Chapter 3: Someone New
Orokin couldn't be more content. Dare he say...happy? That emotion was odd for him. It was a rarity in the ice encrusted kingdom. The royalty he had grown accustomed to was almost like the wind he felt now, standing on the Ice Cliff...sharp, stabbing, siphoning of energy and mirth.
And now, as the wind had been, it was in the past. The needles of discord that had panged his heart, the weight of authority and tyranny...all gone, melting like snowflakes in the summer heat.
Ahh...Is this how the royals felt? Not a care? Almost haphazard in their actions? I see why they smiled. I understand.
A deeper thought struck him.
How many dragons won't feel this in life? A moment of blissful freedom? Without the monotonous routine of life?
He paced the cliff, he liked this spot; it gave him space to think and contemplate.
He looked to his left, at a small glacial pond. The water was rippling, shaking. Blue and White ice floated in the water. It was where he'd seen their strange visitor those months ago.
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It was twilight. Winter had set in, and the sun would soon disappear from the arctic circle, leaving the palaces lit by only the light of the moon globes. The temperature would fall, and the kingdom would become a wonderland of ice and snow.
He had come out to the cliff, roughly three months ago, to see the sun before it vanished. It was surprisingly tranquil. The palace's enchantment keep it intact, but the smaller igloos and ice huts had been destroyed in the battle against the royals, and now rebuilt, with heavier and stronger blue ice.
Society was different. The dragons still had an authority, (as all tribes must have to prevent anarchy,) but said authority was fair. Power was distributed to trusted officials, voted upon by Orokin and his citizens. They took their Oligarchal vote and their citizens votes into account with decisions.
The citizens were content. Even some of the excommunicated IceWings came back to this new society. Before they were merely shunned again, or kept at a ten-foot-pole's length front the rest of the dragons. After Prince Winter returned, Orokin personally saw countless outcasts come to the outposts, and heartbreak of having to close them out again.
One of the excommunicated was close to him. He knew him better than anyone else. Losing him was exsanguinating to his spirits.
Out of all the shunned he'd seen, this one was the strangest.
Her body was sleek, smooth, velvety in its nature. She was clearly a hybrid of sorts, Ice and Sea. She still had the icicle horn and spines, and she inherited the spikes and strength of her tribes' tails making for a dangerous weapon. A parti-sapphire bracelet was about one of her ankles, combining yellow and blue. She was clearly headed towards the palace.
A hybrid this far north? And at this time, with such little light?
He approached her. She appeared fearful.
"Are you Orokin?" She asked, keeping her wings tight around herself.
"This is he," he replied.
She looked up at him. Being closer to her, He could see how young she was compared to him. If he had to guess, she was a little over ten.
"Why have you come all this way?" Orokin asked. "It's a long way from the Sea Kingdom."
She looked down. "I heard about the rebellion. And about you taking outcasts in."
Orokin became inquisitive. He gestured for her to follow. "How did your parents meet? IceWing hybrids are not very common. The last one I've seen is Typhoon...and you look like him."
She scoffed. "Everyone always says that. I guess it's just a side effect of being a hybrid like him. Anyways, my parents met in Possibility. Hybrids have become way more common now that tribes are intermingling."
He crouched down to her level. "And there's nothing wrong with that. Hybrids should have an equal chance as everyone else. If I could take in other hybrids, I would immediately."
Orokin didn't exactly know why, but there was an air about her. There was something about her toothy grin and the glint in her eyes. It seemed...odd, deceiving even.
Stop it, his conscience told him. You're just being presumptuous. She's just...strange, like Typhoon.
"It is paramount we get you an assignment and household before the sun vanishes," Orokin declared. "Come, with expeditiousness."
He led her to the palace. The palace's insides were being renovated; many of the old decorations and Portraits were being taken out and stored in a off site location. The hallways were bustling with movement.
He led her through into what was originally the Queen's bedroom. It was unnecessarily large, so he turned it into an office of sorts, and a place to vote on new issues.
On the outside was a list of all of the positions available. I peeked at it for a moment.
"Hmm...all the current jobs we need are physically active; Landscapers, construction workers, the lot. But, if you have a profession you would like to invest yourself into, I could see if I have the items for it."
The hybrid mused for a moment. "I always wanted to work in a scientific field."
