Not gonna lie, I started this mere hours after publishing the last chapter because I made the mistake was listening to the How to Train Your Dragon soundtrack. Look, I'm going into college, let me relieve my own personal golden years.

Also, I plan to update the first chapter, make it a little longer, add some dialogue and character interaction; that first chapter is a little short and bland for my liking. Sidenote, I need to stop making promises about update schedules around major life and school events, its essay, test, project, and finals month this time. To be fair, I wrote the first half of this chapter in the following two days after the last update.

Reviews:

CrazyCoal: Yes, the two dragons are supposed to be Starflight and Tsunami, I could have made it a little bit clearer, but I obviously couldn't use their names or even species. Thank you for your opinion on the references last chapter!

JadeTheIceWing (Guest): I found it nice to have a human from earth stay as a human (?) in a world of dragons.

Chapter Three,

A Flame Alighteth: Ancalagon.

The months in prison surely influenced Crescent but exercising and keeping his mind sharp and active had done wonders on Crescent's psyche. This very day, however, all that progress would be threatened.

Crescent wildly spun on the spot, the blue dragon was fiercely protecting the star scaled black dragon (who was honestly kind of meek) swung its tail and almost crashed into Crescent. Selise's shield lay shattered in the sand, bit of wood pierced her arm. Groft was keeping one eye on Selise and one eye on us, he himself was clutching his left arm. The black dragon wasn't attacking, although Crescent and Ulfur has no idea how long that may or may not last. Crescent regained his footing and lunged at the blue dragon, first causing a small gash with Bonfire and then a much larger slice with Sif. He then promptly jumped to the side at a usually unfavorable angle (close to the ground) before catching the arena floor with his knife. While Crescent distracted the blue dragon, Ulfur was able to cleave an even larger slice onto the blue dragon's back. Crescent was looking optimistic, he figured if he and Ulfur could continue this trend, they might just exit this arena alive; survival was the only goal. Crescent's optimism shattered when he saw a shadow above him swiftly get bigger and bigger. Crescent jabbed Sif into the ground as he jumped back, granting him and little more distance away as he felt a rush of heat. A red scaled dragon landed in the sands; heat arose from its very scales.

"Ulfur! Sky-Burner!" Crescent shouted out, but he was a few seconds too late. Ulfur attempted to block the dragon's claw attack, but alas, he lost his non dominant arm and gained a few large, smoldering gashes doing so. Had he not blocked the strike, Crescent figured he would have been instantaneously killed. Crescent ran over, sheathing Bonfire in the process and gingerly dropping Sif next to Ulfur.

"Ulfur!" Crescent exclaimed, holding his mentor and only true friend in this desolate world (Selise was an annoyance at worst, acquaintance at best). Ulfur choked and couched up blood, he wouldn't last long. Behind Crescent, Groft was fighting off (to wondrous degrees of unsuccess) the fire scaled Sky-Burner.

"Listen well to what I- *Hurk* I am about to tell you, Young Wolf," Ulfur coughed out, spilling more blood in the process. Crescent wiped his tears and firmly held his friend.

"When I look upon ye, I see only great po-*hurk* potential," Ulfur wheezed out.

"I will not die without telling ye that I'm proud of ye for succeeding in this foreign land," Ulfur smiled, actually smiled, not a grin or a smirk, a genuine smile. Surely, this was his first for a long while. Crescent frowned.

"I haven't succeeded that much! All I know how to do is hold a sword in a wildly weirdly successful way!" Crescent complained, still holding his mentor.

"QUIET YE FOOL!" Ulfur roared, spitting up a pond of blood without caring. Crescent could swear that even the blue and black dragons could hear his mighty yell. Ulfur softened his eyes and his tone.

"Ye have proven thyself to be a great warrior so soon, true. That is not where thy haft succeeded though, ye have been thrust into unknown lands, yet ye hold yerself mentally strong, physical able, and morally straight. I see it in yer eyes, ye don't want to kill this dragon, Young Wolf," Ulfur's gaze pierced through Crescent's very being. Ulfur saw right through the teen. Ulfur's eyes closed before he shot them right back often, his time grew even shorter. Ulfur violently tore his necklace off and thrust it into Crescent's hands.

