MaraEltanin
(#33548824)
When life gives you pirates, eat the pirates.
Gill
Orbiting Spirit
Click or tap to view this dragon in Predict Morphology.
Energy: 43/50
This dragon’s natural inborn element is Ice.
Female Imperial
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Personal Style
Apparel
Skin
Scene
Measurements
Length
29.19 m
Wingspan
23.9 m
Weight
8970.03 kg
Genetics
Midnight
Metallic
Metallic
Midnight
Alloy
Alloy
Orca
Glimmer
Glimmer
Hatchday
Breed
Eye Type
Level 25 Imperial
Max Level
STR
6
AGI
6
DEF
6
QCK
5
INT
8
VIT
8
MND
6
Biography
NOT FOR SALE, TRADE, OR LENDING
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Mara Eltanin
{ MA - ra el - TA - nin } Nickname: (none) Master Merchant ♦ purchased from Alixe 
╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮ Exaudi ~ Hear Us (written by Disillusionist / special thanks to Alixe & DiaBlack) ♫ NieR Gestalt OST - Hills of Radiant Wind ♫ ╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯ |
Laurant had not had the banjo for a long time. It had been given to her in celebration of her hatchday: crafted by her Charge and enchanted by her teacher, it was one of her most prized possessions. She wished to become a skilled musician like Tantris and had practiced playing it almost daily; now, years later, she thought she had nearly mastered it. Tantris had declared, with a rather strained smile on his face, that she was already quite good at playing the banjo, and could she stop now, please, or at least not sing (swear) along?
The day had started out nice. She had rolled out of bed and lumbered out of the lair to practice playing in the garden, where hopefully she would not disturb too many people. It looked as though a disturbance was already taking place, however. There was an Imperial, a stranger, obviously in need of help. Laurant muscled her way next to Faustino and then bent forward to listen....
By the time the sun was fully above the horizon, Mara had already visited three towns. No one there had been willing to accompany her to rescue her Guardian. It was one thing to challenge a siren on a beach or the surface of the water — but to chase her down into the abyss and beard her in her own lair...?
If she could not get help soon, the siren would alter Aidan, making him a part of her watery home. He would be irrevocably transformed, forever shrinking from sunlight, unable to survive without hearing his sinister mistress’ song. It would fill him up, certainly — but not physically. He would become unable to feed or sleep, unable to do anything that pulled his attention away from her music even for a brief instant. Indeed, all captives of sirens, if not rescued, perished in underwater graves, faces turned in rapture towards the source of that enthralling song — or longingly up to the light.
So Mara grew more and more frantic as the hours crawled past. As she descended on the marketplace near the Beacon of the Radiant Eye, she bellowed, “I need a bard...a magician! Is anyone willing to help me!?”
Most dragons scattered, surprised by her landing as much as by her obvious desperation. And when she continued, “I need someone who is willing to accompany me underwater to challenge a siren!” more of them made themselves scarce. Suddenly the marketplace was nearly empty, and the few dragons who passed or remained quickly averted their eyes. Only a few held their ground.
She tried again. She had to. She was now seriously considering asking the Lightweaver herself for aid, but right now... “I am looking for someone who can help me. Someone...anyone.” Her voice cracked on the last word; she couldn’t help it. Her Guardian was her dearest friend, and if she failed to save him again... “My Guardian has been stolen away by a siren. He’s underwater, and he won’t survive long....Please, will anybody help me save him!?”
One of the remaining dragons, a great black Imperial, fixed her with a steely eye. “Here, what’s all this, then?” he rumbled, cutting through Mara’s pleas. He had clearly been in the middle of business and was unhappy about his prospective customers running away. As Mara watched, he slammed a paw down onto a stack of treasure and scraped the lot into a bag.
Mara stared at him in disbelief. Hadn’t he been listening to a word she’d said? She opened her mouth to shout at him again, but then he queried, “You need a bard, correct?”
