Welcome to my second Fan-Fic: Failed prophecy. I think it's going to be awesome, but I'll leave final judgement to you.
I hope you enjoy this story. I certainly enjoyed writing it.
The world, the dragon realms and beyond, ended. With a deafening explosion that sent dust billowing across its surface, the planet shattered, cracks spreading across its once pristine surface, bubbling magma oozing out of the cracks like blood from open wounds. Without a doctor fast or skilled enough to mend the damage, the realms separated.
The agony of thousands of dragons, crying out in their death throes, and wailing to the Ancestors that the end was not upon them, could almost be heard from the vacuum of space. The planet's destruction continued unabated, ignorant to the pleas of the thousands of doomed beings upon it. Rock and stone peeled away from the planet like skin, exposing the magma, and coveted ores, now worthless, they previously concealed.
Hours ticked by, and the flow of planetoid debris began to slacken. Once a beautiful world of dragons, moles, and cheetahs, it was now merely a lone rock that was once the world's core, surrounded by its own personal asteroid belt. The belt would later become known as the Ring of Souls, but for now, it was no more than a marker for a mass grave.
A very, very big mass grave.
On a barren plane, a plane of harsh, unforgiving rock, the only kind to survive the destruction of a whole planet, lay a lone dragon. Had the dragon known what had just happened to his home, he might have thought it a curse, rather than blessing, that he was still alive. As it was, the poor dragon was still out cold, knocked out by the shock of being blasted into the cave roof above by an explosion that seemed to come from the core of the world itself.
That cave didn't exist anymore, but the rock he had smashed into certainly did.
Dark, scorch-blackened scales glimmered in the radiance of twin moons, a vista of multicoloured lights sparkling on the cold stone around him. The dark dragon's horns arched back from his skull, curving in such a way that they almost met at the tip.
With a groan the dragon, who couldn't have been any older than 14, raised his swollen head. Through bleary, piercing orange eyes, he scanned the world. Silently, he dropped his head again.
I'd like to wake up now. He grumbled to himself.
Chanting that the world was in fact still in one piece, and not a shattered puzzle before him that he hadn't the slimmest hope of ever piecing back together, he opened his eyes again. Cold stone stared back, unyielding as ever.
The seeds of disbelief taking root, he tried to stand, tried to get a better view of this unreality around him, but found he was pinned down by something. He didn't have the will to look and see what.
Fear creeping into his thoughts, he began to tremble weakly. In a vain attempt to calm himself, he spoke to himself with calming words, the same kind his Dad always spoke. Maybe he could trick himself into thinking that it was his Dad speaking, and not himself? He squeezed his eyes shut.
Come on, Comet, pull yourself together! You're still in that cave, you're still tucked protectively under mum's wing, waiting for dad to come back. This can't be real!
Firmly believing, without a doubt, that when his eyes once more opened, the world would be back the way he knew it ought to be, he began to chant those last four words to himself. His mantra. Raising his eyelids, he beheld the world once more… What was left of it.
The cold, harsh stone of the planetoid he was pinned to looked back, almost able to look bored at his disbelief despite having no real conscience.
No, no, no, no, no! This isn't real! This can't be real!
With a strength born of desperation, he wrenched himself from the ground; he felt something slide from his side. For a brief moment, he was certain he felt something wet on his flank. At least, if he really was stuck here, he had some water. Come to think of it, he was thirsty.
Comet spun round, eyes searching out the water that smeared his side. He saw a wet patch and stuck his head into it unceremoniously. Reeling back, he shook his head vigorously. There was something off about that water. His head began to pound.
Dehydration must be setting in! I have to get more to drink. And why, Ancestors, is my side so wet? It's getting wetter by the… Oh no.
His blood turned to ice, or, at least, he wished it had. At least then he wouldn't have liquid spilling from his side faster than he could ever hope to replenish it. Red, precious life poured from his chest, a clean, circular hole punching clean through his chest scales. It wasn't very deep, but very large, almost the size of a paw. If he was lucky, he might survive the next few minutes.
In his panic to survive, the devastated remnants of his home ceased to exist. Comet looked around, praying that there was something he could use to staunch the bleeding. He couldn't die now. He'd survived the destruction of the world, for Ancestor's sake, he wasn't about to die of a mere scratch.
If only it was just a scratch.
It took only a moment to search his entire asteroid, a small rock with nothing on it he could use. Dejectedly, he plopped down, gazing around at the floating pieces around him, hoping that maybe he might wake up. Find out that Spyro had defeated the Dark Master. That he'd just fallen asleep in his Mother's warm embrace and be woken to celebrations without equal.
Eventually, he realised, his hopes couldn't be true. The world was gone.
He was alone.
Alone on this tiny rock, left to bleed out and enter the void just like every other dragon before him. Just like his parents no doubt had.
To think his final words to his Father had been spiteful.
