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Rewrite; tag Kia
Topic Started: Mar 23 2017, 07:07 PM (57 Views)
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Even in the depths of winter, the Academy wasn't especially cold. It certainly wasn't frigid enough to make the giantess of a dragon particularly uncomfortable. She wasn't a breed centered around heat or the cold, but her armored plates served as a formidable shield against all but the harshest of winter's chills. That had enabled her to spend a decent amount of time in the northlands of Vidalaner. It wasn't a very pleasant place, but as long as she was capable of surviving there, that didn't matter. There weren't many people to see her there either. Compared to Vidalaner, the meager covering of frost dusting the fields were nothing.

It was a windy day. That hadn't been enough to put her off. The muscles in her wings ached with the longing to be put to test against the skies. When she walked out to the academy grounds and launched herself into the sky, the relief was almost instantaneous. She had been at the academy for a while now, but her body was still used to near-constant motion. Two or so years of an easier life couldn't make up for over forty of frequent travel and battle-readiness. They couldn't make up for all the emotional strife she had experienced over those years. Flying helped her body feel better, but even the feeling of the wind sliding over her smooth scales couldn't put her mind at ease.

The ability to fly was uncommon in earth and earth based mycotic dragons. Vankka was rare in her ability to get into the sky and remain there for a fairly long time, but the smaller breeds could still outlast her with ease. She didn't even push herself to her limit today. Half an hour was long enough to firmly quiet down her physical restlessness, which meant it was enough for her. There was no point in flying aimlessly. She angled herself down for a landing in the middle of the academy's fields. Long frost-tipped blades of wild grasses bowed like a legion underling before the Nightmare Niddhogg beneath her paws. The calloused, but armorless, pads of her feet registered the damp chilliness that clung to the plants. Nothing. It was nothing compared to the harshness the rest of the world had to offer.

That feeling, the bending grass, cold, but not cold enough to really bother her, was what turned her mind toward the north. As she thought of how easy, how soft and kind, this place was compared to that wasteland, it occurred to her that musing to herself in the fields wasn't any more useful than flying with no destination in mind. Her entire presence in the academy was little more than a waste of their resources. She had fulfilled her promise to her rider. Kizika had bonded to none other than her own son. What did that make her purpose now? The legion had never taught her anything useful like reading or healing. She couldn't heal or read. She could here was no telling whether she would be accepted into a wing. Besides, the war was over. There was even less reason for a former enemy soldier to be wanted. The most she had to offer the academy was the mushroom crops she had been growing.

Mushrooms weren't much of a purpose in life.

Her thoughts began to stray toward her children. Vita and Merau, Kizika, even little Esh and her forest... if she left the academy, there was no telling when she would see them again. The first live children she had hatched since her first, lost, precious daughter. The only part of Raeana she had left. A young woman who had looked so genuinely happy to see her. If she stayed, she could watch out for them. But there was a famine tearing through the lands. She was a large dragon. Surely leaving was the best thing she could do for them? Besides, there was no telling whether or not the first three would be willing to accept her company. Kizika had always been a difficult subject.

She had just sat down when a high-pitched chirp cut through the air. Vankka snapped her head toward the sound to be greeted by the sight of a small, bright red bird. A chuckle resounded in her chest despite her melancholic thought. "I don't suppose you have answers," she said.
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CoiledDragon
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The Momfriend

Cold didn't much bother Gaoithe. She was a creature of little fat and flesh even before the plague, but she was also a bone. It seemed in age, nerves had deteriorated. Pain could be felt if it was deep enough, as could cold and heat, but right now in the early dredges of winter the cold was barely a bother at all. What was a bother was that Gaoithe couldn't find anyone to talk to. Even the normal companions, the ones no one else could see, were around today. Did invisible things get cold? How was she to know, she was perfectly visible, flesh and bone.

As she walked out into the light snow, she left massive imprints where she tread, hoping to find someone out in the fields. To her luck, there was indeed someone there! On the outskirts! Someone who wasn't invisible either. The behemoth of a Mycotic was resting by the barren trees, looking pensive. Would she mid Gaoites presence?

"Oh surely not." She chuffed to herself, picking up her claws and trotting over. As she came upon the Mycotic - a healed brethren like herself! - she saw the other female was talking to a bright red bird. Cardinal.

"No, those ones don't often have answers. Just riddles, talking you in circles. Well, maybe it's just me they don't like, I never know..." Gaoithe said, flicking her tongue out disdainfully at the puny bird. It cocked it's head at her and chirped, flying off in search of berries that survived the chill. "Hello! I am Gaoithe! If you're lonely, I'm lonely too. I bet we even have a few things in common." She called with a light giggle.
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It wasn't that she didn't see the bone dragonness coming. One of the many things living nomadically with Raeana had taught her was how to be alert. She just didn't deem her presence enough of a threat or boon to warrant a visible reaction. Being caught talking to a bird was a little shameful, but she didn't expect the other dragon to stop and chat.

