Null
(#32084789)
Level 1 Fae
Familiar
Which Waychip
Click or tap to view this dragon in Predict Morphology.
Energy: 49/50
This dragon’s natural inborn element is Earth.
Male Fae
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Personal Style
Apparel
Skin
Scene
Measurements
Length
1.29 m
Wingspan
0.8 m
Weight
1.48 kg
Genetics
Maize
Basic
Basic
Maize
Basic
Basic
Maize
Underbelly
Underbelly
Hatchday
Breed
Eye Type
Level 1 Fae
EXP: 0 / 245
STR
6
AGI
7
DEF
6
QCK
7
INT
7
VIT
5
MND
6
Lineage
Biography
 Chaos Friend  Cipher Friend-ish? |
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Role
▬▬▬▬▬▬ Notes: Speaks very rarely unless spoken to, generally tends to use as few words as possible/give monosyllabic answers if he can get away with it. Very attentive to his surroundings; has an excellent - and very precise - memory - he's soaking up information like a sponge. He can rapidly and accurately repeat information, too, but rarely does so unless prompted; so for a long time no-one realized he actually knows a ton of stuff, both. While he doesn't actually make any real difference between "useful" information (e.g. from reading books) or "trivial" one (e.g. from watching wildlife or his lair mates and memorizing their every move), he can't handle it well when there's too little stimulation. He spend a time of his life mostly hiding away in the dark underground (see below) which made him hyper-active and eventually almost "feral" (during that time). Generally, he keeps to himself; most of the time, the only dragon he actually interacts with is Chaos, and occasionally Cipher, the clan's decrypting expert. A Runecatcher with an eidetic memory and a voracious appetite for (written) knowledge, Cipher has formed an odd kind of one-sidededly competitive friendship with Null once he finds out the scrawny little fae can actually rival his knowledge; since then he is forever trying to trick him into competing with him. It's unclear if Null simple doesn't Get It, or if he secretly finds it amusing to rile the Pearlcatcher up. |
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“It should’ve been dead....No emotions, and no soul in those eyes. No soul at all.”
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Backstory
▬▬▬▬▬▬ The nursemaid returned to the hatching grounds. As she drew nearer, her steps slowed, and she stopped completely. Something was wrong. “The eggs.” She counted them: One, two...ten, and that should have been right, but no. There were eleven eggs in the nest now. She blinked in surprise, wondering what’d happened while she’d been away. “A scavenger must’ve returned with this egg,” she decided at last. She shook her head and sighed aloud, “They should’ve informed me. It’s not right for anyone who’s not a parent or a nurse to go tramping around these grounds....” No one else was about, and her words fell dull and flat against the air. Even though it was a warm, bright-lit afternoon, a shiver rippled across her hide. She settled beside the nest. From time to time she glanced at the new egg, but it seemed much like another Earth egg: gray, pebbly, perfectly normal. A few days later, she told a colleague, “I noticed an extra egg in the main nest....Which scavenger brought it back?” Other dragons turned at this, their eyeridges rising. The nursemaid’s colleague blinked in surprise. “Extra egg? What d’you mean? No one has brought an egg back in years.” The nursemaid’s jaw dropped. Beset by the skeptical gazes of her clanmates, she brought them back to the nest. The egg was still there. She’d set it apart from the others so that it wouldn’t get mixed in with the clan’s broods. It was sadly known that eggs sometimes disappeared, claimed by thieves or monsters. But for an egg to appear...? “It must’ve been abandoned,” the clan leader declared. The dragons muttered uneasily at this, for who would dare abandon an egg? It couldn’t have been one of them, nor any visitor; they hadn’t had any visitors for some time, and anyway, they would’ve noticed one approaching the nesting grounds.... The Snapper lady stamped her foot. As the others quieted down, she rumbled, “It is unbecoming to speak ill of an unhatched egg! Once the child emerges, we may be able to identify its parents. For now, it is to be cared for alongside our own children.” The Earth dragons nodded, and some of them even had the grace to look ashamed. They resumed tending the nesting grounds and all the eggs, including the mystery one. Weeks passed. One by one, the broods hatched, little dragons tumbling out into the world and whisked away to their parents’ homes. Soon only the mysterious egg was left. The caretakers now noticed how still it was, and fearing the worst, they asked the healer to take a look at it. As the healer removed the stethoscope from her ears, she sighed heavily. The egg was dead, and probably had been for some time. “That’s probably why it was abandoned,” she muttered. As the rest of the clan drifted away, she beckoned to the gravekeeper, placed the egg in his claws. “There’s nothing to be done now, I’m afraid. All we can do is give this little one a decent burial.” The gravekeeper nodded stolidly. He took the egg to the graveyard, where it was laid to rest beside other unhatched eggs. These eggs were surrounded by dolls, toys, and other totems from their families, and the Fae felt a bit sad when he realized that