Private Tales Crouching Sidhe, Hidden Dragon

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

The rugged terrain before her was both familiar and alien, the steep sided ravines and valleys that crystal clear water rushed down, born from the heights of the mountains straining for the heavens behind her. The Spine, aptly named, sent fingers of its great range into the wild interior of the continent. In its own way, it was a peaceful place; humanity seldom ventured far into these thick and untamed places. It was a favorite retreat for the ancient sidhe when she wished to be away from the quick lives of the the younger races, when the hustle and break-neck speed of the world got to be too much.

Or when she wished to contemplate some new piece of information, or to tease out unknown secrets from the Prim, to continue the mostly abandoned search for a way out of Arethil and into the ocean of worlds that lie but the thickness of a dream away. So close, yet it might as well not even exist. The laws of magic were totally binding, and they had turned the diminutive woman - herself by mere technicality a demon on this world, an outsider - into a prisoner.

She descended into the next ravine, already weary from the trip up the last. The terrain was not particularly forgiving for her or her companion. The little horse- and it was a horse, never mind that it was sized for herself - seemed to have little trouble picking its way across the broken ground. The faint thrill of magic danced in the air around the silver-haired sorceress, although the flow of the Prim was so slight it would take a keen magician of one of the inferior races to detect it any further away than dozens of feet. The purpose was not entirely clear, unless one watched closely as foliage and branches bent to clear her path, as roots strove to avoid tripping her up. The weariness of travel was not for the terrain, necessarily, but for the effort she exerted to make it less wearisome.

"Not much further, my friend," she said softly to her little stallion. As if the beast could understand her - not just that she had spoken to him, but what she meant - he tossed his head and pushed forward, turning hsi head sideways and gently butting it against her shoulder. Absently, she stroked his muzzle until he stepped away. She was forced to pick her skirts up - sky blue trimmed with lavender, a small leather purse hanging at her hip by a string - as she stepped over a thin rivulet of water tumbling down the steep slope, towards the distant thunder of a river a couple thousand feet below. "Not much further, then we can rest for the day."

The light of the Art suffused her flesh, but she drew lightly on it. It was nto good to call upon the Prim for too long; it was to easy to become hopelessly addicted to the sweet flow, so much like life itself, that came with the chaotic power. It was - quite literally - her lifeblood. Every ilm of her being was comprised of that sweet, transcendent power that hailed back to the beginning of all things.

Like myself, she thought. It was neither bitter nor sour, merely a statement of fact. The sun was still high enough to grant some light to the woods that had yet to turn to true jungle. It would not be long before the immense mountain range behind her began to shade the valleys, and then the going would end up being terribly slow. And unsafe.

She made her way downhill, wreathed in muted power while the world adjusted itself to allow her to pass without any of the effort another might until she hit the shattered stone of the valley floor, where cold water cascaded over short waterfalls and rolled over rounded stones. The roar of the river running from the heights was still coming from further afield than she was, but it did not matter. She figured she would make camp when she made it to the banks of whatever greater flow lie below her.

 

[Stella]

She was far from any place she'd ever called home, and nowhere close to any place she knew. For days she had flown out of a sense of self preservation, away from the lake where Míriel Fëanorna and the eagler riders found her. Away from Volos the Verdant who had sought to protect that which the realm held dear and innocent. In the waning hours of light she followed the shadow of mountains on the horizon, heading south and west from the jungles - the very opposite way in which she should have flown.

The Dragon Riders were gone from her senses and what had become of them in that horrible scene of savagery she couldn't say. A heart weighed heavily with the burden of grief and guilt. The shame was nearly as debilitating as the loss of her leg.

Should have stayed and fought those beasts. Should have helped. Should have defended the elf who had so selflessly defended her all those years ago.

But all Stella knew how to do was flee. Survive. Hide.

The stain of clouds coalesced across her scales, shifting in camouflaging patterns as she sailed overhead, keeping her presence to those on the lands below a quiet secret. But soon the hours of flying caught up and the glimmer of a rushing water below welcomed her to rest. The dragon was hungry and weary and the valley seemed scant of landers. With luck she would find a private copse of trees to fade into and slumber for a while.

Winds gently whistling over her wings, Stella gave a steady pass over a small clearing before carefully folding down for a less-than-graceful landing. The stump remaining of her back leg still pulsed with pain - it seemed to be healing but perhaps not well enough. She hadn't stayed to be doctored by the elves and while instinct told her to let it heal on its own, Stella had begun to wonder if she might still need help yet.

Who she would turn to, however, she hadn't a clue.

