ORILION

In darkness — the flames of truth.

Embers of clarity awash in the abyss.

In light — the endless nothing.

Beads of lightning burst and scattered the truth deeper into the void. It bounced through clouds of pitch swirling with a thunderous moan. Another chasm trapping him deep within the ground, burying him alive. Knots twisted in his heart, choked and pressed tighter into the small space. Explosions rocked the world, though the motion of movement never betrayed its presence.

He drowned under dirt.

Voices.

Too many voices — none recognizable; neither Lesinia's or Tharalon's. Millennium turned to ash at his fingertips and the void inched up his legs. It consumed him and eeked out his essence to feed its terrible hunger. All that he was and ever will be, stolen from him.

Wind caressed his cheek and brushed behind his ear. The storm of pitch heaved and swirled into tornadic force. Another dreamless pit. His last memory immolated in the blazing light of the eldest sun, swallowed into an incomprehensible rift. Moonlight calmed the fury, but came with no source.

Lunayu — can your light reveal what I've forgotten? Can the memory of the moon lay bare what I have wrought?

Dark mist rose in front of him.

Who are you... but who am I?

Draconic roared throughout the dream and shook the abyss. Water droplets scattered and hung in the stale air. In each one, broken shadowed pillars crashed into the clouds and to the world below. Massive jaws raised lightning through the mist. Arcs of blue sparked off their razor sharp teeth to bounce along the hanging crystals. Orilion reached his hand out to the faint image.

It tore across his spine, and he spat out crimson splattered sunlight. He brought his shaking hand closer to his chest, stained with blood. Tormented screams filled his ears and begged for mercy.

In the water, beautiful golden marble fell and caused great waves in the darkness around him.

The sky — his domain — brought down.

No, it is not possible. Arth'lun was the sky. Arth'lun was the heavens, the golden city in the clouds. My home. My home could not be taken down by me. Orilion dug his fingers into his temples, where pressure from the world crushed his skull. He longed to scream when crimson flowed into his sight. Waves of the ocean lapped at his chest. Grey orbs danced around him, striking as fast as lightning.

Voices.

Judgement and rage.

His soul threatened to tear itself apart right to his immolated wings.

"This is madness."

It sounded ahead of him — as unrecognisable as the others.

It swallowed his platform of light.

"You crush the mortals at a whim when they fail to satisfy your hunger — and dare to call yourself a giant! You dare call yourself a dragon!"

Lightning flashed; once and twice.

It forked into the clouds of pitch.

Two giant wings rippled with the energy and crimson eyes bore into him — bloodthirsty and never satisfied.

His dream shattered with the huge, winged dragon. He clawed out of the void, but it swallowed him whole. Terror drowned his throat, and choked on his own helplessness.

Oh, Great Mother... I do not want to go back into the void. I want to wake up.

I want to be free.

Glass fell at his feet into puddles of bubbling blood, and he lurched at the sound of clicking metal. Aether whispered outside the strange holding cell. On its edge sat Falora Tyvlon. He half-expected her deep brown eyes dissecting his being, but both remained distant on the fleeting images the 'train' raced by. Tremors bounced in his throat, and he shuddered with the prickles tapping across his spine.

The lie of movement.

"Nightmare?" Falora turned to him. Her dark hair never fell past her shoulders, tied into a small braid behind her neck.

Orilion tucked deeper into the corner, grasping for the glass. Her distrust, understandable. He folded his arms against his chest and listened to the voice with directed rage.

"You crushed the mortals at your whim and dared call yourself a dragon."

A monster the mortal texts painted his soul — a monster he failed to remember. He picked out at each memory in the dark storm, but only distant ones remained. Hounded by Lesinia, his twin of the shadows of knowledge. Tharalon who shared ages of wisdom to him whenever he fell to his own curiosity.

I dare call myself a dragon...

Falora's shadow engulfed him. "Do you remember anything?"

A question to wrap itself in every conversation he shared with the mortal of a different millennium. Only voices, full of darkness. He shook his head to her question, and pondered on the nightmare before pressing his palm against the false moving train. "How far are we from... Notolsald?"

"We still have some way to go," Falora replied and tugged out a map from her pack. "I need to figure out how to get an airship. I thought of employing a Skyhunter."

Skyhunter...

One word.

His heart fluttered with the flimsy recognition. Right. Whole. Clouds of flight. Agitation swept down his back and burned the immolation of his wings. He curled against the corner — stuck in a weighted form, on the ground and without horns and wings both. He rubbed the top of his head, longing to feel the base of bone, but nausea clasped his being and sent the world spinning when the train rocked.

"Well." Falora closed the door to the prison cell, but she left it open a crack to show the sky. "Since we're stuck here for the time being." Orilion tucked his feet closer to him when she sat down in front of him. "I do not think we can continue on if we don't place some trust in each other. That mentality will not serve us for what we're about to do."

Orilion pursed his lips and swallowed rage. "What is your proposal?"

Falora raised her hand. "History books have claimed you were a torrential, never ending storm, that you were chaos and evil personified, a plague brought from the Elder Cross for the sins of mortals."

