I finally got some time to write a short chapter. Next update date is uncertain at the moment.


Raindancer


Raindancer looked forlornly at the setting sun far out on the horizon, painting the sky with rich tones of red, magenta, and tangerine.

The waves were crashing upon the rocky cliffs many wing lengths down the ledge she was resting on, sending foam and spray of salty water in the air.

The sun was about to disappear down the horizon. Looking at the glow of twilight reminded her of the Incident three days ago. The memory was rich, vivid as if it had happened a mere moments ago.

Fire, fire everywhere...spreading fast...

...Blood...her kin lying motionless...her friend crying out for help...

She suppressed those memories with great difficulty. Still, some tears dropped down from her crystal sapphire eyes.

That was the first time she saw death, witnessed it and even came face to face with it. Not only did she lost her home, but almost nearly her life too.

Letting her gaze wander over the various nasty wounds over her chest and abdomen, the others out of her view, she contemplated that she was rather lucky to have made it intact.

Others were not as fortunate as her.

Spine Tail fires burn most other dragon scales; coupled with falling trees that were burning like hell, they made a surprisingly effective method to cook dragons. Regardless of their species.

She shivered when she remembered how two of her kin were trapped under the burning trees with her, slowly getting cooked alive. Never in her life did she want to ever undergo that occurrence again.

The smell of burning flesh, hers and the others still lingered on her nostrils.

Turning away from her wandering thoughts, she gazed again at the now dark sky.

Time seemed to pass a lot faster these days.

Cold winds wafted by her scales, making her slightly shiver. The temperature started to drop with the sun. After all, she mused, winter was just a few pawsful of days away.

Concentrating on her surroundings and debating on them seemed to be working. It took her mind off of her itching scabs and wounds and it also distracted her from the... other things.

Thinking about silly mundane stuff was good.

Better than thinking about...the fire.

She jumped a little, straining her from her current worthless wonderings when a shadowy object whooped down behind her.

Raindancer almost squeaked, when a familiar musky scent hit her nose. She relaxed when she realised she was safe, that there were no intruders or killers near her, only a familiar kin.

Without turning around, she rather raised a question with a weak voice, "Did you find any signs of him?"

"No." The viridian dragon that stood behind her a pawful of steps away answered with an old, baritone voice, a pint of kindness and tiredness carried in it.

Whatever hope she had, dwindled into ashes with that answer. It was clear now to her that her brother, Stormchaser was captured...or killed.

Life was cruel. Why did the Skies separate her from her brother?

"None of the others that were separated from us were found", The green dragon continued, "but we're still sending scouts for them."

Raindancer muttered in sadness. "Thank you for trying, Kailon."

The old viridian dragon padded over to her side, gently laying down beside her. The damp soil crunched under his massive weight.

Kailon tucked her underneath his viridian blue wings, almost encasing her whole in his scaly appendage.

"We'll find him, dear," whispered his old with age voice, "don't worry...we will find your brother...Alpha himself has decided to accompany the scouts to find whoever got left behind."

He stroked her little soft scaled back with his paw, right between the wings, making her tail sway sideways.

Her tense muscles were starting to lose the tendrils of burden and strong negative emotions stocked within them.

She felt safe in the gentle and warmth. It was familiar, sometimes it gave her a remembrance of long-forgotten memories of her hatchlinghood when her parents were still alive. It was familiar to the warmth she felt in the memory-dreams.

Oh, how she wanted to never leave her little sanctuary. Never to come out to face the harsh and cruel world. But she was respectful of her mentor and very well knew that he had duties to tend, not to go care about some weird young dragoness who mopped around.

She eased out of his hold with great reluctance. Besides, she felt good enough to take care of her alone for the rest of the day.

Her freckles muzzle was still damp from the previous emotional rampage, which was inducing an itch in her scales. She wished there was some dry moss on that island for her to shrub her dirty face, but due to the rain, all greenery were moist and damp.

"I'm s-sorry Kailon...for bothering you. You should go take care of your important duties."

"Well you see, I believe checking on my little apprentice is an important duty in itself." A toothed grin split his muzzle. "And besides, I am taking a quick short break, and you should too."

Confusion etched itself on her face, for Kailon explained, "Watching the sunset for the last three hours is a tiresome job."

A sigh. Kailon never stopped his strange humour.

Both the Knowledge-Keeper and his apprentice watched the darkening sky in silence.

A glance to the sky told her, from the knowledge of celestial star arrangement that it was already a few hours from midnight.

How did time pass this fast? I hope there is some of the caught fish left. I do not want to go hungry tonight.

Perhaps that particular line of thought was intercepted by her stomach, for it gave a very frightening growl, demanding it's owner to feed itself.

Slightly embarrassed, she looked into the eyes of Kailon, who were filled with hidden amusement and lots of worries.

She felt again that she was responsible for worrying him.

"You should go eat some fish before they became too stale. Don't want you to have a tummy ache." He told with a tired smile."They are in our cave den."

"What about you?" She sniffed.

