by wing and claw

[Mirza]

.

Ash 4 123

By foot, Sentrium was eight days from the nest of Lisymidris, and the winter home of Mirza and her draconic siblings. She did not even consider the distance by wing — they had sent Mirza so as to remain anonymous. Lisymidris was not a young dragon, and she feared showing herself in the Atraxian without making her intentions known beforehand. Politics weighed heavy on old souls. Mirza was too young to care, at first, but now she was equipped with the knowledge of Solunarian etiquette two decades out of date. It may even still be relevent.

A windswept savanna marked the border between the Ecithian Commonwealth and the Atraxian Desert, realm of the celestial elves and their desert-dwelling humans. Vastii, they were called, had once ruled over the elves, but then the elves and their gods had overruled them— Mirza's thoughts were occupied by the brief history lesson she had been given before being sent off into the wilderness.

She had to arrive alone, it was important. And even more important that she did not reveal herself openly, and further important that she did not breathe a word of the total truth until she managed to land herself an audience with someone of import among the volcano-dwelling draconic royalty. It was a deathly serious mission, to defect from ones own draconic flight.

Mirza's draconic features had been melted away before she came close to the border, and she maintained the visage of a Moonborn Re'hyaen alone, aether slowly spent to keep herself hidden. She could not see another living soul for miles, and her golden eagle circled above, following the thermals and waiting to alert her of anyone coming near. If they did, she was prepared to purge her aura of any draconic sensibilities.

It was also easier to walk through the brush with humanoid feet, bare as they were now. She wouldn't pass for a native Moonborn, given her unmodified height, but she did not particularly mind that, and the Ash sun did not feel so hot on her skin than it did in Searing. Her mother was wise to wait a year to ensure the apparent underground coup was more permanently successful.

[Pharaoh]

The Solunarian marcher town of Sentrium that lay near this part of the border represented what remained of an old city from the era of the Sacred Solunarian Empire. It fell into decline and became a village surrounded by ruins, remaining that way until recently. Perhaps Mirza would expect to see a view of the ruined fortress that had been eroding there for centuries, but instead she would see a large citadel under repairs and surrounded by scaffolding. From this distance there wasn't more to be made out above the high city walls that had survived the millennia since the Rending.

A rattling shriek pierced the desert air overheard and the flapping of great wings heralded the descent of a wyvern. One could see the golden barding from below, suggesting that this was no wild beast but a mount. A suspicion which would promptly be confirmed as the creature alighted in the sands before their guest with a gold armoured figre astride its back. Remaining mounted, the soldier doffed her helm to reveal the blonde locks of a sunborn elf, whose golden eyes were narrowed at the strangely tall interloper.

"You have crossed into the demesne of Her Divine Radiance, Thalya Imperatrix, May Her Name Endure in Glory! We do not share open borders with the Orkish Commonwealth. You will state your name and your business, and I will decide whether you should be sent back the way you came or taken into custody." The wyvern, for its part, looked at her curiously for a moment, but as its rider completed her oratory it would punctuate her order with a roar that shook Mirza to the very bones. Its spittle that landed in the brush, set the leaves to sizzling and the plants to withering under its corrosive saliva.

[Mirza]

.

Upon vision of the elf and dragon-thing, a wyvern so ridden by some branch of the Solunarian military, Mirza further altered her aura to be more usual than it could have been. She stood quietly as she proclaimed to her. Dressed in simple clothes, with a falconer's glove on one hand and a bow slung around the other shoulder, she did not look particularly imposing besides her height. She held out her arm, and Bird landed on it.

"I am Lamyris Len’Florævir Mirza." On one hand, she hoped that this woman did not possess encyclopedic knowledge of every deserter of the Solunarian military — but on the other, perhaps if she did, she'd arrest her for her father's crimes, and maybe there would be less chance of being sent away. Chance of being executed for parental treason, perhaps moreso.

