CASIMIRA
i’m only whatever you make me
She had stayed as long as she could.
Casimira was familiar with chaos and strife. She had been only an adolescent when Loess launched their attack on Tephra, when she had fought a dragon far larger and more experienced than she had been at the time. She had died that day, too — reborn from her only dragon’s scale that had survived, but she had been too young to see any nobility in her death. All she had seen was a failure, and she had disappeared.
When she had returned to Tephra, she had promised herself that she would not leave again.
She stayed after the earthquake, when the only thing that connected the volcanic kingdom to the mainland was the remnants of Loess creating a precarious landbridge.
She stayed after the strange thunderstorm that brought such forceful lightning strikes that it created new rivers of lava, destroying a large portion of the kingdom.
And she had tried to stay through the tornado.
Her and Savior — with his tie to Tephra maybe even stronger than hers, because he had been created for the purpose of protecting her — had both stayed until they physically could not, until staying might mean their own demise as well. There had been something strange about the storm — just like the earthquake and the lightning before it — and Casimira did not know if it was something her serial immortality could bring her back from should she stay.
They make the trek up the mountain now, together, her and Savior. Every now and then she caught herself stealing a glance towards him, wondering how he felt knowing that they might be one step closer to bringing Tephra, and his dragon form, back. Casimira had been so relieved to meet Assailant, to learn that there were signs that Beqanna herself was rebuilding and that along with it there came a chance of reviving their home.
When they reach the summit she seeks out Assailant, offering him the barest slip of a smile before sweeping her gaze briefly across the others that came. She does not recognize them but she is grateful for their appearance all the same, and she turns to touch her nose to Savior’s neck, whispering softly only to him, “I hope this works.”