Admittedly, I am a very irresponsible writer, so I am open to criticism, but writing fanfiction is truly difficult because there are established rules in that world. Trying to write something consistent, logical, and new within these established rules is, in my opinion, very hard. But building a new world isn't that difficult. To explain with a metaphor: in fanfiction, you have a pre-painted canvas in front of you and you have to paint accordingly, whereas in worldbuilding, it's not like that. The canvas is blank, and no one can ask why you painted that spot that color.
Anyway, I talked with my friend a lot today, which is why I'm writing such random things. Oh, while I'm at it, I experienced something similar to the incident in this chapter, and my friend who is the inspiration for Vaelar is the main character of this event. It goes like this: my friend owed me 30 TL. While walking down the street, I saw a girl who wanted corn, so I told him, "Don't pay me back, go buy the girl corn with that money," and he agreed. But the corn was 50 TL, so he paid the remaining 20 TL out of his own pocket. For two months, without exception, every time we talked on the phone or met up, he called me a thief and kept asking me for the 20 TL. Then he eventually forgot about it, and the matter was closed.
The friend who inspired Darion is also a strange one; he constantly talks about culture this, philosophy that, and absolutely drives people crazy. This guy was also staying in a university dorm, but instead of staying in his own dorm room, he slept in the minus-second-floor storage room for a year just for fun. Well, the actions of a strange man are strange as well.
.............
The sky, in the final moments of that staggering evening crimson, was witnessing an epic slaughter far beyond an ordinary sunset. The fresh blood left over from the great, bloody battle fought at the very peak of the heavens by the Armies of Day and Night had poured over the clouds, painting the entire horizon in a searing red. With the absolute victory of the Army of Darkness, which had routed the Army of Day, the air began to darken slightly from above, and the shadow of night began to swallow the earth. It was right in the middle of this divine crimson, resembling a sea of blood, that the massive wingbeats of three white dragons, carrying humans in iron cages on their backs and in their talons, echoed like a whip across the wild forest below.
As the dragons glided through this bloody crimson of the sky, every muscle in the bodies of the three brothers upon them spasmed, crying out in pain. The relentless cold of the flight, combined with a leaden exhaustion, had collapsed onto their shoulders. It wasn't easy; right before this journey, thinking it necessary to establish a defensive line at the camp, they had spent hours felling massive trees in the wild forest, swinging axes, and carrying logs weighing hundreds of pounds with their own hands. Darion's and Vaelar's hands had blistered because they gripped the axe handles disproportionately while swinging them to chop wood, and the muscles in their backs still ached from carrying timber. For the first time in his life, Vaelar, as a dragon lord, was in the sky with that heavy physical collapse brought on by working like a common laborer, and with every jolt of pain in the saddle at each wingbeat, he couldn't help but curse Vaegon. Feeling the air begin to grow colder, the two brothers huddled closer to their dragons. The heat radiating from the dragons' skin, combined with the fatigue of carrying wood, had made the two brothers drowsy. Only the occasional cold wind and the sound of their dragons' wings prevented them from falling asleep.
Vaegon, despite his aching shoulders, tried to stand upright on Anogrion's back, his eyes locked on the blood-red light reflecting off the white scales. Beyond this eerie color, his mind was digging into a foreign and hazy memory from the depths of his soul. With his current self, he had never been to Moran; he didn't have the slightest current information about its present state, its walls, or its governance. His only memory regarding Daenys was that he had gotten bored of his father's hunting party, fled to Volantis, and then gone to Dragonstone to find Daenys. He had to tread carefully, or else he might not be able to enjoy the second life given to him. Even though Vaegon thought about these things in his mind, he couldn't stop his eyelids from growing heavy. He slowly rested his head on Anogrion's warm back and closed his eyes.
Meters behind, Vaelar was no longer cursing; he was trying to keep his eyelids open. The only thing keeping him awake was the pain in his entire body from the trees he had carried on his back today. He couldn't comprehend it—it had only been three or four days since they arrived in this world, and these bodies hadn't moved for over two hundred years, so how could Vaegon work this much? As for food, they had both eaten a breakfast rich in horse and wolf meat. Thinking of food made Vaelar's stomach growl. Vaelar then remembered they had only eaten breakfast that day. Vaegon was unaware because he was currently asleep, but since Vaelar was standing there with an empty stomach, he was inventing previously unknown curses to hurl at him. For example, one of his polite forms of address was, "Do all this shit but no food, huh. You white-haired bastard whose head sprouts straw instead of hair, whose stomach is a cesspit."
