Dragon(s)layer
22
Throwing Rocks
{Total War: Warhammer OST Skirmish (2)}
They had assumed the enemy wasn't going to make another push until an hour from now. Assumed being the keyword here.
That intelligence was flatfootedly wrong.
Volteera didn't have a hateful bone in her body and even she wanted to throw that scout through a wall.
"Disgustingly, fabricated, obtuse and grotesque servants of darkness." She growled, her mouth opening to release a bolt of piercing lightning. The golden band danced between the shoulders of a few Moles and planted dead-center the gnarled chest of an Orc. His battleaxe flipped in the air like a boomerang as his crisped form hurled back through the minute clench in the city gates. It clattered on the street as the sole symbol of his once fearsome presence. "I say again, comrades and allies, the city will be horrifically, mercilessly cleaved if the gates aren't latched!"
"We're trying!" A dragon snarled, his back and wings compressed to the face of the gate besides ten others.
They battled with the mob of monsters pushing into the gates like a liquid tide. Orcs shouldered through the masses and spilled into Overwatch's Eternity Square in pairs and trios, tens of spindly Grublins following in their wake. Mole infantrymen met them with polearms and swords, supported by draconic soldiers whipping tailblades, claws and teeth to dismember, slice and rip apart their prey. Consistent bolts from Volteera's maw lit the cobblestone and always ended in a blackened series of corpses being flung to oblivion as she supported the defensive.
A particularly large Orc with what appeared to be a pair of bone-strewn totems hanging from behind his pauldrons bellowed as he stomped through the gate breach and lumbered into the fray. Volteera mounted on her haunches and extended both claws before herself, a ball of flickering electricity whipping across the square that vaporized the Orc from the hips up, leaving only a stumbling pair of legs to dance for a brief moment and collapse.
"Might there be any word on where our fifth detachment squad is?" The Guardian breathed, uncharacteristically gripped by a dreadful and tired expression as she sulked in the wake of such a draining spell. "They were supposed to be here unanimously, singularly and positively already."
"The attack's timing wasn't the only botched note I think." The Mole captain by her side growled, his one prosthetic eye-lens clicking as it focused on the breach. "The offense stalled at least. It was a wise idea to put the halberdiers at this junction. We can hold them."
"Not if that blasted gate parts like the flooded walls of Stormwatch." Volteera breathed, eyes wide with sudden terror. "Word must be given to the castle! Get a runner, a messenger, a milkman, anyone up to Lilith's chamber and expediently rouse the royal highness from her stupor. We can't keep them out of the city any longer."
"She's incoherent!" The Mole captain barked over the noise of screams and blade clashes. A catapult round soared over the square like a meteor and impacted into the face of an already crumbling habitation sprawl. The commonhouse vanished in a blare of dust and crumbled in on itself like a block of paper. "We've tried reasoning with her, but the Queen's gone completely bonkers! We're on our own out here, my lady."
What would Ignitia say? Volteera swallowed.
"Of course. Look there, that'd be alarming." The captain waved at her to get her focus and pointed with his polearm. "Mind helping me with this?"
Could she even refuse?
The captain sprinted on his stubby legs for the flank of the halberdier formation. A black catapult shot laced with volcanic veins burst apart on the street and sent debris everywhere. It looked like corpses were rolling through the wreckage and dust. But these Dark Soldiers had emerged from the lobbed shot very much alive and armed with steel.
They were chucking their own men over the walls. With filthy, earthen creatures such as themselves, the strategy was apt.
The captain skewered a green, snotty Grublin through the gut and footed the quivering cadaver off with a summary bash and slide on the cobblestone. Volteera landed with a graceful leap and pulped two of the monster's friends under her forepaws in a pair of inky blood-splatters. They both dedicated to the front and kept it as fringe elements of the halberdiers broke off the flank and made to control the secondary breach. At least here there wasn't a funnel. If they could kill the landing parties fast enough, there was a guarantee of absent reinforcements behind them.
Nothing about it though, was reassuring to Volteera.
She had been in Oversight for over a week, fighting every single day up at the front, killing Grublins, getting tackled by Orcs and shot to shit by arrows. As she swiped and clawed to death monster-soldier after soldier, she snarled in a draconic wheeze of pain as a black line and fletching suddenly protruded out of her breast with a sharp crack! as the arrowhead punctured her rotund bellyplates. She swiped it away with a bat of her paw and kept fighting.
Volteera grit her fangs and lashed out at the Orc Archer responsible, grabbing him up in her claws, the Guardian wrenched her knuckles into his guts like one would punch a finger through clay, and she tugged until bones crunched and flesh ripped. The Orc flew away in two halves trailing black intestines.
A Grublin buried its shortsword half to the hilt through her thigh. Another Grublin made a ragged incision across her ribcage.
Volteera screamed and swung herself around like a top, her tailblade swiping in a complete three-hundred and sixty-degree angle. The Grublins collapsed in twos for each one, separated from their own pelvises.
Still, it was too much.
Eternity Square was getting overrun, and she couldn't stop it.
"Trolls!" Someone hollered.
Suddenly, the gates- just as they were teetering to a fully shut stance –burst completely open.
A lumbering abomination as tall as a house stampeded through the dust, swinging earthen fists that could crush wagons. The halberdier formation wavered as the Troll brought its great arms down and flattened a handful of men into bloody stains with a thunderous crash. The beast shrieked, its unsettling voice greatly resembling the pained squeal of an obliviously violent child. One of the gate doors flew off its hinges as a second Troll battered through the breach, followed by a third, and a fourth.
…a fifth, a sixth…
Oh no, Volteera swallowed.
The halberdiers broke and started to run. Men screamed as boulder-fists crushed them to death and sent their comrades flying through the air in hollering bundles. The Trolls smashed the infantry line like it was made of tinsel, and scores of Grublins flooded around their heels to finalize the push and attack the scattered remnants. It was becoming a bloodbath.
Volteera gave a barking cry and fought through the terror flooding her veins. She wreathed her body in glowing electricity and barreled through a wall of Grublins and Orcs, trampling them as they jerked and twitched from being cooked alive by her magical aura.
One of the Trolls shrieked as she drew near, raising a massive, earthy fist to smash her like a bug. Volteera leaped over the arm as it came down and put a crater in the street. Her wings flapped and gave her enough weight to land across the Troll's face, where she clenched like a rat on a log in rapids. The Troll screamed and reared on its hinds, swiping futilely at its head.
The dragon channeled all of her Mana in a last-ditch effort. She snarled as bolts of lightning coursed down her arms like glowing veins and spread across the mossy flesh of the monster's misshapen skull. The Troll's screams became shriller and the distinct sizzle of cooking flesh became audible in the air. Volteera cried out in rage as the last of her power drained from her like blood. The air flashed white, and the crack of a cannon defeaned all the Dark Soldiers scuttling around the beast's heels.
She tore from the parting remnants and landed back on the cobblestone. The Troll's corpse teetered and fell in a heavy heap, headless, its neck stump coughing soot. She had popped it like a can exposed to extreme heat.
"Retreat!" –Officers hollered. Mole arquebusiers wielding golden flintlock rifles peppered the monsters from high up on the city walls to try and cover their comrades. The gunshots were almost as frequent as cries for routing.
"Ma'am-" The captain from before stumbled over, his arm severed at the elbow as he leaked a crimson trail at his feet. "-the gates-"
Volteera picked the Mole up like a child and deposited him on a drake's back, sending him and his Wing off with a nod.
"Indubitably, fall back!"
An Orc raggedly screamed and hacked at her head with a morningstar clenched in its ugly claws. Volteera ducked back from the blow and ran him through the chin and out his cranium with her purple tailblade, black blood misting in the air.
I don't have to tell anyone that I'm covering.
Volteera's chops quivered as she killed and killed.
Bleeding, taxed and desperate, she felt a tangible reality settle in on her with its sour stench. She was always the weak link in the four of them. She was the only Guardian in the troupe who would dare to wonder such a question in the midst of battle…
Why me?
A terrible scream ripped through the air and grew in volume.
Volteera finished slicing a Grublin from her path, and looked up just in time to see a black shape with piercing, white eyes darting down right for her face.
"Cynder." –Was all she had time to utter.
{Dragon Age Inquisition: The Descent OST: Battle}
The black dragoness snarled and plowed into Volteera's breast with the weight of a train. The blow connected with such force, that the sound of a bat smashing off the side of a brick wall echoed across the plaza. The dragonesses locked claws and sailed across the square, Volteera's back taking the impact as they hit a building's flank and caved through the wall in a blast of smoke.
"Hello, Volteera. It's been awhile." Cynder sneered, shaking herself like a dog as rubble poured around them and bounced off her horns and wings. Volteera sputtered as masonry dust got in her mouth. "You don't have anywhere more important to be, I'm sure. I need your help, and I'm here to requisition you for the job. Does that not sound lovely?" She grinned evilly.
"A-Assistance? Given to you-?" Volteera coughed and squirmed. "I'd sooner give up all pleasantries, p-pastimes and-"
"Oh god, do you ever shut up." Cynder mumbled, hauling back and decking the Guardian right between her eyes. Volteera's head jerked into the stone pile with a crack, her limbs convulsing. Cynder examined her work with a clear sense of pride. "I didn't think it would be this easy. And I thought Ignitia had gotten rusty…"
Volteera's limp form went rigid, her claws gripping Cynder by the wrist cuffs in a quick jolt. Before the black dragon could tear herself free, the air lit up brighter than the sun, and terrible terrible pain bloomed all across Cynder's body.
BZZZZZZTTTT~!
Cynder reared her head back and screamed at the top of her lungs as penetrating bolts of electricity shot up and down her body in coursing patterns. She could see a concurrent flashing of black and white. Her body quivered like it was caught in the center of an earthquake and soot began to leak out of every one of her orifices. Had Volteera not been so concentrated, she would've been appalled as a pool of urine gathered between Cynder's trembling legs and ran down the sides of the Guardian's belly.
Even beaten and bruised, the normally bubbly Electric Dragon maintained a fierce snarl as she began to cook her opponent.
Some elaborate string of labyrinthine insults were most likely planned in Volteera's head, but all the lightning whipping around wasn't exactly a serene kind of environment to concentrate on such things as an angry speech.
She hadn't seen Cynder in what felt like ages, and their last interaction hadn't been too dissimilar to now.
What Volteera wanted to know was why here.
Cyrila would probably know, but she was up in the mountains overlooking the city, and had more consistent contact with the rest of the Dragon Realms. Volteera had been boxed up inside the walls in contrast the entire time and thusly hadn't heard anything about the Terror of the Skies approaching the coast.
If rumors were to be believed: hadn't Cynder suffered a terrible defeat due south at the hands of the Purple Dragon and a new mysterious warrior who had fallen from the sky?
She certainly looked pissed off enough for it: bearing all her fangs, screaming and roaring in the flashing madness around them.
…Though that might've all been because she was getting electrocuted to the point that she'd pissed herself.
It was hard to tell with Cynder.
Volteera hacked as a quivering, black claw snatched over her throat and compressed, her larynx crinkling like bubble wrap under Cynder's crushing grip. The electricity flow faltered. It was all the Cloud Ripper needed.
Desperate, Volteera slashed Cynder's breast and sliced across her belly plates with her tailblade. The black dragoness snarled through the pain- still twitching as occasional sparks licked across her scales –and lifted Volteera out of the rubble by her neck.
The Guardian burst out the other side of the building in a blast of debris and tumbled into the messy street. Cynder limped through the wrecked breach, eyes sweeping across her hips. Her snout crinkled when she picked up her own detritus on the wind.
"…Cyrila was somehow less trouble." She growled. "You made me soil my beautiful coat."
"-T-Truthfully: it was in the least beautiful to start." Volteera spat, shaking dust from her horns and forcing herself to her heels. "Cyrila will best, smite, overcome and defeat you should you seek her out."
"I hate it when people are naïve past-tense." Cynder stood on her hinds. "I hate it more when I need underdeveloped ditzes like you alive."
Thwack~! –Volteera snarled as a crushing backclaw snapped her head aside. Cynder shrieked when that evil tailblade hooked from the right in response and sliced open another patch of her belly plates. Now she was drenched in piss, sweat and blood. Every second this went on was just making her angrier.
"How is it that such a pathetic little wurm became a Guardian anyhow? I've more respect for your sister of fire, Ignitia, and I've been trying to tear her face off for the last decade!" Cynder cried, stalking in a loose ring around her as Volteera steadied herself and preened her wings threateningly. "Do you see everything that is happening around you? Look at Oversight, Volteera! It's aflame. What did the Council really think you were going to stop?"
"Intricacies of our politics are simply beyond a barbaric, single-minded destroyer such as yourself." Volteera spat. "I may not have the ferocity of Ignitia's genius, or the cold absolution of Cyrila, but I warn you, mistress of heathenry and hell: underestimating a Guardian is a fool's move."
"Your monologuing mimics your reputation," Cynder snarled. "-empty."
