Yamila

Art by Infernette

Yamila
Resident Witch

---

Born in a clan dedicated to the Earthshaker, Yamila was put up to be sold just hours after she was born. A passing Shadow clan bought her in hopes of teaching her their ways. This Shadow clan was very practiced in magic, potion-making, and alchemy, and Yamila excelled at all three.

In no time, Yamila was revered as one of the clan's most powerful witches, and she would frequently remind more cocky clan members by turning them into rabbits or blighting them with a pox. Some of the clan members gossiped that she actually came from a plague clan and hid her origins with a spell.

But terrorizing her clanmates soon became boring for Yamila. She wished to test her magical prowess elsewhere; against dragons and creatures that matched her skill. And so she set off, much to the displeasure of her clan's leaders, towards the territory of the Arcanist.

'If there was any place with sorcerers that would match my own skill,' thought Yamila, 'the Starfall Isles would be the place.'

She flew for weeks, out of the Tangled Wood, over the Wyrmwound and the Rotrock Rim. She flew through the Crystalspine Reaches, over the Starwood Strand and The Focal Point, all the way to the Observatory itself, testing her skills against other magic users along the way. She approached the Observatory reverently, knowing that inside, the Arcanist - basically the god of magic itself - was sitting experimenting with spells and writing new enchantments on leagues and leagues of scrolls.

She passed through the giant double doors and marveled at the magic imbued in this single structure. Archaic runes glowed on every inch of wall, floor, and ceiling. She quickly made her way through this cathedral of magical science, trying her best to focus all of her magical skill to find the Arcanist and ask him to teach her in his ways.

Finally, after hours of flitting about, she discovered an unassuming door with impossibly complex runes etched into its wooden exterior. As she approached the runes glowed an angry purple color, and suddenly a Stardust Scholar appeared, ready to launch an attack.

"No no, wait!" cried Yamila, holding her front claws up as a sign of peace, "I only want to speak with the Arcanist! I want him to teach me! Please!" She felt half mad with want and curiosity. Her head swam with possibilities and a deep-rooted desire for magical knowledge.

The scholar stayed his hand, and the glowing magical attack he had readied diffused into the already magically charged air. He spoke a few words in an unfamiliar tongue, and suddenly an Arcane Sprite materialized next to him. The two underlings of the Arcanist spoke quickly, and then the sprite fazed through the wooden door, leaving a ripple on the wood.

For a few moments, dragon and scholar sat in silence. Yamila took to studying the runes on the door again as she waited, but the more she looked, the more intricacies she saw. She quickly realized that these runes could very well have infinite intricacies, and decided that it was best not to try to decipher them.

At that moment, the sprite returned to beckon her inside. The scholar merged himself into the wall beside the door as Yamila entered into the company of the Arcanist.

Behind the plain door was an impossibly enormous room. There was no floor, no walls, and no ceiling, just the void of space in front of her. She could see nothing else, yet the room was illuminated by millions and millions of stars. She looked around in front of her, completely befuddled.

"The view is much better behind you, you know." a voice said from everywhere at once. Yamila quickly spun around, and her breath caught in her throat. She was staring at a massive God's Eye Nebula. It glowed and pulsed in hues of blue and purple. Yamila had never seen anything so terrifying...or so beautiful.

"How do you like it?" the voice said again. Yamila flicked her eyes around the infinite room, and still saw no one. "I am trying to get it to change to a more pinkish-red, but the darn thing's stubborn." And suddenly, he materialized from the millions of stars. The Arcanist himself. He stared down at her in amusement as she gaped at him.

"Well, my sprites have told me much about you, Yamila. You are quite the magical protege, am I right?" the enormous pink dragon's four arms were busy scribbling away on long scrolls as he talked, and Yamila distractedly wondered how he was able to concentrate on so many things at once. Even though she was a Spiral, Yamila was always a single-minded dragon.

The Arcanist went on, "I've heard that you wish to learn from me, yes? I could teach you many things, but I must first test your skill. Would you mind indulging me for a while?"

Yamila focused on the arcane deity and boasted, "I can conquer anything you throw at me with my skills!" She sat as proudly as she could for not knowing which way was up. The Arcanist's eyes glittered as his new test subject strutted. This would surely be interesting...

