For some stupid reason, has been repeating the first sentence in my chapters. I've fixed this up, hopefully it won't do it again.

Thanks for your reviews, burningoil1194, cazcat and SOADjoe19. I'm pleased you's think so nicely of it. :)

Chapter 5 – Meeting Zephyros

"Where in the name of the ancestors are we?" Spyro said softly.
They had arrived in a hot, thick forest after flying inland from the coast for two hours, but they had not expected a forest like this. There were red mushrooms adorned with white spots everywhere, and trees at least ten times their own height, with leaves of all different colours as well, not just the usual green, but purple, orange, blue, red and yellow. But that wasn't the most curious thing. There was music and song permeating the air from all areas of the forest, as though the forest's inhabitants had all taken to singing and performing at once. Spyro wished Limista had given them more specific directions than just telling them to go to some random forest to find a dragon.
"Since when did you care about Ancestors?" asked Sparx.
"No need to be disrespectful, Sparx," said Cynder reproachfully, but gently. She joined Spyro's side and looked around with him.
They walked around the corner of a clump of trees, and then stopped in surprise.
In a small clearing was a group of fauns that were singing a beautiful melody, their clear voices carrying far and wide. A short distance away from there, different species of crickets were rubbing their wings to make a chirping song comprising of different scratchy notes. It was nothing like the chirping of crickets found elsewhere, and was hypnotizing.
"Oh, I can do that," said Sparx dismissively at the Crickets. "I can draw the crowds anytime I want…"
Spyro laughed. "Yeah, sure Sparx. I think only Crickets can do that."
But an even bigger surprise came shortly after that, with the sight of a small black bear holding a flute and playing a fast solo song to a small flowery shrub. The shrub's flowers themselves seemed to be opening and closing as the notes of the flute became higher and lower. Spyro approached the bear slowly and cautiously. He was about the same size as it, but he preferred not to engage in a fight if he could avoid it.
"Err… excuse me?"
The bear stopped playing and looked at Spyro with a look of one who had been slapped on the cheek.
"Sorry to interrupt you, I was wondering if you knew where Zeph lived… could you help us please?" Spyro swished his tail in nervousness, brushing dead leaves aside. The bear stared at Spyro for a second, then gave a great roar of annoyance before picking up his flute and stalking away. Spyro didn't even know if the bear had understood him, but it didn't take much to know that the bear didn't think much of being interrupted. The flowers, meanwhile, hung on the shrub closed up tightly, as though doleful that the bear had left. Spyro returned to the other two, tail hanging low, his failure to get help buzzing in his head.
Cynder began sniffing the air tenderly. They all smelled first, and soon saw, a group of furry Apes through the multi-coloured trees in front of them. Due to the tropical heat here, many of them were only wearing loincloths, exposing their smelly fur to pong the air for many metres around. Cynder, of course, had picked up on the scent first because of her previous association with the Apes.
Upon sighting the Dragons, they jumped and chattered in excitement before running through the trees towards them. Spyro immediately jumped into action, breathing a massive flame onto the trees and the Apes that were appearing in the gaps between them. The flames were huge, and shot out with cyclonic speed. The Apes ran and jumped around aflame and squealed in pain before dropping to the ground dead. A heap of gems appeared on the ground around the trees. Spyro marveled at how powerful his renewed flame ability was. There were more noises drifting through the now-burning trees.
"Looks like you've just attracted more trouble, hot breath." Sparx stated.
Spyro decided to try his electric breath this time. As soon as a monkey poked his head between the trees, his black furry cheeks painted with red stripes, Spyro aimed a thunderbolt at them. It was much more powerful that what Spyro was used to, nearly lost control of it. The monkey was sent flying, and the thunderbolt now hit another tree that was next to the monkey, causing a massive cracking sound as the trunk split into two.
"Woah…" said Spyro softly. "Limista knows her stuff."
Even more chattering noises drifted through the trees now, there was obviously quite a number of primates here.
"Do you mind if I try?" said Cynder suddenly.
