"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
02-24-2023, 06:26 PM (This post was last modified: 02-24-2023, 07:15 PM by Squirt.)
More come than dared hoped, and already a little bit of healing occurs because of it. The light of the sprites softens and warms with each body that passes through the portal. It remains open for the straggler to decide whether or not he will come before it disappears in a flash - after all, there are things to be done and they cannot wait for one demon when so many others have arrived to help.
With the disappearance of the portal, a sprite floats towards each individual, hovering just near their head and providing a little bit of warmth.
They have travelled back in time, but this is not Beqanna's past. This is the past of the world where Baltia and Stratos formed. A war rages around the visiting party, certainly more traumatic to witness for some of their companions than others. The one who was friends with the fallen queen may even see a past-version of herself. The sprites do not know whether this will make the task easier or harder for her than the others.
Everyone else may recognize where they are if they are able to focus on the landscape rather than the fighting. The Ruins that stand in Beqanna are newer here, the magical and physical damage that will happen during this war has not yet been inflicted to make them weathered before their time.
Violence and death rage on amidst a storm fuelled by both Baltian and Stratosian magic. Being visitors out of time, none of this affects those who have come. The fighters pass through them like ghosts as they chase after their foes and the hard drops of rain and hail splatter to the ground without restraint.
Here, the sprites have voices. After a very brief moment to adjust, they waste no time in explaining. “This is the world divided between sea and sky. A wound was caused here.” As if that wasn’t obvious, as a Baltian nearby breaks the wings of a Stratosian. “It must be found, it must be healed, or Beqanna will fall next.” Dramatic, sure, but accurate - not a single one of them could be dense enough not to have noticed what has been occurring all across the continent of their home. Change is a natural thing, it has happened to Beqanna more than once, but this change is alien - a disease brought on by another world.
“Our magic can only do so much on its own.” All of Beqanna’s magic is driven by its residents, isn’t it? The Sprites can only direct this task because everyone here showed up. “Tell us, where - how - do we begin to mend this?”
The Sprites have taken the questing party back into the past between Baltia and Stratos. They are currently in the midst of the part of the war where the land was ravaged and both sides incurred heavy losses.
The goal is to uncover what started the rift between the two kingdoms. Your Sprites can answer questions or prompts by taking you across the battlefield or further back along the timeline. By default you'll be working together as a team (i.e. you don’t have to duplicate someone else’s question/you'll all travel to whatever parts of the past together but you also won't lose "points" if you happen to repeat something that's been asked already) or you can tell your sprite you want to work alone.
You can also PM Squirt with questions that the sprites can then answer in your post if you've got an idea you want to run with or need some guidance!
Replies for this round are due on Sunday, March 5 by 7pm EST but like last time you'll have until the third round is posted to get your reply up.
Death and magic, both on the edges of sharing the same sovereign importance that life is to be appreciated while it lasts. Without death, there is no magic to hold the gift of rebirth. Everything's changing, moving, as it should, stagnant flesh can never evolve, and maybe that's why she chose this path, plunging into the portal for a new sense of purpose. Solitary ways make for bitter minds, and even harsher souls. This is what she'd become, a shell of what she once was, and now wether or not she could ever forget her past, her mistakes, this opportunity brought her salvation in the disguise of war. She'd tried everything to escape the clutches of war, after all it was and always would be a part of her. Being a solider, conflict was that of her beating heart, a duty to be fulfilled. This is no different she thinks, aiding in the strife of a land she now called her new home. But what help could she offer being so freshly acclimated to the soil, perhaps an extra set of hooves, a wandering mind to pinpoint the cause of the wreckage. Being a tool of battle wasn't new to her, and if this is what she could offer, Famkee might get her way after all.
Whirlwinds of clouds carry her, thankful of the sprite hovering just above guiding her and what appears to be many others on this journey. She can see all of them in their many shapes and sizes, each like her, counseled by the soft glow of a sprite. It's warm, the gentle radiance the sprites bring an for a fleeting moment she feels safe in the company despite the circumstances that slowly manifest before her. Did the others walk through the abyss like her, all governed by the land and its shores of demise? Do they know why? They must know more than her, or do they? Carnage is displayed in what seems to be a homicide of a memory, it wasn't reality, perhaps a reflection of the past being shown to them. She grasps to it tightly, the thought that this wasn't real. It was real though, and the feelings the death before her sets a hollow nostalgia deep in her chest. Winged and finned creatures of the sky and the waves of the seas, a pattern it seems as she recollects the fallen souls left to rot on the shore. This hostility between the two, suppressed magic, cast it's hate onto the land and destroyed what was left.
