Interlude XVIII – The New Red Moon

The Child

There is a tower at the top of the world. It looms ever-present, a long forgotten reminder of what once had been and what once might again be. Though the few who have seen it know little of what it is, for the winds of countless centuries have stripped the once brilliant marble bare.

Atop that tower is a child, sleeping in a cocoon of warm stone and ancient magics. The child is a sacrifice. The child is a promise.

Eyes dart swiftly beneath red eyelids, witnessing sights only it might be able to see.

Sometimes the child dreamed of the sky, endless and free. With great wings she'd fly, each flap bringing her unfathomable distances across the endless blue.

Dreams were funny things. They came and they went and came again. Some vibrant and colorful, some a confusing mess of light and sound, and others still somewhere between. Not that it mattered much—for they were all forgotten as swiftly as they were seen.

Blood thundered in inhuman ears, pounding to the beat of a heavenly drum.

In these dreams sometimes she'd grow tired. Her wings would lose their strength and she'd fall, only surviving by landing on the back of something far greater than herself. It would be there she'd rest until the dreams returned, slumbering as the whispers of stories ancient and new suffused her soul.

Today was not one of those days. For something strange had happened—she had reached the end of the endless sky. And curious herself as to what lied beyond eternity her hands dug deep into the fabric of nothing.

A heart beat against a cage of ribs, shuddering and shaking and begging for freedom.

Claws scraped against nothing. They tore great wounds in the blue, revealing the darkness beyond. But darkness was a poor reward for such efforts, so the claws dug deeper, eventually revealing a deep bloody red. And still this was not enough, for they dug deeper still, through blue and black and red until finally white—

The sky cracked. The world shattered.

Lungs filled with air, and a new mouth gasped.

Giulia tore her way free from a shell of marble, scaleless and shivering. The world was bright and cold, and thoughts which had once drifted aimlessly now sharpened into focus.

New eyes stared up into the sky above, uncertain and confused. It was blue, like her dreams, but it was not as all-encompassing. White marble rested beneath unfamiliar claws, and shattered orbs orbited along the edges of the roof.

She gasped once more, relishing the feeling of air flowing freely into her lungs. It felt like it had been an age since she'd last been able to breathe so easily. Stone had always blocked her breath, first of ash and then of marble. But now she was…

She was…

What was she?

The memories came faint, like fish swimming through murky river depths. She'd been dying before, she vaguely remembered. A child, wasn't she? She'd come here, searching for something. A cure, a miracle? …She was alive now, so she must have… had she found it?

Another shudder ran though her limbs as a final memory snapped into place. For she hadn't come here alone.

Palmira, she tried to say, but the only noise which passed through her jaws was a pitiful, crackling moan. She could not call for her friend as she was.

But she did not need to, for the sound had attracted something far grander.

Heat suddenly arrived in a gout of flame, and the newly hatched dragoness could only watch in awe as a titan crashed against the edge of the roof. A dragon greater than any other stared down at her with its massive milky eyes.

"FINALLY," his voice was like thunder rumbling in the distance. The single word was spoken with reverence and relief, as though a great burden had now been lifted.

Giulia wished to say something in return. To ask what had happened, where she was, what was going on. But all that passed from her throat was a low, painful croak.

"PATIENCE, CHILD. YOU HAVE ONLY JUST BEEN REBORN. IN TIME ALL THINGS SHALL BE UNDERSTOOD," he growled lowly to her, reassuring and stern. Yet lips the size of trees twisted, and an inhuman facsimile of a smile overtook his face. "BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN WELCOME IS NOT WARRENTED. I GREET YOU, MY SISTER, MY DAUGHTER, MY KIN. THE FIRST TO BE BORN IN MILLENNIA. I GREET YOU, GIULIA, LAST DAUGHTER OF THE RED MOON."

-<X>-

Giulia spent many weeks learning what it meant to be a dragon.

