Spyro watched as Cynder fell. His breath was heavy and ragged as he huffed through gritted teeth, but as he watched the body of the one he had once loved relentlessly fall down towards her death, he felt the muscles in his face soften and relax, before a grimace pulled at his lips. He looked away, blinking back a tear. Hell, that was hard to do. Shedding that much blood from her was hard as well. He'd never seen her that bloody before, and to know that he'd done that hurt him a lot. That he'd done that to her.

But she had thrown herself among them. Them, who ridicule others.

He'd done what he had to.

And now he could go on about it without having to worry about such a strong, formidable opponent like Cynder. His vision would come to him one day, and it will be so much easier without… without her being in his way.

She didn't have a name anymore. She was dead.

She meant nothing to him.

Spyro blinked back another tear, before he turned around and looked down at Urgussen. Venomfangs and shadowclaws were beginning to retreat from Urgussen, each of them holding screaming, howling hatchlings, each of their young, high-pitched, grating howls carrying in the air and making their way to Spyro's ears. He could almost feel their pain and fear from their shrill screams. He blinked and shook his head, forcing the thoughts away. It was time to head back to Dark Peak, so Spyro took a deep breath, before flying back to his army.

But had Spyro continued to look below him for a little longer, he would have seen a red draconic form leap out of the forest below to catch Cynder, saving her from her demise.

It was a calm, peaceful day and the birds were singing cheerfully, the sun's rays filtering through the leaves of the thick heavy trees, lighting up the rainforest with a soft, serene, warm light that made everything seem even more peaceful, almost perfectly peaceful, as if evil and violence didn't exist. A fire dragon in his mid-fifties walked through the thick rainforest on the outskirts of Urgussen, paws moving lightly and graciously as he took in his surroundings while he looked around for some good firewood. He'd run out just yesterday and needed to get some more, so he was in search for a decent sized tree to cut some branches off. He wouldn't cut down a whole tree; he loved nature, and he knew certain animals like birds and squirrels needed the trees, so he wasn't going to do any deforestation, even if it was only one tree. He wasn't cruel. He would only take what he needed. This was the same with hunting; he didn't want to kill a creature and end up disposing half of its carcass. There were some parts that he didn't eat, like the head and neck and any other parts of the body which would be fairly unsavoury to be eating, but disposed of the carcass where he knew other predators willing to finish it off would be waiting.

Finding firewood was a task he honestly didn't like, but he had to do it. It was cold in the cave he called home. Sure, he could create fire, being a fire dragon, but he needed something to burn so he could make a fire. Rocks don't exactly burn, and foliage is too short-lived; it shrivels up and burns out into a pile of black ash.

He eventually found a massive tree with some fairly thick branches, and he smiled when he saw it. He knew this would be a great amount of wood for a small fire. He walked towards the tree and looked up at the branches, before spreading his wings and lifting himself up into the sky, hovering above the ground before he used his long, bronze tailblade like a saw to cut off the large branch. He eventually cut cleanly through it, and the wood gave a loud snap before the branch fell to the ground with a thud, the leaves at the end of the branch rustling on impact. He saw two more branches, slightly thinner than the first, that would be good enough, so he cut those down too.

Once he was happy with the firewood he'd gotten, he grabbed the three large branches in his maw and began to haul the wood along the ground back towards his home. These huge bits of firewood would likely fuel a fire every night for about a month or two, so he was happy with the amount he had gotten. He'd have to remember that tree for future firewood expeditions; it was the biggest one he'd seen yet, and he'd been living out here in the rainforests just outside of Urgussen for a long time. So long in fact, that he couldn't remember the exact number of years he'd been out here for. But he'd lived in Urgussen for a while, and still returned there to get some items and to socialise on the occasion.

As he walked back home, the peaceful chirping of birds and calling of other animals began to rise into frantic, panicked screams, squeals and hoots. Confused, the fire dragon looked up and saw through the dense foliage above him a small yet heavy shadow in the sky, growing larger and larger. He squinted and could eventually pick out the shape of limbs and wings.

Dear ancestors, this was a dragon!

He dropped the firewood he was carrying and leapt up into the air, arms outstretched wide to catch the dragon as it fell. As he grabbed a hold of the dragon, he turned himself around, preparing to take the brunt of the force to protect the falling dragon, spreading his wings out to catch the air in an attempt to slow their momentum. They fell through thin leafy cover and landed on the ground with a thud. Pain flared through his back, but luckily nothing was broken. He sighed, before he wondered why the dragon had been falling. It had most likely been flying and had accidentally lost balance and fallen out of the sky or had gone unconscious and fallen out of the sky.

