Heartbeat of Spring

Writen for WoW (July / #3), prompt was Heartbeats, Hearths, Spring | currently unedited but the plot is there, please excuse the grammar mistakes I probably made while writing this fic | slightly mature content (blood, violence, death) and implied child abuse
Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump
The strange heartbeat seemingly coming from nowhere yet everywhere continued to thrum, its steady rhythm surprisingly comforting.
Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump
The stone walls seemed to breathe in and out in time with the beat. I began to take more steps further into the dark cave-like structure.
Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump
The smell of blood twisted through the air, the reek from the now stilled hearts of the previous travelers still clinging to the wall like mold. My heartbeat began to slow in time with the rhythm of the wall's thump.
Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump
The sound of water trickled from inside the walls or was the liquid blood? An eerie light glowed from the walls, the orange-yellow luminescence reminiscent of the comforting hearths at home, back when I was not shunned from the daily meals.
Ba-dump , ba-dump , ba-dump
The heartbeat began to slow down, the intervals between the thumps slowing as the tunnel began to end, the structure expanding into a dimly lit cavern.
BA-DUMP
As my talons set foot in the cavern, the heartbeat stopped with a loud thump. My own heart skipped a beat, trying to pick back up its own rhythm. The cavern was huge, the eerie glowing light from the walls unable to illuminate the inside of the cave, the shadows having covered it with a dark blanket.
“Hello?” my voice was hoarse and raspy, as even if my mind forgot, tried to forget, my body could not forget the constant screaming , yelling, and crying from the day before.
The greeting echoed inside the cave, the word reverberating throughout the structure, gaining momentum, getting louder, getting louder, and then it stopped. The stop as sudden as the heartbeat's disappearance. 
Cowardice had got me nowhere, and although every cell in my body screamed at me to leave I took another step forward. Then another, and another, until my brain had given up on stopping me.
The pleas and cries of those I left behind caused me to be unable to turn back, even if I did, only sleet and the bloodstained snow would greet me.
The darkness wrapped around me like a familiar blanket, my icy-blue scales covered up in NightWing colours, colours that used to give me hate but now only indifference, who cares about who stole whose magic? None of that was relevant to me, to us. Any nocturnal vision I was supposed to have disappeared in the darkness, as if all of my strengths were stripped away, leaving behind my countless vulnerabilities and my ice cold desire for change.
Why do you do this? the voice was strange, as if it was coming from inside my head, its lukewarm phrases jarring themselves straight in my brain.
Because it is my duty. I reply, seeing no need in speaking out my thoughts to this seemingly omniscience creature.
Wasn’t it someone else's duty?
Yes, but he is now dead.
...because of you.
Yes, that’s exactly why I need to do this
Very well Snowlark, let’s see if your conviction is real.
It is.
Everything started on the spring equinox, the day in which the usually dark days switched to days of light and sun, it was a day of celebration, a day to celebrate the coming summer. Dragons partied on the street, frozen treats and masks littering the street stalls. Most dragons wore the colourful masks, a stark contrast to the white and blue landscape. However the most colourful IceWing of the bunch was him, Bluefire, the Priest of spring. Colourful green, brown, and yellow paints from the RainWing traders covered his scales, and light silk scarves passed down through the generations flowed around his body, letting the sunlight reflect the colours onto the white snow.
He danced with all the others, dark purple eyes flashing under a fiery blue mask. Laughter filled the streets, and cheers erupted from the dragonets as he performed his dance. His dance of vitality and freedom, the growing of the new season, the longer days but shorter nights, the shedding of the snow fox's coat, the wonders of spring as well as its curses, the dance that signified the moons continued guidance over us all. It was going well, the dance started to pick up in speed, the beat increasing and increasing, the silks spiraling and spiraling up, up, up into the air...
BA-DUMP
The silks fell to the ground.
Everything seemed to freeze. A scream howelled through the air. Sobs could be heard from the once cheering dragonets. I rushed forward, trying to reach my friend, my brother not by blood but by bonds, however I was too late.
I was always too late. If only I had agreed to do it, agreed to help out, if I had been on the side, been the second dancer in the song, it was always my selfishness, my own cowardice to face the truth, that got him hurt.
Red stained the pristine snow.
