Mutiny

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Authored by BronzeRattle
Incomplete! Started on November 25 2023. I don't have a publishing schedule: I work on and off, deal with it 😎.
I lied lol. I'm still drafting in TT. If you'd like to see the "current", albeit unstable version of the story, go there. Otherwise, wait until I update this page.
Reading The Flames of Hope is strongly recommended beforehand since this fanfiction builds on several of the concepts noted there (and it will spoil a significant development in the book).
This is a long story (for my standards) with few but very lengthy chapters. For ease of reading, each chapter is split into subsections indicated by a dinkus (the centered ◇~●~◇ mark). I recommend reading between dinkuses.
Feel free to fix obvious typos.
=== Summary ===
When power meets loyalty
In ancient Pyrrhia, the world is a dangerous place. With the impending wrath of the humans, there simply is no room for two abandoned sisters, but in the face of fear, there remains room for love.
When Storm discovers a terrible new side to her identity and a shocking development about the order of the world, they must work together against the new forces of evil, joined by unexpected allies in a troubled post-Scorching world. But not all forces are equal and deep under, born in a manmade revolution, a storm is brewing...
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MUTINY
== Prologue ==
3 BS
Norther was the youngest, and quite possibly, the worst mother there was.
Well, almost. It was hard to do a worse job than leave an egg out for overhead vultures to poke into. At least by now she had figured out how to tie the egg to her chest. It bounced every single time she started off into a run, but for as long as it didn't crack more than how she found it, that was not the important matter. It was still viable, it still housed valuable life, and most importantly, even at the age of eighteen days old, she knew she had to keep it away from the two legged creatures whose eyes gleamed when they spotted it. Or her.
It didn't help that those creatures—she hadn't given them a name yet—were at least ten times her size and if she had to guess, at least fifty times her weight. They could move at superior speeds while she was hampered by the budding life stuck to her chest. The only advantages she had was a jaw filled with adorably tiny yet sharp teeth that left red marks in the monsters and a form that made slipping in and out of the forest easy. Only two advantages, but they worked. Norther knew that if they caught her, it would be over. So that was her job: Don't get caught.
She could hear the creatures scuttling everywhere from her spot in the woods. No legs or evil eyes or grasping appendages here, but plenty of stomping and high pitched chatter. When a shadow cast over the bush, Norther sunk down to the dirt, eerily still.
Crack
Norther shot up. Someone was near, and far too close for comf-
Crack
No, the sound wasn't from around her. It was from...from...
Norther held her breath as she undid the knots of her package.
The egg. Now in her talons, it was lined in cracks that branched out further and further every second. The tiniest beak, colored like the clean bone meals of the two legged creatures, breached the surface. Then the rest of the snout, sliding upwards until a pair of green, green, so green not even the trees or the grass or anything in the world matched it, eyes held onto her own aqua blue ones. She was speechless.
Her sister had just been born.
And I will protect you with every second of my life, Norther thought as she embraced the hatchling.
== The Beginning ==
(0 AS)
Storm used to love this time of the year.
The last two years were great. She would nap in the tree trunk all morning until the sun's warm playful rays grazed her eyes and advised her body to wake up. Every motion was like plunging underwater: The coolness of the air renewed over her features. In other words, if she stood still, she would begin to sweat, but otherwise it was like having her own portable wind. The woods were ripe and crisp for hunting.
This year, Norther disagreed about the usefulness of the "slack off" technique as she called it and had her get up so early in the morning it might as well been the previous night. Unlike the dreamy skies and tantalizing breeze she was used to encountering, the skies were a horrid unforgiving darkness not quite like midnight, but almost like so, and the breeze came in angry freezing gusts as if it too hated this time of the day. She was forced to keep moving not because she would sweat, but because her talons would seize up and become as useful as fish on land if they remained still. Her breaths were always white clouds that stung her throat and snot dribbled from her nostrils by the time her familiar sun had awoken. Storm hated these type of mornings.
Norther's reasoning for why Storm now had to be up this early with her was because the "hoo-mans" had become more active and to keep themselves "secure" they had to both remain alert.
"No human would ever go out in this outrageous weather," Storm had clattered through her vibrating teeth the first time she'd been awoken.
"The humans adapt, Storm." Norther had replied without even looking at her. "Just like us. If we don't watch out, one or both of us will be theirs for all of eternity."
Norther also insisted on keeping their shelter "tidy". That meant cleaning out the bones from her leftovers, dealing with the occasional spider web, and most importantly growing new cover over the trunk to conceal the fact two dragons were living in it. Norther was gifted for that sort of thing: She could turn the place into a lively green paradise in her sleep. Storm wasn't so great at it, so Norther made her practice. Constantly. Like today.
Her first order of business was to deal with a bare patch on the side of the home. A spiny vine mess was located beneath it, slowly climbing upwards. She knew she couldn't mess this one up. "Vines, climb up and fill in the gap in the trunk."
The vines obeyed, reaching upwards and exactly filling it in. It practically yelled "I'm hiding something here" though. Humans were destructive, but they weren't stupid.
"Expand a little outwards, as if you grew over and past it naturally," Storm added into her command. There. Perfect. Now it was a natural enough barrier and she was chilled enough by the violent air. She began to climb into the trunk.
"Hey, we're heading to the river today," Norther reminded her from her perch.
Right. How could she forget? The river, with its leaping fish she couldn't catch even with a trebuchet pointed at her head. Storm paused her climb. "Can we head there now?" Just to get the thing over with, she added in her thoughts.
◇~●~◇
Gluuurgurgurgg
"Storm, you have to wait for the salmon!"
A pink fish leaped from the stream. Storm tensed to snap it up neatly. Instead, the salmon smacked her square in her green eyes. "Argh!"
Through her blinded, stinging eyes she could see Norther stifling a laugh as she waded over to her. "Okay, since you cannot catch for the three moons, we'll try the leafspeak way instead."
"Leafspeak working on fish would be so much more wonderful than controlling plants." Storm straightened herself.
"Heh, fishspeak for you would work out nicely!" The sister chuckled and got right to work expanding a network of overarching branches to snag fish. Storm growled and sat on a rock where the rushing water didn't reach, shivering in her lower extremities.
Orange light suddenly burst to life somewhere behind Norther on the riverbank. Storm scrambled back on her talons and dashed forwards. "NORTHER LOOK-AUGMFF!"
Only in that moment did all three moons and the stars and the sun align for a salmon to finally land into her jaws. She staggered into the water as she tried to hack up the unexpected animal rolling around in her throat. She felt Norther pull her out of the stream, seize her neck, and smack her back until the salmon soared out of her windpipe. Her plunge into the water had filled her eyes with white blurriness and cursed her with explosive coughing.
She heard the ker-plunk of a sizzling projectile enter the drink.
"STORM, what in lemon baskets were you thinking?" Norther roared.
Storm raised a shaky talon at the orange blobs in her vision. "That!"
She could see Norther jump. "Charcoal smokes, they're here! They have the catapult set up and everything—It's almost as if..." She slowed down as she finished the statement. "they were expecting us." Storm felt her sister's tail slap her the side of her leg as she turned around. "Storm, there is no way my leafspeak can handle this many humans-"
She would've said more, if a fiery ball of death didn't hit her just then. Storm's vision cleared up in time to see her body crash into the stream exactly like a leaping salmon, except it was much, much worse than a silly red aerodynamic fish. Before Storm could think, she was pulling Norther out of the river and out on the rock she was on a minute prior. Norther was knocked out cold.
Her ears caught the sound of cables pulling together to ready another projectile and it suddenly made her furious. She scampered on the rock and raised her orange lined wings in protest as she began roaring at the top of her lungs. "We did nothing to you! Go away humans, I don't want you here and none of you should ever return!"
A sudden blast of wind almost tipped her over the rock. It took all her hooked talons to keep her from flying over. The forest all around danced erratically in the wind and she could see the humans beginning to scatter as trees toppled on top of the group. Storm couldn't help but whoop when one of the trees smashed the catapult to a thousand pieces.
As soon as the humans were gone from view, the wind shut its mouth as quick as it had opened it. All was quiet, except for the gentle trickle of the stream. She felt a cold pins and needles feeling start in her lower front legs, probably from the freezing bellows of wind.
Storm crept over the ledge to check on Norther.
Luckily she had stayed on the rock during the event, but she was in a worse state than Storm thought. The knockback and subsequent impact with the river rock had cracked one horn and bent both at peculiar fragile angles. That she could live with—Norther would have a wicked story to tell—but the actual impact with the projectile was far worse. Storm blanched when she saw it, not far above her heart. She reached out slowly for the jugular vein in the neck, holding her breath. It still beated under her talons. So no, she was not dead.
But for how long?
Storm had to get her home. Carrying her was not going to work. She looked around and for once hated the tranquility of the environment. Even the salmon had paused their action. It made her heart throb in her ears and her thoughts race at gale speeds. She knew the death timer was ticking, glaring at her, ready to pounce. And frankly, she did not one to be the only surviving hatchling of her long lost parents.
Long green fronds of some plant jumped out to her eyes. She could use those...
◇~●~◇
Something occurred to her as she sat in the trunk hollow.
Norther had been laid down on her back on a moss mat. Storm had tried to clean the wound the best she could, but she had no idea if she was doing it right. They've had the occasional fall and scratch here and there: A flaming boulder was not something Norther taught her how to deal with. She had to avert her eyes from the raw blackened scales around the impact and the makeshift bandage she had set on top so she didn't have to stare at the flesh that made her lose her breakfast.
Even with that, Storm knew she was losing the war. Soon enough an illness would seep in and it would be all over. No final words. No polite gestures. No more Norther.
Her mind was on that track when the revelation came, so bright and sudden, that she sat up and stayed like that, thinking.
She had caused the winds.
Her mind pictured that moment. Spittle running down her jaw. Her roaring, full of bile and hate, dooming the humans to nonexistence. Claws clutching the rock so tightly faint clawmarks remained. Wings held so high to the sky overhead vultures could crash into them. She was a predator, a menace, and that moment, unstoppable.
It was not a coincidence that the wind had started so immediately and ended so immediately when the cause of her ire had left the scene in haste. She had told the heavens the humans should eat their tails, and the heavens delivered. The heavens even smashed their catapult—She felt that vengeful pride again as it came into her mind's eye.
If the heavens obeyed that, would they obey her request for Norther to live?
The tiny rational corner of her brain objected. Woah Storm. The heavens might not listen to you if you ask too much.
The heavens probably delivered all the time. All miracles were its doing. All aimed misfortune was its doing. Was she special for being able to call on a miracle in no time? Were there others?
She pushed the last thought out of her mind. For now there were no other types, no questions on these types, no anything. Only her. Only one request.
Storm dropped down from her ledge and landed a few arm lengths from Norther. Her chest rose up and down shakily.
She had no idea if it would best be done exposed to sky, roaring at the top of her lungs, or on some type of perch for the world to see. She hoped the heavens would cut her some slack. This was her sister on a dying, sputtering road, and here was her chance to stop it.
"Dear heavens. I apologize for not asking kindly last time. This is my sister Norther. She was the reason why I got so mad at those humans. She is mortally wounded. Please return Norther to the way she was before the humans hurt her." Storm paused and looked at the sister. "Norther, please be okay."
She felt chilled in her talons and dizzy as soon as she finished her sentence. She righted herself on the wall. Was that the consequence of asking favors to the heavens?
Yes it was. Norther's horns began to repair themselves, slowly but surely. The ugly marred scales at her chest flattened themselves in the proper blue color. She couldn't see what was happening under her bandage, but she suspected the heaven's miracles at work there too.
And so Norther awoke, gasping for air as if it was all a terrible dream.
"Norther." Storm zipped to her sister and hugged her tight.
"Uh, hi Storm." Her blue eyes were so great to see again. She scanned the room and cautiously touched her chest. Storm could tell she was trying to find the injury that had almost killed her. "How did you..."
Storm stepped aside. She hoped Norther would understand this development. Norther might even find it a joke. But she had to know. "Norther, I discovered that my leafspeak doesn't just work on plants."
"Not just on plants?" Norther repeated, still confused on what happened to her.
The sister nodded. "When you were hurt, I told those humans to go away. The heavens cast wind to make then go away. They even took their catapult away. I asked the heavens to fix you. And they fixed you."
Her sister was silent. Processing. Finally, she lifted her head up. "It was bad?"
"You were going to die if I didn't try."
Another long moment of silence. This time Storm could see her brain working. One boulder was one death, or would be one if Storm didn't have a direct pipeline to miracles. That was all it took to kill a dragon. One chunk of rock. Zero dragon.
Were they that determined to purge the world from dragons that they had perfected the method?
"We need to be more careful," Norther stated. "If we were not as fortunate as we were to have your 'mutation' of leafspeak, I could've been dead. In another world, both of us would be dead there in the river and become the finest vulture feed those birds had ever seen. No one would tell that we were there, once two sisters and now white clean skeletons among the fishes."
"That's why I will protect us."
Norther's gaze snapped to her as if she'd been slapped.
Storm continued. "I have to. It's my destiny. Norther, you've been protecting me before I was born. You've been protecting yourself for longer. Let me return the favor. I know with this power I can do it. We can be safe from the humans forever."
"I couldn't let you do that. There is so much we don't know about your strange leafspeak..." She leaned her neck back. "What if it has side effects?"
The coldness in Storm's talons, having been dwindling, intensified at that sentence.
"Look Norther, I feel fine. Your leafspeak doesn't has side effects, so mine probably doesn't either."
She shook her head. "It doesn't feel natural."
Storm felt a twinge of impatience. Why couldn't her sister see the greatness of this discovery? "So you think I should have let you die?"
The dragon buried her snout in her claws and rose it again. "Okay. You win. Use your mutation to protect us, BUT promise me one thing."
"What?"
Her stress transformed into a steely unreadable expression. "Promise me that you will only use it when we absolutely have to. Use it when the walls are caving in on us, when there are no other options available that could save our lives. Use it only when without it, death is not a possibility, it is a given."
She held out her shortest talon like a handshake and stared straight into Storm's soul. "Promise."
Storm stuck out her own short talon and draped it around Norther's. "I promise."
