The Applications of Transmutation
The cliffs of Kaerndal serve as a foundation for the dragonborn who make their homes there; tall, craggy obelisks which jut from the dramatic shoreline. Angry waves churning far, far below, while the biting winds rail gusts of chilled air against the well-crafted stone walls of the city. Clan Erudak's abode lies atop one of several spires of stone that reach easily a hundred feet into the air.
Their central library is an incredible feat of engineering, located in one of the enormous, yawning caverns at the top of the spire. While damp might threaten to damage the books, a series of complex heating vents (powered by the heart of some nightfall monstrosity slain in a far-flung desert) keep the air dry and warm. Fjarldt understood little to none of how the system itself worked, but he admired it as a sign of his people's ingenuity and resourcefulness.
It was in this library, amongst the jutting stone, that Fjarldt sat with his friend, Thrynkk. Thrynkk was of a somewhat spindly frame, red-scaled, and with piercing golden eyes. He had a propensity for finer silken robes, which he spent most of his monthly clan stipend on. The air was musty and filled with the thick scent of leather and the sharp tang of ink. The sound of quills scribbling from the other scholars - along with the odd errant cough - reverberated off the farthest stone. Dimming candle-light and re-purposed luminescent cave mould kept the interior lit in a mixture of orange and blue hues.
Fjarldt looked down at his tome and frowned. They had started their assigned readings at the same time, but Thrynkk was far further along in his book than Fjarldt was. The brass dragonborn's leg twitched underneath the table incessantly. An itch that he couldn't quite scratch crawled around his body. The heated air felt stuffy and thick, like oil. He was suffocating.
Thrynkk, noticing this, slowly looked up from his page.
“You'll jostle the table, Cotbreaker, and I shall spill my ink,” Thrynkk said, evoking Fjarldt's childhood nickname.
“I'm afraid I'll jostle my own head out of my drakerotting skull if I have to read more of this damned text,” Fjarldt sighed.
“You do not find Theories on Channelling: Volume 12, the Practical Applications of Transmutation on Crop Yield a thrilling read?” Thrynkk asked.
“... Do you?” Fjarldt replied.
Thrynkk simply answered with a conspiring smile, adjusted his glasses, and returned to his book
.
“... Could you... Maybe give me some notes?” Fjarldt fidgeted, after attempting to get through a particularly troublesome sentence in much the same way that someone might try to swim through tar with their hands bound.
“I do not take notes,” Thrynkk said, without looking up from his book. “At least, none that you could understand.”
“Really,” Fjarldt frowned. “My friend, you wound me.”
“No, I mean-” Thrynkk sighed and slid the parchment he'd been scribbling on across the wooden table. It was a completely indecipherable shorthand code. Fjarldt gave his friend a withering look. “What?” Thrynkk said. “It is more efficient.”
“It's gibberish,” Fjarldt bickered.
“That's chapters one through twenty five. Do you know how much parchment I save thanks to my cipher? We should all be writing with it, really,” Thrynkk sighed, and reached his claw out to take back his notes.
“... But you don't want to share the cipher with me,” Fjarldt frowned for the second time.
“You're looking for distractions, and I am being a good friend by not giving one to you,” Thrynkk said.
“... Blast it,” Fjarldt said, pushing himself off the chair and standing up. “I'm going for a walk.”
“Very well – but I doubt that Yundek will be much pleased that you're shirking your study duties again,” Thrynkk tutted.
“You'd tell her?” Fjarldt stopped mid-stand.
“No,” Thrynkk said. “But your mother has sight like an owl. She'll see right through you if you try to lie.”
“... Gah,” Fjarldt snorted, smoke trailing from his nostrils. He took great care not to knock anything over as his large tail dragged behind him, and left his friend to his study.
**
Fjarldt paced the hallways outside the office of the High Clan Scholar – his mother. He'd been summoned suddenly, abruptly, while he was in the middle of a long hike over the cliff-tops.
Fjarldt dreaded the tell-tale pressure of a Sending spell more than anything else; it reminded him when he'd broken things as a hatchling, and could feel the scales at the back of his neck stand up. His mouth had become as dry as sand on the long trek back, despite the biting wind and rain that had swept in from afar, turning the stretching sky a deep grey.
It didn't help that the hallway was cold, far removed from the heat vents of the library. The walls were carved perfectly out of the inner workings of the spire, and dripped with moisture. The stone beneath him was unforgiving on his claws. In fact, the very air seemed tense - like a frozen lake, ready to shatter. Anyone walking to Yundek's place of study would have the uncanny sensation of heading towards a slow-moving snowstorm.
