Humanity wants to fly oh-so-badly, it’s almost pathetic.
It wouldn’t make sense to any creature that wasn’t human, that obsession humanity has with flight. They have two of the greatest legs that the animal kingdom has to offer: they can reach the highest peaks, crawl to the lowest troughs, traverse any environment in the world and beyond all of that, the sky has nothing to offer but the cold chill of the upper atmosphere and the clouds that reside within it. Everything that matters is on or below the surface: cities and societies, food and water, tools and weapons, all humanity has made and all they rely on at their fingertips, surrounded by jungle, concrete and verdant, on all sides. Even with the limitless reach that walking, running or crawling grants them, flight is an option humanity is deprived of that enamours them to this very day.
An inhuman creature attempting to understand humanity’s dreams in isolation would have a hard time doing so. Attempting to understand humanity without understanding semantics is a pointless endeavour. Like many other avenues of humanity's ideals, it's about what it represents.
There’s a certain majesty about flying that generates the everloving awe of humanity. On a surface level, flight is freedom, the ground wraps tightly around the legs of earthbound creatures below the skyline and only those blessed with wings, in whatever form they may come in, can escape the curse of the earth.
Beyond that freedom, there is, of course, the beauty of it. The baby blue of the sky, filled to the brim with the silver strings and wispy smoke that line it, touching heaven in an archaic sense. The winds, an ally that lifts you within its nurturing palms, an enemy of which your wings are the blades to carve through its body. To be a creature, untouchable within conventional means, is the intersection between beauty and freedom.
Most, if not all, creatures that can fly must eventually return to the ground from whence they came, but the freedom to take flight at will is a luxury that humanity looks upon in awe - at best they can attempt to replicate it with technology, but they can never truly soar.
For these reasons, anything that flies and doesn’t fit into the neat little box of either beauty or ferocity within humanity's eyes will never get its permission to soar. Creatures like flies and gnats that eat excrement, flying haphazardly, being “pests” wherever they go. Pigeons, flying rats that pollute the air with their presence and drab colours, staining whatever happens to be in the way with their shit. Wasps, creatures of pure wrath that sting without care and produce nothing of value for which their aggressive nature would justify. Cockroaches, the worst of the worst: bugs that seem invincible, that crawl into whatever hole they can find, that feed off whatever food is available, all whilst covered in a disgusting hickory coat.
If butterflies looked like cockroaches, they would have had their wings clipped long ago. The worst crime that you, as a non-human creature, can commit is sullying that which humanity holds in reverence.
Of all the flying creatures in the world, dragons are the most revered. Fire breathing mythical beasts. Benevolent or malevolent, depending on their presentation. Unbreakable scales and claws, and eyes that pierce into the hearts of men. Whether or not they are real doesn’t change the fact that their beauty and their ferocity is unmatched within winged creatures.
This makes it all the more interesting how many traits they share between themselves and cockroaches. Both indestructible winged creatures that are as tough as they are durable. Both terrorise humanity in their own unique ways. Both seem to find a way no matter how much humanity wishes to see their eradication.
Humanity’s disgust of one will never remove that which is shared between the pair.
“Gah!”
This is, however, just nonsense. Yes, if you look at both species with no nuance they may share more in common than anyone would like to admit, but a cockroach can never be as ferocious as a dragon. No matter how hard it tries…
“Rematch! I want a rematch!”
However, if the situation is dire enough, a dragon can become pathetic as their insect counterpart, like we can see here, at the beginning of our story.
“At ease, warrior. If you want another shot, you’ll have to try again tomorrow.”
Being trampled upon is a universal language. It means defeat, in almost all cases. In others it means death; an alternative some prefer to the embarrassment of being treated like a bug. It's part of the reason the boy writhes and wriggles under his captain's stomping weight, though a lot more of it can be attested to his desire to defy defeat despite being under her feet. His hands are clasped around her ankle, wresting his power against her own to alleviate the tension on his chest. His still exhausted muscles bulge slightly in resistance - he could, of course, do more than this: puncturing her flesh with his nails, stabbing into her achilles, the pain forcing her to get off of him. The reason he doesn’t is twofold: it would, sadly, only work in prolonging his suffering seeing as it was all but guaranteed he would still lose after getting up. Worse than that, it just wasn't what a warrior would do.
“Now then… Can anyone tell me why this pathetic, miserable whelp that is somehow ranked Number Three lost?”
