Downfall
by Frosted "Featherfall" Lights
The White Tower of Soluth stood proud among an endless ocean of green oaks, swaying in the early morning breeze. Virmir stopped at the door and leaned his head back until he felt his gravity starting to shift backward and even still he could not see the top of the mighty spire.
“Got the map?” his companion asked. She was a little thing, barely coming to his waist. Bright blue and irritatingly bubbly.
“What map?”
The feather dragon swished her wings, sitting on her haunches so she could rub her chin thoughtfully. “The map to navigate the tower. This one thought you had one?”
Virmir buried his face in his palm to the sound of a sharp smack. “I thought you had one!”
Crystal's face broke into a sheepish grin as she retreated out of swiping distance. “Whoopsie!” she trilled.
Unwilling to take the flighty feather dragon's word for it, Virmir knelt beside her and fished through her satchel, muttering quietly to himself. Crystal scowled, but did little to stop him.
“What's that about trees?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at him.
“Nothing,” he said, and fished behind his cape until he came up with a sizable wooden hammer. Crystal's eyes popped wide open as he gave it an experimental swing.
“How did you do that? Was it magic?!” she asked, hopping around him.
Virmir simply shrugged. “C'mon, lets go on in. We only have a few hours if we're going to stay on schedule.” Knowing full well what was coming next he whirled around to face her and barked, “And don't say 'what's that'!”
The feather dragon, her mouth already open, one talon raised in question, shied away, grinning idiotically. “Okay,” she said, “time to get serious.”
Perhaps to his surprise, Crystal brushed past and shouldered through the old doors. A heavy thud echoed through the dusty vestibule as the same-said doors swung shut beneath their own weight, leaving an uncomfortable silence in the wake.
“Welcome!” Crystal called. Nimbly she mounted an old piano and positioned herself atop it as though addressing a small crowd. “Welcome to the Tower of Soluth! Built after the great shattering, Soluth stood as a lighthouse to the magical world. Sadly, the same force that divided the world into disparate shards permeated the halls of this place, slowly driving mad the men that watched over.”
Virmir suddenly found himself the center of attention again as the feather dragon leaped from her perch and was very suddenly right beside him.
“Gah!” the foxed yelped, trying to shoo her away, but she pressed her muzzle to his ear, whispering softly. “Legend holds that on the night the light went out, a heavy mist set in over the whole of the shard, and no one inside was ever seen again!”
“Oh yeah?” Virmir asked, leaning forward on his hammer as the feather dragon withdrew to the shadows.
“Some say, the mist was the souls of the men lost, cast into the oblivion and spread across the world as warning,” Crystal intoned, looking back at him darkly. One of her eyes had taken a bright silver hue, shimmering in the void.
Virmir scowled. “That's not funny!”
“No,” she growled softly, “it is not.” Slowly she backed into the shadows. “Beware the mists...”
“Why you...” Virmir grumbled, raising his hammer, but the feather dragon was gone, seemingly melted into the wall. Swinging wildly, Virmir charged into the darkness where she had gone, but found nothing. “Blasted thing...”
He spun on his heels as something hit the ground right behind him with a soft tink.
“What the...” he knelt by the little glass bauble. A crack shaped like a gnarled claw ran up one side, reaching forever toward the pointed tip. Another of the little crystalline comets landed squarely on the top of his head.
“BLAST!”
Above, Crystal clung to a chandelier for dear life. Her wings flicked open and shut as she tried to steady the swaying fixture.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOW?!” Virmir bellowed. Crystal's ears folded against the side of her head.
“Is... is she gone?”
“Is who gone?!”
“The other one with the silver eye! Oh this one is scared!” she shouted, trembling. She shut her eyes tight and clawed her way up the old chandelier, sending a few more crystalline daggers plummeting to the floor.
Virmir heaved a sigh, feeling his patience eroding away like a sand castle at high tide. He took a deep breath and slouched against the dusty old piano. “What other one?”
“She was behind you!” Crystal pointed. “Formed out of the mist. This one saw it with her own eyes!”
“I! I saw it with my own eyes!” Virmir corrected.
Crystal dropped down before him, landing lightly on all four paws. “You did? This one saw too!”
“You're giving me a headache...” Virmir said, rubbing his temple. He wondered if he hit himself hard enough, he might forget about the feather dragon's annoyingly persistent linguistics. “How old are you again?”
“This one is twenty five,” she said with a fanged grin.
Virmir shook his head and threw his hands up. Turning a slow circle he drank in the vestibule. Paintings still hung on many of the walls, their placid figures still looking out beneath a faint veil of dust. The moths had done a number on the carpet, bare, mildewy wood showing through in several places, made all the worse by a broken out window letting the rain in.
Extending his leg out as far as it would go, Virmir tapped at a sagging spot in the carpet, it gave a little beneath the slightest weight.
“Think so?” Crystal asked. She curled her tail around in front of her nose and slammed it against the carpet.
“Gah! What are you doing?!” Virmir barked.
“This,” she answered, slamming her tail against the floor again. This time the weather-worn boards gave way. As though replaced by a pool of quicksand, the yawning chasm swallowed up the capret, Virmir, and his mallet in seconds. When the dust settled, Virmir looked up through the gap. Crystal poked her head over the side, grinning like an idiot.
“You were right!” she called, waving. “The treasures are at the top, not the bottom! This one will find a rope!”