She was small and weak, even more so than the voiceless drakes who clung to the lower levels of the Fragment. They snarled and snapped at her if she approached, though all shrunk away when Fthora's wrath was returned upon them threefold.

Not wishing more violence, she kept to the roof despite the wind and the chill. Her scales grew in slowly, and atrophied muscles began to fill out as she gorged herself on the roasted carcasses of minotaur and uniauroch which Fthora snatched for her from the mountainsides. Within days she began to look the part of a true dragon, rather than a sad malnourished eel.

Working to figure out her new body was a difficult and often strange endeavor. The limbs were the worst of them, unwieldy and undersized. She now had ten, not counting the two sets of wings which trailed pathetically behind her as she stumbled about. Coherently moving all of them at once was near impossible for her as she was, so instead she kept the majority of them curled up against her stomach as she awkwardly crawled laps around the marble roof.

When she wasn't learning to walk again she was curled up beneath the bulk of titanic Fthora, listening to stories he wove of the days of yore. He was an ancient being, older than the Daughter herself, and was more than eager to share his—their—histories with her. Under his tutelage she learned of wars between Elves and Bugs, of Mankind's arrival to this land, of Vola's rise and fall and the empires which followed. She learned of his god—her god, now—who was both long forgotten and longer dead.

"But why would we worship him if he is dead?" she had asked one evening, her voice barely more than a scratchy croak.

Her new sire merely scoffed. "WHY DID YOU WORSHIP YOUR GODDESS' DAUGHTER, WHEN SHE DIED AS WELL?"

"Because the Daughter isn't dead, the Goddess brought her back."

"OH? AND HOW WOULD YOU KNOW THAT, WHEN YOU WEREN'T THERE TO WITNESS IT?"

Others had witnessed it, she wanted to respond. And they had told their children, who told their children, who told their children. On and on and on until finally it came to her.

But such a response felt weak compared to a being who had been there himself.

So she stayed silent despite her misgivings, and the stories continued. And she would worship the dead red god, for that was the deal she had struck. A deal she would see through, for as she was now what other choice did she have?

She was a dragon. She had chosen to become a dragon over death. And regardless of her worries, that was a choice she could never regret.

-<X>-

The days passed slowly. Walking turned to running, running turned to flight. Giulia fluttered about the roof on tender wings, all four of them allowing her to awkwardly rise a few feet at a time. Fthora watched most days, giving her tips and catching her if she fell too far. Other days he was gone, off doing… something far away.

He never told her what. And she never found it in her to ask.

She got better the more she practiced. With little else to do beyond eat and rest she practiced constantly, her weak fluttering turning to powerful thrusts. She wanted to be able to fly without worry of falling, so that she might leave this place soon, though she did not tell Fthora that. She did not want to offend him.

But Giulia missed her friends. Palmira and Lenna were out there somewhere, burning and painting as was their natures, and she wanted to be out there with them. Not up here, alone but for the watchful eye of the great dragon Fthora.

Not that she knew how she'd go about such a thing, even if she could leave. She did not know where they were, and she was a dragon now besides. Her old friends would no longer recognize her.

…Would she even recognize them? How many years had it even been since she'd been turned into the egg?

She would not get to learn. Fthora did not care to count the years, only being able to tell her it had been 'several winters since.'

Unable to do much else, she put the worry out of her mind. No matter what she would learn to fly, and then she would visit her friends again.

At least, that had been the plan. But one day her routine changed, as one evening the titanic dragon suddenly stopped in his observing of her progress to turn his head north.

Fthora's eyes narrowed to slits, and a growl which shook the mountains thundered from his throat.

"SHE DARES," he snarled, startling Giulia so hard she fell flat on her face. Then he turned to her, and though his glare softened it did not let up. "SOMEONE IS APPROACHING, MY CHILD. SOMEONE I'D NOT RISK YOU MEET. AFTER SO LONG A WAIT, I WILL NOT CHANCE YOUR SECOND DEATH SHOULD VIOLENCE BREAK OUT."

