Nights of Dragons and Genies: Chapter 2

The continent of Orobia, in the center of the map of Skyeria, was a rather warm climate. Certainly warmer than the northeastern continent of Odiosera, what with the desert that made up a large part of the continent. However, there were still plenty of signs of green in the Orobian desert. It was thanks to the work of the five tribes of genies--humanoid spirits that called Orobia and its sister continent Escen their home: the masters of the skies known as the djinn, the rulers of the waters the marid, the sturdy and strong earth-molders called the dao, the masters of flame called the ifrit, and the natural hearted walkers of nature called the nasna.

Awdue Beastille, a young, mid-back length, light green-haired genie of about 201 years old (with the appearance of a very tall woman in her 20s with ruby eyes), was one such nasna. She smiled as she strolled through her family's lands. The young woman's family may be minor nobles of the nasna tribe of genies, but they were very blessed with the fertile, beautiful territory that was in the central southeast of the continent, ruling over the territory of Cubes. Awdue took advantage of this by making a garden, which she finally reached on her walk.

Awdue gently knelt and grabbed a loose handful of dirt. She deeply inhaled and exhaled as she smelt the soil. Moist, loose, and well-nourished, It was still good for growing, just as she liked it. Her spring harvest did very well, if she said so, herself. But now that it was the end of the New Cachou Moon, it would turn summer, soon, and then the battle against the increased desert heat would soon begin, and she would have to keep the lands well hydrated (with some help from her older sister's borrowed spellbook from a marid friend). Luckily, she had cleared the leftover crops from her field last week, so it was time to restart the process again for the summer... her last summer crops before the final autumn push and then the winter frost, for the spring would be her social season debut, and her parents were determined to find her a match. She looked at her clothing and giggled at it.

"I forgot that I'm wearing a casual dress, again," the genie woman spoke to herself. She then pointed to her white and gray dress and motioned up and down, sending a swirl of gray magic around her. Her dress became a set of brown work robes, with a green hijab covering her head, and a set of farming tools appeared at her side. She then grabbed a tilling rake, twirled it around, and looked for where she could begin.

For the next several hours, through the afternoon, the genie worked, preparing the land. While magic certainly helped her with the process, Awdue preferred to use her own physical labor for tasks like this. It was a relaxing process, distracting her from her worries about hearing her father's issues within the nasna court. To be seen as the weakest species of genie because they required the bloodline of another genie race's element to have elemental magic, even though the ifriti throne was unoccupied since the Civil War of Brassium left the ifrits without a sultan, was something that a lot of nasna nobles took personally, and her father had to constantly be the voice of reason to stop them from starting another war. Not helping her father's case was he was a dao, having married into the line, and was seen as an outsider at court, making their family unpopular. Despite the unpopularity, though, the nasna sultana found House Beastille intriguing and considered Awdue's father a confidant.

With the fields tilled and ready, it was time to plant. This Awdue would gladly use magic for. She looked at her bags of seeds, and a green aura overtook them as they levitated in the air. Magic opened the bags, and she began floating them towards her fields and began scattering and planting them. Awdue made sure the seeds were properly buried with a wave of her hands.

"Almost done," Awdue smirked at her hard work. She then turned to walk towards the large manor that marked House Beastille's main house, spotting the bucket and the water pump that the home owned, connected to their land's oasis. She grabbed the pump's handle and began pulling up and down on it, pouring water into her bucket. "By the ancient moons, I need to hurry and learn those water spells...."

Awdue made it back down to the garden, bucket floating down behind her... only for Awdue to lose her concentration on the spell upon hearing a scream of terror, sending water splashing on the ground. She looked at a pack of spotted hyenas that had broken into the town of Cubes and were beginning to rampage, endangering the humans. They weren't the only creatures, though: jackals, giant scorpions, and even a massive snake. However, what was odd about these rampaging animals was various mutations: the hyenas, for instance, were exceptionally big with red spots rather than their usual brown. The jackals, foaming at their mouths, had their whole coats stained with the crimson color that--thankfully--wasn't the blood of her people. The scorpions had a red stinger, and the massive snake had scarlet fangs.

"...I just had a full day of work," Awdue frowned. She then cracked her neck and caused her dress to glow green once again. Gone were her work clothes, but instead, she wore a set of brown, studded leather armor over a light green top and brown leggings and sturdy brown boots, her hijab still over her head, and a long, heavy-looking, sandstone staff forming in her right hand, her left holding a scimitar.

