Part 1: Exile
The great dream wyrm Tavrethral the Eternal scowled down at the scraggly shivering creature that his niece Zyneslava had presented to him. Well into his second millennium, Tavrethral considered his five-hundred year young niece both selfish and impetuous. How dare she bring such a wretch of an offspring to him for ceremonial blessing. He twitched his silvery crown of frills in annoyance, and tisked.
“What is it?” He asked.
“He is my son, and thus your nephew.” She snipped back. Her scales rippled in agitation. She composed herself poorly before continuing, barely civil, “We’ve come for your blessing, great Tavrethral, Weaver of Dreams.”
Her words reeked of insincerity. Zyneslava never could act with the decorum, or show the respect to, her elders that they deserved. She envied their power, and coveted the social status their blessings could bestow, yet she couldn’t be bothered to earn it. She believed she was entitled, because of the closeness of her blood ties to Tavrethral.
Tavrethral huffed, and thwapped his tail-tip across the quivering dragon-pup at his feet. “It is sickly. And discolored.” He said testily, “Why are its scales so tarnished? You know that consorting with the lesser dragons is frowned upon.”
“Glazernezzeroth is but a four-year-old wyrmling, and his blood is as pure as mine, uncle.” Zyneslava defended herself testily. “Perhaps look to your own dalliances across the eons for an explanation.”
In a rush of sparking scales, Tavrethral arched himself high, looming tall above the other two. The dreamscape enfolding their particular pocket of the Dimension of Dreams, deep within Tavrethral’s throne room swirled and clouded and flickered angrily.
“Perhaps you,” Tavrethral snapped his jaws loudly, “Should. Learn. Some. Humility.” Lightning thrashed across the throne room’s upper atmosphere, and thunder clapped, loud enough to send even the ears of dragons ringing. “It… is a wretch of a creature, and far too young to receive the gift of a Blessing. And you… overestimate your value to the Tangle. It’s time you learn your place.”
Mother and son groveled upon the throne room floor. Zyneslava finally understanding how far she had overstepped herself, “I’m sorry, your Greatness! Please, please, forgive…”
“Silence! Not one more insolent word! Hear is my blessing, Zyneslava, and heed my words well! I hereby banish you for 100 years within the Maze of Dreams, to ponder, and hopefully rectify, your brash, selfish, petty ways. Seek humility and pray for forgiveness. The elders of the Tangle shall visit your dreams and teach you the error of your ways. As for this mongrel pup you’ve so brazenly thrust before me, let him spend a century in banishment as well.” Tavrethral then addressed the wyrmling directly. “You I shall cast into the Prime Material Plane, Glazernezzeroth. Survive there, if you can. Although I don’t expect too much considering who your mother is, I’ll give you this one chance to grow wise and strong and prove your worth to your Tangle. A little hint, selfish pride and greed are not good traits to foster. You are not entitled to status, to wealth, to power, or to respect. You must earn it. Can you grow beyond the follies of your mother? We shall see…”
Part 2: The Questing Monk
When Glazernezzeroth was adopted by the oriental monks of the Veiled Moon Temple, he chose a human name to remind himself to stay humble: Hún Dàn (translated from one dialect to mean wretch, dog, or scoundrel. Yet, his Sifu Timba, disliking the negativity inherent in the choice, declared that he would instead translate it from a similar yet alternate dialect from which the same words meant seamless).
Hún Dàn awoke from meditation with a gasp. He blinked away the last vestiges of a terrible vision, one that had invaded his dreams for quite a while, and now had begun to invade his meditations as well.
An infinitely huge draconic nightmare consumed everything around him, everything that he knew and loved; and of a single brilliant beacon in the darkness offering salvation — that of an onyx-scaled, magma-oozing beauty of a dragon, a wyrmling like himself. The dream promised destruction or salvation, balanced upon the razor’s edge of a dragon’s talon, teetering back and forth across the planes and the branching threads of time, he and she allies yet strangers…
Hún Dàn sat crosslegged, panting for breath, within the main meditation chamber of the Temple of the Veiled Moon. Moonlight washed across his tanned, shaved head, and he squeezed his eyes tightly shut trying to blot out the nightmare.
All around him, fellow monks sat in meditation with legs crossed and palms upturned, maintaining the Moon Lotus position. Across the way, Sifu Timba rang the massive mantra bowl once again. Hún Dàn struggled to compose himself. He calmed his heart rate. He slowed his breathing. And he wiped the sleeve of his robe across his sweating brow. Why was he sweating?
