Yes, only part one! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA! You still have to put up with a
completely different development of plot if you ever want to find out how
it ends! BWA! **Gets hit in the head with a purple banana** OW! **Glares**
Garren: **lying in a bed, covered in bandages and waving a banana** I'm not getting any less vegetated with you just standing ranting here!
Dart: **glancing down at a list** Oh no, questions to answer.
About the white fire, that was a mistake on my part. It wasn't supposed to be in the final version of the story. I thought that I had deleted all mention of the white arrows from the story, but I had some trouble uploading and it interfered with the rewritten bit. -_- It originally did have a role in the chapter, but it disappeared after three different re- written versions. Ignore it. It does not ex-is-t.^^ I did like the example of counter-productiveness, though.
Even though Dart has the dragoon spirit for the heart, he can still bleed. How does that work? Well, technically Dart is still human, and human bodies need blood to function properly. So I'm putting the whole thing on Ragnarok; he did it. Whatever the reason is, it has to do with something that Ark did to Dart's body in the moment he switched his heart for a stone. **pauses to read what she's written so far** There, I'd say that should satisfy any of you who were looking for a vague answer. May I also add that in an action story where the main character doesn't bleed would lose something? **blinks** No, the colors of the dragoon stones and the colors of the cultist's robes wasn't intentional. I never even noticed. It is kind of funny though, huh?
Hmm, I guess the names of some of the towns may have changed over the years, but not the larger ones (Real life Ex. Rome, London, and other large cities have kept their names for hundreds of years). Some of them may have changed, but I'm going to keep them the same for the sake of my sanity. I'd get lost. @_@ Good idea, though.
Side Story #3
Mathis stood quietly, leaning on this sill of his window. He still was not used to the enchanted sky over Ulara. It was not the magic itself that bothered him; as a wingly, he was hardly a stranger to magic and enchantments and such. No, what bothered him was the sheer power of the magical flow. Over the past few centuries, the magic of the winglies had been in decline: thousands of years ago they had been able to create such wonders with their power, the likes of which the current world had and probably never would see the equal of. Now the most that anyone could do was create fire and fly. At least, that had all he had thought that anyone could do. But then he had been sent to Ulara.
Mathis had been born in a small wingly colony on a large island in what the humans called Midlake, although to the winglies who made their home there it was still known by the old name, Tys'ki. There were colonies just like it scattered across the continent, but Midlake had been the largest after the Forest. But until very recently, they had all been ignorant of the existence of Ulara. The idea that one of the towns from before the Dragon Campaign might have survived all of these thousands of years was absurd. Yet here he was, sent as an ambassador along with his half brother Gidan, standing at the window of the room he had been given staring up at the unnatural sky.
There was a whine from the warp pad at the far end of the room, and Mathis half-turned. That would probably be Caron. The ageless seeming wingly woman had been Ulara's first ambassador to Midlake, and since returning with he and his brother in tow she had been their guide to the ancient city. So far Mathis had only really ever left his quarters to speak with Charle, the over-energetic leader of Ulara. He had almost dismissed her out of hand as an immature woman with who was little more than a figurehead- until, that is, he had found out that she was Melbu Frahma's older sister. No, that woman was a force to be reckoned with, no matter what face she may put on for the world.
The air shimmered green momentarily above the warp pad, then condensed into a pretty young woman with floor length silver hair. Despite the fact that she most likely carried more years on her shoulders than Mathis and his brother together, her face was that of an eighteen year old girl and her eyes- Mathis blinked. Silver eyes? No, that couldn't be right. It must be the work of some sort of cosmetic or another. Well, cosmetics or not she was very pretty, if not beautiful. Even the startling silver of her eyes seemed more of an exotic touch rather than the defect he supposed it could be considered. She wore similar dress to others he had seen in Ulara; a black silk dress with leaves worked in silver around the low neckline and sleeves. The silk clung to her slightly when she moved, whispering against her skin.
Oblivious of his admiring glances, the woman bobbed a quick curtsy before straightening again and giving her head a slight shake, rearranging the way that her hair spilled over her shoulders. "Mathis Sear? Caron sends her apologies, but her presence was required in the healing wards. I will be your guide for this afternoon, if it pleases you."
