Author's Note: Haha! I DID IT! I updated both of my ongoing stories today! How's that for being generous, huh?
…Okay, I'll stop cheering about my own success now. As most of you should know, today is Half the Power, Twice the Spirit's birthday/anniversary/whatever you want to call it, but it is one year old today! So, being the crazy person that I am, seeing as I updated this story yesterday, I chose to be extra-nice and give you a gift for this momentous occasion! …I give you your gift of the eleventh chapter, where everyone meets everyone else, and the chapter most (all?) of you readers have been waiting for…!
Read, enjoy, and don't forget to tell me what you think!
Half the Power, Twice the Spirit
Part Eleven: Lead by Dragons to Converging Paths
The Goat halfling, Tiro, turned out to be rather chatty. He was ever so grateful to them all for going out of their way to save him from the hunters; but it wasn't really out of the way at all when they needed all the halflings. He did ask how they had gotten a dragon to distract the horde of hunters; no one had yet told him that the dragon had been an illusion on the part of Ido.
Ido himself was still sleeping in the back of the cart, and Kygo was taking him at his word of just going straight. The horse plodded onwards, munching on a bag of oats Kygo had attached to the animal's halter. The cart rolled slowly through the mix of dirt and dust, and silence had fallen upon the halflings, even the newest one.
The Prince Heir of the Celestial Empire glanced backwards, looking over the halflings. The newest addition to their little band, Tiro, had curling goat's horns, fuzzy goat's ears sticking haphazardly from his dark hair and a thin goat's tail curled at his side. They were all looking up into the cloudy sky, as if they could see something coming—or maybe they were just looking at the dragons, Kygo honestly couldn't tell.
They found no other halflings that day, and when the sky began to darken, signaling nightfall was on its way, Kygo called a halt. Someone lit a fire to keep whatever dangerous beasts that waited in the dying forest at bay, and they all settled down to sleep.
Some of the halflings went to sleep quickly, but they all eventually slipped off into the world of dreams, leaving only Kygo staring up at the sky. He stared up at the dark clouds, wondering what had happened since he had left behind the Imperial City. Journeying with the halflings had jarred his sense of time; he wasn't sure how long it had been—only a few days? Could it possibly have been a week?
No, he thought, shaking his head to himself. Not a week. He did not try to bring the dragons into his focus, having no want for the headache that followed; but he knew they were there. Are you happy? he asked the invisible beasts. Are you glad we've found so many of your children?
But, alas, there came no answer; however, just before Kygo closed his eyes, he saw a tiny break in the clouds, like a claw had lightly pushed them away. And beyond…
Beyond was the glitter of more than a thousand stars.
Kygo stared up at those visible stars. This is what we're trying to save, he thought. He shut his eyes, rolling over, closer to the fire. This is what we're trying to save…and we will, by the gods.
We will!
The morning dawned early but not so much bright; after putting out the fire and eating some slightly stale loaves of bread Kygo had brought with him, they were off again, winding their way through the dying forest, leaving a line of wheel tracks in the dusty dirt behind them.
"Can you see the other halflings' colors yet?" Kygo muttered to Ido, who was for once not in the back of the cart but the front, peering ahead like he was suspicious something might leap out and attack them. Knowing the hunters, it was a decent conclusion.
"No," the Rat halfling scowled. Why did the Rat Dragon take away my ability to locate the other halflings? Surely it wants this gathering to happen?
"So we just keep meandering around like chickens with their heads cut off," Kygo sighed.
Ido's eyes snapped to him. "I didn't ask for the Rat Dragon to do that! It just happened!"
"We shouldn't be fighting amongst ourselves," came a mutter from the back. Someone else—Bano, from the sounds of it—replied, "Isn't keeping the peace the Rabbit halfling's job?"
"We don't have the Rabbit halfling!"
"Quiet, all of you!" Kygo grumbled, and the cart bounced over an ill-disguised hole in the ground. The halflings' mutters degenerated into whispered words, and then finally still silence. Ido still stood at the front, eyes trained on the forest still ahead of them.
"Is there something up there we should be worried about?"