A red barrier flickered to life, and a trio of lightning bands from Volteera's maw ricocheted off its warbling face and hit buildings on either side of the street. Cynder leaped and spun her lithe form in a corkscrew, a whipping Cyclone of Wind tossing bricks and rubble everywhere, bathing the whole street in a deafening tornado's howl.
Volteera grit her fangs and clawed into the ground as she started to slide across the cobblestone. She staggered herself by spreading her limbs, wincing when a brick bounced off her forehead and left a bleeding cut.
She tried to bathe Cynder in a torrent of electricity that illuminated everything around both of them in a miniature sun's glare. The Cyclone caught the lightning, and it began to circulate up and down its spinning length like yellow veins, absorbing the Mana completely. Volteera's eyes bulged.
Her own element began to sicken and brighten, becoming a ghastly shade of neon green as it whipped in loops through the wind funnel. Cynder landed and clapped both paws in front of herself towards the Guardian. The green bands of energy flocked around her like fireflies and channeled past her wrists in a concentrated, reflected stream. It hit Volteera in the breast and sent her cartwheeling.
She smashed flat the shattered remnants of a logistics wagon burning on the side of the intersection, her world rushing, and burning pain invading her sternum as Poison solutions began to eat into her scales.
When had Cynder become so much more powerful?
"Enough!" The Cloud Ripper sailed through the smoke and landed on the splintered wood to pin her. "You're coming with me, Guardian scum!"
Volteera shrieked when Cynder's tailblade came down and stabbed something. At first she didn't know what it was.
The Guardian glanced down and felt her jaw go slack.
Her upper bicep.
Cynder's silvery, curved blade was entering one side and sticking out the other.
The pain was so overwhelming that she couldn't even scream. Some might have labeled Cynder as merciful for bringing down both her fists and smashing Volteera's head into the crumpled wood, tenting it inwards like it was paper. At least the flames in Volteera's nerves ceased.
The last thing the Guardian saw was the pair of claws hammering down towards her. She closed her eyes before the impact, and, strangely, a flash of memory struck her before the end.
It was a brief phantasm of Ignitia's face.
Crunch~! –boards splintered and Volteera's body convulsed in a final throe of agony before deflating in an eerily stilled exhale. Cynder grinned maniacally and limped off the wagon's corpse to examine her work.
Poor Volteera sprawled in the wreckage like a yellow scaled, purple bellied corpse.
If she wasn't covered in grime, blood and lacerations, she would've been beautiful, like the rest of the Guardians. She supposed they were all really forbidden Sirens anyway. It was always the damned celibates who had the big hips and curves.
"….Oh, Volteera, I can't recall a time I've seen you so sad-looking before." She spat blood on the street and flicked her wrist to begin a healing spell on her slash wounds. "You were always the weakest of the four."
She shouldn't even have known that, Cynder considered in the pause.
Were the Guardians so significant enough that their personas had been projected across both sides of the lines?
Yes, probably.
But that wouldn't matter soon if her plan worked.
Requisitioning proper placement for Cyrila had been easy enough. She doubted Volteera would be as much a pain in that regard.
Besides, Cynder knew the right place to store her prize.
She grinned and began to trot over to Volteera's limp form.
-Then something blunt and heavy crashed into her snout from above. She heard scales crunch, and a terrible agony bloomed like flames in her face as blood curtained from her nose and spattered on the street.
Blinded, Cynder stumbled back with a snarl, the breath leaving her body as a heavy form slammed into the street and assaulted her again. A feral snarl etched through the din of surrounding chaos, the macehead swung from the flank and cracked into her ribs. Cynder shrieked.
Pnchh~! –a fist took her head to the right in what was the first of a barrage.
Cynder was reduced to an uneven series of gasps, squeaks and coughs as tens of punches battered her ringing skull back and forth one after another.
Pnch-pnch-pnch-pnch-pnch-!
-She lost count after four.
A raspy, feminine voice howled a cry of defiance, and then a pair of wings swiped her feet from under her, sending Cynder in a sprawl on the cobblestone.
She tried to channel her Mana, but didn't have a chance as her attacker mercilessly plunged into the assault. Sharp fangs sunk into her tail just below the mid-cuff, making the black dragon scream.
Her opponent spread their paws wide and heaved their sinewy, muscular neck in an arc, dragging Cynder into the air, swinging her from the west to the east.
Crsshhhhh~! –she ate the street, cracking stone and scales with a grunt.
Her attacker snarled- grinding their fangs into her tail to draw rivulets of seeping blood –and Cynder was swung back the way she had come.
Crssshhhh~!
-The street didn't taste nice, and neither did the coppery fragrance of her own flesh-juice.
Cynder's form blurred as she was smashed back and forth in flickering heaves west and east, two divets forming in the street as her body crunched home and left each time dragging trails of dust and globules of blood. She tried to spread her wings to force air-flow to her advantage. Her attacker brought her down one last time painfully.
Then, they mounted Cynder's prone back.
Cynder roared, a funnel of Shadow fire erupting from her throat as she craned her neck over and vomited elemental death in the enemy's direction. She was blinded from pebbles and blood in her eyes and couldn't see the effects.
A swift punch corrected any false hope.
Cynder snarled, her head bouncing off the cobblestone. A paw gripped the back of her crown, lifted her up, and then planted her beak into the street with a violent thrust.
Crnhchhh…
-She wriggled her agonized mandible, feeling a tooth ride a river of blood and spit out the side of her snout.
Through all the pain, she wanted to laugh.
Holy Ancestors, I'm getting the shit kicked out of me.
She was airborne, with wind whistling. Cynder hit a wall and fell down a landslide of smashed bricks to the ground. She coughed and writhed in the rubble.
A mighty dragon almost two times her size heaved as they trotted through the dust towards her, a tail tipped with a cudgel-studded mace calmly swaying with each roll of her voluptuous, muscled hips.
Terradora snorted and spit on the street, green eyes narrowed at the prone Cloud Ripper in silent judgment.
Truly, she looked like a statue, even in the peril of combat. A silent executioner who dealt suffering and death and humbly said little for it.
But at least this time there was a peep.
"Back off." –Was all she uttered.
Cynder slurred laughter and opened her mouth so all the excess blood and mucus would dribble out.
Oh, Terradora, still so anticlimactic and theater-hungry…
"…I didn't have an appointment with you." Cynder burbled, snake-tongue running across her chops and flicking crimson. "This was between me and your bond-sister, mountain-hen."
"What goes for one goes for four." Terradora's voice sounded like the stone she manipulated. Cynder hacked as the massive Earth Dragoness stood on her hinds, gripped her throat and peeled her from the wreckage like she weighed nothing. Terradora looked terrifyingly regal in the smoky ambiance of Oversight's burning infrastructure. Massive, and silent before she spoke again. "Cyrila: where is she?"
Cynder spat blood in her eye.
The Earth Guardian chucked her like an oversized baseball. She hit a stone fountain and broke the neck clean out of the foundation with a blast of masonry dust.
Terradora didn't need to proclaim it.
She'd break every bone in Cynder's body if it meant slowly slicing the information of the Guardian of Ice's whereabouts from her. Terradora was, after all, one of the most feared tacticians in the Northern Armies, and possibly one of the only Warfangians who maintained an unofficial station as chief torturer.
"Where?" Terradora parroted, hopping over the cracked dais of the fountain and snatching Cynder up from the rubble.
"W-Where would the fun be if I told you?" Cynder choked, smiling.
Terradora tossed her into the dais rim, positioned her spinning head on the edge of the bowl, and then heel-stomped her on the temple.
Crunchh~! –the stone blasted apart, and Cynder's face was buried in the dust and pile. Her body leaped like a chicken's would after being beheaded.
"Where?" Terradora monotonously asked again.
"Mmmff-p-too-!" Cynder blew a rock out of her mouth. "Call me naïve: but I think you're going soft on me."
"We will test that."
"Some of the Night Dragons on the Continent claim you have a skeleton made of solid steel." Cynder remarked. "Up until our last few get-togethers, I didn't quite believe them, you understand…"
"It's natural for the weak to make stories about what they fear." The Guardian rumbled, a paw compressing Cynder's spine between the wings. "Where?"
An Orc ran out of the smog and swung an axe at Terradora's face.
The Earth Guardian leaped back and swung her mace-tail as an afterthought, liquefying the Orc from the hip-up and sending the floppy, shattered body cartwheeling. More Orcs and a small swarm of Grublins flooded into the intersection with warcries and shrieks. Terradora snarled and batted out her paws, sending shattered corpses from her sight with each swing. She opened her maw and glowing stalagmites materialized out of thin air before rocketing through breasts and stomachs with morose squelches.
Cynder snarled and crawled out of the wreckage of the fountain.
"Nono, look this way, you brutish bitch!"
Terradora ripped an Orc's head off with her taloned fingers and spun around to meet Cynder's voice. The black dragoness vaulted backward off her fores and mule-kicked her with both heels in the snout.
The Guardian reeled. Cynder's tailblade diced with the speed of a katana and opened a shoulder, slashed her chest and drew a divet in her forearm. The Cloud Ripper opened her mouth and a crimson wave of her Siren's Scream enveloped Terradora in its shrieking, blood-red light. The Guardian grunted and curled in on herself as nightmares of her own personal demons bracketed her relentlessly. Cynder finally puckered her chops, and sent Terradora down the street with a howling blast of Wind.
The green and brown dragoness flipped and crashed through the shingled roof of a house. Cynder grinned and limped to where Volteera was still incapacitated.
If only she had the ability to take both.
Flying away with this load was harder than the last.
{🐉}
{Halo 3 ODST Soundtrack: More Than His Share}
The drum was beating in tune with her heart. That's what opened her eyes.
Initiation.
Rubble crashed and bricks tumbled. She sputtered and shook herself, offended growls crawling from behind her clenched fangs.
No, not that. Long time ago, that. Here and now?
Terradora blinked as her memory jogged. Then, her expression darkened to the point of such extreme anger, that her scales would've begun to turn crimson had she stood still long enough.
No drums. My comrade sister.
Volteera.
"No." Terradora grunted, her head lowering as she stumbled out of a collapsed partition of the building's wall. The intersection was bare, minus the slaughtered bodies of her prior victims, the destroyed wagon and the fountain.
But Volteera and Cynder were gone. That meant that Cynder had two of the Guardians now. She knew because of the panicked remnants of Cyrila's unit that had flown back to the lines, all of them babbling incessantly about how the Terror of the Skies had interrupted the battle and carried the Lady of Ice off.
This was just perfect.
She didn't think a crapshoot like Oversight could keep getting worse. Somehow, this fucking war kept finding ways.
A catapult shot careened through the air and implanted into the center of a fat commonhouse. The building erupted from the inside as the explosive bulge detonated and sent streams of flipping rubble everywhere. Terradora grunted and curled up as mounds of crushing bricks and beams hurtled down on her.
There was a flash of light, and a magically conjured sphere of levitating rock surrounded her.
When the rubble finished falling, the Guardian of Earth burst out from several feet of piled debris and strode from the wreckage as if nothing had happened.
A hazy, gray fog flavored with soot was falling over the city streets as the sound of battle loomed overhead.
Terradora squinted and tried to see the sky.
Nothing. It was too black because of all the fires. She couldn't get a bearing for any direction Cynder might have gone.
That meant that secondary priorities came next. Volteera's fate would have to wait, as terrible as that sounded.
She needed to reach Castle Crownhorn. The outer defenses of Oversight were collapsing, and that was the planned secondary fallback point.
Navigating the soot-filled streets which were gradually becoming flooded with Dark Soldiers, however, was sounding more and more a tricky bit of business by the second.
But Terradora never shied away from a challenge. Normally, she purposefully sought them out.
More stocky and muscular than her fellow Guardians, Terradora was lumbering as she sprinted on all fours down the narrow alley-streets of Oversight, opting to shoulder through overturned carts and burning market stalls instead of leaping over them like her sisters would have.
Luckily, much of Oversight had been evacuated. Any civilians not hiding in the lower catacombs of Crownhorn had been squirreled away in daring night trips into the wilderness. Unfortunately, after that initial grace though, Terradora wasn't aware of any of those refugee parties or their current states. The war had plunged the entire Daragon Coast into chaos.
The first batch of unfortunate Grublins numbered at least forty, being led by a trio of angrily snarling Orcs with greatswords.
To Terradora, that wasn't even a challenge. She killed half the detachment just by trampling them in her initial charge. After that, it was all quick lashes of her tail-mace, her claws, and a few bolts of stone from her maw. There was a road of bodies that she left in her wake.
Terradora hopped over an overhang bridge and landed in the recreational square below. She spun through the grass like a top, leaving a quad of hair-like, curling rents from her claws digging into the earth. Serrated leaves made from levitating rock flickered around the edges of her spinning form like the blades of a buzzsaw. A troupe of Grublins lunging at her died as they practically threw themselves into a giant blender. Reams of entrails and severed limbs flopped all over the place. She even grabbed an Orc by his gnarled head and crushed it like a grape in her paw just to make a point.
