The Dragon Queen of Thelvadore

I watched in fascination as the sun slowly skimmed across the horizon, the evening sky glimmering in all manner of colours. Satien’s sun was quite similar to the one that Earth was orbiting, and unlike many worlds depicted in fantasy tales, it also only had one moon. Said moon was slightly larger than Luna, but not by much, and it was only really noticeable during certain phases of it.

The greatest difference in the orbiting celestial body was that unlike Luna it didn’t just show one side to the planet below, as it wasn’t tidally locked to the planet itself. As much as I had tried to find some physical explanation for the differences at the time, with how my mind liked to come up with an explanation for everything–including the most minute and irrelevant details–I wasn’t actually sure if any of the various different attempts I had made were translated to this incarnation of my imagination.

Of course, those things didn’t really matter either way, as the end result was all that was visible from the surface of the planet, but I couldn’t help but wonder about it, lost in thoughts as I was. Our first day of travel had gone by without any unwelcome surprises.

At first, I had expected some monsters to ambush us or something. It certainly would’ve been quite stereotypical and cliche for worlds like these–especially a world influenced by my own imagination–but fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you looked at it, nothing of the sort showed itself. Neither did we find traces of any bandits, cults, or other less savoury groups up to their armpits in evil plans and scheming.

We were currently in the process of sitting down on a small open area surrounded by a nearly complete circle of low bushes, some trees acting as a more significant barrier on one side of the encampment. This was to be our resting place for the night, and both women were currently in the process of pulling out camping equipment from various storage devices and skills–obviously magical in nature.

I probably could’ve summoned up an entire fortified encampment with everything stowed away in the nigh on infinite shadow storage, although I decided to refrain. If only to not draw too much attention to us. And I was quite curious about how they were going to spend the night.

Surprisingly enough, a good chunk of our journey had been spent in silence, with the majority of the rest of the time occupied by Lucy’s relentless curiosity and my answers to her question. Or vice versa. And despite the fact that Cecily had remained mostly quiet during our trip, she was the one to answer when I brought up the lack of anything happening while they were busy setting up. My comment was meant mostly in jest, although she took it as fully serious.

“We aren’t that close to any majorly populated areas, and even the smaller settlements are still quite far away. There are also no major supply routes running through this area, as far as I’m aware, so the lack of any bandits or other people related trouble really shouldn’t be all that surprising,” the adventurer explained calmly, not stopping her handling of a small tent.

From the way she moved it was clear that this wasn’t in any way a new experience from her, an observation that was only underlined and supported by the well worn state of the object in question. It was far from damaged, and even I could tell that it was well cared for, but the potentially years of use hadn’t gone by without leaving at least some blemishes here or there.

“Fair enough, I suppose,” I acknowledged her explanation, giving the woman a small smile. “Still leaves the monsters. Or beasts. Or whatever else might be looking for a nice little snack out in the wilderness.”

Finally, Cecily paused in her motions, turning her attention to me.

She had finally taken off the mask she so stubbornly wore, revealing the youthful, although not necessarily unblemished face beneath. Cecily was a redhead, with emerald eyes and freckles covering her soft features. In any other situation I would simply be enamoured with the look, given how weak I was to exactly such an appearance, but given that this was a world built upon my own imagination, I was honestly more confused and suspicious that a character with exactly those features were among the first people I ran into.

Said feeling was only underlined by the fact that, while she certainly was beautiful, in that aloof sort of way you’d expect to see from a noble or someone of equal station, she also wasn’t some idealised version of beauty that immediately felt out of place in real life. Her face wasn’t perfectly symmetrical, her skin wasn’t the perfectly smooth porcelain that such a description implied, not to mention the small marks and scars left behind by a life spent training and fighting. Yet, at the same time, she didn’t feel entirely natural. It was the sort of appearance I would imagine when someone was going into way too much detail during the description, trying to create something realistic, while simultaneously singing praises about the inherent beauty. To the point that she struck me as someone I designed by hand. Because I certainly had a history of doing exactly that, desperately trying to escape the cliche of ‘man writing woman’ while only making things so much worse and cringey.

Especially during the early years of roleplay and writing.

And that was on top of perfectly fitting the appearance I found most striking on a personal level. This was no coincidence, I was sure of it. On the other hand, I still had no clue who she could be, amongst the roster I had created over the years. Especially–and which should come to absolutely no surprise–because there was more than one character among the many I created who could fit this specific description almost to a tee.

