This was supposed to be angst. It was supposed to be set just after All or Nothing, and Laeliya was supposed to be all mopey and upset and stewing in her own misery!
But then she and Trahern kept derailing the plot by being too cute, and I said "Screw it - writing fluff.". So here is an injured salad and her overprotective dragon. And my little head cannons about Slyvari culture.

"You know; I broke my leg. The menders all say my head was perfectly fine." Laeliya sighed as the Prismatic Elder Dragon tried – and failed – to inconspicuously follow her around Aurene's Chamber in the Eye of the North.

"If they hadn't dug you out when they did, you would have frozen to death." Aurene grumbled, but settled back on her perch, "You were buried under 15 feet of snow."

"If I hadn't fallen into those 15 feet of powder snow I would have broken more than my leg. And," here Laeliya shifted her crutches and held up a preemptive finger. "Braham couldn't have known that the shielding spell would send me flying that far. It was completely untested. We BOTH assumed that there would be plenty of space before the edge of the cliff. And from what Taimi tells me, you made the poor norn feel plenty guilty enough while I was unconscious."

"You shouldn't have been experimenting on top of a cliff in the first place." Aurene finally declared, as Laeliya finished limping over and settled back into the makeshift nest between the dragon's forelegs.

The Prismatic Dragon and her Champion spent most of the time as they had for the last 5 weeks: in a comfortable silence. Occasionally, Aurene would draw Laeliya's attention to some amusing scene within the scrying pool below them. Or Laeliya would read aloud one of the more ridiculous passages from the Orrian romance novels that Steward Gixx had requested she translated – seemingly remembering her membership with the Priory once news of her broken leg had made its way to Lonar Pass.

Bastard kept denying her requests for access to Trahearne's notes on Orrian Necromancy. All she could usually get out of him was "Sorry Commander, but so many people need those materials for research. You're at the very end of the request list. The Priory can't set a precedent for making exceptions. Even for you I'm afraid."

So Gixx only seemed to remember she was still a member when it suited him. Then it was "Scholar, could you help catalogue these books for me? We're short on people who know Orrian Script."

Gixx had a flawless memory. It was obvious that his repeated refusals were simply pure revenge of all the trouble she and Sieran had caused. Laeliya had given that infuriating asura those notes! And she and Sieran had only almost blown up the priory once. Maybe twice. The point was, even if they had almost blown up the priory three times, Gixx was keeping entirely unfair grudges.

"Will you tell me about your childhood?" Aurene asked suddenly. The dragon then shifted, forcing a quick rearrangement of the makeshift nest.

"I am slyvari." Laelyia said by way of an explanation, before making a catalogue note about the book she was currently reading, "We don't really have conventional childhoods. The Pale Tree let me run around Calerdon effectively unsupervised from day one."

"But you didn't step out of the Dream knowing everything. You learned some from experience and some from teachers."

"I doubt you want me to talk about the two disastrous weeks Caithe tried teaching me how to fight. She uses daggers as weapons. I use them as foci. It didn't end well: proper grip isn't as important for me. And we never got past that. Then there was Trahearne teaching me Orrian script. The two of us would spend hours at a stretch, camped out in the Omphalos Chamber going over grammar and syntax. He has dozens of stories about me messing up my pronunciation and saying perfectly understandable nonsense. You'll like Trahearne. As soon as I figure out how to wake him up."

"I am very excited to meet the Sleeping Marshal." Aurene rumbled, the humor evident in her voice. Mostly from recalling an old human story that predated the race's arrival on Tyria. "Speaking off, will you tell me again how you stopped Mordremoth?"

"You only like that story, because it ends with 'And then Mordremoth was dead. There was a massive explosion of magic that caused Glint's egg to begin to grow.'"

If crystal dragons were capable of looking innocently indignant Aurene was a master of the expression. "I just think it's an exciting story of determination and an object lesson in keeping one's plans to one's self."

Laeliya put down her notes. No problem in humoring Aurene. "Well, you'll remember how I and the rest of what would become Dragon's Watch did not leave with the Pact's fleet because we were chasing after Caithe and fighting the Shadow of the Dragon – "

"-And trying to protect my egg." Aurene excitedly interjected. Usually, it was difficult to tell that Aurene was only four years only. At other times, she could be such an infuriating dragon child.

"And trying to protect your egg." Laeliya agreed without letting the interruption break her stride, "Thus we weren't captured when the fleet was destroyed by Mordremoth. Not that the little distance was enough to quiet his voice. Slyvari as far away as the Black Citadel could hear it! Although nobody East of Metrica was in any significant danger of falling to it."