Her death!? "What do you mean…?"

"I WILL NOT LIE AND SAY YOU NEED NOT WORRY. INSTEAD, I WILL BE SENDING YOU SOUTH, BEYOND THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS WHERE SHE WILL NOT DARE FOLLOW. THERE YOU SHALL NOT BE AT RISK OF BEING SQUASHED BENEATH THE FEET OF WARRING GIANTS."

That… did not clear anything up!

But she had been wanting to leave for a while now, even if she hadn't gathered up the nerve to ask. And if Fthora was going to give her the opportunity so soon, then…

"Are you sure I'm ready?" she asked instead of arguing. Because for all she'd grown used to this new body, there was still a kernel of hesitation on leaving the safety of the tower.

The dragon merely scoffed. "OF COURSE YOU ARE! YOU ARE A CHILD OF THE RED MOON ITSELF! THERE IS NONE IN THIS WORLD WHO MAY DEFEAT YOU. NOW, GO, BEFORE THE CHANCE TO LEAVE IS LOST."

Giulia did not need to be told again. Clambering over to the edge of the tower on six of her limbs, she opened her four wings wide behind her.

Staring down off the edge of the tower she paused one final time, only now realizing just how high up she was.

But there was no vertigo, no sense of fear that her human heart might have felt. Instead her blood began to pump faster, and a wide grin stretched across her inhuman jaws.

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From the top of the Fragment of Babel the girl leapt, and with the beating of wings a dragon flew for the first time from its divine perch.

-<X>-

The Empress

The Silver Moon hung full in the night sky, bathing the land in its ethereal glow. The last remnant of a forgotten age, it looked down upon Heaven and Earth alike as though it were the judgmental eye of the Goddess itself. Only the Angel Threads could even compare, but to do such was likening a mushroom to a tree—in scale and scope there was no competition.

Beneath its shine the Holy Empress of the Volans and her entourage marched. Through cliffs and crags, across snow and ice, they followed the old dwarven roads to a most unholy place. Far behind them the corpses of red dragons rotted against the mountains they so loved to guard, their hordes now becoming their tombs. Such a victory would normally be a momentous occasion, to be recorded in song and paraded through the streets in glory unending.

To the Empress, they were little and less. Pests, bereft of their namesakes' power and presence.

And regardless, they were not why she was here. No, she had been slighted most fiercely, and by the descendants of a beast who should well have known better.

The Empress took a deep breath, flexing her talons against the mountain breeze. The moonlight invigorated her, granted her strength which without might see her flounder. This was a most holy night, and not one to be wasted.

Though she might still fall regardless. Her enemy tonight was not a beast to be underestimated, even by her.

"We are deep in Canton territory, Your Majesty," a voice murmured in her ear, soft as the wind. She glanced behind to see the Grand Marshall approach quietly. Normally a calm and collected Elf, tonight his eyes darted from peak to peak, as though at any moment another dragon might rise over the summit. "I do not mean to question your wisdom, but should the Dwarves learn of our presence we'll like as not end up under attack. Is what we're doing here truly worth that risk?"

The Empress hummed, giving the appearance of considering his worries. Normally she would not have even done that, but the Elf had spoken quietly and respectfully, and had run her military competently for decades besides. He was allowed a small amount of leeway.

Still, his question was pointless. "Of course it is," she told him. "Even if it were not, the Dwarves would never dare face me. Their memories may not be as long as yours and mine, but even they remember how I bled them dry mere centuries ago. No, so long as we avoid provoking them the little cowards with hide in their holes as they always do."

The Grand Marshall, Duke Eslaigg of Rotemdam, did not look convinced. But he knew better than to question his better. "As you say, Your Majesty."

The Empress merely gave him one more glance, before putting him out of her mind. For all his expertise was useful, he and his men were not here to fight. They were here to watch.

