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Published: 2007-03-12 22:18:50 +0000 UTC; Views: 210; Favourites: 0; Downloads: 1
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THE LESSERSPrologue: Beginnings
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“They are afraid.”
The older black dragon, scales dulled with age, grinned. The ancient creature moved about the open ground slowly, rocks and boulders cracking and breaking underneath its massive claws.
“It’s a good thing too, wyrmling, understand that they are beneath us.”
“Beneath,” the younger dragon scratched his chin with his forepaw in thought, but was cut off by a sharp glare from the elder black.
“Yes, beneath. Don’t ask stupid questions Matheluix, you know we are better… stronger.”
Matheluix nodded, pawing at the ground quietly. His ears perked as his mentor continued.
“Elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes…all other creatures are beneath us dragons. And it’s a proven fact! Just look,” The ancient sat up on his hind legs, muscles rippling as he unfurled his great wings. Acidic green and black fluid oozed from between the creature’s teeth as it gave its young pupil a wicked sneer.
The wyrmling looked himself over, a small smile creeping over his scaled muzzle. He out stretched his small wings and extended his taloned claws, but looked up when the other dragon spoke up suddenly, “you aren’t there yet, child, don’t even think it.”
A bitter tone crept into his voice then, “Hell, who knows if you ever will… bastard.”
Matheluix’s head and shoulders dropped pathetically, he didn’t look up, embarrassed and afraid of the elder’s gaze.
“But no matter,” The elder turned away from the wyrm, starring out across the field and distant mountains, he spoke softly as he continued, voice icy as ever, and laid his head down on the grass, “Get out of my sight, boy, and find your whore mother.”
Matheluix didn’t need to be told twice.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“I heard him. I know what he said to you, son.”
Alexithiya, a black dragon female and Matheluix’s mother, sat in a stone chair amidst her treasure hoard within her and her sons cavernous home, one they also shared with the ancient black, who was now sulking about the fields nearby. His mother shifted in her humanoid form, flipping her deep maroon hair over her shoulder and crossing her pale legs with a pained look on her face. She leaned in on her knees gazing down at her upset child.
“Taedextius has always been bitter about my trysts”, she said aloud, “It’s a shame he takes it all out on you…”
Matheluix winced slightly, hearing the name of the ancient and thought back to how he had spoken to him not all that long ago. It surely stung.
“He called you a bastard…put you down.”
The child stayed quiet.
“You know he isn’t really your father, Matheluix.”
The young wyrm nodded, having learned the truth long ago. It was sad how it was almost constantly brought into conversations between his mother and “father”.
The fact that he wasn’t Taedextius’s child stung the elder, if not more that it stung Matheluix himself, for the child had always fought for his affection.
Taedextius, soon to enter his final years, had never had a child due to a skirmish with a group of “lesser” years and years before. A younger Taedextius was caught by a group of elves and men to be slaughtered, his hide to be sold to the highest bidder. As a cruel joke, they castrated him before skinning the dragon but before they got the chance to finish their dirty job, the hunting group was massacred by of Taedextius’s siblings, who had been watching the ordeal.
If there was ever anything the old black had wanted, it was to father his own children, new additions to Family Galdier, but in his denial, when Alexithiya became pregnant, he foolishly convinced himself that it was the child he had so long hoped for.
“I did it because I know you could never have one of your own! I did it for you, so you could at least raise a child!”
Matheluix thought back on one of his parent’s particularly bad fights. He had been in his own room, curled up in a bed of straw. His parent’s voices would thunder and carry through the walls, keeping him awake, and despite his attempts to drown them out and sleep, he ended up hearing every word.
“I did it for you…so you would have a child to love.”
Alexithiya’s words fell on deaf ears. The ancient male, knowing that his beloved mate had strayed, even if only for a short while, was heartbroken and betrayed in the worst way.
“No, dear, you did it because I just couldn’t.” Taedextius’s eyes were misted over as he spoke, claws digging into the stone floor and digging gashes. “I’m hardly even a male anymore. I’m just… a failed shell of what I was!”
