Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School (168/?)

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The Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts. Dragon’s Heart Tower. Level 23. Residence 30. Local Time: 1625 Hours

Ilunor

I wasn’t offended. 

I couldn’t be.

Not when the offender knew not the ramifications of her own speech.

The earthrealmer was many things: a warrior, a diplomat, so on and so forth. A fact proven by her actions within and without the academy’s grounds. Yet amidst it all lay a persona that compromised the very grounds with which every single one of her accomplishments stood. 

A persona I dubbed simply as… the jester.

This was because she often couldn’t resist the urge to jest, to quip, to entertain and dive straight into the absurd and the insipid.

This*…* statement was most certainly one such quip, an admittedly well-timed one, hidden amidst the rest of her noteworthy accomplishments in a matter that invited credibility by association.

She was, admittedly, clever with this joke.

A fact that I readily admitted following my reflexive outburst born of a rational mind.

“Hahaha…” I began quietly, garnering the questioning gaze of the princess. “AhhahahaHAHAHAH! Oh! Oh, earthrealmer…” I raised up a hand before flipping it up and down in a manner that invited noble flippancy. “You and your absurdist humor.” I continued, feigning the wiping of a tear. “I cannot decide whether or not I have missed your penchant for the eccentric.”

“That wasn’t humor, Ilunor.” The earthrealmer countered with conviction, pulling the wind right out from under my wings. “Dragons can talk.” She added. “They’re thinking, reasoning, sapient beings like you and me.”

I blinked once, then twice, trying to read the air of the room and the growing absurdity underpinning the earthrealmer’s voice…

But I found none.

“Dragons are—”

“Yes, yes, yes. I heard you, earthrealmer.” I responded with a resonant huff. “But I don’t believe you’re much hearing yourself.”

Yet despite my unflinching conviction, I could feel the presence of something wrong in my assessments.

I could tell, given the severity, the bluntness, and the utter insistence underpinning her tone of  voice, that she believed in this impossibility.

But a madman, no matter their conviction, cannot bring into existence their beliefs by sheer force of will. I reminded myself, returning to a sense of normalcy and calm… but only for a fleeting moment.

Because despite my reassurances and in spite of everything around me reasserting the veracity of my beliefs, there existed one very notable factor that shattered this… illusion.

Prince Thalmin.

If this had indeed been a jape, a jab, or a joke of some sort… the prince would have long since interjected by this point.

He was not one for protracted forays into the absurd.

He was not one for wasting valuable time when so much more could be said in its stead.

And yet… he did not intervene, nor did his expressions betray anything but the confidence in Emma’s words.

I closed my eyes for a moment, taking a deep, calculated, powerful breath before finally… opening them with eyes better suited for this discussion — the eyes of a rational skeptic in a sea of blind followers.

“Cadet Emma Booker.” I began with a solemn exhale. “I need you, nay, I beseech you to answer my questions very, very carefully and with your wits uncompromised.” 

“I’m all ears, Ilunor.” Came the earthrealmer’s response, calm, measured, and frustratingly collected.

“Do you have evidence to assert your claims?” 

“Yes.” 

That one word landed on me with the weight of an entire drake.

I opened my mouth, feeling my lips drying and a lump forming within my throat as if my body itself wished to prevent me from stepping out of the graces of truth and into the embrace of fantasy… or His Majesty forbid, vice versa.

It was as if I knew, deep down, that the next question would end all reasonable doubts about the otherwise unprovable claim.

The earthrealmer saw this, and before I could even voice my request, she interjected.

“Do you wanna see?” She beamed, forcing me to turn to Thalmin almost out of a reflexive plea, a call for reason from a grounded peer.

“Prince Thalmin, you can’t be serio—”

“While I am glad you decided to seek out hard proof and avoid a protracted shouting match, I think you should stay on track, Ilunor. And before you ask, the answer is yes. I can vouch for everything that Emma has to say…” Thalmin paused before turning to Emma with narrowed eyes. “… within reason.” He clarified.

“The dragon being part of—” 

“Just sit back and watch, Ilunor.” The prince growled back, gesturing towards the manaless memory shard and its obligatory flat viewing surface that — having been absent from my sight for an entire week now — brought with it the same spine-tingling sense of visceral discomfort that it did on the first day I saw it.

