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carnivalcarriondiscarded · 10 months ago

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another snippet! my first Flight Rising one, featuring my darling couriers Honey and Grace having a chill time <3

If he had to choose his least favorite place in Sornieth, Honey wouldn’t hesitate to name the Southern Icefield. More specifically, port Hillberg.

The ramshackle town nests at the base of the Cloudscrape Crags, near where the continent starts to break apart into the Floes. It’s large, but shabby - tarp and rope holds together half of the buildings. Honey suspects that the residents simply couldn’t be bothered to rebuild time and time again. Sparse vegetation dots the steep landscape, if it could be called one. The dragons who have made Hillberg their home are just as blunt and harsh as the environment.

None of these things are strangers to Honey. Perpetual bad moods and subpar architecture aren’t what makes him dread every delivery to the region.

No, no… it’s the wind.

The constant, inescapable, Shade-cursed wind.

It isn’t that Honey doesn’t like wind - oh, he does. He hails from the Windswept Plateau, and spent his happiest years tumbling through gusts and zephyrs. His blood sings in the air.

Hillberg’s wind, though, is an utter nightmare.

At best, it’s a frigid breeze that even a tundra can feel through their thick coat. At worst, it’s a howling force barreling down from the Crag’s peaks, tearing through Hillberg with a vengeance. It carries biting flurries of ice and sleet with it, leaving a trail of frost and unfortunate frozen creatures in its wake. Everything not bolted down is lost in moments. Hillberg is lashed together and fixed to the earth to withstand the daily barrage.

It’s so terrible that ropes line the streets for dragons to cling to so as to not be blown away in the gales. Wings are bound, claws are left long for purchase. Hillberg’s larger inhabitants have an easier time of it, but they’re few in numbers. The majority of residents are too small to withstand the greatest winds.

This horrible natural force even has a name - the Crag’s Breath.

Honey wouldn’t give it such a tame title. It’s a roar, a howl, a bellow. It rivals the Crescendo’s outer winds.

Luckily, he doesn’t have to put up with the Breath’s ordeal all that often. Hillberg doesn’t get many deliveries, and Honey isn’t the only courier available on this route. More often than not Honey gets months between trips here - sometimes he gets even luckier when the Breath isn’t howling during his brief stop.

That luck isn’t holding this time around.

Honey untenses one of his talons to flex feeling back into his claws. It’s a useless endeavor, of course. It serves him right for not wearing full gloves. He shivers and puts his talon back down, curling his claws into the frozen divots they’ve carved. A gust hits him from the side, and he clenches his leg muscles to keep from staggering.

The wide, desolate landing zone offers no comfort. The frozen ground yields no natural protection from the freezing wind, and the setting sun gives no relief. The gales yank at his apparel, his tail, his tightly folded wings. Honey doesn’t dare imagine what would happen if he opened them.

It’s cold. So devastatingly cold. The chill cuts right to Honey’s bones, and he’s certain that he’ll never be warm again.

During times like these he curses his lifestyle. Being constantly on the wing keeps him fit and light. Not enough fat lingers in his muscles to provide insulation, and his lithe form struggles to withstand the wind. He rarely meets a dragon larger than himself, yet right now he feels no bigger than a fae.

Honey huffs through his nose and glares across the icy field at the lights in the distance. The debris from the Breath and the shadows deepened by the waning sunset cast Hillberg into a darkening haze. Soon all that will be left of it in Honey’s sight are the lights. Those too will vanish as everyone hunkers down to wait out the brewing storm.

At least the wind doesn’t allow ice and snow to melt on him. The only thing worse than being in the Breath is being in it while wet.

If only his welcomers would hurry. In Honey’s opinion, the protocol Hillberg has for arrivals - especially inter-regional ones - is absurd. Honey always has to wait an hour or more before they lead him into town, and more importantly, shelter. He wouldn’t mind it if the Breath wasn’t active, but at this rate he really will freeze in place. At least Hillberg would have a shiny new statue for their proverbial doorstep.

In truth, though, Honey is being dramatic. Even if he was forced to wait all night, he’d survive. It would be long and miserable, but he would make it to sunrise. It isn’t him that he’s worried about.

It’s his assistant, Grace.

Honey crouches lower and cranes his neck to try and peer into his scarf. His slush-smeared goggles blur everything into indistinct shapes and monochrome colors. He shoves his nose into the scarf and snuffles - he can smell her, he thinks, but she hasn’t moved in some time.

