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—I—
Through countless tales and unyielding years, a legend was passed down from one generation to another. It tells of a great battle, of a city, once flourishing, devoured by monsters flooding out of a tacet mark on once sturdy walls.
Grueling days and nights, only halted when a Loong rained down upon them like a storm, showering the people with a last ray of hope. Then, many narrate, the Loong made its home on the ruins of the city, bringing its riches and relics with it. Many others searched for it between the mountains, but as suddenly as it had shown, the dragon was gone.
The Loong of the legends, so it was called henceforth. Many murals were painted in its honor, but the people never once seemed to agree on its appearance. What they all knew was that unlike any other dragon, this one possessed power so immense, it wasn’t restricted by time or laws, so its arrival was always announced in a cacophony of elements, a chilling storm as the sun burns and flowers bloom. Most certainly of all, it was the light it brought with it. Its hope.
Alongside striving to see the Loong with their own eyes, many, be they poor or greedy, continue to seek its rumored treasures on the ruins of a long gone city. But, as the legend says, a mountain was erected atop the ruins, and covered by the snow, no one is any wiser to its location. Perhaps, those of pure soul will be chosen by the dragon and led towards its lair. Perhaps, those worthy will face a trial and, finally, one will come out with relics thought to slay an Overlord with only a strike.
But alas, cities rise atop mountain sides, hiding away any signs of lost ruins. And just like decades prior, events flow quite similarly to the past. Time stills, rain falls and lightning crackles. In a world at constant risk of Tacet Discord invasions, warriors battle despair, all pleading for the blessing of their Sentinel. When all seems lost, they look up to the sky as thunder roars and a majestic Loong strikes down.
When the dragon returns to its lair, the snow melting on its white scales and washing away the traces of battle, it nestles between mountains of gold, numerous swords lodged against the stones until they resemble the skeleton of a Loong gone. Coiling its body around a crumbling pillar, the dragon only has a few seconds of respite before noise fills the lair and snow falls between the cracks. One crack slithers along the walls until it widens so that the rocks and soil break apart to let in more snow and a small thing.
A child. The Loong sees it tumble through the hole and crash onto the eroded pavement. A girl. Blood covers one side of her face, painting part of her gray hair red. When the child looks around, the dragon is suddenly engulfed by an urge to crash the pillar and devour the monster-, but then it notices the eye. The looming crimson dancing inside a pale iris and the pupil that seems to fight itself as its edges pull and stretch into the beginning of a tacet mark. When she looks at it, the Loong sees a child. When it looks at her, the girl reaches a trembling hand forward, small and fragile. She ignores the gold, the relics, the goblet filled with the promise of longevity, instead reaching out towards the Loong. The dragon swishes its tail behind her, coiling it around the child gently, so it can pick her up and let her nuzzle against the fur on its neck. Warmth to melt away the snow. The girl grabs onto the hair tightly, then wails shake her body just as the lightning shook the ground of a ravaged village.
When the child falls asleep, the Loong soars through the skies and leaves her behind on a safer city.
—II—
Over a decade ago, a waveworn disaster swallowed a town whole, sealing the fate of all forms of life between the deadly claws of Tacet Discords and an unrelenting, anomalous blizzard. She didn’t see it herself, but she heard. Could do nothing but listen to the cries and screams of voices she was once familiar with. The roars of monsters, until a screech came from up above, from something she could tell was colossal. Then the howling blizzard stilled, yet thunder boomed, the frost biting her fingers melting under a light burning her skin.
She could not see, but she could hear. She could hear her own labored breathing, the way snow crunched under her soles and under the large weight of a monster chasing her. She collides with something, perhaps a rock bodied discord, but no matter how wide her eyes, she cannot see. So she keeps running, tears herself away from the claws on her shirt, keeps going even when whistles blow inside her ears and she feels something sticky on her face. She runs, until she’s unable to, and then she’s falling.
Suddenly, she’s not a child anymore, but she’s still falling. She falls into the claws of monsters, which then gnaw at her, pluck her eyes out, until even her cursed vision is no more.
