- Job Details:
On an island without an official name, away from any trading routes and populated by wyverns, Akeya was training in tandem with Leila. The two of them each had their own issues to deal with on a magical level: Leila was struggling to gain control of the magic she inherited from a rose dragon, and Akeya was working hard to finally achieve the balance between light and dark which had been eluding her for so long.
Originally she'd come here to track down Leila, but given that they'd put their fight to rest there wasn't actually much left to do for Akeya. While she was a dragon and Leila was practising to gain control over dragon magic the silver-haired goddess seemed to be doing fine learning at her own pace, so the best Akeya could do was give some tips and then mind her own business unless Leila asked her a question regarding the fine details of dragon magic. Of course the fact that Leila's dragon magic was rose-themed and Akeya's was a mixture of light and dark also somewhat got in the way, but not as much as one might think: dragons tended to use magic in similar ways even if their elements differed.
Which begged the question why the dragoness was still here.
The simple answer was that she'd learned that Leila could summon the spirit Libra, who amongst other things was a master of balance. For the twilight dragon that was a major asset, since she had to admit that despite her best efforts light and dark didn't play well together. She hoped that with Libra's aid/tutelage she'd be able to get rid of those last hurdles that were keeping her from mastering her own powers. Of course she'd attempt to do that with or without Libra's help, but Akeya thought herself pragmatic enough that she could swallow her pride and ask someone for help with something she was struggling with.
Another answer was that she didn't really have a need to be anywhere else, so she might as well use the opportunity of visiting a remote island to practice somewhere out of sight from practically everyone. While she'd loosened up a bit regarding treating the mortal species as potential threats she still would rather not show them all her tricks. She might be willing to live alongside them but that didn't mean she didn't want to be prepared for the possible future where they'd become enemies. Dragons just weren't the most social or the most amiable of creatures: even friendly dragons tended to experience friction with others.
The third answer, which she kept to herself, was that she felt like she needed to do something about Leila. Akeya definitely wasn't the easiest to get along with: even amongst dragons she had a rather distant attitude. She was perfectly aware of this and didn't think it worth worrying about, since she was fine being on her own. However she'd thought that with Leila at least she'd built something of a stable connection. The goddess was amiable, cooperative and competent, and she didn't bother Akeya. It might be because she was a goddess but Akeya couldn't remember Leila complaining about concepts like honour or fairness or any of that. The dragoness could appreciate a working relationship were the two sides didn't try to tell the other how to do their thing. It suited her individualistic mindset were cooperation was about smoothlessly complementing one another's talents and perspectives.
However she was becoming sharply aware that for Leila things weren't that solid. The goddess seemed to think that Akeya's austere attitude was an indication of her not caring. The annoying thing was that while that was usually true the dragoness was pretty certain that this time around she did care. And she was rather annoyed that she couldn't convey that convincingly. Even dragons, individualistic, territorial and proud as they were, could still have entities they cared for and wished to look after (children were an obvious example). Their desire and capability for bonds was significantly lower than for social creatures like humans but it wasn't non-existent.
So even as the dragoness was trying to smoothly and rapidly switch between light and dark to make it easier for her to use them in tandem she was thinking about how she could make it clear to Leila that the goddess was actually important to the dragoness. Being open and warm just wasn't something she was good at. Having taken in the element of light might have helped with her opening up a bit compared to before, but she still was overall rather stoic and didn't show much emotion.
It was frustrating to have a trait she was usually rather proud of, given how it helped her remain rational and level-headed even under stressful circumstances, get in the way of her objective. She looked over towards where Leila was working on her rose dragon magic, light and dark still rapidly switching between her hands. Her emerald eyes searched for the form of her partner while another part of her was still focused on that tricky task. She could use both light and dark proficiently at this point, but it was when she tried to combine them that things became difficult. The two elements didn't want to mix and most of the time forcefully putting them together resulted in either nullification or a rapid exhaustion of energy, which in simpler terms would be called an explosion.
She couldn't tell if she was missing a key piece of understanding or if this was just something which remained inherently difficult no matter how much you knew about it. She could understand both light and dark, but that understanding just helped underline how much these two essences were in conflict with one another. Even as she was looking for Leila the dark and the light that were emitting from her claws suddenly flickered out of existence as they got into contact with each other and nullified each other.
WC: 1,001
TWC: 1,001/25,000