Private Tales Read between the lines

[Talus]

A bitter laugh passed from the man's throat.

"Is that what you tell yourself? That we could have retired? Walked away?"​

He spat, his voice venom.

"They didn't let you go. They threw you to the wolves. Tossed you out as you refused their leash."
​

The man's eyes burned.

"What justice is there in serving a Republic that wishes to chain you? What is right in being forced from your home? The only home you've ever known?"​

The man sounded angry now, his voice raising as slowly he stood from the chair. For the first time light cast over him, and then suddenly Talus knew who he was. His breath caught, and lips thinned as he took a step closer to Zana. "Nassau."

He hissed.

It was a name that she would recognize, one that had stood as a legend even among Archon's. A man whose magic could shake cities, break mountains, and bring even Dragon's to heel.

"Yes, boy. I served Vel Anir for sixty years. The crown. The Houses. The Republic. Never offered me a real choice. So now I'm going to make one."​

 

[Zana]

Nassau. The Demon of Vel Anir.

Zana's stomach churned. Sloan had whispered nightmare tales about him to her when she had acted out and threatened to serve her on a platter to him. She swallowed that residing childhood fear as she took him in now she knew exactly who he was. How had they allowed for him to escape his leash?

"You're wrong," she said softly after a moment of silence. "Vel Anir was never our home," she glanced to Talus when he stood beside her and a smile curved her lips despite herself. Her fingers reached out and gently brushed across his hand, her wedding band glistening in the fire light. "With our freedom we made our own home. A true home. The only reason we are here is because we believe we still have a duty to the Dreadlords we put through the revolution."

She stared at Talus a while longer before looking back to the man before them.

"You could have a home too, just... not like this."

 

[Talus]

"Ah. Traitors through and through then."​

The Archon said with a frown, glancing at the two former Dreadlords. His head shook as if he didn't quite believe what he had said, the bitterness in his tone having clearly marked his intent. He frowned, and then remarked quietly.

"No. No traitors."​

Nassau corrected himself.

"If Vel Anir is not your home then you have no business here. Go back to where they dug you out from. Go back to the happy little life you found. You've earned that much."​

He gestured, and Talus all but became uncoiled as he expected the man to attack.

Instead however the door that had earlier slammed closed behind them swung open with an eerie creek. It echoed out through the keep, and beneath their feet the two Dreadlords would feel a slight rumble shake the cobbled ground.

"Go back to your home, and I will go to mine."​

He stated plainly, letting the offer linger in the air.

 

[Zana]

Zana thought of the twins. Of their home on the hill. Of Grey and their new friends and extended family. Of the happiness their blood and tears had won them. But she didn't turn for the temptation of the open door. Instead she glanced to Talus and her hand tightened on the hilt of her blade.

"No."

The air seemed to quiver.

"We can't let you keep hurting people," she said softly. "We fought and we killed for the notion of a nation we can now build. We can't let acts like this destroy what our loved ones died for before it's already had a chance to start."

 

[Talus]

Nassau let out a long sigh, his head shaking in disappointment.

There seemed almost a genuine sorrow to his features, as if he was sorry that he had to do any of what he was going to. Slowly the old man pushed himself up from the chair. He was more lanky than Talus would have guessed, but there was a sharp edge to the way he moved.

It was clear the man was still more than capable.

"The nation is not yours, little one."​

Nassau said with a shake of his head. He looked towards Talus, towards Zana. The disappointment clear on his features. Lips drew thin, and a hand came up. Talus stepped forward, his sword flickering in his grasp as he moved towards the man.

"It's theirs."​

A loud snap rang through the room.

Fingers clashed together, and then suddenly a whirl of white ruptured through the study. Winds and ice buffetted the two Dreadlords, threatening to throw them off their feet. It dashed through the room, tossing papers, snuffing the fire.

Then it was gone.

Nassau with it. "How the hell did he-"

Before he could finish, the tower began to shake.

 

[Zana]

"Fucking Archon's," Zana muttered under her breath when the man suddenly stood and then vanished in a dramatic show of magic. She wiped tears from her cheeks that had shaken free when the harsh winds had suddenly blown through the wind. There wasn't much time to really comprehend what had just happened least of all because his plane of magic was far beyond what Talus and Zana could wield themselves. The whole tower began to shake and Zana cursed again.

"The dragon," or the eggs, but she didn't want to think about those eggs hatching. "We need to get out of here before it brings the whole thing down," in the past she would have been confident her magic would have been enough of a barrier but now... now she had to rely entirely on Talus' magic and that was terrifying.

 

[Talus]

"I thought you couldn't teleport..." Talus said with a slight frown, but slowly stepped backwards and nodded to his loving wife.

