Dragon(s)layer
17
When she first broke through the shell, she had been blind. All dragonlings were blind when they hatched.
Cynder fumbled out of the ragged trench she'd created and flopped onto a cold floor, her scales (new and soft) itching up a heated storm as she struggled to comprehend everything around her.
Unable to shout, or form sentences, the little reptile was reduced to muted chirps and squeaks. She had no memory of what she looked like back then. But she remembered feeling the stubs that would become her horns, and the nubs she had for feet that pattered around as she rolled and played on the stone.
Most hatchlings were terrified when they first came out of the egg, and were in dire need of a parentdragon to swiftly scoop them up, groom them of amniotic fluid, and comfort them with purrs and rumbles. It was a mother's job, to fawn over her new prodigy, purr for them, heat them with her belly scales and nurse them until sight came.
Cynder never had this. But the nightmare always started with an innocent tract. It was the same every time.
Blind, alone, and oh so tiny, the infant squealed when something rough, cold and metal encapsulated her tiny paws, and lifted her without effort from the ground.
Chains clinked, metal locked. Cynder felt weightless as she was suspended in midair, her stance matching a crucification in form. Her forelegs were out and extended, and her rearpaws hung limply below her.
"See." Commanded a wraith's voice. "Open your eyes and see."
Cynder did, her face contorting in horror.
A hatchling's first sights were supposed to be of the things she loved the most. A loving mother, a protective father, a den stocked with food, warm air and treasure with which to roll and play with her siblings in.
Cynder did not have that.
Her first sight was the Pool.
It was a vortex of swirling purple fire and shadow. It resembled the arterial drainage of some inky bloodline, or perhaps just darkness, mottled with sapphires.
Convexity was a fifth element barely understood by most. Cynder herself could not control it to this day. She only knew incantations to use it for summoning her master's attention, and even then, it was only droplets…
The nightmare replayed the past. That little hatchling had been drowned in Convexity. It wasn't just a drop.
Panicked squeaks were met with no mercy as the chains lowered. If Cynder had been old enough then to cry, her tears would've been in freefall. She had no doubt the Convexity would've lapped them up greedily, like a vampire bat sapping blood after a long period of starvation.
Tentacles of terror slurped from the pool and encased her defenseless body. Her very skin felt like someone had set it aflame. Her scales darkened, grew and hardened. Little bones snapped and reformed into stronger, warped and mutated forebears. Infantile squeaks became developed, feminine howls of agony.
Cynder was transformed into what she was. The Terror of the Skies. Cloudripper. And no one could hear her suffer. Malefora had been laughing too loudly the whole time.
Still, the nightmare didn't end. It shifted.
Cynder found herself standing in a dark chamber, the dual Eternal Moons of the world hanging highly over her head, and bathing her in a pristine, deep pink haze.
In her forepaw was a glass sphere, a very delicate thing. Cynder didn't know where it ever came from. It had always just been there.
In the dream, she was smiling sadly at it, wriggling her talons on the sphere, listening to the keratin clink against it silently.
"Justice." –Her dreamself said.
Then, she let the sphere fall, and it shattered sharply on the dark floor.
Crash~!
-Cynder awoke with a horrified cry.
Cold sweat matted her nesting. The dark dragoness heaved as adrenaline bled from her like a melted cancer. She swept her snout around the observatory for a long while and sighed when she realized what had happened.
Damn it.
Papers riddled with notes and map markers idly ticked and brushed from a breeze blowing through the chamber. They were stacked on little end tables and shelves, with reams of scrolls and books, most of them stolen.
Cynder unfurled from her nesting and started the new day with a brewed cup of tea. There was a cauldron she kept up here for such things, one of the only pleasantries she'd been allowed in her time here. In the wake of the nightmare, Cynder stirred the boiling contents idly, keeping an eye on the twin giant pods sitting in the room's center the whole while.
Fallen. I wonder how an alien starts the day.
She reviewed her accumulated writings inside her study, teacup in one paw, the other idly flipping to a new page or sheet with every other sip.
If Cynder could've seen herself, she would've been appalled at her appearance. Bags were under her eyes and her cheeks were sunken. She had been getting little sleep, dedicating most of her time to drabbling notes, scouring the swamp from the skies or racing to areas where her patrols disappeared.
None of the prior ever worked out to do anything more than further defeat her.
The patrols did nothing. The swamps were so massive and overgrown that the air was proving more of a hindrance than anything else. She couldn't have spotted the Fallen if he was on fire, jumping and screaming.
An apt fantasy.
She smiled at that.
Then she frowned.
If he burned, he couldn't….
Crsk!
-Cynder jolted, her empty cup suddenly shattering in a fist she didn't realize she'd clenched. She ticked her tongue and took the time to procure a fresh cup, newly filled.
She sat back at the table and slapped her chops groggily.
Where had she been?
Oh yes! Going over why those three options had proven to suck.
Flying was out. Next was note-taking, which she supposed worked well to kep her preoccupied, but did jack shit otherwise. She'd written all kinds of personal entries throughout her life due to the lack of people to talk to. Many of those more recent pages had centered around her lack of understand of the pods in her observatory, the way it had felt when the Fallen had touched her, and her desire to understand his biology.
In more ways than one- STOP.
Cynder put enough tea in her mouth so that her cheeks bulged before swallowing.
Ah, yes.
Finally, there was sending her armies into the swamp, and basically waiting for someone to die so that she knew where the two of them were, before promptly racing over.
This had only happened a handful of times, though. Most of the time, her patrols would simply vanish. A few of them hadn't even turned up as a field of bodies slain with stolen Ape weapons and dragonflame, as they so often did.