Ancestors, how her fury was positively boiling.
Cynder.
That deranged, evil bitch.
What scheme was she up to this time? Kidnapping the Guardians? Normally, she was just trying to gut them, and ironically enough, Terradora found herself preferring the Cloud Ripper having intentions of the latter over the prior.
At least then, there wasn't a foreboding sense of mystery.
The Dark Army didn't take prisoners.
But then again… Cynder had never adhered to Malefora's military doctrine, and normally ran around with her own marauder bands organized from her Ape lackeys.
Why was she acting alone and without support? The Grublins and Orcs weren't behaving in concert with her, and some of them even appeared surprised to see her. That meant that Urukal wasn't in on the plan…
What had happened down south? Nobody could get a straight answer, and she flatly refused to believe the crazy shit about some alien-thing falling from the sky and wiping out Chieftain Visigoth's entire tribe.
A warrior like that could not exist, she reasoned as she ran. Because I've never heard about them.
Panicked yells and the clash of steel caught her attention. Terradora stormed up a winding stairwell and flung herself through an atrium arch and into a suspended garden square wedged between a trio of large steeples.
A Wing of dragons was besieged from multiple sides by droves of Grublins and a handful of Orcs. For every beast they killed with claws, horns and blades, another two sprung forward like eager crickets into the chaos. A blast of deathly frost erupted into the crowd and froze a batch of Grublins solid where they stood.
Ice Dragons.
Part of Cyrila's unit that had broken up above the Solemn Pass. They must have landed right as the gates had fallen, smack dab in the center of the refreshed enemy offensive.
Terradora snarled and threw herself into the thick of the fighting without a pause for tact or concern. That was where she differed from her sisters. Ignitia was a thinker, Cyrila an outlying opportunist, and Volteera a skirmisher.
Terradora was the only one in the order willing to be the wrecking ball, and she was quite good at it.
Corpses were flying everywhere as she slaughtered her way through the stringent mobs of Dark creatures. Her tail blurred in graceful swings, sending a dead Grublin this way and that with each arc. Two Orcs turned to face her. Terradora jumped, tucked, and became a glowing, conjured boulder in mid-air. She landed on the first with a wet crunch and spattered the Orc across the street. His fellow growled and swung at her with an axe, the head deflecting off the rock with a flash of sparks.
Terradora burst from her prison and sent wickedly sharp shrapnel careening into the mobs, slicing out eyes, running through faces and gashing torsos. When the Orc staggered back, she gripped his throat in her paw and crushed it to the thickness of a scrap of paper with a simple flex of her pawpads. When the body fell, the head snapped off the strings holding it and it rolled away.
"My lady!" An older drake breathed, tailblade flickering and casting the separated pieces of a pair of Grublins into the air. "Your aid is appreciated."
"Name and rank." Terradora grunted impatiently, spinning around and fighting side by side with the Ice Dragon.
"Blizzren, lieutenant. These wyrms are mine."
Terradora uppercutted an Orc and scythed him into two peeling halves from the belly up.
"Cyrila's unit?" She huffed.
"Yes ma'am."
"General orders are for Crownhorn. Were you-" She reared on her haunches and barked a magical word. A boulder shot out from her paw and barreled into a cluster of Grublins, crushing bones and shattering limbs. "-were you cut off?"
"We landed in the thick of the fallback." Blizzren staggered back when the fighting lulled, his yellow eyes wide in awe at her powers. "We sent a messenger for Lady Volteera, but the unit was mauled before he could return."
"I found him." She said, pausing not only to kill, but to force away a look of pain from what had to be said. "Volteera was taken."
Blizzren only hissed, directing his soldiers with a paw as they leapt forwards, reptilian bodies curling, undulating and jolting as they battled into the thick of the mob. "That means you're in charge, ma'am."
"Organize your dragons to the castle. I will cover your retreat."
"I will stay with you."
Terradora tore her mace from an Archer's guts and nearly clipped Blizzren's head off when it swung past his shoulder. The drake staggered back, wheezing.
"A-Aye aye." He croaked.
"Who else came down?"
"There's more of us trapped in the street-section over there. Cyrila's adjutant, Colcrus, is with them. They linked up with a Wing of Zappers before they were pocketed."
Terradora nodded and grit her fangs, slashing, hacking, kicking and biting. She swept her mighty wings with a feral roar and sent bodies tumbling before her like a landslide of goblinoid limbs.
"Run!" She snapped. Blizzren wheezed and obeyed, him and the rest of the Ice Dragons backing up towards another street heading north. Several of them took to the air, and soon, the whole unit was gone.
Terradora shrieked and painted the street around her in a black ring of wet entrails. She threw the Orc's corpse through a commonhouse window and stared down the wall of Grublins that had backed off from the arterial spray. They brandished polearms and blades like a fence of pointy, steel death. She preened her wings and snarled at them, making the whole formation leap back tensely. She frowned.
None of these opponents were worthy.
She advanced suddenly, stampeding through the front ranks , ignoring hundreds of enemies as she took off towards the sounds of the second battle unfolding a little ways ahead. Many of the Grublins futilely hopped on their cloven heels, yipping and hooting in disappointment as their prey distanced herself beyond their reach. The handful of surviving Orcs left stared balefully up at the Guardian's belly, beady little red eyes narrowed in hateful contempt.
Terradora looped over the burst shingle-dome of a tailoring shop and beat her wings. She passed over a line of rooftops, temporarily breaking the barrier of the soot choking the sky.
A wide view of the city gridded with rising smoke veins blinked into existence for a clawful of seconds. The gates were not too far away for them not to be visible from the distance. The streets surrounding the plaza were undulating, like a living carpet of ants was flooding into the city. The amount of Grublins they were against was appalling.
Oversight was lost when the wind changed and smoke ate away the eye in the soot. Terradora dipped her scarred nose and dived through the blackened hell without comment.
She landed on the street in a thunderous crash and twirled herself to bat away a cluster of Grublins immediately. Her mace crushed tiny plates of armor, snapped bones and pulped organs. The ruckus of several tiny bodies meeting her weapon's kiss almost drowned out the following chorus of varied screams.
Draconic cries intermeshed with the clash of steel and hoots of monsters. A large cluster of Ice Dragons fought side by side with a Wing of Electrics, their white and yellow bodies contrasting the dark of the streets. The air flashed as bolts of lightning ripped through Dark Soldiers. Icicles as sharp as arrows burst out the backs of skulls and punched into guts.
Dragons died in spectacular and gruesome displays as mobs of Grublins sliced at their heels and tails to drag them down, and Orc teams would scramble over to hack at joints and necks like woodcutters to lumber. An Electric drake gave off hideous shrieks as he was stabbed and prodded from multiple angles by encircling little beasts. An opportunist Orc waited for him to send a cone of lightning into one of his smaller kin before stepping forwards, and slashing his great axe across the dragon's face. The drake twirled off his heels as the blade widened the gap between his mandible and upper oral hinges. Another Orc beheaded him the moment he hit the cobblestone.
"Colcrus?" Terradora barked, covered in blood and grime as she reached the beginnings of the draconic line. A blood-covered Ice hen staggered back from her, eyes wide in surprise at the sudden appearance of the Guardian of Earth. "Where is he?"
"There!" She pointed with her burnt wing. "He has the snout-horn, m'lady!"
"Colcrus!" Terradora howled, ripping and rending as she skirted the front of the unit-to-unit divider line. An arrow crunched nearly to the fletching through her muscular shoulder. Terradora eviscerated the Archer's face with a hurled stalagmite, and dragged her wing up her bicep to snap the arrow away without even a flinch. "Organize a retreat! I'm your cover!"
An Ice Drake matted in Grublin and dragon blood spun to meet her with a dazed expression. He was battered and bruised, and the chest plates layering his breast looked indented, like he'd been rammed by a cannonball.
"The Cloud Ripper took her!" Colcrus cried, eyes wild as he killed. He only met her gaze for a second when she neared him, then it was back to slashing Grublins in the face. "The Cloud Ripper captured Lady Cyrila!"
"I'm aware." She pulled a Grublin's spine out through his ass and tossed the flapping wet remains over her wing. "Now fall back. I'm ordering you."
"Most of the forces were able to reach Crownhorn?"
"I do not know. Find out for yourself or be dead."
"Right. Y-You came from the west, is Blizzren…?"
"He's already done what you haven't. Run." Terradora gripped him by the throat with a bloody paw. "Run."
Colcrus honestly didn't come off as an idiot to her. He was however obviously suffering the backlash of shock, if his darting eyes were any further proof.
Idiot or not, giving into weakness in the midst of a battle was dishonorable. Terradora's snout crinkled, as if he stunk like death to her.
"Just go."
She shoved the smaller drake away and shrieked angrily as she spun back around and dragged her mace through the front wall of the enemy. Orcs and Grublins screamed as bones shattered, armor crunched like tinfoil and flesh squelched.
"Volteera isn't with her." An Electric Dragon heaved as Colcrus stumbled beside him. He saw the look in Colcrus' eyes and growled. "…If that's the case…"
"Crownhorn's the secondary rally point." Colcrus coughed when the corner of a building burst apart and vomited dust across the whole street. "-The wall garrison is heading that way too, and so is Blizzren's clutch."
"How are we supposed to hold the city without the Guardians?" The other drake mumbled as the air whooshed, and the Wings peeled off from the engagement and shot up into the sooty sky. "You don't actually think the wall garrisons are going to be able to seal everything off, do you? All those street-level flights!"
Colcrus was still hacking as his pale wings flapped and took him through the blanket of smog.
"I think I can only process one disaster at a time..." He gasped, glancing at the drake. "Colcrus."
"Manetic."
"Where's your sergeant?"
"Missing his fucking head."
"I'm sorry."
"We've lost, haven't we?"
"Terradora still lives." Colcrus shook his head, risking a glance past his streaming tail. He blinked when he realized that he was positively dripping in dark Grublin gore all across his coat. It was so thick on his legs that it resembled piled paste. "At least Cynder didn't take her too. As long as we still have her, it means the Ancestors are giving us a chance."
"Cynder's never done this before."
"Done what?"
"Taken people. I'm used to her swooping down and killing us." Manetic grunted. "This isn't a coincidence."
"None of this madness is a coincidence, just look." Colcrus snapped over the wind. "We are getting butchered! The Pass being blocked is sending all of Urukal's forward advance elements back towards the northern walls. We just dammed a rising flood."
"Cyrila's plan? It's backfiring just like that? But it was mapped out to a pin, you Ices never leave half a meal!"
"We were ambushed too soon." Colcrus shamefully admitted, his eyes quivering. "The Cloud Ripper was enough, but before that, there were-"
"Wyverns!" Someone cried.
Colcrus craned his sinewy back and gawked in horror.
A flight of crimson, serpentine and undulating beasts riding rib-fins dove under the glare of the sun behind the sooty clouds straight for them.
"Scatter formation!" One of the sergeants called belatedly. Dragons roared as they turned on their hiplines to point their bellies at the sky. They brandished bladed claws and tail weapons, locking talons and steel with Wyverns that collided with them at the chest.
Colcrus rolled and whipped the shortblade on the end of his tail in an upwards loop. A Wyvern staggered off its flight path and careened to the city below with its throat opened and leaving a trail that fell after it.
"Do you think they sent a messenger?" Manetic cried, now slicked with a spattering of blood that wasn't his.
"To where?" Colcrus barked.
"To Warfang." Manetic licked his dry chops. "To get the Purple Dragon?"
"Gods," Colcrus barked. "Gods they better have! Or this city is done for!"
{🐉}
"What is there to say? You saw, I conquered, and a whole batch of people aren't getting any sleep tonight. At least it isn't like the security issues your less scrupulous fellow Councilors assumed we'd make…"
"Are you actually going to disrespect our ancestral and judicial chambers right in front of my snout?" Starbrun gawked at him, insult not even present in his quavering voice. The poor old drake looked like he'd seen a ghost. A perverted ghost that had, like, mind-raped him or something… "Was this afternoon not enough?"
"That depends on who you ask." The Fallen tapped his fingers on his arms. "Satisfied parties might be less, ehm… enraged. But then again: don't count Spyra into that group. If I actually die in this world, it'll be because she stabbed me in my sleep."
"A-Actually, by the way she made it sound," Taliopia nervously fiddled with the tip of her tail in her paws. "-I-I think she wants to cut off your…"
"Enough, please! Ancestors praise silence: please!" Starbrun wailed, tossing back into his futon with an audible creak from the wooden legs. "If I hear another adulterous slur, I'll advocate the dungeons for you, alien, and revoke your military privileges for both of you, Morinth, Taliopia."
"That's an awfully cruel jump, sir. I hope nobody's forgetting that we shut the door." Morinth rolled her eyes. She noticed the fierce expression on the Councilor's face, and blinked. "All of this would have been hush-hush, if some-hen didn't go completely boonnkkeerrrrssss~…."