"I seek an audience with His Exalted Majesty Zalkyriax Zalkyrialis Rex Draconum." Her accent was more Orkish than Solunarian, and she internally cringed as she certainly butchered some of the prononciation. Her Vastian was still heavily accented, even as she attempted to practice — learning from her mother, who learned from her father, and from her scattered memories of him. This soldier had announced the Sun-Queen, and she realized she did not know if her mere desire to see the dragon-king below would beget consequences from such.

She did not break eye contact with the elven woman while she spoke, and she said nothing else. She was not keen on negotiation or people, and her instructions were fuzzy under the anxiety of this position, even if she had mentally prepared herself for it ever more. Her eyes darted to the wyvern itself for a split moment before returning to the gilded woman, in both skin and armor.

[Pharaoh]

“How queer a thing it is to hear a Re’hyæan name phonated in that vile Orkish brogue…” The centurion thought aloud, in answer to the identification. At the motive for visiting, she would arch an eyebrow and stare dumbfounded for a moment, before tipping her head back to laugh.

“Who doesn’t? His Exalted Majesty isn’t exactly a hands-on ruler…”

“And Her Divine Radiance is?” Came a masculine voice to Mirza’s rear, back toward the border from which she’d come. If she looked over her shoulder, she would find no one there, until a spot of nothing would blur and warp from transparency to translucency to opaqueness. The figure now occupying the space was cloaked all in black with silver accents, their face veiled from view.

“I was waiting for one of you fucks to show up.” The Golden Guard muttered. The wyvern for its part, seemed curious about the foreigner, craning its long neck forward to sniff the air around her.

“Show up? I’ve been here quite a while. Now let us not quarrel in front of our… esteemed guest, shall we? Entreaties to the Draconic Crown fall neatly under Sentinel jurisdiction.”

The Golden Guard huffed,

“So be it. Koraxis! Fugam sume!” She cried, causing the wyvern to withdraw sharply from inspecting Mirza, to leap into the air and take flight. Its mighty wingbeats casting down great winds to send clouds of sand away and whip the robes of the sentinel that remained.

“Forgive the brusqueness of my golden counterpart. I am Sentinel Vrydion. Why don’t we discuss your request somewhere…” He gestured, creating a Gateway that appeared to lead into the stony interior of a structure of some kind. If Mirza’s eyes were keen, she might notice the stone was of the same hue as the citadel behind scaffolding in the distance.

[Mirza]

.

Mirza stood unphased by the insult. She had no method of training her Vastian or otherwise to be free of her native tongue of Ecitharese, not yet. Mirza did look over her shoulder for the source of the voice, and watched the man fade into view like a quick fog. Bird tilted her head and looked between the wyvern, the guard, and the sentinel. Sentinel. She had learned of them, too, but little more than their barest existence, like a passing thought.

Mirza met the eyes of the wyvern before it and its rider were shooed away. She could hide her scales, tail, horns, and aura, but she could not hide the smell of dragon that clung to her skin and hair and clothes. "Would there be such a commotion over one elf on the border." She commented to the Sentinel, unsure if it would garner a response. The thought burned in the corner of her brain that she had not been alone for as long as she thought she had.

Mirza stepped through the gateway, the portal's destination unknown to her but similar to the Solunarian stone in the distance. There was little choice in the matter; her chances of success that came with saying 'no' were far more dangerous than her acceptance. She was not keen on dying in the desert, even if her draconic blood afforded some protection from the beasts and the earth, it did not grant her water, and it did not keep a knife out of her back.

After her comment, she deigned not to speak until questions were pointed her way. If that were one thing she had ever learned about delicate politics, and she had learned very little, it was that she should avoid oversharing. Mirza had already felt that she nearly misstepped in that regard. But Bird was not as nervous as she and she trusted the eagle's instincts.

[Pharaoh]

"Commotion?" The Sentinel chuckled, "From what guileless corner of Ecith do you hail to see commotion in a simple border patrol? You know enough to speak our tongue... to have adopted a name that follows our conventions. With all this prerequisite knowledge, are you somehow unaware that we do not share open borders with the Orkish Commonwealth? Please." He gestured to his portal, "Come."

