Bound by Honor, Ensnared by Consequence

I am perhaps one of the oldest Skylanders; I don't mean that as in how long I've been one but rather how long I have walked Skylands. I can't hold a candle to the giants however. And while I do remember the volcanic eruption that sent the Swap Force away I was but a lad at the time and didn't have the understanding needed to grasp what had happened.

My name was Ignatius then. Even from a young age it was obvious what I wanted to do with myself. Ever the gentleman I would stand up for other children that were bullied and defended the honor of little girls my age and older before I even understood what honor meant. My parents were thrilled when I chose to study knighthood and serve my king and country.

My father was a merchant and my mother a seamstress. Normally it is only those of noble blood that can become knights but I was determined to prove that my blood was just as thick as any noble's. It was harder for me training alongside the individuals that were more or less assured the title of knight because of who their parents were. I had to travel to enter training, my parents were days away and I rarely saw them as I struggled to get the other hopefuls to accept me. I was always given the lesser tasks and those that hopefuls of high born families found disgraceful. I did everything assigned to me without a complaint and even when others tried to sabotage my progress I still managed to come out on top.

As the years passed I proved my worth and even went on to become a knight when some of the nobles were turned to the army as high ranking officers when it was determined they were better suited in such positions. It still wasn't easy for me, as a knight we earned all we got. By earned I mean equal parts skill and deep coffers. My coffers were pitiful and my first suit of armor was an old and rusted reject of a knight that had only held onto the suit as a memento of his past.

I had earned the title of knight but I was still the lowest of all the newly knighted. I had no gold to use in growing my name. I had no connections to tell tall tales about my exploits. I owned no land with which to use as a means to make my voice hold more weight. I was a knave through and through in the eyes of my peers. That was when Lusus Naturae decided to carve out a niche for himself in the kingdom.

Lusus was a great dragon with wings far too twisted to allow flight and a head that appeared to be two fused into one with the third eye representing the second eye for each side of his gruesome head. In Skylands dragons come in all flavors, some are kind and righteous and some are diabolical and cruel while others are anywhere in between. Lusus was of the malevolent persuasion. He destroyed trading caravans, decimated the fishing wharf and laid waste to farmlands. He was killing the country slowly by destroying our resources and stopping supply lines meant to remedy the situation. As a knight's duty it was a given that we would set out to destroy him.

It was also pride that made it so only one knight would hunt the great beast at a time. Such a foolish venture yet I didn't rebuke it because I was so lowly who would heed me? I heard second hand about the death of the kingdom's best knight. I heard the whispers of the kingdom's second best perishing at the claw and breath of Lusus Naturae. And so it went down the line for a while before the knights refused to take the quest and slay the dragon.

All except for me. I had heard that each knight had received an offer from a witch. An offer of enchanted armor that would protect them from the dragon's fell breath. They had all thrown the witch out and rejected her offer with claims that their armor was already more than enough for Lusus. I sought out this witch; if the others had refused her offer and died then I would accept it and live.

The witch was everything I had been warned about. She was beautiful and tried to mislead me with her seductive ways. She feigned concern over me claiming that if the best the kingdom had couldn't destroy the dragon then what hope did I have? I insisted that I was different, that I wasn't too arrogant to believe that the tools I already possessed would afford me my victory.

The witch laughed at me, a cold and sinister sound as she agreed that my armor was nothing more than a cobbled suit of patchwork and rust. At last she agreed to give me the armor. She spun such a wonderful tale about how it would protect me from the dragon's breath and prevent me from being crushed under a giant claw or thrown by a tail. The armor sounded amazing. Wonderful and downright divine. Why would the other knights be so brash as to pass up the opportunity to have something that would only make them that much better?

The armor was breathtaking. The steel was formed so perfectly, nothing marred its indelible lines or shine. It put my rusty travesty to shame. I left my horrendous old armor with the witch when she requested it. I didn't even bother to ask her why she wanted it; I was so pleased with my fine new suit. At last I looked like a true knight. Strong, noble and pure of heart.

With my head held high and thoughts of victory swirling in my mind I set out to find Lusus Naturae and slay him for the good of all people; my kingdom's and those of others. You know how that went, you have most likely seen the old stories titled "The Dragon, the Witch and the Fool" I'm the subject of children's tales now and an example of why not to trust a witch. I am portrayed as a witless fool trying to win the hand of a fair maiden from the brave and noble knight who also seeks her. That is perhaps the deepest wound in the stories, the way they portrayed my dear Annelie.

Annelie. My future bride. The one bright spot in the city I had moved to in order to pursue my desire to become a knight. I met her three months after I moved to the city and in a year I had asked her to wed me come that summer. Everything was taken from me in one fire storm. One single blow and my world was turned upside down and inside out.

