Nothing Gold Can Stay [Tezz/Ask to Join!]

A cold, dark gloom had swallowed the skies. A gentle rain of slow floated from the heavens to the lands many would call the IceWing Tundra. Nothing but darkness could be seen, yet the moon had been hidden behind the gloom that would look the tribe from any light whatsoever. From the FireWing's smokey skies to the ocean waters the SeaWings would dwell in, this was a nature that no one but the beasts who lived there could appreciate. For many years, the IceWings have been shoved into a corner of Pyyria, having to settle with a territory no one else desired. - It was saddening, but each generation had lived with it. No one would dare question their habitat and why they never explored elsewhere. Several former IceWings banished or executed for their crimes and leaders changing as often as the moon and sun changed position. No government was stable and it kept changing as the leaders changed.

Apolis was once a leader, yes, but he was no different. He changed the Government so he was not the only one in power, a government where only the rich and powerful could rule, as no dragon was born equal, as cruel as it sounds

But, due to it's inevitable failure, he had withdrawn from the status and grudgingly gave it to the current leader of the IceWings, Virgo. But not much to his surprise, the IceWings were yet to experience a change in government, and no progress whatsoever.

And Apolis was obsessed with the progress. The sweet sight of change and success in return for suffering and sacrifice. It was truly a glorious feeling that no one but a political official could truly experience in it's rawest form. But to Apolis's dismay, he had lived in these tundras for his entire life and have never experienced true change. The golden feeling of success and progress. It was never something IceWings could achieve. They lived behind a 'go with the flow' attitude and it was going to be that same attitude that they would go instinct.

The only way for them to gain any political authority is by forming alliances with even stronger tribes. EarthWings were extinct, and the IceWings were doomed to be the next, and Apolis refused to be associated with a tribe inevitably met for failure.

So it the crack of midnight, Apolis had evacuated his chambers in a crystal cave near the mountains, and headed towards the territorial border with his teeth bared and his talons unsheathed. This tribe was pathetic, and he was going to etch his final mark in their history books with the true golden feeling. The rawest form of glory. Apolis would serve as a harbinger, by letting the realize what a mere dragon could do as opposed to an army of them. What could ONE dragon do? And if they couldn't take that, how could they survive?

The German Ice Wyrm grunted as he trotted through the snow, and slowly made his way to the most public place about the exterior borders. Their people was their silver, their jewels, their gold. But nothing Gold can stay.

(Tezz can enter the topic following the large brutish dragon until they both reach the border, where Tezz witnesses the massacre)

The darkness of the night loomed over all like a shroud, seeming to warp the landscape in to a foreign shape. The lack of light was a poor omen. It seemed to invite all sorts of unsavory individuals, and bring out the worst in even the most honest dragon. Indeed, the darkness seemed to be alive, and it was attempting to make its hatred for the living well known. Travelers would be buffeted by near invisible snowfall, and turned around by a lack of landmarks. All one could hope to do was cling to places of light, or wait for the night to pass.

Yet still one young dragon had decided to take a flight on such a night. Tezz glided silently through the gloom, his thoughts troubled. Around his neck he carried a bag full of books, a gift from his mother. He knew that they couldn't afford them. He knew that she sacrificed a lot for him. He knew that other dragons seemed to avoid her, as though she had done something wrong. So that's why, despite his best judgement, he had decided to investigate a note that he clutched in his talons.

'Do you want a teacher? Ready to stop being a useless hatchling and start being a trainee? Well too bad! Nobody would take the time to teach a loser weirdo like you! Maybe you should go out at night when it's dark out, and see if anyone there will teach you a thing or two!'