Sanhua wakes with a start. Her memory of that event is vague, but as if to mock her, the nightmare has carved itself in her mind into an intricate sculpture. Ever since the outbreak, her vision has changed, the nothingness invaded by chaotic lines. Frequencies, so they’re called by the people of Huanglong. It began as an erosion in her right eye, but then it spread, and now she’s perhaps the only one able to interpret the world in its barest form. Yet, this new perception came with haunting calls in her sleep, where shapeless constructs chase her as if they fear she’s too lonely with just the voices.
When she doesn’t dream of ravaging blizzards, Sanhua dreams of a dragon whose majestic visage is blurred by tears and snow. This part of her past is hanging barely by a thread in her memory. Each time, she thinks the dragon’s white and golden scales smear into a muddy color, until she can’t quite trace the shape of it. Unlike the rest of the world, the dragon is different. She can’t force herself to see through the hindrances (which, at the time, she saw for the first time, through a trembling right eye), to get a clearer view of this creature, so warm and stable. The opposite of frequencies, quivering wavelengths.
Sanhua pushes herself out of bed and dons her uniform, a suit issued to all students of Jinzhou Academy. What makes hers different from most is its black color. It’s a symbol of the Dragonriders, a selection of students regardless of their Faction. When a dragon chooses their rider, their uniform changes its accents to match those of the dragon as a sign of respect and a boastful show of one’s pride. When Sanhua looks down at her sleeve, it’s the same as looking at snow. Her suit is black, it symbolizes her status as an unbound Dragonrider.
Unlike the strict rules of the Factions and their even stricter principles, there’s only one perquisite to qualifying as a Rider: one must possess a Tacet Mark. Whether you’re chosen or not depends on the dragons which visit the Ceremony. For most, their destiny is quite obvious to them: it’s whispered by fortune tellers or it’s etched in the corners of majestic eyes. Either way, most aspiring Riders tend to know when to give up. Most will say Sanhua is the opposite. She has donned the ceremonial Choosing uniform since the Ceremony on her eighteenth birthyear, yet as per every event of the past, she has not been chosen. This Choosing will be her last, not out of her own decision, but because it is her final year in the Academy, before she graduates and officially joins the front lines. If she is not chosen this time, Sanhua will forever remain unbound.
What fuels this aspiration which seems all but a foolish dream to everyone else? Every time she looks at the dragons, a small part of her wishes she’ll see one resembling the one in her dreams, just so that the scene can finalize itself in the sculpture of her past. So that it can become real, the same way the screeching Tacet Discords have. Alas, when a mentor jokes as she enters the arena, she can only say that dragon or not, she’ll always strive to protect the people of Huanglong. Even if the white dragon is her dream is but an illusion, Sanhua will become who she wished was by her side a decade ago.
——
For the Vanguard and Ranger Factions, the most efficient methods of combat training involve field assignments. Nonetheless, it is quite uncommon for cadets to roam the wilderness alone, even rarer for them to take on a Tacet Field on their own.
She was with a team led by a graduate Ranger. They were supposed to hunt down some Whiff Whaff terrorizing a small town by the outskirts. But then came a calling, a hunger she couldn’t quite describe. Her right eye twitched, little pins poking at its deformed pupil. When she looked at her reflection in the clear waters of a lake, she saw a monster.
When she gazed towards her comrades battling the small Tacet Discords, she gulped down an uneasy, foreign appetite, as she suddenly cannot distinguish friend or foe within the chaos of frequencies in her sights.
Devour…
So she ran, because she’s familiar with it. She kept going until she stumbled upon a place with such a high concentration of frequencies, the hunger grew and almost gained a voice. Tacet Discords roar, growl, screech and whine against the cold ice piercing their bodies. One falls and another jumps at her, the bursts of frequencies stabbing her mind until she wishes to claw her right eye out.
When a blizzard descends, her fingertips freeze and the ice her blade releases seemingly caresses her skin until she can barely move her wrist. Her eye itches, the Tacet Mark stretches, and then spikes rise from the ground, impaling one TD after the other, until they all explode in sounds so loud, she cries too.
