Talkative Two

The leaves above Keiran rustled, stirring her from her slumber. She blinked the sleep from her silver eyes, stretched her legs, and released a yawn. She did realise she'd fallen asleep when she thought she was watching her surroundings, but she'd already been distracted. Peering up at the dense vegetation above her, she noticed the vines swinging restlessly, not in the soft breeze, but as if shifted by somebody.

A suspicious frown creased her features, and she studied the area. That rustling was all too familiar; she recognised it from before. It couldn't be a wild beasty. Perhaps it was whom she'd aptly named her guardian angel.

"You can come out, whoever you are," she called, a little too quietly. "I don't care who you are. Just come out."

"Who are you talking to?" Aella asked from behind her, curled around a short stump. She appeared to still be tired, but she looked fresher than she had yesterday. Despite all the laying – or hanging – about she'd been doing prior to her rescue, she'd seemed exhausted yesterday.

"Um, I just feel like somebody's been following me." She shuffled her paws in the snow. "Somebody shot a gun in here and killed a frogweed trying to... attack me before."

She felt mortified telling somebody she was almost turned into a scaly meal by a frogweed, so she didn't. When Aella told her she was obviously almost eaten, however, not to even obtain a few laughs, her face boiled.

"It's nothing to be embarrassed about." Aella smiled helpfully, seeing straight through her black scales, as if the blush was apparent on her cheeks. "And those aren't frogweeds, either."

"Huh?" Keiran cocked her head leftward. "They're not?"

"No," she giggled. "Those are snoweeds. They wrap their tongues around things and reel them in. They even have this acid stuff, and I can tell you stuck your foot inside one... Don't worry, you can easily tell what kind they are by their blue tongues and really pale green skin."

Keiran was astounded by her knowledge on frogweeds – no, snoweeds. Why would one devote time to actually learning about them? That felt like a waste to even her, and she found educating herself exciting.

"Most just call them frogweeds, though. That's the general term... Oh, and yeah, I heard a gun before. I just guessed it was some hunter in the distance, though. Apparently not."

Now reminded of her guardian angel, she looked to the trees again, and heard more movement from them right on queue. "Give me a sec. I'm gonna look up there quickly."

Keiran took a short sprint before launching herself skyward, spreading her wings, only to cry out in pain and plant her face in the snow. Her wings stung as she tried to use them. Aella yelped and immediately got to helping her up.

"Hey! A-Are you trying to hurt yourself?" she questioned, shock evident within her tone; she carefully pulled Keiran's buried head from the snow. "...Oh. You might've sprained your wings. But how did you do that?"

Keiran shook the residual snowflakes from her snout. Her mind immediately thought of the arachnid. The sharp wall she'd been pinned against... Strange she hadn't felt the pain beforehand.

"I don't know, but if it was back in the spider cave, it might've been all the dark gems." Aella paced back and forth, a paw beneath her chin. "They take your element away from you, but they also somehow steal pain too, if the injury's agonising enough. I'm not entirely sure how it works – it's like they have a mind of their own – but... Oh, by the Ancestors, I should be helping you."

Keiran gritted her teeth. She only felt discomfort now, but it continued to reverberate throughout her wings anyway, stabbing at the pace of her heart. Aella shook her head sadly.

"Not much I can do for you, sorry," Aella stated. A warm, happy expression, even with the consistent pain running like rapids through her wings, crossed Keiran's face. She hopped to her feet, letting her wings drape over her sides like curtains, for they were not as agonising in that position.

"It's fine." She glanced around the secluded area, looking for a red luminous crystal jutting from the ground. All she saw were trees, snow, and a strange grey rock, though. "What about the spirit gem? Where is it?"

"Its energy's been drained. I thought you knew?"

"Drained?" She'd never heard of spirit gems losing their power before. Although, she didn't know much about them, other than that they were capable of healing numerous wounds.

"If you leave them partly broken they end up dying. They're living things too, you know. Some say their the spirits of people who refuse to die fully. That is, until they're broken.."

Keiran shuddered at that notion; she was using others to aid herself – to seal minor cuts and grazes. She couldn't help but picture screams of unimaginable torment as she shattered and utilised their deceased forms. And they weren't even going to a good cause...

"We should get moving," Aella suggested, directing her attention to the tree she'd marked. "I... feel like I've spent too long rambling on about things. Sorry, I get really talkative when nature is brought up. I just can't stop-"

"Okay, yeah, I get it," she interrupted, giggling softly. "It's fine anyway. I haven't been able to talk to anyone for the past few days. Conversation's nice."

"Okie dokie. Let's go."

Picking up her satchel and waterskin, Keiran tied them around her neck. She'd thought that she'd be alone for the entirety of her trek across the Dragon Realms, but somehow that hadn't ended up being the case. They were only acquaintances, but to her it already felt like more.

As soon as Keiran had patted out the smouldering embers in the fire, she left the area behind, Aella in tow. And for the first time in a while, she felt legitimate happiness.

"It's about time," Aella said.

Keiran eyed the sun through the wall of bark and plant life before her. It stuck out like a diamond amongst gravel, glaring back at the dragoness. The sight of clear land beyond that had joy rocketing through her body, and her steps went from an exhausted shamble to a skip in a matter of seconds.

When she finally left the arctic forest behind, she bathed so gratefully in the light. As exceptional as the sights had been, her only wish had been to leave it all. She'd wanted away from the dangerous wildlife. And now that there was only a small abundance of trees down the short cliffside she stood upon, her guardian angel had nowhere to hide. That was, unless they weren't still tracking her every movement.

She gazed towards the colourless landscape before her. It was all so flat and plain; barely a natural feature lay upon it, excluding a fair number of smooth stones and rocks penetrating the ground. She could spot a herd of piggles, however, small grey quadrupeds that nibbled away at the stones as nourishment, laying about. A distant ocean, only a spec in her vision, was cut off by a dam, and in between this, smack in the centre of her vision, was a bleary smudge standing great and ancient, almost as old as the beginning of civilisation on the Dragon Realms itself.

Warfang was in her sight. Right there. Now she only had to reach it.

"It's really pretty," Aella mentioned, "don't you think?"

Keiran couldn't agree more, but she hadn't been particularly focused on that. Finally, she was approaching the dragon city. Her first destination. It wouldn't be the end of her journey – she was fairly sure of that – but she was confident it would bring her an answer or two. It had to.

"Yep," she whispered, nearly soundlessly. "Sure is."

"Well, it's not like... Hey, wait up!"

The black dragoness bounced off the tiny cliff side, landing in the snow again, deaf to Aella's tone. She kept her pace steady, and her wings hanging limply from her sides so they wouldn't send constant spikes of agony through her body. She groaned a little, still in slight discomfort. Without flight, getting to Warfang was going to be a tough one.

She released a built-up sigh. She just wished she could lay amongst the warmth of a bed, drift off to sleep for a day or two. If she was still at Shimmervale, she'd probably be sleeping in at this hour.

Why, oh why did she still think of her former residence like that? The word was so homely. It reminded her of Daine.

Really, she just wanted to see Daine again. She'd wanted him to go with her, but at the time she hadn't known about how Daine and Gail were both in on what she wanted to do... Had she really been that predictable in the end?

Regardless, it didn't matter anymore. Warfang was finally in sight.

Now she only had to get there. It couldn't be that difficult, right?

Ten chapters in. I have no idea what I'm doing. This one feels bad too and I don't know what to do about it. It certainly feels like a step down from everything else I've written so far.

I hope you have enjoyed Keiran's story so far. I actually kinda like the next chapter, so I'll be sure to get that one out soon. :P