Queen of Storms

by Via

[5] Clarity

Clarity

---

Through his power, sanity turns to insanity and insanity turns to clarity.

---

I slept dreamlessly that night, and when I awoke immediately the full realization of what I had done had dawned on me. The full realization of what I was doing as well. As well as what had happened.

My mother had sacrificed herself for me. My friend died in front of me. My people died. A god dropped a mountaintop on me for his sick amusement. I lost my leg. I ate three sapient creatures. Sure, they were dead...but...I don't know how I feel about that. I should feel bad. I know I should. But honestly? I don't. They were dead. Burying them would serve no one, so why was I so confused about it? This is a self-imposed problem. This is beneath me. No, I don't feel bad about eating three dead people I had never met. They were dead and they served no other purpose to anyone. They were best suited to serve me and my purpose.

Yes, that's the problem. The real problem - my purpose. Was I overreacting? It sounds dumb when it's phrased like that, but the question needs to be asked. A creature who could literally make it so a sneeze could kill me turned up to my home and killed my people - and then immediately like that I dedicate myself to finding a way to kill him.

Who am I? My name is Tempest, but what is that? A tempest is a violent, windy storm. According to Bellum, I will bring tremendous destruction for that is my nature, destruction will bring change, and change will bring peace. But what does that mean? Was there some prophecy I didn't know about? Did my name and affinity have something to do with Discord's sudden attack? Why did the two spirits I met seem to know more about who I am than I knew about me. My name is Tempest. Does Tempest mean - she who will dedicate her life to a mindless warpath to destroy a spirit? Does Tempest mean a fool that died in vain? Does Tempest mean savior, defiler, accursed, blessed? Who am I?

Tempest is my name. Magic - I like magic. I've never really thought about it, but I love magic. The power flowing through me. The power to shape the cosmos - learning glyphs, understanding the meanings of the words that shaped creation itself. What else did I love? I loved food. I loved to hunt - my mother taught me never to kill out of fun and out of necessity, but honestly? It was fun. I enjoyed the chase. I enjoyed pinning the creature down. I enjoy the scent of cooked meat. I love to eat, too, letting my teeth rip flesh. I love my tail - I know it's strange, honestly, but there's something about it that's just nice. It's almost...reassuring? I don't know what word would work best, but that's the only one I can think of.

Yes, that's who I am. My name is Tempest Pulseradottir. I love magic. I like hunting. I like food. I like my tail. And I'm going to be the one to kill Discord. Well - no. Probably King Gryphus would, but at the very least I'd be there with him. Either way, Discord will die. He deserves to die. He's wiped out what - three species? And he's gotten away with it? It's vile that a creature like him is allowed to exist. It's disgusting that Life and Death, if they are indeed real haven't stepped in and done something about him.

I pushed myself off of the bed that was used for the dragon ambassadors and let out a deep sigh. The room was warm, probably the warmest in the castle, with a circular stone bed with heated coals underneath it. Honestly, it was probably the most comfortable bed i've ever been on. A warm, hard surface. There were even pillows, which we didn't have back home on Mount Draelos.

I stretched myself out, kicking my legs out and pushing my arms forward. I let out a large yawn before standing up and shaking myself off. The room had a bed as well as a second room, a washroom. I'll spare you the details, but I entered the washroom covered in dirt and grime from my travel and exited with shiny scales and smooth skin. While I've never cared for romance or physical appearances, I had to confess that I did look at myself in the mirror quite a bit. I understand that to equines I would probably look terrifying, I personally thought that any draconic would think I'd look nice. Not necessarily pretty or beautiful, but nice.

As I moved to exit the washroom I was immediately surprised by a loud pop in my room, and there was someone there. Someone had teleported into my room. I saw something flying towards me, and immediately my instincts took over. It was moving towards me - about my throat. If I ducked it would hit my head, and if someone was attacking a dragon there's no way they'd use basic metallic weapons. Not to mention that someone was able to teleport and still have enough power to telekinetically attack me. I had to take it seriously. I threw myself to the side, almost stumbling over myself before I summoned up a projectile which whipped forward and smacked what I now recognized to be a pony. I had to hold my surprise as my projectile impacted a magical shield, and the shield cracked. It didn't shatter, but just cracked. Someone had enough magical power to teleport into my room, throw something at me, and hold up a strong shield. Who was this?