“Grace,” he grunts. The wind snatches his words away, and he says louder, “Grace!”

Tiny talons push his snout, and he pulls back. Grace peeks out from the navy folds to peer up at him. Getting a read on her expression is impossible - the helmet and goggles betray nothing. Despite how sheltered she is, the wind still snags at her frills and presses them around her face.

“Hanging in there?” Honey yells.

Through the blur, she nods.

“Still warm?”

Grace makes a show of shrugging before burrowing back down. She squirms further down into the scarf to rest where Honey’s neck meets his chest. Hopefully both the scarf and the thick arctic coat provide enough insulation for her, along with her own matching apparel. Not enough of his own body heat will seep through - staying warm is up to her. Still, Honey wishes that he could tuck her into his jacket.

Honey shakes out his frosty mane and casts another look at the vanishing town. The guideropes staked into the ground leading there dance in the wind, empty.

Please, he thinks as a violent tremor wracks his body. He lifts a talon and immediately lurches forward - he slams his haunches down and angles against the wind. He rests the lifted talon over Grace. The faint press of her eases the knot in his ribs, though it won’t entirely untangle until they’re both out of the cold and warming by a fire.

It was a harsher trip than usual, getting here. Usually the route takes them along the Floes, where they can rest at established checkpoints along the way. But the first checkpoint had directed Honey to make one continuous arcing journey over the ocean to Hillberg. Why, he doesn’t know yet. There was some sort of issue.

What he does know is that he’s beyond exhausted. Flying for so long unbroken is well within his capabilities, but it isn’t fun. Not to mention that the transition into Hillberg airspace had nearly knocked Honey out of the sky. The battle to the landing field almost did him in - his limbs almost gave out upon landing. Only half of his current trembling comes from the weather.

As soon as they’re in the hanger, Honey is sure to collapse and sleep for hours. It will set back their schedule, but it’s a much needed rest. Especially so if they can’t take the Floes for the return trip.

Honey hunches his shoulders higher. At least his folded wings protect the courier satchels. It would be horrific if the straps broke or the clasps came undone. Dozens of letters, documents, and parcels all spilling out and whisking away into the sea… Honey’s next tremor isn’t so much of a shiver as it is a shudder. He might throw himself into the ocean after them if that happened.

Frantic tapping against his talon shakes him from his thoughts. Honey’s eyes snap open and focus on Grace, who’s frantically waving and pointing. He follows her gaze and relief soars in his ribcage.

A tundra slowly struggles towards them in the growing darkness. They’re big and burly for their breed, though that must be the uncountable pounds of fur covering their body. They remind Honey of the giant shaggy goats he sometimes sees while flying over the Icefield.

The tundra stops, gripping the thick rope with both claws as they angle themself into the wind so that they’re nearly sideways. Their fur billows around them. When Honey lifts his head, the tundra jerks their own towards Hillberg. They carefully turn around to make the return journey.

Thank the Windsinger.

Honey helps nudge Grace back down to safety, and they spend a moment making sure she’s secure. Once they start walking, Honey won’t be able to spare her a moment of attention - he’ll be too busy staying upright.

The Breath gusts under and around Honey as he stands, filling the new openings. He curses and stumbles. One talon slips on an icy patch, nearly sending him to the ground. In any other situation, Honey would be embarrassed about shuffling forward with his hindquarters still tucked. It must look ridiculous, but it’s the most stable position.

Honey moves as quickly as he can manage, though even that is still slower than he’d like. It only takes a few minutes to catch up with the tundra. They don’t seem to be struggling, which is expected of an experienced Hillberg resident. Still, it can’t be easy.

“Would you like assistance?” Honey yells over the howling wind. The tundra looks up at him, and he moves the wrist of his wing away from his body to open up a pocket the tundra could climb into.

They regard him for a moment through their own goggles, then at the long path ahead. They nod. Honey crouches as low as he can and angles his wing to create a buffer from the wind. The tundra lets go of the rope and flings themself at him, clinging to his thickly-padded shoulder. They clamber into the offered pocket and press up against his side, their fur frigid against the seam of his wing. Once they seem secure, Honey closes his wing tight and continues the trek.

Each stride gets slower, and Honey’s legs tremble more with every one. The lights grow brighter and streak across his goggles, incandescently blinding him. The path curves up as he heads to the mountain-carved bunker.

