Arc Perscivious was the second of the three siblings to hatch. When he opened his eyes, his big brother was already crawling and slurping the nutritious substances that came with them in the egg. The big guy even tried to eat the tough shell of the egg. Silly, stubborn oaf. The grumbling noise of his stomach reminded him of his own hunger and Arc followed his big brother and drank from the egg. Before long, the last of the three siblings hatched, his little sister, Anastasia Perscivious. Even then, the newborn Ithecal had realized that he was the smallest of the three. And so did everyone else.
But not his mother. Arc never knew the one who gave birth to him. She had died five months ago when she laid egg to the three of them. They had been kept warm and safe by other Ithecals with the utmost importance as one of them would be their next Tribe Chief. How things would have changed if their Wyvarnth mother, Setia Amorilla, were still alive, nobody would ever know. And it was the biggest taboo of the Impervious Tribe to daydream what would have been.
The little young dragon grew up a bit differently than others of his kind. He understood things much quicker, he learnt to talk by the age of one, and how to read by the age of two. It was a feat very rare for humans, if he ever got the chance to compare them, and unprecedented in the small Ithecal tribe of his. Unfortunately, he rarely won a tussle and that was all that mattered in his side of the jungle. In this aspect, both his big brother and little sister shone brighter than anyone. The brightest star the tribe had ever seen, all the elders said. They were big, strong, and agile. They had powerful claws and fangs. And they absorbed combat training like sponges. One of them would lead the tribe and they would bring honor and glory!
Arc was happy with his family. Even as his siblings outshone him, Arc never despised them. In fact, he loved the two of them to a fault. Once, he was slightly mad at his father as he never protected him from other Ithecal teenagers that bullied him or even punished them for bullying him. He even forced his two siblings to go on a hunt so they wouldn’t be there for him. But he realized afterwards, that was just his way to show his love. Lucius Impervious wanted him to be stronger. Neither respect nor power was granted. It was taken. He had to grasp it with his own claws.
Unfortunately, his claws were very short. His body was as well. In fact, his thin frame was one of the things that he was constantly bullied about. Lucius was a big, sturdy Paltharnum and Arc was nothing like his father. One thing to do about it. He had to train. But everyone was also training as well, one might say. Then he only had to train harder.
Arc trained day and night. He lacked strength. So, he did strength training. He did push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, and strapped extra weights made of metal all over his body and limbs as he did all of that. Heck, he ended up wearing them almost all the time as he needed to train as he slept. There was no time to waste! The young red dragon only took it off when he asked one of his siblings to hit his body or struck him with a stick. They gave him funny look at first, but they ended up following him when he said it was to build his toughness and endurance.
He learnt how to mount Kalikans, wield a shield and naginata, and hunt. Arc filled his routine with every attempt to make him stronger and he followed it to the T. He endured and endured even if his arms were heavy, his body was sore, and his legs were tired, he kept on doing what he got to do. He swore he would make his parents and siblings proud.
As the boy puked and suffered, the one positive thing he cherished was missing the tradition and rituals his tribe was doing. They had weird traditions that must be followed at all cost and Arc’s inquisitive mind couldn’t help not to question them. One such tradition would be the ritual of Ung’ra where they sacrificed one of the ‘lesser’ Ithecal and cannibalized their body. Funny thing was, most of his tribe would do so willingly and it would even be a great honor for them. Their dragon soul would be reborn and their flesh would be inside everyone of the tribe. Their family would also live comfortably until the next Ung’ra which happened four years later. He had actually fought not to eat the meat when he was little, but it was considered a great insult to the one sacrificed and he was forced to eat it, anyway. The point was, he was happy to miss such rituals. Until that fated day happened, the feast of the sacred king, Rex Sacrorem.
Lucius married very late on his life and it took a while before Setia finally bore eggs for him. So, when the three siblings were sixteen, Lucius was already approaching a hundred arcs of his life. They had to choose a new king, now. And Rex Sacrorem was apparently the solution. Any and all of his spawn could fight for the throne and the winner would be crowned Tribe Chief. Lucius got crowned and changed his last name from Perscivious to Impervious per tradition almost seventy years ago. So, by 718, it was almost a forgotten ritual and it came as a surprise for Arc. He dismissed his claim right away, just as everyone had expected. But his siblings didn’t falter one bit, even as only one of them may live.
