Slumbering Giants

She gazed upon the world she was given, a world full of color and life, but to her, she couldn't help but feel how it all felt so... chaotic. Something deep within urged her to fix it, to bring balance and order to her unstable world but she had no idea even where to start, especially without breaking the already fragile balance that held together her world of chaos.

"The six factions aren't enough, their reach is too short and their views are too biased, if I am to bring balance then I will have to personally step in..."

Once the idea wormed its way into her roots she couldn't push it away, the feeling inside her only grew in power the more she tried, her domains willed her to fix what she was aware of and there was no way to go against them, not yet anyway.

• • •

The legendary City of Titan, where the slumbering Titans hid away from the world, long have they lost contact with the outside, unknown of how greatly the world changed. Deep within their towering walls sat the tallest of titans, and next to him slept a slumbering giant of emerald green scales.

The dragons who lived within the City of Titan have long since changed from their Earthen brethren, their murky brown scaled turned a rich emerald green, and their power ever so slightly changed to a sub-element, life. Their role in the functioning of the city was almost as big as the Titans themselves played, so it wasn't surprising to the Titans when their elders have decreed them equal in both power and standing. But they also experimented with a new form of magic not known to them, soul magic.

They weaved their souls together in a way the outside world would consider impossible only made possible by the strength and enormity of a Titan's soul, with their souls bonded their minds were one and so too was their strength. They relied on each other but still it was rare for both Titan and Guardian to approve of the other meaning there weren't many bonded Titans.

"Flora, do you too often wonder of what the world outside our walls?"

Like any other day the young king TItan would ask his bonded questions of the outside world, Guardians had the only authority to leave the walls for food but only when they were old enough. Guardians gained strength with age and when one reached the age of 60, when one would be considered an adult, they gain a unique aura that let them blend into nature itself.

Guardians were named after what they entailed from their city, they were a line of defense, they would be the first to know about any outsiders trying to make their way in, and following protocol would quickly confuse the other party, make it hard for them to reach the summit and bend nature in a way that without the other party knowing they would end of right back where they started. It was how they were able to keep themselves hidden even as the world grew in strength.

"Rui, you may be the king but even you can not go against the laws or your elders, you are too young to be able to leave the walls but when you are old enough a kind is allowed to leave the safety of the walls once."

Just like any other day she quickly shot down the young king's thought of leaving the city.

"But why must I wait, I'm already strong enough to bond with you, and everyone knows you are the purest of blood when it comes to your people."

Every Guardian has one common ancestor, the first of their kind and later ancient mother, ancient dragons are rare for one to be called such they would have to be the first of their kind. And Flora here was the purest of blood and one of the last if not the last of her pure bloodline, after all when a dragon is ready to bear children they leave the walls and under the safety of nature itself find a suitable spouse.

"That means nothing Rui, my people's ancient and your elders from a long time past decreed the law to never step beyond the walls. It was only after many generations that some elders thought it was necessary for a king to leave the walls to explore the outside-"

"And aren't I the king, why can't I go explore then?"

Flora seemed to hesitate, she knew Rui's fascination with the outside almost if not better than Rui knew himself. It wasn't rare for kings to act as such but Rui seemed unique in a way, she could feel how the outside seemed to call to him.

"Just calm down, your time is almost here, on your 40th birthday is when you become an adult Titan, it is then where you can wander the greater world."

She could feel his excitement and impatience, so she thought it was better not to ruin the mood by saying just once.

• • •

The time quickly came when they could leave the safety of the walls and that's exactly what they did, after many generations of knowledge passed down, the walls have been engraved and then re-engraved every few generations. With each new engraving, the system has become more complex and as such allowing more and more to be added into the great web of runes.

When Rui passed the walls on the back of Flora he felt a burning sensation deep within his blood, it urged him to turn around but that only lasted for a few seconds before the feeling was overwhelmed by a strong sense of majesty. He knew it was the royal bloodline that let him resist the burning sensation, at it was it given right to leave the walls.

Rui didn't want to hide from the world while he explored, he wanted to experience everything he possibly could in his short amount of time so ignored Flora's warnings and begged her to go explore the capital worlds of each great faction. The Noi had long since left this planet after they found a planet that almost begged them to move. They were made aware of such as they were possibly the only race to ever be allowed to converse with Guardians, and only because of their love for nature, even if it was not exactly the same as them.

They flew across the human's worlds baffled by the number of them, Titans were but an ant compared to their population. The beastman faction was close too the humans so they got to see them next, they saw the dragonkin and their weird obsession with dragons as well as the hidden elven faction, who called out to Flora through her connection to nature. The elves were a weird bunch, they seemed to have a greater connection to nature than Flora but I found it hard to believe even after it came out of her mouth.

While on our way to the Angelic faction we stumbled upon the undead battling against some demons, the undead didn't take too kindly to the aura Flora gave off and even chased after us for a few days which I found hilarious but Flora not so much.

Without even knowing it 5 years had gone by and my time limit was 8 years, we reached the capital planet of the angle race only to be amazed by their beauty, everything was picturesque, their architecture, magic system, somehow even the air on their planet seemed fresher. They couldn't stay long however as it would take at least a year and a half of nonstop flight to return back home so just like they came they suddenly disappeared.

Or, at least thats what they thought, without knowing their little pitstop to the dragonkin hard set off storms among their civilizations, after years of deciding what to do they labeled Flora as some sort of misguided child who was taken away from her kind. Their propaganda seemed to work wonders in their race and they quickly set up an army to capture them.

Just a could more months away from returning they were ambushed by them, they were unprepared, in all their traveling they never ran into something like this. The greed they had in their eyes towards Flora burned into Rui's mind, Flora tried to tell him something but everything just seemed to blur. His blood burned and his rage slowly built up until he couldn't handle it.

Flora seemed to know exactly what was happening within his blood and Rui himself had her legends of such things happening leading to the founding of their city. Rui gave into the rage, he didn't see any other way they would escape from the ambush and Flora called out to him to stop before it was too late.

"Screw this, just killed the dragon and take her blood, who said we would need it alive anyway."

The general seemed to gnashed out those words, him being a fanatic himself told him it was blaspheme to hurt let alone kill a Nobel dragon but to him, it was the only way.

Rui was quickly overwhelmed by his blood and Flora was left to fight alone, but she couldn't do much when she also had to worry about protecting Rui.

The fight lasted for days it was a chase with Flora being the chased. But even still her energy faded, Rui, woke up only to see Flora mangled and being dragged away, Flora having hidden him within a pile of rocks on a dead planet. With the pain brought by his blood and the sight of his bonds on the verge of death... he snapped