Drag On, this Endless Day (Closed)

Quote:

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Closed to MetalDrago

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Dragons. Men. Half and full. Blood mingled. Blood spoiled. Blood spilled in the name of purity and fear. The history between man and sky lizard was complicated, stitched through the aeons and threaded together by the mists of time.

“I don’t like this,” Ozoric muttered.

Seldom one to show fear so viscerally, the red headed youth trembled. His mentor, Captain Aelfric von Klatch of the Drakengard Watch was standing indomitable over his pupil. Armoured and imposing, the bearded veteran of too many wars held out a gauntlet.

“Stand up,” he sighed. “Let’s hope your opponent doesn’t try that, or you’re going to get a sword in the gut.”

The arena was nothing but a circle of sand a hundred feet wide. Ozoric lay prone at the centre, wearing his red leather armour and a vamplate with a dragon claw motif. The heart guard was ill-suited for combat on foot, but it was a part of his custom, and he had to train how to fight in armour wherever he liked it or not.

“Assuming they live long enough,” the youth replied defiantly as he was wrenched to his feet with a mighty tug. He grunted, the wind leaving him in a trail of shame, and began to dust himself down.

“I asked for an opponent more dragon than man, Newalla.” Aelfric took a more serious tone than his usual stoicism. Ozoric took a moment to connect an earlier conversation to his implications.

“Oh.”

Stood opposite one another, Ozoric’s diminished form was plain for all to see. He was waif like compared to the captain. He had little strength in his upper body, but legs like steel that could uncoil like a bolt of thunder. Ozoric hoped that was in part due to riding, and due to the millions of stairs and not his penchant for running away from a conflict.

“Of Dheathain, so the monks tell me.”

Ozoric raised an eyebrow.

“You got them to talk?”

“Well,” Aelfric admitted, “I got them to nod in reply to my questions.” He curled his lip and pointed over Ozoric’s shoulder. “They are quite amicable to strange requests.”

Stranger still was the door that appeared. Surrounded by an arch of stone, two eaves bound in iron brackets and carved with pictures of battles of ages past swung open. A dark portal to the ante chamber beyond began to fill with a shadow, a flicker of movement illuminated by distant torch light. Ozoric tensed so much his knuckles whitened. He stopped trembling, however.

“Remind me to get you to buy me dinner tonight,” Ozoric spat disgust. He turned, unsheathed his long sword, and readied himself. Aelfric walked away, chuckling at the debacle sure to come.

“Two years and you won’t tell me what happened to you, Drago?” the monk asked as the warrior looked down upon him with a frown. “Last thing you said was to have your new arena set up by the time you returned. What happened to make you fall off the face of the planet for so long?”

A hand touched the larger creature’s brow as he sighed. He wouldn’t be able to tell the monks about the experience he’d had to go through, the number of months he’d spent trapped in that interminable casket, locked away from the world that he hungered to put to the torch. The sun passed into the window behind him, casting a shadow in the shape of a spider. The shadows seemed to move before the eyes of the Paladin as he smiled coldly and shook his head.

“I can’t say. Just leave it at that, Eins,” the Dragonian whispered to the old monk. “Now, there’s a victim to skewer. I want you to point me toward the one who seeks an opponent of my type.” The old monk rolled his eyes and motioned for the older creature to follow him. The click-clack of cold metal on marble floor echoed through the hallway, until they reached a stone archway. Ancient bricks, held in place by a keystone firmly wedged into the top of the arch, stood before them, though due to the magic of the Citadel no one would ever be able to tell.

Large wooden doors stood between the creature and his newest catch. The world would soon burn, but for now... well, MetalDrago himself said it best.

“I really need to knock the rust off,” he muttered under his breath as he pushed the doors open and walked through. As the door shut behind him, he found his senses robbed of their function for a few moments as he floated in pitch darkness. Blind, deaf, and otherwise senseless, he allowed this cessation of existence to fill his soul for a moment before he felt himself standing once again on solid ground, one foot out of a door into what was to be the arena his newest opponent had chosen.

Bright orchid eyes beheld the being standing in front of him, young hands holding a sword at the ready. Lipless mouth curved into a sneer, the Paladin of N’Jal allowed his form to merely exist for a moment. The human would be able to see for himself exactly what he was about to face, while he would be equally able to size up the being in front of him.

Fingers, encased in black metal, clasped tightly into a fist. Eyes narrowed as legs bent slightly, lowering the large, demonic creature’s center of gravity. His cape flapped behind him in the wind, bright blue to offset the nearly pitch black of his armor. Sand shifted beneath his feet as he felt more than saw the door behind him slowly evaporate into nothingness in this sandy arena that he had been so politely invited to.

“Well?” he asked, voice dripping murderous intent as the Dragon’s Betrayal, a black and jagged katana slipped from its sheathe into his hand.

“Shall we begin?”

From Aelfric’s grin, Ozoric had deduced his opponent would be monstrous. The Lancer had not, however, deduced just quite how terrifying a half-dragon would be. Before him, like an ancestral recall, was his own inner self let lose. The scales armour, and blade together formed an edifice of war he was unsure he could best.

