"Excellent job with training today, Young Flame!"
"Thanks, Volteer."
"Yes. Your fighting style has molded into something usable, Young Flame. We need only work upon your elemental powers now."
"Thanks, Cyril."
"You'd best be off to training with Red now...It's been a week since he started...he is training you, right, Flame?"
"Yes, Terrador. All sorts of fun history lessons. Know the past to help the future and all that. I'm heading out!"
With that typical morning out of the way, Flame launched himself into the air to fly back towards the Capitol Building. The sun was at the apex in the sky, marking the afternoon. This had been Flame's day for the past week now; mornings were training with the Guardian's, afternoons were training with Red, evenings were spending time with Ember, Spyro and Cynder. Rinse and repeat. He touched down at the plaza square. Gave a quick hug and kiss to Ember as she walked in with Chief beside her. Flame watched Ember walk away as the familiar sound of Red clicking his staff turned his attention the other way. Flame had to get used to seeing Red smile; he was so used to his scowl.
"So…" Red began "Did you notice what they do?"
"I had no idea…" Flame looked up to Red "I never noticed how many times they called me 'Young Flame'. I mean except for Terrador."
"That's because Terrador at least has some moniker of respect, and not patronizing others." Red huffed, the two of them making it into Red's study.
"You? Complimenting the Guardian's?" Flame leaned, earning a smirk from Red.
"Don't press your luck, nephew."
Flame chuckled, Red always used 'nephew' as an insult now, much better than 'bastard', anyways.
"How was training today anyways?" Red asked, looking over a pile of books, no doubt Flame's other training for the day.
"Well enough. Still not good enough in the fire-breathing department." Flame said.
"Ah yes. I'm sure the electric dragon, the ice dragon and the earth dragon can teach you many things about breathing fire." Red smiled back.
"Was that sarcasm, uncle?" Flame grinned, his usual insult to Red, better than 'asshole'. His comment earned a quick shush from Red.
"Hrmph…" Red looked over the books, then back to Flame "Flame, pop quiz!"
"What? Uhm. Okay?"
"Name the secondary elements to the primary elements."
"Er...Water to ice. Wind to electricity. Flora to earth."
"Fire?"
Flame paused "It doesn't have one."
"Precisely. As commonplace as fire is, it is also one of a kind. The Guardians can teach you all they want about melee combat, but they can never teach you the intricacies of fire…" Red pushed the books aside " I will teach you fire. Real fire."
Flame grinned "Yeah. Okay."
With a nod, Red grabbed his staff, glowing with a new pink energy and clicking his staff down on the ground, the pink glow turned red and spread across the entire room, coating the walls in a soft red glow "I have fireproofed the room, don't need the archives up in flames."
Flame watched the faint red glow cover the entire room top to bottom, before turning back to Red "Can you even use fire? I don't think I've seen you." Flame asked, the malicious grin on Red's muzzle was off-putting.
"Can I use fire, the boy asks…" Red chortled to himself, stretching a paw out and concentrating. Suddenly two orbs of fire appeared above his paw, and then they began to spin. Faster and faster until they appeared to make a ring of red. Then they spun in intricate patterns around his paw, spiraling up and around before he shot it at Flame.
Flame gasped, getting ready to try his best to duck and dodge, but to his surprise, the two orbs turned 90 degrees around Flame, traveling across his sides before shooting into the ground behind him. Flame turned back to Red, an amused look on his muzzle.
"Yes, I can use fire." Red answered plainly "Most fire dragons can use those sweeping breath attacks. I've learned to do something far more unique."
"I bet those hurt…" Flame looked back at the holes where the attack landed, thinking what would have happened if Red hadn't fireproofed the room.
"They do." Red said "However, the obvious downside is that it can only hit a few targets at a time, as opposed to a wave of targets. Your father now, he was always prone to using his fire, but he was capable of using white flames. Not many fire dragons can get their fire that hot."
"The Guardians said I could make some white flames, when we were practicing." Flame added, noting the look from Red.
"Show me." was all Red said. Flame nodded, backing up, taking a deep breath and letting loose a torrent of flames.
"Intriguing…" Red murmured "Minimum range, but mostly blues and white flames."
Flame stopped the fire breath "Yeah, they mentioned that my range was getting shorter, we need to work on that."
"On the contrary." Red said "You have developed a fighting style about dodging your opponents and tripping them. Imagine the benefits of a close range, hot fire would be to such a fighting style."
Realization struck Flame with the benefit in such a move, he couldn't help but to smile, he looked to Red "Could Ignitus ever do something like that?"
"Mm?" Red snapped to Flame "No he couldn't. Ignitus wasn't exactly too keen on listening to my advice. Oppositional younger brother, that's how it goes..." Red averted his gaze, an untold story in that.