the mystery egg would receive no such offerings. It had no family, after all....He could keep it clean, purchase spare totems and charms for it from time to time. Perhaps then its spirit would rest. He returned to the graveyard some weeks later with a basket of offerings. He looked up as he stepped into the cavern — and stopped, his blood turning to ice in his veins. The basket fell from his grasp; hatchling statuettes rolled everywhere. Paper charms drifted to the ground. The gravekeeper’s shriek split the air. As his clan looked up in shock, he came flying back, wings flapping madly, brown eyes wide with terror. His clan clustered around him. “What happened? What’s wrong?!” He pointed back the way he’d come. It was impossible for him to speak; he gestured madly with his hands, his fins trembling like leaves in a storm. The clan leader barked an order to the guards. With a sharp swing of her head, she gestured that they should investigate. The rest of the clan continued to pry: “Was it a grave-robber? What did you see?” How to describe it? —A writhing mass of white, not glowing, but as stark and clear against the darkness as a paper cutout. And fluid, so fluid...He remembered how it had roiled and trembled, appendages shivering and extending, eyes floating in the paleness, and heads, mouths, appearing, shifting, whispering.... It had locked gazes with him. That was when it’d started to change.... The guards returned soon enough. There was no monster, they reported, just a hatchling who’d somehow gotten into the graveyard. “Probably saw the totems and wanted to play with them,” the squad leader muttered. He grinned mockingly at the gravekeeper. “Maybe your job’s getting to ya. You were afraid of this little tyke?” The gravekeeper looked at the hatchling. Brown eyes like his. And a Fae, just like he was. But skin so chalky pale, it shone against the darkness like a paper cutout...And there had been something else besides. Beyond it, he’d seen the eggshells. The mystery egg...It had hatched. “But it was dead....I held it myself,” the gravekeeper remembered. “There was no heartbeat....It was this egg, I’m sure of it...!” “Hoy...What’s gotten into you?” the squad leader was now asking. The gravekeeper didn’t hear; so focused was he on the mysterious hatchling. It locked eyes with him, and he felt another chill ripple down his spine. ~~~ 
~ ~ ~ They called the hatchling Null, meaning “nothingness”. “For you come from nothingness, and we know nothing about your lineage or your clan,” the Snapper leader declared. She added, a bit more kindly, “You need not keep the name; indeed, we have had many ‘Nulls’ before. They grew to adulthood in our lair and took new names later on. You may do so as well.” Null did not reply. Such reticence was to be expected from a new-hatched child, especially one who was probably a little slow in the head....The clan decided that this was so. Yes, he probably had not developed right, which was why he’d been so slow to hatch. It was a convenient explanation.... But there were so many holes in it. “I didn’t make a mistake.” The healer was genuinely baffled. “I listened so carefully; there was no heartbeat....How could he have lived?” And now some dragons remembered.... “Why did you scream?” they asked the gravekeeper. He was a stolid drake who did not get rattled easily; it was why he had stayed so long at his post. What had frightened him then, on the day Null had come to the clan? He bent close as if afraid someone would hear, and he described the anomaly he’d seen: that blobby white mass, writhing and pulsing in mid-air, not just colors but shapes all bleeding into one another. “It looked at me,” he whispered. “Those eyes, so blank...There was intelligence, but...no emotions, no soul. It should have been dead. I don’t understand how...!” People love a good ghost story, but not when it seems they’re living in it — because then it seems possible that they might become ghosts, too. Null was still fed and cared for; but unlike orphaned hatchlings who quickly bonded to one family, he bounced from den to den, hastily fed and watered and then practically shoved out the door. Had he been more expressive, perhaps the dragons might have shown more sympathy, but all they could think of were the gravekeeper’s words: “It should’ve been dead....No emotions, and no soul in those eyes. No soul at all.” “He’s no ghost, I can tell you that. He’s clearly solid,” said one of the dragons who’d cared for him. Yet others responded, “He’s already several months old, but still not speaking, and he hasn’t grown at all! Doesn’t he eat?” “I’ve never seen him blink. What if he isn’t a dragon?” “Not a ghost, surely! But perhaps...something else? A ghoul or zombie...some necromancer’s pawn? Could we be raising a monster?” Whispers and secretive sidelong glances...Such small things, but they fueled the fear. And fear begets suspicion, which begets hostility. When mishaps occurred, the clan looked around for Null. It seemed that every time they turned around, he was there, watching with those large, unblinking eyes of his, staring in rapt silence. Threats, reprimands...No words visibly affected him. He began slinking away, but that only made things worse. If the clan didn’t know where he was, they couldn’t be sure if he was merely watching or doing...something else.... Many dragons blamed Null when a