Ido flicked an ear. He was not looking at the forest; rather, the silver Hua lights across the land. Most of them were far and few in between the tight clusters of the villages and cities. He cast a glance upwards towards the compass of dragons hovering above. Were they watching now? He had thought he had felt at least the weight of one dragon's gaze on their rickety cart.
He looked forwards once more and felt his eyes widen. Three—no, four silver lights were headed in their direction. And…he squinted; it was difficult to tell from the angle, but…was one of them flying?
"There are four people headed our way," he said aloud for Kygo's benefit.
The Prince Heir's eyes narrowed sharply. "Hunters?"
Slowly the Rat halfling shook his head. "I don't think so. It looks like…one of them is flying."
Kygo's head turned to give him the most skeptical expression Ido had ever seen in his life. "That—that's not…not possible…is it?"
"Maybe not for a halfling." Ido scanned the silver lights ahead of them. "They're not too far away…we're probably moving slower than they are."
"You think that whoever they are have a halfling at their disposal?" Kygo stared into the shadows of the forest.
"It's possible. I can't imagine how else they'd be able to find us so quickly."
At the back of his mind, the Rat halfling felt the urge to look up. His unerring gaze found the blue form of the Rat Dragon. The great blue dragon grew in his vision, blue pearl glittering with all the Hua at the dragon's command. What do you want? Ido thought, staring up at the dragon. He met the beast's depthless eyes as a thought came to him. You're giving back my sight of the other halflings?
The Rat Dragon's sapphire claws touched upon the sides of the cart, his head hanging above Ido. The dragon blew out a breath of air that slowly cascaded over the halfling. He caught the whisper of a reply: See.
The dragons were at once everywhere and yet still hanging in the sky; bursts of color filled Ido's vision and as he stared ahead to those four lights, two that were no longer silver at all, he knew what was coming. A barrage of dragon Hua rolled over him like a wave, and distantly he felt himself slide down the wall of the cart.
"Ido!" Kygo's voice was awfully loud, Ido reflected, and then realized someone was shaking him. "What?" he growled out, and Tyron raised his hands innocently. "You were having a fit of some kind."
And then it crashed down on the Rat halfling what he'd seen—the two true silver lights of humans, the pink of the Rabbit halfling…and the gold of the Dragon halfling. "Dragon," he gasped, and Garon's head whipped towards the sky. "Where?"
"No, I mean—" Ido shook his head irritably. "The Dragon halfling's coming. And the Rabbit, too."
"Dragon," Bano said faintly. "That's the…female halfling, isn't it?"
"What does that matter?" Chion raised his eyebrows. "She is as powerful as any one of the dragons we descend from. I would advise against angering her."
"Well," Kygo said suddenly, "whatever you think of them…they're coming."
And a silence of another kind fell upon them, a truly uncertain silence, for the dragons were the most powerful beings they knew, and now, to meet a creature on the earth as powerful as any one of the male dragons…
Advise against angering her, indeed.
Eona winged her way back to Ryko, Dela, and Silvo, tumbling out of the sky with ease. She landed neatly on the dirt in front of Ryko's horse. "Well?" the islander questioned.
"They're up ahead," Eona reported. "Coming this way. We'll converge on their path soon."
"Right." Ryko turned his horse to meet Dela. "We're close."
The Eastern Tribes leader raised her eyebrows. "Good news, then. How many of the other halflings did you say they had already gathered?"
The Dragon halfling paused, glancing back the way she'd come. Blue, purple, white, copper, brown, and a bright silver that was not to be confused with the color of humans' Hua, as there was a true human with them and the halfling's silver was much brighter than the human's silver. "Six," she said aloud, returning her gaze to her traveling companions. "They will have eight with Silvo and me."
"Four left, then," Ryko summed up, guiding his horse around a dip in the ground. "And then on to the circle of stones, yes?"
"Yes." Eona paused, looking rapidly to the collage of oncoming halfling lights. Suddenly she realized that although she knew where they were to go, she had no idea what they were expected to do there. She said this aloud, and Ryko and Dela exchanged a glance of confusion that did not help matters at all. Then Silvo spoke, for only the second time Eona had heard him:
"If they're gathering halflings too, they might know what we're supposed to do in the end."
