Israkur woke up the next morning, feeling surprisingly refreshed after his first night away from his birth cave. Uncurling himself from his sister, he slowly limped his way out of the cave. He arrived at the edge of the cave and was saddened to see that the sunrise was blocked out by the thick foliage of the forest. This was the final straw the last vestige of home that Israkur had hoped to hold onto. Losing it made him finally realize that he was on his own. An acute sense of loss overtook him, as he looked longingly towards the few beams of light that shone through the forest’s canopy.

He quickly shook it off. He knew he had made his decision, besides, having unleashed his breath power, he would be expected to leave within the year anyways. This way at least, he could protect his sister as well and hopefully, together, the two of them would survive.

He quickly regained the sense of acceptance he had reached the night before. Now calm and far more relaxed, he could feel a far baser need: hunger. Tearing at the bear’s corpse, he also noticed that, much to his satisfaction, his ribs were beginning to heal. Eating no longer shot streaks of pain into him and while breathing was still a constant struggle, it was slightly more bearable than the night before.

He quickly finished eating his fill of the bear meat and limped back inside the cave just in time to meet his sister at the tunnel entrance. She was panicked, breathing heavily and eyes wild with fear. Upon seeing Israkur, she quickly calmed down and gave him a relieved greeting.

“Morning sis! Did you sleep well?” Israkur greeted her cheerfully, purposefully ignoring the terror-filled state she had been in. He knew she was young, even younger than he was, and gave her far more slack than he gave to himself.

“Yeah, I did,” she replied unconvincingly. Walking over to the bear, she tore away her own breakfast and settled down to eat as well.

For his part, Israkur settled down inside the main chamber of the cave and took a look around. The cave was, rather disappointing frankly. Barely shallow enough to shelter them from a passing breeze, it could hardly be called a home. The cave lip curled downward slightly, forming a durable, rough arch that held up the hill the cave had grown in. The floor inside was mainly made of dirt over a thick rock base. Frankly filthy, it held refuse from the bear along with a few skeletons of past prey. It was not a place dragons would normally deign to stay in. Israkur, however, knew they would have to make do until he could travel again.

He called his sister over, and suggested a plan for the day.

“Alright sis, that bear hurt my ribs a little so we’re going to have to stay here for a while at least. Don’t worry, it’s not bad: just a week or two until I fully recover.” He explained, attempting to assuage her fears.

“Now, “he continued” since I have to stay here, I’ll work on my breath power and turn this cave into a real camp for us, but if we’re gonna stay here for a couple of days, I need you to go look for water. Could you do that for me?”

A hint of fear darted across her face, but was soon replaced by determination. Lifting herself up, she nodded confidently and darted away.

“Don’t forget to mark your way back on the trees!” Israkur called out to her swiftly disappearing form.

Hoping that she had heard him, he turned back to his tasks for the day. First he tried to move the bear’s corpse into the cave with them. However, after no amount of pushing or pulling would budge it, he swiftly abandoned that approach and turned to a task he had been waiting for: experimentation.

Having searched his memories thoroughly, he found that, much to his surprise, no white dragon in his memories had used his breath power. Intrigued and puzzled by its uniqueness he had been waiting to try it out the entirety of the previous day, but had never had the free time or a safe, well relatively safe, place. He sat down outside the cave and excitedly began.

Feeling his mana reserves, he saw that, after fully resting through the night, he could use about four of his mana blasts. He quickly realized he could kill over two humans with one swipe: If he directed his blasts of energy into the cave, it would quite nicely clean it out of any filth and perhaps even deepen it. He took in a deep breath, steadied himself against the sharp pain it brought, and launched a magic blast at the back wall of the cave. This time however, he looked at it carefully, searching for an affinity.

Dragons like most greater magical races could “see” mana much like snakes and lizards see infra-red waves. With a little bit of willpower and mana of their own, they could even distinguish among the different types of mana, a very useful tool when trying to learn complex spells or hunting specific foods.

