Scorching Truths

The black dragoness' eyelids silently slid open. The sun's gentle rays started peaking into the room and onto her black shimmering scales. It was still hanging low on the morning dawn, indicating it was still early. Normally, she would awaken slightly later, but still before most others. But today, she was an very early bird. The excitement of today's events meant she hardly slept a wink last night, now that she had time to take it all in.

Shortly afterwards, she got up and stretched out her legs and wings until she heard satisfying cracks and pops. She had been told before this was a bad habit, but she paid it no heed. It felt too good and necessary to pass on. Plus she felt stiff later on if she couldn't do it

Cynder wandered over and stared out the second-story window with green irises. It was then she realised how early she was. Below, moles and dragons snored peacefully against walls alike. One end of the street opened up to a wider market, where she could see one mole family in patchwork clothing gathering up their merchandise and belongings, preparing for the long wagon ride home. A calm, cool breeze drifted by, carrying the smell of rotten breath and stale ale. She wrinkled her nose and turned away. Even though the party was over, the after-effects remained: strong and pungent.

Cynder went back inside and closed the hinged, wooden shutter. She couldn't decide what to do. On one hand, she wanted to just get out and go see him already. On the other, she knew he wouldn't be awake yet so there was no point going. Instead, she paced around the room aimlessly.

The room itself was bare. The walls were covered in white plaster, cracking and shedding in the corners. The floor was made of dark pinewood planks that creaked under each step. A couple of oil lamps shimmered dieingly, almost drowned in the melted wax. A dusty coffee table with a bedside candle laid dormant and untouched.

The black dragoness slumped her head against the bed, hoping to fall back asleep that instant for another hour. But she stared ahead, still awake, still bored. She just needed something to help her get away from this restless state. She stared out of the cracks in the shutters, the sunrise orange peaking through and calling to her. Then she had an idea. An early morning flight would help wake her up and stave off the boredom long enough to give Spyro a chance to wake up as well.

She placed the red, cotton purse over her neck and opened the shutters once more, the putrid alcohol smell tickling her nose briefly. But she quickly took off into the early sunrise morning, leaving the crumbling motel behind.

While she did forget to check out, the black dragoness had at least paid the old mole the night before.

Unfortunately, it wasn't too long into her flight that her impatience returned. She tried hard to think of anything else she could do while flying in aimless circles like an anticipative vulture.

Even though the sun was still dawning, she could tell it was going to be another sweltering day, meaning it wouldn't be long until pestering midges came out to play…

She finally decided she would head to the temple, there she at least could catch Spyro as soon as he exited his home. Sure, she seemed like an overeager stalker, but everyone was too hungover to care.

On the way, she stopped by a fountain and took a quick drink. Though considered unetiquette, no one again cared, or were in the right frame of mind to do anything about it. Probably because they would end up doing the same to help clear their groggy minds.

Before leaving, she took a quick look around. The foul stink was so thick she could almost see the alcoholic haze drifting across the murky streets. It was clear some of these people partied well after she had gone to sleep, all finishing the night in odd contorted shapes with legs behind their heads or heads laying upon the legs of others. Others had bruises or scratches scarring their faces, presumably from brawls that had broken out. Cynder hoped this wasn't how they acted all the time, as they were no better than apes if so. She didn't want to spend another second with those horrid creatures, with their husky breathes and cave-ape ways... She knew her habits weren't considered civil, but she was far from violent against her fellow kind. Regardless, when they did wake up, it wouldbe cramps galore…

She decided to have another gulp. Afterwards, she sought out the temple.

It wasn't too long before she stood before the grand marble entry of the temple, where many of the city's politics and major decisions took place. She criss-crossed around the dozing bodies of moles and dragons.

She got inside, and immediately spied something curious and purple, loitering about, almost expecting something or someone. "Has he been waiting for me?" She obviously didn't expect him up this early, maybe he was just as excited as she was. Regardless, she noticed him starting to walk off, back towards his home. Maybe she was later than she thought, or Spyro was simply impatient himself. Regardless, she wasn't about to let him go off without her.

"Hey!" she called out, raising her paw to wave.

Spyro immediately spun around to the source of disturbance, only to see a keen Cynder standing in the doorway. "What is she doing up this early?"

The excited dragoness bounded over the unconscious bodies towards him.

Spyro had a brief moment of despair as he remembered he had also promised to spend the day with her, but then quickly remembered again he had the morning off...so he could at least fulfill half his promise. He gave a silent breath of relief, this had all worked out in his favour again somehow…

Cynder made her way over and immediately embraced him. This caught him by surprise though, and he subtly flinched at her touch, which she picked up on.

She let him go. "Sorry," she sheepishly apologised, briefly too embarrassed to look at him.