A few voices would attempt to rise up - initially they would have to wrestle against the sound of the boy's continuous effort to be heard, but eventually the woman's stomp would transition from ‘threatening to crush’ to ‘holding in place’. With that, he would succumb to exhaustion. His only remaining energy would be used to hear the critique from his cohort that began immediately afterwards.
“Too aggressive.” The first to speak. Rank Number One. Gala Shadeheart.
“Go on, Shadeheart.”
“Elio always fights as if he can defeat his opponent. That’s just who he is….”
“Against opponents that he can defeat, this is something you can kinda just write off…”
“Against opponents that he can’t, this is a crux…”
“He just isn’t strong enough to defeat you head on, so him fighting as if he can only made his defeat more certain.”
Her voice doesn’t cut through like that of a commander - it lacks the aggressive weight or the piercing tone, yet it is respected all the same. The reason is simple: rank notwithstanding, her talent in regards to combat is second to none within this group (and still ranked highly outside of it). Everything that Gala says based on what she sees is right - the only time she’s wrong is when there’s something she cannot see. In an instance like this where she’s a direct witness to the battle, the chance that her eyes are fooled is slim to none. It’s why her voice, playful, raspy, and slightly deep, competes with no-one when it comes to declaring the truth.
“Correct, Number One, but what did I tell you about ignoring the trees once you get a view of the whole forest?”
The Commander's eyes, a sea of azure and amber shades, locks with the girls for a moment. Gala’s own were a golden yellow that the Shadeheart are known for, with hers specifically, a juxtaposition of playfulness and attentiveness. The younger girl breaks the connection first - she rolls her eyes and scoffs, not dismissing the words of her mentor, but rather expressing exhaustion, having heard these words many times before. The commander follows suit, her eyes, and with it her finger, shifting direction. They threaten to assign the task of specific analysis to someone within the class. As much as they want to show off their knowledge, no-one likes to be picked upon, and thus, the boy it ends up landing on drops a sigh that sounds a bit like a whimper before he begins to speak.
“Well… he… I don’t really know how to explain it without just stealing Gala’s argument." The unlucky soul chosen to dissect a seemingly perfect argument with the limited knowledge he has. Rank Number Six. Leonardo.
“Then steal it.”
He didn’t expect to get away with it that easily, and yet still drew in breath sharply before he began to explain his perspective.
“Okay?… Uh… A fighter's power, ignoring Draconic Archetypes, can be split into strength, speed and durability.”
“Elio’s issue is the fact he fights like his victory is guaranteed.”
“He… He has the advantage a lot of the time at the beginning of the fight because he’s technical.”
“But then he kind of just… throws it away? Like, he takes advantage to mean he can do whatever he wants.”
“Not like he’s playing with you, but… it’s like because he’s winning, he thinks anything will work.”
The mutual respect within the group, alongside the fact that this was a formal activity, means that Leonardo’s voice doesn’t have to fight to be heard. That doesn’t stop faint undertones, mumbles and chuckles of the congregation, from beginning to slowly creep in. They’re not laughing at him or his answers, because he’s right - it only makes sense since he used Gala’s argument as a baseline to develop his own analysis; its ridicule of the caricature of power ahead of them. The boy under the commander's foot had, once again, attempted to force his way out, this time in almost exaggerative silence: muscles straining, a plump vein bulging on the side of his forehead, his tanned skin slowly growing more and more red with each passing second of this one-sided conflict. The performance causes the crowd to slowly grow rowdy as Commander Ferra refuses to acknowledge the fact that there was even a body below her in the first place. A hand, however, raises to break the dramatic irony of the situation - one of the few in the crowd that seems not to find this, or anything at all with that gloomy look, funny.
“Correct analysis. That'll be all… Blackmoore, do you have something to add?”
“Not an addition, a suggestion, if I may?”
“You may..”
“Can you remove your foot from Elio’s chest so he can rejoin the rest of the class and not be crushed to death?” The straight man who seems far too used to returning chaos to order, even when their mentor was a part of it. Rank Number Two. Morrigan Abraxas Blackmoore.
Much to his chagrin, the directness of his statement, alongside the seriousness with which it was said, does nothing more than cause the chaos to rise up within the ranks of the other students. The only ones not talking or laughing were as follows:
Himself, obviously, he’s far too mature to find something as juvenile as this funny.
Elio, who was rather exhausted and embarrassed from being underfoot.
