LadyAbyssal presents...
Howling At The Moon
0.1 The Arcana
How did that old myth go?
Upon death, the souls of mortal man were taken to the Underworld. They carried a golden coin underneath their tongues to pay Charon for transport across Acheron, the River of Pain, where they would stand trial against the Judges of the Underworld. Some, but not all, would then drink from the River of Oblivion, Lethe. They would suffer complete forgetfulness, and soon be reborn in the world of the living once more.
From what she could gather, the cleansing didn't happen instantaneously. The rebirth did. Had she been reincarnated into a mundane human, it would have made no difference – what could a human child do to fight against the purification of their very soul? Nothing. Nothing at all. Lucky for her, than, that she was not being reborn as a mere human.
Dragons were entities of immense, primal magic. What they could accomplish was limited only by their willpower and desire. A woman on the edge of death who believed she had nothing left to lose had no shortage of either.
I never want to forget anything again!
Her magic burned like white fire. It came too late to save everything – her language, her family, her world, her entire life had already been forgotten. Her True Name lay in tatters, unrecognizable and broken. All she managed to save was her knowledge and her mind.
It was... enough. It was enough.
0.1 The Arcana
She saw nothing, smelled nothing, heard nothing. Her perception had been turned inwards, a world of wonder and emotion and imagination, of fantasy. Stories without cause played on an endless loop, slipping seamlessly from The Mistborn Trilogy to The Inheritance Cycle to The Lies of Locke Lamora to whatever caught her fancy next.
She wasn't sure if this was heaven or hell. Either way, they were all she had.
It reminded her of an article she had read about sensory deprivation, once. She couldn't remember reading it and couldn't remember how to read, regardless, but the knowledge was still hers. Maybe she lacked sensory organs, maybe there was simply nothing to sense; either way, she knew that madness would be the end result. Did she stave it off, somehow? Or was she already insane? ...Would she know, if she was?
She found it hard to think. She found it harder to care. One eternity passed into the next, just her and her stories, and a yearning desire for one she could call her own. She wanted it to end and she wanted it to last forever, but she didn't know what "it" was.
Maybe it would have been better to let herself forget.
0.1 The Arcana
Her isolation was eventually broken by the strangest feeling. A presenceenshrouded her soul, feeling like a warm and well-worn cloak being thrown over her shoulders. It was a stark contrast to the emptiness haunting the rest of her existence, and she focused on it with desperate exultation.
The presence was – comforting, she realized. It felt of a riot of clashing sensations that couldn't possibly be real. One moment, she was knowledge carved into stone, and the next, she was a pillar of salt being swept away by the wind, only to become a thunderbolt imprisoned in a cage of glass immediately after... but it was all happening at the same time, with countless other feelings thrown in. There was a certain seductive flavor to the entire experience, like the taste of sugar on a lover's lips, and she would have shivered if she had a body to shiver with.
Is this one worthy? something deep and primal within her seemed to ask.
She couldn't say. There was an instinct scratch, scratch, scratching at the back of her mind, carrying with it a weight of gravity, as if to impress upon her the importance of this decision. She somehow knew, in a way that she could not explain, that this would be the most important choice of her new life. It was not one to make lightly. Once made, there would be no going back.
...The realization scared her. Would she want to spend the rest of eternity irrevocably linked to this presence? She could imagine it. This mind cradling hers – for that's what it was, she knew, the mind of another sapient being, asking if she found them worthy – was charismatic, determined, passionate, and devilishly intelligent. This was the mind of a man who could move mountains. And yet... and yet...
...No, she decided, returning to her dream of The Wheel of Time. Perrin was finally accepting his nature as a Wolfbrother, and she wanted to see how his story ends, far more than she wanted to bind herself to this mind. After all-
-this presence didn't make her feel alive.
0.1 The Arcana
A million more asked if they were worthy, and she ignored every last one.
0.1 The Arcana
Yet another mind wrapped itself around her soul, no different than all the others.
The presence made her feel like the sun, her wrath burning away the sea; the guillotine, crashing to the earth with cruel purpose; the flame, breathed by a street magician; the only crow in a world of eagles; the king standing on the peak of a mountain, claiming all that lay within her sight; the falling star...
Is this one worthy?