== Her Calling ==
(4 AS)
"Let's...never do that again."
Norther stumbled into the tree trunk breathless, blood streaming from a nostril. Her scales were scratched all over from the bushes she had used to soften her collisions.
"Aw c'mon Norther, you just need practice!" Storm beated out gleefully. She had to admit, it was pretty funny seeing her sister not be good at something for once. Norther might be queen of the forest, but definitely not queen of the skies. At least for now.
Norther glared at her. "You knew how to fly at half a year old Storm! I had to spend a year getting you to sit your behind down and not go chasing after every bird in existence." She pulled on her horns. "It was a nightmare!"
"Hey, having four new wings is a pretty neat hatching day present," Storm comforted.
"I'm taking a nap. Everything hurts. We can try figuring out these space-filling wing things later." Norther rubbed her snout and curled up in her signature sleeping ball, wings covering both sides of her body.
Storm stifled a laugh and sat up on a makeshift seat. Her wrists pulsed with a persistent itch she had developed in the last few days and she didn't know why. It was like touching poison ivy, only that this irritation went all the way to the bony interior as if she shoved the three-leafed plant down there. She scratched at them hoping the bout would end soon when a burst of flame fired from her wrist that made her eyes zip.
The trunk was on fire.
"Oh mother of charcoal!" Storm got up, picked up the bucket from the water collection device Norther built, and poured its contents over the flames.
But the flames were growing fast. She refilled the bucket as fast as she could but the effort was futile. In seconds it spread over the vine interior, greedily licking at the shelf of medicines. Norther had gotten up by this point picking up tiny containers in haste. "My serums!"
Storm wanted to yell at her for thinking of such a superficial thing in a crisis. Instead she coughed in the smoke. "Norther, we need to leave," she squeezed out between gasps of air.
"You think I didn't notice?" Norther slung satchels over her head that contained her medicine mess and sprinted out of the trunk. Storm followed in suit. "Now what?"
"We can't save the trunk, so we need to save the forest." She placed the bucket in Storm's talons. "Here, there's a spring a couple minutes down the wild carrot path. Fill the bucket up and drench the fire. I will relocate all the flammable plants."
Norther got right to work muttering leafspeak under her breath. Storm frantically flapped into the air, keeping the tall creamy blooms of the trail in her sight until it broke away into a tiny pool of water under the base of a twisted tree. She scooped up a bucketful and made her way back.
The trunk was a roaring fire at this point, belching toxic black clouds of smoke. She noticed a dirt clearing all around it that hadn't been there before, unscorched. Norther burst out between some trees. "I created a firebreak to prevent any more damage. The wind thankfully isn't strong, so it should peter out once it exhausts our home. Now hand me that bucket."
◇~●~◇
"I'm sorry about setting our home on fire," Storm lamented as they climbed a faraway mountain range.
"Well, at least we know what you got for your hatching day, eh?" Norther elbowed her playfully. "Bit of an early present. Now we know not to live in areas where you can light the whole place aflame."
"What if I do it again and burn up something valuable?" Storm worried.
"I trust that you won't do anything of the sort. Well, at least on purpose. Let's try it out and see how it's activated to avoid that. I bet it has something to do with the funny glow from your wrists."
"What funny gl-" Storm sputtered to a stop as she spotted a faint orange light emanating from her wrist scales. She hadn't noticed it earlier when it was still bright outside, but now that night had settled in, it was hard to ignore. "That funny glow," she repeated robotically, staring at the light.
"How did you get it to work last time?" Norther asked.
Storm closed her eyes pensively. "Those scales...they were itchy. I was scratching at them and it just sort of happened." To her surprise, her wrists weren't itchy anymore since the fire. She didn't know why.
"Maybe the pressure of your claws pressed on a gland of some sort that creates the flame. Try taking a claw and pressing on those scales." Norther stepped out of her way.
Storm bent her talons back for a better view of her left wrist. Before she could even lift a claw a spew of orange spilled out from the left wrist in a brilliant show of light. She shrieked from the blast of heat and abruptly put her leg down.
Now that she actually witnessed the fire, she could see that it wasn't pure fire being shot out, but instead some thread object orange from heat and clearly hot enough to ignite anything it came into contact with. She approached it curiously.
"Don't touch it Storm. It might not be fire, but it's still blazing hot." Norther warned.
Storm ignored her and pinched it up between two hooked claws, almost dropping it from the lack of temperature difference. She held on though, not feeling the slightest bit hurt, until she held the entire strand in her talons.
She could tell Norther was analyzing the thread in excitement. "Fascinating. I think you might be the first dragon to ever pick up fire. It makes sense that you are able to handle the silk because-"
Storm stopped and glowered at her. "Wait a minute. Silk?"
"You know, like a spider. They spin this little thread-like thing called silk for webs to catch insects for food. It's hard to tell because of how bright it is, but it looks like a type of silk. Of course, it isn't being produced from your rear." Norther winked.
The dragonet glanced at her tail fearfully to search for unexpected glowing lights there and sighed in relief when she didn't see any.
"I'm kidding! But hey, now we know you can make really, really hot fiery silk. Flame-silk! I propose naming it flamesilk."
"I like it." Storm twirled the silk around her talons, admiring its warm glow.
"I hope the heat dissip-"
Pthoom! Something shook the ground above them, showering the sisters in pebbles.
"What was that?" Storm spoke quietly, startled.
Norther replied in a similar low voice. "I don't know. You investigate since you know how to use your wing things. Holler if you need help."
"Coward." Storm tied the silk to her forearm and silently rose up in the air.
A sandy form of a dragon loomed overhead.
◇~●~◇
"Y-your Majesty!"
Storm secured herself on the cliff side in shock.
"Don't you 'Your Majesty' me Jester." A voice snapped. "I know you've been working with the traitors. Traitors among the human-trained dragons are what brought down human civilization. Traitors among my dragons will not be allowed to bring down our budding independence!"
She could hear Jester sputter not a tail length above. "Crescent-Wing, I promise you, I have been loyal since the start of the Scorching movement! I helped take down Emissary. I stole the Diamond Empire's secret plans. I didn't even keep 'em. They've been in Utopia since the mission was accomplished."
All was silent after Jester's spiel. She could hear him breathe rapidly in shallow, terrified gasps, only slightly muddled by the light evening breeze. Maybe the sandy dragon Crescent-Wing would forgive him after all.
"That's Queen Crescent-Wing to you!" Storm heard a sharp flesh-stabbing noise, a shriek from Jester, and uncomfortably close screaming that made the warmth of the flamesilk wrapped around her arm turn into ice. She heard a scrambling effort under her. Storm forced herself to look.
Jester was there, maybe about four wingspans beneath her, looking at her as though his life depended on it. His short claws had taken hold of some cliff grasses, but he wouldn't last a minute with the amount of sweating and trembling he was doing.
He pleaded. "Help me!"
"You can help yourself Jester," The queen sang from above.
Storm pondered for a moment. A traitor was never good news, and empires and human-trained dragons were already making her head spin.
But Norther would never forgive her if she found out Storm let a dragon die because she didn't feel like dealing with their problems. Norther would remind her of her decision every hour of the week, Storm just knew.
When Storm looked again, Jester's grip was slipping. "Hurry!" he hissed.
"Oh fine you panicked weasel." She let go of the rock and flapped down to him. For a second she thought about using her flamesilk as a rope, but remembered it would most certainly incinerate his talons. "On the count of 3, grab my talons. 1, 2, 3!"
Jester released his grip. Storm grabbed his cold claws, the sudden weight making her lurch forwards, but she regained control quickly with how tiny he was. She flew him down to where Norther was still standing, now with deep concern. "Quick thinking. I was worried I would have to use some of my more expansive plants to save him."
A brief flicker of confusion lit the dragon's eyes. Now on the ground, he really was tiny, only half Norther's size. "Independents." He bowed for Storm shakily. "Thank you for saving my life. My-my name is Jester."
"Looking at you now, I can see why you couldn't save yourself," Norther commented. She pulled gently on a dull tiny wing, revealing it riddled in holes. "Your only working wing is done for."
Jester swatted at her talons. "Oh don't mind that. The missing one's from an infection moons ago and the other happened from a battle with some of them dragons still willing to die for their humans."
Storm crinkled her snout. "That Crescent-Wing dragon...she said something about human-trained dragons?"
Jester smiled wryly. "Ah, you Independents have been out of loop. Born after the war?"
"What war?" Both sisters asked at the same time.
He rubbed his head. "Oh sisters, there's a lot to know. But at least you green eyes," He looked at her, "know what humans are, so that's a good start."
Norther ruffled her spines. "Hey one wing, that 'green eyes' is Storm, and before you call me blue eyes, I'm Norther. Yes we know about humans. They tried killing us."
Jester nodded. "What you might not know is that those humans had three empires spanning the continent. Around a decade ago, one of those empires came up with the brilliant idea of capturing dear mothers' pride and glories to brainwash them into burning their enemies into ashes."
Norther froze, pupils narrowed into slits. "I remember that..." She practically squeezed Storm. "Storm, that's why those humans wanted us!"
"So you aren't so clueless. Twelve of the adult dragons met to discuss the kidnapping of their eggs and decided to at first just take back their kids, but then everyone realized it would be much better to just destroy their empires. So they waged war. The Scorching." He rose his head proudly. "I was part of that first group. We won with the help of many new dragon friends, but we lost many lives during it all."
"What does that have to do with getting thrown off a cliff?" Storm raised.
"Oh, um," Jester twiddled his thumbs. She was pretty sure he had forgotten about that part. "Crescent-Wing has some...let's just say...different ideas from what some of the Dozen Scorchers were thinking of. I've been working to get her to be more open minded, buuut sometimes you get stung with a poison that will kill you in 72 hours and you can't really do anything about it because the antidote is so hard to get."
"I can help you get it," Storm said.
The olive dragon snorted. "Not likely. See, Crescent-Wing loved slashing at them human-trained dragons with her crazy long stingers and those crafty humans figured out that the brightsting cactus provided a complete recovery from its effects. We spent a good part of the war destroying it, but we also kept a little bit of the crop to ensure that if Crescent-Wing ever stung an ally or someone important, we could restore them back to health. What no one knew—what I didn't know until just a couple months ago—is that she had been destroying the cacti in secret, far beyond what we intended, until the only store remaining lay in a hidden compound very few dragons had access to. In short, she is keeping it all to herself-"
"So that no one can use it against her," Norther finished. "Different ideas...refusing to mediate...it sounds like she wants power."
Jester glanced at her. "Correct. She was our commander of war, so after the war was over, we naturally let her become the ruler of a new Dragon Empire. Now, it wasn't a unanimous decision: I dissented and so did two other Scorchers. But we held votes through majority, so she became queen and I got to fume for the next 4 years."
Storm whipped her tail. "Look, Jester, you're a pretty nice dragon for being the first other dragon I have seen my whole life. It would be a shame if you died and the world didn't know what your terrible queen is up to. I should at least be able to save you."
"You can try, but the last thing I want is to endanger random Independents. I already gave you a scary amount of information that if they catch wind of, is going to get your head lopped off by Crescent-Wing personally."
Norther fluttered her wings. "Hey, I have leafspeak. As long as I'm within a good range, I should be able to control the cacti and get it out of the compound. Plus, I can deal with anything they throw at us."
"Except for hot boulders." Storm punched her shoulder.
"We don't talk about that."
"I'm still not confident about this." Jester shook his head, now no longer shaking. "Sisters, I used to manage that compound before my double life was discovered and it is armed to the teeth. Some measly leafspeak and whatever Storm can do, if anything, isn't going to be enough."
Storm watched Norther take a step forwards and narrow her eyes. Green tendrils rained from the tree Jester had been under, wrapping around him and suspending him a fair distance above the dirt. He struggled for a moment before going limp in defeat. Norther walked forwards, eyes aligning. "Whoever said my leafspeak was measly?"
He sighed. "Okay, okay, maybe you do have some spunk. Can I please be released now?"
She snapped her talons and turned around flippantly. He fell on the ground. "Oof!"
"I believe we are more than capable for this mission. Storm has fiery silk that can incinerate you in a moment. What can you do one wing, because I am surer than the three moons that it isn't anything near as dangerous as our abilities."
Jester rose up to his talons. "You really are a confident one for not having seen the place. So fine. If you don't mind a little bit of flight, I can take you to the compound. Then we can see if you two are still up to the task."
"Norther can't fly yet," Storm supplied.
"Then we'll just walk there." He began walking down the path.
◇~●~◇
"See this hill? This is your target." Jester pointed to a dome of rock that rose out sharply from the ground in the distance.
Storm pushed the leaves of the bush they were hiding it for a better look. "Looks more like a mountain."
He ignored her comment. "To everyone else this hill is simply a military training school in its winding caves. Many dragons have been here during the Scorching, but a very selective bunch know of its cacti surplus hidden deep underground, guarded by only Crescent-Wing's most elite. Hence why we in the know call the hill Brightsting Foretress."
Norther looked stumped. "If you knew Crescent-Wing's motive and knew that she stored her cacti here, why didn't you take it?"
"I...don't know where it is. But I know it's here. It must be. The closer you get to the prize, the more stringent the security protocols are. Even as an administrator I don't know them all. For all I know the room could be rigged to explode if an outsider enters it."
"So what do you know?"
He swept back his sail. "Understandably, the foretress has guards everywhere. A wing patrols the skies, 3 wings patrol the grounds. There is only one entrance, and they will check your reasons for going into the place. Every dragon gets checked for their real identity. Even the custodian crew. It annoys them the heck out."
Storm thought for a moment. "Even at this hour?"
"Some are day shift, while others are night shift. From my experience, they get tired around this hour. They might not be 100% alert."
Out of nowhere an orange wing swept by in an enormous gust of wind, causing the bush's leaves to violently thrash to one side. "Duck!" Jester yelled.
They dropped to the ground. Storm's heart pounded, expecting to be caught.
But no one came. After a minute, Jester waved at them to stand upright. "That was too close. Had that guard gone in for a second look, we would be in cuffs right now."
Norther got up and became eerily still. "Do you hear that?"
Storm shook her head. "No..."
Jester stopped. "What does it sound like? It is night time in the forest, so there is bound to be some sounds you don't hear usually."