Comet slumped, exhaustion taking over his mind, and pulling him into the realms of sleep. Blood stopped pouring from his chest. The scales healed over.
Comet didn't wake up. Not yet.
A full day had passed. The world's glowing remains long since cooled, the last survivors long gone.
Except for one.
Comet, a lone dragon, stuck on his own personal asteroid in the middle of, what was now, nowhere. His slumber had allowed his mind time to catch up on events. The world had been destroyed. He had survived by a miracle, and now he was stuck on a tiny floating rock in space. No food, no water, no… air. That old cheetah had said something about there being no air in space. He had seemed smart enough to be right.
Comet panicked, flailing about and gasping for something that he now believed wasn't there. His heart pounded, straining to pump oxygen that didn't exist.
How was I breathing a moment ago? It isn't possible! That cheetah said so! Deep breaths… deep breaths… I can breathe. I can breathe.
Slowly, his heart rate returned to normal. How he was breathing was beyond him, but he was doing it, so the dragon left it be. Invisible, impossible air was air, after all. A cheetah had told him about the lack of air in space. He hadn't believed them at the time; they had no proof, after all, and right now he was breathing just fine. Maybe the cheetah was wrong.
He must have been wrong.
Calmed, no longer worried about the requirement of breathing, his thoughts turned. Who had healed him? Had the Ancestors blessed him? Or was it just another curse, like his very survival. Spared, only to suffer another immeasurable day of solitude.
Sooner or later, he would have to move, Comet realised. The dark dragon needed food, he needed water and he needed shelter. With hope-filled eyes, he spun about, trying to find vegetation, life, remnants of a lost world.
There was nothing. He was alone, and he knew it.
I'm not going to get anywhere if I just sit here moping around. I have to move!
With new strength, pulled up from deep in his gut, Comet rose unsteadily to shaking paws. The blood loss was taking its toll. He needed somewhere to recover, but he needed basic necessities more. They weren't called 'necessities' for nothing.
Opening his folded wings, he studied them carefully. There were no holes or tears, but he doubted they could help him. Supposedly, wings didn't work in space; even then he doubted he had the strength left to use them, despite the ease with which he once had. He had never been the strongest flyer, anyway. He had to wonder how they had tested wings in space. Maybe there was a dragon who could fly above the planet?
He had never flown that high before. Nor had anyone else he knew, though they had all heard the stories of dragons who had. Most of them fell, fell a very long way, frost clinging to their limbs. That's what the stories said, anyway.
Comet shook his head roughly. He had gotten lost in thought too long. If he could breathe up here, then he could fly too. In a world where all others died while he got to live, Ancestor-status, and the ability to do impossible things, was the least he deserved. Or so he thought.
He would breathe in space, he would survive the destruction of a planet, and he would fly in space. Maybe, one day, he would have the power to rebuild the world. His eyes glimmered as he imagined the possibilities.
With a single, powerful stroke of his wings, and a running leap, he took off into a void. Instead of falling though, he drifted. His beating wings did little to move him in any direction, and he drifted about lazily until he collided with something hard. Planting himself on the space flotsam, he propelled himself to a nearby rock.
A mischievous grin overtook his muzzle. He could bounce around on little rocks in space. The idea sounded like so much fun! More fun than he'd had in months. After being trapped underground while the battle for the world itself was waged, he longed for freedom. Here was his chance, served on a silver platter of gravity-free mischief. He could spend as long as he liked. There was no one to tell him it was too dangerous. No one to tell him it was time to go home.
And there was no longer a world he had to worry about keeping intact. There was no damage he could deal that hadn't already been dealt. His rock-bouncing lunacy could only harm him, but with the Ancestors watching over him, as they appeared to be doing, he had nothing to worry about. If they could heal his side, surely they could heal a broken bone or two.
Giddy with freedom, he leapt to and fro across the rocks. With a particularly powerful bound, he sent himself spinning, flying at breakneck pace towards a rock. His adrenaline raced. Inexistent wind rushed past his head.
When the rock approached, he allowed himself to collide with it at full force. The small lump shifted, started spinning, changing the direction he was facing. He locked onto another rock not far away, and made a leap for it. The spinning rock set him off course, but he didn't notice.
That, or he didn't care. There were so many rocks around, he was bound to hit one sooner or later.
A laugh, filled to the brim with joy flew from his muzzle. He was more free than he had ever been before!
It was a long moment before he realised his mistake. An eternity before he realised the carelessness of his actions.
By the time Comet realised what had happened, it was too late to stop his trajectory.
Comet was flying off into space, and there was nothing there to stop him. He could only watch helplessly as the rocky debris of his home faded into the inky twilight of space, lost forever more.
Maybe the name Comet held more significance than he previously believed. For here he was, a small black comet of scales and bone and pumping blood, flying through space faster than he would have liked at that moment.