…flood rising with every passing second; the candle's light in the eye of a storm; the blade snapping clean in two; the warrior reveling in her enemy's terror; the blind...
Is this one worthy?
...the injured wolf abandoned by it's pack; the kitten cruelly pawing at her first mouse; the...
Is this one worthy?
...burning, burning, burning, until there was nothing left but ash...
Is this one-
No.
All minds have an underlying "feel" to them – this one blazed like the core of a sun. This presence was wrathful, obsessive, cruel, proud, impulsive, and utterly self-righteous; exactly the kind of person she couldn't understand. It's positive traits could be summed up with the phrase "probably wouldn't devour you if you ran away fast enough."
She would have dismissed this latest applicant without a second thought, if it wasn't for one thing-
-she's never felt more alive.
...But he's mine anyway.
0.1 The Arcana
She was awake and aware within moments.
Despite being just as incapable of sight now as she had been in limbo, the differences between life and whatever-that-had-been were obvious. There was a low murmur just on the edge of hearing, for all that it seemed thunderous compared to the absolute sensory deprivation she had been subjected to. There was also a soft, nameless warmth cocooning her, like a favored coat, or a mother's embrace. Lastly, but most importantly, there was the heady taste of... something on the tip of her tongue.
She tried to breathe it in but only managed to slam the crown of her skull into something hot, wet, and firm. She froze, caught completely off-guard by the alien sensation. Once, twice, thrice, she slowly pressed her skull back into the wall-of-warmth-and-water, as if she was trying to bury her head into it. There was an unexplained crackling noise but no other reaction. She mewled in confusion.
What was going on? She didn't understand. Her bafflement devolved into fear and rising panic as she realized the once-soothing heat was restricting her freedom of movement. The air was stale and dry, hunger and thirst were beginning to claw at her stomach, and, worst of all, she couldn't stretch her wings. She struggled wildly, writhing like a snake as she attempted to free herself from her prison and only exhausted herself in the process.
Inspiration struck her and she reeled back, huddling in the corner of her confinement. Her front foreleg was curled up underneath her bulk, but she could feel the sharp talons at the tip of it and knew it was the key to her freedom. Slowly, she shimmied her paw up in front of her and unfolded the leg in the sudden free space. She angled each wickedly sharp claw underneath her and, using her leverage to provide strength, impaled them paw-deep into the wall-of-warmth-and-water.
They punctured clean through. She preened in pride and delight, her earlier panic all-but forgotten. Little ribbons-of-white-light were slipping in from outside the wall-of-warmth-and-water, and she wanted to know what else was out there. She unfolded her other foreleg from its position pressed up against her belly, and bared her fangs with savage delight. Her blood was pumping, her heart was drumming, and she felt truly alive.
She pounced, intent on snatching the ribbons-of-white-light and hoarding them. The wall-of-warmth-and-water fell away against the might of her bulk, but did not crackle like it had earlier. Instead, it rolled, and she rolled with it.
There was an intense rush of vertigo as she tipped tail over head over tail again. Before she could react, the nauseous feeling increased by a sudden sensation of weightlessness. She squeaked in shock and fear, but could do nothing as the wall-of-warmth-and-water impacted against something else with a screeching sound.
She didn't understand what was going on, again, and she found that she didn't like the feeling. Angry and more than a little vindictive, she channeled her bafflement and frustration into many wild swipes of her claws against her prison. That same crackling sound as before greeted her efforts, but she kept at it, eventually breaking off a shard of the wall-of-warmth-and-water the size of her skull.
The ribbons-of-white-light abruptly transformed into an entire too-bright world outside of her... egg, that's what it was, an egg. She eagerly thrust her head out of the hole in the eggshell and wiggled her way through, breaking off other chunks of the shell in the process. The entire ordeal had taken entirely too long, for her tastes, and she was hungry.
She closed her eyes against the harsh brightness, but didn't hesitate to set her paws down outside the egg. The floor felt cold and dry against her soft paws, not at all like the moist warmth of her egg, and she quickly decided that she didn't like the sensation. After freeing her hindlegs and lower body from the egg, she impetuously batted it aside with her tail in a fit of pique.