How silly of her. 'Expect' was another word for 'assume'. By now, she knew better than to assume. If only knowing better than to do something was enough to keep her from doing it.

Any surprise she felt at being proven wrong was quickly overshadowed by confusion. Plated as it was, her face wasn't the most expressive, but her voice picked up the slack. "You... talk to birds often?" The question slipped out of her mouth while Gaoithe was still talking. What she said also nullified the need for said question. Oh, she thought. Her chest tightened with shame for having asked in the first place. She's not quite... right. It should have been easy enough for her to tell when she started off by saying something like that. That sort of thing wasn't unusual in tainted dragons. That included the healed taints, for the potential damage done by the healing made it more likely than anything.

Even though this dragon was odd, she was also quite perceptive. Vankka really had been wrong to assume that she would have no interest in her. Not just because it was an assumption, but also because, differences in appearance and behavior aside, they have more in common with each other than with most academy dwellers. More than one could tell at a glance.

"I never said that I was lonely." She was. Then again, she never said that she wasn't. She wasn't lying, just avoiding the answer for the time being. A little heartache was not enough to make someone as reserved as her spill her woes onto a complete stranger. "You don't need to leave though. I am Vankka." It wasn't much to build a conversation off of, but she had never been much of a chatty conversation-builder. Mors was much more outgoing in that way. Mors, Esh En Delle, Vita... it was funny how her orbit always seemed to cross with those who possessed the energy she lacked. Would Gaoithe fall into that category too?
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CoiledDragon
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For a moment, Gaoithe thought perhaps the large dragoness would shoo her away, stating she never said she was lonely. But the fear was cut short when she said that the bone didn't have to leave and introduced herself. The bone would have smile had she flesh left around her fangs to do so. Instead, happiness was expressed through the quivering of spines and rattle of fingers as they flexed independent of each other. The bone really didn't want to be alone, and this one could be seen as a sister in a sense!

"Delightful!" She crooned, trotting a little closer and flopping unceremoniously by the behemoth of a female. The end of her tail twitched, like a cat pleased in the company it kept. "It gets dreadfully lonely talking to things that don't often want to talk back! And many of the things that talk back aren't the kindest of things, or aren't supposed to talk back anyway. Most seem nice enough but they think I don't see how they twist their faces out of the corner of my eye! I've no flesh left around the socket to obscure my sight, I can see perfectly plainly... Do they do that to you, too?" She asked, the question almost pathetic in its sadness.

"Sometimes I'm even scared to talk to other healed ones like ourselves...." She added after a small pause. "But I guess the ones who came here of choice don't need to be worried about, right? That's what the barn cats said at least. It was their choice just like it was mine! But sometimes I think 'what if it didn't really work? What if they're pretending and waiting to slit our throats?'. And they look at me too. I know I'm not, well, as pristine as I used to be in the brain area. But what else does one do when no one else wants to talk." She huffed a little, prattling on about her pointless concerns.

"I do apologize though, I talk a lot, some people don't care for it much." Her claws kneaded the dirt, creating shallow graves. "I bet they wouldn't mind if the other choice was me slitting their throats." She giggled darkly, then looked up to Vankka. "Not that I have plans to! I waited so long to come home and i'm not about to mess it up now."
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Vankka wasn't fond of pity. It made her feel like less than a person. It was better than raw hatred, yes, but it didn't acknowledge her strengths and flaws, the mistakes she had made, and the sheer threat she could pose if she put her mind to it. At least hatred had the potential to view her entire person rather than a two-dimensional box like some sad character in a play. Since she didn't like being pitied, she tried to return the favor for others. That wasn't enough to stop her this time. Gaoithe made that unwanted feeling twinge in her chest.

One of the things worse than being broken was being aware that you were.

"The only things that talk to me are humans and other dragons," she said. There was no mention of what faces they made when they did. She wasn't seeking pity or looking for a companion to stew in sadness with. The first knew that she got lost in her emotions often enough without intentionally feeling sorry for herself. That said, trying to make someone else feel a little better was another matter entirely. If it made her feel less alone, then... "But there were times when I felt like I would lose my grip on reality," she admitted. "Mostly before I was healed." After Raeana.

She then paused to warily eye the bone as she tried to figure out how to respond to the rest of her statements. Some of the things she had said were alarming indeed. Then again, wasn't that to be expected of a dragon who wasn't all there, who had even admitted as much? Unfortunately, easily excusing people could be a dangerous mistake. Eventually, she said, "it is not my place to condemn you or excuse you. But even if no one else can... hear them... I think that the barn cats have a point." Vankka extended a wing to run it comfortingly over the dragonness. "You did not choose to be tainted or used by their forces. You did choose to return."
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