In the very back, Darion, gliding on Vendieron's back, was directing his anger at Vaegon just like Vaelar. The reason for his anger was neither hunger nor exhaustion. He was almost unaware of those two feelings; it was simply that his axe—an exquisite masterpiece that was hard to buy even with chests of gold that hundreds of people would die for—had been used to chop wood. It was like using a golden shovel to pick up a pile of shit. And this golden shovel being used was his, while the thrown shit was Vaegon's. Vaegon should pick up his own shit; why should he use his artwork, that crude man who understood nothing of art? Darion finally decided to sleep because the more he thought, the angrier he got, and the angrier he got, the more he thought; he had entered a paradox. But he could no longer command his eyelids. Finally, pressing that "defiled masterpiece," his unique battleaxe, to his chest, Darion nestled between Vendieron's scales and surrendered to the darkness of sleep.
The crimson in the sky had given way to a pitch-black night filled with stars and freezing cold. The wind at that high altitude no longer just blew; it pierced their bodies like invisible blades of ice. The clothes on the three brothers were nothing but thin, worn-out fabrics meant to cover bodies that had awoken from a two-hundred-year sleep. They had neither thick furs to cut the cold nor any other clothing. This freezing frost froze every muscle in their bodies, exhausted from carrying wood all day, and made their bones ache. Vaegon had lost himself in the numbing arms of sleep, taking refuge as much as possible in the fierce heat radiating from Anogrion's scales. However, the thing that broke this silence and drowsiness was neither the howl of the wind nor a sudden maneuver by his dragon. From below, exactly from the cage held in Anogrion's massive talons, piercing screams that overpowered even the wind shattered the night.
"MY LORD!"
"MY LORD!"
"WE BEG YOU, PUT US DOWN!"
"WE ARE FREEZING, MY LORD!"
"MY LORD! FOR THE LOVE OF THE GODS, WE BEG YOU, PUT US DOWN!"
Vaegon started and opened his eyes wide. As the cold air hit his face like a slap, he only then realized that his body under his thin clothes was freezing and his teeth were chattering. As he tried to sit up through the grogginess of sleep, the screams from below grew even louder. Those screaming were the people trapped in the iron cage in Anogrion's talons. When Vaegon listened closely, similar shouts were coming not only from his but also from Darion's cage.
These voices, mingling with the tearing howl of the wind, cried out that the flesh of the mortals suspended in the air was freezing solid, and that they were on the verge of losing their minds.
"It's so cold, I'm freezing," Vaegon muttered, barely parting his frozen lips in the wind.
These relentless screams created such a tear in the pitch-black darkness of the sky that, meters behind, Darion, who had dozed off hugging his sacred axe, and Vaelar, who was dozing while grinding his teeth in anger, simultaneously jolted in their saddles.
Vaegon's hands were trembling from the cold. He managed to move his hands with great difficulty and placed them on Anogrion's warm back.
"Anogrion," he said, his voice barely audible in the wind. "Descend. Now."
The dragon turned his head slightly, tucked his wings slightly, and began to glide downwards. As he glided down, he let out a roar like thunder, as if announcing his arrival.
"What the hell is going on?!" Vaelar roared, completely waking up as the freezing wind whipped his face. The hunger pangs in his stomach merged with the panic created by the screams coming from below.
As Vaelar's shout echoed in the night, Aeloris beneath him also let out a restless grunt. The iron cage in his talons swung more violently as they began to descend, and the chests filled with coins and other supplies inside tossed from side to side.
"Damn it! Straw-head, if I lose my gold because of you, I'll sell you!" Vaelar roared.
Right at that moment, a massive cracking sound broke out with a violent jerk of the chains. One of the chests, unable to withstand the pressure, burst open, and hundreds of gold coins inside scattered into the void. Plummeting vertically downward at breakneck speed, Vaelar could do nothing but watch his sacred gold shining yellow in the falling moonlight and curse after them. "Oh no, my money... Vaegon, you are going to pay dearly for this!" he thought to himself, grinding his teeth so hard he almost broke them.
In the far back, Darion, awakened from his sleep by a violent jolt, practically nailed himself to his seat by reflex to avoid dropping the axe he had pressed to his chest. When he looked towards the sounds coming from below, he began to see human silhouettes huddled together. Women, children, the elderly... All of them were trembling, their teeth chattering, their lips purple. Some couldn't stand and had collapsed to the floor. Some continued to scream while shivering. Raising his head and seeing that Vaelar was also following Vaegon and initiating a descent, he quickly began to descend as well.
The freezing frost wrapping his body had rapidly given way to increasing pressure and the deafening whistle of the wind. They were falling downward so fast that Darion felt his stomach leap into his throat. "You idiot!" he shouted toward Vaegon, but his voice was swallowed in the wind tunnel created by Anogrion.
