#i obviously dont have icons for all the Dragon Archons but they're all mentioned here!

[lunarscaled]

drabble scene: The Twilight Assembly, post-tournament

Lyric arrives at the Assembly doors in handcuffs. Not alone, of course—who would let someone walk around in handcuffs unattended?—but escorted by two tall, silver armored guards, one with long elvish ears and the other with speckled brown primary feathers protruding from an open space in his bracer. Each one keeps a hand on their thick biceps with thumbs pressed into the muscle uncomfortably, and every twist of their arm or roll of their shoulder is met with a hard pull of the limb back to their side. They can’t even raise a hand to push the one errant curl of dark hair hanging between their eyes out of their face. If they twist their neck, they can see their haggard reflection in the polished metal of the bracers on either side of them: unkempt brunette curls fallen over their shoulders and down their back; the purple mottled skin under their eyes which reeked of exhaustion and pronounced their orange stare; clusters of opalescent white scales on their olive skin, growing more and more numerous every day whether they wanted them to or not. 

They had never been the type of person to dress up for appearances, but a bath would have been nice before being dragged here.

The closed door before them is at least a story tall, built from marble and embossed pewter and blends in perfectly with the surrounding monument; Lyric had only glimpsed a fraction of its towering exterior very briefly during their escort through its halls, surrounded for miles by empty, blue ocean. Pale dawn light filters through arched windowpanes and throws glares in their eyes as the doors open with a weighted clack and scrape, their heft parting sluggishly to bare the amphitheater of the Twilight Assembly to them. It is constructed from the same white stone and metal decor as its doors are, but in place of true walls and a roof are many towering, fluted columns holding aloft a dome with an open skylight in the center. Though the sun has not yet risen enough to bring about the full effect, Lyric follows the imaginary line from the hole down to the tiled floor that is inlaid with chips of lapis lazuli in the shapes of constellations. A star chart, surrounded by an outer ring which shows the phases of the moon, the blank spot for a new moon furthest from the door. They feel the great rumble and scrape of the doors closing slowly behind them vibrating painfully through their feet.

The half-circle interior of rising seats is filled with representatives Lyric has only heard of in myths, clustered in groups of their peers. Faeries dressed in the colors of their seasons, at least one for each court; Seraphim and Cherubim with their many wings folded tightly to their backs; Devas and Yashkas adorned in gold and colored silks seated beside a sharp-eyed man dressed in red robes, his hair cascading into patterns of feathers like a golden pheasant—the Vermillion Bird. From divine beasts to homely fae, all who represent their kind seem to have come to the spectacle, right down to the first half ring of seating closest to Lyric.

"The audacity of you to refuse my call and to injure my escorts is unprecedented." Ao Guang speaks in the quiet, the echo of his voice ringing with the authority of one who has always been listened to by his lessers. He raises one pale eyebrow as he stares down at them from his raised position in the stands, "You bit them?"

"You expected me not to?" Lyric replies, bending their arms at the elbows to rest their restraints only to be pulled straight again. "Do you usually expect people you kidnap to go without a fight?"

The elder dragon straightens his posture and raises his head to look down his nose at them; his presence gives weight to what they already suspected, eyes creeping from one first-row occupant to the next, all of them bearing a variety of colored and textured scales—they were in the presence of the Dragon Archons, a position they thought had grown obsolete in the modern age. It made sense if they thought about it: the suffocating aura each of them possessed, the pervasive feeling of being stared down by an apex predator, how their skin goosebumps and hair stands on end when Lyric raises their eyes to meet Ao Guang's gaze. Their pride as a fellow dragon won't let them back away, but their instinct bids them to sink lower, be more meek. They are in the presence of someone far more powerful than they could ever hope to be.

"I expect you to come when you are called, hatchling."

The diminutive grates on their clenched teeth. He raises a slender hand.

"Release them. They can do nothing here." Ao Guang lowers his hand as Lyric's jaw tightens, their stare narrowing. Where spans of his skin are not protected by his long, layered blue hanfu, Lyric can see azure scales winking in the open air. Even several meters away they can tell the clear color of his eyes, light like blue lace agates. "I assume you are beyond the age where you feel a need to throw tantrums?"

"That depends." they say, hands coming to rub their wrists as the guards each remove one thick metal cuff with a key and back away towards the closed doors, "Am I going to have a reason to throw one?"

Again he glares down at them, displeased with their flagrant pushback against his questions as titters arise behind him. Lyric watches a muscle in his jaw bulge outward before relaxing as he produces a fan of yellow and green feathers from his sleeve and hides his mouth behind it, now interested in the decorum of keeping his composure. Lyric’s free arms fall to their sides, sore from bindings while their fingers tapping anxiously against their legs as they try to keep their facial expression in check; no sneering teeth or curled lips or outward anger. There is a clearing of someone’s throat.

