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The ice drake sat facing the ocean, wings held loosely at his side, and his long icy blue tail set idly behind him. The sand around him was frosted in cold clumps. Ice struggled to spread over the waving ocean, constantly breaking and refreezing, shards of ice being washed up and gathering on the shoreline. The salty stench of the sea breeze wafted through the air, mixing with the smell of rotting seaweed. Surrounding the drake was small hills, hiding him away in the cove. At the very top, the trees were still green and luscious, but as the undergrowth moved down toward the ground it back the same icy death as the rest of the cove.

A snarl escaped the drake as a movement in the water caught his attention. He reached out mentally, a snowflake expanding and becoming a near-invisible spike of ice. With a single thought, it shot into the ocean. Moments later it hovered into the air again, a slivery grey fish skewered on the end. It wasn't quite dead, flapping desperately against the spike as it floated over the surface of the water. The drake stopped it in front of his snout, tilting his head as it struggled desperately against its fate. Its eyes were wide, and its mouth opened and closed as if gasping for air. A small bead of blood trickled down the icicle, dripping into the ocean as the fish's attempts at escape grew greater and more desperate. Eventually, though, it gave in, growing still against its capture, and allowing the life to be drained from its flesh. The drake snorted, and with a simple mental prod, the spike flicked in the air, sending the corpse straight into the dragon's mouth. He snapped down the meal with short eagerness, licking his chops, before turning around and padding back across the beach.

The sand was cold against his paws, and an arctic wind seemed to be constantly blowing through the cove, bringing it to below freezing temperatures. The drake didn't mind it at all, rather preferring it to the warmer weather of the lands to the west and south. It kept other dragons away, allowing him to remain in his glorious solitude.

He was a middle-aged drake, around his first century of life, with glittering icy blue scales and larger wings than the average dragon of his species. The frill of horns around his neck was nearly white, and the scales down his flank grew lighter and lighter until they also turned nearly white along his underbelly. The strangest thing about him however was the cold aura that seemed to accompany his every step, as though he himself carried the arctic wind inside him. It was enough to make any living being shiver under its intensity. On the top of his head was also a small frozen patch of ice and hidden within the ice was a dull white stone, a decoration of unknown importance.

A cave awaited him along steeper sections of one of the hills. He walked inside to be greeted with a small roomy space. A barely-held-together nest of dead sticks and shredded leaves sat on one side, and remains of some creature sat frozen on the other. With a huff the drake fell into the nest, curling his tail around his body as he stared absently at the entrance, watching as snowflakes danced through the air, controlled by his mental thought. They changed shapes with his will, flowing together in battles in the shapes of dragons, or combining as the ocean with serpents flinging themselves into the sky, each a resemblance of his daydreams.

For hours he remained, not quite asleep, but not quite awake either, just sitting in the recess of his mind. The world seemed to disappear from existence. Thoughts became reality. Time became inconsequential. It was as though he had adopted another form of reality and was content to remain until he wasted away. A voice suddenly echoed through the cave, one that wasn't part of his reality, breaking him out of his daydream.

"Hello!" it growled in Drakin, the language of dragons.

He blinked, still rather startled, shaking his head to wake himself up. Though as he realised what was happening he found himself remaining silent, wishing whoever was calling him to leave him alone. Occasionally a curious dragon flew by, seeing his icy paradise, and flew down to investigate. Each one left him slightly agitated and annoyed, but part of him did enjoy the occasional chat, reminding him that there was a world out there beyond his self-made prison. The thought didn't make him any happier to hear the noise of claws against stone as the intruder made their way into the cave.

A sigh escaped him, and he groaned softly as he slowly hauled himself to his feet. He suspected he would have to talk to this visitor whether he liked to or not, if only to get them out of his cave. Who would just enter a place that they suspected someone to be living in? It was impolite.

As he took a step forward he came face to face with his intruder, and immediately let out a rumbling growl, taking a quick step back. Before him stood a dragoness, likely a couple of decades older than he was, with soft sky-blue scales and two straight horns sitting at the back of her head. She also took a step back, seeming rather surprised at his sudden appearance, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"Who are you?" growled the ice drake.

As he studied his new arrival he felt his worry increase rather dramatically. She had unnaturally pristine scales, the sparkled in the grey light of the shrouded sun, barely reaching into the cave. An aura also surrounded her of similar power to his own, one that seemed to echo thrum over him, pulsing into his very conscious.

She didn't answer his question right away, slowly getting over her shock of the unexpected dragon, "I am sorry to bother you. I didn't realise anyone was inside."

"You're a mind dragon are you not? You should have."

