Arc 2 – Part 2
"This is so exciting!" squealed Lombardia, hopping too and fro on the balls of her feet. Her two long blond plaits swung around madly. The mortal was grinning so hard Caprifexia thought her face might split in two, and it was hard to believe that this woman was, allegedly, an 'Archmage.' "A whole new world! A whole new reality! Think of all the new things to learn!"
They were in the courtyard at the centre of the Winterhold college, beside where the once bug-infested tree had stood, and now the was a statue to the fallen of the 'Battle of High Hrothgar.' Caprifexia's name had finally been included on the honour roll and list of the fallen. It would have been more appropriate for her to have a statue all of her own, rather than one of the silly 'Master' and the old Arch-mage, but it was still progress.
It was early in the morning, and the pre-dawn glow was filtering around the 'half-mountain' that loomed over the college to the east. Although it looked more or less normal from where they were standing, it had been cut in half by the immense spell that her future self had used to save Skyrim. Well, the bits that hadn't been blown up by said spell…
There were a few mortals moving about, although things didn't really get going at the college until about ten o'clock. One of her classmates waved, an ash-coloured elf called Breyleen, or something, who seemed, thus far, to not suffer from her species' tendency towards duplicity; Caprifexia honoured her with a slight tilt of her horns.
"Innistrad isn't the nicest of places," said Einar. "But I guess we're a much harder target than we were when we last went. And hopefully Sorin will show up again when he detects us arrive, if not we'll need to spend a while making our way to his manor."
"You said it only has one moon, and that it's several times larger than Nirn's!" said Lombardia, still trembling with mortal-like excitement. "Oh this is going to be fascinating!"
"And you've finished the Disseminators, Lommy?" asked Serana.
"Oh, yes!" said Lombardia, rummaging around in her shoulder satchel for a moment before bringing out a wooden box. "Here we go."
The insufferably bubbly mortal opened the box to reveal three sets of silver ear-clamps etched with the Nirnian rune for Wisdom, and a larger silver band etched with a whole series of more complicated runes.
"These are for us," said Lombardia, handing out the clamps to the other mortal and bloodsucking abomination. "Just put them on your ears, anywhere will do. They'll sting a little as they make the piercing."
Caprifexia snickered as Einar pressed one of them against the upper part of his ear and let out a small yelp. The big baby.
"Now, Capri sweetie," said Lombardia, fishing out the silver band. "I didn't know if it was OK for dragons to pierce their ears, or if it would interfere with your shapeshifting, but I remembered your future self had these lovely bands on her horns, so I tried to copy that; it should readjust itself when you shift forms. OK?"
Caprifexia accepted the band and examined it sceptically. "And this is going to make a psychic link between us?"
"A subconscious one, yes," nodded Lombardia. "It should work for us so long as you're in within a dozen or so miles. You won't even notice it, I promise."
Capri glanced over to Einar who nodded encouragingly, before carefully reaching up and slipping it over her left horn. She felt it readjust itself to fit, pulling taut when it reached the spot above her pointed mortal ears. She could feel the band doing something magical, and obviously she understood what it was, and she could feel three strands of energy stretching off toward the others. Chandra didn't need one, of course, since like Caprifexia she was a Planeswalker.
"Ooh, you look cute!" said Lombardia, clapping her hands.
Caprifexia glared at her. "Dragons are not cute."
"Oh, of course not," corrected Lombardia quickly. "I mean, you look majestic. Regal, even."
"That's better," said Caprifexia, running her hand down her horn.
Wearing enchanted metal bands on one's horns was fairly normal in dragon society. Normally they were designed to ward off projectiles or automatically cast water-breathing spells and the like, but she supposed helping a few mortals overcome their massive linguistic deficiencies wasn't too bad. She was a hero after all, and heroes needed to help the weak and linguistically pathetic.
"Can you understand me?" asked Chandra, speaking in Ghiapuurish.
"Oh, wow, yeah," said Einar, rubbing his ear. "And I can speak it? What's this?"
"Your accent is hilarious," said Chandra with a laugh. "But you're understandable. Its Ghiapuurish, my first language."
"What about you Capri?" asked Einar. "Can you say something in dragon-speak?"
"It's Draconic, not 'dragon-speak,'" huffed Caprifexia. "And fine: 'Hark mortals, and bear witness to an example of this language that I am speaking at this discrete moment in time, which is known to itself, self-referrentially, as Draconic, specifically the variant of Neo-Classical Draconic spoken by the Black Dragonflight, which itself was an adaptation of Late-High Titanic.'"
"Oh wow!" said Lombardia, her eyes lighting up, even as Einar and Serana winced. "That's amazing."
"Have you been 'experimenting' with alchemy again, Lommy?" said Serana. "It sounds terrible."
"It makes my head spin," agreed Einar. "It's like… it's too dense."
