The Darkest Frost [Closed]

The Wyvern suffered yet another nightmare the evening before. It left him exhausted now but any attempt to sleep saw the horrible dream waiting for him. So he tried to spend the day doing various activities, most of which involved his job as a Healer. He also worked at improving his speech--a difficult task when there is no one to help. But this was his own fault, due to the lack of trust he had in these Dragon who had never known the live he used to lead. It is not to say he didn't try to better himself in that respect--he certainly did--but it was a slow-going process.

Now, Atarijor wandered near the border of the IceWing territory. He wasn't looking for anything in particular, no he simply explored. He hadn't been to this part of the land since the day he arrived. For a long while he sat in one place and looked around, taking in the frozen landscape. Occasionally, he looked down into the snow, where he'd written a few words. Silently he spoke them, hoping he was pronouncing them properly, "...Mowten (mountain). Wildurnes (wilderness). Iceberg..." He ran his paw across the snow to erase the words. His speech and socialization was lacking, but at least he excelled at flying.

Soon enough, Atarijor smelled something strange. It wasn't an animal he was used to smelling around here... Standing, the Wyvern followed the scent, wary but curious at the same time.

Atarijor noticed tracks in the snow as he continued to follow the scent. They were small and there were only two... A biped. Humans??? No, not Humans. The footprints were reptilian in nature. Humanoid... reptile? Very confused, the Wyvern looked up for any sign of the creature. Nothing yet, but whatever it was, it was close.

Just a couple minutes later, Atarijor caught up to this biped. Still a little ways behind, he could at least see it... but its form was hidden under some fur. With a curious growl, Atarijor took to the air and flew passed the biped. He circled around and landed a few feet away in front of the strange creature. "What are you?" he asked, his curiosity Making him forget to say hello first.

(( Sorry it took me so long @. @ Friends = Bars ... Tell me if I make a plot mistake and I'll fix it! Also sorry for the length, just for the intro pinky promise!))

Aether's body seemed to be moving on its own, shaking and shivering madly as cold seeps through his scales and wraps around his bones; seeming to encase them in sharp and unforgiving ice like that which covered this foresaken land. The prickly feeling of frost travelled up his spine until it reached just under his jaw, tensing painfully as his top and bottom teeth became locked together in a sore embrace.

Aether despised the Icewing territory. The one place in all of Pyyria he possibly hated the most was here, below-freezing temperatures, impassable ice and an impossible place to fly. Yet here he was, off to meet an old friend from his days of travelling. Kincaid had sent for him in great haste; the only details he was given were 'to have a necessary discussion on the topic of an expedition', which most certainly, in Kincaid's line of work, meant valuable treasure.

With nothing but dull days of patrol on his schedule, Aether was happy to accept, and also quite curious to see the significant shifts of territories he had heard about from a Tracker while travelling to the Light Palace. Now, he barely manages to open his locked jaw in order to breathe a measly beam of warmth on his frost-bitten talons. Oh how miserable he felt, Kincaid had better have the greatest intel on untouched treasure possible, or receive the most violent beating Aether could give without killing the gargantuan brute.

Aether glances down at the sparsely decorated landscape, giving his aching neck a rest from propping his head up for hours. Iron columns of varying heights staring back at him with contempt and mockery in their ghastly blue glow. Aether sneers in disgust, missing the lush foliage of his home territory now more than ever, until something captures his attention.

Two figures stood unmoving in between the columns to his left, one a fairly-sized dragon... or no-- a wyvern judging by the placement of its weight and wings, and....

Aether squints intently, trying to discern the much smaller figure that stood in front of the other dragon. A Skywing? This far east?... The poor thing would get swept away in this arctic gust. The closer Aether flew, the more lumpy and misshapen the smaller figure had appeared. This was when the image became painfully clear. The figure stood upright on two feet, its stance rather stand-offish towards the dragon. Anger suddenly begins to boil hot in Aether's chest as realization is plastered across his face, his scales becoming a spectrum of red and black before returning to a glittering opal.