Much to his surprise, instead of finding the expected one, or perhaps even two, he found all of the affinities. His magic blast, as he had named it, was actually made of pure mana! He sat on his haunches, stunned by the revelation.

No dragon had ever been able to use all affinities, yet many in his memories had been able to use multiple. To them it was both a blessing, and a curse. The advantages were many: they could eat beasts and absorb mana that was attuned to any of their affinities, doubling their speed of growth for each affinity they had. However, the major downside was they had to be careful to balance their intake perfectly, otherwise they would risk overwhelming their heart, causing it to scar or worse: shatter.

Frantically looking at his own heart, he found two things. First, and much to his relief, it was completely undamaged. And Second it was combining all of the earth mana he had absorbed from the bear with the mana in the elements around him to form pure mana. After watching patiently for a few minutes, he realized it seemed to be limited in its production only by the rate of absorption of the elements. The stockpile of Earth mana he had gained from the bear was actually overflowing from his body and being slowly released around him. He immediately thought of a potential way to improve his growth. Perhaps if he had stockpiles of more types of mana, his heart could absorb the missing ones faster from the environment.

Israkur quickly limped over to a nearby tree, the most abundant source of Life mana in his range. He bit down on the bark, and almost spit it out again in disgust. It was powdery and tasteless, absolutely nothing when compared to the juicy meat he had grown up on. Even worse, tree sap stuck to his teeth, making it difficult to chew and forming a thick viscous paste in his mouth. Steeling himself, he finished chewing and swallowed the wooden mess. After he allowed a few moments to pass in order for his core to extract the tree’s mana, he once again felt his mana.

Much to his joy, eating the wood had been worth it. He now had a small supply of Life mana nestled inside of him. No longer needing to pull Life mana, his core increased the speed at which it pulled in the other six major elements: Water, Air, Fire, Death, Light, and Darkness.

Slowly but surely, his mana reserves were beginning to recover ashis core transformed the mana it absorbed from the environment and his energy stockpiles into pure mana of his own. Visualizing his pool in total, he was pleasantly surprised by its sheer size. In his mind’s eye, he could see it as a small pond, impressive considering that most drakes his age only have a puddle’s worth of mana.

Returning to the Lip of the cave, he sat on the border between the light coming in from the sun and the shadows cast by the cave to maximize his intake of Light and Darkness. Slowly he began to piece through his own strengths and weaknesses.

I have a huge mana pool for my age, but considering my size, I’m actually a bit smaller than what my memories say I should be. My Breath power is very powerful, but crude. I can only shoot out blasts of pure mana at my foes. If I’m fighting anything fast or not as big as a mountain, it could probably easily dodge and reach me before I can ready a second blast. While my scales can protect me from many things, even they have their limits. I either need an attack that can keep a foe at a safe distance, or a defense.

After he carefully considered the two options, he realized that he could only really improve his attacks. This was because he could only cast spells or control mana with the finesse needed to create a defense after he evolved for the first time. Until then, he would be limited to whatever tools he could develop using his breath power.

His first thought was to improve the accuracy of his mana blast. If he could change it’s direction while it was in the air, it would become much harder to avoid.

Preparing a second mana blast, he launched it slowly towards the back of the cave. Once it was flying, he reached out to it with his mind and tried to change its path. Unfortunately, Instead of moving it, his action destabilized the blast causing it to explode outwards and blow him back.

Israkur tumbled away, barely managing to avoid the bear’s rocky hide. Sitting on the ground, dazed for a few moments, he quickly decided against that method of attack until he grew a lot bigger or a lot more skilled at mana control.

He scoured his mind for another way to use his breath. After suggesting and discarding a few ideas, he finally stumbled across the simplest of them all: fire. The mana blast involved taking in air and compressing it. Then it would be flooded with mana and launched out as a compressed sphere of power.

What if Instead, I blast out a stream of mana like fire dragons breathe out fire? It should work on approximately the same principles right? After all, they are both forms of energy.

Deciding to try it out, he very carefully aimed his head at the cave, the only spot nearby without flammable materials. Breathing in air, he chose not to compress it. Instead he simply infused it with mana and unleashed it.