She nodded. She mentally steeled herself for him to ask, “How much would you be willing to pay?” As a merchant, she knew that type of dragon all too well.
But instead, he let out a long, reluctant sigh and rose to his feet. “I know someone who may be able to help you. Perhaps two someones.”
It was better than she had hoped, but his grim expression did not give her much confidence. He added, as if admitting he’d done something wrong, “We shall have to speak with them first. My name is Faustino, of the Disillusionists. Come with me. I’ll take you back to the clan.”
The Disillusionists. Mara thought she’d read that name before. Maybe in one of the ads posted around the Sunbeam Ruins, advertising art and writing services? ...No, it wasn’t the right image....
She pushed that from her mind; it was unimportant. Right now, she was explaining to a small group of Disillusionists what had happened to Aidan. They listened sympathetically, but she could see growing unease on a number of faces. She also realized she didn’t know yet which of these were the bards — Faustino had spoken to the clan leaders, who in turn had rallied the dragons who were currently awake. And then she had started to talk....Here she was now.
She shot a brief glance at Faustino. He was standing off to one side, but another dragon had squeezed in next to him. A Guardian...His own Guardian? And then her heart skipped a beat when she saw the stringed instrument hanging against the dragoness’ side. Was this one of the bards...?
She finished her story, and one of the dragons breathed, “A siren!” Murmurs rose from the clan as they began discussing things in low voices.
“Will you help me?” Mara’s own voice was a little weak. She was hoarse from traveling and shouting too much, and the fear wasn’t helping any.
“We shall have to consider it,” said Nachtstreiter, one of the clan leaders. There was a soft ahem from a Spiral who’d been hauled out of bed. He blinked slowly, almost groggily, and rather self-consciously smoothed down his hood.
“We shall have to think about it carefully, yes,” he said, as if starting a lecture. And sure enough: “To begin with, what is a siren?”
Siren was a term applied to a certain class of being haunting Sornieth’s magical waters. Most of them, like the one that’d dragged Aidan down, lived in the sea. Some lived in rivers, lakes...All had one thing in common: They used their hauntingly beautiful voices to lure unwary creatures into the water, where the sirens could use them as desired.
They were notorious for keeping their captives alive using their own insidious spells. Aidan might linger underwater for days, maybe even weeks — but over time he would starve to death, or else the siren would tire of him and then consume him.
Sirens were rarely found in the Sunbeam Seas. The Lightweaver’s radiance shone from the Beacon of the Radiant Eye; it was usually enough to discourage invaders who would otherwise prey on her children. But Aidan had caught this siren’s interest early on, and Mara’s rescue of him had only incensed her. Spurred by frustration and longing, she had sought him out again, even traveled into hostile waters to pursue him. And it had worked — she had him now.
The Disillusionists could not turn their backs on Mara, not after she had come to their lair and told them her story. As the morning wore on, more and more of them awoke, and they continued discussing the upcoming challenge and their plans to surmount it. To do that, they needed to understand how a siren’s abilities worked.
Sirens were difficult to challenge because their voices charmed all who heard them. But there had been stories of bards defeating them by drowning out their songs with music that was more beautiful. The question was: What exactly was beautiful music?
“My name is Tantris. I am the clan’s headmaster and bard,” the dragon introduced himself. He was a slim Skydancer garbed in sumptuous clothing, and he had a lute strapped to his hip. It was an obviously well-worn instrument, but Tantris himself looked too slender and frail for a battle.
There was a soft ahem. Mara turned as Faustino cleared his throat; he looked briefly down his nose at the Guardian she had seen earlier, the one standing beside him. “And this is—”
“I can introduce myself, Carrot-brain, thanks very much.” The Guardian shouldered him aside lazily. “Oyy. My name is Laurant and I’m the other bard. Pleasetameetcha.”