Commander Ferra, who had a reputation to uphold by not even cracking a smile.
And, finally, Yelena and Kara, who were alongside Morrigan in the “ain’t shit funny” boat - less because it wasn’t funny, more so because they were wasting time that could be spent learning.
“That seems like a reasonable thing to do, isn’t it, Blackmoore?”
The foot was moved. The boy was given the opportunity to roll over the grass of the field slightly before rising to his feet and, with a slight sulk in his step, taking his place by the treeline alongside his classmates. Regardless, the damage was done - not to his pride, he’d get over it by the end of the day, but rather to the little order the group maintained. When a group of young people gets distracted by something, they take the opportunity to distract themselves with anything: laughter and commotion about what took place in front of them transitioned smoothly into conversations on anything and everything - what they’d eat for dinner, plans for the evening, an event that’s coming up soon, interesting occurrences, rumours and gossip, a joke or a funny thought. If this went on, whatever time they had left before the sun began to set would dwindle away, and as much as their group had luxuries afforded by their age, wasting the commander's time was not one of these, made evident as her voice exploded to life in a second-
“WARRIORS! FOCUS!”
Silence. Everyone stands, facing towards her. Every set of draconic eyes locked onto her form. The aggressive weight, the piercing tone, the gravel of aged wisdom, that was the voice of a commander.
“At ease. The last thing we’ll be discussing today is expectations for the Summer Festival.”
The weight of her words lightens upon the shoulders of the young dragons ever so slightly and allows them to breathe, at the very least. Freedom and relaxation are close enough to see, yet just out of reach. Their commander matches the meekness of their gaze with a sweeping ferocity that only a true dragon can produce, looking over each and every one of the eleven warriors - those who would also become true dragons, if all things went well.
Most of the Summer Festival’s details can be ascertained from name alone - it’s a festival that takes place in the summer, and that's all it matters for, for the most part. There is a far more complex reason for its existence, like any other celebration, steeped in the lore of the dragons, and just like other celebrations, once its original purpose became redundant, it was kept around for enjoyment and spectacle in equal parts. The summer festival has simply become a marker for the beginning of the season where most of the island's population gathers for food, drinks, performances, and all the other sights and sounds of jubilation - everyone was looking forward to it, including Commander Ferra herself. Her role as a leader, however, superseded all, and (whether it be by her years of experience or just her understanding of what young people were like) she knew just how much a festival like this brewed chaos… However-
“I do not expect you all to be on your best behavior at all times.”
“I expect you to eat your fill and potentially drink your fill as well.”
“I expect you to enjoy yourselves because dammit you deserve that.”
Her words leave an aftertaste of confusion on the tongues of the warrior. They, at this time of year, are used to hearing a speech along these lines - they’re told to stay on their best behaviors, that she will always be watching from the sky like a winged beast flying overhead and that if she sees even a single person making trouble for the general public... Everyone would be back the first day after the festival to do laps around the whole island. Had she softened up? Ha, fuck no. There was no universe where a brick wall becomes safe to run into because overnight it ‘took on the consistency of a sponge’ for no reason at all. The more reasonable explanation that some reached is that once they’re this close to their goalpost, Commander Ferra has no doubt in her heart that she doesn’t have to police them. They’ve been trained and disciplined almost every day for about ten years and now stand on the brink of adulthood - yes, they’re her responsibility, but she believes that they can be trusted, at the bare minimum, to hold themselves to a certain standard, or be held to that standard by their peers. A slight feeling of warmth washes over the group - a feeling of having their growth recognised, yet the voice of their commander keeps them focused on the future.
“I have three orders for you.”
“The first being not to let excitement for the festival interrupt your training.”
“Exciting as it may be, there are still three training sessions before the event takes place.”
“I expect your concentration to be full and present at all times or I will be taking action.”
“The second is to not let the celebration linger too much.”
“Go there, have fun, enjoy your time with your family and friends. You’ll need it.”
“But the moment that celebration ends you should immediately switch back into training mode.”
“Don’t let it hold you back for even a moment.”
“The third is that there is a special event being held by the elder dragons in the evening, just before the fireworks.”
“If possible, should you be fit, ready, and not inebriated, I recommend you attend. Doing so will be nothing but beneficial for you all.”