But suddenly he knew it was not just mere unconsciousness or clumsiness that had caused this dragon to fall from the sky as he felt something wet spilling over him. When he took a closer look, it was blood. Blood covered the whole body of the dragon he was holding, and at closer inspection of the large, slender form, it was a dragoness. He gently pushed the dragoness off him and stood up, gasping at the sight of her wounds. The lacerations in her body were deep and spilled blood everywhere, making her body look entirely red. The fire dragon wiped some blood away from the dragoness' scales and saw what colour they really were. A very dark purple, close to black.

He gasped as he recognised who this was just by her scale colour. This was Cynder. He… He'd… He'd heard… stories of Cynder and what had happened to her… and he felt bad for her, sorry that she had to go through all she did as a child. But why was she so beaten up? What had happened to her?

He reached out with his magic, as he was a mage and could utilise powers other than fire. He hovered his crimson paw over her bloody, broken form, moving it around her body to try and feel for any internal injuries, and he let out a gasp. He felt Cynder's spirit, which was beginning to get a bit restless, almost as if it was preparing to depart. He felt something else inside her as well.

Her essence core. It was empty. And not just her mana, but everything else. Her core was dying too.

He needed to do something. Focusing on her instead of the firewood, he shoved his head gently underneath her abdomen, before flicking it up and rolling her onto his back, staining his head, wings and back with her blood, before he sprinted as best as he could towards his cave. Upon entering, he gently placed her down, before he ran off to grab some red gems to try and heal her and keep her spirit inside her body. He held them close to Cynder's bloody body, but nothing happened. No sparkling red magic, no healing wounds. Nothing. He shook the gems about, pressing them firmly against Cynder's side, forcing a bit more blood out of her, but still, nothing happened.

He felt her spirit. It was still inside of her, but it continued to get weaker, and weaker. She was going to die.

He bowed his head and prayed to the ancestors, praying that they would keep Cynder alive. Afterwards he sprinted off and grabbed some blue spirit gems to revive her essence core, hoping that doing so would help keep her spirit strong. The blue gem flashed but there was no sign of Cynder absorbing the gem. He sighed. Not just her mana was gone, but so was the ancestrite, the part of the essence core that allows spiritual connection to the ancestors and the ancestral gems. Cynder's core was dying with no ancestrite, and without it, he couldn't use a spirit gem on her properly. If a core is only a little deprived of ancestrite, the dragon can still use a spirit gem, but with Cynder's essence core being almost completely barren of ancestrite, it would be incredibly difficult to get a reaction; even more so with her spirit being so extremely weak.

He felt his heart begin to race as panic overtook him. He took a deep breath and called on his magic to try and infuse a bit of power into her spirit and into her essence core to keep them inside her body. He then began to pray to the ancestors, praying that they would keep Cynder's spirit alive and well, as well as her core. He felt a quiet whisper from the ancestors, saying that it would be alright.

Three days passed, and Cynder was still unconscious. The fire dragon had made her a bed in some soft foliage he'd found, and made lots of make-shift bandages out of the same silky foliage that he wrapped her bloody body in. Some of her wounds still oozed with blood, turning the green leaves dark with red blood. So many times over the past few days, he had tried to give Cynder a spirit gem, even to the point where he'd actually pierce a hole in her body to feed the gem inside her, which still didn't work too well. He'd even put her leg in a brace to correct it, since red gems didn't seem to be doing much.

The first night of trying to heal her had been sleepless and seemed to drag on forever as he fretted about Cynder's wellbeing, as well as trying to get some spirit gem energy into her, which he had attempted every two or three hours, before he panicked and got very impatient a little after sunrise and moved onto trying to empower her every twenty to thirty minutes, before he'd eventually fallen asleep due to overworking himself. He'd taken it easier since then, but he still worried for her.

He could still feel her spirit and essence core in there, only just hanging onto the world of the living, but he didn't think Cynder could hold on for much longer. He felt like her spirit was staying because it could feel the spirit gem's power and lusted for it, but her core was not cooperating and would not give in to the alluring spell of the spirit gem.

But it was a new day, and he told himself he would keep trying to revive Cynder no matter what. He would help guide her essence core to accepting the spirit gem's power, even if it took everything out of him.

So, it was time to try and heal her once more. He grabbed one small blue spirit gem and sat down next to Cynder. He raised a claw and carefully dug it into a clean, unbandaged spot on her dark purple flank, causing small beads of blood to ooze out of the wound. He quickly shoved the blue spirit gem into the whole, praying to the ancestors that something would happen this time.