She covers her eroded eye, but the chaos does not still, its visage almost the same crystal clear. A large Tacet Discord claws out of the mark on the ground, its screeching piercing her ears until it overpowers the roars of the storm. It lunges and she intercepts it, horrid flesh and steal flying off and into the hungry mouth of the blizzard. The reverberations rattle her shivering body, bile rising up to her throat.
Her own weight falls heavy on her shoulders, she staggers back until she trips over the cross carved on the ground. With her back against spikes (or a rock corpse), clenching the hilt of a broken blade, Sanhua closes her eyes. The frequencies still ring in her ears, their reverberations stabbing her body until they drag her down an endless abyss (where she will never be alone again).
A golden light pierces the darkness, tears it apart until the chaotic lines are blown away and she sees a scale, a whisker, a horn. A white dragon soars through the deepest parts of her mind, its blinding light forcing her eyes open once again. The tattoo on her back tingles.
Far away, between the snow and the relentless wind, she sees a frequency, much calmer, human.
They found her.
——
Every year Jinzhou Academy welcomes new students and cadets with a grand ceremony. Its culminating event is the Choosing, where dragons soar the skies and pick their riders until death do them part. No one can force them to form a bond, so often times, the dragons take flight without coming back down, none of the resonators piquing their interest.
That is not the only time Jinzhou sees the dragons. For quite a long time, dragons have roamed the Academy, growing quite fond of the gardens and the humans they might one day bond with. So when the Opening Week awakens Jinzhou with a different kind of livelihood, it is quite common to overhear new students gush over the majestic creatures (or be absolutely terrified of them).
“Hey look! Is that a Dragonrider and their dragon?”
“Didn’t they say black uniform means unbound though?”
The streets of Jinzhou bustle with activity, but Sanhua tends to ignore the excited whispers. She gently rubs the snout of a young dragon, a small smile on her lips as it flaps its wings and snaps its tail. Its body is a steady mosaic of frequencies reminding her of a calm morning breeze, and when they shiver, she knows the dragon is quite content with her soft caresses.
She can’t quite see life, but she can perceive its barest form. Dragons are the only being she can look at without her heart beating against her ribcage as something chases it, gnaws at it. They’re stable, like an anchor, unlike the chaotic frequencies of her fellow people. In their barest forms, humans cannot lie.
“I could never dare be a Dragonrider… Did you hear what they said about riders who overclock because they can’t bond?”
A small dragon drops onto her shoulder, a hatchling so its flight is still erratic. Much like resonators, dragons, too, possess a Tacet Mark, but theirs is more akin to a heart. It swells and then blooms, which is when the dragon is ready to choose a rider for itself. The hatchling on her shoulder nuzzles its head against her cheek, its warm scales tickling her skin. Then it flaps its wings and flies off, its crimson frequencies pushing through the air in exhilaration.
With one last pat against cool scales, Sanhua walks towards the city gates.
—III—
On her eighteenth birthyear, Sanhua attended the Choosing, but gained only the gaze of a wyvern, which then chose another rider as its own.
On her nineteenth birthyear, one of the overseers joked about the previous Choosing, but Sanhua decided to attend either way. When dragons flew overhead, a few began circling around the young Resonator, stirring up quite the uproar in the Vanguard Faction. After several minutes of the young girl standing firm, crimson gaze steady despite the swirling frequencies, the dragons flew away. One mentor whispered in pity, tried soothing the rejection in grand gestures of faux understanding. Another congratulated her, said perhaps the dragons simply wish to grant her more time to prepare. For what, Sanhua can’t say, because she has already slayed Tacet Discords. The only thing left would be slaying the demons inside herself.
On her twentieth birthyear, a Loong with teal scales descends. It coils its body around her, but it doesn’t squeeze, thankfully. It huffs, and Sanhua can see the frequencies that make up its body shiver with its decision. One last time, it flies around her, its whiskers tickling her skin as they move with a mind of their own. Then, the loong stills, those few seconds feeling longer than hours. Finally, it ascends the sky again, its tail brushing against Sanhua’s back. On her third Choosing, Sanhua is not chosen. The tattoo against her shoulder blade tingles.