"Or," Dela suggested, hawk-like eyes bright with suspicion, "they could know just about the same as us."
"We received the words of prophecy," Eona muttered, flicking at a speck of dirt with her tail. "I don't…the Mirror Dragon basically told Rilla and Chart to tell me, and if the others haven't met them, then…they probably don't know."
"Shall we go to meet them?" Dela spurred her horse onwards, Ryko matching her speed, Silvo trailing behind. Eona lifted off again, beating her wings against the wind and shooting past the other three. She spiraled through the trees, one wingtip disintegrating an already crumbling branch. And then she saw them, not with the dragon-sight, but with her own eyes.
They were all piled in a cart that looked like it wasn't built to hold many more of them, from the looks of it. The single human, from her recollection of the Hua lights, was the one driving the cart, guiding the single horse down the little dirt road. Eona squinted. She could see the Rat halfling, the Dog halfling, the Snake halfling, the Ox halfling, the Goat halfling, and the Rooster halfling all sitting in the back. It was still strange to see so many at once; it was rare, she knew, for halflings to cross paths in the natural world.
The Dragon halfling folded her wings and arrowed over the trees, swooping down past a break in the branches and landed squarely in front of the cart horse.
The horse didn't take too kindly to that, and Eona half-thought it was stamping its hooves because it had a wish to swat at her, as horses were wont to do when flying things came around. She stepped carefully around the horse and met the eyes of one human and six halflings, all staring.
Finally the human spoke. "So you're the Dragon halfling."
His face looked vaguely familiar, like a picture she had seen once. Who had it been of? She bowed neatly, at the same time drudging up the memory. "My name is Eona." She paused for a fraction of a second, eyes skating across the other halflings to the human as she said, only slightly uncertainly, "Prince Heir?"
The human sighed heavily. "Call me Kygo," he said, now turning to the six halflings. "The Rat is Ido. The Ox is Tyron, the Goat is Tiro, the Dog is Garon, the Rooster is Bano, and the Snake is Chion."
"Greetings," she murmured, inclining her head. At that moment Ryko, Dela, and Silvo appeared from the forest, and Eona did not mind the dust that sprayed up from their horses' hooves.
"These are my traveling companions," the Dragon halfling said with her best flourish. "Ryko, who traveled with me from my home village; Dela, who is the leader of the Eastern Tribes, and Silvo, the Rabbit halfling." She was somewhat surprised that none made mention of Dela's standing, but thought that at this point it wasn't entirely necessary, considering most of them were rather despised by the people of the Celestial Empire.
"Eight," Kygo said, with no small measure of impression. "This is happening faster than I thought. Only four more till the Spirit Dance can be performed."
Eona fastened onto the unfamiliar words. "Spirit Dance?" The words, like her little prophecy, had a ring to them.
The halflings all exchanged glances of varying confusion. "We're not sure what it is," Garon admitted, dog's ears twitching. "But it's supposed to save the land," Bano shrugged half-heartedly.
They do know what to do, even if they don't know exactly how to do it! Eona's heart swelled. "You won't have to look much farther," she smiled. "For I know our final destination."
"You do?" Ido raised one eyebrow skeptically.
The Dragon halfling nodded. "The Mirror Dragon showed me. I am—reasonably certain I can get us there. Once we have all the halflings, we can go."
"Where is this place, exactly?" Kygo asked, tipping his head to one side.
Eona laced he fingers together for lack of something to do with them. "I don't know if it has a name," she said carefully, watching their reactions. "It is a gigantic circle of stone carved from the bases of several mountains. At the center—"
"—is a stone dragon with a bowl filled with blood," Chion finished for her, and she felt her eyes widen. "You've been there?"
"I've seen it from a distance." The Snake halfling crossed his arms. "We really are diving right from the pan into the fire, aren't we?"
The heart of danger. Dela's words came back to Eona. "What do you mean? What is the circle of stones?"
Chion smiled grimly, eyes glittering. "You may not recognize the name, but the others here will."
Garon paled. "You're not going to say—"
"Xsu-Tou Pass," Chion said, not at all smugly.
And horrified silence fell.