Andromedeus
They had been walking for a while in what Celestia felt was an awkward silence when she finally built up the courage to speak. "So I really do want to know. How long have you been following me?"
Ilios didn't so much pause as hesitate mid-step. "How did you know I was following you?" he asked carefully.
"You killed the orithuns in the woods near my house the other night, didn't you?" she pressed. She was going to get answers.
"Yes. I am the one who killed them," he answered with surprising honesty.
Celestia hadn't expected him to admit to it so easily. She looked around them. They were already out of town and halfway to her cottage. "So how long were you following me?"
"I was following the orithuns," he answered. "You just happened to be involved in both instances."
"You were following them? Then why didn't you attack them sooner?" she asked.
He didn't answer for a moment. "Fine. I was following you. I have been since the attacks began."
"Why did you lie?" she asked without looking at him. He was already offering more than she had expected even if he had lied initially. She didn't want to make him more uncomfortable by staring at him.
"Because I didn't want to make you upset with me. I don't know many people who would feel comfortable with someone telling them they had been spying on them for any length of time."
It felt like a true answer, at least as close to the truth as she was going to get. "That's fair, I suppose. If you hadn't saved my life twice now, assuming the orithuns from the other night would have continued pursuing me, I suppose I would have been rather cross." She paused for a moment before asking, "So why have you been following me?"
He didn't answer immediately. He seemed to be weighing his options. "I feel that is a conversation best saved for another time."
"So you don't want to tell me why you have been spying on me? That's not right," she said, annoyance plain in her tone. She took a deep breath. This man had just brutally murdered two groups of orithuns. It was likely not wise to piss him off.
He didn't say anything for a time and she mentally scolded herself for snapping at him. "They were going to kidnap you. I wasn't okay with that. I was forced to use drastic measures to prevent that from happening. I can tell you that I am very invested in your well-being," he said, breaking the silence between them.
They were at the cottage now. She herded the animals back into the barn as he watched from the corner of the house. When she had all the animals shut away she walked through the garden, grabbing a few fresh fruits and veggies before going inside. "Come on then. Come inside. I can't very well leave you out there."
He followed her into the home and stood leaning against the wall in a place he oddly fit perfectly in. It was as if the spot was his. She caught herself staring at him and turned her attention back to the food she was fumbling with. She heard him chuckle lightly behind her. "Is there anything I can help with?" he asked.
"If you could go down into the cellar and get a loaf of bread as well as a meat that would be most helpful," she answered.
"As you wish," he replied and went down into the cellar. He returned only moments later with exactly what she had asked for. He set the meat on the counter beside her and the bread on the table.
"A salad bowl and my frying pan, please," she asked. She watched him go directly to them without hesitation before setting them where she always set them when she cooked. The hair on her neck stood up. How did he know where they were? she thought to herself. "Thank you, Ilios."
She prepared three pork chops and a fresh salad for dinner, plated them, and set them at the table. He sat in the guest chair, leaving Violet's seat open for her. Violet, where is she?
Celestia went to the front door and looked out just in time to see Violet coming out of the forest across the clearing in front of the cottage. When Violet came in she paused mid-step to look at Ilios. She was clearly caught off guard. She hopped up onto her chair as Celestia closed the door behind her and took her seat. Violet openly stared at Ilios sitting at the table eating.
"It is rude to stare, Violet," Celestia said to her. Violet stopped looking at him and ate her pork chop with visible reluctance. Ilios looked over at Violet and chuckled again, giving Celestia uncomfortable butterflies in her stomach. "So you said you came from Borealis Mountain," she said, trying to make conversation.
"Yes. I believe I said that," he replied before eating another bite.
"That can't be true. Only dragons live on Borealis Mountain and they don't let humans up there," she said.
"Indeed, they do not," he said, looking at her pointedly. "Which is why your stay there is going to be so very interesting."
"M-My what?" she stuttered.