Vaegon, however, only looked ahead. The numbness in his eyelids had vanished, replaced by that relentless focus brought on by the survival instinct. As Anogrion descended, the ground slowly began to appear. As he got closer, Vaegon saw that most of the terrain was plains. He guided Anogrion towards a lightly forested hill. Under his master's guidance, Anogrion glided over the lightly wooded hill. Before fully reaching the hill, the massive dragon flapped his wings hard to cut his speed and dropped the heavy iron cage in his talons, dragging it through the soil like an anchor to slow down. When the iron cage plowed through the mud and came to a stop with a heavy thud, the agonizing groans of the people inside were heard; the impact had rattled their bones, but they had survived. Immediately after, Anogrion himself landed on the hill with his massive talons. As his colossal weight and thrashing tail knocked down and crushed several centuries-old trees like matchsticks, a terrifying noise echoed into the forest.
Seeing their leader land safely, Aeloris and Vendieron also rapidly descended, landing on the other slopes of the hill, behind the cover the trees and darkness offered them. When the violent storm created by the three white monsters subsided, all that remained in the air was the cracking of broken branches, the hiss of the fierce steam coming from the dragons' snouts, and the trembling groans from the cages.
Vaegon slowly slid down Anogrion's neck. His shivering body had started to warm up as it rubbed against Anogrion's warm scales. When his feet touched the damp, cold earth, he took a deep breath to shake off the numbness in his knees. It was pitch black all around, but the faint light of the stars in the sky was enough for them.
Just to his right, Vaelar appeared, trampling over the broken branches. He was practically rabid with anger; the muscles under his thin clothes were twitching with rage. "You straw-headed thief!" Vaelar roared, marching toward Vaegon. "My gold! My gold fell because of you! One of the chests opened! We scattered half my money into the forest because of your damn haste! Give me my money back, thief!"
Vaegon's eye twitched more with every sentence. "Vaelar, calm down, calm down. What does it matter if one chest of gold spilled? There are dozens more chests. Besides, we have a long road ahead of us. You'll earn more than you lost, brother."
"No, I don't accept it. Go tell this fairy tale to children, you caused my money to be lost. You have to give my money back. You owe me," he said, while from behind Darion angrily struck his axe into one of the logs on the ground and added, "Exactly, you owe me too, Vaegon, I have a share in that money as well. You have to give me as much money as you gave Vaelar."
Vaegon was initially surprised by his brothers' outburst until he remembered how money-hungry Vaelar was in his previous life. Darion, on the other hand, didn't really deal with money; he preferred engaging in frivolous pursuits like art. But if you pushed him even a little, he would look for the time and reason to bite you like a rabid dog. Vaegon closed his eyes and shook his head. When he opened them and saw Vaelar's face as red as a tomato out of anger for losing money, he burst into laughter.
Vaegon's sudden laughter surprised the two brothers. Vaelar shouted angrily, "You stole my money and you're still laughing, you filthy dog!" Darion, meanwhile, looked weirdly at the laughing Vaegon, trying to understand why he was amused.
"I'm talking to you, give me my money back, you thief!"
Vaegon stopped laughing and took a deep breath, shivering involuntarily as he drew the ice-cold air into his lungs. Still smiling, he said, "Vaelar, it's not my fault. It's all your fault, if you had stayed put properly, these coins would never have gone. Now you're asking me for money, you brazen ass, go graze on the other side."
"What do you mean it's my fault, if you hadn't brought us down abruptly, none of this would have happened. Either give me my money or give me my money, you thief, you have no other choice."
"Exactly, I agree with Vaelar, give us our money, Vaegon. What kind of older brother are you, trying to usurp your younger brothers' money?"
Seeing that the two of them were united, Vaegon sighed, realizing he wouldn't be able to leave here today without being robbed by his brothers. "Alright, alright, I'll give you your money, just please behave properly, we still have to go check on our people."
Vaelar's eyes sparkled. "So you admit you stole money from us, you thief. Thief, you will pay your debt to us immediately."
Vaegon shook his head wearily. "Vaelar, stop calling me a thief. If I say I'll pay it, I'll pay it, but not now, we don't even have a proper house yet," he said, pointing around.
"I don't care if there's a house or not, I want my money now. You thief, you will give us our money back right now."
"Exactly Vaelar, but we are not like him. We don't treat our brothers unfairly. Therefore, let's calculate the money he will pay us."
Vaegon's left eye was twitching as he looked at his two talking brothers. "What calculation, don't you two asses trust my word?"