For now a drink of water, some fish, and sleep would be all she could manage.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

The natural magic of this land was rich beyond imagination, which was not much of a surprise with the sparse habitation by the younger races. They seemed to prefer the western side of the mountains and their big cities; the sidhe herself preferred seclusion to the profusion of individuals in the cities. There were too many bitter memories tied to the sprawling places that humans called home, bitter and dark and unwanted memories.

Respite whickered softly behind her, and she paused a moment as she navigated a tricky log laying over a small rill. The little horse tossed its head, and leapt over the narrow stream, coming to stand in what he likely thought was a regal pose on the other side. She could feel the horse in her mind, a little bundle of feelings and sensations that did not quite amount to emotions, only impressions of such things. Seska had imprinted a part of her soul on that animal, and so the two of them shared a bond that was just as strong as between lovers, and perhaps a touch more intimate.

The sun dipped below the highest of peaks, and the shadow dropped across the woodlands. Seska stepped lightly across the fallen tree, slender frame quite well suited to the feat small as it may be. She landed gracefully on the other side of the stream, and paused. Her eyes, a pale violet like purple-stained quartz, had an inner light to them that was too faint to make out until the evening came on. She was looking into the middle distance, trying to track something that had just gently brushed across her mind. The stallion must have felt, too, and felt it first by his earlier reaction.

Seska held little fear of any natural beast. She had been alive for so long that she seldom feared much of anything; whether she was immortal or not was a trying question to answer, especially with a memory that was full of holes much further back than a few centuries, and after several thousand years it became nothing more than a yawning void. Here and there, stretching back through aeons, the spire of some singular memory pierced the darkness of dissolution, but....well. She knew she had forgotten far more than any living thing she had met had ever learned.

Sometimes, however, something might touch upon an ancient memory, and bring a frustratingly cryptic recollection to just barely out of reach. And right now, something tickled her mind in that antagonistic way.

"Something this way comes," she said softly. She stood tall, staring along the banks of the stream, and clicked her tongue. The horse obediently sidled up to her, and she drew the intricately carved stave from its quiver-like case on the side of the saddle. The thing was ancient beyond belief, the ancient word alien to this world, and yet it was still a rich red-gold with fine grain, polished to a sheen. Climbing roses wound round its length. Though beautiful, it seemed like nothing more amazing than a piece of craftsmanship and little else.

Without a word, she pulled slightly at the Prim, passing the flow of raw chaos through the polished wood of the stave, amplifying it so that it was less taxing on the woman herself. Seska was, of course, capable of awe-inspiring feats of sorcery, but the cost of those feats on this world were...painful. At best.

"Let us go, my sweet friend," she said, stepping lightly as chaos was given shape, given the form of a pale white orb that was luminous enough to guide her feet without being so obvious as to be seen from miles away. "I know not what it is I feel, but if it is some beast that means harm...."

She did not have to say what she thought, instead picking her way across stones that were half as big as she was with care, searching for kinder ground to camp upon.

 

[Stella]

There was something curious about the wood surrounding the stream that Stella could not have noticed until she stood within it. From the sky it looked as normal as ever, but here on the ground the dragon sensed something was not quite right. The air was still here and though the light of day had waned she could hear no sounds of the nightlife that should have been teeming in such a remote part of Arethil.

Stopping to take a drink, Stella gave pause as she lowered her muzzle toward the water. What had appeared sparkling from the sky had turned out to be rather dark and murky. Muzzle hovering just over the edge, the dragon's forked tongue flickered out between her fangs, picking up a faint scent of decay.

Perhaps something upstream had passed away?

Though it wasn't in her nature to pursue her curiosities, Stella felt no immediate threat of danger. If nothing else, she could find the source of the contaminate and remove it ... or at least find fresh water further upstream. It wouldn't be easy to see through the canopy of the trees, so her wings folded at her sides and she moved to follow the running waters against their current - easier said than done for a dragon missing a leg.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

Whereas the trip through the verdant forest had been made easier by way of sorcerous intervention, the trip down this stream proved to be...not so much. A lot of the stones that littered the narrow stream bed were bigger than she was, and getting herself and a horse through, however small he might be, was a challenge. The going was a lot slower than it had been previously.

And that was only exacerbated by something else. The bountiful magic that hung in the air, sweet as the mountain stream beside her was, was...well, it was changing. The sweetness began to fade, and it took on a putrid quality that Seska did not immediately recognize or even notice. It wasn't until she had been traveling, horse in tow, for a couple hundred yards down the stream that it finally struck her, and did so by way of her simply stopping where she was, and then bending over and heaving for all she was worth. She had not eaten anything in weeks, though, only drank water and so it was water that she spit up.

