dragonsong to the howling wind around her. She sang a melody of flight through billowing crosswinds and steep, fast dives that cut through the air. She was surprised when her sister joined her. At first Nixia was silent as they chased her across the sky but hesitantly her sister joined her voice to Lanarithia's song as the two of them danced a duet across the sky. It did not take long before Nixia caught her, lightly raking their claws across her belly before darting away. Then it was her turn to chase and she did not hesitate to cheat, calling upon Zephyr to give her a favorable tailwind.

It did not feel like hunting or fighting what they did as they chased one another and an odd feeling rolled over her. If she was not so focused upon her task she felt as if she could lose a day like this. It was the exhilaration of combat with none of the terror. Through void-sense she saw wind spirits arrive to watch them and even hesitantly join in, throwing gusts of wind to help or hinder her or Nixia seemingly at random. Soon the air around them became a swirling vortex that buffeted them back and forth as they chased each other. After she fluttered in to nip her sister's tail she began to address the gathered spirits even as she banked sharply away to avoid Nixia's sudden pursuit.

Using the best flatteries she had at her disposal she beseeched the wind spirits all around her for their aid. She did not ask for their magic but instead she called upon them to search, to fly over the lands around the mountain peaks and find a dragon of like size to her with a missing eye. Zephyr darted away immediately and she felt a wave of relief wash over her as other wind spirits followed her lead darting away in all directions. It was not all the spirits who had gathered to watch her, it was not even half but it was but she could only hope that thirteen wind spirits plus Zephyr would be enough to find a dragon before sunset.

As the day wore on many wind spirits came to her with Saffia sightings to report. This was made more difficult by the fact that none of them could speak to her. Wind spirits had their own language that used wind magic instead of sound yet even though she could sometimes catch glimpses of their conversations with void-sense she was still far from understanding it and these spirits had not stuck around long enough to learn to speak. In the end Zephyr spent most of their time translating and chasing down leads rather than searching themselves yet it seemed to work. The wind spirits managed to find Zavia anyway which was useful in so much as it gave her and Nixia a good direction to avoid as they danced across the sky.

When dusk was nearing and she was still unable to pin down Saffia's location her anxiety mounted. She was even considering pivoting the plan to making an attempt on Zavia for all that was insane. Then she felt Zephyr approaching with her void sense and she hoped against hope. The wind spirit flew up to her and began to speak. "I have found the dragon you have been seeking!." Zephyr exclaimed in excitement. "It's definitely Saffia?" she asked, yearning for an affirmative. "I ran my touch along their face and felt the dragon's missing eye." said Zephyr and she felt a flash of optimism at their words. She peered up at the dipping afternoon sun. They still had time. They could do this. With a flutter in her heart she spoke back to the wind spirit who had done so much for her. "Thank you Zephyr. Lead the way."

She called out to Nixia and the spirit dance ended as her sister shot after her. Zephyr shot ahead a swift wind only felt by void-sense. Nixia followed practically on her tail as they flew through the sky. Together they flew away from the mountain peaks and deeper into the green forest. As she soared above the dense woodland so far below the anxiety she had felt all day melted away into a strange apathy. She felt oddly distant from herself and her purpose, like they were things happening to a different dragon rather than herself. She wondered how things had gotten like this between her and Saffia with so few words spoken between them. It seemed so sudden. One day the simple routine of fights and the next they were trying to kill each other. It felt strange and natural all at once.

She glimpsed Saffia flying a distance away and suddenly snapped into the moment, her focus shifting to her target with a predatory sharpness. She and Nixia were able to come a little closer before Saffia spotted them. The other dragon did not even try to fight, instead instantly turning tail and fleeing away from the mountain. Immediately she saw what Saffia meant to do. Not so very long from now they would have to turn and fly back to the cavern or face the Devourers' wrath. She accelerated, pushing her aching flight muscles harder as she shot after her prey. Behind her she heard Nixia doing the same, straining to overtake her in a flutter of rapid movement. The chase was on.

 

[Questwolf]

Warning: extreme violence ahead

Saffia fled with desperate speed even as she and Nixia pursued her with everything they had. She called upon Zephyr and the wind spirit did everything they could, summoning forth a great billowing tailwind that pushed them onwards. Above the overcast sky split open and poured freezing rain down upon them. It was miserable weather to fly through. A thin glaze of ice formed on her wings and body, weighing her down even as the very air seemed sodden and heavy with water to the point that just moving through it seemed to take twice the effort it should. Still she and Nixia pushed on. With the help of Zephyrs tailwind they slowly closed the distance, clawing themselves nearer to Saffia bit by bit. As they closed the gap Saffia dipped lower and lower accelerating even more as she traded altitude for speed until the three of them raced just above the frozen canopies of the forest.

Finally she grew close enough for spellcasting. Though her head still ached from healing Nixia she did not hesitate. She focused on the writhing tendrils of impossible oblivion that made up her voidself and forced them into her lungs. She pushed hard infusing a great deal of void into her breath as she aimed to inflict a debilitating wound with her first strike. As void-breath poured out of her maw in a silent roar she held tight to the part of herself within it and instead of letting the breath spread outwards in all directions as it instinctively desired she strived to keep it narrow and concentrated. It was surprisingly difficult denying the outward pull of the world but she managed it, pushing her breath farther and faster. She felt raindrops dissipating into nothingness as the annihilating power of her void slammed into them, her sense of self speeding forwards with her breath towards Saffia.

At the last moment Saffia flared her wings in a desperate dodge and her void-breath passed agonizingly close, missing by a scales width before sailing onwards. The spell sliced the top of a tree before dissipating and a wave of nausea welled up within her as the exertion of pushing the spell so far hit. Yet the very dodge that saved Saffia also bled off her forward momentum and Nixia took that opportunity to pounce, speeding forward to slam into Saffia without any of her usual aerial grace. Nixia tore into the other dragon and the two of them crashed down into the forest below tearing a hole through the dense foliage before impacting the ground with a thud.

She dived after her fallen sisters dipping below the treeline as she frantically worked to bleed off speed without crashing. Pain shot through her as her wingtip collided with a tree branch but she stayed focused following the tangy scent of dragonblood. She quickly found Nixia and Saffia. The two dragons were coiled around each other, locked in ferocious close combat. They tore bone deep wounds into each other with claws and talons even as they bit down with jaws full of teeth. As fast as she could she landed upon the ground and leaped into the fray scrambling to overpower Saffia.

