06-18-2016, 05:38 PM
A soft murmur spread like blight throughout the Omniverse in its earliest days, whispering of claws, devastation and fiery breath. But no one storyteller was more intimately familiar with this tale than the chance Goron traveller, unhappily saddled with the knowledge that below Death Mountain slept a terror capable of rendering their world into a place where sorrow would always, always triumph over joy.
But before those fateful whispers traveled on the finicky breeze and soared through the clouds to fall upon the ears of the righteous, brave or self-seeking, there was emptiness. A vacuum of sound, color and change— distant, so very unlike the warm caress of flame and cordite smoke that the fire drake was accustomed to, and it could only grow more alien and cold as time wore untiringly on. Impassively hungry miles stretched outward in all directions, white as the seashells which speckled the shores of the Great Sea.
Snake-like, breath sifting through the air in hazy, shimmering matrices, the great wyrm hunted for something, anything with which it would be familiar. It disregarded all things that did not have some semblance of warmth about them, at last pinpointing a sizzling, phoenix-bright smell that was both malicious and saccharine. The dragon did not waver in taking to the sky to pursue what little relief the strange new world it had found itself in had to offer-- the Gods could play their silly little games to their heart's content, it would not stray from the path for which it was made. Each slithering swish of its scales was layered with desperation, each lambent fleck on the horizon striking and significant like a shot in the darkness.
A tempest unlike any that had ever been witnessed before engulfed the Ashen Steppes; hot winds swallowed all sound and stifled many a breath, coiling fast about any who would bar its passage. Volvagia delved deep within the ground, fiery crevices blooming outward in its wake like the bleeding petals of a field of poppies, winding through the earth in an extension of its own awareness. Softness limited to the touch of fire draped about the serpent as it made its bed there, below the glinting obsidian crust of the ground and within the sweltering belly of Death Mountain, hastening towards its absolution.
Years passed where its reign went unchallenged.
The Goron village had fallen, its knees cruelly sliced out from underneath it, for Volvagia had no need for such trifling things cluttering up its doorstep. It did not suppress its fires in the face of resistance, dry sparks flinching and swarming in star-flung seams of golden intent to devour the homes of innocents. And yet there were those who continued to stand and fight amongst the unforgiving ruins of the burning village, shining brighter than unburnished gold.
Swords melted like soft cheeses against its rigid hide, spells little more than dancing fairy lights when they burst inside its jaws like spring-water bubbles. It had always been simple, so very simple. Foolishly, brazenly, Volvagia swooped low over the Primes, flying to its death.
Volvagia felt weightless, thoughts disorganized and jumbled, sinking down and battered all over by a combination of the wind, ash and fiery rain, and yet at the core of it there was understanding. Awareness. A whorl of blood, memory and bloody memories cycling endlessly across the plains riddled with dusk-sleep and falling stars, playing out as if in slow motion. Like hurtling through rapids.
There was a weight in its head from where the electric blade jutted still, scraping irritatingly about like marbles on glass and sparking intermittently. Glimmers of pain mixed with white-hot saline fluid simmered within Volvagia’s eye sockets.
For the first time in its life, the fiery serpent burned. The beast screamed and thrashed against the wind, agony slivering off from its skin in odious pieces, consumed by its own starved fire. The light sharpened Volvagia’s divine image, the ridges of its helm and the bluish-green sparks shuttering out from its eyelids flashing in narrowly arcing mirage-wisps. A great, brackish gout oozed lifeblood as the waspish edge of the blade plunged ever deeper inside of its skull, the ecstasy of justice easing its way inside.
Roaring darkness filled the jagged space in the dragon’s brain. It swelled with guttering void, sullen and bestial in its contempt for life, scattering flesh like ashes on the wind with all-devouring might. It gushed out from the beast’s wounds, volcanic and surging, a wail wrenching free from the colossal wyrm’s maw as the ghastly pallor of eternal night began to take its mind.
Volvagia’s forearms, the glittering scythes of its claws, scrabbled and pawed at the air as it struggled to remain aloft, attempting to climb even in death from some reptilian desire to remain about the rest, to gaze down upon the world and know that it was sovereign over all. Never mind the imminent failure of its body, its flesh, and the wounds cutting deep into its meat. Never mind the agony, never mind the dwindling carbon serpents trailing out from its nostrils. Fly.
The heart within its breast palpitated frenziedly, falling, trailing, quickening like hummingbird wing beats, spasming against its ribcage in fitful jerks. Eventually it begins to lose traction or simply muscle, skipping those first few fateful beats. The wild, earsplitting trilling of pipes heralded its descent, a thousand phantom villages burning in its mind’s eye, towers and spires alike whetted with the sap of blinking flame.
