#gloryflash

[crouchingtiger28]

The Sparks of My Soul

“Are you sure he’s dead?”  

The man scoffed, nudging the body with his toe. A final kick and the bloody form tipped over the rocky cliff. "Either he's dead or he's immortal." The first man swallowed, staring down at the roaring crashing darkness below them, then turned, realizing his companion was already walking away. He scurried after him, not looking back.

Torchsoul stared at the sky, the stars blurred little pinpricks that barely pierced the haze of his pain-choked mind. The moon stared down at him, and Torchsoul mentally drifted through a flickering half prayer, begging for luck or strength or something that would help him. Nothing came but a boot in his side, and the ground beneath him was gone.

The world spun, the moon and darkness and a faltering, broken form of the moon and more darkness and the moon, resplendent in her sea of stars, and the dark air, a faraway split between ocean and wind, and the moon, reflected in dark waves and frothing peaks, and the stone cliff, a too-close jagged join of sky and sea.

Torchsoul’s wings hit the outcropping first, crumpling and snapping, already-broken bones tearing through his skin. All the air was forced from him, and his soulgem shivered. The moon remained perched above him, cut half off by the stones blocking his view. Maybe she was smiling at him. Torchsoul blinked, trying to keep his eyes open. If he let himself rest, he would surely never wake. Not that he could really do anything to help himself now.

The moon was lower in the sky, and something was pushing against his arm. Torchsoul tried to turn towards the disturbance, but the something nudged his wings and the world blinked out again.  

Wind howled nearby, but Torchsoul couldn’t feel it. Cold, smooth scales were pressed against his chest and face and soft furs cradled his ravaged wings. He could feel, beneath the scales, a thrumming core of Leadership and Wisdom and Stone. He almost cried. A dragon had found him.

For some unfathomable reason, a dragon had been flying by a lonely, out-of-the-way cliff overlooking the sea in the middle of the night with a waning crescent moon. Somehow, impossibly, that dragon had managed to see a human-sized figure on a rocky ledge just over the sea spray. Inexplicably, the earth-anchored dragon that most likely wasn’t great at flying and probably couldn’t swim had flown close enough to inspect the human-sized figure on the ledge, and determined that they needed help. In an entirely illogical and practically unprecedented act of kindness, a dragon had accepted a different-anchored wyvern as not an enemy defeated before encounter, but as a victim in need of help. Torchsoul knew this was so even as the dragon’s heartstone thrummed life and healing and strength to Torchsoul’s spirit.

As the sun rose ahead of her, Gloryflash clutched the carrying pouch close to her chest, praying with all her might that Selene might grant the broken child tucked inside just a little more life.

[crouchingtiger28]

Firsthand Account

I lost my hand on my last trip home. Riverton had never been entirely safe for the Fay, or even magic-touched people in general, but it’s my birth home, and my mum lives there. Lived there. I showed up at her house that day completely humanoid. I didn’t even have a tail. It made little difference.  

I was greeted by Arc, mum’s only blood son. He informed me none to gently that mum was dead, and I was no longer welcome anywhere near them. So, I left. I had been planning to get a ride home in a week, when the Smith’s boys went to Dawnton Keep to get a new shipment of ore. With mum’s place now unavailable, I headed to the Inn. The Silver Lion was distinctly too expensive, so I went out further to the Whitewater Inn.

I assumed, quite foolishly, that even if I was recognized as a changeling, the people of the village were generally used to my presence and wouldn’t react too explosively. I locked my room door that night, but it made no difference, the Innkeeper willingly gave they key to the angry crowd.  

Foolishly, I slept in my human guise. As a Black-necked spitting cobra, I would have had a chance. As a slim, short, thirteen-year-old humanoid, I was dead.

Around three o'clock in the morning, several angry people dragged me out of the bed and dumped me on the floor. Several bones broke in the ensuing struggle, none of which belonged to my attackers, before someone had the bright idea to push me out the window. After that, I’m not sure what happened. Only that I woke up the next morning with several broken ribs, a killer headache, and my hands tethered to a lamppost behind my back.

I sat there for maybe three or four days. I can’t really remember. I barely ate or drank anything, only kept alive by the ‘donations’ people left to mock me and the underlying latent life magic present anywhere humans gather.  

On the fourth or fifth day, a huge person stopped in front of me. I say person because I couldn’t, at the time, tell what her gender was. She had a thick black cloak on that completely disguised her form and cast deep shadows over her face. At this point I could barely keep my eyes open, so I didn’t bother. I braced myself, waiting for the action of this new threat.

I only looked up when I felt the ropes drop from around my wrists. The woman’s eyes were glowing. That was all I caught before the pain of being moved forced me unconscious.

I woke up later, my wounds cleaned and bandaged. My right hand was mising, cut off at the wrist, and I barely had the chance to panic about it before a girl was standing over me, emerald green hair swept out of her eyes and curved ram horns framing her face. She smiled.

“Hi, I’m Nina, and this is Gloryflash.” The wall behind her moved, and I realized it was not, in fact, a wall. It was a dragon. A huge dragon. I barely caught Nina’s cheerful “Welcome to-!” before I passed out again.

