Dragon(s)layer
12
The stick of dynamite bounced off a rock's flat and rebounded right for his face. The Fallen's jaw dropped, and he cursed at the top of his lungs, reaching high, plucking the explosive from the air to juggle it in panic.
Talk about a hot tomato. Not the first time, at least.
Rolling painfully onto his belly, the dynamite's hissing fuse became distant as his foot caught on a rock, he tripped and hurled it completely by accident across the canal and to the opposite shore.
The Ape officer had just been beating an axe against his roundel shield when his own explosive smacked him upside the head and landed in his lap.
"-Lookout-~!" –One of his lieutenants screamed. A spark of light became the beginning of a mushroom cloud. Several bodies tumbled through the air, some still screaming. They landed in the misting rapids and either met their end from the shockwave, the fire, or being beaten to death against the jagged rocks.
Lucky toss.
The Fallen's smiling was interrupted when the air whistled. He rolled onto his back just as an Ape screamed and swung parallel around a nearby rock.
Clink~! –the cleaver kicked sparks as it ate into the stone right beside his cheek. He anchored his waist at the tailbone, lashing the simian fighter in the chest and chin with two precise kicks.
A purple blur swept in, and another of the Ape's friends attacking from the flank was lifted clean off his paws. The monkey howled in terror, then Spyra swung around like a top, vaulted her wings and catapulted her victim into the rapids dividing the battlefield.
"- Fifty points for that throw!" She whooped, fist-pumping as she glided back over his head. "I'm already up to six! Top that alien-man."
The Fallen grinned grimly as he sliced open his victim's throat from jaw hinge to shoulder. The Ape gurgled and fell over a rock, bouncing like a rubber ball down the steep coastal rise before smacking into the misting rapids with a plume of white.
The Fallen glanced up and swore as an entire mob of Apes scampered down the opposite shore, infesting the black rock fields like a swarm of fist-sized insects. His side was already infested with enemies, and the ones on the opposing coast were tossing dynamite into the flurry of melee with no regard for their comrades.
"Concentrate all yer fire on the hoo-man!" An officer yelled over the river's roar, swinging his sword for a row of crossbowmen arranging behind him. "The Mistress wants 'im ded or alive!"
"Well that's generous of her to specify." He frowned as he decapitated another victim and kicked the corpse low.
"How come I'm not as important a target?" Spyra complained, her wings flapping as she glided over and above the shore. "I think the role of protagonist is a little messed up."
The Fallen cried out to her as she flew. Spyra was too busy whooping in excitement as she flexed the newfound strength in her wings. Ever since she had touched that Mana Crystal, she had found herself flying faster, harder and higher, with longer glide times.
She puckered her snout and rode a wind current over a cloister of rocks, a stream of flame bathing the handful of Ape soldiers scrambling over it. They screamed and became living torches, flesh melted, eyeballs popped and fur became rubber. Some of them tumbled down into the rapids. Others collapsed on the scorched sand and twitched until they died.
"-Spyra!" The Fallen barked, leaping from rock to rock, his blade slashing aside Ape warriors in ones and twos. "Did you hear me?!"
"You said something about me being right, right?" Spyra laughed, slashing an Ape's face open as she swept by. She lowered her head and presented the bronze tips of her horns, grunting when they penetrated something squishy, and fur pressed into the top of her head.
She meat-hooked the Ape through the abdomen, flapped once, brought him higher up, and spun her body to the right, sending him rolling down the rocks.
"I think I'm gettin' the hang of this." She grinned.
"I didn't say you were right!" He ducked as crossbow bolts clattered around the rocks. "I said dynamite!"
"Dynamite?" Spyra croaked.
Another officer mounted a boulder, heaving back, like he was preparing to throw a baseball, and chucked a freshly steaming stick through the air.
Son of a bitch had waited for a half-fuse before loosing.
Spyra folded her wings and dropped like a rock. The dynamite burst mid-flip and flooded the air over the canal with a flash of flame and soot. Thunder crackled through the blue sky.
"'Scuse me, honey." The Fallen tackled an Ape and wrenched his head in an arm lock, the neckbone snapped like a twig and he shouldered the corpse, picking up the scrappy crossbow he had dropped. "Blasters, shortsights, long scopes and launchers… all that and I cannot for the life of me remember using one of these before."
The Fallen took cover behind a ledge, using his foot to keep the crossbow down as he yanked back a fresh bolt.
P-lnkk~! –it sounded like a pinball bouncing off a bumper, and the kickback was horrendous.
At least there was some satisfaction when the bolt flicked across the canal and buried itself to the hilt in an Ape's breast. The soldier howled and fell, writhing like a dying insect on the rocks.
"Still got it." He snickered, reloading.
"Twenty eight!" Spyra sang, a sphere of flame belching from her mouth with the speed of a bullet. It hit an officer and popped his entire upper torso like a flaming water balloon. The head and arms all went in different directions, and the legs liquidized into the sand, turning to glass. "Twenty nine~!"
Thirty two, the Fallen mentally listed, smirking as he dropped another of the monkeys. The rapids screamed and the swampy mushroom forest loomed over both shores, shroom trees and willows lined together like overeager, starving spectators.
At least that fight turned out to be brief. These Apes were nothing without their larger kin organizing an effective offense.
The key was to kill the officers.
"You're a natural fighter." The Fallen remarked, his brand new crossbow hilted over his shoulder as they hiked. "Why did you think you needed anything from me except some praise?"
Spyra chuckled at him.
"I can smell out someone being too modest." She winked. "When we get to Warfang? You're gonna' show me everything you haven't already."
"I think you're looking too deeply in a simple package." He shook his head.
"We'll see, sky-man, we'll see."
Both he and Spyra lost count of the number of Apes they killed, and eventually, as hours turned into the next day, they stopped avoiding Cynder's Ape patrols and began to slaughter them on contact, building up their skills through each skirmish on how to combat and defeat their new enemy.
The path to follow the estuary run was perilous, however, not just because of the Apes lurking about in heavily armed warbands, though the terrain constantly ensured that battles were always interesting.
The Apes tried all kinds of things to stop the two of them at Cynder's direction. They rained dynamite from positions up high, tried to trap them in ravines and use crossbows, and they blocked tunnels rooting through the limestacks overlooking the canal.
With each defeat, their reputations in Visigoth's tribe only grew.
Until eventually, the Fallen and Spyra became quite used to hearing…
"It's da hoo-man! And the purple drag!" An officer howled, kicking a bolted, stockade barricade between himself and the other end of the tunnel. "Bring him down, lads!"
The barricade splintered as Spyra literally went right through it- and by extension the officer –wreathed in dragonflame that lit up the whole passageway. Ape soldiers screamed and died as the Fallen emerged fresh from the flickering embers, hacking and slashing with practiced ruthlessness.
"Which tunnel leads up?" Spyra groaned, looking between an intersection filled with Ape corpses. What was frustrating was that no matter where they were, they could always hear the rush of the canal. It echoed through the caves and never told distance.
"Maybe I should ax these guys about it, huh?" The Fallen chuckled, rolling an officer's body over and tapping his forehead with his stolen weapon.
"Dude…" Spyra crinkled her snout, giggling at him. "…that stinks worse than all of these monkeys combined."
