Star Chaser
Ieyana lay sprawled out on a bed of leaves, her charcoal-hued dragon curled around the tiny bundle. A cool breeze sang its way though the trees and danced over the dragon's scales without effect. Ieyana, on the other hand, shivered, curled up in a tight ball in a desperate attempt to stop the tremors from racking her tiny frame.
Coal, do me a favor and block the wind will you, Ieyana whimpered, using her thoughts to speak with her bonded dragon.
The massive beast raised its head, the black scales covering the dragon shimmering in the pale moonlight. You told me that not an hour ago, Milady, the dragon replied with an amused smirk. Unfolding one of his massive wings Coal extended the gray, bone-threaded membrane over Ieyana, nudging her gently. Here, I'm plenty warm, he offered.
Ieyana opened one sapphire eye to gaze up at her friend. But that would require moving, she whined, pulling the deer hide blanket tighter around her shivering frame.
Well, either you move two feet, or you can freeze...your choice.
Ieyana glared at her dragon, but slowly rose from the colorful leaf roost to join her dragon in the thick grass.
Coal grunted as his rider collapsed next to him, positioning her head on his scaly side.
Coal, how come you're so warm all the time?
The charcoal dragon folded his wing over the teen and sighed, sending sparks and a tiny plume of smoke billowing out from his nostrils. Well, Milady, I can breathe fire, therefore I have a naturally high body temperature, Coal replied, surveying the landscape before resting his head back down on the ground.
It had been a full week since Ieyana and Coal had fled from the girl's hometown of Frostvale, the valley in the snow. Fall had snuck up on them and with it the cold weather.
The pair remained hidden in the thick forested landscape just outside of Woodshire, the land hidden in the trees. An appropriate name, considering everyone in the small dispersed village lived in tree houses surrounded by unnaturally large trees. But these weren't just any tree houses, these were special. They hung from the abnormally thick branches, like lanterns. Not a single scrap of wood and leaves the homes were constructed from was secured to the ground in any way. The structures could even stand up to gale-force winds without so much as a shudder.
Ieyana had only been to Woodshire once, to visit her friend Marra, but this second trip couldn't have been more different. This time there was no warm home to accept her. She was an outcast now. No one could protect her, not after what she had done. No, now she was a murderer, she could never go back to the way things were before, never.
It was bad enough that she had no real family to begin with. For as long as she could remember she had been alone. She was only every really visited by the neighbors in the village who helped her out with cooking and such. But this was different. She was a killer, and no one wanted her now.
A vision flashed from behind the girl's eyes as she rested against Coal's broad side. She saw her hometown, Frostvale. She saw the seasons rush past her gaze, as if the town was suddenly thrust into fast-forward. Then the snowfall that lasted from fall to summer, and the brief months of green grass and thick forests. She saw Nasaka, the valley of flame, the hometown of that bastard, the one man who went and ruined everything.
She saw the man's face, his dark cloak and the hammer raised in his right hand. Then the fragile, coarse black egg positioned under the vicious tool. That malicious grin that haunted her dreams, the toothy grin that made her want to wretch.
Suddenly the man swung the hammer down. Then blood, lots of blood, but it wasn't coming from the egg. Screams echoed through Ieyana's head, her screams. The shouting that had come from her as she saw the man's course of action. Her blade slashed across her vision, the katana that her older brother Kai had given her for her sixteenth birthday last year. It was coated in blood, steaming, thick, blood; the same blood that now leaked from the hole in the man's chest.
The man's futile gasps for air were the last thing's she heard before everything went black.
She had killed him. Shoved him away from the precious black jewel, and ran him through the chest.
The look on the man's face burned behind Ieyana's eyes, the gaze of a dying man. It was eating her from the inside out, and she was rendered helpless against it. That man had died because of her.