“Pleased to...meet you.” Mara couldn’t help sounding dubious. Laurant’s voice was rich but slightly rough, and the instrument she carried was...a banjo? A ridiculous countryside instrument next to Tantris’ beautiful lute! The Imperial’s heart sank as she considered this.
She clenched her teeth. “Buck up. They’re helping you, Mara, and that’s more than can be said for most of the other dragons you’ve seen so far this morning. I probably should’ve gone back to my parents....They’re too far away. I miss my parents....”
A team was being put together to aid Mara. She was introduced to the leader: Sturmwelle, a veteran fighter and a Water dragon. The sleepy Spiral, Jubilant, was her second-in-command, a great fighter in his own right and also the clan’s Arcane Representative. Mara started to feel a lot better about their odds.
Faustino was the last member of the team. He was obviously strong, but he had been earlier introduced as an artisan, and Mara had not expected him to volunteer for such a dangerous mission. The reason soon became clear, however.
“Laurant is my Guardian. When I was a hatchling, she protected me, but now that we are both grown, we look after each other. It is only fair.” He nodded towards the Guardian who was striding merrily along, her banjo bouncing against her hip. She was teasing Tantris in her usual booming voice, and the Skydancer was getting snappy with her. Not that she cared.
Mara admitted that she must have missed that detail, somewhere in all the fuss. “Have you known each other long?”
“Oh, yes. She is older than I” — Mara did a double-take — “and I came to the lair under her protection. Bit of a ridiculous story, that...” He trailed off, looked past her. Mara had sent word ahead to her ship, and it had docked to meet them.
“Is this yours?”
“Yes.” Mara sighed. “She hasn’t got a name yet. I’ve only had her for a few weeks.”
The ship heaved to next to the pier. The crew lowered a gangplank for them, and soon they were on their way.
They left the bustling coast of the Beacon behind. Soon they were entering the Shadowbinder’s territory, where it overlapped with that of her radiant sister. The waters beneath the ship grew dark, almost murky. Mara was almost afraid to look into the waves in case she saw...
She had brought along some of Aidan’s things, and after showing them to the clan’s seers, they had managed to ascertain her Guardian’s general location. It looked as though the siren had made a lair for herself in one of the trenches deep in the Shadowbinder’s waters. Surrounded by cold and crushing water, and dark, so dark...Mara hated to imagine what it was like for Aidan. He had been down there for nearly five hours already.
Sturmwelle and Jubilant were discussing tactics. Mara was determined to accompany them into the deep, and so she listened carefully as the Spiral began, “To travel and stay down there, we’re going to need a huge bubble, like the one the Windsinger’s placed over the Kelp Beds. Levanter...?”
Levanter nodded. Another Skydancer, he was the Disillusionists’ Wind Ambassador — though more skilled in diplomacy than in combat. He would not accompany the team beneath the waves; his role was to facilitate their entry, and that was all.
“Lev’s gonna make bubbles for each of us, so we can swim down to the lair. There might be other monsters, so we’ll have to stick together — with such a huge party, they should stay away. But who knows?”
Sturmwelle chimed in next: “Levanter is also preparing a sorcerous device for us, a larger bubble we can deploy once we locate the siren. It’s primed with a 50-meter radius, so it should cover the siren’s lair, the siren herself, and us. She’ll be cut off from the rest of the water — it should help weaken her considerably.”
“And after?” Faustino asked. Beside him, Laurant absently twanged a banjo string.
Sturmwelle frowned at him. “Well, Faustino, it’s not too hard. Smash her with your hammer. Smash her hard.”
Faust flattened his ears. “I was thinking of more precise advice, old dame. Tips and tricks? D’you have any?”
“Not really,” Sturm said with a wave so casual it made them all grit their teeth. “I’ve never fought a siren before.”
Jubilant sighed. “Go for the appendages and sensory organs, if you see any. Her being aquatic, Lightning magic would be best, but we couldn’t find anyone to help....If we can enamor her with music, she’ll be unable to use her voice, too.”
