Disclaimer: I own not the characters or rights to Escaflowne. Only thing I own is the plot and any original characters created in the ever changing labyrinth that is my mind.
Author's Note: I apologize for the shortness and poor quality of this chapter. I was unfortunate enough to suffer a hospital stay and several writer's blocks that frustrated me to the point of near tears. Also, please note that the majority of this story was written while listening to music from the A-Teens, Village People, and the song Funkytown. Why you must know this I haven't a clue. Just thought that it was interesting fact.
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Bloody Wings
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"Ugh….ouch…"
Pain registering from a wrenched shoulder and sore back, the battered form of a teenage girl groggily rose from the soft hollow nestled between two massive trees. Dawn light filtered through the canopy overhead, showering the ground with warm pink and orange light. Bird song lifted upwards to the sky as their choirs took flight on many multicolored wings, flitting through the forest denseness. The dazzling displays of nature seemed far too bright and strange for the girl, who shielded her eyes and plopped back down with a sigh.
Leaning against a sun warmed rock she tilted her head back to gaze up at the mass expanse of blue that was the sky. Fluffy clouds drifted lazily, non-threatening ivory against pacifying azure. The sun blazed in the horizon, shedding warmth and radiance over the waking world as the planet rotated through the coldness of space. Nothing to be concerned about there… or maybe there was. Resting above the opposite horizon, like the eyes of some ancient goddess of night, lay two moons. The smaller was vaguely familiar, much like Earth's moon. The larger… now that was where the problem came in: how in the world could she see Earth in the sky!? She was on Earth… wasn't she?
A headache threatened as the teen frowned and continued to stare skywards. It was too much of a pain to think at the moment, yet her rebellious mind demanded answers that logic and the five senses couldn't give. Everything –felt- like Earth, but the appearance of the planet in the sky with the moon just didn't make sense! This wasn't putting her in the best of moods either. Such a lack of knowledge about this freaked out place she found herself in put her in an irritable state. Add on the fact that she was lost in the middle of some forest wearing only a pair of pajamas didn't help much either. Whirling masses of questions whirled about her disorderly mind, the most prominent ones concerning the voice and the pillar of light.
"My life sucks." Audrey said to no one and nothing in particular. "First my family becomes a failed dictatorship, and now I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere on some strange continent in some freakin' forest staring up at Earth and the moon! What next!?"
Without warning the rock she was using as a backrest shifted just enough so that she found herself laying on her side, bewildered and blinking. Sitting back up she turned to glare at the rusty hued bolder… only to find that it was suddenly covered in a spider web of cracks. Wide eyed and silent, Audrey watched as the 'rock' crumbled and began to emit dull chirps.
Before she could fully grasp what was going on, a turtle-like head emerged from one side of the obvious egg. Golden eyes gazed about with mingled curiosity and hunger as the new born wormed the rest of its body free. Supported by two wobbly forelegs, each of which sported four wickedly curved talons, the hatchling lifted the upper half of its brown and black body off the ground and took a few steps forward. Unsteady and creeling the beast inched its way over to the girl, who seemed as though she were trapped in time and couldn't move at the moment.
Shoving a slime-covered head beneath her limp fingers, the baby dragon crooned and looked up at her expectantly. Dim realization sparks somewhere in the labyrinth of the teen's mind that the new born must have mistaken her for its mother. This thought became more solid as more of the 'rocks' surrounding her spilled forth infant dragons which crawled over and around her, squealing and making quite the ruckus.
Like a first-time babysitter that finds herself swamped with five screaming children, Audrey was at a complete loss. Emotions drifted from wonderment to nervousness, the first directed at the infants themselves, the latter brought about by the unknowing if the real mother would appear and/or if the squabbling creatures would eventually eat her in the absence of other food. Neither of the concepts was a comforting one, nor were the thoughts that sat stubbornly at the surface of her mind: either way, whichever came true first, she was certain that she could be found at the top of the dinner menu.
"What am I suppose to do now?" She groaned, wallowing in self-pity as she fended off yet another attack from a hungry dragon child. Why did her life keep going downhill so quickly as of late?
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Like a castle of despair, it loomed like a mighty beast, rearing its head into the sky and boasting peril and despair. It spoke the words of past experiments gone awry, sneered, laughed in their faces. All that appeared were massive stone walls, though the screams of horror and the tears of so many were as apparent as sun in the sky and the moons rolling across the palette of dusk as if someone gave them a gentle push. The planets and stars, the entire galaxy, frowned upon the wretched place. Locked within this fortress of stone and steel the creature responsible for the displacement of the girl lay, another victim to the mad science of the Zaibach madoushi.
The pale greenish glow of the lighting ghosted over the expansive body, curling about each motionless limb and throwing shadows to create hollows and valleys where there were none. Unfocused eyes gleamed in the poor luminescence, dull emeralds glazed with the effects of sedation drugs. Slow shallow breathing rattled up and down the length of the serpentine throat, rows of industrial strength chains snaking between protective bony ridges to thus bind the wedge shaped head and slim neck to the hard concrete floor. Sickle-shaped claws shone in pearly disrepair, these murderous hands likewise bound to the cold ground beneath. Tattered wings suspended by wires hung limply, their sails torn and useless. The rest of the draconic body was paralyzed like the neck and forelegs in chains, the vessel as a whole in much need of tender loving care. There would be none administered; such things did not exist in this desolate place. Weak, broken, the dragon laid in subdued silence.
Buried deeply beneath the haze of drugs, a sentient mind whirled a kaleidoscope of emotions; anger, frustration, desire, despair, loneliness. Longing wavered between the want of freedom and the want of death, the two becoming muddled and confused when they met in the center to form one wish. It seemed that the only freedom a soul would gain in this world anymore was through death; you could only sit back and wish for a quick end. Here, in a darkened entrance to Hell, no such thing existed. If something could be gained by those hours between life and death the masters of this realm would prolong your demise. Sometimes it was hard to doubt the rumors that they were not above doing so to get a cheap form of entertainment from the spectacle. Even now they stood on the tier high above the ground, vultures awaiting the death of their next victim.
Their voices floated down with the recycled oxygen, invading the moody thought processes of the brooding reptile. Meaningless banters most of it; speculations on formulas, dosage amounts of certain new elixirs, brief inquiries of different experiments. Snorting indifferently, the dragon closed its eyes and tuned out the annoying buzz of conversation between slimy haired scientists, slipping into a blissful drug-enhanced sleep. There was nothing to do now but wait for the drugs to wear off and the chains to be removed, or for the next experiment to begin. Such was the life of a Zaibach lab rat.
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Author's Note: Yes, another one. But this one actually has a meaning, unlike the first. I promise that the next chapter will be a long one, and that there will be actual Escaflowne characters in it beyond the madoushi! Yay! Bring on the cool people! Hopefully the next one will explain my dragon character better as well; didn't want to give too much away all at once.