Flame looked to his uncle, thinking about what Terrador and Spyro had told him about his father "...What was Ignitus like?"
"The Guardians never speak of him?" Red asked.
"I mean...that's just one side of it." Flame thought quickly "And you taught me to consider different perspectives on certain things." Red snorted.
"Yes well…" Red lingered "How about we save those stories for later. Why don't we continue to explore putting your fire breath to good use alongside your combat style." Red began pacing.
Flame huffed, hoping he would talk. He focused on his breath attack, only going a few meters in front of him, and then he had the idea to decrease the range further. The blue flames fading to pure white fire. And then he brought it closer, and closer and closer.
The sudden flash of white caused Red to jump and look to Flame, looking in disbelief as Flame found himself enveloped in white flames.
"Imagine what happens when I get too close to people now!" Flame laughed, the fire fading quickly. Flame looked himself over, not a burn on him anywhere. He looked back to Red.
"Yes...well...erm…" Red blinked "I suppose we can take a break to talk." Red said, clicking his staff, the red tint in the room fading.
Flame sat on the floor as Red took a seat beside his desk "So you wish to know about your Father?"
"The others don't talk about Ignitus much. And when they do, it's just them talking about how great of a dragon he was." Flame said.
Red nodded, placing his staff beside him and leaning forward "I won't deny that my brother was a good dragon, everything that he did in the Great War is nothing to scoff at." Red looked at Flame, then out a nearby window "But my brother...everything had to be his way, and he always thought he was above consequence."
Flame thought about it, if Guardian's can't be mated or have kids, his being here was proof enough of that.
"Ignitus and I were both in training to be Guardians. It was at the time I did this to myself…" Red looked down at his paws and his biped form "...I'll never forget the look on my brother's face when he saw me like this for the first time. He was disgusted with me."
Flame thought back to his meeting with Ignitus "That doesn't sound like Ignitus...at least from what I heard..."
"The Guardians like to look at my brother through a rose tint. I'm sure Spyro and Cynder are much the same too. They only knew one side of him...while I saw it all."
Flame inhaled "Why did Ignitus not like what you did?"
Red looked to Flame "Being critical and asking questions, the training is sticking…" Red half chuckled.
"...Well?" Flame asked.
"...Because the magic I use...it is considered dark magic." Red said "Dragons are most attuned to elemental magic, everything else is considered dark magic in the eyes of dragons."
"That doesn't sound right…" Flame said.
"It isn't." Red said plainly "But the stigma stuck with me, and while Ignitus was lauded with praise for training the way most dragons do, I was forgotten, left to myself while I continued to study." Red's gaze became tempered with a cold fury "I dropped out of my own accord, and Ignitus was named Guardian shortly thereafter."
"Did you two ever see each other after that?" Flame asked.
"Not for many years. Not many wanted anything to do with a bipedal dragon...a freak." Red growled "Not until the war had been going on for a few years, around the time Spyro had vanished. Then Ignitus of all dragons approached me, and the Dark Master." Red looked to Flame, he expected such a reaction "Oh yes. Malefor tried to sway me to his side. Promises of power, adulation of my ingenuity and my powers...the role of Guardian of Fire in his new world." Red scoffed "I turned him down, the easiest choice I had made in my life."
"Why?" Flame asked.
"Because I am a dragon of principle, Flame." Red glared at Flame "If there's something I want, I will earn it with my own two paws. I didn't need Malefor's worthless pity." Red's gazed softened "And I think...maybe, I was hoping siding with my brother would give me a chance to reconnect with him. Much good my choice did. Malefor had learned dark magic as I had, many had assumed I was colluding with the Dark Master and sharing my magic with him...and what did Ignitus do…" Red inhaled slowly, then exhaled "Nothing. He didn't stop me as I left again."
Flame looked down to the floor, thinking back to the Guardians, Red, Spyro, and even the meeting with Ignitus. He had always wanted to know what his father was like. He didn't know how to feel now that he knew the whole, ugly truth.
"Do you intend to come in and say something, Terrador?" Red said, looking to the door. Flame whipped around to the closed door to the library. Much to his surprise, the door opened and Terrador stepped through, a fierce scowl on his muzzle.
"How did you know?" Terrador asked.
"A silent alarm spell. A handy trick." Red said, grabbing his staff, the pulsing glow from it finally stopping.
"Terrador?" Flame asked, hoping off the chair to look at him, but Terrador looked past him, focusing only on Red.
"What did you tell him." Terrador asked slowly.
"I told him the truth." Red stood up as well, the grip on his staff tight "Flame has a right to know about Ignitus, the good and the bad."
"How dare you…" Terrador growled, the room shaking.
