#kellinlii

The Black Mirror A jet-black mirror, the size of a guardian or even larger, the Black Mirror haunts the depths of the Abiding Boneyard. Despite his size, he walks silently, a noiseless, immense shadow between the bones, towering over all but the largest of dragon-kind. His hide is particularly sleek and smooth, even for a mirror, and is slightly oily. Most encounters with him take place at a distance, a mere glimpse of his vast shape and burning red-orange eyes at twilight.

The Black Mirror embodies Plague’s ideals toward survival in two ways. He is an inveterate fighter, incredibly skilled, and yet his sleek hide is scarless. Besides that, however, he seeks to have as many children by as many mothers as possible: a hedge against all possible futures. His children number in the hundreds, and some of them have founded clans of their own.

Also known, rarely, as the Giant, the Shadow, and Oil-hide, among many others. The Black Mirror is the oldest of the Boneyard Legends, except perhaps the Half-Emperor, and has been haunting the Abiding Boneyard since before the founding of modern dragon society three cycles ago.

(pictured here with some startled and dismayed wildclaws for scale)

The Speckled Bear A strange, bestial dragon, some suspect the Speckled Bear is not even a dragon at all. Most agree she is a tundra, and female, but perhaps somehow integrating the essences of bears, death seekers, wolves, mirrors, or various other creatures. No one can agree whether she is armored in bronze and bones, or whether the metal and shards of bone are part of her—some even argue over whether the fur covering her is her own, or skinned from one of her victims.

The Speckled Bear prowls the fringes of the Boneyard, and issues a snarling, wordless challenge to all who approach her. If the challenge is answered, or a fight begun in any other fashion, she becomes at once a whirl of war-teeth, blunted claws and bear-like strength. No one, no matter how large or mighty, is known to have survived a fight against her, and she has built a shrine of heads now picked down to bone. She is frequently followed by death seekers and omen seekers.

Recently, the Speckled Bear has disappeared. Some believe the Black Mirror has killed her.

As the youngest of the Boneyard Legends, the Speckled Bear has no other titles so far.

The Wyrmwound Ghost A strange skydancer with tattered wings, the Wyrmwound Ghost is more commonly seen around Rotrock Rim than the Boneyard proper. She drifts as though weightless, and can glide for hours without flapping, even in the dead air of the Boneyard. Her feathers are patchy and ragged, her horns long, her eyes pale. She feeds primarily on the insects that dwell in the ghostly-white fungi she lives near.

One of the more mysterious Legends, all regard the Wyrmwound Ghost as an ill omen. She is said to steal hatchlings, perhaps to throw into the Wyrmwound herself, perhaps to eat, and it is said that a peculiar fungal sickness flourishes in her wake.

Also known as the Dead Skydancer, the White Vulture, and the White-Witch.

The Half-Emperor A tattered, rotting imperial neither fully alive nor fully dead nor fully undead, the Half-Emperor patrols the Abiding Boneyard on aimless, unpredictable paths. He is covered in open wounds and badly-healed scars, and studded with bones and shards of antler and scales that seem to be pulled from other imperials—dead or alive—that he passes. Some even claim to have seen the plates of guardians or the horns of wildclaws sticking to his hide.

Despite his undead nature, the Half-Emperor is a fairly average-sized imperial. Rumors about his precise size and proportions vary, to the point where some believe he may shift his shape over time. His coloration appears to be a dull, sickly green, but he is generally so covered in reddish dust and gore that it is difficult to tell.

An unpredictable creature, the Half-Emperor is sometimes shy of conflict, and sometimes attacks without provocation. No one is certain whether he is in the Boneyard in an attempt to stay away from most clans, or as part of an attempt to gather as much material to himself as possible.

Also known as Rotface, Bone-Armor, and the Wreck.

The Egg-Eater (Formerly; Deceased) The Egg-Eater was a huge snapper with a massively thick hide. As part of his method of becoming stronger, he had not shed fully in cycles, gluing his own scales and other materials onto himself with mud and eggwhite. His scales were the dull reddish-brown of the transition between the Boneyard and the Contagion. He had a soft, strangled voice perhaps hinting at an old injury buried deep beneath his craggy hide, and his eyes were a sickly greenish color from some plague caught deep in the Boneyard, obscuring his original element.

