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The second sentient being to ever have existed, father of the metallic dragons. | ||
With Frahuden blinded to Saiyiden's betrayal, and the Entity gone, life continued on. As the only creatures with sentient thought they spent a lot more time together and soon they had forgotten the past and bonded like never before.
Thousands of years passed by and the world continued its evolution, Frahuden and Saiyiden still spent the majority of their time tending to its ever expanding range of life.
Over this time Saiyiden's scales had finished their transformation, the duo now looked contrasting opposites of each other; Frahuden's majestic form covered in a resplendent metallic sheen, with perfectly symmetrical and smooth horns. Saiyiden however, was now pitch black, the scales gave off no shine or lustre, and her horns were jagged, pot marked and mismatched.
Despite her outward appearance Saiyiden worked very hard to keep the darkness from her mind, and had devoted her existence to looking after her progenitor's legacy. Frahuden was careful to never question Saiyiden's form, believing it to be all part of the Entity's original design.
With the world looking to have settled and life now self-sustaining, Frahuden approached Saiyiden with an idea; He suggested their power was now at a level that, if they combined their efforts, they could create life, just like the Entity created them, giving them means to continue past their eventual end.
Saiyiden agreed immediately, and after a brief discussion on what to create and how they would do it they began to weave the fabric of universe to their own ends. Together they spawned ten large, yet reasonably similar eggs, at this point they adopted five each and set about giving them the means to grow and hatch. Frahuden connected each egg to one of the five elemental planes, Saiyiden soon copied believing it to be the only way to channel the amount of energy needed.
After some significant time had passed the eggs detached their connections to the elemental plane, Saiyiden realized they were ready to hatch and summon Frahuden to share in the moment. The eggs had changed colour over the years of incubation, and as each one hatched out rose a distinctly different dragon.
Frahuden's children were each a brilliant shimmer of colour, the first was a glorious Golden creature, Rayis, shortly followed by Elfinihiar in a shining Silver. The next three all hatched together, Mathandria was Copper, Thaiek had the deep red look of Iron and Victirus was the bright metallic blue of Palladium.
However, Saiyiden's dark taint caused an altogether different result, although tied to the elemental energies as Frahuden's eggs they had also been inherently connected to her. The first, Vorseth, was a deep cobalt blue, next was Trozok with his earthly jade green, then Abixlion, displaying a blood red hide. Nazitsor followed, at first Saiyiden thought silver, but the shine faded to a chalky white.
The pair of proud parents were full of happiness and glee, but Frahuden stopped, and drew his mate's attention to her final egg. They waited and waited but it just refused to hatch, no wobbles, no sound of internal activity, something had gone awry.
Soon panic set in, Saiyiden pushed aside her mate, and grasped her egg, her child's safety triggering deep concern, without thinking of the consequences she channelled her own energy directly into the egg, inadvertently, or perhaps with subconscious intent, allowed her darkness to flow forth, the egg quickly cracked like no other had done before.
Katrinix burst forth with a mighty screech, revealing the blackest of black scales, both Saiyiden and Frahuden thought something had gone terribly wrong, but the hatchling soon recovered and was quickly behaving like the rest, what caused this neither knew?
The proud parents watched as their children found their place in the world, although they never reached the size of their creators, they were mighty creatures indeed, eventually eclipsing all other life on the planet, but still living in harmony with it.
Frahuden decided to give each of her children a role to play, a specific duty to perform for the world, whereas Saiyiden let them roam free of responsibility and entrusted them with little else other than to take care of themselves.
An age had passed since the Entity was lost, Frahuden felt the onset of tiredness first, but Saiyiden felt it heavier, it was then they realised they would soon pass their duties to their children. Frahuden of course had planned for this, whereas Saiyiden was forced to pass on what little should could in the time they had left.
At a gathering of all dragons, Frahuden and Saiyiden bid their children a solemn farewell, with promises of a reunion in another life, they took one last flight together, like they used to in the ages past. They soon found themselves at their place of birth, where they had brought their own children into the world, a vast desert in what was considered the centre of Terrainia.
They recalled their millennia's shared, but Frahuden was passing fast and Saiyiden realised she was running out of time. She waited till the very last moment to reveal what she had done all that time ago, hoping beyond hope that Frahuden would forgive her.