"D-Do you think Spyra hates us?" Taliopia whispered/gasped. "Oh my god, I-I can't deal with that, Morri-poo! S-She's the only friend I've ever had in years! I can't lose that now!"
Morinth and even the Fallen quirked a brow at her.
"A-A friend that isn't my friend friend friend…" Tali' stammered, hugging herself in her own futon. "…I mean, she's very… ehm, pretty, I guess? She's beautiful, actually. B-But I wasn't thinking of her like I do you, Morri-poo, I was…"
The healer suddenly had a look of horror about herself.
"Oh my god… I… I mated with –with-" She gripped her face, eyes wildly gluing to the Fallen. "-I mated with a male~!" –She shrieked.
"I know, absolutely, what is actually wrong with us for mixing up the bag..." Morinth sighed, rolling her eyes away from her gaze as she patted Taliopia on the paw. "Can't we stay prim and break this down for what the full extent of it can be, sir? Disorderly behavior, at the cheeky worst. Me and Tali' were… out of line, but there wasn't an offense involving physical harm, or destruction of city property-"
"I broke doors."
Everyone glanced at the back of the room, where Spyra was curled into a fetal position facing the wall. Her tail whipped as she refused to make eye-contact with anyone inside the office.
"And a window." Asden chortled beside Starbrun's large, ornate desk. The latter glared at him, and the fat dragon's jocular expression slowly slid off his face like a vestigial flap of flesh. "…Yes, the Purple Dragoness is correct. Property was damaged. But, and- I'm talking from behind my own tail here –nobody was hurt, Morinth is correct there."
"It does not matter if anyone was hurt. This kind of behavior is unacceptable. It's outlandish! This is something I would expect to be punishing a pair of overeager, hormonally driven, immature, fresh-shell stinking whelps for!" Starbrun held his face in a claw. "Public mating displays? Alien! Fallen! Whoever or whatever you are: what kind of world do you come from where people think this is okay?"
"I don't know." The Fallen shrugged. "I barely remember wherever I came from. For all I know, people back there maintain themselves as a society of nudists."
"As what?"
The Fallen opened and closed his mouth before looking around the office at all the clothes lacking dragons.
Oh, yes, right.
"I just remember all the places I've been after there and before here, alright?"
"Yeeppp, fightin', burnin' and fuckin' 'till your balls turned to magma, I'm sure…" Spyra mumbled under her breath.
"Other worlds before this one? Oh, holy drakes in the steeple, now you've got me chomping at the bit to hear such riveting tales of-" Asden paused mid-sentence when Starbrun's glaring returned in force. Slip. Off went the expression of joy again. "…What I meant to say was that whatever laws you've lived in before do not apply here, in our city."
"Correct." Starbrun nodded sagely, still reclined in his red-padded futon in a daze. "…Very wise of you to say, Councilor Asden. But forgive me, my mind is in quite a place after… that, whatever it was we saw in that room. That… thing. Those… activities."
"Aw fuck, you sound like a typical privileged old man stuck in a chapel-rut." Spyra growled. "I don't think I wanna' get all wrinkly like you guys. I just broke the golden seal like, what, three or fours weeks ago, and I've clearly had a longer, funner time than ya'll combined… You talk like Ignitia and she's dustier than Cynder now…"
"If it's any consolation: I have no greater urge than to purge your foul mood and plunder your vaginal hoard." The Fallen blurted out, craning past the spine of his futon to look at Spyra.
Starbrun had been reaching over for a glass of ginger-ale on the top of his desk. The cup broke noisily on the floor.
"I apologize for the communication errors back at the swamps, Spyra. But, part of a larger poon gallery or not, you are still my greatest find here."
"…Fuck you." Spyra shivered nevertheless, her eyes dilating as his first comment sent chills up her back.
Oh Ancestors….
She…
She still wanted to-
After all this?!
No! Bad purple-momma'.
"Quit lookin' at me, dude, you're banished from the Queendom of Spyra, and ya' ain't getting back in." She chanced a second-long glare at him before reaffirming her vision to the corner. "Besides, looks like you aren't missing what you already had, judging by the two sluts in the futons there…"
Morinth was visibly bothered, twiddling her claws and clenching her jaw, knowing Spyra technically had a point. Taliopia was sobbing quietly, suppressing her heaves and instead jolting in her seat with each wrack.
Asden exposed his fangs and went wide-eyed, examining the row of guest seats in front of the desk. He suddenly felt a little sweaty.
"…Mmph. The Chronicler must be having a truly interesting time watching all of this, because it's colder than an Ice's wing in here all of a sudden." He mumbled, edging away from Starbrun's desk and towards the office door. "…I think that I hear someone calling my name in the lobby! Pleasant ados, drakes, hens, Fallen. All's well to end well and… andyougettheideabuhbye-"
"Councilor Asden, I haven't adjourned your-"
Bmmm~!
Starbrun jumped when the door slammed shut and Asden vanished. He growled under his breath, soot leaking from his nostrils as he stared angrily down at the ginger-ale and glass on his carpet.
"I haven't had a day where I've hated my job in thirty-five years." He mumbled, leaning his forepaws on the desk and tapping his talons. "It hit me like a Stone Golem the last time too."
"Pfft, know how that feels…" The Fallen sulked. He glanced out the office window at the view of golden Warfang below. "I think now, that I'm sitting here with this ugly air, I'm coming to realize how stagnating this could become. Not that that's anyone's fault."
"Stagnating? I haven't had my mind changed so strongly in a long time, for the better." Morinth grinned giddily. "And, you do look so much better when you're not wrapped in dressings…"
Spyra snarled.
"Dragons are going to be…" Starbrun wasn't listening as he mumbled to himself. "…pah, I don't even know what they're going to be. Angry? Shocked? Sickened? I expect a mix."
"Speaking out of term, sir: but no one's requiring you to stoke the fire outside of any witnesses." Morinth chimed. "It isn't like a representative from the express papers was standing in the door."
"You seriously didn't see that Mole with the courier cap in the back scribbling away in his little notebook?" Spyra incredulously glanced at her over her wing.
Morinth blinked.
"Oh." She smiled. "Shit."
"At least you can get a guarantee from one person in this city that his reaction is not to care." The Fallen shrugged, standing up from his futon. Spyra laughed sourly behind him. He ignored her. "The incident is completely in a misdemeanor's sense, actually, it's below that, given the worst I've seen here and elsewhere."
"A miss-da-meenor?" Morinth cocked her head. "Cheeky that. I'm unsure about… whatever it is you said, Fallen, but private matters aren't grounds for severe punishment, especially ones regarding the purposeful walk-in of an outside element."
"Oh yeah Morinth, big bad girl over here, throwin' the Purple Dragoness under the train like a champ'!" Spyra clapped her forepaws. "Go on, Starbrun, make my day and side with the fuckin' peanut gallery. What's the consequence? Huh? You're gonna' throw me in a cell?"
"I cannot punish the Purple Dragon." Starbrun sighed in defeat. "Not that I wish to do that regardless. But you are supposed to be the crowned symbol of hope, not just to this city, but to the entirety of the Dragon Realms! What will people think when Warfang imprisons the savior of our species? It'll cause such a morale-drop, that I fear what the results might be for many theaters. Our borders could collapse."
Figure that, my sexscepades nearly brought down a kingdom. Again.
The Fallen put his hands on his hips and sighed.
"What's done is done." He shook his head. "There's still a war and I have to help you win it. I should be deployed with Spyra as soon as possible so we can start doing that. I've been hearing so much about the Daragon Coast, why not start there? That's where the other Guardians besides Ignitia are deployed."
"That was the original plan once the Council had approved it…" Starbrun said.
"We're out of time to approve anything. We need to act." The Fallen looked at all three of the dragonesses around him. He noticed Morinth and Spyra exchange a venomous glare, but he also noticed them both soften into expressions of sadness afterwards.
Oh, there he went again, letting the libido destroy everything around him like a fucking bulldozer. Kingdoms, armies, friendships…
Again.
"Looted Ape equipment isn't going to cut it anymore, and I don't have access to my equipment." The Fallen looked down at his jumpsuit judgingly. "I'm switching the talk back to what's most pressing. I need weapons, armor…"
"Does none of this matter to you?" Starbrun weakly gestured to the three hens.
"Nothing except getting under tails and killing stuff matters to him." Spyra snapped, standing up and trudging for the office door. She paused in the frame as she opened it and stepped outside. "I'm going back to the academy so Ignitia can start my training. If anyone needs me, they can eat my ass until I feel good and damn ready to talk again."
"I can eat your ass." The Fallen held a finger up. Spyra shrieked in feminine rage and slammed the door shut so hard that the frame cracked. "…I tried."
"I might have to take you upppp on thaaaatttt~…." Morinth giggled drunkenly, her tail lashing around his ankle. Taliopia's crying had ceased, and her head was perked up to watch the two of them. Starbrun gawked when the normally sheepish medic narrowed her eyes and licked her chops.
"Get out of my office!" He said. "Understand that me and many others are greatly disappointed in you. We expected better behavior from dragons and… and aliens of your stature."
"I rarely do what people expect." The Fallen held his hands up. "I'm just saying."
"Stand right there." Starbrun pointed a talon at him, freezing him on the spot. When Morinth and Taliopia still hadn't gotten up, he waved a wing at them, shooing. "I told you both to leave. Please!"
"We'll be outside, mmkay?" Morinth giggled, brushing her hip against the Fallen's leg as she passed. Taliopia shyly waved at him and let her tail bump his legs. Starbrun looked sick as the door shut again, leaving him alone in the office with the human.
"…Where do I even begin with you?" He growled, his normally beautiful, blazing scales dulled almost seemingly by his mood, but in reality because of the hue of the office chamber. His eyes still pierced through the shade like miniature fireballs, narrowing at the Fallen and burning through his forehead. "I found you blunt, Fallen, but I honestly believed you were more composed than this, and in control. I now see that I was wrong."
"You're free to think what you want. All I need out of you is three things: shelter, information, and weapons. I'll take care of the rest." The Fallen leaned on the front of his desk, eyes dangerously shrunken as he stared the larger drake down. "Putting aside how we feel about each other, let me just say that I can assure results as long as I have proper logistics behind me. I've fought with many armies before, ones with more technology and superior tactics than your world will ever conceive or utilize. I've noticed your Mole warriors wield a variety of ballistic weapons, finely crafted melee blades and ornate steel. Their metalwork is coveted, I can tell just by looking at their product."
Starbrun took a deep, rattling breath, swallowing any further anger he sported towards the human to get down to business.
"…How do humans wage war?" He folded his talons and flicked his muscular tail. "You have two hands, two feet, it can't be too dissimilar to the Mole-folk."
"It isn't, just with more stature." The Fallen smirked, sitting back down on the edge of his futon. "I have a list, if it helps."
"So tell me of the details."
"A polearm weapon, a short to medium slashing base, something compact that can shoot, a crossbow, a pellet-flinger, a pistol, it doesn't matter. A suit of fresh armor with minimal layering. I bet the Moles could work wonders with mail and scales. I need the flexibility to do my work properly. A visorless helmet, and enough space to carry rations for a week of travel."
"Very specific of you."
"Yes. It's what I've told every other warlord, emperor and general who's taken me into their fold, at least when I went through my first portals. I normally have my own equipment for these kinds of things, but the people who sent me here wanted to make it as hard as possible for me, so my equipment has been scattered all over the realms in large containment pods. I was on the one that Spyra found in the swamps." He paused, blinking as Starbrun took it all in. "I need a temporary rig so I can find my gear. Once I have that, your war is over, you will win."
"Why? What kind of gear are we speaking of?"
"Technology that is lightyears ahead of anything ever invented here. If I can get my hands on all of it, it will be virtually impossible for any combatant Malefora can muster to fight me and hope to win." The Fallen explained. "Can you put me in contact with your finest blacksmiths?"
Starbrun sighed again, giving him one last glare before sliding out of his futon, and gesturing for the office door.
"I believe I can arrange that." The Fire drake rolled his jaw. "Come with me to the castle forges. We're going to have a chat with the armorers and engineers."
He paused.
"And thankfully, they're all male." He sneered.
"Even if they weren't, you have nothing to worry about." The Fallen cringed. "I don't do rodents."
He blinked.
Actually, technically not true, he mentally reminded himself before following Starbrun.
{🐉}
{Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion OSTl Minstrel's Lament}
"…Morri-poo, I'm confused. I feel really really bad about all of this, but at the same time, really really really good too…" Taliopia played with her tail as she curled up on the stone bench, self-consciously like she normally did when stressed. "We've never involved another person in our relationship before, and I kind of liked having the Fallen be with us for… that. I've never felt that good before."
"I have a feeling it will all work out my doctoring 'ness." Morinth smiled at her briefly as she paced in front of the bench. Taliopia peered at her in shock.