She furrowed her brow and pricked her ears. "Like wheels creaking, getting closer."
His eyes brightened. "That must be a supply caravan. We must be near a road. Maybe the guard got so close because they were checking it out."
Storm snapped her talons. "I have an idea. Could we hijack it to get in?"
"They check the guys hauling the thing," Jester said. "We would need to know their names. Also, if that guard that flew by takes a second look, they'll know we're not the original crew."
"We can pry their names from them. It's the best shot we have at getting into the foretress, unless you have better ideas."
He thought about it and it was obvious he had none. "Okay. You two have to commit for this mission. I'm assuming neither of you sisters have fought before, correct?"
Norther nodded. "Nope."
"Let me do the heavy lifting and make sure you don't aim any of your assault at me. Norther, guide us to that caravan. Apparently your ears work better than ours."
◇~●~◇
The trio lumbered through the woods until Norther stopped, crouching down in the dense brush. She turned to face them. "This is it."
Storm squeezed in beside her. Two dragons, orange and sea green, were hard at work tugging a wooden wagon with several crates on top. Another dragon, this one armored and peach where the armor didn't cover them, walked alongside them. They seemed more wary than the other two. The dragons were a couple wingspans away.
Jester made an almost silent hiss. "A guard," he whispered. "We'll have to dispose of them."
Norther glanced at him. "Do we have to?"
"They will rat us out."
She rolled her eyes and focused. Roots erupted from beneath all the dragons, wrapping around their limbs, eyes, and mouth. The guard was snared in more roots than the other two and was slowly drawn toward a tree. Once they were underneath, vines swooped in from the tree and quickly encased them in a soundless cocoon. The green bundle was then swept into the thick tree canopies. The whole ordeal took less than 30 seconds.
Jester's jaw dropped. "Wha..."
"I practiced this exact maneuver on humans in case one of their hunting parties ever showed up at our front door." Norther huffed. "Can we get this over with?"
The trio stepped out of the woods and approached the two dragons who were still trying to break out of the roots, but they held firm.
"It's best that you two talk," Jester whispered to them. "I'm a celebrity sort and they might recognize me by the sound of my voice."
Norther took the initiative. "Greetings, we will not hurt you. What are your names?"
Storm fluttered her wings. "How are they going to talk if they can't speak?"
Norther looked at her. "I can't do that. They might rouse attention." She looked back in thought. "But I can..."
The roots sustaining their right talons released them. Their talons remained in the air, trembling.
She bristled. "You have five seconds to write before I tell the roots to choke both of you out. If they're incorrect, I'll kill you anyway."
Both sets of talons furiously began writing in the dirt.
"There we go." Norther walked over to study the names. "Shell and Ember. Thank you for your cooperation."
She bowed her head and the roots strapped the dragons to nearby trees. "That won't hold them forever," Storm noted.
"I know, but it should provide enough time for us to do our thing." Norther waved at Jester. "Let's get this show on the road."
Jester was so small that he fit snugly into one of their less filled boxes at the front of the wagon. He poked a hole into the side to communicate with them. Once they had sorted him out, Storm and Norther hauled the wagon down the road, occasionally receiving overpasses by aerial guards. The original orange guard never came by. The wagon was a lot heavier than Storm expected and pretty soon both sisters were drenched in sweat.
When the wagon was within a good ten wingspans from the entrance, rounding the road so that the guards in front were visible, Jester whispered through the peephole. "We might have a problem."
Storm jumped but regained her posture. "What?"
"Night wagons need to have a guard. The guards at the entrance will ask us why we don't have one."
Norther raised her head. "I have an idea for that." She produced two large dark purple flowers from her satchel, one of which she handed to Storm. "Be careful not to smell it and especially don't crush it. This flower is very volatile."
Storm studied its wide shape. "What does it do?"
"I found it in one of my foraging sessions before I grew my wings. By accident I crushed the flower as I was examining it. Next thing I knew I passed out. I've been meaning to study it more, but if my theory is correct, inhaling enough of its fumes will cause one to lose consciousness." She tucked the remaining flower back in her satchel.
"So we can use one each for the two guards." Storm connected the dots.
Norther nodded. "You need to crush it and essentially shove the blossom up the guard's nose for it to work. I'll do it first, and then you follow."
"Got it." She tucked the flower in a pouch tied to her left leg.
They went along the road. The two guards at the entrance, muscular and covered in armor, stood upright as they approached. The taller, purple dragon comfronted them. "Names?"
"Shell and Ember," Norther answered.
The other sandy guard inspected their wagon, occasionally poking at boxes with his spear. After a minute, he returned to the purple guard with a slight nod. The purple dragon continued. "Where is your guard?"
Norther laughed. "Oh, he's a silly one. He left something at our resting camp and he realized it just as this place was on the horizon. He did tell me to give you this though." She took the purple flower out of her satchel and raised it so that they could see. The guards reared their necks forward in curiosity. In a burst of speed, Norther crushed the bloom and shoved it at their snouts.
They both recoiled back and slowly prepared their spears, but their eyelids were already drooping. In seconds both dragons were snoozing on the ground.
"Move quickly, I don't know or want to know how long they will be knocked out for," Norther quietly said to Storm. The sisters began dragging the wagon again. Norther discarded the crushed remains off to the side.
Once they had gotten past the entrance, Storm muttered to Jester. "Now what?"
He clicked his tongue. "We need to take the wagon first to the loading bay. This place is a bit like a maze, so take the furthest left cave, skip past the first collection of tunnels, and take a small right into the bay."
Storm motioned to Norther to move the wagon in those directions, only finding a couple of sleepy guards in the process. The loading bay was a large cave filled with stocked up shelves and several other empty wagons. Snoring was audible from a small room on the left with a dense cover of red vine drapes. Besides that, the room was silent.
"That red room is the sleeping quarters where haulers sleep after late night deliveries," Jester explained. "Now let me out of this box."
Storm popped the top of it open. Jester's neck reared out of it, shaking his head, before climbing out of it. "Never doing that again."
Storm twitched her orange wings. "You're so small that if you were any smaller you'd fit in Norther's satchel."
Norther muffled her giggle as she rearranged the crates to hide Jester's evidence. She turned to them. "Jester, what's your plan?"
He rubbed his talons together. "Crescent-Wing only discovered me tonight and there aren't nearly as many guards on night shift as there is on day shift, so it's unlikely that the guards know of my betrayal and 'death' right now. She is grandiose. Crescent-Wing will make a show of it early in the morning. I'm thinking that if I could get you two some armor to look like guards, I could lead you into the foretress."
"Wait..." Norther raised a talon.
"What?"
She perked her ear. "I hear someone coming."
"It's probably just a-"
He sputtered to a stop when an orange dragon blocked the cave they came from.
She sneered. "You are in so much trouble."
◇~●~◇
"Ray," Jester breathed out a sigh of relief.
"Last time I checked the calendar we weren't planning a break in," she grumbled as she entered the room. She was tall with small smooth scales, enormous wings folded to her sides, and long wavy horns. Keys jangled from a ring around her neck. Her eyes were vividly amber even in the low light. "Who are these runts?" Ray snorted at them in challenge.
Jester looked hurt. "They're Independents helping me with...you know why we're here."
"Sunshine said we weren't ready for a break in until we had more recruits. If this is his idea of more recruits then I have lost faith in his ability to lead." Ray took slow, purposeful strides, practically peering into Storm's soul. When she was close enough, she patted Storm's head. "This one's cute though. I might have to keep them."
"So you knew I would be here?" Jester questioned.
Ray glanced at him. "No. I was assigned to patrol tonight. I can smell you making mistakes from the four corners of the continent, like this one. Did you force these Independents to go with you?"
"They very much agreed. And they're called Storm and Norther. If we managed get inside, we need to steal the cacti while we're at it. There might not be another chance. Crescent-Wing believes me to be dead right now." In a lower voice he added, "She discovered me tonight."
Ray stiffened. "Did she sting you?"
Jester nodded.
She suddenly began to move with astonishing speed. "Then we have no time to waste. I can-"
She froze as a voice came in through the hallway.
"I want it to be known among upper management that there are traitors among us!"
"That's Queen Crescent-Wing!" Ray whispered. Jester immediately slipped behind a stack of crates.
"Traitors?" Another voice responded, surprised.
"Yes. Unionizing against me. I have suspected it for many a time. And tonight I have confirmed it. Jester. That pathetic administrator was conspiring against me."
"And where is he?" Storm noted a slight shock in the dragon's voice.
"Dead. Should be. The fall should have killed him, and if it didn't, he will be killed by my poison. Share this information along with upper management only while I get...errands done."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Swift talonsteps resonated closer to the room. Storm practically dove toward the red vined sleeping quarters. A half second later, she felt Norther brush her side, followed by a cold touch that nearly made her jump until she realized it was Ray's armor.
The vines had a tiny space where they didn't quite reach the ground. Storm pressed her body against the stoney ground and cocked her head just enough to see a bottom sliver of the room. She hoped her eyes weren't so obvious in the darkness.
Pale talons the color of sand appeared in the room, the same color as the dragon she had seen lecture Jester. Queen Crescent-Wing stopped, huffed something Storm couldn't quite make out, and began walking briskly to a shelf. She paused and raised her arm, probably to grab something. A few seconds later, stairs appeared at the end of the row, going deeper into the earth. Crescent-Wing descended the stairs, briefly exposing her elegant form and completely black eyes before disappearing.
"That was...way too close," Norther broke the thick silence.
Ray shook her head. "You are one crazy Independent Storm. If she saw you, she would have thrown open these curtains and we would all be oozing poison out of our hearts right now!"
Storm rose up and concluded, "She has a secret passageway. We need to follow her."
"That, my dear incredibly risky Independent, is a death wish."
Jester poked his head through the vines. "I have to agree with Ray. No doubt that passageway has to do with the foretress, but unless you have Sunshine's invisibility powers, there's no way you could sneak up on her without her knowing."
She flexed her talons. "Perhaps I could."
He looked skeptical. "You have invisibility scales?"
"I have something better, if it works. I have never tried it on myself."
Norther narrowed her eyes at her. "You would not. We agreed-"
Storm could feel a lecture coming on that she did not have the patience for. "Norther, this is important for him! Besides, it's just one use. One! In four years! So cool it."
Norther probably would have spontaneously manifested her own stingers to sting her with, but instead she settled on a short growl and irritated wing flutter. "Fine."
She rubbed her knuckles together. "Oh heavens, make me invisible and unable to heard by Queen Crescent-Wing."
The room instantly began to spin. Talons kept her from faceplanting into the vinework (and into Jester). Her claws felt frozen over once again, like those fresh winter mornings Norther adored waking her up for.
She hoped that meant it worked.
"Are you okay?" Ray's voice sounded like it came from underwater.
"Yes...that just happens when I do...my thing," she responded, trying to steady herself. Jester's eyes were the size of moons.
Norther was miffed of course. "'No side effects'. Baloney. Great use of the mutation. How are we going to see if it worked besides getting a stinger through your teeth?"
"Have some faith Norther. This happened too when I fixed you. If it worked for that, it'll probably work for this."
She flicked her wings. "Whatever. That passageway sounds like it's still open. Figure out where the cacti is and bring enough."
Storm snaked her way out of the vines. "I will."
◇~●~◇
The way down the stairs was dark, gloomy, and filled with dank air.
It was also spiral-y, if that was a word. While it started in a gentle slope, it quickly transformed into a cramped spiral nightmare in almost complete darkness. Her only light was the soft glow of ancient lichen and the globes of fire under her wrist scales that she had forgotten about entirely. The rock here was rough and the stairs could barely be considered such. She knew she was going to have a wicked workout getting back to the top.
Once she was really regretting her life choices and the existence of her ankles, the staircase finally leveled into a simple dirt path. The lichen trail was gone, leaving her with just her light to travel by. Storm walked along, contemplating spooling some flamesilk to see better, when she felt cooler, moist air. Light emanated from what looked like the end. Her heart beat faster.
"Woah."
She was glad that the heavens hid her voice from Crescent-Wing, because it bounced around the giant cave a dozen times over. She stopped at the top of a small ledge. The ceiling was actually fairly low, significantly higher than in the stairwell, but only around four times her height. The ledge had a gentle slope to her left towards what looked like giant steps, like layers going downwards toward the main feature of the cave. A large circular platform rose just above a moat completely covered in thick green prickly plants she guessed were cacti. Water dribbled down around the moat in broad sheets.
The most bizarre part was that the sun shone in a large brilliant ball above the cacti, providing the only light and heat. That couldn't be right. It was far past sunset, and she knew for a fact the sun could not exist while the moon existed. But the more she looked at it—or tried to look, because it hurt to stare—the more she doubted herself. How had the queen captured the sun?
The queen was crouched with eyes closed a little away from the moat. She looked deep into focus. It reminded Storm of Norther when she was communicating with the more stubborn plants in their forested backyard. Seeing her chance, she took a step toward the cacti and immediately felt a sharp sting in her right talons. "Ow!"
Queen Crescent-Wing shifted slightly. Storm's stomach dropped.
Her leafspeak saved her. The dragon resumed back into her concentration. Storm raised her talons. Beads of red oozed from her palm. What? How?
She scanned the ground. It was littered in what looked like normal rocks, but upon closer examination, were skulls. And broken bones. And dragon fangs, one of which had a shiny new claret cloak. Now alarmed, she gazed over the cave again. Faded red streaks were painted everywhere. Piles of bones were left in odd corners behind large boulders. If she took a strong enough whiff, she could scent something vile under the wet moisture. Something...dead.
She bolted upright with renewed horror. Three moons, this is a grave! And if I'm not careful, I could be next!
Her wound was really bleeding now, leaking over her forearm in tiny streams. She hoped her leafspeak made her blood invisible too. Storm sat there, seriously regretting not bringing any kind of bandage, when Queen Crescent-Wing finally got up from her meditation. The queen flapped her scaly wings and flew up into an opening above the sun that Storm hadn't seen from the angle. Where is she going?
No matter. The cacti is right here. All I need is one for Jester. Then I can deal with my cut.
Storm opened her wings for a low, slow glide.
