“I- I forgot… oh no, I FORGOT!” Vilithe shot up as a naked and scrambling Villi jumped out of the bathroom, quickly grabbing a heavily plated dragonrider’s suit and Phyroan breathing helm.
It is a habit of the psyche to use the freshest memory, when recalling a thing. She had unwittingly brought them to her memory of her very last dragon ride.
Her last dragon ride before the attack of Clan Amallark.
The entire room was tilted now, and the Knight Leader dropped to all fours to try and crawl back up to Vilithe, but in a blink and a blur he suddenly found himself running along a bridge, as Vilithe had fast forwarded them, contracted them forward, that just so unfortunately for him was strung between two Nimbii directly over the yawning maw of the Phyroan troposphere, roiling thick and hungry. He grabbed desperately onto the bridge railing, hugging it as if his life depended on it, and looked forward and saw Vilithe chasing after Villi.
“H- Hey! Wait up!” he croaked.
Face your fear, soldier! She had reverted to telepathy, for now dragon’s breath was coming upon the Nimbii like Phyroan acid rain.
What is going on?! I thought this was supposed to be a pleasant memory!
I’m sorry! I lost control… it’s my fraying-
They were interrupted and blinded by a fireball that erupted aside them, blanketing them in light.
All around and all over the interconnected Nimbii dragon’s breath came down in a torrent. Another blink, another blur, a time contraction, and now Villi, Vilithe and the Knight Leader were back inside Quetzacoatl’s rider sac, which was quite cramped with all three of them there. Vilithe was not an elite dragonrider by her clan’s standards, she flew a simple gas huffer, and Quetzacoatl was no elite Callethean dragon, he simply huffed gas.
But it was all hands on deck now. Clan Callethe had survived the War of the Clans the longest, for the Empress had to wipe out all the forces on Aryss and Reath before she could commit her dragons to a Phyroan campaign. But at last, the moment was at hand for the two greatest elvan dragonbroods to meet in direct confrontation, the greatest void battle that the elvans had ever known.
Definitely not a pleasant memory.
But he could see now that Vilithe – not Villi who steeled herself as she launched a now heavily modified Quetzal – was quivering with fear. She too was in a fetal position, like her younger self, but it wasn’t in the reverie of riding – combat could hardly be called a reverie – but the grips of a lived nightmare.
The Knight Leader didn’t even need to think, he just embraced her. He was no stranger to fraying. He was certainly no stranger to flashbacks.
Hold onto me Vilithe, we’ll ride it out.
She had held him at his worst moment. He would do the same for her.
Her arms snaked around his neck, and she squeezed him close, as tightly as she could.
Can’t do without, can’t do without...
Quetzal had now joined an interceptor wing, for Vilithe, who had competed in as many races as she could using Quetzal’s sleekness and speed to her advantage and won many, was still one of the fastest riders in the entire Callethean dragonbrood, unburdened by the mass of weaponry. If she had just had more revolutions to grow, she could have easily become the elite Callethean flight’s youngest rider.
…I can’t do without you.
All dragons have dragon’s breath – it was their way of expelling the waste fissile material within them that they needed to consume for energy, although siege dragons gave it an extra little oomph with a delayed hydrogen fusion reaction – they launched it through electromagnetic coils all along their serpentine bodies, much like the operation of a railgun. But the dragon's breath took time to recharge. A dragon always naturally generated breath, but it was to the order of one shot every two hours, give or take, depending on the dragon’s size.
Quetzal’s funnel-like maw had now been sawn off and replaced with twin massive 250mm bore railguns. Not quite as strong as dragon’s breath, but a well-placed series of shots could easily down a bomber drake.
I can’t do without you.
They had shot far out of the atmosphere into the void, and then the Knight Leader suddenly felt no fear. They had broken far free of Phyros’ grasp now, and he felt weightless. Without grasp, height was a meaningless thing. He now tried to channel whatever will he had in him – supplanted generously by the illusory well being felt in the memory meal – to soothe Vilithe.
I’m here, my Dragonrider.
Thank you, my Knight.
Vilithe peeped up from her huddle to look back at the Knight Leader in the eye. She had thought she liked to call him that, but now in this moment, she wished she knew his true name. And calling him by only his clan name - it just felt rude.
I can’t do without you.
Villi banked through a hail of railgun fire, and one of the massive, depleted uranium rods glanced along one of Quetzal’s plates, splitting it in two. The immediacy of the moment seized the memory goers now while Villi commanded Quetzal to Roll! Roll! Roll!
I can’t do without you.
Without the resistance of the atmosphere, they were far, far past mach speeds. Quetzal coiled up into an erratic spiral and a ray of breath sliced silently – for the void carried no sound – through the center of the coil. Had the coil been angled just meters to any direction, it would have blasted out several segments of Quetzal.
