Chapter 47 Bonus: Prima Draconis 1

Tiamat knew that this was the beginning of a new age. She couldn’t help but muse that this moment may very well mark the start of year zero.

Steam and smoke billowed from every direction. The scent of brimstone singed Tiamat’s nostrils as she stared down onto Ninazu’s grave. He had not seen her coming. The plan had never been to have a fair fight. He was weakened after his battle with Apsu, even if he had absorbed the other god’s essence, and knew that Tiamat would be coming for him. However, he had not hidden well enough.

He thought that he would be safe at the center of the continent, far from Tiamat’s shorelines. Normally this would be true. Her vision inland had never been the most present. However, he had not anticipated a traitor in his midst, or an attack from the air.

The battle had been decided with two well aimed decisive strikes, before Ninazu even knew what was coming. He had holed up in the depths of the ancient Dulmair catacombs, upon Mount Vier, but Tiamat had cleaved straight through the mountain to reach him, gored him, and slammed him down into the earth with enough force to obliterate not just the mountain, but the mountain range, and everything within a thousand miles of where she had made impact.

Once he was dazed, it was child’s play to force her essence into his and pull every last speck of power from him until he was as good as mortal. “T-Tia- wait, I’m-” He didn’t get a chance to finish. As magma began seeping out from the cracks of the edge of the crater, she ripped him up and slammed him down again, directly into a flow of molten earth. His shrieks were deafening as he was coated. Her cackles were louder, drowning him out until the moment the lava flow covered his face. It was from this moment that she knew that fire would become one of her aspects.

He continued his weak struggles for longer than she expected. Even once his true form was unburdened by divinity, his vessel continued the fight. She kept him pinned down, resisting his thrashing and pleading for release through a mental link. It fell on deaf ears. She was too focused on the hissing sound her tears made as they evaporated off of the scorching hot obsidian which would be his tomb. The time for talking had passed. She’d given him every chance. More than he deserved. Now was the time for consequences.

Eventually, his struggles slowed, and ceased completely. It took weeks. The stone had long since cooled, and solidified, though her emotions had not. She had been so focused on her deadly task that she had not seen the glaciers and snow around her melting from the heat of the magma, and filling the bowl around her. As her chin lifted, and she freed her forelimbs from the stone they were encased in, she finally realized that she could see the sun. The snow had stopped for the first time in over a century. The devastation around her was chilling, but beautiful.

But she was alone.

Unbidden, tears welled up from within once again, and she released a shrieking roar of despair into the empty expanse she had created. If there had been a mortal there, the volume of it may have killed them where they stood. She was alone. Her husband and best friend were gone. She had no one. No mortals to claim friendship with, as the others had.

At best she had her high priest before the freeze, but his far-north sailing escapades had been brought to an end when the ice fields had claimed his ship over a century ago, and even his coldmark had been insufficient to protect him from the chill. Things had become too decentralized during the freeze to choose a suitable replacement. The idea of a temple seemed ludicrous now, with how humanity was living. Tents and sleds, pitiful shacks out on ice sheets. Ever expanding ice tunnels which had to be dug out fresh every day after snowfall would bury the old exit. It was a wonder any were still alive.

Maybe she truly had undersold their mettle. Apsu and Ninazu had long tried to help her to see their points of view on mankind. Perhaps all that had to happen to make her see their value was to almost wipe them out.

But it wouldn’t matter now, would it? They were fading every day, despite their ability to persist this long. The flora and fauna of the continent had been decimated, not having the intelligence or adaptability that humanity had required to last as long as they had. Most humans had crowded around the coastlines and were living off of fish and seals, as the northern natives always had in the past, but even those aquatic populations were in decline. The ecology of the world would be in free fall after this. The gods on other continents would likely begin to rebuild, but her… could she do it by herself?

She knew Apsu would want her to try. He would not want the light of civilization to be snuffed out. That fact alone made her feel as if she had no choice. To let humanity die would be to disgrace his very memory.

Somehow… she would have to step up. But how would she do it by herself?