His accusation caused her to flinch slightly, "I said I'm sorry. I felt something but the mind was... blocked to me. Empty. I didn't realise it was a dragon."

The drake snorted, "Well, now you know. Leave my home."

He turned away, not wanting to deal with the stresses of being around a mind dragon currently. He knew his mind was pretty blocked to them, but it was still rather unnerving to have one here of all places. It was right at the edge of the continent, over a week of flying away from their city at the centre of the continent.

"Wait," the dragoness said, "I... I think you've been the one I'm searching for."

The drake stopped, turning back to face her with a tilted head, "Me?"

"Yes. I was told to search for the empty mind. You're the first dragon I've come across that matches that description."

"Empty mind? I assure you mind dragon, my mind is far from empty."

"That is how it feels to me."

"Well nothing I can do about that," he snorted, though part of him wondered if he knew what she was feeling instead.

"How?"

"How what?"

"How is your mind like this, empty?"

"I don't owe you any explanation. Now get out of my home."

The dragoness narrowed her eyes in frustration, lashing her tail, "I am not here to be your enemy. But I have been searching for the empty mind for years. I'm not gonna just leave now that I have finally found it."

The drake let out a sigh, shaking his head, wondering if it would just be easier to send a spike of ice through her heart and be done with it. She couldn't read his mind. It would be easy. But he shook the thought off. As much as others thought so, he wasn't a murderer.

"Well I can't help you," he growled, "So either leave, or I will be forced to make you."

She rumbled back, looking over him, "Has it got something to do with the ice on your head?"

The drake snarled, "Leave!"

"No."

He took a threatening step toward her, his tail lashing behind him. She growled back, spreading her wings, the aura around her suddenly warping and increasing. It caused him to hesitate.

"I may not be able to affect your mind, drake, but I am more than willing to battle with equilibrium to get my information, and something tells me you do not wish for your icy home to be ripped to shreds."

The returned threat certainly caused him to rethink his approach. She was right of course. He quite liked his home, and if the two of them were to use their equilibria to battle then they were likely to destroy a large portion of it. But she had angered him, and he really didn't want to reveal his little secret to a mind dragon of all creatures, especially when it was such a useful tool against them.

"Why do you want to know this so badly?"

"My reasons are my own."

"That's not gonna cut it dragoness. You're not going to intimidate me. A secret for a secret. I want to know why I am giving up this information."

She scowled at him. He suspected that she didn't really want to use her equilibrium if she could help it. To do so was quite exhausting and would leave her vulnerable afterward. It was also currently her only tool against him, while he could both use equilibrium himself, and he had the information she wanted.

"I've been told that... a great power lies in the depths of the empty mind. I seek this power."

'Of course it's about power,' thought the ice drake with a huff, 'It always is.'

"The greatest power I know is that of equilibrium," he responded to her, "I don't see how my little secret will be of any equal to that."

"There are dragons out there that have found greater power than equilibrium," growled the dragoness, "And I want to find out how they achieved it."

The drake was silent for a moment as he contemplated what she said with startlement, before shaking his head, "Then why don't you bother them?"

"I only know of one, and she is very difficult to get to, even for me."

"And what makes you think that my secret can even compare to what they have?"

"I doubt it will, but it is a start."

The drake sighed, "Very well. I don't see how it will help you, but..."

The ground around them suddenly began to shake. The drake let out a growl of surprise, widening his stance and spreading his wings with shock. The dragoness took a couple of steps back, seeming to focus for a moment as she looked around with surprise.

"An earthquake?" the drake said, confused.

"No... not an earthquake," The dragoness's eyes widened in panic, "We need to get out of here!"

Before he could respond, she turned and raced out of the cave with several wing-assisted hops. He watched her go, thinking for a moment that he would just wait out the earthquake in his cave and ice the walls to hold them together, when a large crack along the ground quickly pushed him out of that thought. He glanced at his nest, before growling in frustration and racing out of the cave after her.

The outside wasn't much better. Several trees had fallen over as the shaking intensified. Snow fell off branches, and the snowflakes themselves seemed to be vibrating from the force of the shakes. Without a second thought, the drake launched himself into the air, flapping his rather stiff wings several times to get him off the ground. The mind dragoness was already far above him, hovering a couple of hundred dragon lengths high as she stared into the distance with open amazement.

The drake followed her gaze and let out a surprised gasp. It was like the very planet was cracking. At first, he suspected an earth equilibrium, but nothing could have gotten so big so fast. The entire forest beyond his home seemed to be swallowed up by the steadily widening crevice. Birds fled from their nests, circling in the sky with chattering panic. He could even see several dragons in the distance, rising into the air with panicked wingbeats.

