Chapter Text
Navarog did to his friend’s body what was owed to any dragon, whether it was his own mother or his worst enemy. Perhaps that meant the gesture wasn’t worth much, but then again Mirav wasn’t a dragon anymore, and well, he was never the respectful type. Besides, he’d carried him from his lair to the field himself, and painstakingly he’d swooped over him, losing every breath weapon he had in his hold.
Over and over again.
All by his lonesome.
It wasn’t as though Mirav was alive to nitpick his efforts, anyway.
Not another soul would ever know or care about his funeral, either, regardless of however deserving of merit it was. Perhaps, one day, after year after year wore this one down to a smooth pebble, too easy to pass by and impossible to catch himself on, he’d fail to care about it, too. So maybe it didn’t matter.
Maybe it would have made no difference if he left him here just like this. The elements would have no obstacle breaking his fleshy human corpse down, anyhow. Animals would pick the skin and muscle clean from bone, and a passing rain storm would scatter his skeleton from itself, and then those individual bits and pieces of Mirav would sink into mud or beneath mats of wind-flung dirt.
Maybe that’s what Mirav wanted.
Maybe that was the choice he made when he cast himself out from his dragon form. Left his friends, his family, and the whole of dragon society behind with it.
Maybe he’d expected a pyre or a grave or even a platform to give the vultures an easier time of it. The multitude of human religions did provide an equaling multitude of methods of disposal, after all, and that was never a topic he’d picked up with Mirav. He could have taken up any one of them or none.
Likely, that didn’t matter, either.
He wasn’t around to specify now, and his sole mourner had naught left to do but what he would.
Navarog seared his flesh from his bones in an immaculate shroud of gold. He washed his bones clean in a bath of soggen, molecular darkness, cutting into the noonday sunshine with a jet of blackness that puddled and bubbled about the earlier metallic mess and the white peeking out from under it. The sludge that was left, rendered rainbow where the blackness and gold mixed together, he set to simple fire, ignoring the sulfuric fumes that drifted up to his nostrils.
There was something to say about the perhaps limited role he would’ve played at any other funeral, being little gifted in the department of beautiful things. The melding of his gifts, after all, was far off from the picture this practice was supposed to create.
He might’ve been invited into the chorus of regular, plain fire, as some first act before the harmony of decomposition and the dumping of sediments, quickly followed by fertilization and the wash of green, growing things.
Still, he offered his part of booming, mournful roars. The simplest line of a song.
Still, he salted the earth with a melody of lightning. His work was as done as it was ever going to become.
If anything was capable of growing in this now poisoned soil, perhaps that would help. Perhaps gentler gifts would sprout here. Mirav might appreciate that. If not, he supposed a blackened patch of scorched earth would suit him just fine.
~
Revenge, at least, was a beast Navarog was more suited to, and something he didn’t care to suppress the urge to carry out.
So, he didn’t bother to raise an army or rally minions. He just flipped a rotating switch and was on his way to the Living Mirage. For the last time. If he had anything to say about it.
Which he probably didn’t.
But allies, minions, friends. Anyone with the capability to talk him in or out of anything. Or with the desire to turn their back on him. That all seemed behind him right now. Had been for, he didn’t know, maybe the space of a couple weeks.
Maybe that had been the problem in the first place.
He appeared in the dungeons. Or, in that room carved off from the dungeons, to be exact. Where only the chief jailer, the caretaker, and the groundskeeper would normally be admitted to. And where the keys were stored when not in use.
He lifted them straight off the wall.
They went without complaint.
Navarog chuckled to himself. All that time wasted enchanting doors and bespelling locks. Yet nobody ever bothered to wonder what would happen if anyone got behind said doors and locks. Which one of the keys the Mirage staff had dedicated generations to obtaining, courtesy of the Sphinx, might do. And which would get him to every manner of key.
