What Faithless Found

For DeltatheSeaWing's Prompt Based Fanfic competition.
== What Faithless Found ==
Summary: Faithless, member of a three-NightWing diplomatic and trading party journeying in the Kingdom of Sand, returns from his hunting trip to find his companions missing and their camp destroyed. However, it seems like an enchanted bundle of roses can tell him what he missed... 
Violence warning, but nothing more extreme than what's in the canon books. 
Given Prompt: “The petals of the rose swirled in the wind before finally settling on the sand in front of the burned hut. They blended in perfectly with the droplets of blood.”
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== Ch 1 ==
The petals of the rose swirled in the wind before finally settling on the sand in front of the burned hut. They blended in perfectly with the droplets of blood. 
Faithless stood with his amber eyes wide and mouth agape. His black wings were still spread even after he landed, casting a shadow over the golden dunes, which still had the stray piece of debris flaming or smoking. 
"How long was I hunting for?" The NightWing finally folded his wings and padded around the smoking remains of the remote hut he and his friend, Orion, had been staying in. Faithless hesitantly approached a mound of charred wood and straw, then drew back. The blood was coming from underneath… there. 
He wasn't sure if he wanted to clear the debris aside. He didn't know if he wanted to know who was under it. And, with a chilling start, he realized he hadn't seen Orion or Littlefang since he came back. But surely Orion was the source of the roses? Who else would have brought those? Surely Littlefang was off fishing like the weird little NightWing he was? Ignoring the dragon crushed beneath the charred building for the time being, Faithless ran over to the roses. 
All of the flowers were red, except for two… they were neatly bundled together, even after they had been evidently thrown onto the sand in disgust and anger. In the center of the arrangement was a black rose and a white rose--how peculiar. The fall hadn't undone the bouquet, but had jostled the gentle stems enough for them to drop petals. Faithless tried to pick up the flowers, but quickly dropped them with a hushed cuss. These roses still had all their thorns. Or, rather… it almost appeared as though they had suddenly sprouted thorns. The stems were covered in large, jagged growths that seemed unnatural, almost. 
A growing discomfort was forming in the pit of Faithless's stomach. No, none of this was natural. Faithless sat down and picked up one of the rose petals in his talons. It felt normal, at least--silky, slightly damp and warmed by the desert sun. 
"Breathe, Faithless," he murmured. "And try to remember…"
Now, what he meant was that he needed to sit down, focus, and try to remember the past few interactions, see if he couldn't discern a culprit for this. But instead, he felt faint. He looked down at the rose petal as his head drooped and he slightly gasped. 
Glowing. This petal was glowing. Something he had said or thought or felt made the petal glow… maybe just picking it up was enough to activate it. Faithless felt like he should throw it down and run, but he was overcome with an intense urge to sleep. So intense, in fact, that he merely collapsed onto the sand after managing to stagger into a patch of shade. Clasped between his front left talons, the red petal rustled in the wind, keeping up its supernatural glow… 
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== Ch 2 ==
Faithless woke up three days earlier. Yes, that’s right--earlier. He knew that for two reasons--one, their trade party was in town. Two, he was able to look at Orion, Littlefang, and himself. Somehow he was watching from outside, a spectator. Though he wasn’t sure, he was quite sure that now, in this dream state, he wasn’t visible to the dragons of the past. 
This must be that rose petal, but why here? Faithless strode right beside his past self--his physical self--and continuously swept his gaze across the streets. Is the culprit here? If Orion or Littlefang were animus, surely they’d have told me... Was there a friendly animus on the scene, one who wanted to help me solve the murder? Is that the dragon under the rubble? He felt a pang of sadness. If another dragon had intervened in the attack and gotten killed, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to cope with that…
He was ripped out of his thoughts by the scent of roses. Once more, Faithless scanned the streets… this time, he saw a dragon cloaked in rose petals. She was a large SandWing, with nearly white scales with black stripes along her sides, but her eyes were an even darker obsidian and glittered with power, greed, and something else he wasn’t sure how to describe. All he knew for sure is that they had seen this dragon before, but she lacked her flowery adornments. It seemed that his friends and his physical self also were unaware of the roses surrounding her, though the dragoness approached the three with purpose and a smile. 
Faithless was unable to hear the full conversation they had. In fact, he wasn’t sure that he even remembered the whole thing. Orion did most of the talking--or flirting. That dragoness flirted with him. It was so obvious. Almost painfully. But the one thing that Faithless was able to hear was a name. 