There, on the ‘screen,’ I watched as a dragon came into view.

I felt… something else visceral stirring within me.

A strong, inexplicable, uncontrollable disdain, one that quickly grew into hatred as the beast momentarily locked eyes with the eyes of the memory shard… and, by extension, me.

I could feel a fire brimming within, embers turning into open flame, leading to an uncontrollable stream of smoke to billow from my nostrils.

The earthrealmer was right.

She did encounter it.

The creature.

A beast so foul and sickening that it left His Eternal Majesty no choice but to deal with them rightly.

However, before I could voice or act on my disgust and before I could manage anything else out, I heard it.

“L I TT-LE… B-BEEINGS. CC-COME TO ME-EEET?” 

I felt hatred turning into something else entirely.

A fact that was clearly visible on the princess’ face but not to the extent of the infernium brewing within me.

In short, I felt myself shrinking into my own skin, my body shaking and refusing to move.

I attempted to speak, to voice my objections, to do anything… but all that emerged were quiet and pathetic stutters.

“T-tht-tha…” I breathed in deeply before managing a brief window of steady breath. “T-that’s a shatorealmer speaking! I… This could be a very masterful and clever attempt at a masquerade! A show! Yes, yes. An act of—”

“Theatre, yeah, I thought you’d say that.” The earthrealmer replied with a tired huff before moving the scene forward to what seemed to be the inside of a cave. “You’re right, Ilunor. Dragons really can’t talk.” She managed out calmly, cracking a ray of proverbial sunlight through the stony ceiling that had come to quickly entomb my very sensibilities.

However, before I could manage another word out and before I could return to the world I knew—

“At least, not in the way you or I can.” 

—she’d done it.

She committed to that jester spirit.

But not in the way I’d hoped.

“You see, a thinking mind, no matter how alien, is still a thinking mind, Ilunor. A thinking rock creature, without the ability to speak, emote, or in any way communicate with us, is in no way less sapient. It just means there are more… hoops to jump through to bridge that gap, just as I’m bridging the manafield gap using the armor. So the way the Matriarch deals with this is simple, really.” The earthrealmer paused, pointing to the dead shatorealmer. “She puppets beings with vocal cords. Now, I’m not for this ethically, but it is a way to do it. Though if you want her pure, unadulterated, actual voice? Well… here you go.”

I tensed, waiting for the memory shard to resume.

It was then, through wispy echoes and what felt like the air itself, that I heard it.

Her next words… didn’t matter.

I could tell from the sound alone what this creature was doing.

It was manipulating the air, commanding its voice from the wind itself.

And it was speaking.

A flood of emotions washed over me.

No.

A torrential downpour of conflicting thoughts assaulted me at every possible angle.

I turned to Thalmin, seeing only frustration over my unwillingness to accept the unacceptable in his eyes.

Which prompted me to turn to the last bastion of reason in this sea of… insanity.

“Princess.” I spoke under a hushed breath. “You are exceptionally well-read, educated, and knowledgeable in a vast sea of subjects. Surely you see the… the sheer wrongness of it all!” I urged, questioned, and ultimately beseeched the princess for some affirmation to the contrary.

But her expression, her stoic gaze, all of it told me everything I needed to know.

“Dragons… are supposed to be mere beasts.” The princess finally uttered, though I knew now not to prematurely raise my spirits, especially with that intonation. “I think you, out of all of us, can attest to the purported narrative of Nexian history—”

“It is the narrative.” I corrected her harshly. “There is no purporting or conjecture to be had!” I continued, bordering on the verge of utter collapse. “History is history, and it is set in stone as much as the Vunerian mountains have been permanently cleaved!” I took a deep breath, attempting to steady myself but finding nothing would. “The Wars of Liberation and the Uprising of Vunerian-kind are a testament to that fact. These… these creatures were—” I paused, my pupils dilating as I found myself sinking deeper and deeper into the couch.

I felt my mind wracking with the facts being presented.