“There’s no telling what the lair looks like or where exactly she’ll be,” Sturmwelle said, and now her voice was grave. “Or Aidan, for that matter....She might be outside with him, or she might be inside a cave or burrow, with him buried among the rest of her treasure. If that’s the case, we’ll have to distract her, bind her in place.”
“I can do that,” Mara cut in. She stood a bit straighter, and her pale eyes blazed.
“Good call.” Sturm grinned ever so slightly. “While she’s occupied, some of us will have to slip around her and then pick up that Guardian. We’ll regroup, then head back to the surface. The bindings should hold....If not, she’ll be chasing us every step of the way. We’ll have to throw things back at her — and drown out her song the entire time.”
They hashed out more precise plans, details of who would do what, what to do in case x happened. Meanwhile, the seers had crafted a simple homing device, in the form of a crystal attuned to Aidan. An arrow of light, fused deep into the crystal, spun slowly, like a compass needle. Levanter was in charge of the device, and he had to put it down when the crystal grew too hot to hold. “Here — this is the place!”
The anchor dropped. The dragons heard the chain rattling deep below the decks, and they shivered slightly. They lined up before Levanter, who passed the crystal, now in a special pouch, to Jubilant. He was already murmuring spells, his eyes glowing with pale green light.
The team checked their weapons and equipment. They shifted uneasily as green cocoons closed in on them. But they were only made of magic and wind; they didn’t feel like anything at all.
“Right. Here’s your other thing.” Levanter handed another pouch to Jubilant, the one containing the bubble-deploying spell. “Everything’s good for four hours, starting...” He squinted at the sun. “Now.”
With a great splash, Sturmwelle bounded over the side and disappeared into the water. The others rather clumsily followed after her.
The water wasn’t cold, but it was unpleasantly cool — almost clammy. They were protected by their cocoons, but they could still feel the pressure of it, wrapping around them like a second skin....Mara breathed deeply and was gratified to smell fresh-cut grass and sea spray. With such vast lungs, she could hold her breath for up to an hour — but their mission was likely to take a lot longer.
Four hours, the Skydancer had said. They had four hours.
The tracking crystal no longer gave off heat, and in its pouch, it tugged at Jubilant’s wrist, showing him the way. The Spiral whirled into the abyss; the bards and fighters trailed close behind.
They did talk with each other, though if pressed, Mara had to admit that she was unable to recall much of what they said. Most of that part of the trip was a nightmarish blur of frigid water, the threat of crushing pressure held back by paper-thin sorcery. Worse still were the things dwelling in the depths: shapes, briefly lit by their glowing cocoons; there would be a change in pressure and they would glimpse bulbous eyes and cruel, fang-filled jaws. At one point Laurant rather shakily mentioned that she could see a light in the distance, and Sturmwelle gave it a brief glance. “Mantarune. Pretend you don’t see it.”
“We’re getting closer.” Mara remembered that part very clearly, Jubilant speaking in a taut, hushed voice. He paused to prepare his magical devices, and the dragons peered around him. They could now see the floor of the ocean. It was a world all on its own, mountains and valleys like the continent above. Ahead and below them, twin peaks rose, curling towards each other like the petals of a flower. Between them was utter darkness.
“Got your bubble ready?”
“Yes, Laurant. This danged crystal, though, it won’t stop tugging—”
“Give it to Faust,” snapped Sturmwelle, “and quietly. That thing might hear us squabbling.” Her eyes narrowed; the smaller, heat-sensing ones contracted as she tried to locate the siren.
Faust tucked the crystal into a belt pouch, drawing his hammer as he did so. It was a stout, rugged tool, obviously well-used at the forge, and Mara had doubts about its efficacy as a weapon. Her own trident was well-suited for the task at hand, though. As for the others, well, they would see....
They moved slowly, steadily forward. The entire time their eyes remained fixed on the blackness below. The palest glint warned them that they had been spotted: magic gleaming from deep within the siren’s eyes.