My thoughts were interrupted as the moment of silence passed and she resumed her task, shaking her head with a small smile. “I have to admit to some confusion. On the one hand, you are a three millennia old dragon with more power and experience than I can even begin to imagine. You hold yourself with the grace and elegance one would expect from such an entity most of the time. Yet, despite all of that, there are those moments where it almost feels like you have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on or where you even are. Or who you are, for that matter. Or maybe I should say what you are. This is something I’d expect some newly minted adventurer to be curious about, not the supposedly ancient entity responsible for it. It’s to the point that I’m wondering if you are truly as clueless as you appear, or if you take some mild satisfaction in confusing and teasing us by acting like an idiot. Strangely enough, both feel equally likely.”

Taken aback for a moment, I blink a few times, not quite sure how to take that statement. It took my mind a short moment to catch up, time the other two spent continuing their setup. Finally, though, I realised what she had said and implied, chuckling slightly. I wasn’t entirely daft after all, even if I was sometimes a bit slow to catch up.

And it certainly shouldn’t come as a surprise to hear that my mere presence, and the presence I was exuding, would be like a warning beacon to any wildlife and monsters far below my station to run and hide from a predator orders of magnitude more powerful and dangerous than they could ever hope to be.

“Alright, alright, I think I get what you are implying. And I do apologise for my strange questions. As hard as it might be to believe, I am genuine in my inquiries. There’s a lot that I’ve lost, and as I’ve already noted more than once, that includes more than just part of my memories. Trust me, it’s as weird to me as it is to you.”

As they worked on setting up their tents, I utilised my shadow storage to pull out a table and three chairs. Nothing overly fancy, but enough for us to spend the evening pleasantly. Given that this body didn’t have any need for traditional food, Vuthe didn’t seem to have stocked up on it before Thelvadore’s fall. Or perhaps she emptied it just before the final confrontation to supply her people.

Lucy was obviously distracted by the sudden fluctuation in my shadows, and the sudden appearance of the furniture, although she did manage to keep herself from dropping her task then and there to investigate. Cecily, on the other hand, didn’t seem to react at all, apart from acknowledging the furniture's newfound existence with a scarce glance.

“If I wouldn’t trust in Lucy’s weird System thing as much as I do, I would honestly believe you were trying to mess with us. Even with it it all seems… a bit much. No offence, Vuthe, but you are far from ordinary by any definition. It might be hard for us lowly mortals to get to grips with it.”

I couldn’t help but snort at the amused undertone in the woman’s voice, revealing that she’s only partly overplayed it a little.

“You are not wrong there,” I replied with a smirk, stretching this way and that before returning my attention to the pair slowly getting closer to finishing their task of tent setup. “How long do you think until we get to our destination?”

“A few more days until we reach Dussel, then about a week, maybe a few days more, until we arrive in Vastell. Given that my task is to deliver the entire thing wholesale to the mayor, I doubt we’re going to spend much time in the village.” Lucy gave me an energetic smile as she finished, before she quickly finished up the first side of the tent.

“What she said,” the adventurer agreed with a nod, equal parts finishing the set up for the first side, moving to the opposite to pull up the tent properly. “We aren’t exactly in a hurry and our supplies should last us for more than that quite comfortably. That said, I’m not yet sure what awaits us in Vastell. We might take a few days break after we arrive before we set out again.”

“Do you know the city?” Lucy asked me before I could reply to Cecily’s previous comment.

I took a moment to think about that, scratching the back of my head while going through everything I knew. It wasn’t that much, Vastell was a quite recent addition to the world, born from the various attempts to write a more peaceful version of the time after the war. That said, despite the relatively recent addition, it was surprisingly well fleshed out. It sort of just… all came to when I wrote those parts, and for all the issues I took with all versions of the story, Vastell was one of the few things that I just immediately felt good about.

“A little, although it’s been a while since I last visited. I doubt that the places I knew are still around. And given the personalities of the people who occupied them at the time, I also wouldn’t bet on their family inheriting the place and continuing the legacy.” A small smile crossed my lips as the memories from Vuthe’s life flowing through me mixed with the scenes I wrote in the past.

It was a sort of strange feeling, but one I just couldn’t find it in myself to feel bad about. Feeling the personal connection to these people through Vuthe and their shared past, just made it feel so much more real than anything else. And while I certainly could find a tinge of sadness slowly rising at the thought of being unable to meet them ‘again’, it wasn’t enough to really push the giddiness at the feeling of ‘realness’ away.

Honestly, I couldn’t wait to actually explore the city for myself.

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