Ibex (Quote Contest)

Age: Unknown * Gender: Male * Tribe: SkyWings * Occupation: Expatriate * Goal: Revenge 
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|-|The Dragon Himself=
|-|The Story's Beginning=
"I manage because I have to."
The sky was clouded and the mountain air was still when the hatchling was found, half-hidden from view and shaking from hunger. He was curled up under a scraggly bush, his wings drawn tight around his thin body. His scales were the yellow-orange of a sunrise.
A SkyWing, and therefore one of theirs; but the search that was held could not locate his parents, or any family at all. Unsure of what to make of him, they placed the hatchling in a Wingery with other young dragonets. They considered him an oddity.
"Because I've no other way out."
The Wingery was a battleground of childish harassment and cruelty. Adults stood by while he was ostracized and mocked for his deficiencies, dismissing the harm their dragonets were causing as well-intentioned roughhousing. The others had learn how to fly before him, and they used that to their advantage. They tackled the hatchling from above and soared over his head shouting taunts. They stole toys right from his talons and flew away before he could react.
He learned to stand his ground. To stretch out his neck and lift his wings to look taller. To stare at a dragon until they cowered with fear and distress. He glared and he hissed and he bared his teeth in a snarl. He kept up the act until he could grow into it, until he lived it. Until he, too, learned how to fly. He practiced everyday until he surpassed them all. The advantage they had once held over him was gone. The act was no longer an act. He was now on equal footing with the other dragonets. He thought they would be forced to accept him. 
"...I've overcome the vanity and pride of being different. I've understood that they are a pitiful defense against being different."   
They did not wish to interact with the hatchling at all. They left him completely alone, and gave him a wide berth that was almost unbearable. Still an outcast shunned for his orphan status, and now an outcast shunned for his hostility, there seemed to be an unwritten rule that he was to be avoided at all times. Whenever the hatchling approached a group of dragonets, they scattered like frightened goats. He grew to resent them, and to think of them as weak, snivelling cowards.
In time, the hatchling grew into an impressive dragonet. His dark eyes glinted with unrestrained ferocity, and his face was perpetually twisted into a disdaining sneer. Claws and teeth cut like bright knives. With war brewing on the horizon, he was the ideal fit for a soldier. He received word that he was to be trained into the army of the newly crowned Queen Scarlet, and that he was to leave for her palace immediately. His new living quarters would be shown to him there.
The dragonet flew away from the reminder of his childhood torment in great relief. He directed himself towards the royal palace, an ornately decorated structure with soaring towers and spires. It was there that he first met the Queen.
She was in the Great Hall, lounging on a gilded throne and imperiously surveying the dragons before her. Queen Scarlet was rather slight and slender, as SkyWings go; but her demeanor was haughtily regal, and her appearance was flawless. Everything about her spoke of total control. She moved with such a languid grace and effortless confidence, which, he soon discovered, was not without reason. She was clever. She was calculating. She was captivating. She was beautiful.
For many long years he fought in her army. He rose quickly in her ranks and was promoted to general before his seventh birthday. Again the dragon was being singled out from the group, but for the first time in his life, it was not so he could be humiliated or jeered at. It was so he could be admired. 
He held his head high that day, when he stood before the gathered crowd to accept the medallions Queen Scarlet bestowed upon him. He held his head high, but it was not with aggression, as it had always been before. It was with...pride. It was an emotion he had hardly ever experienced, it felt foreign to him. It felt good, to be proud of his achievements, and himself. To have other dragons applaud him or cast stares of jealousy. He wanted more. He deserved more.
The Queen was a reliable source of praise. She knew the more compliments she gave him, the more loyal he became. He did her bidding and followed her every order with an obedient blindness. Her word was the law. She had the last say in everything he did. 
The general lived as though in a dream-induced haze. He, who had once suffered under the ridicule and scorn of dragonets, was now the most trusted general of Queen Scarlet herself. He had garnered wealth, power, respect. He had risen above it all. He was different, as he had always been, but his differences were what made him unique, extraordinary, even. His life could only improve from there on out. Or so he believed. 
 