"I hold ye to this oath, Crescent Nyx. Ye are now mine own kin, ye are the last of thine kin. Ye are Crescent Nyx Eldi to those ye meet. To thine family, ye are Orn of Eldi, the Eagle of Flame! Wheneverst ye falter or plummet, embrace your feathers and soar to freedom, become Orn and honor thine kin! And when ye have honored, ye can fall back or choose to remain," Ulfur's blood caked the medallion, an obsidian stone with amber inside, like lava waiting to burst out from under the rock. Crescent remained speechless.

"Mine own fire fades, but yers shall rise. Leave me be, Groft needs yer assistance, Wolf. To Crescent's utter shock, Ulfur stood up with a hunch in his knees, ran upon the sands like a charging bear, lunged, landed, spun thrice, and flung his greatsword at the royal Sky-Burner. The Sky-Burner managed to avoid getting impaled in the forehead, but the blade nonetheless opened up her cheek, revealing sharp teeth. The Sky-Burner roared out in pain and Ulfur collapsed, dying with a hearty laugh and the following words:

"Ye may have bested ol'Ulfur, but ye won't ever doubt my flame again! When the child of Nyx arrives," Ulfur looked back at Crescent, who was charging up to the fire scaled Sky-Burner. Ulfur whispered the last part to himself.

"A flame alighteth". Ulfur's gaze went black, and he hit the sand with a smile.

Crescent knew what Ulfur was doing, he wasn't making some heroic last stand (at least that wasn't the full intent anyways), he was causing a distraction. He had told him to save Groft after all. Crescent rushed up to the fire scaled Sky-Burner, which was distracted by Ulfur's attack. Crescent planted his dominant food in the sand, grabbed the hilt of Sif with two hands, and brough the blade across the Sky-Burner's stomach. A large gash, the largest Orn had ever made formed upon the softer scales of the Sky-Burner. The Sky-Burner roared out in pain and took off flying out of the arena. Crescent supported Groft and the two limped over to where Selise was hugging the wall. As if the current chaos wasn't enough, the sky blackened as a whole armada of black, star scaled dragons plummeted down. Chaos continued to ensue as they took the other meek black dragon from before. Crescent saw his chance though. Crescent ripped off his shirt and tightly tied it over Groft's wound.

"When you get the chance, put sanitized water over that and wash it multiple times a day. You'll know the water is sanitized when it bubbles, let it cool down to a warm temperature," Crescent instructed.

The events of the day finally settled in as Crescent returned bloody with Groft and Selise to the prison, barely carrying Ulfur's sword. The room went silent as the "Greeny" entered. Crescent silently walked over to the bonfire spot and plunged the blade into the cracked stone.

"Tonight…we mourn and tell stories," Was all Crescent said as he collected the bonfire scrap. No one argued.

Crescent stood in front of the prisoners, behind the bonfire.

"Ulfur sacrificed himself to save his team, his family; it was because of Ulfur that Selise and Groft were given the chance to escape, and I was allowed to live," Crescent paused and took a deep breath "Ulfur wouldn't pass without gaining even more glory, however. Ulfur cut open the Sky-Burner royalty's cheek with a mighty, one-handed throw of his greatsword." The room solemnly and respectfully cheered. Crescent waited for the short cheer to end and continued.

"It is this night that we honor Ulfur of Eldi, the one who guided us when no one else would. Ulfur of Eldi is a Wolf of Flame no more, for he has surpassed the wolf," Crescent smiled, "Ulfur of Eldi embodied the qualities needed of a true knight! Ulfur the Wolf rose above his paws and is now Ulfur, the Flaming Wolf Knight," the prisoners unanimously nodded and "hmmed" in praise. Crescent had one last thing to say, however.

"By Ulfur's decree, his last words to me gifted me the highest honor; I am Crescent Nyx no longer, I am Orn Nyx of Eldi, the Eagle of Flame."

The following morning was easy on none of the prisoners. Ulfur's chipped greatsword stood defiantly against the morning sun as claws scraped along the stone. The Sky-Burners had arrived. They attempted to remove The Wolf Knight's blade, but found they couldn't, it stood headstrong in its position, it would not budge. Soon enough, the Sky-Burners gave up.

Later that day, more Sky-Burners arrived, presumably for another arena joust. There were only two Sky-Burners, they only intended to take 2 or less. One of them opened the cell, the other made its way over to Crescent. Orn of Eldi looked up defiantly at the Sky-Burner before allowing himself to be carried out of the cell, head held high.

