Alastriona DeTroyes: Yidian Light Bringer: Trophy Hunter

[Sal Taybrim]

Trophy Hunter

 

((Trezire, Ceata, Northern Exclusion Zone))

 

In the glades of the north, far beyond the Acasa Region, snow fell out of colorful, cloudy skies. Next to an icy stream that led through a snow-clad forest, a Dokarran Elder named Yidian stood looking out towards a tall mountain of stone and ice. Through the gentle snow-fall, a red hot glow emerged in the distance, announcing the approach of a dragon. Yidian stood with arms spread out wide, waiting.

 

A hurricane of wind swept over the icy stream, throwing snow into the sky and knocking Yidian onto her back. A smile spread over her face. A tremendous thud knocked snow off tree branches and this turned into the whooshing sound of the snow cover falling down to the valley floor like a tide washing over a beach. A series of thudding, ice crunching sounds approached. The ground shook.

 

Standing up, Yidian looked out at a dragon with beautiful feathered wings, which had come to drink at the stream. She carefully approached the ancient beast, crunching through the snow, until it turned to look at her. Yidian knelt down and bowed her head. Reaching out with her mind, she touched The Lady, a giant Vizinyan Tree thousands of kilometers to the south. A pleasant murmuring was there, content, but still slumbering, immature and innocent. The dragon huffed out a puff of frozen air and lowered its head.

 

Yidian climbed up onto the creature’s neck and found a secure place near the head of the dragon. A flurry of feathered wings threw ice and snow into the air. With a leap, the dragon flew into the colorful skies. Yidian watched the world down below grow smaller and smaller. The dragon flew higher and higher into the clouds, until after a time, they broke through the mist to emerge into the brightness that lived beyond the view of her kind. Yidian closed her eyes in ecstasy as warm sunshine tingled over her pale white skin. She spread out her arms and looked up at the white star that illuminated the tops of the multi-colored clouds below.

 

A tiny dot appeared high up in the atmosphere. It grew larger and larger until it had formed into the silhouette of a starship. Yidian’s soul filled with wonder at the notion of traveling amongst the stars. It would be like living in glory and ecstasy inside the darkness of the void, far beyond her world and The Lady. It would bring the Veiling too. A vast separation from the communal minds of the Dokarrans. With the Veiling came freedom. The freedom to gather new experiences which might prove beneficial to The Lady and to the rest of her people.

 

The silhouette grew larger. The beautiful feathered dragon called out to the winds and blew a huff of fire. The little starship answered the dragon with a beam of blue-white light. When the light touched the dragon, it screamed in pain. Yidian could feel the dragon’s heart fail as it was burned up by the light. Down, down, down through the multi-colored clouds fell the dragon. It smote the side of a frozen mountain, covered with snowy trees. The dragon slid through the forest, turning the side of the majestic mountain into a desolation of broken rocks and trees.

 

Yidian emerged from beneath the gigantic corpse. Who had done such a thing?

 

The hum and roar of the little starship flew overhead. Yidian did not look up but heard it land on the frozen ground among the trees. Some time after, she could hear the approach of a man, a human, crunching through the snow. Yidian had knelt down next to the dead dragon, placed a hand on its neck and let her sadness spill onto the feathered beast.

 

The man approached, stopped and smiled. Among the vibrational sound complexes that came from his mouth, one word stood out in her mind: Trophy.

 

Yidian watched as the man went up to the dead dragon while a hovering device recorded images and sounds of the disharmony which he’d brought down around the frozen forest.

 

Rather than experiencing anger, Yidian considered what he had done. It was remarkable how a single action could cause such a tearing wound in a world full of harmony. Of course, animals had always killed each other, mostly for sustenance but humans had also hunted their own kind, like many of the “enlightened” beings that lived out among the stars.

 

Cold curiosity turned into hunger, a need for greater understanding.

Might there be value in the exploration of disharmonious concepts?

Yidian had always sought to gather experiences that might prove useful.

There was one experience which had never been fully explored by the Dokkarans:

Evil.

 

The man who slew the dragon ignored her. Perhaps he regarded her as any other plant, as if she were a bush or tree to be discounted. After some time, he departed in his little starship, flying high up above the multi-colored clouds. Yidian watched the silhouette shrink down to a tiny thing, which punched through the clouds on a journey back to the stars.

 

Yidian chose to use vibrational sound complexes similar to what the human had used. For the first time in over two hundred cycles, she spoke.

Yidian: I think I shall go to earth.

 

 

~*~

 

Yidian

Light Bringer

Starbase 118 Ops

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