"At least they were kind enough to bring me a supply dump." He chuckled, relieving the dead of weapons, dynamite bandoliers and the like. "They won't need it where they're going."
More and more often, the swampy terrain began to morph into treacherous, rocky alleys requiring tight navigation around overgrown and mossy stacks.
Platforms of earth suspended from massive willow roots were the only bridges over pits of razor sharp thorn thickets.
"See? I told ya' it wasn't so dangerous." She'd laugh, wings carrying her effortlessly over the dangerous and very dark trenches.
"Easy for you to say!" He'd heave, being forced to climb vine networks or cliff ridges over several story drops. He didn't think his heart could take another episode of his foot slipping like that…
What time wasn't spent hiking or fighting, was taken up by them foraging for food, water and shelter. Spyra knew the swamps so well that pretty much everything they needed she had an answer as to how to get. She'd oftentimes come back with something in her jaws, usually a dead badger, some fish or sticks filled with edible berries. She knew where all the caves and groves were, and where to get firewood. He'd chop and she'd ignite it.
The whole while, Spyra told him about everything she could think of. She told him about Cometcu, and Lightnux and Firefly and a whole plethora of other things, sometimes so quickly that he'd lose track of the subject.
At one point, they had been forced to go up a hillside pathway navigating limestone stacks. They couldn't see the estuary that was their guide, but they could hear it through the top of the cliff trench. It was always a murmuring babble in the backdrop.
Prior ambushes by the Apes had Spyra darting her eyes around with a kind of cautious mania. She examined the mossy, swampy rocks above with malice.
"The dragonflies used to tell spooky stories about the cliffs around here." She muttered over the ambiance of crickets and a whistling breeze. "That the howling noises the wind makes when it flows through the rock stacks are the souls of animals that have died here."
He almost told her that ghosts weren't real.
And maybe for her world that could've been truthful. But past experiences had only reassured him of just how restless the dead could really be.
In the end, he settled with:
"I'm right here for you."
Spyra paused on the path and looked up at him. She smiled, her tail whipping happily.
"…Yeah, you are. Thanks, dude." She chirped.
Eventually, they found an open faced crevice to camp in that night. It wasn't as enclosed as the caves they normally chose were, but the Fallen had wanted to take it on account of the view.
"What's the suit made out of, anyway?" Spyra pinched some of the linen of the Fallen's reflective jumpsuit as she lay beside him.
"It's made out of a reactive material that has a thin gel layer inside of it. It allows me to operate in any environment by regulating its temperature to match my bodyheat." He explained, leaning back against a rock.
This alcove was at the summit of a hill, and thus in two spanning directions, an ocean of willow tree canopies rendered blue in the nighttime din extended for miles. Massive mushroom caps were speckled among the trees, their spots glowing purple and pulsing in the dark. The swamps looked like they were glowing.
And that was just on the ground. It was the starry sky above that really got them to give the hill a try.
"Those are the Celestial Moons, my mom, Cometcu, is always talking about how they influence her vine-speaking abilities, depending on their positions in the sky." She pointed with her talon as she snuggled against his flank, the two of them taking a moment to pause by their quietly crackling fire. "You see the smaller, green looking one right there? That's Zella. And the bigger, bluer one there? That's Adrano. One's supposed to have good energy and one bad, or somethin' like that, I can't remember that part."
"That's cool." He was struggling to drink in the massive, spatial view above. Adrano was a glowing, blue sphere taking up a quarter of the sky, its bottom dusted with darkness and its surface riddled with craters. Zella was the green dwarf westward of it, its distance making it seem like it wished to hide among the carpets of glittering stars surrounding both planetoids.
Whether siblings or rivals, the moons were beautiful in the midnight blues and blacks swirling like reams of milk in the atmosphere.
"But I think you're cooler."
Spyra looked up and discovered his eyes locked on her. He was smiling, his normally creamy skin rendered royal blue beneath the glaze of the moons.
"Y'know," Spyra smiled back, kneading her talons softly into the leg sleeve of his suit. "…I've never been this far past my usual routes. I couldn't take anyone with me all of this time, and it made me feel like every extra mile I went was wasted because I couldn't share the experience with anyone. The swamp's too dangerous a place for a dragonfly…"
"Evidently not for a human and a dragon." He chuckled, scratching behind her horn. Spyra cooed and leant into his palm. She was like a cat. "While we're on the subject, let me tell you: I envy you a lot, to have this place all to yourself, free of responsibility."
"I have responsibilities to my family."
"Yes that's true, but I mean responsibilities of necessity. You are obligated to no one, you answer to no one, and up until recently you fled from no one. It was just you and free time in the center of nature. That is freedom."
"You think that's freedom? You travel between whole worlds. You can be anyone you want, wherever you want, however you want… that's freedom." Spyra picked at something on his chest, just looking for excuses to put her paws on him when she could. She'd been getting very physical the last few days. "…I think we both envy things about the other."
"That's not important." He hummed.
"It is to me." Her beautiful, purple eyes met his. "-I-I mean… y'know the here and now…"
That night, as she slept on her human under the gaze of the Celestial bodies, Spyra realized something…
The nightmares.
They'd stopped.
{🐉}
"It's not that big of a deal." She giggled.
The Fallen stared at her.
"It's a big deal." He said, blinking.
"You can pull it off." Spyra nodded past the trim of the ground. "You're an atheletic guy. Besides, we can't keep on the route if we don't go over it. We'll be out here for a week trying to go around it."
The Fallen looked at the subject matter.
Plainly: it was a pit.
A pit easily a kilometer wide, filled to the brim with twisting, interlocked thorn-veins. It was a meat grinder down there. Two spanning cliffs sealed the west and east, each overgrown with warped, ancient willow trees, whose deepest roots were the source of the pit's hungering toothed tongues, and whose midsections sported veins so thick, that they had taken earthly platforms out with them upon growth.
Thus, the only way to cross the pit was to hop between suspended, mossy islands, some of which were separated by gaps measuring at least ten to twelve feet.
He couldn't count how many islands there were. Maybe… forty?
This swamp was evil.
"I think I want to go around." He swallowed.
"Nahhhh, c'mon! It'll be fun, and look, I'll even jump with you, I won't fly over it, I promise! And if you fall, I can catch you by the shoulders!" Spyra flexed her paws at him playfully. "I'd carry you, but… you weigh a bit too much for me, for sustained flight anyway."
"Thanks." He rolled his eyes. "I appreciate the reassurance."
"No probs', dude." Spyra whipped him in the ass with her tail. "Git'."
Then she flapped her wings and heartstoppingly sailed over the first jump, landing without incident on the first island of the chain.
"…See…?" She called over. "…Easy-peasy!..."
"Easy-peasy." The Fallen stepped to the edge of the pit, looking down and swallowing. Those thorns were so sharp that their tips glinted sunlight off them.
Holy god….
"Easy-peasy." He coughed, winding back for a running jump.
One… two…
"-Aw, c'mon, man….! I'm gonna' grow a beard over here…"
…three.
The Fallen sprinted, feeling weightless, he cried out as he jumped and sailed across the gap, making even Spyra cut the chatter and edge forwards in worry.