The stone passageways of the nest were surprisingly well lit, gold and jewels embedded the stonework.

'Just like Smaug,' Crescent thought to himself with mild humor. Crescent was forced to stop examining the mason work after about 3 more minutes had passed, they had arrived above the arena. It was then that Crescent had an idea of what was happening. Ulfur had once described a similar scene to him. Crescent thought of this story as he watched the colorful dragon chained to the colorful tree beside him.

"I s'pose when one of us humans manage to impress the Sky-Burner royalty, we're offered this pet like position. I s'pose they think we have minimal intelligence, only enough to make a choice. I t'was once offered such a position," Ulfur told Crescent as they sat and ate the meager food they were given.

"Let me guess, you did something stupid?" Crescent replied with a mirthful tone and a slight smirk. Ulfur stared at him for a second before belching out a loud laugh.

"Nah, lad! I'd already done plenty of that and will still!" Ulfur roared with laughter.
"Nah, Young Wolf, I did something crazy! I looked at the royalty dead in er' scaly face and jumped down into the arena! I single handedly killed one of em' scorpion dragons that day, and I got the scars to prove it," Ulfur finished with a solemn grin.

Crescent tore his eyes from the tree and watched the spectacle below, two dragons were circling each other in the sands. One was a large brown one Crescent had only seen a glimpse of on the pillars. The other Orn narrowed his eyes at, it was the dragon that essentially killed Ulfur. Orn clenched his fists and silently seethed. The two started to roar at each other, presumably in their native tongue. After a minute or two of conversation, the fire scaled Sky-Burner went on the offensive. Orn slowly reached for the hilts of Sif and Bonfire but stopped himself.

'What am I thinking? I can't get revenge on someone whose likely just doing their job,' Orn frowned and shook his head. Crescent was disappointed in himself for almost committing to willingly attempt to murder. Crescent sighed and let his arms drop, he would settle for simply not liking the dragon for now. Crescent turned his attention to the ruler; the ruler was roaring something with a seemingly excited vocal tone. Crescent's attention was caught by the sound of shifting scales, he looked back at the calm and colorful dragon on the tree. The dragon was slowly opening its mouth. Crescent studied the teeth, they were more fangs like over the Sky-Burners' teeth, well, the front upper teeth were at least. Those fangs caught Crescent's attention, they were very snake like, more specifically, they were close to a spitting cobra.

Prior to going into animation, Crescent was in Advanced Cartoons. Surprisingly, Advanced Cartoons has little to do with animation, it has more so to do with drawing in a cartoon art style rather cartoon animation. One thing artists are taught to do in cartoons is to start drawing something, typically an animal, in a more realistic style before gradually redrawing the piece into a more cartoon style by taking away or simplifying and/or exaggeration features. Crescent had drawn his fair number of snakes, scales over tigers muscles any day. Crescent had seen more than enough snake fangs during his 4 years of Highschool Advanced Cartoons to understand that the dragon was about to spit something, likely volatile, out of its (likely) venom glands. What Crescent wasn't expecting was an acidic, black goo to launch out of the fangs and burn the Sky-Burner Ruler's face. Crescent recoiled in shock, more so at the unexpected death acid instead of painful blinding venom than the burning torture monarchist's face. Time was short however and chaos ensued the arena and beyond. Dragons took flight, prisoner and captor alike.

Crescent ran along the stone corridors, he had to find a way out, preferably a way in which he could get everybody out.

'Think, think! How can I get everybody out?! We're thousands of feet above ground, the only anchors I know of are solid pillars of stone' Crescent turned and found himself in suddenly very dim light, at the edge of torchlight. Crescent stopped and took of breath. He needed to reanalyze the little he did know.

'High above the ground, giant fire breathing/flying lizards, stone all around…stone, solid stone, high above the ground…pillars…how was this place constructed? We're thousands of feet above the ground, this palace is built from solid, dense, heavy stone, a war against gravity some might say. Those pillars must have some way of getting more materials up, surely, they couldn't just fly every piece of stone up here,' with maintenance tunnels in mind, Crescent turned on his heels and made a mad dash for the human cell.

"Orn!" Selise exclaimed as Crescent came into view of the cell.

"What the bloody hell is going on out there?!" She screamed, a little too loud (even for her).