They turned around. "Go!"

He told Zana quickly.

"I'm faster than you." Even as he spoke the tower continued to shake, it's base shifting, the ice upon it's stone beginning to crack. A thunderous sound ruptured through the whole structure. The sound of falling chunks of ice echoing outward.

Below, within the stone walls, the cocoons began to break open. A chorus of shrieks echoed outward, odd and strangled creatures crawling from their spawns.

Talus put a gentle hand on Zana's back as they rushed through the corridors. "When I say jump, jump!"

He called out, wisps of blue ethereal smoke beginning to float from his form.

 

[Zana]

Zana resisted the urge to make a face at her husband when he brought up his speed. It, in less dangerous times, was a joke between them. Instead she set her mind to running as fast as she physically could and thanks to her own harsh schedule she was quite pleased to find she wasn't out of breath or feeling strained when she launched into a sprint.

There were some things the Academy had done well with her.

As they ran she swung at the eggs, catching the creatures as they dragged themselves oozing into the world. At their screams however an answering roar came from outside which sent more stone tumbling down.

When Talus said jump Zana didn't think twice.

 

[Talus]

Talus bounded from the balcony in one great lurching step.

He and his loving wife swept into the air. The cold around them biting at flesh, skin, whatever could be found. The wind soared around them, screaming, aching, trying it's best to gouge and drag at them. Nature itself hounded their heels.

Yet it didn't matter.

Talus' will flickered.

His body seemed to shift through the air, move. An arm wrapped around Zana's belly. With a forceful grip he pulled her against himself. Then the world changed.

It was a flicker that was not unfamiliar to her. The sensation of a weightless ghost dragging at her form as she was forcibly dragged into the world beyond. Great, tendril like wings sprouted from Talus' back, springing forth and beating in unison as he soared through the air, cutting across the city and easing them down to the earth.

Their forms flickered as they reached the ground, falling back into reality as the tower behind them shattered into a thousand pieces. A great Dragon roaring into the ethos.

 

[Zana]

Zana was simply proud of herself for not throwing up.

"Kress," she groaned as her stomach churned. It took longer than it used to for her vision to right itself and her body to stop wanting to empty itself of food. The dragons roar helped quite a bit though and despite her first few steps back towards the city being unsteady she set a steady pace after that.

"We can't let it leave here," the thing hadn't seemed in a state to fly but neither of them knew what Nassau had done to it. "The poison might spread to other towns - cities - we need to find a way to isolate it then purge it."

 

[Talus]

Talus turned around almost instantly as the Dragon slowly began to creep around the base of the tower.

It's wings seemed frayed, ripped and broken apart, and yet as they extended something in the back of the Dreadlord's mind told him the creature would have no struggle in flying. He frowned for a brief moment, glancing at Zana.

"Fuck me." He swore quietly.

A living Dragon presented enough of a problem? This thing? He had absolutely no fucking idea if they could even touch this damned thing. Not to mention Zana was still not back to where she had once been. "Alright, alright."

Talus nodded, knowing she was right.

"You stay here." He told her softly. "I'll take care of that thing."

He wasn't about to send her in, not now. Not with their babies waiting at home.

 

[Zana]

Zana slapped an arm across his chest to stop him running off.

"Which one of us has actually faced a dragon and not almost been burnt to a crisp?" she raised an eyebrow at her husband then glanced back to the city. The dust from the collapsed tower was beginning to settle and in the middle the dark silhouette of the dragon began to move. Perhaps it wouldn't want to leave the ill-begotten children it had had a hand in creating. That might be their saving grace.

"I think... I might be able to create a forcefield to keep them all contained but I don't know how long it will last. If you could kill the... the whatever they are we could focus on the dragon then."

 

[Talus]

Talus looked to his wife. There was a small, almost sympathetic smile to his face. Zana wasn't wrong of course. Historically she'd had the better luck, but right now? Right now they both knew that Talus was in a better position to complete the mission.

"Honey, I know." He reached out and gently grazed her cheek.

His smile softened a bit. "But you know I'm no good in a crowd."

Never had been. She could wipe away hundreds at a swipe of a palm, but Talus? He'd always been best in single combat.

Eyes flickered back towards the city for a moment, his fingers wrapping a bit more tightly around his dwarven blade. It was heavier than most swords, created in furnaces fueled by Dragon Fire. He hoped that it would help here. "The Dragon created these things. If I can get it's attention, maybe they'll all come running."

 

[Zana]

Zana's eyes half closed at the soft graze of his fingers against her cheek. Would there ever be a time it didn't affect her so? Her heart screamed at her not to let him go face those jaws alone. The very thought of it made her sick to the pit of her stomach but he was right. She hated he was right.