—IV—
Nature is composed of its own set of frequencies. Whilst sound makes up the living, its wavelength is absorbed by the inanimate too, which gives objects a sound as well, a harmonious melody to fit that of their creator.
The frequencies which comprise the giant Banyan tree are different from those of the trees surrounding it. Quite the number of researchers and scientists are interested in studying them, but the Banyan tree is the chosen nest of a few old dragons. Out of respect and fear, many decided against pushing forward with experiments, lest they ruffle the wrong branches and draw the wrath of the legends.
Sanhua squeezes through the crack in the tree trunk, one she can locate quite easily. In the center of the clearing sits a young woman, her gaze concentrated on her terminal. When Sanhua steps on a branch, the other almost falls over as a hologram pops up from her pangu. The sudden movements startle the amphiptere soundly asleep behind her.
“Jianxin, the opening ceremony is about to begin.” she tells her friend, a young monk with a warm, golden frequency, firmly vibrating similarly to the dragon behind her. The amphiptere stretches its wings, a majestic display of the two toned frequencies it contains. In fear, many students and cadets avoid the Banyan tree, remaining unaware of the amazing creature making its lair inside it.
“I was finishing an assignment, and since it was about dragons, I came to do it here.” Jianxin says, strapping the terminal on her lower back. “I could just ask the dragons directly, you know? But still, there’s this one question I can’t quite decide on. It’s asking if -”
When Sanhua gazes at Jianxin, she’s wearing the Vanguard issued uniform, green lines accentuating her Aero capabilities. The other woman gasps suddenly, a fist hitting her palm, as if seeing Sanhua had answered all of her questions. Perhaps it had.
“Are you still not going to try as a Dragonrider?” Sanhua asks, her crimson eyes shifting towards the amphiptere as its frequencies rise up at the word. The Vanguard Faction is quite popular with the avian creatures, so its almost a given for all cadets from it to try at least once.
“I want to focus on my martial arts training first.” Jianxin says, stretching as she stands up. The dragon droops in disappointment. “Besides, dragon riding is more your thing.” The amphiptere huffs and flies away. “… what was that?”
Sanhua shakes her head and walks ahead, stopping when her shoes almost touch the lake. As she waits there, the warm wind feels comfortable against her cool skin. There’s a cut in her uniform blazer, large enough that it exposes part of her back. Just as Resonators expose their Tacet Mark, it’s common practice for a Dragonrider to show their respect to the dragons by exposing part of what the creature would use to carry them. Like this, the mark of mysterious origins can also be seen.
“Your tattoo is fading.” Jianxin says suddenly behind her. “It looks like someone tried washing it away?” she adds when the other looks at her quizzically. Sanhua tries to see its reflection on the lake: snow with a small imprint of gold frequencies where her supposed tattoo is. The golden glow of it has faded, but that’s how it always is, she thinks. The inanimate absorbs the frequencies of its creator, but cannot generate its own, therefore as time passes, its melody eventually falls silent.
—V—
“I heard dragons don’t like the scent of overclocking, that’s why they don’t pick anyone in some choosings.”
Sanhua can feel eyes on her. Jianxin pushes through the crowd, curiously looking from one stand to the other. She has had to pull her away from scammers twice.
“Dragons are a being we’re not capable of understanding.” another voice says, and its not the words that draw Sanhua’s attention to her, rather her frequency. “Some of them might view overclocking as a sign of our devotion, others might see it as a weakness. Whichever the truth, what brings dragons to their rider isn’t just a scent, the way they look or how prideful we carry ourselves. It’s something much more complex.” if it weren’t for the way they form the body of a human, she could have mistaken the speaker for a dragon. As if she knew where to look, the woman turns, and their eyes meet.