A gigantic thing leaped out from the moat so fast she only saw a glimpse of gray scales. There was no time to deviate. Next second she was being pulled underwater at breakneck speeds.
She thrashed against their sharp grip. Enormous claws dug into her underside, grabbing her with their talons. The dragon slammed her against what she guessed was the rock around the moat. Immediately she saw white.
Their dark shape loomed double in the depths for a second and then lunged at her. Somehow she managed to slash at their snout and dive under their enormous body. They sped straight into the rock with a thud, howling with rage. She swam upwards.
It was no use. The dragon barreled into her side, driving their fangs into her flank. Agony shot through every single nerve in her body. Blood pounded in her ears. She felt oddly light throughout the assault, like a feather, feeling lighter and lighter.
Sound came to her in a roar of whooshing air...
◇~●~◇
Norther's eyelid twitched. She had never felt this nervous before, not while waiting for her sister to hatch, not during the period where it seemed like humans were everywhere she looked, not even when the purple guard interrogated her at the entrance of the foretress. Every second was like waiting to be struck by lightning. Every minute was unbearable.
"Storm is taking too long," she declared to the cramped room.
Ray, who had been sharpening her spear, groaned tiredly. "How many times are you going to say that?"
"I mean it. I know Storm. She might be a little lazy, but she is never, ever slow. Something is wrong. I feel it."
Jester shrugged from his spot among the sleeping workers. "If Crescent-Wing's prize cave is anything like the rest of the network, some of these caves go deep into the ground. I'm sure the stairway down or up isn't anything short. She might be coming up right now."
Norther got up. "No. I don't hear anything. I heard her going down. For a while. Then I couldn't discern anymore. She isn't coming up."
Ray and Jester exchanged glances.
She looked at them dead in their eyes. "Storm is in trouble."
◇~●~◇
...Bright...
Norther...the glow plants are too close to my snout again...
"The intruder been dealt with, as you can see."
"And you had to toss this 'intruder' on MY PLANTS! This will be uncleanable!"
That...That doesn't sound like Norther.
Storm opened an eye and was bombarded by a horribly bright light. She immediately shut it.
"It is not uncleanable."
"How about I make you clean this up right now? I bet there is no real intruder. Oh wait, you are a stupid dragon fish that can't be outside of water!"
That's Queen Crescent-Wing. Now her thoughts began to move quicker, with a purpose. I am still here. I am still alive.
...How am I still alive?
The lower voice spoke coolly. "I am a deity, Queen Crescent-Wing. I will not accept you calling me such names like 'stupid dragon fish'."
Crescent-Wing ruffled her wings (or some audio equivalent). "My orders to you were simple, Goliath. You were to guard the sacred cacti from REAL thieves."
"Which I have done. There was an intruder. The intruder is dead. The cacti has not been stolen."
"I did NOT ask-"
She paused mid-sentence.
"What?" Goliath asked.
"The thief isn't real. There are real thieves coming." Storm heard her slam her talons in rage and an accompanying rush of air. Goliath sounded like he slid back into the water.
Storm was wide eyed now. That must be Ray, Jester, and Norther. I bet it was Norther who alerted them. Paranoid sister...I'm glad they came.
In a great awful effort, she managed to relatively sit up so she could actually see the entrance, although she could feel her arms shaking from exhaustion. She wasn't sure where Goliath was, but she guessed he was hiding for an attack.
Four dragons tumbled out into the open.
They moved so quickly that it was hard for Storm to keep track, so she focused on Norther who was the slowest of the bunch. Norther dug through a satchel and tossed out a ball of a plant at the queen in the process of pummeling Jester. The plant stuck to the queen's arms and began to grow intensely in size, slowing down her assault. Ray took the opportunity to bite near Crescent-Wing's tail tip. Crescent-Wing roared and flicked her tail to shake Ray off, diving right at her.
Norther was searching frantically in her satchels again when her eyes met Storm's. All the color drained from her snout. She took a step toward the moat.
"Norther...don't," Storm croaked. Her arms couldn't support her weight (or pain) anymore and she slumped on her back, just breathing, trying to stay conscious as the world bled into a fuzz.
So, this is it. I die here.
I hope I die a hero at least. Storm the...the...
...
And suddenly she wasn't here but there, off the ground, held by someone.
"Storm!"
Norther.
"Storm!"
She heard Goliath roar and splash his way out of the water. No. Not her.
In a fraction of a second, Storm was that dragon on the rock again shouting at the humans. Storm flipped back onto her legs, thrust her palm forward, and shot a white eye-searing beam of death at the creature. "DIE!"
She was already falling over when the flamesilk hit.
She was already losing consciousness when the cold settled in.
She was already in the stars when she uttered her last word.
...heal...
== Fire ==
Somewhere...
There was only one memory Storm could recall where she got away with something. That day had been drenched in ongoing rain, bright flashes occasionally rumbling across the forest. She would later learn these sights to be lightning and thunder, but for now they were known as what the humans called it. Irlmmble.
She was becoming tremendous at flying, so navigating the torrential rains was a challenge she loved even though Norther had told her a million times about not flying in that kind of weather. She weaved through branches and split the gap between trunks. Storm was so into the activity that she didn't realize she was in unfamiliar territory until a human spawned out of the gray gloom. It was so sudden that she had to stop herself from crashing into them.
The human hadn't noticed. They were perched down on the mud, looking at a tiny structure built from two sticks. One stick was upright. The other criss-crossed over the first, tied to it by grass fibers. The mud in front of the structure looked slightly mussled, as if the human had been digging and burying something. Intrigued, Storm waited around until the human left, and dug up the treasures.
Except it wasn't treasure. It was a horrible dead scent emanating from an animal corpse. It was so bad Storm would remember it forever even through the thunderstorm. She was so disgusted that she nearly went head first into a tree flying out of there, slipping back into the trunk where Norther was napping.
◇~●~◇
Storm had many strange dreams from who knew where.
Sometimes she heard just snippets of voices she could barely identify. Norther seemed to be the most prominent, but every once in a while she heard Ray or Jester.
Sometimes she dreamt that she floated on an infinite sea in the night reflecting endless rainbow stars of the heavens, forever being jostled by gentle idle waves yet never finding a coastline. There were no thoughts of significance and there was a certain free floatiness nearly mirroring laziness.
But her mind always came back to that human with the crossed sticks in a strange distorted light. Whenever it bubbled, she was never the outsider. She was always the bloated animal in the dirt looking at...herself.
This clone of hers never spoke.
Her only purpose was to stare, unblinkingly, at the real Storm. Storm could never move or do anything in this dream, and it would have struck her with fantastic horror had she been able to think.
It was more of an image than a dream in reality. An animated one, with never-ending rain dribbling down the clone and funneling into her grave, but still, an image.
So Storm was startled when, on the nth iteration of the dream, the image was evaporated by a harsh jostling movement. She opened her eyes and saw the sky lined with tree tops disappearing out of view.
Norther, can't you move any faster?" She heard Ray shout from somewhere behind her.
"I can't!" Norther gasped from also somewhere behind her, although closer.
She heard Ray screech something vaguely human. What is going on? Storm flipped herself over and found herself on a woven plant thing. Her platform was strapped to Norther's shoulders. Ah. No wonder Norther is out of breath. She's pulling me along.
But I'm up now.
"Norther." Storm croaked.
Norther faltered for the briefest of moments and flipped her head back. "Finally! *pant* You're awake!" She looked up. "See Ray, I told you she wasn't dead!"
"Good. Now have her pull her own weight. All she has been is a burden!" Ray roared back.
Norther stopped to unattach the plant platform. "Hi Storm. How are you feeling? Can you stand?"
Storm extended her wings and she painfully began to rise back on fours. She felt light, squished together, and somehow dry, like a discarded insect shell. Everything hurt in a sort of fatigued, overused way. Her wings felt especially cramped, as if she had slept on them. "I've had...better days."
Norther nodded in understanding. "I can imagine. It wasn't any picnic getting you out of that cave either. Ray wanted to leave you behind."
"Why?"
She flicked her tail at Ray. "She was really, really sure you were dead. And I can't say I blame her. It was quite a while until I felt a heartbeat out of you. You were going cold. Your mutation saved you."
Storm looked into her eyes. "Like how it saved you."
"Can you two lovebirds get moving already?" Ray moaned from somewhere out of sight.
Norther rolled her eyes. "Start walking and I'll tell you what happened while you were out."
They discarded the woven plant thing and kept a constant pace. She went on. "That huge gray dragon that attacked us-"
"Goliath." Storm remembered. "The queen called him Goliath."
"Well yes. He's dead. You put him in some kind of white flamesilk and told him to die. Whatever flamesilk that was, he couldn't get rid of it and it melted into him. He died screaming for mercy. I still can't get his howls out of my head."
A villanous pride blossomed in Storm from hearing that, which immediately made her feel bad for thinking that way. But at least he won't be a bother anymore. He was working with Crescent-Wing. I do wonder if he really was a deity like he said he was.
Norther pointed to Jester. "And Jester here, Jester got better with the cactus antidote, but uh, show your snout to her."
As he flipped his head to look at her, she noticed a patch of leaves over his left eye and recoiled back.
He smiled. "Ah, just a flesh wound. I hope. We were at Oakland's place for a teensy bit and she said the injury is pretty deep. It might not recover."
Her bad pride dissipated. Shame took its place. Storm didn't want to look at him. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It was my decision to take on the queen, and it is my fault I lost an eye. Losing anything after the ability to fly isn't really that impactful anyway." He immediately smacked into a tree after finishing his sentence. "Oof!"
Norther chuckled. "Except for your depth perception." She pointed at him. "This is the fourth time he's walked right into something."
"What happened to Crescent-Wing?" Storm asked.
"Oh, she's still alive. We took some of her cacti which I have here in a satchel and burnt the rest. Ray was getting ready to kill her, but we forced her to help you against her will. She flew into a tizzy about that. Still grouchy about it. Expect her not to talk to you for a while."
"That leads us to today," Jester chimed in, "Crescent-Wing publicized Goliath's death as an innocent bystander brutally killed by the 'traitors'. Me, Norther, and Ray are her top wanted criminals. She has all the soldiers at her disposal looking for us: we ticked her off good. Luckily you are not on her radar. Crescent-Wing believes you were a traitor killed by Goliath. Let's keep it that way."
Storm glanced at the forest. "Where are we headed?"
Jester flapped his only whole wing in excitement. "I made a little hideout with some of my Scorching friends during the war out here. The whole place is rigged with traps for anyone or anything not invited. It was built against humans, but it's the safest place I know."
Norther seemed a little nervous. "We...we won't be subject to any of the traps, right?"
"Stick behind me, keep your claws, wings, and tails to yourself, and you should come out in one piece."
◇~●~◇
"This is the place," Jester announced to a clearing in the woods. The forest around them was full on new growth as if fire had scorched it sometime in the recent past. Various boulders laid about lazily in the afternoon sun.
"Looks...lovely," Storm commented.
"It is, trust me. Be light on your talons and stay right behind me. The traps probably won't kill you if they go off...but I wouldn't try my luck." He immediately ran off into the field and slowed down into an odd staggered trot pattern. Storm went by his word, with Norther behind her.
After a few minutes of tight tippy-clawing, Jester stopped in front of two boulders. A crevasse sprouted right under him, barely wide enough to fit if Storm folded her wings. "Oh don't tell me-"
"Yup." He disappeared into the crack easily. She grumbled and had to force herself through via scraping her sides. Norther had an even harder fit since she was larger. The inside of the crack was a small cavern with water trickling down its walls. It sloped downwards where Jester was taking them to.
Storm also noticed an increase in light. The yellow glow grew in intensity until the tunnel widened into a large cavern lit by torches. Several dragons lounged about, suddenly standing up when Jester entered the room.
"Where is Sunshine?" Jester asked.
"Out on one of his errands," the largest dragon huffed. He was visibly poochy with a similar wing shape to Storm's. He was entirely forest green with an orange underside and floppy ears.
"Wow. Resin, you have to cut down on the diet," Jester remarked.
Resin rolled his blue eyes and shoved mystery meat into his mouth. "Who are these lackeys?"
"This is Storm and Norther. They are here to-"
He stood up and stormed over, looming over them. "Hold it. I won't hear anything from them until they undergo the rite of passage."
Jester jumped with impatience. "Resin!"
"Too bad, Sunshine said I'm in charge when you aren't here and you haven't been here in months. You have no authority. They have to pass the rite of passage for us to trust their ears and tongue."
Jester sparked with anger and threw glances at the other dragons now surrounding them. "Seriously? This is important! None of you are going against his idea?"
None of them responded.
"Bring it." Storm narrowed her eyes at Resin.
"A confident one," Resin replied, "but too bad it won't be worth anything." He bellowed in laughter as he waddled away, waving his talons to indicate that they should follow.
He led them into a side cave, narrow but infinitely high. Water ran down the darkened far wall and pooled at its base in a stream that disappeared further down into a gorge. Weirdly, the air had a touch of acrid smoke probably from a long-ago fire.
The other dragons bunched in behind them.
"Factionless." Resin regarded them with disgust. "I hate the factionless. Unwilling to submit loyalty to what is their cause that we created. Running away from even the smallest human wielding a dagger. Content with their rights being trampled over by endless human feet. The factionless that shown to us Scorchers time and time again that they are less trustworthy than our human enemies."
He held out his arm to the crowd, who aggressively shook their heads in agreement. His glare came back hard on Storm and Norther. "The factionless are not worth even speaking to when they haven't put in any work. As a result, I devised this trial to put any who believe they are worth listening to to work. I will make you feel what the Scorchers had to feel everyday until the war was over. I will make you prove your worth. Maybe, if you are not worthy, you might even get a little bit of...lethality."
Storm felt claws grasp her wings and a noisy click. She flipped her head and saw metal bands near the claw of her wing preventing her from unfolding them. She looked at Norther. Her wings were banded up too.
Resin gave them a malicious smile. "You are prohibited from flying for your trial. You may not use any powers to stop the trial. You must scale this wall in front of me and reach the safe haven. Be warned, you must be quick or there will be...burning consequences. Green eyes, show me what you got."