Spyro and Sparx looked at her in surprise, but quickly said yes, of course she could. Cynder stepped forward and faced the final three Apes that had now made their appearance, one of whom was holding an unlit Dynamite stick and was wearing red and blue clothes, and a hat with three long feathers sticking out of it, similar to some Apes at Tall Plains. Cynder lunged forward and breathed a thick purple gas into their faces. The Apes breathed the gas in and blundered around stupidly before falling over and writhing and squirming in distress. They had all been poisoned, except for one clever Ape, the one wearing the clothes and the Dynamite, who had held his breathe and had now ignited the stick of Dynamite in his hand. Cynder jumped in the air and whirled around in a circle, and the sharp scythe embedded into the end of her tail sliced across the Apes chest, the Dynamite falling from his hand, and he fell along with his comrades. The explosion of Dynamite right next to them completed the job. Spyro stepped forward, looking at Cynder in admiration.
"That… that was impressive, Cynder!" Spyro praised her.
"Err, yeah whatever you think. She took ages to take them out compared to you." said Sparx.
"Sparx, what's got into you lately? You've seemed crueler towards her lately than ever before." Said Spyro.
"It doesn't matter, Spyro. Thanks for the compliment, though." Cynder said quietly with a smile.
"Excuse me, do you mind blowing up half the forest and creating such a noisy ruckus? We're trying to play here." said a voice to Spyro's left.
A brown female Kangaroo was clutching a long wooden pipe underneath a small tree, glaring at them as though daring them to continue fighting and making noise.
Sparx looked at her with a general dislike. "Oh, I'm so sorry we disturbed you. We'll just stand by and get attacked, will we?"
"G'day to you too." she replied.
"Hey. My name's Spyro, and this is Cynder and Sparx."
"The name's Abbey."
"Why didn't those Apes attack you? Why don't you kick them out?"
"Oh, well they sorta snuck in, the cheeky buggers. They seemed to take over the place for their own, but they didn't create too much fuss and they left us alone, so we didn't care, really."
"What are you doing? Is that an instrument as well?" asked Spyro.
"I was playing it. It's a Didgeridoo. But not my own, it belongs to another 'Roo called Sheila, who I'm fillin' in for while she's visiting her sick Aunt. I don't actually live here, I just come here from time to time when Sheila wants a break from playing. But can I help ya's at all? Before you started beatin' the crap outta them overgrown baboons, you looked kind of lost."
"Yeah, we're looking for Zeph. She kind of looks like us… I think." Spyro said, realizing now that Limista had actually not given them a description of her.
"Well that's not much bloody use to me. You and her alone look completely different, so you'd be asking me to look at a maggot and a fly and say they look the same."
Abbey reached into the pouch on her tummy and pulled out a damp mouldy-looking map. Sparx pulled a face, disgusted that such things that were in her pouch turned yucky like that. Unfolding it, she said "You'll want to visit Windy Hill. In the past Dragons used to go there and summon one of your lot that lives here, from that hill somehow. Buggers me how they do it, though." They looked down on the map, which was titled quite aptly 'Magical Forest'. She pointed to the position on the map, marked 'Windy Hill'. She also pointed out their current location, marked as 'Sheila's busking location', and folded the map back up again.
"Sorry about the fires," said Spyro, looking over at the trees that were ablaze and crackling nearby with blue flames that had started burning on the upper blue leaves of the trees. "and thanks for you help, err…um…"
"It's Abbey! Get it right. And don't worry about the fire, we get 'em all the time where I come from. And the flames are blue 'coz of the chemicals in the leaves."
"…Abbey. Thanks."
They continued walking, and as they did, they heard the low haunting sound of the Didgeridoo beginning behind them.
"Wow, she's pretty feisty for a female…"
"Even more than you, you think?" Cynder joked. She seemed to be making more jokes with Sparx, as though hoping to improve the icy relationship between them. But her comments fell on deaf ears.
