Broken Glass - Taekook

42

Even as the main focus in the room returns to the information we've learned over the past week, the positive atmosphere within the room seems to remain. A small smile still rests on Yoongi's face when he takes up the task of explaining his findings, one that puts my heart at ease. 

First, the water elemental describes the way the golden river functions, and how Eithyrians interact with it, to remind me of the technicalities involved. It's an energy flow that exists below the earth itself, in the air around us, in every breath we take. Some Eithyrians can access that energy, and use it to create certain effects. But they must exchange energy from their own body, in order to replenish the reserves that remain there.

That very process forms a kind of current, a way for the energy to shift and change and gain new ideas and memories. Every time someone casts a spell, or uses an ability they happen to have, the river expands. Not necessarily in the geographical sense, but its identity and personality shifts. It's an odd thing, and even as Yoongi tries to explain it himself, there's a look of frustration in his eyes at not being able to word it properly either. 

Once that concept is reintroduced to me, he turns to the origin of various species, and the ways in which they interact with the golden river. 

Some creatures, he explains, are themselves made of that energy. He won't say the word, but they're made of magic. That's essentially what he implies. These are the inhabitants of the kingdom of Eithyr that are the most unpredictable, the hardest to control, the hardest to understand. They're the ones the king targeted first, and tried to bring under his influence. 

But where the river still flows, they still live, Yoongi states. They just know that they have to hide, to avoid the wrath of the king and his forces. 

Among those made of magic, there are many different types of spirit, that inhabit the wildest parts of the kingdom. Gakleas, will o' wisps, other ethereal beings, are all considered spirits. They were all originally formed where the energy of the river pooled up slightly, and their very essence is made up of it. Given consciousness by the power they were crafted by, many of them drift across the regions they were made in. Some spirits are formed when a particularly powerful individual with connections to the golden river passes onto the beyond, and offers their remaining energy to the golden river. 

Some people have a particularly affinity with these spirits: they can summon them and ask them for favours, to complete certain actions, whatever they need. These people are known as sorcerers, and they're said to be more impulsive than most creatures not directly made of magic: after all, they spend most of their time with little versions of the river itself. Chaos and energy, positive energy, in its purest form. 

And then there are the draconic beings, also made of magic. There are a number of different species in this group, closely related.  There are the dragons, which have four limbs and wings. There are wyverns, with two legs and a set of wings. Wyrms, which only have wings and resemble flying snakes. And drakes, which lack wings but have four legs just like dragons. 

In addition, there are the smaller draconic creatures, from tiny pseudodragons to humanoid creatures with draconic traits. There are those with dragons as ancestors, that share some of the wildest parts of their nature. Humans that pair with dragons, in complex pacts that allow them to have contact with the golden river, are known as warlocks. They travel in tribes across Eithyr, providing their children with dragon eggs when they turn ten, and allowing them to create their own pairing when the time is right. 

The guard that stands outside of the Shimmerstone Library has draconic heritage, Yoongi explains, which is why half of her body is covered in deep red scales. The colour has nothing to do with Karulian magic, and is instead just the shade of the dragon in her ancestry. When her family line is likely to have begun, Karulian magic probably didn't even exist, according to the history books that cover the subject.