This isn’t the worst weather he’s withstood, Honey reminds himself. Yes, it’s freezing. No, he can’t feel his own body anymore. But when has that ever stopped him? He has deliveries to make, including two lives tucked against him.

The icy soil finally gives way to an equally cold stone plaza. Honey staggers across it to the huge door. Carved stone and wood arc into an overhang, jutting directly out of the foothills and offering very little relief from the Breath. The hanger is the only area entirely safe from the wind - something carved into the earth itself can’t be blown away.

Honey slams his shoulder against the thick heartwood door, tough as iron and sturdy as the Crag. He leans desperately against it, flagging fast.

Eternal seconds drag by.

Snowflakes gather in Honey’s exposed fur.

The sun’s final light fades from the horizon.

The door shudders, groans, and lifts. The horizontal slats fold into the roof, and Honey yearns for the firelight spilling from inside. Only a couple more steps, now. Only another minute or two.

Honey squeezes through as soon as the door lifts enough for clearance. He slips into a long, warm hallway ending with the glow of a roaring fireplace. The door slams back down behind him, nearly landing on his tail. The door locks into place.

The abrupt silence almost hurts. Honey blinks hard and tosses his head against the ringing in his ears. The crackling of embers is barely audible.

A tap against his side - ah, right. Honey uncurls his wing to let his passenger out, wincing at his frozen stiff muscles. The tundra jumps to the floor and shakes themself out. Ice crystals fly from their fur to shower the ground in glittering bits.

“Thank you,” the tundra says, her voice clear in the hall’s calm. When Honey inclines his head, she butts her head against his wing and inhales deeply before trotting down the hall. He hopes she remembers his scent as an ally.

“We’re in the clear,” Honey murmurs into his scarf as he pushes himself forward once more. Just a little further.

Grace clambers out of his scarf. She shakes herself before launching into the air, flitting in Honey’s blurry peripherals and performing complex acrobatics. That’s one way to warm herself.

Only part of the bunker’s warmth reaches Honey, and he still feels frozen. His apparel crunches with every step. The stone floor seems to burn under his talons, even though it’s surely cold. Grace perches on his unbroken antler as they enter the bunker proper.

There aren’t many dragons inside, shockingly enough. The tundra he already met is settling into cushions set up by the circular fireplace. Three more tundras lounge about, along with a ridgeback that looks Arcane, a young guardian brooding in the corner, a pearlcatcher who already seems set on ignoring him, and a few specks that may be faes or spirals. Perhaps both.

Not that any of this matters much to Honey. He only has eyes for the empty cushions surrounding the blazing hearth. He stumbles towards it even as his vision tunnels until only the bright firelight remains.

Just a little further.

A few more steps.

One more…

Honey is unconscious before he hits the ground.

#this one was vaguely experimental? very vaguely. no! Practice! dragon writing practice!#i just wanted to have some fr fun!#i do want to write more little snippets for my lair #especially penumbra...#snippets from the bog #flight rising #fr writing #honey and grace are fun to think about sometimes #theyre just flying around sornieth! delivering things and meeting dragons and seeing the sights #i feel like they'd have the Worst luck and would manage to be there for every big event #the ancients reawakening? there. the obelisks emerging? delivering messages from the site. Luminax? barely dodged that bullet. etc!#honey just wants to do his job man... cmon...

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arcanchrys-fr · 2 years ago

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wait wait wait hold up

before FR staff publishes any new lore or about about the suspected Arcane Ancient, i NEED to say my fanlore story NOW

i've never gotten around to properly typing it, but i have bits and pieces around my lair lore project all over my lair and den, as well as snippets here on my blog and on my discord. and in notebooks and sketchbooks i'm sure. i'm getting so energetically defensive right now because i've literally had this story in my head and heart for YEARS, and it is TERRIFYING to see how similar it's going to sound now that i'm typing out a summary as fast as i can, to "Look! A shooting star!"

my lair's lore...literally begins like that

there is a meteor approaching the ground of sorienth, and it collides into a great, vast land of one of the floating crystalline terra, and this floating terra explodes into many gigantic shards. these shards were shot across the land in sorienth, each shard piercing the ground in several areas:

shard 1 (the arcaned shard): a smallish-medium sized shard in the less dense zone of the starwood strand some distance away from the Archive

shard 2 (the macabre shard): a large shard the land between Wispwillow Grove and the Emperor's Wake, on the Tangle Wood's side before the staircase before Luminax

shard 3 (the scorched shard): a medium-large shard some distance southeast of Cinderslag, towards the Emberglow Hearth and slightly nearing the Shifting Expanse

shard 4 (the woodland shard): a medium shard hitting just outside a [fanmade] town on the nature's domain, close to the earth's domain. the town has a bridge on the outskirts that bridges nature and earth together, and traveler's and merchant's passage that is kept peaceful. north of the Everbloom Gardens on the main continent.