"I can't let you face everything on your own, Talus. I can't," she said fiercely, her fingers reaching up to curl into his hair and tug him close. "Focus on the dragon and I'll try to keep the other... things off you. Just... be careful," she pleaded quietly and pressed her lips to his for a brief, bittersweet kiss before letting him go.

As he started towards the dragon she took a breath and closed her eyes and magic begun to thrum through the air.

 

[Talus]

The sword flipped around in his palm. "I'll be alright."

He assured his wife as he slowly turned in his step.

There was no denying that he was rusty. That the last time he'd truly fought anyone, or anything of real threat was more than a year ago. Yet his magic was strong, stronger than it had ever been. Dragon, Archon, whatever lay out there.

He could handle it.

A breath flowed into his lungs, and then Zana would suddenly see his body flicker. The ghostly trail of his form rushed over the ground at speeds that most would think utterly impossible. No air or force of gravity touching him as he dashed through the city and towards the tower.

The Dragon ahead of him pulled itself upward, it's skeletal and flickering form raising up. Wings extended outward, broken and patchwork. They reached into the sky, as if the thing was about to soar, and then the tiny speckle of Talus' form appeared at it's side.

Dwarven forged steel sliced through meager flesh and bone. A single flickering strike severing of the beasts wing before it could ever pull together the first beat.

 

[Zana]

The dome of energy began to creep upwards in a large circle around the town. Sweat beaded on her forehead at the concentration and energy it took to flex those dormant muscles. She felt like an initiate again, the Proctor shouting at her to do better, Sloan holding her hand and whispering quiet encouragement. Zana drew on that memory and the others of what had made her strong and the dome grew and grew. It was almost at its zenith when Talus sliced the dragons wing from its body and a screech that jarred the bones echoed across the city.

But it didn't just come from the dragon.

The creatures she could see near her fell to their knees clutching at their arm as though they too had lost a limb. They writhed and howled then rose with a ferocious snarl that seemed to come from every mouth at once. In a split decision Zana closed the dome off just before the dragon, leaving Talus and that thing on the outside and its minions inside with her.

They turned and Zana drew her sword.

 

[Talus]

Even three years ago Talus couldn't have said he'd thought he'd ever end up in a situation like this. They had faced Dragons before, but never fought them. The young Dreadlord had never even considered that they might have to again in the future. It struck him as one of those odd tricks of life.

A trick he honestly would much rather have avoided at this point in time.

The dragon roared. It's mouth pulling open in a ferocious gaping maw that even the most foolish would have known to fear. Jaws snapped forward, closing in towards the flickering Dreadlord as his blade swept to the left of the beast and attempted to cut throat itself flesh once more.

His body flickered.

The ghostly pale of the veil surrounding him as he suddenly repositioned himself within the middle of the air.

He appeared just a few feet from where he had pushed off. His sword spun in his hand, and then suddenly from the left a massive half bare tail lashed out. It snapped forward, and then struck Talus with a thud which would have made a giant's bones rattle.

His body flickered through the air, and he crashed against the ground.

 

[Zana]

Blue blood sprayed across her face and she grimaced, making sure to keep her mouth shut, as the human-made-dragon slumped headless to the ground in front of her. The stench made her want to gag but she dared not. They did not know how this thing... spread. If a bit of their blood was to be digested who was to say she would not end up the same?

With a screech four more of the creatures hurled them selves at her. She stepped back automatically and nearly fell over one of the other corpses that littered the area around her. With the dragon and Talus trapped beyond the dome the rest had nothing but her to take their angers and frustrations out on. Maybe they even believed if she died the dome would fall, but she did not want to think they were that intelligent.

The first she caught across the chest with a nasty swipe sending it screaming backwards. The other three however learnt from the first - and those who had come before - and came upon her in a rush.

 

[Talus]

Talus felt the bruises on his skin.

The broken and shattered bones in his ribs.

Pain lanced through him, injury, hurt. It wracked his body and pulled at him. Threatening to tear and bite away his resolve. Yet he heard the screams of those things. The roar of the Dragon just a few dozen meters away from him.

Eyes flickered open.

Fingers wrapped more tightly around his sword.

He remembered Zana's words. The truth that had slipped from her lips. This creature, these things...they couldn't be allowed to walk beyond the walls around them. They couldn't...he couldn't let it go. A sharp breath flowed into his lungs.

Then his body flickered into a pale blue. He flickered from the ground, and like a plague fell upon the great Dragon. His blade cut through flesh. Severed bone. His form flickering and moving with every beat of the heart. Talus was a swarm all his own. Biting, nicking at the great beast before him.

A thousand cuts rent into the Dragon's flesh.