I crept slowly into the cave that Lusus had claimed as his. A giant cavern with many twists and turns, more than any one person could hope to fully explore in even a year. The dragon wasn't hard to find, while the cave network did have a multitude of tunnels only a few were wide enough to allow the brute passage. Lusus also left plenty of indication of where he could be found. The cave floor was littered with weapons and half melted suits of armor pushed up against the walls to give the great beast a useable path to travel. I recognized more than a few suits of armor. Some belonged to knights of lore in other kingdoms and there were those that I had last seen walking out of my own with a vow to slay the monster.

"I smell you, little knight," the dragon called to me in a voice that hissed with danger and dripped with venom. "How many others are so eager to join my collection?"
"I do not intent to join it!" I called out to him.
Lusus laughed a horrible sound that reminded me of a landslide and the crushing weight of boulders. "As everyone else that has visited me has claimed."

When I entered the room I found Lusus perched upon what I can only describe as a dragon throne made of skin from the higher evolved races of Skylands and animal pelts. What they were sewn over to provide their shape was a mystery to me. How the beast managed to stitch it all together was another.
There was no horde, Lusus didn't care for wealth. He thrived on death and destruction and took great pleasure in it. I saw what looked like slaves in the room, all long dead and decaying. I couldn't smell them over the dragon's incredible stench of blood. His scales were so caked in it that their original color was lost, he was a muddy beast with a lumpy hide of dried gore. He lived in squalor, filth and disease. How could he remain unclaimed by sickness?

"How do you want to die?" Lusus asked me, he sounded bored. Two of his eyes seemed to bore straight into my soul but the third one, the one in the middle, rolled randomly and appeared glazed always.
"Old and in bed surrounded by my children and their children," I replied cheekily.
The dragon's face split into a grin. A grotesque display when his face tried to split vertically as well with the action. "Then you should not have come."

Lusus didn't toy with me at all. Just when I thought there would be more banter while I tried to map out the room for my use his jaws opened wide and I saw fire as bright as the sun. I threw my arms up to protect my eyes as the inferno washed over me. I felt blazing agony as the metal heated and my flesh caught fire. The witch! She had lied to me!
I didn't realize that the shrill scream that echoed throughout the cavern was the sound of my own voice wailing over the torment I felt.

The pain lanced me to the bone; it consumed me completely and felt as if it would never end. I wished for death as I fell over and tried to drag myself away. Lusus stopped breathing flames and laughed for a good while. I burned in an unrelenting inferno as his voice assaulted me and pressed in on me. The stone floor was painted an angry orange and the flames that engulfed me didn't allow me to see the walls or the great dragon.

"What sorcery is this?" Lusus hissed over the crackle of the inferno I was at the heart of. "Not possible, a trick!" he roared.
Weakly I was trying to pull myself towards what I thought was the hall that would lead me out of the cave. Maybe I could find relief from the fire storm that raged around me if I could just get out of that dark hole of death and decay.
Darkness fell on me as did a crushing weight when the dragon's massive paw engulfed me and tried to grind me into the rock. I groaned as the weight smothered me and blocked all sensation other than absolute pain.
"What magic have you employed?" the dragon demanded when he at last picked his paw up. "My fire won't take your life and I cannot crush you with my might! Answer me, knight, where did you get this power?"

I was burning still, my vision was hazy but I could clearly see the glow of fire cast on the rock. With a tremendous groan and pushed myself up and eventually stood. I nearly fell over as I turned to face Lusus. I saw my sword behind his front legs and halfway to his hind legs, I didn't even realize I had dropped it. The dragon stood stock still and my gaze slowly drifted upwards to the enormous wyrm's face. His jaw hung open in shock and his eyes stared at me in disbelief.
I was alive and he hadn't expected it. I was still going to have something to say to the witch however, she said nothing about the pain I endured. It was slowly fading and allowed me to think as well as move properly.

I dived for my sword; Lusus didn't even make a move to stop me. It wasn't until I had the blade in my hands and made the first jab for his soft underbelly did the dragon finally engage me.
"I will open your armor like the shell of a nut!" the dragon promised as he tried to stomp me.
I danced around his stomps, my curiosity over why I still seemed to cast an orange glow but no longer felt the pain of fire grew the longer I toyed with the dragon.

I whittled away at the beast piece by piece. Scales came away with the edge of my blade and eventually I revealed enough soft flesh to send my blade through Lusus Naturae's heart. As the steel was enveloped by the dragon's flesh it began to burn. Lusus howled in agony when the flames hit his heart. Dragons may be able to wield an element but that doesn't make them immune to them.

