Asher screamed as she fell towards the steep mountainside. She hit the frost covered ground hard and yelped when it gave way underneath her. As she tumbled down the rocky slope, she cursed her father's inability to turn down a chance to show his brothers up. A demigod's life was never easy, but the children of Hades really drew the short straw in that competition.
Asher was the first child of Hades born after the Oath was lifted, a sort of up yours to Zeus and Poseidon from her father. The gods never considered the consequences of their actions. They may have been safe from retribution, but their children were not. Asher had been cheerfully heading towards camp when some super angry immortal lady showed up, ranting about her father doing something or the other. To be honest, once a person started ranting about Hades, Asher tended to zone out. The gods made a lot of enemies.
This particular woman was really lovely in a blonde, blue-eyed supermodel (a bit too perfect), immortal kind of way. Her hair was sort, cut in a messy chin length bob with soft honey brown low-lights and a slight wave. She wore a short lavender sundress and the cutest pair of wedge heels Asher had ever seen. Without warning, the crazy lady throws a glowing blue orb at her and suddenly there is a very confused half-blood plummeting towards the ground. Glowing spheres are never a good sign.
And a demigod should really know better than to be distracted by cute heels.
A solid thump and choked gasping signaled the abrupt end of Asher's impromptu tumble down the rocky mountainside. Once she could breathe again, Asher examined the area she stopped in. It was a dismal sight. Scraggly little bushes and pitiful tufts of brown grass peeked up from the frozen mountainside. The odd pile of slush sheltered in small nooks and crannies, hiding from the weak sunlight. She had never seen mountains in person before, but even so, Asher was sure that the mountain she sat on was unusually large. Actually, the entire range was so enormous that she couldn't see any of the peaks. They were too high. Even the snow stopped before reaching the mountaintops. In fact, the clouds stopped before the top too.
Gradually, Asher became aware of something vitally important. Her dark eyes widened in fear as she realized she could not feel her father's power. Hades was the Lord of the Dead and as such, his realm extended the length and breadth of the entire earth. It was a strange quirk that all children of Hades got used to. Wherever they went, they could feel their father's domain. Either the weird woman had somehow cut Asher off from her birth-right… or she was no longer on Earth.
'No. Not cut off. Not isolated.' There was life down in the valley below and in the vegetation around her. If she forced herself to her limit, Asher could feel the life force of the living creatures and the tiny dimness of the plants, which meant that she still had access to her inheritance. She immediately tried to shadow travel to Camp. The shadows wrapped around her like usual but when she stepped out, Asher was still on the same unknown mountain, in the exact same spot she had just tried to leave from.
"Okay, okay, calm down." Asher wheezed putting her head on her knees, "There is nothing to worry about. I'm just currently in the middle of who knows where, on a mountain. On another planet. Oh my gods! What do I do? Oh Tartarus, what kind of idiot half-blood ignores the clearly not mortal weirdo ranting about a god? Stupid, stupid, stupid." Unable to stay still, Asher leap up. "People! I need to find people. People can tell me where I am. And I'm talking out loud to myself like a crazy person." She muttered as she set off down the steep slope towards the verdant valley below. After all, it would be easier to survive in the valley with the hope of water and food than on the mountain where there were clearly none.
It took Asher until the late afternoon to reach the foot of the mountain. I would have taken much longer but Asher slid down much of the mountain on her bottom due to the dangerously steep incline in some places. She was dirty, thirsty and really in need of a bath when she heard the gurgle of running water. Smiling, she dashed through the thickening forest towards the sound.
Unfortunately, in her enthusiasm, Asher was not watching her footing and promptly tripped less than an arm's length from the tiny stream. This meant she landed face first in the icy water. She gasped in shock, inhaled a mouthful of sweet, clear liquid and immediately began coughing and spluttering in the middle of the brook. 'I really hope no one saw that.' Asher thought in embarrassment.
After she had managed to climb out the stream, soaking wet and shivering, she glanced around for the tree root that had tripped her up. Only, there was no root. All she could see was a smoothly curved silver rock about the size of her hand sticking up through the forest floor. It was a pretty stone, Asher had to admit as she glared at it. The smoky silver swirled around the stone, reminding her of an opal. Curious, she bent to pick it up and nearly swore when her hand touched the top. It was alive.
The life force coming from the stone was a strange one Asher had never felt before, but it was definitely emanating from the stone which meant the stone was actually an egg of some sort. Asher felt it hum in the back of her mind, a faint vibration unlike anything else. Carefully she began to dig around the weird egg. It was much bigger than she had thought, about the length of her fore arm and the width of her hand at its narrower end. It was also quite heavy and the silvery swirling pattern covered its entire surface area. As she cradled the hard, rock-like egg in her arms, Asher knew two things.
One, whatever creature laid the egg was massive.
Two, the egg had lain in the undergrowth for a very, very long time.
Once again, the hum vibrated in the back of her mind. Suspiciously, Asher eyed the egg,
"You can hear my thoughts, can't you?" She frowned as the egg throbbed in response to her voice. Whatever was in the egg was clearly scary intelligent. Asher was suddenly not sure she wanted to know what would hatch from the egg. The pulse in reply to her apprehension was definitely trying to be comforting. Still watching the egg carefully, Asher gently placed it on the grass beside the hole it had come from.