He stepped off to the side. Jester was trembling like when he was initially poisoned, but that couldn't be right when they had the cactus cure. He was terrified. For her.
She leaped up on the rock.
Luckily, she was used to grabbing rough surfaces her whole life. Her hooked talons made scaling easy, aided by a pattern of peculiar vines. Some spots were more slippery than others, but she never lost her grip. Storm was wondering what exactly the challenge was.
WHOOOOSH!
Orange light flashed to life. She knew immediately what she was looking at before she peered down. A fire had been ignited at the base.
Oh. That would explain that smoky scent, she thought. She concentrated back to the task. There was no fuel for it to burn. It couldn't possibly claw its way up the wall.
Storm climbed up in crackling silence for another moment. At least climbing was lessening her fatigue: It was natural to her. She wasn't fond of the idea of not being able to save herself if she lost her grip though. The wall was also a lot taller than what she usually climbed and she had never tried to climb so high even with wings to fly. She willed herself to focus.
Smoke smarted in her nostrils.
What? She frantically looked downwards. The simple fire had transformed into a huge orange monster slamming her with impeccable heat. Its red claws dug into the rock, advancing toward her at an alarming pace. In just minutes it would be scalding her tail.
In a flash she understood the trial. It was timed. The time she had was dictated by the fire. Her time was dictated by the fire. If she didn't reach the top, she would either fall to her death or be burnt alive. Neither were particularly attractive.
Storm threw herself up a good distance where the smoke wasn't incinerating her thought process. She had to hurry. How much longer until the top? Her muscles weakened at this thought.
No. She clenched her talons. There is an end. There is a place where the fire won't hurt me. What would Norther do?
Norther's blue eyes illuminated her mind. She was chasing her, unsuccessful as a very tiny Storm flew from one spot to another higher up. Eventually she had stranded herself up on a massive boulder on the largest hill over looking their forest. Realizing her predicament, she had begun to cry.
"Hang in there," Norther had said as she set her talons on the boulder. The nearby plants bended to her control, acting as solid rungs for her to step on until she had Storm in her own equally small arms. "You will be okay."
The memory fizzled out. Smoke choked her lungs. The fire felt like it was mere talons away. But the solution was there. She had it. There were no rules about using powers for the trial."
She curled up her tail and quietly muttered, "Vines, grow into rungs to support my weight."
She resisted the coldness. The strange vines came together in much thicker bunches, forming neat holds for her claws. Storm rapidly began to ascend the overgrown ladder.
The problem with her command was that it only affected the nearest vines to her. She considered expanding the command to mean all the vines, but with so many eyes watching her every move, she didn't want questions on how she had turned the wall into the world's tallest ladder. She was forced to repeat it every few seconds to keep ahead of the wildfire under her tail. The inferno advanced almost as quickly as she could climb. Soot formed in her lungs, forcing her to stop to wheeze every few minutes. Each time was a pivotal time loss.
She blinked her eyes hard to wet them against the roaring flames and almost thought she was hallucinating from the smoke. Light seeped in from above her. What is that? Is it the end?
She looked at the other cave walls. They were closer together now, riddled in sharp stalactites. The light had to be the end. It has to be.
Her arms were filled with renewed vigor. The vines came in less numbers, but that was fine with Storm. She swung herself upwards, clutching a deep crack, and then again. The golden light showered her in such brightness that she was blinded until she heaved her way over the last cliff in thick sweat.
"Say, you are one mighty beast Independent," a familiar voice spoke to her.
Storm opened her eyes. Ray stood beside a brilliantly yellow glowing cluster of crystals branching from the ceiling.
"So you knew this would happen?" She asked her.
"Essentially. Jester hasn't been around these fools in forever, but I have. It would have been no fun to tell you."
Storm picked herself up and coughed. "Have you done this?"
She smiled. "Loads of times. Nothing like spending your afternoon being tickled by death. Resin adjusts the speed of the fire, so if you think you're fast enough at one speed, he will just speed it up so that your life is in danger again. And repeat."
The crackling of the fire abruptly died down. Storm went back to look. What ground she could see from the clearing ashy smoke seemed like a lifetime ago in distance. If she squinted, she could barely make out Norther's pale blue form.
The realization struck her like a trebuchet. "Norther can't do this."
Ray's smile dissolved into a frown.
Storm rushed to her. "These are your friends! Tell them not to do this with Norther!"
She shook her head. "I can't. Once you accept the trial, you have to do it. If you back out..." Fire flickered in Ray's eyes.
Storm wanted to strangle her. "Do you think I care about what your friends do? She's my sister! I don't want her to burn or fall to her death because of your friend's grudge toward innocent dragons!"
"The trial has been started. There is no going back." The orange dragon looked at the ground in makeshift defeat. Norther started howling in incomprehensible screeches.
"Oh for-" Storm stood at the edge of the cliff. "Get these wing braces off of me!"
Even before they clicked off she was falling through the smoke. She tucked her wings in a swoop, watching the ground approach threateningly through tiny windows in the cloud.
Norther hadn't even gotten a wingspan up and she was engulfed in a curtain of fire. Storm thrust her claws out. "Fire, extinguish!"
The fire hushed in a second. Norther's grip slipped from the rock and in an instant she found herself yelling, "Save her plants!"
She landed safely on a net of vines that gently lowered her to the ground. Storm clomped on the ground with a characteristic double clacking noise of her claws. "You're all sick!"
Resin gave her an exceedingly nasty scowl. "And you just ruined both your trial and hers. Get out of here."
Norther groaned wistfully.
Storm flicked her tail at her. "Norther, heal as if the trial never happened."
She didn't have to look back to know Norther was good as new—the dragons gasped at the miracle behind her. She continued glowering at Resin. "I am capable of a great many things you don't understand."
"It's true!" Jester suddenly bubbled. "They helped me steal the queen's cacti!"
The dragon roared at Jester. "NONSENSE! The factionless have never done anything important in their lives!"
Norther tossed out a green prickly plant. "Then explain this."
He inspected the cactus part for a long moment and looked up in conclusion. "This is obviously a fraud. Jester orchestrated this so that he could depose of me and lead this movement. But not anymore!" Resin pointed at him. "Restrain Jester," he shifted her claw at her, "and kill these two accomplices to the crime."
◇~●~◇
Storm stuck herself by Norther with claws up.
"How do you always manage to get into trouble?" her sister said rhetorically. The three remaining dragons crowded around them looking awfully enthused by their task. Storm fashioned a lengthy whip out of flamesilk and lashed it at the ground to keep them back.
Smoke radiated from one dragon's nostrils. Her eyes went wide. "MOVE!"
Norther bent downwards underneath a storm of fire. Storm bolted to the side and swung her whip at the perpetrator. "Flamesilk, keep their snout shut!" The whip spiraled around their jaws. The dragon wrestled with the flaming hot muzzle.
A green blur of massive vines blasted a second dragon. From the corner of her eye Norther's jaw was set in concentration. Her eyes glossed over Storm. "We should be worried about Jester."
"You go handle him." Storm watched her sprint toward the dragons taking him.
The next second she was headfirst on the ground.
She caught a glimpse of a pale gold dragon nearly as small as Jester. The dragon sprouted non-fiery silk from her talons. "This will be the last you hear from Pandora!"
"You're right," Storm replied as she burnt away the silk cocoon she had been snared with. Pandora swung at her. Vines caught her talons effortlessly and drove it into the ground with a dull snap. More plant growth from Norther effortlessly subdued her without Storm's input.
"Storm, a little help here!"
It was Norther's call. Her and Jester were attempting to keep Resin restrained, but his sheer girth made it impossible. Any vines Norther manifested burnt to a crisp. He seemed to find it amusing in reality, something that really, really didn't bode well with Storm. She took a frustrated step toward him.
Something about that caught his attention. His entertained look drained away.
For just a fraction of a second, Goliath's melting face replaced his, an organic compound of gray dragon scales and burnt flesh stuck to angelic white flamesilk. Rain spilled over his distorted features, pooling into a ditch, drowning her inside-
"Storm!"
Norther was shaking her. Somehow Storm had fallen to her side awkwardly on her left wing—a dull ache confirmed it. "What...happened?"
"You took one look at him and collapsed," she supplied. "Jester is handling the rest."
Jester had Resin up against a far wall with an overgrown slender thorn. Another impaled him right through the throat. Resin gasped uselessly. "Sun...will...hear about this."
"Your dead body can tell him off." Jester slipped a third thorn at lightning speed through his lower mandible. Resin slumped on the ground with a deep thud.
Jester's hard eye caught them staring. "Sorry sisters that you had to deal with that."
"So you are a leafspeaker." Norther was astounded.
"Nowhere near your skill level. General leafspeak has never come easily for me. The only thing that ever clicked are thorns. I must've trained for days on end learning how to use them to my advantage during the war." He spat at Resin in disgust. "Resin and I were soldiers in training. He was always jealous that I would win in duels even with his overall stronger leafspeak. Sunshine trusted me to make decisions when he wasn't present over Resin. Resin never got over it."
Storm flicked her wings. "We can't stay here."
Jester nodded and stood upright. "Correct. My friends are more loyal to him. I don't know what he has done in my absence, but the original values of the resistance have been corrupted as a result. No one can be trusted." He scrunched his brow. "Ray. She was conspiring with them."
"I'm not so sure. She was at the top of the wall. She knew the trial was going to happen and didn't stop that. But she didn't stop me from saving Norther."
Norther's wary eyes flickered between them. "Hold on. Jester, did you say resistance?"
"It's our way of fighting back against the cold tyrannical rule of Crescent-Wing," Jester sighed. "There were more of us in the past, but our members have been...disappearing, let's just say. We made this bunker during the war and it serves as our HQ."
Age seemed to overtake him. He walked over, blood marring his olive scales. "It's hard for me to say this...but I think it's about time I let you go."
"Why?" They both went at the same time.
"Resin might have been a self-motivated hunk of dragon, but he isn't the type to outright lie. I have to find Sunshine, our leader, or all is lost in the resistance. This is deeply personal to me and Sunshine doesn't like unauthorized dragons knowing who he is. He is the type to slash throats and ask later. I can't endanger your lives that way." Jester looked up. "Make the most of your lives. Head northwest. The climate is colder. Less dragons settle there. Less chance of being caught. I know you will manage."
"What if..." Norther took a step forwards, "something happens to you?"
A lonesome green iris shone in the dim light. "I have made it this far. I know I can do this."
"So we won't see each other again."
He cracked a faint smile. "We will. I have my ways. But the world is dangerous and first things first we need the public to forget the cactus heist. I need you sisters to essentially disappear off the map for that to happen. When it is time, I will find you again."
Norther matched his smile. She draped her satchel over his body, which looked rather ridiculous on him because of the size disparity between them. "Find a better place for the cacti besides a creepy basement will you?"
He saluted them. "Understood. Farewell brave sisters. May Crescent-Wing never discover your existence."
Storm spun a strand of flamesilk. "Lead us out of here."
◇~●~◇
"Do you think Jester hates us?" Storm asked Norther. She had been eerily quiet as they flew north (apparently during her five day-long knockout Ray had succeeded in teaching her) along the ragged moonlit coastline.
She didn't respond, but a hard quadruple beat of her four wings couldn't fool Storm. "You think he does, don't you?"
Norther kept her silence.
Storm kept talking, more to herself. "Maybe he secretly hates us because of his eye. That would be me. If a dragon showed up to me, forced me to do something risky, and I lost, I don't know, my wing, I would hate them forever. Maybe I would even tangle them up in some flamesilk. It looks like it hurts. I think. I can't confirm of course because it can't-"
"You need to stop," Norther growled.
"Oh, so you're just moody." Storm poked at her.
"I am not moody. You need to think more peacefully."
She crossed her arms, which felt off from the up and down motion of flight. "As in how? If you're mad because I burnt up a big gray dragon that would've killed us and a second dragon that would've killed us, you have mossballs for a brain. I don't believe they would've taken the idea of talking it out or having chamomille tea with open claws."
"There are always nonviolent options." Her sister looked at her straight. "Don't you see what your leafspeak is doing to you?"
"We really need to give it a different name." Storm went on a tangent. "We've already seen that it can kill dragons and heal from the dead. 'Leafspeak mutation' doesn't cut it anymore. It's more like Everything-."
"Storm!"
"I'm being logical!"
"No, you're purposefully trying to detract from this very important conversation we need to have." She sped up so that they were at eye level. "This leafspeak is terrible for you. No dragon, or any living being, should have the ability to tell and have others die when they feel like it."
Dragons wrapped in vines surfaced in Storm's vision. "So why are you able to suffocate dragons to their viney deaths and meanwhile I can't take out dragons in a way easier direct method where they don't even think they're dying?"
She dropped her head. "I didn't kill the guard on the day of the heist."
"Sure looked like it."
"Well, I didn't, and I can tell you for a fact that your method is not as smooth as you think it is."
"I know it isn't. I messed up. I know what Goliath looked like as he was dying." Storm shook her head.
"So what's your point? You know he was suffering, I know he was suffering, so your logic is non-existent."
"My point is that I didn't directly kill him. I told my flamesilk to do that. If I told him to, he would've dropped dead on the ground like a fish. Gone. Poof."
Norther's eyes disappeared under her talons for a moment. "Starting tomorrow, I need you to learn better alternatives besides using your leafspeak."
"Really?" Storm beat her wings in a frenzied rush. "You're going to outright ban me from using my own ability that I inherited out of my free will? Just like that?"
"Yup. This has gone too far, and you have gotten too dangerous with it. Starting tomorrow, you are no longer allowed to use your leafspeak."
"Ever?" Storm raised a brow.
Norther huffed with authority. "Until you show me that you can behave in a normal civilized manner even when your life is in danger. How long 'ever' is depends on how long you make it. It could be several months, it could be never. That is on you to find out."
A thought bloomed in Storm's mind. "What if you get seriously injured? Like, I-got-hit-by-a-boulder injury?"
She dismissed it. "Whatever happens, happens. If I get pulverized by another boulder and can't save myself, then I die. My flesh melts into compost, my bones crumble up into dust, my memory is lost to the sands of time. Like how life intended. There is no cheating death."