“Innoxia.” 
She said it with such charm, such a friendly tone. Faithless was growing wary, though. Why else would this dragon stand out to him in this dream? Why would her name be the only thing clear in this conversation?
Despite the petal being nowhere in sight, Faithless felt the harsh tug of sleep clawing at him. This time, he just allowed himself to collapse on the street--no one could see him, he figured, and he doubted that his astral-projected form or… whatever this was… could possibly overheat. 
“Innoxia,” breathed the rose-scented wind, echoing back the name he had heard even as he was dragged back into blackness. He inhaled a final time, savoring the fresh aroma--but wasn’t able to react when the smell suddenly became coppery like blood. 
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== Ch 3 ==
Faithless came to again near the camp--but it hadn’t yet been ravaged. Once again he saw himself and his companions and realized that he must still be in some kind of time-traveling dream state. He stood and walked around in the sand, leaving no tracks behind him. Everything was ok again and it hurt him to think about. 
There were conversations going on, and while Faithless could remember the jokes and chatter he just had with his friends, he wasn’t able to hear it this time. Eventually he saw himself fly off after nodding to Orion, jumping into the sky and spiraling so far above the dunes until he became a black speck… it took him a while to fully disappear in the vast desert sky. 
He wasn’t sure what Orion and Littlefang were doing exactly, but he suspected they were either taking stock of their inventory or preparing to return to the rainforest. We never really did get to establish any good trade regulations or firm deals, Faithless thought with a frown. After this attack, who knows when they’d be able to try again. 
Time seemed to drag on. Maybe he had been out hunting for too long. Faithless assumed he was here to actually view the assault and was rather glad to have this much time to mentally prepare for it. 
When the sun was highest in the clear, desert sky, the shadow of a large SandWing partially eclipsed it. 
It was the same dragoness from before--Innoxia--and she carried a bundle of roses in her talons. Most of the conversation was blurred again, but it didn’t take a genius to understand what was happening. 
Innoxia presented the roses to Orion, who shook his head and backed away. He looked to be feverishly explaining something when Innoxia threw down her bundle of roses, which landed on the ground and exploded with thorns. And from there it didn’t get better. She was only a bit larger than Orion, and yet in this moment, she seemed so big, so powerful. Effortlessly--magically, Faithless realized--she destroyed their small ramshackle hut. The roof of it collapsed on top of Littlefang with a thud, followed by a crunch. Yet Innoxia was too focused on destruction that she didn’t realize Orion spreading his wings and taking off into the vast expanse above. Something about it left Faithless feeling nauseous. I trusted him to stand by us, but… he just left Littlefang here… and it doesn’t look like he’s come back…
Thankfully he wasn’t subjected to any further possible bloodshed; once again, his vision blurred and he felt dragged into sleep. 
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== Ch 4 ==
The petal fell from his talons the second he woke. And once his eyes opened, the petal disintegrated and blew into the wind. Faithless stood, stretching his aching joints, flapping his wings and shaking the sand off of them. I must have been out for a while… Yet the blood hadn’t dried and there was no scent of rot, despite the overbearing sunlight. Taking a breath, Faithless went over and hauled the collapsed tent off of the dragon. He nearly choked seeing Littlefang crumpled and bleeding; there were thorns that had seemingly grown out of nowhere and coiled into his scales. Faithless looked up at the sky, hoping to see perhaps a glint of Orion’s dark-violet and obsidian scales. But there was nothing. Orion had likely already returned to the Night Kingdom and considered both he and Littlefang dead… but that was only half true. 
Luckily for Faithless, Littlefang was a small dragon. Very carefully, and very respectfully, he shuffled Littlefang’s limp body onto his shoulders. And silently, solemnly, Faithless lifted off into the sky, leaving behind the ravaged camp with his friend on his back. 
How could Orion just leave us? And where do I go from here? 
''
He breathed in the air, looking forward towards the horizon. He thought he saw trees on it, meaning he must be reaching the desert’s end. I take Littlefang back home. His family will want him back. And as for me… He frowned. I don’t know. But I’m not living in that forest, and I’m not living in the desert. I guess I’ll just have to go find my place…
Faithless flapped his wings harder, headed for the rainforest. 
And I’m going to give Orion a piece of my mind before I leave again. 
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Category:Fanfictions
Category:Fanfictions (Completed)
Category:Fanfictions (Semi-Canon)
Category:Genre (Short Story)