A hand raises; a hissing breath and a wince of pain follow it. It wasn’t by accident that she’d made such a vague suggestion, and what’s more, one that seemed to come from personal recommendation rather than rigid leadership. It was the mystery of that ‘special event’ that would be used to create intrigue, intrigue that would be fed by questions, questions that would be answered by her. Near the front of the group, his free hand still on his chest as if the echoes of his loss continued to press upon it, the firestarter who would feed upon the bait first, or at the very least, the one who would vocally do so… Rank Number Three. Elio Scarfell.
The Commander nods as their eyes meet, both ferocious: her own are the ferocity that comes with age, a consequence of surviving more than one should in their lifetime, his are the ferocity that comes with youth, a hunger to seek out more tribulation, more situations to survive, to earn his strength. One might think he was challenging her again - he wasn’t stupid enough to do that after getting his ass beat, luckily, instead he was intrigued by what he assumed was the promise of opportunity.
“Scarfell, you have a question?”
“Leaving us guessing would be quite cruel. Any clues you can give us as to what the event is?”
A pause. A calculation of what can and cannot be mentioned without breaking trust or spoiling the surprise. Then she continues.
“The only information that I can impart to all of you is that the Elder Dragons have something incredibly special planned.”
“Missing it would be quite sad. You never truly know when something like this will happen again.”
When the Elder Dragons are seen by or even mentioned near the general populace, you can see the light fill their eyes, their voices either raise in octaves or become humble in their presence, their mood is lifted by pure awe at the epitome of the species, their protectors, their guides, their shining light for the future. This is to be expected - when you’re far enough away from someone that shines bright, they appear as a star in the distance that can only be gazed upon for its powerful light and radiant beauty; this is where most people stand, this is where normal people stand…
But some people aren’t normal. They chase those ‘stars’.
As you grow closer and closer to that ‘star’, changes begin - over time their details become more and more distinct even surrounded by the light they emit, you can see what they do to twinkle as brightly as they can in the darkness, how they shape their light with their will and their strength.
Eventually, you’re so close that awe subsides. Excitement in their presence is replaced by respect…
…Which makes it strange as to why the warriors' eyes still glow, those who, despite their young age, are closer to the Elder Dragons than most will ever reach in their lives. Respect doesn’t excite people, it doesn’t glow with glorious light, it’s simply dull and conformative. The mention of those stars still stirs excitement in their hearts… And if they can no longer find excitement from awe, they must become excited for a much more perverse reason.
Hunger.
To consume as much light as they can so they can shine brighter than before.
Commander Ferra recognises the looks in their eyes, different shades of it, but all of them are hungry for what seeing the Elder Dragons in action could offer them. Maybe that could be the key for their ascension to True Dragonhood, or at the very least allowing them to develop closer and closer to their ideal self. In her eyes, this is an overwhelming success but at the last second, the sound of her throat being cleared draws their voracious gaze back towards her.
“Were you even paying attention to my orders?”
A symphony of sighs and moans begins as they all realise the second trap that had been placed - the commander is forced to raise her voice louder and louder above claims of foul play, ignoring all of them with the luxury of knowing that she herself could not be ignored. The more accepting, or rather apathetic, warriors had already set off, knowing that an earlier start meant an earlier finish and that no amount of complaining was going to stop something that had happened far too many times before. The ones who continued to complain did it for themselves primarily, using it as a chance to release their annoyance as well as mentally prepare themselves for the next task at hand.
“I specifically said not to let excitement hinder your training.”
“Maybe a lap around the island ought to help you remember!”
Eventually, every moan was replaced by a set of footsteps.
“You’ve gotta teach me how to do that, one of these days.”
“Can’t. The day you learn to make your own fire you’ll start smoking yourself to death.”
Gala rolls her eyes, not because he’s wrong, quite the contrary, it’s because she knows just how right he is. As much as she likes to reason that it’s just to ‘take the edge off things’, with the amount of pressure being applied recently, and how that pressure would only climb as time passed, she’d need more cigarettes than this island had tobacco. Elio acting as a gatekeeper to her addiction meant she had to get creative when it came to lessening the load, and she soon discovered that one cigarette with a friend did about as much to help as 5 cigarettes with her own thoughts.
Her mouth opens, not to respond to him, rather to release a silvery puff of smoke into the air like a dragon. Elio is crouched on the ground beside where she stands, holding the flame he’d ignited upwards, watching its sporadic flickering like a man hypnotised. It and the sky were alike: both a flickering orange, both warm even as they begin to die out, both dying out regardless. He stands, dropping the flame at his feet - really he should snuff it out but that would be a little cruel in his eyes, so he lets it fade naturally as he turns towards her.