Her cyan gaze was uncharacteristically icy and profound, like the rings of an ancient centuries-old tree. "One day, we will both die. I hope it is together so that the other doesn't have to suffer at the claws of grief, but more likely than not one of our timers will dip to zero before the other's timer. I can't tell you if our deaths will be naturally brought on by age or artificial ones brought by chaos. It will not be because of someone who wanted it to be, believed it should be, said it should be, and it came to be. Do you hear me?"
Storm gulped down a lump in her throat. "Yes."
Norther yawned. "Let's find a place to land and sleep."
◇~●~◇
Storm laid her head on Norther's neck, rising up and down like the gentle lapping waves of the sea. She didn't know what time it was, but she guessed from the rotation of the cosmos that it had to be unhealthily late. Something didn't strike her as right.
Why am I the one with this power? She had been asking the same thing over and over to herself that night. She wished a dragon would fly from the heavens and deliver a message explaining everything in plain easy print.
A new question answered her instead. Did my parents have this power?
She tried to conjure up a picture of her parents. She had done this many times of course, over endless types of nights. It was two dragons. It must have been. The small humans always had two normal-sized humans near them. One had a longer thatch of hair than the other and was almost imperceptibly smaller. She didn't know if dragon parents were exactly the same, but there had to be two.
They were traditionally taller than she was, but Storm was doubting this theory. Jester had been tiny in comparison to her, and yet he was older and wiser and skilled in every way. It was possible they were that small too.
After that, there wasn't much else to go by. The small humans looked like a fusion of their two parents, so her parents probably looked like a version of either her or Norther. She thought of the features she'd seen on other dragons, parts they could've had. Jester's sail. Crescent-Wing's tail blade. Ray's huge wings. Even Goliath's gaping blurred jaw of death—she pushed out Resin's ugliness before his fat came into view. Her parents could have had all of those attributes or none of them. She would never know.
Storm furtively glanced at Norther. Surely she wouldn't notice one more leafspeak usage. One final message before Storm had to lock it up forever in a mental box and throw away the key. She stepped out onto the beach, feeling the sand crinkle around her claws uncomfortably.
There was that strange dream again in her eyes and ears, rain pitter-pattering into her ditch. Except this time there was no clone, no clouds. A blanket of milky stars spilled over her, a sea of sudden clarity. She knew, she knew through her gut, that they would live eons after her last breath. There was life to come.
"Show me who I am."
Three years later...
Flamesilk dipped neatly into a rosy powdery dye.
It was dumb to Storm that no matter what type of flamesilk she made, it went under the name "flamesilk". Even if it was the harmless, golden, definitely not fiery kind. It had subtitles to avoid confusion, but its underlying name was flamesilk.
That was according to the book Norther brought a year ago. Since they settled at the base of an impressive and somehow non-inhabited series of waterfalls, she would sometimes slip away to the far village of "none-of-your-beeswax" and "borrow" their literature. It was risky considering that she was a wanted dragon, but Norther made her orders clear. Don't leave the cabin.
Storm already had her leafspeak privileges ripped away from her. She didn't want her flamesilk to be declared illegal. Then what else would she do?
She fashioned the strand of flamesilk into the tangled pink rectangle that was her picture. The book had informed her that silk could make truly picturesque works of art mimicking the real thing, but as she compared the sketches to her work, she wasn't so sure. More likely, she needed another decade's worth of practice, and maybe a teacher.
"Only in my dreams," Storm muttered to herself as she set the tapestry aside. She would look at it later.
The locked box burned in her chest again at that moment. Since the Abolishment, Storm had tried to consolidate her power in one place where she wouldn't be dared to touch it. It was her box, banished and taut against the evils inside. When the Abolishment was fresh in her mind, the box had rattled nearly every minute of the day like a trapped animal attempting to escape the confines of its cage. She had felt her sanity as a candle dripping its life essence away. It had left her bed-ridden for days.
After the first several episodes, the animal that was her power gave up in exhaustion. It was three years since the Abolishment, and it seldom took over her senses anymore. In a way, Storm was proud. If she didn't feel that urge to reach for it anymore, then maybe Norther was right about it all along. It was controlling her and telling her to kill when she didn't have to. Maybe it was true that the power didn't belong to her. Maybe the truth was that it belonged to no one.
The more she thought about it, the more her pride began to contort into an ugly shape. She should be disgusted to have such a parasitic power. Any rational dragon would find a way to rid themselves of the odious ability the same way any self-respecting mammal would scratch vigorously against a tree to knock off a blood-sucking tick. So why didn't she?
That set her into motion. Storm raised her talons to look at as if she hadn't seen them in days. They were earthy brown underneath where the globes of light permanently reflected their flamesilk evidence against and bony white on top. Lilac membrane connected them all together. She nursed a small cut just before her thumb claw. Storm closed her eyes. "Remove my..."
Sweat beaded on her temples.
"Remove...take this...this."
Was she mad? Why couldn't she say it? It was a simple three word phrase. She had said far more complicated sentences in the past.
"Take my..."
The box throbbed again painfully. She fell back, gasping for breath, even though she hadn't done any sort of vigorous exercise.
It was her leafspeak. It had implanted itself into the deepest folds of her brain and kept her from destroying itself. All this time, she thought she had kept it locked in a box. The evils weren't any tamer, and it wasn't any more captured than before the Abolishment.
It was aware of its predicament too. The leafspeak tickled her thoughts throughout the rest of the day, through dinner, and into the night until Storm awoke. Knowing well that it wouldn't let her return to sleep, she stormed out of the cabin without thinking.
It was a risky move. Norther had taught the nearby plants to recognize Storm. She only knew this because the one time she had slithered her way outside their cabin for fresh air, Norther had given her an earful because the tree she had rested on ratted her out. Luckily, her sister was a bundle under the blankets. Plants were less active at night and hopefully less vigilant for rogue sisters.
Storm opened her wings and flew parallel to the booming falls. In all her time here, she had only really seen the falls up close a talonful of times when she was accompanying Norther on various labors. There was one spot she particularly liked: A slick, constantly misty, rocky ledge jutting from the hill stinking of moss. From the hill, it was invisible from the torrent of water. She settled on the ledge.
Sitting here was identical to standing out in a thunderstorm, or flying through one. Cold water washed over her smooth scales. She resisted its freezing bite.
Why are you active now? Storm asked the leafspeak.
It pulsed once more and sat in her chest, calm, and then tipped over. She imagined herself straightening it up, making sure nothing scratched it. Because it told her to.
She needed a way to rid of it somehow. It was impossible for Storm to do it herself. The leafspeak would win any day of the week, in any scenario. She needed someone else to remove it for her.
But how? It wasn't as simple as taking off a satchel. Powers were binded to a dragon. They couldn't be destroyed individually any more than air could be. The only way to destroy a dragon's powers was to destroy the dragon.
Storm let her eyes fall over the side of her ledge. The bottom of the falls formed a deep pool before it trailed off into a river. The roar of the pluvial tsunami dampened to a low whisper of temptation.
No. She took her eyes off. There were better solutions. She needed to find one outside of the cabin's walls.
Storm spread her wings, left a small loop of the "radiant" variety of flamesilk on the rock, and soared into the stars.
◇~●~◇
A pink belt of dawn embraced the sky. Norther had to be awake by now and notice her disappearance.
A pain throbbed in her heart. Storm had left her briefly endless times, but never for anything longer than a few hours at a time. This time, she didn't know if she would come back. The night before may have been the last time she would see Norther for a very long time.
If something kills me on the way, then I suppose we reunite when Norther dies, she cheered herself up. She wasn't actually sure if that was how it actually worked. It was possible there was no existence after death and all consciousness died when the creature died.
Storm flapped her wings to correct her unconscious descent. Focus. Is that a town?
If she squinted, she could barely make out a couple of orange pinpricks on the horizon. Storm hoped it was: Out of all directions she chose to go, she chose north. Within the depths of the forest expanding beneath her, her keen eyes could spot patches of snow. She forced her tired wings to flap harder, spurred by warm new hope.
The pinpricks became points and tiny fires on thin rods swayed by the frigid breeze. Two cabins were lodged between fir trees. Storm splayed her wings for a purposely bumpy landing made by exhaustion. She brushed the snow off promptly. "Hello?"
"Hello" echoed across the forest, the only sound in a still woods. Huh. It was early after all. Even she hated being up before the sun.
A twitch of movement caught the corner of her eye. She snapped to it on instinct.
A human peeked out from behind a cabin. Or more accurately, was spying on her and moved behind the cabin in a flash of extra movement. Amused, Storm bounded after them.
She got three steps in when the cabin door blew open and a purple dragon bursted out. "HOLD YOUR FOXES!"
Storm stopped dead in her tracks. The dragon was easily three heads taller than her and notably older, with sharp cheekbones and a sour pointed expression. Her eyes were the color of fire. The dragon was embraced by a thick cloth wrapped around her neck. "Do not touch my humans!"
"Your...humans?" Storm repeated, confused.
"Yes, my humans!" The dragon hopped off the steps and walked over to her. "Hmm. You look like you are not from around here."
"Nope."
Storm could feel her piercing eyes assess her. "You look like you have flown for years. Where are you headed?"
Storm gulped. "...Nowhere."
"Nowhere? You must be heading somewhere!" The dragon swept her wing to the cabin. "Come stay with me for a while. You look like you need it."
She reluctantly accepted the stranger's offer and hobbled her way into the residence. The dragon's place was warm and fuzzy with heat from a lit-up fire. Storm felt her eyelids droop.
The dragon took her shoulder. "Do not be falling asleep in the entrance hon, the floor is not that comfortable." She guided Storm to a smaller room in the cabin dominated by ridiculously fluffy covers. "You can sleep here."
If she said anything else, Storm didn't hear it.
◇~●~◇
"...probably a spy."
"She is not."
"Spies aren't supposed to be known..."
Storm opened a green eye and flinched.
A human was sleeping peacefully on her side. They looked to be on the younger side, with dark hair on their head. It was strange that humans, the creatures that had tormented her and Norther for years, could look so friendly asleep. Carefully, she removed the human from her side and stood up, wondering what day it was as she creaked open the wooden door.
The purple dragon that had attended her was sitting in front of the fire with another human in front of her. The air was tense, as if they had been arguing. That was impossible of course. Storm had never seen a human speak Dragon in all her years.
But who else could the dragon have been speaking with?
"Good to see you awake," the dragon greeted her. "Come and take a seat by us." Storm took her offer and nervously sat down a little ways between them. The human scowled at her with fearsome eyes.
"We were talking," the dragon continued, "and we were wondering where you came from. I am afraid that visitors are not commonplace in the north."
Storm took a breath in. "My name is Storm-"
The dragon brightened. "Storm! What a lovely, traditionalist name. You see, the queen wants all dragons to change their names to account for their skills, but I believe that to be nonsense! My name is Serac, and it shall stay as Serac."
Storm took in her tangent. "Interesting. I'm from...I don't really know. In the north? More south than here."
Serac sipped from a steaming cup. "I see that you are not from this part of the north. No dragon would come out here without their fluffy things—the cold will freeze you solid! It is a good thing I stopped you because the cold gets colder and you must be a hardcore survivalist to live in the true north where my family lives. We have lived in the cold for generations." She leaned forwards. "Why have you flown out here?"
Storm hesitated. She knew she was going to have to explain herself sooner or later. In desperation, she noticed that Serac's scales reflected the fire like they were made of ice.
"I told you!" A loud voice erupted from beside her. "She is a spy!"
The voice belonged to the human who was now standing up and pointing at Storm accusingly. Storm was astounded by her ridiculous volume. Not only could humans could look cute, but they had shouts echoing that of enraged roars. It was a feat for a creature that small.
It slowly dawned on her that the human had spoken plain Dragon perfectly.
"Now now Cardinal, we do not know that," Serac comforted her. She reached out to grab her, but the human Cardinal swatted at her claws in refusal. Cardinal approached Storm threateningly. "I know you are a spy. Do you want to know what happened to the last spy your horrible queen sent?"
"Cardinal!" Serac roared at her.
"Serac skewered them with her tail spikes! And when the guards came to kill us, she froze them all!" Miniature forest fires burned in Cardinal's brown hysteric eyes. "We burried them in our old residence. We can show you right now!"
She would have likely ranted on further if Serac hadn't cupped her in her talons, blocking the sound of her voice. "I sincerely apologize for Cardinal. We were attacked at our old cabin and forced to flee. Cardinal no longer trusts stranger dragons very much."
Storm's gaze was stuck on the ball of claws. "How...how does she know Dragon?"
"Oh, I taught her," she spoke proudly.
"You taught her??"
Serac gained a dreamy, watery expression. "It is a story of luck. Eight years ago, I chose to move out from my family's town. My bones cannot endure the weight of harsh winters as well as they used to. Cardinal, Mink, and Waxwing were struggling in the forest, escaping from their empire. I helped them out and they decided to stay with me. Over the years I have been teaching them Dragon to better understand what we as a species are doing. They taught me their language in return."
Storm shook her head in disbelief. "This is craziness."
The purple dragon let Cardinal go. "Nothing is craziness. It all makes sense when it is said and done. Such as with you, Storm. You went to the north for a reason. For whatever is that reason, if you do mind telling me?"
She felt spontaneously itchy. Cardinal's eternally angry glare probably didn't help. "I...I have something I need to get rid of."
"Oh surely? Is it fear? It must be something of the mind."
The power gnawed at her intestines. It must've known that this was the way to put it down permanently, and that hope gave Storm the nerves she needed to tell her. "It's an ability of mine. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it gives me the power to control..." She thought back to the fact Crescent-Wing never truly saw her, the white flamesilk, and Goliath's formless features. "everything."
The temperature in the room dropped instantaneously. Serac's lavender scales paled to a drab ghostly white, her flaming eyes dead like cold embers, back straighter than a pine tree. She knew. She was stunned into frigid silence. "Impossible..."
Cardinal looked back at her with softer eyes of concern.
Serac stood up ubruptly. "You are wrong. You must be wrong. Those...they should not have..." She leaned against the log-filled wall.
"You know about this," Storm said.
A sharp face met her back. "I do. Unfortunately."
"So you can help me."
"I do not know if it is possible."
