The Death of Iax

Summary

In the final march on Confluence, the last Vizerian stronghold on the planet, the Athocists sought to make a symbolic victory over the Vizerians. The war was a success but billions were dead, and Vizeria was going to be a useless rock at the end now, so any advantage they could try and gain was for the best. Similarly, a symbolic victory over the Vizerians would help the empire save face and boost morale. The last Vizerian Dragon, Iax, remained on the planet, but was untamed. The Vizerians were never able to ride the Storm-Monarch, and so lived alongside it. Subduing and taming the dragon would not only prove that the Athocists were capable, but that they alone could do what the renown warrior people of Vizeria could not do, confirming their self built narrative, that their culture was predestined to dominate the barbaric Vizerians.
A famed beastmaster was summoned to subdue the dragon. An owner of arcane gifts, he was able to speak directly to any animal he saw, he was charming and cunning, persuasive, as though his words were laced with elixir. He could form a mental bond to animals which bends them to his will, should his silver tongue fail him.
When Iax was near the walls of confluence, on the last night before the siege was to begin, the Dragonrider approached Iax. Nothing is known about their conversation, but within a matter of minutes Iax was airborne with the man on his back, both writhing and wrestling each other for control, as the dragon fought to remove this outsider, and the rider struggled to take control of the beast. Both the Vizerians and Athocists stopped everything to watch, the writhing storm above. Lightning forked the ground as trees were incinerated by the acre, the clouds ebbed and twisted in unnatural formations as the lightening chains warped and bent the sky around them. After only a short while of struggling, a hurricane had engulfed the area surrounding confluence, and only a few moments later, a great bolt of screaming lightning struck the duo in the sky, a font of light blinding thousands who watched intensely. When the Athocists found what remained of Iax and the dragonrider, both had been slain by the thunder.
The death of the last Vizerian dragon right outside the city walls, the refusal of the dragon to give in, and the awesome magical display was reflective of the Vizerians themselves. They drew strength from the sacrifice of Iax, and toasted to their own thunder laiden martyrdom. However, there was a sting of inevitability, the symbolic extermination of the Vizerian dragon during the purging of the planet, told the Vizerians that survival was not an option, and that the Vizerian people, as they knew themselves, would die too. None would live, the children and the dogs and the women, alongside the men, would all die in a futile act of defiance.
It is said that the lingering power of Iax lives on, as with the Vizerian people. The bright chainlinks of lightning bonding all those who watched the display for eternity, binding them to a shared destiny with shackles of light.

Historical Basis

This legend is based on the historical account of the Athocist attempt at taming the Vizerian Dragon Arch-king, the day before the athocist military marched on Confluence.
Many details of this account are based on eyeitness accounts of the event. The Vizerians saw the display with their own eyes, watching as the dragon whipped in the sky. There was a feeling of coexistence between Iax and the people, and so there was a bond of hardship forged that day.
The exact identity of the dragonrider is not widely know, but Athocist correspondance name the rider as Balotelon, tamer of the famed Dragons of the Solstream. Most dragons in the universe of Mercia are known as "Metal-Dragons", known for their mechanical construction and hints of magical power, meanwhile a few dragons, such as Iax, were Flesh-dragons, extrordinarily powerful and magical creatures, millenia old and purportedly omens of fate and destiny. Balotelon was a dragonrider for the Metal-Dragons of the Solstream, but a Vizerian dragon was rumoured to be untameable, and Balotelon had never been thrown off a dragon.

Spread

The Death of Iax remains a very obscure legend to this day. Almost all Vizerians know of the death of the Arch-king, and sing this song in secret as a tale of stalwart refusal to yield, favouring death in struggle to life in chains, their own martyrdom confirmed by the destruction of their home and the extermination of their people. 
This tale is largely unheard of outside of Vizerian circles. Athocists made an effort to suppress the story, as it negatively reflected the Athocist position on the planet, and did not assist in the creation of a symbolic victory like they had hoped for. As such, news of direct Athocist involvement in the death of a great Vizerian dragon is not well documented or known. 
However, there are some Athocists who know this tale from their first hand viewing. Some high ranking Athocists, who had delivered terms of surrender to Confluence, remained close enough to the city to watch the dance, and also retrieved the body of the dragonrider after his death. They were instructed not to discuss this outside of the highest chains of Athocist military command.

"I am not one for superstitions, but some of the witnesses claim that they keep seeing a little wisp of light sometimes, like a glowing blemish in their vision, like that fatal thunderbolt shattered and left a fragment in their eyes." - Eleonore Krúger

Date of First Recording

1660

Date of Setting

1660