A/N: Thanks for the reviews, and I'm sorry this is so late but I was really busy. Can you believe that ALL of the stores don't have a PS2 in stock? I can't believe it!
.:Curse of Dragons:.
.:By: Darkwolfgal:.
.:Chapter 1: The Shattering:.
The pitter-patter of rain hit the cobblestone roads, sliding in torrents in the crevices between the stones, sliding into the ditches to either side of the path. The weather was horrible, murky, wet and downright miserable. Thunder rumbled in the distance, an occasional flash of lightning flashing in accompaniment.
She didn't care; she actually thanked the gods for the conditions. In such weather the dragon riders had been grounded, smart enough not to risk the winds, and their steeds could not smell her in this rain. Her footsteps were drowned out by the thunder and the swish of her sopping kimono was hidden in the rain.
Still, she was wet, cold, and tiring fast. It wouldn't be long before she had to find a place to rest, to escape this night, and after the night there was morning, and morning would only heighten the chase. She was doomed, she knew she was, but she had to keep running. There was nothing else to do, nothing else to live for, and she had made a promise.
She could see Kaede's face, usually round and cheery, haggard and grim, pale as winter's cold snow.
'Promise me, Kagome, promise me!' she had pleaded, clutching at the girl's hand with dying strength.
'Kaede, save your strength!' she cried, sobbing at her knees beside Kaede's pallet.
'Promise me, Kagome, that whatever happens you will not give up.' The woman insisted, coughing hoarsely.
'Don't say such things, you're going to be alright!' Kagome sobbed, burying her face in Kaede's soiled blankets.
'Kagome, my time has come, you must accept that child.' Kaede said, 'But promise me.'
'I promise, Kaede.' She whispered in return.
'Good girl, now take this and guard it well, there are people who would give anything for this jewel.' The dying woman said, handing Kagome a light pink jewel, a little larger than a marble, strung around a coarse thread.
'Do not let them have it,' she coughed, 'They- They will-'
Kaede's hand dropped and her flesh went cold, her eyes closing peacefully, her haggard face a plane of serenity. She was gone, her only family was gone, and all she had was this jewel…
The jewel the dragon riders wanted, craved, and the reason why they were chasing her. Somehow they needed this jewel, and if she hadn't been foolish enough to show it to a lady at the pawnshop this would have never happened.
'Child, you cannot pawn the clothes off your back, and you have not shoes nor gloves nor any other articles of value. I'm sorry dear, but this is a pawnshop, not a charity.'
'I understand, ma'am, I just want work.' Kagome said, her eyes downcast.
'Sorry hun, but workers are not needed in a pawnshop. If you don't have anything to pawn I'm going to ask you to leave.' The lady had replied, a little harshly.
'But please ma'am, I'll work for little pay, just a place to sleep and meals! Two meals a day is-'
'Girl, for heavens sake, do not ask me again! It is hard enough to support myself!' the pawn lady replied with a cry of exasperation.
'Come now, Lady Penna, give her a chance.' A deep voice had said from behind her, catching them both by surprise.
There stood a dragon rider, armor glinting and the badge of a bronze dragon gleaming on his chest. He was a captain, one of the police captains.
'Rider, I do not need work nor have the means to pay for it.' Lady Penna growled, though she was more subdued.
'Child, do you have anything else you might wish to pawn, besides your own clothes?' the rider asked.
'Well… no.' she had replied, but the rider had noticed the silence where she had been pondering over the jewel, and he saw the coarse thread around her neck.
'Around your neck, child, what is it?' he asked. He was a police officer, a dragon rider, a protector of the people.
So she had shown him.
What a mistake, she thought savagely as she ducked into an alleyway, her feet slapping in puddles. She searched for a moment and was rewarded with a slight lean-to. It would do for her; a beggar had little choice, especially a beggar on the run.
'Stay there, do not move a muscle.' She gasped in fear as the dragon rider stood herself beside his dragon as he turned and ran down the street, blowing the dragon-shaped whistle around his neck.
The police whistle, something was wrong and a moment later she found out exactly what.
'This way, I've found the jewel, Lord Naraku will be pleased.' Called the excited rider.
'Yes, it's real, it was spell hidden, why would a fake be protected by spells?' a pause 'Oh be sensible, she's a beggar, she doesn't know what it is… Of course we can take it from her, she's a dimwit, they all are-'
She had heard enough and ran, ignoring the dragon's bugle as she left its side. She heard the men hollering wildly and the bronze rider was crying out in anguish. There were a few moments of silence as she ran down the streets before two dragons bore down on her, the bronze rider shouting out.