Another familiar sight, though the ruins stand strong here, unlike her brief visit not so long ago meeting another troubled soul along the way. She watches the ghosts of the past as they pass through her, subject to the magic making her only an observer, helpless, worthless in her scrutiny. Broken bones, broken spirits litter the soil and for the mare, this is all too familiar. Ones who haven't experienced the gore and destruction might cower, but this is the truth of existence, without one or the other, no balance could be achieved. This is the way she sees it, though she might differ in her values, there's no denying the spell this war has created. The weather seems to match the collapse of peace, raining down with malice, blocks of hail beat the backs of those who fought so viscously. She's killed many, not without purpose, but what is a war without purpose? Ill intent, separate beliefs, control, power, lust for dominance. Parasitic demons of the mind fueling the fall of kingdoms, but what was the cause, what was the solution?
A part of her wants to walk away, she has no knowledge or business of this matter. The others who had dwelled in Beqanna far before she arrived could piece this together far quicker, but as a new member she feels obligated, stretched to figure out why, or else it might be too late and she would join the fallen souls that make a mess of the past. It's a choice she struggles with, watching the faces of the others who witness. The sprites speak, and she's reminded again that this isn't some dream she'll wake from. These magical beings of this universe need our help? She doesn't know what gifts the others posses, but she feels so small, simple. She is but blood and bone, no otherworldly talent graces her, no special ability other than this very scene. Experience with bloodshed, friends with the blood that coats the earth. She speaks, though it's soft, unsure almost. "Every war has a reason behind it's annihilation," She pauses, trying to decipher the courage to continue, it shows on her face, overwhelming in its uncertainty. Couldn't they see the beginning, these mythical beings, go back to the start of where this all began? "Perhaps there's an underlying motive, something... alien." If something so simple as political differences wasn't clear then something more malicious hid underneath the cloak of dissolution. She doesn't know really who she's talking to, perhaps the sprites, maybe the others can chime in in their questions. "Maybe an influence, some sort of magic clouded the minds of these foes, making them hate one another." What were they capable of showing her? Was there an ends to what could be seen? "Can you see into their minds, something that's manipulating their actions?" She doesn't know if she sounded deluded, but frankly she doesn't seem to care, any possibility can be shown and brought into the light and she's willing to take any chance that she might, could be right.
What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark?
Perhaps she ought to be shocked as she steps through the portal and into the middle of a war she had been part of, a battle she had planned, and death she had caused. It might shock her if she didn’t relive the memory often, but she visited this battlefield in her nightmares. The faces of the dead were ingrained in her memory, and they flitted in and out of her mind every minute of every day. Standing here now, blinking slightly as her eyes adjust to the light and the ghosts that run through her, is not much different than any other day. A little more real, a little more pressing, but something she is used to by now.
This battle has always haunted her. Rezza does not see herself, but she turns in the direction where she knows her younger self would be. Unlike those around her, Rezza was safe during this fight. She stayed back, giving orders and suggestions, coming only close enough to the battle to read minds (if there was anything sensible to glean, though in the middle of a war there rarely was). Her role in these battles has always troubled her, but she’d never fought against it. Kingdom first, and her duty was as the Advisor to the Queen, not as a warrior. But what right did she have to safety and guaranteed survival when thousands gave their lives for the cause, and in a way, for her?
None.
She had no right to live when they did not, she had no right to comfort and food and safety when they lay broken and bleeding on the battleground. Rezza looks around her now, at pieces of the battle she has never seen, though there are many faces that she knows. She’d comforted many of their families, brought news to many of their loved ones that they had not survived the battle. She watches one such Baltian fall now. She’d seen his broken body when they’d collected their dead and tallied their losses after it all, but she sees how he died now, watches as a Stratosian stops his heart with one strike of lightning.
The hate in her boils and rages, but in the next instant she sees a Stratosian drowned in a tidal wave around her, watching her gag for breath beneath the power of a water manipulator and Rezza’s hatred subsides. It was hard to hate the Stratosians from the middle of the battle, hard to deny now that neither side had ever been right.
Why? That is the question the sprites have brought them here to discover. It’s the question she’s never been permitted to ask. Her whole upbringing was a lesson on the supposed atrocities caused by the Stratosians, on their malicious ways and their hateful magic. Lessons she’d been taught not to question, but lessons she’d begun to question since coming to Beqanna.