***
The moons had cursed us. Forced us to leave from the lively village, forced us to abandon the iceholes that always gave us fish, brought upon their wraths in the form of snow and hail that not even the most sturdy of IceWings could handle. Ice coated the ground, making each step as precarious as the last, a cruel memento of the way he fell to the ground, arms and legs spread in awkward positions, diamond hard bones sticking out.
Like always they blamed me, blamed me for my own incompetence. They could not hurt me however, if they did, the moons would spread even more disaster, instead they settled for words as sharp as knives, sentences filled with enough venom to kill a whale, I didn’t ignore their words, I agreed with them, for it was my fault to begin with.
***
“C’mon it’ll be fun Snowlark!” he called out to me, his voice ringing out from the icy fields.
“No it won’t!” I disagreed, still stepping out onto the ice anyways, “you might get hurt!”
“So what!?”
If you get hurt I will get hurt too, were the words I never said. I was the replacement, the dragon meant to be the priest’s protector, the one meant to protect them with their life.
“If you get hurt The Priestess will get angry!” I yelled out instead, approaching him cautiously.
His face full of laughter and mirth fell, replaced with one of disappointment, “I thought I told you to call her Mother, I mean we’re basically siblings,”
I near him, picking up my pace quickly, and finally stand in front of him, laying my serrated claw on his white reflective scales, “that is the one thing I cannot do Bluefire, you are the only one allowed to call The Priestess by another name,”
“Boring,” he stuck out his tongue, “but fine! Since you say that we need to leave I’ll go, just go hunting with me later okay!”
“Alright,” I agree with a grin, taking off into the sky, “let’s leave this dangerous area now okay?”
I grew up too quickly, the days in the poorer areas of the slums were harsh and cruel, we may have been the same age but Bluefire was raised in one of the richest households in the area, he still could laugh and play, I could not.
So why? I think back now, why was he never given the chance to grow up naturally, why did he have to face all that he did, only I should have bared the burden of a lost childhood. The answer I arrived at was because of my own incompetence.
If I had shielded The Priestess’s body with mine like I was trained to, if I had not listened to his cries for me to survive, if I didn’t feel fear take over me, if I hadn’t failed, if I was not so useless that I couldn’t stop my ward’s mother, my friend’s mother, my brother’s mother from dying, his body would not be lying on the icy ground. Instead it would have been my--no-his abuser’s.
The assailant, a young IceWing whose family had been scammed by The Priestess, had broken into the “Temple” that they resided in. By chance, I was in the Temple with Bluefire, as he needed to ask his Mother something, and even to this day I am still unaware of what his inquiry was. Originally the assailant, a dragon named Hail as I soon learned after some questioning, wanted answers to his questions “Why did The Priestess cause his family to fall into ruin?” “Why must we now starve on the streets?”, however, after The Priestess had looked upon him with a blank stare, asking him who he was, Hail flew into a rage.
Bluefire held me back as serrated claws struck diamond scales. He cried and begged me to not go, not get killed as well. His violet eyes filled to the brim with tears, tears of pity towards me, pity that I still felt the need to protect her.
Blood splattered. Hail’s eyes grew dark and vacant as he realised what he did. Bluefire let me go, a sad smile on his face as his tears fell down. I rushed forward, talons pattering on the blood-stained pristine floor. I could tell from a distance that the wound wasn’t fatal, but after time the blood loss would kill. I turned back towards Bluefire, the smile still resting upon his too mature face.
I took a deep breath, “do you regret what you did?” I finally ask Hail, the trickling of the blood into the snow ringing in my ears.
Ba-dump, ba-dump
The three of us and the dying Priestess were the only dragons in the room, The Priestess always asked for quiet, with Bluefire the only one allowed to enter as he pleased. No one would know.
Ba-dump, ba-dump
Hail shook his head, “I made a mistake in my anger, but… it’s probably for the better…”
Ba-dump, ba-dump
“I’ll have to arrest you, you are aware of the consequences?”
Ba-dump, ba-dump
“I came in here with that resolve.” Hail turned towards the body, “is she dead?”
Ba-dump , ba-dump, ba-dump , ba-dump
I felt like throwing up, my heart beating faster and faster, the irregularites increasing, the blood trickling faster and faster, if I acted now she could be saved but… did I want that?
I gave a curt nod. The blood trickled to a stop. She was dead.