|-|The Story's Middle=
"...the sun shines differently when something changes."
How wrong does fate prove the arrogant dragon! It plucks him from comfort and throws him to misery in a single instance. It leaves a general huddled underneath a clouded sky, shaking and alone, like that small hatchling that had been found so many years before. 
The battle was one that he led, and therefore one that should have ended like all the others: deadly, swift, and with total victory. Whatever SkyWing came under his command never lost a fight without losing their life first. He trained them well; to be strategic before they were ruthless, but to have ruthlessness in abundance. It should have been a quick fight, an easy win. It was. 
Except these things are never so easy. As the IceWings retreated from the heavy damage their forces had sustained, the general felt a swell of pride at yet another military triumph. His left side was split open in several places and bleeding profusely, and there was a dull ache in his head from when he had been slammed down, but these were all injuries that would heal in due time. He focused on how pleased the Queen would be to hear of what had been accomplished today, when she would call to meet with him for a report on the battle. 
It was this thought that occupied him as he stood there for several moments, gazing out upon the bloodshed and carnage that decorated the combat zone. Many of his own laid among the corpses. The surviving SkyWings flitted across the large expanse of land, quietly picking through the bodies to gather their fallen allies. No one noticed the returning chill in the air, or heard the quiet rustling of wings behind the general. There was just a sudden darkness before he crumpled forward to the ground. 
He drifted in and out of consciousness for days, or maybe weeks. Time warped and spun, bent double into itself. Strange apparitions writhed before his eyes. Tails and teeth and tears. Forgotten dragonets from the Wingery, the violent sound of claws ripping through flesh, the ground opening under him like a gaping maw, dissolving wings beating desperately to escape. Blood, over and over, sloughing off his scales to form into a glistening, scarlet lake before him. Amber eyes shining feverishly with rage. 
Gradually, he grew aware of pain. It was everywhere. There was that soreness in his left side, and the dull ache in his head, but there was also a newer, more intense pain. It clustered around his shoulders and travelled along the length of his torso in flares of biting agony.
Another feeling overtook him, then. Fear. An acute fear. He opened his eyes and bolted up from the cot he had been lying on, glancing around wildly to get a bearing on his surroundings. The pungent smell of herbs wafted through the air, tainted with the metallic scent of blood. Dozens of cots like the one he had been lying on neatly lined the walls. They were occupied with resting SkyWings, some of which stared off into space with empty, bleak gazes. 
He was in the palace infirmary. His tail lashed back and forth with uncontrollable agitation, and he shifted his weight from leg to leg. His eyes darted around and landed on a medic carrying a tray laden with various healing instruments. She ambled by slowly, careful not to upset the load she was carrying lest she disturb the sleep of the patients. He leapt at her.
Wresting the tray from her talons, the general flung it's contents off of the smooth, reflective surface. The medic's angry shouts were reduced to nothing more than background noise as he stared into the tray with horror. A scarred, trembling dragon with sunset-coloured scales stared back at him. He was missing his wings. 
"The sun shines differently, but it will continue to shine, and jumping at it with a hoe isn't going to do anything."
His recovery was slow. It was made slower by the news he received, that during the time he had been away in battle, Queen Scarlet had been grievously wounded and was presumed to be dead. Her daughter Ruby had replaced her on the throne. 
The general could not understand. He could not breathe. Learning this information was worse than losing his wings; he would have gladly torn off the wings of a thousand dragons to make it not real, if it would only bring the Queen back. Ruby was not his Queen. He could not acknowledge her as such, could not force himself to utter those words, or bend his knees in a formal bow. She wanted complete loyalty from her subjects. He had none to give her. 
Thus, it so happened that when he was called before Ruby and asked to swear his allegiance to her, he refused. He was exiled to the farthest corners of the kingdom, near the unforgiving region of the desert. A hoe was given to him, and the instruction that he was to work in the fields; the former-general left to toil in dust and dirt underneath the burning glare of the sun. 
The dragon had risen so high, that he had forgotten what it was like to be at the bottom. He had not known the fall would hurt so much. Yet, no pain compared to what he had felt at that devastating moment he learned Queen Scarlet was dead. He was almost without hope. Almost. 
An anger burned deep inside his soul, drying up his insides and exacerbating his thirst for vengeance. He had been at the bottom once, and had risen above it. He would rise again. His circumstances did not determine his destiny, he would not submit to their whims and desires. He would persevere as a small hatchling had, a long time ago in an unnamed Wingery. He would reclaim his position and his power. He would have his revenge. 
For now, he would wait. 
|-|The Journal Passage=
 
It's been a wild journey and I never know what to expect anymore. Somehow, I've ended up in the home of a cranky old SkyWing who complains about everything. His house is still in the mountains, but it's close enough to the SandWing kingdom that when I go outside, I can see the hazy blur of the desert off in the distance. I think he was living alone here before I flew into his roof. This place is way too small to fit more than two dragons at a time, although it's not as cramped as it could be since he's usually away working in the fields.
His neck and eyes are kinda odd. He's also missing his wings and some of his scales. Hey, wait, this would be a good place to draw in a picture. I doubt he'll ever be able to read what my writing says if he ever finds this. Unless he knows what glowy SeaWing scales look like, he'll probably only see squiggly shapes and think they're strange drawings. But he should definitely be able to recognize a portrait of him. Know what, I'll put a list of random information on him, too, in writing he'll be able to read. I'll make the bottom of this page into a whole gallery on him. Yeah, that should be good enough. 
Imagine if he does find this. He'll be flipping through my past entries (while thinking they're just weird designs and doodles) and all the other drawings I did of the dragons I've met, and then he'll get to this page and he'll be staring at his own irritated face and my notes on his bizarre obsession with ex-queen Scarlet, and his real face would get super irritated. 
I'm not even sure what this dragon's name is. I think it's Ibex? When I asked him he muttered something incomprehensible, like "I bit" or "I sniff" or "I lick." It's probably not any of those. I've met lots of horrid parents while travelling, but you've got to be a special kind of horrid to name your dragonet "I sniff." Or maybe his name actually is "I sniff." Maybe that's why he's always in a bad mood. Or maybe it's because of his missing wings. I think if any dragon were to lose their wings, they would be upset; SkyWings most of all. Or I guess he could be angry because he was banished. 
I think the only reason he's letting me stay for now is because he thinks that I'm like him, a SkyWing banished by Queen Ruby for not pledging loyalty to her. That's so not the truth, but I'll take rest where I can find it, even in the tiny homes of crabby dragons. He hasn't let on much else about his past besides that part, and I'm not one to pry. Not with dragons as temperamental as him. 
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Category:Characters
Category:Males
Category:SkyWings
Category:SandWings
Category:Hybrids
Category:Content (LivVirtual)
Category:Work in Progress
Category:Status (Exiled)