The mana shot out in a cone in front of him. Crackling with power, it lit the very air on fire. Sparks and small bolts of energy shot out from the main body of pure white energy. Near instantly crossing the distance to the cave wall, the pure mana reacted violently with the stone, causing a chain of small explosion that dug half a dragonlength further into the cave.

Exhausted, and completely devoid of mana, Israkur sat down to gaze at his handiwork. The cave had nearly doubled in depth, and the bones and refuse that had dotted the cave floor had burned away to ash. The dirt floor had also dried out instantly, leaving a fine silty sand behind. On the far wall of the cave, small brown crystals had formed in the rock. Observing these crystals, Israkur was surprised to see that they actually contained small amounts of crystallized Earth mana.

It seemed like his mana breath was actually powerful enough to vaporize the rock, releasing its own innate mana. The Earth mana released would then combine with the vast amounts of pure mana in the air and crystallize, forming the brown gems.

Of course this is just a theory. It’s just as likely that tiny invisible fairies are be waving their magic wands and causing all of this. Ugh, I’ll need to find a way actually visualize it. Of course, I’ll have to be able to keep it going for longer than two seconds first.

That, he realized, was his major problem. While his attacks were overbearing in their strength, he could only fight for a short time. After four mana blasts or four seconds of mana breath, he would be left to his own devices.

He quickly felt for his mana pool once again to see how much of a disadvantage it really was, only to be disappointed severely. It was very slowly regenerating, so slowly that it looked like it would take nearly five hours to reach it’s full capacity. However, he immediately noticed that Something seemed off about his mana pool. Looking at it more attentively, he realized that it had actually visibly grown.

Israkur puzzled over this observation. Eventually, he came to two possible conclusions. Either his mana acted like a muscle, and grew stronger and larger as he trained it up, or it naturally grew slowly stronger. Either conclusion seemed plausible and frustratingly, his mana pool was too small to make a difference between the two.

With his mana pool slowly regenerating and no other Ideas to test coming to his mind, Israkur looked around for something else to do. Much to his consternation, with his injured ribs and lack of power, there wasn’t really anything else he could do.

With only about an hour or so having passed since his sister left to find water. He settled down in their makeshift nest at the end of the side tunnel, and looked back over his memories for any way to further improve their situation. When another hour of fruitless searching passed, he resigned himself to facing the greatest challenge that every immortal being slowly learns to hate: boredom.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Meanwhile, the black was making her own new experiences.

When she woke up that morning, she panicked. Every night since her hatching, she had slept near another being to reassure herself that she had family there for her. Her brother was the most comforting of all, making her feel safe and protected for the first time in her memories.

Waking up to an empty nest terrified her. Many blacks had been abandoned by beings who said they cared, swore it even, only to flee at their earliest convenience. Panicking and filled with dread, she had darted outside only to relax immediately upon seeing that her brother: the insensitive lout, was merely being gluttonous and taking an early breakfast.

“Morning sis! Did you sleep well?” Israkur greeted her cheerfully.

The black sighed inwardly. It seemed he had not noticed, or perhaps had the good sense to not ask.

“Yeah, I did,” She evaded, not leaving room for further conversation on the topic.

She felt rather hungry herself, and despite the early hour, went and got herself a hunk of bear meat. She sat down to lazily eat it, and watched her brother as he seemed to ponder on their cave.

He was a strange dragon, being a gentle and kind-hearted as a blue one moment and as cold and calculating as one of her own color in battle, but she loved him dearly. Out of her entire family, he was the only one who had cared enough to look at her as a person and his sister rather than “just another black”. He had even been willing to give up his own time in the cave with their parents to help her live. For that, she could never repay him.

Seeming to come to a conclusion in his thoughts, Israkur looked over and cheerfully explained his plans for the day.

“Alright sis, that bear hurt my ribs a little so we’re going to have to stay here for a while at least. Don’t worry, it’s not bad: just a week or two until I fully recover.” He explained, attempting to assuage any misconceptions she could possibly create. Of course, she had already realized this, but playing along, she nodded as if it was new information.