They kept walking through the trees, the gaps of which were narrowing now, meaning they had to crunch their wings up tight to squeeze past. They heard some Chamber music in the distance, thought they didn't see who was making it, and they also wandered past a cat playing an improvised Harp that had been made by tying a heap of strings between two trees, and having them each string at a different tightness. It was a very funny sight for the dragons and the dragonfly. It truly was a magical place.
"Where do you want to go, when we find Zeph and all go back to Limista, Spyro?" asked Cynder, after a while.
"I'd like to go back to the Dragon Temple. After what Limista said about Cyril and Volteer, I'm thinking they've all gone back there." Answered Spyro. But in truth, he wanted to see Ignitus the most. Spyro missed his guidance and words of wisdom.

Eventually the sound of the different types of music faded away as the trees thinned and they came to the base of a grassy open hill. Upon making it to the top of the hill, they found not only a good view of the forest around them, but also nothing but a heap of hollow pipes sticking out of the ground, all lined up in a row, all at different lengths. The ends of the pipes were exposed to the sky, and there were some small holes along the length of each pipe, as well. In front of each pipe was a large flat block of concrete, and imprinted into each of these blocks was a symbol of a tree being pushed over by wind, together with a number, such as one, two etc. They were absolutely baffled.
"Well, what do you think we do now?" Spyro asked Cynder and Sparx.
"HELLOOOOOOOOOOO ZEPH!" called out Sparx at the top of his lungs, but his low voice didn't carry far.
Spyro repeated Sparx's call. There was no answer.
"I know! Why don't you try meleeing those blocks? Maybe the blocks are like those blocks at that place where those tribe people worship us, you know, the blocks that you had to whack with your tail to make something happen?"
"You mean Tall Plains?" Spyro looked at the pipes thoughtfully. "Well I'll give it a go"
Spyro jumped into the air swift as a Tiger, and swung himself around and hit the top of one of the blocks. But again, nothing happened. Total silence. Spyro then jumped up again and kicked one of the pipes that was sticking up at the end of the row. Chips of wood went flying everywhere, but then nothing happening, nothing at all.
The sun beat down on them. The grass was itchy. And they were getting frustrated. What were they supposed to do to summon Zeph? Were they even in the right place? Sparx flew inside one of the pipes, only to fly out again quickly when he saw some rather hungry large mouthed frogs living in it.
"Maybe we have to blow into them and play them like Abbey did with her Didgeridoo," said Spyro, thinking aloud, looking at the symbol on top of the block. "but we can't play the Didgeridoo, nor I think can other Dragons, so I don't think that can be right…
Cynder gazed at the pipes, frowning slightly. Then she brightened, and looked at the other two.
"Well, isn't it obvious? This is Windy Hill, which is located in the Musical Forest. These pipes obviously have something to do with both of those things. Do you see?"
"Um, I'm afraid not Cynder." said Spyro. Cynder began pacing up and down in front of the row of irregularly sized pipes.
"I think all these pipes are one large musical instrument. I think that when the wind blows, the wind causes all these pipes to all make a note, each different-length pipe making a different sounding note, and all at the same time. That's what normally happens, anyway, but there's no wind right now. If a dragon ever wanted to summon Zeph, however, that dragon should stand on each of these blocks, one at a time, and use their wings to create a gust of air over the pipe next to the concrete block, one at a time, in the order marked by the numbers on the concrete blocks. Doing that might create some sort of song that Zeph hears and recognizes. It's all related to 'Windy' Hill, and 'Musical' Forest. Also, we've been told Zeph is a 'Wind' dragon. What do you think?"
Spyro was amazed at Cynder's intelligence. He would have taken a lot longer to work that out. He voiced this to Cynder, who blushed, although Spyro didn't see this because of her dark coloured scales.
"Should I try it now?" Cynder asked.
"I can do it Cynder. You did all that thinking, I can do the work." said
Spyro.
"All right, tough guy." Cynder laughed.
"Oh boy, this I gotta see." said Sparx.