She focused on tearing into Saffia's wing, shredding fragile membranes with void infused claws even as she sunk her talons into a wound on the other dragon's back, her wings straining to widen the gouge. Then she felt Saffia buck under her talons, no longer trying to fight, just escape. Somehow Saffia wiggled out of their grasp. Nixia moved to pursue and was knocked back by a blow to the snout from Saffia's tail club. Despite the relatively light blow Nixia fell down to the ground and whined in agony. Her sister was not well. Deep wounds covered her body, oozing blood freely onto the ground below. Yet still Nixia pushed herself up to her paws once more and started to limp after Saffia.

She lightly touched a wingtip to her sister's shoulder. "Leave her" she said and was surprised when Nixia whirled around to face her, fire in their eyes and growl in their throat. For a moment she thought her sister would attack her, yet they just glared at her clearly distraught at the idea of letting Saffia escape. "Saffia is doomed." She rushed to explain. "She cannot fly anymore and without flight there is no way to make it back to the cavern in time. The Devourer will end her so why risk ourselves further?" she asked. "She tried to kill me!" Her sister snarled deep pain and hot anger in her voice. Nixia turned away from her and brushed off her wingtip. "If you want to fly back you can. I am going to kill her." She limped after Saffia, her stride wounded but determined. For a moment Lanarithia just stood there stunned. Her anxiety to get back before sunset warred with her fear for Nixia. Hesitantly she began to follow behind Nixia. She did not want to face Zavia alone.

The two of them found Saffia not very far away curled up in a clearing, laying in a pool of blood. Though her heart still beat weakly she did not move. Nixia advanced, talons out. A cold distant part of Lanarithia wondered how she was going to do it. She felt no triumph at their victory, just cold and exhaustion. It was Ironic, all of this had started because she did not want a sister to die and now she stood and watched as one was killed. Yet she had not hesitated in the moment. Shredding her sister's wing had killed her much more surely than whatever Nixia was going to do to her, of that she was coldly certain.

As Nixia walked up to Saffia she watched. It was only with her void-sense that she felt it. Saffia did not so much as twitch yet all of a sudden most of the void within her had been pressed into a single talon. Moving like lightning she shoved Nixia aside as she frantically pushed void into her scales. Even as she moved Saffia struck, thrusting upward with a single oblivion soaked talon. Lanarithia caught it in the chest. For a single moment her void infused scales held, blunting the attack. Yet Saffia had held nothing back and the strike roiled with all the writhing energy of a hostile voidself concentrated onto a single point. It overwhelmed her own void by sheer brute force. She felt the talon and the annihilating energy within it slide deeper into her chest. She gasped in pain as she felt the tip of Saffia's talon penetrate her lung.

Before Saffia could get the chance to tear open her lung she struck. She brought her own void infused talon down on the hollow space in Saffia's face where an eye should have been.
Her talon sliced through the scarred scrap of flesh at the back of the eye socket and into Saffia's brain. The other dragon's own void put up little resistance to her strike, depleted as it was by Saffia's desperate attack. Without hesitation she twisted her talon, tearing apart the soft wrinkled flesh of Saffia's brain even as she unleashed a pulse of her own void, sending tendrils of annihilating power deep into yielding gray matter. Her sister convulsed once violently and then went limp. Through the tendrils of her voidself within Saffia she felt something vast and powerful seize control of saffia's void and in a moment of sudden violence imploded it, forcing the void to fold in on itself until it was wrenched away. Saffia, once a creature of living flesh and writhing void, was now just a corpse.

For an indeterminate amount of time she just stood there in the bloody clearing, absolutely stunned. Dimly she was aware that she should be moving, flying back to the cavern. Eventually she managed to come to herself enough to extract her talon from her sister's corpse. Then came the delicate task of pulling her sister's curved talon out of her chest. Despite her best efforts it was a painful process yet the sharp sensation felt oddly distant. After she finished she just stared at the wound as blood spilled from it to pool on the ground below. Then slowly, hesitantly Nixia approached. Her sister's crimson eyes were wide with an emotion she could not identify. With sudden boldness Nixia brought her head down to Lanarithia's chest and flicked her tongue out to lick the wound better. It felt nice, the soothing touch of Nixia's tongue along the burning pain of her chest.

She saw that Nixia was still bleeding from her wounds and so she turned her own tongue to licking Nixia's hurts. The simple task calmed her. The whole world faded away until it was just the two of them. A soft moment after all the chaos of today. Eventually her chest stopped dripping blood onto the ground. The wound was beep and she could still feel blood leaking into her lung and chest cavity but it still felt better than it had. Nixia raised her head tentatively before curling up by her side and turning to tend her own injuries. Together they licked Nixia's many wounds clean. The warmth of her sister's body is pleasant in the cold. "Thank you." The words are quiet and soft, a faint whisper-growl on the very edge of perception yet she hears them. She does not know what to say and so she gently nuzzles her snout against Nixia's and feels a warm sensation blossom in her chest that is not pain. "We have to fly back now." She said quietly almost reluctantly. It is a long flight with a lesson from the Devourer and a showdown with Zavia waiting at the end. She wants nothing to ignore it all and take a nap. She is physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. Nixia is in a much worse state than her, weaker and much more wounded. Yet still Nixia pushes themselves up to their paws and mumbles her tired agreement. The sun will set soon and the day is far from over.

 

[notgreat]

Very good story so far, leaves me anticipating more. I wonder how long it will be before the spirits share the story of the void shaman with other shamans? Will Nixia prove to be a trustworthy ally? Overall it's done a great job of getting me to care for Lanarithia and Zephyr.

impossible it seemed at times.
I was just so different from

Click to shrink...

I was -> It was

Yet even as Saffia slew away a part of her

Click to shrink...

slew -> flew

"What do you know, little lizard of fish?"

Click to shrink...

right now this parses as "lizard of fish". I think you want a comma: "lizard, of fish".

 

[Questwolf]

Before trying to claw her way back up into the sky above, Lanaritia took a moment to rub her body against a tree, trying to scrape off the thin layer of ice that coated her scales. As she worked she looked back at her sister's corpse with regret. The alluring scent of blood hung heavy over the clearing and her hunger gnawed at her, reminding her that she hadn't eaten for two whole days now. Yet she knew that if she glutted herself upon her sister's corpse nothing would stop her from falling asleep as exhausted as she was. The corpse would still be there tomorrow. In the meantime she tore off sections of bark and devoured them, to try and salve her empty stomach. Nixia looked at her as if she was mad, glancing between her and the bloody corpse incredulously. Yet after a moment Nixia copied her, ripping a section of bark off a nearby tree only to spit in disgust at the taste. Has she never eaten tree bark before? No wonder her sister was so emancipated, surviving on only meat.

