the dragon was getting impatient: only hours ago she had sent that night fury on that so-called-easy mission and she should have returned in tow with a bound and gagged companion hours ago. "i ask her to bring her here, a simple yet mundane task after surely she had contacted loaw okar kahuakhaun and she can't even do that!" a rather poor unfortunate spire of rock took the brunt of the next outburst, breaking into pieces, robbing the entire spire of its kea stabilizing weight and raining down in stony shards. a similar flurry of tantrums had been going on all morning from the dragon of sky blue that was pacing about her realm, squinting up at the sky the same tones as her pelt, that angry beating little sun, this horrible bright daylight, as if it was the cause of all her problems. nightflight hated the day. it was the middle of the afternoon and the well-known self sub leader of the night furys had forsaken the welcoming comfort of the usual blanket of stars and moons, the guiding and ruling god protector which they abided by, to wait/stand at the designated meeting spot the muddy brown night fury was supposed to bring Nona to. "obuekhov evakyl, you coward," muttered the dragon darkly under her breath, thinking about throwing another fit of anger, regardless of who was watching. indeed roughly a dozen or so other followers of the pacing, thundering, angry dragon were present and indeed watching. "nightflight, she is a young one. just let obuekhov do what she does. we are all on the same path to enlightenment and sharing all our power and truth with the so called free nert furt so they see it too arent we? don't forget that you were once an opponent to the likes of us and blinded from seeing the right side. after all, you are second to that only of the great flyer of importance loaw okar." 'the other' who had spoken up was formerly a free night fury himself. the bleach colored fury that nightflight kept fuming about, Nona, had accidentally convinced the speaker to look at the stars one night and become Abydos loaw persvek wer whedab, a dragon who nightflight when she was free, had voiced that she missed him.
too late, loaw persvek realised that he had made an error in judgement and careless thinking. the other came crashing down full force in bodyweight, seething savagely, claws on the verge of ripping and tearing. "understand this, flyer, i am second to no one least of all that scheming flying scrap of shadow...his methods may be brutal but he needs me to mastermind his brawnish plans. i am the mind to his otherwise brutish killing. i am the planning behind his plot. i am the mass killer to the furies that fail to loojk at the sky. and that name no longer has any meaning for me. i am loaw shar versel now." an odd note of something...regret perhaps, had escaped her streamlined jaws, as if nightflight versel had been looking for something else to be in the future but was denied, or escape from an imprisoned past that was no longer available. this regretting tone became even more clear in her next words. "maybe...maybe in another time...another...place...would i have had that name...a time when...i wasnt who i am now; the deceptive leader over all of dragonkind and soon the known land. maybe then would i had been called a name such as...longingly beautyful as that." if 'the others' could see her now and were looking closely enough, one might have observed an almost unnoticeable dragonic liquid tear streak quickly down nightflights muzzle. no one but Abydos loaw persvek actually caught the barely perceptible tear fall from that great dragoneses orbs. for some reason; maybe because he was struggling to remember a time when he too had been a different creäture, maybe because he didn't understand what she ment, maybe because he didn't care, whatever the reason he didn't comment about it. whatever had seem to leak into nightflights voice at her last few words was gone and for a good reason, she had to banish whatever remnants of old that still might reside inside of her, she knew, just knew that Abydos had detected that voice she had used. most of all over anything else, she had to destroy whatever had possessed her to utter such words in the first place, because nightflight didn't like it...it had scared herself half to death!
"are you sure we are heading the right way? we could be heading in a dozen different ways from home. i thought my adventure hero knew his way home, but oh my, he seems to have suddenly lost his way i wonder why." after that near brush with Valhalla and everything else nasty and awfully descriptive when two humans had tried to reason with a mythical beast called a night fury, little knowing she was evil. nether human had known her name waa nightflight loaw shar versel or where she had come from. the god protector had whispered its voice in the evil furys mind to slay these two teens but she had failed after Ixora Jackson deftly felled a tree right onto nightflights slender back. trying to escape her predicament simply served to fan the flames of that dragons anger. her words screamed murder and butchery and everything most awful to listen to after them...that is if you could have understood the dragon tongue. Ixora and her male companion, blueflame or "john" as she liked to call him, couldnt. "would you just stop!? it was just an accident. as i have said repeatedly you just upset and scared that poor dragon. we would have had so much of a better chance if you had just chucked that axe aside and approach it cautiously. she looked afraid too. it even nuzzled my skin for a bit before you had to scare it off."