It was a childish note, and nothing more than a cruel joke in reality. Some young dragon had delivered it to impress his friends, or get a laugh out of the newcomer's misery. Tezz knew this, and hoped that the writer of the note was happy with it. He couldn't be mad at the writer of the note, no matter how hard he tried to be. It was true, he hadn't been able to find anyone to teach him. And he was weird. Still, desperation drove him. He had to be the best scholar or healer the IceWings had ever seen. At this point he would accept whichever he found a teacher for first. Maybe the note had a point. Perhaps the only teacher he would find is one strange enough to be out this late. They certainly wouldn't mind him being odd...

So Tezz headed for the nearest populated area, near the border. It wasn't far from the small cave that he and his mom resided in, so he should be fine despite the darkness, right? He shook his head to clear his mind of any doubt on the matter. He had made the flight before, so he could do it again. So he continued his flight, oblivious to his proximity to another dragon, too distracted by his own thoughts to notice much of anything at all.

The one hundred and twenty foot ice wyrm had continued trotting through the rough blanket of snow on the ground, leaving his cryptic, large footprint behind. But no longer would these footprints become gardens, but instead sinkholes. This prideful, glory-loving brute has slowly made way to the exterior of the IceWing Kingdom, nearby the mountain pass to be exact. And in the nearby distance was a smaller Guardian patrolling the border as order. He wasn't the biggest thing either, and judging from how closely he was patrolling to the palace, it was likely that he was new to being a Guardian.

Apolis smiled innocently and held his head high as he approached the unaware guardian, "Ahh... my friend. - What's with all this standing around? There is more nearby, just beyond the borders."

At those words with a deep, rich German accent, the Guardian averted his attention to the larger IceWing brute and was lost for words for a moment as he recognized the size difference, but it wasn't long before Apolis broke the silence, "Well...?" He spoke gently and movingly before he replied.

"Oh, well.. what are you doing out here so late, Apolis?" He spoke with an uptight tone. Apolis simply smirked, "I could show you better than I could tell you. What shall it be, friend?"

The young guardian simply looked puzzled by the offer, but nodded slowly. "You don't have any luggage with you... uhm, I'd rather you show me." He lowered his guard, and it was at that moment that Apolis licked his lips and pounced on the incompetent guard, his teeth crushing through his scales and into his throat with ease as his screams had lasted mere seconds before silence. Blood splattered across the snow like rain drops. He let the body sit there, dead as he licked the blood from his lips with a very amused look in his cold eyes. "What a thrill. There's more to come, for sure." He chuckled before abandoning the body there and continuing towards the borders. It wasn't unlikely that someone would discover the body and/or follow the paw prints that came with it. A storm was coming.

(Sorry for the rushed post.)

The night air felt wonderful tonight. There was a lot going on with his life, but it was simple moments like this that made Tezz glad to be alive. He briefly wondered if he was even old enough to be having those kind of thoughts. After a brief contemplation, he decided that anyone can be glad to be alive if they try. So with that, he closed his eyes, and enjoyed the wind flowing past his feathered form. With such free time, a mind could wander to many things, and perhaps even get lost.

A strange sound prevented it from wandering too far. It was something akin to a voice, though separate. By the time Tezz's mind had resurfaced to attempt to comprehend it, the scream was over. How strange. Maybe a conversation was happening nearby? He would begin to drop from the sky, attempting to investigate. He was determined to not return home until he had finally found a mentor.

The clouded night offered little in the way of visual aid, so it was not until Tezz landed that he could inspect his surroundings. The falling snow restricted his vision further, so only the immediate area around him was visible to his poor night vision. Snow attempted to reflect light existed, creating an eerie greyness across the land. After a few moments search, Tezz happened upon a trail of large footprints in the snow. "This looks like an adult was here. Maybe they can help me out!" He mused to himself cheerfully, beginning to follow the trail at a run. Being out at night this late alone... the danger of it was exhilarating. He began to think of how he would eventually greet whoever left these tracks. He would likely begin with his name, before asking if they were one of the ranks he wanted to learn from. His mind was set.

It was fortunate for his young mind that he hadn't followed the footsteps in the opposite direction a short distance. The lifeless form of a young Icewing sentinel would have likely remained with him for the rest of his days.