"…W-What? You don't even have a little bit of… of torn-upped-ness about everything right now? Morri-poo, we just mated with a male, a-an alien male, and we cheated with him on Spyra! The Purple Dragoness!"
"Just because it will all work out later doesn't mean the road isn't covered with boulders." Morinth sighed, her black wings deflating as she examined her own paws on the street. "I'm not going to say though that I entirely regret it. Spyra is a good soul, indeed, but… but the human…" She licked her chops and hummed. "He was taassstyyyyy~…"
"Y-Yeah…" Taliopia gulped, rubbing her arm amid a blush. "I kinda' want him even more now. D-Does that really make me a slut?"
"I wouldn't worry about it. We've always split our pies anyway." Morinth smiled. "We get the Fallen, and we win the war, and we live happily ever after. It can really be thaaat simmpleeee~."
"…Yeah… but Spyra's still sad, and angry." Taliopia curled up again. "You think I can buy her something nice? Maybe cheer her up?"
Morinth clicked her tongue and doted lovingly on the white dragoness.
She was so naïve.
But there was pure-hearted innocence in that naivety, at least outside conditions of the flesh up until recently…
"As cute as the suggestion is, I doubt a teddy-dragon is going to make up for today."
"Maybe we could… uhm…"
"Hmm?"
"…let her join in…?"
Morinth closed her mouth and pondered, staring off into space.
…Huh.
Well, it wouldn't exactly be a bad idea-
"Oi! You're the alien exhibitionist everyone's yapping about!" Someone down one of the castle side-paths cried in the distance.
"Be careful, I might just flash you or something, and you'll go blind." The Fallen flexed his eyebrows and sent the small gathering Moles scurrying with a few frightened yips. He rolled his eyes and finished walking over to the bench where Morinth and Taliopia were. "Afternoon, ladies."
"Fallen!" Morinth chirped, bounding over and throwing herself into his chest with a squeezing embrace. "What took you so long? Me and Taliopia have so much we want to do with you…"
"I'd love to, but…"
Morinth frowned as he looked down at her. He clicked his teeth and tried a different angle.
"I really would like to, Morinth, Taliopia, but I have preparations to make back at the academy and the castle. We're preparing to deploy outside the walls tomorrow before this fireworks show you folks have going on, and immediately following too, actually."
"The Comet Festival!" Taliopia gasped, slipping off the bench and trotting to stand beside Morinth. "I completely forgot about that! Ooo! Morri-poo, I love the Comet Festival! C-Can we go? Please? Please?"
She looked at the Fallen.
"C-Can you go with us, Fallen?" She blushed, smiling hopefully.
"…Uhm…" He glanced in the direction of the academy, purple invading his thoughts. "…I-If I'm not stuck in another warzone. Of course I can."
Taliopia squealed happily.
"Well that's a date." Morinth laughed. "But taking into account your cheeky and busy schedule, maybe you'll at least have an hour to… treat us to a late lunch?"
"…Ye-uh-no-uhm-eh…" The Fallen chewed his tongue, eyeing around the recreational squares flanking this side of Castle Wyrm. "…Maybe just an hour."
Taliopia squealed again. His ears were ringing and some passing guards stared.
"There must be eateries in the worlds you've been to before here." Morinth took his hand with her tail and yanked him along as she drew beside Taliopia. "You'll have to tell us about all the things you've seen, all the sonngssss~ you've heard…"
"I don't know many songs." He stammered.
"So we'll have to teach you our songs then~." Morinth flapped her wings, matched his height and pecked him on the cheek. She yanked his arm harder when he paused. "Grab his other hand, Tali', so he doesn't wander off…"
"Halt!" A feminine voice called from behind them. The trio turned and saw a yellow scaled dragoness, and a blue and white scaled drake tiredly trotting over. They were just folding their wings, and they looked a little winded. "…By order of the… *pant* -Dragon C-Council… w-we're here to be… *pant* the alien's escort…"
Taliopia looked hurt, like the new dragoness had brazenly insulted her despite not even speaking to her. Morinth let go of the Fallen's hand and sneered.
"Back off, Rava, he's with us." She snapped, wings and tail spreading in a combative stance.
"Huh." The Fallen scratched his hair. "I guess you both know each other."
"Morinth? T-Taliopia?" Rava stopped in surprise for a moment before more cautiously pressing forward. "What are you both doing here with the alien?"
"Would people stop calling me an alien!" The Fallen sighed. "I'm a human! Hue-mahn. Human-human. Is that really so hard to pronounce?"
"Huh, it does talk." Windshear grunted, eyes bugging out of his head. The Fallen narrowed his eyes at him.
"I'll warn you that the gloves have been off since I crash-landed."
"Sorry, no insult intended." The drake chuckled, stepping forwards without any fear and extending a claw out. "Windshear. This is Rava. The Dragon Council put us in charge of being your escort outside the academy motte."
"…Ah, yes, my new shadows. I can thank good old Condor for that detail." The Fallen clenched Windshear's cold paw briefly, looking now at Rava. He smiled. "Madame', a pleasure to make your acquaintance… What lovely scales you have, nearly gold when the sun catches them. Scalewash? Obviously high quality."
Rava blinked rapidly, like she'd had a spotlight blared in her face. Her wings twitched.
"-A-Ahmm-" She stammered, flushed. "-l-lovely weather we're having?"
"At least he's more civil than the Purple Dragon was." Windshear grinned.
"-Uhm-" Rava slapped her chops. "-did you say something?"
"I'm sure the Council can appreciate an escort already being assigned before both of you. We have it under control." Morinth slung her tail over the Fallen's waist and gently started to usher him backwards with her and Taliopia, the latter of whom stared at the path and refused to look up. "And the Councilors should be ashamed of themselves, assigning an unright dragoness such as yourself, Rava, for such a job."
"M-Morinth, wait, I-" Rava reclined when Morinth growled at her and gnashed her fangs. The Electric Dragon looked hurt. She turned to Taliopia. "Taliopia! It's so good to see you! I've been trying to find you for such a long time, I wanted to speak with you and-"
"Don't you even look at her!" Morinth snapped, shielding the quivering healer with a wing. "You already did enough! Don't you have someone else to harass? Or is Windshear too much for you?"
Windshear looked confused for a second. Then, his eyes bloomed in a sort of awkward recognition. The drake coughed and folded his wings quaintly, looking off towards another street.
"…Yes, I think I understand." He mumbled, nudging Rava with his elbow. "These are the hens you had… issues with back at the academy right?"
"And afterwards too!" Morinth looked positively furious. "I warned you once, Rava, you stay away from Taliopia, or I rightly swear, under heat from today or not, I will break your cheeky face!"
Rava opened her snout to speak again but closed it, her tail drooping as she shied back and placed her forepaws under her breast.
"…I just wanted to say to both of you that I was-"
"We do not carrreeee~." Morinth tugged and shooed, corraling her charges away. "Feel free to follow us if you must, but me, my doctoring 'ness and our human are going for a nice late afternoon. No offense, Windshear, but you're both not invited."
"None taken." Windshear creased his chops, standing beside Rava as they watched the three of them move farther off. The human craned over Morinth's mothering wing and gave a sheepish, farewell wave to them. He glanced at Rava and coughed. "…We need the exercise anyway, right? Keep in shape for the next deployment?"
"…*sigh* yeah…" Rava grumbled, pawing a pebble on the ground. "Let's just go already. Have you eaten at all?"
"Not since second breakfast."
"Second? Do you ever think with anything besides your stomach, Windshear?"
"One, you asked, second, I thought enough to keep most of my comments inside here." He poked his temple. "You, uh… wanna' talk about it?"
"No, actually."
"Right. Lunch is on me anyway."
"It's almost dinner time." Rava looked up at the darkening sky, the sun just beginning to go into the first phases of setting.
"So lunchinner then." Windshear chortled. "They'll have to deal with us getting a nearby table. But we'll stay back, okay? No need to be more confrontational."
{🐉}
Flying back to the academy was easy. She'd already memorized a lot of the streets and plazas by this point, her inner-explorer still brazenly active and blaring despite her foul mood.
Spyra waited in the Guardian Temple, pacing around the lobby and flipping through some books that she had no vested interest in, before she decided to go into the training chamber by herself, just to look around.
She liked what she saw.
The chamber was sunken in a center dais eight feet deep and surrounded by an ankle-height guard. The floor was carved into the draconic symbol of Warfang and the walls were ribbed with buttresses resembling massive, Lung-styled dragons that curved and warbled up until their jaws unhinged and merged into a wavering, domed ceiling studding with glowing green and red gem clusters, each contained in star-shaped linings of pure bronze. Torch braziers flickered between each buttress on the upper ring's level, bathing the whole expanse a warm amber to contrast the green-red glow faintly shimmering above.
"…Wow." Spyra grinned, walking loops around the chamber, looking at everything, touching the wall décor. "This place is righteous."
"Yu should see some of them shrine chambers on the uvver side of the halls you should. Nice and sparkly gatherings those be too, just like this one."
Spyra frowned and watched as Palmet waddled into the chamber with a stupid grin plastered on his long face. That ugly little shittopus he carried around, Meep, was peering at her quietly over his shoulder.
"The hell are you even doing in here, monkey-boy? Get out. Don't make me throw you in the ring and fry your ass for kicks." She nonchalantly dismissed, turning back to feel up the carved scales on one of the buttresses with her paws. "You're the Fallen's servant or some shit, right? Don't you have something to sweep or mop up?"
"Actualleh, you'd be amazed at the proactiveness I've rightly demmonostrated and such over the last few hours." Palmet was either too stupid to understand her insults, or was ignoring her. She didn't put enough stock in him yet to believe it was the latter. "Me and Meep got down ta thinkin-"
"Now that's a lie." Spyra chuckled, pointing her tail-leaf at him. "You haven't used whatever little puke-ball is inside your head for, like, evva'. I'll put money on it, a lot of money."
"…got down ta… thinkin… yu know, yu realleh are a cold draggy inside." He pointed at her blankly.
"You don't need to tell me!" She cackled, her sour musings echoing sharply.
"…Ah. I was jus gonna say that me and Meep already swept and mopped the whole temple we did."
"…What?"
"Its true it is. That lovely little livin space the nice fire-drag lady gave us had all these nifty cleanliness supplies lying about, and so we was thinkin that in the meantime, ya know, with nothing else to really do, me and Meep would repay such generousness with a good janitorialness. Cleaned every chamber. Top to bottom we did."
"…Huh." Spyra swept her pawpad on the little guard rail, rubbing her fingers together and noticing the lack of dust. "I haven't been here long enough to notice the grime I guess."
"An now ya nevva will, within the good ole job we did! Meep's a natural with feathadusters, and I fancy them brooms to a good point of stormin perfection." Palmet snapped his fingers. "Me an Meep should open up a cleanin service we should! I bet this whole drag city is filled with dusty devils and nasty crusties under the beds. Now that we're good guys and pursuin the ends of justice, we have ta consider our economical futures."
"That's all it takes for you Apes? Someone on the other side gives you a job, and just… poof, you got all their ideals now." Spyra shook her head.
"Yeah! …Ain't it… Ain't it always dat simple?" Palmet stopped on the opposite side of the ring. "Why else do ya work if ya ain't doin what ya gotta do for reasons ya fink are right, eh?"
She suddenly harbored an expression like he had struck her.
"Just when I thought my day couldn't go into another loop." She snarled.
"…Oh, ehm… I can rightly apologize I can, if'n I caused ya grief there, purple-drag. Maybe me and Meep could clean out that new and fancy room of yers ya shackin up in with the Master! If it makes ya feel better. We didn't touch it on account of him threatenin to tear my eyes out and all…"
"You can make me feel better by shoving a sock in it." She murmured, clicking her talons and sighing through her nose. She stared at the sigil making the dais floor below. "Did you see Ignitia at all? I kinda' need her here if I'm gonna' start training."
"Not since earlieh this aftanoon I haven't." Palmet had come back from out in the lobby chamber outside, he was toting a bucket heavily sloshing with sudsy water and a pair of dingy brooms. Meep was chirping eagerly with a trio of dusters clenched in his black tentacles. "I'm certain she'll sort ya out propeh when she comes back frum her errands and whatnot."
"Thanks for the confidence." She rolled her eyes. "And it ain't up to me about that room. I'm… I'm not staying there anymore."
Palmet almost tripped over the bucket, whirling around and blinking.
"-Say wha now?"
"I didn't speak in tongues, did I?"
"B-But- But Master's got you in his highest sights and-" The Ape went silent when she gave him a terribly cold death-glare. Meep shivered in fright and hid in his mane. "…Uh, alright, nonnuv my bidness I'm seein rightly. But you were both tighta than bread and- and… more bread jus this morning!"
"Bread went rotten, just sod off with it, dude." Spyra spat, wringing her talons on the guard bar.
"But he's the best Master there is! Bettah than Cynda!"
"Don't mention her." Spyra barked. "And how can you even say that? He kicks the crap out of you just when he feels bored! You're like a… a spare Corrinthol. Except he doesn't break you that bad, he just sorta', like… slaps you around and shit."