Spyro mounted the block marked '1' that was sitting in front of the first pipe. He jumped up into the air and beat his wings hard, in the direction of the pipe. He nearly fell backwards off the block. But there was a loud, resonating musical note that sounded briefly while the gust from Spyro's wing passed over it.
Spyro quickly leapt over to the block marked '2', and repeated his wing beating. This pipe produced a much higher note than the last. Spyro repeated this funny little performance on each of the blocks in the order of the numbers, until he had finished and wandered through the green grass over to the group.
"I never knew how tiring that would be. Jumping and flapping vertically like that takes a lot of energy."
Sparx looked up at the sun. "It might be the heat. Just chill out."
They waited in silence. The sun continued to beat down them, and they were getting faint snatches of music from the forest surrounding the bottom of the hill. The view from here was queer, as each different tree top was a different colour, as opposed to the sea of green they were used to viewing.
Then there was rustling through the green grass to their right. A creature a little smaller than them was making its way up the hill towards them. At first view, it looked very similar to Hunter. It had spots on it, like Hunter, and the ears were similar. But it appeared to be more dog-like than cat-like. Was it some sort of hybrid between a Dog and a Cheetah?
It sat down a few feet from them and looked at each of them in turn, as though judging them. Then he asked, in a deep growly voice: "Are you here to see Zephyros?"
"What kind of a creature are you?" Sparx asked.
"A Hyena." Answered the Hyena simply.
"Yes, we're here to see Zeph…" Spyro asked hopefully.
The Hyena hardly moved. It was as though he was dared not to blink so much as an eyelash, but this wasn't a dare. "We've designed this system so that we can see if it is friends or foes who are summoning her, and that gives us a chance to drive the foes away before they get their hands on Zephyros."
"No! We don't her any harm. We've come to ask her to come back with us to Limista… if you know who she is." Spyro said.
Now the Hyena did blink. "She is resting, as she has been doing so a lot lately. It pains her to move around excessively, so I have come to take you to her. Come."
The nameless Hyena then turned and made it's way back down to the bottom of the hill and into the forest. Spyro, Sparx and Cynder hurried to follow.
"Do you think we should trust him?" Cynder asked Spyro, before they had caught up to him. "He looks like the type of guy who could eat us for dinner."
"Cynder, we'll be able to take him easily if he does that. Don't worry. I'll protect you."
They eventually came to the edge of a swamp. The Hyena, being small and nimble, was able to walk along a row of logs that kept his paws out of the water. Spyro and Cynder took one look at this, and decided to just wade through. Sparx stuck his tongue out, flying past them.
Mushrooms were abundant here, sticking out of mossy tree trunks and little earthy islands that popped up here and there. A song that was being made by different types of frogs croaking different notes could be heard, but they were unable to see where the frogs were. Probably hiding in hollow tree trunks.
When they had all come to the other side of the swamp, the two dragons had a layer of silt and other particles covering the lower part of their bodies. This was harder to see on Cynder, with her dark coloured scales.
The Hyena began running all of a sudden, and jumped high, leaping clear over a brush of ferns and small shrubby trees that was blocking their way.
Spyro and Cynder couldn't jump that far, they weighed too much. The trees were too close for them to flutter over using their wings, so they were forced to walk right over the thicket of shrubs and ferns. The small branches caught on the edges of their wings, and twigs cracked under their talons as they soldiered on through until they came out on the other side, Sparx sniggering at them all the way.