shard 5 (the hollows shard): about halfway between the Zephyr Steppes and Singer's Brook, slightly more towards the Steppes

shard 6 (the glaciered shard): near an icy crystalized castle-esque mansion kept by an icy prince, on a [fan] claimed ice floe of many acres that has access to the sea shared between the Southern Icefield, the Windswept Plateau, and the Ashfall Waste.

shard 7 (the decomposing shard):

i was planning to have one or two more shards. i started to plan out shard 8, but i forget where i wrote it, where i wanted it to have landed, its theme, etc.

at the crash site, the largest shard of the meteorite remained. where it had pierced the earth, it began to pulsate a powerful magical energy that began to interact with the earth it touched. it happened to have collided with an old, old, oooold fae's nest, long left behind and left for the wild to reclaim, but the wild of the starwoods had not yet decomposed the shards of an egg that had hatched, long, long ago. as the meteorite pulsed and hummed, the shards of the egg began to find it self back together, slowly wiggling and scooting back to one another. each little piece within enough distance of the meteorite. where there were pieces that must have been blown away and otherwise eroded, crystalspine, crystal rocks, minerals, and other bits of geology filled in the gaps. the shell of an egg crept its way back to fuse together...and had bored its way down, down, down beneath the meteorite, that had pierced into a small cavern under the land. now a unified, solid object partially built with rock and minerals, it sank down onto the cavern floor, soft metallic sand catching its fall and insulating it.

(earlier, before the crash...) a young guardian dragon, nomadic and native to Scarred Wasteland, had left his family/clan/pack long ago to wander. he had stayed at his childhood pack for decades, watching each of his littermates, younger siblings, and cousins of all kinds grow and gain their spark for each of their guardian pilgrimages, but he, none to follow. a more gentle, patient, calmer, more observant dragon than the most of his plague family. after watching and waiting as each of his chaotic siblings grow and reach their epiphanies for decades, he bid his pack goodbye and became a wanderer, depressed, but quietly optimistic that perhaps he needed to stir something within him, travel to induce his Search. a couple years have gone, when one night as he wandered by the coast of where the Scarred Wasteland and the Windswept Plateau converged, he looked up at the starry sky, idly gazing, and then a particularly bright and twinkling star seemed to be growing brighter with a streaking tail following behind it. a falling star? as he began to understand that something was falling from the sky and was about to strike the earth, he felt his heart beating faster, harder, livelier. in fact, he had never felt more alive in his life. he packed up his small camp and began to follow this star, towards the Starfall Isles, a land he had been too hesitant to approach until now. his body full of jubilant energy, his wings stretching with a new kind of air, his bones feeling lighter, as if full of radiant light itself. he flew for days without a break, not even for food or water. he was still flying in the sky as he watched this great meteorite strike the ground, and kept flying until the knockback of the collision wave finally met his being, knocking him back and onto the ground. the initial wave just knocked him onto the ground with some bumps and bruises. as he shook himself off and stood back up, he could see the second wave bringing a massive wall of dust and debris coming. his heart leaped with joy but his gut sank with fear. he knew, deep down, that this is where his heart wanted to go, that whatever this star had brought him would bring his purpose in life, but this massive dust cloud was dangerous. he had had no rest, no food, no water for days, and that worried him deeply. but he could feel in his chest that he had the energy and vigor to go in. he leapt back into the air to fly a short while longer, before the dust became to great to fly. he landed onto the ground, unable to see the land before him as the mixture of dust, rock, contagion, blue leaves and petals, and threads of membranes were being swept passed him and against him. he persisted. the dust and contagion dried out any hydration left on the outside of his body and scratched against him, scraping against his face and into his eyes. even if he had water left in his eyes, it would not be enough to blink out. his eyes stung deep into his head as his vision blackened, unable to see, and permanently losing his sight. he could only navigate with the direction of his heart and through the touch of his toes. and yet, he persisted.