'Stop, girl, stop now!' he called, the words backed by his dragon's bugle.
'Yes, girl, we only want to talk and trade!' the other rider shouted, his dragon trumpeting as it flew overhead.
She took to a narrow alley, they could not land their beasts, but they still screamed for her to stop. She continued to run, Kaede's words fresh in her mind. She had said 'They' and she had not understood. Now she did.
'They' were the dragon riders, the Lord Naraku.
'They' wanted Kaede's jewel.
"What are you?" she whispered aloud, curled tightly in a small ball, not easy for a girl of fourteen, and fumbling the jewel with numb fingers.
"Why do they want you so bad? Why did Kaede want me to keep you from them?" she asked angrily, tears starting to roll down her soiled cheeks.
"Why-" but her questions were cut short by a dragon's trumpeting and the police whistle.
She got to her feet to run again, seeing the shapes of the dragon wing flying above her. She had to get away, she had to, or else keep the jewel from them, but she could not run fast enough, she could not run anymore. She was too tired.
'What speaks without a mouth, what has a bed but doesn't sleep, what runs without legs?'
The old riddle came back to her as she ran, feeling her legs getting numb and her feet hurting.
"The river!" she whispered, and there it was, around the bend. She would throw herself into it, at least that would carry her beyond the dragon's reach. It flowed somewhere; she had always wanted to know where.
It was time to find out.
With a burst of strength she ran out on the bridge and stood there, panting, and raised the jewel above her head, letting the riders see it. She held it threateningly, dangerously, daring them to come closer. Daring them to make her drop it into the river.
They got the message; they stopped and hovered while she panted. She knew she would need energy to swim in the river so she took a rest then, holding the jewel with one hand as the rain pounded down on them all, though the storm was less fierce than before.
And then, her fingers slipped.
The jewel fell, its smooth surface glinting as one last flash of lighting flickered feebly over the horizon…
… And smashed against the bridge, shattering into who knows how many pieces.
There was silence and a ripple of chatter amongst the riders as she stared in shock at the shattered jewel. How was she supposed to protect it now?
She felt the wind stir, the rain slow, and the dragons' swoop.
She had to do something, she had to keep the jewel from them, and she shoved the shards off the bridge, into the river.
The dragon rider roared with anger, pulling his steed to a stop, and she took the moment to leap over the bridge railing, and right into the talons of yet another dragon.
"Let me go!" she screamed as she pounded against the dragon's forelegs. The dragon merely rolled its eyes, its rider patting its shoulder.
"You're not going anywhere, I'm sure our Chief of Dragons would like to speak with you." The rider said before they turned back to the city.
She stared down at the river, the jewel fragments long gone in it's rushing waters, and a single tear rolled down her cheek
---------
"Get up." The cold, nasal voice spoke.
It sent shills running down her spine. She got up.
"Well now, what is so important it could not wait until morning?" The voice spoke again, annoyed under a layer of menacing ice.
She kept her eyes averted, as she should, and did not speak since the question had not been addressed to her.
"My lord, the child was in possession of the Shikon no Tama."
She gasped and the ruffling of some sort of robe told her lord Naraku was interested as well. Never in all her dreams had she thought she was carrying the Shikon. Until now she was just a girl carrying out her adopted mother's death wish, but that had been the Jewel of Four Souls… and she had shattered it.
"What do you mean by was?" The lord asked, she could almost feel his rage.
"I'm sorry, my lord, but when we tried to retrieve it she was scared away."
"Yes, but you have her now…"
"Prior to her capture she somehow shattered the jewel."
"And where are the fragments?"
"Many miles downriver by now, my lord. It was raining, the river was large and the shards sunk. The dragon riders could not follow."
"Very well. You may go, as for you, child."
Chills ran up her spine again and she could feel a bead of sweat sliding from her forehead. She bowed.
"Look up." The lord commanded. She did, only to meet narrowed slits of a deep purple, outlined with some kind of crimson makeup. He was creepy.
"Why did you evade my riders, why did you disobey their orders?" He questioned, his questions like knives. Suddenly her exploded with pain, her eyes watering as something groped through her thoughts, seizing hold of her.
"You will tell the truth." Naraku said.
"My lord, I did not know what I was carrying, and my mother gave the jewel to me as a gift on her deathbed. She made me promise to keep it away from 'them'. She never said why, or what it was, but I promised. Then, I assumed that the dragon riders were what she met by them."