For this would be a battle that must be witnessed.

Suddenly there was a shift in the air, and the moon dimmed. The valley winds froze in place and the Angel Threads churned in the sky. For a moment the world was cast in a bloody shade of red.

Ah. We were closer than I'd thought.

Her eyes snapped forward as a roar crashed through the valley. Trees bent from the sheer force and the summits of the surrounding mountains collapsed into avalanches. Every living thing which lived in the valley, from the boars to the bugbears turned and fled, knowing well what they would risk should they stay.

"Grand Marshall," she called dispassionately to her startled legion. "When the true battle begins, take your soldiers and flee. You will not otherwise survive the fallout."

"What—!?"

He's here.

A titan crashed into the mountain before them. A dragon of unfathomable scale, with scales of red and eyes of white, it curled around the Pumilios peaks as a garden snake might circle an anthill. Wings bared and countless legs dug deep into the snow and earth it blanketed the southern sky a bloody red. It glared hatefully down at their little procession, this beast who was himself but a step away from godhood.

"SO YOU COME HERE AT LAST, LITTLE SLAVE?" his growl was like the thunder of a god waiting to smite them. "SO TIRED OF SUFFERING, YOU HAVE FINALLY DECIDED TO DIE BY MY HAND? I AM HONORED, TRULY. SO HONORED IN FACT I SHALL MAKE THE ACT AS PAINFULL AS POSSIBLE."

The Empress' eyes narrowed to slits, the insult digging deeper than she would have otherwise wished to admit. Her feathers puffed along her neck as she turned to glare at the beast she had come to slay.

The Volans are dead. And dead they shall remain.

"You dare!?" Nostrils flaring she snarled back at him, hate dripping like venom from her tongue. "I am no slave, you wretched heathen! Man bows to me now, as is their rightful place!"

"THEY DO? HOW ODD," it chuckled at her, loud as an avalanche for all the world to hear. "LAST I HEARD, MINE OWN PATHETIC BROOD MANAGED TO STEAL THEIR LOYALTY FROM BENEATH YOUR VERY NOSE. AH, HOW FICKLE THESE HUMANS ARE. HOW QUICKLY THEY FORGET THEIR OWN SOLEMN OATHS."

Ah. And here she'd been worried she might feel a twinge of regret killing a being so old. How nice of the dragon to make it easy for her.

"Then I shall make them remember," she told him, calming despite the rage simmering beneath her skin. She was not here to debate such a beast—she was here to hunt. "I shall make everyone remember why they bow to me. And tonight, I shall start with you."

The Empress reached into the sky, her fingers caressing the face of the moon like a friend long lost. From Holy Moonlight she twisted to her will a blade which shimmered in the dark, a greatsword which cut through the night with shining silver. She brandished it high, reflecting her own face on one side and the beast's on the other—a promise to both, that tonight only one of them would leave this place alive.

Then she took a step forward, and leapt.

Silver feathers burst from her limbs as long unused wings reappeared. She took to the sky—more gliding than flying—but so fast that to any watching she was little more than one more silver streak against the black of night. Within moments, she would be upon him.

Yet the dragon did not move—instead, the mountains around them shuddered, and the Empress was forced to a halt as the earth beneath her feet erupted.

Falling to the ground with a light thud she dug her heels into the snow and mud, glaring warily at what monster the beast had summoned.

Five chitinous legs tore free from the dust first, long and red as blood. They pulled behind them a body of pulsating flesh protected by interlocking hexagonal shells more akin to a turtle than a bug. Fangs dripping with venom snapped in her direction beneath eight compound eyes which glared at her with vile hatred. Fully pulling itself to the surface it towered over her at nearly thrice her height, a monster which even her ancestors would be wary of facing now unearthed and in her way.

"A Broodmother," she murmured, surprised despite herself. "So one still lives, even after all these centuries? Though I suppose, if there was anywhere it might still reside it would be here."