Nobody seemed to have noticed his agitation. He settled himself, and tried to regain some modicum of peace within himself. But after a few moments he decided it was in vain, so he stood up, adjusted his robes, and padded quietly towards the chamber exit. Sifu Timba opened one eye to peer at him with concern as he walked past, but all he could do was shrug sheepishly.
Hún Dàn wandered down several corridors open to the warm night air until he reached the Clepsydra Pools. He strode quickly down into the icy depths of the Temporal Freeze and worked on letting go of the world around himself. After nearly a year as a student at the monastery, he could sit immersed for a quarter hour with nary a tremble or shiver. Some, like his sponsor Sifu Timba, could endure the chill waters for hours without ill effect. It is more than a mastery of mind-over-matter, Sifu Timba often spoke, one strives to achieve mind-over-time. If an hour can be experienced as but a single moment in time… what could one achieve in a lifetime?
Hún Dàn felt his chin begin to quiver. And then his abdomen twitched, and twitched again. He exhaled a final breath ever so slowly, and then climbed from the pool. Sixteen minutes, he thought to himself as he glanced at the room’s moon-dial. A new record. He let the pride flutter briefly in his breast as he strode quickly across to the heated Temporal Quickening pool, and then stamped it out. Pride was dangerous, and of no worth, he reminded himself. Better to remain humble. There is always more that can be learned, that can be achieve. He slumped down into the soothing bathwater and let the hot soak relax and revitalize him.
The moon was beginning to set, which meant it was soon time for rest. Hún Dàn stood and toweled himself off and gathered his robes. He nodded in passing to a some of the si hing and si jei— his older brother and sister students—who had joined him at the Clepsydra Pools as the evening progressed. Although he had been training here for one year, he was the youngest to-dai of the Temple of the Veiled Moon. Apparently they rarely took on new members.
Sifu Timba joined him as he was walking towards his sleeping chamber, a bare and tiny stone cell with a reed sleeping mat, just large enough for a single person to sleep within. “Your nightmares disturb your aura, to-dai. You’ve made the right choice, fear not. Although we will miss you, Hún Dàn.” Sifu Timba said softly.
“Miss me, Sifu?” Hún Dàn was jostled out of his quiet contemplation.
“I’ve had glimpses of your journey for many weeks. The road will be arduous, but I think you’ll thrive if you keep your head about you.”
Sifu Timba spoke as if Hún Dàn had already discussed leaving with him. But such a thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. Had it? As was often the case when talking with Sifu Timba, Hún Dàn paused to carefully consider his own inner thoughts and emotions. He had learned early on that Sifu Timba seem to know more about him than he did about himself. As a master of both the Riven Hourglass and Veiled Moon disciplines, Sifu Timba often spoke in riddles of time and space, as if his very consciousness existed in many places and many times, besides the present moment and location in which everyone else resided. It made conversations… frustrating, to say the least, because Hún Dàn could never tell if he was speaking of the past, present, or future. Sifu Timba himself didn’t seem to keep it straight very well himself, either, yet he never seemed much concerned with the whens or wheres of his insights. Hún Dàn had learned to simply go with the flow, to trust that it would all wash out properly eventually.
“I’ll miss you… too?” Hún Dàn hedged. But even as those words escaped his lips, he knew it was true. He was leaving. And not likely to return for quite a while. “Where will I go?”
“Oh, you know, hither and yon. You’ll need to find her soon though. Or have you found her already? Time is a weird soup, and I can’t be certain. The adventurers killed her when you didn’t find her in time, on account of those cows she keeps eating. I never got to say goodbye to you when you left in the morning, so I thought it’d be nice to say goodbye now. Keep the journal with you, as you’ll be able to talk to us that way at least once a day although we didn’t answer every single time. And keep training, practice your katas and your meditations every day. Enlightenment has reached you, I promise. Unless you’re dead. There’s at least one thread, maybe three? Where you’ve gone and died even though I warned you not to. Sleep well!”
And then Sifu Timba tottered off. Hún Dàn was left scratching his chin. When he stepped into his chamber, he found a travel pack full of basic supplies, a rough map of the surrounding lands, a magical gift, and an enchanted journal with instructions on how to leave not only journal entries but also maintain communications with the Temple of the Veiled Moon by written messages that could be shared between the journal’s partner book.