In the distance, there a stand manned by a single person. It’s simple, but its age makes it quite hard for Sanhua to distinguish the words written on top of it. Still, she hears people pass by it, hears them whisper and yell wishes. Their tones do not always match the quiver of their frequencies, not that she’s any interested to begin making anything of it. Jianxin pulls her along, past the stands, with probably food or a challenge in the forefront of her mind.
“What is your wish, beautiful lady?” a voice breaks through the chaos of the street and it compels Sanhua to pull her wrist out of Jianxin’s grip. She turns towards the stranger behind the stand, her mind crashes to a stop and her breath is stolen out of her lungs. The frequencies making up her body are dense, solid, but what leaves her lips dry and vision wavering isn’t that. Hair white like the snow, eyes white like the purest soul, lips pulled into a kind smile as she looks at her. She’s not a bundle of frequencies, she’s… Sanhua can only guess this is what a person is supposed to look like. And with a beauty so ethereal, perhaps a deity. A Tacet Mark begins under her left ear and ends on the dip of her collarbone, where its jagged edges thin. It pulses a faint golden.
Sanhua blinks as she tries looking somewhere else. They stray down to her uniform, a clinical white, Benediction. When she looks at the woman again, her vision is blurry, like mist is suddenly surrounding them.
“Do you have a wish you’d like to express for our Sentinel to fulfill?” she asks, the same kind smile on her lips. She clasps her hands together, as if she’s praying. A faint golden glow envelopes them.
Sanhua thinks for a few seconds. As a child, she wished to see, and after that outbreak, her wish was granted. During dark days, she wishes she had remained blind, while during brighter days, she wishes she could see the beauty of the world just once, untainted by the many frequencies. So now, with the soft gaze of this woman on her, she thinks that last wish has come true too.
“I wish our Sentinel could rest as well.” she says with an awkward pull at her lips, an attempt to mirror the smile given to her. When this Sentinel, the Loong of the legends, not only defends their nation from the never resting Tacet Discords, but also comforts its people, caters to their wishes and needs… then who is she to burden it even more?
“I am sure our Sentinel can hear your sincerity.” the Benediction wish granter grins, the joy in her smile reflected in her eyes. “Good luck on your Choosing tomorrow, Sanhua.”
“Uh, thank you…?”
“Hsi, you may call me Hsi.”
—VI—
Sanhua doesn’t see Hsi for the rest of the day, and despite the disappointment weighting in her stomach, her face remains expressionless. She knows only a few people in the Benediction Faction, less due to social interactions and more due to joint field assignments. Even then, the ones she knows are mostly classified as medics or healers, not someone who whispers your wishes to the Sentinel and prays for them to be granted.
As someone who knows the world as nothing more than echoes and sounds, Sanhua cannot get the young woman out of her mind. Something tingles under her fingertips as she rummages through tools and utensils. For once she does not see truths and lies, for once she sees a person. It fills her with warmth, almost giving off the illusion that it alone could stop the persistent blizzard within her. And then there’s the minute uneasy, because she’s so used to seeing the world bare, that not being able to read a soul is a foreign concept to her.
Sanhua touches the surface of the table, tracing her fingers along fading frequency lines. Daylight and the darkness of the night are the same to her, but when the moon rises, most of Jinzhou tends to return home to rest. It makes traversing the streets easier, no nauseous collage of frequencies, but it also means she becomes completely blind to things which have long lost their sound. She leans her cane against one corner of the table, then brings out familiar ingredients out of her bag.
Flour, milk, sugar, eggs… With everything out, she pushes open the cabinets, lightly hitting the edges of the different pots and pans until she finds her usual ones. It’s a small tradition of hers, preparing the dish after missions and before big events. With the Choosing tomorrow and her lack of a desire to sleep, the academy kitchen had been the obvious choice. Sanhua looks through the various flavors at her disposal, ponders how many to prepare even. She could bake one for herself, then one for her friend, and the last one for-
Light or darkness does not make a difference to her, so when she sees light in her peripherals, Sanhua’s trail of thought stops. From the corner of her eye she can see someone else walk into the kitchen. A young man, white hair slicked back, white eyes squinting around the kitchen, while a Tacet Mark blinks golden under his right ear, all the way down to the dip of his collarbone. All these features are not what have Sanhua’s fingers hesitate above her cane. Rather, it’s the fact that he glows in the dark, but he’s not a contained, chaotic mess of frequencies. No, he’s much like the beautiful lady she’d seen today: so much more human.
