'Alpha selection is the toughest chore a dragon must face,' Felfire, Dramilion
-A Call in the Night-
Toothless' Note: I like to think of my life in phases. You've just read the end of phase one, and now we head into phase two. The phase where I undergo a serious change in my life. Something so big that even running away doesn't count as its own segment of my life.
As dragons, it'll eventually come to the point that we start serving an 'Alpha,' which is the dragon who has sole control over their pack of dragons. They force their commands upon them, sentence them to death, or even reward us for their actions. What comes next in my story is where I become a part of a dragon pack and the hell that we faced for the ten winters that followed our first days as runaways. And I tried to keep such words as "hell" out of this story up to this point, so you know this is serious!
However, there lies a warning for the common reader. What happens after this portion of my story may be disturbing, disgusting, foul, cruel or uncalled for in your eyes. There's not much to say, other than skip to the chapter titled "The Forbidden Friendship" would it come to pass, if you do not want to have these horrifying scenes forever ingrained in your head. This part of my life has forever left a burning scar on my mind I wish I could forget. Ten winters and all I knew was shock, fear and pain.
Because of that being more important for me to discuss, this installment won't be very long. It will be a filler chapter to explain how Shiver and I got into that terrible situation. I am by no means proud of anything that happened. Some things I enjoyed, but never took pride in.
I plan to revisit my experiences here as we get deeper into the story, especially as we visit moments of equal quality.
As a final warning, the following installments might be disturbing to casual readers.
Late Night
Shiver and I had long since gone to sleep. He was first to fall into a steady slumber as he didn't have as much on his mind as I did. I'd been thinking all night about what the kin-sharp-spine earlier had said; what could he have meant by 'I wouldn't trust him if I were you' when talking to Shiver about me? I'd thought over all the possibilities of what it could mean, my brain, heart and gut rested on one thing: he didn't trust me because I was different to him. But even that didn't seem right as all kin of dragon are very different, so what would give him cause to distrust me and only me like that? I'd tried to tune these thoughts out and get some sleep but that was impossible with this whole thing on my mind.
Suddenly, I heard a toneless thrumming sound in the air; a call of some kind.
It was inexplicable, a little concerning to say the least but for some reason I was attracted to it. I sniffed the air, trying to sense where a nearby kin could be. The only smell I got was that of Shiverwing who was still sound asleep. However, with this sound echoing in my ears, he must've been able to hear it too. I shook him awake, and he quickly woke up.
"Toothless?" he moaned weakly. "What's going on?"
"Shiver, do you hear that sound?" I asked, looking in the direction I thought the sound was coming from. He listened, sniffing at the air before he responded.
"No. What sound?" he asked with a concerned expression.
"That call. The weird call in the air." I replied keeping a sharp eye through the trees.
He listened a little closer before he nodded, looked up at me and said, "Yeah, I do. What is that?"
"I don't know but I'm strangely attracted to it. It's as if we're supposed to go, like nothing else matters." My words began to mellow as my mind seemed insatiably fixated on the call.
"Me too. What do you think it is?" Shiver asked, he too rising to his feet to join me.
"Honestly, I have no idea," Without any precedence to do so, my feet took those first steps forward.
The sound felt as though it was creating a cloud, a haze over my sense of reason and decision. Everything seemed clear at first but the more I listened, the more my vision seemed to blur away into a haze of reds. I knew we had started moving, I could feel my feet as they pressed through the soft grass and yet they moved as if they already knew where I was going. Shiver seemed the same, his presence ever clear but beyond our own will to stray from our path. For all we could guess in our repressive states, the call may have been dangerous, but we continued, nonetheless. We were heading to the southeast, walking for hours on end to the point that the sun had just risen above the horizons edge.
Eventually, we arrived at a cliff face. I looked down to the ocean and then back at Shiver despite the haze over our minds. We both had the same idea, one that seemed born of free will but there was an instinctual edge to it as if it were already apparent; we'd need to fly to wherever this sound was.
"Shall we?" I whispered to Shiver, the sound though it came from myself seemed distant, alien almost.
"Where else is there? Wait, Toothless. I haven't gotten much flight practice," Shiver replied stretching his gaze to where the sea met the sky.
"Well, it's not hard," I cackled, cockily.
"Ha-ha, funny. Yeah, well you make it seem easy. Besides, it's not like we can go back. If I fall…"
"Don't say that Shiver," I scolded, "If you fall, I'll catch you. You're my best friend."
I looked over his red and yellow scales. His yellow eyes, so innocent, but hiding a dark secret. One in which we knew wouldn't be a final experience. Since we were siblings, we'd be together for a long time still. With that, we nodded and took off.
Shiverwing started out a little sloppy, but he eventually managed to get himself straight and we continued after the sound. As time slowly passed, we never said a single word; we had a plan for where to go and we were confident about it.
I realized at some point that this may be a bad idea. I wanted to turn around, in fact despite the last day and a half of travelling, I did. Shiver was confused to say the least, his own mind fixated on the path ahead not once considering what loomed over the edge. If not for the briefest of times, my head felt clear, the soft hum of the call lost to the air all before I could feel it again, stronger this time as if it were pulling me with more focus.
Eventually, we could see a large mountain off in the distance; a mountain of which we both knew somehow was a point of no return. I thought perhaps we could fly back, despite the distance and the strength of the call. What was strange though was the fact that I didn't want to. All I wanted to do was to keep on flying to this mountain. As we drew nearer, we entered a thick blanket of fog obscuring rocks that twisted sharp and menacingly. Among the ominous surroundings I thought I caught the sight of something obscure dangling in the air; strangely shaped and seemingly broken. A second glance suggested my mind was playing tricks having been starved of true consciousness and the surrounding fog. The sea eventually turned to land as we were met with a sight that still to this day haunts me. A mountainous spire of rock, though far too sharp an incline to be a normal mountain. There was no denying the call emanated from within those dark walls and sure enough we found a sliver between the rocks allowing us to pass through. It seemed to be glowing a rich orange from the inside and that same feeling of fear rose, but I kept myself going, as the call was beyond impossible to deny.
"What are we going to do, Shiver?" I asked as we coasted the inner walls of rock.
He turned to me with nothing more than a dismissing grunt. His eyes were sharp, narrowed only to what lie ahead, seemingly unconcerned to anything around him. With nowhere left but in, the sound grew stronger yet until we reached what I could only guess was the source. I didn't know, I mean how could I have known? Nonetheless, what was to follow would lead to be the worst ten winters of my life…