When she had rubbed off as much ice as she could, she sunk her claws into the tree trunk and heaved herself upwards. She weaved through twisting branches until she felt the tree grow thin enough to bend under her weight. As the tree swayed beneath her she leapt outwards into the clearing. The wind caught on outstretched wings and with a few frantic flaps she managed to pull herself up above the treeline without clipping her wingtips upon a tree. She sent her fervent thanks to Zephyr for all the help they had given her. She knew she could not have found and caught Saffia without the wind spirits help. Yet even after all they had done, Zephyr still spared the effort to help lift her up into the sky once more. She felt the soft breeze of Zephyr touch upon her scales and felt comforted as she flew through the pouring rain.

As she left the clearing behind she looked back anxiously waiting for Nixia to join her in the air. She worried that despite her bravado her sister was too wounded to fly in such terrible weather. Just when she was about to circle back toward the clearing she felt a wave of relief wash over her as she spotted Nixia's obsidian form rising above the treeline. Together the two of them flew back towards the cavern the lateness of the day adding urgency to their flight. Yet despite her best attempts at haste soon it was Nixia who was leading the way. The wound in her chest burned with pain. Yet worse than agony was the way air flowed out of the hole in her right lung even as blood leaked in. No matter what she did her wounded lung refused to fully inflate. She panted, desperately sucking in heaving breaths of rain soaked air as the exertions of flight leached away at her stamina.

Suddenly she convulsed, wobbling unsteadily in her flight as she hacked up the blood that pooled in the bottom of her lung. Globs of spit and blood fell from her mouth as she tried to steady her flightpath. When she was done coughing she saw Nixia slow to match her pace and she gritted her teeth as she beat her wings faster, trying desperately to make up for lost time. Sheer exhaustion and lack of breath soon forced her back into a more sustainable pace, even Zephyr's helpful tailwind not being able to fully compensate for her partially collapsed lung. She had been flying for most of the day and her abused flight muscles burned with pain from the constant use. Finally her exertions carried her through a rain cloud and together with Nixia she burst through the cloudline into the sky above. Escaping the freezing rain was an incredible relief even though her panting grew more desperate as the air thinned.

The sky around her began to glow orange as the sun crept closer to the horizon. Cold fear in her heart, she pushed her aching body further until her thoughts grew hazy from exhaustion. Struggling ever onwards, thoughts of past and future fell away as the entire world narrowed to the next wingbeat. Black spots danced in her vision as she glided into the cavern and she tumbled to the stone floor with an entirely graceless crash landing. An incredible feeling of relief washed over her as she doubled over and coughed blood onto the cavern of her hatching. She felt triumphant despite the pain, as the simple joy of laying her tired wings on cold stone rising up within her.

A low, violent growl penetrated her happiness and she became aware of Zavia glaring at her from across the cavern. For a moment she met Zavia's angry stare and she saw the mad hate burning in her sister's eyes. On instinct she cast out her voidsense and glimpsed the gathering power within Zavia's lungs. She pushed writhing strands of void into her scales even as Zavia spewed forth void-breath. The absolute darkness of her sister's spell spread out with speed and power that surpassed her own spellcasting. She closed her eyes as a great tide of silent oblivion engulfed her. She felt the hostile touch of Zavia's void pushing on her void-infused scales from all sides, seeking to annihilate her. She poured all her focus and magic into the defensive spell wrapped around her, racing to shore up weak spots before Zavia melted away her scales and sank their void into her hide. For a timeless moment she wrestled with her sister's magic from within the absolute darkness of their void-breath as every nightmare of drowning in the infinite void weighed down on her. Then as suddenly as it came the void-breath dissipated, dispersing outward into the air as it abruptly lost cohesion.

She opened her eyes and spent a brief instant taking in the state of her body. She was relieved as she saw the extent of the damage. Though her scales were half dissolved in places and all her wounds had reopened it could have been much worse. The stone all around her had been melted smooth by the touch of the void. She saw Zavia fighting with Nixia who had apparently been agile enough to dodge the spell entirely. She charged into the fray, dodging Zavia's tail club and biting down on one of their hindlimbs with void-infused fangs. From there the fighting descended into a general melee of clawing and biting until suddenly the Devourer appeared as if from nowhere.

Everyone froze in fear as a dragon that out massed them all combined several times over was suddenly there looking down upon them. She felt sudden anxiety about what she had done. The scent of Saffia's brain still lay upon her talon. How would the Devourer react to her killing her sister? The Devourer regarded them coldly with their crimson eyes. Then it commanded them to continue and launched into its lesson not even mentioning Saffia's absence. Lanarithia felt a strange flash of anger at that. What had she even expected? Praise? Condemnation? Any acknowledgement at all? Yet there was no time to reflect on why the Devourers' apathy angered her for Zavia moved to strike her down and just like that she was locked in battle once more.

The difficulty of the fighting was increased both by her injuries and by the Devourers' ceaseless demands for answers. Instead of teaching them anything new the Devourer interrogated them on the content of its last lecture. The slightest mistake would earn a barrage of lighting fast blows and a detailed explanation on why your answer was wrong and stupid. Many times the Devourer called upon as she was coughing up blood and when she did not answer in time it would slice vicious wounds into her hide and lambast her for her weakness. Eventually her thoughts grew hazy and distant as the toll of fighting, spellcasting and question answering grew and grew.

Things got a little easier when the Devourer vanished yet the fighting did not stop. Zavia seemed possessed by the same breed of determined madness that animated Nixia on her final limping chase after Saffia. This time the emotion was directed at herself and she did not enjoy it. Many times she tried to convince Zavia to back down and leave to just go to sleep yet her sister would only snarl at her. Alone she would have perished against her stronger, less wounded sister. Yet she was not alone. Despite her own wounds Nixia attacked relentlessly, never allowing Zavia to fully focus upon her as she cut into her sister with swift strikes from void infused talons.

Finally, sometime deep into the night Zavia gave up, sculking back into the depths of the cavern. As soon as it became clear the fight was over Lanarithia folded in herself collapsing into a limp pile on the stone below. She tried to move and her body barely twitched in response. She had nothing left to give. Within her pain warred with exhaustion. She blacked out for a moment and when she came to she felt Nixia's teeth on the back of her neck gently holding her as the other dragon dragged her toward the cavern opening. After what seemed an eternity but was probably just a few moments they reached their destination. As she looked up at the shining stars above and felt the soft touch of Nixia's tongue on her injuries it finally hit her that the day was over at last. She had won. She had survived.

