User:Novak
| This Page has been marked as a Character Profile. |
| This page describes a character who is dead or retired from Hollow. |
Description
- Adopted Name: David Sebastjan Novak
- True Name: Isk'vrak mrith ileai'Terning vur Malakta'tiichi (sung)
- Race: Gem Dragon
- Age: Beyond count
- Home: Xalious Mountains (Specifically, he nests around the waterfall, and he's very territorial.)
Dragon Form: Height: 30 ft. at shoulder. Length: 60 ft., not including tail; 100 ft., including. Weight: 'Very Heavy!' *ahems* Scales: Prone to change. Spines: Prone to change. Eyes: Also prone to change.
Humanoid Form: Note: This appearance is not permanent. It is by an illusory magic that David adopts a new physical persona. The one below took form when he stumbled upon a newly-dead elf. Creating a new mask is not impossible. Such an activity does not, however, occupy much of his time or cognizance, simply because he is more interested in studying two-leggers than becoming one.
Most common one: Height: 6' Weight: 180 lbs. Skin: Pale Hair: Brown and curly, grown too long. Eyes: Prone to change.
- Loves:
Collecting treasure
Eating or tasting things
Being marveled at
Going on grand adventures
Admiring his treasure
Flying anywhere
Shiny things in general
Warm sunlight to loll in
Complimenting himself on his treasure
Felines
Turtles
- Likes:
Meeting new people
Preening himself
New experiences
“Borrowing” things
Observing odd two-leggers
Being sneaky
Lycans
Avians
- Neutral towards:
Vampires
Other dragons
Insects
- Dislikes:
Most humans
Some elves
Staying alone for too long
Gray, unhappy days
Being scolded
- Hates:
Dwarves
Drow
Thieves
Trespassers with suspicious intents
Dragon-killers
Feline-killers
Being insulted
Subterranean areas
Biography
I was the only to survive. My parents shared the tale only grudgingly. Their sadness was bleak despite the shining of their scales; bittersweet, it seemed the past never would free them of its claws. Ignorant humans were found wreaking havoc amongst their brood, crushing without ever once considering that they were murdering. To them, it was nothing more harrowing than slaughtering the livestock they grew fat on. I wonder if they once realised their sins before my mother's shocked roars caught their ears or my father's jaws crushed them. I do know, though, that justice was wrought; their worthless corpses were left to rot 'neath the debauched smiles of the careless sun. The cave that my parents had called their own would be abandoned, lined by cynical gold, testament of mourning tears shed over little souls lost.
At a loss and desperate, they fled the earth's surface and its treachery. They delved into a world never witnessed by most, from plunging through submerged tunnels fraught with toothy fish to slinking o'er ledges lit crimson by ponderously creeping magma, far beneath. Newfound anxiety lent strength to tired limbs, life to broken hearts, and gave them cause to destroy passages leading to the light and the greenery. They knew a dying breed's frightened anguish.
My parents had been good; love was in them for me, but then it had always been. However, I had to wonder if they had lost the ability to love again, the day they learnt to hate. It was as if they could not really see the world anymore through the scars their hearts bore or the bloody ghosts of times long past waltzing dizzily amongst shadowed fears. They would whisper to one another of demons that did not exist and of the surface world and its horrid bloodlust; they hunkered down and whittled their lives away in prejudice, starving on the occasional, hapless dwarf or drow.
Mayhap they did not realise that I heard their every word after I hatched, young as I was. Mayhap they did not comprehend that a youngling is quick to take up untested beliefs and defend them with an ever enviable valiance. All I know is that I believed their every murmur; fright and wariness flourished in me. I was old before my time, made so by the suspicion I knew too well.
It only further concreted those mad notions in my head the day my parents were slain by drow. I hid and watched as the dark creatures extracted their vengeance, and will forever remember the scene and the blood, pooling hot and thick as it did. It took me days to move from that grotto, spurred only by hunger. One could have sworn that ghosts had taken up residence, though, with the anguished cries I incessantly kept at. That was a dark time. I learnt to kill, and I learnt anger.