I doubt I'd be able to win this in a competition of pure magical force. I had barely enough strength to teleport, and I was a drakon. Although, this was a unicorn...I did have the ability to expel most of my magic pool in one go. Too risky - if I was drained of magic I'd be unable to defend against any of my foes magically based attacks, which would be most of them. But they were a pony, and even the strongest pony couldn't stand up to a draconic. If I was a quetzal, a draconequui, or a weak wyvern, they might be able to daze me, but I was a drakon. Physical strength and high magic output were mine. I channeled my magic into a wave of heat. It was a simple spell, but one couldn't deny it's effects. The pony was pushed backwards as embers sparked off their shield, probably having adapted their shield from force to heat once they detected my magic. It's not like I was particularly subtle about the charge up, I telegraphed it from miles away. But that was my intention.

There are three types of shields. Cast, adaptable, and artifact. Cast shields are when a shield spell is cast by one or more people and is maintained through constant effort, and is formed with a series of instructions to defend against. Only with tremendous effort can they be adapted during the cast - adaptable shields are shields that are made with one instruction to defend against and can be adapted to numerous things. This is what most mages use during combat. Artifact shields are cast shields but they're run through mystic artifacts and physical components to make it permanent or stronger.

My enemy's adaptable shield switched from force to heat, and before it switched back to force my tail shot out. It had been something I was neglecting to use - a tail was the most deadly part of a drakon. It was kind of prehensile, but the deadly part about it was that it was strong. The most heavily armored and the strongest part of a drakon, tapered to a thin point. While it didn't have the bone blade on the end like a dragons, it still did have spines near the end.

Crack. My tail smashed against the shield, moving faster than the pony could even see. The shield shattered into pieces, causing the pony - who I now recognized to be a mare from her voice to yelp in pain. I didn't necessarily want to kill the pony, so I didn't strike her with the spines, but my tail still crashed into her and pinned her to the wall. I ended up putting too much weight into my tail and stumbled forwards, landing on my face before there was a snap of claws, and King Gryphus' voice rung out.

"Enough. Thank you, Astrabelle." I looked up. King Gryphus was standing tall in my entrance to the room, and the blue unicorn mare was kneeling down in front of Gryphus. I blinked twice before I fit the pieces together in my head - this was a test.

"Good morning, Tempest. I have very good hearing, so when I heard you get out of bed I signalled for my archmage here, Lady Astrabelle to go...test you." He turned to Astrabelle and she nodded, looking down at me with an unclear expression.

"She's large, and can use that to her advantage, but she isn't used to her own weight. She tripped twice, and there were huge openings where I could have damaged her. She's smart enough to dodge, too. Most draconics tend to believe they're invincible. Her magic? Her pool is on the large side, but her output...she's using too much for each spell. Almost twice as much." I blinked. Was I really wasting that much magic with each spell? Was that how she teleported without draining herself dry? "That tail is wicked deadly. Put a blade on that and sire, I do believe that she might be able to nick even you." I blushed at the compliment but my scales thankfully hid it. "Finally, she did something smart. While I wasn't adapting as fast as I possibly could, she still broke through my shield. All in all? She's fine, and on the smarter side."

The King nodded and rubbed his chin. "Tempest, what's the most magically draining feat you've done?" He looked at me with glowing eyes. I recognized this as magical sight. Magical sight and magical senses were different. Magical senses were...a sixth sense of sorts, while magical sight was using magic to enhance a present sense.

"I teleported...I don't know how long. The mountain top of Olympus was dropped onto me. I wasn't under the dead center, but I did teleport through most of it." The King nodded. "And how much did that drain you?" He tilted his head to the side.
"Dry. I could barely use telekinesis afterwards." Both the King and Astrabelle frowned at this.
"Your pool is much larger than that. You should have been able to do it once without being dry. Weakened significantly, yes, but not dry." Astrabelle said with her head tilted to the side.