 

[Questwolf]

For a time she lapsed into unconsciousness. The nightmares consumed her, drowning her within the infinite void's subsuming embrace. She woke coughing, hacking bloody spittle out of the cavern opening and down on the mountain below. As soon as her wounded lung was empty she collapsed back into fitful sleep. It did not last. Time passed in a strange haze as she drifted into the edge of unconsciousness only to be pulled back into wakefulness by a new coughing fit. She did not know how deep into the night it was when she noticed that Nixia was not asleep. Her sister sat on her haunches and peered into the dark recesses of the cavern.

She tried to speak and found her voice mumbled and incoherent. She tried again, forcing words out of a dry throat. "You can sleep. Zephyr is able to watch over us. Well probably." It felt rude to simply assume without asking and yet, after everything that had happened she found it difficult to believe that Zephyr would ever not have her back. Nixia turned to look down on her, tilting her head so that one side faced her even as she kept the other trained upon the cavern's depths. She heard Zephyr whisper an affirmation of their willingness to stand watch and seeing that Nixia was just looking at her she spoke up once more. "Yes Zephyr is definitely willing. Even if wind spirits can occasionally be unreliable Zephyr has never let me down when it counted. They woke me yesterday when Saffia and Zavia came for us. You can trust them."

Nixia still did not speak, continuing to just peer down at her searchingly with a single crimson eye and it started to grow awkward. Did her sister not understand her? She was dimly aware that she was not at her most coherent right now. She was rambling. Yet when she was about to provide clarification Nixia spoke. "I don't trust you." her sister said quietly. That seemed crazy to her. They had to work together against Zavia if they did not want her to kill them. Why would she betray her sister when doing so would just get her killed. "Why?" she asked incomprehension and hurt mingling within her as the question escaped her throat.

Silence fell and for a moment Lanarithia thought her sister would not answer. "I can never predict what you are going to do next." Nixia said. "Ever since we hatched you were cold and distant. You never responded to taunts. You never held grudges. You never played games. You just fought. Not like the others…" There Nixia pauses for a moment before pushing onwards. "Then when I am certain I'm about to die, you risked your tail to save my life and then lied to our mother about why you did it! You saved me again today with Saffia. How could I possibly trust you to act sensibly when you did something so mad?'' Nixia's tail lashed in agitation as a tread of distress entered her tone. "But you just saved my life from Zavia." Lanaritia objected, confused by Nixia's reasoning. "I was only fighting against Zavia. And I didn't take any insane risks!" Nixia hissed defensively.

She knew they did not necessarily have to trust each other to fight together against Zavia yet she found she wanted Nixia's trust. She wanted Nixia to believe her when she spoke. How much more difficult would it be to defeat Zavia who was stronger than either of them if they had to keep a wary eye upon each other? She had seen that when Zavia and Saffia had tried to work together. There was always a hesitance to commit first. To trust. She and Nixia had only been able to kill Saffia because she and Zavia split up to hunt. So she tried to think of what to say back to Nixia. She wracked her tired mind for arguments that might convince her sister to trust her.

Then suddenly her half coherent arguments were scattered as her voidself abruptly began moving against her will. The part of herself that was void betrayed her forcing a whisper of alien thought into her mind. The harder she tried to think of other things, to resist the call of the infinite void, the louder the resonance grew within her until all she could think of was how I will enforce my dominion upon the world with the power of the void. As the whisper finally let her go she shivered as her mind shied away from the tangled bundle of thought that had forced it way her into her consciousness.

Though she tried to ignore them, the whispers had been getting worse recently. The more she tried to block them out the stronger and more insistent they became. She realized that Nixia was still looking down at her. That time had passed and a heavy silence had settled between them as she failed to respond to Nixia's declaration. So she attempted to forget the whispers, to bury them and her fear of the infinite void deep within as she rallied her dazed thoughts. As she did she came to a realization. Was this really such a new problem? So much of shamanism was about trust. A spirit had to trust you before they would lend you their power. She never considered such a thing because Nixia was not a spirit yet did that mean none of the techniques could work? How would she act if someone asked for her help, her trust? What would make her more likely to say yes? She found she did not know. No one had ever asked her such a thing.
Would complements work on herself? She liked it when Zephyr said the motions of her spirit dancing was interesting, so perhaps.

"You fly very well." she said awkwardly. Nixia looked rather surprised by her sudden comment. "What I mean is, you are really graceful in the air." She elaborated. "When it comes to aerial maneuvering you are the best of us, have been since the day the Devourer tossed us into the sky. Your movements are just so -" A fit of coughing interrupted her rambling compliments. She would have snarled in frustration if she wasn't so busy hacking up blood. After her wounded lung was once more empty she took a moment to just pant. She felt so weak. Even talking drained her. She felt a flash of fear that her lung wouldn't heal, that she would stay weak like this forever. That would be a death sentence. "What are you doing?" Nixia asked with clear confusion in her voice. Lanarithia took a moment to push down her fears before she answered. "I'm complimenting you. It's meant to make you more amenable to trusting me." She explained. "Oh. Does that work?" Nixia asked her. "I do not know. You are the first dragon I have tried it on." she said.

Then there was silence. She wanted to ask her sister for feedback on her compliments. Were they good? How did they make her feel? In truth she had just latched onto the first thing about Nixia that jumped out at her. Yet she swallowed down her questions. This was not a shamanism lesson with Zephyr. She had to focus. "Why do you want me to trust you?" The question was soft, even quieter than the rest of their whispered conversation. Hearing the question she knew that now was the time to entreat her sister for aid. Strangely she was nervous. Objectively failure here should matter little. Nixia would help her against Zavia no matter what. If they wanted to survive they needed her. Yet getting this right felt important. It made her wish she had time to think about why. Time to actually plan this out and the chance to say it while she wasn't exhausted, hurt, and hungry.

For a moment she was tempted to just fall unconscious and try again in the morning but Nixia was looking at her expectantly and so she took a deep calming breath and pressed onward. "I want you to trust me because I cannot fend off Zavia alone. I need you." The admission was surprisingly difficult to make, for all it was the absolute truth. "If I have your trust, facing Zavia is easier. Please Nixia. If you give it to me I promise not to betray it." With that she had depleted her arguments. Nixia turned her full attention to her and she felt the weight of her sister's scrutiny. She was reminded in that moment of the measuring touch of Alnaque's magic as Nixia seemed to weigh her very words. She was too exhausted to summon up the anxiety she felt then yet a shadow of that anxious feeling hung over her as Nixia's silence stretched.