“Oh, hello there!” the man speaks, a voice so soothing to her nerves. “Sorry to disturb! I’m Jin from Vanguard.”
Sanhua wonders if he and Hsi are twins.
“I’ve never seen you before.” She says, moving away from her cane and reaching for the ingredients again. His uniform clearly places him as a Vanguard, that’s for sure, but he’s still an unfamiliar face. And with how they look, she’d remember them, even if they were a vague image, like a dragon blanketed by white and gold.
“Ah, new recruit.” He says, warm smile on his lips, one which is almost identical to that of Hsi. “What are you making?” he asks, intrigue pitching up his voice. Has all the ice around her been thawed, or does he not know? Sanhua glances at him briefly, the golden light of his visage and that warmth he radiates pricking her skin almost uncomfortably. Had the Sentinel granted her wish after all?
“Loong Buns.” she answers after finishing with her mixture. “Huanglong people share their love for the dragons, so a plate is always served on holidays.” she adds absentmindedly. Jin approaches her, slowly and soundlessly, as if he’s floating. With a swift motion of his hand, he asks if he can help.
“Do you intend to prepare some for the Resonators trying as Dragonriders tomorrow?” he asks as she lends him another bowl. Sanhua narrows her eyes. “It is said that if you eat an entire bun, you’ll have good luck in the coming year, after all.”
“I prefer sharing that fortune with someone else.” Sanhua says, but she doesn’t add more to it. Jin blinks once, then a smile returns on his lips. He nods, supposedly understanding, and doesn’t push on. It’s not a secret, but it’s still a personal tradition of hers, one she doesn’t exactly fancy sharing with any person she meets in the academy kitchen at midnight. Not even when they feel warm, familiar, as if the light could keep nightmares away. Not once, twice has she had this experience… Sanhua expects to wake up from a long dream soon.
“So I heard stories,” Jin begins again, filling the silence as they both work on the filling of the buns. “A lot of people were talking about the Sentinel. Do you also think the current one is actually a different one from the Loong of the legends?”
“Does it matter?” she counters. “Dragons have a far superior lifespan to ours, but they are not eternal. So the Loong of today could be different from the Loong of centuries ago, but if its working to protect us all the same, does it pose that big of a difference?”
Jin grins, swirling around on his heel as he grabs their trays and walks towards the oven. “I guess you’re right.” he adds as he puts them in, a satisfied hum leaving his lips as the oven door clicks shut. When the two stand in silence, blanketed by the darkness, Sanhua wonders why he never turned the light on.
“Hey, do you know anyone from Benedi-”
By the door, someone clears their throat. Sanhua turns to look, once again in awe at the frequencies so similar to a dragon, yet compressed into the body of a human. Now that she sees the woman again, she recognizes the red accentuating an inferno. She’s a senior Dragonrider, one who’s very likely to be an Overseer this Choosing… Changli.
“Do you have a moment?” The Dragonrider asks, but its directed at Jin, who moves from one foot to the other behind her. As Sanhua turns to him, he smiles again, then walks past her. “Was nice meeting you, Sanhua!”
When had she ever told either of them her name?
——
In the Gorges of Spirits there is a large statue carved in the image of their Sentinel. Before every Choosing and every Tacet Field cleanup mission, Sanhua travels here during the night, if only to gaze up at the magnificent portrait of frequencies, ones which always reverberate so strongly, she thinks the dragon might come to life.
When she stands under its jaw, Sanhua pulls her offering out of her satchel. Unwrapping the handkerchief around it, she places the crystal clear bun under the maw of the dragon. Clasping her hands in front of her, the young resonator bows once, then she turns to make her way back to Jinzhou.
With her back turned to the statue, she fails to see the radiant glow atop its horn, a young woman leaning against it as she smiles, a Loong Bun in her hand.