She felt decidedly ill, and it had come on quite suddenly for all that the effect had been building for some way. The ancient sorceress steadied herself on a stone as big as her stallion had been before she had made him a little more manageable for her diminutive stature, fighting against the nausea. Her vision swam, and her thoughts were muddled to a degree.

What....what is this? The thoughts were slower than they should have been. It was almost as if she was being poisoned by something, but she had eaten nothing, drank nothing, and been bitten by nothing in recent, hazy memory.

She looked down the narrow valley to where it opened out not three hundred yards further on. The shimmer of water, a body of it larger than the stream, gleamed from where she stood in the quickly fading light. Logs had jammed against a slide of boulders, creating a pool of water that she was having difficulty focusing on. There was something wrong with it, but she felt addled and unable to see what it was that was wrong.

Respite, sensing something was wrong with his mistress, butted his head against her back, almost knocking her over. The motion sent her stumbling, and she found herself staggering onwards without any real conscious thought to do so, heading towards that dark pool of water, deeper into the baleful miasma of corrupted magic.

 

[Stella]

It was toward that very same pool, dammed in by the fall of logs, that the dragon presently sidled. Her gait, as ever, a slow wobble of care. Pressing through trees that easily gave way with sickened and dying branches, the dragon peered about through the feeble dark that had settled across the wood. No creatures here, no sounds. Nothing.

Her quills frilled in a shiver that followed the long, sinuous length of her spine - scales now softly darkened and faded to match her surroundings. At the precipice of a small fall where the stream trickled down from the logs she clambored over and came to a stop. Stella had reached a muddled pool of putrid stench and thought to herself that it must be the source of the decay, but there was no corpse or carcass to see.

Nothing that she would have thought to be the source of this maligned spring.

And then noise from upstream, a stumbling and a soft tamping of small hooves. Stella turned her head to peer out at the approach of a tiny horse and a ... what was that?

It looked human but it did not feel human. It felt made of ether and magic, a curious thing indeed. Stella feared humans a great deal, but she did not fear this creature at all.

In a moment of rare, outward curiosity, the dragon lowered her head and offered a low trill of greeting.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

Whatever it was that tainted the magic of this region of the woods, it was poisoning her mind as surely as it was her body. It was becoming increasingly difficult to think, and a dull ache was developing between her eyes, in her joints, in her very flesh. The stallion, linked to her by some strange magic, was starting to become skittish and nervous, but not of their surroundings; rather, he was concerned a great deal with the state of the sidhe he traveled with.

Had she known that she would be dealing with something like this, she would have warded herself appropriately before approaching. But now? It was affecting her mind, and for all that whatever it was was having a decidedly adverse affect on her, she did not - perhaps could not - think to ward herself now.

She stumbled forward as though drunk, barely aware of her surroundings, until she stood on the edge of that dark pool of water. It was as still as death itself, and a miasma of death seemed to swirl around it, thick in the air in the same way that the corruption lay heavily upon the natural magic of the place.

Something stirred within the pool, but though it did, the waters themselves were not disturbed.

The trilling sound that the little dragon made seemed to strike at the sidhe, and she staggered and fell backwards on her rump, dirtying her pristine dress. She immediately clutched at her head, offering a low moan of pain. Respite offered the dragon a stare, his liquid equine eyes reflecting not a jot of fear at the dragons presence. They seemed to plead for aid, reflecting just a fraction of the pain his mistress was now suffering.

 

[Stella]

Though a creature of magic herself, she was not so deeply embeded in the realm of mystic powers as one such as a sidhe was. Stella felt discomfort at the state of the pool, but she did not feel pain. She did, however, sense the pain of the strange creature before her, drawing upwards in faint alarm as it toppled backwards. It drew concern from her, a wholly unique experience indeed for a dragon who trusted next to nothing she did not already know.

Something about this being dispelled her usual paranoia and fear, encouraging a strange sense of protectiveness. She moved forward, long neck curled low, and limped her way closer to sniff at the tiny child-like thing. Stella knew a horse when she saw one, even one so small, but why did this human not smell like a human at all?

Curiouser and curiouser.

A low, warming rumble sounded from her chest as she ever so gently pressed her muzzle into the chest of the sidhe and waited for her to grab on. She would take this innocent creature away from here, to a place that was bright and safe.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

The small horse whickered at the dragon, completely unafraid of her, unconcerned at her presence. He pranced several steps before butting his head against the sidhe's side again, making urgent sounds. The pool of stagnant water behind them remained unruffled, but there was something here that was unnatural. It was only a matter of time before whatever it was made its presence known.