When Cynder had heard an errant alarm horn or sentries returned with news, she was quick, and torturous on her wing muscles to get there.
Those all ended with her examining the place for clues, which weren't there, and her stomping around having a hissy conniption.
Cynder's lower jaw trembled.
She never recalled feeling this useless. She'd engaged them, and had either been outpaced, or had fled because she was outnumbered.
If Malefora ever found out… No.
More distractions were needed.
She sat on her haunches on the plat outside, a fresh clay cup brimmed with scalding tea, sipping its minty contents dryly, her eyes skimming the mushrooms below.
She…. still felt useless. Huh, normally gazing down at the filthy woods put things into perspective.
The Fallen and Spyra were like cockroaches. They struck out and destroyed a unit and then vanished before she could bring the full might of her army against them. Cynder was used to her enemies coming to her, or being really bad at hiding.
Malefora must have known on some level that the Purple Dragoness was here before she had found her outside that cave. Cynder was spotty on a lot of the details of the war predating her conception. She knew that Visigoth had destroyed the Dragon Temple, smashed all the eggs he could get his filthy paws on and had driven the Northern Armies back. Cynder always had her suspicions that her egg had been part of that clutch, that Visigoth had been the one to oversee the ritual of corruption. But Malefora had never admitted it directly. There was little else in explanation. Cynder was no Night Dragon. She was a half-breed.
Not that it mattered where she had come from. Malefora had said it herself: nature abhorred her existence. She was a breathing crime. If she had parents, they were probably dead anyway.
Fuck them.
Cynder needed nobody in her life.
Nobody.
She was staring at the pods again when the heavy flap of wings sounded out in the quiet morning air. A Dreadwing landed on the plat with a heave of shrieking breath. Its head was obscured by a snarling, solid metal headdress, and necklaces of ribs and leaf fronds hung from its bristled neck.
The black dragon didn't even flinch when the larger monster hunched its back and screeched at her, altering the course of the steam wafting from her teacup. Cynder glared dejectedly at it, and craned an eye mid-sip to the saddle.
"I fail to remember your steed being so badly mannered." She droned, voice muffled by the clay rim of her cup.
"Aw, it ain't much so, m'lady, Charlee's just excited ta see ya he is! Ain't that right, boy?" Came a gleeful, cockney voice from the beast's back.
Charlee screeched and wriggled his own bristles like a dog shaking water from itself. Cynder growled and her tail thwacked on the cobble in annoyance.
"Your presence is reassuring, Chieftain, but for Ancestors' sakes, silence that wretched thing. I have a headache."
"Aye, as ya say." Chieftain Jute yanked on one of the Dreadwing's horns and snarled into its mane- "control yerself, boy, or I'll burn ya."
The steed snorted and lowered its shoulder. The massive Ape, bedecked in furs over his wide shoulders, with tropical-looking fronds hanging off layered necklaces hopped down with a cheery laugh. The flamboyant warlord earned a derisive sneer from her as he exaggerated a step forwards and a theater-esq bow.
"My flights are at ya services, m'lady. We missed ya up north! It's a darn shame that an assault on ye person was what was needed ta bring us down. So, what's all this ruckus I'm hearing about a hoo-man fingie fallen from the sky and kickin Visigoth in the balls?"
Cynder sputtered in her tea a little, quaintly mustering her etiquette to subdue a chuckle. She nodded over her wing at the pods in the back.
"See for yourself, Chieftain. It seems the gods have intervened and sent the Northerners a champion. My men have so far proven incapable of stopping him." She said. "I assume your forces have already joined the search efforts?"
"Aye that, they're unda-way." Jute had a horrendous underbite, and his teeth were exposed as he gawked at the pods, his little baboon-eyes lighting up in wonder. "-Rightly reportin casualties as well."
"Really?" Cynder paused mid-sip.
"Yep. Missin a Dready from one of me wings." Jute gestured over the landscape ahead of them. Screeches echoed out as a cluster of Dreadwings flew out from the northern edge of the sky, lowering altitude to land at the front gates of Forlorn. There were at least fifteen or twenty of them. "I brought my fastest fliers. Had to leave my bloody ground legion back at Tall Plains and the northern coast. Couldn't get em past the geysers."
"Of course you couldn't." Cynder had been hoping the Apes would've just done what they were best at: forgetting all strategy and running through obstacles like sociopathic battering rams. The casualties were acceptable if it meant more men quicker. But then again, the Fallen and Spyra seemed undaunted by numbers. "Was your Dreadwing working with a large fellow? Really hairy, barked a lot, and he had quite the arm for an axe wreathed in unholy electricity?"
"Ya just listed off a quarter of the officer corps ya did." Jute pointed. "But yeah, I fink that was the guy. Sy-somethin, real aspirant dat one. Boys are saying the drag and this hoo-man roasted him like a chestnut."
"Of course they did." Cynder manically giggled, her eye twitching as she sipped her teacup daintily. "Have I ever told you how much I passionately despise you all?"
"Uhhhhh, several times, but not recently." Jute grinned, evidently taking it as a joke. Which it wasn't. But fuck, Cynder's bad mood always could take a backseat. Couldn't it? "I'd love ta see this Purple Drag and her alien sky-man stop my airborne warriors. Visigoth may have gotten a good deal with the infantry, but if ya don't mind me sayin: the way to crush the toughest is ta come at em from the direction they'd least expect."
Jute jabbed a thumb at the sky.
"Up top!"