Storm's heart sunk to the depths of a lake.
"But if you desire to know about yourself," Serac went on, "I can fill you in on the details. Let me pour you some coffee first so you may last through this tale."
◇~●~◇
"A favorite pastime of humankind is war. The humans are hardly satisfied with what they have. They desire, they get, out of the hardship of other humans. It is a cruel cycle that has existed for many, many eons. Before dragons overtook them, the major empires that had won out over the tides of war were the Diamond, Eastern, and Jaguar Empires. This northern zone was deep in the territory of the Diamond Empire. Remember that now.
"The leader of the Eastern Empire grew ambitious. He hatched a plan to control dragons to win over the rest of the continent. It worked: His new dragon troops began to blast into the other empires' lands. When the Diamond Empire caught wind of how he was succeeding, they attempted to replicate it, with little success. Most of the dragons that live here lack the fire of the Eastern Empire's. They are, to the Diamond Empire, useless for fight.
"Except for one type of dragon. A rare type that was mostly native to the Jaguar Empire, but occasionally could be found in its southern boundaries: The Leafspeakers. Leafspeakers were so-called for being able to manipulate plants into their bidding. They were difficult to find and even harder to capture their eggs because they would seamlessly hide any sign of existence. The Diamond Empire discovered that Leafspeakers were more capable in combat than the Nonspeakers as they called them and began testing newly hatched dragons for the leafspeak skill.
"By accident, they discovered that two Leafspeakers could create dragonets that had stronger leafspeak than either of the parents. The empire reserved their strongest Leafspeakers for breeding programs hoping that one day, they would create an unstoppable Leafspeaker. The Leafspeakers, surely enough, grew stronger and stronger with the years.
"One minority within the project said they had a vision inflicted upon them by an ancient, long-forgotten god they called the Esperai. This god told them that it would be reborn through a Leafspeaker if it had enough blood to feed it. When it was reborn, it would have a special type of will, anamahia, strong enough to bend anyone to it, including the empires. Drooling to control their enemies, the minority secretly stole Nonspeakers and slit their throats in the darkest of nights to let their blood flow onto hidden batches of Leafspeaker eggs, praying that the Esperai would be content with their offerings.
"Their actions were discovered by the emperor. They tried to convince him that their plan would work, that they were so close to pleasing the Esperai, but he did not believe in their conspiracy. Most of the minority were killed for heresy, but one, one got away. And all this time, I thought he had stopped with the ridiculous plan."
Serac took a lengthy sip of her cup. "If what you say about yourself is truthful, then he continued his experiment. He bred Leafspeakers. He painted eggs in blood. He waited to see if the offspring was the Esperai. And he got it. The Esperai really was born." She leaned forwards. "You are the Esperai."
You are the Esperai.
Storm shook her head hard in refusal. "I can't be. I'm...I'm not a god."
"I do not know how else it could be explained. It could be sheer coincidence and the Esperai was and will remain mythical until the end of time. But with what I know and seeing your age, it is extremely unlikely. Whether or not you like it, god or no god, you are the byproduct of humankind, of life and death, born between thoughts of power and lunacy. Had any empire raised you, there would be no Scorching, no empires but one. All rebels, dragon or human, would be dead."
"No." She closed her eyes. Faintly, tucked away in her deepest memories, were the faces of delighted humans reaching out for her. Had they known what she was? Did they know that capturing her would grow their empire to endless proportions? Was she the reason why, five years ago, Norther kept her firmly silent in the tree trunk as humans scuttled over every fallen leaf as if looking for something?
They knew the whole time.
Storm was bred for complete annihilation.
When she opened her eyes, she flinched upon noticing that Cardinal hugged her leg, tears streaming down her face. One more surprising fact for Storm: Humans had dragon-like emotions.
"I'm dangerous," she concluded finally.
Serac pitied her. "Yes, you are."
"So now what? I don't want to be a god, but my—this anamahia—doesn't let me delete it."
"Because it would be killing yourself, and you know it is not the way."
Storm recoiled. It was exactly like her thought process at the waterfall. Serac raised her head. "You have thought about that." Storm didn't answer. Serac leaned back sipping her cup in talon. "You are more right than you think."
That was not was she was expecting. "Really?"
"You at least know anamahia can be a bad thing. I have known many foolish humans who did not recognize the dangers of certain powers even amidst my warnings. They paid dearly for their mistakes." Dark humor twinkled in her hearth-like eyes. "I cannot tell you what to do with your anamahia. But others will. Others with much more twisted intentions. You must not follow their dark commands, but must not praise your own light as the path to follow. You were right to seek help."
"I killed Goliath. I hurt innocent dragons." Confessions rolled off her forked tongue like dripping dew off a leaf. She felt herself digging into a rabbit hole.
Serac tilted her pristine head. "I figured you were the one. You cannot do anything about those dragons today, but now that you know the consequences from the past, you can avoid darkness today." She got up, shaking her cup. "My golly, I ran out of coffee. Can you give me a minute?" The glossy dragon smoothly strode across the wood planks to a room on the right. Storm could hear her rummaging around with pots.
Cardinal moved to take Serac's spot on the rug. "I might have jumped to conclusions about you too quickly. I'm sorry."
Storm laid down. "Apology accepted. If I invited some dragons to my home and they tried to kill me, I wouldn't trust anyone either."
She laughed heartily. "At least you're a dragon! I have to worry about being trampled every time I'm remotely close to a dragon, even with Serac sometimes! She knows to pay attention to the ground, but it doesn't stop her from almost squishing me on some days. Right Serac?" Cardinal hollered into the kitchen.
Oh do not feed Storm lies about me," Serac clarified as she came back with two steaming cups of different sizes. The much smaller one was handed to Cardinal who began to drink vigorously. "We have not had an incident in multiple months. I have been keeping track."
She sloshed her coffee around a bit. "Storm, do you have any siblings by any chance?"
"Yes. I have my sister Norther." Storm answered.
The purple dragon froze in place. "Oh dear. Does she have..."
"No. She has super strong leafspeak. She can't do what I can do."
"Good." Serac relaxed by a miniscule amount. "You two get along?"
"We-" She found herself hesitating. A few years ago she would have said yes, but now...
The truth was, she did need some space away from her. It was almost intoxicating having to sit with her everyday, watching her learn about a world without the human danger, while Storm herself was confined to the cabin for her "safety". What safety? Being caught by Crescent-Wing? Was she even looking for them anymore? What was the point: Norther couldn't materialize her prized cacti out of thin air! Storm hadn't even been seen by her thanks to her power. In Crescent-Wing's mind, Norther was the only dragon that existed, and the only one that mattered theoretically. So she was the one with the privilege of exploring?
She clenched her talons in pent up rage she didn't think she had. Flying abroad, seeing the shifting lands beneath her transform into something white and wonderful, was more fun than she had had in years. She actually liked being here. This was what she was meant to do, meet new dragons, learn about the war, and most importantly know about themselves. Just by exploring a little, she had found answers Norther was never going to find.
Serac tilted her head. "I assume it is a little complicated."
"A little."
"That is very common with siblings. I ask not to probe into your personal life, but because it is dangerous for you especially to be angry."
There it was again. "Norther was worried my powers were affecting my temperament." She felt her anger rising. "She banned me from using them at all and doesn't even let me out of my own home!"
Silence. Cardinal set the cup down with a sharp clink. "She can't physically prevent you from doing that."
"I can't just say 'You know what Norther, I'm using my powers anyway'. She's my sister! She'll probably wrap me up in vines until I promise not to do that again. Norther is crazy that way." Storm took a sip of her now lukewarm cup and puckered. "Is it supposed to be that bitter?"
Serac snatched her cup and took a gulp. "Yes. I have forgotten that you are not used to the taste of such an exquisite drink." She set it aside. "I can see your sister's intentions of prohibiting you from the anamahia, but you are of age to see the world. She must understand that."
She sighed, trying another shriveling sip of the drink. "It's useless to try to convince her. She's too steadfast for that."
"Have you tried by any means?"
"I've suggested it here and there."
She stood up tall with newfound righteousness. "That is final. We must convince her."
"Woah woah woah, wait." Cardinal stood up, shocked. "You aren't...going along with Storm right?"
She clenched her fist. "I must. For us mortals, the management of the Esperai is of utmost importance. Secondary, I have not been very far south and I would like to see it before I am too crippled. Storm, if you do not recall the way, use your magic to guide us."
Storm backed away. "I can't do that! My sister-"
Serac shot her an inquisitive glance. "But you have already broken her rules, have you not? Your magic is dangerous, but it will not hurt your soul to use it for this purpose."
"If you say so." She spun and broke off a claw length's amount of harmless yellow silk. She raised it up to her eye level. "Show us the way home."
As soon as she let go the silk zipped right out the other way. Serac whistled for Cardinal to climb her neck and began moving towards the door. "Hustle Storm!"
Storm smiled and bounded into the frosty outdoors right after her.
◇~●~◇
The silk zoomed over the vast forests of snow so quickly that she regretted not making it the bright variety. It was impressive that Serac could even keep up with her given her far larger size, but in all fairness the chilly air was slowing Storm down. Cardinal had an eagle eye for the yellow strand, somehow consistently pointing out where it was no matter the backdrop.
The sun was sinking by the time the rumbling in her stomach was too powerful to ignore. They sat down on a pebbled shoreline lining the edges of broken cliffs and cool seas. It wasn't snowy anymore, and the cool air was comforting to Storm. They were close.
Serac eyed the ocean and suggested, "I can encounter some fish for the both of us."
She collapsed on the cobbles. "Please do."
"Okay. Cardinal, you stay here." Serac plopped her down on Storm's rising chest much to the human's protest. She leaped into the waves in a splash of saltwater.
"How are you liking this journey so far?" Storm asked her.
She pouted. "It's too warm here and too loud! Someone could sneak up on you without you knowing."
"No, it's most definitely too cold where you live. I don't know how you can live there, brr." She brushed away a shower of pebbles. "We're close. I can feel it. I'm so excited to be home, but at the same time terrified because Norther's going to be so angry."
"Hey, Serac is the best dragon I know at reasoning." She mouthed something Storm couldn't make out. "If she can't sort it out, then darn it, the world's ending."
Storm sighed. "I hope you're right." She reached her arm over at the golden thread which she had commanded to stop tracking for the time being.
Cardinal noticed her action. "Flamesilk, huh? You know, it's kind of weird you have that trait. Serac told me the dragons that have it all live deep in the Jaguar Empire way down south. They seem dangerous if you ask me."
She fiddled with the silk. "It can be, yes. This is a harmless type of silk I assure you."
"Hm."
At that moment, Serac roared out of the surf wrestling a huge shark. "A little assistance here?"
Storm stood up, held her palms straight, and shot tangling threads at the thrashing shark. In just seconds it was trapped in a net of silk. Serac killed the fish as Storm lit some nearby driftwood on fire to cook it. "A dragon of good manners," Serac approved.
She suspended it above the fire. Storm watched the shark fry suspiciously. "How did you get this guy?"
"Many do not realize that I am trained for the water. It is a family specialty. Sometimes it is a good idea to keep your true talents to yourself until they least predict it." Her orange eye winked at her.
She sensed she wasn't just talking about the shark. "Like my magic?"
She didn't answer. Instead she began picking at her blood-stained claws, of which Storm only just noticed seemed slimmer and deadlier than her wee webbed ones. In the orange shades of the fire and the dying sun, Cardinal's story over the dragons she had killed in a far past suddenly no longer felt like an exaggeration.
And then it made sense. "You lived with the humans."
The fire in her eyes glowed brighter. "I did, yes."
Storm waited for the rest of her response in the crackling silence.
Serac noticed the pause. "Oh dear. You want me to discuss. I was one of the empire's first captured dragons, twelve years before the war. They had not seen a dragon so large at the time and believed I would lead their growing fleet of hatchlings and young ones."
"And you led?"
"No. By that time I had uncovered their horrid motives, their intentions to throw me to my death over petty territory. I acted frail and had some insider help so they would believe I was too old of a dragon that could not bear the weight of battle. It was only a year after when they decided I was not useful. I remained in the empire, learning in secret."
She poked the shark in more crispy silence. Cardinal had climbed back on her shiny back during her explanation. Storm was still thinking. "I get it. If you showed the empire of what you were capable of, you would have helped them in the Scorching against your own kind."
Serac shrugged. "A possibility. There were no Dozen Scorchers at the time. I like to believe that if I had succeeded in their trials, we would not be having this conversation. Perhaps it is only by destiny that we meet, Esperai."
Storm had no comment for that. Between the three of them, they ate the shark and, in an onset of exhaustion, doze off under the twinkling stars.
◇~●~◇
Serac woke them up early the next morning. Storm almost roared at her, thinking she was Norther pulling her own antics, before blushing in recognition. In her embarassment, she told the silk to continue its previous command, sending it flying inwards away from the coast.
The landscape soon transformed into familiar mountains and cool forests, waterfalls kicking up a misty breeze. Finally, her silk sharply turned around a small range of mountains and...there it was. From the hill, invisible from the torrent of water, was her favorite settling spot in the whole world, and Norther had stolen it. 
She looked awful even from this far away. Her eyes were bloodshot cyan, she was shaky, and her talons were nervously fidgeting with the loop of flamesilk Storm had left behind. In an instant all her animosity was gone: she knew what she had to do. "Norther!"
Norther turned back and seemed to doubt what she was seeing. She rubbed her eyes as the trio advanced. "Storm?"
"Yes, it's me." She stormed on ahead through the waterfall and plopped herself down beside her rattled sister. "I'm sorry I left you without warning. I had to journey alone to solve my problems."
She glanced at Serac who was just arriving. "I see you brought company. Let's talk inside the cabin. It's cold sitting here."
Storm scanned her trembling body. "Have you been sitting here the whole time waiting for me?"
"Not the entire time, but close."
Norther left it at that as she swooped down on the cabin. They followed her inside. It looked untouched from the day before. Not even her bed had been tampered with, something she found to be more eerie than she expected. Norther always did their beds. It was bad news if she wasn't doing that.