The combination of being headbutted by a horse and (much more gently) nuzzled by a dragon seemed to be enough to clear some of the fog in her head, to bring her round. Still clutching her head, she looked up and for the first time saw the dragon. He could not immediately grasp what she wanted, but when she did - agonizing moments later - there was no way she could or would comply. She would not leave her horse behind, not again.

The last time she had, the last companion she'd had for hundreds of years, he'd perished to the demons.

She pushed herself back up to her feet by sheer willpower, and stood there, swaying as though drunk. She had only one real option, and that was to ward herself and try to walk out of this place. "I...cannot leave...him," she managed, pale skin glistening with a sudden sheen of sweat. She called to the prim, sang out for it in her mind. For what felt like an eternity, there was no answer....and then the chaotic power of creation flooded into her. Normally, it would have been a nearly sexual feeling, the power of life flowing through her intoxicating nearly in the same way.

But here....here, whatever corrupting influence was nearby tainted her own magic. It was sickly and sour, and it stung and burned as though it, too, were poisonous. The sidhe was taken aback at this, and then became truly concerned. She could not recall anything doing the like before, though almost certainly she had encountered it in the past.

"Urk," she 'said', her gorge rising suddenly and violently. "We...we need to..." She tried to cleanse what she had taken into herself, and found that she could with very great effort. It would take time for her to be able to cleanse enough to do anything meaningful with it. "I need....help," she said, and looked to her companion, whose equine eyes were filled with concern.

 

[Stella]

The dragon considered the horse for a moment, failing to make the connection of why it was so vital the creature remain with the small person. She supposed, perhaps, it was like traveling with her elf companion - though this seemed not quite the same. Even so, the concern and worry was nigh palpable on the air. Almost as much as the acrid stench emanating from the pool of water, which seemed to be getting stronger the longer they lingered.

Stella gave a low warble of indecision. The sidhe needed help but would not accept it when offered. Two-leggeds were terribly confusing sometimes. Seemed the most important thing was getting the small one away from the pool.

"I will help you," the dragon suddenly intoned gently, her voice a svelte rumble through her long, sinuous neck. Stella pushed forward past the two, eyeing the ground where treefall and other natural debris provided obstacles for one with such short legs. Her head dipped to the ground to push them aside, forming a passage wide enough for the sidhe and her steed to follow. Moving forward, a gentle sway of her long, serpentine tail wound itself delicately around Seska's middle for support.

"Come," she said, looking back and spying the shifting of shadows in the treeline just beyond the pool, "this way."

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She needed her staff for support, or at least thought she did. When the little dragon (and little she was, because the ancient sorceress had almost certainly seen big ones in the past) spoke, she did not seem taken aback by it. Rather, it was taken as a matter of course, insomuch as it could be when she felt as though she had been drugged with something particularly nasty.

"...," she said, or tried to. She would have been vomiting everywhere if eating were a thing she did with any regularity; as it was, her stomach, such as there was of it, was doing slow somersaults. She made her way with the aid of the dragon, and did so slowly. The further they went from the pool of dark water, the less drunken, the less ill she felt. It did not take too long - a hundred yards or so - before her head cleared enough that she could think more or less rightly again.

As clarity returned, she let out a breath and then took hold of the sorcerous source of her power. Chaotic radiance flooded through her flesh and mind, and she swiftly and expertly wove it into a ward to shield herself from whatever corrupting influence lay within the pool. Almost immediately her eyes cleared, and she blinked, looking up at the ethereal beauty of the young dragon.

"I will be fine now," she said quietly. After a moment, she offered the creature a rare smile. "Thank you. Whatever it is down there...it nearly took me." She was still not sure what it was in that pool, but she did not like it at all. Power still flowed through her, muted but potent all the same.

Respite pranced up to his mistress, and regarded the dragon with bright eyes, still entirely unafraid of something that would likely have hunted his kind not so long in the past. "My name is Seska," she offered to her scaly new friend. "Please to meet you."

 

[Stella]

Their progress was slow as the dragon both cleared the path and hobbled her way forward, taking care of her charge. Now in the quiet copse of trees, void of the deathly aura from before, she felt well enough to release the sidhe and rest. A deep, rumbling sigh shuddered from the dragon's lungs, released in a faint snort through her nostrils.

Smoke gently plumed there at the end of her muzzle, rising into the night air to mingle in the lower branches above them. Curiosity was given to the little creature's introduction and the dragon seemed to consider this for a long, silent moment.

