Chapter 5
The desert was beyond hot and the girl was beginning to sweet under her robe. Why she'd worn a big, black robe in the desert the girl didn't know.
She tried to move her right arm to rub her left shoulder and nothing happened, at all. Then she remembered why she was wearing the cloak and sighed to herself.
Having one arm blown off was not fun, nor was having to deal with only having one arm for an extended period of time. She could confirm that with the past couple of days that she'd had to deal with said blown off arm. But she shouldn't complain too much, she could have died in the explosion or from blood lose.
She was lucky that she had managed to stop the bleeding in time before she fell unconscious, but she had still lost her arm and she had no idea where she was. "I need to make a new arm." The girl commented.
She crested a hill and looked down into a small valley in the sand to see a village sitting in the bottom. The girl sagged in relief, it was true that the villagers were rather generic but the village offered shelter and access to supplies, at least. Here was where she could make a replacement arm, it wouldn't be as good as her original but it would have to do.
If she was carful she might be able to make it into more than just a basic grabbing appendage and add weapons or some useful tools to the arm. A new and improved arm would help out immensely.
…
Duncan stared at the ender-born at the bottom of the stares, he looked different in the scientist's new eyesight. The swirls of black and purple around the dark teen's body were confused and jumbled. Rythian's natural darkness was all jumbled up in a mass of green and blue that Duncan instinctively knew shouldn't be there.
The boy in front of him was an ender-born, not a human. Those strands of essence should be banished from the mage. The middle world had no place in this place of darkness and power.
Duncan stood and cocked his head, waiting for the ender-born to speak. "Wh-what?" Rythian finally managed to stutter out. "Wicked!" Herron yelled as he ran past his younger brother to pull the confused and slightly disoriented scientist into a hug. "I knew something would happen but I never thought you'd be part dragon! This is awesome! You'll be able to scent out Zoey! We won't have to spend so much time looking for her!"
"Z-Zoey's alive." Rythian spluttered as Herron swung the part dragon around in circles much to Dorian's annoyance.
"Yes, you great, dunder head! That's what we have been trying to get into your thick scull for the past day and a half!" The eldest ender-born yelled. "And while we are on the subject! What is wrong with you?! You must have at least scented the dragon scent on him! Or are you just that thick! You know dragons are territorial! And you decided to just stride into his territory and leave a note! It's no wonder he responded the way he did! Dragon blood is amazingly strong! Even if it wasn't fully activated it would have caused problems! You're lucky you didn't take any of his stuff by accident! That would have been worst! Are you suicidal?! Because if you are you are going to be locked up here until we find Zoey! I am not burying another family member!"
Duncan saw Rythian get angry. It was like watching a tidal wave swell and get ready to attack. First, all the emotion in the ender-born's face drained away and the green/blue in his aura condensed into a tiny ball of anger. Then, it exploded.
"YOU BROUGHT AN ENDER-DRAGON HERE! OUR ONLY SAFE HAVEN! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU! HE'LL KILL US ALL IN HIS SLEEP!"
"I didn't say he was an ender-dragon."
"WHAT ELSE COULD HE BE! HUH, DORIAN! WHAT WERE YOU TO THINKING BRINGING THE ENEMY HERE!"
"I am not your enemy, Rythian." Duncan said and everyone froze. His voice was smooth before but now it had a rough edge to it and was now quite a bit deeper. The three other boys in the room shivered and Herron slowly lowered the younger boy to the ground. "I never was. Sjin was the one who began the war on the old world. I would have helped you kill him if you had come to me for help but I was left powerless after the old world blew, like we all were. I had to rebuild and then you entered my domain and I overreacted. I apologize for that, but I had planned to disable the nuke after a few weeks but then it blew and I thought you had moved house because when I went to check on it, your body wasn't there and you weren't clearing rubble I just assumed the wiring had overheated and there was a misfire of some sort. Zoey was at my castle, that's true, but I just thought she was curious and trying to make it on her own with Teep."
A shiver traveled up Rythian's spine as the strands of middle world essence tried to take a hold of the young ender-born. The darkness was fighting it back but the strands of middle world essence were embedded deep inside the mages aura. He really had been in the middle world for way too long.
Then the blue and green strands started to overwhelm the ender-born's natural darkness. That was a warning sign.
"Herron, don't take anything Rythian is about to do personally." Duncan said quickly and then the half mad boy lunged for his brother.
"GET AWAY FROM HIM!" The ender-born yelled. Duncan's movements were too fast for the human eye to see, but suddenly the dragon had Rythian against the wall and was growling deep in his throat.
"I am pretty sure you shouldn't have the middle world all tangled in your magic." Duncan said and then called behind him. "Am I right about that Dorian?"
"Yes. While most ender-born's choose to live in the middle world very few of our people actually internalize it, even when our blood isn't active, it's just not safe. Our natural darkness fights it and that causes problems and… mood swings." The elder said.
Duncan cocked his head to look at the boy who had gone limp under his touch. The middle world strands were calming down slightly and beginning to separate from the mage's aura. "Yep, that matches up with what I'm seeing right now." He commented and watched in curiosity as a strand of the middle world essence separated from Rythian's aura at a painstakingly slow pace. "Interesting." He muttered.
Although Duncan had a new set of instincts he was still a scientist at heart so when he took his hands away from the mage and he started thrashing to get past the slightly shorter boy Duncan deduced what was going on. He slammed his hands down on the mage's chest, he stopped struggling.
"Well, looks like he's staying with me while we are down on the middle world, my new… powers… magic… whatever seems to be naturalize the effects of the middle world on Rythian." Duncan said absently.
