Chapter 2: An Unintentional Surgery

A dozen thoughts rushed through Mandrake's head. Who was this dragon? What happened? Was he dead? What had killed him?

Glimmer was the first among them to recover. She pressed a talon to the brown dragon's neck, checking for a pulse. She glanced around cautiously.

"He's still breathing. But be careful, guys," she warned, trying to keep her voice steady. "Whatever did this may still be lurking around somewhere."

"Let's get outta here before whatever it is comes back," blubbered Lemur, all traces of his earlier bravado gone. "I don't wanna end up like him."

Though he didn't admit it to many, there were more than a couple of things in this world that scared Lemur. And Mandrake knew that the thoughts of blood and dying were two of those things.

"No," Glimmer said. "We can't leave him like this. He'll bleed to death if we do."

"I hate to admit it but Lemur has a point," Mandrake told Glimmer. "If the thing that did this comes back, four dragonets won't stand a chance. We should go back for help-at least get some of the other adults."

"But if we leave him out here, his attacker might just come back and finish the job," Glimmer protested. "Let's at least move him somewhere safer."

Glimmer didn't wait for an answer. She began tugging the dragon over to the clearing where they'd been playing earlier. There was no point arguing. Once Glimmer had her mind set on something, she didn't usually let go so Mandrake scampered over to help her.

"On three?" Mandrake asked, taking hold of the mysterious brown dragon's shoulders.

"On three," Glimmer confirmed.

They lifted the dragon and began lugging him along. Mandrake strained under the effort. Now that his lower half was out of the mud, this guy looked like he weighed even more than the adults at their village.

Mandrake began wondering whether he was even a RainWing in the first place. The only dragons living in the rainforest were RainWings but the dragon's mud-brown scales made him look more like one of the MudWings they'd been told about in the stories. That would make him the first MudWing they'd ever seen in real life.

Rain forced the green in her scales down and started clearing fallen logs and other assorted debris out of their way. Only Lemur still stood there petrified.

"Oh for three moons' sake, Lemur!" Glimmer called exasperatedly. "Get over here and help us. This dragon's heavy!"

When Lemur made no move, she sighed. Some things just never changed. "Fine, at least go back to the village and get help."

Lemur took off without hesitation, winging his way between trees, branches and vines and quickly disappearing into the foliage. Mandrake rolled his eyes. "Sometimes I think that guy must've been a chicken in his past life," he grunted, doing his best to carry the unconscious dragon.

"Oh come on, even chickens have more heart than him," Glimmer replied, trying to lighten the mood.

They were familiar with the legends of rebirth. The elders of the village used to tell them tales of how when a dragon passed on, their soul would be born into a new body. They'd spent lots of time discussing and trying to remember what their past lives could have been.

Lemur had always boasted of having been a great and mighty and famous dragon. The others didn't bother contending-they'd all learned that arguing with Lemur was a lost cause. Besides, none of them really had the heart to deflate his ego.

It was a quiet joke among the rest of them that he probably would've been a chicken though-not unlike the commonly-sighted forest roosters which loved to crow and squawk boisterously to impress other animals but would turn tail and run whenever any real danger, like a peckish RainWing for instance, approached.

That had lasted until one of the elders had overheard them and, taking it upon himself to clarify their misunderstanding, had explained to them that dragons would always remain dragons throughout their lifetimes. 'It's what makes us different from common animals,' he'd said.

Understandably, this had the unintended consequence of inflating Lemur's already big head and the rest of them dropped the subject. The old joke however refused to go quietly and be forgotten and would occasionally turn up now and then when they needed a chuckle.

They set the dragon down in the clearing. Mandrake got a better look at the dragon. He was definitely not a RainWing-his horn structure and tail were completely different.

"Drake, stop gawking at him. It's hard enough having to manage Lemur but you too?" Glimmer said, snapping him out of his analysis of the strange dragon.

"Sorry," Mandrake apologised. "Mind wandered off for a bit there."

"Well just keep it in place for the next five minutes, okay? I need you to help me stop the bleeding," Glimmer instructed him, taking charge of the situation. "Quickly gather up those leaves over there. The ones that haven't wilted yet if you can-they're less brittle."

"Rain, keep watch while we're busy," Glimmer continued as Mandrake started gathering up leaves. "You see anything, give a shout."

Rain nodded and took up a position on a branch above, her scales shifting until she was almost invisible against the bark of the tree.

Mandrake quickly snatched up as many long leaves as he could. He'd seen the healers use them as bandages before when he had grazed himself. But he wasn't sure if they'd be enough to patch up the dragon's numerous gashes and lacerations.

"Mandrake, hurry," Glimmer called after him. "He's losing blood fast!"

Mandrake grabbed one last handful of leaves and hurried to Glimmer. "This should be enough," he said.

"Okay, just put those down here," Glimmer said, indicating a spot with a flick of her tail. She pointed to one of his wounds. "There's something in there-maybe a claw or tooth fragment. I need you to remove it."