Probably the —still alive, and didn’t that just get his teeth gnashing— unwrinkled bastard thought he’d be the only one with a shot in hell to nab it.
But then Navarog was enough of a bastard to tape three Sphinxes together, and, thus, things had a way of coming up Navarog. Even if they were never quite up Navarog enough.
As he had been thoroughly shown. And then left alone with nothing but bones to pick and this here Translocator.
He twisted out and into the dungeons proper.
Where he promptly began to unlock doors and toss out keys like candy.
~
Things did indeed go bump in the night.
Not that that came as any surprise to Agad, being the former caretaker of Wymroost and a chief architect of both editions of Zzyzx, but he hadn’t been here a fortnight.
And yet beneath his feet, Agad could feel at least three wards torn asunder. Through the air rippled the aftershocks of magical bonds suddenly cut, springing back in recoil to some long-forgotten resting place. Faintly, he could hear the din of clashing metal and screeching wafting up through the floorboards.
Agad set down his Chamomile. Its house in the colorful ‘Don’t talk to me before I’ve had my Cofee’ mug he’d inherited with the preserve, he cast down on the ornate hand-carved nightstand also inherited.
It was clear that he would be allowed to enjoy neither tonight.
He guessed that a certain young lady had known what she was about when she left her mail with him following their party. Maybe he should’ve taken it as an omen.
He hopped out of the beautifully preserved embroidered armchair that he, nonetheless, had managed to snag his ring on several times, pulling thread free in a manner he was sure would have sent the Sphinx into a fit if he’d known about it.
Hobbling to his desk, where the front face of an envelope stared at him from its perch against a potted plant, whose strict watering and sun-shade rotation he’d been subject to a stern lecture about from a prisoner who didn’t seem an ounce as repentant and docile as Agad thought he ought to be. He scooped up the letter.
A beautifully curling expletive was scrawled in bright glittery ink over it.
Slamming his door open, he called out to his guards, a golem that kept watch over the door and the obnoxious, whistly man who was in charge of the corridor.
Neither answered.
Godamnit, Agad thought, picking up the pace as he speed-walked through a series of empty halls that nonetheless succeeded one another in an increase in volume, as the clamor of downstairs’ fight grew closer.
Deeper, in the hallway containing the dungeon stairwell, the din became unbearable and the fighting became visibly apparent, as the totality of the guards fought against an ever-growing swarm of prisoners streaming up from the lower levels.
A minor demon with curling ram horns spoke in clicks with the human man by her side, whose beard waggled about his knees, far too scrawny to be aiding her in their struggle against a golem. A handful of goblins did their best against a beaked, winged fluttering stick of a humanoid creature despite their being armed and their opponent being unarmed.
Agad stepped over a dead armored man, free of any obvious puncture wounds.
Their resident Lammasu folded like a cheap suit up against a legion consisting of a half-snake woman, a dwarf flinging dark spells, and a minotaur.
Agad sighed, pulling up his sleeves, rapidly pulling offensive spells to the ready.
The beaked man spotted him first, calling to his fellow prisoners in a high, squawking voice language he could not interpret. Still, the gist of it was easy enough to pick up on.
Agad dodged the water dish flung his way.
~
The swarm might, technically, have been reduced by the time they pushed him outside, but with a seemingly endless supply of replacements ready to be conjured from below, it was hard to notice. Most of his staff, at least those who hadn’t fled at the sight of the horde —or even joined them— were long since dead.
The fallen’s swords had been shortly claimed by the more muscular of the bunch (somehow, despite the food), and while he’d seen no wizards so far, luckily, there’d been enough magic users around to erect slapdash defenses to his spells. The odd creature threw counter spells his way as well.
Enough said that he was kept on his toes and it was a hard push out of the pyramid.
Outside, Agad met with a new swarm, one that seemed much more formidable, both in terms of numbers and on an individual level.
