Stories of the Jidarin Archivist: A Past in Flames

“There weren’t always dragons in the valley.”

Garrut Heartscale quietly offered the statement to his Eyes from beside the small pile of embers.

His Eyes heard the statement as a faint echo in the back of their mind, but Sil-Qyog continued staring out of the small alcove the two currently occupied. Here, high above the broken and winding floor of the Archon Valley, Sil stared down at what was now known as “The Deadwoods of the Jidarin.” This place had once, hundreds of years ago, been a sprawling city. Camouflaged and indistinguishable from the dense forest it was woven throughout, the Jidarin historians claimed that their people had developed in perfect symbiosis with the surrounding environment. The Eyes had no time to imagine this old world now though, they were keeping watch while waiting for nightfall with their Spirit.

“How can you know that for certain? You know almost nothing of your own history” Sil-Qyog finally responded. “Your ancestors and their world are not even ash anymore. According to the detailed histories I’ve studied in the Stery back in Mehs Prime, dragons have always existed. Your ancestors provoked their wrath…… and paid for it.”

“Mhmmm,” was all Garrut offered.

His tone in response to anything Sil shared that demonstrated a level of certainty, sat somewhere between completely sincere agreement and mocking sarcasm. Sil could never be certain which it was, or how close to one side of the pendulum of feelings it sat, and it irritated the Eyes to no end. After all these years, reading and understanding a Jidarin’s mannerisms and social cues was still not something one could be taught, and if he was being mocked, Sil would prefer to know it.

“And so Sil-Qyog,” Garrut made it a habit to always use Sil’s full name, “This story seems…. believable to you?”

“I…. Well…… when I contemplate what you’ve discovered,” Sil-Qyog hesitated before turning their head to respond to the Spirit’s question. “I really don’t know anymore.”

“And that,” Garrut began as he smiled back at his Eyes, “That is exactly where you want your mind to be.”

A fierce screech in the distance ripped their conversation in half. Sil-Qyog’s training and reflexes had him climbing up the cliff face to the right of the alcove, towards the nearest table tree, before they had even had time to think about which direction the screech had come from.

As Sil reached the wide, sandy-coloured tree nearest to the alcove, they ran the 100-feet or so out to it’s tip without even noticing the great expanse between the tree, and the Valley floor leagues below them. Then, as if perfectly attuned to sound waves that had dissipated well before they had reached their perch on the tree, Sil turned towards the south and focused all four of their eyes on the far end of the Archon valley. Specifically, the point at which the valley ran straight into the largest of all the mountains in the range, The Watchman.

The valley itself, hemmed in on both sides by the Archon mountain range, had an ominous, gloomy sense about it. It weaved slightly to the left and right, but overall it appeared to be a direct path to the base of The Watchman. It was almost as though Sil was floating high above the throne room in Mehs Prime, looking down at the long pathway stretching from entryway to throne that could feel so imposing it was like the walls, or in this case, the mountains, were falling in on top of you. This of course, would make the base of The Watchman the throne itself. Despite the fact that the Wooka trees, which were trying their best to re-grow to the rumoured enormity of their ancient ancestors, were still not large or thick enough to fully obfuscate the valley floor, they still guided an observer’s eyes towards the Watchman like the magnificent Serpentine Walkway in the throne room of Mehs Prime. The forest was a somewhat shabby looking, due to the space in between the half-grown trees, but clear, green pathway weaving its way through the stone that towered on both the east and west sides of it. Table trees jutted out of both the eastern and western ranges reaching into the middle of the valley, not part of the forest, yet not part of the sky. The tiny fragments of Jidarin folklore that had survived and been passed down explained the table trees as remnants of arrows that had been fired by giants during a war that took place thousands of years before the Jidarin settled the valley. The few who had seen them agreed, but to Sil the arrangement of sideways trees simply looked like the most exciting obstacle course, or training ground they could imagine.

As the Wooka trees in the Archon valley led Sil-Qyog’s eyes towards The Watchman, Sil scanned it from top to bottom. From ice-covered peak to the shattered face at the base of the great goliath. The oddest part to Sil was that it looked as though the mountains never stopped. It was as if both the east and west mountain ranges wrapped themselves around the back of The Watchman. A perfect, protective city wall. Yet it was impossible to actually create or engineer. No Life-weaver he had ever met or even heard of could possibly manipulate nature on that scale, and they were the most knowledgeable magic users in all of Mehsiik. The improbability of it all struck Sil-Qyog as simply miraculous. As did the creature beginning to emerge from the large fracture at the base of the mountain.