“She sees us!” Laurant squawked. Tantris gibbered something incoherent. Sturmwelle’s voice cut through their noises like a knife: “Drop the bubble now!”
Jubilant slashed the bubble-pouch open. The spell exploded beneath them. The bubble appeared, glowing with a faint green light of its own. It grew fast, and they yelped as they phased through the membrane and then dropped the rest of the way to the ocean floor.
They pulled themselves free from the mud with various complaints, all of which quickly died in their throats as they were overridden by another sound. Soft and hissing, sliding across the ocean stones...It sounded oddly dry, the rattle of scales as the siren crept from her lair.
Mara turned. Laurant and Tantris, the bards, clustered together, gurgling in fear. Faust swore, and Sturmwelle and Jubilant spread their claws, their faces bleak. Mara herself was silent, her throat suddenly parched.
Huge...It was immense. It roiled out of a crevice that looked too small for it, billowing to a vast size that threatened to break the bubble. It was deep, oily black, rainbow-hued swirls glistening upon its flesh. Jubilant had mentioned targeting “appendages...sensory organs”. Did it have them? Were those tentacles gripping the rocky crags; were those spreading flanges actually wings?
Its eyes were tiny spots of paleness, as faint as a midday moon. But suddenly they pulsed with power. The air began to hum, their feet trembling as the siren’s song vibrated through their soles.
They couldn’t move. It was enthralling them. With some difficulty, Jubilant twisted his neck around. “Tantris!”
With a roar, Faust flung his hammer. It whirred through the air and then struck the siren between the eyes. As she flinched back, her song faltering, the hammer bounced down. Mara heard Faust mutter, “Great, now how do I get that back?” an instant before Tantris began to play. The Skydancer’s slender fingers danced over his lute, and he sang, nervously at first, and then with growing strength and confidence. An Acolights’ folk song, perhaps a hymn, about forging through the darkness with weapons made of light. It fit their circumstances well. The bard was obviously putting some of his magic into the song, because Mara felt her fear pushed away, dampened, like sounds muffled by a fog. So much the better now. She leveled her trident at the beast.
Sturmwelle and Jubilant, the veterans, took point. The Spiral was a whirl of bright colors and jewels, his body frequently crackling with power as he spun and slashed with his claws. He was largely silent; Sturmwelle directed the fray instead: “Draw her out. Keep her moving! There’s a cave behind her; I can see a Guardian in there!”
Mara flowed around the siren, keeping well out of range of those billowing tentacles. It turned, tracking her with its tiny eyes, and she thought, “Does it recognize me from before?”
She stabbed a tentacle that snaked out to her, twisted it, and ripped it off. The siren hissed, a chilling sound like a saw grating on bone. The sound rose into a shriek as Sturmwelle slashed at her again, tearing audibly through several inches of flesh and hide.
As the siren turned to engage the Mirror, Mara darted behind her. She crawled over the rocks and peered into the crevice — and nearly had a heart attack as a dark shape dropped into place beside her.
“Whoa, lady, it’s only me!” Laurant whisper-shrieked. The black Guardian was clinging to the rocks, and her banjo dangled from her side. It didn’t look like she’d unstrapped it during the battle.
“Don’t scare me like that! Aren’t you going to...to sing?”
She shook her head. “No, Tantris is taking care of that — Oh my.” The last two words came out as a gasp. She’d peered inside the crevice and glimpsed Aidan, slumped just around a bend.
Mara stared. He was sprawled gracelessly in the mud, his clothes tangled around his limbs and tail. His eyes were open, but they had a terrible milky cast to them — as if he’d gone blind...or...
She was too big to squeeze in. She reached for him in vain. As she gave up, Laurant inched past her, grabbed Aidan’s forelimb. “He’s still alive!” she gasped, relief flooding her features. She pulled, and Mara wrapped a forearm around her legs and hauled her back out of the crevice.