“Now, “he continued” since I have to stay here, I’ll work on my breath power and turn this cave into a real camp for us, but if we’re gonna stay here for a couple of days, I need you to go look for water. Could you do that for me?”

He’s gonna abandon me. He’s trying to get rid of me! If I go he’ll… he’lll

No! She shouted to herself.

He’s Israkur! He won’t leave me. He’s not like all the others in my memories… I… I have to trust him.

Foolish girl… her thoughts tauntingly whispered back.

Renewed in her determination and hoping furiously that she wasn’t making a terrible mistake, she nodded slightly and dashed away before she could give in to her fears and stay glued to his side.

“Don’t forget to mark your way back on the trees!” Israkur called out to her from far behind.

With a slightly relieved chuckle she rolled her eyes.

Males always assumed female dragons constantly got lost and had no sense of direction whatsoever. Where they got this idea from, she had no clue as in all her memories she had constantly been exactly where she wanted to be.

Now, If I were a body of water, where exactly would I be?

Looking around her for a few moments, she quickly realized her foolishness and looked for water mana instead. She turned her sight in all directions and found that there was actually a water source fairly nearby, although it would probably still be a bit of a hike.

Slowly, she began walking downhill towards it. The gently sloping mountainside the forest was situated on combined with the loose unstable ground cover made her lose her footing repeatedly, but she still managed to make it with her scales and dignity intact.

A sound started of in the distance. At first, it was a mere slight trickle, but soon, as she walked closer and closer, it crescendoed growing to form a dull roar. Finally, she turned around a final thick copse of trees, and saw her first waterfall.

It was, in all honesty, rather small and lacked either the height or the volume of the ones she had seen in her memories. This one, however, was real. She could feel the spray is it gently misted onto her scales. She could see the small, twinkling water droplets refract the beams of light that burst through the green canopy far above and form rainbows that danced across the small pool at the bottom of the waterfall.

Drawn to the beauty before her, she distractedly walked forward. Clumsily tripping over a root, she fell snout first into the ground.

Suddenly, the leaves that covered the forest floor fell away, revealing a gaping hope only ten feet away from the waterfall pool. A gaping hole she now freefell into. Scrabbling desperately in the air, she quickly realized that she couldn’t stop herself.

Once she resigned herself to falling, she immediately began to think about how to face the beast that was undoubtedly waiting below. Pushing her wings out, she righted herself in the air and bought herself more time to think.

After she fell for four more seconds, she slammed into the muddy bottom of the pit. Fortunately, a mixture of the viscous muck and her quick reactions had spared her from the worst of the fall. Now, her mind which was already racing, went into high gear as she finally saw her opponent.

An almost insect-like serpent, it stood nearly twice her height. Massive external mandibles gnashed in excitement as it observed its next meal and thick scales rustled against each other as it slithered forward.

It was a fairly common beast, an Abysmal Ambusher. She remembered that it thrived of of darkness and used its three affinities of earth, water, and darkness to ensnare and devour its dazed prey. As she tried to dart away, she inwardly cursed herself. This was a terrible match up for her.

Her only advantages: her small size and litheness were virtually eliminated by the thick mud, and the ambusher held a massive advantage in every other aspect. Even worse , however was that ambusher traps were easy to see. They were always perfectly circular and coated with mud. If only she hadn’t been so distracted by the waterfall, she probably would have been absolutely fine.

With terror rising in her mind, she was helpless and only able to watch as the ambusher coiled itself around her. Seemingly mocking her, it didn’t even bother to finish her off with its serrated jaws. Instead, it lazily laid its head down and oh so slowly started to increase the pressure on her sides.

Unable to stop it, she slowly felt it grow tighter and tighter. With every breath she exhaled, the coils grew closer and closer. Over the course of a few hours, her breathing muscles began to grow tired.

Soon, even her full breaths grew smaller, as she could no longer resist the deadly beast.

