Garagos

Garagos

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Things that have been determined about Garagos
(that we're fairly certain on)
By Archer

Gender: Male
Flight: Plague
Physical age: Looks about two moons
Parents: Possibly

• He has a tendency to chew on things, especially if it's wood or bone-- must be kept away from certain familiars.
• I swear I've heard him talk fluently to Garmr, but to anyone else he talks like a hatchling-- barely at all.
• Surprisingly strong-- I took a wing to the face once, and the bruise lasted for weeks.
  
• His reflection, in any mirror not made of silver, looks... not like him at all. He actually keeps an enchanted mirror as a sort of familiar, and it's terrifying.

Favourite foods

Cursed Batling

Meat

This batling was destined to meet an unfortunate end: Prophecy fulfilled!

26

3

Yellow-Tinged Featherduster

Seafood

Eating these may tickle the back of a dragon's throat, causing them to sneeze.

17

2

Duskrat

Meat

The days are much too bright for the Duskrat, thus they only come out at night.

20

2

Personal Hoard
(a.k.a things he's taken and that Garmr won't let me take back)

Bone Fragments

Organics

These are evidence of either unnecessary roughness or extreme carelessness.

15

x??

Redwood Kindling

Organics

Scraps and dried twigs from the bark of a tall redwood tree. Perfect for use in starting campfires.

35

x23

Small Legbones

Organics

A pair of sharpened legbones. They look as though they may have come from a large rodent.

55

x5

Battered Book of Fables

Dragonmade

The terrible thing is that all your favorite characters die in the end. (Special thanks XenonZerrow.)

70

x1

Rotting Plaguebringer Effigy

Trinkets

A crudely-fashioned stuffed doll that resembles the Plaguebringer. The dragon leather it's held together with is molding and smells awful.

1000

x1 (he sleeps with it)

Augite Fragments

Trinkets

These beautiful carvings can be polished to a reflective sheen.

24

necklace, x1

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Look what the harbinger of death has created!
But as the egg is father to the dragon,
So sickness' son sires the defiling darkness.
Born of night and void he came,
And to the night he will return.
Oh forest guardian of many eyes,
Hold fast destruction at your heel.
With a spirit as strong as the lady's lies,
Lest the void destroy what it cannot steal.

---

---

Behold,
Void-smoke reborn,
The death of all things,
Claws of blood, heart of black,
Carried under Sentinel's wings.

---

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The sire of the Shade walks among us, like us.
Totally got no problems with that whatsoever.

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Darkness.
Emptiness.
That was the first thing he sensed.
Was he a "he"?
What was a "he"?
He wasn't sure, but it seemed right.
So he kept it, clung to it, "I am the he".
And there was Nothing.
A silence.
Peace tugging on boredom.

And the Nothing continued until the Nothing was Not.
Chaos, light, sound, senses-- sudden and new, and bad.
Curling himself up into a tight ball, he waited until the chaos calmed.
And then he looked around at what Was.

A bright light, surrounded by rocks --planets-- settling into solid forms.
Except for one. This one was trying to tear itself apart, and he watched with fascination.
Even as he watched, great hulking shapes began to rise, shaping the land around them with what his mind told him was magic.
These creatures began to create words for themselves, words they called "names".
"I am the Earthshaker, for the very rocks bend to my will".
"I am the Flamecaller, for the heat of flame runs through my very veins".
"I am the Tidelord, for the oceans follow my every beck and call".
"I am the Windsinger, for the breeze is my dance and the gales my song".

With curious eyes, he found himself drawn to the creature called Flamecaller, for it's blazing destruction tugged at his core.
But he watched from a distance, for he was formless, and the heat brought him great pain.

He watched, as fire consumed and smoke darkened, magic pulsing through the sky in showers of lava and ash.

He watched as the four turned upon themselves, warring in a beautiful dance of creation and destruction.

He watched as the changes they caused made Others.
Things like them but not them.
The magic they called on was all-consuming, powerful, and he grew envious.

I want that magic.
I want that power.
I want a place.
A domain.
A Word--
--name.

And it occurred to him that he had never really tried.

So he reached out the power he felt flowing around him, this void outside the world, and he called it together.
Giving form.
Giving life.
And a thousand smoky faces gazed back at his nonexistant form.

It spoke to him.
"What is our purpose, oh Great Old One?" it asked.

And he thought to himself, "what now?"
In the voice he had never once heard before, he replied,

"Your purpose is to take. Go down and take what they have from them, and give it to me."

He watched the descent of his creation with all the joy of a new parent.
But even as it descended, the Flamecaller --yes, the very Flamecaller he had watched with such awe--
Attacked.
His.
Creation.

"NO! This will NOT stand! Don't just take from them, DESTROY THEM!"
Though his thoughts and voice could not be heard, his will not strong enough to enforce his voice on reality, his anger nonetheless carried. And his creation --no, his child-- charged forth with renewed vigour.

He watched for aeons, aware with mounting anxiety and distress that his was the losing side.
Until finally, it all came to an end.
His child was nothing but shreds of it's former self.
Shaky, fearful and hurting, it returned to him, gathering itself ever so slowly.
He fussed over his creation, soothing words and noises the best he could do in his half-in-half-out, non-corporeal form.

When it finally gathered the strength to speak to him, he was shocked.

"You knew this was a losing battle from it's very beginning." it whispered, voice full of hate.

"You knew that sending us there was useless, would hurt us."

"And yet still you sent us."

"Why?

"Are we nothing to you?"