"Long story short, the ruler was injured and there's a prison riot going on. Look, we're thousands of feet in the air- "Crescent stopped speaking for a second so he could jam Bonfire into the lock and twist, "there has to be some kind of maintenance tunnels of some sort."

"Ye? And how do ya intend to find one?" Selise replied, one hand on her hip.

"How else? Run around randomly and stick to the shadows," Crescent replied with a strained voice as he pried the lock open.

"This wasn't yer brightest idea, boyo," Groft grumbled.

"Don't got any better ones," Crescent bitterly replied, shooting the muscled man a glare. Groft was about to snark about something else, but the beat of dragon wings stopped the chatter. Every human pressed their backs as close to the wall as possible and a few seconds passed before a slightly glowing scaled Sky-Burner soared down the halls and past the humans. All were quiet for a minute before slowly moving on.

It felt like hours as the humans traveled the tunnels, they were so deep into the tunnels that they had to double back and take some fire from the torches. Any sound of wings had long been silenced and the only sounds that could be heard were the sounds of footsteps and tense breathing. Eventually, the former prisoners found a dusty tunnel leading down, a dark and desolate tunnel.

"Pleasant, a dark hole leading down into a swirling abyss," Crescent grimaced, taking the first step into darkness.

The trip down was silent, but unfortunately it was only quiet in the form of voice, the shadows didn't swallow the footsteps. Thankfully there was great disparity (1) between the abyssal tunnel and the outside world.

Crescent had never felt as much emotion towards grass and sunlight as he did when he first exited the tunnel. The soothing sunlight was only a brief reprieve, however. The shadows of dragons danced across the grass. Groft pointed upwards and directed Crescent's attention towards a large, scorpion tailed dragon.

"Ancalagon is what we call that one, the most ruthless of 'em all. No fear, no mercy, evil incarnate," Groft spat out the sentence, he must've had personal experience with the dragon.

"Ancalagon, how apt," Crescent mumbled, it only added to a working theory of his, but he needed more raw data before he could dwell on it more.

"Let's get moving, stick to the mountain base," one of the prisoners, Stikks, remarked. Crescent was inclined agree.

The walk along the mountainside with calming and familiar. There was little need to worry about dragons, what with the supposed Mud-Dwellers in the opposite direction and the Sky-Burners in chaos. The weather was nice, the wind blew with a calm embrace, and the water from the river provided a familiar sound. The walk reminded Crescent of his time on campus; deer monsters not included. For the first time since before Ulfur's death, Crescent found himself with a smile, however small, across his face.

"So that's when I said, 'So stick it up your ass!'" Groft bellowed as he finished telling the other former prisoners a story. Crescent and Selise were taking point, she was oddly silent for once, that's how Crescent knew to be a little more perceptive. Selise, for all her boisterousness, claimed to be descended from psychics. While Crescent couldn't verify this, she seemed to have a sense for perceiving things better than others.

"What is it?" Crescent finally asked, getting tired of guessing at what he was supposed to be looking for.

"Leaf, member 'im?" Selise responded. Crescent raised one of his eyebrows. Leaf was an interesting one, talked about 'Dragonmancers' a lot, him and his group that is. They escaped before Ulfur died. From what Crescent knew, Dragonmancers were just better humans, although he didn't know much. Ulfur had claimed to have earned the title, though he had never recognized himself as such; Ulfur saw these Dragonmancers as mere hearsay.

"You think they're here in the mountains?" Crescent asked.

"They couldn't have gotten that far in these mountains," Selise responded, fair enough, honestly.

"Well, let's go find some extra muscle," Crescent replied.

I need to rewrite my outline; this should've been out a week ago. If any of y'all have ideas, I strongly encourage you read the original version of this story and then PM me here or DM me on Discord (UnappreciatedDM #3199), I'd love to hear any creative thoughts. I'll be sure to mention the originator of the idea(s) in the chapters that are relevant to the creator. Also, if you wanted me to bring in an OC of yours, I'd be open to that as well, creating circular characters (2) is always much harder than flat characters (3).

My English 102 final is next week, after that I should have around a 30% increase in free time.

Term Index:

Disparity – A great difference.

Circular Character – A character that's explored in depth, a character who is given backstory, motivation, and can be summarized in at least a paragraph.

Flat Character – A character that is in other words, simple. Flat characters can typically be described in one word to one sentence.