It was hard for Alexithiya to listen to her mate speak in such a way, she could tell he was wounded badly and that all she did had severed any loving connection he held for her. She regretted it, but she loved her child.
It pained her now to hear her mate talk to their son, her son, in such caustic ways, breaking him down and making him feel small, all because of her own mistakes.
“Why does he hate me mother?”
Alexithiya broke free from her own thoughts and looked back down at her boy. Matheluix titled his black-scaled head, looking for an answer, any kind, on his mother’s fair face. She forced a small smile and leaned her head back on her chair.
“He doesn’t hate you. Its just…hard for him to except you.”
“But am I so different? I look like him. Scales, wings... Momma, he talks to me like ---”
“The way he speaks about lesser. I know.”
The young wyrm nodded and his mother furled her brows, “he looks at everyone that way now. Even me.”
She stood, melancholy ebbing into her soft features, “he doesn’t hate you,” she reiterated.
But Matheluix wasn’t satisfied with that answer. “I want him to be proud of me, mother…”
She said nothing but kept that forced smile on her face.
“Hey, you know what,” the boy said suddenly with a burst of enthusiasm. His body began to change and take shape into the form of a small elven child, a lesser, with black hair and blue eyes, wings retracting and melding into the pale flesh of his back. “If I kill all the lesser, daddy will be happy!” he was too busy looking himself over, checking his form, pulling his new hair to notice his mothers expression. Her smile had disappeared, face hardened and she stepped down from her dais and bent over to grab his arm.
“W-what?” his face froze, not quite understanding what was wrong. She held his arm fast, not allowing him to look or turn away.
“No.”
“No? But mother--”
“Never, fool boy, never do I want you to say those things!”
“…”
“No good ever came from a persons death. Dragon, elf, dwarf, no good, none at all! Your father is very disturbed, disturbed and callous over the past and his, as well as my faults. No mater what he says, no matter how many men, women, children you were to slay,” she closed her eyes, tears rolling down her cheeks, “nothing could ever heal the wounds he harbors.”
She let go and the male jerked away,and he looked at the floor before falling back on his rump. He glanced up slowly; his mother’s back was already turned towards him as she made her way towards the entrance of the caves, taking her leave.
“There are some things you just can’t help, Matheluix.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Leaves crackled and twigs snapped underneath Matheluix’s feet as he ran,-on two legs-, through the woods near his home.
The Woods had no name and was the wyrm’s favorite hiding place, somewhere he could venture and be alone when something had either angered or upset him.
Usually that something was Taedextius, like it was today.
He thought about his mother and what they talked about back in the cave, her words ran through his head in a constant stream.
Some things just can’t be helped.
“I can’t make him like me…” Matheluix shook the thoughts away and kept running underneath tree limps and over leaf piles, venturing deeper and deeper into the recesses of the woods. He looked around every once in awhile to make sure he wasn’t being tailed; besides being a good hideout for him, it was also off limits. The whole pace was supposedly teeming with elves of all kinds, moon, sun, wood elves. His father had told him many times to stay out, but the boy didn’t listen.
“Elves live there, boy. Evil, stealthy creatures that would think of nothing more than to cut free your scaled neck!”
He hadn’t seen a single one in there. Ever.
Matheluix sighed heavily upon finding his special spot; an old fallen and rotting log, smack dab in the middle of the forest. The air here was dense and cold, gold and blue lights dances among the tree boughs and a thick gray mist coated the ground. A blast of wind flew between the trees sending leaves and mist swirling around in small flurries.
It was peaceful, “its so pretty here.” He lied down on the trunk, belly up, and crossed his arms behind his head.
Peaceful…
“Hello?”
Matheluix sat up and looked around wildly, looking around from side to side. “Who said that? Who’s there?”
He screamed when something touched his shoulder.
“Hello!”
Matheluix turned his head quickly and came face to face with a lad about his age…
BOOM!
