A Fire that Wakes the Sun (Open)

It had been another long and lonely night for Temur in Hesini village. The type that he’d grown to enjoy, considering how many dragons seemed to come to him for his metalwork. All day long he’d converse with various dragons knew what they wanted, and paid him a lump sum of coin to make it. Likewise, he conversed with dragons who didn’t know what they wanted, but still wanted him to make their imaginary item come to life. Social interaction wasn’t exactly his favorite part of the job. Dealing with customers was hard. Forging, on the other talon, was much easier to wrap his head around.

In this early morning, however, the air smelled different. It smelled like...smoke. As a blacksmith, he considered himself somewhat of an expert on the scent of burning objects.

The dark dragon lifted his head, and accidentally bumped it against one of the shelves he had constructed in his shack. It left an annoying dull pain, but it was soon forgotten as he heard a few voices coming from outside.

He couldn’t tell what they were saying, but they were whispering. Those who whispered were usually up to no good, according to the weathered blacksmith.

Suddenly, his eyes widened as crackling could also be heard coming from outside his shack. In combination with the smell of smoke and the whispers, Temur felt fear weigh down his stomach like a sack of bricks.

With urgency, he threw open the door to his shack and saw perhaps his worst nightmare had come true.

His forge, the one that had been passed to him from his father, and his father before him, had been set ablaze. Various tools that he’d used since he could first walk had been broken and scattered into the dirt. What the blacksmith was seeing was the destruction of a legacy...and it filled him with such an unbridled rage that he hardly knew what to do next.

“You said he was asleep!” shouted a voice. Whoever it was sounded younger than him. “Go! Go!”

Temur didn’t see them. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the forge. Swallowing hard, his body felt like it was moving on its own. He grabbed four empty buckets from beside his shack, then proceeded to one of the few wells of his village. Filling the buckets, he brought them back and threw the water onto the flames.

It felt like the water barely did anything...yet he kept going back for more. His only goal at this point was to stop the fire before it spread to any of the surrounding buildings.

Faelurn paced feverishly around the barracks, his eyes focused on the cobblestone floor beneath his feet. He couldn't quite put his claws on it, but for some reason, he had been unusually paranoid lately. He swallowed again, finally pausing to take in a deep breath of fresh air. His eyes were a bit diluted, staring up at the ceiling with mild frustration.

But also with distance.

He remained still for a moment, the only sounds being his claws gently scraping against the stone ground. The sound would steadily increase, as his attention was brought closer and closer to the scratching with each move of his claws. He fidgeted a bit, biting his lower lip.

The barracks were cold, unforgiving.It smelled strongly of musk and dirt, and it made Faelurn's nose turn up in disgust. And finally, after standing there for what felt like forever, being left to huddle in his own frustration, he couldn't stand it anymore. He had to get out of this hobble.

And so that's exactly what Faelurn did. He carefully rose to his feet, and walked out. His vision was immediately blinded by a flash of bright light, and the sweet smell of the outside air. It almost was enough to make his shoulders loosen up. Almost.

With a sigh, Faelurn's wings spread out, and he took to the skies, heading to the market.

As he flew, however, a strange scent began to bombard him. As he glided over the fresh, plentiful green trees below him, to his left side, he began to smell something rather putrid. A thick, rich smell. The smell of burning wood.

This, of course, was concerning, and he paused a moment in his flight, glancing around. Had a fire started nearby? Faelurn wondered briefly if he would need to change his plans...

Haven was out and about, with a tactical unit of about twenty highly trained soldiers he called the Ravages, keeping a tight formation. He liked to get out and about to clear his head from being kept up in the castle for so long. He wanted to visit a special blacksmith this morning, for a special request he would like done before the next war would break out. Many advisers and dragons of his city have told him about this particular blacksmith, even his soldiers would speak of such a talented worker.

Haven soared through the air, the scent of fire reaching his nostrils long before he actually saw the fire that lit up the sky. He narrowed his eyes, his large shadow sending creatures scattering across the brush. He saw a sleek dark dragon standing in front of a burning building. He roared, his roar aching across the land and blasted through the forest. Two figures streaked away, Haven guessing those two were the suspects. He dove from the sky, talons out, claws ready. he slammed into the two dragons who were running, crushing them into the ground, nearly crushing their skulls. He glanced at the fire, half of his platoon splitting off to the nearest river or water source.

Haven roared, talons sinking into the two that wiggled beneath his weight, crying out in pain. He dragged their bodies to the crowd that seemed to circle around the building that was being doused with large amounts of water. He threw the dragons at the one who seemed stricken, guessing it was the blacksmith. He snarled, narrowing his eyes as the dragons slowly figured out that their King was present. His guards pushed the people back as he growled at the two dragons that was crumpled on the ground. "Are you Temur." He asked the sleek dragon, claws sinking into the earth.

Temur hadn’t had a clear thought since he saw the fire. He mindlessly droned back and forth from the well, to the forge and back again. No amount of water seemed sufficient to quench this fire’s thirst, which made the large dragon growl in frustration.

After dropping another four buckets of water into the fire to no avail, he began pacing back and forth in front of it. Nothing he was doing was working, and for a moment all hope seemed to have been lost.

Much to his appreciation, some of the good samaritans of the village had actually started helping by fetching more water. Namely, the dragons whose homes or shops were adjacent to his. There were also quite a few, however, who seemed to be simply standing and watching the event unfold. Looking awestruck but doing absolutely nothing to help. Temur felt a pang of anger towards them, but didn’t let that feeling linger for more than a few seconds.

When the blacksmith turned to find the well once more, he recoiled a little. For a moment, he thought that his mind was playing tricks on him. Sure enough the Xoyan king himself stood before him, tossing two young dragons to the ground between them. Temur glared at the dragons for a moment before tweaking his ear at the hissing sound of water on fire.

The large dragon looked over his shoulder and saw that more of the tribe was helping. Likely dragons that the king had brought with him, considering none of their faces looked particularly familiar. To his relief, they had already contained most of the fire, and were making very short work of the remaining embers.

With that concern out of his mind, Temur returned his attention to the king. He lowered the front of his body in a respectful bow before speaking as clear as he could. “Yes, your majesty, I am Temur, proud son of the blacksmith StarSweeper.”

The two young dragons before him looked quite uneasy, and still dazed from the king landing on them with such force. They were definitely the ones that were fleeing when Temur first laid eyes on his forge, and most likely the ones that started this fire. Though he’d never formally met them before, they looked somewhat familiar.

Both had dark scales, but one had yellow eyes and was a bit skinny. The other had green eyes and looked a little heftier than the average Xoyan.

The larger one had cowered, bowing before the king. The lanky one, however, was about to make a very grave mistake. After regaining a bit of his composure his wings spread outward. He darted up toward the sky as fast as he could, his expression stricken with terror and panic. The young dragon didn’t make it more than a few feet from the scene of the crime before colliding another dragon who’d been approaching them.