I've No More Hunger Now

The floor of the dungeon was not particularly comfortable as he curled his small frame near a wall, fire gold eyes watching as Verity whispered some words and sent another wave of soft, turquoise Weave into the air around the group. It was soothing, watching the other tiefling work his magic. Soothing enough it almost quieted the way Ruby’s ears still rang from the angry words of his companions. He hadn’t meant to interfere, truthfully. He was just scared and had wanted to help. Whichever god had decided to intertwine their fates together, their fates were intertwined now whether they liked it or not, and Ruby felt they should make the best of it. But it seemed he held the unpopular opinion. Neuvieh was prickly and grouchy at the best of times, from what he had seen the past couple of days, and though the small tiefling had accepted the Elf’s distaste for him, that didn’t mean he had given up the effort of making Neuvieh realize he had other friends. And Yalkar…Yalkar until now had seemed so steadfast and steady. A solid cornerstone for their ragtag band of misfits. Seeing him so upset had shaken Ruby to his core. He didn’t know exactly what had happened in the fighter’s past, but he knew it was bad. He had, on very rare occasions, seen a similar look in his father’s eyes that he had now seen in Yalkar’s– that look of battles long since fought that still echoed in the head. Ruby had never been able to help his father–Carvir had always reacted so vehemently toward his youngest son’s talents, and Ruby had eventually given up trying with him. Perhaps he had hoped to help quiet the echoed battles when he had so brashly inserted himself in matters that were not his own. Or perhaps the heated argument had simply reminded him too much of those nights back home when Aranron had leapt from the dinner table to loudly scold their father for his harshness toward the youngest of the family. He curled his tail around his legs, one hand brushing lightly against the pointed tip– an old habit from his childhood when he had held tightly to his own tail as he sought protection from the odd shadows cast by moonlight on his bedroom walls. But he wasn’t a child any longer, and the tears that stung his eyes served only to hammer home that his father had been right about him. He was a useless runt with nothing of value to give except to take the sheep and make himself scarce. After all, hadn’t he already seen how little good music and cheap parlor tricks did when facing goddesses and devils alike? 

His mind spun with these thoughts as he curled tighter into a ball, head pillowed on his pack, and the free hand that was not childishly holding his own tail lightly tracing the horsehair strings of his lute. He sighed softly and rolled onto his back to look up at Verity, studying each and every feature of the wizard’s face–so elegantly chiseled, cerulean eyes glowing softly as he held up the spell that concealed the party from detection. He found distraction here, as his thoughts spiraled into poetry, instinct slowly taking over as he sought reprieve the same way he always had: in the music that buzzed constantly in his mind, the music that came so naturally to his nimble fingers as they glided over the strings. And now the music easily flowed in the image of the blue tiefling that quickly appeared in his mind’s eye. He fell into slumber with his thoughts full of half baked tunes, fingers instinctively dancing over imaginary strings as he determined which notes most harmoniously flowed with his muse’s image. 

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Awareness came slowly to him as he blinked owlishly in the bright light of the Morninglord’s radiance spilling onto the mountainside. He frowned slightly. This wasn’t right. When had he returned to Eagle’s Rest? He could almost smell the smoke from the butcher’s stove wafting through the air. 

No. No, that wasn’t the rich smell of fresh cooked and well prepared meat being carried on the breeze. Nor were those the sounds of children playing in the narrow, unpaved streets. No, the smoke was heavy with the scent of ash and blood, and the noises that filled his ears were the sounds of wailing. He looked around at the town he knew so well from a lifetime of living on this very mountainside. Familiar buildings had been reduced to charred and smoldering heaps of rubble, and men, women, and children alike cried out from beneath debris or sobbed in pain and loss as they hauled broken bodies from the destruction. 

His eyes widened in horror as he realized the sight before him. 

This was Eagle’s Rest. He was home. But it wasn’t as he had left it. The tavern where he had so often played in his teenage days was only half standing-the familiar sign with the likeness of an eagle in flight carved into it was blackened and warped, and the butcher shop he had so often visited with the year’s supply of lambs for slaughter was smoking for a very different reason now. 

He nearly sobbed as he darted forward toward an older woman, wrapping an arm around her’s as he helped her from the rubble and guided her to a stone bench that was only somewhat ash covered. The rose colored tiefling looked up at him with bleary eyes that watered–though whether from smoke or grief or pain,  Ruby could not tell. 

“Rubato? ‘S that you, dear heart?” 

His heart ached at the familiar voice of Lilkaria. His teacher’s lilting voice was like salt in the rapidly opening wounds on his heart. 

“It’s me, Missus Lily, I came back. What happened here?” 

“Th…the dragons…” her frail voice quivered as she gripped his hands in her own, familiar calluses pressing against his own “I don’t…I don’t know why they came…they destroyed everything, Ruby”

She coughed harshly, and as she struggled to rid herself of the smoke clogging her lungs, Ruby stared in horror at the deep gash that traveled over her arm. It was, without a doubt, caused by dragon claws–what else could cut so deeply?--but there was another quality about it that caught the younger bard’s eye. 