When she obliged, he would follow after her into an austere little room furnished with nothing but a small, stone slab table and simple wooden chairs. An iron door loomed behind the seat the Sentinel claimed. If she had the frame of reference, she might think this looked like an interrogation chamber.

"I have to say I'm a bit baffled." Vrydion sighed through his veil, black-clad shoulders slumping somewhat. "I have served in Sentrium for decades and seen all sorts of crossings, and even more failed attempts. But you are a strange specimen, aren't you?" He rapped the index finger of one gloved hand against the edge of the table nearest him, as he seemed to ponder.

"Or a rara avis, as we say colloquially..." He trailed off, "Is there some motivation for your cageyness? Malice against the realm? Simple naivete? Mirza..." He leaned forward, one elbow resting on the table as he held the tip of his thumb to the tip of his index finger, "One does not simply walk into Solunarium." After letting that statement sit for a moment, he added,

"One does not demand audiences of the Crownwyrm. Not even his loftiest subject would do that. Why do you... a strange girl with a stranger accent who enters under a guise... warrant such exalted attention?"

[Mirza]

.

Mirza's blend of knowledge was not enough to prevent faux pas. She had come into this knowing she would have to blunder her way out of it. She rarely found herself in a confined space such as this, and it put her on edge. Nerves tinged her voice and her eyes darted to the iron door. She was not so sure she could get out if she so required.

She stood there, unmoved from where she had stepped from the portal, her arm still aloft as she held the heavy bird on her falconer's glove. She should not be nervous if she spoke the truth, but she had no skill in ascertaining how much of the truth she should speak.

"I did not demand." She responded, as if that answered anything. "I was asked what I came for." Still, she spoke not of her intentions, malicious or otherwise. She did not want to present to this sentinel the whole truth, for if she was rejected now, what would come of her? She had learned fragments of their culture, but some of the Commonwealth thought of them as their ruthless southern neighbors. They minded their business with each other, and now she was an intruder at their borders.

"I am an..." She paused, struggling with the Vastian word. "Emissary," she said in Common, before swiftly returning to the accented Vastian. "There is a request I must present to him, on behalf of someone greater than I. Someone that warrants such exalted attention more than I myself." She repeated, and paused.

A guise. She thought through his words. She did not know if he could see the truth, or simply that she was obscuring it. The decision to reveal herself weighed heavily on her mind. Was there not a dragonborn prince here? She was not in danger, and they were behind these closed doors. Mirza tilted her forearm towards the back of the chair, where Bird switched perches.

"It is not wholly a guise, and it is wholly my name, but I do not use it often. My father was Navaros Val'Florævir Virian, but I do not know him to be a man or family of any great importance. I learned Vastian from my mother, who learned it from him."

[Pharaoh]

"Seek, ask, demand: the method or level of brazenness is immaterial. His Exalted Majesty sees whosoever it pleases His Exalted Majesty to see." The Sentinel replied. His words were not delivered mockingly, chastisingly or even didactically, but as a simple statement of fact.

As she proceeded, he sat back, rubbing his gloved index finger with his gloved thumb, absently.

"See? This. This cageyness. This is what baffles me. That you come here, this... this... jumble of contradictions... Walking barefoot across the border between the Ecithian Commonwealth and the Sacred Solunarian Empire, claiming to be an emissary of some puissant power greater than yourself, and yet..." He shrugged,

"Are we to take you at your word, vague as your word has been? Have you any verifiable credentials? Does your master have a name? You see..." He leaned forward again,

"My job is to protect the empire. Sure- Not all outsiders are threats. I would venture to say most aren't. But sometimes people make moves, and sometimes people, or... or groups of people want to test us. And what you're doing right now? This seems to me like a test of our border security. Well, allow me to enlighten you. What we're doing right here? This is quaint. We're chatting... shooting the shit. You're being tight-lipped, and I'm doing a lot of talking. Talking about stuff that'll get you thinking. Because while I'm in here doing the quaint stuff, my Sentinel brethren outside of this room are observing. They're looking through your partial disguise, verifying the existence of your alleged father, and focusing on those things my blathering has you thinking about, so I'm going to ask you again, Mirza. What's all this about?"