I could feel my blood pulsing, throbbing, and my whole body writhing in physical response to this upending of… the narrative of reality as I knew it.

Then, it all shattered.

I felt my world, my past, my present, and my future pulled into the very darkness from which the earthrealmer hailed.

I saw in that moment the carefully painted and kiln-fired epics painted into history on the stained glass halls of heroes… cracking… and then fragmenting into the ether.

But in that shattering, amidst the discordant pieces of a broken mosaic… came something else; something new.

I witnessed the pieces rearrange.

I grappled with the broken vestiges of formative years forged in ignorance.

Then after a moment of harsh deliberation, I saw it — a reality… which supported a new narrative.

One that was stronger, more robust, and exceptionally telling of an epic I never realized was even possible.

I turned to the prince, then the earthrealmer, and then back to the princess in rapid succession, before finally… I uttered out words I never knew I’d ever speak in any company.

“You are right, Cadet Emma Booker.” 

I could feel the shocked gazes and unvocalized breaths of all three barreling down on me.

Indeed, the prince himself was the prime culprit of this, taking a moment to narrow his gaze as if waiting for my own jest or jape.

None of which came.

Instead I elaborated, my eyes now firmly set on the earthrealmer’s unflinching red-visored stare.

“Evidence… is evidence. I will not conjure up some… contrivance, some story of some mage or what-have-you hiding in the dark, puppeteering both dragon and shatorealmer. That… that would simply be absurd.” I admitted, now even garnering the princess’ amused attention. “If anything, I have to… thank you, earthrealmer, for opening my eyes to a possibility I never once thought possible.” 

I awaited an interruption, some sort of a request for clarification.

None came.

Instead, I had the floor all to myself… which I intended to use to the fullest extent.

“You’ve proven that dragon-kind were an even greater threat than any of the history books or written accounts had ever recorded!” I bellowed out loudly, my voice rising higher and higher as I now stood tall on both feet. “These dragons, these beasts, weren’t simple creatures keeping sapients in bondage, oh, no, no, no! I see now… I see just how far this labyrinth goes.” I marched onwards, pacing around the coffee table at increasing speed and intensity. “Can you imagine the sort of destruction such creatures, nay, beings would have incurred and were well capable of incurring if you combined their raw magical potential with actual sapient intelligence? Can you fathom it? Draconic power with the mind of a sapient?” I let out several frantic breaths, once more attempting to meet each and everyone’s gazes whilst spinning in place now.

“You’d have beings rivalling the power of wizened and old Crownlands elves! You’d have beings perhaps far more powerful than most of the magical population! You’d have veritable titans roaming the lands as gods amidst men! And what does this all mean?” I questioned loudly, trying, hoping that all present saw what I was leading towards.

But no one answered.

Prompting me to spell it out for them.

“It means that history has failed to capture the sheer awesomeness of our uprising. It means that the breaking of our shackles, the resurgence of vunerian society from the throes of draconic oppression, was even greater than what was recorded! It makes even greater sense why His Eternal Majesty himself needed to get involved! And indeed, that’s probably the reason why history was written the way it was.” 

The eyes of all present shifted towards a more familiar gaze.

One… that I hadn’t at all expected given their genuine shock and awe not a few seconds earlier.

“History was clearly dictated as such because of our rage.” I beamed proudly, grinning ear to ear all the while. “It is clear, no? That history is often written by the hand of the victor? Well, what greater revenge and what greater justice are there than to be written into the pages of history as mere beasts? To have your sapiency stricken from the records for what you’ve done.”

“And you’re alright with that?” Emma finally interjected, raising both hands in confusion. “What… I thought you’d be pissed off at that if anything. Or at least I thought that’s where this was going!” 

“Oh, I was angry at first, earthrealmer, then I realized that my ancestors must have had a reason for documenting history the way it currently stands. And then it clicked… we vunerians are… rather spiteful peoples—”

“Tell us something we don’t know…” Thalmin uttered out loudly, an aside that I simply took in stride.

“—as a result, what better way to spite your former slavers, your masters, than to completely disregard them in the pages of history?”

I could feel the earthrealmer’s glare even through that visor. I could tell the sorts of emotions swirling within her.