"So you promise that after we kill Zavia you will not kill me?" Nixia said hesitantly. Lanarithia was confused. "Are we killing Zavia?" She asked. "We should." Nixia asserted. "As long as we both live we're a threat to her. She is not going to let that go and if we don't kill her first she will kill us." Lanarithia was uncertain. If the two of them stuck together and never gave Zavia a chance to divide them then surely Zavia would have no chance to kill them. Yet that entailed constant desperate fighting to survive. If she killed Zavia and it was just her and Nixia she might be able to relax a fraction. She might fear for her life less and not have to go into each dawn more wounded than the last. She had already killed Saffia. Would this be so different? Well it would certainly be much more difficult, of that she had no doubt. She was conflicted as she thought of what to do.

"Okay." she said after a long moment. "I promise to kill Zavia with you and then to not kill you." Nixia was silent for a while and then her sister began to pace back and forth as her tail lashed in agitation. All pretense of watching out for Zavia was dropped as Nixia considered her. She found that she did not have the energy left for anxiety and so as her sister deliberated she looked up at the stars above. The great constellations that illuminated the night sky were so very pretty. She felt the soft touch of the breeze and an awareness of Zephyr's presence blossomed within her. She spoke in a soft whisper that she knew the wind spirit would hear. She asked Zephyr to watch over her and Nixia as they slept. She hoped her sister trusted her enough to sleep. Then she asked Zepher to wake them at the very first kiss of twilight. The wind spirit could not see but they felt the heat that came with light.

Slowly Nixia approached the spot where her wounded body lay coiled on the lip of the cave opening. She lightly tapped her on the shoulder with a hesitant wingtip. As she looked up at her she realized her sister appeared so nervous of her and she was suddenly struck by how ridiculous that was. For once Nixia was the less wounded among them. The one who had saved her, who had dragged her battered body away and licked her wounds. If she wanted to kill her there was nothing Lanaritia could do to stop her. "Let's kill Zavia" Nixia whispered and she felt the spark of determination in her sister's voice. Then, without another word her sister walked away as if fleeing from her own declaration. She did not know if Nixia slept after that. Without reason to stay awake exhaustion quickly pulled her back into her nightmares. Yet she found she was no longer so alone in her dark dreams. Sometimes she caught a glimpse of a sister in that endless, lightless ocean.

 

[Ziel]

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop when they kill Zavia, and the Devourer goes ok, you're almost done. Now you two fight.

It seems like a truly inefficient way to raise void dragons, but I guess that's the point. It's a self sabotaging ideology.

 

[Questwolf]

Warning: cannibalism

Zephyr woke her by blowing cold wind into her ear. The distinctive sensation instantly tore her from her fitful slumber. Immediately she raised her head, scanning her surroundings for any sign of Zavia. When did not see her and instead took in the dim twilight of predawn she felt a surge of relief. For a moment she just lay upon her coils trying to shake off her tiredness. In that respect the pain and hunger helped her move as did her fear that any moment Zavia would wake up and start moving towards her. Yet when she hauled herself to her paws a wave of dizziness assaulted her. Her legs shock under her weight and for a moment she thought she would collapse back onto her underbelly. The feeling passed but her weakness terrified her. She had been hungry before. She had endured pain before. Never had she felt this weak. This crippled. The hole in her lung burned as if mocking her and she held in a bloody cough.

Suppressing her fears, she took a moment to thank Zephyr for waking her before ambling over to the side of the cave opening where Nixia was curled up. Her sister appeared dead to the world, only the slow rise and fall of her chest and the soft thumping of her heartbeat betraying that she was alive. She felt a pang of jealousy that Nixia slept so serenely while she had such a miserable night. It seemed a silly, nonsensical thing to feel when she had been the one to encourage her to rest, yet she felt it all the same. Did Nixia truly have to look so peaceful? Yet despite her petty jealousy this was good. Her… ally? Companion? She struggled for a moment on what Nixia was to her now that she had promised not to kill her before shaking the thought off as unimportant for the moment. Her Nixia was well rested and so if they had to fight Zavia one of them should have the necessary energy to drive their shared enemy back.

She whispered and prodded at Nixia, trying to rouse her from her slumber. She was a surprisingly heavy sleeper for someone who had to worry about being attacked at any moment. Finally Nixia woke up. She did not lash out in panic as Lanaritia half expected, only looking up at her calmly. She explained to Nixia where she wanted to go and Nixia sprung up and into the sky with far too much grace for someone as wounded as she should be. So dawned the first big challenge of the day. Normally she loved flying. After yesterday her wings burned just looking out at the clear sky. There was no other option though and so she leaped out into the and spread her aching wings. Pain shot through her wings and back as abused flight muscles were abruptly pulled taut.

As much as possible she glided, coasting downward with as little expenditure of effort as possible. She was distracted from her pain by the novelty of flying through the darkness. Only an orange haze on the far horizon hinted at the coming dawn, otherwise all was night. The Devourer had never specified when they could leave, only demanding that they appear in the cavern before sundown. Perhaps they could fly away as soon as its lesson was complete but none had been foolish enough to test that. Not after what happened to Valexia. She had been worried the Devourer would kill them for breaking its rules yet this was the only way they could ensure they got ahead of Zavia. She would not have taken the risk if not for the Devourers total non-reaction to her killing of Saffia. That made her believe that the Devourer cared very little about what any of them did. She suspected that as long as they did not break its rules or annoy it in any way the Devourer wouldn't bother killing them. Still, she felt lighter the further she flew away from the cavern without the Devourer rising up to pursue her.

Eventually she and Nixia breached the cloudline as they traveled away from the mountain range that rose behind them. Thankfully it was not raining today and she gratefully gulped down the thicker air of the foothills as she flew onwards. Yet that was just the first milestone of a long flight and as the journey stretched she started to realize just how much time she spent flying from place to place. Normally her time in the air flew by yet now it seemed to slow down, every moment taking longer than the last until it felt like she had been flying for an eternity. Often she would take quick breaks to gulp down river water, snack on tree bark and give her wings a much needed moment to rest while her lungs took a moment to breathe.