The rumbling of scale over earth announced the approach of the serpent. She made no move as it approached, knowing full well it posed no threat to her, even if it meant harm. The solution to her dilemma had arrived. A chilling consciousness touched her own, its fear blossoming before her eyes as it asked the question: “It’s over then?”

“It is over.” Tiamat slowly stood, and collapsed back onto all fours. When had she taken this strange form? It was scaled, like a serpent’s, but winged, and with teeth and claws like a lion’s. A spiraling ivory horn protruded from her forehead, the same one she had speared Ninazu with as she drove him into the earth.

“And you remember our deal?” the serpent ventured, seeming to know full well what kind of threat it was under, staring down the Turmoil Witch herself. However, in its own mind, it would either die now for its insolence, or in a year or two as she hunted the last of the serpents to extinction. It may as well push its luck. There was nothing out there to spark joy or honor as there had once been. It merely hoped to disappear into a corner of the world devoid of intelligent life, live a quiet life, and disappear to history.

“Yes, I remember,” Tiamat stretched her strange new body, and began to piece together more of the brief fight. She had put on the scales to protect her flesh from Ninazu’s pitiful struggles, and infused the form with heat magic to allow her to better crush the last bit of life from Ninazu’s body while he was submerged. The claws were better to grip him when ripping him from the mountain, and the wings for building speed before slamming him into the earth. The tail and jaws… well. They just felt right.

Step by step, on all fours, she prowled towards the cowering serpent before her. This one appeared to be a mamba, and on the younger side of Ninazu’s forces. Perhaps at best it was only a decade or two old when Ninazu had made his declaration to his serpents to consume and to freeze. It was unfortunate timing to be spun out of the rime, only to be forced to turn on mankind while still in relative infancy. Perhaps that was why she felt inclined to accept its deal. Her little informant shrunk back further, coiling upon itself as the goddess approached, fear painting its features. “I told you where he was, and now you’ll make me mortal, and we can go our separate ways. Fair is fair.”

“I never said I would turn you mortal, Nintinugga. I said I would make you into something other than a serpent,” a growl rattled in her throat, and flames licked at her lips. “We have a lot of work to do if we are to bring the world back, and you are to be as my loyal little dog, my right hand, and the doom of your former brethren.”

“Wh-what would be I be then?” the serpent shapeshifted into a human, and knelt before her, seeking any action which might appease the fury in her eyes. It was wishing it had tried its luck with Ninazu again.

It heard a sickly snapping sound, and as its eyes flicked up, it found that Tiamat had ripped her horn from her forehead. Blood poured from the wound, shining like the magma around them, and smelling of low tide. It felt as if it were going to be sick watching it. With one claw, she carved out the interior of the horn of its flesh, and into the sides two symbols: the arcane runes for fire and sky. “A name will come with time, but I believe that a form such as this, with a belly full of flame, will behoove you to our task.”

“B-but-” the serpent in human form backed away again, quivering at the sight. “I am a creature of ice magic. Surely my being would reject-”

“Worry not,” Tiamat’s toothy grin only grew as she continued her slow march toward the serpent. The luminous ichor running down over her face lit her eyes in a crazed display of grief and rage. Her eyes were aflame with intention, and Nintinugga had a feeling that they would not extinguish any time soon. “I believe we can burn that impurity out of you.”

Kishar was running late, but could hardly be bothered to care. The weather was already growing out of control. The skies had always been Ninazu’s domain to direct, and after the disaster that the last century had been, the jetstreams had been disrupted, and were struggling to reassert themselves into a regular pattern again. The winds were so violent that Kishar had already nearly died twice after being ripped from the sky by them.

Things were already beginning to thaw on their own. Great violent rivers were beginning to carve their way through the continent, forging canyons of monstrous proportions. Shifting glaciers dug great fjords from the mountains. Not only would the weather be permanently altered, the landscape would as well. The great lake at the center of the continent had formed an island, which Tiamat spoke of building a great city on, once the melt was over. Though, to prevent total extinction, the melt would need to be aided.

