Bountiful Somnus—a flowery title rich with possibilities. Suppose one body-slammed their own bed for a long spell after a whole day's arduous labour—that night was spent with a bountiful somnus. Suppose one were to heed the final advice of a passed loved one and henceforth abstain from the pleasure of drinking themselves into a stupor—with their unfortunate somnus came a bountiful abstinence. Or suppose one were to deliver a jaw-wrenching hook to a singing minstrel to rightly recompense a shoddy performance—a transient somnus courtesy of their bountiful fist.
But within a period of thirty years, many innocent lives would come and go with nothing bountiful to speak of, and every man and woman, from peasants to rulers, would pray to no avail for but a moment of somnus.
The story goes that there once existed two esteemed clans of wyverns separated by a lake dividing two mountainous regions. As devout practitioners of the art of sorcery, a talent harnessing a life essence known as caelum to manipulate the self, the environment, or the fabric of the cosmos in its entirety, the leading clansmen would select the two mightiest mages among their ranks and hold a friendly competition over the lake at the beginning of every century. He Who Scorched the Lands, a wyvern belong to clan Breaga, was born in the year 196 Before Somnus. A polymath versed in over two dozen schools of both public and arcane forms of caelum alteration and studious in an equal number of academic subjects, He Who Scorched the Lands was exalted as a breathing emblem of Breaga's prosperity and superiority before he had even emerged victorious against puberty. At a whim, his every breath would wipe clean the scenery yonder; his every step could raise new mountains and canyons; his every loogie could glue wyvern after wyvern atop one another and put the webbings of even the largest caelum-enchanted spiders to shame.
And with his every feat, he envisioned a human's self-assured grin in place of his comparatively inflexible maw. Surely no ungodly sorcerer could hope to stand up against him?
But wait, who was that bearing their fangs from the other side of the lake, standing tall at several dozen metres, weighing in at around forty-six thousand kilos, and strutting confidently in a sexy mantle of scaly, ruby red flesh? It was She Who Scorned the Rain, the selected prodigy of the rival Clan Spime, the master of two dozen schools of caelum alteration, the famed slayer of over fifty initiates of the Ylbanian Martyrs in a single night of blood-thirsty debauchery!
And what manner of sacrilegious craven would He Who Scorched the Lands be were he to turn down such a worthy challenger? He flexed his wings atop the opposing mountain, scrutinising the bevy of winged spectators awaiting him alongside his quarry, and soared! He had much to thank for this momentous occasion—first, his father, for having reared him into the fearless warrior he had become; then, his mother, for having given up hope on the arrogant delinquent he would forever be; finally, his astigmatism, for without it, he'd have preemptively been stricken frozen by She Who Scorned the Rain's beauty, his territory left vulnerable before the descent of her flames.
Oh, gods, what luscious flesh she wears! thought He Who Scorched the Lands as his back leg grated against the lashing whip that was her slender tail. Goodness me, what finely sculpted fangs she bears! thought He Who Scorched the Lands as his back was graced with the intrusion of her teeth. Dare I say, those wings are divine? thought He Who Scorched the Lands as she outstretched her elongated wings before darting towards him, and not merely because she had left him grounded with only one wing to speak of. Oh, how he wished he could but lubricate those talons adorning the ridges of each wing with oatmeal and recline on a hillside as she rubbed them gently in between his toes! Oh, how he would bask in her scent as he stroked his nose against the warmth of her chest, pressing his tongue within the gaps between her scales! And once his phallus heeded the call of his most primal desires, he would stand on his hind legs, trap her between his wings with his belly against her back, and, with vigour brought unto his spirit with an almighty roar, he would thrust himself into ecstasy and bequeath her his child.
And before he indulged himself in her body, all that remained was to piece together how he was left disabled in a puddle of his own blood with his own left eye glaring at him. A lone clansman prodded his motionless body as She Who Scorned the Rain prevailed in the skies, her clansmen swarming her in celebration.
Amazed was He Who Scorched the Lands that she had taken defeat so gracefully. “But how did I win?” he asked the lone clansman.
With a newly arrived partner in tow, the clansman took to the skies and proceeded to reenact the final moments of the duel. The clansman's partner, acting as She Who Scorned the Rain, unleashed a unrelenting storm of fireballs and lashes of water from the glow worn against the webbing of his wings, and the clansman, bumbling in a stupor with his erection flailing underneath him, endured punishment upon inch of his body while engulfed in a scarlet aura of nocuous heat until his wings could no longer carry his weight and he crashed into the ground, face-to-face with the golden child of Clan Breaga himself.