He landed in a stumble on the edge of the island. He'd made it.
"Nice, frog-man, you can glide good." Spyra nodded. "Just over thirty more to go!"
His triumphant smile was wiped off his face.
"Fuck!" He barked at no one in particular. Spyra cackled at him.
Island after island… and the Fallen nearly slipped once or twice on rough landings. His heart felt like it was going to pop, and he was sweating. The thorns down there hungrily glared up at him constantly.
By island number ten, he had to pause to take a breather. Spyra was three islands ahead, apparently enjoying the challenge because of the lack of risk.
God damn her pretty, orange wings.
"…Don't wait for me or anything…" He called out, gripping his knees.
"…You're almost there…! Just move, dude….."
"Almost there?!" He cried. "If the other side's France, I'm in Bermuda!"
"…What did you say…?"
"Oh just fuck it." He snapped. "I'm coming."
He sprinted and went airborne, legs and arms windmilling until he landed on the next island with a grunt, the drop forcing him to roll to reduce the impact.
"…What's the matter, Fallen…? Gettin' outpaced by a gurrrllll~….?" Spyra was six islands ahead.
"You're deriving some kind of sick pleasure from this." He didn't bother trying to call it out. He knew the truth.
Standing up tiredly, he made to start another jump, his eyes flickering briefly across the chasm to the last few islands making the chain to the other side. Spyra's wings flapped as she got closer and closer, island-hopping like a friggin' gazelle.
Where was he? Limping in the back like a wounded cow.
Really funny.
He snorted and took off.
"…Oh shit- Fallen….! Lookout….!"
What?
Just as he landed on the next island, he heard an earthy impact, and saw a trail of stones and dust rolling down from the higher cliff face to the west.
He followed the disruption up and felt himself go pale.
It was Cynder! She was perched on a mossy stack like an eagle, glaring down at him with those eerie white eyes.
"Hello again, Fallen." She snarled, before turning her nose to Spyra further up ahead. "It looks like I've caught the two of you slacking…"
"No, just me." He sheepishly shrugged. "How's your chest feeling today?"
"Wonderful." Cynder licked her teeth. "You and me have much to discuss. But first… let me rid you of your baggage."
The black dragoness made an echoing, great heaving sound, before a torrent of tunneling Wind spewed from the tip of her beak and daggered straight for Spyra.
The purple dragoness gasped and flapped her wings just before the vortex overtook the island she was standing on. Cynder's breath attack was like a translucent limb, hooking around the root holding the island up and shaking it until the island fractured and crumbled into the thorny sea below.
"Why couldn't the one I want alive be the one blessed with flight?" Cynder muttered under her breath, before adjusting her voice so they both could here it again. "Your little domino-bridge will be the end of you."
Spyra skipped islands in her bid to get closer to the Fallen. Cynder shook apart the next one the second she landed, Spyra actually falling a few feet as she took off from the crumbling edge, the land tumbling out from under her feet.
"Dance, Purple Dragoness, dance!" Cynder shrieked in joy, knocking down islands like a torturer plucked fingernails.
A crossbow bolt shot out and embedded in her shoulder with an organic crunch! –Cynder howled and took flight, sweeping away from her perch to circle the pit.
The Fallen slipped his crossbow back over its belt and leaped another gap.
It was a mini-islet, he nearly teetered off the edge when he landed, his arms swinging out for balance.
"Don't fall~!"
The Fallen blinked, realizing both Spyra and Cynder had barked out the same thing.
Above, Cynder was snarling. She ripped the bolt in her shoulder out with her teeth and swooped, catching Spyra as she was gliding to another island.
Cynder swatted at her in a near miss, roaring in frustration when the purple dragon ducked and reached the next platform safely.
"Let's see you jump if you can't, well… SEE."
Shadow belched from Cynder's mouth on the next pass, completely bathing the island Spyra stood on right as she making to move again. The Fallen heard her cry out, but couldn't see her through a broiling mass of inky flames whipping over and off the edges of the platform like a living fog.
"Spyra!" He called. "Hold on!"
"No, Fallen." Cynder was upon him in an instant. "You hold on."
The human cried out as a pair of strong, yet lithe paws clenched over his shoulders and hauled him high into the air.
Was it a bad time to remember heights, without all his proper gear, made him sick?
He was screaming out all kinds of ridiculous sounding wails as Cynder flew, each pump of her beautiful wings making the pit get smaller and smaller below his dangling feet.
"Fear not, my little morsel~." Cynder salivated as she hummed to him. "I've got you secure, safe and very sound."
"-Normally-" The Fallen shrieked, hands locking over her talons. "-I wouldn't be complaining-! Getting- AHHhhhhAHAHHHH- kidnapped by a sexy dragon-!"
"Mmmmm, sexy~, I like that word…" Cynder chortled, her wings flapping as she carried him, the islands sweeping by below. "You have no idea how long it has taken me to find the two of you, constantly circling these fetid marshes like a vulture!"
Cynder made a displeased little sound and flapped harder.
"Now I've finally gotten you in my clutches, Fallen. Now I get to take you all the way home!"
"-Home-?! Where's home-?!"
"A dark place of misery and woe, where hope dies and malice breeds under the gaze of forgotten towers and the lonely she-witch presiding within." Cynder dramatically recited how the Northerners described it. "Cankerous Warfangians. No, my human, I'm taking you somewhere, granted, very very dark, but it's dark because it is private."
She curled her long neck down and whispered that in his ear. He smelled her minty breath and shivered as she laughed like a spoiled little girl finally getting a long desired treat.
"Mine mine mine, oh! Yes, mine, my human at last…" Cynder sang. "Your touch has invigorated me, even now, your supple hands on my talons… I've never felt something I've wanted to badly. I am going to make you my pet. You will pamper me, you will stand beside my throne and appeal to me, stroke me, heed my calls for you…"
The Fallen wasn't horrified about the stroking part.
But being a pet?
Him, a pet?!
No! This would not stand.
"-I regret to inform you, madame-!" He swung his legs, once, twice, and then brought his knees up. "-But I'm no one's hamster-!"
He locked his legs over her neck and squeezed. Cynder roared as her path stuttered and started to lose altitude. A second later, and the air whistled as a purple, very angry ballistic warhead rocketed from a nearby island straight for her.
"-Gimme' back my human, you bitch!" Spyra shrieked, colliding with Cynder's flank.
Cynder cursed and released her paws. The Fallen hollered as he lost his grip, and found himself hanging upside down with his legs still locked around Cynder's neck.
"-Oooohhhhgodd-" He screamed, seeing the pit yawning below them all. "-My luck-!"
Cynder kicked Spyra away, sending her rolling, before slapping her paws over his back and zipping down for the other side of the trench.
"I'm not letting her have you. You're mine. Mine!"
"-Finders keepers-" The Fallen apologetically cried as he slipped a knife from his hem. "-The purple one got there first-!"
He slit her arm just ahead of the bracelet, making her roar and drop him to the ground below.
Luckily she'd been flying low.
He rolled painfully and came to a stop in a patch of grass. The Fallen looked up and saw Cynder had dropped him on the other side of the chasm completely.
Well, it was a quicker method than island hopping.
