Dragon(s)layer

23


On the Edge


"Reminds you of a lot, doesn't it? When the sun goes down, and the streets get lit up like a forest of Christmas trees, and everything feels so serene. It's your favorite feeling. You've stayed in places where you'd get that sensation of intrigue, and you've sometimes refused to leave even after getting your fill. It makes it hard to compare worlds, especially by… hmm… addiction-factor, if you will. What was the longest you stayed put? It was a while ago…"

Ale, the waiter had said it was. The Fallen called bullshit: this stuff was burning up a storm like it was made of motor-oil, and it seemed to be empowering his other half to greater linguistic heights than was usual.

At least- he understood as he took another sip –it didn't taste like piss too. Bad drink was a topic killer. Though, that was probably just the slight inebriation making the continued consumption more tolerable. He faintly recalled through the haze considering most brews to be of piss level.

He sighed over the neck of the glass, and poked at his food on the table with his fork. Not a "Human" fork, of course, but a big dragon fork. It was weird in his fingers, but not unworkable.

"I don't remember." He grumbled aloud.

"Eh, me neither." Conscience shrugged a bit.

"Obviously." The Fallen rolled his eyes. "I'm thinking it's a bit late to be playing remorse for other opportunities missed. I had my chances."

"Sure, sure. It wasn't important, but I just thought I'd bring it up. …Say, we're still good for that appointment we talked about, right?" Conscience drummed his fingers as he stared out over the eatery balcony at the array of city lights below. "I know it's been a bit."

Sconce lanterns lining streets, window torches and brazier breaks were the sources of all those amber bulges in the dark. If you didn't squint, you could fool yourself into thinking this world had electricity.

"You never give me a choice no matter what I say. You just tend to happen." The Fallen gave him a nasty look. "Kind of like bad gas."

"I'm only a figment of your imagination, sir! I can't do that. At least, not the same way you could." Conscience snickered. "Speaking of bad gas: I can't believe we haven't completely lost our minds! You can't even walk into an eatery without having a conversation with yourself! Woof! You know what they say: The first sign of insanity is talking to yourself, expecting an answer, and getting one!"

"You think I haven't lost my mind?" The Fallen growled. "Now you're just rubbing dirt in it."

"Just a friendly reminder, and nothing more, my good good friend, who I conveniently share the same skull with. Lest we forget that the brainwaves only give me so much sway over what can and can't be said."

"That's frightening." The Fallen sighed.

"Oh, and, uh, in other mental news… you miss Spyra. Like, really really badly miss her, and it hasn't even been a day! If she stays pissed indefinitely… Then dayum', you're screwed."

"Go trip over that guardrail, and die in a bloody smear." The Fallen kicked back his head and drained his glass. "Make the view just a bit prettier for me."

"Aw, c'mon, Fallen, I'm your Conscience! I don't die, unless you die too." Conscience chuckled, making him growl into his cup. "Are you still thinking about that after all this time?"

"You would know."

"I wanna' hear it from you."

"Of course I am."

"Well, quit it. Nothing's getting fixed if you punch a dickhead's ticket out this early in. You still have to get your tools of destruction back, win over Spyra again, find that Orc that messed up your face, and break his neck… Jesus, the to-do list is bigger than that dragon-eating horror's ass back at those misty islands. You almost stayed there too."

"…Why do you have to remind me of every single bad thing that's happened? Can't you ever just show up and do something nice? How about expending even a quarter of all that energy focusing on the good things I've done."

"I'm only a carbon copy of what you choose to see." Conscience laughed in good humor.

"You're only the most exhausting foe I've ever faced." The Fallen scowled down into his cup. "…Damn it, I thought this was made for dragons, and I'm not even feeling buzzed yet."

"You could try mixing drinks! …Oh, don't look at me like that, I'm only kidding. Anyway, staying on subject-"

"I'm supposed to be having dinner."

"-Well, they aren't coming back for a few more minutes! So I have you all to myself, sir. I'll make it quick, and then you can get back to your interdimensional double-dinner-date. Let me start out by saying this: I know you're thinking about it, for obvious reasons. I know you're thinking about Cynder too."

"Oh, can we please not…" The Fallen sulked preemptively.

"Well isn't that why you've become so fixated on her? You share so many ideas." Conscience chuckled in a strange moment of doting seriousness. "Driving towards your own goals whilst trapped inside a larger machine you don't completely agree with? Seeing things that would make anyone want to end it all, and just struggling with that every day for no particular reason other than to survive? C'mon, Fallen, Cynder's a lock-and-key fit for you, so is Spyra. Two emotionally damaged dragonesses desperately lonely and seeking a male's touch? Holy hell, the pot of puss-gold you literally landed on."

The Fallen gripped his cup so tightly that it threatened to shatter. Conscience took his feet away from where he'd been resting them on the lattice table and sighed.

"Alright, I'll let you have the view for the last few seconds. Here they come."

"I know, I know. Just please leave me alone."

"Look on the bright side: tomorrow? Oh, the toys those Moles are gonna' have ready for you." Conscience patted him on the shoulder and clicked his tongue. "You should feel like you're getting a brand new car or something!"

The Fallen guffawed.