Tiamat was already at work selecting, transforming, and training the other eleven for the task. Today was meant to be the ritual to make the last two into… whatever creature it was that Kishar was now. A name had not yet been decided. The other nine were already well underway in their training, or so it had heard at least. It had been too busy to attend any of those ceremonies before this one, not that it wanted to watch it happen to someone else.

Tiamat had been clear that no one, not even the other new divine beasts, could ever know Kishar’s origin, and it was just fine with that. It had even picked its new name already. It had no need for its new kin to see it as a genocidal monster, as the serpents were now viewed. Ninazu and its former serpentine brethren had filled its head with ideas of serpentine nobility, and its duty to protect mankind, and it had hardly left its mentorship with its master, Ninmada, before Ninazu’s declaration had been made. Ninmada had narrowly avoided becoming part the seventy percent of serpents that were purged on the first day of the freeze for defying orders. The both of them had fallen into line after that display of divine wrath.

Even if this new form was a grand and imposing one, and designed specially to hunt and kill serpents, it was hardly happy with the change. It had already disliked shapeshifting to a human form, far too different from the simplicity of the serpent. Four limbs were a lot to handle for a snake. But now… it was expected to control six limbs and a tail? Who was Tiamat kidding? It had been nearly three months, and Kishar was hardly used to its body at all.

The new form was still lithe and serpentine, with many thousands of stunning multicolored feathers coating its wings, back, and tail. It truly appeared as a rainbow as it flew over the landscape, and its feathers seemed just as reflective as its scales. The plumage cast auroras over the ground below it as it flew, lighting up the ice and snow in a spectacular display of hues.

The humans it had rescued were already taking to referring to it as ‘The Aurora of Refuge.’ It… actually appreciated the nickname. It hadn’t gotten to help people since before the freeze. Its one saving grace of the misery of this new form was the admiration it hard earned.

It was over the water of the great lake now. The waves were still violent and churning from a combination of violent winds and ripples as glaciers cracked and fell in, creating tidal waves large enough to wipe out small cities. Despite the strong currents, the glacial water was shockingly clear. Silt and debris clouded the outer edges, but closer to the center the waters were like looking into a wash basin. Veins of solidified magma, ruins, and more could be seen far below the surface, preserved hundreds of feet below. Once the melt finished, they likely would not be visible at all as light would fail to penetrate the depths. The lake may be as deep as a half mile deep at this rate.

What was once Dortain, on the southern slope, was now at risk of drowning entirely as the lake filled. The edges of the crater on most sides had formed jagged mountains, but the southern stretch, furthest from the impact point, was contained by a wall of ice instead. Once the barrier broke, the entire slope below it may be simply washed away as the lake drained to its new default level. An evacuation would need to be made before that could happen.

These three months had been spent primarily learning the ins and outs of a six-limbed body, and attempting to round up and relocate mortals from areas under threat from the melt, so they could start anew somewhere safer. So far, it had been fortunate not to run into another serpent directly. It was sure it had been spotted by them, but they didn’t seem to know what to make of it. Tiamat had made it clear the plan was to purge them from the continent, but it was not yet the time. The fledgling dragons she was siring would first need to become comfortable in their new skin, and learn to fight with claw and flame rather than blade and bow. Kishar was under strict orders not to engage until it was time, and merely move mortals out of harm’s way.

It still felt strange to breath fire, rather than wield magical freezing venom, or a paralyzing gaze. It had learned to wield many of its new powers early, particularly shapeshifting, vocal projection, and fire. They were quite similar to the abilities of a serpent. Its new flame heart wasn’t as different from injecting venom as one might think, despite being in such different parts of the body. Tiamat wasn’t exactly shamelessly copying Ninazu alone. The lions, in their day, wielded similar abilities to carry out their duties. The serpents had killed most of them, though. At most there were a half dozen remaining.

Soon there would be less serpents too, it supposed.

Kishar was unsure how it felt about Tiamat’s insistence upon the death of the other serpents. The former serpent had struck an excellent deal, considering. It would get to live. Its former brethren would not be so lucky, but how much of that was deserved?