Dragon scales. Dragon scales emerged from the wound like so many bloody thorns, the sharp, shining things cutting into the surrounding flesh, no doubt causing the wound to hurt that much more. 

“Lily…where’s my father? Or my brother? They didn’t…” he trailed off, unable to finish the horrid thought that had rushed into his head. 

“I…I imagine they’re….still back at your farm, d-dear heart…” her words were broken by more coughs, and Ruby nodded quickly to assure her he understood. “I do-don’t know…why th-...the dragons attacked…”

She had switched to Infernal on these last words, and Ruby followed suit as he responded, “It’ll be alright. I’ll make this right, maestro. But I need to go to my family now”

Lilkaria nodded slowly as Ruby helped her lean back, trying to make her as comfortable as he could before he rose and turned away, angling himself swiftly for the familiar road he knew would take him away from the village. He ran as quickly as his legs would carry him, desperation and fear fueling his every muscle and nerve as he whispered prayer after prayer to the Morninglord that his worst fears would not become reality. 

But the smoke didn’t leave the horizon when he left the village behind him. The wailing of the wounded and the recently bereaved simply morphed into the panicked bleating and lowing and baying of farm animals. He had to turn off the main road due to a blockade of frightened cattle milling about, shaking their great, shaggy heads from side to side as they searched for direction. Ruby already knew the brands scalded upon their hindquarters without looking. He also knew this was not where the herd was supposed to be. At this hour of the day they should still be safely tucked away in their evening pasture. But he couldn’t stop to sooth them. They would figure out their own way to safety, Ruby had more pressing matters on his mind. 

He raced for the familiar sight of the farmhouse, letting out a breathless sob at the sight of the charred fields and half collapsed storage silo surrounding his childhood home. He took the front steps in a single stride as he practically flew to the door, throwing all of his meager weight into it and feeling his heart quiver in despair as the hinges easily gave way to him. 

The sight within made his hellfire-touched blood run ice cold and he had to close his eyes against a wave of nausea that struck him as he was met by the unseeing gold and cerulean eyes of his brothers. The twins were splayed out on the floor, Neva’s hand still outstretched as if he had been in the middle of a prayer when he had fallen. Ruby nearly gagged as he recognized the same scales warping the twins’ bodies, digging into their cooling flesh and marring their dusk blue skin a dull, dark black. 

“Rubato?” 

That voice. 

Ruby nearly let out a sob as he tore his gaze away from his brothers’ broken bodies to meet his father’s tired gaze. Carvir’s golden eyes had dulled to a dark bronze, no hope left in the fighter’s aged body. He looked like a husk of the strong, imposing, larger than life itself figure Ruby remembered. 

The younger tiefling stepped forward on legs as shaky as a newborn lamb’s, not daring to look down again as he delicately stepped over the twins who’s laughter he could still hear echoing in his ears as they whooped and hollered in glee over a successful prank. He struggled to hold himself together as he stepped closer to his father, sitting like a puppet with it’s strings cut in his familiar rocking chair in front of the hearth. He was…cradling something, the way Aranron had said he had at one time cradled Ruby himself when he was but a babe. 

Unbidden, his golden eyes dropped to see what his father was holding, and this time he couldn’t stop himself from falling to his knees with a strangled sob as he took in the sight. 

His mother’s tender face stared up at him from her husband’s arms. Her dusk blue skin had faded to an ashen grey that matched the silver streaks in her hair that fell limply around her face. Her eyes were–mercifully–closed, sparing Ruby from looking into her dull and lifeless eyes, and it was all he could do to bite his tongue to avoid yelling his rage to Lathander himself, to curse the Morninglord for failing to protect his most devoted of followers. 

“Ruby…” Carvir’s booming voice was little more than a raspy whisper that cut even deeper than the harsh words he had hurled at his youngest the time Ruby had tried to show him a song he had written. “I think…I think she’s passed on now…” 

His words were heavy with tears as he cradled his wife to his chest, and Ruby felt sick as he caught sight of tears pour freely down his father’s weatherbeaten face, falling with a horrid tap-tap-tap as they landed on the hard surface of scales that grew from the cuts littering his mother’s ordinarily gentle, tired face. He only vaguely registered the bite of his nails digging into the heels of his palms as he stared at his mother’s horns–twisted and warped into awful, ugly draconic ones instead of the graceful, curving horns he himself had played with as a child. 

“Wh..What happened, pa?” he slipped unconsciously in Infernal, refusing to look up and see his own face reflected in his father’s eyes. 

“Dragons. They came without warning, Ruby. Ave-...Your brothers tried to hold them off.” Carvir’s tired yellow eyes fell upon the bodies of his twin sons laying in front of the door, and he let out a soft, broken cry that made Ruby want to cover his ears and forget he had ever heard it.  His gaze was captured by a sluggishly bleeding gash across his father’s neck.

