Endless, grey monotony. That was the texture of Nythara's captivity. The reek of unwashed bodies, the cloying scent of fear-sweat from the other captives, the constant, dull ache from the rune-etched iron bars of her cage these were the anchors of her diminished reality.
Her human guise, a form she had worn for centuries as a convenient veil amongst the fleeting lives of mortals, felt thin and brittle, the effort of maintaining it a constant drain on her waning energies.
Beneath it, her true self, a creature of storm and ancient power, seethed and strained against the enchanted bonds that held her.
Kazimar "Krakenhook" Vayne, the slaver lord whose flagship, the Gilded Shackles, served as this floating fortress of misery, had been thorough.
The cage was not mere iron; it was woven with enchantments that specifically targeted draconic energies, dampening her fire, grounding her storms, making her limbs feel heavy as mountains.
The gag, a cruel contraption of leather and more rune-scribed metal, stifled not just her voice but the very wellspring of her Thu'um, the ancient language of power that could command the elements themselves.
Days bled into nights, marked only by the meager rations of stale water and moldy bread shoved through the bars, and the changing slant of greasy light from the single, filth-caked porthole. Around her, the other "exotics" a mournful chorus of the damned.
There was a Sylph, her delicate wings broken and bound, her usually vibrant aura faded to a dull grey.
A hulking Frost Troll, his regenerative abilities cruelly countered by ever-burning braziers kept near his cage, his roars of defiance long since faded to whimpers of pain.
A pair of Shadow Kin, their forms flickering and insubstantial, yet somehow pinned by beams of concentrated, painful light. All of them, creatures of power and wildness, reduced to commodities.
Nythara, however, was Vayne's prize catch. He visited her cage often, his scarred face leering, his one good eye glinting with avarice.
He spoke of the Emperor of the Sunken City, a decadent ruler who paid fortunes for unique additions to his menagerie, for beings whose life force could be siphoned for dark rituals. Nythara, an ancient storm-dragon, was a treasure beyond measure.
"You will fetch a king's ransom, my fiery jewel," Vayne would hiss, his breath smelling of stale wine and ambition. "Or perhaps I shall keep you for myself. Dragon blood is said to grant… interesting abilities."
Nythara met his gaze with cold, unblinking fury, the only defiance she could offer. She conserved her strength, endured the indignities, and waited.
The sea, her ancient ally, still whispered to her, faint echoes in the thrum of the ship's engines, in the taste of the salt air. It told her of currents shifting, of fates converging.
And it showed her glimpses. The ship. The one she had seen in fleeting visions, the vessel of wood and strange metal, sail and fire. It had drawn closer.
She had felt the reverberations of its recent battle, a distant tremor in the web of the world, like a great beast thrashing in the deep.
She had seen, in a shard of polished metal on her cage floor, the brief, violent bloom of its weapons. Streaks of impossible blue light, concussive blasts that spoke of power far beyond what its archaic form suggested.
Then, chaos erupted on the Gilded Shackles. Shouts from the deck, the clang of alarm bells, the thud of heavy cannons. Vayne's ship, usually a predator, had become prey. Nythara felt a flicker of grim satisfaction. Whoever these newcomers were, they had teeth.
The battle was fierce, the sounds filtering down into the hold the roar of unfamiliar weaponry, the screams of wounded slavers, the shuddering impacts against the Gilded Shackles' hull.
The fortress-ship, for all its crude armor, was taking a beating.
Through it all, Nythara began to sing. Not with her voice, for the gag still held that captive. She sang with her soul, a silent, desperate threnody of storm and sky, a call to the wild energies she could no longer command but could still beseech.
She focused on the image of the attacking ship, on the aura of its captain young, yet old, a strange paradox of spirit. She poured all her hope, all her remaining will, into that silent song, a plea for liberation, a promise of alliance.
As she sang, a strange thing happened. The runes on her cage, the ones that dampened her power, began to glow with a faint, angry red.
Sparks, tiny and blue, like miniature lightning, began to dance along the iron bars where her skin, or the illusion of it, brushed against them. The core image: Dragon singing through a gag, sparks on iron links.
It was a small thing, a mere flicker of her true might, but it was something.
A sign, perhaps, that her song was being heard, or that the enchantments were weakening under the strain of the battle raging outside, or perhaps due to the proximity of another powerful, albeit different, energy source the attacking ship's core.