as she trundled along confidently twirling that axe though not neccacairly to purposely frustrate blueflame, Ixora rolled her eyes in exasperation. "upset and scared? i see...i see indeed...so...all you 'see' is a good kindness in what you see and do? well sorry, sweetheart but you never ever trust what you cannot sink your weapon into first and ask the questions if your target is still alive. did you even think to look closely at that thing? it had the look of a natural-born hungry killer. it wasnt just what you think it looked like on the outside. you were lucky you tugged me along to go for a supposed casual stroll...honistly i saved your hide." an argument of sorts had been traded all afternoon among the blanket of trees. "just because it looked it doesn't mean that it was" insisted blueflame as the twosome were on their way to the village around the next cliff face in the distance. Ixora uttered a contemptuous snort and said nothing. "heck, im sure it was a good and gentle creature, i wanted to get to know it...you know...? who knows we might see it again soon" he continued. "you mean you will" she retorted matter of factly "i am not going to be around the next time you go adventuring outside the borders of my village to find it..." her words trailed as they heard a sound in the distance that was outside the normal bandwidth of noise on this island. "or it finds you" she finished wearily, looking around the immediate area and sky.
a few moments later the source of the sound made itself known to both of them as it roared past and further back the direction they had traveled: another flying dragon like the one Ixora had immobilized this time black as night, stark against the periwinkle afternoon heavens. the two waited with tene expressions for it to come back after them but it didn't reappear. that event had efficiently silenced both of them into an ucomforterable stillness that was awkward yet now aware of the threat of another dragon somewhere out there that might or might not be all that hospitable if they encountered it. Ixoras weary eyes traveled from the skies to the slack mouthed blueflame, also gazing northward to that flying 'nert furt' had gone, she and him were travaling south to Ixoras village. "Magnificat!" he breathed, almost wishing that what he had witnessed would come back. "Ixora we have to go back." a decision was reached as she split up from him to wander the forest alone. "and don't even let me hear you crying and wailing that some mythological creature has got you with its talons or...something" said Ixora Jackson over her shoulder in contempt as she stalked off in a huff. "well fine then but don't come to be in turn saying you ever loved me or anything! i don't need you anyway!" he had only gotten a few more miles under his belt retracing back north when he heard a twig snap off to his right accompanied by a rather unpleasant muffled snarl.
an instant later blueflame was knocked to the ground by a rather large dragon that had shot out of the brambles to tackle him. it almost immediately opened its bloody jaws to roar long and loud right at the boys face. the roar came out something like this: "HEHEHEEEEEE! I AM TRIUMPHANT! I AM THE ONE! I FOUND THE BOY, I FOUND THE BOY! HE IS MINE! HE IS MINE! YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD ESCAPE ME! WHAT A JOKE! HEH..HEHE..HEHEEEEEEE!" though the dragon spit being flung in his face rather disgustingly he saw this wasnt the same creature he had seen with Ixora yesterday. and furthermore this one looked like it wanted to kill him right here and now this instant. as he didn't have a weapon to defend himself with (a rather clumsy move he admitted with a sigh) he was completely helpless and this creature knew it.
the night fury couldn't help but laugh: less than three days into its flight she had detected voices among the massed vegetation that looked from so far above like needles of emerald stabbing to the sky. slitiiva loaw ranak branar, tasked by loaw shar versel (nightflight) to set out and find the human boy she had inadvertently stumbled upon and failed to catch and kill because the god protector had deemed to nightflight they were a menace to its existence, had found them. "all too easy for my taste. i thought she had given me only higher tasks to accomplish. i almost missed you if it wasnt for you flesh and bloods whining and shouting. you know what i call that? a target?" sneered ranak branar in her lisping horrible rasp down at her catch. gazing at the wriggling sobbing little thing in her grip she decided she would toy with it for a while. "let me tell you a story, little worm. i have all the time in the world to rid myself of you; whats a few more minutes more or less, eh? heh-heh-heh. you reminded how i was myself so long ago; weak and mewling in the grasp something admittedly bigger and more influential that myself. a being i now revere but almost met his end at the claws of that one, versel. she thinks she's sooooooooo much better than the rest of us, little human grub, but oh, how i know that's not true. of course loaw okar has his faults. i-" her story was interrupted by the all too familiar voice of another, one much more in control of his confidence now that he had grown older and his senses more finely attuned to the moon and stars will than that of she. "really, branar, that's all you can say of your leader? then i must say im...dissapointd in you." in her telling her story, she had allowed her own senses to become diluted of her surroundings and fail to notice the telltale signs of another of her own kind approatching.