"Your stay there. We are going to Borealis Mountain, to the den of dragons. It is the safest place for you to be," he said with a matter-of-fact tone.
"In what world is the den of dragons a safe place for me to be?" she could hear herself say as her voice cracked.
"You will be surrounded by dragons. What place could possibly be safer?" he asked, clearly not seeing the issue.
"I'm not a dragon! I happen to be a human. Dragons don't like humans, you know?" she protested.
"I'll take care of that. You should probably clean up a bit. Maybe wear clothes that aren't covered in blood."
Celestia looked down at herself. Her dress was ruined. She could feel blood caked in her blonde hair. She had been so lost in shock that she forgot she had been covered in blood. She looked to Violet who was staring at her wide-eyed. Celestia stood, went into the bathroom, and shut the door once Violet was in the room with her.
She waved her hand over the water and fire crystals. The water crystals floated above the hot fire crystals and poured water onto them, filling the tub with the warmed water. The crystals idly floated in a slowly moving circle above the tub as she disrobed and unbraided her hair. Once the tub was full she waved the crystals away and they floated back to their places on the side of the tub. She poured lavender and eucalyptus oil into the water and climbed in.
She soaked in the water for a long time after bathing and washing her hair. She thought about how he said she was going to the den of dragons on Borealis Mountain. He was crazy. He was also inhumanely strong and fast. She didn't stand a chance fighting against him.
She sighed in a resigned way and let the water drain out of the tub. There was no point in delaying the inevitable. She wrapped herself in a large towel and walked to her room. Ilios watched her as she passed through the room without comment.
She emerged from her room a half hour later dressed in her sage-green top and skirt. The dress had small, yellow and white flowers embroidered along the foot of the skirt and the neckline of the top. She had also braided her hair again.
"Are you ready?" Ilios asked.
"To go up the mountain to my death? Yeah, almost." She grabbed her staff and removed the hazy and cracked soul crystals. She replaced each of them and then opened the hidey-hole she had stashed the prism stone away in. She pulled it out and held it out in front of the head of her staff.
The branches moved and adjusted to make room for the crystal then extended vines that encircled it, pulling it into the center of the head of the staff. She grabbed her bag and a water skin as well as a few spare fire, water, and healing crystals. She wrapped her cloak around herself and turned to face Ilios. "Okay. I am as prepared to die as I'm going to be."
He chuckled at her and walked out the door, leaving it open for her to follow. She waited for Violet to walk out first then followed, closing the door securely behind herself. She followed Ilios out into the clearing when he stopped suddenly and looked around himself. Celestia braced herself and her staff started to glow. "What is it? Orithuns?" she asked.
He looked back at her. "Calm down, warrior princess. Just back up a few paces." Celestia lowered her staff. She was clearly confused but stepped back, giving him the space he asked for.
His eyes began to glow and scales spread across his skin like wildfire. His bones contorted and reshaped his skeletal structure. Wings sprouted from his back and spread longer than the trees were tall. One moment a man had been standing in front of her; the next a prismatic-white dragon loomed over her on all four of his alarmingly large, clawed feet.
The dragon gazed down at her with seafoam-green eyes so clear that they glowed in the moon's light. Seafoam-green and blue scales started between two horns atop his head and ran down his spine to the tip of his tail. All of his scales shimmered like the purest prism crystal, like the one in her staff.
She stood there, mouth gaping open, gawking at him. First of all, she had never seen a dragon up close before. Second, a human just turned into a dragon in front of her. This contradicted everything she had ever been told about dragons. Not only was one protecting her but it had looked human until this moment. He had been around humans, talked to humans. "Do you all… do this?"
"Change our skin? Most of us do. The younger dragons are losing their ability to change skin. They are either born with human skin, dragon skin, or a mixture. Where I am going to take you, there will be children with this affliction. I ask that you please be kind to them," he requested. He sounded genuinely vulnerable in that moment.
"If I stare it will simply be because everything is new to me, not just the children. To be completely transparent, I expect I will stare at everyone," she said with a shaky voice.