I was the terror of dwarves and their animals as I grew to adulthood. I knew well the power I possessed and I was aided by the flighty mindset I'd adopted from my family. I was careful enough to be nothing but a shadow amongst the tunnels they'd carved, lingering fearsomely to prey on hapless souls who wandered too near the darkness. Amusedly, I could watch as they'd mutter amongst themselves that this was the drow's fault; they believed the butchered dragons' spirits were taking revenge.
One cannot loiter too long, however, before boredom begins to thrive -- Even in me, even in my deep-rooted apprehensions. Through the millennia I wandered here and there, oft limited by the ending of a network of caverns, though never once considered venturing beyond the earth's crust. I'd amuse myself with innate magic or idly flap about a few soaring caverns; I'd even take time to frolic in the chill waters of underground lakes. The world above was nothing more than a tale, utterly unreal. Through it all, though, it never struck my fancy to lair; I was alone, and secretly my heart yearned for the companionship it may well never earn. I was left to simply roam, a soul without purpose or life.
That was, until I met Aleksandra. I'd wandered far too near the surface, following scents as tantalisingly sweet as they were terrifying, and found her there, crooning a lullaby to the gentle spring bubbling at her feet. I supposed that she was a human, though they'd never been described as being so frail and so very crinkled. Fascination made me foolish, or so I'd thought, and I crept near enough to be seen. She did, indeed, catch sight of me, and shocked me with her sudden shower of cackles and welcoming greeting.
Alas, that little creature was quite mad. However, she was kind; her nature gave me reason to stay, and her quirks always left me deliciously confused. But it was her that shattered the bias I'd clung to for so long. Apparently she thought herself to be a dwarf and had busily been hacking at the morose stone wall near her haphazardly leaning cottage; she confided to me that it was her goal to craft a home for the family she was waiting on to arrive--of which I was the first. It never once occurred to me to doubt her.
I'd sleep nearby or keep a lonely sentinel as she napped. I loved her enough to be caroused into caring for the oddly silent stone that she called a 'dog'; strange companionship, but who was I to fault her? I lusted for her conversation, senseless as it often was. Eventually, out of sheer hunger, I let her tug me towards the distant exit to her dank little cave. It was then I first caught sight of the stars (formerly all I knew was the radiance of magic or firelight). That sparked my want for knowledge and tore further at my wariness.
Soon enough it was me tugging at her to venture out, though I'd never do so alone. She'd sternly lecture the trees on military tactics as I lolled in the verdant grasses, basking in the sunlight's cheery caresses. It was there under the blue skies and amongst the lush greenery that I earned a name; it was no sudden occurrence, but rather that she'd named me and forgotten to inform me. "David," she'd said. When I enquired further, she indulged my silly forgetfulness, and amongst peals of laughter revealed its entirety: 'David Sebastjan Novak.' Her grandson, she called me, though I was unsure as to how she spawned my mother. In truth, it was not a mystery I was keen to solve. I shared her name and revelled in her company.
As the years passed, her preoccupation with her other family seemed to wane; she began to forget her own name, or mine. She'd spend long hours in confusion, not knowing why she was standing there or where she was. It tore at me to see her thus. She'd cry and grow scared--that little bear of a female who had known only peevish glee at the world--when she couldn't remember. The day she died, I knew a broken heart and a loneliness so profound that it stole my breath. My tears gilded our home, and I found I could not tolerate the memories. I left again, heart both sad and gifted by the life she'd shown me.
I slunk back the way I had come, still fearing the surface despite the wonders I'd seen there. She had been there to share it, but now she was gone, and for a time I would share her darkness. One must really congratulate the stubbornness of tunnelling dwarves (real ones, that is); they gave me access to still more areas to venture through. They gave me reason to dawdle and avoid the surface long enough to spark a war with a fledgling colony of drow, recently having abandoned their families in the Underdark.