Gryphus nodded. "Astrabelle will work with you to help you keep your magic drain down to a small amount, as well as go over what spells you know and redefine your teleportation. After that you'll work with me. Oh - yes, actually." He walked towards me and leaned up towards me. He wasn't able to, so I leaned down to bring my head to his level. He poked my neck in a sensitive spot, causing me to jolt and shiver, before that area of my neck felt very itchy. I began scratching at where it was, before Gryphum interrupted me and shook his head.

"That is a Glyph of Spirits. It's an old trick - very, very old. The first Spirit of Air was taught it by a mysterious figure, so long ago even I can barely remember with all of Aeryie's memories. It will hide you from Discord's sight, as well as prevent you from being transmogrified or killed instantly. He'll actually have to try to kill you."

"Thank you." I nodded. I really did mean it - that would be invaluable. Especially that Discord didn't know about it.

"Oh yes, last thing before you and Astrabelle get to work." He leaned down and then I let out a roar of pain as he stabbed something into my back right leg. I kicked my leg out at him and snarled, before the air thickened around me and I could no longer move. Gryphus wrapped something around my leg and then tied it tight before pulling away. "There. That'll expunge the chaos magic from it." He had put a crystal inside of my leg with a white string wrapped around it. I kicked my leg out experimentally before I winced again. While the pain had significantly subsided, it still hurt. "Try not to put too much weight on it." He nodded before exiting the room, leaving Astrabelle with me.

I turned to Astrabelle and blinked. "Alright. So when do we start?" Astrabelle responded by grinning. "Now."

---

Like always, I'll spare you the details of the training. It was hard, but despite how there was a strange white crystal in my leg pushing the chaos magic out of it, causing a yellow mist to ooze out into the air, it was also fun. I enjoyed learning about magic. I enjoyed technical demonstrations, asking questions, learning new things.

The most interesting and fascinating things I learned were about the act of casting itself, teleportation, mana and glyphs. She taught me all of this over the course of three days. She had also taught me how to make magical artifacts. Let's start from that.

Magical artifacts were when runes were carved into magically conductive materials (mainly crystal and metal) and imbued with their properties. While it wasn't a particularly expansive subject, she did help me create some basic artifacts. Apparently Archmages made their own, and spent years adapting and working on them. The ones she helped me make was a better, cleaner bag of holding, much better than my raggedy sack that I had pillaged from Olympus, as well as two horn rings that could store some more magic as long as I remembered to fill them.

Casting is the catchall term used for when magic is channeled through crystal ley into achieving an active effect. Telekinesis is casting. Tactile Telekinesis is not casting, as there is no ley crystals being used, rather the aura of magic as well as the trace amounts of ley in all creatures - before I mentioned how horns are usually what contain the sensitive ley crystals, but there is also ley in blood. That's why sacrifices can generate magic. Although, the ley present in someone's blood is nothing compared to how much a sacrifice generates - the reason sacrifices generate so much is...a little confusing, but it has to do with the idea of sacrifice of life. Now, I learned that the creatures with the highest number of ley are, in order - drakons, dragons, and unicorns. Drakons have more than five times that of a dragon, a dragon has thrice that of a unicorns. The reason why is that drakons have four horns as well as the ability to cast through their mouth, each packed to the brim with ley.

She also taught me that I could divide up my ley, and that if we both had the same level of magic and skill I should be able to beat her because of that. The reason why a drakon can let out massive amounts of magic quickly is because of their higher ley count, but I should be able to divide up my ley into casting multiple spells at once all with the same power a unicorn would be able to. And that instead of using all my ley at once, I should use the bare minimum or slightly above the minimum. She had me practice, picking up water telekinetically and shaping it into an orb. It was hard, at first, but after much practice I was able to reduce my mana costs by half.