"Did it differ much from Jormag's voice?"

"Jormag's voice was very quiet and unobtrusive. There were times… Sometimes it was difficult to tell it didn't belong to me. Mordremoth? Mordremoth was like having a freaking gong constantly going off between my ears. I could barely think or sleep. When I first heard it, it wasn't so much a voice but a tidal wave of force. I was in the Silverwastes, and it literally knocked me off my feet. It took a significant sense of self, to separate yourself from the dragon's will. Even after everything, I can't blame anyone who fell to that. And, again it got worse the closer you were to the Heart of Thorns."

"Isn't that Snargle's new book?"

"No, it was a giant ancient tree that was effectively Mordremoth's physical body. You've literally been there – we went last Dragon Bash."

"Last Dragon Bash, I remember you dragging me around Tyria on one of your collection marathons because you 'don't feel like walking. Please fly me Aurene?' and thus abusing your dragon champion privileges."

"Oh you had fun. Anyway, we made our way through the jungle harassing mordrem patrols, liberating camps, and essentially rallying that whole jungle up against Mordremoth. After about half a week we made our way down to the Auric Basin and ran into Caithe."

"By 'we' you mean?"

"Kas, Jory, Braham, Canach, Taimi, and Rytlock. At the start at least: Saraphina, Tyikki, and Caithe joined along the way. We ran into Caithe when we first entered the Auric Basis, when we saved her and your egg from Faolain – who had always been a piece of work, but don't mention I said that to Caithe.

We collected Saraphina and Tyikki in Tangled Depths. They had both managed to find each other, organize and make an alliance with the Nuhock. And not kill the other. Whispers and Vigil. When one says 2, the other insists its 3."

"I like Saraphina. She's the one who was fighting Joko with Braham. And keeps making the Crystal Bloom and Pact drill with illusion recognition. Her reverse Uno on that Risen Mesmer was brilliant."

"She has her moments. But do you want me to tell the Mordremoth story or the Risen Mesmer story?"

"I'll stop interrupting." Could dragons look chagrined?

"I doubt that, but anyway it's safe to say I arrived at the Heart of Thorns with about 4 hours of sleep and a headache that rivaled the last Moot I talked Trahearne into attending. Caithe and Canach were not that much better – no matter what Canach claims. We were very fortunate to have significantly saner and better rested friends around to keep us doing anything too stupid. Like diving straight after Trahearne when Mordremoth dangled him so close in front of us."

"Caithe has made it very clear that you were the only one who had to be restrained from throwing yourself off a cliff."

"I thought you said you weren't going to interrupt anymore?"

"Carry on."

"It was Caithe, Canach and I who went into Mordremoth's mind. It had to be us. It had to be slyvari who destroyed him. And we did: we broke his illusions, we broke his control over his creations, and then we broke him. It was over. Blessed silence – For the first time in what felt like years, I was the only one inside my head."

"So, how did Trahearne learn about Mordremoth's seed. And you cannot blame Caithe for telling me about that. Your nightmares about it have been coming through our bond."

Nowadays, not all of Laeliya's dreams where her own. She should have realized – their bond had always gone both ways. As Aurene had grown in power the bond had also grown in strength. When she had first hatched, it did little more than allow Aurene and Laelyia, to vaguely sense the emotions of the other. The most direct it got was the feelingof I need you to be here , after Balthazar had died – after Aurene had devoured his magic – it had evolved to something more direct. Still not words, but much more than vague feelings. Directions, and general ideas transferred over.

Laeliya remembered a strong feeling of angerFEARhateDON'TtouchMINE right before the awakened had all begun surrendering – when Aurene devoured Joko. And his magic.

It had evolved even further when Aurene had ascended. Nowadays, they could directly talk. Although, it gave Laelyia a wicked headache.

From watching Ryland and Jormag apparently chitchat constantly this clearly was a bug: not a feature. Maybe it was due to her originally being another dragon's minion? Or maybe Aurene's youth? – Either way, that was a topic for hernextresearch paper.

"Trahearne knew about the seed was because Mordremoth liked to brag. Mordremoth loved to brag. I mean, he really liked the sound of his own voice in general, but of all the ways he could use it: temptations, verbal assaults, ear drum shattering roars, he preferred bragging.