She’s spent a century of her life fighting a war with no reason, and only a tiny piece of that long life seeing what peace was like. Peace - a quiet space where all the doubts and uncertainties and questions came creeping in. Peace - the place where she began to question everything she knew, where she began to realize that the Baltians were just as monstrous as the Stratosians supposedly were. Had they not played their part in this war too? Had they not started battles, allowed innocent lives to be killed for the “greater good”? They had, and she’d played her role in that all too well.
”Every war has a reason behind its annihilation,” says a mare Rezza does not know. She knows few of the horses that have come through the portal and she realizes that she’s the only Baltian or Stratosian that’s come. Did they all care so little for the land they had destroyed and the lives they had ruined? Perhaps. And if that were true, then it only solidifies to Rezza that they were all to blame for all of this. ”Do they?” she responds with a snort, derision in her voice that’s not directed at the mare but the truth of the scene around them. She speaks loud enough that any around her who cared for the history lesson would hear it. “The only reason for this battle you see is hate. Hate and eons of animosity. There was no reason, not really. Not on this day.”
In the fighting, she sees another Baltian - a mare she’d spent many of her younger days playing with - crushed beneath the weight of a boulder. Why? The question rings in her ears now as the violence rages around her, as the fear and pain on the faces of their fighters becomes so evident. Baltian warriors were fierce, but even Helice could not train away their mortality. ”Can you take us back to the first scuffle?” she asks her sprite, who has gone largely ignored and unnoticed as Rezza faced her own demons instead. ”Not a battle, necessarily. Maybe just a tiff between rulers, or something like that? It was before my life, that much I know, but I don’t know how far back we need to go beyond that.” Still, she was asking to look more than a century back into history, looking for an answer that history had purposefully buried. The task felt impossible but more important than ever. This could not happen again. There had to be an end.
His eyes close automatically as he steps into the portal, and he is instantly met with a variety of colors that shatter and undulate against a dark background. A lovely show, really, to see the lights weave their intricate patterns as he descends into ambiguity. He had not seen anyone else when he chose to enter the portal, but now he can sense that others are not far behind. Intuitively, he stops at the same time the others do and he immediately realizes that he would rather continue watching the aurorae behind his eyes than see what actually lays before them.
The coppery scent of blood, which he had picked up before submitting himself the supernatural summonses, grows stronger still as he comes to a rest. He hears the guttural sounds of the effort behind surging troops, the thunderous reverberations as bodies collide in violence, the cacophonous screams of both anguish and triumph. Though he had never strapped on the boots of a soldier, Assailant still recognizes the sounds of war.
A faint glow of warmth strokes his cheek and he opens his eyes just as some winged creature dives toward him. He begins to shrink away from its destructive flight path but there is not enough time, and though he hears the feathery rustlings and gust of wind as the aggressor closes in, the impact he braces for never comes. Bewildered, he squints through the haze of precipitation until it makes sense. He sees an eclectic bunch standing passively near his own position, each with a soft blur of light hovering near their faces, which wear a wide range of emotions in their features. None of them are touched by the participants of the battle raging around them.
He shrugs off his shock as the words of the sprites echo in his ears and soon finds his own voice trapped by the doubts circling in his mind. He is such a simple man from an era that is nearly as long gone and buried as the Baltian/Stratosian history. He’d never felt such an intense loyalty to his kingdom that he had been willing to die for her; there was no way that he could understand the motives of these skirmishing around him or those that came before them.
He continues to listen as the two mares speak and finds that he agrees with the first. His brow furrows as the second adds her thoughts. His eyes find the aquatic qualities of her appearance and he wonders if she is a member of one of the warring kingdoms. Surprisingly, he finds himself impressed by the overwhelming passion in her voice, even by the minute traces of what could be interpreted as guilt and shame in her eyes.
Rezza is someone with something to believe in, which is far more than he can say of himself. He is stunned to realize that he covets on a small scale. While he is still unsure if he could possibly make any meaningful contribution to this investigation, it’s certainly worth a shot. He clears his throat quietly, drawing attention to himself for the first time. “Well, I’ve always noticed that logic and conflict are not the greatest of colleagues. Hatred still stems from justification, even if it is as small and irrational as disliking the way someone looks.”