The basement slowly took shape as his eyes adjusted to the faint light. He wrinkled his nose at the caustic odor of old potions mixed with mold and mildew. Or, maybe that wasn't dust? All of the little particles seemed to be moving toward one corner of the room where a grin had formed, disembodied, floating beneath two wicked eyes, one sapphire and the other swirling with silver.
“Uhh Crystal?”
“Yes yes?” Crystal trilled from above.
“Please hurry!”
The face, borne on a cloud of mist, surged from the dark corner, rushing toward Virmir like a river set free of its dam. “WAAGH!” he shouted, or something like it, as he turned tail and ran. Relentless in its pursuit, the misty figure followed him over chairs, scrambled up bookcases, and vaulted over old workbenches.
“Take that! And that!” Virmir shouted, pelting it with musty old books. And the mist obliged, gobbling them up as though kindling to flame. All at once he found a corner at his back, and braced himself, hammer held high. “You're going to regret messing with the likes of me!”
In an ill-fated bid for freedom, Virmir lunged toward the mist and swung his hammer down with such force that Thor himself would envy. The victim, an old workbench, stood up against it about as well as a stale fortune cookie. The contents, a medley of colorful potions went airborne, pitched directly at the sturdy fox.
On instinct Virmir whipped his cape in front of his face, shielding his vulnerable eyes. Potions crashed around him in a symphony of breaking glass, making Crystal's maneuver with a floor seem almost quiet.
Dripping wet, he let his cape sag, searching the room for his unearthly opponent. But the mist had disappeared. In its place a rope fell down. Virmir traced it up to the hole in the floor, where Crystal smiled and waved.
“Okay! This one has a rope!” she called, her spirits still somehow unbroken.
“It's about time,” Virmir grumbled, shimmying up. And speaking of time... “We're nearly a half hour behind schedule by now!”
“What's th--” Crystal started, but was silenced by a sudden moment of clarity brought on by Virmir's irate scowl.
Crystal tilted her head, looking up at Virmir with curiosity brimming in her eyes. “What's that?”
Virmir could feel his face turning red. “An itinerary! A list of things to do such that we can be sure they get done! Honestly! How do you get anything done ever?!” he bellowed.
“This one means your head...” Crystal said, still staring. But Virmir was on a roll.
“No! No you are not going to tell me the schedule is in your head! You can't keep your pronouns straight, much less what DAY it is, even!”
Crystal frowned. “This one wonders what happened to your head.”
Virmir growled, thinking very hard about batting the incessant pest away with his mallet, still soaked in a berry red draught. “Well! Let me explain! You see, when I warned SOMEONE about the floor, SOMEONE smashed a hole open with her tail! And then my MALLET! Landed on my HEAD!”
“You have horns...”
“I DO NOT!”
Crystal nodded agreeably. “Do too!”
Virmir reached up to his throbbing head and found two lithe horns, smooth to the touch and distinctively curved like... like... His eyes tracked down to the curvy sea-green horns protruding through Crystal's indigo mane. “Oh trees...”
“Horns, not trees,” Crystal corrected helpfully.
Fortunately for her, Virmir found himself otherwise occupied, as his feet began to swell and he stumbled around wildly, struggling to remain upright despite a rapidly changing center of gravity. The upright nature of his stance wasted away like a snowflake in the desert, a fate well-suited to all snowflakes, as far as Virmir was concerned.
“No no no!” he shouted, leaning against the piano for support. His fluffy tail suddenly began to squirm, gaining in muscle as it swished out behind him, long and silver, tipped in a dark black poof.
“Neat!” Crystal cheered, hopping over to him, her tail bouncing along after her, snapping against the floor, always one leap behind.
Virmir snarled. “Not neat! Very bad! Go down there and find the antidote!”
“This one isn't good with potions...” Crystal said, pawing at Virmir's tail tip as it reached full length.
“Well it has to be better thaassssssffffffflllfff!” Virmir shouted, his muzzle suddenly burgeoning out into a softly curved beak. His slendering tongue grew a little faster than the rest, causing him to blow a raspberry at Crystal and then sit there, indignant as his new muzzle hurried to catch up. Much to his chagrin, Crystal did not go to look for an antidote, and instead sat there giggling.
“Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.” Virmir repeated, as each little spike protruded along his spine. “Uh oh...” he said, whining. His legs finally shifted, and he tumbled forward, landing on his hands and... hind paws, though his hands were quick to oblige, shifting seamlessly into a hybrid form, useful for both walking and tinkering. Dark black talons tipped the his grey-gloved claws. A thick, luxurious mane, black as night sprawled out the top of his head, flowing gracefully down his lengthening neck, even covering the top couple spikes, though his antenna still remained, darkening to match his new do.
“Cool!” Crystal trilled, giggling from a safe distance.
“Not cool!” Virmir barked back. His back arched on its own, he could feel something shifting beneath his cape. He struggled against the magic's hold on him. “No, I'm not.. I won't!” But he would. Silvery wings burst open, tipped in dark black with just a dash of red on each, testifying to the fiery magic he could still feel smoldering deep within his being. At last it was over, he sat on his haunches, tail curling against his right side on its own accord. Every limb and feather still tingled with a strange sense of newness, reporting alien sensation.
“This one prefers you this way,” Crystal sang, bouncing around him in a wide circle.
“I'm not talking that way!” Virmir warned. “And we're still sticking to the schedule!”
“Okay okay,” Crystal said, still wearing her irrepressible grin. “Want some candy? Feather dragons loooove candy,” she trilled.
“I... maybe a beet?”