“Spirit! SPIRIT!” Sil shouted down towards the alcove.

Garrut moved to the entranceway to call back. “I hear you Sil-Qyog. What is it that you see?”

“It IS a dragon. A LIVE dragon! They really are still here! How many have seen this?”

“Impossible to know.” Garrut called back. “How many have returned from journeys like ours?”

The Eyes pondered the question, then realized the intended message behind it.

“I suppose most who would encounter them wouldn’t live to tell about it. And who knows what else down there has prevented past Spirit-Eyes from returning.”

“Not to worry, we are too far from it right now for it to sense us.”

“Yes I know. I can observe from here as well, so we need not take the risk of moving towards it, now that I know where to look.”

Sil squinted and narrowed their gaze on the mouth of the cave at the base of The Watchman. As the dragon stepped out into the fading light of the sun, it stood up and stretched out its wings and neck. Sil was shocked by the overwhelming size of the beast. It was much larger than the cave entrance it had emerged from. Sil estimated somewhere between three or four stories tall, with a wingspan equally wide. The fading orange light danced off of deep green-black scales. They shimmered, even in the fading daylight, almost as if they were able to radiate some light of their own. Dark mirrors, the size of an average infantry shield, covering the entire animal.

“Spirit! It’s such a clear evening I can see every detail. The dragon is…… breathtaking.”

“Yes, yes, from the way they’ve been described to me I must imagine so. Come down and we’ll break camp. Now at least, we know where we are heading."

Sil, slightly perplexed, took a final glance before pouncing back towards the cliff face and backing their way down to the alcove.

“What do you mean ‘now that we know where we are heading’?” Sil asked as he landed beside the opening to their camp. “I can observe the dragon and its habits from here. Moving anywhere closer puts you AND me at unnecessary risk. I am the Eyes.... I am the best Eyes. That is why I am here with you. Let me do my job so we can take new information back to Mehsiik. We’ll be heroes for even just seeing a dragon, not to mention bringing back whatever new insights we have about their existence."

While Sil continued to plead, Garrut calmly began packing their rations, and silenced the embers with a gentle wave of his hand.

“Wh—what are you doing? Are you even listening to me!?”

“I am” Garrut replied.

“Well then…. Explain yourself! We don’t need to go ANYWHERE. We stay here, protected and secluded. We won’t be hunted by any dragons. We won’t be discovered by any wanderers. We won’t encounter…. I don't know, whatever else might be out there that has taken the lives of the last 15 Spirit-Eyes. We’ll be idolized for the rest of our lives just for this single moment. Stories and songs will be written about us, and we’ll be under the protection of the Meshaa until we die. Isn’t that why we are here? Isn’t that the best possible outcome? We did it. We’re done. We’re heroes.”

Garrut snickered softly to himself and rested his hand on Sil-Qyog’s shoulder, reminded once again of how young and brash Sil could be.

“I am surprised that after all of our discussions, all of our time together, you still hadn’t come to this conclusion on your own, my Jii-toouse.”

This was an old Jidarin term that Sil knew meant something along the lines of 'one who is bound by duty.'

Despite his youth and impatience, Sil had shown enthusiasm, dedication, and above all, determination in becoming the Eyes for an archivist. While in training at the Stery of Mehs Prime, he had taken it upon himself to learn large chunks of the Jidarin language, which had been cobbled together through surveys and field research done by previous Jidarin archivists. This was actually just one of the many ways he had set himself apart from the large selection of other candidates at the Stery, but it was also, Garrut believed, the most telling aspect of his character. This is why he occasionally liked to throw Old Jidarin at Sil, just to keep him on his toes.

“What do you mean?” Sil asked… “What conclusion?”

“Well,” Garrut started as he stepped out of the alcove onto the cliffside trail. “We are not here to discover more about these dragons…. After a few hundred years of research and observation, we know all we could possibly need to.”

Sil watched him as he took a few, casual steps in the direction of The Watchman.

The sun was almost completely behind the Archon Mountains now, giving off a final gasp of deep, pink-orange light, and darkness had begun to creep over the valley.

He paused as another screech rang out from the far end of the valley, and turned back to look at his Eyes.

“We are here to see if I can control them."