Finally she and Nixia approached the clearing of Saffia's death. Her wings felt like they were going to fall off and the less said about her landing the better but she had made it. By now the sun had risen, driving away the dark and clearly illuminating the small open space in the forest where she had killed her sister. She had forgotten how much blood there was. It stained the whole clearing red, all so mixed together it was impossible to distinguish the scent of any individual. In the middle of the clearing birds peaked at a bite-sized hole torn from her sister's corpse. Nixia had the grace to look sheepish.

As she walked closer it suddenly seemed oddly petty to fly all the way back here just to eat Saffia's body. It was a strange feeling to have for Saffia was dead and gone. One could not be petty to her anymore. She had felt the infinite void devouring Saffia's voidself and shivered at the thought of that happening to her. All that was left of the dragon that was once her sister was the meat and right now meat she did not have to hunt sounded very good. So without a second thought she eagerly approached the body and began to tear into it.

Surprisingly, dragons did not taste very good. Perhaps it was just that image of the Devourer eating the first dragon she had met but she had always imagined that dragonflesh would be tasty. Dragonblood certainly had a pleasant tangy flavor yet when it came to actually eating a dragon, under unyielding scales and a tough hide was gristly and sinewy flesh. All hard muscle and no fat. Yet after so many hungry days just eating any meat felt amazing. She gorged herself and between her and Nixia they rapidly stripped the corpse to the bone. As soon as she had finished eating a pleasant numbness began to set in. She felt so very warm and tired. Sleep called to her yet she paused to cough more blood up first. There seemed to be less this time and she took that as a positive sign.

Zephyr spoke to her then, reassuring her with soft words that they would watch for Zavia and warn her if they came. The wind spirit seemed amused by her and Nixia's gluttony though she could not guess why. Zephyr sounded vaguely amused almost all the time for indecipherable reasons. It was comforting to hear it now. How much she wanted to just stop and talk with Zephyr. It had only been a few days since their last stargazing conversation yet it seemed so very long ago. So much had happened, yet right now that meant she really needed a morning nap. So she lay upon her coiled body and let herself slip into the comforting embrace of sleep. She dreamed not of hungry lightless oceans but of strange nonsensical things that only made sense through the blurry haze of dream logic.

When she woke up coughing blood she was surprised by how okay she felt. Her ruptured lung was definitely improving as the sun was now high in the sky and she only had a little blood to hack up. She could still feel the hole but it seemed to have mostly stopped bleeding and that felt amazing. It gave her hope that this would heal just like all the other wounds she had suffered in her life. She yawned as she uncoiled herself, stretching out her body in an attempt to work out the kinks of sleep. A loud crack drew her attention to Nixia who was breaking open bones to lick the marrow out of them. Seeing as her sister was currently occupied she took a few moments to catch up with Zephyr, explaining the cavern fights Zephyr usually missed due to their aversion to enclosed spaces and the Devourer.

As she marshaled her thoughts on what to do next she couldn't help but feel a sense of optimism. She and Nixia had survived the most dangerous time when they were both gravely wounded from their fight with Saffia while Zavia was still relatively fresh. If they could actually kill Zavia then the two of them could divide the forest around the mountains between them and live a life of incredible leisure and luxury. She fully expected the devourer would force them to fight each other but without the threat of death such engagements would be a breeze compared to her recent battles. She shook off her daydream and tried to focus on what she and Nixia had to do before nightfall. They had a lot to work on if they wanted to defeat their strongest sibling.

 

[Questwolf]

Her plan was to teach Nixia how to cast void-sense. It was a conceptually simple spell that was surprisingly useful in combat. She was unsure why the Devourer did not teach it to all of them. Perhaps it did not like that the spell could be used to see through its invisibility? She tried to wrangle her thoughts back to what was immediately important. As Nixia chewed on Saffia's bones and she answered some of Zephyr's questions about the cavern fighting she considered what to say. She had never taught anyone else anything before. She was glad for the experience of learning shamanism under Zephyr otherwise all she would have for example as a teacher would be the Devourer.

When it appeared Nixia had finished eating she was ready. With only a slight pause she launched into her prepared explanation. "I know a void spell that senses magic." She announced. "It is very useful for sensing what spells Zavia is going to cast next. So I want to teach it to you." Nixia perked up at her words and soon Lanarithia was explaining the simple method of casting void-sense and Nixia was practicing it. Distressingly making progress was difficult. Nixia struggled to get in the proper mindstate. Even sitting still for a long period of time was clearly difficult for her. She would fidget, then bounce from paw to paw, until she could force herself back into stillness once more. With her own void-sense she could see how Nixia's void bubbled and churned despite her sister's best efforts to halt the ceaseless motion. Apparently her advice to calm down was unhelpful as Nixia just snarled at her in frustration.

As Nixia grew increasingly annoyed her efforts became more forceful, trying to halt her void by pushing back against it. Surprisingly this more violent approach seemed to be working and she saw Nixia's void slow almost to the point of success. Then her sister's grip slipped and she winced as Nixia's void exploded into writhing motion. That backlash had to hurt. "You were really close." She said and Nixia fixed her with a distinctly unimpressed look. "That's it, I'm teaching you my spell." her sister declared. Before she could argue, the movements of Nixia's void began to change. Instead of slowing down like when she tried to cast void-sense she felt the void within Nixia accelerate, churning faster and faster. Just when she started to wonder exactly what this spell was doing Nixia sprung up into the air.

Nixia spread her wings but she did not flap them and fly away yet neither did she fall back toward the ground. Nixia simply hung motionless, suspended up in the sky like she could stand on air. Of course that was the moment Zephyr decided to throw out a gust of wind and Nixia yelped as she flew off like a leaf caught in a strong wind. A moment later an indignant Nixia regained control of her flight and promptly decided to tackle her. For a single fearful moment she thought Nixia was attacking her in a rage yet as the two of them wrestled in the mud she quickly realized it was more farce than fight. Nixia didn't attack with claw, talon, tooth or tail club instead coiling around her and trying to drag her down in the dirt.

Entangled within Nixia clutches she did the only thing she could think of. She wrapped her paws around her sister's horns and yanked, pulling Nixia's snout down to kiss the dirt. Then the world spun as Nixa rolled, twisting around to try and get on top of her. For a time the two of them struggled, rolling around in the dirt. Ultimately her injuries put her at too much of a disadvantage and Nixia was able to pin her to the ground. She squirmed yet her sister held her tight, looking rather intolerably smug. She was a bit unsure what to do now and so she ceased her struggles and opened her mouth to attempt diplomacy. Yet as soon as she stopped wiggling Nixia pressed down on her for a moment before springing off.