"Run!" Spyra shrieked, landing next to him. The companions ducked into the woods, soon outpacing Cynder's very displeased roars as they echoed across the landscape.
Close call number-….
…They'd lost count.
{🐉}
It was the next day that they reached it. The river.
"…It's liquid amber." The Fallen huffed as he climbed up the last rock stack. They'd had to surmount the side of a waterfall to reach the canal's source feed. Where mist divided the river's flank, the water beyond it was no longer gray and white.
Here, it was colored like fire, and it sloshed like molten magma. A golden river, surrounded by mushrooms and creepers long down to the right and left. Beautiful.
"No, it isn't amber, it's just water colored like amber." Spyra smiled sadly, padding up to the black sand bar and sticking a paw into the drift. "The dragonflies think that the great Mayfly was entombed at the mouth of this river, and that all the dew he drank in life to pollinate the swamp flowers runs off in the water. I never believed that hot-crap for a second, but… but I still respect it, the river I mean."
The dragon turned to him and smiled, splashing some of the water at his feet playfully.
"My little basket came down it. It has to be with me in some way." She shrugged. "…But, uhm… I'm gettin' distracted. So, no bug-tomb where we're going, but... What do you think?"
"I'm not sure." He admitted, chewing on some of their ration berries. "But it's gotta' be better than the Apes."
"They're marching in the opposite direction now." Spyra noted. "Cynder's trying to catch us in a wall. Just smoosh the mob around, back and forth. Some of those shit-flinging tards have to run into us eventually. They already have!"
"All the more dangerous for them." He patted the new array of toys he'd been leisurely picking off the dead. A bandolier was over his tattered jumpsuit, stuck through with a handful of sticks of dynamite. A bolt quiver hung from his hip, and the crossbow it fed was strapped over his back with a fresh new pair of cleaver blades.
"How come you get all the cool stuff?" Spyra crinkled her nose, circling him to examine the armory. "You're not the only one with opposable thumbs."
"But I am the only one with pockets." He patted the bandolier. "Not all of us are keen on walking around naked."
"You're not complainin' though." She hip-bumped him. "Besides, dragons only shield themselves in battle armor, or robes I've heard. Only the most regal of clothes are fit for our bodies. We got a reputation to keep."
"I hope you didn't pick all that up just by meeting Cynder…"
"No, she's like the anti-exemplar of everything I just said. Crazy bitch should stop hangin' out with monkeys and cutting up her own wrists." Spyra chortled. "-Eeew, look at me, I'm Cynder, and I'm purtey. So so purtey. Look, I twirl my wrist and think it's cool.-"
The Fallen laughed at her.
"-I attack random people in swamps, and blow up caves," Spyra ranted. "I take it up the ass from any good gettins, and scream at people I don't like. I have problems. Wuv me."
"It does raise a whole lot of questions." The Fallen shook his head. "Who is she? What's her goal here? She's obviously here for the crystals, and now you. But there's always ulterior motives. And most importantly; who do I have to beat down, skin or strangle to get at that pussy of hers."
"Excuse me?" Spyra squeaked.
"Nothing." He sucked up his own lips and hurried his pace. "Onward."
The river was quiet, aside from the slapping brooks and croak of frogs. Their conversations were normally quick before terminating, and long periods of silence followed between them.
It wasn't bad silence, at least. Spyra was smiling the entire time. She had never explored, traveled or walked with anyone besides Firefly, and every once and a while, one of her adoptive parents.
Now she had her human.
Her human.
Spyra examined his face, lacking a snout, cream colored, and covered in skin. Despite his freakish height in comparison to her own, his upright stance and his alien attributes, Spyra would dare say that he was cute. Handsome.
In a completely platonic sort of sense.
She gulped as her gaze wandered all over him. Maybe it was the isolation? But something about having the first warm bodied male being near her daily, one that was biologically on the same level as her, was causing her much distraction.
Maybe some of that swamp muck had gotten in her mouth and infected her with a rare and disorienting disease? At least the impact would be less embarrassing, the more out of her control it became.
Nah, I'm just lonely, she reasoned. Lonely people don't think straight…
They camped in a little alcove when the evening began to fall, reliant on the Apes being too far off to notice the little dot of light that was their miniscule campfire (eagerly lit by Spyra, who giggled at the thing incessantly afterwards).
"Something just slithered past my paw!" Spyra gasped, gazing around the amber colored water rapidly. They were both standing in the shallows, and she was doing her best to stand on her toes, keeping her wings and tail out of the surf like they would melt if she made contact. "Falleeennn, I don't like this idea!"
"Quit being such a baby." He waved her off, crossbow aimed and sweeping for targets. "You're a dragon and this is supposed to be your swamp. Haven't you gotten in touch with your inner bear, or your inner cat a long time ago?"
"I'm not any of those things. Do these spines look like dorsal fins to you? I ain't a water serpent. My prey's always terrestrial." –She said that last bit with haughty emphasis. "Nice roasted elk haunch, or rabbit's leg. Now we're talkin'!"
"I'm sorry my culinary pursuits don't quite meet your standards." He chuckled, pinching an eye shut. "I got you."
"I don't mean to sound like a pompous ass or nothin', but dragons just have that higher standard than other folk do." Spyra grinned, chancing an examining glance down her spined back and tail. "Though, I'll admit a weakness for those berries you picked. But red meat, cooked through dragonflame? You've tasted nothing better in your whole-"
P-lkkk~! –screamed the crossbow. Spyra yipped and splashed onto her back. She breached the amber water sputtering.
"-Caught one."
She gawked as he held up the bolt with a twitching, silvery fish impaled through the flank on it.
"You cook, I cut."
"…I'm sorry." Spyra mumbled later that night, fish still rolling inside her mandible as she chewed.
"For what?" The Fallen was taking great care in handling the fish. On it went, through cleaned holder-sticks over the flames' flank, off it came to rotate once, twice, then onto a little flat stone for a makeshift plate.
Spyra paused for a moment to stare with intrigue at the little setup he was working. A survivalist's kitchen perhaps?
"For snappin' at you all the time." Spyra shrugged like it was nonchalant, idly poking at her last little slab of fish. "…It's, uhm… ahem, rude. I haven't ever talked to someone who wasn't living ten or twenty feet away from me, and wasn't a quarter of my size."
She blinked at him playfully.
"You're the first guy I've met whose made me feel small." She thought about her own words and hummed. "And I appreciate everything you're doin'. You have no obligation to me, or my family or my brother. You could've just kept on-a-walkin', gone off to get back to this war of yours."
A heavy pause filled the air, and Spyra opened her mouth. Her eyes were cast back and a nervous sort of laugh happened from her.
"I hate being sappy. It makes my scales crawl, it's why when I was a hatchling I hated Dragonfly School so much, they always wanted us to be sappy for these plays they'd organize for all the grownups... But, like I had this little voice in my head telling me to touch those crystals, I have another one telling me to just spill the beans to you about… well, me. 'Cause I have this striking suspicion that you're not a man of common charity, but for me, you'll listen…"
"Of course I will."