"I concur, Chieftain." Cynder put her empty cup down and preened her wings, her headache still pounding. "I concur."
{🐉}
Visigoth growled and slipped his dripping length out of the smaller female. She didn't give much of a reaction aside from a rapturous shiver and wheeze, her little furry tail pitifully trying to wrap around his huge waistline in futile swipes.
The Chieftain stepped back and snatched a rag off a table, getting to work with cleaning up the mess as his chosen whore of the day staggered to her feet and knuckles. She had this dumb look on her face as she tied up the wrappings concealing her little teats and filthy fur.
"Your company is no longer needed." He specified without making eye contact. The other Ape cooed, bowing submissively as she attempted to edge closer and hold out a paw to him. "I said get out." He barked.
The Ape shrieked and scurried out of the tent. Visigoth grumbled some sexist obscenity under his breath and turned around to find his armor and weapons, stacked haphazardly like a pile of detritus in the back of his lair.
His mood was grim the last few days, since Tinker's potions had fixed his teeth and his tail. The defeat he'd suffered at the hands of the purple dragon had humiliated him and it was sitting in his gut. His men were failing, as they prowled swamplands and got their tails handed to them by the errant hoo-man Fallen and the prophesized savior of the realms.
Things couldn't be going worse. All they needed was the Forlorn to spontaneously explode or-
"-Chieftain! Capital, have I brought to you the most outstanding of news, I-" Tinker burst through the entryway with a rush of cloth, his overjoyed expression falling off his face when Visigoth's still messed malehood flopped in his direction like a sopped, veiny noodle. "-Good heavens! I'm blind!" The mechanic shrieked, paws slapping over his face.
"Shut the flaps." Visigoth snarled, snatching a waist belt and a loincloth off a chest. "Was it not enough that I was bested by a purple hell-beast in front of a whole unit? Now, you would see me indecent before the entire camp?"
"Respectfully, sir, that unit at the cave suffered over ninety-eight percent losses." Tinker pointed out with a free paw, the other still held over his eyes as he stepped inside.
"Tinker!"
"Rightright, yes, of course, jolly good, dropping the subject would be a healthier alternative altogether. Besides, today is a mighty well day indeed! For we have received reinforcement from-"
"Wher's me landlocked, brutish and egg-smashin brother at?!"
Tinker squealed as the flaps he was standing before were smashed aside, sending him tumbling into a stool nearby with a hideous crashing of wood. His monocle noticeably flipped through the air and bounced off Visigoth's mighty chest.
"….Oi," Chieftain Jute's dumb grin faded as his eyes melded down Visigoth's nude body, and settled on his laxed spear. "…At least let me buy ya a bleatin drink first."
"Jute." Visigoth sneered, whipping the loincloth and securing it over himself before trotting over to where Tinker was lying on his face. "You've never enjoyed the boundaries of privacy up in those ziggurats of yours, haven't you?"
"It's hard ta get a moment when everythin's open-floored, with the Dreadywings and whatnot." Jute chuckled, rubbing his shoulder furs as he stepped fully into the tent and extended a paw. "I came ta win yer war!"
"You're still not funny. And you almost killed my mechanic." Visigoth humorlessly quipped, reaching down and plucking Tinker from the dirt like he was a weightless ragdoll. The Ape hooted as he dangled in Visigoth's grip, eyes quickly checking the loincloth on him as he sighed in relief.
"Who?" Jute blinked.
"This one, you aerial oaf." Visigoth shook Tinker in his face, ignoring the panicked cries and curses.
"P-Perhaps this is a poorer time-! L-Let me excuse myself, my chief-" Tinker howled as Visigoth threw him away with a horrid crash of refuse.
"Some menial abuse is essential, given it all…" Visigoth growled under his breath, taking Jute's paw in a firm clasp. "Brother, news from the north might just save my heart from bursting."
"Good fing too! The Mistress looks like she's ready ta hurl herself off the Forlorn's plat." Jute jammed a thumb over his shoulder. "I brought ya a whole flight of Dreadys. Me and you are gonna find this Purple Drag and the Fallen and teach em whatfer. How are ya, Visigoth?"
"Alive and in charge." Visigoth drawled, pulling on some leather padding and a single pauldron before nodding for the tent flap. He ignored the pained mewls of Tinker in the back. "Tell me what you must, Jute, but outside, let us walk."
"Ya always pace whenevva someone's got gob to say." Jute laughed. "Tall Plains must've made me fuzzy, cause I was lumbering here and I couldn't rememba a single face, aside from yours."
They drabbled as they came outside and meshed with the busy insides of Forlorn's atrium. Apes left a wide berth, hurrying around with weapons, tools and chunks of Mana gems. The boilers were hissing in the backdrop, and now the roars of Dreadwings were echoing around as riders ushered their mounts into makeshift stables made out of rubble rings, scrap hangars and collapsed pylons.
"Cynder's really turned the tower into a proppa bastion she has." Jute observed. "Even if it smells like the inside of a volcano. She means ta turn Forlorn into a second Monkano? I don't fink the Conducta and that crazy lady he's always tryin ta please are gonna like the competition. Didya hear about Daragon by the way?"
"Of course I did." Visigoth's mind was elsewhere, but he humored the discussion nonetheless. "The war is escalating. I have no doubt that the Warfang-dredges are going to try and get this Purple Dragon back to their city if they find out about her. I fear we must watch for some kind of an incursion."
"Not if Daragon keeps undoin itself the way it has." Jute cackled. "The Realm-a-Vines is about ta get ska-washed! Like a bug. It's all that Orcy-fellow's doin, and the Night Drags!"