And so, they fought. In the colosseum where they had been training for the past sixteen arcs, everyone had gathered, a little more than a thousand Ithecals. They were waiting for their new Chief and the tension was palpable in the air. Andike Perscivious was bigger and stronger, but Anastasia was faster and better with the Naginata. And as it turned out, they were evenly matched.
The battle lasted more than an hour and it turned into a battle of attrition. And apparently, patience and discipline were things that Andike was lacking as well. He jumped to what would have been an obvious trap to anyone that was paying attention and Ana got him good. She stabbed him right in his solar plexus, twisted it, and slashed until the Naginata came out from his right flank, almost severing his midsection in half. Andike slumped in the reddened soil but his own fortitude worked against him. He had lost a lot of blood, but he was very much conscious and could feel every inch of the pain. The boy was a stubborn, prideful dragon, though. He didn’t even give a moan of pain and only looked at Ana with defiance.
Arc didn’t even realize that he was already running towards his siblings. When his sister swung her Naginata down, he was already shielding Andike with his wooden Parma. The young girl was already tired of all the fighting and Arc’s interference came as a surprise for her. So, the block worked splendidly. The naginata bounced back from the shield and Ana lost her grip. It took her a while to realize what she had been trying to do and when it finally dawned on her, she was already sobbing with her claws hiding her face. It didn’t take long before the guards took Andike and Arc to rot in jail. The punishment for interfering with the ritual of Rex Sacrorem and the living loser was a lifelong sentence in the cold, damp, underground prison, with no remission.
Three days later, at the day of coronation, Arc was suddenly stirred awake by the clicking of his cell door. His cell was windowless and he had endured living there with his passed-out big brother without any sustenance. After throwing them both to the cell, nobody had come for them. It was as if everyone had forgotten about them. So, when the door finally opened, he could not believe that they were being saved.
Apparently, the leader of the Thiussum, Maximus Imperia, had done a coup d’etat and killed both Anastasia Impervious and Lucius Impervious. He disputed the Rex Sacrorem and legitimized himself being the Tribe Chief. The guard, named Septimus, gave Arc his late father's shield, a masterwork parma, as asked by Lucius, to protect his big brother and the whole tribe. The young Paltharnum also told the whole story, but Arc wasn’t listening anymore. He ran and ran deep into the Ivorian forest with his brother on his back. With one step in front of the other, he tried to forget what he had heard or dismissed it as untrue, but it was not working. His face only got wetter and wetter with salty water.
What he needed to do to save his tribe, Arc didn’t know, but one thing for sure, he had to save his brother. His breath was getting weaker and Arc knew it wouldn’t be long before he was reborn into another body. Maybe that was for the best, maybe he was just being selfish. But he knew he needed his big brother to live. As he went deeper, he didn’t know what he was expecting. But he had once heard a rumor. About a powerful mage, a healer, that could even mend uncurable wounds and grew limbs. If anyone could heal Andike, it would be her.
Arc’s feet and calves were burning like hell. His back was aching, his arms sore, his neck was killing him, his eyes were tired, and his mouth was parched. Arc really wanted to stop. He really did. But he knew he couldn’t. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure that the healer was out there somewhere. But if there was just one percent chance she was out here… Then the boy must trudge on.
Arc stood still for a while, trying to reorient himself. He took deep breaths as he felt his lungs burning. His sweats immediately turn cold through the chilling wind. He checked the trees for moss and made sure that he had been walking to the side where the moss was thicker, which was the north. He resumed walking and kept at it for what felt like hours as he tried to keep his mind as sharp as he could.
The lithe dragon had already felt his brain getting sluggish, a sign of exhaustion, when he finally discovered something. There weren’t like a footprint or something but there was grey material mixed within the soil. Was that…soot? Arc dropped down and took a bit of the earth to inspect it further. Someone or something was burning wood near here. Was it brought by the wind? No. It seemed like someone who burnt the wood passed here but the rain and other animals covered their steps, letting the soot sandwiched between two layers of soil.
