Netsu

Glimpsing around, she caught sight of a bizarre scene transpiring beneath the clouds. She saw a blood-red Skydancer standing motionless and staring at some small, wriggling shape just a few feet in the distance. Shike circled and flew in for a closer inspection. The creature failed to move or acknowledge her, yet as she traced his line of sight to the object of his fixation she saw it to be a hatchling, no more than a few hours old. She didn't detect a clan or any other dragons in the vicinity.

Inquisitive, Shike landed at a safe distance. There was something about the odd creature that jogged her memory. Then it struck her, Ghoul. She had recalled the name from her previous stint in the Wasteland. This beast was more pathogen than dragon and it's intentions most likely dubious. Without further thought, she darted forward with a flap of her shimmering wings, the small, gray baby in her sights. She snatched it with one fell swoop and took off to the skies once more. Glancing back, she saw that the sanguine being had yet to move. She hadn't discerned it previously, but noticed now, clear as day, that it donned smiling eyes and a matching grin. Silly beast, she mused to herself...

Her friend, the Ice magician, churned over her words.

"The Necromancer Trials," Shike offered simply. "No dragon is more privy to the Plaguebringer's machinations than her most lofty of acolytes. It would be difficult for any dragon outside of Plague to succeed at such a task." It was a compelling enough position; thus with Shike's prodding, the clan agreed to raise the the young dragons with the intent to send them to the Wyrmwound when they came of age.

4/29/18 Upon reaching adulthood, the young Skydancer and Mirror had returned to their birth flight where they would accept the touch of the Plaguebringer. It was a challenge to overcome Her infection, and if triumphant, to wield it as a macabre magic of life and death. It was no wonder that a Necromancer's illustrious title often preceded their presence.

As excitement built surrounding their trials, a small rivalry had developed between the friends. It was a tenuous relationship that trembled between fraternal and antagonistic. With every word of encouragement came thoughts of doubt or inferiority. Their position in their adopted clan was far from secure, and they each realized that more than anything, they had a responsibility to fulfill to eke out their stake back home.

5/06/18 The Skydancer's skin had erupted in a rash faster than the Mirror's. A feat that he at first donned as a rotting badge of honor. His glee was swiftly relinquished as his vitality, however, and he could hardly muster the energy for pride. Instead, he became preoccupied with a dim, glowing sphere that clouded his vision. It was orange and yellow and hovered about his eyes, distorting the landscape. Whenever he swatted at it, his head went numb, and when he peered through it he gleaned a multitude of faces, swimming visages that swirled through every crag and crevice of the Wyrmwound looking at him between the cracks of the Cauldron. He laughed and rolled to his back, pawing at the red sky. The gray feathers of his wings had molted severely, leaving a throw of down at his back.

The orange and yellow sphere danced above him now, floating near to his snout. He puffed a breath of air at it and it split into four, red lights. Inside the lights were waves like those that lapped at the edge of the Plaguebringer's Cauldron, and within those waves, more red dots and so-forth. He coughed and cackled and felt a slap upon his face. In a brief bout of clarity, his wavering vision stilled. The four red lights emerged as the eyes of his Mirror friend. He glimpsed the ruined skin of his older peer; it was not unlike his own, striped with sepsis, though a thought occurred to him. The Mirror still stood while he lay sprawled and with fever on the earth. He righted himself.

Without the trading of words, the Mirror placed his hand atop the Skydancer's head, trying and trying again to draw the pestilence from the his blood. The Skydancer gathered that his scales must have seared for every time his companion reached to him, he drew his claws away swiftly as if he had grazed a flame.

"Just stop," the young dragon mumbled. He forced himself to his feet and mustered the remainder of his energy to renounce his spot at the Wyrmwound. With a wobbling gait, he took his leave from the Necromancer Trials. In his mind he wondered if perhaps too he had had just walked from his new clan as well.