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 Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 4:02 pm
Fam watched the youngling leave in surprise. She certainly hadn’t expected that sort of a reaction. She frowned and wondered if she should follow or maybe give one or two of the clans word so they could speak with the youngling themselves.
No. He’d be okay for some time, here in Genyiel Circle. She could worry about a stray youngling later when she wasn’t so busy with trying to manage things and get word about the impending meeting out.
But what about Tarketh?
“If he does show up,” she muttered to herself, emphasizing the ‘if’, “I’ll just escort him to the rest of the Fallen like I would with any other of his kind. It’s not my duty and any dragon is allowed at Genyiel. Any.”
She snorted in frustrated and stomped off.
(the meeting will start sometime tomorrow in real life time so get anything else you want to do done)
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Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 6:02 pm
Viscal snorted. He decieded he wouldn't say anything...not yet. He yawned, and settled down in a large hollowed out tree. He lay down, planning on a small nap. He'd heard from an old dragon that the meeting would start soon, but his nap couldn't hurt. He was starting to regret not taking up Fams offer and joining a clan, but it seemed like it would take away his independance. The youling then driffted off into a light sleep, waiting for the meeting to start.
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Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 1:30 pm
The meeting circle of Genyiel was at the belly of the mountain, where miles of rock pressed down over the massive chamber and the sky never saw what went on inside. Pillars of rock supported the lofted ceiling, carved by magic into murals that depicted the history of the dragon race. The central pillar, as wide as a house, was in the center of the room where the floor swept up to form a small stage. This one bore an image of dragons falling from the skies, their wings ripped to shreds, and down below the humans either rejoiced or cowered in terror.
The floor of the room was stepped up towards the walls, a vast circle with each level about a foot higher than the other, wide enough for at least one dragon to sit comfortably. The younger dragons were sent to the lower levels so they could see easily while the older and taller ones gravitated towards the back of the room. It was a press of bodies and the chaos of dragons jostling for space would continue for a while now until things finally settled down into order. Dragon-Bound stayed safely on the backs of their masters to avoid being trampled underfoot.
In the center of the room, seemingly untouched by all this commotion, was Master Lierce. The reddish-orange dragon wore his ceremonial armor and his Dragon-Bound stood nearby holding a banner with the emblem of the Dragon-Bound Knights on it. A sword, upright, with a linked chain wrapped around the blade. The dais itself had another knight at each cardinal point as an honor guard.
Near the back of the room, furthest from the entrance, were the Fallen. They kept together and the rest of dragonkind tried to avoid them and those that found themselves pressed up near them looked as if they wished they hadn’t come to the meeting. The only easily recognizable Fallen was Lania, glowering at the gathering in disgust. Up on the highest level, at the northern part of the room, was Shadine – sitting alone with her hooves folded serenely over each other. The handful of Ascended that had come were making their way to sit near her.
The room was only half-filled. It would be a while yet before the meeting started.
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Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 1:56 pm
Viscal woke from his nap with a start. All the dragons were going somewhere. That must mean that the meeting was starting soon. The blue yougling jumped up and raced past the other dragons. He annoyed a few, and even managed to make a human fall off its dragons back. Then Viscal stopped. He had found the meeting room. It looked gigantic to him, and it was only half full. He had never seen so many dragons in one place. He stared for a moment, then darted off, ignoring the instructions of were he should sit. He was barely watching were he was going, when he almost ran head first into what he assumed was a fallen. The small youngling stared, wide eyed with fear for a moment before running as fast as he could to the front of the meeting room, were the rest of the younglins were. He sat himslef down on the ground and stared, shocked, at the front of the room. He sat hoping the fallen hadn't noticed him. He valued his life, and didn't want to die. He very slowly turned to make sure it hadn't followed him, and was relived to see the fallen sitting where he had run from, looking slightly annoyed, but otherwise not like he would kill small Viscal. Looking on the other side of the room, he saw a bunch of dragons with feathered wings. He watched them, in shock. They looked like angels. He wondered what they were and turned to ask a fellow youngling.
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Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 11:51 am
The golden youngling sat near the front, on one of the edges nearest to the centre of the circle. The vantage point pleased him, for once his size, obviously less than an adults worked to his advantage. The meeting had not yet started, and most of the dragons were still filing in, the room not yet full. It was slightly boring, just sitting here like this, and he had an urge to go out and explore a little. However if he did that he may lose his seat, and it would be a shame to give up such a good one. This thought in mind, he stayed where he was.