As adrenaline started pumping again, Arc’s brain went into overdrive looking for clues near him. There were slight depressions here and there, a fractured grass where the soil was thinner. Until Arc found a clear footprint. It was small enough to be human’s! He kept following the trail slowly but steadily. The boy lost the trail a few times but he managed to find them again after a few minutes of searching as the man or the woman -again, hopefully it was the wizard- clearly didn’t try to hide their trail…
And then he saw it. A small but neat hut in the middle of the Ivorian Forest. His fatigue forgotten, he ran to the door and tried to knock it. He didn’t get the chance, though, as the assumed healer opened the door right when he was thinking to do so. She got right to the point, as if reading Arc’s mind. She would heal his brother, for a price. And the price was to be initiated into magic by her. The young dragon immediately said yes. Even if he was to be exiled from his tribe, to lose everything that he ever had, that he had ever known, Arc would save his brother. Consequences be damned.
Maria Everlast was the healer’s name and she got to work immediately. Apparently, it didn’t matter whether or not Arc knew what being initiated entailed only if he said yes. A promise was a promise, she said. She undressed the bigger dragon and took deep breaths seemingly to prepare herself. She then touched Andike’s body and with a glow started to heal him, a process called energizing Arc would later know. At a visible rate, the flesh knitted itself together, closing the large gaping wound. It only took her a few bits before the wound was fully closed, only leaving a bit of dead skin and flesh to be cleaned. After that, with a bit of strained look, she put salve on the wound and other minor cuts and bruises Andike was sporting and forced him a drink before putting him in bed.
Maria immediately asked Arc to fulfil his promise as there was no time to spare if they wanted to stop Maximus from his coronation three days from now. How she would know that, Arc didn’t even ask. Because, if there was a chance to do that, then the power she had shown him might be the key to victory. The old healer taught him how to meditate, as she apparently had to do…something. Arc closed his eyes and tried to empty his thoughts, but now his mind was filled with the thoughts of emptying his thoughts.
After around two breaks, the sound of Maria’s retching filled the hut, giving him a much-needed distraction to his boring meditation. But before he could reach her, she puked out a lump of flesh that looked like an ear. With a stern gaze, she asked him to meditate again, before proceeding to eat the flesh. Arc was never a picky eater and he didn’t get queasy easily, but somehow the sight filled him with dread and made his stomach churn.
Arc tried to meditate or sleep in a sitting position, but every couple of breaks, the retching and chewing would happen again. And it progressively got worse. After eight more repetition, Maria finally asked him something that Arc had somewhat deduced during his meditation. He had to eat the flesh and puked it again for a whole trial just like what she did. He wasn’t eager to do so, but he wouldn’t lie and he was not an oathbreaker. So, he ate the flesh.
It was rancid. Rancid beyond everything or anything Arc had ever eaten before. He chewed quickly before gulping it all down and meditated again. Apparently, the thing would go back up in a couple of breaks, even worse than before, and he would need to eat it all over again. The process repeated itself a couple times, before Arc felt a prickly pain all over his body. But even then, Arc continued. The flesh became more rancid and harder to swallow and the pain got worse with each cycle. He could also feel something, two somethings to be exact, growing on his back. The young dragon remembered all the training he had went through, though. And this is just another trial he must face. He would make his parents and siblings proud. Arc would do what he did best, to endure.
And to endure he did. A trial that felt like a whole arc went by and the red dragon finally gulped the flesh for the ninth time. With a searing, serrating pain all over his body, Arc could feel his being, his soul some might called, connected to something. A spark, Arc instinctively knew what to call it. Along with the pain, it filled him with power and never before known senses. He could feel the energy coursing through his body and brushing against him. The spark had a will of its own and it wanted to…perfect him? But the curious dragon didn’t have time to think about it or revel on his new found power. With a mighty groan, one last wave of pain passed through him and everything went blank.
