Chapter 4

PS: If you want a good background song, I would recommend 'Whispering winds' from James Horner. It adds a lot of sadness to this chapter and it's one of my favorite songs ever. Normally, I listen to Metal, but this song makes me cry every time I hear it, So please try it out. Just give it a shot.(Skip the middle part though, its too happy and destroys the atmosphere.)

"I think anyone who has an opinion, and voices it, will offend someone."

-Peter Steele (1962-2010)

"The fragile art of existence is kept alive by sheer persistence. The fragile art of existence. No time for self-pity. No time for dwelling on what should have been, but is yet to be."

― Chuck Schuldiner (1967-2001)

Pain. Endless physical and emotional pain. A whirlpool of the cruelest and most agonizing torture ever inflicted on the mind of any intelligent creature in existence. Have you ever felt like you were torn in two separate pieces? Have you ever felt like even death would be a much better fate than your current situation? That you would have begged for your own demise, just to escape the hell that was your very existence?

This horrible cycle was the basic existence of the former dark master, better known as Malefor. The now female dragon had done crimes of the worst kind in her past, killing tons and tons of innocent families, children and parents alike. Now one had been safe from her rampage across the land. Everywhere she had come, she had left a barren wasteland , trees rotten away, the sky would turn black , drowning in its own darkness, and nothing , animal nor insect ,would ever life there again. She had transformed the cities and villages of the dragon world to ashes, taking many lives in the process. But, as she believed at the time, it had all been for the greater good. She would save the world, by bringing the biggest sacrifice made in history.

Destroying the entire planet, so it could be rebuild to form the perfect world, cleared of death, sickness, suffering and pain. Plagues and wars would be something of the past, only serving as sad reminders of how the past had been. Everyone would be happy, and Malefor would be the hero who had brought this heaven down on earth. She would be honored as a God, and remembered with the deepest respect in the hearts of all dragons.

But, as told before, she would have none of that.

No, a dragon named Spyro would destroy everything, making all her efforts and sacrifices totally useless in the end. And she had paid the price, dying inside a crystal originally made to lock her away for eternity. But for an unknown reason, she had died, finally getting her place in the halls of the afterlife.

Another dream meant to fall.

Instead of earning her place among her heroes, she was send back in time to get another chance at life as one of the lives she had ended way too early. To her surprise and shock , she was reborn as the sister of her old servant. But she hadn't got the time to get over her shock. Instead she was captured by a new dark master. To Malefor's horror , it was Terrador who had taken the dark path in this alternate timeline. Again, she didn't had the time to over think this new information, because she was forced to endure the same curse she had inflicted upon her new sister so long ago. She had been put under the same mind controlling spell that had taken Cynder, and now , in an ironic twist of fate, she would endure the same treatment. And that brought her to this moment, a good sixteen years later.

Mount Malefor, now known as mount Tenebris.

Two dark purple dragons were standing in one of the magnificent halls of the mountain, not moving a muscle . Their faces were contorted in a permanent glare, their eyes white pupil-less orbs, glowing with hate, pain and rage beyond the natural. Their bodies were huge and slender, giving them a ghost-like appearance, filling the hearts of their enemies with fear and terror. Their horns were enormous for a dragoness of their age and they were with many. They were sharper than the most strongest blades, and harder than the claws of almost any dragon.

Their own claws could pierce any skin, scale or fur placed in front of them, cutting the poor victim into pieces like butter. Their legs, neck and tail had been decorated with iron cuffs , giving them the looks of some hellish creature , serving their purpose of adding to the full picture perfectly. Both Cynder and her sister had been through hell and back since the moment they had been put under the spell. The markings on their legs and butt-region were a sad reminder of this. The ancient symbols had been burned on their skin by heating an iron bar until it was red from the high temperature .

Then , it would be used to burn drawings on the skin of both dragonesses. Although the symbols on their bodies were almost identical, the ones on their forehead weren't. Were Cynder had three symbols, forming a circle together, Malefor her head was decorated with a satanic circle with a pentagram in the middle. While Cynder's symbol meant the ending of a life, therefore the broken circle of life, the one on her sister's head was something of another meaning. The symbol wanted to express only one thing.

Hell.

Pure, torturing hell.

It was a warning to anyone who tried to threaten her, because this dragoness was seen by many as the impersonation of the devil himself. The thought was ironic to Malefor, there the situation apparently hadn't changed much on that subject. But while the body's from the dragonesses may listen to their master, and kill and destroy without mercy, behind the clouds encircling their minds, there were still the originals. The minds of Malefor and Cynder were shut of off any body function, but at the same time completely aware of anything that happened , because they could still see.

And both had begged many times to lose this ability.

Both dragonesses had to see the murders , rapes and tortures they inflicted upon defenseless animals and dragons. They had to see the horror, but they were unable to do anything about it. The worst of all was, that whatever they did, nothing could stop the constant stream of horrific images in front of their eyes, because they were unable to close their eyes. But sometimes, once in the month, the magic of Tenebris would weaken a little , and for some mere minutes, Cynder and Malefor could regain their control over their bodies. They could walk, talk , fly sing,…

And regret.

Every time again, they would fall down, hearts crushed at their horrible deeds. They would wail their hearts out, cry about their misery, and comfort each other when they were mentally stable enough. They would cry together and hold each other, trying ease the pain from their deeds. Malefor remembered one of these moments very brightly.

Cynder was running through the halls of the mountain. For one reason or another, the curse that kept them under Tenenbris's spell had lowered itself down , but Cynder new very well that it was only temporally. Within this and something under an hour, she would be pulled back into the madness and the despair that was the existence of both sisters since their birth. Since that day, they had been through hell , but not to come back. Instead , they were bonded to a life that held no joy, sweetness or bliss to it. Their life's were empty, nothing what they did had any value , nothing that they destroyed was serving any purpose and no one on this planet could end this miserable life.