he could not tell how long it must have been that he had been walking, fighting against the aftershock of the collision. the pads of his feet ached so deeply that they were numb. his beard was caked with mixture of the debris. he could feel his body thin as a skeleton, malnourished, but eerily the fibers of his muscles and bones still strong and determined enough to just, keep, crawling, forward.

he could not tell how much time had passed, only that it was a long time before the rumble of the aftershock began to decline, and sudden, halt. frozen in time. the air felt as still as a vacuum. terrifying, he thought, and he could not stop his feet from wanting to move forward. there was no sound to be heard other than his own movement and the gray noise around him, until he touched something new:

his paw touched a new kind of grass that he had not felt before, that was long and luscious enough to softly poke between his toes. and the absence of noise now filling with the sounds of wildlife, though of wildlife he was unfamiliar with. he knew what birdsong was like, and the sound of wind rushing over plants. he could feel and he could hear, but as he tried to blink the crust from his eyes, he could not. the lids to his eyes simply ached too much to push the dirt and dust off.

though he still felt alive enough to press forward, he finally began to feel the effect of fatigue and lack of nourishment. he ached in more ways he could count, but his heart sang in his mind to keep moving forward, that he had come so far and done so well to have survive, and that he will rest, soon.

so soon, in fact, that the ground beneath him betrayed him, a hole in the ground. he had just enough momentum in his step and not enough strength in his muscles to stop himself from tumbling down an awkward, rocking slope, into a hole in the ground large enough to house him. he tumbled, feeling pathetic that he had lost the traction under his feet as he rolled down a steady gentle slope underground. as he inevitable came to a stop, he let himself lie there for a moment to breathe, to feel if there was anything broken.

his lungs continued. his heart continued, singing the grandest melody he had ever felt. whatever he had found, his Search, was now over. his legs could no longer hold him up, his wings hardly able to cover his body as a blanket. he trembled with these movements, but found himself at peace. his lungs continued, and he fell asleep for the first time in...days? weeks? months?

he could not tell how much time had passed when his eyes began to open. no pain, no strain. his eyes strong and hydrated, but there was something new about his vision. a soft neon pink now gently lit the features of his skull around his eyes. a gentle pink glow on his brow bones, his cheek bones, his snout and the bumps under his lip where his teeth sheathed. his eyes adjusted to the new light, and he felt well enough to lift his head and neck, to lift up his wings and tuck them onto his back, to lift himself upright just with his front arms.

his heart sang: You have done well. You have reached your reward. Look.

nestled away in a soft blanket of dust, a soft glowing orb peeked out. its light steadily swirled with blue, violet, pink, and magenta glitz and gleams, almost cosmic. he felt his heart swoon and lifted himself up to walk over to the orb, the colors and glimmer speeding up as he moved and approached. he brushed away some of the dust, examining, what this orb was... and deep inside, a dark violet, fluid-like object bounced. an egg?

My chrysalis. I need my chrysalis. Please, pick me up and take me to my chrysalis.

His heart gave a hard thump once in his chest, then once in his ears. Then once in his feet, and then under his feet, in the floor below him... No, not below... The walls thumped with a strong, but slow heartbeat. A pulse. He took a slow and deep breath in, and the cave room pulsed again through the walls, through his feet, through his body, into his head. It seemed to be coming from something behind him, but this cavern room was nearly completely dark, except for the glow he could somewhat see on his face, and the radiant glow from the egg on the ground.

I have cleaned your eyes. Can you see? You should be able to find my chrysalis behind you. It is bigger than you.

With a slow turn of his head, he could begin to seem something massive, and polished like glass, only barely noticeable by the faint glow of two dragon eyes, and an arcane egg. He had only ever heard of glass this lustrous when the lightning meets the sands of the Shifting Expanse.

#i literally stopped EVERYTHING i was doing to write this out for two hours #because my lore is so so so so so important to me #and my biggest fear is #if FR staff releases something so similar to something ive had in my head for so long yet ive had barely any evidence of lore #that my lore will become invalid and cliche #that my lore will lose significance #that no one will believe me when i say that i've been working on this in my head for years but havent been able to sit down and write it #due to a mixture of mentall illness and fibromyalgia and always busy trying to fix my life #to get out of this. miserable living situation im in.#my biggest fear is me being so happy and proud of my lore but no one ever believing i created it myself #no one to share my story or my fan worldbuilding with.#chrysalis crackling #flight rising #flight rising lore #lore #fr lore #fan lore

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