Bigger guns always came with bigger problems. Though, getting to fight with the proper equipment and not the dragged-up dregs of a beggar sounded most appetizing. If there was one thing he could state in firm confidence to anyone, it was that Ape equipment was abysmal. It was shanty, poorly made, greasy, and flimsy. The amount of cleavers, hatchets, swords, and knives he had gone through in the swamps had been unreal, and he had been forced to scavenge off of the corpses of the Apes he had killed almost daily.

He distinctly remembered ramming an improperly angled, bolt-handed sword through an Ape's eye, and summarily yelping in fright, when he had attempted to rip the blade free, and lost it at the hilt with a metallic snap, after it broke free of its own mooring-plates, and stayed in the gore-gushing crevice in the victim's skull, leaving in his grip a useless, sword-less, stubby handle and nothing more.

Judging by everything he had seen: these Moles were quite competent blacksmiths, and they seemed to know their way around artificing and crafting in ways that the Apes could only dream of. He had to hope, he supposed...

He peered at where Conscience had been sitting, expecting some form of rude and crude commentary, but none indeed came. So, the Fallen merely grumbled, and nursed his mug. He actually didn't remember when he had first started talking to himself. Well… he sort of did. But the specifics had long ago been lost, and now, the memory, and everything related to it, were all blurry, just like his vision had been when he had jumped through his first portal.

Old memories like that were dusty scabs in the very rear of his mind. They were unused, unneeded and very distant. Being able to recall stuff like that after all this time was near impossible.

Just like the face of the first person he'd ever killed.

Everyone said you couldn't forget.

The Fallen called bullshit on that too. Everyone who had ever said that had committed the act of killing within mortal parameters. Ones, twos, threes, maybe even tens, maybe even a rare hundred. Most people never reached thousands.

He was probably at that point by now.

But then again, he didn't remember that either, because he didn't keep count. That felt dirty. Not memorizing your first victim. Even psychopaths had a code of honor with that, it seemed.

Where's the off switch?

The Fallen examined the lights of Warfang. Spanning domes now catching the amber glow of the city and reflecting it as massive spheres of yellowed silver. The moons were full, only strung by occasional black clouds.

It was such a beautiful place, this realm…

And yet that still didn't make the ghosts go away, and nothing ever would.

"Now that is a cheeky nice view." Morinth said with her mouth full as she hopped back into the chair Conscience had vacated. "This place has one of the greatest vantage points on the west side of Warfang. See that? Even over the walls too! All those grasslands look like a black ocean from here."

"We used to sit up here a lot, w-when we first got out of the academy." Taliopia had been slowly peeling away layers of awkward social anxiety the whole time. The Fallen's dampened mood was lightened a bit at seeing how much progress she'd made. It felt like he was talking to a completely different dragon than the timid little thing he'd found in the swamps. "Sometimes we didn't even have dinner, but we would talk for a long time." Taliopia shyly laughed.

"It was just to watch the hours go by with my Tali'…" Morinth nuzzled at her from across the table and shoved another roasted strip in her mouth. "-Humans are carnivorous I see." She pointed out after swallowing.

"Omnivorous." The Fallen nonchalantly said, grinning a little as he peered down at the empty array of bones on his plate. "I just prefer meat."

"Most fighters do. It's morosely intriguing: being so fond of meat when our jobs are literally to cut people open and see theirs." Morinth stared at one of the little steak cuts on her platter for a second, before wing-shrugging, and popping it in her mouth with a large barbed fork. "It must be a predator's senses coming on outside the borders. It's a fine line to walk, which I'm certain you know already, to not let it come home so to speak?"

"Very fine." He put his empty cup down, tracing the golden glare of the city lights as they traveled down Morinth's black face, highlighting her onyx scales and the tiny curves of her cheekbones and snout. Her pretty emerald eyes met his and she giggled. "Very fine indeed."

"Cheap flattery doesn't work on me, remember?" She smiled.

"It's hard to remember when I look at either of you."

Morinth beamed at him for a while, and then, her gaze flickered over his shoulder, and her expression soured.

"What?" He asked.

"Speaking of remembering…" She nodded subtly and kept her nose down to her plate. The Fallen bristled in a second of unsureness before recalling himself.

They had company. Basically state-sponsored stalkers, if anyone had ever heard of such a thing…

"Yep, no irony in that statement at all." Conscience's voice chuckled out lowly. "FBI? Stasi? CIA? KGB? Humans had tons of fancy names for those…"

Ignoring his other half, he craned around to look at a table placed just between the reach of the moonlight from above and the darkened shade provided by the eatery's upstairs interior section.

Rava looked white in the colorless hue of the night, and Windshear looked pale blue. His eyes weren't on them at all: he was too busy gawking at the view and pointing out things for Rava with his wingtip. Rava, contradictorily, couldn't stop glancing at them past the bridge of her snout.

The poor dragoness looked like she was about to jump out of her seat with the way her eyes kept landing on Morinth and Taliopia, and skimming over him. The Fallen knew that look. He had no doubts that the Electric hen was desperate for some closure, and that she wanted to get it by apologizing to the two dragons at his table.

Not my problem.