With a sharp turn and rage-red vision, Aether speeds towards them, folding in his wings and plummeting like a missile, never averting his gaze from the parasitic creature. Just before hitting the ground, he unfurls his wings and lands in way that is rather heavy for his own taste. Such does not matter now. He advances between the figure and the wyvern without hesitation, wings still unfolded in a threatening display. He would not let another dragon fall victim to them. Not while he had the claws and teeth to protect.

"What is your purpose here, human?" Aether spat, chest rumbling deeply and milky white teeth bared.

The Wyvern heard someone coming and assumed it to be another IceWing, naturally. As such, he was very much frightened to see a LightWing appear, frightened because he had never seen a LightWing before.  To his relief and ever-growing curiosity, the Dragon didn't seem interested in Atarijor at all. Instead, he focused on the--Human?--and appeared ready to fight. Now Atarijor was very confused.

But then the creature's fur hood was blown back to reveal its face... So it wasn't a Human; well Atarijor knew that, having seen its tracks. Then it spoke... Oh, a male. The Wyvern tilted his head a little as he listened to the--what did he say he was...Earth-Claw? He knew all of these words except for two and was having a hard time trying to pronounce them. Atarijor moved around the LightWing, but gave him plenty of room.

He could actually see the biped better now and was amazed at how similar in size and form it was to a Human. It brought back memories the Wyvern normally would have pushed away, but his lack of sleep left his mind weak. When he looked at the EarthClaw, he saw a Human and so replied in Human speech, "Forgive me, please. I did not mean to be rude. I am Atarijor XVI..." He kept his gaze low and bowed before looking to the LightWing.

"Atarijor will tend to--XaJjang," he said after a pause while trying to remember the name. "I am Wyvern... lesser than Dragon. It is my job to tend to the Humans. You don't have to." The poor Wyvern wasn't aware he had reverted back to his old self, and probably wouldn't unless something was said to him. Atarijor looked from the LightWing to XaJjang, waiting for one of them to speak again, for XaJjang to give him some order.Meanwhile, his subconscious mind tried in vain to get him back to reality.

If one expected the creature under the hood to be dragon-faced, it would be difficult to imagine the look of surprise Aether held now on his own.

He did not notice the hood pull back to reveal a seemingly bi-ped dragon... Thing; until the upturned snow from his landing had settled. And the picture he thought was clear became much more abstract than he bargained for. Aether's brows seemed to knot together on their own, and his expression went from anger to surprise until he arrived to plain confusion. He listens to the creature's voice, but does not quite absorb the words, instead focusing on his mouth forming very sour and offended tones. Until he hears a name. 'XaJjang' Aether mulls over it, repeating it over and over in his head as if he could decipher it and make it mean something. As though his vocal chords had become detached from him, he replies simply: "Aether."

Suddenly another disembodied voice speaks, and his eyes follow its sound until they meet the downturns gaze of the wyvern he thought he would protect. Aether finds himself dumbfounded when he is able to discern what the other says, his maw hanging slightly open. At the rate his eyebrows seemed to fold into each other, it was quite possible the horns on either side of his head would meet.

When Aether finally musters the mental clarity to speak, all he can manage is "There is definitely something wrong with this picture."

Aether's head whips back and forth between the two, repeatedly sharing the utterly cluttered mess his thoughts were now. He points to XaJjang to try and sort them out aloud.


"Not a human." He says to himself in a matter-of-factly tone before pointing to the wyvern.

"Thinks he's a human's slave...?" Aether does not know if he made a statement or asked a question, but he wasted no time repeating the process of pointing and affirming at least two or three more times before feeling satisfied.

"You know what? No." He says finally, shaking his head and turning to leave. I don't want to know. I have a meeting soon, and I should have never stopped, and I can now never unsee all of..." He pauses turns back to make a grand circle motion around the small lizard thing and the wyvern. "This."

Aether gazes upwards to the heavens, as if trying to explain, "This is what I get for trying to put my exquisite neck on the line for another. To be bombarded with the most bizzare situation ever. I swear we'd better be meeting at a tavern, because I need to be inebriated yesterday ." Aether seethes, shivers starting to return as he mentally shakes a fist to the sky.