I can’t do without you.
That was too close! The Knight Leader wasn’t sure if it was Villi, or Quetzal, or both, pulsing that telepathic wave of panic at each other.
I forgot how close that was… Vilithe too could scarcely believe how near she stepped to death’s door. No wonder she repressed this.
I can’t do without you.
The young dragonrider formed a psionic gestalt with her dragon, almost akin to the fusion of two elvan minds in a total domination but without any adverse effects.
For dragonrider and dragon were always meant to be as one.
Can’t do without-
Villi-Quetzal now had a bead on a fat siege dragon, uncoiling itself as it readied an orbital fusion payload. If it hit a nimbus, the resultant blast would wipe out a dozen connected to it – already the crippled remnants of the Nimbii were unbinding themselves from each other and spreading out – if it missed, the thermonuclear blast would safely unfurl itself deep in the Phyroan bellows. Though from here they could not be distinguished, unseen, not even as dots upon the roiling clouds, it was all too clear that the fat siege dragon knew exactly where to fire.
Can’t do without-
Or she could hit it right now, before it even had a chance!
Quetzal- but she didn’t even need to finish the thought. They were one.
They unloaded railgun fire as they swept along the fat dragon, but it had such thick plates that they ricocheted off. Rider and Dragon, as one, knew what they had to do.
Target locked!
BREATHE!
Quetzal had already extended as he raced along the underside of the fattie, and now a beam of superheated high level radiative waste lit up in front of them as Quetzacoatl disgorged unholy fire. It radiated sickening and putrid chartreuse.
Like a demonic tongue it licked the fat dragon upon its head – they had nearly shot past it while Quetzal charged the breath – and a chain reaction followed, each segment of the fat dragon expanding into a void bubble all silently ablaze before imploding.
The three riders were forced up against the sac wall now as Villi-Quetzal gave it everything they got to Pull! Pull! Pull!
They were now caught in a maelstrom of vaporizing cavitation pockets of gaseous fluid, and the blue-white and green scintillation, like a tidal wave of energy, pressed close against Quetzal’s belly, and now even the gryphantene plates along it glowed, which was not possible until temperatures had reached two thousand and five hundred degrees.
Can’t do without-
They miraculously pulled ahead, just short of molten incineration, but Quetzal did not even need to communicate to Villi for Villi to know his spirit-flesh had been grievously seared. The once graceful curling of the dragon became stuttered and destabilized, drifting along the chaotic axes of uncontrolled momentum vectors.
I can’t do without you…
And in the far-off astronomic distance, the swirling death-misty white bands of clouds over more layers of burnt umber clouds, swirling eddies and vortices, the Battle of Phyros raged on. Dragonbreath streaked like laserbeams cutting across the galaxy. Wyrming dragons spun around each other, a dance of death, and even the God Empress’s own war dragon, Tiamat, which really was more of a fusion of five massive dragons – five heads – upon an even larger one, and the biggest dragon ever born by the elvan race, had been fielded.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Tiamat’s five heads focused all output offensively, redirecting their energy into their connecting Mother Dragon when in travel. It was titanic. With the sphere of the Phyroan realm fully visible from this point in the void, it dominated the battle as the largest dragon. Each head snaked away to a different direction, unleashing its breath which had no cooldown, and these dragonbreaths were thick banded, magnesium bright, blinding even a dragon itself with a pulse of dragonsense scrambling alpha radiation that spread in a nova from every point of the stem. It was simply impossible to avoid. The breath-beam swept across a large flight of Callethean dragons which all burst into implosions, but Tiamat’s breath was so flooding and immense the dragondeath cavitations were barely visible. It was as if they were swept with light and disappeared entirely- disintegrated, vaporized.
More and more cavitations expanded and closed – the nuclear arsenal had been unleashed now, and so, fusion dragonlances streaked through the void to cut down the Callethean dragons, belched by lance carrier dragons – more and more slain dragons gave their last breaths and exploded, and if so many elvans hadn’t died in this event it could be thought to be a fireworks display for the Gods themselves. No- it was a sacrificial pyre.
So many lights congealed together now, Tiamat herself could hardly be seen. Almost. The trace of the five scintillating bands of dragonbreath that shone through the bloody lights betrayed the position of the Traitor Empress’s greatest dragon, its thick gryphantene scales protecting it from the wreath of unholy flame of dragonbreath. Villi’s dragonrider’s lenses, seeing through Quetzal’s eyes in subatomic particle radiation instead of light, could still trace out the hydra-headed dragon from cascading neutrons, scattered by arcane fusion, bouncing off the scales.