Windshear noticed him staring, and waved a paw briefly, before ignoring them again. Rava was now fully locked on, returning his gaze, unblinking.

Huh.

One was a dragon who had seen some shit and drowned in hubris, and the other was an emotional hypochondriac, Windshear and Rava.

Interesting combo, if his first-impressions turned out to be accurate, which they oftentimes were when it came to dragons.

"I could earn a medal for how well I made her invisible." Morinth chuckled. "I was the wall for a while, not that I would complain. Someone as good as Taliopia needs a friend, always, even if I wasn't around to be it."

"Can you tell us more about these other worlds you've been to?" Taliopia nudged him with her tail and broke him from his thoughts. "Do they have nurses there too? Like me?"

"A lot of them aren't much different from this one. There's cities, forests, oceans, dragons in some cases too. And yes, there are nurses." He said, giving a passing glance at the tiny amount of customers sitting about the balcony aside from the two soldiers who were staring at him.

It may not have been every day that an alien sat down for dinner at a nearby table, but, come on, this was just being rude…

"Yesyes, you've spoken about your travels so much, but I want to hear about you." Morinth leaned over the table. "Why not give me and Tali' an exclusive look at the Fallen, the real Fallen, like you did with-"

Taliopia coughed and Morinth shoved a steak abruptly in her face mid-sentence.

"-Go aheb." –She muffled, gesturing with a wing. She swallowed. "We're both very curious about you."

"We've been since we met you at the temple." Taliopia shyly said. "Nobody's ever made us feel the way you do. Especially no males."

"And you both don't seem to mind that my spear hungers for variety." He saluted them quietly and snapped his fingers for a passing waiter, holding up his empty mug. "That I can appreciate greatly. Normally I end up with very angry reptiles who proceed to ruin the local tri-state-area in fits of hormonal rage."

"Normally we would, but…" Morinth looked hazy for a second, her eyes glazing. She slapped her chops and coughed, shaking herself like a dog fresh out of water. The silverware jingled on the table. "-uhm… n-not with you. You're different."

"What did some of these other people do to you?" Taliopia lightly chewed, picking at steak strips like a bird. "Were they dragons?"

"Some of them." He shrugged. "It's really all a hybrid of politics, economics, tactics, and personal time. The trick is finding ways to juggle them all and make everyone happy."

"And you've figured that out?" Morinth teasingly raised a brow.

"Not at all." He frowned, thanking the waiter when a fresh cup slid onto the table. The little Mole had gotten a smidge more comfortable leaning past the Fallen's flank after two or three passes. Some of the patrons weren't even paying him any mind anymore.

"So tell us a story of something that happened." Taliopia suggested, her tail wagging.

"…Uh…" He cringed at his own reflection in the ale. It sucked, but he couldn't stop drinking it. "…W-Well, one of them reacted pretty poorly and decided to go with the more projectile option. She threw me."

"As in… onto the ground?" Morinth rolled her mug.

"No: through a glacier's wall." He flashed a grin. "It hurt like fuck all too. But I survived."

"…Wow…" A piece of food slid out of Taliopia's mouth.

"Other than that, you know everything. I'm a Portaljumper. I jump between worlds. I help some people, hurt some too, try to restore order where I can as best I can, and pursue adventure." He toyed with his fingers in his lap. "I was sent here against my will, but now, that I know so much about this place…"

"Do you really have to leave, like Spyra said?" Taliopia asked. "You're just fighting in the war to get home?"

"There is no home. I'm nomadic." He shrugged. "…Well, partially nomadic. I take my home with me."

"Now this is capital and interesting." Morinth toyed with his legs under the table with her tail. "Teelllll usssss~…."

"…I really shouldn't-"

The Fallen glared at the guard rail. Conscience was standing there, blackened as all the city lights behind him made him stark in the night. He shook his head and gave a thumbs up.

It's fine, stop worrying.

"…Though, I guess... it makes good conversation." The Fallen blurted out. "I haven't even told Spyra a lot about me. I haven't had enough time."

"So tell us first." Taliopia giddily smiled, bouncing a bit in her chair and making the iron creak. "We won't tell anyone if you don't want us to."

"Tell us about this equipment you lost. More of those injector-needle-thingies? Like the one you saved me with?" asked Morinth.

"There's probably more of those, yes, but what I really need is the power source that's located in the spine of my epidermis internal skeleton, just between the sublayer gel, and the reinforced, banded hardplate that keeps out any-"

The Fallen paused mid-sentence and noticed the two dragonesses staring at him. They looked like he had started speaking another language.

"…I have a suit that makes a lot of these problems go away. It has a power core inside the back that allows me to do things I normally can't if I don't have it on." He simplified.

"Like what?" Morinth asked. "I find that hard to believe, seeing so much of what you've done already just in that suit-sleeve of yours…"

"No, this isn't…" The Fallen pinched the jumpsuit and shook his head. "-this isn't anything. My real suit, my armored suit that goes on top of this, is where the really cool stuff is. It has weapons inside it, tools I can use to get to people really far away, cross vast distances, even fly."

"How can you fly without wings?" Taliopia felt up his back as she chewed.