Not quite sure what to say next, and not particularly caring to meet Rezza's gaze, he looks to his sprite and leans into its heat. Though nothing touches the questing party, the chill of both the environment and the strife punctuate to the bone. A faint shiver runs along his spine as he speaks again, “Surely there must have been a time when these countries existed, perhaps not harmoniously, but at least quietly alongside each other.. that would be a time worth looking at. And maybe we should expand our persons of interest to include those close to the royals as well. It wouldn’t be the first time that a green-eyed monster used the crown as a pawn to achieve dominion that would otherwise be beyond their own reach.”
He falls silent again, standing with an air of mellow self-assurance that belies the fact that he is quite sure he sounds absolutely ridiculous in all of his inexperience in such matters. Still..
Myrna suffocate the fire i started-------------------- right when it kindles
She steps through the swirling clouds of the portal, and finds herself standing on solid ground. The burst of relief she feels at not arriving in the heart of a storm is short lived, quelled by the battle around her. The scent of blood fills her pale nostrils, and shrill screams pierce her ears. A stallion with tentacles where his mane should be rears up beside her, boxing at the head of a mare who seems mostly bird. The mare falls back, and though Myrna skitters back, she is not quick enough. The horse falls onto…no, she falls through Myrna.
The sensation is nauseating, and she clenches her eyes shut to avoid the gory sight.
But beyond the semi-darkness of her closed eyes, a light begins to glow. She reopens her eyes to find one of the sprites moving toward her. It seems different than before, the light less intense, but it is hard to be sure with so many distractions.
A gurgling sound to her left is the end of the tentacle-maned stallion, but Myrna does not look away from the floating ball of light. A wound that must be healed. Beqanna will be next.
She had been right when she stepped through the portal - this is a chance to fix what she had broken.
But how?
Her magic is no help, but the Sprites say the same thing of themselves. What can she possibly do?
Before she can begin to spiral down in her mind, she hears another voice. It does not come from the sprite, but rather from a buckskin unicorn. She had come through the portal too, Myrna realizes, as had the Baltian and the chestnut stallion. As they speak, she glances around and realizes that they are not alone, others have come as well. That is what the sprites meant when they said they couldn’t do this on their own - they have to work together. It had taken many of them to break this, she remembers from the first Storm, and so it will take many to repair it as well.
As the others make inquiries of the Sprites, Myrna listens with one golden ear as she begins to take in the place they have arrived. She does not recognize the Ruins, having so rarely left her home. But as she looks around the battles and the bodies, her attention keeps catching on the odd stones.
“What is this place?” She asks, half to herself, then louder as she continues. “Where are we? What was this before it became a war ground?”
She moves through the portal with wide eyes, her body taut with readiness for whatever lies on the other side. Eagerness had fueled her steps, but arriving on the other side, it slides from her all too quickly. There is frantic and violent movement everywhere. There are the sounds of pain and the cries of both the triumphant and the terminated. There is a pulsating energy rising from the ground itself that thrums through her veins and makes her want to move herself.
Glaw is so in awe of the scene before her that she doesn’t see the sprite that comes to her. It is only when a pinprick of warmth rings her head like a crown that she draws her attention back again. Even with the sprite companion, she finds she is not alone. She is not the only one here who has given their long night over to whatever comes next. She is not the only one hungry for answers. She might, however, be the only one chased here by twisting, trapping nightmares. But it doesn’t matter. In the end, she thinks she will have more to add to her sleep.
Because what is in front of them is unabashably horrible.
Warriors from both sides spar with such intense vehemence that she can only watch each skirmish for so long. A finned mare with closed gills marking her neck reaches forward and rips a mouthful of feathers from a winged, grey mare’s face. A raptor-feathered stallion rises up and lashes out at a gold-scaled mare with antennae poking in front of her ears. The resounding crack of splitting bone makes Glaw’s stomach turn.
The sprites explain where they are and what is happening. They go on to say that they don’t know why. How could they not know, unless the Baltians and Stratosians don’t know themselves? Could an entire multi-generational war have lasted so long without anyone remembering the cause? The red girl bites her lip to keep her composure. It seems so senseless, such a waste of life and precious time. Even as an unwanted child who grew up on her own, she knows that there is a purpose and reason for every existence. To snuff out so many seems unforgivable. They have to figure this out and put a stop to it. Maybe they can’t save those already lost, but they can prevent it from happening anymore. They can break the chain, together.
Glaw turns to those around her, their faces lit up under their respective guiding sprites. She imagines them out there in the field, torn by a war without reason or end. It could happen, she thinks. The Forest could be the next battleground, where she hides from her nightmares between the twisting trunks. The Den could fall, where the faeries had nurtured and kept her until she was hale and whole and ready for the world.
