Schist walked past a shimmering pool of molten gold, one of his paws stepping slightly closer to the edge than he had intended. He pulled it away as soon as the heat radiating off of the liquid, his heart pounding in fear. He backed away and took a deep breath. It couldn't hurt him if he didn't touch it. He squeezed his eyes closed and crouched to the ground, trying to scrunch himself up as small as possible.
An aged MudWing sat in her thatch house, hidden gems tucked beneath her wing. She glared at the three dragonets, curiously poking at her horde.
"What are those?" Glen asked, poking her snout far too close the the MudWing. She received a sharp push from the MudWing's wing in response.
"Eggs," the mother growled, lifting up her wing to allow the dragonets a glimpse. There were four oval eggs beneath her wing, the eggshells almost thin enough to see the dragonets inside, waiting to burst free. "You want them?" she growled with nonchalance.
"Yes!" Glen exclaimed in excitement. She hopped around in glee, already excited by the prospect of new siblings. "We're going to have more sibs!" she notified Quake and Schist. "Isn't that great?"
Quake towered over his two siblings, and laughed with concern. "No thank, ma'am," he answered the MudWing mother. "Three is enough for us, and we're too old to add newborn unsibs." He smiled uncomfortably, as if worried the mother would give him the eggs anyways. Glen gave Quake a glare and a snort, but didn't protest.
"Suit yourself," the mother yawned.
Schist poked his snout curiously at the eggs, counting them. One, two, three, and four. Three were normal MudWing colors — rust, caramel, and beige — but the fourth was a curious color; it was as red as blood. "Will that one be a red MudWing?" Schist quietly asked the mother. "I've never seen a red MudWing before."
"What?" the mother asked, trying to parse Schist's question. "A red MudWing?" She chuckled. "No, it'll turn out similar to the others. Haven't you ever heard of blood-eggs before?"
Schist shook his head, curious.
The mother nodded. "They're rare, but nothing too special. Their scales can't be burnt, not even by the hottest flame. Useful in battle against SkyWings and SandWings, or so I've heard." She said the word battle with a hint of disgust, cursing the very idea of war.
Schist turned to Quake. "Was I hatched from a blood-egg?" he asked hopefully, crossing his claws slightly.
"Of course you weren't!" Glen interrupted before Quake could answer. "Remember when you got too close to that fire?"
Schist frowned, recalling the incident. "Yeah . . ." he replied glumly. He looked at Quake, hoping for him to contradict Glen's answer, but he didn't reply.
Now more than ever, Schist was certain that his egg was not the color of dragon blood. He took a talon and rubbed it down the scales on the right side of his neck, feeling the unnatural contours. Where they had once been smooth, they were now rigid and jagged, perverted and fused together by the SkyWing. He turned his neck from side to side, causing his melted scales to lock up and resist his movement. With a jerk he felt a burst of pain: the space between some of them had opened up, causing a wound to open up. Yet, it was easy to ignore. It was nothing compared to when his body had hit the SkyWing's, and he burned.
It had been two weeks since the fight with the SkyWing. Schist had initially been surprised when he awoke. He had expected to die, but by the same magic that had killed Quake, he had survived. All that had saved him from oblivion was the small diamond. For the first few days, he had been afraid to let it go, worried that the pain would return to him, or worse. Eventually, he gave it up, for Crystal's sake. She needed it more than he did, or that was what Torrent had thought.
He wanted to be grateful for the diamond, but even though it had "healed" him, there was so much more it could have done. He felt the misshapen scales strewn across his body. Maybe it had kept the burns from healing them, but the scars still remained. It had done the same thing with Torrent when the SeaWing had used it on his burns: it healed his wounds, but the scars of the SkyWing's claws still remained, visible to any dragon.
Torrent's scars might be easily seen, but they were nothing compared to Schist's deformity. Plenty of dragons had battle scars: it was a sign of maturity and strength. But "scar" was an extreme understatement of Schist's wounds. He took a glance at the pool of molten gold, then winced away at his reflection. He was hideous.
The afflicted scales were spread along his right side, extending down his tail, and creeping up his neck to the base of his snout. Instead of the clean, orderly pattern of interlocking plates on most dragons, Schist's scales were a mess. They looked as if a dragon had thrown a mound of clay onto the ground, and decided to wear that. In the worst places, it was difficult to see the individual scales, they were so fused together. In others, one had scales piled on top of each of each other, folded up like strewn about scrolls. Some of his scales were being pushed down by others, tearing into his flesh whenever he took a step. If he moved too quickly, blood would seep out. He looked nothing like the dragon he was before.