Orilion shook his head, but had no memory to refute.

"But," the word came out sharp on her tongue. "It is possible the narrative trailed from the original source. I try... I try not to follow the written word at face value. It is one of the teachings of Ase'Lesinia." Falora scooted closer. "I wish for you to explain how you work."

"What?"

"I want to know whatever you can remember, Asen'Orilion," she pointed out as lands changed around her. "How do you work? How do the Dragon Gods work? You are a man in front of me, but you are painted as a dragon. I know you discussed it before we got on the train, but I need to know more." Hunger filled the browns, but not one of bloodthirst, but one of knowledge and endless, beautiful curiosity.

"Yes, I said I had a dragon soul."

"What is a dragon soul?" Falora asked. "Can you explain it to me further?"

It buzzed in his ears. "It... is not something easily explained."

"I want you to try. I want you to ponder and think. Paint."

Orilion forced himself to stand and waddle to the shard of sky and placed a hand on his burning heart. "First, I must answer your question with my own," he whispered. "How is it you define yourself, Miss Tyvl—Falora?" He took in a breath of aether. "Is it by your name alone? Is it by your hunger for knowledge? Your love of history? What is it which defines you at your core — your soul? What makes you Falora Tyvlon?"

Falora blinked. "I... I am who I am, I didn't realise there was a philosophical answer to that."

"One of those passages in your books said that as I fell I cursed the gods with my final breath and trapped them within mortal forms," he murmured. "Thus, the world believed the dragons no more."

"Yes."

Orilion breathed in the hush of wind slipping through the crack in the cell. "For what reason, I wonder, would I have to curse the gods to mortal coils? I never had that power, Miss Falora. It would be the equivalent of me ripping their dragon souls out of their bodies and casting them to the wind."

The world breathed and filled the silence.

"I guess that makes sense, you're saying a god's dragon soul is their sense of self."

Aether clouds breathed out from underneath the train of wonder.

"I suppose."

"So..." Falora tapped her cheek. "You want to go to Arth'lun to try and jog your memory. You think if you go there your sense of self will return to you. Do you think losing your memories split your power? I know you still have some power inside you."

Wind fluttered across his skin. "I can only assume. If I return to Arth'lun, I shall see for myself." He lowered his head and clenched his fists. "I cannot believe that I alone took it from the sky, not alone, it is not possible." He hugged himself to tug the air closer to his being, to protect him in a shell. "I cannot believe it."

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I shouldn't expect you to believe it. I don't think I would either if I was in your position."

Orilion raised his head to the twilight strewn skies and revealed the world of golden stars — untouched by the gods. The Elder One. Everything in his bones screamed to reach out and touch the colours of the night, but he stood on the edge of the train and the ground passed him with speedy fervor. High towers rose in the distant mountain peaks. Lights glowed at the spires. Ships floated in the air, ungrounded with no wings, but flew anyway.

A millennium... and mortal life has never ceased in their ingenuity. He stepped from the edge.

"I know you were worried about the Celestial Templars in Tulcai," he murmured. "What about Notalsald?"

Her gaze flattened into alarm. "Godsdamnit—" She froze, then facepalmed. "Sorry, right. We have a short span of time before this train goes through a tunnel. We can walk the rest of the way and avoid the station altogether." Falora pointed to the high spires. "Notalsald is huge. We can slip in relatively unnoticed and find a Skyhunter willing to make the trip." Orilion winced when she closed the door. "I have enough money to haggle. I think our best bet is an Azarian Skyhunter."

"Do you require any assistance from me?"

What little it means...

"I just need you to let me do the talking," she said. "I plan to use the fact that my brother is a Celestial Templar. If anything goes wrong I'll claim I'm making a pilgrimage to see him. I'd rather not resort to anything else."

Orilion raised his hand to tug at the wind and heavens above. Swirls of cyan rose at his palm. It shifted the air in the container, but he winced when the immolation of the sun drove its teeth into his spine and ripped out his wings. His knees locked, but he refused to fall.

"Skyhunter..." he mumbled, the title soft on his tongue. "They will take us to Arth'lun?"

"They will get us through the sky kingdoms." Falora nodded. "It's not just the Celestial Templars we have to worry about. Aether beasts dominate the cloudlands. Higher you go, the larger they get."

"And...?"

"Pirates."

Another odd word. "Pirates..."

"Rogues. Criminals," Falora said. "They plague and attack lone sky islands and creep around the cloudlands for trading ships."

Orilion returned to his corner and sat back down before his knees failed him. In the silence, he dozed, but frowned when Falora pressed, "How do you define yourself, Asen'Orilion?"

Rotting scales and dripping pitch.

Crimson eyes, hungering for the blood sacrifice of mortals.

I want only to be free.

"I... I don't know," he admitted. "I'm starting to think that maybe I never knew if your mortal texts tell the truth."

"I'm asking how you defined yourself." Falora pointed. "I am not asking for your take on how mortals define you. I've read that enough."

Her gaze remained resolute in his disbelief. "I have always felt myself the higher I went into the sky," he explained.

Where I came so close to touching the stars.