MoM file + stuff

[theveilisin]

LUVANDER, [alias: Yesfir]

RESIDENCE: Heropa 033 [see: Hell, Aleksandr Nikolaevich; Mandrake, John; Kang]

POWERS: Dragon soul summoning. Dragon is incorporeal to all but the subject, capable of flight and breathing fire. Appears sentient, but it's unclear whether this is merely a projection of the subjects recollections of its behavior. Cannot be maintained while subject is unconscious or similarly incapacitated.

MEDICAL HISTORY: Scarring indicates extensive previous damage to throat, chest and abdomen, although the wound appears to have healed without further complications. Both hip joints show sign of previous trauma, most likely caused by posterior dislocation, resulting in some lasting damage to the sciatic nerve in the subject's left leg. Possible arthritis may eventually demand further procedures. Furthermore there is scarring from what appears to be a number of older burns and lacerations.

NOTES: Previously employed by the government of Volstov [compare: Russia; USSR] as a member of the Dragon Corps, an elite air force trained to ride mechanical dragons. Drafted at age 15 after brief contact with one of the dragons, which show signs of artificial intelligence. Was among [REDACTED] survivors out of 14 airmen at the end of the war; no dragons appear to have survived.
After retirement from the military, the subject ran a hat shop, which doubled as head quarters for a number of revolutionary elements. An attempt to break the leader of this movement out of prison culminated in the overthrowing of the current monarch [The Esar, compare: Tsar], his subsequent demise and replacement.
Currently employed in customer service at [REDACTED] Department Store.

Comments

1st memory

[theveilisin]

You are turning sixteen today, and the other men are saying you're far too old to fly with them and still be a virgin. You say you've got plans for your money and you really don't want to waste it, even on whores. They laugh and slap your back and say right, so they're getting you a birthday present. And here you are, at Our Lady Of A Thousand Fans. The sitting room is tastefully decorated, and some young women in lace and diaphanous fabrics move around the sofas and scattered pillows on the floor, serving spiced wine, while others are seated among the customers and making flirtatious conversation.

You glance momentarily at the door to the adjoining room, which from this angle looks a bit more discrete, and you catch a glimpse of well-toned muscles before hurriedly looking away. You can feel the heat rising on your cheeks. You're mortified.

"Are you Luvander?" There is a woman standing next to you all of a sudden, smiling down at you. She's maybe a couple of years older than you, and the honeyed tone of her skin suggests that there is some Eklesias in her blood. There is a hint of sympathy in her expression as you nod mutely, for once utterly at a loss for words. "I'm Janille. Why don't you come with me?"

The other men jeer and offer you coarse suggestions as you leave the room, and you think distractedly that at least they won't find it strange that you're blushing and squirming under their gaze, because they're expecting you to. Janille squeezes your hand and rolls her eyes a bit, and you feel ashamed of being terrified of her.

The door clicks shut as you sit down on the bed, heart beating so fast that it's a wonder it doesn't drill a hole in your chest. As soon as she sits down next to you, the words come tumbling out of your mouth. "I can't."

She is quiet for a moment, and then there is a soft little laugh. "Have you already got a sweetheart, love? Didn't want to tell the others?"

It's a good excuse, a perfect lie, and yet you find yourself shaking your head, as if the effort of one more lie is just too much. "No. I'm sorry, but I really meant what I said. I truly, irrefutably can't."

Another pause, and then she gets up and walks over to another door, one that probably leads to the more private parts of the 'Fans. "Do you want me to go get a boy for you instead?"

Your head snaps up, and you stare at her, wide-eyed from shock. "You can do that?"

Now she laughs again, but not unkindly. "Of course I can. It generally costs a little extra to switch like this, but your generous friends said they'd pay for anything you wanted, so why not?"

You hesitate as your mind visits fragments of nighttime fantasies, but then you quickly shake your head, your cheeks burning hotter still. "I don't think- I'm not quite-"

"Ready," she finishes, nodding and opening the door. "I understand. Then you just come with me, love, and we'll find some way to pass our time."

