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Character: Lithian
Stage: Apprentice
Luck: 4 + 13
Creature: Dice Roll #1: Kiandri Dragon x 5 + Dice Roll #2 & 3: Kiandri Dragon x 1 and Firani Dragon x 7
Success Rate: 6 - 100.

Win: 27(25/27)/2 = 12.5 x 2 = 25 (LUK +1)
Win: 27(25/27)/2 = 12.5 x 2 = 25 (LUK +1)
Win: 27(25/27)/2 = 12.5 x 2 = 25 (LUK +1)
Win: 27(25/27)/2 = 12.5 x 2 = 25 (LUK +1)
Win: 27(25/27)/2 = 12.5 x 2 = 25 (LUK +1)
Win: 27(25/27)/2 = 12.5 x 2 = 25 (LUK +1)
Win: 27(30/27)/2 = 15 x 2 = 30 (LUK +1)
Win: 27(30/27)/2 = 15 x 2 = 30 (LUK +1)
Win: 27(30/27)/2 = 15 x 2 = 30 (LUK +1)
Win: 27(30/27)/2 = 15 x 2 = 30 (LUK +1)
Win: 27(30/27)/2 = 15 x 2 = 30 (LUK +1)
Win: 27(30/27)/2 = 15 x 2 = 30 (LUK +1)
Win: 27(30/27)/2 = 15 x 2 = 30 (LUK +1)
Total: 360exp + 13 LUK, levels to 38 with 32/38exp left over, +33 stat points to distribute, +6 kiandri orbs and +7 firani orbs

Word Count Required: 3,900+
Current Word Count: 5,002

Lithian tugged at the lightweight hood draped over his horns, resituating it restlessly.

Despite the shade that the cloth provided and his sister’s diligent efforts at keeping both he and the rest of his siblings all fed and hydrated, their trip north thus far had been blisteringly hot, exhausting, and uneventful. Eowyn’s sun beat down on them mercilessly with every mile they inched forward, and Lithian felt as though its heat had seeped in under his clothes, crawled between all the groves in his skin and was now simply sitting there, burning him and making his perspiration slick and hot as the rest of him.

The Plane never got like this, and the last time Lithian could remember being this uncomfortable was when he was sick — bedridden and delusional with fever. He breathed out, focusing on the brush of his breath past his lips — the only thing even resembling wind at the moment — and fingered idly at the new addition to his attire at his waist as Iwana, his hastar, plodded forward.

After his incident with the baowi, Ysette had insisted on making a market purchase for him before travelling out: a high-quality, full grain leather belt, lined with pliant suede on the inner rim and equipped with several deep, belted pouches and a number of threaded hoops along the sides for attaching additional items. In this case, two rounded, cork-stoppered flasks marked in blue ink with his element and filled with water. This way, she reasoned, no matter where he went, he would always have at least some access to his primary defense mechanism: water, to manipulate with his magic. It also improved the portability and ease of his training, and Lithian appreciated the gift beyond words.

Now, though, his anxiety itched at him, and the heat didn’t help. His close encounter had shaken him, certainly, but in a strange way it had also inspired him. When he had first come face to face with the massive, predatory beast, he had fully expected to join Abronaxus in the realm of spirits within his next few breaths — expected to never see his family again or ever have a chance to learn anything more about the expansive world he lived in — but after making it through, after surviving Lith could only conclude that it was indeed his fate to master this art to the best of his ability.

For those few precious, heated, but intensely calm moments, when he’d accessed his magic in ways he hadn’t realized he was capable of, Lithian had felt genuinely powerful for the first time in his life. And it was, much as it surprised him to admit it, an addictive feeling. Drawing on that much magic at once had bled his energy resources dry, but he had done it, and the simple fact that he was capable of tapping into so much more at once made him impossibly eager to learn better how to manage such a feat. How to develop his technique so that he could draw up similar — and greater — power without working his body to the point of knocking itself unconscious.

So that he could do it reliably, at will.

Lithian reached up, frowning as he swept back beads of perspiration from his forehead and then eyes. They made his scales itch. Who could possibly stand to live here permanently? He wanted to train more, to work his stances and his control, his technique — research, practice, and learn — not melt away into the sand. Even the view, which had once seemed impressive — countless rippling bulbous stacks of sand frozen into place where struck by kiandri lightning and other, massive, misshapen pillars of compact, burnt earth and clay that climbed, orange-red and towering, towards the burning sky like limbless trees — no longer felt as awe-inspiring when heat and discomfort distracted him.