He took this oppertunity to observe the dragons around him, gazing from one to the other, noting their expressions, what they said to each other, their expectations of the meeting. He himself was unsure what it was about, but he didn't seem to be alone in that boat. They all knew it was something important. He listened intently, while outwardly appearing uninterested as the adults around him discussed the latest news of all those assembled. He gaze travelled from those assembled, to the ascended, on their loftly peak, the dragon knights at centre, and finally, the the fallen who sat nearer the outskirts. They were interesting, all of them. He turned to the side as a blue youngling took a seat beside him and asked him about the feathered dragons. He looked at what the blue one was talking about and saw Shadine and the other ascended. He turned back to the other younging. "From what I've gathered, they're called ascended, they can fly on their own. Or at least that's what I heard some of the adults saying," he said, jerking his head towards the back of the room where more of the adults sat.
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Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 5:45 pm
For some time now, Blade had been wandering through the woods with the black youngling Astalder trotting about at his heels. With the young dragon growing bigger still, he was just trying to find a place where Astalder could be kept safe. As sneaky as he was, there'd probably be a point in time where he couldn't quite hide anywhere due to his size. And there was a decent chance it'd be sometime soon.
Besides, Astalder was at the point in his life where he didn't really need to depend on others so much, and he was starting to get rather restless and rambunctious in the house.
Unaware of the meeting miles away from their current location, the young human just let out a sigh while continuing to trek through the forest. In a way, he was also wondering if there were any other dragons in the area aside from the one he had with him. If there were, he wondered what would happen if he chanced to meet one of them. Not only to him, but to the youngling, considering he hadn't had any contact with any other dragons since he had hatched.
Astalder gazed around curiously while following Blade. He knew he could dart off and be on his own fairly easily, but he didn't mind the human's presence at all. If anything, he enjoyed his company, seeing how he had always been treated fairly.
He didn't know of the stories of the past from the dragon's point of view, but he knew enough to know that sometime later on, he'd be able to fly.
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Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 1:58 pm
A shadow passed over Blade and Astalder, rippling across the trees and momentarily covering the sun. It was a large shadow, that of a large body, and a large wingspan. It banked after it passed over and then circled back, again covering the pair, and then it dropped lower until a fully-grown dragon landed just in front of the two, his body snapping branches as it crashed through the canopy and the wings lifting up a swirl of leaves and dirt as they spent the last of the dragon’s momentum and folded along his body.
He turned to regard the two, his head appearing from behind the massive leathery wings and revealing glass-green eyes with no pupil, curved rams horns, two horns on the forehead – one of which was tipped with a curved metal barb, and a smug smile on the dragon’s muzzle. His leathery scales were a sickly purple color with splotches of bright green and purple along the legs and back. His wings were green and similarly dappled. On his back, crouched between the wings, was a human Dragon-Bound. He was young – probably in his early twenties – and had a pale complexion and a scrawny frame that showed marks of prolonged mistreatment. He kept his eyes on the dragon’s back and seemed afraid to move.
“Far from home, are we?” the dragon said lazily, looking at the youngling and then at the human, “Or are you going to Genyiel Circle?”
His tail flicked and the light caught on another metal barb. The Dragon-Bound on his back flinched slightly.
“Answer quickly before I grow bored.”
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Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:10 pm
Viscal nodded, to acknolgde the othe dragons answer. Ascended and Fallen. Angels and Demons. They were quite like that. He wondered if the Ascendeds were nice, or mean like the Fallen. He doubted they were mean, because if they were the opisite from the fallen they had to be good...right? Viscal glanced once more at the dragon beside him. He almost thought he had seen the dragon before, but dismissed the thought. Viscal yawned, waiting for the meeting to start. He wished he had something to say to Eyal, but nothing came into his young little mind. Well, except for one thing, but he wasn't sure if the dragon would know, or if it was the right thing to ask. He asked anyway.
What is a dragon-bound knight, and do you know anything about Tarketh? The blue dragon asked the gold dragon telepathically. It didn't seem like the right question to ask out loud. Mind speach seemed safer to him.
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Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 4:34 pm
Feeling a rather looming presence near, Astalder halted several moments before the large shadow cast over both himself and his human companion. And just as the dragon came down hard and fast onto the ground before them, he let out a small 'wrring' noise from within his throat, showing that he was apparently a bit nervous.