Awful, beseeching ripples ringed about its horns, snout and teeth, and in its terror the dragon seized upon the broken-down shell of a building, dying swiftly and without grace, a shooting star wrenched unceremoniously from the heavens or a fallen angel dredged up from the deepest, darkest cesspits of hell. It was hardly a carcass— clinging fast to its last vestiges of life, yes, but certainly not long for the world. And soon, even that last tidbit of desperation would be taken from it with little fanfare.
Something heavy and solid knocked against Volvagia’s head, a fist splitting its skull and sending a trickle of fresh rheum spilling out from in between the infernal creature’s already slack jaws. A torpid wave mercifully shadowed the pain, though the sight of an incensed Darunia towering above it while it was imprisoned within such a wretchedly broken state was less so.
The fire drake’s world lurched yet again, an empty, unfocused blot of pain burrowing into the soft matter of its brain as Darunia drove the spike further inward with a mighty pounding of his fists. The wrecked structure supporting it groaned in protest as the dragon swayed, tail sweeping outward to engulf the small, effervescent bubble of hazy vision that had become its single remaining area of dominion, and it observed numbly as the Goron chieftain abandoned his onslaught to avoid toppling over as well.
A pity. Volvagia so would have liked to crush him with its tumbling carcass.
The ground rushed to meet its body as it dropped, hooked claws ripped free of their perch in a shower of sparks.
Volvagia screeched with incandescent pain and rage and despair— thoroughly defeated, the fire within its breast spluttering like dampened brushwood set alight, by a being encased in obsidian and its loathsome, trembling ilk. Towards the earth its immense and snaking form plunged, the howling winds surging around it vicious enough to flay skin, scales glistening and a deep gouge cut into its skull.
You will know death, a voice spoke into its mind, and without truly knowing Volvagia recognized it as the hated one clad in a raven’s dark plumes and cowl. It snarled back, fangless and with fire gorging only in weak gasps at the back of its throat, a rabid mongrel without its teeth. You will know what it is to die.
Echoes of shockwaves surged outward to banish darkness and chaos, the charred plain lit up for a single eternity by a miniature solar flare. Seconds afterward, for the first time since time immemorial, a chill wind blew over the Ashen Steppes.
The dragon Volvagia was dead.
But before those fateful whispers traveled on the finicky breeze and soared through the clouds to fall upon the ears of the righteous, brave or self-seeking, there was emptiness. A vacuum of sound, color and change— distant, so very unlike the warm caress of flame and cordite smoke that the fire drake was accustomed to, and it could only grow more alien and cold as time wore untiringly on. Impassively hungry miles stretched outward in all directions, white as the seashells which speckled the shores of the Great Sea.
Snake-like, breath sifting through the air in hazy, shimmering matrices, the great wyrm hunted for something, anything with which it would be familiar. It disregarded all things that did not have some semblance of warmth about them, at last pinpointing a sizzling, phoenix-bright smell that was both malicious and saccharine. The dragon did not waver in taking to the sky to pursue what little relief the strange new world it had found itself in had to offer-- the Gods could play their silly little games to their heart's content, it would not stray from the path for which it was made. Each slithering swish of its scales was layered with desperation, each lambent fleck on the horizon striking and significant like a shot in the darkness.
A tempest unlike any that had ever been witnessed before engulfed the Ashen Steppes; hot winds swallowed all sound and stifled many a breath, coiling fast about any who would bar its passage. Volvagia delved deep within the ground, fiery crevices blooming outward in its wake like the bleeding petals of a field of poppies, winding through the earth in an extension of its own awareness. Softness limited to the touch of fire draped about the serpent as it made its bed there, below the glinting obsidian crust of the ground and within the sweltering belly of Death Mountain, hastening towards its absolution.
Years passed where its reign went unchallenged.
The Goron village had fallen, its knees cruelly sliced out from underneath it, for Volvagia had no need for such trifling things cluttering up its doorstep. It did not suppress its fires in the face of resistance, dry sparks flinching and swarming in star-flung seams of golden intent to devour the homes of innocents. And yet there were those who continued to stand and fight amongst the unforgiving ruins of the burning village, shining brighter than unburnished gold.
Swords melted like soft cheeses against its rigid hide, spells little more than dancing fairy lights when they burst inside its jaws like spring-water bubbles. It had always been simple, so very simple. Foolishly, brazenly, Volvagia swooped low over the Primes, flying to its death.