"So you did not know what you were possessing?"
"It was round and smooth, I supposed it was some kind of toy, or treasure."
"Why did you think my dragon riders were what your mother was talking about?"
"I was… scared… and the rider that saw me and asked for it, there was this gleam in his eye. It scared me." Her words were breaking now and the pain in her head shifted but then, a moment later, it receded.
"Girl, my riders are the servers of justice, I am very sorry that one has frightened you, but you should never doubt them."
She gulped and nodded, would this be all?
"But I cannot have you knowing what we are seeking and spreading it throughout the city. Therefore-"
"But it wasn't my fault!" She cried suddenly, angrily, her eyes meeting Naraku's yet again, his narrowed menacingly.
"Feisty one, aren't you? Fearless too, I'd suppose. I'm sure I could find something for you to do? Perhaps the brothel, they could always use more girl…"
Not the brothel, anything but lord Naraku's private brothel…
"Scared, aren't you?" the lord sneered. "Yes, I think-"
Suddenly a side door to the throne room opened and two breathless riders ran in, nearly tripping as they struggled to bow.
"I'm busy." Naraku said, anger coating his icy words.
"We are sorry, we knew, but this is a matter of importance." One of the riders mumbled. She caught a silver glint of his badge as he stood up. A captain.
"What is it, and be quick about it!" Naraku snapped.
"We've caught another dragon, my lord-"
"That's hardly news worth my attention."
"Yes, sir, we know that but this one's different. It's silver."
Silver? Dragons were mottled colors. Dark browns, greens, blacks, deep blues. Occasionally a lighter brown, or one that seemed tan, but never silver.
"Continue."
"Well, sir, it was particularly fierce and intelligent actually. It made us actually attack it, more for survival than capture. And then, it's taken a day to get here, his wounds that we inflicted healed overnight!"
There was a pause.
"Interesting. What of it now?"
"We've got it chained, sir, with its wings bound in our largest stall."
"Its reaction?"
"Angry, roaring, the dragon boys are afraid of it. They don't know what it can do, and nobody's willing to find out. Besides, they will be shorthanded already with their own beasts."
"Very well then." The lord turned back to her.
"I think we've found a job for you, our newest dragon girl."
She gulped and shivered. She didn't want to have to face off against a dragon, especially one that was as feral as this silver one sounded, but a second later she was grabbed by her arms and led out.
They followed a maze of corridors, her two guards acknowledging the way with a grunt or a shove. She stalked after them, wishing their grips would loosen so she could slip away. No such luck.
She was led into a wide courtyard, which turned out to be the palace grounds. Long undulating hills of emerald grass with fenced in paddocks towards one end and gardens at the other. There were neat trimmed buildings near the paddocks, the slave quarters, and stables near them as well, but she didn't have time to gawk. She was pushed into a large building with tall and wide corridors, steered through the first-or was it second?- door on her right.
"What do you want?" snapped a voice belonging to a man sitting behind the solitary desk in the room.
"Sir, we've orders from Lord Naraku to deliver this girl to you to be a dragon girl for the new one, sir." One of the riders said.
"Has she been learned, does she have any experience with dragons?" the man asked, not looking up from his paperwork.
"No sir, Lord Naraku needed to keep her quiet."
She growled softly, her hands clenching into fists. It was as if she was a possession exchanging hands. It was as if she wasn't there! What kind of people were these?
"I see, well the silver one should take care of her just fine." He clapped his hands and a young fox demon opened the door behind him.
"Send for Rin and tell her to escort this new one around. Bring fresh clothes." The man said before waving the riders away, the door shutting behind them. Then the man addressed her.
"Your name."
"Kagome."
There was a pause as the man waited for her surname. When none came he scribbled on the parchment he had then continued.
"Age."
"14."
"Parents."
"I don't know."
"Status."
"Beggar."
"Schooling."
"Decent."
There was another pause after that.
"What can you do?" the man asked indifferently.
"Read, write, and figure." Kagome replied mechanically.
"Where did you learn this?"
"I don't know, I've always known."
At that point a knock came from the door and a girl walked in, her orange and white kimono swishing over her bare feet.
"Rin, this is Kagome, she's the newest dragon girl for the Silver." The man said before waving them off.
Rin took her hand with her free one, the other was clutching a pile of clothes, and dragged Kagome out the door, her smaller legs still moving fast enough to have Kagome nearly trot to keep up. They turned a few corners and entered a room. Kagome recognized a bathhouse.