“You have not been summoned before us without reason. A matter of grave importance requires both our attention and yours—I assume you know what the title of Dragon Archon means?” Ao Guang gives space for their answer, but Lyric fumbles to find one. They knew of the Archons in the same way people might know of a popular urban myth, but they knew nothing of detail or how they came to be. The Dragon King of the East Sea had not become such because he was an Archon, and likewise an Archon would not be crowned a king solely based upon the former title, but that was where their knowledge ended.

Their eye contact falters and drops to the floor. Before the azure dragon can continue, he is interrupted by a sharp guffaw to his right, which was Lyric’s left, and both of their heads turn to see a large, dark scaled man in layers of wool coats leaning his weight forward onto one elbow against the wall of the seating area. He stares down Lyric with six yellow eyes crowding out his face and sharp incisors that flash when he grins.

”You can’t be serious. Look at them! No more than a babe as it is!” He gestures to them with a calloused palm that ends in thick nails like hooked claws, his boisterous voice only worsened by how his Slavic accent smears some consonants into each other. It must be the Black Dragon Archon, if his scales were anything to go by. “They could not fight for their life! How would they defend such a title!”

His tone is uninhibited by Lyric’s souring expression or the side-eye he receives from Ao Guang, who Lyric assumes has been the de facto head of all dragons for some time. Why else would he be so irritated? Lyric takes a moment to account the many dragons in the front row one by one with a careful eye, all of different silhouettes and impressions, no two outfits similar; three dragons to the left of the circle and one to the right—in the middle is Ao Guang, who they would have to be blind to think is anyone but the long-reigning Blue Dragon Archon. They knew dragons and their shapes extended the world over, but that individuality was easily missed if you never left the region you worked in.

“That isn't your choice, Chernobog," the green dragon speaks in a voice that is even but not soft, keeps his hands in his lap out of sight in a manner that makes Lyric suspicious and does not seem to regard them at all despite standing in front of him. He is wrapped in a checkered gho with folded back cuffs up to his elbows, scales so thick they can scarcely see his skin beneath and whose horns are wobbled and long like willow branches. "Or your place to speak."

"This isn't a school. We don't need to raise our hands and take turns." Chernobog rumbles, wearing a heavy wool coat over ruby-dyed, embroidered linen, whose pattern they could not clearly see at this angle or distance. He jabs a clawed finger in Lyrics direction, two of his eyes squinting. "You. Have you ever fought for a title in your life? Can you even control that magic in you?"

"I…" their tongue feels heavy as a hand clasps over one wrist and their thumb pushes against the joint as a sickening wave of anxiety rises up over them. Could they see it? Could they all see it? They were fine right now, but if their emotions escalated—if they got even the slightest bit too upset it would tear through them and their surroundings like tissue paper. Their skin was already covered in the pink scars of one-too-many ice spikes speared through, how could they hold their own in any kind of combat that didn't end up with their body run through like a pincushion with only themselves to blame? They had barely lived through their nigh-explosive outburst at the guild tourney and still lost their match. Who were they to be standing here before dragons of myth and curling their lips at being called weak "I’m trying.”

“Does it matter if they’re strong or not?” Gold, with two sets of curving horns decorated in rings that matched those on his fingers, dressed in a loose draped sleeve and fitted vest, leaned against his palm with his elbow on his knee. His accent is the only one they recognize, like their grandparents on their mother’s side from Lamia, and they are reminded of both legend and name in quick succession: Cadmus, prince of Phoenicia, dragon slayer turned serpent for slaying the Ismenian Dragon sacred to Ares. How old did that make him? 3,000 years? 4,000? How old were the rest of them? How vast the gap of power and age, and yet still having brought them here for a purpose they barely knew. “Not a single other white-scale has come to claim their seat in all this time. They may as well succeed it; they’re the only child Zargincerinth ever claimed, as damning a fate as that is.”

“An Archon has never passed down their position! It has always been fought for! That bastard dragged the dead body of the White before him into the assembly hall before he got his seat!” Chernobog brings a heavy fist down against the stone that cracks the wall on impact, quiet surprise rippling through the rest of the hall. There are many more eyes on them than just those of dragons, some delightedly watching the squabble over a single, human-born child, some sneering that they are even allowed to be here. “An insult to the legacy of the Assembly! It’d be foolish to even suggest it!”

“This is not a matter of strength, Chernobog. Don’t be so single-minded.” Further down the semi-circle to their right sits a dark skinned woman with brilliant red scales, hair braided tightly to her head in rows and decorated with beads. Her clothes are vibrant patterns of greens, golds, blues and whites, embellished with beads and braided threads; they start from her neck and extend outward like a large necklace, but sit separate from a skirt and belt in the same style. She rests her chin on her interlaced fingers and contemplates the little one before her. Of all the looks they have received, only the Red Dragon’s has been anything close to kind, but when they look up to meet her stare they find only pyrope depths with no answers for them. “This is about the Beasts’ Seal.”