Volvagia felt weightless, thoughts disorganized and jumbled, sinking down and battered all over by a combination of the wind, ash and fiery rain, and yet at the core of it there was understanding. Awareness. A whorl of blood, memory and bloody memories cycling endlessly across the plains riddled with dusk-sleep and falling stars, playing out as if in slow motion. Like hurtling through rapids.
There was a weight in its head from where the electric blade jutted still, scraping irritatingly about like marbles on glass and sparking intermittently. Glimmers of pain mixed with white-hot saline fluid simmered within Volvagia’s eye sockets.
For the first time in its life, the fiery serpent burned. The beast screamed and thrashed against the wind, agony slivering off from its skin in odious pieces, consumed by its own starved fire. The light sharpened Volvagia’s divine image, the ridges of its helm and the bluish-green sparks shuttering out from its eyelids flashing in narrowly arcing mirage-wisps. A great, brackish gout oozed lifeblood as the waspish edge of the blade plunged ever deeper inside of its skull, the ecstasy of justice easing its way inside.
Roaring darkness filled the jagged space in the dragon’s brain. It swelled with guttering void, sullen and bestial in its contempt for life, scattering flesh like ashes on the wind with all-devouring might. It gushed out from the beast’s wounds, volcanic and surging, a wail wrenching free from the colossal wyrm’s maw as the ghastly pallor of eternal night began to take its mind.
Volvagia’s forearms, the glittering scythes of its claws, scrabbled and pawed at the air as it struggled to remain aloft, attempting to climb even in death from some reptilian desire to remain about the rest, to gaze down upon the world and know that it was sovereign over all. Never mind the imminent failure of its body, its flesh, and the wounds cutting deep into its meat. Never mind the agony, never mind the dwindling carbon serpents trailing out from its nostrils. Fly.
The heart within its breast palpitated frenziedly, falling, trailing, quickening like hummingbird wing beats, spasming against its ribcage in fitful jerks. Eventually it begins to lose traction or simply muscle, skipping those first few fateful beats. The wild, earsplitting trilling of pipes heralded its descent, a thousand phantom villages burning in its mind’s eye, towers and spires alike whetted with the sap of blinking flame.
Awful, beseeching ripples ringed about its horns, snout and teeth, and in its terror the dragon seized upon the broken-down shell of a building, dying swiftly and without grace, a shooting star wrenched unceremoniously from the heavens or a fallen angel dredged up from the deepest, darkest cesspits of hell. It was hardly a carcass— clinging fast to its last vestiges of life, yes, but certainly not long for the world. And soon, even that last tidbit of desperation would be taken from it with little fanfare.
Something heavy and solid knocked against Volvagia’s head, a fist splitting its skull and sending a trickle of fresh rheum spilling out from in between the infernal creature’s already slack jaws. A torpid wave mercifully shadowed the pain, though the sight of an incensed Darunia towering above it while it was imprisoned within such a wretchedly broken state was less so.
The fire drake’s world lurched yet again, an empty, unfocused blot of pain burrowing into the soft matter of its brain as Darunia drove the spike further inward with a mighty pounding of his fists. The wrecked structure supporting it groaned in protest as the dragon swayed, tail sweeping outward to engulf the small, effervescent bubble of hazy vision that had become its single remaining area of dominion, and it observed numbly as the Goron chieftain abandoned his onslaught to avoid toppling over as well.
A pity. Volvagia so would have liked to crush him with its tumbling carcass.
The ground rushed to meet its body as it dropped, hooked claws ripped free of their perch in a shower of sparks.
Volvagia screeched with incandescent pain and rage and despair— thoroughly defeated, the fire within its breast spluttering like dampened brushwood set alight, by a being encased in obsidian and its loathsome, trembling ilk. Towards the earth its immense and snaking form plunged, the howling winds surging around it vicious enough to flay skin, scales glistening and a deep gouge cut into its skull.
You will know death, a voice spoke into its mind, and without truly knowing Volvagia recognized it as the hated one clad in a raven’s dark plumes and cowl. It snarled back, fangless and with fire gorging only in weak gasps at the back of its throat, a rabid mongrel without its teeth. You will know what it is to die.
Echoes of shockwaves surged outward to banish darkness and chaos, the charred plain lit up for a single eternity by a miniature solar flare. Seconds afterward, for the first time since time immemorial, a chill wind blew over the Ashen Steppes.
The dragon Volvagia was dead.
Quote:1384 words - Site.
Volvagia is dead. Nealaphh has gained Recognition in the Ashen Steppes!