She was not granted another moment to take in the relic before her. With a screech and the snapping of mandibles the monster lunged with a speed which belied its lumbering size.

But she was faster still. Sliding beneath its dripping fangs she cut through its chitinous underbelly with the ease of dragging a sword through sand. It screeched in agony though did not stop, instead kicking and tearing at her body with its many legs. She brought her blade to parry and block what she could and allowed what she couldn't to land—for her skin was tough as silver and had suffered worse by the whips of men long dead.

Leaping free of the assault she turned and cut four of the limbs off the body, for all the good that did. There were dozens more where that came from, and were far from the most dangerous of its weapons besides.

The Broodmother seemed to agree, for instead of closing the distance again it turned to face her, and opening its mouth wider it let out a putrid smoke. A clicking was heard, and then the smoke ignited, roaring towards her in a pillar of flame.

But the Empress was unbothered by such a pitiful attack. Keeping her distance she circled the monster, letting it waste its energy on such pointless aggression. Once the flames ran out and the smoke cleared, she charged in from the flank and with a single swing of her sword cut the creature's head clean from its shoulders.

And then, with one final shudder, the last Broodmother died.

"SO, YOU ARE NOT WITHOUT SKILL," the beast rumbled from its lofty peak. Looking down on her, as always. "AND HERE I THOUGHT YOUR CENTURIES DROWNING IN SILK MIGHT HAVE DULLED YOUR BLADE."

"And I would have thought you'd care more for your people than to send them to die to my wrath," she shot back, her heart pounding in her ears. "I have not seen a Broodmother in an age, so much so I thought them extinct. And yet you let this one fall without even raising a talon?"

"THAT YOU ASK SUCH A QUESTION AT ALL MAKES IT CLEAR THAT YOU AND I FOLLOW DIFFERENT GODS, ELF," he scoffed back, the casual insult making her blood boil. "THE MOTHER WAS ADDLED BY AGE AND GRIEF, HER END WOULD HAVE COME SOON EITHER WAY. THIS WAS A KINDNESS—FOR BY SLAYING HER SHE FALLS TO A GREAT FOE, AND IF SHE HAD SLAIN YOU SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED ONE LAST VICTORY BEFORE HER DEATH. IT WAS EVEN AN OFFERING OF KINDNESS TO YOU, AS WELL."

The sky rumbled, and from beyond the titanic red wings of the dragon thousands upon thousands of lesser shapes took flight, red as his scales and spitting with mad rage.

Fthora's brood, here to do their only duty—to protect the Unholy Fragment against any who would try to harm it.

"FOR IF YOU HAD DIED TO HER, YOU WOULD NOT HAVE SUFFERED AS YOU WILL AGAINST ME."

The sky began to boil as thousands of lesser dragons unleashed their fury, and in the back of her mind the Empress idly hoped the Grand Marshall had listened to her advice and fled. Because if he hadn't he'd likely be dead very soon.

Then the beast joined in, and a second sun was born over the valley, drowning out even the holy moonlight with its glow. The sheer heat would be enough to scorch the land dry of life in an instant.

She was strong, but she was not that strong. She needed to move, swiftly.

Charging forward she began to run again, taking to the skies in great lopping strides which could cover miles in seconds. Her feathers flicked and snapped against her arms, the heat causing her to rise higher than she ever could have alone. Grasping the air currents around her she pulled on them, bringing herself up and up and up, until she was at level with the last Red Dragon himself.

Then, so high in the sky, the Empress closed her eyes and began to pray.

"This is what the Lady, the Goddess of the Aelvs, says: how long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let mine people free, so that they might continue to worship me. If you refuse, I shall bring mine locusts into your home tomorrow. They shall cover the ground so that the earth may not be seen. And they shall fill the skies until only mine own moon remains bright. They shall devour the fields and the trees and the tapestries. They shall devour what little you have until none is left, and then they shall devour you as well. First flesh then blood then even bone, until none is left. For such is something neither your mothers nor your foremothers have ever seen from the day they settled in this land till now, and such is what they deserve for keeping mine children from me."