With a small group of young human children, they were cornered by a jackal. The jackal snarled and lunged... only to meet sandstone. The jackal looked, only to be yanked and tossed by the tall genie girl.

"Are you alright?" Awdue asked.

"Lady Awdue...?" one of the terrorized humans asked the girl. Awdue smiled at her before walking in front of the girl, staff twirled in her hand as if one of her tools.

"Get yourselves to safety, little ones," she instructed. "I'll handle this for now." She quickly waved a hand over her eyes, turning them from ruby red to eagle yellow, which gave her precise vision to observe the mutated creatures. She then saw it: red crystals adorning the bodies of the creatures.

Awdue knew what the crystals meant: they were the work of one of the "destroyers". Orobia, unfortunately, was a primary target of theirs for a long time, since this was the central landmass in Skyeria. Their devastation was why their land was mostly desert. Unfortunately, as was the case for most implantations of the destroyer beings' work, it was incredibly difficult to remove the blighted sources of magic from these poor mutated creatures, if not impossible in some instances. However, the genies protected Orobia very well... which was what Awdue was going to do, returning her eyes to normal.

She then ran towards the monsters, blocking a pair of jackals with her staff, and then tossing them aside before placing her hands on the ground, wrapping the fallen jackals in rocks and dirt, burying all of them. Awdue quickly stood up, avoiding a few bite attacks from the hyenas, and used her sword to cut down a couple, only to be grabbed in the pincers of the scorpion from behind. It raised its stinger to strike at her, but she glowed bright green... and transformed into a massive, gray tusked behemoth. Her elephant transformation was obviously too much for a scorpion to hold, even a mutated giant scorpion. She quickly crushed her captor, as well as batted the hyenas aside with the trunk before returning to her normal humanoid form. She then summoned her discarded weapons back to her hand. The snake, meanwhile, took this moment to strike--

WHOOOOOOOOOOSH!

Awdue looked at the now airborne snake, spotting the source. A light blue-skinned being with a black, short goatee, and wild, matching hair, a set of brown eyes, and only a purple vest with red pants and brown boots as clothing, smirked with his small tornado. "Got it!"

"Oh, Muazi!" Awdue breathed, looking at her father's apprentice. "Um... okay, thanks for the help, but...." She watched her hair and clothes ruffle at the wind, and looked back towards her home, seeing the trees sway. Not only would the town be damaged by the tornado being dispersed, but her garden would be damaged. She wasn't about to have that! "We might want to be careful putting it down with that spell. I just got everything in my garden planted, so dispersing your wind spell this close to Cubes may risk undoing HOURS of work, so...."

"I can't just carry a giant rattlesnake, mutated by the minions of the Baroness of Monsters Quiennelis, through the desert without a magic carpet!" Muazi commented.

"And you didn't summon yours before you came here and cast a wind spell that you need to concentrate, because...?"

"...I realize the folly of not doing that," the djinn confessed.

"No kidding!" Awdue complained. She then turned to the ground, and channeled her dao blood, punching the ground, and summoning a stone wall between the outskirts of the town, and Muazi's storm.

"Think you can hold that?" Muazi asked.

"Not... without... holding... still!" Awdue said through gritted teeth. "Can't... make sure... blighted creatures... are dealt with! Humans... still... in trouble!"

"Oh for the Creators' sake," a third voice commented. All of the sudden, the weight of the spell felt lighter. An older genie woman with equally green hair as Awdue stepped next to her. She wore a brown and green bedlah, baring her smooth midriff, bright red eyes just like her sister, and had a bright green emerald on her forehead, her green hair in a short ponytail. "You strain yourself, little sister."

"Ish," Awdue beamed at her sister.

"Your earth magic still isn't as strong as father's," her sister noted. "Well, neither is mine, but I've gotten a better hang of it."

"Is that what you call this, Ishtar?" another female voice asked. The trio looked at a female with reddish skin, long white hair in a pair of pigtails, and blue eyes, wearing a white tube top and black harem pants standing at the top of the sisters' barricade. Her hands each erupted a small blaze. "You nasnas can only pretend to have control of elemental magic. But this... this is what it means to be a TRUE elemental!" She then placed both of her hands together and unleashed a torrent of flames that engulfed the tornado, rising, and burning the snake to ash.

