#so valerius is a draconic sorcerer

[grayintogreen]

Laerryn’s tearful “it had to have been worth it” as she tries desperately to use her dream to save as many as she can vs Augusta’s prideful “it was fucking worth it” as she destroys herself and her own people for her dream.

Those of you who don’t think or didn’t realize EXU Calamity had a PROFOUND effect on the plot of YCDHN can cry now.

[grayintogreen]

WIP WEDNESDAY

Here's another bit of the prologue to you can't deny high noon, featuring two more of the Somnovem as they were before the horrible flesh-warping city made them even battier.

The petty backbiting did not begin in the flesh city.

VALERIUS SEVERNA MARSHALL OF COGNOUZA (SORCERER)

When the Somnovem were formed ages ago, Seneca had made it clear that he would accept nothing less than powerful magic-users in positions of power. Let the other wards suffer fools with subpar abilities- he wanted arcane prowess, a head for philosophy, and a desire to push against the limitations of the flesh, not brutish idiots who could swing a sword. For most of the necessary heads of the ward, this was easy enough- they weren’t short on eager, talented minds who held the same beliefs as he did. For the head of security, however, it had to be someone who could handle himself in a fight without solely relying on their magic.

Valerius’s grandfather had been the first Marshall of Cognouza, back when they were still considered part of Aeor and not the pariahs they had become due to the small-mindedness of their fellows. His father had followed in his stead and after his death ten years ago, the mantle had fallen to him.

And if he didn’t believe in the same things that the rest of the Somnovem believed in, he’d feel tragically out of place.

He’d sent the wardens to start leading the civilians into the safehouses to prepare for the inevitable, leaving him wandering halls of the main complex, knocking on lab doors and making sure that yes, Cal meant it when he said this wasn’t a drill. Arcane scientists spilled out like roaches set free from a dilapidated building and made their hasty exits. As soon as he flushed out the astronomers (Balbus already noticeably absent), Valerius stopped at the alchemy lab and grabbed one of the scientists as he was exiting.

“Spurius still workin’?” He asked, his words slurred a bit from the light lisp formed by too-sharp draconic teeth set into a human mouth they were never meant for cutting into his tongue over the years. It had taken him ages to work through it enough to only sound phlegmy at best.

The alchemist cast a glance over their shoulder. “You know how he gets when he’s in the middle of something.”

Valerius exhaled through his nose. “Try to coax ‘em out. I don’t want Seneca chewin’ him out again for bein’ late.”

Spurius was fucking brilliant for a kid, but he got so involved in his work that he ignored literally everything else half the time. The Hells were raining down on Exandria and he couldn’t care less so long as he didn’t miss any steps in his alchemical theorems. He was going to do some crazy shit in the Astral Sea once they were there.

Provided they made it.

He left the alchemist to duck back inside, taking the hallway at a steady clop once it began to empty out enough that he wasn’t in danger of elbowing his way through whispering, half-panicked scientists. He scratched at the red scales that snaked their way up his neck, mostly hidden by his high collar and his robes. His ancestors had worn them proudly, even boasted about the red dragon in their bloodline that gave them their magic, but he always found them to be little more than an annoyance, like a persistent rash.

He turned the corner into the Arcane Biology department and pressed against the wall with a sharp-toothed grit of his teeth. An entire gaggle of them were walking in clusters still in their gore-stained aprons. Must have been a dissection day. At least he hoped it was dissection. Cassia had a tendency to prefer some of her subjects living when she cut them open.

Speak of the bitch herself…

Cassia Livio would have been a gorgeous human if not for the resting bitch face and the atrocities she was gleefully willing to commit in the name of her arcane pursuits. She’d probably be tolerable in the Astral Sea when she could warp the aether instead of warping flesh, but some part of him doubted that. She’d find some way of making it weird.

“Marshall,” she said by way of greeting as she shut the door to her lab behind her, adjusting her cat’s eye glasses. The little twinkling lights on the chain that held them made it seem like she had plucked stars from the sky for the mundane task of preventing her from misplacing them in a cadaver on accident.

“Don’t start,” Valerius drawled. Cassia only called him Marshall when she was being particularly herself.

She pursed her lips like she just sucked on a lemon. “Okay, hello Self-Righteous Bastard, and how are we doing on this fine apocalypse?”

“Pretty good, Heinous Bitch,” he responded, lightly. He resumed walking and Cassia followed, a matter he found deeply frustrating, but they were headed to the same place. It was only natural that she would dog his heels.

Cassia left only a beat of silence before she huffed out: “I can’t believe we’re doing this without the machine being tested.”

“Augusta knows what she’s doing.” Not that Augusta needed defending- her ego was big enough as it was- but watching Cassia turn colors at any compliment the Architect Arcane got was one of the biggest thrills he got around here.

“Well, either she does and we have to suffer her gloating about it for an eternity or she doesn’t and we all die.” She waved her hand back and forth. “Either way, it’s lose-lose.”

“Y’know, this is what we’ve been workin’ towards for years, right?” He stopped in the hall. Cassia aborted her swift pace quickly enough that she didn’t run into him- like she expected him to be confrontational. “I realize how fun it is to see if you can extract essence of fate from a fuckin’ liver, but this is the whole shebang. This is what we got cut off from the rest of Aeor for.”

Cassia adjusted her glasses and squinted up at him- he was taller than she was by two feet and she had to crane her neck to meet his muddy brown eyes with their tell-tale flecks of draconic red. Even still, she still managed to give the impression she was looking down on him. “Now see that would have been a good speech if you hadn’t gotten so disgusted about my work. Again.”

His nostrils flared and he could feel the heat deep in his sinus cavities that sometimes accompanied the urge to light something on fire. The last thing he needed was to have to explain to Seneca why his Arcane Biologist was a greasy black stain on the nice marble floors of his complex right when he needed her most. “Sorry I don’t think experimentin’ on people is much of a hobby.”

She pressed the tips of her fingers together and pointed them at him. “You know what your problem is?”

“Oh please. I am absolutely dyin’ to know what Cassia Livio thinks my problem is.”

She rocked forwards onto the balls of her feet, giving her just a tiny bit of extra height and putting her very much in his personal space. “You’re too good. Every one of us here has had our morals compromised just a teensy bit, because that’s what it takes to dream bigger. And you believe in the tenets Seneca set down and that’s why you’re still here, but you don’t want to push the limits. You have a code.”

Valerius swallowed down a lump that felt like a hot coal in his throat. “You’re startin’ to piss me off, Cassia.”

“Good. I like your righteous fury more than I like your sanctimonious bullshit.” She dropped back down onto her arches and strode forwards. “Don’t worry, Valerius- we’re about to get everything we ever wanted. Maybe you can dream that stick out of your ass.”

She turned down the hall towards the steps that led to the Aether Crux. The very moment she was gone, Valerius blew out a frustrated breath full of acrid smoke.