—VII—
Compared to humanity, dragons might as well be immortal beings. With each year, they grow stronger, larger, until not even the strongest Dragonrider could ever hope to keep up. However, until they reach this height of their prowess, their Loong of the legends, Jinzhou’s hope and Sentinel, came forth to strike a deal with mankind. A pact between two coexisting forces, both fighting to eliminate the Tacet Discord and their ever looming threat.
Legends change each generation, so one can’t pinpoint the exact pool of abilities the Loong of the legends brings. Glacio, aero, electro, fusion? They’re all falling off its glowing scales like waterfalls. Spectro, Havoc? Or perhaps even the laws of time? Whatever it is, all agree that a dragon of such might could never find a human worthy of itself. Many wish to see the Loong, many wish to grasp its treasures, but if there’s any who hopes to one day ride it, then they must be out of their mind.
Despite the dragon riding not being a principle of any of the Factions, it’s quite uncommon for a dragon to choose someone of Benediction. The accepted reasoning of this is that in a war against monsters, the dragons would rather engage with someone who battles alongside them, hence the bias towards Vanguard and Ranger. Sanhua, a Resonator of Vanguard, stands in the center of an arena, right fist clenched above her heart, hair ruffled by the chaotic wind. Dragons fly overhead, whilst the audience cheers. Sanhua of Vanguard presents herself on her fourth Choosing, wishing to be chosen.
There are pillars erected on multiple parts of the circular arena, their various lengths littered with claw marks and the residue signs of elemental clashes. The top is completely open, but a transparent barrier keeps the audience away from everyone and everything else.
On one side of the arena, Sanhua sees the composed frequencies of Changli. Her arm reaches upward, until she’s caressing the neck of a three headed hydra. A flightless dragon, one of the rarer appearances in Jinzhou Academy, however Sanhua cannot judge their bond without knowing exactly who Changli is on the battlefield. Next to her stands Hsi, but unlike their first meeting, the lady does not give her a warm smile. No, her lips are pursed and her eyes are trained on her. On something on her. It makes her heart beat the slightest bit faster. When Sanhua looks away, Hsi’s eyes are still on her back, on the unmarked skin of it.
Each dragon showcases their choice differently from another. One Wyvern drops its weight on a pillar, it’s jaws wide open as it roars at the Resonators under it. Many flinch at the sudden display, but a few remain firm in their stance, hands still clenched against their hearts while their eyes try to convey nothing but their strength and promise as a Dragonrider. With a huff, perhaps a laugh, the wyvern jumps down, enveloping a Resonator in its wings. One is chosen.
An amphiptere flies around the arena in two swift circles, then it is gone. After an hour of sudden heat bursts and cracking thunder, Sanhua’s eyes trace the sky as she spots a familiar dragon: the Qingloong. Just like on her third Choosing, it coils around her body. But unlike then, its tail swipes in warning at a pillar to her right. On it is another dragon, its frequencies a deep blue which shiver in annoyance. Its jaws snap open and glacio concentrates between sharp fangs.
‘What’s happening?!’
Wind picks up, the sand swirling around the arena into the beginning of a tornado. Sanhua turns towards the overseer, but Changli hasn’t made any movement beyond the hand she has on the hilt of her sword. With a calm gesture, she soothes the hydra behind her. Hsi is not beside her.
There have been a few reports of dragons fighting during the Choosing, because with their grace came this unyielding sense of territory. It’s the main reason why the audience is protected throughout the entire ceremony. The dragons which had already completed their bonds with their Dragonriders pick them up and fly out of the storm, however, the same cannot be said for all the Resonators who still remain unchosen. Some hold on to each-other as the wind almost flings them off the ground. Sanhua of Vanguard, on her fourth Choosing, expects to feel relief, pride, accomplishment when a dragon not only glances at her, but also wishes to bond with her, but this…
“Stop it!” she shouts, but her voice is nothing compared to the growls of the two clashing beasts.