"I'm sure it will," Mathis answered, raking his fingers through his short-cropped hair unconsciously. It was just long enough that it should lay flat own its own, yet whenever he forgot to dampen it down it would almost always stand on end. He was on the short side for a wingly; the woman before him actually stood several inches taller than he. Almost everyone did, and the fact rankled at him constantly. Squaring his shoulders he stood a little straighter. "And you are?"
"Asalla." She waited until Mathis joined her on the warp platform. "Will your brother be joining us?"
"He's probably still sleeping," Mathis shrugged. "He was up late last night, socializing in that tavern." He put particular emphasis on the word socializing. That was the partial truth, at least. Gidan had spent a good portion of the night in the tavern, although not socializing in the manner that he hoped his words implicated. In truth, he just didn't want his brother joining them.
If Asalla had divined something from his words, she gave no indication. Instead the teleporter activated with a quiet hum, and the world around them dissolved in a flash of green light, then reappeared just as quickly in the form of the walkway outside. Without waiting for his direction, Asalla started off towards the town's center. "Where would you like to go first? Charle has directed that you see whatever you wish, and I am to answer whatever reasonable questions you ask."
"Reasonable?" Mathis raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean by that?"
"Exactly what I said." Asalla didn't break stride. "Now, how about the merchants workshops?"
The rest of the afternoon was spent touring the various workshops and studies Ulara offered. Mathis had been sent as an ambassador to see exactly how much Ulara offered in terms of knowledge; most of what the winglies knew of the times before the Dragon Campaign was piecemeal at best. In this respect, Mathis knew that the elders in Midlake would be more than satisfied with what was offered. Lifetimes could be spent studying in Ulara, and a person would still have more to learn. Of course, life in the enchanted city was indefinite, so the truly dedicated would have all the time in the world to study. The world would move on without them, certainly, but it was the concept that would appeal to the elders, not the reality. In spite of her warning, Asalla answered almost every question asked of her. She was rather vague when Mathis asked her what they had in terms of technology and weapons from before the Dragon Campaign, but that was to be expected.
When Mathis and his guide finally left the library that evening, dusk had long since settled in, the sky still tinged faintly purple where the sun had set. Pausing a moment to enjoy the breeze that stirred the roses in their bed nearby, Mathis watched Asalla out of the corner of his eye. She really was beautiful, no doubting that. Too bad that she'd probably never be allowed to leave Ulara; he had learned that much about the taboos that governed the people of the city. He stared at the roses a moment, not really seeing. Maybe he could work things the other way around; he was the ambassador, after all. Nothing said that he had to run back and forth between colonies constantly. He could do his job just as well from Ulara, using Gidan to carry messages to the elders in Midlake. That idea had some definite possibilities.
He broke out of his daze abruptly when he realized that Asalla had started off down one of the walkways without him. Catching up, he slowed his pace to match hers. "Where are we going now?"
"Caron asked me to bring you to her when we had completed our rounds. I have friends in the healing ward at the moment that I wish to visit as well." Asalla glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, pursing her lips thoughtfully. Her eyes widened slightly, and then she snapped them back to the front, as though having seen something startling. When Mathis inquired what was bothering her, though, she remained silent.
The healing ward was a long, low building in the lower levels of the city, its foundations almost brushing the tops of the trees in the forest garden below. Constructed of the same pristine white stone as the rest of Ulara, the ward was both comfortably warm and airy at the same time. Divided into three main rooms, Asalla led Mathis to the large, breezy room in the back. Seven oddly shaped beds lined the walls; two of them showing signs of use but at the moment only one of them was occupied. A man sat up in the bed, the left part of his neck and his entire torso wrapped neatly in bandages. A woman was seated on a small stool nearby, talking quietly to her friend while she kept her eyes on the needlework in her hands, the bright needle in her fingers flashing in the lamplight. The third occupant of the room was a human, Mathis realized with a start. He was seated on the broad sill of an open window above the unmade bed, staring down at the forest below. Like the first man, much of his body was wrapped in bandages and his left arm was caught up in a sling.
"How are you feeling, Garren? Nova?"
The man on the bed gave a noncommittal grunt and leaned back against the wall. "Better than yesterday, hopefully worse than tomorrow. What else can I hope for, aside from a miraculous spontaneous recovery, and for the sky to open up and rain women and beer while I'm at it? Both have about the same chance of happening."