"Small price ta pay for total freedom I'd say." Palmet hugged his brooms. "I ain't evva been able to trot around like I have tah-day in the geyserlands or that stupid tower, with my own room, my own bucket and mops, and my own Meep."
"Meep!"
"Yeah-ha! He's got it he does!" The Ape saluted her and waddled off. "Hopin tu ya feelin better there, purple-drag, as long as ya ain't blaming me for more fings I didn't break. It took me awhile to clean up all them pottery shards frum earlier! Don't brek anuvva of the things ifn ya could…"
"Meep!"
"No, Meep, it's rude ta ask for tips it is. Ah! It's the nice drag-lady who smells like a bakery! How is ya, lass?"
"Did you… tidy the temple while I was out?" Ignitia blinked as she and Palmet stepped around one another in the doorframe. She tested the air. "It smells quite clean."
"I'll take dat as a job well done I will. Welp! Back to my fancy new room it is then…"
Ignitia opened her mouth but couldn't find anything proper to say as she watched Palmet lumber off. The poor Fire Guardian looked as if she was in a daze of some kind.
"D-Did he really clean the temple?" Ignitia looked across the ring at Spyra.
"I'll take his word for it." The purple dragon defeatedly grumbled, trying not to meet Ignitia's eyes. "…Soooo, how'd your day go?"
Ignitia shut a large gold-barred door behind her, closing her eyes for a moment to listen to the frame's impact echo around the chamber. She sighed in content and smiled.
"Very busy. Very busy indeed. There were ledgers, papers, entire wings that needed to be cleaned out, and, of course-" She giggled, her left eye suffering a brief twitch. "-someone fell in the well again. HmHm." Another twitch. "How about you, Spyra? Your first day in the City of the North! Oh, how exciting. I can't wait to hear all about it, why don't you come with me and we can find a bench in the garden squares outside, under a nice oak tree, and I'll bring us some sandwiches and some of that lovely rice-pudding they make at the residence hall and we-"
"I, uh… my day isn't over yet, a-and I'm kinda' hoping yours isn't either." Spyra stared at her talons, locking up. Ignitia's tail swayed curiously behind her as she rounded the dais guard and approached her.
"…Oh, i-if it embarrasses you-" The Guardian cleared her throat. "-if I embarrass you, I completely understand. W-We can stay inside the temple, and I can request to have dinner brought to us. It's whatever you're comfortable with, Spyra. I want whatever works best for you."
Spyra clenched her jaw.
Now she really couldn't look Ignitia in the face.
Something yanked at her in her chest.
Cometcu.
Spyra felt an encroaching dread settle inside herself. This was the first night after she had willingly left her village and adoptive family behind.
So, what? The world turned and was basically offering her another maternal outlet? Shouldn't that have been a blessing?
Why did it make her feel so gross?
"Spyra," Ignitia sat at her side, facing her and curling her tail around her paws. "…if this is going to be your new home, then I want it to be perfect for you. Anything that you need, and it will be done. But I do only have one request, and… I would enjoy talking with you, even for a little while."
"Talking about what?" Spyra mumbled.
"Anything." Ignitia had said that one word in a starving voice, her face painfully strained to keep her usual doting smile. "I want to talk about anything with you."
"…Why?"
"Because-" She choked up, stifling it away with a cough. At least it was getting easier to stave off: the emotion. "… Because it's polite of a host to provide for their guest, and you and the Fallen are indeed our guests. So, how about dinner then, to end the day while you tell me about it?"
What was there to tell?
How her perception of the Fallen had become all nasty and cracked up like a broken wad of glass after she'd inadvertently discovered her arch-nemesis had had her grubby claws all over him? Only found out while she was giving him head? Or that she'd stormed around the city being rude and brash to every single other dragon she came into contact with? Or that she'd walked in on the Fallen having a threesome with a pair of 'nesses who were supposed to be fucking dykes?
Damn it, Ignitia's pleasant smile was pissing her off.
Why was she always so good at looking happy? Spyra couldn't do that. When she was pissed, she looked pissed.
She knew Ignitia was practically on the verge of crying all the time because of how stressed she was, and how distraught she was over the period of time she hadn't known Spyra, the hatchling from the egg she'd fallen in love with as a juvenile nurse. Spyra wasn't naïve like that. She knew skill when she saw it, and Ignitia was skilled as hell at keeping her mood hidden from other people.
"I want to start my training."
Ignitia started, her smile slowly fading off her snout.
Spyra blinked, not even realizing she'd spoken until a few seconds after.
There was a long moment of silence.
And then…
"…O-Oh…." Ignitia squeaked, looking around the empty chamber as if searching for someone to help her. "…uhm, I mean, w-why? And why now? And… D-Did something happen out in the city?"
"There's stuff happening outside this city." Spyra swallowed everything and refused to speak of it. She hopped off her haunches and landed in the center of the dais, her claws clicking against the ancient stone. She looked back up at Ignitia and flashed a grin. A fake one. But she had learned to do that from the best. "I'm never gonna' be able to take on the Dark Master without perfecting my elements, and you can teach me how to do that with my favorite one: fire."
"I-I can." Ignitia clawed the guard rail and watched her closely down there. "But it's only your first day here, shouldn't we do that tomorrow? When you're fully rested?"
"I ain't sleeping anyhow." Spyra stomped her foot. "Now c'mon, you said something earlier about magically animated dummies or some crazy shit like that. This training ring sounds like the bomb. So…. Professor: show me."
{🐉}
…Ick.
Grublin blood.
It tasted like rank goat shit mixed with oil.
And the stuff was in her fucking mouth.
Terradora spat a few times and suddenly wished she had fire breath to burn away any traces of her battle. Being a dragon certainly had its benefits, but being forced to rely on your claws, your horns and worst of all your teeth wasn't a big one in that list.
One hundred and seventy-eight.
She'd kept count, minus two or three. She always kept count.
It wasn't even a drop of water in the ocean.
Oversight was falling. The Dark Army had broken through the gates and main square and were pouring into the city center, burning, trashing and looting as they went. Luckily, the bulk of the wall garrison had been able to lock down sections of the defense palisades and had forced the enemy into a series of miniature protracted sieges. The majority of those Moles and Dragons had survived, locked down in pockets or having managed to pull back to Castle Crownhorn.
The defense garrison protecting the main square, however…
Annihilated.
Almost entirely.
One thousand and two hundred Mole warriors, wiped out to merely fifty or sixty. The entire officer corps had been wiped out, and half the survivors were no longer capable of being in combat.
The Dragon Wings had faired poorly as well.
Cyrila had taken with her almost a hundred Ices into the mountains. Less than forty had returned to the city. Less than twenty-five had made it back to the castle.
The Electric Wings serving under Volteera and a handful of sergeants had come to relieve Oversight with two hundred souls. Maybe there were fifty left.
The Oversight defensive garrison and watch had numbered somewhere between a thousand Moles and five hundred dragons, mostly Fires and Earths, like Terradora. She didn't know the exact figures with them, but judging how badly the reinforcement units had been mauled over the last few days, they couldn't have been good. Word was going around that even the entirety of Queen Lilith's Royal Guard had been slaughtered in a last stand battle against a cadre of Ogre-Orcs early in the siege. The Dragon Realms couldn't muster enough soldiers. If aid was not brought from Warfang, or Freezetail Crag, or Crestfall, or some other major settlement of dragonkind, then Oversight was going to fall.
"I'm going to get Ignitia."
"But we need you here, ma'am."
"You need more soldiers. I cannot help you on my own. I am going to find my sister, and the Purple Dragon."
"Guardian, ma'am," The Captain had begged her. "you can't leave us like this. Not here. Not now."
"I am not leaving you."
-But she didn't have the patience to sit and explain that.
Luckily, Terradora had a colder soul than even Cyrila, and the latter was a lady of frigging ice. The dreadful looks of hopelessness cast her way had done little to impede her or weigh on her mind.
"You're going to Warfang?" Colcrus had found her on the castle grounds, nursing sword wounds slowly healing from the attentions of potions on his flanks and chest. His snout-thorn had been chipped at the tip, and he was missing the top of a horn on his crown.
"Yes, in a sense. I am not abandoning you or your fellows. We cannot win this battle without a relief army. Lady Ignitia well help me raise one, and it will march from the east." Terradora said. "I must consult the Pool. Is the throneroom unlocked?"
"It never is, according to the servants." Colcrus hushedly muttered, though she noted the relief in his voice from her specifications. "A lot of the Wings are sleeping on the floors, since we've run out of nesting. I brooded outside those doors for several nights, and there wasn't one where I didn't hear the faint, distant cries of her."
"The Queen?"
"Yes ma'am. She's locked in there twenty-four-seven and never leaves. The rest of the officers have basically been at the helm pretending she doesn't exist."
"Who has the keys?"
"I think his name is Razoruk. You can't miss him, he never leaves the armory in the Great County Hall, and he's missing a wing. He has orange and yellow scales, and a nasty scowl too. He never lets anyone come within a few feet of himself."
"Excuse me."
…And so, still covered in gore, soot and lacerations, Terradora spat onto the once clean palace floor as she walked through the County Hall. Nobody even glanced at her. There were makeshift medical circles set up, filled with matts for wounded dragons and dying Moles. Missing limbs, opened guts, arrows sticking from chests and joints…
She'd seen it all before.
The screaming stopped having an impact if someone could manage standing it for a year or two without respite. Problem was, most folks couldn't. Terradora already had.
Initially, before the invasion, the royal armories underneath Castle Crownhorn had become a center of activity as blacksmiths and artificers scrambled to produce a surplus of war material for the impending battle. There weren't factories in Oversight, not like those present in the larger cities towards the heartlands, leaving only workshops and cottages to do most of the labor. The majority of arms the Northerners were using here had come as imports.
Now, the armory was cold and empty. The forges were dark, the workstations haphazard and abandoned mid-process. The smelters were all blackened and ajar from overuse, damaged due to poor maintenance. The ingot shelves were barren, and half the sconces layering the walls were unlit or flickering to death.
Razoruk's body was almost impossible to see at first glance as she entered the tomb-like chamber. It was quieter than death. Her heavy footfalls and the rattle of the stringent armor plates covering her body echoed everywhere. Her tail's mounted mace-head bumped into a table and saw the foot cough loudly as it dragged on the stone.
The drake was mid-aged, probably a little older than her, actually. He was a head shorter, decently bulky but not fat. Atrophied muscles sat under a striped coat of orange and yellow scales, just like Colcrus had described. A brilliant, orange wing was tucked uselessly behind daggered shoulderblades, its brother missing from the joint mounted in his scapula and up. His face and his stature portrayed him as closer to the dead than the living. His blue eyes were sunken, and his cheeks shadowed. He turned sluggishly to gaze at her from where he'd been fixated on a wall.
"Razoruk." Terradora grunted. Her eyes darted down to the older drake's muscular chest. Hanging from a little chain over his neck was a silvery keyring with several keys. "That is your name, correct?"
Razoruk looked at her indifferently for a moment. Then, his one remaining wing twitched at the same time as his arm. It must've been meant as the equivalent of a shrug. It was evident that the drake had no intention of speaking, so Terradora stopped in front of him and got on with it.
"I require Crownhorn's Vision Pool to call for aid. Give me your keys."
Razoruk's eyes swiveled in their sockets back to her, and she saw his wrinkled snout twitch in a silent display of disdain.
A drop of black blood pattered on the floor as the viscera coating her scales dripped. Terradora leaned her neck down, frowning at him.
"Give me your keys." She repeated herself, a growl highlighting her tone.
"The Queen is not to be disturbed."
Terradora snorted.
He sounded dead too. She hadn't expected him to even utter a peep.
The old dragon scowled, his sole wing twitching as he reached a shaky paw up and clasped the keyring protectively from her sight. They jingled in the ghastly silence of the empty forge.
"I will not give you my keys."
"Do you know who I am?"
"I do."
"Than your long age in this world has taught you little wisdom, if you think denying me is a good idea." Terradora stepped into his space, her breath- fouled from the exertion today –washing coldly over his snout. She bore down on him, snarling when he didn't even flinch. "I am not going to ask you again: Give. Me. The. Keys."
"My long age has shown me nothing but a black pit." Razoruk said, unflinching beneath her intimidation tactics. "It has shown my Queen nothing but a black pit as well. If this city dies, so does she. It is not my place to interfere-"
Razoruk made a weak gagging noise as a massive claw snapped closed over his throat, constricting his airflow.
Terradora lifted him off the floor and reared back on her hind legs. She brought the weakly struggling drake closer to her face, bearing her fangs and growling like an angered dog.
"Let me assist you." The Guardian muttered when nothing more could be said. She reached her other paw over and snapped the little chain to ribbons off his neck, the tiny links clattering away down their bodies and to the floor. She glanced at the keyring nestled in her palm, and roughly smacked their foreheads together, making him wince. "And yes: be afraid."