She sat on top of her mustled moss blanket, which was another no-no in the cabin when one was sopping wet, still fidgeting with the radiant loop. "I...You...I don't know where to begin Storm. I was worried sick. Literally sick. I feel a sneezing sickness coming on. I thought you were never coming back and I would die not knowing why."
Storm felt worse by the second. "I had to leave Norther. This Abolishment, this prohibition on my power, it's not working. It hasn't been any less powerful. I don't feel any more relaxed either: if anything, these years have made me feel more trapped and resentful. I knew it wasn't going to work forever and you would never admit it. So I left to find a better solution."
"And did you find it at least? Was it worth the trouble of making me sleep outdoors, wondering where and why you had gone in the middle of the night?"
"Uh." Storm looked at Serac behind her for support. The shiny dragon spread her purple wings and puffed her chest in response. "Norther. Your sister has informed me of what you have done. Unfortunately, you must recognize that this ordeal delves deeper than you could imagine."
She sneezed. "How?"
"Your sister's story, if she is correct, means that she is very likely the fabled Esperai of old. To be precise, a god fortold to unleash great destruction for those that wield it. Her so-called power is truthfully an ancient enchanted form of leafspeak that the worshippers deem anamahia, powerful enough to bend wills. A type of dark magic this world has not seen in many millenia."
Norther sputtered and glared at her almost in jealousy. "That's impossible! Storm doesn't practice magic, and certainly not the dark kind!"
"It is the only explanation." Serac nervously swished her tail. "What you must know is that I fear you both are in terrible danger. The Esperai was pursued by the humans for its terrible power. The humans gave endless lives to the cause of bringing it back to our age. Even with the human empires defeated, they will not forget such an opportunity to regain their old empires should they ever control the young Esperai." She gazed right into Storm's green eyes, fire flickering in her own dark ones. "Storm, you must learn to control your anamahia, and Norther, she cannot learn it if you do not let her see for herself what is good and what is not."
Her nostrils flared abruptly. She stiffened. "Someone is near."
Norther pricked her ears as well. "I hear them too. Too close for comfort. That can't be-"
Whistles of air broke the suspense, one almost immediately after the other. Storm felt a prick in her neck as if an insect had bitten her. She glanced down to find a tiny feathered thing. "What?"
"A sleep dart!" Serac exclaimed. She yanked darts out from the three of them and snarled at the open window. "We are under attack!"
Her legs buckled, and Storm soon followed, purple scales blurring in her drooping vision. It was a nightmare: endless black dragons filed into the cabin to take them outside. She could hear them shattering Norther's belongings, shouting over what was and wasn't important. Her talons were forced together, bound impossibly tight.
The last thing she remembered before blacking out was the sight of fire scorching everything they had created their new life.
== Legends ==
Color and sound came back to Storm in talonfuls of cold snow, senses slow to develop. Every bone in her body seemed to hurt. Her eyes were accosted by a bright orb attached to the ceiling—coiled flamesilk illuminating a black dragon sat not even a wingspan away.
Instinctively she pulled away, but vines sprouted from the ground and held her in place. The dragon looked up, a hood obscuring their snout. "Tisk tisk, we need to have a little chat you and I before you can go."
"Who are you?" She got the nerve to ask.
"A partner. In time, a friend, I hope." As if those sentences solved everything. The dragon's voice seemed somehow familiar, but genderless. Her attention snapped to the strange onyx skull amulet dangling loosely from their neck.
She recalled the black dragons searching through Norther's stuff and the tangerine flames of the burning cabin. Did she hear the stranger's voice in her stupor? "You burnt our cabin down."
"A necessary sacrifice for our cause. Besides," The dragon cozied closer to her, coming into the light. "Crescent-Wing knew where the cabin was. Tomorrow, it was going to be cactus bombed. Do you know what that is?"
"No."
"Imagine great balls of flaming cacti raining down from the sky and exploding into more tiny spiky balls of death. We have spies. They tracked her plans. She was going to burn your sister alive in her sleep. Thus, we knew we had to act."
She perked up. "My sister. Where is Norther?"
"You will see her soon, if you work with me. Truth be told Storm, I've been trying to find you for a long, long time, since I learned about you. You didn't make it easy. But here we are. I get to talk to the Esperai, the beast of legends, at last."
They stood up, patting their chest. "Let me tell you a story, my own story. Many years ago, I was betrayed. The details are murky and complex so I will spare you them, but in short, they left me to die. That day I sat out in the endless rain stirring my anger, and next thing I knew a being whispered into my ear a prophecy. I parsed my fate slowly over time, making my group Windravage, knowing myself, and regaining my lost deserved power. Now, my prophecy is nearly complete and I need your help."
"My help?" Storm questioned.
"Yes, it is abundantly clear." They pulled out a small water-damaged parchment and began to read off it.
"Stagger west, a new hope awaits
A weapon lies inside of you
Hone your skills and bloody blade
to find the god of wraith, fire, and hate
Teach this god where goodness lies
to end this warring tribal cycle
But fail to tame her green words
A promise broken on silver springs
Then darkness will claw the world forever."
They rolled it back up as if it was nothing to worry about.
"So I'm this 'darkness'?" She raised.
They shrugged. "I don't have any other ideas. I know you have flamesilk. I have been told you have quite the temper. You must be the god in the prophecy. It is my destiny to teach you."
Storm considered it. "And what if I don't want you to teach me?"
The hooded dragon faltered, clearly not having considered the possibility. "You must let me teach you. If not...if not...we don't want that. You do care about the world right? Enough to let me save it from you?"
They walked from one end of the room to the other in thought. "Maybe I've been doing this all wrong. Okay, how about we start from square one? The basics." They held out their black gloved talons in an expectant handshake. "Shadow is my name. I want to be your friend. It's true. I rule a powerful organization, but it's no use if I don't have anyone to talk to. Can we try that?"
Storm threw a look at the vines. "Why these?"
Shadow clicked their tongue. "Right. I apologize. When I was betrayed, a flamesilk burned my body into a horrible mangled thing. It is why I must carry this black hooded burden. I need to know that you won't try a similar thing."
"I won't."
"Good. Now swear by the blade on it." They ripped out a flash of silver with an etching Storm couldn't quite make out because they swiped it so fast—toward her left talons. The vines had forced her to raise them without her even knowing it. She felt a quick bite of pain, nothing for a second, and then a throbbing bleeding mark. Shadow tapped the knife on their skull amulet leaving drops of scarlet and confirming she'd been cut.
"Ow..." was her only reaction to the ordeal. She was too surprised for a more intelligent response.
"So we have a deal then." Shadow seemed giddy at the fact. "I will let you roam freely without the vines, but you will not use your flamesilk anywhere near me. Storm, I believe in bargains by the blood. If you would like to buy my trust, you pay it in your own blood. I promise however that you will make that choice. This is just the start."
"Seems like a pretty bad way to keep friendships," she growled as she examined her now freed talons. Her left set of talons was marred by an angry line just like she expected. She rustled her wings. "What about Norther?"
They hissed in impatience. "She is being more difficult than you in our generous temporary care. I don't particularly need her, nowhere near as much as you. In time, we will rehome her wherever she wants to be. Did that satisfy your curiosity?"
"No. I want to see her," Storm said.
"Later! Take Norther off your meat brain and realize with me that this, this is an opportunity for you to know who you are. You must know who you are to complete this prophecy smoothly. In my search, I learned many things about you." Shadow patted their chest in pride.
She looked at him skeptically. "What things?"
They locked dark eyes with her. "Have you ever wondered about your parents?"
That got her moving. "We...didn't have parents. They abandoned us or died. I don't know."
"Your parents...have a tragic tale behind them. It is something I must approach with care. I will show you it." Shadow got up, and winked mysteriously at her.
That wouldn't have been weird if a skull splitting headache hadn't immediately hit her. It was so powerful, so horribly awful, that it brought her to her knees. Her limbs seemed like jello from the mayhem in her mind. Something, something terrible was happening to her.
...
She hated everything.
She hated the stables. She hated her human. She hated having to be led like a stupid idiot by her human to her first session.
She complained the entire way too. She knew her human could not understand it, but it felt good to roar and growl and be stubborn as he dragged her. She could not attack him of course—that was simply suicide with the amount of guards at all times—so complaining was the next best thing.
With one last shove, her human managed to push her into a dark cave chamber open at the top for sunlight. Several other dragons were there, all about her age. Uh oh. Cave chambers were never a good sign, and with all these dragons...
She was almost glad when her human sat in front of her, the universal meaning to sit still for a while. Her fidgeting claw clacked into darkness.
An older human in gray fox furs had taken his spot at the center of the cave. He rattled something long in Humanese, so long that her anxiety transformed into pure boredom. Every once in a while she caught the word "dragon" in his speech before quickly being drowned out by unintelligible drivel. How long could a human speak for?
Finally, after what felt like a day, the human stepped down from the stone steps. She sighed in relief.
And then she was practically yanked to the side by her human.
Flustered, she snapped at him. He barely had time to dodge the attack. He squeaked something she hoped was surprise to the room.
To her surprise, a dragon from the other side of the chamber bounded over. He was slightly smaller than her, wingless, presumably orange with jade green eyes, but the lighting made him seem drab brown with almost black shiny eyes. He stopped in front of her, stamping his front legs. "Don't do that!"
"Do what?"
"Attack him!" He waved his arm at her human.
She regarded the feeble creature with a huff. "I was not doing that. He took me by surprise."
"Why? Did you not..." Awareness crept into his eyes. "Why don't you know Human?"
She snuffed a giggle. "What, you think they have a class where they taught me?"
He looked hurt. "Zephyr, my human, taught me. I assumed the humans would try to teach their mount Human at least. The Elder, that person speaking, was saying that they're testing us. You and me are up first outside."
She recoiled. "Us? They want us to fight?"
"Yes they do. Come on, the humans are staring." The orange dragon dragged her to a side exit leading to a small mostly barren field. Several humans followed them, including her own human. The sun beat down on her metal wing clamps.
"Hot," she complained.
"It's not that bad." He spread out in front of her, body poised to strike like a cat. "Wait for the signal."
"What sig-"
BOOM!
The dragon shot forwards at an impossible speed. She yelped, somehow finding the dexterity to roll underneath. But her opponent had somehow seen that. Before she could even roll back up, plants wrapped her body.
"You have leafspeak," she growled angrily.
He smiled with pride. "I do in fact have leafspeak. Quite good-"
She interrupted him with a slap of thorns to the face. His grip on her plants lessened, and she directed them back at him. Before she could approach him, grass tugged at her legs and began to snake upwards. By the time she had clawed it away her opponent had reclaimed her tendrils as his own to hold her in place. Vines swirled over her neck.
She narrowed her eyes at him. The vines were not choking her just yet, and she was starting to realize that his pull on the plants covered a smaller area than hers. She reached for the seeds in the field.
The orange dragon knew that too though. In a skillful approach, he slashed her neck and brought her head to the ground in a dizzying thud.
BOOM
His vines fell off of her. He sat on top of her for a moment, panting harshly. There was distant clapping becoming further and further away by the second...
...
She woke up in a stable. A human was poking her. Annoyed, she snarled and he got off in a burst of speed.
The orange dragon was leaned against the other wall of the stable, tail flicking back and forth nervously. "I may have underestimated my strength a little."
"A little," she mocked him. "You put me out cold!"
"I thought you would stand it!"
She rubbed her aching head and brushed aside the dirt. "Who are you?"
"Funny, I was going to ask the same thing." He sat down next to her. "Archon's the name."
"What kind of name is Ar-kawn?"
"It means ruler. Ruler of plants, of destinies, of having no wings. That sort of thing," Archon explained.
"You have such an ego," she whispered under her breath.
He heard it anyway. "I know, Zephyr tells me the same thing. What about your name?"
"White."
"White what? White teeth, white claws, white scales?"
She made a poor attempt to claw him. "No you idiot. Just White. White, period."
Archon scratched his chin. "You look more bone-colored to me. Can I call you Bone instead?"
"No!"
"I'm just playing around White. Look, all I want to say is you did a good job out there. I think...I think we can learn something from each other you and I. I haven't seen a dragon with nearly as strong leafspeak as yours."
"Wait. There are others like me?" She was curious.
"Others like us. I've met a few of them. Most have pretty weak leafspeak. They can't manipulate plants to form knots and loops like we can." Archon sniffed at the human that was on her, now brushing by his leg. "Your human really doesn't let you do anything, does he?"
She looked down at him. "No. I hate him."
"Okay, how about we do this?" He took a step forwards, taking her talons in his warm ones. "I've talked with Zephyr here and he's fine with this arrangement as long as neither of us end up dead somehow. You and me are scheduled to practice battling techniques 3 days a week. On the days we don't have practice, when the moon is high in the sky, we leave our stables and I can help you with your fighting. I guess we can talk too if you want that for some reason."
"I do not need your help."
"Hey, I've clashed with some of the other dragons in our group and they are significantly more dangerous than I am. If you want to survive," he set his claw over the scratch wound she had forgotten, inflaming it, "you're going to need my help."
She thought back to how badly she had been beaten and the half dozen other dragons in the chamber. Were they so bad Archon felt pity for her? "Fine."
He bolted up. "Great! Then I'll see you tomorrow!" Archon danced his way out of her stable.
What an idiot, she thought.
...
Storm was in a far nicer couch when she woke up from her...nightmare? Dream? There wasn't a single verbal description she could give about what she had just experienced. She laid there with a crippling headache.
Shadow's gray snout was upside down in her vision. "How did it go?"
She hesitated, and spat it out. "That was mom and dad meeting, wasn't it?"
"Right on."
"They cared about humans?"
"No, that was a trait only your dad had. Your mother didn't care." Shadow began to pace the small luxurious room. "Esperai, what you need to understand first of all is that your tale has never ended well. You are destined for an ending you won't like. You are fighting fate."
Storm raised an eyebrow. "How so?"
They smiled coldly. "This isn't your first time being the Esperai you know. I know Serac told you about the Esperai being reborn. You have been other dragons before in a distant past. None of those lives have ever had perfect endings. They have always gone into insanity, or starved to death, or hunted down by humans."
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Category:Fanfictions
Category:Fanfictions (Fanon)
Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete)
Category:Genre (Adventure)
Category:Content (BronzeRattle)