No, this wasn’t a helpful line of thought. They had aided in the destruction of the world. They had followed the Serpent King until his demise. Kishar had been the only one to aid Tiamat, and the only one to work against Ninazu to prevent further destruction.

It only wished it had done so sooner. Perhaps then Apsu would still be alive. Perhaps a crushing enough defeat by Tiamat and Apsu working together would be enough to convince Ninazu to stand down. Perhaps the serpents could have been preserved and returned to their old nobility and empathy. However, with the death of the Swallowing Sea’s husband, mercy was off the table. Tiamat had never been known for leniency, or to let go of a grudge.

As it arrived on the island, it found that the beginnings of a grand temple were already underway, a ziggurat like the times of old. Tiamat had insisted upon building it here, and training the new divine beasts here, where it would be nigh impossible for the serpents to reach. It was not only the site of her retribution, but a perfect fortress to defend against the remaining serpents until the war was over, even if there would be no priests to man it for some time. But… wait, who was that upon it?

Kishar tucked its wings in, and entered a dive, slowing only at the last second and slamming down onto the stone. From the air it could seen the grand blocks of limestone had been carved from the hills above, at the peak of the mountain-island. It was barely more than a base now, but Kishar could already see the outline of what would be.

Scattered around the top were dozens of… some sort of beastfolk. They appeared as if humans had simply been coated in fur, feather, or scale, and given the head of some animal to match. They were already clearing the ground, digging the beginnings of fields upon the soil scattered around the top, which… hadn’t been there before. Had Tiamat personally dug up the loam from another part of the world to deposit here? Kishar supposed that the strange population of animal people would need to eat.

A bipedal cat, a snow leopard, approached Kishar and bowed, offering a clay basin of water, and some grilled fish. The beast shapeshifted down to its human form and accepted them with a grateful bow of its head. Would this odd… humanlike beast even understand speech?

“Tiamat said you may be confused,” she spoke to it in perfect Harukuli, nearly causing the beast to jump out of its skin. “She intends us to help to fill out the population of the world, well, not us, but beastfolk like us. She intends to make more later, when the land has been prepared for us. She is hard at work training her new dragons in the wilderness of the island, and replacing flora and fauna cross Ti’Aval.”

“Ti’Aval? Dragons?” Kishar awkwardly rubbed the back of its neck, and took a bite from the fish. Aval was a northern word for praise or respect… Ti came from Tiamat assumedly. She really was serious about rebuilding.

“Our new land, reborn after the baptism that will be the melt!” She raised her hands up at the sun and closed her eyes, letting its warmth wash over her. Even if the sun was out again, and the melt had begun, most of the world was still colder than would be comfortable for most mortals. “As for dragon, that is you! Our saviors, our protectors. Her children!”

“Children?!” Kishar nearly dropped the food and water in alarm at the word. It had noticed that Tiamat had been treating it… differently since the change. Kinder, warmer. It had confused the ‘dragon’ (since that was apparently what it was to be known as) to no end, but it had avoided questioning the change out of fear or reprisal. But Tiamat was telling others that Kishar was her child now?

“Why yes. You carry her blood, do you not?” The snow leopard tilted her head in confusion.

“I am- yes. Obviously,” it attempted to recover, and follow the cat-woman’s lead. Kishar needed to disengage. It was at risk of revealing the secret if it continued like this. “You said I could find her further north on the island?”

“Yes, sacred beast,” she bowed again, expression betraying her nerves. She seemed to fear that she had offended the dragon. Kishar wasn’t sure how it should feel about that expression. It did not want to be feared, as it had been in its time as a serpent. “She said that you need only follow the coast.”

“Right, thank you,” the dragon took its first few steps away, but stopped. “What is your name, leopard?”

She bowed again, curtsying. “I am Eterili. Tiamat named me herself.”