"What is this?" he said, "What illusion are you casting on me?"

It was the only thing he could think of. Somehow the dragoness had got past his mental block and was now making him see this horrendous torment of nature.

"This isn't me," she responded as she continued to watch.

The ground continued to crack open, the crevice turning into a canyon stretching as far as the eye could see. It was a bottomless canyon, with the walls shifting and moving as though alive. Earth cascaded over itself as it pushed itself apart, causing more undergrowth and creatures to fall into its tremendous depths. And the drake then felt a power, unlike anything he had witnessed before. It washed over him, like a thousand equilibriums erupting into existence. The very air shuddered at its presence, and he felt a shiver go down his own spine. This was no illusion.

The opening suddenly grew still, and from the depths of the canyon rose mountains. Spires of tall black and grey rock, separating the earth with enormous groans of stone against stone. The earth around the base of these mountains cracked and crumbled, falling back into the opening that had been made, filling up the bases of these mountains as they rose higher and higher, taller than any mountain range the drake had seen before.

He found himself moving backward in response, trying to put some distance between himself and the rising mountains. His home below split apart also, the entire beach being swallowed by the earth below it. The ocean quickly began draining into the crevice, only to stopped by more rising mountains. Both the drake and dragoness had to flee over the ocean as the cove below them erupted as another mountain rose from the very sea. More mountains continued to grow from the centre, stretching many thousands of dragon lengths in both directions, completely cutting off the two of them from the rest of the world.

"What is this?" growled the ice dragon as he watched his home devoured by the planet itself.

"I... I felt them..." the mind dragoness stuttered in both horror and awe.

"Felt them?"

"Empty minds. Devouring voids. They traveled through the earth governed by a conscious. I could feel it... I can still feel it... but I can't... it's like if I try to enter them I myself will be devoured," she shuddered, she looked at him, "Can you do this? Or something like this?"

"I don't have this power," he replied with a fearful grumble, "Are you saying a dragon did this?"

"That or Gaia herself."

"I...it could be an equilibrium."

"No... it wasn't."

The two fell silent as they looked at the grey wall of mountains that separated them from the rest of the continent. The drake shuddered himself, before turning and flying south. The mind dragon quickly followed him as he tried to figure out how far the mountains went. Part of the drake wondered if the entire continent had been devoured by the mountains. That quickly showed itself as not the case as they found where the range ended, landing on another beach.

"This is the shadow nation," the dragoness said, looking around, "Why didn't you fly back to your own nation?"

"I'm an exile," he responded, "I'm not welcome back there."

The dragoness let out a grunt, "You're like me then."

He looked at her with a tilted head, slightly surprised. He had never heard of a mind dragon being exiled from their nation before. He wondered what she had done to deserve such a punishment. Likely something far worse than what he did. He snorted, looking back to the mountains in suspicion, still feeling the thudding adrenaline from watching them appear.

"You said it was... empty minds that made this?"

"Well... yeah," replied the dragoness, looking at the mountain with narrowed eyes, "They feel a lot like yours."

His tail twisted anxiously, "You are looking for element stones."

She twisted and looked at him with narrowed eyes, "Element stones?"

"Yes. Though I didn't think they would be capable of something like this."

"I thought element stones could only absorb elements and well... explode."

"Likewise. But if what you feel is similar to what you feel from me... then that's what it has to be."

She looked at the mountains, "Element stones... of course. I can't believe I've never seen it before."

"You've never come across them before?"

"No. I know about them of course, but that is only through the memories of my brethren, and the damage they course in the Ashen wars. Though to them none of them felt like empty minds."

The drake shrugged, "Maybe they feel differently when powered. The one in my head isn't."

She nodded slightly, her tail twitching in excitement as she gave a short grin, "Element stones huh?"

"I never caught your name," the ice drake said, finding himself quite interested in this strange mind dragon.

"Oh, I am known as Wyneta. You?"

"Vigon."

"Well, Vigon, how do you feel about coming with me. I could use some help in figuring out how to use the stones. Perhaps you will find this enormous power as well."

Vigon looked at the mountains, finding a grin slipping over his snout, "You know what... if this is what these stones are capable of, I'd be happy to."

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Hey guys! A bit of a shorter Chronicle this week. Hope you all enjoyed what it looked like for the creation of the Living Mountains, and the introduction of Wyneta's first elemental, Vigon. This was an interesting chapter to write. It feels a little rushed though, so tell me what you think. As always, vote on the next chronicle below.

The Dark: Vyt'al, lightning drake - 31Yrs BTA

The Hidden Side: Aurum, Metal drake - 29Yrs BTA

See Ya!

Pennator^^