"So… Dragonfly School. Dragonfly School, I… uhm… I never participated in any of the little plays they had us do for our parents. There were only three or four teachers the whole time I was there, village being small and all…" He settled in and listened to her talk. "Ms. Gatterwing was my teacher. Boy, did I make a handful for her. When I showed up for the first day of class, I ate my desk right in front of her and-"
"Wait." The Fallen held a hand up. "You ate your desk?"
"Dragonlings are hungry little shitters, 'specially the girls." She winked at him. "It was only as big as an apple, or something, like here, see my paw? No bigger than that. Anyway it was willow-wood, a little slab of it. For some reason, when I was little I liked to teethe on willow-wood a lot. So I just… y'know, bent down and snapped it up."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that! In front of the whole class too. They were in the pond on the side of the little classroom she'd made in the communal grove. All of them were gawking at me, and dad said you could hear the splinters snapping across the whole village. I was apparently very happy, while this was happening, I had a big ole' dragon-grin, eating my desk like it was an appetizer chip or somethin'." She demonstrated, showing off her pearly white razor teeth. "Ah, but Ms. Gatterwing was a nice lady. I gave her more hell than she deserved."
"What about these plays?"
"Her and the other teachers thought it'd be cute if all the nymphs learned an old nursery rhyme and sung it for the village. I'd always sulk and chew on my talons in the corner during practice." She demonstrated the little pose for him, and he hummed laughter at her. "I was the 'Big purple girl with the tail and horns' to the nymphs, and the 'Landwalker'. All the other kids hated me because I didn't have to grow up in the water, they were jealous that I had land-legs the moment I was born. So, with no friends, hating school, I grew up with Firefly and he showed me the ropes of being a dragonfly, living like one, navigating the immediate swamp around our village..."
Spyra smiled sadly.
"I think that little firecracker's been swallowed by every big predator in the swamp. He got eaten by a Toadwort a few days right before I met you. But saving him has sort of a gratification to it. I'm the big sister with the scary claws and teeth, so I gotta' save the day." Spyra lowered her sight to the campfire. "It wasn't that much different afterwards. I know you're sitting there waiting for a more complicated life story, but… but really that's it. I've never done anything spectacular except map out point A to B the world's largest cesspool of a marsh."
The Fallen witnessed true embarrassment for the first time from her. Even earlier this morning, there had been theater at play. Here? Spyra was showing off a lot of colors for how vulnerable she was making herself.
"…I'm an easy sort of soul to forget anyways."
He slurped noisily on his own last little cutlet, and smacked his lips when he was done, staring silently at the brooding reptile over the fire.
"Would you mind if I went over some things I've observed about you?" He asked.
Another nervous laugh. He tried to appear pleasant as the purple dragon bit her lower lip, her eyes bashfully meeting his. That blush was a hot pink. She was actually really cute, when you got past all the foul-mouthed tom-foolery and the loud noise.
"…You've been takin' notes or something?" She giggled with that slightly tanged accent that he couldn't place.
"Mental ones. I normally don't do that for a lot of people I meet. What I do isn't really so complicated at the end of the day, once you have context, but learning to understand people? Necessary for what I am. Hard to do."
"So you've met loads of people I bet." Her mood started to drain a little and she picked at her fish. Curled on the cave floor like a cat, her tail started to twitch, sending the golden-leafed tip flicking.
"A decent number." He kept his attention solely on her. "But I wanted to talk more about you, if you don't have any objections."
"…Okay~." She cupped the tip of her snout with a paw. There it was again, wham, bashful blush-ahoy. Spyra was as volatile as the fire she breathed. One minute it simmered and existed solely as embers dancing on the earth. The next, and it reformed into a raging inferno on the drop of a hat.
"Number one; you react emotionally to things." He said right off the bat. "That isn't a bad thing. But you asked me to teach you about me, how to fight, how to survive, for yourself. The first step to survival and progress is understanding your own inner chemistry."
"Okay." Spyra pinched the fish cutlet between her talons and dropped it into her mouth, chewing quietly as she drummed fingers on her chin. "But you said I was a natural fighter by the canal. You also said you needed a sen-say to refine you, I just think I need one to refine me."
"You think I'm that sensei?" He grinned.
"…Ahem, assuming?" The dragon cleared her throat. She was barely able to talk through her giggling. "…I-I'd like it if you were~."
"Number two; you need to get out more."
"Ouch, dude." Spyra flinched.
"That's not a bad thing either." He reassured her. "When I said people are hard to get, it isn't because they suck, or are horrible on principle. Though, don't get me wrong, there's plenty of that to go around. People are hard, because it's difficult to make them think about things that make them uncomfortable. People need to expand their minds to prosper."
"…So you're sayin' I need to expand more?"
"Bingo." He snapped his fingers. "And, I'd like to help you do that."
"W-Wow, that's…" Spyra was blushing madly now, staring at him with this dreamy sort of expression. She started to lean a bit closer, crawling around the rim of the fire towards him. "…And what might be asked in return for such generosity, I wonder…"
The Fallen kept an even expression as Spyra flopped down right beside him, leaned her flank into him and rested her head on his knee, looking up at him with big eyes.
"…I'm not asking for anything." He stammered.
"Well," Spyra crawled up his lap, and laid a paw on his chest. She leveled her snout with the side of his head, and then planted a quaint little kiss on his cheek, using her lower lip for leverage on his salty tasting, human skin. Spyra licked at her teeth and giggled. "…feel free to."
{🐉}
Spyra spent the next morning wondering aloud to herself about her time in the amber river. Something about going back into her 'Birthwaters' or whatnot. He was pretty sure the word baptize was tossed around jokingly.
That dragoness was a mystery, oh boy.
One minute, mushy-ushy-gushy flirting and sensuality, the next manic hysteria, and then before you knew it, she was on top of you threatening to scoop out your eyes with a rusty spoon.
At least it made her fun, as well as ballistic missile flavor went.
They found the ruins halfway through the next day's trek, over unwanted company.
"I found something." The Fallen called over, his blade producing a thick, squelching noise as he yanked it from the crumpled guts of an unfortunate Toadwort. The body melted like dissolving mud and became part of the shore.
"So did I!" Spyra laughed, pinching through the mucky remains of one of her own victims, and plucking out a single, golden coin from the viscera. "…Wow…. Wonder how this baby got in there…" It was minted in a thin bar of script, with the image of a dragon's head in the center on both sides. The Fallen stomped closer and whisked it from her claw. "-Hey! Finders keepers!"
"That might be our only leverage where we're going." He safely tucked the coin in the jumpsuit hem after brushing it off.
Spyra was mumbling to herself and kicking a rock when he lightly touched her wing.
"Fresh out of shiny baubles, dude, rob someone else…" She pouted.
"Look." He pointed at the head of the river. Spyra's mouth dropped open from what she saw.
There was an amber waterfall roaring from a level up. At the top of the cliff was a cracked archway. Pillars stuck out from the foliage nearby as did a loose path of gateways leading deeper into the gnotted bramble.
There was a dome-like structure birthing from the plateau above. It had stubby windows of cracked, amber glass. Multicolored runes in a language neither of them could read straddled sills, support struts, and blended with green carpets of creepers who sought to overcome the brickwork and return it all to the earth.
Some of the gigantic mushrooms overhead allowed sunlight to dapple through on crimson and orange beams. These reflected off the bronze eyes of a massive statue sticking out of the center of the reservoir capping the river that the falls fed into.