He fell back over the log and rolled into a sitting position, scared and frigidly still.
The lad grinned and jumped ontop of the log, leaning over and gazing at Matheluix. “Sorry I scarred ya!”
Brown hair, brown eyes, and pointed ears. Matheluix had never seen an elf before. He felt himself screaming inside and the words of Taedextius filled his mind.
Evil creatures!
“hey whats wrong?”
no answer.
The lad stood straight and pouted slightly, raising a brow, “My name is Astron Keld. Whats yours?”
Silence.
Astron rolled his eyes and knelt again, grabbing Matheluix, who was still frozen, and shook his shoulders roughly. “Hellooooooooooo?” The black dragon wailed at that and broke away fairly easily, scrambling to his feet and standing a few feet away, teeth bared. His blue eyes were wide and hissed, “Get away from me, elf!” that had Astron twisted.
“Uh, your and elf too, you know,” and he pointed to his hair then to Matheluix’s own. “And your ears! Pointed tips.”
Oh I forgot! He thinks I’m one of him, Matheluix calmed and a sneer spread over his face. He slapped astrons hands away and placed his hands on his hips, “Haha! Got you!”
He continued grinning, at his own cunning, and giggled, sitting down on his rump. “I was just playing with you…Uh what are you...uh, doing here?”
“Playing! My town is on the other side these woods, over the hills. I spend a lot of time here…how come I haven’t seen you before?”
“I don’t get out much…”
“oh.”
Matheluix shifted his feet and layed back on his elbows, “So…Whats your name again?”
“Astron Keld, son of Lord Aleric Keld of Keldkeep.” Astron gave proud pose as if his name itself gave off some aura of importance, and, even if it did, Matheluix wouldn’t have known about any of that.
“Who’s that,” but the wyrm wasn’t even able to finish the question before getting cut off by a loud gasp. “What was the gasp for?”
“Huh? You don’t know Aleric?” Astron’s incredulous look had the other “elf’s” brow arching with an obvious no, I don’t know look.
“Aleric is my father, my sire, and the greatest ruler this part of Faerun has ever known! He’s a ruler of a whole kingdom! My town is his main city, and in the middle is a large fort. I live there with my sister Faezuura and my older brother Jarl.” He jumped from the log and picked up a large stick and swiped at the air with it, twirling and jabbing as if he were fighting an enemy, “ Aleric, da… He carved out home, our kingdom out of nothing…but he battled and battled and battled … and made Keldfort.” He put the stick in the ground and knelt on it, “ Made it himself. For all races. Makes him important don’t it?”
“I guess…” Matheluix was quiet. Indeed, Aleric did sound important, and like a good guy. So unlike his own father.
“Pfft, you guess? He’s a great lord,” Matheluix knew then that he wasn’t going to get this guy to shut up, having initiated the rant about daddy button.
The brow haired elf sat down beside the other boy, pulling his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, “he’s amazing. And it took him so long to get where we are now.. I think,” Astron tapped his chin with his forefinger and began counting his fingers, “ The year I was born. Yup, that’s when he got it. Twelve years ago.”
“We’re the same age.. Heh, “ Matheluix pushed his shoulder lightly.
“Heh.. So what’s your dad like? What’s something amazing that he’s done?”
That had the other boy thinking. What good had Taedextius ever done? Anything?”
“Nothing.”
"Nothing?"
"Yeah, nothing. He's just...," he didnt finish and just shook his head, kicking at the dirt. "You know, you're lucky Astron. Really. You have a dad that actually amounts to something, one that cared for his family. My father, heh, it pains him just to look at my mother and I."
Astron bit his thumb and tilted his head, "Old grumpy dragon, eh," the elf laughed.
Yeah if only you knew, Matheluix chuckled to himself.
He felt himself being pulled up by Astron and pulled away from his log, brambles and swirls of leaves and dirt clouding up around them, "Astron, where are you going?!"
"I want you to see Keldfort!" The elf's face was bright as the sun itself, "Trust me you'll LOVE IT."
