Chapter 7: Comfort
The purple dragon continued to run. He didn't look back, he couldn't.
I have to get away, he thought as he pushed himself to continue. He needed to go somewhere to be by himself. The temple? No, the Guardians and Malefor are there. I could go to the roof, but Glacia, Blaze, and maybe Cynder would look there. Wait, I could go to the park. No one would think to look there. He then flapped his wings, and flew fast and low so no one could see him.
"Spyro!" called out Terrain.
Immediately after Spyro ran away, the group of friends took off after him. However, they lost sight and were hoping that he could hear their calls and return to them.
"Spyro! Where are you?" Electra called out. She sighed, "We'll never find him at this rate. That stupid dragon had to go that far," she said referring to the black dragon.
"Then let's split up," said Blaze. "Glacia and I will go to the temple. Electra and Volt, you two go to the fountain in the middle of the city. Terrain and Gaia, you search the southern half of the city. Cynder, you take the north. If you find Spyro, just fly around and we will see you. Hopefully he will be with you. Got it?" Everyone nodded in agreement. "Let's find our friend," Blaze said as the group split up.
As he and Glacia were flying in the direction of the temple, she said, "I hope Spyro is okay. I've never seen him retaliate before."
Blaze nodded, "Then again, no one ever tried to insult him before. Spyro's real parents are a topic that he has mixed feelings about."
"So what do we do if we find him?" she asked.
"He just has to know that no one is upset at him."
"What do we tell the Guardians?"
"Hopefully they are busy with preparations for the Ball. If they aren't, then we'll say that we are waiting for our appointment time." The ice dragoness nodded as they neared to temple. "Let's check his room first," Blaze suggested as they landed in front of the main entrance to the temple.
Once they opened the door, the fire-ice couple ran to the corridor that lead to the apprentices' quarters. There were no signs of either the Guardians or Malefor, although the two dragons didn't try to look. As they ran down the hall, they stopped in front of Spyro's room and Blaze knocked on it.
"Spyro? Are you in there?" called Glacia, but there was no answer. Blaze pushed the door open and saw that it was empty. "Let's try the roof," Glacia suggested earning a nod from the fire dragon.
They walked out to the room's balcony overlooking the city and flew to the top of the temple, but Spyro wasn't there either. Blaze looked at his love confused, and she did the same.
"Where could he be?" they asked each other in unison.
"Do you see him?" asked Electra as she and Volt looked around the fountain.
The fountain was near the middle of Warfang. It was surrounded by other buildings, but the structures were a good distance away so that many dragons could walk around freely. The fountain had four statues of four different dragons, all who sat on their haunches proudly. Each of them represented an element. The fire dragon faced north, the electric dragon faced east, the ice dragon faced south, and the earth dragon faced west. These dragons were the Guardians of the time Warfang was built.
There was only a small crowd of dragons around the fountain. Hatchlings ran around playing, while older dragons passed by or were enjoying the company of others.
"No," Volt answered. He let out a sigh and said, "I think he wants to be by himself, just like…" he paused for a moment.
"Just like how he used to," Electra finished with sadness in her voice. "Has anyone else found him?"
Volt flew to the air to have a look. Not too many dragons flew around Warfang except to get from one side of the city to the other, so finding a purple dragon should've been easy enough. Should have.
"Nothing," the electric apprentice said to himself, as he flew back down. "I didn't see Spyro or the others."
Electra sighed, "Okay, so where do we look now? Blaze said to look at the fountain, but Spyro's not here."
Volt shrugged and answered, "I think we should look farther around for the time being. Who knows, we may get lucky."
Terrain and Gaia also had no luck, but they still had some ground to cover since they were in charge of looking the southern half of the city. They were scouring the city as much and as fast as they could—so much that their wings were beginning to strain, they were earth dragons after all, not wind dragons. "Can we land for a bit?" asked Gaia, slightly panting, "My wings are starting to hurt."