She wanted to protest that it was Zephyr that had pushed her yet with the situation apparently resolved she held her tongue, focusing on Nixia's spell instead. It was a fascinating voidform, all flowing motion and swirling movement in a way she thought would have been sure to fall apart and cause a backlash. When she had spoken of her spell she had not even considered that Nixia could have her own magic to share yet if she could discover a void spell of her own then why should it surprise her that her siblings could as well? She suddenly wondered if Zavia had a secret spell of her own? A ripple of apprehension passed through her at the idea of Zavia knowing some spell unknown to her.

Disconcerting as that thought was, she quickly realized there was nothing she could do about it except expand her own repertoire of spells as much as possible. So she asked Nixia to demonstrate her strange weightlessness spell once more and then begged Zephyr not to buffet her sister as she showed off the spell. It was a task that required all her persuasive abilities for Zephyr had apparently found her tussle with Nixia most amusing. She managed though, and slowly she started to learn the basics of the spell Nixia called trueflight. It was difficult work, for she found Nixia's descriptions of spellcasting hard to understand. Nixia would say to "move your void like the feeling of flying." and then gesture wildly with her paws in an attempt to illustrate the correct motion.

Her voidsense was invaluable when it came to understanding the spellform yet she struggled to cast it, as all too often the writhing strands of her voidself slipped from the pattern and rampaged through her body before she could calm them once more. She kept practicing despite the pain. It was easy as the rigors of spellcasting were if anything a pleasant distraction from how her body felt after last night. More difficult was the whispers. When the tendrils of alien thought seized her voidself they shattered her fragile spellforms and sundered her concentration as her mind was forcibly opened to the painful truths of abyssal eternity. Despite this distraction she slowly began to make progress under Nixia's tutelage growing closer and closer to success until at last she felt the bizarre sensation of her body's weight changing from one moment to the next. The sudden shift broke her concentration and the spell instantly disintegrated but that did not diminish the exhilarating joy that accompanied her success.

She could not yet maintain the spell or make herself fully weightless as Nixia managed so effortlessly but she felt she understood the fundamentals of the spell. More excitingly, she was sure she could apply what Nixia had shown her about keeping her void stable even through dramatic movement to the Devourers fiendishly complicated invisibility spell. She was itching to once more try and cast the spell she had desired to master for so long yet a glance up at the sun's position told her that the Devourers lesson loomed perilously near. She had neither the time nor the void to spend on a propper attempt. So instead she told Nixia of her success and then she spoke of her plan to defeat Zavia.

The focus she argued should be on defense. If they got a risk free opportunity to kill Zavia they would of course take it but they had to be careful. As long as both of them were alive they had the advantage. Together they could safely wear down Zavia over time as Zavia and Saffia had done to Nixia. Yet if Zavia could kill one of them the other was as good as dead. Silence fell as Nixia ceased her trueflight spell and drifted back down to the earth. "Last night you promised not to try and kill me after we kill Zavia." Her sister's crimson eyes met her own and she saw the searching look in them. "I did" she responded hesitantly, uncertain of what to say in face of Nixia's sudden scrutiny. "Then I will stick on your tail until we can bring down Zavia. And you don't need to tell me to be careful. I won't fall for another trick like the one Saffia tried to spring on me."

Despite her sister's strong words her tone was soft and almost gentle. She found the contrast strange. Yet more than that Nixia's pledge to stay by her side reassured her. Which reminded her that she was supposed to be acquiring Nixia's trust through the power of shamanic compliments. "Oh. Um… the spell was very good!" Nixia gave her a confused look. "Your spell, Trueflight. I was never able to make such high energy voidforms work but yours are really elegant! The movements balance each other out so the void remains stable even as it pushes on the boundary of the self. It gives me so many ideas for void spellcasting." She suppressed a sudden desire to ramble about her plans for another attempt to replicate the Devourers' incredibly complicated invisibility spell. She had to stay focused on the task at hand.

Nixia appeared rather stunned by her sudden compliment which was not exactly the reaction she was looking for yet at the very least her sister did not seem displeased by her words. Just surprised. "Trueflight is amazing." Nixia agreed. "You turn much faster when you weigh nothing. I'll show you on the flight back. If we leave now we might beat Zavia to the cave and then we can ambush her." She spoke the last bit with obvious enthusiasm and Lanarithia agreed that it was a good idea.

So the two of them set off into the air as the sun dipped towards the horizon. Nixia flew back and forth with crazy hairpin turns even as she struggled to keep up. Fortunately a proper meal and some rest had done wonders for her wings. It still hurt to fly but she was no longer assaulted with the feeling that she was going to fall out of the sky every other wingbeat. Even the ache in her chest was slightly lighter and she found herself strangely optimistic about her chances to survive to see a new dawn.

 

[Chronic]

Oh nice, it's back. This sisterly bonding is way too sweet, i really hope that nothing bad will happen to Nixia and everything will be smooth sailing from here.

 

[Slow Learner]

Oh nice, it's back. This sisterly bonding is way too sweet, i really hope that nothing bad will happen to Nixia and everything will be smooth sailing from here.

Click to shrink...

Not joking but I can see the twisted logic if one of them claims to "own" the other as a way of keeping the spoils of victory, otherwise I see one of them dying by evil mom.

 

[Questwolf]

They did not get to ambush Zavia because despite arriving early to the Devourers lesson Zavia was waiting for them. She did not know what Zavia had been doing during the day but their enemy seemed possessed by a mad fury when she and Nixia flew into the cavern. Without pause to speak or snarl Zavia fell upon them and she was once more fighting for her life. Zavia attacked with relentless fervor, spending void like rain in her efforts to kill them. She would have surely perished under void-infused talons without void-sense to feel which blows held magic and Nixia to fight by her side. Time passed in a blur as her focus narrowed to the desperate rhythm of blow and counterblow. Hurts blossomed across her hide, yet Zavia failed to inflict the crippling injuries needed to defeat her and so the fight continued on.

It happened as she was lunging out to bury void soaked claws into Zavia's flank. One moment she was moving to take advantage of Zavia's momentary focus on Nixia and the next she was sailing through the air with a sharp pain in her side. Before she could think to try and catch the air with her wind she hit the far wall of the cavern and then shortly after that the floor. In an instant she sprung to her paws and quickly found Zavia and Nixia nearby. More concerningly the devour had materialized where they had been fighting and it glared down at them. It must have thrown all three of them into the wall with a single blow.