You spend the night playing cards, and she teaches you how to tell fortunes in the cards like her grandmother used to. By the end of the night, you owe her ten chevronets, and she claims that she owes you a tall dark stranger, and you're both more than a little bit tipsy. When you step through the door of the Airman, a couple of the others are waiting up, and as they grin and ask you how it was, you simply reply that it was perfect. For once, you're telling the truth.

2nd memory

[theveilisin]

When the siren sounds, you haven't been able to fly out for far too long. The poisoned magic in her has twisted Yesfir's head right around, and as one of the smallest dragons, you just can't trust her in mountain winds like that. But now you are all throwing caution to those very same winds, all of you flying out at once, and none of you expect to ever return.

This will be the last flight of the dragons.

The hours spent flying stretches out like an eternity, metal wings scattering moonlight along the brooding sides of the Cobalt Mountains. Yesfir is mumbling snatches of old conversations, letting memories trail like a ribbon behind her and sink quietly into the darkness below. For a moment you feel frozen in time, like a spread opened in a history book which is then subsequently forgotten. But once you arrive at the Lapis city, once the battle commences, everything happens far too fast. Where the Dome was there is now an inferno, the city itself is a haze of smoke and flames; the air is hot and feels heavy to breathe, laden with the stink of melting stone and heated metal; everything, everything is smeared in ash.

You know you are going to die before the dawn is upon you, but you don't know how until you see a massive block of stone hurtling through the air. The city is firing on itself, what catapults are still left trying to take out the dragons, and this one has managed to take aim right on Proudmouth. Adamo can't possibly see it, coming up from behind like that.

There is no time for thought, no time for regrets, no time to think of the people every man should remember before his death. You and Yesfir move as one, a copper knife cutting through the silken night breeze as you plunge forward. There is a boom of air as Yesfir flares her wings and bares her belly at the approaching boulder, a horrible crunch and screech as it makes contact, metal warping and twisting and cracking. You plummet toward the ground, Yesfir folded like a toy made of cheap tin above you, and you know for certain that she'll crush you utterly once you reach the ground. Pressing your body hard against her back, feeling your lips blister as you kiss the burning metal, you close your eyes.

The world lurches sickly around you, you are suddenly the right way up again, and then the deafening crash of the impact drowns out your scream of agony. For a moment, all you are aware of is the black lighting on the inside of your eyelids.

There is a ringing noise in your years, and you are slumped over what's left of your dragon. Both your hips have been knocked out of joint; a strip of red-hot metal has torn up a jagged gash from hip to throat, and a piece of it still seems to be buried there; your left eye is swollen completely shut. Your right eye seems fine, but you can barely see out of it anyway for tears. You want to curse Yesfir for trying to save you even now, for dying before you do, but your lips form around blood, not words, and all you can do is gasp for breath.

"You're going to live, ----mber? Open that hat shop you're always talking me to sleep about, have te--------- friends, kiss pretty boys every n----"

It shouldn't be possible for her to speak still, but somehow she does, although more than a few words are mangled beyond recognition. Somewhere past her torn scales and scattered cogwheels, you see a faint light glowing at the heart of her, flickering and growing dimmer by the second. You manage to shape a scraping breath into her name. "Yesfir."

She laughs, and it sounds like machinery going wrong. "Can't speak? Good. I'd hate you to babbl---------- my last words. ---------'ve got to do as I say, that's the rule. I release you, boy. ------- need me anymore. Can you imagine------------ look like---- dragon in a hat shop?"

The light goes out, and she's gone. You don't have time to feel the loss properly before a roaring shadow descends upon you, strong arms tearing you away. You try to fight, choking on sobs and your own blood, but a familiar voice in your ear hisses, "Hold still and let me save you, you asshole." You don't have breath or time to explain that you don't want to be saved, before the world finally slips away into darkness.