"I think we need to focus our energy where it matters most." Visigoth said. "Here, where we can kill that purple abomination before it takes root."
"Chieftains! Spotters have an eye on the drag and the hoo-man!" An Ape hurried over, flailing his arms. "They're at the tempol!"
"Ha-ha! I shoulda known me sense of good-luck woulda rubbed off the moment I landed." Jute punched Visigoth in the arm. "Send a whole flight of Dreadys!"
"And a contingent of my men." Visigoth butted in with a growl. "Crush them with a wall of flesh. We will arrive to reinforce shortly."
{🐉}
"So, in Warfang, people just… fly everywhere? No walking?"
"There's some walking, mostly from folks whose wings are a little strained, and the Moles, but plenty of flying. No shortage of it, actually. We are creatures of theeeee skyyyyy~!" Morinth sang, preening her neck as she gave her wings another kick. "Really! You should see it on weekdays, especially when the markets first open? The heavens might as well be a cheeky little swarm of locusts. But you won't have to worry about that, mam, me and Tali' will show you all you need to know."
"Spyra? Can I ask you a question?" Taliopia shyly nudged closer, her wings folded outwards to maintain a constant glide. The three dragonesses were flying in a circle around the temple, quite low, to see the surrounding area.
"Yeah, shoot." Spyra was flying between the two of them, distracted by gazing at them both one after the other over her shoulders. She could hardly believe she was flying with other dragons in the first place. To Morinth and Taliopia it was common, basic, not special. Spyra marveled at them.
"You've been living in these swamps your entire life?" Taliopia looked down at some willow trees. "How did you not get hurt?"
"I got hurt loads. Clawed, bitten, fell in ravines, tripped, broke a few bones…" Spyra listed off, flapping her wings to keep altitude. "Didn't fly a whole lot before now, though. My folks always told me to stay away from Mana Crystals, apparently, never knowing I needed the things to gain super powers!"
"Super-powers?" Morinth laughed. "But this is what dragons are meant to be able to do all the time! Mana Crystals are keys to life for us, mam, gifts from the Ancestors, people say."
"There are stories that when the first dragons died, they embued their souls into the earth of the world, to keep regenerating strength for future generations." Taliopia proudly recited. "I read that in a book."
"My Tali-wali is a bit of a nerd." Morinth risked butting Spyra in the head for how close she had to lean for the whisper to get through the draft.
"Morri-poo! You're embarrassing me…" Taliopia clicked her tongue and turned away.
"Why do you talk like that all the time? It's weird." Spyra crinkled her snout. "Don't tell me you lot are like a buncha nuns or something."
"Nooo-hooooo~!" Morinth sang. "Me and Taliopiaaaa are an iteemmmmm~!"
"An item? I…. wait… oh." Spyra coughed, tucking her forepaws to her breast. "…That's, uhm…. different. T-To all their own, huh?"
"I couldn't have said it better myself." Morinth chirped. "Seeing as you're supposed to be the savior of the Dragon Realms, you know Spyra, drakes are going to throw themselves at you. En masse. You're quite the eye-fetcher, if you'll excuse my saying."
Taliopia gave off this manic, giggly-sounding noise, frowning and swallowing a visible lump down her throat as she flapped to fly over and around Spyra, to get to Morinth's other side.
"Morri-poo…" She dotingly whined.
"Oh, hush, my dear, you're the only one in my eye." Morinth hummed. "Spyra? Why do you look like that for? Flying making you a bit ill? Let's land for a bit and take a break."
"Sure thing." Spyra glumly sighed.
The three dragonesses found a ridge and set down with a few wingflaps and kick of paws. Taliopia had an embarrassed flush on her snout as she sidled up to Morinth and nuzzled into her flank. Spyra trailed from them and stood on the ridge's cracked edge, looking down at an assortment of peat-bogs and reed swells below.
"My wings needed a good stretch." Morinth idly summed, wriggling her membranes in a pruning flap. "One thing I must warn you of, dear, is the flight over the Frontier Sea. Horrible thing. Always takes too long and makes your joints stiff."
"How long is that flight?" Spyra asked, not turning away from the view.
"A few hours with good navigation. You'll have the Wing with you, Warfang's finest. We'll get you there safe and sound." Morinth nudged Taliopia along and soon the three dragons stood side by side. "How's it like, living with dragonflies your whole life?"
"Boring. Everyone around you is a dwarf, you can't eat normal food, you're a spectacle in school, and socially you're an outcast. Oh, and it's lonely. Everyone either doesn't understand you, is afraid of you, or dislikes your company. Except my family. They're awesome." Spyra dryly listed.
"That sounds rough." Morinth admitted, still with her usual sing-song voice.
"Ya' don't know the half of it." Spyra puffed, whipping her tail.
"Actually, I know a fair deal about being ostracized. My father was a Night Dragon, everyone shunned my mum when she came back from the war, preggers with me." Morinth explained. "I had to go to the academy, and everyone hated my guts. Hatchling of the enemy, they'd call me, Traitor-Child too. When I joined the army, my mum had died of a broken heart and I literally just had the wings on my back to keep me going."
"Ouch." Spyra winced. "…Look, I didn't mean ta' sound like the edgy bitch in the corner or nothing, it's just…"
"Life is hard." Morinth soothed, laying a wing on Spyra's. "But we all find our songs."
"I-I feel like I'm still looking, all the time." Taliopia leaned into Morinth and sighed. "…But you're supposed to save everybody, Spyra, how can't you have all the answers?"