In the end my incompetence killed them both, Hail was put up for murder and executed while I, the real killer went free.
Free from the chains of law, and the rules that were called The Priestess.
Because The Priestess was dead, Bluefire became The Priest. He was young, too young to become a Priest, too young that he didn’t know all the steps, so young that he would fall on ice. Originally the dance was a duet, he had asked me to do it with him, be the shadow to his light, the light to his shadow but I refused, how could I dance with the son of the one I killed? The guilt ate me up, the only thing stopping me from collapsing was the small smile he showed that day, the first true smile I saw on his face, a smile that was not contrived.
When his body fell to the ground I felt the world shatter into a millions shards of ice.
***
The group gathered around the hearth, their backs pressed together to find a solution. I didn’t join them, there would be no point, my suggestions would be either ignored or shot down without a moment's notice. It would be better to just wait, wait for their solution.
Finally a young dragoness’s voice spoke out to the crowd, her azure blue eyes flashing dangerously as she looked over me.
“Why don’t we give the moons another Priest?” her voice was loud and clear, echoing across the cavern, she seemed to stare right into my soul as she continued on with her damning words, “there is one other dragon who knows the rituals…”
Murmurs of agreement spread throughout the survivors of our torn apart village.
“You know perfectly well that I can’t take on the Priestess role,” I reply, my usually quiet voice hushing the crowds whispers, “that is only reserved to those of the family,” my voice is too high pitch, my fear obvious for those who looked, I didn’t want to take up that role, and my inner thoughts were quite obvious as I said my statement.
“Weren’t you and the Priest quite close? I remember him calling you the sister he never had,”
I cringe at her words, taken aback by her truthful statement. Why would she remember something like that? Why does she want me to do this? The answer was obvious, it was because I was the outsider, the one they would be willing to sacrifice.
“I don’t think the moons would want a low bred dragon like me as their vessel,”
“I never said you should become the Priestess,” she gave a dangerous smirk, “wasn’t there another ritual to calm the moons’ anger?”
I freeze. No words could come out of my mouth. I look the other way, but all I am met with is the pitying stares of the village.
“It seems we are all in agreement,” she smirked, “take Snowla--I mean The Priestess away,”
I feel the need to scream, to cry out in anger, in hate, but the desperate stares of those around me cause no words to leave my mouth.
Ironically, this would be the only way to save myself, save everyone else, for even if the village shunned me, I should protect the village that protected him, helped make excuses to The Priestess, helped him have a home to stay in when he was kicked outside. If it meant saving the baker who gave him salve for his wounds, helped save the hunter who gave an extra strip of meat when times were rough, and helped save all those others who protected him when I couldn’t I would gladly give up my life.
Even with that conviction in my mind I still cried like a newborn dragonet in the cold cellar at the back of the cavern when I was sure that no one was listening.
The next day I walked into the tunnel, the pleas and apologies of the guards who left me still ringing in my ears.
I had to do it for them, for the village, for those who helped him out. Lives cannot be compared but in this moment the village’s life is worth more than mine.
Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump
The walls started to pulse in time with my heart. I took a deep breath and continued into the tunnel, leaving behind the sleet covered village forever. Praying that my sacrifice would not be in vain.
Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump
***
What is your wish?
To die in place of the village, to quell the moons’ anger
Very well Snowlark, your wish and conviction have been heard, your village shall be saved.
Thank you.
My mind faded into an everlasting darkness, the last thing it saw being the thousands of skeletons from the Priest’s before, scattered around in the darkness.
My soul joined the Priestess in the depths of hell, the crimes I committed too treasonous to write down, the crimes I committed underneath her. Bluefire played happily at the gates of heaven, waiting and then forgetting about me, assuming that I lived a long and happy life.
The village stopped being covered in snow, the walruses came back, the constant storms and sleet stopped, and the village was considered one of the most safe areas from NightWing attacks.
The moons accepted my sacrifice, and my debt was finally repaid to those who helped him.
Ba-dump, ba-dum--
My life ended with a smile, as my body joined the thousands of skeletons on the floor, becoming one of many sacrifices in the world.
~The End~
Category:Fanfictions
Category:Fanfictions (Completed)
Category:Genre (Tragedy)
Category:Genre (Short Story)
Category:Content (Garnet the Skywing)
Category:Mature Content
Category:Fanfictions (Fanon)