⭐️ Thallus never actually comes out and says it, but Windsong can tell by his -inaction- that he’s allowing himself the idea of becoming comfortable with her in his life. The house he lived in, which by his own lack of care or interest and therefore was noticeably filthy, was forbidden for her to clean.
Now he raises no objections to her latest projects to restore the house to a healthy living condition and even joins her in the cleaning.
⭐️ Khalithagos is unusually patient with Tyleril when he is too tired or stressed and stutters worse than usual. The Nexus dragon waits for him to finish speaking before answering in an uncommonly soft and consoling tone, trying his best to soothe the priests agitation.
He doesn’t do this for anyone else, however. He knows that sometimes we can’t help the injuries that keep one from having a healthy mind and doesn’t blame anyone for it.
“Reyllin is a red dragon, Khal is a blue, and Vinchenzo is a black dragon. Even before I saw them all in battle I knew the ones that went against them would be enemies I should feel sorry for.”
He was born sickly and weak. That he survived until childbirth was a miracle. With a thin reedy voice he wailed for you. You knew his mother, knew why she couldn’t keep him. You were debating on just keeping him till you find him a home. But when you wrap him in his soft baby blanket his hand grabs your finger, holding it so tightly your finger changes color.
From then on he was yours. Oftentimes you wonder if the child grabbed your hand to simply hold you or because he picked you. Soon, barely in the blink of an eye, your husband is gone but you remain, carrying Samiel in a baby’s swing on your back as you work in the forges. With the spells on the headband to muffle the sound he sleeps easily. You worry and fear, often suffering because you need mana.
Everything is for the baby first and it’s so hard to hold him and hope it’s enough. You’d do anything to keep that tiny, angry child alive. When that last vial of precious mana is gone you hug him close and pray to the Light. My life for my child. Anything you could give to help him survive, you promise.
Luck comes in the form of Thina, giving out mana potions. You find the right place and you wait, holding Samiel close. You almost cry as you take the vials. The Light heard you. You commit her to memory as you give him some later.
You won’t be like your parents, you promise yourself, you’ll be a good parent. The best one you can be.
–
He’s talented, you realize one day as a temper tantrum set your sleeve afire. He had the sort of talent you would never have. The kind archmages and heroes possess, one that would see him rise up higher in society than his blackmsith father could ever help him reach. He looks up to you with wide eyes as you put the flames out. You realize he’s waiting for you to react.
Putting on a smile you congratulate him for it. He doesn’t want to be a blacksmith or a healer like you are but this is the sort of talent society craves. You feel fatherly pride at the thought of your boy rising up and living a productive life without ever hungering or suffering like you’ve had to. Some part of you is jealous but you push it away.
The next day after your sleeve burns you start searching for places where he can learn with other children like him.
You find one but you resolve to pick up more work to pay for the high costs. Mage tutors and supplies cost so much.
He doesn’t need to be like you. He doesn’t have to be a smith or a priest and you don’t want to be jealous of the lottery he won with his talent. You alter how you try to parent, get a membership the library. If he can control his emotions then you know he’ll be the best one in his teacher’s eyes.
He could become whatever he wanted to be and rise to the top of society. You are as certain of this are you are of your faith in the Light.
–
You have not been a child for so long you have forgotten that it isn’t only adults that can be cruel. They bullied him. Samiel! Your son. You’d wondered why he’d been so off. You try to convince his teacher to understand, to make it stop. But Samiel punched the daughter of a Magister.
You realize how low you are on the ladder of society when they tell you Samiel will still be punished for hitting her. How do they see he was defending himself and still punish him? He’s not an adult that understands how the world truly is.
You’ve spent centuries learning from religious, philosophical, and medical text alike. You know he can be taught alone so you pull him from classes and as you leave the school that day you don’t scold him. You take him out to get something nice to eat instead.
To be both teacher, parent, and smith eats away your day. You miss when you could have some time to do nothing.
Before resentment grows you strangle it. It’s not his fault. You take on more work. Someday he will go to Dalaran or one of the schools in Silvermoon. Maybe even become an apprentice. Such a thing is costly but if you start now you can help ease some of the financial burden.