But Maetra was not even there. She was safely ensconced in Ultima, and the name of the Amallarkean dragonrider who rode Tiamat in this battle is lost to time, redacted from history and secretly liquidated by the Princesses themselves, lest a challenger to the throne should arise.
When the dragonlance bombardments were finally over, an immensely commanding thought-voice pierced through Villi, Vilithe, Knight Leader, and every single rider still left cutting through the void. It echoed through the chain of dragons that kept the God Empress connected by astral projection, surveying the carnage.
Maetra!
No one dared call the Empress that. No one except for another Queen, and even they were expected to address her as Queen Maetra.
And now a parley between the two Queens echoed among and through all the collective combatants, even as they continued their pitched battle.
You have slain enough of my daughters- I yield.
The Knight Leader felt Vilithe shaking again now, for she had not heard the majestic thought-voice of her mother for so very long, and so he squeezed tighter, but it didn’t help. It wasn’t physical form, it was psionics, and it was all relative to the memory now. Squeezing tight could only happen if the squeezed thought it, not the squeezer. And the astral projections were more than a lightrev away even if the illusion of her body was right there.
Ah, Dannelle, unable to bear the cost. Surrendering now for the sake- of your family?
The thought-voice cut into them like stinging venom. It was the first time that the Knight Leader had ever experienced the thought-voice of the Goddess herself. It was revulsive.
I can’t do without you.
Vilithe had regained a semblance of control now. She dilated time again so that the pandemonium became oddly peaceful. Perhaps she just wanted just a little more time to see her loved ones again, even if it was their moments of death. She still could not fully escape the vortex of her flashback, at this point they had to let it unwind of its own accord.
He could understand now why Vilithe remained a vassal but needed no imprinting. No imprinting was necessary when Vilithe had firsthand witnessed her entire Clan slain, the entirety of her home destroyed, for the Traitor Empress gave elvans no mercy even while she gave mercy to the orcs.
Despair is a stronger chain than deception.
I can’t do without you.
There was nothing left now, but escape. The splattered and jagged floating remnants of the fat dragon that Quetzal’s breath licked remained all around them.
Quetzal, you must cannibalize!
Quetzacoatl bit off the miniguns affixed to his broken maw and surged forth to gnaw upon the void debris with what teeth he had left. Out of Quetzal’s extended wing vents, he excreted scorched spirit flesh. Quetzacoatl was a very small dragon by relative measure, and went unnoticed as an Amallarkean colossal carrier dragon that had just reached the battle opened its belly hatch and unleashed a swarm of void wyrm – the smallest dragon size, even smaller than Quetzal – the self-piloted swarm prioritized the war dragons, not a measly gas huffer. As Quetzacoatl darted from dragon corpse to dragon corpse, the Knight Leader began to sense urgent scrying in Villi.
Can’t do without, can’t do without, can’t do without, can’t do without-
At this point in the Reathean, Phyroan, and Aryssal revolutionary cycles around the sun, reaching Reath was out of the question. Quetzacoatl simply did not have enough fuel in his belly, nor the speed, to reach Reath. But Aryss- the Aryssal revolutionary path was currently in sync with that of Phyros.
Can’t do without, can’t do without, can’t do without, can’t do without-
It was the only place left to go. The Knight Leader swallowed, because searching through the fragments of his own memories, recovered in his duel against Avecia, he realized that the fall of Clan Callethe, at the tail end of the War of the Clans, coincided with just revolutions before Clan Talauth’s routing from their final stronghold. His enslavement and Vilithe’s enslavement came together.
Can’t do without, can’t do without, can’t do without, can’t do without-
Vilithe was now able to speed up time again to hurry them through this awful sequence in her life. The Knight Leader zoomed through entire Reathean lunas of poor Villi set adrift, alone and gazing into the void. The void gazed back into her. Villi considered taking her own life as the numbing blankness of the death of all she loved crept into her, but as long as she remained bonded to Quetzacoatl, her dragon would not permit his rider to die.
I can’t do without you.
She resorted to drinking the amniotic fluid itself, and Quetzacoatl heroically struggled along, until just as he was caught in the gentle grasp of Aryssal orbit, he succumbed to his injuries and died.
I can’t do without you.
Orbiting helplessly around Aryss, Villi had never felt so alone. She thought that was true rotations ago, but at least then she still had Quetzal.
I can’t do without you.
And then a swarm of Amallarkean void wyrm surrounded Quetzal’s dead, uncoiled body ready to pick at his remains.
And recover the dragonrider within.
And vassalize her.