It was a gigantic carving depicting a dragon in full battle plate. A male, judging by the musculature and weight distribution. His iron jaw was fixed in an eternal cringe of almost uncomfortable concentration. Spines ran down his back, down a powerful tail and tipped into a mace's head. He had four horns, daggering from his temples and rear scalp like flower petals. His paws were in front and center, like he was posing for a regal oil painting to feature his visage.
Creepers ate away at what chipped stonework didn't. His preened wings were mottled by the absence of the left entirely. Spyra and the Fallen walked to the edge of the shore and examined the exterior of the ruined structure and its décor.
"…He looks… big too." Spyra gulped, eyeing the statue.
"Probably actual size." He grimly muttered, a dangerous sort of light blooming in his gaze. He slipped out his stolen Ape's blade and nodded for the temple. "What do you know about that place?"
"…Uhhhhh that it didn't exist." She blinked. "I've never been down this far before! Following the river means getting closer to the Forbidden Funguswood." She nodded for some of the giant mushrooms looming overhead the ruins. "We're practically on its doorstep by this point. It curls west once you get past the foothills, and mom and dad forbid me to ever go there. Ugh, I'm an idiot for not thinking of that!"
"You're not an idiot." He had known fairly well that following the river meant reversing. But that was goal number two why lye in that darkness. That could wait. "Be on your guard, places like this rarely stay empty."
"Y-You mean we're going inside?"
"Is that a problem?" He stopped and looked at her.
Spyra let a manic, wild grin creep on her face as she hopped after him,
"Hell no, I was just makin' sure we were this crazy." She nudged him. "I dig danger. Maybe there'll be some-"
He stepped near the edge of a horse-sized mushroom, and immediately both of them went rigid when the entire cap began to quiver.
The earth crumpled, roots cracked and leaves dusted away. What had once been a 'mushroom' –turned out to be the bulbous, spotty abdomen of something much worse.
Eight bladed legs popped out from the crumbling soil and pecked into the ground. A hideous shriek sounded out through a bushel of pulsating mouth pieces, and a duo of green-spittle dripping chelicerae.
"Eew." The Fallen winced.
"-Bulb Spiders! Yeah-hah~! That's what I was about to say…"
The giant spider clicked and chattered as it crawled towards them in a quick pace. Another shriek further off, and another three of the creatures hopped or shimmied out from nooks and crannies in the woodwork behind.
"I hate spiders." He grumbled.
"First one to kill the most has to rub the other's paws!"
The Fallen grunted as Spyra vaulted off his shoulders and darted at the nearest spider.
{🐉}
"Did you hear that?" The Wingleader's voice pierced the shadows like a needle through cotton, making everyone freeze where they were.
After a moment of seeming nothingness, Torrdonal piped up with a hoarse hiss.
"I don't hear anything. It's probably the dumpoff canal leaking again."
"No, I heard it too." Corrinthol shook his head, pointing at the southern end of the chamber with his black tailtip. "A scuffle! Right outside the main atrium, 10 yards minimum from the exterior wall."
"Oh dear," Taliopia gasped, her claws skittering as she scrambled farther back from the southern ring. "-w-what do you think it is? Does it have teeth? Or is it armed? Are there a lot of them? I-I can't breathe."
"C'mon, Tali', I'm right here! I'm right here, just… in, and out, in and out… There you go." Morinth soothed in the dark, Tali's wheezing now buzzing around the room. If that wasn't bad enough, the Night Dragoness then started to sing… "Here we are, in our little peace-ful place~….."
"Cap'n, can we shut her up?" Corrinthol growled through his paw-palm.
"-Taking calm on the aiiiirrrr~ And that reeeedddd little drake, in the corner, must mind his tongue, lest I take it~"
"That was a threat!" Corrinthol whined. "Did you see? She's the one who started it! This is why we get chosen for these kinds of things."
"I'm just an observer in all this." Torrdonal chimed.
"Lack of squad cohesion. Written in dripping, black ink. Yeah, and don't think I don't read the office's records, ladies." Corrinthol ranted.
"Enough!" Captain Harad barked, silencing the shithouse on the dot. "I command a section of warriors, not a cavalcade of insubordinate childlings. The Wingleader decides our course of action."
No response came from the north. The scuffle outside was in full swing. A terrible shriek pierced the air, and Taliopia whimpered, burying her snout in Morinth's side.
"Mmmm, Bulb Spiders. Cheeky that." Morinth hummed. "My old training sergeant made a ridiculous Bulb Spider cutlet when I was in the academy."
"The rank will stick to orders and maintain silence." Harad corrected. "Wingleader?"
"Ape steal." The Wingleader muttered as she listened to the fighting. The ring of a blade, the crunching of chitin, the grunts of exertion from a non-arachnid combatant, and…
…the rush of dragonfire.
"Dragon's breath." The Wingleader paused. "They've come."
"Corrinthol, take to the upper level and watch the main gateway. Morinth and Taliopia, flank left and assault from the doorway there. Torrdonal, you're with me." Harad gestured with his earthen wingtips and his mace-ended tail.
"Yessir." Corrinthol dejectedly grunted. His wings flapped and he vanished into the shadows above.
"C'mon, Talliiii', it's time for the war to give us a little taste." Morinth sang, yanking on the terrified medic's flank.
"No, Morinth! I-I can't fight! I'm a pacifist. I heal people, not hurt them!" Taliopia cried, stumbling after the darker female as she was dragged away.
"That medic is a liability I warned of, and it went unheeded." Harad sighed, addressing the approaching figure of the Wingleader. "Ma'am? You're free to partake in our operations as you see fit. But do mind your headspace, and don't interfere with the soldiers."
"I'm well aware of the handicap I am to your movements, Captain." The Wingleader didn't sound perturbed at all, in fact, she sounded quite pleasant, yet sharply intelligent. For her role, it was an unsurprising aura that she sported. "You won't even know I am here, and I'm completely confident in your abilities to subdue the servants of the Dark Army. Carry on."
"Right," Harad took position behind a pillar, folding his wings and curling up his tail, minding the weight its maced tip balanced on the end. "then stand back, ma'am. Your search can resume as soon as these bastards lie dead."
{🐉}
Morinth found a nice little space which was perfect for a spring attack. She wedged herself under a low-hanging window sill, and plopped the distraught Taliopia right behind her, always keeping their tails entwined, as was usual for the pair.
"-how will I live with the moral-weight of it, Morinth?" Taliopia moaned, now full on crying into her own paw-palms as she bundled into a fetal position and started rocking, her tail tightening over Morinth's. "I can't kill people, even if they're mean! This is why I never wanted to leave Tall Plains~! Oh my god, I'm gonna' DIE OUT HERE-!"