Despite his bulk, the Egg-Eater was known to vanish and reappear regularly, haunting a series of underground tunnels. Some of these contained pools of water where, in lean times, he would take dead dragons and other animals to ferment—a process he called “turning flesh to fish”, and which rendered them fit to eat for a snapper. Despite his name, he did not subsist primarily off eggs, but he did seem to view them as a delicacy.

Also known as the Bone-snapper, the Crusher, or the Walking Mire.

The Egg-Eater was killed by the Speckled Bear several seasons ago. As he was dying, he promised he would return, but the Speckled Bear’s sacrifice of him to Plaguebringer assures that this will only happen at the goddess’s cruel whim.

*

The ground felt strange under her feet. Clean. Devoid of life. Poisonless. No scent of iron or rot; only the salt tang of the sea, dry driftwood, seabird feathers, shore plants.

She'd left the Scarred Wasteland before, of course—hunting nocturne chests and valuable items, checking the caches she'd left elsewhere, or opening them to send to the clan. This time was different, in some wistful way. Before, she'd always known it was temporary, as temporary as any journey she'd taken from Cindercone. Even when she'd traced the route through dream and scent to the canyon itself, it had been more like visiting her hatching-clan.

Winds blew off the plateau above; now the scent of cherry blossoms, now the dragons of some clan or tribe, now the cold brine of the Outer Ocean. Under it all, hot grass and green bamboo.

She didn't know if she'd ever return, this time. Just as she'd foreseen, so many seasons ago, the Abiding Boneyard had become her home, as much as Fire had ever been.

She continued down the beach. Retracing her steps. The way was in her now.

*

She deviated from the path when the festival began, making instinctively for the water. She'd always planned on swimming some of the way, but the waves called to her with unexpected strength. She hadn't swum in seasons, not far, at least.

The water rose over her wrists, then hocks. A wave swept it over her shoulder, and the patched and tattered banner and birdskull she still wore. Then she was swimming, at first with half-panicked, dog-like strokes, but swiftly strengthening.

She took one last breath, floated for an instant with wings outspread and all four legs down, then dove.

She swam stiffly at first, hindlegs tucked back, wings up and half-spread, propelling herself with strokes of her forelegs, and held her breath. When, at last, the bubbles streamed from her nose and mouth, and she took her first breath, in seasons, of the Sea's mild brine, the memories came flooding back.

Above her she could sense Khohuark, coasting on the rough winds, thoughts sad and distressed. She beckoned to him, offered him her water-breath, but he only sent thoughts in turn of sodden feathers and clumsy paddling.

She swam out and down, until the winds from above were lost, down until the waters grew dark.

*

She was still swimming, but the waters had gone cold; at first chilled, like southern ocean brine, then cold as if she were treading through the heart of the Fortress of Ends, and then her forefeet were catching on ice crystals. Soon she was more tunneling through snow than swimming through water.

She could just see far enough to find cold, cyan eyes watching her. Inquisitive.

Amused.

She realized, suddenly, that Spearmint was nearby and turned—

She awoke underwater, and was immediately and irrationally afraid she would suffocate. She forced in deep breaths, letting the water curl heavily through her lungs, and looked around.

Outside the sheltered rock nook where she’d slept, the ocean stretched for thousands of feet in every direction. Somewhere in the dry skies above her, the noon sun was lighting the waters. Ahead, the ground fell away further, and there it was dark, the waters silted and murky. In the distance, she could make out the faint outlines of other dragons—a guardian and an imperial swimming within speaking distance of each other, and the faint shape of spirals.

She waited until they were out of sight entirely to set out. She felt an odd sense of guardedness, as if there were something sacred or shameful about her journey, and somewhat ill-at-ease at the thought of speaking to another dragon. She almost wondered how they’d react, and whether she’d prefer to be addressed as the Speckled Bear, or some stranger named Kellinlii.

She headed east, deeper into the sea. Toward the heart of it all.

