A Journal Under A Rock In The Middle Of Nowhere [Story]

[Anstarra]

[The entry does not seem recent, perhaps within the past year, nor is it dated]

 

I guess you could call this a journal. Perhaps a memoir, if you're feeling fancy. Or just something someone you never heard of wrote when they were bored. Hang onto it, if you like, it might be worth something to someone someday. Or toss it out. But if I'm still around and I come looking for it, and it's not there, then I'll find you. I might ask politely, but probably not.

 

So, without further ado...

 

 

Skybreaker.

 

Not a name I hear all that often, and that’s a damn good thing. It means my efforts haven’t been in vain. Easy enough to conceal this kind of thing; people look for Heroes, and when your Hero wears a mask, or a helm, obscures their features, who’s to know? They don’t look for Heroes in plain (or pretty) faces, walking down the street, haggling over a spicy fish wrap on the lower walkways of Limsa.

 

Now I want a spicy fish wrap.

 

I have a spicy fish wrap. It’s delicious, and my fingers are sticky with the sauce. A Hero doesn’t get fingers sticky with sauce from their spicy fish wrap, which they can buy without harassment just by walking down the street, and that’s why I don’t want to be a ziz-fucking Hero.

 

Skybreaker. It’s not a bad name, all the same. Could be catchy, but thankfully you know Ishgardians; if it’s not a Saint then it’s not worth their bloody time and they’re not about to bandy it around to outsiders. Soldiers still talk though, that’s gratifying. I’m half-way to being a bona-fide legend, and it’s been, what, eight moons?

 

Heh. Maybe they’ll make a Saint of me. Saint Skybreaker, who Sundered The Jagged Sky.

That’s what they called him. Vor'threx, The Jagged Sky. One vicious beast of a dragon, that one was. Not the BIGGEST of dragons (though I think those are all asleep or slumming in Dravania), bit smaller than Svara, but a real killer. Jagged blue scales, hence the nickname. Liked to fly in low through the Sea of Clouds and make nearly-ground-level strafing runs on knight convoys in and out of Whitebrim Font. His wings were so sharp they took people’s heads right off.

 

Shoulda seen the look on his face when I landed on his back.

 

Practically broke his spine, and my own godsdamned neck; I’ll say this to anyone thinking of trying it, riding a dragon is stupid and don’t do it. And ESPECIALLY don’t do it standing up, hooking your feet in his scales, while he’s flying fast enough to break HIS neck through a canyon with nothing but air for a hundred yalms below, a hundred yalms to fall before coming upon the dubious comfort of snow packed with ice and bones and rocks and broken weapons.

 

Gods that was fun!

 

I don’t know if I wanted to piss myself or scream with joy more. Might’ve done both.

 

(Hmm. Think I’ll leave that part out if I ever publish this.)

 

All I know is I stabbed that bastard over and over, and I think he was confused, he didn’t get why someone small enough to stand on his back could be strong enough to hurt him so much; he must’ve been (sorta) relieved when I broke my lance in his back, but that’s why I brought three. The second I put through his wing before it got torn out of my hands (a stupid fucking mistake I should’ve paid for), but the third did the trick. Tagged something sensitive, because he whipped his damn long-necked head around and tried to incinerate me, but that’s why the gods (and the alchemists’ guild) made Fire Resistance potions, and it’s kinda hard to see where you’re flying when you’re looking backward.

 

Fun fact: dragons’ necks sound like a rot-hollowed tree crumbling under its own weight, when they snap. CRRRR-POK. Like it did when he caught that stalagmite… or stalactite? What is it when it sticks sideways out of a canyon wall? Anyway, oops. One second we’re flying fit to wreck something, the next we’re the ones wrecked, and hurtling toward the ground at a speed I don’t really recommend.

 

The NEXT second actually came a whole lot of real seconds later, and involved me waking up feeling like I’m on fire, spikes are moving under my skin, and I’m about to have the messiest orgasm of my life. Happily one of the cutters was a superstitious sort and they’d chained me to the bed, or else I might’ve killed someone. There was a lot of talking to do afterward, but only once I’d calmed the fuck down, and I can’t blame them for looking at me funny, as I felt pretty gods-damned funny (and also more than a bit terrified that the Inquisition was going to show up and wash their hands of it by throwing me into that pit near Dragonhead with all the other ‘heretics’).

 

Thankfully, the Knight-Captain was just a bit too happy that The Jagged Sky was now confirmed completely and properly dead, and a quite proper mess his carcass had made too. What was confusing everyone was why I hadn’t made an equally gothic crater of it, quite aside from the fact that a lot of the bloody dragon’s body was missing. This wasn’t particularly welcome news to me, but it wasn’t until much later that I understood what it meant.

 

Tell you one thing. It wasn’t fucking coblyns.

 

Well, they’d never properly gotten my name, and I imagine were just as happy to see the back of me, their weird foreigner of a dragonslayer who may or may not be possessed by the one they just saw her so spectacularly kill. But legends live on, and so do results: net worth, one dead dragon, no more decapitated knight patrols. And a name, whispered by men in their cups, when they’re praying for deliverance from the Dravanians.

 

Skybreaker.

 

Hey, maybe I’ll get that Sainthood after all. In the meantime, I’m gonna have another spicy fish wrap.