"It doesn't feel like I do." Spyra creased her chops, thinking about the Fallen. "…but that human found me, boy-oh-boy. We're in the shit now."
"O-Oh, h-him." Morinth cleared her throat, her tone suddenly losing all its semblance of confidence. "Yes, cheeky that, he's a peculiar sort of creature, isn't he?"
"He kind of scares me." Taliopia shivered, and then slapped her chops. "…b-but he seems… nice."
"Really? He does?" Morinth gulped. "I-I mean… I think he's a little rude…"
"He's a complete asshole." Spyra shrugged. "But he's the best asshole I've ever met, and I'm stickin' with him. He's gotten me this far."
"….Oh no." Morinth swept out her wings suddenly, yanking the two dragonesses back from the ridge edge and behind some thickets. "Sssh! Stay down!"
"Dafuck?" Spyra sputtered, spitting a black wing-joint from her snout and swatting at fat frond leaves. "Stay down from what?"
"Eep~!" Taliopia slapped paws over her own mouth and shivered in the shade. There was a screech overhead and the heavy flap of wings.
"Aw, crap, not more of those things…" Spyra groaned.
A Dreadwing sailed over the ridge, flying westward, the Ape on its back had his eyes scanning the very same foliage they were in. The Dreadwing was flanked by two more of its kind, and together, the howling monsters flew off over the swamps, their cries echoing and becoming distant.
"They had to have seen us." Morinth's inner-soldier was coming out, and she sounded stern as she pointed with her tail back towards the way they had come. "We should get back to the temple."
{🐉}
"No, you idiot, it doesn't work like that. What do you want her to do, laugh at you and swat you in the face with her tail?" Corrinthol cringed. "Knowing you, with that glass-jaw, you'll be all over the floor and crying for your mommy."
"What's wrong with taking a gentle-drake's approach?" Torrdonal asked innocently. He cleared his throat and repeated again: "Professor Cyrila, I'm a former graduate of your class two years ago, and I must say, that your intellectual study of the elements of aquatic nature has stuck with me. I wish to implore you: might I buy you lunch this afternoon?"
"You're such a pansy." Corrinthol scoffed. "Women don't want honesty, they want you to lie to them. They want to hear what they want to hear. You're not being assertive."
"But I wouldn't want to be rude…"
"Professor Cyrila is the def-i-nition, of rude, you simpleton. One day, I'm gonna' have to educate you on the ways to a dragoness' heart. I learned from the best, after all: my good ole' dad. He's an officer in the corps."
"I know." Torrdonal nodded. Corrinthol was always threatening people with that knowledge, how could one forget? Like that one time at the watering hole when he'd gotten in that fight and started screaming at all the other dragons involved about how his dad would crush their windpipes. "I just think that females need to be treated with a little more… respect than you'd offer some other males. Like ones you would tell about your pa."
"No, no that's… not how it works. Damn it, Torrdonal, water dragons are supposed to be transparent, how'd you end up with such a thick skull?" Corrinthol sneered. "Don't tell me: your dad's an earth dragon ain't he?"
"No, my-"
A screech on the wind cut them both off. The dragons stopped on the edge of the temple's fall pond and looked up just in time to see a Dreadwing flicker over the horizon above. Torrdonal's jaw dropped and Corrinthol squealed.
"-D-D-D-DREADWING!" –He stammered. "MOMMY!" And hurled himself into the water with a loud splash.
Torrdonal shrieked when some of the water speckled his forepaws, and he danced into a thicket before tumbling through the leaves and crying out something about him not drowning.
Nearby, the Fallen, Harad and Ignitia hurried through the smashed front doors of the structure and gazed up at the receding Dreadwing shrinking over the forest line ahead.
"We've been spotted." Harad growled, whipping an angry glance at his fumbling soldiers in the pond outside. "I'm going to tear their heads off."
"It was only a matter of time before we were detected." Ignitia sighed. "This plan of yours, Fallen? It seems we've reached an need to speed its actioning. We need to get going if it is to work."
"I doubt this." Harad vented. "Still, I advise against suicide, as shocking as you might find that, Fallen."
"The only thing shocking here is your astutely ugly looks and lack of faith in those more enlightened, Hrafal." The Fallen raised a brow.
"It's Harad, you son of a bitch!"
"Stop yelling, Haggrid, I'm thinking…" The human turned away and ripped the crossbow strapped to his back off. "We're about to get hit. You two know how to fight, yeah?"
Harad sputtered over his own tongue, and Ignitia rolled her eyes.
"Someone had to thwart you both in the lobby, and it certainly wasn't those two." She pointed her tail at Torrdonal and Corrinthol. "You might be correct, however, holding off the initial assault in a defensible position would be advisable. Where are Spyra, Morinth and Taliopia?"
"There." The Fallen nodded to three growing shapes overhead. "…Ignitia, Fallen, we saw a…."
"Ignitia! Fallen! We saw a Dreadwing!" Spyra heaved, landing roughly with a scrabble of her claws on the stairs besides Morinth and Taliopia. "They were flying back to Cynder's tower!"
"No doubt for gathering reinforcements." Ignitia said. "Fallen, I've been riveted with tales of your ferocity in the field. Would you care to demonstrate?"
"Anything to please a lady." The Fallen winked.
Just then, the ground trembled, and a blast of dust took up the front of the ancient, overgrown steps.
The purple and black mass of a Dreadwing rose from the impact zone, and its horrid screech pierced all their hearing.
"I hate these fuckin' things." Spyra cringed.
The air whooshed, their feet quivered.
Crash~!
Crash-Crash-Crash~!
Crash~!
