A Scale of Sapphire

Aoife

Here I was again. An endless dark expanse. A beautiful starry sky above me. It was quiet and peaceful, and I found myself stretching out lazily on the ground, moonlight glistening on my scales. I didn’t think I’d ever see this place again.

“Good evening, Aoife.” A dragon about twice my size landed lightly next to me, antlers standing tall on his head, silver and gold scales shining in the night. Alex was back. “How are you feeling?”

I didn’t know. I couldn’t say. A little over a month ago I’d killed the single greatest threat to my life I’d ever faced. A little over a month ago, my wings had been reduced to cinders, and what was left of them had to be amputated before necrosis could set in. A little over a month ago, I achieved what I’d been fighting for ever since the world ended. I was safe. The people I cared about were safe.

I felt relieved, sure, but I also felt empty, listless, and hollow. I know I only had them for a little while, but my wings were a part of me, and now they were gone, and I just- I could fly before. I could fly. I was alive, and I was safe, and I was surrounded by people I loved, but something vital had been taken from me in the process.

“That bad?”

“Fuck you, Alex.” I swiped a claw at him in annoyance.

“Fair enough.” He hopped backwards a ways before lying down himself, loafing comfortably. “This can’t be easy for you, hatchling.” I expected him to continue. I must’ve been brought here for a reason, after all, but he just kept lying there, his head craned up to look at the stars. Well, if he wasn’t gonna get this ball rolling…

“What do you want?”

“To talk.” He stretched out, flaring his wings wide before rolling onto his side. “I have some good news for you, but mostly I’m just here to talk.”

“Then spit it out.”

“Someone’s in a bad mood, isn’t she?” I let out a deep hiss. “Alright. I get it. You’re a busy dragon. Lots of things you need to get done while you’re… sleeping.” I think I was going to kill him. “The sun isn’t coming back. Never again. The magic that kept bringing them back is gone. Same with the moon. Death is real and permanent now, and when you die, you, me, and all the other moon dragons will go wherever everyone else goes.”

“Oh, great, thanks for that. That’s great news. Glad to know my death is inevitable now.”

“It is great news. Trust me, living in this weird dreamscape gets old after a while. A proper death, whatever that means, is much preferable. Besides, wouldn’t you miss your girlfriends? Do you want to spend eternity without them?”

I…

Fair.

“You know, Aoife, you can’t just wallow in this shit forever.”

“Excuse me?”

“What happened to you is awful, and I’m not trying to minimize that, but you’re still alive, and that means you can still live. If you just fixate on what you’ve lost, you’re just going to keep hurting yourself. This place was built on your dreams, so whether I want it or not, I can tell where your head’s at. You keep looking back, trying to think of what you could’ve done differently. You keep wishing that there was some miracle cure, when we both know that isn’t the case. You keep drowning yourself in pity and loathing, and all that does is hurt you.”

“So what, I should just get over it? Is that what you want?”

“Aoife, that’s not what I-”

“Except it is! I’m bringing everyone else down because my life fucking sucks and I should just get over it because it’ll make things easier for everyone! I lost a part of me, Alex! It’s not coming back, and that sucks, and I’m allowed to be mad about it! What gives you the right to say I can’t? What the hell do you know?”

“Aoife, I’m telling you this because it took me years to learn, and I don’t want you to go through the same thing. I had wings and claws and beautiful scales and a husband who loved me, and I lost them all in a single day. I had to live the rest of my life as a human, and that fucking sucked, kid. That really sucked. It never stopped hurting. I never really got over it. Even still, there came a time when I decided to start living again, when I decided to use the time I had left to experience as much as I could, to help as many people as I could, and to live. It’s not easy, but it’s important. You’ve been locking yourself away lately. You’ve spent almost every day curled up in your hoard. You don’t need to get over this, you don’t need to stop being mad about it, but try and get some air. Go outside. Go for a swim or a walk or a hunt. Live, Aoife. Please.”

3 Months Later

Our village continued to grow. With time, more and more people found their way to us, and as we continued to explore this new world we’d been left with, we began finding our way to others. There were humans and centaurs and goblins and elves, and now kobolds and werewolves and dryads too. We’d even found a few more pixies to help Willow out. Our home was thriving, and I was living.

It wasn’t easy. I still had nightmares, and that probably wouldn’t change for the next hundred years. I still felt the absence of my wings, I still wished things had been different, but they weren’t. I was wingless. I was confined purely to the ground. There was no changing that, so instead of wasting time pining over it, I lived. I had people who cared about me, people who loved me. I had a roof over my head, food on my plate, and no shortage of things to do.

I had to change how I hunted. I could no longer drop on prey from above like a hawk. Instead, I stalked quietly through the forests like a big cat, suddenly grateful I was as small as I am. I started swimming more too. That feeling of weightlessness and grace wasn’t quite the same as flying, but it came close enough for me, and with the help of my tail, I could swim much faster than I could as a human.

Sunrise was healing too. The humans there had rebuilt what Cyrus destroyed, everything but the temple, of course. At some point they’d elected Cass as their leader, and she was doing her best to help build that town into something better. I couldn’t visit often. The humans there didn’t particularly trust me, and I didn’t exactly blame them, but what time I had spent there had been mostly pleasant. It brought back some memories I’d rather not think about, but the people had been cordial enough, and on my last visit, I’d even seen a group of satyrs helping out on a farm. It was good to see.

It’s kind of funny how things work out. Less than a year ago I was a “man” grinding my way through college, feeling listless and detached from my body without knowing why. Now I’m a dragon and a woman and I live with my two beautiful girlfriends as we work with our friends to build a city from scratch. There’s a lot that hurts now, there’s a lot I wish was different, but I’m alive, and I’m living, and this is still a hell of a lot better than whatever I had going on before. For the first time in my life, I could look towards the future and see something bright.

All it took was the world ending.

ashlynflagg

And... that's it. It's over. My first and longest story has finally reached it's conclusion. There are a lot of feelings running through me right now to be honest. I'm sort of relieved it's done, but I also feel kind of weird. It's like there's already this absence where Scale used to be. Even though there are things I'd do differently if I started writing this story now, even though a lot of it doesn't meet the standards I'd normally set for myself now, this story means a lot to me.

From the beginning, Scale of Sapphire was a vent fic. I wrote it because of the trauma I've been dealing with. I wanted to write a story where an irredeemable bad guy gets taken down by the one he hurt the most. I wanted Aoife to get what I never did. That's also why, by the end of the story, Aoife loses her wings. About half way through writing this whole story, I was diagnosed with a degenerative disability that (if I don't take very good care of myself) might eventually rob me of my ability to walk. I already use a cane, and while I've been getting used to it, it's not easy to accept that you're kind of just screwed through no fault of your own. It wasn't easy to accept that I need a cane to begin with, let alone that things will only get worse, but look at me now. I've accepted it. I have a body that's slowly falling apart, and that's just part of life, and all I can do is enjoy having a body that works while I still have one. I just have to live.

Like I said, it's a vent fic.

For those of you who've stuck around for so long, I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. Everyone who's ever left a comment on this story, y'all mean the world to me. I kind of just bared my weird little t-girl soul through apocalypse fiction, and somehow, it turned into something you guys liked. Thank you so very very much for sticking it out to the end.

Now I think I'm going to focus on shorter stories for a while. I have ideas for some more long form stuff, but I think I need a break. See y'all in like a week or two when I start dropping my Arknights fic.