In the blink of an eye, the endless room disappeared. Dragon and deity were in a dark wood, the moon looked down upon them with an unwavering glare. Yamila shifted uneasily; it looked to her as if they were standing in the Tangled Wood.

"If you're wondering where we are, we are standing on the boundary between the Tangled Wood and the Viridian Labyrinth," the Arcanist said, floating a few paces away from Yamila. The spiral turned her head and saw that they were on the edge of a high cliff, with the waves of the ocean crashing far below. She hurriedly followed the glowing pink dragon, wondering where on Sornieth they were headed.

They stopped suddenly, and Yamila took in the sight of a huge, deep, black sinkhole that yawned out of the ground. Even the moon's withering glare could not pierce the blackness of the hole. The scales on Yamila's back stood on end, and she suddenly wondered what it was the Arcanist wanted her to do.

As if reading her mind, the deity spoke, "In this sinkhole is a...project of mine. I've been experimenting with creating a stronger, more primal sort of dragon and, well...let's just say this one was unsuccessful. While being very strong and definitely primal, I cannot seem to get it to do what I want." The Arcanist wrinkled his large nose in annoyance. "Your task is to destroy this failed experiment with your magical skills." And with that, he took to the sky to observe his new subject's trial.

Yamila slowly crept toward the edge of the sinkhole. Every instinct she had was screaming at her to flee, to fly back to her clan and beg them to take her back, but still she edged closer to the lip of the hole. She peered out over the precipice, and four very large, very angry red eyes peered back at her. Before she could gasp, the thing leapt out of the sinkhole and into the light of the moon.

Yamila froze in horror as she came face to face with the first Emperor dragon she had ever seen. It was twice her size, and the two heads it boasted were both snarling and spitting at her. She quickly snapped open her wings to take to the air, but the Emperor snatched her with one of its six pairs of legs. Yamila was in a blind panic, everything she had ever learned left her mind as the Emperor's heads reared back.

"Remember your spells!" The Arcanist shouted down to her, snapping the spiral out of her horror. Her magic! Her magic could save her! She muttered a few words, and a ball of pure energy fell from the heavens to blind the Emperor in one of its four eyes. The scream is produced was not of this world, and it immediately dropped Yamila like she was hot magma.

She took this chance to utter some more incantations. Ghostly chains materialized around the Emperor's legs. That brought the Emperor into a frenzy. It lashed its tail like a whip, narrowly missing Yamila's head. The sorceress ducked quickly, muttering more spells as she did. She had to think of something to defeat this monster quickly. The chains were starting to break.

"RAAARGH!!!" the Emperor roared, freeing itself from the magical chains. But it was too late for the abomination. Yamila had figured out what to do. As she formed the words to end this battle, black sludge bloomed from the Emperor's chest. A spear of pure energy emerged from its breast, and the beast fell to the ground. It shook the earth with its death throes, then stilled, the life leaving its hideous eyes.

Yamila sighed in relief, plopping her rump down on a stump. As she struggled to get her breathing under control, the Arcanist floated back down from the sky.

"Magnificent!" he exclaimed, clapping his two sets of hands together. "That was truly inspiring! Not many people know that the only way to kill an Emperor is to stab it through its heart. Or rather, where its heart is supposed to be." He chuckled as if he had just made a joke. Yamila did not find it very funny.

And suddenly they were back in the space room. Yamila was relieved, she liked this room much better than the Sinkhole.

"You have passed my test." the Arcanist said as he looked down at the spiral, "As a reward, I will now share my knowledge with you." His eyes suddenly turned stormy, "Be warned though, not many dragons can handle the magnitude of this gift. I am not boasting when I say that my wealth of knowledge is almost limitless."

Yamila could feel that emotion bubbling up inside of her again. That thirst for knowledge that raked at her soul and begged to be quenched. She looked up at the arcane deity, her brown eyes sparked and glittered with that thirst. "Please, Arcanist," she pleaded, "share your knowledge with me. I want to know everything! All there is to know about magic, the universe, everything! I want to know, please!" She groveled at the Arcanist's feet, the need for knowledge practically driving her mad.

"Very well," the deity said, and touched two of his fingers to her forehead. The intricate pattern on his head crest suddenly glowed with a white light, and images, formulas, facts and wonders poured into the spiral's mind. At first, Yamila was euphoric. All this knowledge, and it was hers! After a while, however, her mind started to feel...cramped. It was too much! Her brain couldn't handle all of this! She started to moan as yet more information filled her head.