"I'll show you when I find it." He said. "The suit's one of the most important pieces I need, but there are other things. You remember that empty pistol I've been carrying around? I have another one, a better one of unique design."

"A champion's gun?" Morinth teased. "Like the Mole Flintlock weapons? But one-handed like the Orc Archers we fight sometimes?"

"Similar."

"What about for fist-fighting?" Taliopia sounded nervous again, on the subject of close combat, she always looked like she was about to wet herself. "D-Do you have a magic sword?"

"Nah," He grunted. "I hit people with a toilet implement."

Morinth burst out laughing and punched the table, earning some concerned glances. Taliopia started giggling.

The Fallen had a very serious look on his face for a moment before shrugging.

"Laugh it up, girlies', just wait until I have that baby back in my hands…"

"-Aha-! Oh, oh I don't doubt it." Morinth calmed down. "Sword, glaive… hell willing: I could see you jumping out of one of those alien-pods holding a stick, and I would be terrified if I was an Ape."

"You beat up the bad guys with a stick?" Taliopia gazed in wonder. "…That's so… weird, but… but cool…"

"It's kind of like a stick. I'll show you. When I find it, you'll see." The Fallen leaned over and stole a strip from Morinth with a quick swipe of his fork, making both dragonesses giggle. "Who knows, I might even find it all tomorrow, or the day after, or…"


{🐉}

"-was where my father worked with both my uncles. There was a time, not so far away, when I was staked for carpentry. Believe it. I joined the academy just to get away from them. Too cluttered it was." Windshear chuckled, sitting back and downing more of his wine. "Life's interesting like that. Looking through a window for years, having a plan, and then something happens and this window you've had for decades doesn't make sense anymore, sometimes on the dot within a second. Crazy shit."

"…What do you think they're talking about?"

Windshear coughed on his drink and smothered himself with a napkin.

" -W-What?"

Rava folded her forepaws on the table and stared at the three of them across the eatery. The human, with his arms gesturing and fingers flexing. Morinth and Taliopia, raptly listening to him and bursting out into sporadic episodes of laughter between pauses of dumbfounded fascination.

Windshear followed her gaze and sighed.

"I don't know what the Council is so worried about, he looks fine." The drake shrugged. "Haven't they been paranoid? When the walls fell that one time, back during the first invasion, it must've flipped a switch. Suddenly, everyone's calling their own bluff, and chasing leads of espionage that don't exist."

"…I have my suspicions." Rava spat, her brows daggering as a few sparks of electricity danced down her talons. Windshear smiled and glanced between the little light show and her face.

"What's the matter?" He grinned like an asshole.

"The alien makes me nervous is all. Have you ever seen anything like him before?"

"I've been far and wide, but I have yet to encounter a fur-less simian like him, until today." Windshear edged his mandible and squinted at the Fallen's back for a second. "…Kinda' reminds me of a Cheetah."

"He doesn't look anything like a Cheetah! There's nothing feline about him. He's squishy looking, and thin. Like a charcoal stick. How can something so weak looking have so much gall behind it? You don't seriously believe all that shit the others are blabbing about, do you?"

"Cynder could've been done in by a pencil man." Windshear shrugged. "I assume naught of that which I haven't witnessed."

"…Marelsy, verse five, on part two."

"Damn it, you've gotten good. I can't even whip up play quotes anymore." He laughed. "Honestly, that alien could be the best thing that's happened to us. He did bring the Purple Dragon safely through the south, and if he's as good as they're saying, he'll make a fine addition to the ranks. They're thinning, and I don't like it."

"I don't like anything that's been going on, Windshear. Life is too stuffy in this city, and I feel like I'm withering." Rava sighed. "…And besides, Morinth and Taliopia are the last two dragons I haven't had the chance to apologize to yet. For the old days."

"Nobody cares about that stuff. You're torturing yourself." He sipped on his wine. "When they leave, are we tailing?"

"Fuck it, I can waste my leave-hours more pleasantly. I think you're right: the alien's as much a security threat as a pantry mouse." Rava slid out of her chair and gave Taliopia one last mourning look. "…Damn it. Anyway, are you coming?"

"No way, I wanna' finish my wine."

"Lush." Rava winked and unfurled her wings. "Barracks tomorrow?"

"Yep."

She took off with a rush of wind. Windshear doted on his wine and narrowed his eyes at the human's back.

He didn't exactly feel threatened by him, no…

But there was too much mystery in that soup for him to let his guard down. He found himself taking the guard duty more seriously than Rava was.


{🐉}

"-the city is about to fall, and we are staked to die."

"Stop saying it like that."

"…I only speak facts, sister, no matter how hard they are to accept."

"I am not lying down and accepting that you are to be slaughtered!"

"I believe you. You've been screaming every sentence for the last ten minutes. "

"What? No I haven't-!-" Ignitia stopped herself, taking a moment to catch her breath. "...I-I'm sorry. Forgive me. What about Volteera? A-And Cyrila?"

"Cynder." Terradora spat her name like it was a foul taste on her tongue, a talon lifting to point at scabbing laceration wounds across her chest and flanks. "She took them. Both of the units under their command fractured and the Dark Army is inside the city. Urukal's Orcs are going to spearhead a charge into the castle come tomorrow morning. I don't have enough men to stop them."