“Come in,” a voice came from behind the wooden door. Fjarldt took the frigid metal knocker and pushed, entering Yundek's study. It was a beautiful room, with large windows of reinforced glass looking out over the rest of Kaerndal; the dramatic coastline and sturdy, worked stone buildings captured like a picture-frame below. Everything was kept in neat order; There were four shelves filled with various reagents, artefacts, crystals in stoppered glass bottles, animal gizzards, eyes, sinews, and plant cuttings.
Her desk was a grand semicircle in the centre of the room made out of grey marble and covered edge-to-edge with neatly organised paperwork. She was currently armed with a quill and scribbling away at something, and although her attention was focused, Fjarldt felt watched. Yundek was a small, silver scaled dragonborn – but despite her size, she seemed to command the attention of whatever room she walked into. The air around her felt sharp, difficult to focus in, and made Fjarldt feel small.
She was dressed in silver-white scholar's robes, with the scholar’s sash of Clan Erudak proudly displayed and woven into the fabric. It shifted from blue, to white, to purple, in an impressive show of illusory magic – both a sign of status, and an identifier for deeper access into the archives.
“Just a moment,” she said. Fjarldt waited, as he always had to, feeling the frustration burn its way into his gut.
“Yes, mother.”
“A-Ah- Please, High Scholar whilst you are in my study,” she replied, with a tut of her maw. She finished her work and set it to one side, collecting her hands in front of her. A gentle frown creased its way into the bridge of scales on her forehead.
“... What?” Fjarldt asked.
“Hm?” She replied.
“You summoned me here for a reason,” Fjarldt said.
“I did. I merely wanted to see if you could – oh, what was that human expression again?” She switched, briefly, into Bec: “Beat me to the punch?”
“If someone broke the training dummies again, I swear by the Clan-Spirit it wasn't me,” Fjarldt began.
“I wish to know how your studies are going, pertaining to your current assignment,” she said, and fetched a tome from beneath the desk. “Ah - Theories on Channelling: Volume 12.”
“Yes, Thrynkk and I were in the library earlier,” Fjarldt shuffled from foot to foot.
“And did you read it?” Yundek asked.
Fjarldt gulped, “I'm sorry?”
“The book,” Yundek said, calm as a still lake. “Did you read it?”
“I-... It just seemed,” Fjarldt began.
Yundek waited for him to finish.
“It seemed... Dry,” Fjarldt said, and straightened his back. His mother frowned at him. “I didn't understand how it had any... relevance.”
“... You are a member of Clan Erudak in training, it is not for you to determine which texts I assign have relevance,” Yundek rose, slowly, and it felt like the wind rose with her – though not a single item on her shelves stirred.
“It's a book on crop yield, mother,” Fjarldt protested.
“And?” Yundek asked.
“I do not see how it would help me gather knowledge for our Clan, or how it was knowledge worth studying. I-” Fjarldt began, but Yundek raised her hand, cutting him off. She slowly moved out from behind her marble desk and to the window, staring hard into the brewing storm on the horizon.
“I am disappointed in you, my son,” Yundek said.
“Oh – so now we refer to each-other as family?” Fjarldt snapped before he could stop himself. A crack formed in the ice of Yundek's disposition, and she turned to stare him down.
“This is my study, and I outrank you, so yes. I can choose to refer to you as family when I deem it appropriate,” Yundek said.
“Oh – that's a relief,” Fjarldt's mouth moved before his mind could catch up, spurred on by a sudden roar of anger that burned within his chest. He'd never spoken back to his mother like this, and it was exhilarating. “I was wondering how much I'd have to disappoint you to become your son again!”
“That is enough,” Yundek said, but Fjarldt took a step forward.
“Maybe I should just throw away all of the texts you give me, that way we might actually speak to each-other. Do you even know what I did today? What other things I studied – what I'm good at, what I like?” Fjarldt felt himself snarl.
“I will NOT be spoken to like this, you will-”
“Instructor Drakir said that I'd completed my last four spear examinations in some of the fastest times he'd seen. I train relentlessly, every day, so that I might be half the warrior I deserve to be. But do you praise me for that?” Fjarldt asked, his voice booming, nearly shaking the glass. “Do I get ANYTHING from you other than your admonishment?”
