#there's a version of this where Chrysa gets *really* mad

[pickle-inspector]

Fictober Day 3 | original fiction | 1335 words cw: violence - vaguely described but technically present

“Now? Now you listen to me?” Chrysa shouted over the rushing wind. Her wings pumped furiously against the turbulence of the storm around them.

“I’ve never been the smartest person,” Belxari shouted back as she clung desperately to the slick scales of her friend’s back. The rain and wind were doing their best to keep her from staying there. She ached horribly, even as her wounds slowly began to heal themselves. “And it sounded like you knew what you were doing.” 

Chrysa dropped suddenly, nearly leaving Belxari behind as she ducked beneath a bolt of lightning. Belxari scrambled to regain her hold, then turned around to see the source of the lightning. For a moment she could not see the very large, very angry blue dragon amid the black clouds, but the lingering traces of lightning at the edges of its mouth and eyes glowed ominously through the gloom.

“There you are,” she whispered grimly to herself. She released her grip with one hand and aimed backwards towards their pursuer, magic crackling at her fingertips.

She immediately began sliding down the length of her friend’s back, and, with a cry of alarm, she hastily changed spells. Her descent was arrested almost instantly as the magic took hold. She breathed a quick sigh of relief, then looked back.

The dragon was already much closer, causing Belxari to curse softly beneath her breath. No longer concerned about sliding into the waiting jaws of an angry dragon, she slowly rose to a kneeling position. She extended both hands and once again began to focus her magic. Five golden beams shot from the fingertips of one hand, surging through the air. Two flew harmlessly beneath it, but the remaining three of them slammed into the dragon, causing it to tumble backwards through the air. It righted itself almost immediately and resumed the chase.

Continuing her assault on the blue dragon, Belxari worked her way back to her place near Chrysa’s neck, struggling to consistently hit the moving target as her own dragon continued to dodge and weave bolts of lightning, both natural and dragon-made. Upon her return, she discovered that Chrysa was still yelling.

“--a salamander before I was ready!”

“Have you been yelling this whole time?” Belxari demanded, sparing a glance in the general direction of Chrysa’s head. She straddled her companion’s neck now, facing backwards to better aim at their enemy. “We can just think our thoughts at each other, you know!”

“The yelling is cathartic!” Chrysa practically screamed at her, easily the angriest she had been so far.

“But not conducive to dodging angry lightning!” Belxari yelled back, returning her focus behind them.

“Stop treating me like I’m six!”

“You’re a dragon; you practically are six!”

“You’re a god; you’re practically an infant!”

“Just focus on flying, you dummy!”

“You’re the dummy!” Chrysa returned, but she did indeed turn her focus to flying, her powerful muscles hurtling them forwards.

Belxari hissed and angrily shoved her soaked hair out of her face. It was promptly back in her way, lashing angrily in the winds. For a moment the urge to just cut it all off consumed her, but she shoved the thought aside. Belxari was growing frustrated. The low visibility in the storm and the constantly shifting positions of both dragons was making it very difficult for her to actually hit her target, which meant he was gaining on them. She had not expected to fight such a powerful foe, so was running low on the magic that would easily turn the tides of the situation. She could continue chipping away at it, but Chrysa could not maintain their flight long enough.

“Can’t fight another day if you don’t live to see it,” she muttered, channeling magic through herself and preparing to unleash it upon her foe.

Her foe decided to blast them with lightning before she could. Belxari screamed Chrysa’s name in warning, but it was not soon enough. The bolt struck them, bright light blinding Belxari and electricity surging painfully through her body. She lost her grip on the spell that was holding her in place, and was instantly flung into the air by the wind.

As she tumbled through the air, she considered briefly, not for the first time, wearing trousers instead of skirts.

Up and down were lost to her, as were Chrysa and the blue dragon. Her ears were ringing too, which was more an nuisance than a real problem, but irritating nonetheless. “Screw this!” she shouted at nobody in particular.

Magic coursed through her being and enveloped her as she cast her spell. There was something wonderful and exhilarating about the experience of casting such powerful magic. It was not entirely dissimilar to defeating powerful enemies with a cantrip, but the feeling was more primal and genuine, fueled by the energies of the world instead of spite.

But spite was also good, she decided with a roar as her wings unfurled.

She rocketed upwards, determined to catch up to the two dragons, and was delighted to find that her task would be simple. The blue had flown past her without realizing the tiefling had been knocked into the air, but Chrysa noticed immediately and circled around to retrieve her friend. They both spotted her at the same time, and their wildly different responses amused Belxari greatly.

The blue dragon halted, uncertain suddenly of his chances. The silver, meanwhile, suddenly became quite certain of her chances and changed course, her new target the blue.

Chrysa and Belxari slammed into the blue together, teeth and claws ripping into his hide. Ice and fire joined the lightning, and in moments the fight had ended.

The storm had calmed to a gentle rain as they landed on the ground. The corpse of the blue was at the center of a crater in the mud nearby. Chrysa examined the body for a moment, then looked up at the enormous golden dragon that stood over her, tasteful red and white accents in places a gold dragon simply shouldn’t be red and white.

“You couldn’t have done that back at his lair?” she panted, frustrated.

“Where would have been the fun in that?”

“That lightning hurt, Belxari.”

The enormous golden dragon stopped smiling, and looked down at her friend. With a breath, she released the spell, and returned to the form of a tiefling. She placed a hand on her friend’s arm with an apologetic look. “Sorry, I--”

She was reminded forcefully that beneath those scales was a lot of muscle. She hit the ground hard, many feet away from where she had been standing seconds before, the air wooshing out of her lungs - it hadn’t needed to be there in the first place, but she had formed a habit of breathing and kept it after becoming a god.