"I guess we could," the green dragons replied, panting lightly. His training ensured that he could endure long flights and runs. Because of this, he was faring better than his female counterpart.
The couple had been flying low to have a better look on the ground in hopes to finding Spyro since he would most likely be there. The two earth dragons landed to take a break from flying. "We can at least walk around to look for Spyro," said Terrain
Gaia sighed and said, "Spyro must feel so bad right now."
Terrain nodded, "Yeah, no one should have to go through that kind of torment. Especially Spyro.
"That's not what I meant," Gaia responded shaking her head slightly. "Did you see Cynder when Spyro was about to claw that dragon?" Terrain thought for a moment, but he shook his head. "She was in tears. Seeing Spyro so angry, so… aggressive. I think that when Spyro saw her, that is what drove him away."
Terrain was silent for a moment, then said, "Let's keep looking."
Spyro, where are you? Cynder thought as she cut through the sky, using her wind abilities to aid her. The black dragoness had been worried since Spyro ran away. Please be okay. She landed near a lake for a closer look, and noted that it was a large park, Cynder took a moment to look around for the purple dragon. She saw a few hatchlings playing games with others their age, parents even played with their young. Cynder sighed softly remembering the happy times she had with her own parents. The dragoness saw a few couples lying under trees in the shade. Under one tree at the far corner of the area lay a single dragon. She walked towards the tree to get a closer look. Although the dragon was in the shade she could make out that his scales were… purple.
Spyro! Cynder ran over to the purple dragon, "Spyro!"
Spyro looked up from the call of his name and saw Cynder running towards him. Not wanting to cause her any more pain, he got up to try to get away, but Cynder was quicker and hugged him, not letting him move. "Spyro. We've been looking everywhere for you." Spyro pushed away from the black dragoness to which she gave a confused look. "What's wrong?"
Spyro turned away not wanting to let the dragoness see his watering eyes. "I'm wrong," he answered.
"What?" she asked, not sure if she heard him right.
"That dragon was right about everything."
"No," Cynder replied, taking a step closer to him. "He was just a punk that was just talking nonsense."
"NO!" Spyro shouted, turning around to face her, letting tears fall. "He was absolutely right about everything! Malefor is the greatest dragon ever, and I'm just some student that was raised by dragonflies." He looked away from Cynder with his eyes shut and sat on his haunches. "Ever since Ignitus told the truth about what I am, I've always wanted to know who my mother and father were. But no one, not even the Guardians, knew who they were. After the ape threat, every parent came and took their egg or stayed at the temple. All except for mine. My own parents didn't even come forward when my egg was missing… They abandoned me." After his last sentence, Spyro broke down as years of bottled up emotions erupted from the purple dragon. Tears streamed down his cheeks from his watery eyes, and dropped to the grass beneath him.
Cynder was almost in tears. She couldn't relate to Spyro's life because she actually knew her parents, she knew what the love of a mother and a father was like. However, Spyro never had the chance to have the same experience. She could only comfort him and that was what she planned to do. She walked up to Spyro and nuzzled her head under his chin. This seemed to calm him down a bit.
"Spyro," she said calmly, "You are an amazing dragon who is selfless and caring. I will not say that I know how you feel, because I don't. Unlike you, I knew my parents, but you have to look at what you have now. You have foster parents that treat you like a real son, including a brother. You also have wonderful friends…" she paused pulling away and looking deep into Spyro's amethyst eyes. "Including me," she finished with a slight blush.
Spyro looked back into her emerald eyes with a smile. He went with the moment and leaned in, nuzzling her head with his own, making the dragoness smile at the contact. They stayed that way for a few peaceful moments.
Cynder pulled back, to both dragons' dismay, and said, "Let's go find the others, we don't want to be late for our appointments."
Spyro looked up to the sky and noticed that is was early afternoon. "You're right let's go," wiping leftover tears.
As they got ready to fly, Cynder spoke, "And Spyro,"
"Yes Cynder?"