–
It hurts. It physically hurts day in and day out now. You know you push yourself to hard and sometimes when you call on the Light to much you overdo it and seize. Less than a decade, your promise yourself, Samiel will become an adult and you’ll stop. But mage spells and books are costly and sometimes you skip a meal or two. But Samiel always eats, as tempting as it is to take some of his snacks or food you ignore it.
His talent grows in leaps and bounds, it seems, and you worry so much. You’re not skilled enough to teach more than the most basic of the arcane and things learned from your Priesthood. But you try, you try so hard to help. He learns from you but you know he needs better than you.
Samiel is still as angry as he was when he came into the world but now he’s old enough to catch the hints of your stress and strain. You work enough for two men, maybe three, and he can see it as you slowly wear down and he grows older, more observant and sharp with fel green eyes that aren’t entirely that of a child’s.
But it it helps Samiel you promise yourself you’ll get up again and again and again. You never yells, your never get mad and even when his snark comes around you take it without worry.
Someday he’ll be amazing. Someday he’ll inspire the world.
Or maybe not.
You promise yourself you’ll be happy and proud of him as long as he can stand on his own. Already he wanders the city like he owns it.
–
You make new friends and get a second job as a healer. It feels amazing to heal again. Samiel gets -apprenticed-, a sign of his future greatness like you’ve always known.
You keep trying to be everything your parents were not. You don’t yell, you speak softly. You don’t order him, you try to tell him the consequences and how they can hurt others. When he found that egg and Khalithas sought you both out you knew he would dig his heels in. You told him then about how terrible it would be to lose a tiny life because you were so proud and assured- not knowledgeable- assured you could do better. How cruel it would be to destroy a life because you thought you knew better. Khalithas leaves with the egg freely given by Samiel and now everytime you see Ruby with her wide eyes and wings you’re reminded of how he made the right choice without being forced.
He’s gotten a penchant for chaos and just like his birth mother he thrives in it. But you keep an eye, warn him and he learns boundaries. Slowly you see him grow and you’re proud.
You try not be like your parents. You do not yell, do not try to force him into following your path. You try to teach him to be kind and he is- in his own way. Snarky and far to smart for his own good. But he’s grown to be better about his acidic wit and can keep his tongue quiet when Rai’thas trips or slowly wakes up in the mornings and makes small mistakes. He’s grown fond of him as well.
You hope you were a good parent. Are a good parent. You hope so much one day he’ll tell you that you are.
–
He just found his first crush. You don’t worry about that either as you watch them play at your smithy. You don’t comment. You’ll be there if he needs you.
Two letters and gifts send to Khalithas and Laz from Tyleril and Samiel respectivly.
Tyleril’s gift to Khalithas is an old crumbling volumne that he’s clearly made attempts to keep maintained over the long decades but multiple readings have undone every inch of his work no matter how hard he’s tried to keep it bound. The heavy book is delivered by a courier struggling to pull it free from his bag.
Khal,
You’re often busy but the kindness you do do not go unnoticed. The book for my son, watching how you make Rey;s eyes light up, and your presence is always appreciated. You’re the calm in the storm, unless Samiel ties your hair in a ponytail and when you were waiting for Ruby’s egg to hatch you reminded me of those armoured, scaley snakes in the tropical isles. It’s a shame you can’t be more dragon-like often- i find your eyes very beautiful and your blue scales lovely.
Laz spends time at the forges now and it’s always nice to see him when he comes. I appreciate the chatter he brings and the conversations with you. Admittedly I don’t understand fashion. I know colors stay together and to buy whatever the tailor suggests that isn’t outrageous. But I enjoy your commentary and listening as you and Rey discuss those things.
I bought this book when I was very young. It was over five hundred pages of ‘fashion’ that the Kirin Tor and other mages found to be the most fashionable styles. Admittedly the book is a century or three old by now and I still have not gleaned anything from the first time I opened its pages.
But if anyone will like it and take good care of such a thing you would. I hope this gift, while not the expensive one you deserve, reminds you that I appreciate seeing you and chatting when we do. I don’t imagine it’s easy to share your lover but you do it with grace and dignity that I’ve come to expect from you.
Happy Winter’s Veil,
Tyleril Silversword
Sent to Laz , a small box with a lightforged necklace wrapped in cloth with a letter from Samiel. Having given his father his money for a necklace that was, for the twelve year old, astronomically out of his price range.His handwriting is oddly sloppy in the letter- a sign of his nervousness perhaps?
