Ashenmaw - Dragons of Marrowoods (WIP) (Dragon Fantasy) (ShortStory on 124)

Semi related:

I doodled dragons. the reddish one might very well be Salbri

Yes, Salbri got whiskers

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Interestingly, we can think of the RO characters as not having fully fleshed out backgrounds because, like the MC, they’re all still kids who haven’t experienced these “fully fleshed out backgrounds” yet. Seeing set perspectives based on which flight we initially choose–while ambitious in terms of writing breadth–is an interesting enough way to give players replayability that it really is a bit early to be worried how it presents itself. I think it is great, and if I’m to judge by how many have also left hearts on the introductory post, I’m very much not alone in this line of thought, either. :smile:

Gotta give yourself, and your story, some room to breathe; to grow. Time is what you both need to get where you want it to be, and while our MC’s are freshly hatched little whelps, time is truly what they’ll need to figure out where they fit into everything.

An origin is easy to know, but a destiny? There’s no rushing that. They’ve got to grow up first, maybe see more of the world beyond dragon flights, too. :wink:

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Thank you.

I just worry it drags things a bit, but I will try my best :3

Also, happy birthday :smiley:

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I’m in a bit of a writing slump (coding slump, really.) Done a lot, burned myself out a bit, so have 900 words worth of short-story about Salbri and Acazabri. (Unbetaed, betaed version will go up on ao3 or something)

Salbri Snippet

“Oh, no, no. Intentional travel between realities might prove mildly tricky,” Salbri pondered, letting himself fall back into the heap of pillows by one of the scroll-shelves, flexing his claws and wings a little.

Acazabri cocked his head at his father.

“But possible?”

Salbri look up.

“Oh, naturally, dear,” he laughed. “Just very, very tricky.”

Acazabri knew his father ought to be busy with other things, but he also knew that the whole idea about different realities had been on the blue Patriarch’s mind for weeks now. And Acazabri didn’t inhered his father’s curiosity for nothing.

“The real issue are the, in lack of a better term, clusters,” Salbri continued, rubbing his bearded chin, thumping his tail on the library floor in thought.

“Clusters?” Acazabri wondered.

“Elementary, really,” Salbri announce, puffing up his chest a little and flicking his ears and wrist, bringing up shimmering figures in mid-air, akin to the starry sky outside. “Every reality and every eventuality is bound to have one that mirrors it, where events went differently. That is in the nature of time. Why should there only ever be the reality in which a coin landed on one side and not the other? Why would there not be one in which it landed on its side? Exploded? Turned into a bird mid-toss?”

Salbri smiled.

“Who am I telling this to? You know that much already.”

“What if this is a reality in which I don’t?” Acazabri asked, playfully, getting a barking laugh out of his father.

“What if indeed?” Salbri rolled around in the pillows, looking at his son upside-down.

“So the clusters are the various different timelines?”

Salbri nodded.

“I would say this would be a lot easier if any flight had been given domain over time, but alas, we have to work with what we got.” He pondered for a moment. “Talking about time: Acazabri, please remind me to look into the reports of supposed chronomatic parasites in the byaconian jungles again.”

“I will.”

Salbri nodded.

“Now, back to the clusters: See here, this map is just a concept of what reality might be.” He waved his paw, bringing up an image of several brightly glowing spheres swirling around one another. “This, as you know, is what our reality looks like, perceived from the timeline we are in. The realm of the living, the dead, the elements, and so on. The In-Below.” The areas lit up in order, and Salbri flicked his floppy ears, creating a copy of the initial image. “And this is, theoretically, our reality as perceived from a different timeline. One where, for example, our flight was given domain over nature. Or death. Or bumblebees.”

Acazabri nodded.

“And a cluster is all those possibilities then?”

Salbri beamed.

“Exactly,” he rolled back onto his front and stretched his wings. “My theory is that if there is that if you can find the diverging points in the realities, traveling from A to B and back should be easy peasy. And if one can then find overlaps with realities not directly or obviously overlapping with our cluster…”

With a thoughtful hum Acazabri pondered that.

“What would that mean?”

Salbri shrugged, flicking his ears in thought.

“That’s what I intend to find out, dear. One, I’m telling you nothing new when I say that knowledge warps space, especially supernatural knowledge.” Salbri wrinkled his snout.

Acazabri giggled at his father’s tone, knowing all too well how the blue Patriarch was poking fun at some people’s assessment that ‘magic’, a perfectly natural thing, somehow ought to be counted as ‘supernatural’.

“And knowledge,” Salbri continued, sitting up straight and curling his tail around his legs, “ought to be universal across several realities and thus clusters. Not all, of course, but plenty of it. And if I can find a factor that isn’t too broad, that could open a plethora of possibilities, and a way to navigate through worlds.”

With a thoughtful hum Acazabri sat up as well.

“So, what factors are you looking for?”

“As I said, it can’t be too broad. So, things like most natural fire being hot is out of the question. Or even a book existing in two different realities. That is something likely to be fact in a multitude of realities and realms, and thus too unstable and unpredictable to traverse safely. At least until the passages can be stabilized.”

Salbri began wandering around his laboratory, looking at the runes flitting in the walls.

“I just cannot think about anything that would be specific enough to start focusing efforts on.”

Acazabri swished his tail over the floor, pondering and kicking up dust.

“What about…” he began, flicking the fins on his neck. “What about blue dragons like us having domain over magic?”

“Hmm?”

“There ought to be dragons in other realities, right? And they likely can use magic. But how often, if at all, would the blue flight be holding domain over the arcane arts?”

Salbri pondered this for a moment, and his face broke into a bright, gleeful beam.

“Acazabri, my dear, sometimes I am so glad that your mother’s wit and mine came together in you. That is simply brilliant. Blue dragons being the masters of the arcane. There can’t be that many realities out there, but we ought to find those that are. What wonders we might find.”

Flicking his ears in excitement, Salbri turned around towards where the library had wandered off to.

“Come, let’s get to work.”

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Do you have greyhounds or whippets? Because here and in a few other places, that’s what dragon body language and
relaxation behaviors remind me of, lounging (or idly wandering) greyhounds. (I guess it’s all that spine.)

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It’s usually cats I’m thinking of :slight_smile:

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