Time to go

Cinders and snow crunched under her talons as she made her way into the abandoned settlement. Down all that remained of the market street. Once this place was lined with shops and street vendors, loudly calling out their wares and the prices they would sell them for. 
She dropped off into a side street, dodging between clumps of charred stone and rubble. It was so cold here. Colder than most others, even Icewings, dared to go. That hadn't stopped them from building a village here though. Colder only was the ocean that crashed at the bottom of a steep cliff, some ways away from the main activity of the small town.
It didn't matter. She hadn't felt the cold in a long time anyways.
She wove through the piles of debris until she found the house. Hut, really, a one-roomed block of stone. It was half caved in, but the side with the door was still standing. She opened it softly, reverently, afraid to make any sound, even though she was sure there was no one out here for kilometres in any direction.
___
Here was where the egg had lain, wrapped up in the only blanket the mother had. 
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She tiptoed over to the crumbling remains of the chimney, near the abandoned hearth used for cooking.
___
Here was where the mother had sat, waiting and watching her egg through all the freezing nights. She didn't know who the father was. She didn't care. The egg was all she had.
Here was also where the mother had watched a gust of wind through the window tip the egg softly onto the hard packed dirt floor. Watched the first cracks appear on the side. It wasn't time yet, the mother knew, but a dragonet could not grow in a cracked egg.
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She stepped back, into the centre of the tiny room.
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Here was where the mother carefully cracked open her egg, spilling the stillborn dragonet inside onto the frozen ground.
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She left the hut, making sure to latch the door closed behind her, and stepped silently out into the lane.
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Here was where the mother had stumbled out the door and fallen, sobbing, clutching her lifeless dragonet's body to her chest.
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She drifted down the street, silent as the ghost she almost was.
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Here was where the mother had stopped, outside the carpet seller's store. Here was where he had heard her cries and stepped out to see her. Here was where she had begged him to revive her little dragonet.
And here was where he had slapped her down into the snow, and told her it was all her fault; she'd had this coming from the first day. Told her there was nothing he could do for her little dragonet, not that he would if he could.
Here was where her older sister had found her, weeping silently, the tears frozen to her cheeks. Taken her quickly away, handed the dragonet to a passing merchant and hissed at him to get rid of it.
___
She glided down the street, frozen cobblestones twisting under her talons.
An icy wind moaned between the wrecked buildings, swirling the finely powdered snowflakes around her legs and tail. The spikes on it rattled slightly in the frozen air as she turned and started to walk. Away from the town, from the twisted debris, from the memories that threatened to swamp her, drown her in their icy depths. And when she could not bear to walk anymore she began to run. She did not fly in the fear that she would be blown off course by the howling gusts, but rather stuck to the path that the merchant had traced, so many years before. She stopped at a seemingly insignificant place in the in the icy landscape. The patch of snow wasn't marked. Nothing to signify what had lain there, all those years ago.
___
Here was where he had buried the dragonet. And here was where she had risen several hours later. Shaking the snow off her frozen wings. She was dead. She was never meant to live, fate had killed her long before. And yet she clung to life as a starving dragon clings to a scrap of food, refusing to let go. Floating somewhere in between life and death. 
She spread her wings and lifted into the air, flying on instinct alone. An ordinary dragonet should not have been able to fly so young, but then again, she was no ordinary dragonet. She had flown away to the cliffs by the sea, not looking back. For she knew in her mind everything that had happened that day and on the days before. Knew that her mother would be safe, and that she would only make it worse by going to her. So for years she wandered the icy plains and slopes. She became known as the Ghost of the North, an untouchable wraith of ice and snow.
After years and years with nothing for company but her own thoughts swirling in her mind, she thought to go see how her mother was faring. So she left the icy cold of the far north and drifted quickly on the southbound winds. When she arrived at the village her aunt had taken her mother to, she took a moment to solidify herself, to tie her swirling spirit back into a body of not-quite-flesh. And then she held her head high in the air and walked down the street, to the house she knew by instinct that her aunt lived in.
It was deserted. No life had been within for a long time now. She couldn't sense the presence of her mother, as she had all her life. Wherever the older dragoness was, it wasn't here.
Gliding out into the lane packed with dragons, she quickly began to scan their minds for any news about the house and those who had lived there. Nothing. When a Seventh Circle dragon and her sister left town, it wasn't exactly on the front of everyone's minds. Upon asking several dragons in the marketplace she finally deduced that her aunt had died three months before, and her mother had traveled alone back to the town she was born in. The town her dragonet was born in.
Wasting no time, the wraith of a dragon quickly flew back, to the only place she had ever called home. 
It had changed little, in the many years she had been away. Some new faces, but mainly old ones. Dragons who had been born here, had lived here, and would all die here, buried in the snow. The stalls that had seemed huge to the dragonet were small now, mere toys, not a worthwhile existence in the space of the world. But although she saw many things, she could not see the one thing she was looking for. 
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She walked stiffly back towards the centre of town. There was no escaping the memories now, they swirled around her like hail in an ice storm.
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Here was where her mother had returned to when her aunt died. Here was where she had begged, with tears freezing to her cheeks, to know where they had buried her dragonet. 
And here was where they had refused.
___
She could no longer feel the ground under her talons.