Ignitia gave off a sound that was a strange hybrid of a gasp and a knowing sigh. She slumped in front of the Vision Pool and buried her face in a claw.

"…It really is true then." Terradora's dark face suddenly lit up as she looked at the stairwell behind Ignitia. "The Purple Dragon has been found."

"…So, uh…" Spyra trotted into the chamber quietly, eyes wide and locked on the titanic Earth Guardian. "…I'm taking that you ain't really a ghost."

"And I'm taking that there is a reason an Ape is loose inside the temple." Terradora flickered her gaze between the two of them, somehow appearing more regal despite the caking gore, mud and the wounds she was ignoring.

"He is in servitude to the Fallen." Ignitia mumbled, letting her talons slide off her face. She gestured to Spyra. "Spyra, this is Terradora, Guardian of Earth. Terradora, Spyra."

"It is an honor-"

"Ya' know, at first glance, I thought you were a dude."

Terradora's chops clapped shut, and she blinked. Spyra sat down and gestured to her own mouth.

"…it's the jaw. It's really, like… square. And all those thorns and rocky scale-things jutting out of your shoulders are something I'd expect to see on like, Terrador, not with an a on the end and-"

"Spyra, that's enough." Ignitia quickly laid a paw on her shoulder. She smiled sheepishly at the other Guardian. "…All students are students no matter the scale color!" She chirped cheerily. "She's still learning, fresh into this world and all…"

Terradora's stoic soldiery attitude shattered as a deep flush invaded her snout. She put her nose up and grunted a 'Hmph!' –in retort.

"One's definition of beautiful is another's of mundane." She snapped.

"Nah, not mundane, you look sick! But dude-sick. You got the legs for it, though, and the chest, we just need to chisel some of them muscle chords off the neck and-"

"Spyra!" Ignitia snapped. "I said enough!"

"A-Are we done nitpicking my appearance?" Terradora fought the blush, snarling. She glared once at Spyra and snorted. Evidently, the Purple Dragon of legend sucked at first impressions. "We need liberation now, Ignitia. You must raise an army and attack from the east. The enemy has left their rear lines vulnerable because of the push inside the city. If you hit them now, you can end this."

"With what army?" Ignitia said. "All the legions are either fighting in Avalar, holding the coast against Infernia, or are trying to push into the mountains near the Iron Wastes. Warfang is practically empty, minus the city guard."

Terradora's eyes fell on Spyra.

Ignitia gasped.

"No." She placed herself between her and the pool. "No, that is not an option. We haven't even started her training, and she hasn't mastered any other elements!"

"Ignitia-"

"No! Are you forgetting who is besieging you, Terradora? We are speaking of Urukal, Legionary Commander of a quarter of Malefora's Orc armies. He's the one who broke through Avalar during the last invasion, scaled the walls of Warfang, sacked the Mid-Districts..." Ignitia and Terradora both experienced a minute jolt in their spines, but it showed more in the prior than the latter. Ignitia's red face went pale as ugly memories swam around in her mind. "…I will not let Spyra go head-to-head with a foe like that, not yet."

"Hey! Subject matter here! Not even a foot away!" Spyra galloped around Ignitia's flank and propped herself up proudly between the two Guardians. "If I could take on the Apes, I can beat some smelly-ass Orc and his band of ragtag shitstains. I held my own against Visigoth! I-"

Spyra faltered.

Until the Fallen saved me.

"-I-I can handle myself."

"So, Spyra is your name." Terradora huffed, expression unreadable as she peered down at the smaller wyrm. "I'm to believe you, a youngling, faced off against the infamous Chieftain Visigoth and lived?"

"Her and the warrior who fell from the sky." Ignitia chimed. "Spyra and the Fallen killed Visigoth and destroyed his entire tribe inside the Forlorn Watch. I-I'm not doubting Spyra's capabilities, especially not after what I've seen. But Urukal and his Orc legions… they are an entire level above the disorganized warbands the Apes operate in."

"So, you've spilled much Ape blood." Terradora sized Spyra up, snorting when the purple beastess grinned at her cockily. "What solutions lack at the time, cannot hold priority. She isn't perfect, Ignitia, but she is the Purple Dragon. If nothing else, the morale boost will be exponential to the soldiers."

"She will have to fight on the front lines!" Ignitia cried.

"I will be her chaperone. At all times. She will not leave my sight."

"Can I get a word in edgewise here or-" Spyra raised a talon.

"She isn't going and that is final." Ignitia stomped her foot, her tail slinging over Spyra's chest protectively, and yanking the feisty 'ness back until she was snug between the Guardian's slender forepaws.

"-Hey-!" Spyra squealed.

Terradora opened her mouth, exposing her fangs as she filled her mighty lungs with air and made to explode in her friend's face-

-But some kind of otherworldly restraint strangled away her unbridled rage a second later.

It was impressive to witness Terradora's expertly trained demeanor firsthand as the Earth Guardian slew her temper and returned to the debate completely composed. Spyra was a little jealous.

"Ignitia," She said deeply. "I understand the attachment you had-"

"This isn't about that."

"-with her egg, but your judgment is clouded, at best, right now, and what's more-"

"This isn't about that!"