Indeed, there was something strange protruding from the wound-a hard, blackened, oddly-shaped thing. It looked like it had penetrated pretty far into the dragon's flesh. The very thought made Mandrake's stomach churn uncomfortably.

"Help me hold him down," Mandrake said. "This'll probably sting more than a little."

He tentatively reached a claw into the wound and gripped the fragment between his talons. He gave it an experimental tug. The dragon stiffened and grunted sharply even as Glimmer tried to hold him down. Oops, Mandrake thought. Better stop fooling around.

He gave it a firm pull and this time it came loose. It dislodged itself with a gruesome-sounding 'squelch' and Mandrake pulled the shard free of the wound.

"What the heck?" Glimmer said, echoing his unvoiced sentiments perfectly.

The fragment wasn't a claw. It wasn't a fang either. It was a small cylinder made of a peculiar material-it felt hard like wood or stone but had a dull brass colour. One end of it seemed filed to a point-the end that had no doubt pierced the dragon's scales.

"What is that?" Glimmer asked, her attention momentarily distracted from the wounded dragon.

"I have no clue," Mandrake said. His gaze fell on the dragon's raw, still-bleeding gash. He ran a claw along the ravaged flesh. It looked wrong, unnatural-the gaping wound was much larger than what the small cylinder should have been able to inflict. No dragon should ever have had to suffer something like that.

Now, he wasn't as squeamish as Lemur at the sight of blood-he'd got himself cut too many times over the years-but the very sight made Mandrake's gut do somersaults until he felt he was going to throw up. Then, something inexplicable happened. The wound began to heal! The skin knitted itself back together and new scales grew across the surface to cover the new flesh.

"How did you do that?" Glimmer asked incredulously.

Mandrake opened his mouth to answer. Then he promptly closed it. He turned away quickly and violently threw up all over the forest floor, coughing and spluttering. That had been him! His thoughts had unconsciously triggered his powers and healed the dragon! And this must've been the price of the healing, he figured.

When he finally recovered, he gasped, "It wasn't me. I-"

"Mandrake, don't," Glimmer snapped, her eyes studying him closely as if he was some unknown, possibly dangerous thing-not a friend she had known since childhood. Great, he thought. She hates me. "I've grown up with you for too long to not know when you're lying. That was you. You touched it and it healed just like that. It couldn't have been Rain because she's all the way up there and it sure wasn't me. What are you-"

She was cut off by Rain. The dragonet shouted, "Guys! There's something coming this way!"

Glimmer wheeled around. The bushes and plants were trembling-something was pushing them out of the way and stomping towards them.

Mandrake tried to get to his feet but his limbs felt like lead. He could barely even stand. Suddenly, another brown dragon burst into the clearing. She skidded to a halt when she caught sight of the dragonets and the unconscious dragon.

"RainWings," she breathed, as if she couldn't believe her eyes. "Thank the moons I found you. I need your help. Reed-the dragon over there-he was wounded by scavengers. Is there a village nearby? He needs medical attention immediately."

Glimmer relaxed-it was just another dragon. "Yeah, we found your friend just now. We've already sent our friend ahead to get help from the village. You're a MudWing aren't you?"

"Yeah," the MudWing replied. "The name's Brook."

"Glimmer," she replied. "That's Mandrake."

"Is he okay?" Brook asked. "He looks a little pale."

Pale, as it turned out, was a bit of an understatement. Mandrake was barely still conscious now. Fatigue had caused the colour to drain from his scales. He had no idea why he was so exhausted. He felt as though he'd flown around the rainforest five times. Finally, his body couldn't take the strain anymore and he collapsed. Darkness encroached on his vision and he saw no more.

Author's Note:

Well that certainly took a while! Anyway, I'm back from exams and I'll be working on this a fair bit now.

Some things about the chapter-Mandrake has unconsciously performed his first major healing-and paid the price for it XD! Guess it just goes to show that good deeds don't always pay off eh? Nah, I'm kidding-that's the price of animus magic-severe stomach cramps and nausea that may result in collapse:) But there's more to it as will be explained in the next chapter.

Another thing, can anybody guess what the pointed cylindrical object was? This is more a test of my descriptive skills than anything else but congrats to whoever can guess it right! Hint hint-the scavengers of this age aren't half as backward as the scavengers from the days of the dragonets of destiny.

frostflight-hey, thanks for the first review! I took your first piece of advice-longer chapters-and tried your second piece-more description-as best I could! And thanks for the offer, I'll keep it in mind!

Midnightsoul-you are clearly more of an expert in the subject of RainWings than I am. Could you PM me a list of their colours and the corresponding emotions. I think I have all of them but I just wanna be sure!:)

ebony-yeah! I hope so to! And what is your opinion thus far?

flops-Thanks for pointing that out! I'm so used to writing existing characters that I don't usually describe much. I've put up a list of character descriptions under the original characters section of my profile! Feel free to check them out!

kitty-Thanks! Hmm, let me guess... You were in Wales. Now you're in New York?