Moments before opening his mouth to draw his sister’s attention with a question, however, a shadow halted his words in their tracks: a ripple of darkness, like a curtain drawn briefly over them and then opened again an instant later. Lithian’s eyes darted up, squinting at the too-bright sky. No sooner had he spotted the culprits of the brief, unexpected shade, than Ysette’s voice cut over them.

“All together! All of you, get behind me—Syrikk-”

Lithian felt his pulse stutter, rising up and beating harder in his chest even as his breath caught. Dragons. Actual, live dragons. Bright, golden-yellow and fierce, their wings cast massive, swift-moving shadows on the sand below that rippled over the various shapes on the sand like dark spirits. And their bodies—

Before Lithian could even begin to process the full span of details or sort out his combined fascination and fear, the beasts — three of them, by his first count — came sweeping down.

“Off of your hastars!” Ysette was snapping over the ripple of yelps and gasps that came from the rest of his siblings. “Dismount now, we won’t be outrunning them. They’ll—”

A sharp CRACK of kiandri lightning cut her off, and then, like a bonfire spawned from a dying spark, a crescent of fire streaked up and out. Ysette’s magic, Lithian noted dazedly. The red-orange whip of heat looked impossibly beautiful, rippling like a belt of melted crimson gold and burning hot enough that Lith could feel it even from a distance over the already omnipresent blanket heat of the desert.

His muscles seemed to act almost on instinct, his conscious mind watching from afar as his body dismounted as ordered, his fingers moving to unstopper the flasks at his waist before stepping behind his sister. Accucius and Syrikk flanked her, and — as he felt the wind pick up, Syrikk’s doing, and watched the sand bend into readied walls around them, Accucius’ doing — Lithian felt an obscure sense of peace.

If ever he were to die in battle, Lithian decided, he would want it to be with his family, like this. He prepared himself to fight.

The onset of the battle ran by in a blur: an incohesive melting pot of Ysette’s fire, Accucius’ earth and sand, and Syrikk’s wind slicing out. Kiandri dragon cries and sharp cracking bolts of lightning split the air, and in all the in between moments, the gusty beats of their wings and snapping of their teeth filled in to make for a constant battering of conflicting noises to take in. The sand ground at their skin as though trying to wear them away, but they had more important things to worry about. Lithian thought he did well to simply defend himself — and occasionally his siblings — in those moments, whipping out his water like a winding rope and then thinning it to disk-like shield to absorb and divert energies aimed at either himself or any of his family.

It was only after the opening attacks when Lithian began to lose track of precisely what was going on. In rapid procession, several things seemed to happen at once. First, out of seemingly no where, a fourth, very differently shaped sea-green — dragon? — plummeted out of the sky, body-slamming and dragging one of the golden yellow kiandris with it, wrestling briefly with it, shredding at it, and promptly turning it to dust. Seconds after, Ysette and Accucius managed to also take one of the larger kiandris between the two of them, and in another moment, between himself and Syrikk, the third of the first wave was brought down and dissipated.

Before Lithian could even begin to wonder whether or not they were now supposed to attack the strange green dragon, two more piercing screeches split the air. Almost as soon as Lithian looked up, his breath stopped in his throat, face to face with the open mouth of a kiandri about to breathe.

“Lithian—”

The sand rippled beneath his feet latching up on his ankles as though suddenly animated and then yanking him sidelong like a doll caught in quick sand. No sooner did he stumble loosely — dazed — into the waiting arms of his brother than kiandri lightning streaked down, burning the sand where he’d stood seconds before and melting it up into a stalagmite-like pillar. Lithian’s breath quivered as he breathed out, and he thought, in the instant that he glanced sidelong towards Ysette, that he saw her fingers shaking.

Then, she was gripping them into fists, gritting her teeth and flicking her eyes between the group of them, attention lingering only a moment longer than the rest on their new, unanticipated ally. “Focus on the dragons,” she ordered. “The drakein is here to help.” Even as the words left her mouth, Lithian watched her eyes narrow the barest fraction at the creature, as though the unspoken warning, ‘And if it isn’t, we will slaughter it like anything else which means us harm…’ were rippling in the air between them.

Again, though, before Lithian had the chance to properly process the idea — ‘Drakein? This was what a drakein looked like? It was beautiful, but looked so much like the dragons themselves…’ — their two new attackers were back at them, and Lithian forcefully disregarded his thoughts for the time being, tucking them away for a safer moment.

Lithian’s limbs quivered with the aftershocks of battle, his mind feeling like a water wheel spinning loose and wild in the aftermath of a flood. Out if his element. Overwhelmed. Too much to take in at once. He’d never laid eyes on a live dragon before today, but now five of them, powerful ones at that by his standards, lay in dust scattered about them, what remained of their bodies barely distinguishable from the sand they’d spilt themselves upon.