As some of the dirt and leaves flew by, Blade turned slightly and blocked his face with an arm to prevent anything from getting into his eyes. When it was all over, he glanced back forward to see the large purple dragon with a rather sickly looking human sitting on its back. This dragon appeared very different from the one he had been growing up with for most of his life. Not just the coloration, but several features of the body as well.
Those metal barbs the large male had appeared quite menacing too. The chances of a preteen boy with a sword and young dragon being able to hold their own against this large and intimidating beast were very very slim, in the case the strangers decided to attack them for whatever reason.
Peeking out from behind the human, the small black youngling stared up at the full-grown male in awe, having never seen any of his own kind until now. Blinking with curiosity, he just had a slight feeling that this dragon before him wasn't exactly "normal."
"Genyiel Circle?" repeated Blade with a bit of apprehension, "I.. don't know what that is."
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Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 5:12 pm
“You don’t know what Genyiel Circle is?” The dragon smiled wider now and chuckled low in his throat. “Then you don’t know who I am either, surely.”
He settled back on his haunches and the human slipped off his back, lightly hopping to the ground with practiced ease. The dragon focused his attention on the youngling hiding behind Blade and blinked lazily in contemplation.
“Consider yourself lucky that you are in Genyiel’s shadow,” he finally said, “I have no liking for humans but I have no desire to bring down the wrath of the Dragon-Bound Knights upon myself.”
The dragon stretched leisurely, laying his belly down on the ground and resting his chin on his crossed paws so he could see eye to eye with Blade and Astalder. His attention seemed focused on the youngling and Blade was forgotten, save for the Dragon-Bound that crouched nearby and watched with a haunted look on his face.
“Little one,” he said softly, “Would you wish to go to Genyiel Circle? It is the gathering place for all dragons and you will be among your own kind again. They will let your human remain with you, even, and teach you about your magic and how you can fly again someday. I can take you there, and I will, if your human agrees to do a small favor for me. Very small.”
His gaze traveled up for a moment to Blade and the disinterested look in his eyes was replaced for one brief second with disdain. Then his attention went back to Astalder.
“The dragons at Genyiel Circle will want to watch my Dragon-Bound. I cannot have that. So I fly you very close to the mountain, let you go, and then you three enter it and say that my Dragon-Bound is the human’s brother. That is all. Mmm? Agreed?”
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Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 5:24 pm
Not relaxing much at all as the large and menacing dragon spoke further, Astalder tilted his head slightly before gazing up at his human with a bit of. The Genyiel Circle intrigued him, and he was eager to see some more of his kin. And he was even more eager to learn how he would be able to fly someday, as well as magic aside from breathing fire.
Catching the youngling's glance, Blade shifted his gaze over to the Dragon-Bound. Quite frankly, he wasn't too sure if they would be able to get away with saying the older guy was his brother. Though, he supposed he could at least try pulling it off. Astalder appeared to really want to attend this meeting, from the look in his eyes, and he was pretty curious about it himself.
Seeing how the dragon had addressed the youngling and not the human, Blade just nodded down to him and waited for Astalder to speak for them.
"He'll do it. So.. you'll take us there now?"
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Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 5:34 pm
Dragon-Bound Knights are knights who are bound to dragons. They stand for honor, justice, chivalry, and apparently tormenting innocent younglings. Ithiel was grumpy as he joined the other two unknown younglings. A Dragon-Bound of a knight had managed to corner him and had been selling his way of life or something, and he had only just gotten away.
The foggy youngling stretched his wings and settled down to wait for whatever was about to happen to start.
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Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 5:52 pm
It wasn’t much longer before two more younglings slunk into the growing circle. Well, the little blue male slunk in, gleefully playing a pretend game in his own mind where he was a brave Dragon-Knight infiltrating the Fallen. It hadn’t occurred to him at this point that Fallen wouldn’t be fooled so easily or than Dragon-Knights wouldn’t really stoop to such dishonorable tactics. But, it was what could be expected from one so young…
The white female, on the other hand, was wary and attentive. Delicately stepping aside something that she classified as ‘dirty’, she made her way towards the other younglings, hoping that there would be a spot left. Asariel was older than her, she knew, but… well, there were times when he seemed to have the emotional and mental maturity of a hatchling! Asariel! Hurry, we don’t want to miss this! She wasn’t sure what was going on, to be honest. Asariel had simply heard lots of voices and had decided to ‘sneak’ over here. She had followed because he couldn’t be trusted on his own.