Then, just as sudden as a raindrop on a clear day, everything stills. A roar engulfs the sky and lightning strikes down, right between the two dragons. The wind is dispersed and frost covers the glass-like barrier of the audience. Then, when all falls silent, the sun shines as if its the peak of summer. Except, it’s not the sun.
“It’s the Loong of the legends!”
“Mom, look, that dragon is so huge!”
A shadow befalls the entire arena, and then a Loong loops its flight above it. It’s playing, perhaps mocking the two dragons under it.
“Oh, the Sentinel has graced us with its presence to stop a calamitous battle!”
The Loong flies upwards, then suddenly it shoots down, its flight seemingly never slowing as its clear visage comes closer and closer to Sanhua. Suddenly, its entire body coils into a spiral around the arena, with Sanhua in its center, left alone to face the glowing eyes of the Long of the legends, distinct Tacet Marks gleaming on each of its antlers.
Its white scales, the same visage she remembers in hazy dreams, Sanhua’s breath hitches.
“I’ve seen you before.” she whispers, because it’s the Loong of her dreams. Quite a few people are screaming, murmuring or praying, but Sanhua can’t take her eyes off the majestic creature. Perhaps something possesses her, because she’s so bold as to reach a hand out, softly caressing between its eyes. The Loong smiles, or at least it looks like it, with how its jaw parts and the corners pull. Then, like an echo, the gigantic body of the dragon disappears and before her stands someone she can see just as clearly. A young woman with the same features as Jin, just somehow softer, despite the asymmetrical, pale scales on her jaw and the two crystalline horns on her head. The smile on her lips is the same as Hsi’s, and for a brief moment, Sanhua sees the both of them in front of her.
“Jinhsi…” The woman (dragon?) grins, sharp fangs visible, her left hand reaching out to touch her cheek, right under her right eye. The frequencies of the Loong spread behind her like wings, but the rest are blind to it. A breath escapes past her lips, and Sanhua finally feels the relief rushing over her. Because suddenly everything clicks and she feels whole, as if everything had led up to this moment. When her own hand touches that of Jinhsi, she sees the snow. “Why did you make me wait so long?”
Jinhsi draws her in closer, until their foreheads touch. It’s a bit awkward with the horns rubbing against her scalp, but it’s comforting nonetheless. Jinhsi doesn’t answer, lets the simple contact tell her instead. The Loong of her dreams searches for her, but for a being restrained by time and one free of it, the laws reign differently. When they part, Jinhsi takes a step to the side, her fingertips lingering on her chin, neck and shoulder. She walks around her, until she stands behind her. All the while, a trail of gold follows her. Sanhua shivers when she feels a warm hand against her back, there where her tattoo should have been. It doesn’t tingle like she’s used to, but the skin burns under Jinhsi’s gentle caress. When the dragon faces her again, the traveling hand rises to her chest, a mirror of Sanhua’s prior pose.
“Will you come with me, Sanhua?” the way she says her name is so familiar, like Sanhua is meant to hear it every passing day. Her voice, so sweet, a warm embrace to the deepest abyss of her mind, so that she cannot see or hear the demons of her nightmares. Where to, she should ask, but when Jinhsi’s hands trail down her arms and intertwine with her own, she feels hypnotized. At peace, whole. Her thumb runs over the scales on the back of her hand.
“Anywhere, with you.” Then Jinhsi is pulling her. Suddenly, she’s airborne, while the majestic dragon walks backwards up golden stairs only she can touch. When Sanhua closes her eyes, it’s not because she doesn’t trust Jinhsi to hold her, but because not even the radiance of the dragon can forever keep the chaotic influx of frequencies out of her vision. Blind to the world in all its forms, Sanhua feels herself become lighter than the wind, until the softness in her hands is replaced by warm scales, a tingling under the skin of her thigh, where she’ll one day notice a new mark. When her eyes flutter open, she’s soaring through the sky, on the back of the Loong of her dreams. The dragon’s form has shifted to one much smaller, and up in the air, the only sounds Sanhua hears and sees are those of nature. Like this, she feels where she was always meant to be.
On her fourth Choosing, Sanhua is chosen.