“There is no turning back now, sir,” he said sheepishly.

He clenched his fist about the hilt of his blade to test its weight. Until recently, Ozoric was a pacifist. The war in Eiskalt, coupled with the revelation that one day he would have to kill his mother, the dragon Chalazae, or be killed in kind had forced such notions from his mind. Now, with gusto, he would fight. What he had to learn to do, however, was learn to fight with the dragon within. He had no such strength, not yet.

“So let’s!” he cried.

The speed of a dragon descending for its prey would be all he had to bring to bear. He held his blade to one side, loosely, so that it trailed behind him as he broke into a run. Thermals swirled around him from feet to shoulders. His red hair danced angrily.

When he crossed the halfway mark between opponent and entrance, he leapt. His boots, ensorcelled to work with his natural ability to offend gravity carried him upwards. He descended, eyes red, skin tattooed with fiery markings in draconic, and sword tip pointed at the dragon’s right shoulder blade.

Two years trapped in a casket, and his first match back would be up against a greenhorn. Absolutely wonderful. The Dragonian watched as the young man vaulted into the air.

Going airborne in a swordfight... If I had a coin for every time I made that mistake... The Paladin knew from experience that controlling one’s descent midair was a nearly impossible task, even for the most experienced fighters on the planet. He watched as the young man’s blade came falling down, aimed directly at the armored being’s shoulder. A shudder worked its way down Drago’s spine, but he held perfectly still as the blade came crashing down on his shoulder.

Knees bent further toward the ground as sword clashed with armor. The Dragonian looked his assailant dead in the eyes with a cold smile as his blade hung loosely at his side.

“You... disappoint me. Had you gone for my head,” he muttered as he allowed the sword to slide down the front of his armor, “you’d have won the fight in a single strike... Well, if you’d been lucky.” A dark chuckle erupted from deep within his throat as he brought his own sword to the ready. Bright orchid eyes narrowed as they began to shift to a dark blue. All these years, and he still felt the incessant need to correct his opponents before countering.

The blade in his hand felt cool in his armored hands. Years spent in the same stasis as its master had left the sword as sharp as before. No signs of rust or wear lingered upon the blade. Shadows danced across the sand, the stagnant air of the arena felt dry and decayed, like no one had opened a window in weeks. The reek of blood and sweat lingered in the nostrils.

In a flash, Drago swung with his sword, a wide blow, up and to his left. Dark energy ran through the edge of the weapon, charging with a black magic that few outside of the Dragonian himself knew how to perform. He could almost see that his opponent, green though he might be, would at least attempt to dodge. If he made the mistake of stepping outside of the range of the blade, he would be in for a sore surprise as the invisible wave of energy would slice through his chest with the same force as the sword itself.

“We’re going to take this nice and slow, kid. I’ll tear your offensive apart piece by piece until you’re begging me to just get it over with.”

Ozoric leapt. Instincts were the only thing that kept home from being slices atwain, his efforts to bolster his defences for the coming war ended before they truly began. Had he hesitated for even a split second, his foolhardy nature would have once again been his downfall.

“Okay!” he roared, defiant of his attacker, yet lacking in conviction.

He dropped. His sword hand, singing for the strength to retaliate, fell short of its note. His feet were knocked aside as the wake of the dragon’s blow tore the air apart. Rather than landing on his feet ready to thrust, Ozoric fell unceremoniously sideways, hands sprawled, and cheek exposed to the rapidly approaching, and quite hard, arena floor.

The sound of bone cracked and skin ripping echoed through the still air. The sound of the ensorcelled blade swinging echoed, and Ozoric’s world exploded. Bright colour, the scent of blood, and the all too familiar feeling of failure. Bile propelled itself up his throat and added to his shame.

“Funny,” he sputtered. His teeth reddened. He looked up, prone, but conscious, and realised he had only a moment to stand and ready himself before the inevitable, inexorable follow up attack. He pushed himself upright, scooped up his sword as he rose, and thanked his long, arduous training for giving his once weak and feeble body the strength to stand against the enemies of the Drakengard.

“That,” he stopped to wipe the blood from his chin, “is what I will do to you.”

The Dragonian smiled, appreciative that his opponent was at least willing to take his beating like a man, instead of whimpering like some little coward behind a wall of those better prepared to fight. That took guts, something that Drago at least was willing to concede to the smaller man.

“You’ll be tearing my offensive apart?” he asked through gritted teeth, frowning. “I fail to see the humor in your joke, child.” Darkness seemed to coalesce around him for a moment as the shadows of the arena danced. He reached behind himself to the sword with the dark violet gem attached to its grip and hesitated a moment.

“No... not yet. I said I’d take this slow,” he muttered under his breath, barely loud enough to be heard by the young man in front of him. With a quickness born of years of training, the Dragonian drew the other sword, the one with the while grip, and showed its blade to his opponent.