sickness swept through the lair. He was a ghoul, a homunculus, some unholy being that didn’t belong to this world. They should’ve disposed of this beast when it had first appeared! All those mishaps, those small accidents, had merely been warnings. Something would have to be done now. ~ ~ ~ One dreary afternoon, Null found his way to the graveyard. This was where he’d first appeared....He remembered the totems, dolls left to appease the spirits of deceased children. Tattered paper charms fluttered across the floor. And a shadow fell over the hatchling. “YOU!” the gravekeeper bellowed. Null got out of the way just in time. The shovel smashed against the floor where he’d been. “I’ve been watching you ever since that day, monster.” The gravekeeper’s drone was unbelievably menacing; his eyes flashed like struck flint. “You’ve been keeping silent, but we know what you are. You’ve brought this accursed pestilence, and now a child is dead because of you!” His next strike hurled Null across the floor. He shrank back as the gravekeeper advanced, raising the shovel higher, higher... “No.” A small word and a small voice, but even so! —The gravekeeper paused, momentarily stunned. So Null spoke it again. His first word. “No,” he repeated, louder this time. His wings began to flap. “No, no, NO!” The gravekeeper’s frills stiffened. He raised the shovel above his head, but he hesitated too long, and Null quickly scrambled away. He fled into the gathering darkness, leaving his clan behind. Nobody came after him. Hours later, he heard wailing from the lair. When he cautiously peeked from his hiding place, he saw a solemn procession centered around a heartbreakingly tiny casket. He knew a pestilence was ravaging the clan....The gravekeeper had said Null was responsible, but he wasn’t, he wasn’t! He watched as the casket was interred. It was some days before he returned to the graveyard himself. He looked at the children’s totems and examined the paper charms. The village was nearby, but he was safe — a hard rain was falling, and no one would dare come here now. He would leave once the rain stopped. He would not be returning to this clan again, but everything he had learned from it was indelibly etched into his mind. ~ ~ ~ Every region has its ghost stories. Even dry and dusty Dragonhome has them, stories of elementals and specters roaming the war-torn hills.... This particular tale was interesting, though. Chaos skimmed it again: A clan had claimed to have adopted a hatchling who had brought disaster with him, including a plague that had killed some of their children. In the wake of the first death, the accursed Fae had fled....As far as the clan was concerned, that had proven how guilty he was. Only, had he been guilty? Chaos had uncovered other stories: Children lost in the tunnels and caverns, but reappearing safely some days later. Neglected graves cleaned, totems and charms left beside them. Mostly for hatchlings, but there were some for adults, too. And always that same dragon, pale and silent, glimpsed from the shadows... And the best part was that the accounts were recent. Chaos had gotten so tired of chasing after antiquated stories that were literally just stories. Tired of piecing together muddled details, picking the brains of senile old wyrms... “I might actually be on to something here!” “What was that?” At this voice, Chaos looked up. He watched as his superior strode into view. The Wildclaw peered at him with wary blue eyes and growled, “Off chasing ghosts again?” “Heck yeah, boss! The most recent sighting’s from just a few months ago. If I head over there right now, there’ll be no shortage of eyewitnesses for me to interview.” Chaos hefted his pearl and gazed at it with a faintly manic grin. “The world of the weird and wonderful awaits me!” Hallucifer snorted. He knew there was no stopping the exuberant Pearlcatcher — not that he wanted to. He hated the idea of chasing after ghosts and was content to let Chaos do it himself. A few weeks later, Chaos came to Dragonhome. He was in full inspector mode from the very beginning, meeting fellow investigators, interviewing witnesses. He was getting closer and closer to this mystery dragon, he honestly was! And so when he finally found Null, he could barely contain his excitement. “I knew it! Hey, you’re not a ghost, but you’re real, and that’s something! Oy, come outta there, little guy. ‘Tis only I, Chaos of the Clawrift Clan, Friend to the Strange and Spectral. You’re Null, right?” The Fae nodded. “Wow, you’re so eensy-weensy. I reckon I could carry you back home....Hey, you wanna journey back with me?” Chaos laughed a bit ruefully. “My boss is always yammering about how he doesn’t like creepy things. I think they’re awesome. Maybe once he sees you, he’ll change his mind. How ‘bout it, little guy? Wanna tag along?” 
He came from...Clawrift Clan? The only clan Null had ever known had come to despise him, even after months of caring for him. But this dragon had attempted to befriend him straightaway. Maybe he’d simply come to the wrong clan. Perhaps there were other clans that were right for him, and there he might fit in.... So for the second time in his life, he spoke. His first word had been “No.” To this new dragon, whom he dared trust, he now answered “Yes.” ~ written by Disillusionist (254672) |
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