"Oh nonono, stow that baby-boo-load of doody right now, little lady. Shush, shushshushshush…" Morinth turned around and patted right between Tali's horns sympathetically. The medic was bawling, her pink wings curled feebly around her sides as she panicked. "We're soldiers of the New Kingdom, Taliiiii~ And we do-not falllttteerrrrr~"
"But, Morri-poo!" Taliopia practically squeezed out the shrill report of a dog's chew toy for how hard she embraced her darker scaled friend. Morinth's neon green eyes gleamed like emeralds in the dark, blinking blankly at the medic. "I'm so scared, I… I think I- oo~! Oh my god, I just… I just peed a little bit…"
"Sooooo, first thing's first, uh, eew-" Morinth wriggled out of her grasp and peered around the corner, trying to ignore Taliopia's sniffling as she gazed at the front wooden doors to the Dragon Temple. That was where the enemy would be breaching from. Her and the medic were needed if the ambush was going to work properly. She turned back to the mewling white dragoness in the room with her and rubbed her wingtips soothingly, wringing their tails together. "Second thing is, get yourself together. Tali', I know you. You have a head of steel and a heart of gold! It's all the beginnings of a great warrior, one that'll go down in history."
Steel rung outside and another Bulb Spider shrieked. Morinth ground her fangs, she stood on her toes and peered over the window sill nervously. Through the cracked amber glass, she could make out a jerking mesh of bodies going up the steps.
"It's okay, Taliopia, my doctoring 'ness, my lovvveeeee~, you will be just fine with me. We'll show that cocksucker-uhm- that big poopy-head, Corrinthol, that you've got the right stuff." Morinth grinned cheaply.
"You're just saying all that to make me feel better." Taliopia sniffled, wristing her eyes in an attempt to dry them. Morinth knew that when they were fully open, and Taliopia was in a much better mood, that they were colored a vibrant pink, just like her wings, and that they were the most beautiful pools of color she knew.
"No, I'm saying what I know to be true, my dear." Morinth nuzzled their snouts together, and bumped her breast into Tali's. "Now get your concentration back, baby, and I'll reward you later." She nipped the other dragoness' lower lip.
"You mean it, Morri-poo?" Taliopia wiggled her runny nose and gave puppy-eyes.
"Yes I mean it."
"Okay~." Taliopia embraced Morinth again, smiling happily as she nuzzled into her neck. "You're the best thing a dragoness could ask for. I'll fight the bad-guys as long as you're with me. W-Where are they anyway?"
"They're just outside that-"
The door came crashing off its hinges just around the corner. Someone grunted and a Bulb Spider screamed. Chitin crunched and wood splintered, then all went silent.
"….inside that doorway." Morinth grinned sheepishly. Taliopia looked like she was about to shit herself. "Alright, missy, move your tail, it's time to feast on Grublin intestines. For WARFANNNGGGG~!" –
Morinth grabbed Taliopia and thrust them both past the doorframe with a shrill duo of roars. One in battle-fury, the other in horrified terror. One could guess which belonged to who.
{🐉}
Spider corpses soiled the once mightily beautiful stairwell. If Spyra were in a more reminiscent mood, she might've felt bad about the development.
But, her attitude didn't allow much room for consideration over a bunch of fuckin' people who had been dead for millennia. If you didn't want your lobby to be stained with blood ten thousand years later, maybe you should've made the structure shittier as to induce collapse earlier in the century.
The Fallen cried out as he shouldered under the dying arachnid's mass, and drove the blade into the underside of its thorax repeatedly, creating a geyser of spattering, white blood and gushing entrails that plopped thickly around his legs.
Spyra grimaced and looked back at the array of dead they'd left in a trail. Six had just been the start of apparently a whole nesting ground or something, because tens of the dead mushroom-camouflaged spiders were everywhere. Cut to pieces, squashed, impaled, burnt to crisps and run through with crossbow bolts. Spyra gave a nearby spider that she'd torched a light sniff and snorted.
It actually kinda' smelled like barbeque.
Mmmm, sauce~ the feisty dragoness licked her chops, and tapped her talons on her belly.
"Yo, alien-man!" She called over nonchalantly, not even blinking as the Fallen screamed again, and hiked the gut-gushing monster over his bloodstained shoulders. "Hurry up the stabby and slashy so we can grab a bite to eat! All this cookin's got me hungrier than a ferret in a fruit tree."
"-Raaahhhh~!" The Fallen body-slammed the spider into the front doors of the ruined structure. Crash~! –the two heavy wood doors snapped off their ancient frames and collapsed into the space beyond, drowning the stairs in dust and dancing splinters.
The human stood from the wreckage, panting heavily as he stared down at the mangled corpse of his enemy. The spider's legs twitched a few times and then remained still. Its body had been shredded, and wood splinters were sticking through it all over the place, like someone had compressed it through a cheesegrater.
"Remind me never to piss you off." Spyra shivered as she trotted to his side. She coughed and swatted away at some of the lingering dust. "You think anyone inside heard us come in?"
"Funny." He grumbled, rolling his shoulder as he glared into the chamber beyond. It was a dark, rectangular gallery of sorts, the large room was laden with pillar rows going west and east, and the ceiling was intersected with tens of rotting, wooden support struts and ribs.
"It looks like a tomb." Spyra whispered. "I've found a few of those before! In the bog caves and methane tunnels, there's a bunch buried. I could never get any of the coffins open though… too heavy lids."
"You tried to open the gravesites of dead people?" He murmured with sudden distaste, stepping back from the wood and spider brand-mesh carnage.
"For educational reasons." Spyra grinned.
"-FOR WARFANNNGGGG~!"
A black blur zipped out from a portcullis leading to one of the ruin's side chambers. It traveled to them with a kick of something leathery that flapped on the wind. There was a feral snarl, a slice of metal to metal. Spyra didn't even have time to react before-
Clang~!
A pair of blades had met right before her nose.
The Fallen had leaned over and drawn his sword, meeting halfway the vicious, overhead strike from a crescent of steel jutting from the tip of a pair of mounting rings. Those rings were locked around the tip's girth of a tail.
A dragon's tail.
A black scaled, gunmetal underbellied dragoness with striking emerald eyes, and four inwards-curved, silvery horns stood snarling in front of them. Her tail was tipped with the vicious crescent. It shivered against the Fallen's defense, digging into the metal as he refused to give ground.
"You're not Grublins." Morinth snapped through grit fangs.
"Get away from my Morri-poo, servants of the Dark One!" A dainty, white scaled dragon with pink eyes and wings zipped around the corner afterwards, brandishing a dagger-point cuffed around her tailtip. She scrabbled to a halt on the brick floor right next to Morinth.
Taliopia gave one bewildered look at the very angry human, experienced a twitch down her entire spine, and fainted on the spot, her scales rattling against pieces of the smashed door. Morinth sighed.
"Significant others, may you not live without them, but suffer their faults." She muttered, clicking her fangs as she worked the blade merger. "Cheeky that."
"Hell-o, miss..." The Fallen leaned forwards, his eyes bugging at the sight of yet another, quite fine, and shapely dragoness. "Do you frequent these ruins often?"
Morinth's jaw went slightly slack.
"HEY! I'm. Right. Fucking. Here." Spyra screamed and ripped at her own horns.
"Corrinthol, now!" A huge green-colored dragon with bronze ram-horns, covered in silver armor plate zipped from behind a pillar deeper inside the room. He opened his mouth, and a pillar of green-glowing rock flew from behind his fangs!
It sailed straight at the Fallen's head.