These denizens’ organizer seemed obvious enough, going off of the great black wings swooping overhead, whose owner he assumed hadn’t been here this morning. And who had seemingly made short work of the treaty and gathering whichever creatures he felt most prone to violence.
Navarog dropped carelessly in front of him, crushing a clawful of his compatriots in the process. His red eyes burned within his, frankly, unreadable expression. Even for a dragon.
A wrought iron keyring thumped onto the ground in front of him unceremoniously.
“What brings you to my humble abode?” Agad asked, clearing his throat, unbothered by the dragon fear rolling off of him in waves.
Navarog didn’t answer, licking his chops instead with his great, slobbering forked tongue. Which was an answer clear enough, he supposed.
“I was entrusted with a letter for you, you know,” he said with a studied nonchalance, patting the pocket of his robe, all he had time to throw over his sleeping clothes.
“Hand it over, then, and let’s be done with this,” Navarog said in a chorus of deep, grating voices. Like the singer, the bassist, and the drummer of a heavy metal band, all in one.
“No,” he shrugged, “I think it’ll go up with me.” He sniffed, as haughty as could manage in this state. “Or with you.”
“Don’t bother, great wizened old one,” he snorted, sending up a fat stack of smoke from his nose, like the angry issuance of a factory’s chimney. “You struck a deal that not only ruined all my dear heart’s poor dreams,” he clucked, darting tongue slapping against the roof of a titanic mouth, “but also got my friend killed. No piece of paper’s enough bargain for your life.”
Agad thrust his hand into his pocket, ready to burn it to a crisp and call his bluff, assuming it was enough, with nothing to go off of but a night’s worth of watching him pretend to be a hapless, socially anxious young man.
Considering the speed at which a series of sword’s length teeth darted down to snap him up —as easily as biting into the soft center of a melon, his finger’s given no time to make humble sparks— one had to suppose it was still anyone’s guess.
Agad’s legs and abdomen collapsed onto the ground, blood seeping all around him from the clean bite that severed his neck from his shoulders
Navarog scooped his headless self up, then, careful to ensure that the bitten-off bit was facing down and therefore not spilling any more onto the untorn bit of his robes and also that his claw was positioned so that the only precious part of this cargo did not flop out of his pockets to be lost in the fray below. He swallowed the last nibble of his late supper.
Other than that, he considered his work here to be done, springing up with his front legs into the air, likely crushing a whole lot of the dead man’s bones in the process. Oh, well.
Some prisoners had been freed. Mr. deal-maker was dead. His belly was full. And he figured he could count on the various inhabitants of the Living Mirage to make further ruckus of the Sphinx’s former home.
That was probably as close to avenged as Mirav was going to get.
Navarog took off.
~
Navarog sat himself in the branches of a far-off unfamiliar tree, human legs swinging below him and the soon-to-be summer sun baking a metaphorical cake on his head. The blackened coils there were hot enough to the touch as a stove’s might be. Agad’s corpse dropped off miles ago, Navarog had simply carried around his gauzy, red robe, textured with chunky green and yellow depictions of birds, parts of them too stained to distinguish one thread from another
Now he pulled it onto his lap, digging inside the pockets for the promised letter.
Of course, he could have been bluffing about that too, but he didn’t know how the wizard could have learned anything about his penpalship unless Kendra really had left something with him.
Besides, things being as they were right now, he could use a kind word.
Finding the envelope, he pulled it free. The robe he simply dropped on the forest floor, already forgotten by him, and soon to be buried too deeply in leaves or made too good of a nest to be recognized as anything that was at any time important to anyone.
The sparkly blue letters on the front brought a fond smile to his face as he made careful work of tearing the back flap open.
Inside, he pulled out two simple sheets of notebook paper, stapled together. Free of the doodles that sometimes accompanied her letters. Near the end of his letter was a sentence so thickly crossed out it made an indent through the page, half-obscuring some other sentence of hers.
It read as follows:
Dear “Gavin” Navarog “Rose,”
Fuck you.