Without looking up, the woman whom Mathis assumed was Nova reached out and smacked Garren across the back of the head. "Garren, be decent, would you? There's no need for you to vent your spleen on everyone."
Garren glared at her, rubbing his smarting head. "Easy for you to say. You haven't been confined to a bed for the past week! Why couldn't we have just used healing potions? They're faster."
"I was smart enough not to let myself get shot by that madwoman with the crossbow. And you know that if we used potions, you wouldn't heal as well."
Mathis raised an eyebrow. "What madwoman with a crossbow?" He asked, speaking up for the first time since he had entered the room.
Nova's eyes jerked up from her embroidery long enough to him in before returning to her work. "Who are you? I've seen you and another guy closeted up with Charle over the last few days, but no one's been able to tell me who you are."
Mathis opened his mouth to reply, but Asalla cut in before he could speak. "He's an ambassador from the wingly colony in Midlake. I've been showing him around this afternoon."
"An ambassador, huh? Well, nice to meet you. I'm Nova, and the disgruntled mummy on the bed is Garren. The quiet one on the windowsill is Dart." Nova set her embroidery aside. "They're all right, when they aren't frothing at the mouth looking for fights."
"Nova-!" Garren's voice was pained.
"So what did you mean about a madwoman with a crossbow?" Mathis asked again.
"Well," Nova started, but then caught a sharp look from Asalla. "Nothing really. I was just kidding." Her voice was steady, but Mathis noticed that she didn't quite meet his gaze. "They had a bit of a row, and it got out of hand."
"And they burned themselves that badly?"
"Dart may be a human, but he's a bigger pyromaniac than any wingly in Ulara." Asalla muttered, but she avoided looking at the quiet man. If he had noticed, or even cared, Dart gave no sign. He shifted slightly, settling deeper into his window seat, and continued staring out the window.
Mathis smiled and nodded as though he was satisfied with the answer, but he eyed the two men doubtfully. Garren had said that he had been in the ward for a week already; normal burns wouldn't have kept him confined for that long, especially if the healers had treated them. No, there was definitely something that they were covering up. A blind fool would be able to tell that much. But what? And why?
His thoughts were cut short by Caron's arrival. Tall and more handsome than pretty, the gatekeeper was a formidable figure standing framed in the doorway, arms akimbo. "Dart! What have I told you about sitting in that window? Get back into your bed this instant, or I'll add another week to your bed time!" Without waiting to see if Dart followed her orders she was already rounding on Garren. "And you! How many times do I have to tell you that you're to be laying down, not sitting up! And cover yourself up, or you'll catch cold! Nova, aren't you supposed to be in your quarters taking your medicine? Honestly, the moment I leave you three alone for even a minute-" She continued on in this vein for quite some time, before finally lecturing herself out. Rearranging her shawl on her shoulders, she turned to Mathis. "Did you see enough today? If not, I will be able to show you around tomorrow."
"I appreciate the offer." Mathis's eyes slid back to the slim form seated next to the sickbed. "However, would you mind horribly if I borrowed Asalla again? She's an excellent guide, and I enjoyed her company today."
Caron's eyebrows rose, but she nodded. "Of course. That is, of course, if you don't mind, Asalla?"
Asalla blushed, but offered Mathis a slight half-smile. "I-it would be my pleasure."
Mathis gave a slight bow. "Until tomorrow, then." Brushing past Caron, he left the ward with the intent of returning to his quarters. Tonight, though, he found himself wandering down the paths towards the courtyard. Seating himself on one of the marble benches next to the fountains, he stared up at the starry sky overhead. The Moon that Never Sets was bright tonight, shining with more than its usual brilliance, although whether or not that was a side effect of the artificial atmosphere around Ulara, he had no idea. Maybe this wouldn't be too bad a place to live; it was much more comfortable than Midlake, that was for sure. And Asalla.Well, she gave the idea some extra weight.
The hour was late when Mathis finally made his decision and returned to his quarters. The courtyard in which he had left was still except for the ever-present sound of water spilling into the fountains and a light wind whispering through the trees in the forest below. Ripples crossed the surface of the water, setting the Moon's reflection to dancing. The body of the virage embryo, waiting to be rejoined with its soul.