A sleeping female dragon about the same size as Spyro himself came into view, in a small leafy clearing in the middle of some trees. The clearing was also surrounded by the very ferns Spyro and Cynder had just pushed through, making a good hiding place. She had light grey scales, but it was hard to tell if that was because that was their natural colour, or because of the dirt that was caked on them. Spyro also thought she had dark red stripes until he looked closer and found that it was caked blood, where it had run down her body from wounds higher up on her. Five short spikes stuck out of her back along her spine, between her neck and tail, and the end of her tail had a fan-like membrane attached to it, that was currently folded up to appear small while not in use. Perhaps it had a function when she wanted to use her wind abilities? She appeared so starved that Spyro also half suspected he would be able to see her ribs, were it not for her very large wings that were draping over her sides, covering them in a relaxed posed. The wings themselves had holes in the thin membrane, and a horrible red, wrinkled scarring surrounding the periphery of each hole. Two small fangs stuck out of either side of her mouth, which was open slightly in a light snore. Two short but sharp straight horns stuck out horizontally from her head, in the same spot where Spyro's horns were. And one of her eyes was covered with a black eye-patch. Spyro thought that if it not for the fact that she looked like she had been to hell and back, she would be a beautiful young dragon. They all stared at her, taking in her various injuries and wondering just what treatment she had been put through.
The Hyena woke her with a gentle scratch on her neck, and she opened her eyes blearily. Spyro, Cynder and Sparx waited, unsure if she was a dragon that liked being woken suddenly from slumber. The dragon blinked a couple of times, then the eye that wasn't covered with the eye patch fell on the company standing on the edge of her clearing.
"Some 'friends' wanted to see you, Zephyros."
She had a surprisingly soft voice, but one brimming with happiness.
"Come on, I told you that you can call me Zeph, you ragamuffin."
She gave her thanks, and the Hyena bowed with respect, turned and jumped gracefully over the brushy barricade again. Zeph turned to Spyro, Cynder and Sparx.
"Forgive me if I've caused you's to lose your voices. My name's Zeph. Well, Zephyros as you heard, but for the love of all our friends, there's no need to call me that. I'm not that formal. Anyway, I'm very pleased to meet you!" she grinned at them.
"I'm Spyro, this is Cynder, and that's Sparx." Zeph nodded at everyone in turn.
"How did your trip here go? You must have had an interesting time finding me." Zeph said.
"It's has been interesting, I guess, like you said. We've been looking for you, to see if you want to come back with us. A friend of yours, Limista, is waiting for you." said Spyro.
"No, we came to take you back, not see if you wanted to come. I didn't fly all this way, nuh-uh." said Sparx.
"Limista!" she squealed. "Oh my, I haven't seen her in ages! How is she doing?"
Cynder answered her. "It's hard to tell. How is she normally?"
"Oh, yes, heehee. She can be a bit of a fruit loop at times. But she does have quite a personality, don't you think? I'd fly to her, but the membrane around the punctures in my wing stings like crazy when the wind whistles madly through them, and as for her, well, err…" Zeph was obviously looking for a kind way to describe her weight problem.
"… she's too fat to fly, we gathered that." Finished Sparx.
"Yeah. I would nearly die just to be able to fly again without discomfort, my wings didn't grow like this without a reason. I'm a Wind dragon, you see, so my big wings are like this so I can do my abilities better than just a dragon that can do wind along with other abilities, but isn't purely a wind dragon. Sorry if I lost ya in all that!" Zeph said.
"What happened to you? Why are you hurt like that, with all those wounds?" inquired Spyro, looking over her injuries and the holes in her wings.
"Oh, erm –" Zeph looked a little downcast now. "That was punishment given to me for disobeying orders from someone. I don't really know why they aren't healing after all this time, but with time they should be ok. And I'm just dirty because I have to walk through that feral swamp, and it hasn't rained to wash the dirt off. Thanks for your concern, though."
"Did Gaul or his servants give them to you?" said Spyro quietly.
Zeph looked at Spyro with a look that meant she hadn't expected them to know the details. She looked down to the ground, and Spyro wondered awkwardly if he had probably said something wrong. This feeling was intensified when Spyro saw a tear well out of her eye and make its way down her scaly cheek.
"You don't have to answer that, I'm sor-" but Spyro was interrupted as Zeph burst into speech, still lying on the ground.