Spyro chuckled. "It's fine. But what are you doing up this early?"

"I could ask you the same… But, I guess I was just a bit too eager to see you…" She attempted to keep a straight face, but failed miserably as a excitable grin quickly took over. She acted like a happy pup bouncing towards its owner. "I'm sorry," she burst out, "I'm just so happy to finally be back, to get to spend some time with you and all that…"

Spyro couldn't help but smile back, her excitement was contagious.

"So what did you want to do? I was thinking we could head to Avalar, maybe get some time away from the horrible smell and play. Or we could go for a relaxing flight. Heck, even a tour of the city sounds nice, you could show me some of Warfang's prettier sights? Then later on you can re-introduce me to the guardians. Have they changed much do you know?"

They all sounded like lovely ideas to Spyro, something he would've wanted to do had they been younger. But he had an even better plan. "We can start off by finding some convenient locations near where you're staying, like a grocery store and maybe a dragon spa, then you'll know where to go should you ever need those things. Then, later in the morning, we could start looking for a job for you."

"A job?" The baffled Cynder turned her head. This was not how she was envisioning their day to go out at all…

"Yes, a job. You'll need someway to pay for everything."

"I guess…"

Don't worry," Spyro assured, seemingly oblivious to the dragoness' disgruntlement. "I doubt you'll have much trouble getting one. And finally, we could meet the guardians. It will probably be by then I'll unfortunately need to head back to my own job…" Spyro ended nonchalantly.

"Wait, I thought you had the whole day off at least?"

Spyro shrank a little when she said that. Although he never explicitly said that, he did understand why she would've presumed that. "I'm sorry, I told a white lie. You see, I said today I would present you to the guardians without thinking, then I realised last night I had work tomorrow. Then this morning I remembered I had the morning off to recover. Again I'm sorry."

This amused Cynder, as she playfully replied with, "Gosh, you're never usually this forgetful."

Again, Spyro failed to notice the sarcasm. "Again, I apologise, I've just been so tired recently… I was going to use this morning to sleep, but now your here and-"

"If you're tired now, we can always leave this till tomorrow." She noted the sincere tiredness in his voice, and felt bad dragging him out this early in the morning.

"No, no. It's fine, honestly. You're here now and I would hate to keep messing with you like this."

Cynder still didn't approve of this, but decided to let it slide. Besides, it would only kill her to have to wait another day…

"Come on, let's go." Spyro began padding towards the temple door, with Cynder following in suit.

While the dragoness could think of a dozen things they've could've done, she still had to thank Spyro for taking his time to help her find her way around. This idea was the most practical at the time, even if it was about as fun as a two hour tour of a door museum. Maybe later if they get time they could spend just a little time by themselves.

They had managed to locate a couple of convenience store, one of which was only down the road. Cynder had also remembered that at some point she would need to return to the inn to book a room for a few more days. Last night was dirt cheap, though Cynder suspected theold lady may have recognised her and shaved a few gems off her bill. If that happened again tonight she would certainly need to thank the elderly mole.

They resumed their brief tour, managing to find a dragon bath, which unfortunately wasn't as near, but no worries for one that can fly. On top of this, the duo scouted out a couple of potential restaurants Cynder could visit whenever she didn't feel like cooking or fancied something else for a change.

By the time their short tour concluded, the sun was lurking high in the sky. Some of the intoxicated zombies lying on the ground were reanimating with head-pounding groans. Both dragons agreed they should make themselves scarce before they were recognised. Unsure of where to actually look for a job, Spyro decided the temple was as good a place to start as any, so they headed back there.

When they arrived, most of the guards were either waking up their comrades, or standing at attention at their usual posts. But even though they looked primed for action, Spyro could tell they were still as awake as a rock. Their blank stares and wobbly leans gave it away. Regardless, their presence was enough to get some of the city folk to start vacating the premises.

Thankfully to Spyro, his hunches were correct, just inside one of the temple's narrower corridors, a wood-chip board hung abandoned on the walls. Fresh paper with recent job opening where pinned over torn, old ones, creating an increasingly mounting bulge. Who ever placed up the new ones obviously neglected to remove the out of date jobs.

No one ever actually stopped to look at these, so no one would care if Spyro were to take some now would they? He accidently ripped one off before remembering to take the pins out of about a dozen more leaflets, each detailing their job role, location and requirements.

They also stopped by Terrador's assistant, (Spyro thought they would be most organised and equipped to help at this hour of the day given their boss' attitude). After a brief surprise on her part of meeting Cynder, she retrieved what was requested and they parted ways.

By the end of it, they had gathered a few dozen fliers of a diverse work range. Cynder wasn't overly keen on the prospect of reading these over, but knew disgruntledly it would have to be done regardless.