There is no other way to describe it, in a shower of boiling blood the dragon's heart exploded and the great beast collapsed on top of me. I thought I was done for; the crushing mass of the dead weight would surely kill me. But it didn't, I kept waiting for the air to be squeezed from my lungs and the darkness to take me. It never did. After what felt like an eternity of simply lying under corpse of Lusus Naturae I began to fight for my freedom.

When only my right foot was under the beast I learned what had happened when the dragon's fire washed over me. My leg came off at the knee joint. I gasped in shock when I saw no limb in the metal boot. I stared in disbelief when I saw a shape that looked vaguely like my leg but made of flames sticking out of my armor. I did the first thing that came to mind and tried to abandon the armor. I shed every piece quickly and realized that the orange glow in the cave increased. I caught my reflection in the glassy surface of Lusus's middle eye. I was no longer flesh and blood but a being made of fire. I slapped the eye with a flaming hand and howled my disapproval. I turned to flee the cave. I didn't get far, after about five steps I was forcefully jerked backwards and into the armor I had just discarded.

I freed my trapped foot and tried it again. I made it further the second time but it ended the same way. I was bodily dragged back to the pile of armor and poured in through it to fill it completely. Despair claimed me; I didn't know what to do. My brief moment of bliss in victory evaporated like a drop of water on hot stone. I must have spent the better part of a day in that cave pacing around Lusus's corpse and yelling at it for doing this to me. I cursed the witch as well and finally it was my vow to find her and make her reverse what had happened to me that got me out of the cave.

The dragon's ugly third eye was taken as my proof. Each time a drop of his blood seeped into my armor the inferno that was my body burned it away with a hiss as if to agree on how foul the ancient wyrm was. My trek back to the kingdom wasn't as I imagined. People had gathered to learn my fate and when they saw me most ran in fear. Others cursed my name and said I let the dragon taint me. I pressed on. The commander of the king's army met me at the gates of the city and refused me passage. I argued with him for a good while before I gave up and simply dropped the massive eye at his feet.
"Lusus Naturae is dead," I declared. "If this doesn't appease you then venture into his cave and see for yourself."
"You are cursed, knight," the commander told me. "You have done us a great deed but at what price? There is dark magic about you. The city will not welcome you as you are. Go, leave this place."

The people began to throw rocks at me when I refused to leave. Among the crowds I saw the beautiful pale face of my Annelie. My love, she looked away from me and hid behind her father. He threw the last rock at me before I decided to leave at last. I couldn't go far; I went home only to find Lusus had been there first. My parents were dead, lying in the rubble from a fire that had gone cold days before.

Rage filled me and I screamed at the heavens over the injustice of it all. From there my tale falls into depression and loneliness. I wandered the land for years doing good where I could. But the threat of my tainted appearance always forced me to move on. I couldn't stay anywhere for long before the tales of who I was caught up to me.

So I was alone and felt as if I had always been alone. I would sometimes return to see Annelie again, the years never extinguished my love for her. She married another and bore him three sons and a daughter. She grew old and died; her children grew old and died as did theirs. Yet I lived. I was eternal and even with what seemed to be everlasting life I couldn't find the witch that had cursed me.

The Skylanders had crossed paths with me many times. The idea of becoming one did have merit but I saw myself as a misfit and a stain on their good name so as much as I yearned to belong somewhere I kept my distance. I watched several generations of Skylanders go from fledglings to retired and beyond. Eon sought me out however when Spyro became the leader of the current generation.
"I've had my eye on you for some time, good sir knight. But you have actively avoided any attempts made to approach you," he told me.
"Yet here you are now," I said with a bit more hostility than I had intended. Eon was undaunted by it and merely smiled at me.
"Here I am. And now I can finally ask if you have any desire to join the Skylanders."

My response at first was incredulity. Eon was patient and didn't give up on me. Eventually I let him talk me into it and I meet my allies for the first time. They accepted me without question, they were open and friendly. I didn't know how to react at first. I was overwhelmed and kept to myself. Eventually I warmed up to them and began to trust them. Even Hex, after about a year at least. She was a witch in my eyes and I seethed with rage each time I looked at her. We still can't be called friends but we at least tolerate one another. I'll work with her if given no other choice but not happily.

The banishment to Earth made me feel as if I had lost everything all over again but it was short lived when my Portal Master found me and returned me to Skylands along with the rest of my new family. Family. I never thought I would know that bond again. Nor did I think I would know friendship yet I have both.

I am Ignitor and I am proud to be what I am. A fire spirit. I am proud of how far I've come, I'm proud of what I stand for.

I am a Skylander.

Water is up next. I'm getting through this slowly but surely.