As soon as her hands left the egg, the quiver in the back of her mind faded. Now that she knew the egg was alive, Asher could feel it just like the trees around her. There, but not truly conscious, yet.
"I wonder what you'll feel like once you've hatched." She mused to the silver stone egg.
Over the next couple of days, Asher went about ensuring her survival, making camp beside the river, as well as foraging for edible plants and hunting. Asher silently thanked her overprotective brother for insisting all her weapons be disguised as jewellery and for ensuring that she really had far too many of them for any kind of emergency. She had a Greek Stygian iron sword disguised as a ring, as well as a second ring from her cousin which turned into a Hunter's silver knife and a bracelet which could become a celestial bronze shield. Then there were the imperial gold daggers disguised as earrings from her sister and the necklace that transformed into a bow and quiver of arrows which always returned to the quiver so she never ran out (from her brother's boyfriend).
All in all, Asher had to be one of the best armed demigods alive. She supposed it was a consequence of the wars her brother's generation had survived – they were all a little overprotective. Not that Asher was complaining, in fact she sacrificed a little of her food every night in thanks to the gods. Her family's anxiety ensured her survival in this strange land. The bow and arrows meant she could hunt, although skinning and gutting her kills was something she had to learn quickly from trial and error. It also meant that Asher was never defenseless however much she may look it. Appearances are deceiving after all.
It was pure luck that the egg hatched just as Asher returned from hunting late one afternoon. She had just cleaned a pair of rabbits to cook for her dinner when a loud squeak rang through the tiny camp. She jerked her head around to stare at the egg too quickly and immediately winced at the protest in her neck.
The egg had a few, large, jagged fractures running along its length and numerous spider-web cracks splintering off the main fault. As Asher watched, more splinters ran around the egg, accompanied by sharp cracks. Realizing that whatever baby creature crawled out would be ravenous, Asher grabbed some berries and placed them beside the egg. Wondering if maybe the infant would be carnivorous rather than vegetarian, Asher pulled out one of her earrings and used the dagger it turned into to cut some strips from one of the rabbits.
She placed the meat in carefully separated strips next to the egg, opposite the berries. Asher moved away from the meat just as the creature finally made its way out of the egg. It was as shinning a silver as the egg that had protected it. However, it was also very obviously… a dragon. Four tiny clawed feet attached to small, scaled legs and a long, whip-like tail connected to a torso the size of her hand-span. Two bat-like wings the size of Asher's hand waved gently to dry the delicate membrane as a petite wedge-shaped head turned on a slender silver neck.
The baby dragon (dragonet?) ignored the fruit and greedily pounced on the meat while Asher watched from nearby. The pieces of rabbit were devoured quickly. Asher smiled in amusement as the baby gorged itself and quietly began to cut up more rabbit meat. Warily, she placed it as close to the infant carnivore as she dared.
The dragon's stomach was bulging before it stopped scoffing down the strips of meat. Asher smirked as it eyed another piece of meat,
"I'll be impressed if you get that one down too." She muttered to herself. The dragon's tiny head snapped up to her face. Asher sat still as the dragon cautiously moved towards her. As the small silver dragon gradually moved towards her, Asher slowly stretched her left hand out. Instead of sniffing her, as she had thought it would, the dragon head butted her hand.
Ice flashed through Asher's veins as a blast of energy so cold it burned seared throughout her body, freezing her muscles and burning her mind. Hissing, Asher breathed methodically through her teeth until the pain receded. Unfortunately, it was quickly replaced with an intense itch exactly where she had touched the dragon. As she watched, a shimmery, oval scar formed in the dead center of her palm.
A high pitched whine and an uncomfortable itch in the back of her mind turned her attention back to the baby dragon. The poor creature looked at her in such woebegone misery as it tried to scratch its head that she had to laugh even as the itch faded from her mind. The dragon was no longer a pristine silver. Just as it had marked Asher with its touch, so too had Asher marked the dragon. Now, a black star blazed proudly on its forehead.
"Well, I guess I could always call you Blaze," Asher joked, not even considering not keeping the youngling. A feeling of sleepy discontent made her giggle with mild hysteria. Dragons were not numerous by any means, drakons clashed with demigods far more often, but they were still considered extremely dangerous. They were normally used to guard valuable objects, like Peleus, the dragon that guarded the Golden Fleece at Camp Half-Blood. Somehow, Asher got the feeling that the little creature, no bigger than a large cat, would not be happy acting like a glorified guard dog.
The unnamed dragon clambered over and up Asher until it could rest on her shoulder. Curling its tail gently around her neck, it drifted off to sleep, content with a full stomach. Knowing that babies tend to wake up hungry, Asher closed her eyes and joined it in the realm of Morpheus, completely forgetting that she hadn't eaten, even though the baby had.
Across the continent, a young farm boy struggled to care for a brilliant blue dragon hatchling.
Disclaimer: I do not own either the Inheritance Cycle or Percy Jackson Series.
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