Indeed, he did, Frahuden was quick to forgive, and he assured Saiyiden that she was still good at heart. Then the clouds shifted and Frahuden was bathed in wondrous sunlight, his mighty form shattered gracefully into billions of tiny sparks of light, each spark shot of across the world and throughout the planes, saturating the entire universe in positive energy. The energy released at this moment formed the Celestial Plane, a place that would become pivotal in the ages to come.
Saiyiden knew fear once more, this the end and she now faced it alone, but she was content, this to be her fate, for she had wronged her eternal friend and her price was about to be paid, she knew the darkness inside still claimed her soul, what this entailed she could not know, but she laid down one last time.
The light shone on her as it had Frahuden, her body began to glow the same multicolour light it once was, she felt safe, but then with a crack of thunder, a wave of darkness washed over and blocked out the light, her scales lost their colour once more, her inner light was gone, replaced with writhing darkness.
Her form shattered into shards of darkness, each sent sprawling across the world and deep into the universe, the elemental planes felt an almighty penetration of dark energy. The very seed of corruption the Void failed to achieve so long ago was complete, the world, the planes, the entire universe, now knew evil for the first time. Her release of energy also formed the Shadow Plane.
With the creators passed into the ether, the world passed to their children, each knew what they had to do, and for thousands of years they did as they were asked. But it did not take long for Katrinix, Black Dragon of Saiyiden to feel the corrupting lure of power, she reasoned that there was more to be obtained, she just need to find how.
She began spawning children of her own, although she was open about her deeds, she concealed her true intentions. Most of the other dragons followed her lead, and they too bore children, and over just a thousand years the number of dragons had risen beyond count, each one looked like the dragon that birthed it.
It was this sudden influx of dragon kind that led to the first confrontation, one of Katrinix's children attacked one of Elfinihiar's. Although the Silver Dragon arrived in time to save her child, a line had been crossed and the other elder dragons were immediately informed.
At first all of the other elder dragons sided with Elfinihiar, but Katrinix had inherited her mother's skill in deception and convinced Vorseth, Nazitsor and Abixlion that they were rightfully claiming the territory for themselves, only Trozok denied her claims, but then he had never spawned a child of his own and had no reason to accept her lies.
This alliance of the chromatic dragons heralded a time of terrible conflict, with dragon killing dragon, thousands died. Only the metallic dragons didn't ever seek to gain land, but they did defend themselves when attacked, the elder dragons rarely engaged, except Katrinix who delighted in eviscerating the much smaller kin of her siblings.
This was continued for centuries, but the metallic dragons were losing ground, and their numbers quickly becoming insufficient to hold their ground. Rayis and Victirus called the other elders together and formulated a plan; while the other elder dragons were far away, and sacrificing all chance of defending their remaining land they flew across the ocean towards Katrinix together, with all their children in tow.
Katrinix had underestimated her brother's impetuousness and was unprepared for such an attack, but one elder had not been accounted for. As the swarm of metallic dragons reached Katrinix's unguarded home, Trozok swooped in to call a halt, it had been a century since any had seen him, and without the burden of children he had grown truly massive.
He implored them to seek a peaceful solution to end the war, and that the world could not survive without all the of elder dragons, he was clearly displaying his personal might, but with a posture of respect.
Unfortunately, Elfinihiar did not see his interruption as anything more than an attempt to stall the attack, she wanted to arrive before Katrinix discovered their plan. She launched an all-out assault, her children swept over Trozok and in the confusion Elfinihiar got the chance she needed. She raked his face and cast his form the skies, he was spiralling out of control with tattered wings.
But the colossal thump his impact sounded Katrinix was alerted, rising just enough to see her doom approach, with so few of her children close by, and the fall of the only other elder within reach she had little choice and so fled underground, hoping they would not pursue her.
The distant connection with her allies told them the war was lost, each fled beneath the surface, but Trozok would never forgive Elfinihiar for what she had done to him, nor the other elders for allowing it to happen, he too retreated underground.
This show of ultimate power ended the war, but the conflict had devastated the dragon population, leaving just a handful of each dragon species alive, while the metallic dragons stayed on the surface the chromatic ones fled and hid, like their forbearers.
The age of Dragons was over, it was now the The Age of Succession