"Perhaps a researcher then?" Orokin offered.
"I prefer more of a technological engineer," she said with a joking smile.
Orokin merely shook his head. "Here's a compromise. You'll be an inventor. Something most tribes don't have."
The hybrid was joyous. "Thank you Orokin!" She said.
"It is nothing. You living space will be inside the palace. Aleutian will show you." As he said that the IceWing rounded the corner.
"It's only a minute's walk from here," he said, and they headed down the hall.
"Oh!" Orokin exclaimed. "My manners, I forgot to ask your name!"
The hybrid looked back at him, a soft leer in her eye. "Tributary. I'm Tributary."
Tributary and Aleutian disappeared around the corner, leaving Orokin alone.
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That Look. Orokin didn't know what it was about her. Maybe it was all the oddities in her arrival. Maybe it was her tribes. Either way, uneasiness filled him when he saw the hybrid. It was irrational, that he knew. He shouldn't judge her so quickly, nor so harshly.
Maybe she's just...different, an individual, he thought, snapping back to reality.
But that look she gave him. The evil eye she seemed to have, it haunted him.
He heard a dragon's wingbeats behind him. Pushing down his fears, he turned to face Tributary.
"I reckon you have not come out here gratuitously," Orokin said, trying not to show his discomfort.
"What does that mean?" She said, causing Orokin to shake his head. "Anyways, I innovated the design of your bows in my lab. I have a prototype there."
She took off, Heading towards a large hut outside the kingdom. Orokin put it there just in case an experiment where to backfire, or if an unintended side effect where to occur because of it.
The hut looked like all the others in the outside. Rounded roof, smooth, chiseled, blue ice.
The lab was a oval surrounded by another square. The ovular section was for design. It was filled with blueprints, schematics, and prototypes. The square section was for tests. Effigies of dragons were placed there. Orokin didn't expect her to use that section very much.
Tributary dashed over to a small crossed piece of wood, strung like a bow.
"I call it a crossbow," she said. "An original name right?" She stated, sarcastically. It was the length of her front talon. On the crossbow's underside, a metal container was attached to the lower part of the cross, which was split. A few gears where in the crossbows side, attached to the container and the string.
"What is the purpose of the container?" Orokin asked her.
"That? That's just what stores the arrows. I call it a magazine."
Orokin picked up and held the weapon. "And the gears?"
She took it out of his talons. "You know, is just better if I show you." She opened the door into the firing range, and took aim at a SeaWing effigy. The trigger snapped, sending an arrow into the shoulder of the decoy. She tugged on the string, drawing it back into place. As she pulled, the gears on the side turned, bringing a new arrow unto the string from the magazine. "Pretty nice huh?" Tributary said.
Orokin was a little dumbfounded. The mechanism didn't make sense. Tributary took off the magazine and placed it on the table. There didn't seem to be any moving parts inside the magazine.
Then how was the next arrow loaded? It couldn't have been from the mechanism.
"Well…" he said, "It's very...innovative," He said, a little half-heartedly. He had not expected her to create military weaponry in her "innovations". Especially so soon. He expected something more general. A better, safer construction strategy perhaps?
"The crossbows aren't hard to make," she continued. "Wood, a little metal...plentiful things in Pyrrhia."
Orokin nodded. "To be honest, I still don't understand or comprehend how this thing operates."
She grinned. "Don't worry your blue icy head. That's for me to worry about."
That was unsettling. In truth, he felt he should be more worried, more unnerved.
This is unlike me. Why am I being so lenient? So...accepting of this Dragon? So incurious?
Orokin headed towards the door to the lab.
"Continue your work, I'll check on you in time."
Tributary took aim fiercely with the Crossbow, launching two quick arrows downrange. "Attend to your your work and I'll attend to mine," she said, with a soft hint of possessiveness in her tone. He peeked over his shoulder at her. Her face was steel, a Rampart, blocking any other emotion except focus.
Orokin left then. He didn't want to see her shoot the new bow any longer, nor be in her presence. His mind felt blurry, like a fog. But in said fog, one thought was blazing like a burning star, tearing through the mist:
Something has changed in me...but how? And why?
((And Done. That took awhile. Anyways, I'm going to try to post a chapter every Sunday or Monday. Unless something comes up that interrupts what I can do.))
((See y'all next week with Chapter Four:Grow!))