Their souls glimmered brightly in the sand. Like yellow stars, Lithian thought, or precious gems, and despite the genuine fear and adrenaline of moments before, it still managed to tug at his heart to look at them: such massive, proud beasts, reduced to nothing but the essence of their trapped souls.

Ysette was talking, touching each of them and ascertaining who had suffered what injuries. Lithian became passively aware of a deep, painful throbbing high on his left thigh in addition to the salt sting of several other, smaller open cuts in various unguarded areas of his body. His focus, though, was not on Ysette or himself, but rooted off-base from their little family cluster on another subject entirely: the sea-green ‘drakein’ as Ysette had called it.

It may well have saved their lives, and yet Ysette was ignoring it entirely. Were drakeins dangerous? Lithian’s eyes flicked to the motion of the animal’s tongue and abruptly the realization, ‘It’s hurt!’ battered up against him, stirring his magic, tugging at its natural instinct to heal. Lithian opened his palms and stared at them — slightly scraped and half covered with sand, but otherwise not much worse for the wear. He’d never tried healing before, not properly, but he’d seen it done so many times.

Surely, he could at least help?

“Ysette…” Lithian’s words went unnoticed at first, his eldest sister’s attention distracted by a shallow split on Syrikk’s shoulder which Syrikk was busily assuring her didn’t hurt. “Ysette.” Speaking louder this time, Lithian drew his sister’s gaze. “It’s hurt.”

“You’re hurt?” Ysette’s brow pinched, her eyes darting over him immediately with a surgeon’s precision.

“No, it — the drakein-”

“Your thigh is bleeding,” Ysette said. “We’ll need to get you to a proper healer as soon as we reach the base. Does it feel alright to stand on it? You’re not dizzy or—?”

“I’m fine, Ysette, the drakein,” Lithian insisted, and for the first time, her eyes flicked once curtly in the direction of the animal.

“It’s taking care of itself, Lith. There’s no need—”

“It saved our lives.”

Ysette breathed out, as though her patience were being strained by a petulant child. Perhaps it was. But the more she shrugged it off, the more Lithian wanted to express his thanks somehow.

“We would have made it with or without the help,” Ysette said. But, perhaps after taking in the weight of Lithian’s disappointment, something in her tone softened. “It did help, however. Syrikk.” After getting his brother’s attention, Ysette nodded towards one of the soul orbs. “Offer one to the drakein as thanks for its aid.”

“I want to heal it…” Lithian said quietly, and Ysette’s eyes darted instantly to his, her expression tense. Afraid for him. Were drakeins truly that dangerous?

Just when he was certain she would refuse him outright, though, Ysette sighed, lips pursed. “Wait until after Syrikk has offered the orb,” she instructed. “Feral drakeins are hard to predict. Many of them would detest you on sight, so it is always best to proceed with caution. If it doesn’t attack, you may approach behind Syrikk and offer your aid. Be ready to withdraw at any moment and do not touch without first getting permission. Most are as intelligent as us, but they can be as vicious as dragons. Do you understand?”

Lithian nodded quickly, his pulse picking up with a flutter of excitement, but he proceeded as instructed, following just behind his older brother as Syrikk lifted one of the soul orbs and started over, moving gradually and with purpose as he knelt to set it near the drakein’s feet.

“On behalf of my sister and my brothers,” Syrikk said, eyes on the drakein, “…we would like to thank you for your aid. We may have lost some of our party without you, and we are grateful not to have to suffer that pain. My brother…” Syrikk’s attention moved briefly back towards Lithian. “My brother, Lithian, would like to offer his skills as a healer, if you are not opposed to him approaching?”

Lithian tensed at the drakein’s wary reaction. Though it didn’t seem to mean them harm, perhaps Ysette was right about proceeding with caution? The creature’s body language exuded tension, displeasure, and uncertainty, and its eyes were calculating — filled with intelligence as it scoured over them — as though it were measuring them up.

Evaluating them as potential threats, perhaps? Or simply wondering whether or not it could take what it wanted if they refused to offer it freely?

Lithian couldn’t tell, but he hoped Ysette would be accommodating. The drakein had helped them after all, and done them no harm as of yet. If Ysette wanted to earn more orbs, they could fight for them themselves later. The souls clearly meant a great deal to the drakein, and it wouldn’t hurt them to hand over at least her fair share, certainly?