“He won’t survive underwater once we’re out of the dome,” the merchant stated grimly. Laurant grinned back. “We thought of that. He’s got a cocoon of his own. Oy, Jubilant! We’ve got him!”
Her words reached the Spiral just as he was retrieving Faustino’s hammer. The Arcane mage’s hind paw closed around it, and as he cartwheeled backwards, he flung it back to where its owner waited. He somersaulted upright in time for them to see his grin. “Capital! Bring him over, and we’ll bail, fast. We’ve overstayed our welcome!”
“Hah! You’re saying it like we were welcome in the first place,” Faustino growled. His hammer smacked back into his grasp, and before the siren could turn to accost Laurant and Mara, he reared up in front of her face, his wings flaring. His free paw traced a magical sign as he whispered, “Enamor,” and then he grinned at the siren and winked one golden eye.
The siren stopped as if frozen. Her song, which had been building again, trailed away into silence. Faust’s grin became positively wicked, and then he smashed her facewise with the hammer.
Laurant and Mara dragged Aidan back to Jubilant. The Spiral bent over his face — “Hold still!” — and then slapped the extra cocoon onto him. It expanded to cover his body in pale green light, and as he gulped down air, the Arcane mage bellowed, “We’re good to go! Retreat!”
“Of all the morale-dropping things to say...” Sturmwelle’s comment trailed off into a laugh. She gave the siren another vicious swipe and then bounded backwards. Tantris, who had been closely following the battle, allowed his song to die away.
Without his music, the fear descended again. Suddenly they were no longer so cocky or self-assured. “Retreeeeaaat!” Jubilant repeated, in a real panic this time. The siren was still Enamored, but her eyes flashed fire, and with a horrendous surging sound, she flowed after them.
Tantris went through the bubble first, then Laurant. Faust and Mara burst through next, with Aidan between them. Sturmwelle and Jubilant brought up the rear. Out and up they all swam, up to the distant surface....
“Is she following?” Tantris asked. His voice was thin and reedy from exertion, but they all heard, because they were thinking the same question. Jubilant answered, “I think...” He looked down and then trailed off into a sickened gurgle.
The siren pressed against the bubble dome. Her substance filled the space beneath, expanding wider and wider. Enlarging the bubble, stretching it, thinning out the sorcery that held it in place....
“She’s going to burst it! Fly, everyone, fly!”
But even as Jubilant said it, they all knew that they were too far from the surface.... “Still, we were warned,” Mara remembered, “and damned if I will let Aidan or any of us become a part of her collection again!” She tightened her grip on her trident and then began murmuring, preparing a potent spell.
They went straight up. Up and up...The entire time, they were conscious of the pressure changing beneath them as the bubble was stretched taut. When it finally burst, it made a sound like a thunderclap. A frigid swell overtook them, sending them tumbling up to the light.
“It’s burst!” Tantris wailed. Faust turned to give him a stone-shattering glower. “Yes. Thank you for telling us,” he stated flatly.
“Can it, Carrot-head; this ain’t the time to oh my gods!”
Faust’s ensuing roar nearly drowned out Laurant’s words. As they all looked down, they all saw that dreaded sight: The siren had caught up to them. She had extended her coils and wrapped them around Aidan’s hind limbs, and she was endeavoring to drag him down again.
Faust refused to give up their new companion. “Let go! Let go of him, you odious piece of slime!” he roared, his deep voice reverberating through the water. Laurant grabbed Aidan’s other paw, not noticing as Mara broke away. The dark Imperial looked on in distress, but her face was set, her free paw continuing to move as she readied her spell.
Aidan was lucid now, fully conscious — and aware. He stared into Faust’s and Laurant’s faces with wide and frightened eyes. “Don’t let go of me! Please don’t let go!”
“Absolutely not! Laurant...” Faust’s mane visibly stood on end as the water started to vibrate around them. “Laurant! She’s starting to sing again!”