"Guys." Flame said, getting between the two of them.
"Flame, head back to the temple." Terrador said.
"No!" Flame said a moment later. Terrador's glare pierced him, but he stood his ground "I asked him, he told me. If you're gonna be mad, be mad at me."
"Later." Terrador said coldly, Flame felt so small again, he had never seen Terrador this furious.
"Why do you insist on defending my brother, Terrador? Out of some antiquated sense of duty?" Red asked "He's gone now, you can talk freely about him, and what he took from you." Flame watched in horror as Terrador was the one who shrank back from what Red had said.
"You don't get to…" Terrador tried to speak, but for once since Flame met the earth dragon, he was at a loss for words.
"Ignitus helped a lot of dragons, but he also hurt them too. There's no need to hide that anymore." Red said, standing his ground, an intense gaze set on Terrador. Wordlessly, Terrador spun around and stormed out of the library.
"Red?" Flame looked at his uncle in disbelief.
"We're cutting training short today, nephew. Please leave." Red turned around, heading back to his desk.
"Wait! One more question." Flame said, to his surprise Red stopped to listen "...When we first met and you figured out why I was here, those things you said." Flame swallowed "So why train me now? I thought you wanted to be the guardian."
There was a long pause before Red answered "I did." Red said, still not looking at Flame "When I learned why the Guardian's had taken you here. I feared what had happened before would happen again." He finally looked to Flame "But you are not Ignitus, you are Flame. And that made me realize that rather than fight it, I could help you. Shape you to be a better guardian than your father ever was. I believe advising you to be a guardian will be easier than fighting against the Guardians and their rules. So no, I do not want to be Guardian anymore. I believe the best thing for Avalar and Warfang will be to train you to be Guardian." Red looked down at Flame "I am sorry for what I called you that day."
Flame's eyes stung with the beginning of tears, but he blinked them away "...Thank you. I'll leave you be now." Flame nodded, silently making his way to the door and closing it behind him. He was quick to head out back towards the temple to see Terrador.
The door to Terrador's room was open, and to Flame's surprise, there was a door in the back. Flame peeked his head through the back door and saw Terrador in the center of the temple, a circular garden.
Flame moved beside Terrador, his head hung low "Terrador...what's going on? What was that?"
"I'm sorry, Flame. You shouldn't have seen that." Terrador looked around at the garden, a broken smile on his muzzle, it made Flame feel uncomfortable. "I grew this, all of this. Did you know that?"
"Terrador." Flame stood up "Don't change the subject. What was that?" It was only then Terrador looked to face Flame.
"Right." Terrador sighed "What Red was referring to was my own mate and child."
"You're…" Flame managed. Terrador nodded.
"I met her while I and the others started the training to become Guardian. A flora dragon, of all things." Terrador looked to Flame "We knew it was wrong, but we couldn't help ourselves. We were young, and thought we could get away with it. But someone found out, and word spread fast about the Guardian who was about to bear a child." Terrador inhaled slowly "So I had a choice, either abandon becoming a guardian or leave my child fatherless, but she left before I could even make that choice." His breathing grew harder "Then the Dark Master was on the rise, and the other dragons went into hiding. I never heard from them again...I don't even know if they're alive." Terrador placed his paw in a patch of flower, his large paw delicately over it all. Tears began to fall on to his paw and the flowers.
"So that's why…" Flame stood up "That's why you were so harsh to me in the beginning."
"Perhaps." Terrador said, looking ahead "Imagine how it felt to know that another Guardian got away with what I couldn't...and maybe that's why I'm trying everything I can to reconcile that." Terrador turned to Flame "You can never be my child...but maybe this training, and just us talking...this was the closest I was going to get to being a father."
Flame looked to Terrador, the sorrowful look he gave only made Flame feel worse. It made his blood boil to know just how much his father hurt Terrador and Red. He thought he was a dragon beyond reproach, but this changed everything he knew about him
"To think you know a guy, huh?" Flame looked ahead at the garden as well, keeping close to Terrador.
"Thank you for hearing me out, Flame. I'm sorry you had to learn about it this way." Terrador said.
Flame paused "I think I'd rather know the ugly truth, than be told a pretty lie." Flame sat up, heading back towards the main hall of the temple "I'll leave you be."
"Before you go." Terrador said, making Flame stop "You and that pink dragoness, Ember? You're just friends right?"
Flame's heart leapt into his chest, after everything he had learned today, about his uncle, about his mentor, about his father. The lies, the truth, and the ugly gray in between. He had to tell the truth here.
"...Yeah, just friends." Flame said, looking ahead, not daring to look back and gauge Terrador's reaction.
"...Alright." Terrador murmured "Thank you."
Flame didn't respond as he returned to the temple.