 

[Zana]

The figures around her writhed and screamed and though her blade had touched none of them still alive, welts and red, thin slices appeared on their skin. In the distance she saw the dragon rear up and thrash its head wildly from side to side as though attempting to bite at some annoying fly. Her heart squeezed.

"Talus," she grimaced. He said he was better one to one but that was a big one.

Zana drove her sword into the thing at her feet and then stepped over the still corpse. As long as he hurt the dragon these things would stay down and as long as she could keep this shield up they would stay contained. Coming to the decision she set off at a spring towards the dragon.

The dragon snarled and swatted at Talus wherever it could using wing, claw or tail. Infuriated and increasingly in pain the beast suddenly opened its maw and let forth a flame so cold it froze falling leaves.

 

[Talus]

A massive claw swept through his ghostly form, rending through the air. Anger and rage built up within the creature, it's maw opening up.

This time it did not try to snap it's teeth down upon him. Instead a spark of something erupted in it's throat. Talus' eyes bulged open, a curse echoed from his lips, and then suddenly his whole body flickered. Tendrils of lashed and extended outward.

A cascading tide of frost burst from the beasts mouth, spilling over the land and leaving a trail of pyres of ice.

Talus came crashing down just to the left.

His body flickering back into reality as he landed within the ruins of an old building. He had time enough to take a short breath, and then a claw slammed down. His body taking on it's ghostly form once more, drawing to the ground. Kress.

Talus thought.

You're not even alive, are you? The thoughts flickered through his mind, sword twisting as the great Dragon turned and snarled down at him.

 

[Zana]

Zana's feet pounded against the ground as she ran. She did not have Talus' speed in his ghostly form but her determination to keep fit after the birth of the twins was proving to have paid off as she vaulted over fallen debris and slid under low hanging broken branches through the dead streets. The dragon grew larger the closer she got and her heart almost stopped when she saw Talus narrowly miss the icy shards that came from its maw.

"Talus!" her hand stretched out as she sprinted past fallen weaponry, no doubt left by guards who had tried to defend this city before being turned into one of those wretched things. A lance flew to her palm and her energy drained away from such a tiny show of her power but she did not heed it. She kept running, closer, until she got a shot.

"DUCK!" she shouted through the bond and with her mouth as she leapt onto the roof of a battered home and hurled the lance towards the beasts opening maw with all her strength and the last kick of her TK. If Talus could add his own strike maybe together they could bring it down.

 

[Talus]

It was an echo.

A cry that seemed to ring and reach through the expanse of sound itself. His head turned, his eyes flickered. Lips thinned. The voice of his beloved echoed, commanding, crying. Fingers tightened on the hilt of his sword.

A flicker reached through the air. The very matter within nothing shaping and steeling itself. Talus took it for what it was knew, that odd shimmer within the air. Lips thinned, his body shifted. A translucent blue flickered over his form.

Then he disappeared.

An echoing roar pulsed over the plain around them. A reaching cry of pain, anguish, and despair as Zana's power struck within the Dragons Maw. The spear lashed through it's tongue, over the roof of it's mouth. A great dragon bucked, shifted.

Talus reappeared.

A blade shifted, flickering to life, slicing through flesh born of hate and anger. It carved against the Dragon's throat, dragging through flesh and bone alike. Severing what little, living flesh remained as he finished the dragons death.

 

[Zana]

The dragons scream echoed from every one of the abominations it had created at the same time. The dome under which she had imprisoned them reached a breaking point as they thrashed wildly against it in one last futile attempt at escape before suddenly they all fell down like seeds blown off a dandelion. The dragon's body crashed to the earth at the same time and shook the city to its very core. Buildings that had been standing by sheer will toppled and buried the bodies of some of the spawn.

The last of the dome disintegrated into tiny purple sparkles.

Zana let out a breath and dropped to one knee as the full weight of exhaustion hit her. The sensation of dizziness lasted only a few seconds before she managed to push herself back to her feet and wobbly make her way over to where she had last seen Talus.

"Talus?!"

 

[Talus]

There was a wrenching squelch.

The sound of tearing flesh.

It was an awful sort of noise, but from it stepped news that even the most stoic of men would have smiled for. Talus stumbled from betwixt the Dragon's bones, his steps swaying, fingers barely clinging to the sword within his palm. "Looks like."

He smiled.

"Looks like there's more than one Dragon Slayer in the family now." It was a joke, a jest offered in a moment of triumph.

It should have been a celebration. A mark of achievement, but there was a bitter taste on the still young man's tongue. The dragon was but a piece of what they had found here, a small little part. There was so much more they still had to do.

Slowly he stepped towards his wife, collapsing at her side with a smile.