"I am ... Stella," she replied, folding her wings carefully and arching her neck to peer back the way they had come. The dragon's scales shifted in hue to that of dappled earthen tones, setting her frame easily into the scene. When she fell still she nearly blended into the backdrop.

"What was that?" a gentle question, attention shifting back to Seska, "The water and land seem sick."

Even here in their little sanctuary their surroundings still did not feel completely at ease. There was a tension in the air and the same unusual reticence of nightlife.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She considered her companions curious camouflage, but did not comment upon it. She was certainly old enough to have seen all manner of strange things, things far more fanciful than a dragon that could vanish from view right before her eyes. She did not think it was a magical trick, either; her senses when it came to sorcery of any kind were keener than an elf's hearing and a hawk's sight.

"We are...well met, Stella," she said softly, and sincerely hoped it was so. She could sense a certain gentleness to the soul before her, although her senses when it came to others were far less acute than those of magic. Still...if Stella had meant her harm, she would already be a broken, burned mess. "Thank you very much from pulling me from that mire."

She had to sit and think for an answer to the young dragon's question. It was too easy to assume just because she had been alive for so very, very long that she had an answer to everything, that all was known. While she was certain it wasn't even possible to know everything there was to know, she was absolutely certain that she could not remember everything she had witnessed and experienced. Recent events stood out in stark clarity, but much as murky water would gradually obscure things the deeper they were, the further back in time one went within her memories, the more difficult it was to recall. Eventually, it was impossible, except for exceptional events.

Casting back in her mind, she could recall nothing quite like this. She could recall the sahpe of events in the past that were similar, but not in enough detail to help here.

"I...do not know," she said uncertainly. "It is not with the land, I do not think. Something is wrong in the prim hereabouts..." She could see it, if she looked back the way they came. The air was warped in some eye-twisting way that made her nauseous to look upon it. "It...it is not natural though." A pause. "We should probably get away from this place, else deal with whatever it is. Dithering about on the edge is...unwise."

 

[Stella]

There was silent consideration in the dragon's gaze, a gentle nod of understanding that followed. What shadows she had spied in the trees just beyond the pool of water she had no mind for, but if the little one believed it to be safer with distance she saw no reason to disagree.

"I saw a small settlement draftward of the mountains," Stella said, turning her skull in the apparent direction of it, "maybe they can help you."

Her words were quite choice in the matter. Help you, not us. For the safety of all things, primarily herself, she did not make a habit of going near known settlements.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

"I would prefer to avoid settled land for now," she replied quietly. "I...do not spend much time in the company of others," she admitted after a long moment.

The sidhe had the feeling that the young dragon was of a similar mindset. She had been alive a very long time, and even if she could not remember everything...well, often she had the impression of the shape of things. It was nearly like being able to read the tea leaves and peer into the future, only this was based on experience and perhaps a million times more ephemeral.

"I have not....seen many of your kind for a very, very long time," she said after a while. The way she said it made it feel as though she was talking about something down the echoing hall of time immemorial, of days that even the history books could not recall. "I wish there was a way I could repay you for pulling me from...whatever that was," she said.

And it was true. But she could not for the life of her figure out how she was supposed to return a favor of that magnitude. Oh, surely the youngling did not see it as such a great thing...but who could tell what would have become of her otherwise?

She caught sight of the dragons missing appendage, took in the rawness of that wound, its freshness, and cocked her head to one side. "That...looks recent," she said softly. "It must hurt terribly?" Maybe there was something she could do for this creature, after all.

 

[Stella]

The dragon said nothing in return to the little one's desire to remain in isolation. Though it struck her as odd, considering the landers seemed to always appear in number, it was neither her business or her concern. Her singled lingered on beyond the curious reflection of low dragon populations. Stella had always been alone for as long as she could remember, and while it was much more likely for a dragon to find another dragon, she preferred not to.

Other dragons were often bigger, stronger, and more dangerous than she. It was not for spectre dragons to be widely known, or seen, at all. Their particular ilk were a quiet, secretive kind, hidden away from most all the world, including one another. The last dragon of her kind Stella had ever seen was her mother, and she'd known no siblings to speak of.

About to decline any offer of payment, she held back as her wounded leg was put up for discussion. Stella passed a slow and wary gaze about, shifting uncomfortably on her forelimbs, "Yes... it seems to be taking a long time to heal. I haven't been able to rest since it happened."

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

The ancient sidhe remained silent for a moment, contemplating the next move. She was not uncomfortable around dragon-kind, in general, unlike the humans and elfin kinds, and the others. Perhaps it was a product of such a long, long life, or perhaps familiarity insomuch as she could be familiar with a species that was either reclusive or violent and territorial with very little in between.

