Open Chronicles A Dragon's Plight [Ixchel Wilds]

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Miriel didn't need to debate the topic any longer; the dragon had spoken and so it should be. Her blade turned once in her hand and then she placed two fingers to the steel.

"Cuilë, awaken," she murmured in the tongue of her people. A small shift in the colour of her eyes as she spoke, the hazel ringing with gold before fading back to normal. The sword let out a soft bell like noise once and shimmered to life. Runes and patterns appeared in liquid silver down its curved edge.

"Thorlion, move back," her gaze flicked to the horse. She didn't know how the dragon was going to react and she would rather not lose her horse. The black mount snorted, gave one unhappy stomp of his hoof sending up a plume of sand before walking back out of the dragons range. Content Miri returned her eyes to the dragon.

"Ready?" she raised her blade and once the dragon had stretched her leg out as much as possible Miri didn't give her much more time to reconsider the matter and brought the blade down sharply. A normal blade might have broken or struggled but awakened the blade went through scale, muscle and bone like it was nothing more than butter.

 

[Aifrin]

The other sky elf simply watched the whole crazy exchange in silence. Mouth slightly agape at the offer from Fynaurie to hack off the limb. She made not a peep, even if her eyes were a little wide at the whole scene.

The dragon made up its mind, letting the first person to arrive deal with the cut as Aifrin silently took a step back. A large step, and thought about taking another.

 

[Stella]

As ready as anyone could really ever be to have their mangled leg severed.

Long neck curving off to the opposite side, the dragon shut her eyes tightly and steeled her jaw. There came a flash of agony and little could be done to hold back the loud screech or the sudden flinching away from the elf in question. Stella's innate reaction was to flee, to fly, and her wings unfurled perhaps quicker than the elf could react. But in those efforts Stella felt the lead of exhaustion in her veins, managing only to hobble off a dozen feet or more before failing again.

She came to stand into the cool shallows of the lake, iridescent blood filtering from the open wound and into the water.

Stella had never felt such a mess, so helpless and hapless. It was unbecoming of a dragon, to be sure, and every second she felt the eyes of the others upon her was an offense to her ancestors. Couldn't even fly away. Shameful. The dragon grimaced, furled her head around in a moment of distress and blasted a plume of dragonfire back on the bleeding leg ... though it's range was farther back on the shore.

 

[Volos the Verdant]

The Wilds are afoul with the spoor of civilization...

He could sense it. He could feel it. Invaders. Trespassers. Heathens who would dare to tread upon these sacred lands. Had they not taken enough already? Did the greed of the 'civilized' know no bounds? The feeling of each disrespectful step upon the ground within the Ixchel Wilds was like a nagging itch at the back of the dwarf's skull. Arethil's whispers were hitting a crescendo, her ordinarily pained moaning becoming nothing less than a wail. They would suffer as their Mother suffered.

Azure eyes burned from the edge of the clearing as Volos approached. Steel shimmered ahead of him, it's unmistakable, unnatural sheen an offense to his very senses. Elves. Three of them. Wielding their foul magics and metals, and...what?

Mana flared to life within the horn-like growths which grew from the druid's brow. A dragon, one of the great beasts of the old world, wounded, mutilated by these parasites. A great howl issued forth from the dwarf's chest, preternaturally loud as though carried by the wind itself. In an instant, a wave of thick, sinewy, thorn covered vines burst forth from the treeline to entangle the trio of elves and their mounts if they could be reached.

The intent was not to kill...not yet, at least. Volos--no, Arethil would have the satisfaction of informing them of their crimes and punishing them accordingly. They would pay for this gross misdeed. Dearly so.

 

[Fynaurie]

Fynaurie watched in horror. She was glad she hadn't been the one to use her glaive to eviscerate the leg. At least now she could shield her eyes with her glove as the dragon cried out and dragged itself away. Her heart fluttered and she suddenly felt so unbelievably out of her depth.

Dragon light etched the silhouettes of the trees around the clearing to life. Then the heat stretched out towards them.

"Shit," she swore, or at least the closest thing to it. Their language had a surprisingly colourful range of swear words.

She dove to the floor and covered her head as the last fingers of flame rolled over the ground just meters from them.

"Are you alright Aifrin?" she asked as she slowly stood, looking across herself for any hints of flames. Then she heard the slither of vines, turning as they wound themselves around her ankles.

"What?" she cried out, whistling for Vaxor.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

The fantastical story Miriel was looking forward to telling her sisters was quickly dissolving into a nightmare. She had been prepared for some sort of reaction after her blade separated the dragon from her injured leg but she hadn't been expecting that type of response. The wing caught her across her chest and sent her sprawling to the ground with the air knocked from her lungs. It took a moment for her to remember the simple art of drawing air in through the mouth and when she did it burnt. Not least because of the jet of fire that rolled over her, a hair span or two from her face. The heat was unbearable and she turned away instinctively, throwing up an arm to shield her eyes and issued a few choice curses of her own.

When the flame died down she carefully sat up and glanced to where the dragon was.

She wasn't going to apologise but..

"If you would like I can make you another, you see I'm a-" Miriel was cut off by the new assault. From the undergrowth burst vines, one of which wrapped about her ankle and snaked up her leg. She gave a small cry and her blade which had fallen from her hand when she had been knocked on her back, flew back to her hand. She brought the still searing sword down on the offending piece of fauna and scrambled to her feet scanning the undergrowth for the mage responsible whilst backing up towards the water.