She grinds her teeth absently as she listens to the others. A fire lights within her at their inspired ideas.
Seeing into their minds may help, but not if they do not know the initial spark of the rift. They definitely needed to go back deep in time to the first rulers whose eyes filled with more than neighborly acknowledgement. Hate can be a strong motivator, but she thinks there has to be a reason. There has to be some moment that something went incredibly wrong on one or both sides. “A simple misunderstanding, perhaps? Not even an all-out disagreement.” Maybe there was a cultural difference? Maybe the Baltians demand a bow and the Stratosians didn’t know? Maybe a Stratosian chewed a little too loud in front of a Baltian? Could it be something so little? “Can you take us back to the very first encounter between both Baltia and Stratos? Not even a ruler necessarily. Rumors can be spread like wildfire, right or wrong.” Often, the most simple answer is the right one.
She had stepped through the portal – glad to leave behind the tragic scene and the lingering scents of blood and magic – to find herself surrounded by more death. Lystra stopped immediately the moment that all four of her hooves touched by the ground of the Ruins. She hadn’t come here often, preferring the Forest where it was much easier to hide away between the heavy thickets and cluster of trees than the sparse (and eerie) openness of the strange land that rose when so many others had fallen.
So many souls fall here, before her, around her. There is a creature of the sky and they plummet towards one of the sea. The two elements collide, a clash of fury and wind and rage and water. The storm only stills when the winged avenger calls out – Lystra can’t tell if it is a name or a curse, but the way that it reverberates over the Ruins rings out with finality. It could only be a death knell. There are more, that collide and cry out and rage and roar, and then eventually, they fall.
One comes close, too close. Lystra turns, trying to keep out of the warpath of another Baltian and Stratosian battling. She sidesteps, nearly stumbling, before the thin membrane-like skin of the water-dweller passes through her like a ghost. The Stratosian pursues, striking through Lystra, and the sabino hears the crack of bone and the agonizing moments that follow as life struggles before it eventually flees.
This was a glimpse of something else, a moment already gone.
She was a ghost.
Her roan head turns, feeling a little bit warmth. It isn’t the sun trying to break through the clouds, but one of the small dancing lights; a sprite, Lystra realizes. It isn’t the only realization that she has: there are others. There are more sprites, flickering like distant stars, and revealing that she isn’t alone with the strange stones. A wound was caused here, and Lystra listens, trying to understand what the rift has to do with the battle that they were witnessing, what it has to do with all of them.
They must find the reason for all this senseless violence, for all this unbridled anger, because if they do not, then Beqanna will be the next to fall.
There are questions that come from the others. Lystra continues to listen as the others ask about what might have caused such a hatred; something that might have happened long before this battle that took place long before her own lifetime. One among them had been there, though. But not even the Baltian could not recall the source of this animosity. It was something that went back further than her memory, and as the questions continue, the Shadow Weaver begins to consider ones of her own.
The wound was created here.
"The stones?" she asks, realizing (again) just how far back in time they must have come, for the strange rock formations appear not yet tarnished by time and tragedy. "Might they have meaning to the Stratosians or the Baltians? Something to do with all of this?"
He doesn't mean to be a monster, but sometimes, often, he is. Marten flinches when the first warrior lunges at him, the curved and golden claws tucked against his fetlocks dropping so their points can press into damp soil, can tear into feathered flesh as the Stratosian falls upon him, but the impact he braces for never comes. The fighter falls through him like a ghost. Quick eyes flick up to those who have appeared around him. They jump and startle similarly. The magic of the Sprites has deposited them upon an ancient battleground. His cool gaze turns down to the bleeding creature gasping at his feet. A ghost indeed. Marten sniffs scornfully at the writhing shape in the rust-colored mud, and, unmoved, steps through the dying man.
What use are the memories of these dead creatures to him? Of more interest are the real bodies that might lie strewn across the land, a feast for scavengers and adventurous eaters alike. Tongue tracing the points of his teeth, Marten strays closer to the group. They are already arguing, the Baltian woman spits venom, her voice like the crash of water on rocks. This is personal for her. The others follow; what was the first battle, and where? What is the meaning of the stones? Their questions bore him and his tail sways, languid. He does not care about these people, not the ones dying in front of him and not the ones that also stepped through the portals. The sea is blue and the sky is blue and they are both realms he will never travel - never wish to travel - so what does it matter if the people there shred themselves?