Dust and pebbles flew everywhere. Six Dreadwings surrounded the stairs, their yellow eyes glowing through the humus to stare directly at them.
"Yah~!" One of their riders screamed. The beasts howled and stamped their wing-joints.
"But they just love us." The Fallen chuckled.
{🐉}
Today had been a rough day for Palmet. First, he'd caught a bad wind of fleas on top of the infestation he was already suffering. Next, that rash on the back of his left leg had started to flare up, and he'd spent so much time scratching it until it bled this morning that he'd missed gruel-hour back at Forlorn. After that, he'd been paired up with an Ape that couldn't stop messing himself the whole patrol. Then, his whole unit got wiped out, and an alien being who had fallen from the sky had royally fed him his own ass, bound, gagged and beaten him up.
Now he was tied up on the floor. And it was cold because of the breeze this high up.
It really couldn't have gotten much worse.
Then he saw the Dreadwings flying overhead, a whole cluster of them, riders whooping as they whipped and kicked their ferocious mounts into frenzies.
"-Oi~! Lads! Eeeellllpppp~!"
Palmet had screamed himself hoarse by the time the last of them had finished crossing over the temple, and the sounds of due fighting had echoed across the air.
Wheezing, Palmet rolled onto his feet, still tied up, and tried to waddle to the stairs leading up to the temple's rear doors. Halfway up the flight, he tripped, and rolled like a loose turd back all the way he'd come, a fragrant miasma of horrid curses leaving his throat, annunciated with each kick and thwack until he reached the bottom and lie there, twitching.
He tried again and managed to stumble to the doors themselves, using a furry shoulder to nudge one ajar so he could squeeze his bound form through.
Inside the temple, the battle sounded hollow, but the distinct ambiance of slashing metal, exploding dynamite and dying Apes was still apparent. Palmet grimaced at the mighty dragon statue in the center of the elemental training room, making sure to skirt around it as he hobbled for the temple's deeper portions.
"…A'course I ain't bloody navigated some doomed, spooky, ancient drag ruins befer for prior reference…" His mumbles echoed down the empty, mushroom-overgrown halls as he wandered. "…Why'd my patrol have ta be the one? What about Gruloog's lads? They're the ones always stealing the jerky strips from the cauldrons round the camp. They got enough karma rearin behind em to outdo the arse on a basilisk! Bloody simian ancestors of yore! Ya'll ain't good fer nothing, and I ain't nevva preyin to ya on a whim again!"
The Ape passed the egg chamber and paused in the doorframe, offering the toppled shelving units a contemptuous snort before resuming his trek.
Dragons were no good airborne newts anyhow.
The world would've been better off if all those presumptuous perfume-letters and gluttons dropped dead.
He found the lobby gallery next, and, stumbling over drifts of rubble and around pillars, Palmet gasped when sunlight blared in through the smashed front doors.
The dead spider was still there, a bloody mess. But beyond that, was a fair commotion of warfare that caught his interest.
The Fallen was swinging around a pair of cleavers like it was nobody's business. Palmet gave his best face of monkey-borne intrigue as he witnessed his brothers getting sliced by the bushel.
Apes flew from him in pairs as he hacked and slashed and cut like a madman, leaving a trail of corpses in his wake. Morinth and Taliopia were out there too, the latter crying loudly as she was chased in circles by a larger Ape officer with an axe over his head, the prior singing some kind of opera-note as she ripped her tail-blade from the innards of a dying Ape soldier.
The cindering corpse of a mighty Dreadwing was draped over the stairs' flank, sliced, burned and roasted to oblivion. Another Dreadwing screamed as combined trails of fire incinerated its skull, Ignitia and Spyra advancing side-by-side and drowning the beast in their elemental hell.
There was an explosion and a scream of pain. A Dreadwing flopped onto its back with its ribcage blasted ajar, the Fallen latched onto its head and screaming all kinds of obscenities. There was an Ape trying to crawl away, whilst also stuffing his own organs back into his gut. Another was making a run for the woodlands holding his own severed arm. There was an officer trying to rally the troops. The Fallen chucked a stick of dynamite into his open mouth and showered the surrounding area with chunks of brain and globs of blood.
Hell on earth, that shit.
Palmet shrugged, like he was looking at the most common thing since sliced bread, and immediately scampered out the doors, past the steaming corpses, and to one of his own fallen comrades.
The Ape was still twitching when Palmet giddily kicked him over and unveiled the cleaver sticking from the bloody mud.
"Sorry there, lad, it ain't like ya need it anymore itself."
Palmet winced when a nearby explosion sent an entire troupe of Apes cartwheeling in various states of dismemberment. One of them landed nearby, howling his head off as he held the bloody pair of squirting stumps that had been his legs. Some of the blood speckled onto Palmet as he lined his binds underneath himself with the blade.
"-Oi! Watch yer jam! I'm workin here, ya filthy monkey!"
Sshksshksshkssshksshk
-He started to saw the rope tying off his lower half and wrists against the cleaver. He grinned when the lines started to snap one by one, agonizingly.
"…Just a little more dere…"
An Ape Commander wielding a flaming warhammer leaped over the mounded cadaver of a dead Dreadwing and swung at the Fallen in an overhead strike. The human rolled under the fiery sweep and planted his heel right underneath the chainmail skirt and into the Commander's crotch, effectively crunching his orangutan-oranges.
The Commander screamed like a little girl and fell to his stubby knees. The Fallen snatched his own warhammer from his paws and brought it in a two-handed uppercut into his snout. The Commander's face exploded in a fiery burst of gore, and the headless corpse flipped onto its back. The Fallen steadied the warhammer, screaming at the top of his lungs as a band of flame shot out in the form of a fireball, and smacked into a Dreadwing coming in for a sweep overhead.