"Sizah...." Muazi said, dropping the now deoxygenized tornado, causing the fire to fall to the desert. "You didn't have to come out here."

"Please," Sizah smirked, hopping off the wall while Ishtar and Awdue lowered it. "I can't help but follow you, Muazi. Your power fuels mine... and when I achieve my ambitions, you'll be beside me."

"Um, Muazi, Sizah..." Awdue interjected, looking at the new wildfire coming towards Cubes. "Might you guys be interested in helping stop that?"

"I've got it," a male voice interjected. A torrent of water rushed out and slammed into the fire Sizah created. A green-skinned young man with gills, a handsome face, and wearing only brown pants and sandals walked over. "Earth, wind, fire, and now water. Young genies like us gathering together... must be the sultans' work to cause such a gathering, and it's barely summer here."

"We're nasna," Ishtar said, pointing to herself and Awdue.

"And yet, you have a dao father," the marid pointed out.

"Hey, can you bring that water spell to my garden, Jenukosh?" Awdue interrupted. "Sorry, these monsters attacked right before I can water my babies!"

"Gardening?" Sizah asked. "Is that seriously what you do in your spare time, little nasna?" With a small giggle, she mused, "Do you seriously think that you're going to find a match this coming social season with a talent like that?" Awdue frowned at the teasing, which gave Sizah an opening. "It's cute that you think you're going to win someone's eye with a few flowers or a quick meal, but you lack talent. In this fight, you needed back-up over a few monsters. Back when I was your age and not apprenticed to someone, well... this display was weak in comparison. I fought in and survived the Brassium War while you were here playing with school children. You're not going to survive the social season, nasna. Genie nobles aren't the type to be gentle during those times."

"Hey, leave my little sister alone, ifrit!" Ishtar frowned, getting between Sizah and Awdue. "So what if Awdue likes gardening? At least she's trying to contribute to the humanoids we're supposed to be protecting! Furthermore, not everyone likes a brute! You ifrits may value the strength of body, but we nasna are strong of heart!"

"And what's your success story, half-breed?" Sizah countered. Ishtar growled at that remark. "Oh, right... you're still single, aren't you? Your social season debut was a failure... not a single proposal or a talent beyond your high intelligence that I match and more, and even though you have skill with various elemental magic apart from your father's type, it's... limited. That still didn't get you a single match, and your parents are worse off since I'm marrying Muazi instead of you." Ishtar's eyes turned fiercer at the remark. "And I don't know how much they can rely on your little sister who has so little to give a suitor... all she can do is grow plants to get these weak humans something to eat. It's actually cute, but she's not as strong as the other genies of her year. All she is, in the end, is a nasna, the weak race, and a pathetic farmer who pretends to the role of a noble! And you're the scholarly scribe who set a poor example on how to survive at court for her. Face it, your little house is done, once your sister is presented at the Grand Council of Orobia that begins the social season the next Waning Lampras Moon."

Ishtar snarled, and a pair of leathery wings appeared on her back, and a pair of spells floating in her hand: a water spell and an earth spell. "You will take that back, you infernal, war-obsessed, racist hag!"

"Hag!?" Sizah gasped. She then summoned a massive fire spell. "You better NOT be talking about my hair color! You're just as old as I am, at 254!"

"Girls," Muazi interjected.

"Okay, that's enough," Jenukosh interjected, summoning a torrent of water, and pushing Sizah and Ishtar back from each other, getting them both wet. Both female genies glared at the marid, who said, "I came here to deliver a message to Muazi and Bomaa... but seeing as he's not here, his heir will have to take the message instead."

"Oh, right, Mommy and Daddy not here, today," Awdue said, casting a spell at her sister and Sizah to dry them both off and clean their clothes. She then cast a spell at herself, turning it back to her work clothes. "So, Jenukosh, what is the message?"

"Your father and Muazi are being asked to come to a meeting between the djinn, nasna, and dao sultans," the marid answered. "Not sure why they couldn't have just used the astral plates for that, but as a mediator, they insist on a physical delivery of the message."

"Looks like my hands are going to be full," Muazi said. He grabbed Sizah and hoisted her over his shoulder.

"Hey, I can walk!" the ifrit protested, but Muazi snapped his free left hand, which caused a green and black rug to appear into existence, floating into the sky. Muazi climbed onto it.