"I can understand and will try to remind you not to gawk," he said. "We should be off." He lowered his body until he was almost lying on the ground. She carefully maneuvered her way up his shoulder and onto his back. She sat on a group of spikes that laid down beneath her and held onto ones in front of her. Violet climbed on behind her and laid herself down flat on his back. "Do try to hold on."
Then he spread his wings and into the night sky they went. Celestia screwed her eyes shut, clinging to Ilios for dear life. She felt him lifting them into the air and then he leveled out and was gliding through the sky, only flapping his wings here and there to pick them back up a bit. She peeked over his shoulder at the ground below and was stunned.
It was breathtaking. She stared out in utter awe at the scene below her. The forest had a blue hue to it from Jediah's light. The river looked like a dazzling, silver sash laid across the ground. Lights glowed here and there like fireflies or small stars littering the ground.
Borealis Mountain was dark with veins glowing a soft cyan with a green, yellow, and pink aurora around it. She had seen the aurora lights around the mountain before but not so close and not without trees blocking her view. The night sky above her was almost as lapis lazuli but darker. Jediah and Andromita shone brightly in the sky, both only a week away from full.
Just as she was starting to feel comfortable, Ilios descended toward the top of the mountain where there was a lake and a gaping cave. He landed with surprising grace, slowed down to a trot, and walked into the mouth of the cave.
They descended into the mountain for some time, then up, then back down again before they came to an open area. There were soul crystal in the walls of the cave, illuminating the room. The surrounding stone and crystal of the mountain had been carved into a large, underground temple, covered and filled with wildlife she had never seen above ground. Glowing, cyan willow trees grown to the size of full-grown trees filled the cavern.
Large crystal formations shone at the top of the cave like jagged moons. Glowing bugs crawled and flew around like little stars. There were streams flowing through the room, glowing pale blue and filled with colorful fish. Purple ferns and blue moss covered the floor of the cave. Large, round, mostly flat mushrooms sprouted from the walls had water streaming down them in a cascade of tiny waterfalls.
Stranger creatures filled the area. Large, bird-like creatures flew around. They had glowing antennae and moth-like wings with glowing spots on them. Shimmering, white geckos with curled tails glowing above them sat upon rocks, cocking their heads so as that they could look up at her. Large, striped cats with fish-like fins around their faces and bodies swam in the waters hunting fish. And there were dragons. Dragons were everywhere. So were humans. Or rather dragons in human forms and they were all looking at Celestia and Ilios.
Celestia felt herself cowering into Ilios. Violet was glaring at them all with her ears lying flat on her head. "It's alright. They won't harm you so long as you as you are with me. You are safe," he said in a comforting gesture but it did little to ease the anxiety she felt enveloping her. Ilios walked past the staring dragons like they weren't even there. She could hear them whispering to each other.
"What is he thinking?!" one asked.
"How could he bring a human in here?!" whispered another.
"Does this mean we have to leave, Mommy?" a small dragon asked his mother. He was one of the dragons stuck between shapes; he had scale patches all over his skin, horns on his head, and dragon claws for hands and wings. A little girl was near him, hiding behind the skirts of a woman in much the same form but she had a tail.
Two large dragons flew down in front of Ilios. A black dragon with red-tipped spikes and red eyes was on his left and to his right was a dragon of many shades of green with a white underbelly and solid black eyes. "You cannot be here with her. She is not one of our kind," a woman's voice came from the green dragon.
"You must take her from here. Now! You endanger us all by bringing her here," said the other with a man's voice. They both spoke like authority.
"I will speak only to the elder dragon. He will choose whether to let her stay," Ilios said as he shoved past them. Celestia was flat against him now, terrified that the other two may try to pluck her from his back.