She taught me a new method of teleportation, too. Rather than cutting myself into the aether, I would instead create a pocket of aether around myself to enter it, which would create significantly less mana. The aether was a plane underlying ours where magic originated from, the power of the Maker. It had some strange behavior - it converts matter into magic. Unless, when a rift is open it finds magic guarding a physical object, in which case it takes the magic and the physical object too. The aether can be summed up as greedy magic, wanting to suck up as much magic as possible at any means possible. Astrabelle taught me that by warding myself against the aether and opening a pocket of aether around myself, I would be moved into the aether instead of having to cut through dimensions. After some practice, I was able to teleport anywhere within a room pretty easily.

The third thing she taught me was what mana was. Mana was the term used to describe the energy that flowed through someone. Mana is what fuels magic. Numerous things determined mana capacity - physical size was a small one, diet was a big one, and soul size was the largest one. While soul sizes were mainly determined by birth, rigorous magical exercise could increase the size of ones soul. Astrabelle says that Gryphus told her back in the old days, there used to be a magic that let people link their souls together, but that the Alicorn Spirits with the help of Harmony destroyed all knowledge of the spell when it was weaponized and allowed people with larger souls to crush the souls of weaker people. She helped me learn about foods that would best benefit me, eels, fish, meat, which plants to eat, et cetera. That was fun - going out into the wild and being instructed to find a set amount of food in a set amount of time. I had already began to like Astrabelle. She was an old mare, a widow with one child, and had found her passion for magic at a young age - leaving her home in Equestria to work in Gryphum, and working her way up to the Royal Archmage. While she wasn't particularly nice, she was instructive and didn't treat me differently due to my draconic heritage, which was a trait that most ponies didn't have.

The last thing she did was redefine my magical understanding of glyphs. This part was admittedly boring, and she recognized that, but she tried to make it interesting. But failed. It was basically a vocabulary lesson, teaching me what words mean and delving into their "deeper meaning." Blugh. It wasn't fun, but it was useful. I could notice a difference in the effectiveness of my spells, although this got me wondering. If somehow, there was magic that could change someone's pre-existing knowledge...what would that do? Could you change someone's understanding of chaos to what the understanding of order was? Although, mind magic didn't really work like that. It could erase. It could edit details. It could change emotions and thought patterns, or make you gloss over things. But a complete overhaul? The mind would reject that, and the soul would ward itself against your magic signature.

A part of the lesson that I had completely neglected to mention was the physical aspect. Archmages weren't expected to be expert fighters, but they were expected to be in good condition as to have more magic (the healthier you are the more magic you have) and to be able to handle themselves in a physical fight. She taught me about my natural advantages, my mouth-casting being next to impossible to disable and allowing me to burn through any ropes in my mouth, teaching me how to flatten the spines on my tail as well as how to handle my weight better. She also taught me a neat trick that all draconics could do - if their horns and mouth were both busy, they could also use their claws to channel basic ley spells. While horns could do spells due to crystal ley, and the form of ley in a drakon's tongue allowed to channel some basic offensive spells with added strength, the claws could also be used to imbue properties into. "Poison, ice, fire, sharp," all of those properties could be applied. Afterwards, Astrabelle challenged me to another fight, a more formal one to see how I had progressed.

---

The archmage opened up with a wave of energy before teleporting behind me and striking with another one. I saw what she was doing, she was testing how I would handle multiple attacks at once. I threw my magic senses out and absorbed the information of the attacks. They were telekinetic, but one was purely based on slashing force. Scales were basically immune to being scratched or cut by anything that wasn't draconic or origin. Magic might be able to do it, but this definitely wasn't. I didn't even have to dodge. If it had been crushing force, that would hurt a lot more and would warrant a dodge. The other attack did warrant a dodge, as it was crushing force. I knew what she wanted me to do - she wanted me to dodge backwards and roll, and would then respond by slamming something down on me. But no. She taught me all the glyphs I needed to know.

Mys, Prosr, Dis, was what formed my adaptable shield. Magic - Changing Protection. I added onto that with Fres and Doreus. Magic - Changing Protection that denies force. The spell splattered on my shield and I shot forward through the slashing wave. She threw projectiles at me accelerated to insane speeds with her magic, torn from the ground, but I managed to weave through all of them. And then - I saw it.