No. That is an unfair characterization of their kind. She shook her head. They - dragons - shared something with her. Their long lives, often longer than most other mortal species, gave them a distinct perspective the others generally lacked.

So she considered the missing limb. Replacing what was lost was impossible on this world, and was very nearly so where she came from, as well. She was not a goddess, not the Creator, and not the physical manifestation of the Prim; some things would forever be beyond her. But at the very least, she could ease the physical suffering the dragoness certainly felt.

"I...I can heal the wound," she said slowly and carefully. "I cannot regenerate the limb, but I can heal it so that it no longer hurts." She paused, and took a breath. "It will likely not feel very good while the process occurs, and I cannot stop the feeling of it being missing...but I can make it stop hurting, and keep it from getting the rot." It would not be an effortless endeavor on her part, of course; she had already done much recently. "If you wish it so, I will do it." She projected confidence in her ability to perform the task, which was of course not her concern. Her concern was just the sheer exhaustion that may or may not descend on her for the effort.

 

[Stella]

The dragon remained silent for some time, staring at the sidhe while she seemed to weigh and measure the offer on the air. For certain it would be of great benefit to her continued survival and allow her to more quickly be on her way to ... wherever her next destination may be. A part of her, large enough to cause the long quills cresting the length of her spine to momentarily frill, was shy of trust.

Pain she could manage, but rot? Only further fire would cure that, causing more damage in the process. Both inefficient and dangerous.

Finally, then, and with obvious hesitation, Stella agreed, "Yes. Thank you."

The quills settled, her folded wings tucked more firmly along her sides, and the color of her scales shifted to a pale, pearlescent sheen.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

"I need a few moments to prepare myself," she replied. She noted the hesitation and unease in the young dragons voice, but did not press on it. She understood all too well that hesitation, that uneasiness around others - especially among dragon-kindred. There was always good reason to be wary of stranger, and that was all that Seska was to this one - a stranger, met in the wilderness.

An unknown. Fortunately for the dragon, it was unlikely that she would pose any threat to her after the work had been accomplished. Healing was not one of her strongest talents, and was wearying in the best of times. She had done much with magic in the last weeks, and it was likely to take much from her. But a life was a life, and she had hers but for this delicate looking dragon kin.

"I will need to lay my hand upon you directly." She said as she settled down. Staff in hand, she rested while her little stallion held itself off to one side, giving her space. The beast could sense her intentions perhaps a bit more clearly than any base beast should be able to. "It will not feel good while I work the Art upon your flesh. This is forced healing; it will take a lot of strength from you and it will feel...unpleasant. But it will purge any ill in the wound, and it will heal it as though it has been left alone for months without festering." And whatever measure of strength it pulls from you, it shall pull from me as well. It had been a long time since she had tried to heal anything more serious than flesh wounds.

"And please....if I should fall asleep, do not leave me lying here," she said. She took a deep breath. "I am ready when you are," she said finally.

 

[Stella]

Truly the prospect of physical touch worried her more than the promise of pain. Pain the dragon could deal with, but touch was not something she had a great deal of confidence or familiarity with. And the unknown was always the most fear-inducing.

Stella hunkered herself down on the ground, her sides swelling with a deep breath that slowly whooshed from her nostrils upon a faint plume of smoke. She didn't often use her firebreath, but nerves and anxiety often made those flames act up. Instinctive dragon defense mechanisms were hard to subdue on a good day - today had not been particularly good.

Another nod of understanding was given to the sidhe, for all the things she explained and more. She would not leave the small creature here defenseless, of that she promised herself for what she owed in return.

"Ready."

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

A thrill of trepidation filled her, and for a moment she felt as though this were some unique venture, as though she were undertaking some great task or cause, and not simply utilizing her talent with the prim to do something relatively mundane, however amazing it might otherwise seem. That her patient seemed nervous was obvious, and the puff of smoke was definitely a sign of that agitation. Not for the first time, she reminded herself that an angry dragon was not something to be taken lightly, whatever her own capabilities were.

"Very well," she said. She stepped forward, taking her staff with her and gripping it tightly enough that her knuckles were white and the joints popped. It would serve as a buffer, mitigating some of the impact of casting.

