Petra Darthinian

Petra Darthinian

Dragon-Hearted Dawnling
Tracker
Tracker
MARGOT

The air was crisp, a frozen breeze rattling the bones of leafless trees. The battle had been over, the retreat had been called. Syr Margot had not returned home. Time passed, had anyone noticed she had even been gone?

She couldn't even remember what happened, where she had been. Bare feet shuffled across frozen earth, the path home covered by powdery snow. She couldn't even feel the bite of cold on her bare skin.

She was barely covered, rags she didn't remember donning. Armorless, weaponless, her body numb, her mind blank. She didn't even shiver as the wind tore at her dirty, blood matted hair.

Her soft featured face, those kind eyes, they bore no expression now. Her body was covered in bruises, the bite of a whip could be seen on many places on her bared skin. She was close, she thought. She'd be there soon.

Blue eyes rolled to back of her head, her body finally collapsing in its duress. She fell into the trees, the soft flakes of snow that fell from the gray sky slowly covering her pale skin. There were no more thoughts, her body just willing the warmth of what sleep brought.
 
They had been out scouting for a week. And still, nothing.

No hide nor fair hair of their missing Dawn Knight, Margot. The leads of cultist hideouts where they thought she may have been sequestered to, had been decoys. Leading them down trails that garnered nothing but wasted time. Time Margot didn't have.

And despite the weather having committed to making their trek across the Vayden Wilds a miserable one, Petra and her Dusk counterpart, Syr Vega, trudged ever onward. A sputtering hope somehow sustained between them. Hope that they would find her. Hope that would find her alive. Let alone sane and uncorrupted by that dark Scion touch. Petra was nauseous at the thought of what Margot may have endured. Norvyk's growl in her head mirrored her thoughts, for they would take every pound of flesh and more for what those cultists may have done to her. A wrathful storm was brewing in the elf's heart, encouraging her dragon to make haste from one clue to the next.

But as Petra sat before the meager campfire she had built for them that morning of the seventh day, she questioned where they would search now. Considering the last one had taken them to a barren hideout. Stripped of every morsel of evidence the cultists of the Everwatcher had been there.

All except a stained dais in the center. The blood on its altar long dry, holding a single note for whenever they eventually found it.

A delicate scrawl mocking them with a simple sentence: "Getting closer."
 
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CASTOR

Castor looked across the fire and saw exhaustion writ into his companion's visage. He imagined she saw something very similar. There was a weariness in his limbs borne of frustration. Yes, the pair had trekked many spans over the last seven days but the mental toll could not be underestimated. It was always difficult to maintain momentum in a search when the odds pointed to finding a corpse instead of a live person. Castor had no personal connection to the missing knight but had come to call them all his brothers and sister over these last five years.

An unfamiliar desperation had clung to the Sworn. He did not want to return to the Monastery with news of a fallen sister.

"Let's give this damnable thing another try," grumbled Castor as he shifted his weight. The Sworn reached to the vials that rested at his side. He removed one and placed it on the cold earth before him. His fingers danced with practiced movement as he engraved a runic circle around the glass tube. Castor then got to his feet, grimoire in one hand and the other outstretched palm-open to the magic circle.

This would be the seventh time he'd attempted the spell in as many days. A simple tracking spell but with many limitations. Distance and age of the catalyst being the two most pertinent. The catalyst in this instance being what he believed to be Syr Triss' blood.

Words of power were spoken, influencing the hastily carved runes.

Crack. Twin trails of crimson rose from fracture and fell upon Castor's eyes, momentarily tinting their normal hue. Seconds of silence passed until revelation found him.


"To the east! If I'm not mistaken, she is not far from here."


It disturbed him that the sinister altar note was possibly proving to be true.
 
They had packed up their camp as soon as they could. The Dawnling noted the storm that approached them from the north in the distance, the encroaching dark cloud an ominous presence.

Petra deferred to Vega's direction and relayed the information to Norvyk who had been flying in the west and was about 40 miles from where they were now. He would meet them as fast as his wings could carry him, for they did not know in what state they would find Margot.

Nor with whom. The song weaver thought grimly. Norvyk answered her anxiety with his own bloodlust that bubbled between them, licking his proverbial chops at the opportunity to hunt those that would do his rider harm. She felt his eagerness, his arrogance. For he thought himself the most terrible thing in the sky. A sentiment that Petra secretly prayed she would never have to test the merit of.

Bolstered that they finally had direction, Petra trekked through the light rain with a pep in her step, following in the Dusker's stead as he led them to the wayward Knight. An easy back and forth between the two. Something they had had to cultivate these long days spent in the Wilds.