 

[Aifrin]

Aifrin had been quiet, shuddering at the roar and dragon flame that wrecked the area. She blinked, keeping her eyes wet as the heat rolled off the searing of the dragons wound at the start. When it came closer, she took a dive, she landed on the ground next to Fynaurie.

"I'm f-" Aifrin began before looking to the ground ahead of her and then behind her while pushing up.

A vine attempted to wrap around her ankle, the sky elf forcing herself into a cartwheel before falling victim to another growth that snapped up around her ankles as she landed before quickly snatching her up.

 

[Stella]

Fire billowed into the haze of smoldering arcane energies, dissipating suddenly as her well of strength ran dry. Stella could not feel anything beyond her own overwhelming agony, which was quickly reaching a point of crescendo when feeling succumbed to numbness and the sense of spinning delirium. There was noise beyond her immediate senses, movement and a raucous bellowing. The shapes of the elves seemed to dither in her peripheral vision.

Her sense of alarm felt like a single raindrop on the lake amidst a downpour. The dragon staggered across the shallows, attempting to move away from the commotion, and succeeded only in losing her footing. She tumbled into the waters with a momentous splash, sending tremors through the ground.

Too exhausted to try and get up again, Stella drifted between the feeling of pain and the sensation of the lake's waters rippling at her sides. The elves would receive no help from her against their new and unusual quarry.

 

[Volos the Verdant]

Bloody city-loving filth. Two of the elves had been snatched up by Volos' vines in short order, but the third had cut herself free with infernal steel blades. Mother Arethil had never intended for herself to be so thoroughly refined, to have her own body converted into such wicked devices. Such things needed to be returned her, to be smelted in the fires of her volcanoes. Perhaps he'd make such a trip himself once the dragon on the shore was made safe.

Volos marched forth from the underbrush, palms upturned and fingers curled as more plant life rapidly surged forth all around him, thorns and branches and vines wreathed in Arethil's glowing, blue aura and his own vibrant shades of viridian.
"You foul things never should have come here. You defile this land with your presence, curse the air with your enslaved beasts, and you have the AUDACITY to wound that majestic creature?!"

The archdruid's magic surged, his eyes pulsed, and his voice became an echoing roar as he strode forth. While the vines around the two sky dragoons merely compounded, attempted to drown them in the growth and prevent their mounts from saving them, from Volos' side spined and gnarled branches lashed out like spears at Miriel.

"I WILL NOT STAND FOR IT!" The verdant dwarf shouted, fury coming to a head.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Miriel swore as the branches lashed out towards her. Her attention was divided half between her own safety but also Stella's; it would take the young dragon some time to get used to only three legs and she would be weaker for it for the moment. She managed to slice through another two spears before one of them caught her in a nasty slash across her thigh. The horsemistress bit back another curse of pain as blood began to ooze down her leg. There was an urgency to respond, to attack, but the man's words finally filtered across to her amidst the chaos of screaming elves and animals.

"Wait! WAIT!" she held up her hands before he launched another thorny spear towards her. "We weren't hurting her, she asked for the leg to be removed for it was beyond saving. I can make her another one," in truth she wasn't entirely sure how possible that would be but... but she would try. She had given her word basically in that breath to save all their lives.

 

[Fynaurie]

This was kt turning out to be a good day at all. The vines tightened their grip on her ankles and started to work up her legs. The druid - the very short druid - had flown into a rage.

"Please!" Fynaurie called as the vines sped upwards. She took a firm grasp of her aether-glaive, setting it to provide the most chance of burning through to freedom if the worst came to it.

"We don't mean the dragon harm!" That they had at first seemed beside the point.

 

[Volos the Verdant]

Such pleas would have fell upon deaf ears if Volos did not so love to hear himself pontificate. While the elves' words were enough to give the sage dwarf pause, it was clear just from a glance that he hadn't calmed down in the slightest. On the contrary, his chest puffed out and his nose wrinkled in anger.

"Why, even for a damned moment, would I believe a word that slipped forth from your vile mouths?? A cornered rodent ALWAYS squeals the loudest." Volos hollered, his vines coming to an ominous, looming halt before the elf women before him.

"I can make her another one,"

The druid laughed derisively and shook his head.
"Oh, and how! With your insidious city magics? Perhaps some tortured mockery of nature, crafted from the metals you ripped from Mother Arethil?" He spat at Miriel, then gestured broadly to the sky-elves' mounts. "Would you see the dragon SADDLED and BROKEN like those once-great Rokhs?"

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Miriel looked back in the face of anger with one of resolute calm. Her hazel eyes were level and there wasn't so much as a tremble to her as she held her hands out slowly and dropped her blade so that he could see she was truly unarmed. The mutterings of the Druid were not ones the elf of the Ixchel Wilds was unfamiliar with. Her sisters shunned the outside world for the way they treated the earth they lived in and many held the world in the same reverence as a God.

Valthar had mocked her for such worshipping many times.

It was effort to keep the shadow of a smile from her face as she spoke next.

"I do not rip the metals from the Mothers Bosom. I sing, and I ask, and she gives what she wishes. It is only that which is given freely that I use - that I would use," her eyes flickered briefly to the dragon still tensed and ready to run or fly as best she could to some other desolate place. Her lips pursed.

"Ask her if you do not believe me, but I defended her when I believed the Sky Elves to want to hurt her."