“So… Any plans for the festival?”
“Ugh, don’t let that old hag hear you threatening to plan. She might make us run 3 laps next time.”
A drag and a puff - she knows he’s looking at her, and additionally, looking for an answer, yet she doesn’t turn towards him, nor does she offer a response, until after tapping ashes from her butt to the floor. She looks at him with playful disdain, he kind of gets the reason for it.
“Well, originally-”, said with enough sarcasm to force Elio to bashfully avert his gaze, “- my plan was to spend time with my best friend. Sadly he said something along the lines of ‘Well it’s me and Kara’s third anniversary so I’d probably be spending most of my time with her, sorry.’”
“That literally isn’t what I sound like.”
To give Gala credit, it was probably what Elio would sound like if he was incredibly stupid rather than normally stupid. A chuckle leaves her lips alongside another cloud of smoke before she continues.
“I don’t really have any plans. I’m gonna be there, do stuff that looks fun and chill with the people I like.”
“Oh, thank goodness, I thought I was gonna be the only one.”
“The only one without a plan?”
“Yeah.”
“If you had a rota going to a festival I fear you'd be the minority and worse, you’d be stupid.”
“Huh? I’m as smart as you are.”
Gala side eyes him and responds as if genuinely offended.
“No you’re fucking not.”
Then came Elio’s turn to roll his eyes, just in time for Gala to take another draw, the cigarette nearing its conclusion, much to her chagrin. Maybe one wouldn’t be enough this time. She uses her free hand to clear hair from her face, pitch black stands that seem to make her yellow eyes glow in their shadowy midst with an expression of exhaustion that Elio can recognise with even a glance. He couldn’t blame her eyes for lacking their usual sheen; intensity was increasing in a multitude of ways: training sessions were longer and harder, and this didn’t include the amount of out-of-hours training people had to do to maintain their rank, much less push upwards.
“Tired?”
“We just finished running around the whole island. Of course I a-”
“You know what I meant.”
She freezes for a moment, the tone of her friend's voice leaving her stunned; yes, she came here for a wind-down, and possibly to bitch and moan over anything and everything, but when the veil of sarcasm was lifted she was left no better than a deer in headlights. A few seconds passed, a simple silence before a laugh, textured like the last puff of her cigarette, textured like the dwindling flame at its tip.
With the last puff came a choice of which her answer was made obvious by her actions - the old cigarette was launched forward by a single flick of her fingers, moving away from the treeline they were standing at and landing in the sand where its flame was promptly snuffed out. The memory of the last puff still lingered in their shared memory as she rustled around her pocket, bringing another one to her lips. Elio follows suit without a word: taking a few seconds to gather whatever dry debris he can in the area, and with a few sharp movements, fire is born at his fingertips, or rather, the stick between his fingertips. He approaches, then he reaches out - the flame is small, but when you’re lighting something that wants to be burnt, even the smallest spark is enough. A deep draw of breath, smoke fills her lungs, her eyes closing as if she’s trying to cut off any sensation that isn’t related to this bittersweet first puff of her second cigarette…
“Hooo…”
… And an exhale that was a lot more satisfying, visually and physically, glowing slightly with the embers of the setting sun. It would take a lot more than a cigarette to break down the lethargy that filled her body, though it definitely helped to buy her time.
“I am absolutely fucking exhausted.”
“But in three days we get two weeks of absolutely no training.”
“Plus I get to use the festival as an excuse to drink myself half to death.”
“Haa… I’ll live. Just have to keep it pushing.”
“With Morrigan on your tail you better have more of a plan than ‘keeping it pushing’.”
“Ughhh, don’t even remind me. That guy is relentless. I can’t even-”
SWOOSH!-
The darkness of the setting sun that seemed to be growing slowly felt like it leaped forwards, as if the remaining fragments of the light sought to escape into the night.
A slicing gale. In a second, it passed between the pair of them, shredding the end of Gala’s cigarette to ashes with surgical precision and carving into a nearby tree before being stopped by its thick trunk. The pair were startled by its ferocity; it only took them a few seconds for their senses to come back to them, the shock in their system being replaced by their own individual feelings for the man who approached.
For Elio, it was caution.
For Gala, it was annoyance.
“Can’t you see I’m relaxing here… Brother.”