Finally, Vilithe regained enough of her strength to break();
They stayed in each other’s psionic presence for a while, nothing but the sensory deprivation of the bacta tank to envelop them in peace, so they could heal from the traumatic recollection of the Fall of Phyros.
But time was nearly up. The Knight Leader’s wounds had almost completely healed. He would have to leave the tank soon and share in the camaraderie of his comrade soldiers.
After a moment she thought to him, be with each other again? Even though they were physically so far away. Be together, for how else could one describe psionic connection? Hopeful and weak, but the trauma flashback had drained Vilithe of her will and she could no longer keep up psionic connection of such strength, and at such distance. The cold black of star speckled void faded to oblivious, warm nothingness of bacta black.
Always.
He hoped she scryed that thought. But she was gone now.
And you’re the only thing I think about.
It’s all that I can still do.
And you know you’re the one I dream about.
I couldn’t do without you.
The thought-words of the song kept echoing in his head: a protective mantra, a blanket of comfort in the cold of Vilithe’s despair, now melted away by the passionate heat of their sudden romance.
And then his mind raced. Next rotation! Or sooner? Could he get an excuse to climb back into the bacta tank again? Not possible, he was mostly healed and would have to tough it out as good soldiers do for the rest of it. Bacta was less effective once the wounds were no longer as deep, all he’ll have now is chlorohexidine and gauze. He’ll have to figure out how to do this without sensory obliviation.
But how long will she need to recover from that awful flashback? And how could he possibly ask her to bring him to the delight of her beautiful memories if one misstep could take them back to that momentary Amallarkean hellscape? Oh, but he already missed her so! So, so much!
He was in love with Vilithe!
He wanted to tell her!
He wanted to yawp it barbarically out into the Aryssal horizon like a wild shapeshifter, he wanted to tell his squadmates all about her though he dared not, for they could have been tempted by the Amallarkean informant reward… What to do? What to do?
Patience.
She had caught a moment to gain just enough stamina to whisper it telepathically.
Patience.
The elvan mind is so frail sometimes. Not like us spirits, thought Malevolent. The little bacta agreed.
As astral projections, their skin did not melt, and their breath did not choke in the toxic air.
A PTSD flashback within a flashback? But for a dragonrider, not a salesman.
But certainly, an epic one.
He did after all have his own latent post-traumatic stress disorder.
The surge of psionic intensity as the memory overwhelmed the rememberer, and as the passenger grew closer to her mind, had pushed a new hole through the veil that kept her mind shrouded from the legacy. Escaping through this opening was a song she had always loved. They would come, more and more, these songs, one by one. The love that she had forgotten. And so, in this moment, as they closed closer and closer together in protective psionic embrace, Vilithe had inadvertently conjured a song known as ‘Can’t Do Without You’ by Caribou, that began to play through their mind to protect them from the horror, the horror.
An appropriate cooldown for an ultimate ability.
Now it was the Knight Leader embracing more tightly than Vilithe was.
The gestalt of the dragon entering the Knight Leader’s mind as well now, he found himself with absolutely no fear of vertigo, motion, or heights at all anymore. In the gestalt it was like he was half-dragon, had always been this way, born this way. Woah.
No! Quetzal! Knight Leader, understanding just how deep the connection between a rider and a dragon was now, could feel nothing but the greatest sorrow for poor, wounded Quetzal, as Vilithe had.
o7
But they were definitely not lasers. Lasers were poor weapons against dragons. Whirligig automatons, yes. Not dragons.
It just looked like that. They couldn’t go that far- that’s some sequel trilogy level power creep.
Tiamat’s body – the main hull – had been developed by cribbing all the developments discovered to birth Bahamut, the Arkdragon that carried the first colonizers of Aryss. Tiamat was born not long after Bahamut, after the Triumvirate dissolved, and soon, the War of the Clans and the Rise of the Traitor Empress.
Tiamat effectively had five times more dragonbreath to breath, but there was no chromatic difference between the breath-beams. Nuclear fire in the void is nuclear fire in the void.
Besides, if he had squeezed any harder in real life, he’d just push all the breath out of her lungs and make it terribly uncomfortable for her.
~1.258 lightrevs
And as understanding of the orcans began to fill into the Knight Leader’s mind, absorbing it from Vilithe, his indignation at it all meant that he did indeed think the slur- orcs.
Like how Vilithe could feel nothing but uncontrollable rage when feeling how Avecia hurt the Knight Leader, the Knight Leader could now feel nothing but wrath against Maetra. Not his Goddess. Not his Queen. Just Maetra.
But for a moment he was suddenly grateful for all these horrible proceedings for if they had not happened- he would have never met Vilithe.
But Vilithe was glad that she was not alone in the experience of remembering this.
She might have lost Quetzal long ago, but she still had her Knight.