"-you are being selfish."

Ignitia shriveled back mid-shout. Spyra produced a plush squeak as the Fire Guardian absentmindedly squished her into her breast, kneading the poor dragoness like she was some kind of comforting teddy-bear. Terradora's eyes flashed between the two of them for a moment, before she deflated with a sigh, her mace-capped tail whipping once.

"This is not an easy decision for you to make, and I see that." She couldn't bring herself to use the word understand. Because she didn't. It was weak. She didn't have any attachment to this Purple Dragon outside of her status as a living symbol.

Obviously, her bond-sister's thoughts on her were much much different. Terradora wasn't like Volteera. She couldn't deal with this touchy-feely bullshit and not come out of the exchange with a virulent need to puke.

Still, for diplomacy's sake, she kept her cool, not only for that reason, but also because it was Ignitia she was talking to. She was possibly the only hen in the whole world who she had a modicum of respect for.

"Desperate measures are afoot. Oversight is done for, if someone doesn't show up." Terradora nodded at Spyra. "Your Purple Dragon can obviously fight. How well? That remains to be seen. But she will fight at her best with me as her mentor. I will pull her and any reinforcements with her through. That I can promise."

"…Doesn't sound like too bad a deal." Spyra muttered from Ignitia's arms. "Besides, then I actually have the chance to do something! I can fight the real war for the first time!"

Ignitia drummed her talons on top of her head as she mentally began to cycle through all kinds of excuses and alternatives. Spyra growled and swatted at her like an angry cat in the meantime.

"W-What if I sent you someone else."

Terradora cocked a brow.

"Someone else?"

"Y-Yes, someone better."

Spyra stopped struggling, mumbling something under her breath. The words 'better' and 'fuck' rolled out a few times.

"The warrior who fell from the sky and brought her to me at the Dragon Temple." Ignitia nodded. "The Fallen. You don't need an army, Terradora, I can send you him. He'll break your siege!"

"A single warrior? One who isn't even a dragon?" Terradora cracked the first legitimate smile in probably years, shaking her head at what she was hearing. "Do not be ridiculous. No single fighter can turn the tide of a battle without an army behind her. This Fallen isn't even a drake. What is he? Some fleshy insect-person? Or maybe a hunk of sentient ground meat?"

"He is human, and I have witnessed him slaughter entire battalions of Apes by himself." Ignitia let Spyra go and stepped closer to Terradora's projection. "Sometimes, he even did it unarmed."

"Hmph." Terradora frowned. "Are you certain you were not just blinded by my memory, hm?"

"He is a ferocious fighter. In fact, I would even go so far as to say he is positively vicious. I have not seen such a grotesque art of killing since… since…" Ignitia twiddled her talons sheepishly. "…well, since you."

The Earth Guardian's stance became erect and her wings preened.

"Me?" She stammered, that royal red flush returning with vengeance. "You think this little meatbag is comparable to me?"

"He is. He's one of the best." Ignitia turned to Spyra. "Tell her what you saw, Spyra. Tell her about the Fallen!"

"…H-He's-" Spyra swallowed, coughing as anger slipped into her chest. "…h-he can do it. God damn it, I don't even wanna' admit it, but yeah, that guy can do it. He can break that siege."

"Siege?"

All three dragons turned to look at the stairwell.

The Fallen was standing there, a tired look on his face, arms wrapped around a cloth-sealed bundle-box of leftovers he hadn't been able to finish off at the eatery.

"You want me to break a siege tomorrow?" He gawked at them, then noticed Terradora, and almost dropped his food. "Holy crap, is that Harad's sister or something?"

"T-Terradora, t-this is-" Ignitia stammered.

"That's him?" Terradora gasped, cocking her head, as if the Fallen was a child's science experiment that had gone horribly askew and had made a mess on the floor. He looked like a fucking twig. Oh no. Oh no this had to be a joke. "This has to be some kind of a joke."

The Fallen pursed his lips.

"Thank you so much for your hearty confidence." He grunted. "So, you're Terradora?"

"I am." The Earth Guardian crinkled her nose, giving a disapproving run-down from his face to his feet. "And what are you? Some kind of cross-breed between an Ape and a sloth?"

"Wow." The Fallen smiled widely, utterly fixated on the large, drab colored 'ness as he stepped into the chamber. "A sloth and an Ape. I haven't heard that one before. That's unique. I'm so glad you took the time to provide me with such instructive feedback. So, can I ask you a serious question? Did your parents purposefully have sex with the intent to create a set of woman's legs with a man's face and neck, or did that happen because your mother was actually born with a dick, before she changed her gender like a disgruntled tree-frog due to the lack of willing mates?"

Ignitia's jaw dropped.

Spyra tried to hold it in.

She desperately tried.

She tried and tried, just because she was so pissed at him, and hated his guts, and didn't want to laugh at his jocular madness that she had resonated so much with.

But god damn it.

Her frown quivered like the surface of a pond hit with a stone.

She snickered loudly and collapsed on her haunches, rocking as she swallowed a bout of hysterics that threatened to shoot fire out her nose. These strange, muffled laughs started to bounce around the room…

"-M-hm-! M-hm-! M-HM-!"