“And Aranron? He…he didn’t…” 

Carvir continued to stare blankly down at his dead and transformed wife, all semblance of the powerful fighter turned farmer gone, replaced by this husk of an old man mourning the loss of his beloved wife and all that he had raised with his own two hands.

“Pa!” Ruby’s voice was harsher now as he recognized the scales protruding from the wound in his father’s neck, and he reached up to shake his father’s shoulder “WHERE is Aranron?!”

“I do…I don’t know…he was going to find help. The Forest People…Ani was…” he broke off with another sob as he stroked his wife’s cheek with a touch that was far more tender than his large, scarred and calloused hands would suggest he was even capable of. 

“But…but why…”

Ruby’s words were cut off by his father’s hand suddenly closing around his own, and he was forced to look up into a face that he had always been told mirrored his own so well. 

“Why did you leave us, Rubato?”

The younger tiefling cried out as he tried to pull away, his tail curling fearfully around his legs. 

“You could stop this, Rubato” There was a strange quality to his father’s voice now. It was firm, but not in that hard, icy way it had been all those years ago. There was a warmth to it. Like the first rays of the Morninglord’s radian peeking out from behind a thunderhead.Faint, but there. 

“This has not yet come to pass, Rubato, but it is a warning. Come back to us. Stop this. You have to”

Ruby choked out a sob as his father’s desperate grip on his wrist became nearly painful. But he stilled as the words began to register in his brain. 

A warning. 

This hadn’t yet happened. There was still time. His mother wasn’t dead yet. He felt his heart beat faster within his chest as he straightened. 

“I will make this right” He projected his voice– the way he would in a tavern of rowdy drunks to get their attention. “I won’t let this happen, father”

“I know you won’t, son, you’ll make us proud. And…I think…I have always been proud of you.” He leaned back in his rocking chair, a faint smile playing around his lips as he gazed at his son with half closed eyes. Ruby felt like he might faint as he registered the words. 

“Pa…” He was interrupted by an odd tugging as something pulled him from the vision, and he felt hot tears stinging his eyes, blurring the sight of the scales spilling from his parents’ wounds like hardened droplets of blood. 

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He awoke with a breathless gasp as he was launched suddenly into awareness, staring around the unfamiliar surroundings as memory slowly flooded back to his sleep-addled mind. Verity cast him a look of pity that…made little sense. Unless…the bard reached up with one hand to touch his cheek, fingers coming away wet with tears. He wiped his face quickly on his sleeve as he looked up at the others. All except Neuvieh had evidently been awake for some time now, and the pale haired elf was beginning to stir as he too began to come out of whatever passed for sleep among elves. From the expressions of his traveling companions–faces ranging from confused to downright miserable–Ruby guessed none of them had gotten the reprieve of a dreamless sleep, and he forced what he hoped would pass for an easy grin onto his face. 

“Verity?” he turned to his fellow tiefling, frowning slightly as he realized the wizard was not asleep as he had first assumed. Instead, the mage appeared to have been…contemplating something. His expression was one Ruby recognized because it was how he often got when listening to a particularly complicated chord or while he was trying to write a new tune. 

“I saw your fates” the mage’s voice broke Ruby from his own contemplation, and now everyone turned to face the tieflings. “What each of you saw…those were your destinies. You can either accept them, or fight against them…but…”

He looked at the two dragonborns with a troubled expression. 

“I could see nothing for you two. Your fates are…not yet sealed, which could mean something good or…could spell trouble.”

Howl barely let Verity finish before he turned to Yalkar, looking worried as he gazed up at the taller dragonborn, “Are you alright?”

“Am I…? Are you alright?” 

“Fine. Or as fine as I can be, huh?” the red dragonborn tried for a terse chuckle, waving his prosthetic hand in front of his face, clearly trying to reassure his fellow dragonborn that all was fine. 

Ruby grasped for the reassurance as if it were a stage cue, grinning broadly, “I’m sure it’ll be fine! It means you two are free to write your own stories!” 

For all his acting expertise, he already knew his reassurances fell on deaf ears and he withered somewhat like a leaf on the vine until he suddenly caught wind of what Inari and Tabby were discussing. The paladin had evidently been asking Tabby of the nature of her dream, and the druid’s answer captured Ruby’s attention quickly. 

“I saw my home” Tabby was speaking softly “Dragons were attacking my family..”

The smaller tiefling couldn’t suppress his interest as he moved closer to the two women. 

“Dragons?” He asked, tail stiff and twitching slightly. 

Tabby nodded, brushing her long hair from her face, “A long time ago, my people were attacked and changed by dragons.”

Ruby’s stomach twisted fiercely. He needed to know more, but it seemed the others had gathered their packs. Neuvieh and Verity were standing before the glowing orb that contained the unconscious form that was Skully, and Ruby made a mental note to ask Tabby about the dragons when they weren’t in imminent danger as he stood and strode swiftly out of the cell to join Verity.