SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

The room beyond was surprisingly plain.

Trafalgar had expected another collection, perhaps something older and more carefully guarded than everything Caelvyrn had shown him so far. Instead, the chamber held a long stone table, several shelves, and a series of objects placed with none of the care of a museum.

A chipped cup sat beside a broken dagger. There were pieces of jewellery, old letters tied together with faded cord, and a wooden figure of a dragon with one wing larger than the other and a leg that had snapped off sometime long ago.

Trafalgar stepped inside more slowly. "This is what you meant when you said this was where I'd actually start learning about you? I'll admit, I was expecting something a little more dramatic."

Caelvyrn walked past him and gave the room an almost offended sweep of his hand. "You spent the last hour looking at weapons carried by people whose names have been dead for thousands of years, and apparently that wasn't enough for you. These things mattered to me. Show a little respect."

"I didn't say they didn't matter. I said I expected you to have a room full of dragon skulls or crowns you'd personally stolen from kings."

"I have both of those elsewhere."

Trafalgar looked at him.

Caelvyrn's expression remained perfectly straight for another second before the corner of his mouth moved. "Probably."

"Right."

Caelvyrn stopped beside the table and picked up the wooden dragon. Up close, the carving was even worse than Trafalgar had thought. One eye sat higher than the other, its tail was far too short, and whoever had carved the wings had clearly never seen an actual dragon in flight.

"Someone made that for you?" Trafalgar asked.

"A child, a very long time ago. He insisted it looked exactly like me, which was insulting even then." Caelvyrn turned it carefully between his fingers. "I told him the wings were wrong. He told me mine were wrong and that his version looked better."

Trafalgar smiled faintly. "I like him already."

"Sure you do. You both have the same terrible habit of being confidently incorrect."

Caelvyrn placed the figure back exactly where it had been.

Trafalgar's eyes remained on it. "I suppose he's been gone for a long time."

"He has." Caelvyrn's answer came without hesitation. "Long enough that I stopped counting the years a very long time ago."

There was no visible sadness in him, but Trafalgar had begun to understand that Caelvyrn didn't carry those things where anyone could easily see them.

"You make that sound easier than it probably is."

Caelvyrn leaned back against the edge of the table. "It becomes different. I wouldn't call it easier. When you've lived long enough, you lose people. There's no clever answer to that, and being powerful doesn't change it. You remember them, you keep whatever deserves keeping, and eventually you learn to speak their names without turning the room into a funeral."

Trafalgar hadn't expected quite that answer.

Caelvyrn noticed.

"Don't look so surprised. I'm old, not emotionally crippled."

"I wasn't going to say that."

"You were thinking something annoyingly close to it."

Trafalgar let that one go and wandered toward the nearest shelf. "So all of this belonged to people you knew?"

"Most of it. Friends, companions, lovers, people who travelled with me for a few decades and then decided they'd had enough of my company."

"That happened often?"

"Very rarely. I'm excellent company."

"Of course."

Caelvyrn ignored the tone. "I've known more people than I could name for you in a day. Humans, dragons, elves, demons. Powerful family heads who thought the world would remember them forever and farmers who expected nothing beyond seeing their children grow older. Funny thing is, sometimes I remember the farmer more clearly."

Trafalgar ran his eyes across the collection again.

"And you've kept all of this through every place you've lived?"

"More or less. I've lost things. Castles burn. Cities disappear. Mountains have an irritating habit of collapsing when sufficiently powerful people fight inside them." Caelvyrn paused. "That one may have been partly my fault."

"Partly?"

"I refuse to accept full responsibility when there were other people involved."

That sounded like a story Trafalgar suspected would become progressively less believable the longer Caelvyrn told it.

He moved toward another shelf. "You said you've worked alongside powerful families before."

Caelvyrn made a face as though Trafalgar had deliberately chosen an embarrassing memory. "A very poor choice of wording on my part. I worked with them. Occasionally I allowed one of their heads to believe they were in charge of the arrangement because it made negotiations simpler."

"That's not what you said earlier."

"I've had time to reconsider."

"About ten minutes."

"A dragon doesn't need long to recognize an error."

Trafalgar huffed. "You're incapable of admitting you were ever under anyone's command."

"Of course I am. Look at me."

There was enough offended dignity in the answer that Trafalgar laughed.

Caelvyrn pushed himself away from the table and walked alongside him. "I've advised rulers. Fought wars beside them. Saved a few regions and helped end others. Once or twice I've even listened when someone told me what to do."

"That last one I don't believe."

