Open Chronicles Revisiting Memories

[Ashieron]

Ash walked along the ashen ground, his feet leaving foot prints kn the ash of the fallen. The ash of a few of his friends he had the honor to drink with hours before the attack as he and the dragon hatchling he was traveling with just met. He remembered their screams and their flesh melting off their skin in a torrent of fire. Taking a deep breath he paused and continued on moving forward, why did this battle affect him this much? While he himself raised a city from the ground, he saw his actions and the gore and suffering it brought.

Maybe he gotten soft.

Soft.

The idea he hated, he was over a thousand years old, he was a warrior, a mage, to the king’s guard. Both old and new king. No matter, he just had to wait for his good King to summon him back. So he could continue to do the service he longed to continue other than being an envoy for him. He longed to fight along side his elven brothers and sisters again. The time was coming and he could sense it.

The elf got to a few of the remains of what he assumed the stables, where he handed the hatchling over to the young mage, Alistair Wren, to run and get both of them to safety. The kid’s eyes were so full of fear but he carried out the orders that Ash had given him. Kneeling down Ash puts his hands together, they begun to glow as he whispered in ancient elvish. Tracing runes into the ground Ash finishes his incantations and grass started to sprout all around him. The ash started to get wet with water and the new grass spread among the field like a wildfire. It’s green blades stark against the desert and what little remained of structures.

Those who have fallen should not be left to be ash, they should be able to support new life. Not sit on the earth with nothing accomplished in the afterlife. Ash looks towards the center of the field of newly grown grass. He holds out his hand and freezes. Was he going to have those who fallen remembered as enemies or heros? Laughing he makes up his mind and a grassy monument with a stone center forms -

HERE LIES THE FINAL RESTING PLACE OF THE SOLDIERS OF THE BATTLE OF NINAGAL
​

Ash looks over his handy work with a smile as he sat down and grasp his hands together and he begins to whisper. Words of prayer? Words for the dead? Only he knew as he spoke the dialect of ancient elvish.

 

[Stella]

A gentle gust from overhead, a glimmer of light. Something stirred the verte carpet of new grass, the barest vibrations plying through the ground. Nothing more happened while the elf prayed, but as he finished Ash would feel the warmth of breath at his back, the tickling of an invisible muzzle at his shoulder.

"Lovely," the svelte sound of Stella's voice murmured in the man's ear, a soft rumbling like faint and distant thunder.

 

[Ashieron]

Ash smiles knowing just who this was, "Thanks Stella." He says looking towards her general direction with a huge light of happiness in his eyes. “What are you doing here?” He asks his dragon friend. He had rescued her from hunters a long while back. So it was nice to meet someone he knew from that time.

He had rescued from hunters then, some of them put up a fight fueled by the want and need for gold. That wasn’t a bad fight but he did stick around Stella to make sure she was good enough to go off on her own. He thinks that was what first got him into the dragon business but he could not remember.

“Its a good surprise to see you.” The elf smiles happily standing up and like a little kid give the dragon a bit elf hug.

 

[Stella]

"I smelled you."

A diminutive reply from the air, the faint frisson of bending light giving clue to her location. There weren't many that she would go out of her way to follow or find, but Ashieron had saved her life many years ago. Though they did not see one another often, she did look upon those brief interludes with fondness and warmth. The elf's nature was peculiar, the ebb and flow of his emotions like a song of bells on the ether.

Ash's arms found her muzzle, approximating the size of a horse's head, and wrapped around her in his embrace, eliciting a pleasant rumble from the hiding beast. Stella closed her eyes and gently nuzzled at the man, scales shifting into view as a soft, pearlescent white.

"What did you make?" she asked as he released her, long neck arching to look towards his monument.

 

[Cyyrin]

”O by mountain springs / Did the wildflowers sing, / And hail out to old O-kar-thi-ka! / For two lovers fair / Filled with blooming care / Fled away to old O-kar-thi-ka!” Above the skies over the now-blooming fields scarred by a battle fought what seemed like lifetimes ago, came an unfamiliar sound that had not been heard in the area for a long time, foreign and yet familiar in the memory of the land and the trees, and the new grass that had sprouted up over the field: music. Sung in the ancient tongue of the dragons, the voice was sonorous and resonant, ringing through the ground and the earth itself, and yet not without melody that lilted between octaves. It was a simple song with simple lyrics that described a rather simple story, and yet the hymn was nothing short of beautiful in a gentle yet joyous way.