In these lands, littered with ice wyrms, it was strongly regarded to be the one and true place where only the strong would survive. Small amounts of food, few sources of heat, and no scenery besides an endless tundra of ever-storming blizzards. It was not the hazardous winds that was tragic to Apolis, it was the lack of... anything that was the true tragedy. No life. No vegetation. And this tribe humbly accepted their position. They were all pacifists, wanting to progress without fighting.

But why trust such a flimsy illusion? Such a... lie. Dragons were the takers of life and the bringer of death. They were born with talons that rip and the teeth that shred. We segregate ourselves with territory. We, all dragons, yet, all different. Acting as if we're different species.

Don't get the wrong idea, this was not the thought of a savior. This was not the beginning of a dragon that would bring unity, but destruction. Hatred and blood. There was no such thing has unity, when it truth, no dragon was truly unified as long as we bared talons and teeth.

Apolis trotted through the slow with a trail of blood smothered over his maw, frozen into his lips as a symbol of his crimes. A murderer, they'd call him. But to him, this was just the beginning of true salvation, a world where he would tear the eyes out from their very sockets if a brute would not recognize the blood they were meant to shed.

A world stained with red and dragons on top is a true belief of the dragon that would soon murder more, Apolis. A world where unification and peace was just a dream. A psycho, is what people would call him. Delusional. But even so, he would make Pyyria realize and fear this until he drew his last breath.

A murderer and psychopath was coming, or was it the storm he was speaking about?

Apolis continued towards the border, and hacked and slashed every person he came across, as his footprints grew redder and redder with every step he took. Slowly becoming pools of frozen red. It had only been an hours, but tens of dragons would lie on the ground, scattered, and dead. His claws, now a rich shade of wine red. His eyes were bloodshot, and his teeth and mouth dirtied with flakes of dried blood and sometimes, scales of others that had stuck to him.

It was a trail of bodies that would lead to Apolis, until he would take flight at the border, which was only an hour away. But it was at that moment that the air had changed from an icy dryness to a rich, bloody scent. It was intoxicatingly arousing to the brute, as this was the embrace of a new fate he brought to himself. No god nor goddess could further dictate this mission of his, but himself.

The footsteps that Tezz was following were large, and already beginning to fade in the steadily increasing snowfall. At this rate he'd never catch up! Every step they seemed to take was worth two of his. So with a running start, Tezz took to the skies. Not wanting to risk an injury due to turbulence, he had to fly high above the ground. As such, the landscape of bodies below was covered by darkness. Tezz descended at intervals to ensure he was on the right track, but he always took off immediately afterwards, missing all evidence of brutality in his innocent quest.

After a while of pursuit, he noticed something was off. Rather, he felt it intuitively. There was an air of danger, almost palpable now. It set all of his nerves on end. Touching down for the fifth time, he paused to try and quell these fears as meaningless anxiety. The heavily bloody footprints seemed to do the exact opposite. He shivered and nearly retched at the sight, his entire body screaming for him to run away. However, he couldn't just abandon this! Whoever left these footprints must be hurt, and need help! He took off in a frantic flight, missing yet another corpse in his panic.

He was descending to check his progress yet again when his world shattered. Laying on the snow in a blanket of red was a familiar form to him. A form that he had know his entire life. The lifeless form of his mother, Seinice. Shock, anger, and fear wracked Tezz all at once, mixing and fusing with his already palpable panic, forming a true despair. His actions were an automatic blur from there. He briefly landed, tried to get her to wake, confirmed her death, and fled the scene. There was an instinct that drove him away from IceWing territory, towards the lands he used to call home. A part of him noted the continuing bloody tracks beneath him, and the Wyrm that they eventually led to. But grief ignored this, escape being all his world had become. He no longer had a place in the IceWings.

Bump

Edited my last post, I'm considering this topic done for all intents and purposes. There's been a change of plans for Tezz.