The valley between the mountains beheld a scene of absolute chaos. Swarms of monsters were scaling the rocky surfaces, seeking an unseen prey. Beasts with insect-like wings buzzed about, each easily as large as a horse with a stinger to match. The poison sizzled when it dripped onto the rocks, dissolving them in their sickly green glow.
Massive holes had been blown onto the mountainside, evidently by the biomechanical arbalests that plodded about slowly with their six stocky legs, readying another volley of shots towards the already damaged mountains. Rocks the size of houses cascaded down whenever they fired a shot, followed by a burst of heat akin to the surface of the sun and a flash of blinding white light.
As the stones came hurtling down, some of the monsters were crushed by their sheer weight with a sickening crunch along with a pained screech. In spite of this, the others still continued searching the ruined mountains and valley, ignoring the deaths of their comrades.
A lone tree remained, standing obstinately against the relentless tirade of the rocks and shrapnel that rained from the heavens. Several days ago, for some reason, Lightning had decided not to cut down that tree, stating that it would be best to leave one standing, just in case.
Who would've thought that, in the gnarled branches that crowned the blackened tree was a little hatchling, terrified out of its wits. It clung onto the large branches for dear life as the Crawlers swarmed beneath, sensing fresh prey in the branches far above.
The tree creaked ominously, bending to the side as the swarming Crawlers pushed on its trunk to topple it.
"Albida!" Bolzan and Lightning dashed into the fray and, lacking the time to use their enhanced abilities, resorted to physical claw rakes and slashes from the gunblade. New abilities now forgotten in the heat of battle, they fought like madmen amidst the black hordes.
Attracted by the prospect of fresh blood, the Crawlers turned their attention from the tree, with the peeping hatchling in its branches, and joined in on the attack. They were easily dispatched by Bolzan, who blasted them with some Hellfire, burning them to a crisp in the black flames. As he was firing, Lightning slashed at the Crawlers with fast precise slices, ripping them to shreds with her light speedy flurry of attacks.
By now, the other two types of enemies had noticed the commotion and were turning to attack the two largest threats.
Overwhelmed by the new amount of opposition, Bolzan and Lightning had begun to falter, letting attacks get through their guard and failing to parry several attacks. A large barb tore into Bolzan's injured forepaw and he let out a roar of agony before terminating his aggressor. Lightning was struck down by a claw sweep from one of the Crawlers, leaving a nasty wound on her side. She sprang back up with a handspring and dashed forwards, slicing her foe to ribbons.
Though they were putting up a good fight, it was fairly evident that, if it went on any longer, they would lose miserably. Their strength was slowly ebbing away and their attacks got slower and sloppier. More attacks were striking them now and, even with their separate healing abilities, they knew they were outnumbered as more attacks tore through their flesh and scales.
Suddenly, Bolzan heard Albida's fearful cry and he looked up. The word faded into red and, moments later, he was seated in the cave, pain ripping through every muscle in his body as Lightning pointed her gunblade at him cautiously, cradling Albida in the crook of her free arm. Both had a look of abject terror on their blood-speckled faces and, in Lightning's case, a look of shame as well.
"W-What happened…?" His tail flicked up and he found it was bandaged up badly with, not surprisingly, a diaper. The rest of the wounds on his body were left uncovered except for a paste that had been applied over the bloody flesh. It was green and evil-smelling, but it soothed the pain somewhat.
His eye patch was also missing.
Instinctively, he covered his left eye with his free paw; the other one hung limply at his side as if the bones had been broken in them. With a makeshift splint holding the arm in place, he looked more like a war victim than a dragon.
Scared as Albida was, he moved his own paw to his own eye.
"Same…" He muttered softly.
"Are you normal again?" Lightning asked, still pointing the weapon at his chest. Bolzan nodded and coughed, bringing up some bloody phlegm.
"Yeah… What did I do?" He reached out to Albida, who shrunk into Lightning's breast as Lightning tightened the grip on her blade.
"… What… What happened…?"