*

She swam for days without meeting another dragon, until the festival came. Dragons of every species and every element descended when the tides turned, even a few of the bolder ridgebacks. She remained wary of meeting any of them, and dove every time she caught scent of a party. Soon, despite the depth, she was brushing the sea floor.

It was dark constantly, dayless and nightless. She swam until she tired, slept until she woke, continued onward. The few dragons at the depth passed her without contact. She felt almost invisible in the gloom, a sleepwalker, her dreams more intense and meaningful than her waking journeys. The waters pulsed with Tidelord’s strength, moving with their own will to curl about her.

She dreamed every night beneath the waves. Many had the tang of prophecy, a few that of memory. None were restful. Dragons and beastfolk she knew drifted in and out of them—Cataclysm with ignited circuits, Sprucetip haloed in shadow and frost, Hrijikirrik tending a furnace, Soriss and Merixith both, Lyrrkril looking mutinous. Spearmint, though it was hard to tell if she saw her back or not. Rennic, in chains, incased in a gembond the color of sunlight. Her father, worn and exhausted-looking. Others she didn’t know, but had seen before—the strange, blood-stained tundra that had spoken with her uncle last season howled a battle-cry beside a mirror in red-feathered hat in a place that looked like the sea bordering the Contagion; a corven she’d seen in a marketplace perched high on the wall of a canyon and laughed at something below; a wolf-like tundra stalked a blood-colored wildclaw whose appearance was pricklingly familiar across the snowy floor of a southern forest.

She alternated swimming with forefeet and with wings as each tired. To stop her journey longer than to sleep risked her turning back. Slowly she grew stronger in the waters, and the scent of the Scarred Wasteland faded from her fur, the taste of blood and vitreous humor leaving her tongue.

Further. Deeper.

*

An icy-white female ridgeback was watching, both eyes fixed intently on her. They were a cold blue, element indistinct, as undraconic and watchful as an elemental’s. Though she was not transfixed, she knew that no matter where she moved she could not escape their sight.

She was walking in the Abiding Boneyard, a casual stroll naked of armor, hood, or crown, Khohuark alternately flying and skipping by her shoulder. Something as indistinct as a shadow and slim as a knife slid out from behind a tall rib and began to slink after her, jackal-like and swift. Try as she might, she could not alter path or pace, nor turn to look closely at the thing drawing near.

She was pacing Lyrrkril as the mirror ran through the Shifting Expanse, muttering curses under her breath. They darted together under a criss-crossing web of wires, around machine parts, through puddles of coolant, up and down hills more like cliff faces. Lyrrkril’s oaths grew louder and rougher as they raced together up and down the Expanse—though what the mirror might be searching for, Kellinlii could not tell.

There was a sudden screech of corvid laughter—

She was deep underground, and the air reeked of lubricant and oil, metal and dark water. Her breath came harsh in her chest.

Something pulsed nearby, like a massive, too-regular heartbeat, pounding soft and rhythmically. Though quiet, it resonated too deeply, trembling in her bones.

Lucid, she looked around, and cast about in the dark for smells and sounds. Above her, and far in the distance, a single, stark white light pierced the dark, hinting at metal and stone above and catching in the dusty air. Underfoot, the ground was a mix of sand and silt studded with small, flat stones, wet and river-smelling with a certain tar-like undertone. Faintly, she could see the glint of water around her, dark and reeking of petroleum.

Things scraped, claw on stone. A few bats, chittering.

Too few.

Head high, eyes wide, ears flared, she took a step forward, and her foot touched the dark waters—

Blood-soaked bones. Scorched earth. Snapper-scent, thick and overwhelming. Fire, the smell of heated air, smoke. The sear of flames across her nose. She turned and fled, and all around her fires welled up.

An imperial reared up through the smoke ahead of her, a rippling wall of sunset scales and purplish fur, covered in battered scraps of armor. Flames reared around them like seven extra heads.

She threw herself past them, scraping on her belly beneath their outstretched foreleg, and scrambled onward. Ahead, the flames were thinning. She gathered her feet beneath her and leapt out.

Chains clattered on stone, clicked on something brittle. Unwashed tundra, male and very familiar, a chemical tang, a hint of beeswax.