Another ripple of murmuring runs through the amphitheater. The seal… they whisper. Oh yes, the seal! The summer court exclaims. Is this it? Will they finally undo it? Lyric feels a cold sweat breaking out on the back of their neck, left wringing their own wrists in the center of gossiping. It will be quite the ruckus. We’ll all have to prepare.

“Thákane is right. This is not because we feel you should suddenly rise to take this seat,” Ao Guang addresses them directly now, having lowered his open fan now that his irritation has ebbed, “It is because it is only the White Dragon Archon who can release the Leviathan and Behemoth from their slumber.”

“I don’t know anything about a seal.” Lyric professes, their voice subdued. They barely speak and yet it seems to echo in the domed space against their will; goosebumps run up their arms. “I don’t—I’m not special. If there’s someone you’re looking for it isn’t me.”

“It is.” the green dragon speaks, his arms crossed tight over his chest, “You reek of that same magic. If that is not enough, you look just the same as your predecessor from more than a millenia ago.” A pause. His pinning stare softens. “—you struggle as they did, too. The magic of a primordial dragon is too much for a human body to bear.”

Lyric looks down at their calloused hands where scar tissue has given way to rising clusters of scales and curls their fingers into their palms. Their nails are sharper than they remember, longer and faintly curved, they nick themselves sometimes when they scratch as the soft skin of their cheeks. Their teeth, too, felt as though they did not fit properly in their mouth anymore; really, nothing had felt right since the tourney. Every irritable inch of them ached, their skin seemed to split open new wounds all the time, some days it felt as though their bones were going to grow right out of their skin and they could do nothing to stop it. Was that why? Some old dragon’s blood they never asked for; some pact they never agreed to? And what did that speak of them? What did they exist for? (to go to war in someone else’s stead. to become an enemy of themselves.)

“Druk is right. The timeliness of this matter is imperative to both you and the Assembly; you must assume responsibility for the White Dragon Archon’s title, and for the unsealing of the beasts.” Ao Guang says. Lyric’s shoulders raise as their body hunches just enough to tuck their arms protectively around their ribcage, a frown deeply creasing their face.

“What happens when they’re unsealed?”

“Order.” Cadmus says, bearing a bored expression, “The natural randomness of the world returns; floods, droughts, rising winds, the expanding of forests. How things should be.”

Lyric’s mouth curls up at the edges, their teeth showing in their grimace as they feel a low-burning anger in them. “That’s not order, that’s chaos! You’re describing natural disasters! People will die!”

“Humans will die.” a kijin interjects from the back of the auditorium, its massive size barely fitting over several rows of seats as it uses its sword as an armrest, “That is no great loss. Humans die alllll the time”

“You only fear this because you are young.” Chernobog says, an elbow on his knee as the other gestures towards them. He seems to be the type to talk with his hands. “Your life will extend long past theirs. You must think of what is best for the future of the world, not the present.”

“But that doesn’t mean you can just let people get hurt! And there are more than just humans at stake—what about all the species and lives that exist codependently? What about the cities, or crops, or the colonies that will be harmed?” They can see their breath unfurling when they speak and feel the cold creeping over their hands, leaving a fine layer of frost on the skin as their emotions rise, “What about my friends?”

“Do you really have time to be worrying about such trivial matters as that?” Ao Guang’s stare drifts downwards towards their hidden hands, “If you do nothing, this problem will continue to fester.”

“The “normality” of your world is little better than an illusion.” Druk says in his perfectly even tone, “What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.”

“They’re not flies.” Lyric hisses. Beneath their eyes they can feel the pinpricks of accumulating ice, little snowflakes overlapping on their skin. “They’re alive, like me. Like you.”

Ao Guang sighs, lifting his fan to hide his irritation behind feathers again. “How disobedient children are these days…I wish I could say you weren’t always like this, but your type is so incorrigible as it is…”

“---I’m not a kid, you know.” It seems petty to pick at now, but they have little other ground to stand on. They’re clawing for any kind of leverage to raise their pride on and be listened to. “I’m 19.”

And he scoffs. A hard huff that cuts off a laugh at their incredulity, his eyes hardening until the scrutiny of his look makes them feel like an insect, held in place by pushpins on a corkboard. He wears a humanoid facade now, but they’re sure in his true form he could swallow them whole in one bite.

“You will take your place as the White Dragon Archon, and Zarcingerinth’s successor. We will manage your condition and prepare you to release the seal properly, so that the natural order may be restored.”

Lyric, despite how their palms tremble, stares back. “And if I refuse?”

The Blue Dragon Archon snaps his fan shut in a snap motion. When he opens his mouth, they can see the long fangs of an apex predator.

“Then your magic will overwhelm you, and you will die.”