"Scared the hell out of us, that's what…" Lightning relaxed her gunblade a little and moved closer, still in her defensive stance. She felt the diaper wrapped around his tail and tore it off. This was met with a roar from Bolzan that shook the entire cave to its foundation, causing small pebbles to dislodge from the ceiling and walls as Albida whimpered.
When the blinding pain had subsided, he looked at his tail once more. It was split in half; the metal blade that had been surgically attached by Malefor was missing, replaced by a black, double-tongued sword that had seemingly grown out of his bone. The flesh that had been cleaved apart had already begun healing, both halves being pulled together by strings of red flesh with embryonic-looking scales, soft and minute.
"D-Did I do… that?" Bolzan gestured to the new wound that graced Lightning's shoulder. She nodded grimly and tightened her grip.
"Albida?" The hatchling reacted to the sound of his name but was far too terrified to look at the injured dragon. The brief glimpse of Albida's expression told Bolzan that the child was afraid of HIM. The monster that had scared Albida wasn't one of the shadowy beings. It was Bolzan… or whatever had taken over him during the gap in his memory.
There was a fairly large gash on the hatchling's left thigh, no doubt the work of dragon claws from the rough, jagged edges that surrounded the wound. Every time the hind leg moved, Albida let out a whimper of pain.
An uneasy silence fell over the cave, punctuated by Albida's sobs and whimpers.
After a while, Bolzan tried to stand up and Lightning leapt back, aiming the "gun" at his heart. There was no way to miss at such a close range.
"P-Please, Light… Tell me what I did."
"Don't call me Light… Monster…" Lightning cocked the gun and pointed it at the dragon's heart, who just stood there placidly as she lined up her shot.
"… No…" Albida's voice was barely a whisper but it stopped Lightning's finger, which was already halfway to pulling the trigger.
"What?" Lightning refused to let up on the pressure on the gun trigger.
"Go ahead, kill me. Tell Evans I'm sorry I can't take care of Albida like I promised." He lifted his head up and exposed his chest.
Lightning's hand trembled as she tightened her grip on the trigger.
"She's already gone, Bolzan. Her crystal's in the other room." Those words cut through both of them like knives, not to mention Albida, who had begun sobbing anew.
"… No." Albida was still sobbing and the word was tinged with a great sadness. Yet, there was a sort of resolution that was behind that single word.
"Just kill me already, Lightning…"
"No!" Albida's voice was stronger now and he lifted his head to look at lightning with bloodshot eyes filled with tears. Lightning looked down as well, sensing movement.
"He attacked us, Albida. What if he does it again?" Lightning continued aiming the gun in spite of the pain that burned in her arm.
"No! No more fighting! Mama told me friends shouldn't fight! No! No! No!" He was pounding on lightning's chest with all of his feeble might, punctuating every word with a strike.
Lightning's hand wavered and dropped, letting the gunblade drop to the ground with a rattling clang. The gun fired and it hit the wall behind Bolzan, barely missing his head.
"Tell me what happened, Lightning." Bolzan limped over and looked into her eyes.
With a sigh, Lightning began describing what happened.
From her point of view, she described Bolzan completely losing it in a burst of darkness that knocked her down and staggered the rest of the Crawlers, Arbalests and Stingers. All this happened after they spotted Albida in the claws of a Stinger. She gave him a wide berth as Bolzan decimated their assailants.
With some breathing space, Lightning set out to rescue Albida. During the shot time it took to get Albida down safely, Bolzan had torn through the enemy's ranks, leaving nothing but destruction in his wake. Though he was armored, Lightning said that there weren't any weapons whatsoever, save for Bolzan's claws and fangs.
After they were disposed of, lightning ran over to Bolzan to see if he was alright. Who would've thought that he lashed out and attacked them, managing to wound both of them in a single, double-clawed sweep.
She was then forced to do battle with Bolzan, this time with her l'cie powers in full blast. She stabbed his tail into the ground, preventing further forward movement from the berserking beast. He had expressed no pain at that moment, merely bloodlust as he continued attacking them in a frenzy.
During his attacks, he had torn his own tail in half from the gunblade and the bony growth sprouted out almost instantly and he renewed his attacks.