–––

Gloryflash hefted the thin slip of a boy in her strangely small arms and turned to walk away, leaving the frayed rope where it had fallen. As she made her way through the quaint little town, a human stepped in front of her. Gloryflash stopped, pushing down the urge to flare her wings out.  

“Where do you think you're doing with that little snake?!” The man demanded, practically blowing smoke.

“I am taking him to my ca- home.” Gloryflash returned bluntly, “To treat his wounds and heal his frayed aura.”

More men were moving to back up the first, forming a rough semicircle in front of Gloryflash. “His aura, you say? And would that mean you’re a magical?”  

She could tell from his voice that being magical was not a good thing in this instance, but she was truthful nevertheless, “Yes, I am. I can tell his magical growth is seriously stunted, which is negatively affecting-”

“We don’t want to hear about your witchy hexes and blood curses, old hag!” One of the men interrupted, and Gloryflash shot him an affronted look.  

Before she could speak, the leader shouted “NOW!” and the whole group lunged towards her. Startled, Gloryflash pulsed her aura, accidentally turning her cloak into dark crystal. The rusty sword swung at her bounced off the stone just before Gloryflash flung her wings open, shattering the once-cloak into shards of razor-sharp crystal.  

The humans struck out at her with swords and staffs and clubs, but Gloryflash practically ignored them. She shifted completely to her true form in a matter of seconds, taking to the air just as quickly before resuming her true size.

A soft noise turned her attention momentarily to her cargo, and she realized with a wince that the little hydra's wrist had been almost completely severed by a well-aimed sword. Oh well. Snakes didn’t need hands, right? She’d have to ask Hollylilt.  

She flew back to her den, temporarily depositing the boy on Nina’s human-sized bed before collapsing onto her own dragon-sized one. Hopefully, as she slept, her own aura of vitality would start fixing the hydraling’s. Honestly, she was too tired to think of anything else at the moment. Shifting was hard work.

[crouchingtiger28]

Miraculously my Own

Gloryflash glided over the land, her floating islands dropping away to rocky foothills shifting to deep woods blending into open, rolling hills and farmland. The villages were silent and empty, all the villagers huddled away in their shelters. The castle was as desolate as the lower towns, nothing living moving inside the walls. Gloryflash swooped high over the walls, and something fluttered. It was probably nothing. A loose bit of fabric, caught in a breeze, or a stray dog still roaming the streets. Despite herself, Gloryflash banked into a spiral, descending on the castle.  

Clinging easily to the stone walls and towers, Gloryflash clambered towards the motion. On the flat top of the tallest tower, exposed to the harsh wind and glaring sun, sat a child. She was small and fragile, no older than twelve. Gloryflash tilted her head, sharp violet eyes inspecting the little one. Her wrists were cuffed in rough iron manacles, shackled to loops buried in the stones of the tower, and tear tracks ran clearly down her grimy face. Matted bangs hung over her eyes, and a few ribs were visible under her skin. Without another thought, Gloryflash ripped the chains from the out of the tower and scooped up the trembling little girl. Discarding her original destination – a meeting with the dragon whose territory bordered hers – she wheeled around and hurried home.

Gloryflash shuffled through her entry cave on her back legs, child tucked to her chest. The walls were too narrow to fly through, and she didn’t want to hold the precious little one in just one talon, so she teetered awkwardly on two legs, wings thrown back to keep her balance.

Once in the open main cave, Gloryflash fretted over the child in her talons, unsure what to do with a young human. She knew that humans needed light and air, and didn’t get energy from crystals or minerals. She knew they slept during the night, and that they ate living things that had been slain and roasted over their home-flames, but that was pretty much it. She needed an expert.

For the time being, she set the child carefully on some of the glowing moss she took from the ceiling and laid over her own sleeping mound. She had seen humans laying on grass before, and this was similar enough, right? She hoped so.

Hollylilt was absurdly happy to be woken from her midday sun-nap to come care for a human child that Gloryflash had definitely not stolen. She arrived in her humanoid form, dwarfed by the dragon-sized cavern burrowed into the stone. Gloryflash showed her the little human and Hollylilt got to work, Gloryflash hovering over her shoulder like a concerned mountain, huge and awkward and clunky compared to these fragile little creatures.  

In the end, Hollylilt told her that the child was a newfound elf, probably a phoenix, and that, given the proper care, she would be fine in a week or so. What care that was, was a whole other story. Rather than try to learn all she needed to know in a few hours, Gloryflash offered Hollylilt a deal. The basilisk would stay in Gloryflash’s cave system and help with the child until they decided Gloryflash was ready, and the dragon would supply Hollylilt with rare ingredients and hard-to-get components. Knowing better than to argue with a determined stone dragon and needing a stable home anyway, Hollylilt agreed.  

When the child awoke, she was met with the bright violet eyes of the bronze-scaled dragon and the deep lavender eyes of the emerald-scaled basilisk. It was the beginning of a bright future for them all.