Garren: **lying in a bed, covered in bandages and waving a banana** I'm not getting any less vegetated with you just standing ranting here!
Dart: **glancing down at a list** Oh no, questions to answer.
About the white fire, that was a mistake on my part. It wasn't supposed to be in the final version of the story. I thought that I had deleted all mention of the white arrows from the story, but I had some trouble uploading and it interfered with the rewritten bit. -_- It originally did have a role in the chapter, but it disappeared after three different re- written versions. Ignore it. It does not ex-is-t.^^ I did like the example of counter-productiveness, though.
Even though Dart has the dragoon spirit for the heart, he can still bleed. How does that work? Well, technically Dart is still human, and human bodies need blood to function properly. So I'm putting the whole thing on Ragnarok; he did it. Whatever the reason is, it has to do with something that Ark did to Dart's body in the moment he switched his heart for a stone. **pauses to read what she's written so far** There, I'd say that should satisfy any of you who were looking for a vague answer. May I also add that in an action story where the main character doesn't bleed would lose something? **blinks** No, the colors of the dragoon stones and the colors of the cultist's robes wasn't intentional. I never even noticed. It is kind of funny though, huh?
Hmm, I guess the names of some of the towns may have changed over the years, but not the larger ones (Real life Ex. Rome, London, and other large cities have kept their names for hundreds of years). Some of them may have changed, but I'm going to keep them the same for the sake of my sanity. I'd get lost. @_@ Good idea, though.
Side Story #3
Mathis stood quietly, leaning on this sill of his window. He still was not used to the enchanted sky over Ulara. It was not the magic itself that bothered him; as a wingly, he was hardly a stranger to magic and enchantments and such. No, what bothered him was the sheer power of the magical flow. Over the past few centuries, the magic of the winglies had been in decline: thousands of years ago they had been able to create such wonders with their power, the likes of which the current world had and probably never would see the equal of. Now the most that anyone could do was create fire and fly. At least, that had all he had thought that anyone could do. But then he had been sent to Ulara.
Mathis had been born in a small wingly colony on a large island in what the humans called Midlake, although to the winglies who made their home there it was still known by the old name, Tys'ki. There were colonies just like it scattered across the continent, but Midlake had been the largest after the Forest. But until very recently, they had all been ignorant of the existence of Ulara. The idea that one of the towns from before the Dragon Campaign might have survived all of these thousands of years was absurd. Yet here he was, sent as an ambassador along with his half brother Gidan, standing at the window of the room he had been given staring up at the unnatural sky.
There was a whine from the warp pad at the far end of the room, and Mathis half-turned. That would probably be Caron. The ageless seeming wingly woman had been Ulara's first ambassador to Midlake, and since returning with he and his brother in tow she had been their guide to the ancient city. So far Mathis had only really ever left his quarters to speak with Charle, the over-energetic leader of Ulara. He had almost dismissed her out of hand as an immature woman with who was little more than a figurehead- until, that is, he had found out that she was Melbu Frahma's older sister. No, that woman was a force to be reckoned with, no matter what face she may put on for the world.
The air shimmered green momentarily above the warp pad, then condensed into a pretty young woman with floor length silver hair. Despite the fact that she most likely carried more years on her shoulders than Mathis and his brother together, her face was that of an eighteen year old girl and her eyes- Mathis blinked. Silver eyes? No, that couldn't be right. It must be the work of some sort of cosmetic or another. Well, cosmetics or not she was very pretty, if not beautiful. Even the startling silver of her eyes seemed more of an exotic touch rather than the defect he supposed it could be considered. She wore similar dress to others he had seen in Ulara; a black silk dress with leaves worked in silver around the low neckline and sleeves. The silk clung to her slightly when she moved, whispering against her skin.
Oblivious of his admiring glances, the woman bobbed a quick curtsy before straightening again and giving her head a slight shake, rearranging the way that her hair spilled over her shoulders. "Mathis Sear? Caron sends her apologies, but her presence was required in the healing wards. I will be your guide for this afternoon, if it pleases you."