"welllllllllllll if it isn't loaw okar himself." snapped loaw ranak branar, by way of greeting "did that stuffy old sea of stone caccoons you were nesting on make you cramped? or are you just lost. i thought you were going after the dragon nightflight wanted converted and dead." kahuakhaun nodded as he stepped into the full light of this heated, blasted sun, enjoying the gawking look the human boy threw him, taking him in, drinking in his awesome splendour. "alive, you brainless tool. or had you forgotten? the last free night fury will soon become one of us and loaw versel can surely handle one insignificant dragon on her own. obuekhov flew to retrieve me, and now i am here. i chose to track you to see where you were going, despite all your ruthless qualities of single areal claw combat, you still neglect to cover that noise your ragged wings make when you fly. that could be your eventual downfall to Nona and other flesh and bloods who come to expect our presence in their known perfect ordinary world." he made a show of examining his claws, liking them of dried bits of the last recent dragon he had gutted in the name of the god protector thoughtfully before looking smugly right into the humans eyes, his words addressed to loaw ranak branar. "but then, that's not my problem if you get yourself killed is it?" loaw okar was debating who he enjoyed watching more: the ghastly look on the humans face at the last bits of crusted liquid stick to his claws or the vicious fuming irritated dragon who pinned the human. after a dull minute of observing both their reactions he disided laughing time was over. he flicked a claw dismissively at the human, bord of her lack of ability to quit playing with her food. "well? what are you waiting for...kill it."
meanwhile Nona and night fury obuekhov wer evakyl arytiss now turned double agent, trying to do what was right, had picked their way stealthily through the forest a bit aimlessly. Nona had found obuekhov and obuekhov had found Nona: two dragons that were in the outside, worlds apart. but on the inside shared one likeness and mind, to retake those unwilling unfortunate night furys that had once been so proud to roam free on careless airy wings and paws, starting with..."nightflight. we need to find and break the hold she has been twisted with" said obuekhov. "as one of the dragons older and more skilled than any i know at battling with a fluid liquid graceful streamlined style of fighting that very very few furies have; loaw okar kahuakhaun is her only equal at her level, why both are leaders of this whole assimilation movement. she will be extremely hard to defeat. i myself saw her nearly take down silverwingthefury at his own challenge, i myself nearly saw her kill him with my own eyes, saw him let her go because he was trying to admit defeat without actually admitting that he had been beaten at his own game. he said to me once later, proud and boastfully lator that it was he that had purposely let her get away so nightflight could be tracked down and killed. but we knew...we all knew the truth; he let her escape because he had been soundly defeated and didn't want himself obliterated to the likes of a newcomer. that i saw and knew his loud proclamation was all a web of lies. he had been frightened Nona...its the only explanation as to why he did what he did; that was the first and last time i saw silverwingthefury show a tangible skein of fear."
Nona was quick on the uptake for one that had been running and hiding for far too long from nightflights force, hunting her down, sending half-wit night furys to bring her back to her so she could be the last free dragon to become...one of them. "im done running. if nightflight wants to fight and see me screaming to be free of the pain and marring all my former night fury kin have been zapped into, maybe its long time we bring the fight to her. but we wont ask nicely to fight her. i will do it alone" she said to wich obuekhov sounded absolutely horrified. "it needs to be single combat..if and when, i have no option of failure, i win this fight, she will agree to be bound wing and paw and i will figure out how snap that dragon out of her demonic state." the muddy brown night fury next to Nona quickly flung all her worry into her next question that non knew was sure in coming: "and if you fail?" silence was her answer, just as obuekhov evakyl feared it would. "listen, my friend i just met in many many moon cycles, you cannot do this. you just simply cannot! what if you fail? what then? without you all hope for any future generations of young have absolutely no hope! don't have you have any common sense? let. me. help. i can pretend to have brought you just as i did nightflight not so long ago. i will be seen as honorary and more trustful in both silverwingthfurys eyes and hers, and when you challenge her...that is what you're going to do isn't it...i will come from the side and distract her while you grapple." nona shook her muzzle vehemently. "im sorry this has to be a fair fight if i succeed i succeed if i perish, then so be it. but it's not how i want this whole thing to unfold. i want nightflight to see that even if she does win and my free will is forever silenced by the moon, she might have seen that there was good in me and see that in herself too. all that matters is freeing that dragon. im determined to show her that if you try hard enough, you will succeed."
and far away almost as if she had heard that vow spoken across the vast distances of land and earth and sea many many miles away, a certain weary dragon was beginning to wonder if she too was ready for such a fight. "it doesnt matter now" thought the dragon to herself. "i will Find nona and bring her before me. then all dragonkind will know that our reign extends to every corner of this known universe. we all will at last have seen the truth of our heavenly protector." the dragons voice became almost silky honey sweet, always one of her most dangerous moments. she picked one sky blue paw off the ground and tightened it into a fist "and what a sweet revenge it will be. I AM COMING FOR YOU, DRAGON! I AM COMING FOR YOU AND THERE WILL BE NO HIDING PLACE THAT I WILL NOT SCOUR! I AM NIGHTFLIGHT VERSEL!"