They climbed a long series of stairs and at the top they entered a room lined with glowing crystal pillars. At the end of the room was a huge crystal formation, four times the size of Ilios and he was taller than her cottage. It was prismatic opaline crystal. The whole formation was. Ilios lowered himself to the ground, letting her climb down to see better. "Stay," he said before walking off into a side room with Violet still on his back, leaving her standing alone in the middle of the room.
Celestia waited for what felt like an eternity. She paced in circles for a while, then walked to the nearest crystal pillar and examined it. She ran her hand along the side, feeling the smooth coldness of it. It emanated with magic. She waved her hand in the air and from her hand sprouted butterflies made of light. She waved again and light flowers blossomed from nothing. She thought of the cavern outside the temple.
She took a breath, clapped her hands together, and placed them on the ground. Life made purely of light sprouted from the ground, starting from her hands and engulfing the area around her. Glowing willows waved in the nonexistent breeze.
Butterflies from above ground floated through the air. Violet chased the butterflies through the room. A glowing field of flowers as well as the strange ferns from her waved back and forth. Birds from both worlds flew around the room. She was watching them when she froze.
The crystal at the end of the room had moved. She felt panic start to rise from her stomach up her throat. An old voice filled the room. "I'm afraid I must have startled you. I was just enjoying your light show."
The formation shifted again and a head slowly raised up from it, revealing the dragon that was inside. No, not inside; he was the formation. Crystal covered him in jagged formations. Beneath him was pearlescent white, similar to Ilios. He very slowly shifted until he was sitting up, staring down at her from across the room with piercing, blue eyes.
Celestia swallowed the scream she felt building up in her, but with great effort. She could feel herself trembling and didn't have to wonder if he saw it. She knew he could. "I'm sorry. I was just… just…" she trailed off.
"Bored of waiting? I was too. Old age is such a lie. Your body grows old but your mind stays young, even if a little muddled at times. It is no different with dragons. For those of us who live to see old age, it is not pleasant," the dragon said in a rumbling, old voice. "I am called Andromedeus."
"That sounds a lot like our moon, Andromedus," she said.
"That is because it was named after me, child. Andromita is named after my sister, Andromity. She resides over the ocean den," he explained. "We dragons live for centuries. Some even longer."
Celestia was standing closer to him now. Odd; she didn't remember moving. She felt strangely calm as he started to talk again.
"Many of us have lived underground all our lives but some of us still remember what it was like when we, too, lived on the surface world. We remember the warmth of the sun on our skin. How we were rejuvenated during full moons. When the moons themselves didn't have names. Some of us even remember Alminus."
"What is Alminus?" she asked.
"Alminus is the creator. He was once what you call Jediah. He was all that Jediah was before Xeno destroyed everything. He lingered in the soul crystals that fell to Eternia for a while after the calamity. He still spoke to us when I was a youngling. Then hearing his voice became rarer. Then rarer still, until one day his voice simply wasn't heard again. That was what feels like eons ago."
She was directly in front of him now, sitting on the floor like a child.
"In the old times dragons reined supreme. We were more advanced than the other races. Far were the only other ones who could hear Alminus but they were but babes to us. We taught the other races language, arts, trades, farming, and so on. When we lost the grace of Alminus the orithuns appeared.
With them came chaos. They wanted nothing but blood shed. They thrive on it like nectar. They would come at night, wiping out entire villages, then bathe in their blood. They would do rituals that made the skies rain with it.
We would protect as many as we could from them but we could not save everyone. Then they killed the first of us. It was the first dragon death on Eternia. Then they killed another. And another. Until they were hunting us just as much as others. We knew it could not go on so we met with the other races and formulated a plan.
We lured out the orithuns from their homes. Then, together, we drove them underground and locked them away with magic. With time the spell has waned, first making some able to go out for short periods but the spell is all but gone now. They will come back and start to hunt and murder entire villages again if they are not stopped."
"How do we stop them?" she asked immediately.