“This... is mythril, one of the strongest metals on the planet, capable of cutting through stone and keeping its edge,” he said by way of explanation, sliding the serrated blade back into its case with his off hand. He kicked the sand beneath the two of them into the face of his opponent before rushing forward with an arcing diagonal slash, this time with no magic flowing through it.

As he erupted through the cloud of sand, he turned back toward the young warrior and smiled vilely, shifting into a defensive stance, sword ready to repel any of his opponent’s pitiful attacks. His pushed his feet back and forth in the sand, and smiled slightly as they reached a depth to his liking.

“Be prepared for anything. Isn’t that the motto of any good knight?” he asked mockingly.

The Lancer caught the full flurry of sand in the face, the red hair matching the golden hue of the illusory wastes. He barely had time to splutter before his instincts kicked in and made his knees buckle. Like paper in a breeze he was toppled, and though bruises would rise from the impact of shoulder against the hard ground he was still intact, still had his head and wits about him.

“If you spent more time fighting, not talking…,” he grunted.

He pushed himself upright and when he was on his knees, he cleared the sand from his eyes. They were red, streaming first blood and screaming for retribution. Ozoric examined every inch of his attacker, making out weaknesses and small triumphs of strategy he could see in the excessive defensives the dragon though impervious.

“You would be at the head of armies, not a steady stream of men who think themselves heroes.”

The Lancer rose, his frame slight but precise with motions. His armour caught the sun and burned, though no fire rested in the belly of his stomach. This dragon had only rage to ignite muscles. He had only his impetuous nature, tempered by decades of people like the half-dragon thinking they were better – thinking they were able to cajole and command the boy for being so small. Seemingly worthless. Seemingly powerless.

“And for the record.” He readied his sword and tensed shoulders taught. “I’m a dragon knight.” He leapt and slashed at the dragon’s sword arm.

The blade cut into the chain mesh of MetalDrago’s armor, causing a sharp intake of breath followed by a low, dark chuckle as he allowed his arm to hang loosely. The sword in his hand fell to the sand as blood flowed down and dripped from the clawed fingertips of his gauntlet. Bright orchid eyes now appeared more azure, a crystalline blue that betrayed the joy that the demonic creature was taking in this battle. He knelt and picked the sword up in his right hand.

He could feel the pain as he clenched his fist over the weapon. It was absolutely exquisite, exactly what he’d hoped to force forward from within the boy before him. After all, that is all he was, a greenhorn in training. Despite his claims of being a dragon knight, he had yet to prove himself even remotely worth the effort of defending against so far.

My turn? a voice in his head spoke. The malevolence and bloodlust came forth from deep within the sheath of the most potent weapon at the being’s disposal. With a grunt and a nod, the Dragonian’s left hand snaked up and toward his back. It gripped the hilt of the powerful enchanted weapon and pulled it forward from within its home. A scream echoed through the combat chamber as the sword that had waited patiently for its turn finally was free to let loose against the fresh meat that its master promised it would carve.

Black energy snaked forth from the blade and engulfed the being in absolute darkness. The Black Paladin’s eyes narrowed, his breathing started to pick up, and his stance dropped, and both swords hung from loose grasps.

“You’re right. I need to focus,” the scaled being hissed as a dreadful black aura poured off of his body. He bared his teeth and growled at the young man standing opposite him as the curse of the Nocturne of Madness, the weapon that had bested the Dragonian Paladin’s father, took complete hold of him. Blue eyes had turned almost completely white, and the pain caused by the earlier wound seemed to no longer faze him.

With a scream of wild abandon, the Dragonian lunged forward, both swords readied for an arcing scissor attacking on the young man’s neck. One way or another one of them wasn’t leaving this place in one piece.

If the beast unleashed by the enchanted sword had anything to say about it, it would be the fledgling dragon knight.

Inner reflexes snapped and Ozoric once again leapt to the skies. Draconic convection, a thermal spiral of desperate rage lifted him upwards. The Nocturne and its mundane twin cut through where the youth’s nape had been and drank of nothing.

“This is hardly a fair fight,” the Lancer shouted as he descended slowly.

He prayed silently for the providence that gifted him his boots. Together with his draconic heritage he was both alive and whole. His soles padded onto the scuffed sand, hot and dry, and he entered a defensive stance. Sword level with his belt, left shoulder back, chest puffed out.

“Let us fight on more equal terms.”

For months, Ozoric had been schooled by his brother, the Verger of the Drakengard, in the secrets of his family. Unlike his opponent Ozoric’s human ancestry was dominant. He had to call upon the bestial traits in times of dire need, whereas Metaldrago had to call upon his humanity to spare lives and destinies the horror of his animalistic rage.

“Dragon,” he snarled, “to dragon.”

The faint tattoos on his brow ignited with pale fire edged with deep purple. He clenched his fist tightly around the edge of his blade, as though to try and connect with it, to add his uncertainty to its dull edge. He advanced before the scissor could recoil into a grievous follow up, and used thermals to give his advance speed. He lunged through the air as wings of shimmering flame sprouted from his shoulder blades.