The mordrem – they could be subtle. But Mordremoth? He had apparently lost any and all subtly he had possessed when he took down the Pact's fleet. He couldn't help but gloat constantly. Logan directly compared him to a few villains from human literature. It's always the monologue that seals their fate.

And as we raised hell in the jungle he only got worse. The proportion of bragging rose as we got closer to winning. Apparently, he went on for close to half a day after we managed to evade Faolin and secure your egg in Tarir.

So, while Caithe, Canach and I were fighting Mordremoth within the mind scape, Mordremoth was bragging about his little seed and how even if we succeeded it would all be useless anyway. Our allies were spared the theatrics, for the same reason they had been spared the sonic torture. Without a minion to act as a mouth, Mordremoth couldn't actually speak to non-slyvari."

"He asked you to kill him. But you didn't. What did you do? Mordremoth fell, and Trahearne returned alive unresponsive."

As the story had been told, the pair had shifted positions. The old Orrian romances had been shoved in a pile to one side, and Aurene had transitioned from sitting up on her forelimbs to coiled up in a sleeping position. Laeliya was leaning up against the curve the Aurene's neck, the dragon's giant head cushioned in her lap.

Pensively, Laeliya scratched at the ridges along Aurene's eyes. "Trahearne wasn't thinking straight – not really his fault. He had it worse than almost any of us from Mordremoth. I'm still surprised how coherent he was actually. If he had been more coherent, he would have remembered that Sara and Kas are two of the strongest mesmers of this generation - they got us back in. Mordremoth was very surprised. He wasn't very surprised for long. Then he wasn't much of anything. We thought Trahearne was just unconscious. You know, all the stress, and… and we didn't realize he was… I didn't realize he was completely comatose until later. When the medics couldn't get any response out of him.

I'm sure… we know that… He's still alive. It's been confirmed multiple ways. It's just like he's utterly unaware of the waking world. I've even managed to speak to him once since."

"When did this happen?"

"A while ago. When Ridhais came to me about restoring Caladbolg." At the sound of its name, the dagger warmed slightly at Laeliya's side. "We spoke when I took it to the Matriarch's Perch. It was a different experience from my previous vision of Riannoc. Riannoc was a ghost or echo: Caladbolg's memory of his time as it's wielder."

Aurene's tone was one Laelyia had heard a lot of over the last few years. "And, you're sure that the vision with Trahearne was different?"

Laelyia got a look on her face she had when Almorra had offered her the Pact Marshall position.

"I know he's in there Aurene. Caladbolg forged a temporary bridge. He knew things from after his bond with Caladbolg was damaged. I know that the key to getting him back is in with Caladbolg and the Dream. If I can just figure out how to turn it."

"Is that why you are determined to get your hands on those Orrian necromancy notes?"

"I don't know if they will help, but I have to try."

The pair slipped back into a slightly less comfortable silence. Laelyia reclaimed her romances, and the pair once again rearranged their sitting positions, now so Aurene could once again examine the pool. Finally, Aurene spoke,

"Braham is looking for you. He just came through the Gate."

"Try to resist the urge to use the disappointed mom voice I know Caithe taught you. He feels bad enough as it is… Aurene. Promise me."

- To Slyvari the Omphalos Chamber is more like "Mom's Office" than a throne room. As long as they're not disrupting anyone else The Pale Tree doesn't mind if they hang out there, except for during a few important events such as the World Summit.

- I like the idea that Mordremoth wasn't a physical creature, better than what we got in canon. In this, the Mouth of Mordremoth is equivalent to the Mouth of Zhatian. A powerful minion, and when Canach and Trahearne say "his body is the jungle", they mean of. Literally.

- Saraphina and Tyikki are obviously mine. I've essentially split the Pact Commander into 3 separate rolls, and each one did certain things: You have Vigil Human Mesmer Saraphina, Whispers Asura Ranger Tyikki, and Priory Slyvari Elementalist Laeliya (who usually is the 'main commander') Tyikki and Saraphina have very different command styles, and compounded by the jungle stress and Laeliya not being around to mediate = considering murder.

- I didn't really see what exactly Mordremoth's attempts at corrupting the slyvari was like. Sure, Canach and my Slyvari commander talk about it, and how it's draining them, and she almost fell to it a few times, but I never really got an idea of what it could be like. My head cannon is that apart from the initial exposure (which more required separating your will from the dragon's voice) it rotated between Geneva Convention infringing sleep deprivation, a combination of nails on a chalkboard, babies crying, and Vuvuzelas, and bellowed offers of power. Mordremoth did not believe in inside voices.