A dark thought struck her in the middle of vaulting a log that befell their trail. Something that had lurked at the edge of her mind the entire mission, and now that Margot was the closest she had ever been, it needed to be addressed.

"Vega? When we find her. What if... she is not the same? Changed. Corrupted. Is there a kindness in putting down a rabid dog before it has gone mad."
 
CASTOR

The knight hesitated a step at the other's question, and then continued on as normal. Only the sounds of the forest could be heard between the two until finally Castor spoke.
"Aye, it can be a mercy but not one easily borne. Doubt will ever gnaw even if the desire was expressed."
His words held the weight of experience, of knowing. The world could be a brutal place even in the best of times.

"These are dark thoughts, Darthinian. Best to leave such things to us Duskers,"
added Castor in a lighter tone. Similar thoughts had crossed his mind, it was impossible to avoid considering what they'd seen these past seven days. He simply knew that they would serve no good at this point. They needed to find their companion first; everything else came after.

Suddenly the Sworn raised his hand, motioning for them to halt. Castor's vision had blurred crimson. He closed his eyes for five seconds, red vapor poured down his face as the spell dissipated.

"She's here,"
he said in an even tone.

All they had come to despair was possibly only a few feet away. It did not stop his legs from moving forward, until they finally brought him before the broken form of Syr Margot Triss.

"She's here."

This time his voice shook.
 
His words set Petra's heart pounding in her chest as she sprinted towards Margot's broken form. Her breath hitched at the sight of the crumpled knight, concern twisting her insides.

"Fuck, Vega." Petra's voice cracked. Hastily dropping her pack to the frozen ground, she fumbled to extract a blanket from her bedroll, its fabric rustling in the biting wind. Quickly, she cocooned Margot, the thin fabric giving what protection it could against the looming cold.

Lifting Margot until she was half sitting up in the elf's arms, Petra felt the weight of her oath-sister's limp body. Placing two fingers to the juncture under her jaw, she felt the flutterings of life against her touch.

She was still alive.

"Margot, wake up. Come on. Please, wake up!" Her pleas hung in the air, punctuated by gentle smacks on Margot's still face, flinching the worried expression on Petra's brow.

The knight remained unresponsive even as the temperature plummeted, each passing second stealing warmth from the world. Spare rain drops starting to hit the tops of her shoulders.

The Dawnling made a frustrated noise in her throat and moved to lift Margot's body, cradling the injured warrior against her chest as she stood and faced Castor.

"We have to get her out of the cold before that thunderstorm hits us. If we leave now, we can fly ahead of it and find shelter." Petra explained to Vega, the words escaping in puffs of visible breath in the frigid air.

With a worried glare towards the looming clouds, she began sending images of their location to Norvyk through their mental link. However, before she could complete her message, an agonizing assault pierced her consciousness — a searing pain that wasn't her own, but Norvyk's.

"Ah!" Petra cried out, dropping to her knees, bowing her head as if to shield herself from the unseen assault. She barely kept Margot from tumbling out of her arms and into the snow.

Amidst the disorienting pain, a distant and hauntingly familiar roar echoed through the woods.

"Vega, Nor-Norvyk. He's been atta-" Petra's voice trembled with the pain; her words interrupted by another surge of agony that seemed to emanate from her dragon. Sweat beaded across her forehead as she strained to relay the dire message. "A-ttacked. He's hurt. I don't know what it was."

The woods around them now harbored a new threat, shrouded in the ominous echoes of Norvyk's pain. Petra's breaths quickened, her focus torn between the injured Margot and the distant roar that signaled an unseen menace lurking in the shadows of the storm.
 
MARGOT

Black. That was all she knew, a void of nothing propelling her endlessly. She tried to remember who and what she was, but the only thing that lingered was a burning desire. A desire for what though, even that eluded her. Her earth shook, her limbs were moved, she could feel skin against hers. She tried to call out, no sound came. She didn't even know if she had a mouth to shout with.