I don't know what it was. But I could just see...threads, almost. A thick web of magic, entangling the entire world. I could see threads being drawn around her into a circle, the purple void color of the aether leaking through. She was preparing to teleport. I had to stop that...without killing her. I went for the simple solution - Mys, Dos. A spell of pure order. Aether did not belong in this world, so the spell of order forced it out. The aether didn't envelop her, and she blinked as she was unable to teleport...then was tackled by me. I pinned her down with a claw, leaning in and staring at her.

"I concede." She said after a moment. I pulled my claw away and she sat up, rubbing where I had pinned her down. "...Sorry." I said, hoping I hadn't been too rough. Astrabelle laughed in response.

"Sorry? Sorry for what? You completely outplayed me. You were using too much magic though, I could almost see it oozing out of you, you have to learn to use less in the heat of battle. That idea of using a...was that a failsafe spell? That was smart. Although I don't know how you knew how I was teleporting. The adaptable shield was smart, although a little inefficient. You were creating a shield meant for prolonged combat for one spell. Way too much magic spent on that. Mys, Prosr, Fres would work just fine." I nodded. She hadn't included Doreus in her glyph list - did that mean "denial" and "protect" kind of cancelled each other out? Or rather didn't...both apply? Hm. That would make sense. "Protect from Force" and "Protection that denies Force" both mean the same thing ultimately.

"Alright. You're ready to meet Gryphus now. I didn't expect to get so much done in three days. Eat, Tempest. You'll need it."

---

I ate until I couldn't eat anymore. The food supplied to me by the Royal Chef was amazing. Fish, meat, eels, sauces that I didn't knew existed. Bread was very nice too, and the Chef even taught me how to cook things and make them taste better with magic. Not anything near as good as what he could prepare but for being able to do it on the run it was great. When my belly was full, I headed to King Gryphus' room. While the Palace did belong to him, his room was above the Archmage's Quarters, in a tower that was anchored by cables from the walls of the castle. Making my way up the tower uneventfully, I knocked on his door.

The door opened. King Gryphus stood there, looking at me.

"Yes, Tempest?" He said quietly.
"Astrabelle said I was ready to see you. That I've completed my training." I responded.
"Meet me in the courtyard in ten minutes. I'm in the middle of something." He closed the door on me, and I did as he instructed.

Ten minutes flew by in the blink of an eye, and with a faint whistle of air Gryphus stood across from me. In his hand was something of myth. From what I've been able to tell, a long time ago - so long that even the Spirits with the memories of their precursors can't remember, that Spirits were a lot more powerful, active on "the Continent" and that what they did was recorded. That eventually passed down into legend, which turned into myth, which became distorted over time. The first spirit of Air and Storm, Aeyrie, raining lightning bolts down for whatever reason would turn into the sky itself (despite how the Spirit of Sky wasn't involved in the source material) destroying the land out of rage. In Gryphus' hand was a lightning bolt. It was confirmation.

"Storm magic is, bar Primal Magic, the hardest magic to control." Gryphus began, his claws running over the lightning bolt. It hummed with barely contained power, the tip glowing with heat that even I could feel, and seemed to try to escape from his grasp while leaning into it at the same time. I had heard about King Gryphus' storm magic before. The ability to control lightning and wind to destroy your opponents. Something worth noting is that, while you could argue (correctly) that a storm is naturally chaotic and discordant and therefore Discord should be able to control it...no. Think of it like this. The Maker died, and the Spirit of Life was born. Life was the first Spirit. And since there were no other Spirits, she had full control of everything that could be loosely classified under her sphere. Air was a part of Life. Mind was a part of Life (although there is not a Spirit of Mind, allow me to enforce that,) so was dark magic and light magic and chaos magic and storms...

Discord may have, at one point controlled storms, and it may be derived from his chaos magic...but it's no longer completely under his jurisdiction. He's a prince, the Spirit of Air (Gryphus) is a king.

"It's a force of nature. Not destructive for destruction's sake, but destructive because it is destructive and it cannot be not destructive. A storm is a storm, a storm cannot be a breeze. But it is necessary. Something that the Spirit of Chaos doesn't seem to understand is that destruction should not happen for the sake of destruction, but destruction and chaos should exist to bring change."