“And… you are a divine beast as well?” Kishar’s curiosity was still getting the better of it. Was Tiamat making such a diverse group of servants? It could see foxes, lizards, bears, deer, snakes… just about every animal it could think of. “I still do not understand your purpose, you mentioned helping fill out the population of the world, how will that work?”

“I am surprised she hasn’t told you,” Eterili beamed. “We are meant to help humans to rebuild civilization, and birth new generations together. We are to be sisters and brothers to them. Friends, lovers, allies. Mortals just as they are!”

Intelligent mortal animals? Tiamat truly was changing things up. It was a new age, it supposed, and populations were in the range where inbreeding would become a concern within another few generations. But why not create new humans instead of new creatures entirely? How could they speak already? Should they not be as children? Perhaps Tiamat was capable of more than Kishar realized. “Thank you for the explanation. I… have been busy of late. I should endeavor to visit this... city... more often.”

“Fellrock, you mean?” She gave another knowing smile. “She has named it for where she felled Ninazu.”

That would certainly sound like her. Everything about this new age was an enigma. Beasts which walk, talk, and live like humans? Dragons? Gods having children? Cities built atop the grave of Ninazu?

Admittedly, it was not looking forward to meeting its fellow dragons. This entire prolonged conversation had simply been an attempt at stalling. It sounded as if Tiamat had already turned another few, likely from mortals this time. It couldn’t see any more serpents being ‘pardoned’ (indentured more like) the way Kishar had. How would it explain itself to them? Would they accept a cover story from a far flung corner of the world? How would it explain its mastery of its powers which they lacked? It was awkward with its wings and limbs, sure, but telepathy and shapeshifting came natural to it already.

No matter… Tiamat would likely have some excuse or another for it. Perhaps they could lie and say it was a former lion? No… Apsu’s lions were incapable of deceit. If it were to meet a remaining lion then they would out it immediately as not being one of their own, former or otherwise. A lion may even try to kill it for its former associations. Could it take a lion? It was on the small side for a serpent before, but Tiamat had crafted its new vessel to be a powerful weapon for slaughtering the remaining sacred beasts of Ninazu. How would it match up against a lion? Would Tiamat punish it for harming a sacred beast of her late husband?

“Hello, Kishar?” Kishar’s attention was snapped back to the leopard before it as she leaned in close to check on it. “Are you well?”

“I-” it choked out the word, gripping its pounding chest. As its thoughts had spiraled out of control, the anxieties had begun to ferment into an intoxicating panic. It was an immortal, to be spending its life operating in tandem with other immortals for the war that was to come, and the reconstruction after. How could it keep its identity secret for that long? “It is nothing. I should go.” Without waiting for further response from the concerned snow leopard, it ran. It kept running until it reached an open enough space to transform, and it fled by air. How would they see it differently if they knew what it was before?

It might never truly be one of them. And yet Tiamat expected it to treat them as family. It would be some sort of… elder sibling to an entire new type of creature. A role model. It. The traitor among traitors. The idea made it sick. Why couldn’t Tiamat have simply selected twelve mortals, instead of one immortal and eleven mortals?

So deep it was in its own anxieties, it only narrowly dodged the missile barreling straight towards it. The dragon’s maw erupted in a guttural hiss, and flames spewed from within on instinct at the near collision. It lost several hundred feet of altitude before it managed to right itself, narrowly avoiding dashing itself upon the fields below and flattening a dozen beastfolk.

“Hey!” An unfamiliar consciousness reached out to it, cheery and warm, bubbling like a refreshing spring. “You’re big sib, right?”

Sib? The dragon angled itself back up, and craned its neck to locate the other party of its near-miss. Another dragon, merely a hundred feet long, half its own size, was awkwardly trying to right herself, and regain its altitude, a huge stupid grin upon her face. “I am Kishar, the first ‘dragon’, yes.”

“I guess that makes me your little sister! I’m Disaeite!” She was white like the snow, and built like a bull, with massive muscled shoulders and muscular legs ending in razor sharp claws that Kishar had no doubt could be used to achieve great violence, if put to task. The smaller dragon was still struggling to right itself, and was coming dangerously close to falling into the water. Even if the melt was well underway, and dragons were creatures of fire, that water would be frigid. Cold enough to possibly send someone into shock, and lead them to drowning.