Unwilling to hurt the dragon, Lightning was forced to dodge his elemental attacks and claw strikes until she tripped over her own gunblade and tumbled to the ground.
Bolzan loomed over them and was about to deliver the killing blow when he suddenly dropped to the ground, glassy-eyed. She then proceeded to bring him up to Evans' cave on one of her eidolons where she fixed him up (reluctantly, she admitted).
It was also during that time approximately six hours ago that she found Evans' crystal in the nursery with dozens of dead Crawlers littering the room.
Small snippets of what had happened were now returning to Bolzan and he wracked his brains to recall as much of it as possible.
From his point of view, the world turned red when he saw Albida in danger and the only thought that filled his mind was to make those who would bring harm to his hatchling pay, hence the bloodlust.
After they were all killed, he had mistaken Lightning as trying to kidnap Albida and attacked her instead. When he was about to kill her, he heard Lazarus' voice in his head telling him that this would be his final bloodlust, for he had used it for what he cared about the most: Albida. He then proceeded to pass out.
"It's coming back to me now… I did it all to protect Albida, regardless of the cost… I'm sorry, Lightning." Lightning, who was still mildly hostile towards Bolzan, stepped back cautiously. Albida was still terrified but he wriggled his way out of Lightning's arm and limped over to Bolzan, whimpering painfully at the wound.
He gestured to the wound and looked at Bolzan with pleading eyes, either begging for forgiveness or for some healing.
"… I'm sorry, little guy. I didn't mean it." With the last of his strength, he breathed a warm white light over the wound and watched as the wound closed up, leaving a thin line as the only sign of the injury.
Albida tested his newly fixed hind leg and, satisfied, hugged Bolzan warmly. Bolzan reciprocated the gesture with a fond nuzzle on the hatchling's head.
"You know he may not really mean it, right? After all, he's only a year old…" Though her voice was skeptical, she knew that this wasn't any false feeling. Albida had really forgiven Bolzan; and all because he had healed his wound.
"I'm sorry…" Bolzan curled up around the hatchling, not caring about his wounds, and lulled the child to sleep with comforting words. Lightning sighed and kept an eye on them. When he didn't show any sign of hostility, she relaxed.
"… Looks like you made the right choice, Evans. May your soul rest in peace."
Lightning sat down and watched the two of them curled up tightly, breathing softly. She watched them until she herself succumbed to the cradling arms of sleep.
In her dreams, she saw Evans singing a lullaby and she asked the motherly dragon what it meant.
"It's a ballad of my mother," she had said soothingly in the field of tulips. "I hope that I'll have my own, someday."
"Don't worry, Evans. We'll make sure you have your own song to sing." Lightning turned to the sound of the voice and saw Bolzan walking towards them.
"Ha! I can't write lyrics for my life, Bolzan. How're we going to write a ballad?" Lightning retorted. Bolzan shrugged.
"I don't know. I've never made a song or poem before, either." They looked at Evans, who looked at them tenderly.
"It'll come naturally to both of you. Especially since you're both my successors." She turned to Bolzan.
"Bolzan, my ballad shall be Albida's lullaby, just like how my mother's was mine." He nodded and left the field in a flash of light. Evans turned to lightning next.
"Lightning, please carry the legacy of the Feymark through family or acquaintance. My ballad shall be your guiding light for the other Feymark." Lightning agreed and she, too, vanished in a burst of light.
Evans was left alone in the field. Would they believe it was a dream, she wondered aloud as she thought of her mother's own ballad.
The dragoness shut her eyes and watched as Bolzan and Lightning fidgeted in their sleep. Albida was whimpering slightly, the way he usually did when he had a nightmare.
"Don't forget me, my hatchling." And she began singing her final lullaby for her child before fading into a flurry of tulip petals carried away by the wind, into the waxing crescent that hung overhead.
In her fading voice, she echoed the final verse of her mother's ballad:
This is not the end of my time,
it is merely the beginning of another life.
Stay safe, stay strong, my hatchling.
Forevermore, you shall shine.