“Fjarldt,” Yundek said. A slight tremor to her usually calm voice. “I would praise you if you stopped being so stubborn and attempted to train anything other than your body. The book you received is droll, yes – but it is important for us to become resilient in the face of turmoil, of hard work. It is important for us to try and seek the wisdom within even the dullest writing – and it is important for us to train our minds. That is what I was trying to teach you! If you have a dull blade, do you not wish to sharpen it? Even if the motion is-”
“Ah, here's the 'dull blade' talk again – incredible,” Fjarldt turned away, and began to walk.
“I have not dismissed you, Fjarldt,” Yundek called after him. The brass dragonborn stopped, his shoulders quaking with frustration.
“You wouldn't know the first THING about maintaining a weapon,” he said, wheeling around and turning on her. “You wouldn't know the first THING about training your body. You - You keep trying to relate these things to me, like I'm some... Idiot spawn who can only think like a warrior – and maybe that's true. But it takes a warrior to train a warrior, and you AREN'T one. Ayrbrn was, and he's gone now. Do you think you can seriously replace him? Do you honestly think that for a second your words have the same weight that his did?”
A deafening silence flooded into the room; it was as if the entire spire had been plunged deep underwater. Fjarldt felt his heart racing, felt his mouth dry and felt bile in the back of his throat. He watched as his mother took in a deep breath through her nose. Her head tilted upwards , and he tensed as if waiting for a whip to crack.
Instead, she spoke in a hushed tone that cut through the echo of his last words, quiet as the gentlest breeze: “You are dismissed.”
Yundek then turned back towards the window. Fjarldt stood there for a moment longer, then stomped out of the room and slammed the door shut, hard enough to crack the frame.
Yundek drew a hand up and placed it gently on the window, looking out over her beloved Kaerndal. Left alone in her study, she swallowed her grief, buried it deep, and let out a terse sigh.
**
Fjarldt lay on the furs of his bed and stared hard at the brickwork ceiling, while Thrynkk snored across from him in the other bunk. It was the dead of night, and Fjarldt had not slept a second. He couldn't shake the conversation from his mind. He hated his anger, he hated his blasted pride, and he hated every word he'd said to her. He tensed his fists atop his stomach as it twisted itself into knots of frustration.
Then, a voice – gentle, pressing into his mind:
Fjarldt – please come to my study. I promise that you are not in trouble.
The scales stood up on the back of his neck again and, frustrated, Fjarldt got out of bed, re-donned his Clan armour and stormed out of his room. He took a long route through the several winding hallways of the clan living quarters and began the long trek up flight after flight of stone stairs. He passed the armoury, the training grounds, the brawl pit, and the library – and finally came to the studies of the Clan Heads. Making his way towards her door, he stared at it, his eyes drawn to the cracks he'd left in the stone frame; and to the buckled hinges. It was slightly ajar, and there was a faint source of candle light that crept beneath the jolted door.
Fjarldt slowly pushed the door open.
“Ah,” Yundek said. She'd cleared out the centre of her study, and it was strangely warm. On the desk was a fraction of the heart they used to heat the library – presumably requisitioned, and set in an iron cage. She looked almost uncomfortable, with a large pitcher of half-melted ice water by her side. In the floor of the room, she'd lain out several pillows, and several books.
“I... Don't understand,” Fjarldt said.
“Do not mistake this for anything other than a punishment, my son,” Yundek admonished him - although the smallest, the faintest, the tiniest conspiring smile crawled across her maw. Just as quickly as he'd caught it, it was gone. “You have reading to catch up on. I am simply facilitating that.”
“You've got two copies of everything here,” Fjarldt slowly pulled the door shut. “Am I to read them all twice?”
“No – I am to read them with you,” she replied. “It has come to my attention that I need to train my patience, too.”
“I-” Fjarldt began.
“Sit,” she said, and the stern nature fell back into her voice. “Read.”
“... Yes, High Scholar,” Fjarldt bowed his head, and took a seat on one of the cushions. Yundek nodded at her son, picked up her own copy of Theories on Channelling: Volume 12, the Practical Applications of Transmutation on Crop Yield, and began to read. Fjarldt watched her, as if waiting for a trap to be sprung, and then slowly picked up his own copy and did the same.
**
As the early morning sun broke out over the cliffs of Kaerndal, Yundek looked up from her (surprisingly absorbing) read and saw her son fast asleep. The large, brass dragonborn had curled up and shut his eyes some time ago.
Wordlessly, she took out one of the fur blankets she had prepared, set it over his sleeping body, and left the study to attend her duties for the day.
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