Both of the younglings were a bit intimidated by the older dragons, especially the strange ones! There were ones with wings! Not just the usual type either, but with big feathery wings that looked softer than clouds, and huge bat-like leathery things that stretched out to block the light. Asariel looked up at the big dragons in awe before skittering to join Aaliyah with the other younglings.
Who are they? Where did they come from? he asked, not really expecting to get an answer from Aaliyah.
Being the type she was, however, she could not just let the question go unanswered, We might know who they are if someone hadn’t insisted on ‘sneaking’ and then attracting everyone’s attention…
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Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 5:52 pm
“Excellent.”
The dragon smiled and stood, stretching out his wings. He then lowered one and his Dragon-Bound grabbed hold of the joint where it met the body and used the wing to hoist himself back onto the dragon’s back.
“Get on. I’ll fly gently so neither of you fall but be sure to hold on tight when I take off. When we reach the mountain I’ll leave you at the base and my Dragon-Bound will instruct you from there.”
His eyes narrowed at Blade and the smile left his face.
”And if you dare breathe a word about this exchange to anyone I will hunt you down and grant you lonely and painful death,” he said mentally to Blade, ”Your dragon companion I will leave alive so that someone can bear witness to precisely how I killed you and how many days you suffered in agony. Keep that in mind. Make sure the youngling knows better than to speak as well.”
------------------------------
In Genyiel Circle
Master Lierce nodded to the other Dragon-Bound Knights near him and then raised his head and roared. It echoed across the room, bouncing off the walls and rebounding through the chamber. As it died away so did conversation, a few lingering sentences hastily wrapping up and chamber started to fill up even faster as the dragons that were taking their time realized that they needed to find a spot now as Lierce was ready to start the meeting.
“It is good to see that so many have come,” the Dragon-Bound Knight rumbled, his voice deep and projected to carry across the room, “The matter that I lay before you is one that we have dealt with in the past. However, there are certain details that complicate the issue and with so many clans gathered here today the dissenting viewpoints will be even greater than before. As such, I request that everyone here follows the rules of the Circle.”
He paused for effect and to allow a moment for dragons still settling in to listen up.
“Everyone in Genyiel – from the youngest dragon to the eldest – is allowed a voice. We would deny no one. However, due to the number of dragons gathered please keep in mind it would not be reasonable to allow everyone a turn at voicing their thoughts. Speak only if you feel you must be heard and if possible, allow your clan leader to speak for you. We do not want endless debate.”
There was a rumble of assent among the dragons and a brief bout of conference between the older dragons and the clans broke out. Lierce allowed it to continue before speaking again.
“That being said, let the meeting commence. Knights! Bring to us the human.”
The noise started up again as the dragons began talking, some excited, some worried. The only group that seemed calm were the Fallen, watching like cats stalking their prey – supremely confident. Lierce did not even favor them with a glance, instead, he put his attention to where the younglings were gathered and after a moment he stepped off the dais and walked down towards the front row.
“Do not be afraid to speak up,” he said, addressing them, “Our future deserves a voice as well.”
He stepped back and returned to his place on the dais.
“He means it!” one of the younglings near Eyal, Viscal, and Ithiel said to anyone who would listen, “I’ve been to one of these and I asked things and they answered. Master Lierce is nice,” he concluded with more than a note of hero-worship in his voice.
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Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 6:06 pm
Twitching slightly, the human boy shifted uncomfortably as the full-grown dragon gave a rather harsh threat in the case he speaks up about what he had just agreed to. He had a pretty bad feeling about this dragon, but from the looks of things, it was much better to go along with what he is told to do right now.
Astalder tilted his head slightly as he could have sworn he saw Blade stiffen a little, but he just shrugged it off as nothing major. Giving a bit of a toothy grin, he scaled his way onto the larger dragon's back and waited for his human companion to join him.
He couldn't wait to get into the air; to have his first taste of what flight might be like.
After letting out a sigh, Blade climbed up behind the youngling and patted him lightly. Once they reached their destination, he was going to have to remind him to stay quiet about this little event. Though, he was fairly certain he knew better not to already. Even so, he didn't really talk all that much in the first place.
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