She was reveling in her success and freedom when a shadow blotted out the brightest source of light. Her eyes opened immediately to solve this latest mystery, and were greeted with the sight of a towering, but still childlike human.
He was good-looking for something with only two legs and no wings, she decided, with fair skin, high cheekbones, and a certain amount of facial symmetry. His hair was shaggy and unkempt, and while a deep, dark black, was haphazardly styled – as if he had cut it himself with a knife and mirror. His earthen-toned clothes only enhanced this impression, as they were worn down by the weight of years despite being well-taken care of and of expensive make.
None of this mattered to her, as her entire focus was drawn to the strange intensity in the two-legged-no-wings' blue and black eyes – and the slight smile quirking his lips. He dropped down to a knee in front of her and spoke something unintelligible, reaching out with his hands. He seemed eager, she realized, but restrained, as if he wanted nothing more than to snatch her and hold her tight, but feared she would spook and bolt if he moved too quickly.
Feeling slightly offended but mostly amused, she deigned to allow herself to be petted – and nuzzled into his open palm when he took too long to do so.
The two-legged-no-wings immediately jerked away with a startled shriek, clutching his hand to his chest as if she had wickedly burned him. He spasmed and shook for a long second before passing out with a pathetic whimper. He fell onto his back with a muffled thump a moment later.
She glared at him balefully for the disrespect. She had been perfectly accommodating and allowed the eager child to pet her, and this was how he reacted? The nerve! The dragon attempted to growl menacingly, failed, and squeaked in outrage instead.
Her stomach made its displeasure known, and she batted a paw at it in annoyance. There was nothing she could do to satisfy it now. Her right-paw side was blocked off by a strange, shimmery blue wall of cloth. Behind her and to the left were walls of the same dark stone that was making her legs ache something fierce. The only way out was to the front, but there was currently a useless human pulling a Snorlax and blocking it off with his sleeping body.
She huffed in annoyance, but began to slowly, almost drunkenly trot towards the human. She reached him a moment later – he hadn't fallen far – and reeled back onto her haunches, like she had inside the wall-of-warmth-and-water what seemed like forever ago. She leaped, flapping her wings ineffectually, and eventually managed to scale up the side of the two-legged-no-wings.
Before she could jump off the other side, she was distracted by the gleam of light on her flawless, shining white scales. A long moment passed as she dashed in a circle on top of the human, drawing a grunt from him as she did so, as she tried to see all of her pretty scales at once. She failed, but a startlingly familiar sensation arose in her mind.
It was the presence – the one she had chosen in the before-time. It still felt of fire and pride and hunger, but it was softer now, lighter. There wasn't any sense of desperation and loneliness, and it seemed... happier. Brighter.
"Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful," a voice sounded directly into her mind. It was kind and warm, passionate, like a midsummer evening. She could listen to it all day and never tire. "I have waited a very long time to meet you, my beautiful dragon. A... very long time."
The presence sent a pulse of affection through their mind-to-mind link. She preened; she was unable to understand the words, but the message was clear as day. She felt that same affection for the voice, possessive and joyous and proud, and with a spike of will made sure that he would feel it just like she felt his.
There was a sharp intake of breath. A moment later, two soft hands began to stroke her scales, and she finally connected the presence in her mind with the human underneath her paws. Crooning in delight at the wondrous feeling, she buried her head into the hand resting on top of her skull, toddling forwards and onto his chest as she did so.
She stared directly into his blue and black eyes, and saw the visage of a tiny – but fierce – shining white dragon in his mind's eye.
"My name is Morzan, Son of None. What should your name be, I wonder?"
Author's Note: Eragon was the first high fantasy story I've ever read, back in... fifth grade? Sixth? Something like that. Looking back, I can see why so many people despise it, but it'll always hold a special place in my cold, black heart for that reason regardless. As the saying goes, you always remember your first.
This is an exercise in apologetics, I suppose. Try to make sense of some of the confusing backstory, parse the often-confusing rules of magic, and write from the perspective of an adorable dragon. Will probably have elements of horror, eventually, seeing as that's what I tend towards, but... we'll see.
See if you can divine the identity behind the first 'presence' that the dragon felt - the charismatic one who can 'move mountains.' I'm not sure if I made it too obvious or too obscure. Definitely a canon character, though.