And, because he is his father's son, he must wonder why it matters if their fury destroys the world. Let it, he thinks, be destroyed.
The long-backed bay glides through the stones as though searching for something away from the others, tracing their rough and bloodied surfaces with his nose. His skin comes away clean but for the dust, as though the blood were not there at all. He suspects they are all hallucinating.
"Tell me," he says at last to the insistent sprite when the others are no longer near enough to hear his soft hiss. "What would you show me if I told you I am not interested in saving the world?"
I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife
It's not just to another world he goes, but another time. He feels it, or maybe he just imagines he does – the faint brush of years rewinding. It’s a wish he’s made himself, many a time – that he could wind back the clock, return to certain places, do it over again.
He looks around, trying to get his bearings. The land has a hint of familiarity, but he struggles to place it – he’s never been to either of the rogue kingdoms, and had only walked through the ruins briefly, had found them unsettling.
The chaos, too, is distracting – he steels himself as a rogue warrior barrels toward him, but in the end the fighter passes through as if Sleaze was a ghost. He feels a brief warmth, and then, nothing. There’s a fleeting relief as he realizes that he does not seem to matter to those fighting – he had been afraid, for a moment, that they had been brought here to fight, a task he was ill-suited for.
The sprites speak, then – tell of the divided world, and the task at hand. Sleaze sighs, for he is no more a diplomat than he is a fighter. Truth is, Sleaze has little going for him, yet he keeps being called – compelled? – on these missions, keeps tiptoeing up to madness as he lives through reality after reality, world after world, waiting for the day when everything fractures. He can feel it sometimes, something sloshing about in him, like water filling a vessel. And yet he keeps opening himself, keeps letting these worlds pour in, and surely soon they will overflow and he will drown in them.
(He had almost drowned, in one of those worlds. The first one, the catalyst. Maybe that had marked him as easy prey for everything that came after.)
They are given a mystery to solve – why the rift?
The others – there are others, but no one Sleaze knows, no one who might have cause to know him – speak. Magic forces, ruler strife, different times. His head spins at it. Why was he called here? No warrior, no diplomat, no sleuth. Just a stupid, stupid boy thrown again into some fractured world.
Around him, they ask questions. Show me this, tell me that. He should ask his own.
He thinks of his father. Of the force that drove so many of his father’s foolish choices.
“Was there ever a time they loved one another?” he asks, finally, “or did someone spurn the other? War is so often fought over a slight to ego.”
He says as if he knows this. He’s loved but once, and that man slipped away, and Sleaze did not fight wars for him, had simply let him go.
and there's a madness that's just coursing right through me
He steps through the portal, and the first thing he notices is how many of them there suddenly are. He supposes it should be obvious that he was not the only one summoned to the scene on the shoreline. The spit of land they’re on is unfamiliar to him - so much of Beqanna is unfamiliar to him now - and as the scene settles before him, he realizes they’re standing like wraiths upon the battlefield.
War rages around them - through them - and Shrykos just observes as the Baltians and Stratosians dance about, endless pawns in the fighting. He knows nothing of either group, of their desires and their drives and their passions, and he finds it difficult to care about their plight.
They have been battling one another for centuries, if that is to be believed. Why should he care if they destroy one another?
It is only natural that the group begins to talk amongst themselves, but the dragon stays silent, focusing mostly on the battle swirling around them. Naturally, they bicker as each one has individual ideas on how the warring could have happened - a spurned lover, a bitter rivalry, animosity from the very first meeting of Stratosian and Baltian. They will likely get nowhere, talking themselves in circles, and Shrykos watches as one of them pulls away from the group. He meanders through the battlefield as if searching for a clue, and if he murmurs to the sprite hovering near his face, his voice is swallowed by the din of battle.
Eventually the dragon pulls his attention back to the group, icy eyes glittering as he addresses the sprites. “Beqanna’s magic is the reason we were all dragged into this in the first place, is it not?” he drawls, shifting his wings. “Why is it that her residents are now responsible for two peoples’ plights, and how will it destroy Beqanna if we cannot save them?”
The questions are more rhetorical than anything as the wyvern returns his attention to the battlefield, watching the two groups strike each other down. “Do they share a common ancestor?” he muses, curiosity coloring his gaze. “If they do, perhaps we return to that split - when Baltians became Baltians, and Stratosians became Stratosians. Perhaps something happened then, when one fled to the sky and the other under the sea.”
![[Image: EOU990v.png]](https://i.imgur.com/EOU990v.png)
Famkee [Fahm-key]