The beast screamed and created a blast-skid that covered the whole battlefield from end to end, taking a plethora of Ape footsoldiers with it to the grave.
Palmet only started cutting again when he felt his mouth twitch, and a gathering puddle of urine he'd made seep into his leg fur.
"…C'mon… C'mon…. YES…."
SNAP~!
"-I'm free! Ya hear?! I'm free! Wooo~!"
Palmet threw the ropes off, ran over to a dead Ape and snatched a dynamite stick off his bandolier. He yanked the fuse lit, hauled back, and teetered forwards, aiming for the Fallen.
But then the poor Ape tripped over a severed leg from one of his fellows, and the dynamite flew way off course into the distance. It landed in a bundle of Ape infantry that had reformed to mount another charge, and detonated with a resounding whmpp~! –of thunder. Limbs were still falling by the time Palmet righted himself on his paws and knees, and surveyed the carnage.
"…Nuts." Was all he said.
"Ahhhhh~!" Screeched an Ape, who hauled back with a warhammer and caught the Fallen in the chest with the hilt.
The human sailed fifteen feet and landed in the dirt right next to Palmet. The wild look in his eyes briefly minimized as he turned over and met the Ape's gaze. For a moment, the two stared at each other, even as Spyra flew overhead and roasted a column of crossbowmen attempting to retreat.
"…Ello." Palmet waved cheaply.
"You got out of your binds." The Fallen pointed at him. "I tie wicked knots, how did y-"
"Found a cleava." Palmet shrugged.
"Ah. Well, good on you."
The Fallen head-butted him.
Crack~! –went their skulls. Palmet shrieked and rolled onto his back in agony.
"For the dragon-pussy!" The Fallen hollered, jumping to his feet like a springy rabbit, and running for the nearest Ape.
Blades slashed, dragons roared, Dreadwings screamed and Taliopia cried.
When it was all over, the field in front of the temple's beautiful pond looked like a slaughterhouse.
"….*cough* -Soldiers…. r-rally to me…" Harad heaved, limping through several corpses, his mace-tail- dripping with blood –came down in a slash upon a corpse next to his haunch that was still twitching. Bone crunched, and the Ape went very still.
Ignitia came slowly from the chaos, covered in dirt, cuts and bruises, her claws drenched in gore, and soot trailing through her nose and teeth.
Corrinthol was in a fetal position on the edge of the pond water, sucking fervently on a talon as he rocked on his own bloodied tail. Torrdonal was nearby, out of all things, staring with horror at the water instead of all the viscera.
Spyra was the only one smiling, exhausted, but still smiling.
"….T-That was a workout." She sidled up to Ignitia and slapped the older dragoness on the ass, making her squeak and hop forwards. "Nice work there, babe'."
"Careful, or I might have to touch the bootay myself there." The Fallen called, limping, as he navigated past a pair of dead Dreadwings. "How is everyone?"
"Alive." Harad wheezed.
"…W-Water…" Torrdonal muttered with wide eyes.
"Mommy. Mommy. Mommy." Corrinthol chanted with each rock on his tail. Eventually, he just broke out into a long, panicked sob and nothing else understandable blubbered out of his snout.
Poor lad.
He was still a fetid, crimson cunt.
"T-Tali'? Tali'? W-Where's Taliopia?!" Morinth scampered among some of the corpses, panic-striken, looking around wildly.
"Don't mind her, she's fine." The Fallen rolled his shoulder, where Taliopia's unconscious form slouched over his back. He patted the poor white dragoness on the haunch, and whispered when Morinth bounded over. "I think it was all a bit overwhelming for her. She'll be fine."
"We kicked ass." Spyra sauntered over and hip-bumped him. "Wanna' go all the way and fuck that tower up too?"
"As if I would say no." The Fallen jittered his eyebrows. "Glory be to the first man to die."
Harad honestly looked terrified of him.
"Hey! I got a live one over here…" Spyra said, nodding to one of the fallen Apes. "Waitasec, isn't this the guy who saw us fucking?"
"E-Excuse me?" Ignitia gasped.
The Fallen carefully placed Taliopia down and snarled as he stomped over to Palmet. The Ape whined as he was dragged to his feet.
"Give me one reason I shouldn't put my fist through your face." The Fallen snapped.
"Why're you even asking?" Spyra quirked a brow.
Palmet shivered as his eyes darted between the dragons and the human. For a long moment, he was silent. Then, he fell to his knees, and bowed until his face ate the bloody mud.
"M-Master." He stammered, kissing at the human's boots.
"Oh god, you gotta' be kidding me." Spyra cringed. "What are we going to do with him?"
"I never said I'd refuse an Ape butler." The Fallen shrugged. "Besides, he's kind of fun to keep around. Always makes things interesting."
"M-Master…" Palmet muttered, still kissing the boots.
{🐉}
The moment Visigoth's Dreadwing touched down, it was nothing but Jute screaming.
"SPARKLES?!" The Chieftain shrilly cried, hopping off his own armored steed as he ran through the field of stinking corpses. "Sparkles, is dat you?!"
The great northern warlord came to an abrupt halt at the foot of one of the massive Dreadwing corpses dotting the battlefield. The beast was blackened from dragonflame with soot still dancing off the bristles on its ruined back.
Chieftain Jute quivered as he fell to a kneel, and sobbed in a ball of quivering fur and snot before the felled abomination.