There was crackle of light that flashed in front of her. She reached for it, and felt a jolt when her fingertips graced it. She reached for it again, there was something or someone calling her. "I'm here." Her voice croaked to herself, the darkness slowly lifting.

~~~

Margot opened her bloodshot eyes as Petra nearly dropped her, she could feel the bite of cold against her skin again, numbing and burning every inch of her. Petra still held her, and as she turned towards Castor, a bloody smile crawled across her lips. "You should have let me die." She shuddered in the arms of her savior, not knowing what she said, not knowing the true implication of what she was doing.

Her vision blurred, her lips closing as she felt that inky black void threatening to drag her back. Glazed eyes began to shut, her body quaking as the cold ate away at her. "Petra." the last thing she would say before her body gave out once more, too thin and too cold to stay awake.
 
CASTOR

Petra's frantic actions jarred Castor from his initial shock. Margot was alive, if only just. Fortunately his companion was quick to act and did what she could. Neither of them were healers which was looking to be a rather significant oversight on their part. Knights were trained in basic aid but a few bandages would hardly suffice. They needed to return to the Monastery with all haste.

"As you say," replied the Sworn without argument. "There's a clearing back the way we came, it's only-" The rest of Castor's words were drowned out by Petra's cry. He turned to see the other knight had fallen to her knees, yet not allowing Syr Triss' body to touch the ground. The Dusker swore; anything that gave a dragon problems didn't bode well for their fortunes.

Castor's mind raced towards possible solutions and then stopped, gaze fixated on the once unconscious knight.

The rapid shuffling of footsteps from behind left no time for questions.
"That may still be in the cards..." he said with wry grin even as he drew his blade. A pair of cultists burst forth from the treeline. One had a flail and the other a pair of hatchets. Castor was already moving and caught the first in stride. His steel was swift and uncompromising. He pivoted and deflected the twin strikes, gauntlet hand lashing out in response. A sickening crack followed by a thud as the Sightless hit the ground.

"On your feet Darthinian! How am I supposed to tell that bloody lizard of yours we were late 'cause you had a headache?!" The muffled sounds of others approaching grew louder with each passing moment. Castor's earlier words may have seemed harsh but also held confidence in both Petra and Norvyk. They'd made it this far and Castor didn't have plans on dying easy.
 
"Oh, fucking fabulous." She muttered under her breath while trying to ignore the throbbing dull pain that began blossoming at her temple, her worry for her dragon growing with it.

Cultists continued bleeding from the tree line and Petra looked down at Margo's unconscious face. "Sorry, darlin'. But you're going to have to sit tight until we're done." Her voice apologetic as she bent down and placed Margo back into the snow. Rolling up to her feet, Petra took her hammer in scaled hand, a thunderous expression on her face.

"Let's dance."

Advancing with feral intent, she met the down swing of a blade with the broad side of her hammer, sparks flying as she redeposited the end in the man's gut with a mighty swing. Lightning danced down her other hand and she shot a bolt into the shadows where three cultists emerged, their bodies now contorting in agony.

As she fought, the elf tried to catch at the flashes of Norvyk's vision that flitted through her mind. She took solace that she could at least feel her dragon still flying closer. But the fact that she wasn't getting a clear thought from him, just images of needle teeth, grey leathery wings, and black beady eyes made a sick feeling weigh in her chest.

Still more cultists emerged with blades drawn. They were trying to overwhelm them with numbers. But none of them seemed interested in going after Margo. Was she really just bait? If so, why go through all the this trouble to try and kill so few of them? The question troubled the Dawnling as she dodged a nasty dagger aimed at her side, snatching the man's wrist and holding him there as she smashed her hammer into his head.

She looked over at Castor and saw he was still holding his own well and called out, "We just need to hold off for a bit longer! He's almost here!"
 
MARGOT

Ice blue eyes snapped open as the scuffle began in earnest. Body lay motionless in the snow for a few beats, then she raised herself from the frozen earth, as if she herself had risen from the dead. She saw nothing, felt nothing, but an angry snarl disfigured her lips. Fingers curled into hooks as cultists breeched the tree line, Petra and Castor their fixation.

With an inhuman howl she launched herself across the snow laden ground, latching onto the nearest cultist she could grab. She clawed and bit at him like a woman possessed, her eyes open and staring as she maimed with her body alone. Blood dripped from her mouth, staining her lips as nails dug and ripped at flesh. Even the bite of a returning dagger did little to deter the maddened thing that Margot had become.
 
CASTOR

Steel rang as Castor clashed cruelly with another cultist. A quick parry and shift of weight saw his foe falter and the knight did not waste the opportunity. The Sightless joined the other two corpses already at his feet. On any other day this would have been quite the feat. Today he was not so lucky. Castor's experience with the Watcher's servants was limited, but knew this onslaught would not cease until the trio were captured or killed; likely the latter.

