The Razed Earth Blossoms

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. Then again, there wasn't always a Valley, either.

Before the dragons' arrival, this land was little more than a craggy wasteland stretched out at the edge of a range of jagged mountains. What few oases existed in this corner of the world were themselves near-barren. What little life sustained was violent, cruel, and unrelenting in their constant struggle for survival. Even the vultures hunted the living.

For untold ages, the dragons lived just beyond the forests which bordered the desert that led to the wasteland. There they kept watch over all that was green, everything that bloomed and blossomed. From their roosts in the lush, frost-tipped mountains to the East, the dragons were greeted by the sun illuminating everything in their purview as it rose behind them. The beauty they beheld each morning was the greatest testament to their purpose as protectors. It emboldened them. It brought them comfort. It was perfect.

And then it was gone.

The warning signs were all there, and the dragons did their best to heed them. At the first signs of the Affliction, the dragons sent their strongest to burn away the affected flora. When the rotted yet undying plants were set ablaze, the smoke they released seemed to poison the clouds and eat whatever rains would have come of them. After weeks of struggling, the dragons finally began to see their efforts paying off. Once the flames were quenched and the winds arrived, however, the dragons saw that their failure was always a certainty.

When the winds came to carry away the brittle ashes that remained, they brought the Affliction with them to the forest. Once it found its way into the roots of the trees, all hope was effectively lost. Even still, the dragons persisted, and with the heaviest of hearts, they turned their ancestral home to cinder. Before the Affliction could make its way up the trees, the dragons had burned them all away. Their very souls poured forth from their lungs in gut-wrenching infernos as they culled all the creatures they had sheltered from afar. None of them said it out loud, but a swift, painful death was deemed gentler than leaving any living thing behind to starve alone.

By the time their work was done, what once was forest now smoldered. The dragons wasted no time covering every inch that had burned in sand drudge from the farthest depths of the sea they could reach. This in turn the dragons melted into glass, sealing away the remaining Affliction to keep it from spreading any further. It was the last thing the dragons could do to safeguard what had been their home.

In the wake of it all, the dragons were left with nowhere to turn but the wastes. Their resolve was firm at the start, and though it took months to wane along with their strength, that loss of faith soon gave way to resentment. As the weeks passed, anger festered within the dragons' ranks, just as the Affliction had festered on their shores when it appeared. The first bouts of infighting were insignificant compared to the hardships at hand, the worst of which came with the first death.

An elder, one of those who led the charge against the Affliction, took his final breath in the night. Whether from an empty stomach or a broken spirit, the one who had cried the hardest as he burned the forests passed away in silence. It was just before dawn when the others found him. In that moment, not one dragon spoke, yet they all pondered the same question.

What would it cost us?

The dragons answered by burning the remains, all of them more willing to starve than succumb to the worst crime of all. It was a noble sacrifice to make.

The wastes answered by claiming another. The death of the youngest would be the price for their righteousness.

Now faced with the consequences of their honor, the dragons who remained once again found their strength. They took to the skies with their grief, and they unleashed every ounce of it upon the desolate ground that had taken so much. The fires that raged were explosive, unlike anything the dragons had ever seen. None of them cared to take notice as they continued with their torrent of destruction. The weight of their flames tore the landscape asunder, releasing billowing pockets of steam from beneath the surface. It was days before the dragons took note of what they had done.

In shattering the rock and clay that had left them blistered and broken, the dragons broke forth to the pure waters hidden underneath. When the geysers died down, vast pools formed in their stead, and for the first time in over a year, the dragons drank their full.

The waters couldn't save them all, but the new life they gave way to ushered in a new era for the survivors. In another year's time, their ranks had been halved, yet the world around them was flourishing. Soon enough, the dragons began to prosper as well, and within a decade of them giving up on their old home, the first dragon of a generation was born in their new one.

They were Resplendent, the first of us born in the Valley.

They were the hope that our ancestors had fought for.

They were the first of us to fall to the Affliction.

Resplendent saw it coming before anyone else. She knew the stories best, but most importantly, she was the only member of our tribe who had seen the scars the Affliction left behind. She knew what to look for, she just didn't understand that it had changed as we have.

Resplendent buried what she found in salt and stone before scorching it. She spent days ensuring that the Affliction would never spread again. She never thought that it would find its way past the far shore. She never thought it could poison us.

In all her meticulous efforts to preemptively save the Valley, Resplendent became the first of our kind to suffer from the Affliction directly. However it found its way into her veins is unknown, but the effects of it on her body and mind are all perfectly evident. Resplendent is no longer the shimmering bastion of hope our people once fawned over. The glistening eyes that used to beam loving glances are now listless and unmoving, yet they see further than ever before. Resplendent said she could see into our future. She said that it was littered with corpses. She said that it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

She has to be stopped.