And as the thousands of lesser dragons called forth red flame, the moon shined, so bright that it bleached the black sky grey and blinded any who looked upon it in that moment. And from that light did millions of locusts form of silver and dust, small in size yet endless in number. And they fell upon the lesser dragons with a wrath unparalleled, digging silver fangs into red scales and pink flesh, devouring and feasting and tearing that which until now did not know the agony of being prey.

The lesser dragons roared in anguish, many of their shots going wide as they tried to fight off the plague which now consumed them. And though with each breath they killed hundreds, thousands more would take the place of the fallen, and thus the lesser dragons were devoured in numbers not seen since Babel was whole and the Horrors freely walked the earth.

The beast ignored the deaths of his followers, and he ignored the biting of the silver locusts into his flesh. Not that he need have bothered regardless, for even with all the locusts she had summoned they would not be enough to exhaust all him without feasting for weeks on end.

Instead he released the second sun in his mouth, and the Empress had only a moment to protect herself before the world was consumed by fire.

Sight and sound and even thought were all extinguished in that moment. All that existed was the heat of Fthora's flame and the roar of the air itself burning under his onslaught. Death had come, in such force that even she quailed from its touch.

But it was only for a moment. And in the next the Empress gasped for what little air remained, blinking the burning spots from her eyes as she reoriented herself in the sky. Risking a glance down, she witnessed for herself what destruction the dragon had wrought.

There was no more snow in the valley. No more trees and no more animals. The ground itself was glassed by the heat, reflecting the stars and the moon like burning ice across the flattened mountains. Lesser dragons and locusts alike had been burned away, leaving nothing but falling ash and shattered light.

The Empress took all of this in and then filed it away, as it was not important now. For as much as her heart thundered in her chest she had not forgotten the wars of the past, where such feats were as common as stars in the sky. She had known coming in that this would not be an easy fight.

Instead she grabbed hold of the air and twisted in the sky, bringing up her sword just in time to block a spear of rust intent on piercing her through.

Then another, and another, and another.

And she grimaced as the sky was filled with endless spears, and she realized what she had allowed the beast to do. For by allowing him to kill his own brood in flame rather than light, his sacrifice of them brought back power far more dangerous.

Spears of rusty red tore down on her with the wrath of a dead army, tips poisoned with mercury and jagged as ruined teeth. They learned from dancing with her, twisting and smashing against her own incorruptible blade. A single good hit would kill her, and for that she could not allow one past her guard, no matter their number.

Yet her hand slipped for a second, and she hissed as the feather on her left arm were shredded by a stray shot. She began to fall, unable to hold herself up and defend at the same time.

This could not continue—any longer, and she would simply be overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

So rather than parry and block fruitlessly she instead grasped for the moon once more, begging its protection against her ancient foe.

Protection which was easily granted, for none were more beloved by the Goddess than her.

The Empress fell from the sky in a shower of rust and death, a silver aegis flickering about her feathers and saving her again and again by mere inches. By now, she was just above the Last Red Dragon, the beast so large it was more landscape than creature as it watched her descent.

And as she fell over it it opened its mouth, ready to consume her whole in heat and acid. So large was his teeth that they blotted out the mountain peaks and so long was his tongue that it snapped out like a road to his bowels. It could not defeat her in a contest of skill, and so it wished to do away with her in the same way a tsunami would do away with a sandcastle.

She would not let it. For she was the Holy Empress of the Volans, last of her kind, and she would not fall to a mere beast.

Raising her moonlight greatsword high above her head, with the wrath of the Heavens and grudges older than empires the Empress fell upon the Dragon in a final clash of Light and Fire.

And the world shuddered as destiny was rewritten once again.

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