Regardless of Ysette’s choices in the matter, though, Lithian stepped around his brother as soon as the drakein gave the go ahead. Drawing a slow, careful breath to calm himself and center his magic, he cupped his hand, palm-down, in the air and cocked his wrist up, tugging out a small, thin trickle of the water he’d already guided careful back into the flasks at his waist after the battle had ended. It responded to his magic easily, rising up from the open end of the bottle in a glistening ribbon of liquid.

“Thank you for your help,” he murmured as he moved in, the statement quiet enough that likely only the drakein — and perhaps Syrikk, who was lingering protectively close at his back — would hear. “I think you make an impressive fighter…”

Lithian brought the water in, watching the drakein carefully as he did, not wanting to hurt her but fully aware that her wounds would be sensitive no matter what. He let the water do its work first, washing away at the most stubborn kernels of sand and ushering them out of the sensitive, torn flesh before moving on to anything else. Once the initial stream had washed out and gathered up the sand from the primary wound, he drew it out again, splaying his fingers to dissipate the water into a virtual cloud of mist and sending all the sand falling loosely to the ground below before closing his hand into a fist again and gathering the water back up, this time wrapping it almost like a glove around his hand.

“I’ve never done this before,” he warned gently as he reached out, “…but I’ve seen it done many times. I’ve probably seen more than my fair share of healers.” He frowned, well aware that he was babbling as he brought his fingers to the source of the wound. ‘Like warm leather,’ his mind provided unhelpfully as he drew his fingers down the torn wing, willing his magic out and causing the water around his fingers to glow a faint white-blue with his energy. “Ysette means well, you know…” These last words came almost whispered, as though his voice as well as his mind was uncertain whether he should even speak them. “She’s just scared, I think. She feels responsible for us without Mother and Father here. If you need orbs, I’m sure you can have mine. I don’t suppose I really earned them anyway, as I didn't do the majority of the fighting…”

Lithian’s breath shook as he worked, his body freezing, rigid with anxiety, every time the creature reacted negatively to the touch of his magic. It took all his concentration to keep his hands still as he went along — to not mess up and further the drakein’s injuries instead of helping — but the degree to which she twitched and growled, tail lashing about at the pain, all made him wonder if, perhaps, he wasn’t as cut out for this as he’d once thought.

Yet, he made it through and watched with fascination as the creature’s own magic enveloped her wound, healing what his didn’t yet have the power to. He had almost managed to calm himself properly and was preparing to take a step back when the drakein moved again, baring her teeth near his wounded leg, and Lithian froze, his pulse darting up into his throat.

Would it hurt him, now? After he had spent his own magic to help heal it? Was it insulted enough about the orb offering to lash out at him as recompense?

Instead of attacking, though, she only snorted, a deep rumbling coming from her snout as Lithian felt her magic work its way over him. He felt a stain of color gather hot in his cheeks, embarrassed at his own fear but grateful at the same time, and he silently pleaded with his knees not to give out on him. Not now. As though he needed to provide more proof of his fallibility.

He blinked at the drakein’s question. “Ysette is my sister, the…” He glanced back towards where she and Accucius were waiting — her body stiff as a gypsy trapeze artist learning to firewalk for the first time and fingers fisted at her sides, eyes narrowed and chin high — and Lithian swallowed, suspecting that negotiations might make themselves complicated. “The tallest,” he said. “The firani, with the red in her hair. I’m sure she’d be willing to give you your share though…”

“Step away from the drakein, Lithian,” Ysette instructed, her tone clipped to match her pose and expression, and Lithian frowned, eyes flicking between the conflicting parties.

“She healed me,” he said. “And she fought with us. She hasn’t hurt us. I think she earned—”

“Step away from her,” Ysette clipped, “and we will discuss the orbs. I’m not going to haggle with an anima—” She bit her tongue, clearly thinking better of what she’d intended to say, and then forced her raised voice down a notch, though her eyes burned with fierce determination. “I will not haggle with anyone while my littlest brother stands within a foot of a dangerous fighter’s claws. Step away from her, Lithian. And we will talk.”

“Come on, Lithian,” Syrrik said from beside him, his tone gentler than Ysette's, but still clearly picking up on and mirroring their sister's tension to some degree. “You healed her like you wanted, so just move back a bit with me. We'll all work it out.”

Lithian’s eyes darted once more back to the drakein, brow furrowed with concern, and an apology lingered on his lips, but he left it unspoken. His sister was in charge here, and his brother was clearly worried as well. Perhaps he could convince Ysette to more reasonable — generous, even — with the orbs if he just spoke to her and assured her he was fine. Thus, curbing the urge to bite at his lip, he dipped his head in a half-bow to the drakein instead and moved to take a step back, towards his siblings.

+ 1 kiandri, 4 firani