"I need to discuss a few things with Alpha." He looked even more depressed and tired by that. Stretching his body he looked at the caves where the Alpha was presumably spending his time.

"Hop on." He declared. "I'll drop you near the Healer's cavern."

She quickly hopped on his back, gripping the scales with her pale coloured claws.

The flight was quick as a blink of an eyelid.

She watched Kailon fly away toward the Alpha's cave.

Letting her sight linger on him a tad bit longer, she resumed her path towards where the few caves were in the hill. She had no trouble to see, courtesy of her dragonic eyesight. Her kin and most of the pack members were asleep due to exhaustion, the exceptions being the fighters and few scouts who were constantly on the lookout, both in the air and on the ground.

Black silhouettes moved over the sky illuminated by the faint light from the moon. A lone wing-beat was heard every now and then, the Night Watchers vigilante and alert.

The few Fighters she could see guarding the front of the caves were exhausted, jarred and stressed over their limits. Dark circles were present under their eyes and one or two were dozing on the spot. No one could blame them. It was a miracle they were even standing, after the encounter, the long journey, and hunting to provide food for the others.

She politely greeted Moonlight, a stoic purple female Skrill with a pale white underbelly, just coming out of one of caves assigned to the Healer.

A weary expression was dominating the otherwise fuzzing with energy fish hunter.

"Hey dear, got any more aches in your wounds?" A tranquil voice came out of her fanged maw.

"No ma'am. Thank you." Rain politely replied.

"Good to hear. Some kids fuss over shallow cuts. At least you of all are one of my favourite fledgelings."

Rain smiled at that. While others of her age were quite temperamental and unruly, she was a quiet, well-behaved fledgeling. Many of her kin liked her because of that. That was before the Accident. Often times she's a nobody nowadays. At least the purple scaled female liked her. That was all she could have ever wanted.

She bid her goodnight and resumed walking towards her cave, the Healer and Herb Collector watching her with a sad smile and returning to tend to the other dragon's wounds. Being an acknowledged Healer of dragons was not one of her favourite pass time duties.

The cave taken by her and Kailon was the third one of the many labyrinths of tunnels and small caverns on the small mountain range on the eastern side of the island. Many of these went underground. The mountain itself wasn't quite tall. It was eroded down its original size for thousands of cycles of wind and precipitation, as far as the telltale signs shown by the smooth rocks told her.

Trodding to the cave was tiresome. Raindancer's paws were starting to protest by the time she reached the entrance.

Filled with trepidation, she looked into the cavern. It was part of a tunnel that went deeper into the rock, and Kailon had mentioned once that it was sloping downwards into the bedrock.

Two of the Helper-Gatherers blocked the tunnel with rocks and soil on the first day. That was taken as a precaution for every cave in case of unknown animals living in the dark deep underground.

But she sometimes she was certain she felt something creeping on the other side of the barrier...

The inside of the cave was dark, damp and full of... slithering bug things that were best not to be mentioned. A makeshift nest created using moss and bushes from the island was at the end of the cave partially visible from the outside.

The cave itself was not big by dragon's standards. The roof was three wing lengths high. It would be uncomfortable for Kailon to sleep in the enclosed area, but it was better than staying outside under the open sky who might get rather eager to gift them with moisture.

Raindancer was...indecisive to enter. Most of the crawling things were at the corners as if sensing her unease. She didn't want to go near them either.

An eternity passed by when she took the initiative to enter the creepy dark and smelly hole in the earth. It was a major feat for her. She hated tiny crawling things.

The pile of not-quite-stale fish was lying just on the left, covered by a pair of large leaves. Bugs and small flies were roaming around the heap. She blew them away with her primitive wind blast. So sooner did she pulled the pile towards the entrance. Away from the bugs.

Pulling the covers off, she started munching out the cod and mackerel fishes, leaving some aside for her guardian.

Stale or not, they were delicious for her starved stomach. The fish was juicy and tasted even better than before. She ate like a starving animal. A few times she had to stop to swallow a particularly large piece. Soon her share was diminished to a few bones and scales.

A burp.

Raindancer felt her stomach rumbling in glee and pleasure.

She just gave the accused organ a look of disbelief.

Water would've been fine but she was feeling drowsy. A nap sounded like a valid intention at the time. She covered the remaining portion with the leaves, dragged it to its previous portion and left it there.

Trotting over to the nest, she flopped down belly first on the soft moss, ignoring the moisture it held and closed her eyes.

All the tension, the fear and the uncertainty of the day vanished away from her mind and body, as Raindancer, a Windwalker of only seven winters old, fell asleep.


Author's note: The Windwalker I will use in my story, will be created by me. It will be different from the original(or something like that).

Author's Note 2: Updates will be sporadic. Bear in mind the writing style is subject to change, as I am trying to get familiar with it. Reviews and recommendations will be acknowledged.

Author's Note 3: This chapter and the later onesmwill just tell about the subplot characters. They will meet Hiccup at some point later in the time.