-She hiccupped and fell on her side, rolling in apparent agony on the floor as she wrenched her eyes shut.

Terradora had the expression of a lion who had just smelt blood and was a centimeter away from its intended prey.

Even the Fallen had to pause a second.

Holy shit, when this baby girl got angry, you fuckin' knew it.

How adorable.

"I-If you send that thing here." Terradora quivered. "Don't expect it to come back. Because I'm going to kill it, along with all these other Dark dregs."

"Nono, all seriousness aside," The Fallen held up a hand, smiling politely at her as she stepped beside Ignitia. "-I would be honored to liberate your finely sculpted, bootylicious backside from the risk of destruction."

Spyra sputtered and shot to her feet, mouth agape in angry awe. Terradora flushed even harder.

"I haven't broken a siege in months. This should be a really exciting exercise. I'll watch over Spyra, and we can slay a bunch of bad-guys together. Sounds fun, right, babe'?"


{🐉}

The Fallen spent his first night in the temple by himself.

Interestingly, Ignitia had failed to inform Terradora that it was her lodgings the Fallen was living in for the time. It was probably a wise decision, given how easy it was to get on the Earth Guardian's bad side, apparently.

He shivered when he remembered the death glare Terradora had given him through the projection before she had whisked away after Ignitia's promise. He had no shame in admitting that Terradora was sexy as hell when she was angry. That stare might've chilled the blood of a normal person…

It just gave him a boner.

"…I see the two of you had a disagreement." Ignitia quietly said as she walked him to Terradora-his room. "May I ask what happened?"

"I have some lifestyle choices Spyra hasn't gotten used to yet." He shrugged miserably, not wishing to discuss it.

"Yet?" Ignitia blinked.

"She'll be back."

"…Right. How was your dinner with Morinth and Taliopia?"

"I have a suspicion that they really like me."

The campus looked like the city at night. Dark, with hundreds of light speckles all over, like a field of grounded lightning bugs waiting to take off, its black, million-eyed visage peeking at them intermittently with each window they passed. He opened the door for both of them, man and dragon shuffling through the frame one after another like tired zombies.

"Where is she staying?" He asked as he sat on the rim of the nesting sheets.

"I've lent my chambers to her for the night, until she decides what she wants to do tomorrow." Ignitia sighed, sitting in the doorframe, and glancing around the room. "...I'll take Cyrila's nest. She wouldn't mind. Especially if she never knew."

"Sounds good." The Fallen yanked a cover over himself and stared at her for a minute.

There was silence.

She… wasn't leaving.

"…Was there something on your mind, Ignitia?" He sat up.

"Oh! No, no. No, not at all…" The fake grin slipped away and her wings drooped. "…Yes. S-Spyra. Spyra can't go tomorrow. She can't."

"It's not my decision to make." The Fallen folded his arms in his lap and sighed, staring at the pair of candles lighting the chamber up on Terradora's rock-collection shelves. "I couldn't believe that she'll pass up the opportunity to go to a real fight, seeing as she's been edging for one for weeks. I wouldn't worry so much about her. I worried about her too, before I dragged her into her first battle, and, I mean, look. Spyra has the right kind of mindset for this occupation. She can handle the pressure, she's quick on her feet, and she's a hell of a lot smarter than any enemy soldiers she'll encounter. And she can deal with killing. It takes a special sort of mind to do that."

"I know." Ignitia breathed. "I know that she's strong, and capable, more capable than any student who first walked into these halls I've ever seen. But I don't want to lose her again. I… I can't lose her again. Not so soon…"

He got out of the nest and crossed the room.

"I will not let anything happen to her tomorrow." He reached down and slipped one of Ignitia's paws into his hands. The Guardian jumped a little and stared at him, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. The Fallen rubbed with his thumbs. "I promise."

The Fire Dragoness flexed her jaw a few times, sheepishly looked down at their feet and scrambled a sentence she had wanted to say into incomprehensible little noises.

"Goodnight-"

She tore from his grasp and practically sprinted down to Cyrila's room.

The Fallen sighed, and made to close the door.

"-Aye, there ya are, Master! Goodn day I was hopin for ya." Palmet waddled by, bucket in hand, Meep peering over his shoulder. "I'm the new cleana man! Accordin to the nice drag-lady! Ain't ya proud of me, boss?"

The Fallen glanced back at his empty nesting, the hands he'd held Ignitia's paw in, and growled.

"Fuck off, butler."

Then he slammed the door shut.


{🐉}

Ignitia's nesting was too fucking warm, even for her.

And the room was so red, that someone could've torn open an artery, spattered blood all over the floor, and it still would've looked drab in comparison.

She'd settled for curling up in a ball without all the upper blankets, staring at the curtains obscuring the room's window.

She was still so angry.

And she was excited too.

A siege.

She'd never seen anything like that before. Obviously, most people would say something similar, given the question, but she didn't care. She wasn't as afraid as she should've been. Fighting was her outlet, after all. Ripping a few Grublin faces off sounded like an excellent therapeutic experience.

Grublins, Orcs…

Monsters she'd only ever heard stories about. Not Apes. Tougher than Apes, according to the others.