[Mirza]

.

Mirza frowned, a grimace that quickly turned to bared teeth, more like a beast than a person, and unbefitting her elven visage. This, too, was shed, and horn-claw-foot-tail appeared, scales grown overtop the same face she had carried before. She shed her careful aura manipulations, too.

"This is what you wish to see! My verdant Green mother Lisymidris and her clutch, my brothers and sister, wish to pledge fealty to your lord and fear hurt wrought by their Green kin in the Commonwealth at their treachery and you accuse me of malicious intent! A test!" Mirza slammed both hands on the table, her tail twitching behind her. She attempted to soothe herself in an instant, but a deep breath did not seem to quell her rising anxiety. She turned her head towards the Sentinel, and then raised both hands, looking around the room, scanning with her own skill of Semblance to see if she could see them beyond the walls, but giving up before much of anything was revealed to her.

Her mother had full confidence in her, but Mirza felt it misplaced — she was meant to hunt raptors in the brush, to aim a bow and arrow, to take flight upon her brother's back or with her own wings and kill wild beasts. She did not have the gentle touch or endless patience for this conversation, even if she did not feel the Sentinel had truly misplaced his suspicion. She was cagey. She was nervous and vague. She wanted to go back outside and get out of this tiny room.

"Is that not reason enough to see your master? Or must I continue to petition you for permission to defect from the Green Dragon Flight? My father deserted the Golden Guard and sought refuge in Ecith — and it was there that he told Lisymidris of your dragons, as a story to entertain her, my mother, five hundred years old — and when she learned of the new, active reign of the draconic dynasty in our travels of Ecith we have prepared since. Is that enough? Are we allowed, then?"

Mirza stood up straight and crossed her arms, one clawed hand a white-knuckle grip on her own arm. "I do not enjoy these talking games."

[Pharaoh]

Where Vrydion had been content to wax verbose when Mirza had been reticent, he seemed no less at home as a passive listener. While her transition and explosive tirade would yield no obvious response, veiled and covered from head to toe as this figure was, it had at least piqued his interest.

"There. Was that so hard?" He inquired, when all was said and done. "You will excuse me." He rose and pivoted toward the metal doors, which opened as if automatically as he approached, and closed abruptly with a loud clangour once he'd stepped through.

For some time Mirza would be left to her own devices. No refreshment had been provided, but neither had any of her supplies been confiscated, so if she was in need of food or drink, she would have access to what she'd come with. Her mastery of Semblance would enable her to recognise that the room was heavily and intricately warded by magicks of sundry schools. It was fair impregnable.

Though no means of telling time was available to her, it would feel like hours before the door opened and Sentinel Vrydion returned, followed by a slimmer figure in a different uniform that was identical in colour scheme and similar in style.

"Gratitude for waiting, Mirza." Vrydion offered, sounding chipper behind the veil. "Your particular circumstances, once they were verified, called for the involvement of a branch of our sacred order that is devoted to our more... unconventional visitors." He gestured to the armoured sentinel at his side, who lifted gloved hands to withdraw his veil, revealing the fair, delicate features of a Moonborn male.

"I give you Sentinel Phocion, Warden of the Custodes Deorum." With that, Vrydion would bow to the same and depart, the doors shutting behind him.

Frowning, Phocion's pale eyes scanned over the figure before him.

"A green..." He muttered, "Why did it have to be a green?" Sighing, he took a seat, forced a smile and looked up at the dragonborn.

"Allow me to begin by informing you that the Zalkyrians are aware of your presence. They have been since the moment you stepped onto Atraxian sands. Mine is to assess the veracity and value of your claims, and to ascertain whether it is safe for our population to allow you within the walls of the Sacred City. So. Why don't you tell me about yourself and your family, Mirza?"