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Impressed as he was of the clansman's dedication, He Who Scorched the Lands, eager for the clansman to clarify but a small detail, extended his neck until his face was mere inches away. “Truly, did the ravages of my lust conjure such a behemoth under my tail?”
He Who Scorched the Lands would never know an answer, for his clansmen would immediately turn against him for his perceived refusal to spread his seed rightly and produce a worthy successor, banishing him to the foreign lands beyond the mountains—a land dominated by bipedal creatures known for tinkering with the natural elements of the planet. But dismayed He Who Scorched the Lands was not, for if he was to wear the mantle of his first defeat, why not weave it into one of his greatest victory? She Who Scorned the Rain remained captive to Clan Spime, and he would give his wings to free her from her shackles.
“But what if another option was present before me?” he asked himself in his grassy dwelling before lifting his plundered eye to his face with the force of his will. Having greeted many a wayward botanist with his claws, magic and loogies, he would trespass upon the territory of the goldsmiths and conquer them with intimidation as they heeded his demands.
The territory of one small school of goldsmiths lay upon a towering crystalline spire in Harklan, a giant salt flat enriched with coveted auriferous deposits.
“Elder, an ominous shadow looms over the horizon,” a fledgling goldsmith warned beneath the thatched roofing of a small hut.
“Oh, that's nice,” the elder languidly replied, occupied with his workbench inside the hut.
“Elder, a wyvern is approaching and I do NOT like the size of him!” the fledgling goldsmith warned seconds later, quivering with fear.
“Boy, stop playing around or—gods, I pray—go find me a better watchful eye!”
Wasting no time upon his sudden arrival, He Who Scorched the Lands swung his leg, sending his crystallized eye crashing through the roof. “MAKE ME A RING TO ENRAPTURE THE MOST BOISTEROUS OF BITCHES!” He bellowed into the gap, rolling his eye into the elder's upturned leg with his magical influence. The elder, with eyes wide enough to practically burst from their own sockets, signaled his pupil with a slow nod to summon the entire assembly. He would fashion the wyvern's great eye into the finest of rings not only to spare his hide the scorch of a breathy inferno, but to engrave his clan's name into the plaque of legend from which he and his ilk would be venerated in death as the craftsmen of an accessory to adorn the foot of the bitchiest of lady wyverns, bleeding into the dreams of her enemies were it not the last thing they saw before a swift death claimed them. And the goldsmiths would have no lack of urgency, for the loveless wyvern would also settle for garnishing a bent metal wire with the crystallised hearts of Harklan's finest.
He Who Scorched the Lands claimed the territory of Harklan's skies for seven days and nights before returning to the spire, beholding the fanned filigree of gold and sapphire enshrouding his once desolate eye. “You will not die this day,” he assured the weary goldsmiths before riding the winds towards whence he came, his tail swaying eagerly beneath his tail. He returned to his birthplace with all the ferocity of an arrow cutting through time itself, besting one former clansman after another in a series of grueling battles on his way to invade Clan Spime and declare his undying love before its new leader. And by the time She Who Scorned the Rain rewarded the unrelenting invader with her presence, she could hardly recognise the bloodied clump vaguely shaped like a valiant fellow wyvern in front of her.
“May our love for one another be entwined upon this ring, O bearer of my heart's desire,” the clump proposed, dragging what appeared to be the stump of a tail along the ground until the ring, adorned with an eye She Who Scorned the Rain clearly recognised, lay between the two. So enamoured was She Who Scorned the Rain by the tenacity and commitment of He Who Scorched the Lands that she arranged to marry him on the spot.
Some accounts claimed that He Who Scorched the Lands succumbed to his wounds mere moments after the wedding, but not before he and she completed the ritual of child-bearing entanglement and ensured the coming of a worthy heir to their untapped potential. Others claimed that He Who Scorched the Lands made a full recovery and spent the remainder of his days within Clan Spime, passing away not long after impregnating his beloved. Regardless, the wyverns of Clan Breaga honoured the mightiest sorcerer their clan had ever produced with a proper burial, encircling his body and breathing upon it until ash remained, but not before exhuming his phallus and preserving it at the peak of their mountain to be admired by all as the herald of the wyvern that would transcend their every expectation.
“Now do I realise he did not draw towards me with love, but with envy,” a particular male wyvern lamented at the sight of it as he recalled fond memories.
Yet, for as evenly reputable as She Who Scorned the Rain was, she faded from the records following the death of her husband, and thus were the most voracious of scholars left to lament that history was written by men.
