[FR] The Exalter
Gonna be a bit of a dragon-fic dump tonight. ^^
Title: The Exalter
Fandom: Flight Rising
Length: 1376 words
Rating: Teen
Summary: World to world, some things always remain the same.
(This story takes place a little after " Counting Ripples.")
The dragons approached through the immaculately jewel-green forest. They moved with a solemn reverence that was too content to be grief, too grave to be celebratory; the ritual was set deep into their culture, and they understood both its power and its price. They did not take it lightly.
Seishirou stood by the roots of the tree and watched them draw near. They reached the clearing in little clusters of two or three-or the occasional one-and formed a ragged half circle facing him. Some looked askance at the tree, or stared at it with wide, wondering eyes, reactions that he supposed were not surprising. It certainly was an impressive specimen, towering over the gathered dragons, even the guardians, although of course it was barely a sapling compared to the great Behemoth.
And as those who had already explored these woods must surely realize, it had not stood here before.
At least, not in this form.
Last of all came the mother, Sirei, with her mate Keri at her side and their hatchling on his back, balanced and sheltered by her wing. The tiny dragonet looked around itself with the bewildered expression of very new creatures. Sirei took the hatchling from her mate, and as he fell back to wait with the rest, she bore the little one forward in her jaws, setting it down at last on the plush moss before Seishirou.
“It is your will that this child be given to the Gladekeeper,” he said. Confirmation, not question. In truth it was ultimately the clan’s decision, but when it came to hatchlings it was always a parent’s place to affirm the choice.
Sirei met his gaze, her own unwavering, calm, intent, and proud. She dipped her head in agreement, then backed away before turning to join the rest of the dragons. That was all of them, then, with the exception of the coatl nest-mother, who was watching over the youngest hatchlings, sister and brother to this one. They were probably too young to understand and not be frightened.
Seishirou looked down at the tiny dragon. It was male, well-formed, strong and healthy-a fine specimen aside from its unfortunate coloring, a combination of orange and rose that would never look well together. A hatchling from the clan’s very first clutch, and, moreover, from the first clutch of the clan’s two progenitors...it was a noble and generous gift to their god. One that would surely be rewarded with the Gladekeeper’s blessings.
“What is this dragon’s name?” he asked the gathering. There was a silence as every dragon listened inwardly, waiting to see if that knowledge would come to them-for it was a rule that the seniors of the clan had set, that no dragon should be exalted nameless. Usually names came in their own time and for their own reasons, but Seishirou supposed that if the true knowing didn’t strike, they would just have to come up with something themselves. He wasn’t expecting anything to happen, and so he was a little surprised to sense a stirring within himself, a glimmer of surety unfolding slowly, like a silk-petaled flower. Reaching out, he delicately rested a claw on the hatchling’s head.
“Your name is Keeper’s Flame,” he murmured, answering his own question, and all around there rose rumbles and grunts of satisfaction from the assembled dragons. It was a good name. An auspicious one.
And now they were ready, and the exaltation could begin.
Almost.
“Ah-a little farther back, if you please,” he said, turning to glance at the golden fae dragon who was hovering a little too close to his head. He smiled, masking his irritation. “With the others.” She blinked large, pale eyes at him, and for a moment he thought she was going to protest-or, worse, start asking questions-but then she backwinged with obvious reluctance, finally taking a perch on a slender branch near the other watchers, her neck craned as she continued to observe with relentless curiosity.
Honestly. Some dragons had no respect for ritual drama.
He huffed to himself, briefly annoyed by the loss of momentum, then shrugged it aside. It wasn’t as though there was a great deal of ceremonial spectacle involved. Just himself-a single obsidian imperial-one hatchling, the tree, and a brief stillness as he opened up that inner connection. And then a rippling of the verdant moss, almost too subtle to be seen at first.
Seishirou reached out to the hatchling again, briefly covering its face with one forefoot. “Sleep now,” he murmured. As he drew back a step, the hatchling’s eyes were already closing, a gentle psychic wind carrying it off into a dream of blowing flowers. It neither saw nor felt the coiling roots that emerged from the moss, that wrapped around its slackening body with oddly tender care and lifted it toward the tree.
Seishirou did not remember, precisely. But nonetheless this scene was a familiar one, touched by resonances of-the past? The future? A different present? In any case, he had a sense of other selves, whether incarnations or alternates, fleeting echoes that came without context, curious and strange. In some of them he was humanoid-he remembered hands like those of a centaur or maren, hands that were equally ready to caress or to kill-in some a dragon, in some a shadow, a spirit, a revenant, or even more foreign things. No two existences were entirely the same. And yet, some things did not change.
In every life, he was a hunter.
In every life, there was the tree.
In every life, there was a balance, although the precise nature of that balance shifted from world to world and time to time.
Like twiggy arms, slender branches reached down to join the roots’ embrace, cradling the dreaming hatchling, enfolding it as it was drawn up and in, toward the tree’s hidden heart.
Did it disturb the other dragons, to see the child vanishing into the wood, into the rustling leaves? Seishirou felt nothing in particular. Only the focus of the magic and the simple satisfaction of the work. As the hatchling disappeared from view, a breeze arose-a physical one, this time-whispering past the gathered dragons, stirring feathers, fur, and whiskers, and if any had had the eyes to see, they might have witnessed the flurry of otherworldly sakura petals, that symbol of transition.
From life to death.
From one world to the next.
Good job. The Gladekeeper’s voice was low, calm, yet somehow all-encompassing, a breath across the skin, a tremor in the bones. Seishirou acknowledged it with an ear flick. It was gratifying to be appreciated, of course, but he’d expected no less; he knew his work was always satisfactory.
Although there was a lot less blood in this version of it, he mused.
As the air fell still again, the dragons sighed in near unison, a release of unconscious tension, a settling into pleased fulfillment. They began to leave as they had arrived, although the gravity had lessened somewhat in favor of a quietly effervescent joy. The parents came up to thank him, and he answered them with courteous humility, his mind only half on the practiced words as he made sure the connection was closed, the tree just an ordinary tree again, although it kept its dragon-dwarfing size. It was somewhat peculiar to be watched as he worked, he thought as the couple departed.
This life was, in truth, very different from all the rest.
“Seishirou...sir?”
He started; somehow he hadn’t sensed the other dragon come up to him. It was one of the older hatchlings, who had been permitted to attend the exaltation. “The dragons who are exalted,” the hatchling said tremulously, “does it hurt them? Do they...feel any pain?”
Wide green eyes in a pale, elfin face.
A quivering intensity of feeling, an empathy so acute that it caused suffering to its possessor.
The sight jolted Seishirou-like the catch of slamming against a seatbelt, like putting a foot on a step that wasn’t there-and he froze, briefly stunned, at a loss.
Perhaps not so different after all.
“No,” he murmured at last, with an uneasiness that he didn’t quite understand. “No. They feel no pain.”
If any people coming from FR are confused, I’m sorry. Seishirou is my one fandragon, and this ties into his original setting and character.
Here’s the smug bastard himself:
The white hatchling is the one who appears in “Counting Ripples”; if anyone’s wondering, no, he’s not Subaru, but he’s very Subaru-esque, enough to give Seishirou flashbacks.