"They had captured me. I was … their prisoner, their informant… I was captured one night when they raided this forest, where I was hiding. It was a cloudy night, and I couldn't see a thing. They took me back to an underground lair," Zeph's voice began to shake as she went on, "and locked my arm to a chain that was bolted to the wall…" she rubbed her left wrist subconsciously with her right paw. "They kept asking me, over and over, who the Guardian dragons were, where they were located, how they could be overpowered, what their weakness were, everything. I told them I didn't know, but then they began… using force…" she turned her neck and glanced at her injuries, "I just couldn't stand it, they hurt me so much… so I told them all I knew, anything to make them stop, make me escape that hell I was in…"
Spyro's head exploded with a million questions. Where was she from? How did she know the Guardians? Why wasn't he told of her existence? He looked over at Cynder.
Cynder had a tear sliding down her face as well. She gazed at Zeph with a miserable expression, then got up and walked over to her, sitting down in front of her and spoke softly.
"Zeph? It… it's not your fault. It's mine, for what happened to the Guardians. I'm so sorry for what I did…"
Spyro was surprised, for the umpteenth time this trip. Although Cynder had mentioned her time in her Dark form several times, she had never come this close to talking about her actions or thoughts during that time.
But Zeph was crying too hard now to hear Cynder.
"I'm so sorry," sobbed Zeph, sorrow suffusing in her voice, "I really am. But they were hurting me like so, and I… I…"
"It's ok, Zeph. It's ok, we understand." Spyro and Cynder reassured her over and over.
After a short time, she had ceased crying, although she was still quite red-eyed. But she was smiling again, and presently she had wrapped one of her wings around both Spyro and Cynder (it was large enough to enclose both of them) and pulled them into a group hug. Spyro was surprised at how happy and willing she was for closeness, despite her just getting over her reliving of her torture, and the fact they were complete strangers. Sparx fluttered nearby, watching the proceedings with a sense of wanting to keep out of the situation in front of him.
"Thanks a lot, guys. You's make me feel so much better…"
Zeph folded up her wing again, and Spyro looked at Zeph, burning with a million wonders to ask. He felt exactly how he did when he had first met Ignitus: brimming full of questions. "Err, Zephyros… I mean Zeph… did you come from the eggs in the Dragon Temple originally? Did you grow up here, before you were captured? How do you know Ignitus and the others?"
"Thanks for asking, but, if it's ok with you, do you mind if I tell you another time?" then she added quickly "Sorry, not to offend you Spyro…" Zeph said cautiously.
"No, that's ok, Zeph. I don't mind." Spyro said.
While Zeph was licking her paw, Spyro turned to Cynder and quietly asked her a question about if she was put through the same torture when they were trying to corrupt her. But Cynder was similarly withdrawn to answer.
"I'll tell you later, Spyro. Maybe at the Dragon Temple when we get back to it." Said Cynder. She really didn't feel comfortable enough yet to reveal those details.
Zeph finished licking, and turned to Spyro and Cynder. "I guess I can come back with ya's to see Limista. I've always intended to eventually, when I was healed up and flying wasn't so annoying, but hey, she's sent an envoy out to ask me. I'll come."
"The Dark Master's forces are going to be looking for her near her hiding place. She said she'd come with us and leave her hiding place if you came as well, and we saw some Apes on the other side of the forest as well, so you yourself might also be in danger."
Zeph darkened for a moment, then said "Well, I guess we'd better make haste. Could you be very kind, and help me up? My legs are a little sore, no less than the rest of me."
They pushed her to her feet, and she spread out her massive wings. They nearly took the whole clearing, it was clear that she would be a good flyer despite the holes in her wings.
After taking off and turning in the direction of the mainland coast, Cynder came up close next to Spyro.
"How could she be how she is after all of that torture? It's so surprising, few can come from that place and still retain their character." Cynder said in a hushed voice.
"I think she got by in there by simply giving in to whatever demands they made of her. I think, if we got to know her better, she would appear to be quite submissive... But I don't know. She does have the Hyenas to talk to, and all this music to cheer her up. Who knows?"
Sparx flew up to Spyro and Cynder, and spoke a worry that, until now, the dragons hadn't thought of. "How are we all supposed to go back to the Dragon Temple if that fatso can't fly?"