They made their way into the central dining hall for the guards and employees of the temple, deciding to fit some breakfast in while they were at it.

An expansive hall stretched out before them. The same tiled floor behind them leaked into this room as well, scratched and scuffed by dragon claws over the years, so much so that even the heavy polish applied a few days ago failed to mask the many indents.

Four thick, marble-white columns with simple markings sat organised in the room, several metres apart. Dozens of birch tables and chairs laid scattered about, adding to the whiteness of the gargantuan room. Some of these tables were already occupied by guards, getting in their morning meal before starting their monotone routine of patrolling.

Most of the room was lit by candles screwed into the walls, with the only natural light coming in being from the stained glass dome above casting different shades of colour onto the walls.

To their right, a hollowed out section with smoke occasionally flowing out and sizzling sounds indicated the kitchen.

They grabbed a simple plate of cooked, plain filleted salmon per Cynder's request, paid by Spyro. Then the duo grabbed a seat near the far back, away from view and hopefully away from interruption.

Cynder politely offered Spyro the first piece, but having recently gulped down his breakfast earlier, declined and offered his section to her. The black dragoness happily obliged and began the important task of taking large bites out of the poor fish. While Spyro did wish she slowed down a little, he couldn't help but appreciate the enthusiasm for something so uncomplicated. He waited for Cynder to finish her important meal. A delighted smile made its way onto her face as the silver tail end of the fish was swallowed down her gullet. However, this quickly vanished when Spyro started droning on about the different jobs in front of them like one of his agent's lists…

"This one here who looking for a full-time night-shift-"

"Pass!"

Spyro looked at her in bewilderment. "You can't just decide to pass up a job if you haven't heard it all."

"But it's a night time one, I bet no one is ever around at that time. Besides, it's also full-time which sounds long..."

"About eight hours a day, give or take."

"Exactly, I don't wanna be spending a third of my life doing something boring like that," she emphasized. "Not when I could be out there, flying across the night skies, taking in the twinkling stars." She fantasized.

"Oh? And what is 'that?' Spyro asked dourly.

"What?"

"What is the job you just turned down?"

"Errm…" Cynder went blank for a second. "I don't know."

"Exactly Cyn. If we're going to do this, you've got to take it seriously and actually listen. The job was to be a shop clerk..."

Cynder got distracted for a second by the use of her nickname, it still gave her an unseen chill any time he used it… "Exactly, no one wants to be on the night shift for a shop, you probably only ever get weirdos at that time, and I'm not comfortable doing that.."

"You can't just-...that isn't-..." Spyro silenced himself before he lost his cool. This was beginning to frustrate him. He decided to try a different approach. "Alright, what is your dream job? What requirements would this 'perfect' job need?" Spyro patiently elaborated.

"Firstly, no night shift, it has to be during day." Cynder begun counting the points the on her talons.

Spyro nodded, so far that was reasonable, most jobs were day-time based.

"Secondly, no more than a couple of hours every few days, preferably between breakfast and lunch, but also needs to be flexible."

A face depicting farfetched confusion crinkled onto Spyro's face as the demands went from sensible to mad in one sentence…

"Lastly, it has to be enjoyable, there is no point doing a job if you don't enjoy it. If i don't like the sound of it, I'm not picking it."

This was again, another rational point, but it was the middle one that irked Spyro the most by far. "Can we maybe waver the second point, to at least maybe four hours? Then at least-"

"Nope. Two hours or less."

Spyro clenched his talon slightly without her seeing. He didn't want to upset her by seeming impatient, but at the same time he wished there was an easier way to tell her that with her current conditions...no one would ever hire her. This made him feel sad. Regardless, he hoped by showing her these jobs she might realise that on her own. "Let me see if any of these jobs meets your expectations."

Spyro skim-read through the leaflets, picking out the key points and and quickly writing off each and every one of them. It was but a couple of minutes that Spyro got through them, much to Cynder's surprise.

"So, which ones are available?" Cynder asked.

"None of them," Spyro replied, tapping his claws on the table and awaiting a response.

"None of them?!" Cynder repeated, obviously confused.

Spyro nodded. He tried to put what he was going to say next delicately… "You might want to consider the fact that your criteria is a bit...too limiting…?"

"Well then, what would you do?"

Spyro breathed a sigh of relief now that she was listening. "Well considering you're only just returned, you will need to find your footing, and until you find your feet, the only real way is for you to find a full-time job. At least until you get yourself an apartment of place of sleep, be able to steadily feed yourself and also have enough left over should something bad happen, which I highly doubt with you but you never know…"

All this talk made Cynder cringe away, she didn't want to work, she wanted to fly and just spend time with Spyro without the worries. She left those behind when she rid herself of her demons. Yet here Spyro was, compiling more fattening troubles on her greased up plate until it was ready to spill over. With an exasperated sigh she responded, "do I seriously need a job?"

