There he was, just like in my nightmare. The dark hair, slicked with blood, and his face, a grimace of pain. The same pull I had felt was there too. Serpents were supposed to be the enemy of my people, it was usually trained into our blood when we're childrent to hate them. Yet as I looked upon him, all hate disappeared. He wasn't the enemy, not in the state he was in. I started walking to him before going in a full-out run. The wave of the smell of blood washed over me as I went further into the battlegound, making me gag. There were people falling from the sky, it seems that the serpents had noticed the bunch of avians that had been flying above them, it was a good thing I'd decided to land instead of just gliding up there. Fires were breaking out, someone had opened a few oil barrels and set fire to them, hoping to burn off a few soldiers, whether they were avian or serpiente I didn't know.
I reached him and his blood red eyes looked up in surprise, he hadn't expected someone to actually notice him in the chaos that was going on. His hands were over the wound. It was exactly as it had been in the dream, it was a stomach gash, and it was bleeding quickly. The gash went from his hip to his breast, completely slicing his torso. There was nothing I could do, I hadn't a needle and thread with me, and the amount of blood he already had lost made any help useless. I straightened up and looked around desperately, searching for a serpent or someone who knew him. There was no one in sight, only the color of pale skin and unmoving limbs. I turned back to him, helpless.
I would've drawn my blade and killed him, giving him a peaceful death instead of the painful and agonizing death he had before him. But I'd learned about the serpents belief in mercy killings, a thing that would dishonor the soldiers name. And so, with no way to help him, I looked down at the cobra, fully catching his gaze and knelt down next to him. Staring into a cobra's eyes was said to be a dangerous thing, they were supposed to hypnotize you. There was even a story about a man killing himself after catching the garnet gaze of a Cobriana. I saw no danger in his eyes though, just pain and a want to live. He saw my golden eyes and gasped before flinching from the pain. I reached a hand out to smooth his hair back his hair and saw his pained eyes soften and for tears to welt up in the corners.
"Thank you", he whispered shakily, before one of his hands reached out to grasp mine. His hand was warm, despite his pale skin, and I held on to his as a comfort as he continued to endure his pain. The fights around us stayed away to my surprise, as if they knew that we were now neutral in this battle, neither friend nor foe. As I sat there with him, keeping him company for his last moments in this world. The young morning sky turned to a bright blue afternoon, a miserable sky for battle. Gregory Cobriana's breaths had started to become shallow and the hand that held onto my own hand was starting to get cold. I sat there until his last breath whispered out and his bright red eyes turned to the dull color of rust. The second to last male child to the Cobriana throne was dead.
I took my hand from his lifeless one and looked down at him, sorrow deep in my heart.
I didn't weep though, as much as I hated to say it, his soul was in a better place. Better than this place of death and pointless war. I leaned over and kissed him on the forehead whispering a prayer for him to depart into the otherworld saftely. Now it was time for me to leave, though by the looks of the people around me, they weren't going to let me just push through the crowd of fighters.
I stood up, ready to take on anything that would come at me, now that I had done my duty and stayed with the fallen prince, I expected the soldiers to notice the dead body next to me and fight me. The first one to realize that I was a avian, though I kept my golden eyes down, was a serpent. He cut down the crow he'd been fighting and his attention directed to me, glancing at my brown apparell, and my tied back bronze hair, which was now almost free of it's bond. His red hair betrayed him as a red mamba and he came at me, sword wielding and fangs bared. Reddish scales were covering the knuckles of his hands and some of his neck.
I pulled out my charmed knife and let him take the first strike, a swing to my legs. I jumped over the blade and slashed down, giving him a gash across his collarbone. He took another swipe, this time at my chest, which I dunked under and reached a hand back to swipe at the back of his thighs, cutting his hamstrings and making him fall over onto his knees. I heard him curse me as I walked by him.
Other serpents came at me, ready to kill but I disarmed them with painful, but not deadly wounds. The avians who came into my path to get out of the battlefield merely looked at me, confirmed me as one of theirs and looked for the next serpent to battle. Yes it was chaos, but it did have some kind of an order. I was almost out of the field, a trail of bloodied serpents behind me when I heard my name call over the sounds of the fight.
"Lilka!", I froze at my name and turned quickly to see that it was a senior member of the Flight, probably someone who'd baby-sitted me when I was a nestling. Now he seemed to recognize me and was running to catch up to where I was, pushing the people who came up to him with their weapons out away from him. Immediately I turned and started running for my sanctuary of the trees. If could get there, then I was free in the dark confines of the forest, there was no way they could find me in there.
I certainly didn't want to change into a hawk, the bodies of avians were stilling falling, turning into their human forms at the last second of their collision to the ground. The man who'd called my names was still yelling for me to stop and for someone to grab me. I ignored his shouts and focused my legs on running as fast as I could. All of a sudden I had four men in front of me. Three of them crows, the other one a raven, all of them with their swords raised, ready to fight me if I tried to get past them. I skidded to a halt in front of them and turned around to start running in the opposite direction when the man who'd started this damn mess appeared, with his arms crossed and his face stern.
"There's no place to run Princess Lilka", he told me, not smugly, but as if it were a compliment. The combat around us stayed away from our group, the serpents were wary of taking on such a large group at once, and the avians understood that something important was going on. Yea, my capture.
"I will not go with you", I growled, malice defiantly in my voice. The man's face turned to one of impatience. His hair was dark and his eyes were such a dark brown that they were almost black, his face was lined with years of weariness. That's when I remembered. He was a guard of my mother's, the Captain in fact. Gerard was his name I believe, a crow, and a good friend of my mother's.
"It's your duty, do you know how distraught your mother was when she discovered your absence", Gerard asked patiently, though his tone was controlled. I snorted.
"As if, she wouldn't shed a tear if I was dead", I baited him, this was beginning to be fun, just trying to crack through the wall of emotionless concrete. Gerard stayed calm however.
"You would not know I suppose, you weren't there when Xavier was brought home", he told me morbidly. That made me flinch, I had loved my brother, but his choice in going into battle was his own fault. But that would've made him a coward, my brother was anything but cowardly, he would've done anything to prove himself to his people. And that price was his life, ended by the arrow of a serpent. I shook my head.
"There's still no way I'm going back, nothing you can say will change my mind", I said firmly and stonily. I crossed my arms to prove my point and he sighed.
"I was hoping I wouldn't have to do this, but Yvon", he gestured behind me and suddenly a hand was over my mouth and eyes before I could even turn around. A cloth was in the hand and the smell coming off it was sour, almost like the smell of rotting fruit. I fought, struggling to kick the person who was holding my face to the disgusting odor. But I found that I soon lost control of my limbs, which were limp at my side. Soon my head felt fuzzy, I could hardly think. What was going on? Where was I?
The last thought I had was what would happen when I woke up?