This was not a position they could maintain for long. As if on queue, Petra's words resounded through the din of combat. Castor was ready to snap back with his usual cynicism but the words died in his throat. He stood transfixed as Margot rose from snowed-ground as if possessed. The Sworn did not know how to properly describe Margot's next actions, only that they singularly violent.

"Seven Hells!" He blurted. "Dar-" Castor began to call for Petra but saw she was fighting her own battles. Let alone whatever was happening with her scaled companion. The knight spun on heels and ran towards the feral Pursuant. Dark energies lanced from his arm, vaguely taking the form of a hand. They latched onto the Sightless which Margot was attacking yanked him backwards. Castor drove a blade in the cultist's gut. Looking down at the mauled corpse he almost felt bad for the man, almost.

"Get a hold of yourself Syr Triss!" he yelled at the other knight. Considering her current state, Castor had no idea how she would react. He only knew that something was very wrong and time was running out for all of them.
 
A blade caught the side of Petra's cheek, and she answered it with a feral laugh. "You bastard!" She ducked under the edge that ran red with her blood and came up with a powerful left uppercut that snapped back the head of the cultist. She followed with a kick to his chest that knocked him back, her hammer following to crush his skull with a jarring squelch.

"And stay down." She spat in the snow, already looking elsewhere for the next cultist to fall to her might. But Castor's screams startled her to look his way, the vision of Margot's rabid form, covered in blood, a wild look of a cornered animal in her eyes, left the elf speechless. She took a staggered step towards the Pursuant, unsure of what to do, when a ball of fire flew passed her head and singed her skin, causing her to jerk back in alarm. Her inattention had almost cost her her life. Snarling, Petra turned back to a cultist that was charging at her.

Where were they all coming from?!

By the look of these cultists, it's like they knew they were outmatched and yet threw themselves at the Knights without regard for their life.

Unless...

Petra reached through her bond once more and tried to pull memories and thoughts from her dragon. What had happened to him?


Visions of grey fetid beasts filled her mind. Leathery skin peeling back from bloodied maws filled with needle teeth. Great hooked talons that twisted and formed in ways that must have caused them great pain.

But that pain made them vicious. Made them deadly. And deadlier were the glimpses of robed riders atop their hunched and serpentine backs, throwing balls of magic at her dragon.

Norvyk hadn't even hear them coming until a great swarm of them had descended upon him while flying back to his rider. He screamed his rage as their talons tried to rip the scales from his body. Their sonic screeching disorienting him and causing him to lose his ability to orient where he was in the sky. Petra could feel their small teeth try to find purchase and tear him apart.

Rage festered in her blood. Rage at the ambush and his pain. How dare— How dare they touch her dragon.

The dragon rolled, flinging his wings out to resteady himself, his maneuver shaking them from his body. He pumped his wings with renewed fervor.

Diving and dodging the smaller forms of those monstrous flying creatures. Everything about them was wrong compared to him. Nothing was beautiful. Nothing was natural and magnificent.

Only corruption and hunger.


A dark foreboding realization bloomed in her chest. Its gripping tendrils felt like the beginnings of panic.

"Castor!" She blocked the downstroke of a sword. "They mean to hold us here!" Lightning rippled down her arm and released its torrent into the face of the cultist she fought. "It's a trap. All of it. We have to get out of here before they get here!"

Norvyk was close. His angry roars could now be heard through the forest. A promise of wrath on the wind.
 
MARGOT

Margot stumbled slightly, confused as the Sightless she had been mauling was suddenly ripped from her. There was no recognition as to what had happened, and she was stopped dead in her tracks. She turned slowly, the voice of Castor echoing in her ears. She faced him, blinking slowly, still struggling to recognize her fellow Knights. Bloodied lips turned up in a smile, as if she didn't remember trying to rip a man apart with her bare hands.

"Castor, it's you!" She took a faltering step towards him, confusion evident in her features. "What..what's happening, where are we?" She looked down at herself, then back to Castor, her eyes widening as she saw Petra locked in battle. Her eyes grew wide, and she stumbled towards Castor, fear evident in every quaking step. He was closest, and she was so lost and confused. Norvyk could be heard throughout the forest, his cry fearsome and magnificent. Margot wanted to go home, she needed familiar ground. She reached the armor clad man, to her he was salvation in this moment. She clung to him, her chest heaving as she tried to reign in the dose of adrenaline that was currently driving her mad.
 
CASTOR

Castor nearly flinched at Margot's serene smile. He wondered for a moment if her madness has worsened rather than abated. The confusion in her tone was unfortunate relief to the dusker. He wasn't sure how he would've responded otherwise. Too much was unknown about the Cult, who could say what horrors had been inflicted upon her mind. Margot's questions drew Castor from that dark line of thought. Answers would only come if they survived. "I think explanations are best left for later. We're in a spot of trouble, a big fucking spot I might add."