She took a deep breath as she laid her hand upon Stella's smooth, scaled flank. The hide was cool to the touch, but not as cool as the environment itself was. She could feel the beating heart, deep within, even without calling upon the power of the Art. She stood on the cusp for but a moment, and then reached out with her mind and seized the ancient and ineffable power of the Prim. In that instant, the torrent came, a calamitous flood of unbridled power that swept through her mind and her flesh like a river leaping its banks. It was...divine, as always. To her and her people, magic was beyond sacred. It was a part of every action of every day, and it guided the routines of her ancient society in much the same way the movements of the sun and stars might the ancient human civilizations.

It wrapped round her core, and for a blissful moment she was lost in the tide. Long training, long discipline kept her from losing herself in it, from being swept away like so much flotsam; with deliberate purpose, she pulled strands of the prim, chaos given form, and enforced her will upon it.

Power bled from her, and rushed through the comparative bulk of the dragon, weaving through her flesh fiber buy fiber. It was a blend of elements, for the body is of all and yet none; it probed that great beating heart, surveyed the lungs, even explored the cavernous maw and the special gland that granted fire. It looked upon every vein and artery, every muscle...and found nothing until it found nothing. The shape of the appendage remained as a ghostly limb, but everything that led to what had vanished was already sealed. The ancient Sidhe's will had chanced upon something that needed to be fixed, and so set about it.

The limb was suddenly there, as real as if it could be touched, and yet it was all a projection of the mind. Sinews rudely severed reordered themselves, muscle scored and rudely healed crawled and set themselves in proper order. Any trace of malign influence, those threads of magic mercilessly tracked down. Bits of sand fell from the already healed wound, cast from the body where the did not belong.

In her eye, and in Stella's, the healing seemed to take hours. Days, as time stretched onward endlessly, but in truth it took but a dozen seconds. As quickly as she had begun the process, she severed contact with the dragoness, and sagged on her staff. Power still beat within her, in time with her own heart, as she went through the familiar struggle to release that sweet power, to push it away rather than drinking it all in.

Which she managed, once more. She sagged as that ocean of magic drained from her, hanging from her staff. "It is...done," she managed.

 

[Stella]

Though Stella had never once been vulnerable to the agony of fire, she imagined what pain took her body now was equivalent to it. The dragon's figure tensed, long jaw seized shut, and she held her silence for the duration of the spell. Pain she could take but that didn't mean she was not overcome with a heavy relief once it was over.

Afterward the exhaustion set in, leaving Stella to feel as if she had just escaped the clutches of her enemy all over again. Blue eyes shifted from the sidhe, back to her leg, and blinked as it took in a level stump where once infection and ill had set in. It was healed completely - enough so that as she shifted the color of her scales, it shifted seamlessly as well.

Stella did not think thank you would suffice for the measure, and so she lowered her muzzle to press it gently at Seska's chest in a silent gesture of her gratitude. Only one other had ever garnered a willing touch from the dragoness before, and for a moment Stella wondered what had become of the elf and the others of his group.

But that was neither here nor there, and wonderings did not help the present situation. They were both vulnerable in this wood which meant they could not stay here. Stella didn't have the energy to fly but she could walk a bit farther.

"Your friend," she said gently, looking toward the tiny horse, "can he carry you?"

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

Time was a function of the universe that had neither a beginning nor an end.

Humanity in some form or another had existed for so long as to defy comprehension by those that now lived. The history of the world could never be fully calculated, could never be tabulated in a meaningful way. Human minds could not understand such great numbers. The elfin could not, nor the dwarven, nor dragonkind. Some of the fae could, those creatures that first arose when the Prim was new, the world an infant. When time, that which has no beginning and no end, was beginning in complete and stark denial of the infinite nature of time itself.

The creature stirred in its slumber, a slumber that was rapidly fading away. Waters had washed away stone, the stone that had been a tomb for time immemorial. So much time had slipped past that the creature could scarcely recall what it was, who it was, and why it had been laid to rest so long ago. Only the slow trickle of magic, the natural background of the living world above ground, had stirred it from its torpor. In the eternal depths, under mountains of stone, there had been little to sustain it. Now, on the surface of the world, there was something to slake a thirst that had been slowly growing as time and nature had slowly worked it free.

An ebony heart of stone, ensorceled to a degree that the modern world could not comprehend, began to beat in time with the heart of the world. Magic began to coalesce, and the ancient being - neither dead nor alive - began to stir at the bottom of its watery resting place.

---

The touch of another was as foreign to her as to the dragoness, but she was too tired to shy away fro mthe touch. And, at any rate, the gesture was understood after the initial momentary contact. Gratitude was something that she was not accustomed to; too often, she was too strange and alien to the people of the world to elicit much beyond curiosity or, more often, disdain.