"I can't!" she exclaimed, raking her claws across her face. "It's too much! Please, stop!" But the Arcanist only looked at her sadly.

"I cannot stop," he said, "Once a link like this has been made, it cannot be broken until every bit of information is transferred, lest the receiver go mad." He looked on as Yamila bit at her arms and flared her wings in agony. He knew what was about to happen.

"My brain! It...hurts..." she moaned. She did not want to go mad, but this pain! It could very well madden her just as certainly as breaking the connection would! She had to stop the pain...

With a massive strength of will, Yamila severed the connection like so many pieces of glass. Then she was falling, but which way? Up? Down? Diagonally? She could not tell. All she knew was the pain was gone.

She cackled as her mind was lost to madness.


A few months later found Yamila wandering the outer boundaries of the Viridian Labyrinth, muttering about how Trunkers could be used as a poison. Many of the other dragons and animals that crossed her path hurriedly skittered out of her sight. The ones that did not often ended up as food or worse...

A few months after that, Yamila came to a peculiar stand of trees. They created an impassable wall. "Wood walls are good and all, but spirits know their way," she mumbled, poking a claw into one of the tree's knotholes. Apparently that was ill-advised, for a large guardian suddenly leaped out at her from a nearby hiding place. Yamila, in her madness, wriggled away from the guardian's claws unharmed. She cackled as the guardian rounded on her again.

"Who are you? State your business or be crushed!" the guardian boomed. Yamila could see small, pebble-like protrusions on the guardian's scales; the first sign of Gembond. The spiral witch cackled again.

"Threats are wind when the one who is making them is stone!" she gibbered, focusing her gaze on a falling leaf. The guardian did not like that one bit, and the scales he had that were not covered in the small pebbles bristled.

"Why you crazy little-" he began, but was brought to an abrupt halt by a monotone voice.

"Galleon? Who are you yelling at?" A small, glittery fae came into view, her neck frills a curious green shade. She saw Yamila as the insane dragon caught the leaf that was the center of her attention and ate it.

"This spiral is trying to break into our lair!" the guardian named Galleon exclaimed, raking his claws through the dirt. The fae looked at him flatly.

"This spiral is in need of our help." she said, glancing back at Yamila. The witch was now entirely focused on her. The fae's neck frill turned a warm shade of orange. "Would you like to come in? You look hungry."

Yamila's stomach gurgled loudly at the mention of food. "A teensy bite would be good. Just no books, please!" She cackled once more, and followed the fae inside. The tiny dragon lead Yamila to a cave, where an imperial was cooking a surprising array of food. Yamila glowered at him suspiciously, but sat down all the same. The food was served to them, and they ate in silence.

"So," the fae started, her frill turning that shade of green again, "Who are you? Where did you come from?"

"It is rude to ask a guest's name before giving one's own." Yamila snapped, then said thoughtfully, "Or is it? Who knows! I am Yamila!" She snapped her teeth at a hatchling, who squeaked and sprinted away.

"Yamila? That is a nice name. Mine is Toxen. Now, how did you come to-" Toxen's question was cut short as a mirror dressed in hunting garb dashed over. She muttered something in the fae's ear, and her frills quickly turned the color of pale parchment. The two hurriedly flew off, and Yamila, curious, followed close behind.

"He just collapsed!" a pink imperial female exclaimed, cradling a small tundra hatchling in her arms. She laid him down and he convulsed, foam bubbling up from his mouth. "I don't know what to do, what should we do?" the imperial moaned, tears flowing from her eyes. Yamila rolled her eyes and pushed to the front.

"All these dragons and not one knows how to cure the Shakes?" she asked, suddenly lucid for a moment. She muttered a few words, and the little hatchling settled into a peaceful slumber. "There," she said triumphantly, "another little perfect mouth to feed."

Toxen stared at Yamila, obviously impressed. She looked to the mirror female, who shrugged back at her, then took off to the south. Toxen's frills flashed an annoyed yellow color, then settled on a calm blue. "Yamila, thank you for saving him," she said in her monotonous voice, "If you have no where to go, perhaps you might like to stay and help out? We could use someone with your magical skills."

Yamila's eyes flashed at the words. She pondered for a few moments, then grinned a toothy grin. "If the turtles stay in the ponds, why shouldn't I?"