There was nothing sweet in victory, there. They did not stop fighting, not once--their spirit could be termed valiant, if not for the twisted lust in those ruby eyes they bore. They disgusted me with their arrogance and flagrant animosity, and I confess that I killed them all. My fight had been an empty dispute over territory and had ceased as bitterly as it had started. However, to my shock, I discovered that neither myself nor the drow had any right to encroach.
She crept forward slowly, though there was no timidity in her. I'd guess she was savouring the bodies sprawled over her domain; the scent of blood was likely rapture to such a creature. She was a dragon, true, but she was so very different from me. Her scales did not glisten and were a black that I sound found to match her heart, and her eyes were as red as the drows' had been. Dargru'whedaus, she said her name was. Foul thing.
At first I shed my wariness enough to converse with her. We spoke at length of many things; her voice slid like honeyed poison in my ears and left me dizzy. It could be said that I learnt much, true, but I was left disoriented. My vision wavered and my ears roared. It was not until my body swayed that I grew angry at her affect on me, however. Then the conflict truly began.
My tale will not traverse the dark things she spoke of, nor will I linger long on my battle. She was ancient and painfully intelligent; speaking with her was a dance whose steps I fumbled with, even when a single misstep gave her opportunity to have at me. Anger saved me, in truth. It cleared my foggy mind and gave strength to trembling muscles. Her venomous hisses eventually grew still as she neared to strike, but I was ready with my heady fury.
The fight was long and arduous. I earned scars that proudly loiter 'neath my scales, that day. Magic spangled the great ceiling of the tired cavern as we clashed, and shed star-like illumination, casting eerie shadows. I credit my triumph only to her long seclusion from others of our kind. Even so, she was felled with the greatest of difficulty. I remember standing over her downed form and roaring my success; too, I remember the blood slicking everything, much of it my own. I hope never again to face something so vile as that dragon of the deep.
Recovery was slow in coming. So slow, in fact, that I bleakly began to believe that she'd left me useless and that mayhap she had won, after all. I wandered in seclusion for many years, unwilling to face further challenges or 'companionship.' I kept to the darkness and sang to myself to keep my sanity, though silence held much sway over me. It was a haunting music that the caverns crafted, what with their subtle echoes and drip-drops inspired by seeping moisture. I hear it even now, each time the earth grows quiet.
However, there eventually came a time when I was recuperated yet strangely content to grow fat on hapless fish. I very nearly stayed to die there, blithely lounging with ghosts of the past. I thought I saw Aleksandra there with me several times, marvelling at the paleness of a swimming creature or cackling at the shadows. After I tried to speak with her, though, I was suddenly struck by how very similar my behaviour was to that of my parents'; I dwelled where I had no purpose and wasted my existence.
My realisation was enough to will me into at last discarding the final slivers of my aversion to the surface world and all its many wonders. There was nothing left here but wraiths to break my heart all over again with their maddened whispers. I was not meant for this dratted isolation I had cursed myself to and I was warmed by a newfound desire: to see things before I died, at last. To really -live-. Mayhap love, again.
Despite the flame of inspiration flickering in me, I was not spurred to swiftness. It was not, after all, a wildfire raging in my heart. I was happy with the subtleness of its tugging and likely would have balked if it screamed for my action. Perhaps it was the ingrained deliberateness I'd grown used to, but I seemed loathe to change. I was patient, though.
Empty years were spent trailing through multitudes of grottos, each different from the last, as I made some attempt at finding the stars again. I grew stronger in the journey and lurkers with sense knew to avoid me, lest they fall prey to my claws and fangs. I killed, it is true, though not wantonly. I did what I must to survive, as would any other.
The first glimpse of sun left spots in my gaze. I had again grown unused to its brightness, but I could never let it alone. It fascinated me. When at last I pulled myself from the crevasse marking the exit to my millennia-long territories, I did not feel the trepidation I'd feared.
Happiness as sweet as the sun's smiles filled me. The mountains welcomed me, shining even as winter set in. The air was pure and invigorating. The winds sang a song as strikingly unique as the symphony crafted so deep beneath the earth's crust. And through it all, I felt...home.
can you see the wise man simply
living loving quietly
every breath he takes eternity
till the sun turns black
OOC Information