Schist took a breath, and slowly towards the furthest chamber of the caves, where Torrent and Griffin would be with Crystal. He poked his head into the chamber with a grim smile. Griffin gave him an awkward beak grimace, whereas Torrent avoided looking at Schist altogether, keeping his eyes focused firmly on Crystal.
Torrent had disenchanted the majority of the gold in the chamber, but small specks of the shimmering metal still abounded, strewn about the room. Schist looked at them with disgust. He never wanted to see the metal again.
Schist took a few steps towards Crystal, curled up on the ground, the diamond she had enchanted in her claws. The Darkstone was placed a short distance from her. The light-blue scales of her underbelly gently pulsated in and out, her breath shallow. She fidgeted slightly, lost in her unnatural sleep.
She had been this way for two weeks now, since she had enchanted the diamond. Torrent had remained calm at first, claiming that a similar thing had happened to his sister when she had enchanted Griffin to life, but after two days of Crystal being unresponsive, it became clear this was more serious. She moved occasionally, and she was alive, but not awake. Nothing any of the three did seemed to change that.
They had been trying to give her food and water, but it wasn't working too well, especially with the food. That was the primary reason she still had the healing diamond—it clearly wasn't bringing her out the coma, but hopefully it would prevent her dying of hunger or thirst, although considering the state of his scales, Schist was skeptical about how well the thing actually worked. How long was it that IceWings could go without food again?
Griffin was poking through the four's rations right now, looking through the satchels. He frowned. "We need to get more food," he notified Torrent and Schist, concerned.
Torrent looked over and confirmed Griffin's observation with a sigh. "Alright." He glanced over at Schist. "I'm not going to be any help unless there's an ocean nearby. You and Griffin can go. I'll stay and watch over Crystal."
Schist nervously nodded, with a glance around the cave. His scales ached, but he would be glad get back out of the horrendous cave. He might even try flying again; he hadn't tried since the fight. He tried to stretch his right wing, even through the gritting pain of his own scales poking and prodding into him, moving in ways they never should have. It wasn't fun, but it worked, and maybe some time and practice would let him fly again.
"C'mon, let's go," Griffin suggested, walking past Schist towards the exit of the cave. The gryphon's feathered wings brushed against Schist. Griffin only had scales on his talons, the rest of his skin was covered in feathers and fur. Flexible and painless, unlike the monstrosity Schist wore on his side. He followed Griffin to the outside of the cave, his amalgamation of scales objecting to every step.
Torrent remained behind in the cave, with only Crystal's shallow breath and heartbeat. He twitched his tail in annoyance, then started pacing. He glanced back at Crystal again. The IceWing was still. Torrent growled. "This is why we shouldn't mess with animus magic," he grumbled. He stared at the Darkstone in anger, then continued his pacing.
Torrent continued this way for a bit: walking back and forth with no purpose. Eventually, he tired of this, and pulled out his dagger. Over the last few weeks, he had been trying to disenchant all the gold and other magical items in the room, but it was tedious and tiring. He set to work by going to one of the piles of glittering coins and treasure, and swept his dagger across it, turning the precious metal to worthless pebbles.
Suddenly, while moving the dagger through the pile of money, he hit something interesting. He picked it up. A quill, presumably enchanted to be fireproof. Had the SkyWing been writing something with it? Torrent frowned before disenchanting it.
It didn't take much searching through the pile of pebbles and gold to find the scroll. Torrent disenchanted it quickly (most likely a fireproof spell, but better safe than sorry), then rolled it out along the ground. He read a random segment of it:
I met the most wonderful SandWing while I was in Crosswinds today! She goes by Copperhead (though I would call her Copper if she allowed me), and she's the most captivating dragon I have ever laid my eyes upon! Her bronze scales shine more than the most priceless jewelry in Erosion's hoard, and her voice is soft as the sand of, with a hint of the most enthralling coarseness. I first set my gaze on her while fetching letters for Erosion, but was too shy to speak. She noticed me, and asked me what was wrong, and I wish only that I could have answered honestly her question: the only thing wrong was that my scales were not against her own; that I could not hold her claws and spend eternity by her side. Yet, I had my duties to Erosion . . .