"Ishtar, are you coming to inform your father?" Muazi asked.

"...Very well," Ishtar said. "Little sister, I'm sorry to leave you to clean up by yourself, but...."

"It's alright," Awdue frowned, looking at Cubes. "Say 'hi' to Mom and Dad for me, will you?" Ishtar nodded and hugged her little sister from behind.

"You're going to do fine when it's your turn," the older nasna promised. "Just be you." She then let go of Awdue and went to get onto Muazi's magic carpet, flying away.

"You ought to be glad for your youth," Jenukosh remarked. "Getting involved in genie politics is far from ideal. Your father is a brave dao for marrying into the nasna. Not something many would have done, preferring to find a match of their own kind."

"And yet, Sizah and Muazi are a couple, because Muazi is the only person who can keep her in check since she lost her family," Awdue noticed. She looked at the people of Cubes, who were all relieved to be alive and celebrating their safety. "Humanoids... how many of these people lost their loved ones to the war between the Creators and the Destroyers? What did the Destroyers have against Skyeria's existence? And why did the humanoids choose to come to genies for their protection? We may have been the first race to master magic, but thanks to the blessings of Lampras, but we're not the only, near godlike race on this world."

"What race are you referring to?" Jenukosh asked. "The gigas? I thought the gigas haven't been seen since Violarios went into isolation, and the ones in Lakerest gave their lives to protect it."

"I was talking about the creatures made in the image of Scalieon, actually," Awdue answered. "The dragons."

"I haven't seen those since one caused the Brassium Civil War," Jenukosh scoffed. "Escen has been keeping them out of Orobia."

"Do you think there are other locations that have dragons?"

"Most likely, but none that I've ever seen," the marid answered. "Now... what was that about your garden?"

"Oh, right, the water," Awdue asked. Jenukosh raised an eyebrow. Awdue made herself glow one more time, this time transforming into a brown wolf, and giving a pair of sad-looking eyes. "Please, Jenukosh? It's going to take forever to get back up to the pump and get the bucket full and haul it back to my garden, and if I trip, I'll have to start all over again!"

"...I require compensation."

"That's totally fine!" Awdue returned to her humanoid form, and eagerly headed to her family's manor, and Jenukosh sighed.

"She's lucky her father and I are friends," he commented.

An hour later, Awdue looked at her garden, freshly watered, as the night sky began to shine. She glanced at the green moon in the sky, in its waxing crescent phase, as well as the waxing purple and orange moons not as close to the world. She then clasped her hands together, transforming her work clothing into a bright green nightgown. She would need it once this final spell was cast.

"Lampras... Cachou... Scalieon... we thank you three for your sacrifice," Awdue prayed, the dress fluttering in the wind as she focused her magic. "You created our world... you protected our people in our infancy... you fought off the Destroyers... and you gave up your opportunity to live among us to seal them away in the moons. But before you did... you made our races to continue your duty as defenders. Since I'm not as strong as many genies around me... I will do my best to continue your legacy as creators and providers." She then unleashed a pulse of magic... and the garden began to sprout plants. She sighed, kneeling. She pushed herself up, and turned to her manor. "And what better thing to provide... than something to keep people in Orobia lively and thriving? And that... is blessed fields for their crops, despite the desert lands."

Awdue turned to her home and began her quiet walk. Once inside, Awdue spotted the family picture. She was young, about 147, wearing a teal and white bedlah with wolf's fur on the sides, while her sister was 200, preparing for her own social debut, wearing a white and blue dress. Standing on either side of the sitting girls were their parents. The woman was a dark brown-haired woman with a similar face to her daughters wearing a furred cape over her bright green dress. Their father, meanwhile, wore a red and brown outfit, and had darker skin than either of the women and had their red eyes.

Awdue looked at the empty house, depressed. With the increase of blighted creatures in Orobia, her parents were probably going to be needed by the sultans more than ever, and they'd be counting on her to keep the peace. And with them so busy, Ishtar out to redeem herself for her failure, and she couldn't even spend time with Muazi, all she had were the people of Cubes, who would probably be hoping for their guardian's happiness. While she didn't have to worry for about nine months, she still couldn't help but worry about the pressure.

As Awdue laid on her bed, she wondered, "Will I be able to make everyone proud of me...?"