The Enamor had worn off. Tantris was already playing, his song boosting Sturmwelle’s and Jubilant’s strength; the two fighters dove down, slashing and hacking at the siren’s substance. But she ignored them; so focused was she on her prize. She had lost him once....She wasn’t about to lose him twice.
“Well, neither are we!” That thought was Mara’s, but it was shared by everybody. Before the siren’s song rose, Laurant looked past Aidan and deep into the siren’s eyes. “Let go of him, you...!”
Something happened then. Mara heard a sound — music unlike any she had ever heard before. If she had to think of a word to describe it, she would say heavenly....
♪♫♭♩♪♯♩♬♮♪♯♩♩♬♭♪♯♫!!!
Harps, tolling bells, and then the golden-throated blare of trumpets, all of them sounding out from the water around them, as if they had suddenly died and ascended to the gods. But there was no light — only that divinely beautiful sound, Aidan staring upwards in awe, and Laurant continuing to rant and rave at the siren, her mouth forming some truly awful words even as the music continued to pour from her throat....
She was lifting her banjo. For a wild moment, Mara thought she was going to unleash an equally divine chord, something which which to disintegrate the siren. Instead—
ThwaBLOOOOIIINNNGG!!!
The enraged Guardian smashed her banjo into the siren’s face. It splintered apart instantly. Faust and Tantris screamed in dismay.
And the siren loosened her grip. Aidan slipped free again. Finally, Mara commanded, “Congeal!”
In a rush of coldness, the siren froze, wrapped in a cocoon of ice several meters thick. The dragons gurgled as the cold overtook them, and they redoubled their efforts to swim away.
Mara lingered, watching the ice encase the siren. The creature struggled feebly inside, trying to burst loose, but it was no use. Soon she was invisible beneath her shell of ice.
And she slipped away into the dark water. The spell would wear off in time, but by then, Mara and the others would be far away. “And you will have learned your lesson,” she thought to the abyssal monster.
She holstered her trident and followed her comrades to the surface. The chill of the depths remained, but the silence was finally, blessedly complete.
Some minutes later, they were startled by a whirling vortex that plunged down from above, spinning beside them like a drill. Its faint green glow told them that this was friendly magic, however, and as they swam into it, the water was sloughed off them and they were whisked up to the surface of the sea.
Mara’s crew pulled them aboard. The exhausted party was dumped at Levanter’s feet, and the Skydancer tut-tutted as he studied them. “You all look positively wretched,” he remarked.
Sturmwelle’s head went up, her teeth gleaming. “It’s been a long day, Levanter. It’s been a long day,” she snarled. Jubilant sighed in agreement. “I’ll say. It’s not even noon. How did you know where we were, by the way?”
“I could hear Laurant swearing. And it looks like it’s mission accomplished. Do you all need something to drink?”
“A spot of tea,” Mara sighed wearily. Her crew immediately leaped to follow her orders, even as the anchor was heaved aboard. Levanter turned and snapped his claws at the sails, and they bellied out with a boom, carrying the ship back to the Lightweaver’s lands.
The party had berths below, but after being in the darkness, they had no wish to leave the bright and airy deck. Instead, they slumped together, dripping and fatigued. Sturmwelle and Jubilant recovered quickly and soon wandered away to see if there was anything to eat. Tantris sat near the bow, critically examining his sodden cloak. Mara looked across the deck at Laurant, who was looking a bit despondent now.
Yet it was Aidan, not Mara, who broached the question: “How did you do that?” the red Guardian inquired. Laurant blinked blearily at him. “Do what? I did a lot of things down there.”
Aidan cleared his own throat a few times. It sounded like the rasp of sandpaper. Laurant’s tired laugh was not much better. “It’s an enchantment I got slapped with as a hatchling. I was not a very well-behaved child. Teacher Tantris can explain it better. Teach...” She trailed off — Tantris, exhausted, had fallen asleep at the bow.