"Turn-scaled idiots! How am I supposed to impart proper draconic spellcasting on imbecilic whelps when they waste all your magic right before my lesson." She and her siblings all seemed to shrink in on themselves as the Devourer snarled her anger. She had no idea the Devourer planned to teach a new spell tonight and when Zavia had tried to kill her with void magic she had simply responded in kind. Somehow saying as much to the Devourer seemed a terminally foolish thing to do. Fortunately for her after venting its wrath the Devourer launched into its lesson as if nothing happened. Said lesson was initiated by flinging out a globe of inky blackness that tore a new opening into the cavern.

Slowly the fighting resumed under the Devourers watchful gaze yet the pace of the conflict was slower as everyone husbanded their remaining void to try and cast the new spell the Devourer was trying to teach them. It was a conceptually simple spellform that the Devourer called a void-bolt. To cast it one first separated a solid glob of magic from their voidself and then flung said glob at something they wanted to annihilate. The difficulty lay in making the bolt solid enough that it did not fall apart after it left the body. Even with the Devourers' instruction it took time and many attempts to refine the spell. It didn't come as naturally as void breath and the Devourer rained blows upon them all for their failures. Her heart sank when Zavia was the first one to succeed, firing a bolt of bolt of dark unlight from her paw that flew across the cavern to tear a chunk out of Nixia.

She and Nixia were forced back, struggling to get the distance needed to dodge or block the deadly barrage of crude yet powerful bolts. That the Devours' harsh attention turned to her and Nixia as the ones who had felt to demonstrate success did not help. The annihilating energy of Zavia's void burned where she had been hit. A patch of her skull lay exposed, the flesh shorn off by a void-bolt aimed for her eye. Her wing membranes had holes in them and her chest ached from a void-bolt that hit her before she had time to infuse void into her scales. Yet as Zavia burned through her voidself the barrage slowed and she was able to use her void-sense to steal Zavia's technique. Soon it was a ranged duel between her and Zavia as the two of them darted around the cavern flinging void-bolt at each other.

The tide turned when Nixia figured out her own method and was able to graduate from harassment to flinging void-bolts of her own. Together they forced Zavia back, peppering her hide with wounds. That was when the devourer vanished yet it did not disappear. Though it was undetectable to her normal senses she caught flashes of the vast dragon's power when she pulsed out her void-sense to feel when Zavia was forming void-bolts. It circled them and though she could not see its eyes she thought she could feel the weight of the Devourer's attention.

For a time she and Nixia pressed their advantage and for a moment she dared to hope they could corner and kill Zavia tonight but then Nixia's void had sputtered out exhausted by the constant fighting. Her own power ran dry shortly after and without void magic the one attempt they made to close the distance and finish things with claw and talon was viciously repulsed by Zavia. Their enemy seemed possessed by a mad desperation and despite the fact that she had to have expended more void than either of them, Zavia met their charge with void infused claws. Her throat was almost torn open with a single swift strike and that was the least of the blows rained down on her and Nixia. Their own uninfused strikes seemed to do little but drive Zavia into a greater frenzy.

Exhausted, wounded, and beaten but not defeated, she and Nixia retreated back towards the cave opening. Her chest burned as she paused to cough up blood. Sometime during the fighting the hole in her lung had started to bleed once more. It was rather demoralizing. She felt as if she was dragged back to last night when Zavia had so viciously pummeled her that Nixia had to drag her away. She felt so empty, like she had used up every part of herself in the battle only to run out of self to spend. She knew intellectually that the hollow feeling that ate away at her was just the result of her depleted voidself. That in time things would flow back into a more normal equilibrium. Yet her understanding did nothing to change the strange apathy that weighed down on her now the high of combat had passed. The light touch of Nixia's tongue on her throat distracted her from her thoughts.

She felt the forked appendage run along smooth scales before slipping past sundered hide and gently lapping at bloody flesh. That claw had gone deeper than she thought. A scaleswidth more and she would be breathing out of her throat as well as her mouth, an experience that sounded distinctly unpleasant, especially as she already had enough problems from her half-collapsed lung. She swallowed down a hiss of dark amusement at the thought. She was a mess. She probably looked worse than Nixia and Nixia looked awful. Circular void-bolt wounds were layered atop a cavalcade of lacerations and bite marks, some faded from days of healing, others raw and bleeding.

Without really thinking about it she turned to the task of licking Nixia's wounds. It was strange how quickly a task could start to feel natural. Yet just as she began to lose herself in the simple act of tending wounds a bolt of darkness blacker than the night around them flew from the far recesses of the cavern. She hissed in pain as the bolt buried itself in her flank and then had to drop to her belly to avoid a second bolt. She cast void-sense to get Zavia's position and then somehow rallied the void to fling a bolt back, yet she felt her magic slam into the cave wall never hitting her enemy. Zavia had dodged. At least no more bolts flew her way. For now. A part of her mind noted that according to her void-sense sometime between now and the climax of the fighting the Devourer had left so that was something.

There was no sleep in the night that followed for the battle never truly ended. At times a false peace would settle and she and Nixia would lick each other's wounds as they rested their bodies and regenerated their voidselves. It would end with a bolt from the black as Zavia renewed her offensive and for a time she and Nixia would trade void-bolts with their enemy before the skirmish would peter out into another temporary lull. She focused on spending as little void as possible letting Zavia exhaust herself and Nixia followed her lead. Even so it was exhausting. The constant vigilance wore on her when she just wanted to sleep. She felt like she was a dead dragon walking as the night dragged on and on, a hazy blur of dodging, spellcasting, and watching.

Then everything changed as dawn finally came and the first light of day leaked into the cavern. Zavia tried to bull past them out through the cavern opening and she and Nixia stood their ground. Three times Zavia tried to push past them to the outside world and three times they unleashed carefully conserved reserves of void to push her back into the cavern. On the fourth attempt a wounded Zavia darted forward once more to try and pass them yet at the last moment she jinked to the side and wiggled out the new hole the Devourers' void-bolt had torn in the cavern. She wouldn't have thought the opening large enough to fit her let alone Zavia who was slightly bigger but apparently she was wrong. Zavia flew away and she was far too tired to give chase. Instead she lay upon shut her tired eyes. The last thing she felt before sleep claimed her was Nixia cuddling up next to her.

 

[Ziel]

I wonder if the void bolt was meant as an equalizer. Something to draw out the conflict a bit longer since it gets less fighty if Zavia dies.

Probably just a coincidence.