Could his parents have known that this would happen? That he would find himself hurtling through space from a poorly judged jump? Or was this just a cruel twist of fate. Maybe it was his destiny?
It's a dream, not my destiny. He told himself firmly. This sort of thing happens in dreams.
But he didn't believe his own words. This was no dream. This was really happening.
And he was going in the wrong direction. He wanted to go home, needed to go home, not… wherever it was he was going. It didn't matter that his home was destroyed. To Comet, the Dragon Realms were all there was in the world. There was nothing else beyond them, just emptiness. Beyond his home, there was nothing, and it was into that nothing he headed.
He had always dreamt of adventure, but now that he had it: it was too much. Comet decided, barely an hour into his intergalactic space travelling adventures, that he had preferred his life in the Dragon Realms. If only he could have it back.
He would do anything.
He cursed himself; he cursed his carelessness. Without thinking, he had sent himself flying far, far from home. So far he might never make it back.
An eternity passed, and then another. Onwards he drifted, not slowing, travelling through the endless expanses of space.
Wake up. He pleaded to himself. I have to wake up. mum's there next to me; dad's returned home from the scouting mission. Everything is alright. Comet thought for a moment he could even hear his parents whispering comfort to him, though he knew they couldn't be there.
To the dark around him, his pleas meant nothing. He travelled onwards, a small trail of blackened powder floating in his wake as small pieces of charred scale flaked from his limbs. The burned scales didn't trouble him, they caused no pain. They did stain his once blue and red scales a basalt-black, though.
He had to wonder if his scales would ever be they way they were again.
Comet's back struck something solid and his heart skipped a beat. He felt fur brushing against the spines of his back, and fear gripped him. There was a giant space monster behind him, too surprised by the sudden appearance of a living comet to eat him… yet.
He could have sworn he heard a rumble, the great beast's gut telling it that the tiny rock-like thing that had crashed into it was in fact food. Comet tensed, ready to push himself away, go spiralling into space once more until he crashed into something else. Something hopefully less alive.
But the beast never ate him. Still, it didn't move, and with mounting fear, Comet braced himself to see what he had struck. The beast had to be huge. It certainly felt huge. He took a deep breath and held it.
Okay. No sudden movements. Easy does it. He slowly began to turn, then added a prayer. Don't eat me please.
Comet beheld the monster he had crashed into, and his breath all rushed out at once. The beast was giant, earthy and covered in green.
It was no giant monster he had crashed into. It was an island.
It looked familiar somehow…
His dread, his certainty that he was about to become a snack, was quickly replaced with curiosity. What was this island, and why did it look so familiar?
He took hold of the earth and pulled himself towards it, before beginning to climb the small hill before him. He couldn't help but wonder what was beyond the hill. Gravity seemed to take hold of him, coming from somewhere he couldn't see, it pulled him towards the dirt he had grabbed, and soon he was standing on solid ground again.
Momentarily confused, he blinked twice before shrugging. Gravity that appeared out of nowhere was still gravity. Just like the invisible, intangible air he breathed was still air.
Now no longer having to pull himself clumsily across the ground, he was able to walk smoothly with the help of gravity. He soon reached the top of the hill, and he gasped.
He knew this place. How could he forget it?
Islands, some covered with lush grass, others with dense thickets and others with flowing waterfalls, all joined together by flimsy rope bridges. In the distance, he could make out what looked like stones in a strange arrangement, though it was hard to tell in the dark. Colours were hard to make out, but everything looked the way he had expected: green and full of life.
He was in Tall Plains.
How Tall Plains had survived the destruction of the planet was wiped from Comet's mind as more important thoughts took priority. He had somewhere to stay! It had water, shelter and… Atlawa?
Had they survived the explosion too? Surely they had.
Giddy with the prospect that he now had somewhere to stay, somewhere he knew, Comet dashed to the nearest bridge. It groaned protest under his weight, but he ignored its whining and ran across.
He saw a small cave, a pool next to it.
Perfect. I can stay there tonight.
And then, all at once, his joy left him, the grin sliding from his muzzle. It was already night time. The moons were already out. Would day ever come, or would the night continue on? Had the Eternal Night returned?
Comet looked around and shivered. Now that he had found somewhere to stay, somewhere safe, he was beginning to notice the cold and darkness. While before, he had been more concerned about finding somewhere to stay, and sustenance, now he had other problems.
Entering the small cave, he lay down, resting his head on his paws. The space was plain, undecorated dirt walls, a grassy floor, and an opening onto a small pool which reflected the light of twin moons.
Comet closed his eyes, welcoming sleep. Too much had happened that day.
Or night…
Maybe he would find out how Tall Plains had ended up here? Maybe an Atlawa would find him in his sleep?
He smirked, imagining the Atlawas' reaction to his sudden appearance, then slipped into his dreams.
He had found home. He was safe. He only wished his parents could have been there with him.
See you for the next chapter.