"I'm sure it will," Mathis answered, raking his fingers through his short-cropped hair unconsciously. It was just long enough that it should lay flat own its own, yet whenever he forgot to dampen it down it would almost always stand on end. He was on the short side for a wingly; the woman before him actually stood several inches taller than he. Almost everyone did, and the fact rankled at him constantly. Squaring his shoulders he stood a little straighter. "And you are?"
"Asalla." She waited until Mathis joined her on the warp platform. "Will your brother be joining us?"
"He's probably still sleeping," Mathis shrugged. "He was up late last night, socializing in that tavern." He put particular emphasis on the word socializing. That was the partial truth, at least. Gidan had spent a good portion of the night in the tavern, although not socializing in the manner that he hoped his words implicated. In truth, he just didn't want his brother joining them.
If Asalla had divined something from his words, she gave no indication. Instead the teleporter activated with a quiet hum, and the world around them dissolved in a flash of green light, then reappeared just as quickly in the form of the walkway outside. Without waiting for his direction, Asalla started off towards the town's center. "Where would you like to go first? Charle has directed that you see whatever you wish, and I am to answer whatever reasonable questions you ask."
"Reasonable?" Mathis raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean by that?"
"Exactly what I said." Asalla didn't break stride. "Now, how about the merchants workshops?"
The rest of the afternoon was spent touring the various workshops and studies Ulara offered. Mathis had been sent as an ambassador to see exactly how much Ulara offered in terms of knowledge; most of what the winglies knew of the times before the Dragon Campaign was piecemeal at best. In this respect, Mathis knew that the elders in Midlake would be more than satisfied with what was offered. Lifetimes could be spent studying in Ulara, and a person would still have more to learn. Of course, life in the enchanted city was indefinite, so the truly dedicated would have all the time in the world to study. The world would move on without them, certainly, but it was the concept that would appeal to the elders, not the reality. In spite of her warning, Asalla answered almost every question asked of her. She was rather vague when Mathis asked her what they had in terms of technology and weapons from before the Dragon Campaign, but that was to be expected.
When Mathis and his guide finally left the library that evening, dusk had long since settled in, the sky still tinged faintly purple where the sun had set. Pausing a moment to enjoy the breeze that stirred the roses in their bed nearby, Mathis watched Asalla out of the corner of his eye. She really was beautiful, no doubting that. Too bad that she'd probably never be allowed to leave Ulara; he had learned that much about the taboos that governed the people of the city. He stared at the roses a moment, not really seeing. Maybe he could work things the other way around; he was the ambassador, after all. Nothing said that he had to run back and forth between colonies constantly. He could do his job just as well from Ulara, using Gidan to carry messages to the elders in Midlake. That idea had some definite possibilities.
He broke out of his daze abruptly when he realized that Asalla had started off down one of the walkways without him. Catching up, he slowed his pace to match hers. "Where are we going now?"
"Caron asked me to bring you to her when we had completed our rounds. I have friends in the healing ward at the moment that I wish to visit as well." Asalla glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, pursing her lips thoughtfully. Her eyes widened slightly, and then she snapped them back to the front, as though having seen something startling. When Mathis inquired what was bothering her, though, she remained silent.
The healing ward was a long, low building in the lower levels of the city, its foundations almost brushing the tops of the trees in the forest garden below. Constructed of the same pristine white stone as the rest of Ulara, the ward was both comfortably warm and airy at the same time. Divided into three main rooms, Asalla led Mathis to the large, breezy room in the back. Seven oddly shaped beds lined the walls; two of them showing signs of use but at the moment only one of them was occupied. A man sat up in the bed, the left part of his neck and his entire torso wrapped neatly in bandages. A woman was seated on a small stool nearby, talking quietly to her friend while she kept her eyes on the needlework in her hands, the bright needle in her fingers flashing in the lamplight. The third occupant of the room was a human, Mathis realized with a start. He was seated on the broad sill of an open window above the unmade bed, staring down at the forest below. Like the first man, much of his body was wrapped in bandages and his left arm was caught up in a sling.
"How are you feeling, Garren? Nova?"
The man on the bed gave a noncommittal grunt and leaned back against the wall. "Better than yesterday, hopefully worse than tomorrow. What else can I hope for, aside from a miraculous spontaneous recovery, and for the sky to open up and rain women and beer while I'm at it? Both have about the same chance of happening."