Atarijor said nothing while the LightWing spoke, daring not to interrupt a superior being, even if he was only slightly above the Wyvern. He wondered if the Dragon might be ill: he muttered something about XaJjang not being a Human. He must be mad... Didn't he know he could be sent to to the Arena as a practice dummy for the Gladiators, or just killed outright for saying such things?

Atar turned toward the EarthClaw, who'd begun speaking after the LightWing left. Even though the words he heard when the Reptilian spoke were in Human tongue, he was still confused by what was said. "I... I'm sorry, Master. I don't know what a.. pooptree is." The Wyvern was even more baffled when XaJjang spoke in his own tongue, "Uh... f-forgive me, I don't know that dialect. Master Leo only taught me only Human tongue. I-I didn't know there were others...."

Atarijor might have continued on in those strange state if not for XaJjang's final question. What is a Human? This snapped him back into reality and he shook his head to clear it. Everything was normal again; he was back in the frozen wasteland he called home. Snow covered everything. The Human was again that strange-looking reptile. An EarthClaw, whatever that was. A minute or two of silence passed before Atarijor replied once more in Dragon tongue.

"A... Human is a... b-by... byped (biped) like you. They look dif-fur-ent (different), though. They don't have scales, only skin. Humans are--were--Atarijor's masters. They enslave-d Atarijor's pair-rents (parents)." The Wyvern wanted to continue, to tell his story completely for the first time. But it occurred to him that XaJjang might be cold here--why else would he carry a bear on his back?

"Are you going to the city?" he asked with a tilt of his head. While he hadn't understood when the EarthClaw asked before, he reasoned that this was the case. After all, XaJjang was heading in the right direction to be going there. Maybe he had family here or wanted to see the King and Queen.  "I can take you there. I should get back to see... I might have patients."

Atarijor tilted his head to the left slightly as XaJjang explained that a pooptree was a place where he once lived. What an odd name for one's home. Then the EarthClaw decided that Humans sounded... delicious? What did that word mean? While he pondered this new word, XaJjang became silent.

A minute or two later, XaJjang suddenly shouted, startling Atar out of his thoughts. He seemed very pleased with something... Had Atarijor said something good? The Wyvern watched curiously as the biped shed its fur and held an awkward-looking smile. Why had he done that, had the bear reached its destination? Now Atarijor wondered why the bear didn't move, why it looked so... thin. He walked forward and sniffed the pelt, only to find the nesar was nothing more than that. How odd...

Hearing XaJjang's next question, he looked up and nodded. "Yes. The city is not far from here. You can--" he paused. His next word was going to be 'fly'. But bipeds don't fly.. "I can care-y (carry) you."

Atarijor turned to look behind him, in the direction of the city. He wasn't quite sure how long it would take to get there from here, because he never thought about it. But surely it must take longer to walk than to fly... The Wyvern looked back at XaJjang and gave a reassuring smile. The smile would hardly look reassuring given he was missing teeth. "It's too long... for you to walk. But I can take you. Don't... worry, I won't drop you." The Wyvern crouched down and extended an arm so XaJjang could walk up it like a ramp and onto his back. He waited, and once the EarthClaw had settled in and gave him the go ahead, Atarijor would take to the air.

((Yip yp. Okay, Aang XD))

Atarijor was himself confused when XaJjang kicked his back and and said... Well he didn't know one of those words, which was said twice. But for some odd reason, this phrase left him compelled to fly, and so he did. His arms raised and lowered to eventually lift his feet off the ground. The Wyvern climbed until he could clear trees then started forward toward the IceWing city.

The trip took about ten minutes. During that time, Atarijor frequently looked over his shoulder to make sure XaJjang was alright. "Wear do you want to go?" he asked as the City came into view.

Atarijor landed outside the gates and extended his arm to let XaJjang off. And then he looked in the direction of his den; he needed to see if he had any patients. But he didn't want to just leave XaJjang here... Frowning he turned to the EarthClaw. "I have to... See my... patients. Wear will you be?"

((Low Muse post))