Her thoughts started flashing to her short life.

Her parents: distant figures that she never really connected with. To be fair to them, she mused, they were far better than the parents many blacks had. But still, she blamed them, at least in part, for the isolation and hatred she had received from her siblings.

Her siblings. Misguided brutes who she had left hardly a day before. Even now as she felt the coils draw tighter yet around her, she could not bring herself to make peace with them. Unlike this beast, who killed for hunger, they hunted her for sport, and that she would never understand.

Finally, as she took in one last deep breath, she came to Israkur. Her stubborn dwarf of a brother. Larger than life and the only being in her memories that had not judged her by her scale, he was her only regret.

He would never find out what happened to her and he would mourn. He would know the sorrow of loss and abandonment that not many white dragons ever experience.

He would be the only one to remember her…

And then, with that thought, a cold anger built up in her. Rushing through her, it felt like a rush of ice-cold water in her veins as it changed her. New thoughts came to mind as her soft, peaceful acceptance faded away. The world had always slapped her down, it had always hurt her, it had always challenged her. Would she really go out like this? Food for the worms?

No! I will prove to them, I will show them all that black dragons are not a scourge on this land! I WILL LIVE!

And with that, she released her breath power for the first time.

Hissing out from between her clenched teeth, a black mist blasted out into the air. Diffusing quickly, it filled up the shadowy pit casting everything into even darker black. The serpent lifted it’s head in curiosity, intrigued by the strange mana now floating around it’s pit. Slowly but surely, it moved towards it, temporarily releasing a slight portion of the pressure it had been placing upon the black.

It was enough for one breath, but one breath was all she needed to watch, satisfied, what happened next.

Suddenly, as the mist mist touched the ambusher, it began to screech in agony. The mist dissolved it, turning the beast into pure mana and voraciously absorbing it. The monster writhed, releasing the black fully but only serving to cover itself in new mist as it rolled across the pit.

As the creature dissipated, the black’s now unrestricted lungs began to work in overtime, hyperventilating to catch enough air to sustain her tired body.

Their efforts were: however, in vain. Slowly she felt herself slip towards unconsciousness. One last unbridled thought rose in her mind. Both a cry of triumph and a keening call of terror it embodied the new discovery she had made about herself: she was a void.

Void dragons were at the same time both nightmares that mother dragons used to put their hatchlings to sleep at night and guardians of holds praised to the heavens by the members of holds. Universally, there was one feeling that all beings held in their mind when thinking of them: fear. They, unlike all other known dragon variants, used void mana. A complete mystery, it was a complete opposite to pure mana. Instead of adding energy or working to change an object, it devoured energy, feasting upon the power that lay within every object.

As such, Void dragons made astonishing guardians. Their mana instinctively sought out other forms of mana and they could not be stopped by the vast majority of normal means. It was these qualities that also made corrupted void dragons some of the greatest horrors the world had ever faced. As they devoured more and more of the world’s natural mana, they gained more of their empty power, eventually growing strong enough to cover the entire world in their black mist. Nearly wiping out life in the world three times, they had only been stopped by direct divine intervention. After the last corrupted void, all voids had agreed to release the mana they absorbed back into the world, stopping their evolution, yet preventing further cataclysms.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It was far too late.

Israkur looked up worriedly at the sun. Managing to catch a glimpse of it now fully overhead, he looked out into the forest once more. Surely she couldn’t have gotten lost?

“No, the bear’s mana shines like a beacon. If she was lost she’d just follow it back here.” he reasoned, talking aloud to himself.

When his mana pool had half-recovered, he had started to worry about his sister slightly. After all, nearly three hours had passed. Surely water couldn’t be that far away. However, at that time, he had convinced himself that she was alright, most likely cleaning herself in the water or perhaps even making her way back at that very moment.

Now, he couldn’t deny it any longer: she was in trouble and she needed him! Rising from his thoughtful stupor, he stood up to set off only to see his sister finally making her way through the trees that lined the clearing in front of their cave.