I had heard what he was saying before. It was what Bellum had said to me once he had learned about my affinity. The question was being begged to ask. Did Gryphus and Bellum communicate? If so, why didn't Gryphus help with Discord? Had he been there with Bellum, Discord would be a corpse and the remaining Spirits would have banded together. That was off the table. My name was Tempest, and drakons did use Name Magic to discern what someone's purpose would be. Bellum, which means war in a dead language, wasn't named Bellum because he likes moonlit walks with his wife, but rather because he would be the embodiment of war. I was named Tempest. Did this mean I would become a storm mage? My affinity was suited for it. Air, Chaos, and Light. That was in fact, the perfect affinity for storm magic. Ah...I get it now. Gryphus and I spent the remaining third day and the entire fourth day on my storm magic.

The general idea behind Storm Magic was to either channel all your discordant and chaotic feelings into summoning up as much chaos magic as possible and create a storm out of rage and anger, of which I had plenty directed at Discord, or to calm and collect yourself and craft components of the storm using logic and reason and pure magical skill. Gryphus had me practice both methods, and taught me some spells to aid in my storm magic.

He taught me how to make storms. Mys, Tesrun. Magic - Storm. Simple.
He also taught me how to create components of storms. Mys, Tesrun, Aerut, Destrum. Magic - Destructive Air of a Storm, would call up powerful gusts of wind that would destroy what I directed them at. Or, damage at the very least. It was about the same strength as my brute force spell but significantly longer range and easier to start. Start, not control. Once it started I couldn't stop it.
He taught me a form of Electric Discharge meant to call up blasts of lightning, that I could even mouth cast and imbue my claws with the property of lightning. Apparently, while Tesrun Fyrd was what lightning was called, there was an entire part of glyphs I didn't know about. Compound Glyphs. They only worked in some occasions, and didn't drain more mana but had different properties. Lightning was Tesfryrd.

Tesrun Fyrd was purely for destruction and nothing else. It summoned up a bolt of destructive lightning, but Tesfyrd was lightning. Gryphus taught me a spell that I couldn't cast but would be interested in that could turn me into lightning and allow me to travel long distances fast, although not nigh-instantaneous like a teleport. He taught me the applications of Cyrd, which in addition to meaning "Ice" also meant "Water." Storms weren't just rain, lightning, and wind, they were also cold, hot, wet, and tore up the land itself. At the end of my training he had me create a storm for a final project.

The first part was converting my magic into storm magic. I created a large pool of my magic in the air then channeled all my chaotic feelings into it. My fear of losing myself. Fear of Discord. My hatred, my anger, my passion. Every droplet of emotion I could muster up I threw into my magic. I could even feel my leg, which had healed around the crystal now and incorporated it into its being pulse and add more chaos magic to it. While the majority of it was in the crystal, there was still some usable in my leg.

There. A large pool of chaotic magic, rapidly decaying into nothing. I didn't have much time now. It was above me, a good fifty feet, but still way below the distance that my magic would actually have to travel. So I'd just have to react fast. I did what Astrabelle taught me to - I divided up my ley.

Cyrd. Aerut. Tesfryrd. Dis. Ice/water, air, and lightning. These were the properties I imbued my storm with. Clouds began to form from my chaos magic, hail beginning to fall and pelt the large courtyard where we had been training. Gryphus didn't seem to care much. The storm had been made now, that was the easy part. The hard part was maintaining it. It was like keeping a physical grip on a slippery eel when your hands were covered in butter. It slipped and slid through my magic, weaving into it and trying to escape. I couldn't even hear the thunder and lightning, my magic rapidly being drained as I kept it under my control. But at the same time...it felt good. It was tiring, draining, but it felt nice to try and control the storm. I could feel the air empowering me. I could feel power coursing through my veins. Then exhaustion overtook me, and I then fell down, panting. I looked at Gryphus, my eyelids heavy.

Gryphus nodded. "Two minutes of a storm. Not bad. Not bad." I blinked. Only two minutes? That felt like at least ten minutes. At least. Gryphus smiled, a warm genuine smile. "Alright. I have one last gift for you." And suddenly, we were in his room.