Razoruk hacked.
She dropped him like a sack of bricks and stomped out of the armory.
When she was in the County Hall again, she faintly heard the old drake weeping behind her.
Pathetic.
She bustled to the castle's throne room doors, a pair of grand, bronze and wood gateways sealed by a large locking cube centering the incision. They weren't even guarded. There were only a few dragons from an Electric Wing nearby. They were so exhausted that only a handful of them reacted to her presence by shooting her unconcerned glances from the floors and benches.
She had to test a few keys before she found the right one, jamming it into the lockbox and twisting. The tumbler shrieked from disuse and she shoulder-checked the door from her path, striding briskly into a normally sun-dappled hall lined with pillars on either side. The oppressive, moist atmosphere overwhelming the room immediately made her feel like she had walked into a rainforest. The western and eastern walls were overridden with colossal planter rectangles overgrown with tropical plants from across the world. Palms, fronds, colorful fruit and blue and yellow leaves created a confusing cloud that nearly grew to the arched ceiling.
Hundreds of chain-hung flower pots patterned the space above her head, water droplets occasionally dripping down to create the only weak ambiance in the chamber. Sentient hummingbirds the size of cherries flittered silently between the vast arrays of multicolored flowers, pollinating them with their straw-like beaks and also gaining themselves sustenance. They had little nests stocked with sky-blue eggs that were built into the tangles of arm-thick vines hanging from the completely overgrown ceiling's spine. As Terradora trotted forward, she sneezed when a moth as large as her fist fluttered in panic in front of her snout before vanishing into the misty gloom around her.
A faintly wet, blue carpet patterned with orange and yellow diamonds extended from the doors to the edge of a spanning, brief flight of stairs. Atop them was a throne-nest, carved from solid platinum, and decorated with roughly hewn veins of dark purple and black quartz crystal that rippled up and down every square inch of the perfectly smooth metal-like plant vines.
The Throne of Oversight though, for how beautiful and eye-catching it was, was not empty.
A lone dragoness covered in a coat of lime green scales with polished, yellow belly scutes curled in a depressive heap in the black cushions of the throne. She hid most of her lithe body under a pair of green-speckled, blood-red wings. Her brilliant crown of eight silver horns was the only thing protruding out from her bracelet-overrun forepaws as they covered her snout.
There was a large blossom tree that was growing out of a diamond-shaped, artificial rent in the floor just behind the throne. Its pink and white bushels of limbs extended high above and nearly to the ceiling. Petals fluttered down on phantom breezes, sometimes catching on the dragoness' body before weakly tumbling off to the floor.
If it wasn't becoming so dark out, sunlight would normally be streaming in from the silvery windows lining the upper portions of the throne-room's walls. The lack of this light made everything seem darker and more mysterious. A shadow had fallen over this place long before even the invasion. Terradora had never bothered to understand what it was or where it came from.
She was here to win the war, after all, not play babysitter to an illegitimate little hatchling who had a mental breakdown the moment the throne proved too overwhelming.
Terradora purposefully wiped her bloody claws on the carpet and scowled at Queen Lilith.
Assholes of the gods…
There was no reason to hide it by this point.
Lilith just disgusted her.
She snorted as a horrible smell only her nose could detect corrupted her air. She hadn't seen Lilith in weeks since the siege started. She'd lost weight, her scale color had paled and…
Terradora reclined again from an actual smell. A rank one too that crept up on her.
…She hadn't been bathing either, apparently.
Ancestors.
"Your highness." Terradora scornfully muttered, not even bothering to bow as she went up the carpeted steps, and skirted right past the massive arm of the throne itself. She brushed a blossom petal off her nose as she passed. "You can give these back to your groundskeeper when he decides to visit again."
Terradora threw the keyring in front of the throne with a clattering jingle, and made to go for a set of doorways behind the blossom tree.
A claw snatching onto her tail stopped her in her tracks.
She slowly formed a cruel, angry glare over her thorny wing at the perpetrator.
"If there is something in need of saying, it must wait. I have important business." Terradora said plainly. Lilith's tear-streaked, reddened face stared back at her. The green dragoness had very pretty, golden eyes. They were so puffy that it marred their beauty. But this wasn't unusual. Lilith had looked like this for a quarter of her life.
"Razoruk." The Queen's voice was a phantom's whisper, so weak that even a rabbit would struggle to hear it over the dripping water and the minute patter of hummingbird wings. "You didn't."
"…He is fine." Terradora whipped her tail, casting Lilith's dainty paw off. "Uncooperative, half-insane and rambling, but fine."
"…Good, good." Lilith swallowed, her mouth gaping as she panted like a dog. Terradora gawked at her uncomfortably. Had she been holding her breath for a long time or something? "Tell me what it is, your business. It is my court, I should know."
You don't even know how your entire city is being butchered.
"The Vision Pool." Terradora said. "Word has come forth that the Purple Dragon and a powerful warrior have emerged in Warfang. I am contacting my sister, the Guardian of Fire, Ignitia, so she can send them to aid us."
"W-What of Solemn?"
"Cyrila sealed it, but her unit was decimated. The gates have fallen, so have a quarter of the walls and the city center itself. Nearly three-quarters of our army is either dead or wounded, and Warfang has thus far been unaware of the rapid deterioration of our situation. We are now trapped in Crownhorn and will die within the following few days unless we are relieved." Terradora darkly narrowed her eyes and started to turn back towards the tree. "Your kingdom is in shambles, your highness, all that is left to do is call someone who can fix it."
"I-I'll go with you-"
"Fret not, Queen Lilith, you are not required to do anything more than what you have been doing."
Which is nothing.
-Of course, Terradora zipped her chops for the secondary statement.
She left Lilith to sulk on her throne, quivering and wiping at tears and hugging her tail like a lost babe.
"She would be so disappointed in me."
Terradora paused in the archframe and looked back at the Queen. Lilith was peering over the spine of her ornate throne back at her.
"Who?" The Earth Guardian disinterestedly cooed.
"My mother." Lilith snorted and wiped at her nose, shivering. "I have inherited prematurely."
"I agree." Terradora turned away.
"-W-Wait, Terradora?"
She huffed and stopped again.
"This happened so quickly, and days have gone by since they first came here. But do you think she is looking down on me with… disdain?" Lilith clawed the throne, wide-eyed. "You're a Guardian. You know matters of the spirits and Ancestors better than any dragon! Have you heard anything? Seen anything?"
Terradora scoffed.
"Matters of spirits and the Ancestors." She parroted, before delving into the archway. Her next statement was low enough that thankfully Lilith didn't hear it. "I left all the other dumb younglings behind at the academy. Now get out of my face and let me work…"
Down a dark flight of vine-crept steps and into a funnel-chamber devoid of any clutter save a lit brazier.
There was a swirling Vision Pool centering the room, its girth filled with a spiraling surface of blue-colored liquid.
Terradora sighed as she hung her head over the brim and stared into the magical stew with a tired look.
The thought of seeing Ignitia again actually terrified her. It was because she warred to run, and Ignitia was the only other dragon who knew it. The feeling a conspirator would get whenever they encountered the one person who was aware of all their skeletons, the person who had their reputation and security entirely at their mercy every single waking moment.
The Guardian of Earth grunted and spit a green ember into the pool.
Just do your job.
The Vision Pool flexed and a blue glow began to build around the chamber. Terradora cast a last disdainful look at the stairs behind her, straightened her wings, flicked some gore off her neck and tried to make herself look presentable.
{🐉}
Palmet had explored almost every square inch of the temple's interior with Meep loyally hanging off him the entire time. They had a little routine they'd perfected after an hour or two of disorganized rambling, occasional curses and wanton hollering, and a few spilled buckets.
Meep dusted and wiped. Palmet broomed and mopped. When in a team setting, they were quite quick and their strategies actually did pay off. Palmet- as he shined the side of a copper vase until he could he see his own ugly reflection in it –marveled at this newfound sensation of something entirely foreign to him.
Accomplishment.
Huh.
He decided that he liked cleaning and would do it more often.
It was… how did the Fallen say it?
Ther-a-poo-tikk, maybe.
It was definitely that. Therapootikk. Palmet had never lived a day in his life where things were this serenely quiet, and his only company was a cute little sewer-dredge monster who adored him, and his own thoughts. So much of the negative weight he'd carried throughout his time in the south was completely lost on him. He didn't even remember his late father anymore, or how he had always called him a bitch.
"Wha? Nah nah, we got that one already. …Huh? No! We ain't goin in any of the drags' rooms because they'd claw our right eyes out they would. Didjya see the look on Master's face when we volunteered ta clean up the washin suite in his lodgins? If looks could kill I tell ya…"
"Meep." Meep chirped factually, rolling his eye as he rode on the Ape's shoulder. "Meep."
"Aw, stow that, you bloody arse-tickler. Nothin goin on with the Master and his purple-drag is any of our concern it isn't."
"Meep! Meep-Meep!"
"Yer right mad you are! Goin through Master's fings and tryin to dig up some dirt on his persona lovvums-life? You'll get us both killed suggestin mad crap like that! I know our workin relationship ain't too exstensive and all, but cheap badger-teeth in the arm, I thought you had more cunnin than that."
"Meep…"
"Yeahyeah, I know yer just yanking my leg. We Apes roughhouse verbally and physically! It's good fun it is. It's why all the children who have weaker muscles and flinch a lot die out by age two. Lets the whole tribe be nice and strong, that." Palmet swaggered to a halt when they passed an archway he hadn't noticed before.
He peered down a short hallway that ended in a stairwell going down.
It took a minute for the Ape's gears to start turning.
"Aye," He mumbled, putting down his bucket. "I don't fink we got down there, did we?"
"Meep!"
"It ain't any of the drag rooms, your rite there…" Palmet hummed in thought, shrugged, and snatched up his gear before waddling inside. "Probably could use a good fluffin it could. I'z can practically smell the poor house-keeping out the door!"
Meep was like a tentacled spider as he crawled up the walls, to the ceiling, his featherdusters swishing and dabbing over every square inch of exposed stone. Palmet wet the mop and went down the entire hall with dutiful pushes. They only made a mess once when Meep fell from the ceiling from landed square over Palmet's face, locking up in panic with a fearful squeal. The Ape tripped over the bucket and sent used water spattering all over the eastern wall in a terrible crash.
After a grumbling string of vulgarity that would've made Spyra blush and a trip to the washbasins with a fresh bucket, they finished the hall and stairs.
"Meep!"
"The bloody hell do ya mean there's a chamba down there too?! Aw polly-woggles! I fink I just lost feelin in my hand and foot on the same side of my body! I'm gonna start limpin like a halved invalid I am!"
Tiredly, Palmet dragged his cleaning equipment down the flight and joined Meep inside a chute chamber devoid of clutter, save for a lit brazier against the back wall. There was a faintly glowing, stone pool centering the room, swirling, blue light calmly coalescing from inside the funnel.
"Oi," The Ape scratched his furry head and looked around. "didjya get a sense-a déjà-voo there, Meep?"
"Meep?"
"I have been stayin hydrated, thank ye much! Ya think I've been totin around all these water-buckets just to keep the mops slick?" Palmet slapped a wet mop onto the floor, grumbling and beginning to make circular strokes. "Why dontchya start with them featherdustas on the edges and walls up there, I'll take care of the bowl there and we'll-"
Suddenly, the blue light swirling inside the pool began to get brighter, and brighter, and the air rushed in a cool blast that bristled all of Palmet's fur.
Meep squeaked in terror, featherdusters flying from his grips as he leapt onto Palmet's chest and stuck there like a flung, tar-colored booger.
"-Gah~! Whatchya tentacles there-!" Palmet shrieked. "-Ya just darn twisted my nip ya did-! Would you calm down alreadeh?! This whole place is bloody packed with magical wierdum shite, it's just some normal, uneventfullness, non-harmin-"
Palmet blinked rapidly as the glowing blue light concentrated on a spot beside the pool.
There was a flash, and soon a massive, green and tan dragon that he did not know was standing in the center of the chamber. The reptile huffed and looked around impatiently, a paw scratching at what Palmet realized was mounds of caked blood on its armored breast.
Terradora's eyes swept over him and Meep twice before they darted back and focused on him cleanly.
The Guardian of Earth's jaw dropped.
Palmet dropped his mop and bucket.
"…O-Oly crap…." He whispered, trembling.
Terradora opened her mouth and roared at him, breaking the silence and filling the whole chamber with the loud portents of her rage. She lunged off her hinds at him, teeth exposed and claws out.
Palmet shrieked like a woman and threw his hands in the air, sprinting for the stairs wildly.
"-Meep-~!"
"Run fer ya life~! It's a fuckin enraged GHOST DRAGON-!"