Torrent continued reading the diary in contempt. It was the boring musings of some love-struck dragonet. He glanced at the date: around fifteen years ago. Before the war. Still, it was better than nothing. He continued on, skimming through a long and length description of how kind and beautiful Copperhead was, and then a droning piece on how frightened the SkyWing was that her to-be lover would find out about her firescales, which were apparently canceled by some magical bracelet or whatever she had been given to by her SandWing master and guardian, Erosion. From the account, Erosion was also the one who had given animus powers to the SkyWing, whose name was Magma, and had unfortunately rescued her from the normal fate of SkyWings with too much fire, being thrown off cliffs.
The idea of animus powers being spread like that bothered Torrent immensely. Something like that could be given to any dragon, no matter their intentions. It wasn't difficult for him to think of a few simple enchantments could distribute powers easily: a scroll in which every dragon who read it gained powers, a necklace which gave powers to any dragon who wore it. Though, he supposed, it wasn't much different than what the Darkstone could do, apparently.
Still, if giving animus dragons powers was possible, was the opposite true? If so, then Orca could have just enchanted her powers away. Had she known that was possible back in the Sea Kingdom, but kept her powers instead? What if she had tried to do that, but failed? Torrent shook his head and put the scroll down. It wouldn't do well to dwell on the past; he couldn't change it. Unless, of course, animus magic . . .
Torrent shoved that thought away. Using magic for something like that was just plain wrong, and the prospects were terrifying. He didn't want to think about those possibilities. He walked back towards Crystal, and glanced around at their satchels, strewn about by Griffin looking through them. He picked up his scroll-case, and emptied it out. A few scrolls rolled out, along with the map Orca had enchanted for him. He rolled it open.
There were only a couple more of the blotches indicating animus dragons east of the Claws of the Clouds mountains. All but one were in the Bay of a Thousand Scales or other SeaWing waters. If Crystal woke up — no, when she woke up — she and Schist couldn't fly so far over the ocean without breaks. The other animus was somewhere in the huge rainforest in the south of Pyrrhia, almost the opposite side of the continent. Far. There were a number of other splotches to the west of the mountains, and one in the mountains themselves. The nearest animus dragon to them was a yellow blotch along the Five-Tailed River, most likely a SandWing. Maybe that would be their next stop. If Torrent wanted to take Crystal and Schist with him, and they were willing.
Torrent set the map down and turned to Crystal, still unresponsive. He picked up the Darkstone, a short distance from her, and frowned. It created a strange tingling feeling in his talons, as if his scales were vibrating when they touched it. He didn't like it. He looked closer, putting the stone up to his eye. The stone was dark and cloudy, with shimmers of an unnatural purple light glimmering from within. The SeaWing covered the Darkstone with his other paw, making sure no torchlight was showing through it. The violet shine was still there, casting a faint, almost unnatural light on Torrent's blue scales.
Torrent took a quick glance at Crystal, making sure she was still asleep. After confirming that, he picked up one of the stones in the cave, and held it up. "I enchant this stone to levitate," he whispered, ignoring the feelings of shame and fear that it might actually work.
Torrent let go of the grey stone, and it fell to the ground, creating a small clatter. Clearly, the Darkstone hadn't worked for him. He snorted, and hit the stone away with his tail. It slid across the floor until it hit one of the piles of gold and pebbles, causing a small landslide. Torrent turned back to the Darkstone, wondering why Crystal had been able to use it. He set it down where it was before, the mysterious light still flickering.
He turned to Crystal, the diamond she had enchanted resting on her chest. It had healed both him and Schist, at least to an extent. He rubbed his claws along the scars on his snout, then down his neck, where the SkyWing, Magma, had scratched him. The diamond had healed the open wounds caused by the burn, but the scars still remained.
Although he hadn't told any of the others yet, his gill covers and the gills beneath had been damaged on that side, and they hadn't healed back properly. He couldn't breath underwater on that side anymore, although the other one still worked alright. Torrent wasn't exactly sure what that meant for his swimming anymore, but he suspected that even if he could swim, it wouldn't be easy. Even if he did end up returning to the Sea Kingdom, things would never be the same as they once had been. Not like they would have been the same anyways, with Orca, Rift, and River all dead.
He wondered how Angler would be doing. They had never had a close relationship, although the only dragon Angler had a close relationship was Rift, really, and maybe their father. Angler wasn't the type of dragon to go out of his way to make friends, even with his family, and had spent most of his time alone in his room, reading or writing scrolls on things no one ever cared about, like the scrolls Whirlpool normally gave Torrent. Still, Torrent felt a little bad about abandoning his remaining brother.
Torrent sighed, and turned away from Crystal. He hoped she would wake up soon. He wasn't sure what they would do if he didn't. The SeaWing turned away, and continued his pacing, marching back and forth across the stone floor of the cave.