"-T-They killed him-" Jute choked. "-*Snnnkkkkffff*- dey killed SPARKLES!"
Visigoth fluttered his chops as he blew out a defeated puff of air, his eyes scanning the mounds of dead Apes lying around everywhere.
From the air, this clearing had looked almost black, what with the bodycount. Infantrymen were still prowling about and getting an accurate number, but if memory served, this conglomerate unit possessed around three hundred men.
Had possessed three hundred men. Visigoth nudged a dead soldier in the furry ribs and snorted. Many of the dead were killed with Ape weapons.
Fallen.
Visigoth snarled as blood-rage welled in his chest.
"This hoo-man is apparently unstoppable." The Chieftain muttered, turning as Cynder trotted nearby, her austere gaze sweeping the area too. "We need to find him. All three of us. So that we may combine our talents and slay him in a three-to-one duel. Infantry, Dreadwings, Commanders even have all proven ineffective. This needs to end now, Mistress."
"The Temple always looks so dilapidated these days, does it not?" Cynder ignored him, nodding at the sad structure just ahead. "I bet you remember first bracketing those halls, Chieftain, when someone besides me possessed your leash. Did you feel freer back then? Or perhaps less enlightened."
"I felt younger." Visigoth growled. "My Apes have already searched the temple, Mistress, they aren't inside."
"Walk with me."
Cynder was silent as the two of them trekked through the beaten lobby. Though Visigoth noted the almost dreamy expression on the black dragon's face the entire time. Cynder appeared distant, or perhaps locked in some kind of mental prison as she examined all the chandeliers, the carvings and murals, the draconic architecture matting the structure in soaking detail.
She passed into an archway, not needing to voice aloud her desire for him to follow. They entered into a large room ringed with collapsed shelves, whose floor was littered with a trio of runic dais plates.
"….Malefora has purposefully limited my knowledge the entire time I have served her." Cynder muttered, her gaze fixated on the large egg mural taking up the northern wall. Visigoth snorted and balanced his axes in his grip, looking around boredly at the shelves.
It had been a while, but he remembered. The eggs. His foot. The cracking sounds. He used to feel more alive with every dragon he killed. Now it had all become grim noise of ceaseless fashion and woe.
This temple had no nostalgic value to him whatsoever, and frankly, he wanted to leave.
"They're probably going after something important to us right now." He said, harboring a rare moment where he was compelled to speak without honor of rank. "You may choose to wallow in your own self-loathing, but I'll remind you that when Malefora seeks heads for failure, both of us will kiss the axe. Collect yourself, Cynder."
"I've killed people for less coming out of their mouths." Cynder didn't move, her wings idly levitating in a preened pose just behind her regal neck. "This Purple Dragoness terrifies you, Visigoth, enough that you're more afraid of her than you are of me."
"It terrifies you more." He snarled. "I've overcome foes that were supposed to be invincible before."
"You killed a pig and are worshipped for it."
"And you can't win favor unless it is fed to you, you stupid little girl." He barked.
Cynder was on him in a second, had him pinned to the floor, his axes flew away on clinging metal, and she presided over him with silent menace.
"Say more if you want this all to end." Cynder whispered. "You're just a breath away from it. Say it. Give me something to vent my rage upon."
"Is that was this is all about?" He choked, her claw compressing his furry throat. "You think this is all some kind of board game. That there are pieces, and that things leave the board, and they're gone from the playing square. You think in stone, she-drake. These immovable nuances you've buried yourself in are going to get every single one of us killed."
"Did my egg come from this place?"
Visigoth's expression dropped.
"…What?" He grunted.
"Did my egg come from this place."
Cynder didn't appear to have spoken, but her soulless, white eyes were locked on him with an immovable stance.
Visigoth honestly felt confused. He had been… shouting about other matters, evidently, having misread the source of her anger.
Slowly, unsure, he raised a paw and pointed to a line of ruined shelves on one of the room.
"Your egg was right there. It was pitch black. It had rolled off a shelf when the unit fell from all the vibrations outside. I was seconds away from being too late from stopping one of my men from smashing you." He held his paw up in a cupping motion, simulating her weight in his palm. "The Dark Master whispered in my mind, told me to take you specifically. You were to be the Terror of the Skies. Cynder, Cloudripper, Forlorn Lady. I made you that."
"You stole my life." Cynder told him.
"Nobody in this exchange tells false truths." Visigoth snorted. "I'm confused, Cynder, what the hell do you want me to tell you? That I feel remorse? No. I don't feel remorse for anything. I've never felt remorse in my entire life. Time is a one-way road, and we can only go forwards. This world puts up walls that are too high to climb and they must be smashed, smashed low and harshly. The strongest thrive," He gestured to himself and her. "the weak are slaughtered." He gestured to the doorframe over his head.
"Regardless of our pasts," Cynder released her claw and started to stomp out of the room. He coughed and held his throat tenderly as she abandoned him. "we're linked at the hip now, Chieftain. We're both reliant upon the death of the purple nightmare and the subjugation of that human."
"Subjugation?" Visigoth struggled to his feet and picked up one of his axes. "What is this fascination with the Fallen? You hoard his sky-devices, scribble notes on his appearance… You told the Pathfinder to take that thing alive, didn't you?"
"Mistress, Chieftain?" An Ape officer stood in the arch frame. "…All the dead have been looted."
"Of their weapons?" Cynder whipped her gaze from Visigoth to the other Ape.
"No, Mistress, their boom-sticks."
Cynder's eyes went wide.
"Back to Forlorn, with speed." She barked.
{🐉}