{🐉}
"-'Use the heart of flames, mind the danger it harbors.'- That is one of the oldest sayings on the Element of Fire in recorded dragon history. It essentially explains the twofold story that every single flame you will ever see tells, whether it be a raging inferno, or the nub of a candle. The first rule of Fire is king: flames render mass to ash, for new life to be born in the ruins. Fire is nature's deadliest avatar of reincarnation and birth. It is not to be toyed with, and it is to be taken as seriously as one would manage a sharpened blade. Furthermore-"
"Yeaaahhhh this is all really fascinating, this fancy-shmancy history lesson you got goin' on, but, uh… when can I start burning shit?"
Ignitia patiently sighed, gazing at Spyra past the safety guard with a masking smile. The feisty dragoness below smirked after a second, lashing her tail.
"Sup'?" She giggled.
"What is 'sup' –is that if you wish to learn, you must listen to the information and teachings given to you." Ignitia said. Spyra frowned.
"But lectures are like the antithetical bane of everything that's actually fun."
"Lectures are what will make you a true master at what you pursue, not just having fun, although that should be a great part of it." Ignitia circled the outer ring slowly, Spyra rotating every now and then to keep track of her. "Your drive should be coming from the internal desire to be curious, and to evolve, and apply newly learned skills to what you already know."
"That sounds borrrinnngggg…." Spyra groaned. "Why don't ya' send out an army of those dummy-things you told me about, and I'll shred 'em for kicks!"
"Patience, Spyra." The Guardian came to a stop at the opposite end of the large arena dais. "Your first courses aren't going to be so in-your-face, as it is."
"What? Why not?!"
"Because, this isn't a true combat situation, and your goal here is to improve, not simply survive. Battles are an effective, if cruel and merciless learning method too, true, but they run the risk of liquefying the student every time they're met, as you are aware." Ignitia nodded for the center of the pit. "You've tempered your Fire Element above any others, seeing as you've been living with it your entire life. Using it without the knowledge of Mana, however, has crippled your abilities. Let's start with changing that first."
Ignitia's tail lashed, and a little paper-wrapped wad bounced into the heart of the dais before settling at Spyra's feet. It had clinked like heavy glass, she noted.
"…You gonna' tell me what that is?" Spyra quirked a brow after a moment of silence.
"Pick it up and unwrap it." Ignitia eagerly said.
"I ain't touchin' that until I know what it is."
"Whatever for?"
"I dunno', we're just delving into all this magic and voodoo shit, so that could be a mummified monkey-paw or somethin'…"
Ignitia laughed at her.
"Just pick it up and peel the paper off." She chortled. "I promise, you're quite familiar with what's inside."
Spyra grunted and snatched the item up, ripping the top of the wrappings off. She gasped and almost dropped the cleanly cut Mana Crystal nugget inside.
"You hook your students on drugs? That's muffed up." Spyra snickered.
"Tch, they are not narcotics, they are Mana Crystals: utterly harmless and beneficial to any dragon who makes contact with them. They restore your Elemental energy quicker at a young age than waiting for it to naturally return to you. The Moles manufacture pickmeup nuggets like that one and distribute them as part of ration shipments. We have millions of the things sitting in the storage rooms under the residential hall here." Ignitia pointed a talon. "Just touch it and you'll absorb the gem into your body. It's just in case your Mana is running a little low before the lesson starts."
There was a flash of green light, and Spyra yipped, dropping the paper and rearing on her hinds with an excitedly intoxicated look.
"Wooo-!" She shrieked. "That is some serious shit! Ha! You, uh… you got anymore up there?"
"Expend enough of your Mana in the lesson, and you can count on it."
"Hell yeah!"
"Let's start small." Ignitia raised a paw and gave her wrist a spin. There was a glancing arm of translucent orange that whisked in the path of her fingers. A second later, the entire chamber gave off a hollow, low-pitched thrum. Spyra looked around curiously. "The chamber reacts to the magicka of a Guardian." Ignitia explained. "The gems you see covering the ceiling are tapped into a hardstoned series of designated rituals and castings that are literally branded into the rock of this room. It makes lessons and difficulty curves much easier to conjure at will."
"At will?"
"At will, yes."
"…Righteous." Spyra blinked in awe. "So, like, what's first? What's small? Some kind of obstacle course, or-"
"Hit the target three times in fifteen seconds or you fail." Ignitia chirped, and snapped her talons.
"-wait wut-"
Bang~!
The scream of what sounded like a gong made Spyra leap out of her own scales. There was a tiny burp of orange light, and a shimmering marble made of glowing ember-dust the size of her fist materialized out of thin air, bobbing much like the dragonflies back at her village used to.
"Ho shit!" She staggered back, cocking her head with wide-eyes at the wisp as it ran circles in the air and dipped in zig-zags, leaving a barely perceivable, pretty trail of sparkles in its wake wherever it went. "What is that thing, man?! It's wicked!"
"Ten seconds." Ignitia nonchalantly chimed.
"Waitasec, that? You want me to hit that little thing three times in fifteen seconds?!"
"I wanted that, yes. Now it's seven seconds."
Spyra scrambled on her heels with a gasp and puckered her chops, sending a blindingly bright cone of flame whipping at the wisp.
It curved in a halo and slipped over the top of the fiery blast without making contact. Spyra tripped over her forepaws as she scrabbled to keep up with it. She cursed, her foot yanking out from under herself to send her rolling onto the floor like a meandering fool. Her followup blast of flames scorched the ground and actually backwashed into her face.
Ignitia had to suppress a snicker as Spyra hacked and flipped onto her back, her own flames harmlessly rolling off her face and kicking from her nose. It was a good thing dragons were immune to their own spice, for lack of a better expression.
"Damn it!"
"Three seconds."
"Eep-!"
The wisp just had to be mocking her as it bobbed over to the other side of the dais, swinging to and fro like a chordless pendulum. Spyra beat her wings, landed in a combat-readied sprawl in the center of the dais, and drowned the wisp in a viciously made blast of fire.
The air whooshed and the flames roared, the wisp vanishing in the center of a brilliant corona of blinding light and power.
"Time." Ignitia called over the noise.
Spyra snapped her chops shut and panted, grinning at the little veins of steam wafting off the fresh scorch mark decorating the wall and floor of the pit. The wisp had vanished, most likely consumed like the annoying, sparky little thing it had been.
"Aw yeah, baby, see that? I got it-"
"You failed the test. Let's try again."
"I told ya' that it's just in my nature to- holdup-" Spyra whirled around and stared at her in shocked awe. "…I… I hit it! Straight on! Dead-eye! Incinerated! I hammered that little holiday light back to hell!"
"You only managed to hit the wisp once with your breath attack before time ran out." Ignitia smiled.
Clinkclinrink…
-Spyra gawked at her feet where another wrapped Mana nugget rested against her foretoes.
The poor purple dragon's eye twitched.
"This lecture wasn't as deep as some of the later ones on the standard docket, luckily for you. Not listening to it or listening to it wouldn't have affected your first trial run by much, I'll admit. But now is the time where you should begin to set precedents for yourself, young dragon." Ignitia leaned over the guard bar and hummed happily down at her. "Besides, it's rude to give your elders the cold shoulder. It's my opposing element too. Cyrila might take that with upbeatness by not I."
Spyra looked at her, and then the crystal lying on the floor. She ground her fangs and snatched it up.
"Do that again." She grumbled.
"Three times in fifteen seconds. Go."
Bang~!
The wisp darted over the first cone of flames like a loose flower petal catching a breeze. It zipped right past Spyra's nose and only caught the tail-end of a summery blast of flames.
The wisp briefly lit up white as it came outside the other side of the flame-bulge before returning to its normal amber hue.
"One." Ignitia chirped. "Six seconds."
Whooshes of fire, strings of vulgarity and claws scrabbling on stone. The wisp vanished in a whisper of air, and a fresh array of scorch marks decorated the pit.
"You've failed the test." Ignitia's stern voice echoed around the chamber calmly. "One hit."
"What?! Hell no, I definitely hit that little mother fucker at least twice!" Spyra panted, her chest heaving. "Grrrr~! Do it again!"
Clinkrinknink…
She angrily grabbed the next tossed gem nugget and positioned herself in the center of the dais. She breathed through her nose and steadied her wings and tail.
"Ready?" Ignitia held her paw up, ready to snap her talons.
"Hit me."
Bang~!
One of the following licks of flame singed the railing right beside where the Guardian was standing. Ignitia cast the scorch on the metal a dismissive glance and reaffirmed her attention into the pit.
"Time."
The wisp flickered away, leaving Spyra to whip around frantically, like she was chasing her own tail.
"-W-Wha'?! Where'd it go?!"
"You ran out of time."
"And?!"
"One hit. You failed the test."
Spyra's fangs dug into her lower chop to the point where they threatened to draw blood. She started growling.
"No warrior was made in a day." Ignitia sighed, trying to level with her as she reached around for another gem. "You're performing better than most. The majority of students in their first trial runs can't even hit the wisp at all."
"It's too fast." Spyra snarled, tearing back and forth in a ragged pace across the dais to try and calm down. It wasn't exactly, entirely, fully working… "Damn it! God damn it! Bitch! Fuck! Whorecuntedfuckingdipped shits man! Shit!"
"It's not a big deal, Spyra, it was your first go at the dreaded wisp run as so many of the sophomores call it." Ignitia crawled over the guard and landed in the dais with her, giving a warm smile despite the strings of foul language Spyra was so well known for. "Transforming your skillset is all about repetition and constant training. You're already so close, and take it from me, I teach it after all."
"It's not fair." Spyra sneered at the floor. "I'm supposed to be the Purple Dragon, and I'm gettin' my ass kicked by a rogue sparkler on steroids."
"Everyone gets their asses kicked by the wisp. I certainly did when my mentor first taught me." Ignitia chuckled, sitting on her haunches before her and offering her tail. "Come here, Spyra."
"Why." She grunted, refusing to make eye contact as she pouted like a displeased hatchling.
"Because I asked nicely."
Spyra mumbled something and trotted closer, twitching when Ignitia's tail gently touched her chin and lifted her face. Ignitia hummed at her dotingly, her wings angling with content.
"…The joy I feel right now, seeing you inside my training chamber." Ignitia sighed. "All the years that I thought I had failed you as well as all those other younglings, and now, here you are, with me teaching you the elements. I'm so proud of you, Spyra."
"…Mm…" Spyra's sour mood got a swift punch in the face, and now she was getting angry because she didn't want to not feel angry at such a heartwarming compliment. She took her chin from Ignitia's tail and huffed at the floor. "I don't have time to learn, I need to do now."
"And you will." Ignitia comforted. "The war rages, true, but Spyra we have time and shelter. I will get you on your feet, and when my sisters return from the west, they will reinforce you with teachings of their elements. The power you'll soon wield, as the only living Northerner dragon to wield all Four…"
She clicked her tongue, bending lower to nuzzle her. Spyra whined, mortified and staggered back from her.
"Quit it…"
"I'm sorry, I can't help it." Ignitia laughed heavenly. "Do you understand now, though? What it is you ask of me when you want to begin a lesson for the day? Once we begin again, this will take up hours of time, sometimes days. I know how strong you are, but I need you to be ready for this specifically. I need your headspace to be right, Spyra, for both our sakes. I don't want to see you fail."
Spyra rubbed one of her eyes for a few seconds, fangs exposed as she tried to deal with the ugly emotional energy stirring up hell in her chest.
Oh, how today had gone…
"C-Can we get some food now?" Spyra muttered. Ignitia beamed.
"Of course! Come with me, we-"
"-Ghosts-~!"
Both dragons froze when the heavy doors to the chamber swung open with a duo of thunderous crashes. Palmet collapsed on his face in the archframe, Meep catapulting like a glistening, black cannonball off his shoulders and hurtling into a nearby wall with a shrill midget's scream.
"-Ghost drags~! Orrible, killa ghost drags-!" Palmet ranted, rolling around.
"Aw yeah," Spyra flew out of the pit and narrowed a brow at the pathetic display. "all the cleaning chemicals musta' finally gone to his head."
"Ghosts? What in the world are you talking about?" Ignitia trotted past her, annoyance stabbing into her words. "Collect yourself! Now, tell me what happened."
"-M-Me- a-and –M-M-M-Meep-~!" Palmet pointed.
"Meep…" –Weakly came from the tentacled little heap nearby.
"-c-chamber-! Big, scary and swirly pool fingie-! A-And –BOOM-! Lotsa lights and shite-! Nasty, hugggeee ghost drag came outta nowhere and tried ta eat us!"
"…Ghost dragons… and a pool?" Ignitia put two and two together and gasped. "The Vision Pool!"
"That tone makes it sound bad." Spyra cringed. "Can I punish him if it turns out he broke something? Maybe swat him with a broom a few times?"
Ignitia sprinted out of the room in a cheetah's run, beelining for the partition halls breaking off from the main lobby.
"…D-Does she kno how ta fight ghosts?" Palmet heaved, holding his stomach as he lay on the floor.
"Apparently she has a superpowered tiny living fireball under her command, so hell if I know…" Spyra grumbled, following after the Guardian.
{🐉}
