Zandragal
"For you are crunchy and good with ketchup"
Appearance
"How to describe it.. liquid shadow that warped the night. Flashes of an alien, mutant shine that twisted my eyes out of focus, as if I had stared too long into the campfire and gone wandering between the trees. Larger and quicker than any beast I had ever seen, though I admit my fear played its own part.
I swear I was just beginning to make out a glimpse of it, four shining lamps glaring wickedly from the dark, bobbing up and down as it stalked closer.. and then my bones vibrated and my ears split in what I realized only later was a battlecry. A roar that melted my bowels and my bladder and dropped me involuntarily to my knees.
As I fought to draw breath into my winded lungs, my company was slain. Screams echoed into my ringing ears. Images of carnage and meat flopping wetly to the grass filled my blurry vision. I shut my eyes, I wept, and in a fleeting moment of raw cowardice and selfishness, I begged.
When I think back and try to remember, it seems as if I said, "Spare me, oh Lord, I pledge my life for thee." But the words never left my lips.
When the screaming was done, I touched fingers to my face, realizing it was wet and warm. Realizing that I still breathed. I opened my eyes, and that was when I saw Him.
I can do no justice here, but I will try, though I will not promise I saw what I saw or if by then I was only lost in a half-real fever dream or some illusion.
In the clearing where our camp had been just moments earlier, He towered above me, tall as the trees and looking down a gory snout upon me. I trembled and could not hold his gaze at first, but then I heard a voice. Not a voice, not really. But I felt a sense of primitive understanding that came from outside of myself. Once it had turned over in my mind, it became words that I was familiar with.
He bid me look upon him, and so I did. A Dragon of some kind, or close enough to drawings of ones that I have seen. Four great limbs beneath a barrel body. Two wings. A long tail, coiled around his taloned feet and tipped with a killing barb.
He wore a mantle of midnight feathers that ate the moonlight, yet I thought I saw traces of a pale blue shine beneath them, not a reflection, but a glow, seen most strongly along the spine and within his regal, devouring wings.
His eyes were molten sapphires, the same pale blue as the lines beneath His feathers. Four of them, the larger frontal pair, facing forward. The smaller rear pair, facing outwards. They were mounted in an avian, predatory skull, beneath a royal plumage and behind a mouth I can only say had been shaped by the Gods for murder. His razor beak still soaked in moist crimson, and goring horns jutting from the lower mandible, and two rows of jagged teeth like shards of obsidian the size of my fist.
He was the most beautiful and most terrifying thing I had ever seen, up until the day you were born at least, and my terror seemed a necessary, defining part of the beauty. A predator seen in the moment He had successfully executed His truest nature.
I cannot tell you why I lived. He gave me no commandments, and I have heard nothing of His not-voice in the years that have passed between then and now. I think perhaps He showed me mercy simply because I asked for it. Or maybe, even, so that His majesty might be witnessed by mortal eyes, for I have read many books since that day on the pride of Dragons. After all, here I am recounting His tale to those who ask.
Then, as I simply watched in a stupefied awe, He ate those I had travelled with. It was short, gulping work, and I was unable to look away, though the memory haunts me still. Despite the many slain I must wager it was a meager meal.
Then, just as transfixed as the first moment I willed myself to look upon him, He bound into the air, and with a rush of wind He was gone.
I pray to Him still sometimes, when it seems as if other gods give no answer. When I doubt myself and wonder why He has never called upon my services, but then, what use could one such as He have for a broken old man like me? Still, I pray. I yearn for no heavenly world save for the one I witnessed that night in His eyes."
~ Account of Cassius Korano, Allirian ex-explorer and beloved Father, of his expedition into the Ixchel Wilds, transcribed faithfully here by his son Antegon as requested for potential inclusion in unknown works commissioned by the College of Elbion in the year 291 AoE.
I swear I was just beginning to make out a glimpse of it, four shining lamps glaring wickedly from the dark, bobbing up and down as it stalked closer.. and then my bones vibrated and my ears split in what I realized only later was a battlecry. A roar that melted my bowels and my bladder and dropped me involuntarily to my knees.
As I fought to draw breath into my winded lungs, my company was slain. Screams echoed into my ringing ears. Images of carnage and meat flopping wetly to the grass filled my blurry vision. I shut my eyes, I wept, and in a fleeting moment of raw cowardice and selfishness, I begged.
When I think back and try to remember, it seems as if I said, "Spare me, oh Lord, I pledge my life for thee." But the words never left my lips.
When the screaming was done, I touched fingers to my face, realizing it was wet and warm. Realizing that I still breathed. I opened my eyes, and that was when I saw Him.
I can do no justice here, but I will try, though I will not promise I saw what I saw or if by then I was only lost in a half-real fever dream or some illusion.
In the clearing where our camp had been just moments earlier, He towered above me, tall as the trees and looking down a gory snout upon me. I trembled and could not hold his gaze at first, but then I heard a voice. Not a voice, not really. But I felt a sense of primitive understanding that came from outside of myself. Once it had turned over in my mind, it became words that I was familiar with.
He bid me look upon him, and so I did. A Dragon of some kind, or close enough to drawings of ones that I have seen. Four great limbs beneath a barrel body. Two wings. A long tail, coiled around his taloned feet and tipped with a killing barb.
He wore a mantle of midnight feathers that ate the moonlight, yet I thought I saw traces of a pale blue shine beneath them, not a reflection, but a glow, seen most strongly along the spine and within his regal, devouring wings.
His eyes were molten sapphires, the same pale blue as the lines beneath His feathers. Four of them, the larger frontal pair, facing forward. The smaller rear pair, facing outwards. They were mounted in an avian, predatory skull, beneath a royal plumage and behind a mouth I can only say had been shaped by the Gods for murder. His razor beak still soaked in moist crimson, and goring horns jutting from the lower mandible, and two rows of jagged teeth like shards of obsidian the size of my fist.
He was the most beautiful and most terrifying thing I had ever seen, up until the day you were born at least, and my terror seemed a necessary, defining part of the beauty. A predator seen in the moment He had successfully executed His truest nature.
I cannot tell you why I lived. He gave me no commandments, and I have heard nothing of His not-voice in the years that have passed between then and now. I think perhaps He showed me mercy simply because I asked for it. Or maybe, even, so that His majesty might be witnessed by mortal eyes, for I have read many books since that day on the pride of Dragons. After all, here I am recounting His tale to those who ask.
Then, as I simply watched in a stupefied awe, He ate those I had travelled with. It was short, gulping work, and I was unable to look away, though the memory haunts me still. Despite the many slain I must wager it was a meager meal.
Then, just as transfixed as the first moment I willed myself to look upon him, He bound into the air, and with a rush of wind He was gone.
I pray to Him still sometimes, when it seems as if other gods give no answer. When I doubt myself and wonder why He has never called upon my services, but then, what use could one such as He have for a broken old man like me? Still, I pray. I yearn for no heavenly world save for the one I witnessed that night in His eyes."
~ Account of Cassius Korano, Allirian ex-explorer and beloved Father, of his expedition into the Ixchel Wilds, transcribed faithfully here by his son Antegon as requested for potential inclusion in unknown works commissioned by the College of Elbion in the year 291 AoE.
Skills and Abilities
Coming Soon (TM)
Personality
Coming Soon (TM)