"Neither do I, now that I've said it."

The humour faded naturally as they reached another section of the room.

Trafalgar stopped beside an old pendant, its metal worn nearly smooth with age. "Did you ever settle anywhere properly? Before this castle, I mean."

"For periods." Caelvyrn looked around the chamber. "But dragons aren't particularly good at belonging to places ruled by others. Borders change far faster than we do. A mountain belongs to one family, then another, then the first one takes it back, and eventually someone comes to tell you that you've been living illegally in your own home for eight hundred years."

Trafalgar turned toward him. "That actually happened, didn't it?"

"Twice."

"What did you do?"

"The first one apologized."

"And the second?"

Caelvyrn smiled.

Trafalgar decided he probably didn't need the answer.

"The castle came later," Caelvyrn continued. "I wanted somewhere that belonged to me because I said it did, rather than because a map agreed for the next century. Somewhere large enough to keep what I'd collected, difficult enough to reach that most idiots wouldn't bother trying, and comfortable enough that I could disappear for years if I felt like it."

"And naturally it had to be enormous."

Caelvyrn looked genuinely confused by the alternative. "I'm a dragon, Trafalgar. What did you expect me to build, a cottage?"

"You spend most of your time looking human."

"That doesn't mean I should live like one."

Trafalgar couldn't really argue with that logic, mostly because it seemed built to make argument impossible.

He glanced back toward the objects filling the room. "You must have watched entire families come and go."

"Many."

"Entire lineages too."

"More than I'd care to count."

"And yet you still get involved."

That made Caelvyrn look at him properly.

Trafalgar continued. "You said yourself that you've outlived people you cared about over and over. You know it ends the same way eventually, but you still help people. You helped Dravok build the dimension. You've been training Silas. You still involve yourself in conflicts when you think they are important enough."

Caelvyrn was quiet for a moment before answering.

"What's the alternative?" he said eventually. "Spend thousands of years avoiding anyone whose lifespan isn't convenient for mine? Sit inside this mountain protecting myself from ever having to miss anyone again?" He shook his head. "That sounds unbearably dull."

His eyes drifted toward the wooden dragon.

"If someone matters for fifty years, then they mattered for fifty years. The fact that I might live much longer doesn't make those years worth less. You either understand that eventually, or immortality turns you into a very lonely idiot."

Trafalgar considered him. "That may be the wisest thing I've heard you say."

Caelvyrn's expression immediately hardened. "Take that back."

"There it is."

"I have a reputation to maintain."

Trafalgar smiled and started toward the door with him.

As they stepped back into the larger chamber, another thought surfaced.

Caelvyrn noticed it immediately. "Don't even think about it."

Trafalgar blinked. "Think about what?"

"That question you're about to ask. The one you think is subtle but absolutely isn't."

Trafalgar exhaled a small laugh. "You're getting paranoid."

"Just don't."

They walked a few steps in silence before Caelvyrn added, "It's not a topic I enjoy repeating."

"Noted," Trafalgar said, raising a hand slightly in surrender. "I'll let it go."

"Good."

Trafalgar glanced sideways at him. "For now."

Caelvyrn sighed. "I was going to say that if you're really that curious, there was one time when—"

"You're both done for tonight."

Dravok's voice came from farther down the corridor before Caelvyrn could finish. He was walking toward them at an easy pace, apparently unconcerned that he'd just cut straight through the middle of the conversation.

Caelvyrn turned toward him, visibly annoyed. "You couldn't have waited another five seconds? We were actually in the middle of something interesting."

"I noticed."

"And you interrupted anyway."

"Yes." Dravok stopped beside them. "Because you've been wandering around this castle talking for hours, and he needs actual rest before tomorrow."

Caelvyrn stared at him for a moment. "You really haven't changed. A man tries to have one decent conversation and you arrive to make everything sound like military orders."

"You can finish your conversation over dinner." Dravok looked toward Trafalgar. "Eat properly, then sleep. Tomorrow morning we go back inside, and I don't want you arriving there half-rested because Caelvyrn decided tonight was the right time to tell you his entire life story."

"Entire life story?" Caelvyrn scoffed. "We'd need considerably longer than one night."

"I know. That's exactly the problem."

Trafalgar's tired smile widened slightly as Dravok turned and started back down the corridor.

Caelvyrn muttered something under his breath and followed, while Trafalgar fell into step beside them.

Dravok let them walk another few paces before adding, without looking back,

"And get a good night's sleep, Trafalgar. Godstep was the easy one."

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