"Hey, wait but my dad what if he--"
"He's never followed you in befor has he?"
"No!" Matheluix ducked before getting hit in the face with a particularly large low lying branch.
"Then what are you worried about," Astron shoved through a large patch of bushes then, pushing Matheluix in front of him and almost making him topple over a boulder, overlooking a steep incline into the fields below.
The dragon's breath was stolen away as he gazed out at the landscape.
BEyond the woods, a place he had never strayed, was nothing but rolling hills of goldenrod and blue flowers, along with yellow grasses that would sway whenever the wind would shift and blow, and in the midist of these hills was a looming fort, covered in ivy and marble stonework.
Astron pointed in the fort's direction, then at the small villages and homes dotting the area, " All of this.. is Keldfort. Amazing huh?"
Matheluix just nodded his head, jaw dropped, "Even the jewels in momma's treasure hoard couldnt comepare to this.. "
"What was that?" Astron turned a curious eye on him which Matheluix promply answered with a quick 'nevermind'.
"Hey. You never told me your name..."
The black haired 'elf' turned his hesitantly turned his head away from the ccity beyond and screwed up his brows, "Uh... M-Matheluix Galdier."
"Oh. Nice name. Can I just call you Matt? Or Matty? I cant say your name is all, hehe.."
Matheluix nodded and grinned, putting his hands behind his head and letting out a profound sigh,
"You know what, Matt. I like you. Wanna be friends?"
That caught the wyrm off guard. He had never had a friend before and much less and elven one.
"Sure... I'd like that."
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Comments: 4
zhe-san [2007-03-25 22:38:38 +0000 UTC]
okay, you wanted a critique. first, off the top, i think you should be more creative with the title of this. the chapter title that is. if you're creative enough to make this story, then you should be able to handle elaborate chapter titles.
i already mentioned that one sentence to you, but otherwise i kind of like how it opens. introduces two very central and i suspect very important characters. the hero, and possibley the villain (?)
however, i don't know about the usage of the word whore. if you're going for a respectful, but bitter villain or what not, then i personally don't think he'd use whore. but something that hints at it, and is like a low-blow.
also, you bring in the reflections at good times....but there's no proper transition. i mean, it's like you're reading along and then suddenly in a different part of the story that makes the reader go 'wait. then did this happen? i don't understand!', so i'd suggest a little more wording for transitioning ideas.
or maybe, classically, italicizing the past.
and boom is for things that explode. not falling over a log. XD
and, remove the misplaced quotation from this line: That had the other boy thinking. What good had Taedextius ever done? Anything?”
otherwise, i love it. it's kind of cute. and sad. :3 i like the elf boy.
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freakynerd11 In reply to zhe-san [2007-03-25 22:58:41 +0000 UTC]
cRAP SO MANY PROBLEMS....
alright zhe-kins. thank you. oooooh man critique is hard to take omfgggg... *shakes it off*
the lessers is the title of the thing as a whole..i cant come up with titles for crap, geo actually came up with that for me..
oh stupid question, what else would i say besides whore? tramp? i have no idea, brain cells have been dying latley for me and i cant write or drawa pic for shit anymore.
and i did italicize...only it didnt come out o_O
SHUT UP ABOUT THE LOG, IT SOUNDED LIKE IT FIT GLAAAH. *makes a note to change that too*
thank you though dear. happy you liked what *cough*crap*cough* you read.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
zhe-san In reply to freakynerd11 [2007-03-26 00:30:43 +0000 UTC]
it's not crap! *scolds*
it's just that...it's usually something sad when they begin a chapter with the title 'beginnings'.
he could be sarcastic. like. 'go get your faithful mother...'
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
freakynerd11 In reply to zhe-san [2007-03-26 00:46:16 +0000 UTC]
AH.
okay i get ya now. yeah, i'll strip "beginings" from it now.
tae is a sarcastic 'person' so that would work, thank u luff
👍: 0 ⏩: 0