Torn from ogling the fresh durg-meat, the warrior ripped his blade from Morinth's crescent, and fell to a single knee, wincing when the magically conjured stalagmite grazed the top of his shoulder, drawing a bloody, crimson line through the jumpsuit. The projectile took out a chunk of the gateway frame behind him in a blast of dust.
"Incoming~!"
The Fallen grunted as a red and gold dragon fell from the ceiling and landed across his back. Corrinthol flapped his deep umber wings and wrestled the human to the brickwork, snarling, with flames whipping from his teeth as he did it.
"Stay down, tough guy, I'd hate to have rip off your-" Corrinthol retracted with a snort as he pinned the small of the Fallen's back, his green eyes wide in shock. "-waitasecond, what the hell is this thing?"
With an iniquitous snarl, the human's elbow lashed out in a precise strike to Corrinthol's throat. The flame dragon made a comical choking noise as his airway was smushed, and he reeled from the blow. The Fallen looped to his back and kicked the soldier twice under the chin, the last strike causing Corrinthol to flip end-over-ass and crash into a wall.
Torrdonal ran past Captain Harad, flanked the two heroes, and opened his mouth before a swirling jet of magically projected water shot out with a firehose's strength. The cyclone whooshed as it tore through the air, white as a diamond and flickering with veins of rapidly rotating liquid, shimmering like melted silver.
Spyra jumped in front of the intended target, screaming as reams of dragonfire spewed from her throat and met the hydro-tunnel halfway. The two breath attacks produced a shockwave as they collided, water turning to steam whilst the two polar opposite beams struggled to diminish the other.
The Fallen jumped to his feet, kicking Corrinthol in the face as the fire dragon shakily attempted to recover. The draconic warrior squawked and tossed onto his gut like a limp fish.
Harad's evil mace-tail catapulted into view a moment later, but the Fallen jumped and flipped over the weapon's destructive route. He landed parallel to Harad's muscular rear legs, stamping on his green tail to keep it still. He sprinted up Harad's back, and held on tightly to his armored throat as the angry Captain bucked and roared in protest.
Acquiring a stick of looted dynamite, the Fallen grabbed a horn, yanked Harad's head back, and struck the fuse like a match off the corner of the dragon's protective helmet. He shoved the stick into Harad's mouth and distanced himself with a heavy grapple and toss, rolling to safety nearby.
Harad landed close by to Torrdonal. The dynamite bounced at his feet. The Captain rolled into a ball, green light flashing as a magically projected sphere of stone encased his previously vulnerable body. The dynamite exploded and drowned the whole western side of the room in smoke and sparks. The blastwave knocked Torrdonal silly, sending the weakened water dragon screaming as he flew through an ancient, now shattered amber window and tumbled into the reservoir outside.
"Who are these people?" Spyra huffed, lingering closer as she spouted out a last few drops of molten spit. "They don't look like Apes, and they certainly don't smell like 'em. Maybe we shou-"
The Fallen grunted when a massive tail smacked into his face, sending him careening on his own heels like a ballerina mid-spin. He crashed, senseless, against a pillar and fell on his face, unmoving.
Spyra was swept to the ground before she could even utter a peep. Two umber-colored paws pinned her by the breast, but maintained a sort of softness that suggested the identity of this attacker was… different. Different how? Spyra didn't know.
Atop her was a dragoness. And she rivaled even Cynder in the looks department by a longshot.
Crimson bodied, with decorative umber fins, and yellow highlighted details streaming down her plated limbs and neck, the fire dragon had piercing eyes of orange, flared, almost Asian-styled facial fins and spines, and had two rugged horns. Her wingspan was immense. They spread like a pair of massive sheets on either side of her, pulsating like blood in the daytime sun's glare passing through the gate arch.
Spyra met the flame dragoness eye-to-eye, expecting the same kind of battle-weary expression she'd seen on every other dragon she'd encountered so far.
Instead, what she found was a look of shock dawning on the older dragon's face.
Nearby, the Fallen had glanced up from where he'd… ironically, fallen, and went bug-eyed at the brilliant display of curvy, draconic femininity poised on top of the first bitch he'd been drooling over to begin with.
The poor warrior made a wheezing noise as he reached out to clasp the buxom masses of ovaloid flesh denoting the weight the dragoness possessed in her umber hindquarters. The Fallen's eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he face-smashed the cobble, a fist pumping into the floor as he landed on an unfortunately timed boner.
"Ouch." He uttered, his dick getting bricked.
There ain't no breaks for a Portaljumper. Except all the wrong kinds.
"…It's you…"
Spyra's attention was reaffixed back on her attacker. The flame dragoness leaned down with wide eyes, her lower jaw quivering as all former intention left her.
The paws holding onto Spyra's breast weakened in their resolve.
"…Introductions are a lot nicer when I'm not under you and on the floor, lady…" Spyra grimaced, nudging her snout away when the flame dragon brought her own muzzle uncomfortably close. Spyra's nostrils flared. The older dragoness smelled exactly like cinnamon.
"It's actually you."
Spyra gasped as she was dragged off the floor, and crushed in an overwhelming hug. The flame dragon sat on her hinds, laughing hysterically as she smushed the poor purple beastess to her breastplates and squeezed giddily.
"You're alive~! By the Ancestors' Grace, you've returned to us! I've found you! All of this time, and I've found you!"
"Wingleader Ignitia, what is going on?" Captain Harad stormed up to the exchange and took a combat pose over the weakened human's form. The Fallen didn't give any signs of further resistance down there. Was he dead?
Spyra gasped for air as she un-stuck her face from Ignitia's chest and looked down at her alien friend.
"Fallen? Fallen! Get up, dude! I'm being-" She struggled against the hug, gasping when Ignitia started to cry as she was rocked like a favored stuffed animal. "-I'm being molested~! By this crazy, cinnamon-smelling, annoyingly sexy bitch! Help!"
"She's just an adorable little thing, isn't she…" Corrinthol rubbed tenderly at his head, sneering. "…I was hoping for some tally marks."
"….Help…~! Guys…. Help…..~! I'm drowning!~ I… Oh wait…. I can swim….. Nevermind!" –Came faintly from Torrdonal outside.
"Stand down, Captain, this is someone very, very important… Essential, really, to the survival of our people, and…" Ignitia breathed, but settled for a content sigh as she buried her nose into the top of Spyra's head. The purple dragoness squealed in disapproval.
"This thing is a menace. It's dangerous. I will not stand down." Harad pointed hurriedly with his mace at the human on the floor. "I cannot identify its species. Some kind of Ape? Working with a dragon? Madness."
"It kicked me in the face!" Corrinthol whined.
"It hit on me." Morinth sneered, fanning Taliopia's face with her paw. The poor medic's mouth gaped and drool started to leak. She was out like a candle in a wind tunnel.
"It tried to drown me." Torrdonal gasped, dripping wet as he limped up the stairs and back into the temple lobby.
"It should be liquidated." Harad sneered.
"It should be left to its peace until it can properly communicate with us." Ignitia shook her head, not releasing her poor mewling quarry. Spyra grit her fangs as she twisted and kicked. The larger flame dragoness didn't even take notice. "Then it can tell us how and why it protected the one thing that can save us from this war. Why it brought to us the Purple Dragon of Lore. Our savior."
{🐉}