"I wouldn't go to the Warfang Ball with any dragon but you." Spyro smiled as they took to the sky.
"So where is everyone?"
"Blaze and Glacia are at the temple, Electra and Volt are near that fountain, and Terrain and Gaia are looking around the southern half of the city."
Spyro was surprised, They were really searching all over the city for me? Cynder's right, I do have great friends. "So since you found me, where do we go?"
"Well," she answered, "we fly until they see us."
After ten minutes of flying, the others saw the two, and the group formed at the fountain.
Spyro was apologizing to everyone with Cynder next to him, "Guys, I'm sorry about what happened back there."
Blaze walked next to him patted him on the shoulder, "Hey, it's no problem. Don't worry about that moron or what he said. What matters is that you have friends that care."
Spyro looked at Cynder and said, "Cynder, I'm sorry for upsetting you, I shouldn't have tried to claw that dragon. I was just so angry."
The black dragoness gave him a comforting hug and replied, "I wasn't upset, I was scared. Scared that you would do something that you would regret."
"And I would have," he said, breaking from the hug and facing the rest of the group, "so, don't we have somewhere to be?"
"After the amount of time from lunch to finding you, I think so," Blaze said earning a glare from Glacia. They all then headed to their respective shops.
"Hello Blaze, you are here a little early," said the red dragon.
"Yeah, is everything ready though, Flint?" Blaze asked.
Flint nodded, "First door on the right."
As the four dragons walked to their assigned room, Spyro said, "I hope having someone help me wash and polish my scales is not as humiliating as I think it is." His friends groaned and rolled their eyes, at least the purple dragon was back to his old self.
"This way please," said the blue dragoness. The girls followed until they arrived to the room they were assigned to. "Let's get started stall we?" the dragoness closed the curtain behind her to shield them from others' view. "Now each of you step on a pedestal," she then pointed at Cynder, "But you need to remove you jewelry. I need to polish all of your scales. I'll get my things." She left the room.
Cynder sighed glumly and removed the bracers on her forelegs. "Hey, why so sad?" asked Gaia. "You can put them on after we're done."
"I know," replied the black dragoness, taking off her choker. When she removed it, she stared at the piece of jewelry for a moment, "They're just very special to me."
"Why?" Glacia asked picking up one of the leg bracers to examine it, "They're just iron."
Cynder smiled sadly at the choker and answered, "My mother made them for me." The girls stared at the black dragoness waiting for her to continue. "She designed them, and made them herself." Cynder laughed softly and continued, "She even burned herself, and my father was so upset at her for not telling him about what she was doing. He wasn't a forger or anything, but he was familiar with the art. She… she gave them to me just before they vanished." Cynder began to sniff as tears formed in her eyes at the memory. "They are the only things I have to remember them by." She went for her tail ring, but couldn't reach it. Before she could ask for help, Electra grabbed her tail and took off the ring for her.
Electra looked at the ring with interest. "Even though they're made of iron, your mom did a great job." She gave the ring to Cynder. "Your parents sound like they really loved you."
"They did," she sniffed, fighting back tears.
"Hey now," Glacia said going to Cynder and put a paw on her shoulder. "We're here to have a good time a get ready for the Ball tomorrow. Now is not the time for sad memories."
"You're right," Cynder replied with a small smile, wiping the tears away.
"Yes I am."
"Alright," came the blue dragoness's voice on the other side of the curtain. She walked in with a basket of several different special brushes and a few other objects to help with the polishing process. She looked at Cynder and said, "You can put your jewelry to the side, and I will polish them for you, and when I am done you can put them back on. I also noticed that you have white symbols on your head, shoulders, and tail."
Cynder nodded.
"I have something that will make them stand out more. Would you like me to do that?"
Cynder thought for a brief moment, Well we are here so might as well. Maybe Spyro would like it.
"Yes."
"Splendid! Now let's get to work."