Without looking up, the woman whom Mathis assumed was Nova reached out and smacked Garren across the back of the head. "Garren, be decent, would you? There's no need for you to vent your spleen on everyone."
Garren glared at her, rubbing his smarting head. "Easy for you to say. You haven't been confined to a bed for the past week! Why couldn't we have just used healing potions? They're faster."
"I was smart enough not to let myself get shot by that madwoman with the crossbow. And you know that if we used potions, you wouldn't heal as well."
Mathis raised an eyebrow. "What madwoman with a crossbow?" He asked, speaking up for the first time since he had entered the room.
Nova's eyes jerked up from her embroidery long enough to him in before returning to her work. "Who are you? I've seen you and another guy closeted up with Charle over the last few days, but no one's been able to tell me who you are."
Mathis opened his mouth to reply, but Asalla cut in before he could speak. "He's an ambassador from the wingly colony in Midlake. I've been showing him around this afternoon."
"An ambassador, huh? Well, nice to meet you. I'm Nova, and the disgruntled mummy on the bed is Garren. The quiet one on the windowsill is Dart." Nova set her embroidery aside. "They're all right, when they aren't frothing at the mouth looking for fights."
"Nova-!" Garren's voice was pained.
"So what did you mean about a madwoman with a crossbow?" Mathis asked again.
"Well," Nova started, but then caught a sharp look from Asalla. "Nothing really. I was just kidding." Her voice was steady, but Mathis noticed that she didn't quite meet his gaze. "They had a bit of a row, and it got out of hand."
"And they burned themselves that badly?"
"Dart may be a human, but he's a bigger pyromaniac than any wingly in Ulara." Asalla muttered, but she avoided looking at the quiet man. If he had noticed, or even cared, Dart gave no sign. He shifted slightly, settling deeper into his window seat, and continued staring out the window.
Mathis smiled and nodded as though he was satisfied with the answer, but he eyed the two men doubtfully. Garren had said that he had been in the ward for a week already; normal burns wouldn't have kept him confined for that long, especially if the healers had treated them. No, there was definitely something that they were covering up. A blind fool would be able to tell that much. But what? And why?
His thoughts were cut short by Caron's arrival. Tall and more handsome than pretty, the gatekeeper was a formidable figure standing framed in the doorway, arms akimbo. "Dart! What have I told you about sitting in that window? Get back into your bed this instant, or I'll add another week to your bed time!" Without waiting to see if Dart followed her orders she was already rounding on Garren. "And you! How many times do I have to tell you that you're to be laying down, not sitting up! And cover yourself up, or you'll catch cold! Nova, aren't you supposed to be in your quarters taking your medicine? Honestly, the moment I leave you three alone for even a minute-" She continued on in this vein for quite some time, before finally lecturing herself out. Rearranging her shawl on her shoulders, she turned to Mathis. "Did you see enough today? If not, I will be able to show you around tomorrow."
"I appreciate the offer." Mathis's eyes slid back to the slim form seated next to the sickbed. "However, would you mind horribly if I borrowed Asalla again? She's an excellent guide, and I enjoyed her company today."
Caron's eyebrows rose, but she nodded. "Of course. That is, of course, if you don't mind, Asalla?"
Asalla blushed, but offered Mathis a slight half-smile. "I-it would be my pleasure."
Mathis gave a slight bow. "Until tomorrow, then." Brushing past Caron, he left the ward with the intent of returning to his quarters. Tonight, though, he found himself wandering down the paths towards the courtyard. Seating himself on one of the marble benches next to the fountains, he stared up at the starry sky overhead. The Moon that Never Sets was bright tonight, shining with more than its usual brilliance, although whether or not that was a side effect of the artificial atmosphere around Ulara, he had no idea. Maybe this wouldn't be too bad a place to live; it was much more comfortable than Midlake, that was for sure. And Asalla.Well, she gave the idea some extra weight.
The hour was late when Mathis finally made his decision and returned to his quarters. The courtyard in which he had left was still except for the ever-present sound of water spilling into the fountains and a light wind whispering through the trees in the forest below. Ripples crossed the surface of the water, setting the Moon's reflection to dancing. The body of the virage embryo, waiting to be rejoined with its soul.