There was a table with metallic armaments, clearly not meant for a gryphon - way too big even for Gryphus. Gryphus began to speak,
"Tempest. I can't beat Discord. Delay him. Run from him. Escape from him, yes. But I can't beat him. Only Glory would have the raw power to, and she would never take up arms against him. Glory and Discord..." He shut his eyes. "...They loved one another. After the dragons killed her, he fell to madness. We...we should have seen it coming. But we sat, and grew fat and lazy and comfortable in our power, all while he schemed and plotted. No. I don't have the power to. Only one person can - you. Not through your raw power. Discord is beyond strength." I wanted to growl. So what? He had been training me for nothing? Wasting my time and setting me up to fail? No, no. I couldn't think like that. He must have had a reason. Hear him out, Tempest.

"Somewhere, there are two Spirits. I know they aren't dead because I would be able to feel their absence. Somewhere - the Spirit of Harmony and the Spirit of Order exist. Find. Them. The Tree of Harmony and the Alicorn of Order are the only forces that could defeat Discord. Understand me?"

I nodded in response. I didn't know how to feel, but there was a ball of icy dread in my chest that had formed when this conversation started. Even knowing that Discord could be defeated, if not by me and by two Spirits instead didn't melt the ball of ice.

"My last gift to you is this. After King Draelos the First died, his hoard was given to his father, Drael. The dragon Discord killed. I searched through his hoard until I found this." He pointed at the metallic armaments. "They're weapons. They can grow, and they're bound to Drael. And now you, by virtue of your leg."

I looked at them more intently. There were metallic claw-caps, some paw armor, horn armor, and tail armor. It didn't seem to be that special, but they were armor nonetheless. Armor that could grow with me. Immensely useful. Gryphus helped me put on the armor, and then I looked at myself.

A pale white drakon with four horns, all pointing backwards and straight and a ring around the two front ones that the armor had molded around. The armor morphed and changed into a pure white color. My face was a bit long, my eyes both grey and with slitted pupils. My scales were clean, and my leg - a dark black in contrast to my white scales had a thin aura of yellow magic around it. My tail had a sharp metal spike on it that I could use for stabbing, and could also flatten with a little bit of magic channeled through it.

I realized what Gryphus had done for me, just then. He had taken me in. He had given me a home. He had given me a purpose. He had given me training. He had given me armor. Why? All out of the kindness of his heart. An old man, helping a young and stupid draconic just because he could. I turned to him slowly, before walking forward and gripping him in a tight hug. He looked surprised, before awkwardly responding to the hug.

"...Thank you." I murmured, choking the words out. I wasn't crying. Draconics didn't have tear ducts, as I've mentioned before. Or rather, we did but they didn't...exit? I'm not entirely sure on the biology. But if they weren't, I definitely would have been crying. Emotion made it hard to speak, so I repeated my words once again once it became a bit easier. "Thank you." I repeated. Gryphus ran his claws over my back.

"You're welcome, Tempest. Really. You are."

It's hard to remember what much happened after that. I know I created an edited version of my lightning spell that could be mouth-cast easier and could channel heat and ice, but then I fell back into the realm of dreams.

-

Comments

[alarajrogers]

The name change is a bad idea because Tempest Shadow is a canonical character and people are likely to assume your story is about her, not about an OC named Tempest. "Storm of the Century" really didn't fit, so I can see why you changed it, but "For Tempest Was Her Name" is worse because of the likelihood of people assuming it's about Tempest Shadow.

[Via]

9250054
Good point, I’ll change it to something more fitting. Also holy shit, the reason I decided to take up writing again commented on my story. Great work on all your stories, I love all of them.

edit: Changed it to Queen of Storms, based off the original name as a placeholder until I can come up with a better one

[alarajrogers]

9250270
The new one's a good name. I'd be surprised if it didn't attract some attention.

[Via]

9251179
Thank you, and I hope it does.

[Zake]

9251633
I must say that it the name queen-of-storms got me to read it.
It is very enjoyable to read.