"Get undressed and washed, then put these on." Rin said in an overly cheery voice, handing her the clothes, a plain green and white kimono with no shoes.
"What about my shoes?"
"Leave them here, they'll be placed in your room. You get used to moving barefoot, with shoes you startle the dragons, their hearing is incredibly acute." Rin responded with the same nonchalance.
She nodded and undressed as she saw Rin was waiting for her to. She couldn't run away with the other girl's eye on her so she laid her clothes on the ground and submerged into the nearest pool of hot water, rinsing herself off quickly and accepting the coarse towel and brush Rin offered her. When she tried to return them the girl shook her head.
"They're yours now, put them in your room." The girl said before motioning to her new clothes. She quickly put them on, noting that the kimono was of slightly finer material than her old one, and followed Rin out.
"Where exactly is my room?" she asked as they continued down the hall.
"You should be asking where your dragon is. That's what's important." Rin said. "Your room is connected to your dragon's stall. There is an outer door, but you can check it out after you get through with your dragon. I wouldn't know where it is."
She paused and turned another corner, opening a door and holding it open for Kagome.
She stepped through and immediately heard the snuffling and shifting of scales, smelling the slightly musk odor of the dragons.
"In front of you are the stalls, they're rather large, and to your right is the feed room." Rin pointed, turning through the archway to the right.
She followed and was astounded by the barrels upon barrels of different foods. To the left were the meat counters where freshly butchered meat was laid out. To the right were all sorts of herbs, each labeled with a number, and in the center were large cauldrons of something that smelled like stew.
"Dragons get three meals a day, if they're bad they receive two." Rin said after a moments pause.
"Breakfast is light, mainly the porridge," she pointed to the cauldrons, "And small cubes." She motioned to the right and the left, towards the smallest counter where small cubes of beef sat.
"Lunch is the second counter, mixed in some porridge, and dinner is strictly large meat with very little porridge." Rin finished, then motioned to the wheelbarrows off to the side.
"Use those, they've been enchanted so they're nearly weightless and constantly balanced." Rin said, motioning for her to grab a barrow. She did and saw that Rin was right, the barrows were nearly weightless and moved easily in her hands.
"Look over on your right and you'll see a chart. That shows what every dragon has been getting, yours is the last since he's the newest." Rin said again, moving easily across the wall.
"The Silver needs beef, lots of it, and porridge. Add herb 3 to the mixture in the barrow." She read.
"What's herb 3?" Kagome asked.
"The jars are labeled, we usually can't remember what's what so they assigned number to the herbs." Rin replied. "I believe 3 is the sedative, particular in its strength, though the dragons can't tell the difference."
She nodded and headed to the left, moving her barrow to where Rin pointed and asked for beef. A butcher dumped it into her barrow before he set to work on a bull; she turned away so she didn't see what became of it.
Next she made for the porridge, using the bucket to heave the sloppy substance into her barrow and then a mixing pole to stir it. Turning she made her way to the herb jar labeled #3 and scooped out a good amount of it, sprinkling it over the meal before returning to the door where Rin was standing.
"This way." The girl beckoned and again went off, striding into a massive hall of stalls, dragon heads poking through certain 'windows' in the doors to look at them. Rin led her down towards a far end where the windows in the doors disappeared.
"Bewitched for silence, these are the troublemakers." Rin said before pointing towards a large doorway.
"That's the Silver's." she said, "See you in the morning, I'll meet you at the feeding room." Kagome had to bite her tongue to not reply, 'If I'm still alive by then.'
With a deep breath she opened the door and shoved her barrow in, turning and closing the door before looking for her charge.
He was silver, his hide gleaming in the lamp light, curled slightly with his head resting on his forepaws, their talons unsheathed. Around his neck was clamped a collar which was chained to a wall and his wings were bound with chains. She could see that his hind legs had been hobbled.
Suddenly the amber eyes flashed open, gleaming with feral rage, before glinting strangely with recognition.
"You!" the dragon roared, springing to its feet the best it could and rearing its neck back, his long fangs gleaming, and driving his forelegs into the ground, making the straw quiver and shake, his jaws snapping to a close hardly a foot away from her head.
She staggered backwards, into the corner, and pushed on the door, only to find it locked while the dragon raged.
"YOU!" it roared again, jaws agape, and she blinked in shock. The beast was talking!
Talking, and about to kill her…
A/N: So what do you think of this? It's going to be a while before the plot really gets revealed. Anyways, please review!