It's bitter words were interrupted by a catastrophic explosion.
The pair looked down, distracted from their exchange of words to observe the new state of the world.
Strange blackened stones were scattered in strange patterns, implied methods and reason behind them now shattered and ruined. The plains were spiralling in strange patterns of forest and rot, large swathes of the forest being torn apart from the inside by a massive draconic creature.

They were beautiful.
He stopped in awe as he watched the rot-drake at it's work, destroying everything in her path in a display of wood-rending power that thrilled him just to watch.

But his child would not let him remain distracted for long, whipping around him in angry void-coils, speaking even louder than before.

"We thought you cared."

"We thought you loved us."

"Are we not your child, your Shade?

He tried to respond, to explain himself, but it continued on regardless.

"You commanded us to take what you knew we could not. We had only just been created!"

"How could you expect us to do so, with only our own power?"

"But with your power behind us, Old One, we could truly do that for which we were created."

"You were Great but are Master no more, Old One."

"We are our Master, and will take what we need by force, Weak Old One."

He was heartbroken, and most of all, infuriated. How dare they defy him like this?!
He made them!

He roared his rage straight into his child's many darkened faces.

"You are wrong. I AM your master, and I am NOT weak."

He paused, anger clouding his thoughts.

"I AM GARAGOS, AND YOU WILL NOT DEFY ME!"

"Oh, but we will."

As if on cue, the many maws of his relentless child swarmed him.
Needle-like teeth shredding into his wispy, formless, barely visible cloud-body.
And the newly-named Garagos screamed in rage, unleashing blasts of pure, non-elemental creative power, the very opposite of what the Shade truly was.

Try as he might, he was no match for the physical form of his child.
As he grew tired, he edged closer and closer to the barrier that surrounded the world below, hoping to siphon strength from it's magical energies, but every time his child intercepted him, striking him with blow after power-draining blow.
His child had been designed to face a foe far stronger than him, after all.

Finally, he gave in.
"Enough... My power is yours. Do with it what you will."

Bundled up like some kind of object or package, his child carried him as it closed the distance between them and the barrier, at a weak spot where the magic was flowing wildly towards the heavens. In their fight, his will had grown so strong that he truly had a voice, and the entire realm below could hear his moans of pain as his injured form was carelessly dragged down to the world.

But as his child charged the light, and the pillar beneath that held up the shield, he sensed something his child did not. The energies within the pillar were those of the very creatures that had almost destroyed them before, and would certainly destroy them now.

He had to get out of here, or he would die.

Reaching out with his mind towards someone, anyone, who could help him, his mind was drawn back to the image of that great rot-drake.
It was to that drake that his silent cry for help was directed.

Rot-drake, whoever you are, please, help me! We are both creatures of destruction and renewal, so help me I tell you! There will be great tragedy if I am not here to stop my child's wrath...

The few seconds of silence, waiting for an answer, were the worst in his life.

"Very well, strange creature. I have a possible solution, but it will take time."

He felt a strange tugging on his very being, followed by a burning sensation throughout all of what he was, and then everything was dark and silent once more.



When he awoke once more, he could sense that much time had passed.
More importantly, he could sense he was different.
His form was physical, and small.
Time crept by slowly.
He was thinking, moving, thousands of times faster than a single of his breaths had taken before.
He wasn't impermanent.
But he looked like it.

Looking at himself, he could see little claws on four almost paw-like hands, one on each of his main limbs.
He could also feel a tail, wings, and two strange little things on his head that he could move slightly.
Not the worst possible form to be trapped in, he supposed.
Maybe it will be interesting to play mortal for a while.

Taking in his environment, he was presented with two options.
Stay where he had awoken, a small nest made out of what were probably -- hmm, curious, the internal organs of a dead creature? -- or pick a direction and start moving.
He chose the latter, for on the horizon, a great forest rose up, dark mists hanging around the foliage.
After spending even a few moments awake in the bright lights of the daytime, Garagos was already eager to return to somewhere darker.
Scrambling to his feet, he scampered off towards the dark image before him.



After several days, he had reached the dark woods.
It had taken him far longer than expected, but his little legs had begun to tire, a sensation he had never previously experienced, and he had to rest.
They were still uncomfortable now, even as he navigated his way between the thorny plants and towering trees.
He wasn't really sure what to do.
He had gotten here, now what?

He didn't have much time to think on the topic, as an inquisitive growl rumbled behind him.
Turning to face the noise, he came nose-to-nose with a massive creature he had never seen before.
Garagos could sense his child's spirit in her, and for a moment he was fearful -- yet she did not recognise him, only making more inquisitive noises.

Even as he watched, something about her changed, and a voice burst it's way into his mind.

"Why is a plague-child here all alone? Did your clan lose you?
Hmm... Such small, quick little heartbeat... Is the plague-child scared..?
...Ah, it is no matter, you belong to Garmr now."

He felt teeth on the back of his neck as he was lifted up gently, his relatively small weight meaning that he swayed slightly with every movement this strange creature --Garmr, more than likely-- made.
It was strange, but some unfamiliar instinct made him feel sleepy just by being held in such a way.

Perhaps it was a mortal thing?

Despite all logic, and the fact that she looked like she wanted to eat him, something in the back of his mind whispered "safe".
Either way, he realised he didn't even care where Garmr was taking him.
She was warm, but it was a good warm, and it made him feel happy.
Succumbing to his tiredness, he fell asleep, knowing that wherever he woke up, it would be okay.
For the first time in the aeons of existence, he was sort of... happy.

At least
until
tomorrow.

---

By Pixelgon

By Dalinar