Then, the sounds of battle intensified directly above the hold. Heavy footsteps thudded on the deck, the crackle of strange energy weapons, the shouts of close-quarters combat. The Gilded Shackles was being boarded.
A massive explosion rocked the ship, plunging the hold into momentary darkness, followed by the red glare of emergency lights. The door to the hold, a massive iron-bound affair, buckled, then burst inwards with a deafening crash.
Figures stormed in, clad in dark, functional gear, their faces grim and determined.
They moved with a practiced efficiency, their weapons a mixture of projectile firearms and what looked like energy blades cutting down the few slaver guards who had remained in the hold.
Nythara watched, her heart, the ancient, powerful muscle beneath her human guise, hammering against her ribs. These were the crew of the strange ship. They were… human. Young, most of them, yet they fought with a ferocity and coordination that spoke of discipline and desperation.
One of them, a mountain of a man with a voice like a rockslide, bellowed orders, directing his team to secure the hold and check on the captives. This had to be the "Bosun Rig & Weapons," Hammer Kovács, that the sea-whispers had hinted at.
Another, a woman with fiery auburn hair and eyes that held both compassion and a steely resolve, moved towards the cages, her hands glowing faintly with a golden light.
Sister Amaris Doyle, the "Surgeon-Chaplain." She began to assess the condition of the other captives, her voice gentle but firm, offering comfort and the promise of aid.
Then, a younger man, barely more than a boy, with dark, intense eyes and a coil-gun slung over his shoulder. Riku Tanaka, the Gunnery Cadet spotted her cage. He stopped, his eyes widening in disbelief, then awe, then a healthy dose of fear.
"Sweet stars and shadows…" he breathed, gesturing to his comrades. "Look at this one."
Several of the boarding party converged on her cage, their weapons still warily raised.
Their leader, the young captain with the old eyes, Darius Mallory, pushed his way to the front.
He was splattered with grime and what looked like slaver blood, his youthful face set in a grim mask, but his grey eyes were sharp, intelligent, and held no trace of the avarice Nythara had seen in Vayne's.
He stared at her, taking in the rune-etched cage, the cruel gag, the sparks that still flickered around her.
He saw not just a captive, but a being of immense power, brought low. His gaze was not that of a conqueror, nor a merchant, but of… a rescuer? Or perhaps, a fellow survivor in a world that had turned hostile.
"What in the blazes have we found here?" Mallory murmured, his voice a low rumble. He looked at the intricate locks and enchantments on her cage. "Idris, can you make sense of these runes? Can we get this open?"
Idris al-Arif, the charismatic Quartermaster, stepped forward, his usual suave demeanor tempered by a look of profound disgust at the sight of the cages. He examined the runes, his brow furrowed.
"These are old, Captain, and nasty. Slaver magic from the looks of it, designed to bind and suppress. I might be able to pick the locks, but the enchantments… they're tied to the cage itself. We'll need to break it."
As Mallory considered this, his eyes met Nythara's. For a long moment, they simply looked at each other, a silent communication passing between them.
Nythara poured all her will into that gaze, trying to convey her intelligence, her sentience, her desperate plea for freedom. She was not some mindless beast to be gawked at or feared. She was Nythara Aeonwings, and she would not be a slave.
Mallory seemed to understand. He nodded slowly, a decision made. "Hammer, get your cutting tools. Let's get her out."
As Kovács moved forward with a heavy-duty plasma cutter, a tool clearly of System origin, Nythara felt a strange resonance, a faint chime in her very being, like a distant bell.
It wasn't a System prompt like the ones the crew of the Aeternus received, for she was not yet part of their… network.
It was something else, something deeper, a nascent connection forming between her ancient draconic spirit and the strange, synergistic energy of this crew and their living ship.
***
***
The message, if it could be called that, was not in words, but in pure understanding, a whisper from the universe itself. A bond. Latent, yes, but present. A thread of fate, impossibly thin, had just been woven.
The plasma cutter bit into the rune-etched iron of her cage, sending showers of angry red sparks into the gloom.
The sound was a song of liberation, the most beautiful music Nythara had heard in an age. Freedom was close.
And with it, a new, uncertain, but undeniably compelling destiny alongside these strange, de-aged humans from another world.