For a while, nothing happened, but he then jumped as a bright blue spark flashed between Cynder's flank and the spirit gem. He quickly pulled it out, wondering what had happened, but gasped when a small trail of blue mist came out with the spirit gem. He could even see that the gem was only slightly duller, like some of the energy from the spirit gem had been absorbed.

He smiled with glee. She had absorbed a spirit gem! Even if it was only a little bit, but she had absorbed some of the spirit gem's energy! She was actually recovering! It was a miracle!

Praise the ancestors! he thought.

He put the spirit gem beside him and sighed, before raising his paws and putting pressure on the small wound he had put on her to stop the bleeding; red healing gems wouldn't work because she still needed more ancestrite to be able to accept the energy inside it, and she was lucky she was only just strong enough to accept the power of the spirit gems that would help revive her essence core. He would have tried to get more spirit gem energy into her, but he had gone three days with pretty much no success, so he knew that a small flicker of energy was probably all he was going to get this morning. He would try again later this afternoon, maybe closer to the evening, but he didn't expect to get anything more than another spark of energy. Cynder's core was incredibly weak, but it was obvious her spirit had been recuperating beforehand. Even though she was still weak, her heart was starting to beat again, and she was now beginning to breathe, if only faintly, hoarsely, and extremely slowly. It seemed that her body was focusing on repairing her spirit before her essence core, then her wounds would most likely be next. He didn't know when Cynder was going to wake up, but he hoped it was soon.

But he had progress!

He was going to feed her core a little more spirit gem energy each day to try and fill her core up with ancestrite once more. He sighed with content, silently thanking the ancestors once more, before he turned and put the blue spirit gem away with the rest of his stash of gems in his cave. To be honest, he had been farming gem clusters for several years. He'd taught himself how to grow and harvest the gems, especially without using them, but he'd learned a lot about it and was doing well with the farming, as he had one cluster of spirit gems, four clusters of healing gems, and three clusters of mana gems.

He turned and left the room with a smile. He made his way to the entrance of his cave, looking up at the sun rays that filtered through the heavy foliage of the dense rainforest he lived in. It was beautiful here, and he was glad this was his home. Today was good as well because there wasn't really much he needed to do. He could really just stay home, relax, and probably have a small nap today; he was still incredibly tired from the sleepless night three days ago. He didn't need to go hunting due to the fact he already had a deer left over from yesterday afternoon, two legs and a flank remaining. His stomach grumbled after thinking about food, but he just stood and continued to stare at the sun.

He loved this peaceful life of his. It couldn't get any better than it was.

He didn't want it to change. But when Cynder would wake up, his life would change shortly after.

Heck, I very much apologise for being so inactive. I've had a busy year this year with school and many other projects, and my beta-reader's had life happen; I won't go into anything coz that's not for me to give. We have been getting stuff done over the past four or so months though, so there are actually three complete chapters, including this one. I'm just waiting feedback on Chapter 31 before I send off Chapter 32. I wanted to have a few chapters finished so that if there's a massive inactive gap like this I have a chapter finished. Hope this makes sense to all you guys lol. Also I've been reorganising this story too; I recently removed a character who's meant to appear later in the story, and I also needed to add a scene, so I'm still figuring out where that fits in.

I've also been doing a heap of other stuff fanfiction-wise too. I've been helping out a writer by the name of MysticOTDH on his story Visions of Darkness which is coming along amazingly by the way. He is a super talented writer so I highly recommend you check it out if you haven't already. Also I've been planning another Spyro story (I don't know why I do this, I have so many ideas lol).

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Derick Lindsey: So, we get a little glimpse of Cynder's saviour here. What do you think so far? Also, it was not my intention to make Spyro seemingly like Thanos. And funny thing is, you're not the only one to make that parallel lol.

AquillaPrime: Hey man, glad you're enjoying the story. Glad to hear your thoughts on it.

RyChu0130: Yeah, that was a dodgy cliffhanger to leave you all hanging off for such a long time lol. Sorry about that, but the reason behind that was discussed above. Glad the cliffhanger works though, and I'm glad you're enjoying the story.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO: Hot cake story has been updated. Glad you've been liking the story man.

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And heck, I have no idea when the next chapter will be, but hopefully it is soon. I'm hoping my beta-reader gets back to me on Chapter 31 so I can post Chapter 29, but I don't know how long that'll be. I really need to search for another one lol. Anyway, hope you all enjoyed this chapter, see you next time!