Above the pair of Stella and Ash gathered on the mournful field came a bright glimmer of light, shining like a beacon beneath the sun in the sky. As it grew closer, the glimmer began to take shape, even if the details were obscured by the blinding radiance of his reflection. Golden dragons were quite shiny, but under direct sunlight they were almost blinding with the veins of metallic sheen that traced their scales, and Cyyrin was no different. Each one of his scales reflected a beam of light, and each beat of his gargantuan wings was mirrored by a bright afterimage. Behind him through the air, his long tail whipped and flashed about, as his body twisted, for a brief moment going belly-up to allow the warmth to shine on the scales of his chest, before twisting once more and gliding towards the open field, humming loudly even as the words of the song died off.

Eventually, after a long spiral, Cyyrin dipped down to the ground, slowing down greatly so as to not slide and tear up the freshly-grown green that Ash had made. With a burst of wind that whipped back grass and tossed about hair and losing clothing, the Lyrical Luminary landed beside the stone monument that had been erected to remember the field forever, the Golden Wyrm taking a moment to wrap up his wings and simply stretch after the rather lengthy flight. After the battle of the keep, the bard had been worried about Ash, and it showed as a faint glimmer in his pale blue eyes. It was not a worry that consumed Cyyrin, but it was one that was great enough to cause him to follow the elf - after everything that had happened, nobody should have to be alone, and it was only as he landed did he notice the minute form of Stella.

Looking over at the two with a smile almost as bright as his scales, Cyyrin would quickly crane his neck to look at the words inscribed on the monument, rumbling thoughtfully. ”Ninagal… you know, I remember a lot more ash flying above this place before, but I would guess you had something to do with that, Ash, hmm?” Cyyrin’s voice boomed out over the field even as he tried to speak quietly, letting the irony of the comment feed his own witticisms, before he sat back on his haunches, the ground shaking as he fell onto his hind legs and his tail began to wrap around the bar of the stone memorial. ”It is far more beautiful now, though. I much prefer it this way, and I hope you can perhaps one day appreciate the beauty that you’ve spread.”

There was a slight spark in his voice that suggested Cyyrin was talking about more than just the field of Ninagal, but the moment was lost as he turned his gaze onto the previously present form of Stella within Ash’s arms, the white dragon disappearing as soon as he had landed. Immediately Cyyrin laid down fully only his belly, moving his body forward so he could fully face where the tiny dragon had just been with a smile, and a playful puff of white smoke from his nostrils. ”It seems I’m not the only one who decided to visit you… what say you, little one? I think we should rename this little family of ours ‘Kept by Dragons,’ with how often it seems our kind tries to protect our apparent protectors.”

 

[Ashieron]

Smiling Ash explain all the event of the Battle of Ninagal to Stella, including how he entrusted a little hatchling to a foreign human mage. Who turned out to be true of his word and brought the little one to safety. The burning of Maho’s flesh and the soliders around him. He didn’t really leave much details out except for but he had forgotten.

“In the end it was just wrong place. Wrong timing sort of deal.” He concludes with a shrug as Cyyrin landed. He would introduce them as he did so, “To be fair Cyyrin, I used a blade for that fight. Aivrid was responsible for the desimation.... and that weird fire-oil.” He remarks with a nod and a laugh. “But if you mean a few centuries sooner than now... possibly its hard to remember.” He taps the side of his head with his finger, “I just decided to not let their ashes sit here in this place. They neeed to support something so why not grass? It grows back after a fire after all, particularly in such an arid climate such as this.”

He knew Cyyrin well enough, he was sort of new to the Keepers along with Izerth and Kaelan. While he did enjoy his company, the terrible puns with his name and whatever else was around, and his bardness. Ash saw the worry in the dragon’s eyes. What was he worried about? Ash couldn’t help but think for a moment before he shrugged it away.