Fuck you for fucking with my little brother. Fuck you for what you did to Lena. Fuck you for what you did to my home. And fuck you for being your godawful self. Extra fuck you for being such an adamantine excuse of an oaf.
I don’t know where you are right now or when, if ever, you will receive this letter. I mostly hope you don’t. Obviously, it would mean nothing good if you made your way where I expect you are thinking of going.
Nonetheless, it needed to be said, and if it’s smarter and more responsible not to send these kinds of letters, well, then you can go fuck yourself off your high horse about that, too.
For the sake of calling this a productive piece of communication, I will say this. I know you’re a ridiculous, evil dragon, who delights in wreaking havoc and is likely incapable of being reasoned with. But, leave my family alone, now and forever. Or else.
And, no, before you snark something about it, I have no idea what or else means or how I’d manage to pull it off. But I’m sure I could figure it out, given adequate reason too. And, also, maybe keep it to yourself for once.
On a lighter note, what on earth do you even need the translocator for? As if you can’t literally fly. And given ample consideration for both the span of your wings and the amount of air you must displace with every flap of said wings, I’m going to wager you can already cover vast distances at high speeds. Likely, faster than a plane.
Which, do you know how much plane tickets cost? Did the Sphinx or Dougan (fuck you for that too by the way) or whoever show you the ticket for Lost Mesa and Wyrmroost? Hell, do you know how many hours of minimum wage it would take to be able to afford that? Do you even know what minimum wage costs?
You dick. I literally can’t think of one person who would need a teleportation device less than you do.
It’s not like it’s a key to much of anything right now.
At the same time, though, it would’ve been awful to find out how just how many dragons it would take to kill you. No matter how much you deserve it.
But that’s not important. Not to mention wrong and stupid on my part.
So, then, you’ll be happy to know that the Quiet Box, while a little crispy on the outside, remains intact, with Coulter also intact inside. I imagine that was your main target when you torched my home, so suck on that, you fucker. You will also be happy to know that my cousin —Warren’s brother— is fine, and in fact didn’t realize what had happened until you were gone.
Most of the dungeon was less lucky. All of the inhabitants of the main level passed away, likely in a truly painful fashion, Slaggo and Voorsh included. Which is almost funny when you think about it, considering some of them should have been your allies, maybe even friends.
Slaggo once told me he’d spent every day that you were locked up wondering who you were. I suppose it’s too much to hope that he got his wish before he went up.
It’s probably also too much to hope that you feel as sorry about it as you deserve.
Insincerely,
Kendra Sorenson
~
Navarog blinked, sucking in a cheek as he folded the letter back up carefully, sticking it back in its envelope, and pressing to his chest. He guessed beggars couldn’t be choosers, but he had to admit, that was not quite the sappy romantic nonsense he was hoping for.
He supposed at least he’d been thought about. Maybe, even after everything, there was the half-baked implication of care. The demand for closure or catharsis or excisement did, he thought, imply a blank and wobbly sort of something that had been turned on its head, and now necessitated her turning it into something else.
Navarog sighed.
Or something.
He supposed he’d write back
And he supposed there were still things left to do. Nice and terrible days alike left to live. Smoke for him to breathe, thick enough to choke half a country or so over.
He shoved the letter in his pocket and pushed off from the branch into the night sky. His flat feet thickened and twisted into curving talons. Scales creeped up his leg and his shoulder blades peeled back, becoming wings instead. His neck elongated, stretching up and out from the trees until it too was awash in sharp spikes and hard-plated scales. His chest and belly became a rough field of black gemstones.
Feeling not quite as sated and content as he ought to have, after a meal and a feat, Navarog allowed the sky to beckon him.
Off into the night, away from preserves and all manner of magic, into a world that no longer seemed the one he remembered. Destruction more finite than his seemed like a cloak over the now-mortal world.
Still, perhaps there were things left to see.