"Exactly!" said Lombardia. "Did you hear how much information it packed into one very short sentence? Little Capri said… ten syllables?"
"Eleven," corrected Caprifexia after a moment's thought.
"And had a whole paragraph of information if you were to translate all that nuance into Imperial," said Lombardia. "How many different sounds do you have in draconic?"
"Seven hundred and twelve," said Caprifexia. "Plus seven tones and different degrees of vocal friction."
"Wow, that's way more than a human can make," said Lombardia, she tapped her lip. "I think."
"I don't have any trouble in articulating myself correctly using the language known as Draconic which Caprifexia was just speaking," said Chandra, producing what might have been the best draconic Caprifexia had ever heard from a mortal, well, mortal-adjacent. She even got the friction right.
"It must be because you're a Planeswalker," said Lombardia. "And perhaps it is because your people have this 'Gift of Tongues' you told me about, you never needed to sacrifice subtly for ease of learning?"
"According to my lessons, my Flight also made their variant deliberately more difficult, so mortals could not steal our secrets," said Caprifexia. "It was regarded as 'unlearnable' by any but the longest lived mortal races, and even those who did usually needed dictionaries to translate."
"And is your writing system similarly complex? It must make for an excellent enchanting language."
"Naturally," sniffed Caprifexia.
"Well, I think it sounds Gods-aweful," said Einar, bigotedly. "Let's hope we don't run into any of Capri's people out there," He blinked, Serana cleared her throat, and Lombardia gave him a sharp look. "I mean, um, sorry, not like that…"
"If we did run into my brother, they would most likely try to murder me," said Caprifexia. "So it would be best if we did not."
"Dragons are so weird," said Chandra.
"We're not weird, you're weird-"
"Can we go already?" asked Serana, glancing up at the orange light now spilling around the mountain. "It's getting early."
"Let's!" said Lombardia, rocking on her heels.
Caprifexia glared one last time at Chandra, before drawing on her Spark. Her body began to glow gold as she brought her might to bare on the skein that separated reality from unreality. There was a crackling sound as the glow streaked forward, swirling like a whirlpool for a moment before reality parted and a circular aperture appeared, revealing the Void beyond.
Capri stepped through, wrinkling her nose as a fleshy void tendril squelched under her boot, covering it with yellow ichor.
"Oh, wow!" breathed Lomeria, stepping through after her and trying to look every-which-way at once. A moment later a notebook emerged from her bag, and she began to furiously scribble down observations.
As Serana and Einar came through Caprifexia felt a small but noticeable strain on her Spark. Now that she was more in tune with her abilities, she could see that the same golden glow that protected her clung to them as they moved through her portal. That protection was likely why she got tired from transporting others along with her, and she knew that she wouldn't be able to manage nearly as many walks babysitting this many mortals before becoming exhausted.
"Right," said Einar, stepping through last. "Remember, we can't stay here long, and its about a twenty minute walk to Innistrad-"
"-Innitgrad-"
"-to Innsitrad," said Einar, ignoring her correction and continuing to revel in his own ignorance as he took out the original copy of the 'map' that had gotten her lost. "Do we need to wait for Chandra? Or-"
A moment later there was a surge of golden light and Chandra stepped through the aperture into the Blind Eternities. They had agreed that Chandra would 'Walk under her own power, since that meant less of a strain for Caprifexia, and because Chandra was the sort of person who wanted to do everything herself.
"Huh," said Chandra, looking around. "That worked?"
"You didn't used to travel like Caprifexia?" asked Lombardia.
"Nope," said Chandra, wrinkling her nose. "I just tried doing what she did, and it worked… Eew, this place is-"
"Chandra," said Caprifexia seriously.
"Oh, right," said Chandra, clearing her throat. "Guess after Capri brought me here her way, now… I can do it too? It's a fair bit harder, though…"
"Regardless, we can't linger," said Einar, pointing toward a bridge. "This way."
"That's not the way; it's this way," said Caprifexia, pointing at a bridge that ran roughly level out from Nirn's platform to one that was grassy and featured a pond and a waterfall that cascaded off into non-space.
"No, this is definitely the route we took to get there and back the first time," said Einar.
"You mean the route that got me lost, and sent me to EHPWBVMS," said Caprifexia. "No, it's this way. I'm sure. You're wrong!"
"It's called Kaladesh," said Chandra, unhelpfully.
"I'm not wrong-" began Einar.
"You are! You are! You are! You are!" said Caprifexia, stomping her foot. "I didn't even need any of you to come along! I'm not getting lost because of you! It's this way!"
Einar sighed and looked at the others. "Fine," he said. "I guess maybe that way leads there too? This place is pretty confusing. Come on then, and remember, stick close together, don't fall off, and if Capri tells you to get out, go through to the nearest Plane as fast as you can. If you get separated, try to stay put in the area you arrive in; Capri will come and find you. Won't you? Capri?"