She took time to answer the question. As draining as the healing had been for Stella, it had been thrice so for her. It had not been very long before, perhaps a week or two, that she had been forced to utilize her particular talents to good effect against people that had seen her as an easy mark. She was not, as it turned out, and their bones would be bleaching in the sun until the weather carried them away. All the same, given the nature of the world she was a prisoner of, she had tested the limits and so now suffered from what every witch and wizard of the land feared above all else.

"He is more than capable," she said. Even before she spoke, the stallion pranced up alongside her and butted her back with his head. Liquid equine eyes regarded the pair of them with more intelligence than the horse had any right to have, which was more or less right. The bond between her and Respite was a thing of magic, and gifted the horse with a number of traits that were not in any way natural. "He just cannot force me onto his back when I am glamoured by some...thing," she said at least. She could still feel that glam filtering through the air, hear the whisper of something unseen and ambiguous in nature.

With a sigh, she straightened and went to her companion's side. Without word or gesture, the pony knelt down to ease her mounting with something very much like a smug horsey grin on his face, directed at Stella.

"I do not like the air here," she said suddenly, looking to Stella. "You have to have an idea of a better place to rest; I will follow your lead."

 

[Stella]

Stella did not know what glamoured meant, nor did she have a particularly good idea of where to go in these strange lands, but she had the advantage of her flight in and the view it had afforded her. Whatever smugness the pony had presented was lost on the dragoness as she curved her sinuous neck away in a glimmer of shifting colors. Pale, pale pearl gleamed from the tip of her maw to the end of her tail, folding over the freshly healed stump of her leg.

"There is a valley riseward," she replied, following the illumination of the moons whose positions were only relative on any given day. Following the direction of the rising or setting sun? That at least provided consistent heading.

"The stream flows there, into a small lake." Perhaps with enough distance from the corrupted pond they might find security in the thickets surrounding the body of water. Stella glanced back to find the sidhe mounted and the steed ready. She lead off in her inelegant limp through the trees.

As night steadily took hold of the region a host of new noises joined the music of the wood. Birdsong had halted for the tune of insect chirps. The squeaking of bats overhead heralded the gentle fluttering patter of their quarry's wings. An owl swept through a clearing to snatch up a small rodent. The call of ungulates echoed softly from the valley. The howling of wolves more distant still.

Stella came to a halt as the trees gave way abruptly to a well-traveled dirt roadway. As a general rule of thumb she liked to stay clear of all things man-made, but the road seemed to lead down into the valley on the very path they needed to take. It didn't look to be much farther ... perhaps another hour of traveling at their pace, faster if they took the road, but it left them vulnerable and without cover.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She followed along at a polite distance, stowing the elegant staff back in its holder. She would need to remember to ask the dragon if the ability to shift her color was a natural one, or if it was spellcraft; if the latter, it would be rather remarkable as she could detect no magic of the form she most commonly associated with others.

The unease faded as they moved away from the fetid pool and whatever might be haunting it, natural or otherwise. The peace of the night came quickly, and for a while she was content to listen to the soft clop of Respite as he picked his way through the woodlands, and that of the night life stirring all around. She was fond of the natural world, the quiet susurration of things too small to see, and things large enough to see but smart enough to remain hidden.

The weight of the healing lay heavily on her shoulders, but she did her best to let it not be seen. The Laws of this prison world were onerous and unwelcome, and were especially hard on her kindred. On her most of all; she was a sorceress of the old order, of another world. Sidhe lived for thousands of years naturally, the more proficient in magic, the longer. Her life had stretched far, far beyond the normal bounds of her people, owing to an extraordinary life filled with things most never experienced, let alone survived. Unbidden, she touched her chest with her left hand, feeling at the scar there, and shuddered.

Arethil, a prison world. The welcoming siren that invited but never released, whose song was eternal internment. Still, better to be alive and a prisoner than dead and forgotten, dust on the wind of a world she had helped to kill.

The sudden appearance of the roadway was a shock. Had she known it existed prior she would likely have used it; unlike the dragoness, she had no dislike of meeting others on the road, and held no apprehension of humans or the other people of this world. Its presence in this place so far away from anything of not was a curiosity, but no more; there were plenty of curious things in the world.

She heeled Respite over and started down the track, taking the lead from Stella. Remembering the dragons shyness, she slowed her pace a touch. "We can travel the direct route, or be more circumspect as you wish. I can hide you if the need arises..." She stopped mid-sentence, and clicked her teeth. "...not that you need the assistance in that," she added. "I will be fine either way," she said, only half truthfully. She was tired, after all.

Somewhere behind them, ancient life stirred, and rose.