Without listening to him, Vaelar started counting on his fingers with a serious expression, "There must have been at least 10 thousand gold claws in the chest that fell, since you are our brother and have a share in this chest, your debt to us should be 9,999 gold claws. Plus, there is a labor fee. I carried wood, and Darion chopped it. My back still aches."
"My arms still ache too, my palms are throbbing."
"Thank you, Darion. Anyway, back to the calculation. So, since we are noble dragon lords, our labor rate is higher than others. That's why it's 5,000 gold claws per person per day, total 10 thousand gold claws. Plus psychological violence..."
"What fucking psychological violence, when did I ever inflict violence on you?"
"Don't interrupt me, Vaegon. You threatened us with Anogrion. We genuinely experienced the fear of death, which is why I was having nightmares while sleeping. That has a price too. At least 15 thousand gold claws per person. So a total of 49,999 gold claws. You are our brother, so let's round it up to 50 thousand to make it even."
"Fuck off, if I sold your liver it wouldn't fetch 5 gold claws, and you come here asking me for 50 thousand, did you see I was alone and thought I was an easy mark!" Vaegon said, drawing his sword.
Darion, resting his axe on his shoulder, chimed in with a slightly philosophical tone, "Vaelar is right. Labor is a person's time. And time is life. We gave you one day of our lives. No matter what you do, you won't be able to give that day back to us. Therefore, a labor fee is a most natural right. Furthermore, you made me use my Star's Doom to chop wood. That axe is not an axe, it is a masterpiece. It's like using a golden shovel to pick up a pile of shit. This requires a separate compensation."
"Yes, yes, there is also that. This axe, I mean, the masterpiece is... worth enough to arm four armies. If you add its rarity, eight armies. Pay us all this immediately, or you can choose to pay later with a 10 percent weekly interest."
"Walk away, do you think you found a goose to pluck? If I give you more than a thousand gold claws, my name isn't Vaegon, I'll be the plucked goose. And they call us brothers, you two bloodsucking bats, you don't actually need dragons, if you had two sharp fangs you'd suck the blood of the whole world." Vaegon was waving his sword threateningly with his every word. Just as the brothers were about to argue some more, Vaelar's stomach growled.
Vaelar's stomach growled so loudly that all three brothers suddenly fell silent. The sound echoed like a roar in the night's silence. Vaelar's face went from being red with anger to red with embarrassment.
Vaegon lowered his sword, his eyebrows raised. "What was that? Which donkey brayed?"
Vaelar grunted, clutching his stomach. "It's because of you, thief, today you stole both my money and my food. And now you're making fun of me, you shameless thief."
Seeing that Vaelar was still calling him a thief, Vaegon was about to shout in anger, but Darion intervened.
"Enough Vaelar, there's no need to anger Vaegon any further. Actually, hunger is also an art. The emptiness of the body seeks the fullness of the soul. This is a contrast—"
"Darion, shut up man!" shouted Vaelar. "I'm hungry, do you understand me, I'm hungry, hungry, hungry! I have no energy for philosophy right now! Either bring me food or shut up."
Upon being rebuffed by Vaelar, Darion nodded, saying "Hmm," and stopped talking.
Vaegon sheathed his sword and took a deep breath. "Alright. Agreed. First, let's feed you. Then we'll talk."
"What?" shouted Vaelar. "Give me my money first! You think you're going to make me forget your debt, you smartass, but I won't fall for these tricks. Give me my money."
Vaegon shook his head. "Vaelar, your stomach is growling so much that at the next growl, the people we brought will think you're a donkey and shoot you, and then we'll have to deal with your dragon. Let's go get some food and then we can sit down and talk properly, right Darion?"
Darion continued in his philosophical tone: "Hunger weakens a person. A weakened person cannot make the right decisions. Perhaps that is why Vaelar is so angry. Hunger clouds his judgment—"
"Darion!" shouted Vaelar.
Vaelar was about to object, but his stomach growled once more.
"Enough!" cut in Vaegon. "Both of you, cut it out. We are going to where the camp is now. We'll eat, and then we'll discuss what to do. Understood?"
Vaelar wanted to say something but his stomach growled again. He gave up. "Fine... but don't forget my money! The interest is accumulating!"
Darion attached his axe to his waist. "Hunger is actually of two kinds. One is the hunger of the body, which passes when you eat. The other is the hunger in the eye, and in this case, no matter what you take or what you are given, you cannot satisfy your hunger, and eventually, you are ruined because of your hunger. That is why hunger forces a man to face reality. Perhaps this teaches us a greater lesson."
"Darion!"
"Alright, alright..."
Vaelar and Darion walked in front. Vaegon sighed as he watched his brothers from behind. One a money-grubber, the other a crackpot artist. Could he conquer the world with these two? Maybe yes. But definitely not in peace.