He held onto the other knight, allowing her to steady herself. Castor needed a moment to think but Petra's voice disabused him of that luxury. Of course it was a trap, but to what end? What could they possibly gain from capturing another of knights, especially when a Pursuant was already in their grasp. The vicious serpentine roar raged clarity into Castor's mind.

"Back towards the clearing!" yelled the knight to his companion. Norvyk was as good as dead if he tried to land here. And if he was dead, the rest of them were certain to follow. Castor looked to Margot, wondering if she had the strength to walk. He had ways to grant the other knight temporary power but was hesitant considering the...fragile state of her body and mind.

The sworn instead grabbed a trio of phials at his side and flung them in the opposite direction they needed to run. Glass shattered, leaving a sinister ooze on the snow floor. Once again he muttered words of power and the liquid transmogrified into poisonous miasma. A pair of cultists attempted to run through and found flesh melting from their bones. The remaining cultists paused, apparently not entirely immune to fear

"Shall we?" said the knight in vain attempt to cover up his own desperation.
 
The dark clouds that they had been trying to outpace were finally upon them. With an ominous rumble, the heavens opened up, unleashing a torrent of freezing rain and sleet that blotted out the last of the winter sun in a grim, icy curtain. The icy winds slicing through their outer layers like a knife to the skin.

Petra's heart raced as she heeded Castor's urgent cry, delivering a blow to an assailant's ribcage, who seemed surprised to find his chest suddenly crushed. Breaking away from his falling corpse, she cursed silently, her breath hitching in the frigid air. Racing toward Castor and Margot, every step through the snow feeling like two, her chest burning with the cold.

Norvyk's mind remained an indiscernible whirlwind of anguish and fury. Her attempts to connect with him met only with chaos and a sense of unbearable distress. Fear gnawed at her insides, a dread that threatened to bring her to her knees. But she fought against it fiercely. She couldn't panic right now. Panic was a luxury that would do nothing but get herself and the rest of them killed.

Please, please, be okay.

She pushed on, each thought a fervent plea for her dragon. And despite the lack of coherent responses, Petra inundated him with the image of their destination, a clearing that offered a slim chance of sanctuary. Hoping against hope that her dragon would find them.

The Dawnling witnessed Castor chuck three glass phials and the resulting sounds of screams and hissing flesh behind her spurred her only faster. Petra was glad that Vega wasn't willing to show the enemy mercy. But even still, some ways of dying were worse than others. And the thought of going out like that was horrifying.

A stray bolt of magic whizzed past her head as she reached Margot and Vega. "Go, go, go!" Petra urged; her voice strained as they sprinted toward the sanctuary of the clearing.

Their frantic dash for safety was met with an onslaught of hostile magic behind them, bolts whistling perilously close. Adrenaline surged as they neared the clearing. The distant haunting screeches of creatures unknown grew louder.

Dread chilled her bones colder than any blizzard ever could. Never had she felt more like prey in her life.

Suddenly, a deafening crack tore through the air as Norvyk emerged over the treeline. As her dragon thundered over the canopy, his dark emerald scales marred by blood and his body enveloped in crackling lightning. The grotesque grey-winged creatures she had glimpsed through Norvyk's mind were nowhere to be seen, but their ominous screeches lingered in the air in hot pursuit of her dragon; they had but mere moments before they caught up to him.

As the dragon landed heavily in the clearing, earth and snow erupting around his powerful limbs, the three of them racing towards him, desperation fueling their strides. Norvyk reared back, a lethal snarl contorting his features as he unleashed an unforgiving torrent of lightning, the crackling energy searing past them and into the mass of cultists that had been relentlessly chasing them.

When the blinding brightness of the lightning dissipated and all she could hear from behind them was quiet, Petra realized that only she and Castor were wearing their saddle harnesses. So as they reached Norvyk, Petra halted Margot, who teetered on the edge of slipping back into blind panic.

With the brief respite that Norvyk created, Petra grasped Margot firmly, holding her face steady in her hands and trying to capture her attention. "Margot, look at me," Petra said urgently, her voice pleading. The woman's gaze wavered, pupils pinpricks of panic and uncertainty. "Margot, I said look at me, damn it!"

For a fleeting moment, there was clarity in the Pursuant's face, a brief connection in her eyes. "Listen to me carefully," Petra continued, "We don't have time to switch saddle harnesses, and I can't trust that you're well enough to sit in the saddle without one. Norvyk is going to carry you, do you understand? We're not leaving you behind, so he'll have to hold onto you. Nod if you understand."
 
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