She couldn't tell for sure but he seemed pleased. "I am not quite sure yet but building an army is the first step. It took all of us to lock them away the first time. It will take all of us to do it again. Ah. So you have returned, Ilios," he said as he looked past her. She turned to see Ilios standing behind her as a human, dressed in light fabrics. They were white and airy, like something you would wear in the desert.
"Indeed, I have. I see you started without me, Father," Ilios said as he walked up to them. He bowed deeply to the old dragon.
"She was doing a pretty light show when she noticed me. She was frightened so I sought to calm her. She seemed to be enjoying herself," the old one said.
"Willingly or did you use your mind tricks?" Ilios asked.
"I only did at first. Once she saw I wasn't a threat she stayed calm on her own," he said, sounding as if he was defending himself a bit. "The others have been peeking in on us, curious I imagine." He nodded towards the entrance. Celestia turned to see dragons and people peeking at them from the doorway then turned back to the old dragon.
"I guess it's a good sign that I haven't been eaten yet," she said.
Andromedeus chuckled. "I have no intention to eat you. In fact, I would like to invite you to stay with us for a while. I have quite enjoyed your company and I think it would be good for the others to meet an outsider."
"I would like that," she said. "I think it would be good for me to meet your people."
"Then it's settled," he said before raising his voice. "She will be staying as our most welcome guest." She heard a commotion from behind her. "Show our guest to her room that you prepared, Ilios."
"He already prepared my room?" she asked in confusion.
"Why of course he did. What did you think he was off doing?" he replied.
"I didn't know," she answered, feeling utterly stupid.
"I knew you would be staying so I left you with Father while I prepared things for you. I knew you would be safe with him," Ilios said.
She looked up at the old dragon then back at Ilios. She was being given the opportunity of a lifetime. "What about the ones that don't want me here?"
"All the more the reason you should be here," said Andromedeus. "Sometimes we must grow as individuals even when we don't want to. There will be growing pains but they will adjust. For now you should rest. We can speak more tomorrow."
Ilios gestured for her to follow him and she did. He led her through the corridor he had disappeared through earlier. They walked for what felt like forever, turning here and there, and walking up and down stairs occasionally. She had lost all sense of direction when they came upon a tall set of doors. They were silver with intricate, crystal vines and roses spread across them. Ilios pulled one open and gestured for her to enter.
She walked through the doorway to find her room waiting for her. The room was illuminated with large, glowing crystals all over the ceiling that provided more than enough light. She saw Violet lounging on a canopy bed to the left of the room.
It was dressed with ivory curtains. The blanket was also ivory, embroidered with ivy vines. It had far more pillows than any person could possibly ever need, all shades of ivory and green. The frame of the bed was made with a lightly colored wood, most likely maple from what she could tell.
There was a vanity, chest, and dresser all made from the same material in the room. Bookcases lined one wall, all filled to the brim. A teal chaise was next to the personal library with a large pillow and a throw draped across it.
The opposite side of the room didn't have a wall but instead had a balcony. She walked over to it. It overlooked the underground forest. She wondered if it was the same one.
"Is the room to your liking?" Ilios asked from just inside the door.
"Its beautiful. I've never seen anything like this," she replied coming back into the room. She noticed a door near the bed and went over to explore. Inside was a bathroom. It was just as large as the room it was attached to.
In the center of the room was a giant, crystal tub big enough to swim in. It was filled with steaming water. Near the door was a double sink also made of crystal and beside that was a toilet room. The room was illuminated with the soft glow emanating from the tub and sink.
She went back into the room. "Is this really for me?" she asked.
"Yes. I had it prepared specifically for you," he answered. "Your room is next to mine so should you need anything I will be in the room to the right of this one. Try to get some rest. There are clothes for you in the chest and the dresser." With that he left her to her room.
She walked over to the huge bed and had to climb onto it so she could pet Violet who was fast asleep. She couldn't blame her; the bed was the softest thing she had ever been on. She felt aches easing that she hadn't realized she had. She placed her staff beside the bed and lied down next to Violet, stroking her fur. One moment she was awake. The next she wasn't.