“If you’re going to take a joke suggestion seriously, then at least wait for me to be ready!” Chrysa shouted, her form shrinking down into the form of a dragon-winged young humanoid as she approached the tiefling.

Belxari staggered to her feet and magicked away all the mud that now coated her. She looked apologetically at her friend. “Yeah.... Sorry. I... I got excited. And angry. I’m sorry.”

Chrysa wrapped her arms around Belxari, her draconic strength only somewhat less likely to crush her while in this form. Belxari hesitantly returned the hug. Even after three decades, she was still confused by them when they happened unexpectedly.

“I’m just glad you’re safe,” she breathed into Belxari’s soaking hair. “You’re not indestructible, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Belxari murmured back. The two stood silently in the rain for a moment before Belxari asked, “Hey, you wanna help me pick apart that dragon? I need some more materials to work with.”

Chrysa rolled her eyes and heaved the biggest sigh, and Belxari grinned at her as she walked over to the crater. The young dragon just shook her head and smiled to herself as she turned to follow.

[senterya]

For the temp characters ask meme:

1, 3, 6, 13, 17, 20 You can answer them for non-temp characters if you prefer :) All your characters on your character page look amazing :)

(i'm @sylvaridreamers ty for reblogging the post)

This is a very kind ask, thank you <3

The current beta characters in question are Budget Chrysa (after Duchess Chrysanthea) for Harbinger and a younger version of Tyrus for Virtuoso. My Willbender is just a copy of my commander so I'll talk about Mentearch instead because he is the one who's gonna get the spec later.

1. The basics - profession, race, and if they’d done the personal story, what would they have chosen?

Chrysa: sylvari necromancer, would have probably taken the Green Knight and Where life goes? The former is in some way similar to her later struggles against a certain rival Duchess in my AU, and the latter is because I headcanon her to be open-minded and curious about the outside world.

Tyrus: human mesmer, raised by common folk, and the circus questline for sure - it works well with how easy-going he used to be.

Mentearch: sylvari guardian, Shield of Moon and Act with wisdom. The descriptions of both questlines ("Any who dream they're protected by the moon shall know faith and fortitude" and "It is one thing to know what is right and another to change the world") are incredibly fitting for him in a twisted way.

3. What made them choose their profession?

Chrysa chose it out of curiosity - it was fascinating for her to see behind the veil of death and to learn to control it in a certain way.

Tyrus, honestly, just wanted to flex on people. Mesmer trickery is incredibly difficult to master, but can also be flashy and pretty and that was enough to impress the edgy teen he used to be.

It's difficult to justify (core) guardian for Mentearch, but the profession mostly reflects on his loyalty and his strong belief in his ideology. When they showed us the trailer for Willbender I could barely sit still, because "protectors of the throne who strike down enemies before they could react" is something that works with him amazingly well, like it was designed for him.

6. Would they be in an Order? Which one?

Chrysa wouldn't be in any of the orders, she's working with the Court and with the Pact if needed.

Tyrus is an officer of the Vigil, mostly stationed in Kryta and helping out Seraph efforts to keep the homeland safe.

Mentearch will actually join the Order of Whispers later on (post-Cantha or even later), after a half-joking mention of how they would "always welcome a backstabber like you".

13. Do you have any fun little headcanons about them?

Chrysa hates Mentearch with a burning passion - not only because he is advocating for another Duchess and helping her rise, but also because manipulative people and mind games utterly annoy and bore her. Mentearch finds Chrysa's bold attitude entertaining and recognizes her strengths; I'd go as far as to say he even likes her. That doesn't stop him from poisoning her later on but hey.

Tyrus used to sing in a choir in his early twenties to impress his crush (and later wife). He hums and sings a lot in his everyday life still. He encourages others to sing along with him - not caring about how good their voice is -, and is always happy to sing lullabies to his two daughters if they ask him.

17. Do they get along/agree with the “leaders” of their society?

As Chrysa and Mentearch are from the Court, the answer is an obvious no.

Tyrus, most likely, yes. He will sometimes ramble about how there aren't enough soldiers and resources to counter centaur attacks, but he mostly agrees with the way Jennah is governing Kryta.

20. Free space - anything you want to say about them!

Chrysa is a new addition to my AU and I've been very tempted to actually recreate her as a permanent character. I just really dislike the hair (both style and colour) they gave her and I already have two necros, and I don't play them too much either .-. Might still do it later though. Maybe take some creative liberties? We'll see.

Tyrus is a character I never really expected to grow on me as much as he did - I just did not have a human and I wanted a dedicated chronomancer, so I aimed to create the plainest, most average dude I could come up with. My brain immediately started twisting him around, gave him a personality, threw him in the middle of my AU and he just stuck with me since. Virtuoso is an elite spec that works much better for him than chronomancy would have ever could, so I'm super excited to finally put my hands on it.

Mentearch is also a later creation, and I realized he basically took Reln's place of "that one asshole courtier" although there is also CIra for that but he is another story. I have a tendency to let characters I get attached to be more likeable and softer as time goes on - so far Mentearch kept his flaws due to how and where I've placed him in the AU and I'm having mad fun with him. He isn't necessarily malicious but he sure believes that the cause justifies the means. And he has been working for a cause for years, relentlessly. Can't wait for it all to collapse in front of him.