It was as simple as that, and Cynder nor Malefor had any hope that the situation would ever become better. Speaking of Malefor, she was exactly the reason why Cynder was running around. Ever since their first time that they had become free for some time, Malefor had tried to avoid her, screaming or crying incomprehensible words and cries of misery, pain and a cause Cynder still hadn't discovered. The slender dragoness didn't knew why, but she didn't cared that much either. The only thing she wanted to know, or find for that matter, was her sister. Even with all the push-aways, all the curses thrown to her, she still believed that her sister could be pulled out of it, if only for a minute.

After much searching and running through the dark and cold halls of mount Malefor, she finally arrived in one of the lesser known halls in the immense fortress. These were the halls that were once build to store food or supplies , but they never served that purpose. Instead, they were forgotten and left empty, no ape daring to go into the almost totally forgotten part, not caring for what was inside of them. But Cynder knew better than the apes. She knew that there were many caves build into the forgotten halls, just big enough to store a dragon.

A crying dragoness in this case.

Cynder sighed when she entered the hall, meeting the sight of her sister crawling away in one of the small caves, crying her heart out. The youngest twin her heart broke when she saw the misery Malefor was in , but she knew very well that there was little she could do. But she wouldn't forgive herself if she left her sister in a crisis situation like this, so instead of leaving, she walked closer to the cave, trying to make as less noise as possible to not disturb her sister. Her paws led her to the cave on autopilot, while her brain tried to come up with the right words to tell, the right sentences to cure her sisters pain, the best purrs to ease her confused and suffering mind.

But she couldn't.

Cynder had never succeeded in helping her sister out of her personal hell, and it hurt Cynder deeply. It didn't meant that she wouldn't try.

" Mally?"

Cynders voice sounded hollow and empty in the gigantic hall, the sound echoing away in the dark caves and cracks in the wall. The purple dragoness could only stare as her sister didn't reacted to the nickname she had given her. But Cynder wouldn't give up so easily.

"Mally?"

The youngest purple dragoness felt her heart give a small sigh of hope when she saw her sister opening her eyes, looking straight at her, but she recoiled when she looked into the slitted orbs of her sister. So much emotions were swimming in the eyes of Malefor, the yellow around the eyes looking red from all the tears that had flooded freely from them. Mally's eyes were looking at her with rage and a small amount of something similar to guilt.

"My name Is MALEFOR!" she screamed at the top of her longs, voice cracking from raw and rash emotions.

Cynder lowered her head, tears coming slowly to her eyes. She didn't knew why, but she had to cry almost every time her sister screamed at her. It just hurt her so much to see how less Mally cared about her, although she knew deep down that Mally did care, but her uncontrollable emotions made it incredibly hard to look through that façade of anger and pain.

But Cynder could.

She knew that deep down, Mally just did it to protect her, to protect her for a threat that Cynder didn't knew.

"Go away. You are not allowed to come close to monsters." said Mally.

Cynder's eyes widened a little when she heard this. But she returned an answer just as quickly.

" And which monster would that be?" she asked, although she knew the answer that would follow.

Mally closed her eyes again, trying to fight against the tears that were flooding out of her eyes. It was clear that it hurt her to say this, but with some tries she succeeded in forming an answer, although her voice was still cracking.

"I am ,Cynder. I am the monster. I have killed people, Cynder. Innocent people who did nothing wrong. I tortured children for God sake. I have lost my right to live a long time ago, my sister, but now I have to suffer for the pain I once inflicted upon those I deemed lesser than me. Now, I will deal with my punishment, but it was never my intention to pull you with me in this , promise me that if you succeed in getting out of here, you will take your chance, even if that means leaving me behind. "

Cynder her eyes widened further in shock, her mind not finding the right words , until it settled with a screamed " NO!"

"I will not leave you. How many times do I have to tell you this? You are the only person that ever tried to understand me, the only person that ever defended me from others who would harm me. I can't live without you."

A tear fell out of Cynder's eyes.

" I need you."

Mally opened her eyes again, looking at her sister shaking her head in disagreement, but before she could try to convince her sister, a startled and pained cry escaped from Cynders muzzle, before her eyes filled again with the white void that showed that their time was up. Mally, looked down , knowing that her time had come.

"I am sorry Cynder."

Slowly, the curse began to take over Mally's mind again, paining her mind and paws, until she began to feel the lightheaded feeling that was caused by the magic .

"I am so sorry."

And so we end again with the start. Mally and Cynder were both standing unmoving , waiting for orders of lord Tenebris. After some minutes of waiting , the dark green behemoth showed himself, grinning with an insane but calculated smile.

"My dear servants. It came to my ears that there is a dragon that keeps pestering my forces in Avalar. The name of this maggot is Spyro. Find him and destroy him, or if you ca , bring him to me so he can be 'added ' to my collection of loyal dragons." A dark glint appeared in his eyes when he spoke about his army of dragons, his grin widening.

"Leave now, and don't even think about failing me or death will be upon you."

Almost like a pair of robots, both dragonesses nodded before marching to the entrance of the mount Tenebris. Without looking back they flew away, their twisted minds fixating themselves on the task awaiting them. But one thought could pierce through the void surrounding Mally's brain.

"Spyro."

Hope wasn't totally gone.

At last.

Okay, first I want to say that Mally isnt the permanent name. If you can come up with a better alternative, please tell me. I would like knowing other peoples thoughts about this little project of mine. But, finally , this chapter is done, so now I can work again at my other stories. See you next time .

R.I.P james Horner.

See you.

Pantera