Kishar dove on instinct, plucking the smaller dragon from the air, and nearly crashing itself into the surf as it drove its wings against the wind to pull them both to land. A dangerous squall had emerged from seemingly nowhere and felt ready to rip every feather off of the first dragon as it fought to escape the hungry clutches of the water below. All water was to be Tiamat’s now. Could lake water truly be safe from her wrath if Kishar were to allow Tiamat’s newly reborn daughter die so soon?

The two crashed down hard onto the field of crops, and Kishar even heard and felt a snap as one of its wings was pinned awkwardly beneath both of their weights. The dragon let out a pained roar, one of a magnitude it didn’t realize it even had the potential for. The beastfolk had managed to flee its impact at the very least, though it believed it might have crushed their beast of burden and their plow. It felt something digging painfully into its ribs, and warm liquid was pooling out from beneath it, smelling of prey.

“Are you alright, little one?” It managed to choke out through the agony of its wing. Why couldn’t Tiamat had just given it the ability to fly magically? Why must it have these gigantic delicate levers of agony to get caught on everything and allow the leverage for harm such as this?

“ME?! Are you alright, Kishar!” Disaeite had already leapt free of Kishar’s forelimbs to check on the larger dragon. “I know we’re both new to having wings, but I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to point that way!”

“I’ll be fine.” Kishar gritted its teeth and rolled onto its stomach. “I can just-”

“Let me fly and go get Mom!” So these other dragons were already accepting Tiamat as their mother? How was that? Kishar was so preoccupied with that brief bout of consternation that it failed to stop Disaeite from lifting off again.

“Wait!” It didn’t need Tiamat finding out that it had not only put one of the goddess’s children into danger, but made a fool of itself so quickly. It swung its neck back, and quickly healed the break, before rushing after. “I’m fine! See?”

Disaeite slowed long enough to glance back, but nearly crashed once again as her balance was thrown off. “But how? Your wing was-”

“It was broken, yes, but I-” Shit! It couldn’t just tell her it had healed the break. It was supposed to be a regular mortal before! It shouldn’t know any magic like that!

“Disi, Kishar, is all well?” Another shadow, dwarfing even Kishar at its colossal two hundred feet, had passed over them, nearly ten times the former serpent’s length. Tiamat.

“Mom!” Disaeite pumped her wings hard to ascend up to the goddess and take her place in formation behind her. “I nearly crashed in the water after almost running into Kishar, but it caught me! Everything’s fine!” The ‘little’ dragon beamed. “I guess I’ve got a long way to go before I’m ready for my first hunt.”

Kishar’s wings felt ready to seize up completely in the shadow of the larger dragon eclipsing the sun from its view. Tiamat hadn’t appeared this large before, upon their meeting at Ninazu’s grave. Seeing her like this, it could think only of the searing pain she had inflicted upon it in the change. Indeed, upon initial transformation, it had retained its ice element, but Tiamat saw fit to fix that. She had forced hew own essence into Kishar’s and scoured all traces of the cold until nothing but her fresh fire remained, having burned away what little else there was.

Kishar still frequently felt… wrong, after the change. Fire didn’t suit it. It felt like a violation every time they spewed from its maw, as easy as the technique was to learn. It constantly tangled its limbs, and struggled to wrap its head around flight. Diaeite was already doing far better than it had at the younger dragon’s point in her training. Its only consolation was that it had retained its venom, but it was a far cry from what it had a serpent. Rather than freezing the victim solid, it merely… set their blood ablaze. It seemed appropriate for it being a being of flame now, but… not for who it was. Regrets were a plentiful harvest this year.

“Kishar?” Tiamat’s mental voice finally broke through its fog of misery to get its attention. “Are you well, my love? It seems something is bothering you.”

“N-no, Mother.” The dragon averted its eyes, watching the landscape below them as they flew to the training grounds. “I merely… am anxious to start the hunt.”