Spyro begrudgingly tightened his claw into a fist, this was really beginning to grind his gears. He tried to mask his annoyance, but streaks begun leaking through his without a word got up, and walked a few steps into the corner, leaving a perplexed Cynder to stare on. "Spyro? Are you okay?"

Spyro ignored her. He took a deep breathe in… and let it out. He then spun around again and returned to his seat without a word.

"Spyro?"

"Right, let's try this again..." There was an air of sterness about him now, one that made Cynder feel slightly cautious.

"Spyro, have I done something to offend you?" she queried softly.

"No of course not. Sorry, I'm just tired and need a moment to recollect myself, it happens all the time," he lied. He looked directly at her, hoping she bought it. "Anyway, how do you plan on looking after yourself?"

Cynder pondered thoughtly. "Well I could always hunt my own food, I'm sure you would happily help, get you outside a bit more, maybe have some fun while we are at it. And anyway, I can always just sleep outside, I don't mind, and I get to admire the stars every night. I do miss when we used to do that, back when we were heroes..."

Spyro once more cursed to the ancestors. "You can't hunt on Warfang territory without a licence. Plus, I won't let you sleep outside, that isn't right, besides your better than that. Look, I get it. This is boring, and it will only continue being that, but we got to do this. Solaria tells me that if you want to get something out of the city, you got to put something into it first. So she did this with me, and now I'm doing it with you."

"Solaria sounds like a real bore, no wonder you're more wound up than a spring."

Spyro glared at Cynder, something he thought he wouldn't ever have to do in his lifetime… Cynder realised what she had said and immediately tried to rewind what she had said. "I'm- I'm sorry, Spyro. It was meant as a joke. I'm sure Solaria can be fun, and just acts tough when she needs to." She felt like an inch tall, cowering under Spyro's scolding scowl.

The purple drake forcibly pushed the chair he was sitting on back, and turned his glare away from the dragoness, not even offering a second look. He marched directly towards the door out. Very few people noticed them before, but the few up close quickly got out of the way. Spyro was a nice guy, but when he got angry, you know something must have seriously rubbed him the wrong way.

Cynder tried to catch up, to make amends and sooth the storm she had conjured up. A face of pure panic etched onto her features. She grasped him on the shoulder.

Spyro spun around. "What?!" his voice boomed, louder than he realised. He looked around, realising people were staring in shock and awkwardness, only shying away when he glared back. He lowered his tone. "What?" he whispered irate.

"Look, I'm sorry. I'll pick this first job I see!" she squeaked, trying anything to calm him. However, this only further enraged him.

"Listen, Cynder. The the world doesn't revolve around us anymore. We can't rely on fate to set the path for us anymore. Yet that doesn't mean we can just kick back and relax either. We may have been heroes once but that was years ago. You might not have realised this yet but we aren't children or saviours anymore, we can't just play around all day until the next day. We're adults in the real world, a place where you have to get a job, and you have to give to the people… No more of this childness... That world you described, where you can fly uncaring through the night? It doesn't exist, not anymore. You need to get a job, no question. Which is why you need to think hard about what you pick, because once you do, there's no going back. So I suggest you head back to that table and start looking very closely at the jobs I gave you and pick one… I gotta go…" he ended sourly.

Cynder was gobsmacked, like she had just been hit in the face by the punch of a golem. A backbreaking burden collapsed itself onto her and she realised the extent of what Spyro had just yelled at her, shocked by his anger and numbed by his tone. She never thought Spyro would speak out like that to anyone, let alone her...

She was pushed out of her emotionless pit when she saw Spyro leaving again, she didn't want to believe Spyro was this harsh. She caught up with him once more. "Please, Spyro, let me make this up to you, let me come with you at least."

Spyro turned around once more, irked by her persistent interruptions. "No, Cynder. You can't come with me, not only because you can't since people have other obligations besides their friends, like their jobs – get one and you'll understand – and maybe we can see eye to eye once more. But as it is... I just don't want to talk to you right now…" Spyro's anger dripped away to sadness. "I want to help you, Cynder, but you won't budge at all. I'm trying to stop you making the same mistake I did…. The more you push against the system,the harder it pushes you back...and then you become trapped like me…"

Spyro slinked away sadly, having gotten that out to the world, now sitting ugly like a big fat elephant in the room, blocking Cynder from approaching anymore.

She sat there with her maw open, the words stinging like a scorpion's toxin. She watched defeated as Spyro hobbled out of the room...

Hey all, sorry for the delay, i decided due to my current lifestyle, I can't reliably follow a sceldule. But here is a new chapter, longer than usual which I hope you all enjoy!