“Sis! Are you okay?” He called out, concerned, as he moved towards her and noticed her matching limp.

“Yeah! I’m fine!” she replied, with a hint of teasing excitement in her voice.

Knowing that she was waiting for him to ask, Israkur questioned,” What happened? How did you get hurt?”

“I got my first kill!” she answered, eyes sparkling, as her tail whipped back and forth.

Immediately, she launched into her account of the day. As she continued telling the story, sometimes even launching into a dramatic reenactment of the scene, Israkur couldn’t help but glow a little with pride. His sister was certainly growing up before his eyes. No longer the shy and terrified drake she had been for the past two months since her hatching, leaving home had made her grow into the confident young drakess he saw before him now.

Almost half an hour late as she finally concluded her tale, reenactments and explanation included, she took a deep breath and looked expectantly at him.

Not quite sure what she wanted, he began to congratulate her,” Good job sis, that must have been terrifying!”

In response, she sighed in frustration and rolled her eyes.

“Are all males so clueless” she mumbled to herself almost inaudibly. Then more loudly she explained.

“Well, it’s just you know, there’s kinda something important that needs to happen after a dragoness gets her first kill. You know, parents usually do it, but any dragon can serve in a pinch….” she trailed off, giving him a look that hinted just how clueless he’d be if he didn’t manage to figure it out.

Immediately realization dawned on Israkur and he burst out in surprise,” Wait! You want me to name you?”

“Yeah. There’s no other dragon who’ll do it for me. Please Iskur?”She pleaded gently.

“But, but what will I call you? How can I pick a name for you?” he replied uncomprehendingly.

“Just name me whatever you think would fit me. I trust you brother,” she answered and looked at him with trusting eyes.

Deciding to trust his instincts, Israkur nodded his assent and began. Unbidden, the right words in the magic language began to appear in his mind.

” As the one who has shielded you and cared for you as my sister, I beg the right to define you. From now on, if you so will it, you shall be known as Estellum!”

“Starry Eyes in the Shadow?” she breathed aloud.

“Yes. Yes!” she nodded gladly in acceptance.

So was she named, the second face of Israkur’s coin.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

While the two drakes were celebrating, in the shadows, the warlock also began to make his move.

Slowly chanting, he placed six skulls on the ground before him.

Reaching out, he commanded,” Imp, give me the void’s blood”

The imp, this time under the guise of an owl quickly dashed into the warlock’s hut and retrieved a vial of blackened blood.

Carefully taking it from the imp’s trembling talons, the warlock dabbed a single finger inside. He carefully wetted it in the blood and then proceeded to draw out runes on the skulls.

Unlike the runes drawn by Israkur’s parents, these runes were twisted and malevolent. Upon completion they glowed with a sickly, faint green light. Like all objects have an opposite, so too does the language of magic. Known as the language of the Damned, It was used in only the foulest and most amoral of practices. Practices such as raising the dead using the souls of demons from beyond.

Completing his work as the sun finally set, the warlock forced power into the bindings he had sketched. As his power entered the skulls, sickly green demonic mana poured out along with black mana of the void.

Commanding the spirit like hounds that now stood before him, he bellowed,” Go! Go foul hounds of the underworld! Bring me that void drake!”

The hounds yipped and darted away, leaving scorched footprints on the ground behind them. The warlock watched them run for a few moments before turning away to make his final preparations for his new visitor.

He knew very well that his hounds would succeed. Blacks could only be attuned to dark, chaos, and the void. His hounds were a spell created specifically to combat those elements whenever he needed to subdue an unruly demon, but they would work just fine for these purposes as well.

Slowly his face screwed itself into a strange expression, that could only be called a smile if seen from a great, great distance, in anticipation of his future.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A rumble is felt throughout the forest. Demonic footsteps walked upon it, and it truly began to fear. Sensing the emotion of the forest, a single human stood and quickly made his way toward the source of the corruption.

It would take him days to cross the forest yet he did not care. The corruption would not grow much in that time and if there was anything he truly had as Keeper of the Forest, it was indeed time.