"Huh?" said Caprifexia, who hadn't been listening to his boring speech.
"You'll come and find us if we get separated, won't you?" said Einar seriously.
"Oh, sure," she said absently.
The others nodded at Einar's advice, even though she was the Planeswalker and expert, and set off after her. They passed over a mostly rocky bridge to the grassy water-fall platform next to Nirn, across another that had the ruins of a few, very basic wooden buildings, and up a bridge made from crumbling masonry that was so steep it was almost vertical, but which shifted seventy degrees in orientation the moment that Capri placed her boot on the sloping stone.
On they went, passing across a creepy platform that was nothing but sticky black stone that squelched unpleasantly, before arriving at floating dirt and rock island covered in golden grass and dotted with silver barked trees sporting vivid purple leaves. It was one of those ones with no ruins of any kind, and which she assumed were not, and had never been inhabited
"Err, Capri, this isn't Innistrad," said Einar as Capri approached the multicoloured, star-like object at the centre of the platform.
"No, but it's been fifteen minutes," said Capri. "We're ten minutes away from Innitgrad. This is a half-way stop; it's safe. Probably."
"But it's only one walk from Nirn if we-" Einar stopped himself and sighed. "OK, fine. We'll have a break here."
Capri pressed her hand against the star, and a portal opened to reveal a wooded clearing that resembled the plane-platform: silver trees, purple leaves, and golden grass. A gentle breeze rolled through the clearing, shifting the leaves and making them tinkle and chime in a way that indicated they must have had some kind of metallic properties. The air felt faintly of cinnamon and something spicy, and Caprifexia took a deep breath.
The others followed her out into the balmy air, Serana cursing and pulling her cowl further down when she saw that this world had not one, but two suns: one orange, the other blue.
"This is nice," said Chandra, closing his eyes and tilting his face to the suns. "Warm for once. What do you call it, Capri?"
"PGGSTGFR," said Caprifexia, sitting down on a rock and taking out a book.
"Which stands for…?" asked Chandra.
"The 'Plane that has golden grass, silver trees, and is good for resting,'" said Caprifexia.
Chandra snorted. "Ah, of course," she said. "'Peggistigfer.'"
"No, it's-"
"And you found this when you got lost?" interrupted Einar.
"I did not get lost," huffed Caprifexia. "Your map lied!"
"Maps don't lie Capri, you must have misread it," said Einar. "And how are you feeling, taking three other people?"
"Fine," grumbled Caprifexia.
"Fine as in 'actually fine?'" asked Einar. "Or 'fine' as in 'I'm a big scary scary dragon who doesn't admit to getting tired. Rawr!'"
"She does go 'rawr!'" agreed Chandra, hunching over and raising her hands over her head. "Rawr!"
"I can make it to Innistrad," snapped Caprifexia. "Stop worrying at me. Go and 'make eyes' at Serana, or something."
Serana raised an imperious eyebrow, Einar cleared his throat, and Chandra began to cackle with laughter.
"Who told you that I 'make eyes' at Serana?" said Einar in a stage whisper.
"No one," said Caprifexia. "I noticed your vampirically oriented ocular crafting all by myself! I'm a dragon, we're very good at noticing things."
There was a pause, and Serana and Einar glanced at each other for a moment before he quickly looked away.
"You don't even know what it means, do you?" said Einar as cheeks began to turn a silly red colour.
"Of course I do!" said Caprifexia. "It means that you… make eyes. At Serana. Obviously. Must I explain everything!?"
"Chandra, stop confusing Capri," said Einar.
Chandra continued to cackle with laughter.
"Whatever, I don't care," said Caprifexia, raising her book higher and blocking out Einar's red face.
She was feeling a little tired, and maybe might have snapped a bit too harshly when Lombardia came over and started trying to quiz her about being a Planeswalker, but for the most part the break passed uneventfully.
Einar and Serana chatted, or perhaps crafted eyes, in the shade of a tree; Lombardia mostly ran around like a maniac, taking measurements, sketching plants, and pressing leaves into her journal; and Chandra did her homework, which had been a 'requirement' of her coming on the trip. They had tried to get Caprifexia to agree to the same thing, but had relented after she'd incinerated the third set of 'worksheets' and informed them, politely, that dragons did not take assignments from mortals.
"Alright," she said, standing up as the suns were descending in the sky and the massive gas giant that the golden grassed moon seemed to orbit was rising across from them. "Time to go."
A.N. Not much action, but the next chapter was too long with this part and I wanted to develop some of the characters and their interactions a bit more – so here's a light chapter.
If you like my fanfic writing, I also have an original fantasy novel that I am releasing a chapter a week of on Sufficient Velocity, Royal Road, Scribblehub, and the well known platform you can support artists on that I can't post the name of here. It's called Shattered Moon and its an adventure story set in a fantasy world after a great calamity, and has totalitarian dragons, lovecraftian horrors, and libertarian demons.