Laz,
I got you one of Pop’s Lightforged necklaces for WInter’s Veil. It reminded me of your scales when you change back to a whelpling. I went to the beach and pop helped me find pearls that were the same color as your vest your wore on tuesday.
If you want to Pop says Catriah’s Dad left us with five huge ducks and got Buttons s ham. We can steal a duck and watch people celebrate Winter’s Veil or whatever. If you don’t want to that’s fine.
The blue dragon arrived at night when everyone was sleeping and all other mourners had gone. It was easier for him that way. Asleep, no one could see how heavily grief hung on him and weighed down his shoulders. They couldn’t hear how hoarse his voice was when he spoke or see the tear tracks that marked his otherwise expressionless but perfectly shaped face. His movements that were usually meant to capture and hold the attention of others were subdued, stilled in the heaviness of sorrow.
He could hear the heavy, labored breathing of the injured but healing as they lay in restless and nightmare fueled sleep in silent agony. How many had been injured, how many had been killed he could not say, but the burst of magic that had emanated from the center of the Dawnspire had been hard to ignore even from where he sat within the Ivory Spire. The magic had pulled him mind and body out of the sanctuary that was the great library, but it was the hushed words of the great still form of the dragon that had drawn him here to this place of pain and healing.
He pushed open the doors of the infirmary. His footsteps were ghostly silent, the sound of his moving robes a passing whisper in the night. Here and there as he passed a cot, those laying in them would shiver as the cold chill that always followed the dragon passed over them. It would be gone come the morrow but for the moment the chill of winter settled through the building, provided some relief for the few that felt the stifling heat of so many bodies pressed together. With pure intent and purpose he passed over the bodies of others and made his way towards the golden mane of hair that could only belong to Felo’thore.
Felo’thore. Flamboyant and lovely, an icon of fashion and good taste. Now the scar that stretched across his face and marred it was gruesome and unbecoming on the magi turned druid. Where his jaw had broken and lips split the skin had swelled and bruised in a way that made him almost unrecognizable. At his side and curled around him with hands clinging to the lithe and limber body was a much larger man with a face dusted in freckles and hair as curly and wild as a lions mane. His husband surely, for no one that was merely a friend could look so awake with grief even while asleep.
‘ You at twenty-five hundred years old, you will be cranky. But you will be stronger and far wiser. You will see ancient trees grow from seed to root and maturity and watch the titans of forests grow old and die. You will know the hearts of all wild places, and the wolves will pass your names down to their descendants where you will be nothing more than myth.’
Now the man lay trapped in dreams and a magic that not even a child of the Spellweaver could pull him from. The future the dragon had so lightly spoken of may never come to pass.
He knelt down beside the cot and with the barest brush of fingers pushed back blood stained hair from Felo’thores face to deliver a cool kiss to the burning skin of his forehead. The dragon stood, turned, and moved on. Where his feet stepped unnatural fog formed and spread across the floor as that which remained hidden could reveal itself. It followed him outside where now he could see the huge and still form that was the red dragon laying on its side.
Reynllinstraz. Nine thousand years old. Ancient. Beautiful. Charming and charismatic. A good friend. Companion.
Dead.
The snow had already begun to fall in earnest where it rarely snowed in Quel’thalas, and the ground soon frosted over wherever the thick white flakes fell. Sounds of footsteps of the already fallen snow echoed behind him. Although the figure was not close…the warmth of the sun was undoubtedly intense. Where she stepped the snow and frost melted from the heat only to quickly form again as she moved on.
“Mother….go back to bed. Father will be home soon.” Her voice was a whisper he could still hear clearly. She appeared to be an adult now where she had been a child before. Time was short now. Too short.
“Sil’vii. You should know better than to think that I will leave.” He turned back to face the woman, his brows knit slightly as he took her in. In her mortal form she was the perfect mix of Reynllin and himself. Pale skin, delicate features, golden of hair, and nothing like himself save for how she looked. “What are you doing out here, child?”
“….I came to say my goodbyes.” was all she could manage to tell him. Her cheeks were wet…it seems as though she had been here all day telling people the same she had been telling him. “..Mother I…I won’t be coming home. I’m bringing father back..we…we talked about this day..before you came along.” Her hands were starting to glow, but in a failed effort she hides them quickly in her robes sleeves. “I’m sorry we never got to tell you sooner….”
