#shadowscale

... And now I'm almost disappointed that he wasn't a saxhleel in the canon

I don't know, it just seems so cool

Shadowscale Hunter

Art for The Elder Scrolls: Legends

Whispers of the warped magic always lead back there, to the ancient heart of the decaying empire, where the emperor is stuck in everlasting winter. His body thin and frail with old age, unable to move, barely able to speak, resting among bones and dust in a throne that used to host two.

His eyes are still sharp.

He is not the source of the curse, he whispers, only its reason. He wishes to be free from it, too. He wishes it had not ended like this. He points to the dead, rotten trees, whispers of forgotten joy. It is resignation, not resentment in his voice.

It is hollow under the old city. Going lower and lower and ever lower turns the trees to ground then to bones, flesh still attached and dangling, animals and insects fleeing what might once have been considered a feast. It's pitiful, the remains of veins and skin. But worse, it is still alive as it rots. There is the anguish of pain and rage in the air.

Following the bones leads one to the pit.

Reality feels wrong here. The darkness overtakes everything, it reeks of rot and magic and curses. Lanterns barely suffice to see near one's feet. Holding it up high, however, catches a single flutter of air and lights up the hall that should not be.

Down there, bones become rotting flesh becomes torn scales becomes a twitching, wounded, serpentine body.

Then there's the teeth. Puncturing deep in the bleeding, decaying thing, rivers of blood the tint of ash and coal. Tainted magic pouring down and pooling into the source that must have once fed the mighty, magical trees of the empire. And near the teeth, the eye of a being older than all the tales that are recounted in recent memory. Hatred shines in it, focused on its rotting prey, determined to bleed it dry forever. Even from so high it is impossible to tell where one dragon ends and the other begins, locked in eternal strife.

The light is snuffed out.

It is eerily still for a long time. The scent of taint here is so strong that none should survive a return trip. None should be able to stay upright for much longer.

The pair hold hands and huddle around their wolf and wait for the death that the rot promises.

Sky Wyrm meets a Shadowscale in a foreign sky.

All of a sudden the air is unfamiliar. The currents do not reveal to her their name. And what is this tiny legged creature that dare fly beside me?

Day 6 - Dinos Dragons & Droids