“She grew up next to the ocean and encountered plenty of oceangoing drakes — sailors and the like. She quickly picked up their more profane language.” Faust had noted Mara’s perplexed look. And he blinked, suddenly abashed. “Ah, no offense meant, lady.”
“None taken,” Mara said with a warm smile. “So then...?”
“Well, she used a few too many swear-words in class — Tantris was her teacher then, and he came up with the idea of censoring her words with incredibly beautiful music.” The craftsdrake cocked one ear. “At least that’s the idea. No one’s been able to replicate the sounds Laurant makes, so maybe we all hear different things. Who knows?”
“I wonder what the siren heard,” Mara murmured. It must have been something, to Enamor her as much as the actual spell had. Perhaps Laurant’s song was just a variant of the original spell, nothing more.
“I’m not sure I want to know. We didn’t want Laurant to start shrieking at her right at the start, in case she somehow developed a resistance to the enchantment. Well, it worked — that’s the main thing.”
As for Laurant herself, she was now trying to coax Aidan to go to his berth. Mara’s Guardian refused to budge, however. “It’s too dark....Let me stay up here. There’s wind, everything is moving....Could you...sing for me?”
He sounded so plaintive. Mara felt sad when she considered that; he had obviously had a terrible time while in the siren’s coils. Laurant laughed quietly. “The word is ‘swear’, friend,” she corrected; but sing/swear she did, and they were lulled by the rocking of the ship, the faint symphony of harps and violins.
Mara frowned. “So she is...?”
“Probably insulting someone’s parentage,” Faust muttered with a shrug. “She was quite infamous for it a while back. ‘The Disillusionists’ Swearlord’, or something like that.”
Mara now recalled where she’d heard that name. She squinted at Faustino. “Your parents...Are they Theia and Hyperion?”
“As a matter of act, they are. How do you know them?”
“My own parents, Asteria and Orion, wrote to me about them. They said something about a son who had been sent to live with another clan, the Disillusionists. You know...Our parents come from the same clan. They are rivals.”
“Oh? Is that going to be a problem?” Faust arched an eyeridge.
To his great relief, Mara laughed. “Not at all. Honestly, I believe they argued about the silliest things. ‘Which genes are more beautiful’ and somesuch....I don’t think they were really into their ‘rivalry’. It seemed more like a way for them to pass the time.
“Besides, after what just happened here, d’you think I’d be interested in pursuing a rivalry with you?” Mara snorted. “I owe you a great debt....If I hadn’t run into you at the marketplace, my Guardian would probably still...”
“Yes.” Faust rolled his eyes. “Guardians do need guarding of their own sometimes. I shall have to make Laurant a new banjo. Goodness knows she’s earned it.”
“That she has,” Mara agreed. They were talking quietly now; across from them, Laurant had finally given in to exhaustion and fallen asleep beside Aidan. The fear had left the red Guardian’s face, and Mara knew that, in time, he would be all right.
They approached the coast of the Sunbeam Ruins. The sun was nearing its zenith, “And it looks like there’s a good day ahead,” Mara thought to herself. A good day, maybe an even brighter tomorrow, for the merchant and her friends.
~ The End
♦ art by Fletcher
♦ art by Valkael
♦ adopt by Eiyora
♥ art by Hyperrectangle
♦ art by KasumiDragon
moodboard by me
♦ art by Valkael
♦ adopt by Eiyora
♥ art by Hyperrectangle
♦ art by KasumiDragon
moodboard by me
Credits & Notes:
• Coding by me; dividers by PoisonedPaper.
• Thanks to Alixe for information about Mara's and Faust's parents.
• Levanter, who used to be my Wind rep, has since found a home with another clan. Thank you also to his current owner, DiaBlack, for allowing him to be included in the story.
And thank you also for reading/scrolling through this ridonkulously long lore! XD
Lore Thread / Clan Directory
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