‘Mother’. It as a word even in his other self that he was unfamiliar with and it put an ache into his chest to hear the soul of the red dragon say it so genuinely. “Don’t be.” He stepped towards her and ran both hands down the length of her golden hair, trying to comfort her as much as he could. “You are still so young. Is there no other way, Sil’vii?”
The young woman peered down and sighs. “I’ve already changed….I’m already an adult…as beautiful as it is…I wasn’t meant to live like you. I came from father on the evening Deathwing died…when the Soul was shattered I was born. It was meant to be…but…” slowly she walks over, reaching out her hands to feel Khal’s touch one last time. “I’m happy for the years I was given under father’s wing.”
He squeezed her hands and forced himself to voice his question. “Do you want me to leave?”
She hesitated before answering him. “…..Please?…I don’t want anyone to see…he’ll be back in the morning.” Her hands were growing uncomfortably warmer now. “Promise to keep him happy?”
“I’ll do everything I can, Sil’vii.” He cupped her chin and gently pulled her face up to look at his and, as with the druid, planted a kiss on her forehead. He squeezed her hands one last time and then dropped them as he turned back towards the infirmary. Perhaps it was cold to not even spare her a goodbye but he had no time for useless words. She had her part to play.
So too did he.
In the same silence as he had arrived the dragon departed, leaving nothing behind but the chill mist that settled on the sleepers inside the building, the frost covered ground and the snow. It would be the only signs that had ever been there, and they would be gone come the morning. Some might have heard the sounds of enormous beating wings that flew quickly overhead, but none would see the form in flight they belonged to.
He would mourn in his own way, and there were still demons that lingered in the land left to kill.
Aestus: At his core, Aestus is probably the nicest guy with no ulterior motive one could meet, and he thinks he owes that to his honest nature. Friendly, loyal, dedicated, always willing to do the good for another without expecting anything in return are his strongest virtues as well as some of his largest flaws. He feels he has a lot to live up to, not only because of the House name he inherited from his grandfather Aesterian but also the beliefs and morals that make up his code of conduct. He believes in courage, honesty, compassion, respect and being the best he can be and tries to be, but often feels his efforts aren’t ‘enough’. This usually ends up with him feeling disappointed at himself, something he tends to hide behind a smile and a ‘I’ll try harder’ attitude.
Khalithas: Beneath the calculating mind of the dragon, Khalithagos or Khaltihas as he’s usually known is loving and parental, if not a bit terrified at the possibility of the future. His race is all but extinct, numbers dwindling, the power of the Aspects and all dragons dwindled. He feels the loss of his flight profoundly, and uses the fear of becoming nothing more than a legend in a story to fuel his ambitions. On the surface he appears genial but cool, a calculating elf that uses people and situations to his advantage. In truth he longs for and fears nothing more than a real connection. He is dedicated and utterly protective of his ‘little brother’ Lazuligos, and considers his own life to be worth nothing if his brothers life is not -everything-.
HUMBLE
Aestus: Praise is appreciated, but unnecessary. Often with praise he tries to turn it towards luck rather than skill, and in a group effort takes the praise and doles it out to others as a group effort rather than as anything he himself did. To get this paladin to accept open and honest praise can sometimes be a chore.
Khalithas: Two words: “I know.”
GOD
Aestus: He is open to the idea of god, gods or ‘God’, but his faith is in the Light. To him it’s not just an idea, but a philosophy and a way of thinking and living. He believes in the three virtues of the Light and tries to live them to his own expense and the mockery of others, Blood Knights of a certain age more specifically. This does not and has not moved him from how he worships, thinks or conducts himself, however. ‘For if you forgive men their trespasses, Heavenly Father (The Light) will also forgive you’.
Khalithas: “I have no god, which is a mortal way of thinking. But I had an Aspect, a paragon of what we could have striven to be. He is dead now, and all that he was to us was stripped in his madness. It was taken from him, and it was taken from us. He is dead now, and if I can no longer be what I once seen as perfection, then what else is there to be?”
me reclining in diamonds and a black velvet dress with a slit up the side on a red velvet couch covered in silk handkerchiefs with a crystal glass full of the finest liquor in one hand and the other thrown over my eyes in elegant anguish:
Tyleril Silversword 
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