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And here was where the wraith had returned, a mere month later, just a little too late to save the only dragon who had ever cared for her. And so she came and begged for the same reasons. To know what they had done with her mother. But the dragons who lived here were cruel and colder than the icy winds surrounding them. They laughed at her, a tiny dragonet only looking to be about five years old. An older dragon, whose name she did not know, reached out to slap her. His talons went right though her without once touching her frozen scales.
They stopped laughing. Stepped back. It was too late. They were dead from the moment she landed among them. But even as they cursed and spat at her with their dying breaths, they refused to tell her where her mother had been buried.
When it was done she burned their village to the ground and left, her voice screaming in rage and grief. It was the same rage that made her return the next year. And the next. And every single year after that, knowing that if she ever stopped hating, ever stopped letting her rage be her fuel, she would fade into nothing and her mother would be forgotten completely.
___
This year was different somehow. As she sank down against what remained of the low stone wall bordering the town she realized that something had changed. For the first time in many years, she was not alone. She should have left then. Should have slipped away into the rapidly growing twilight. But she stayed. And out of a gap between buildings came a dragon. He looked young, perhaps only nine or ten years old.
"Hey! What are you doing out here? Where are your parents?" Interesting. She must still look like a very young dragonet.
"Leave." Her voice was rough, creaking after her many years of silence.
He paused. He was smart, she realized, to know immediately that something wasn't right about her. But perhaps not as wise as she had thought, as instead of stepping back, he took a small and delicate step forwards. towards the wraith as she slumped against the wall.
"What's your name? How long have you been here?" Curiosity mixed with fear shone in his eyes. She hesitated.
"I...don't know. I was never given a name. As for the other part, I could have been here for five years or five hundred. It doesn't matter. Time is fluid out here."
"Oh. That's too bad. Can I call you Aurora?"
She laughed. It was a strange sound, reminiscent of the scouring winds the scraped across the flat ice plains. He wondered if she had ever laughed before. She didn't seem to want to answer him, so he left the wraith where she sat and continued his investigation of the ruins.
Dusk came and went. He had the information he'd come for, but something was missing. On a whim, he left his scrolls by what remained of the well and set off back towards the outskirts.
Aurora was right where he had left her, back and wings pressed against the wall, eyes clouded over as she stared at the ever-darkening night. She looks...sad. It was strange to think that a being like her could be, but that was the only word he could think of to describe her.
"Hey...Aurora. Why are you here? I mean-you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but..."
She turned her head to him. She was flickering slightly, like sunlight off a sheet of ice.
"The dragons who used to live here killed my mother. So I killed them. And every year I return to honor her memory."
He tilted his head, wings flaring slightly.
"That sounds...lonely."
He expected her to laugh again, to blow him off like a stray snowflake and carry on. But instead her eyes locked onto his with a surprising intensity. They were so pale, like all the colour had been sucked out a long time ago.
"It is lonely. And painful. Every minute I spend on this world is agony."
He swallowed, throat bobbing. White scales paling even further. His voice was barely above a whisper as he spoke again.
"Why do you stay?"
Her answer was a rasp, sharp as the broken end of an icicle.
"Because if I don't she'll be forgotten. I won't fail her. Not again."
They were both silent for a while.
"Aurora?"
"Yes?"
"What was she like?"
Aurora closed her eyes, thinking. Trying to piece together memories buried in the snowdrifts of time. Her mother...
"She was young...with blue eyes that were too old for her face and a necklace with a crescent moon pendant. She used to sing to me, when I was in the egg still. Her voice was magic in its purest form."
He nodded, watching intently as she lifted the worn chain around her neck to reveal the charm of beaten tin.
"She was kind. When I was cold she wrapped me in her only blanket. She died trying to find me. And I was too late to save her."
His horns reflected the rising moonlight as he shifted to sit beside her in the snow.
"If she really loved you that much, do you think she'd want to see you like this? Want you to be in pain for her?"
She said nothing. Shadows clouded her eyes. A tear ran down her cheek. He pushed on.
"What if by staying here you're tying her down? What if she wants you to let go. To let her go?"
Darkness had fallen in earnest now, the Sky speckled with stars. She faced him once more with cracked moonlight in her eyes. Soft, for once. Hurt. But her voice was as cold as the air around them when she spoke.
"Leave." Her first word to him was also her last. He stood, shaking snow off his wings as he did.
"Just...think about it. Please." And then he was gone, with no more than a whisper of disturbed air.
The night was crisp and still and endless. The white of the snow under the light of the three moons. She waited until he wasn't even a speck in the distance before standing.
Her scream echoed across the sheet of ice to plunge off the cliffs by the sea. There was no rage in it this time. Her fuel was gone, the fight in her bones ebbed away into nothing.
She slumped to the ground, wings trailing awkwardly behind her. All these years out on the ice, she had not once broken. Until now.
Because in the harsh moonlight there was no escaping the truth.
She was not a dragon.
She was just a memory, clinging to another, more faded and bloodstained memory.
She was nothing.
Broken.
Empty.
Maybe it was time to let go.
Category:Fanfictions
Category:Genre (Short Story)
Category:Mature Content
Category:Genre (Tragedy)
Category:Fanfictions (Semi-Canon)
Category:Content (Skydream7)
Category:Fanfictions (Completed)