She stretched in the nesting like a cat, and rolled onto her back, making sure to spread out her wings so that she didn't compress them, and end up with pins and needles all over them again. Her eyes lazily traced about the crimson-colored ceiling in the dark.

Angry angry angry… All she was, was angry. And over a single thing. Rather: a single person.

That beetraying bastard.

That dick.

It was all his fault that she was like this.

And Morinth and Taliopia and Cynder's fault.

Fuck 'em all.

She ran a paw through the blankets, and huffed. Somehow, the nest still felt empty. It was bad enough that she considered tearing down the Fallen's door and throwing herself at him. She rolled over again with a growl and shoved a cushion into her face. Deep down inside, after seeing the Fallen for what he really did, who he really was…

…there was part of her that didn't care.


{🐉}

"Wake up."

She felt it ironic that the first thing she experienced was a chilling shiver up her back.

Cold was supposed to be her master work, after all. It had never been so far from her talons in terms of control, in a stance of utilization against her. But then again, everything had been out of her control for the last few days.

"Tch. Come now, fairest Guardian of the Icicle, I fail to understand your reason for stalling the inevitable. Are you just trying to annoy me?" The same voice from before tisked at her. There was a moment of pause, in Cyrila's black vision, before the speaker concluded. "How exhausting. Fine, if I admit that my incantations are indeed working, will that get your ego up enough so we can proceed?"

Oh Ancestors her head hurt.

Like, it really fucking hurt.

It pulsed and ached, like she'd slammed it against a castle's wall repeatedly. Her face was puffy, and she couldn't open her one eye. One of her paws was wrong too. It was uneven. Something loosely rolled underneath her flesh when she tried to move her wrist.

The cold stab came back with fury.

She winced and twitched.

Cynder noticed this with a pleased hum.

"I knew from your heartbeat that you were still alive anyway, but it is lovely to see you moving after the strain I put you through. I'd apologize, and yet…" The black dragoness chuckled, and her voice spun a slow, lazy circle around her in the dark. Something gripped her by the collar and hoisted her up.

Cyrila winced as she felt Cynder's cool, minty breath wash over her face.

"I'm not sorry~." Cynder giggled before roughly shoving her back onto the ground. "Oh, good times we've had. It makes a dragon weak at the knees to believe that after everything we've been through together, Guardian, that it all must conclude in such a manner. The long road home, so to speak? Winding its way through all the nonsense and skullduggery we've ruined each others' days with, to meet an end so… vaingloriously."

Cynder sounded haughty, giving another pause, as she thought her own words over.

"There's good material, throughout our recollections. For a book, I mean. Ah, but, by this point? It hardly matters. Now, where was I…"

Cyrila coughed, as metal clinked and crackled, and some sort of luminous buzz consistently began echoing in her hearing. She tried to move her arm.

ShWNK-!

She grunted.

A solid chain's link yanked taught to impede her.

"…dirty, filthy chains? This is the best your vulgar mind could hatch…?" Cyrila wetly mumbled like it was all an inconvenience. "...You are a fool if you believe this will hold me…"

"Perhaps, if I had been so cursed as to only have access to nothing more, to solely such mundane works of cheap metal." Cynder giggled. "Unfortunately for you, my dearest Guardian, my efforts have not been so cheaply enacted. I never leave a job half-done, when it comes to my own paws bearing the brunt of such a thing."

The black dragoness sneered when a brief memory of Zargos fluxed through her mind. A sole example of half-assed to an extreme, but one born from desperation, if nothing else.

"...just… chains…" Cyrila drunkenly moaned, the metal rattling as she feebly attempted to move her limbs.

"If that is what you wish to believe." Cynder purred. "Then quite indeed, Cyrila: just chains, and really, nothing more."

Cyrila coughed as she sat up with difficulty, and blinked her one useful eye a few times to clear it. A spanning, glacier chamber met her in force when the blurs and coronas of pain bled away from her.

The chamber was colossal, with a domed roof, one stuffed with icicle blades sharp enough to run a dragon through from end to end, enough of them for the crystals of ice to bloom like thousands of upside-down, jagged cities from the rocks. The walls were beautiful, possessed with reflective blues mixed with the drab grays of cold stone. The actual cavity itself was big enough to hold a whole town.

Moving shapes in the air caught her attention as she tried to make sense of everything. Cyrila went wide-eyed and swallowed when she saw a blocky object bobbing in the air just a brief walk away from where she was laying.

It was a platform, made from the stone structure of an ancient, gray, frost-crusted castle. Its belly was jagged with earth and ice, like it had been plucked from the ground and tossed into the air like a balloon.

It was levitating.

Behind it were the shattered remains of a Gothic tower, arched with windows and embattlements. It levitated too, on an island of ice the size of a house.

The whole chamber was speckled up and down with the floating, fractured signs of a colossal structure that had been splintered like a pane of glass. Suspended towers, chunks of a bailey with networks of open-aired chambers exposed like the guts of a carcass. There were incomplete bridges that only half-bracketed the gaps between the pieces of the maze, and throughout it all, was a stilled raincloud of millions of tiny, greenish-blue crystals that saturated the cavity's space, like a nebula of floating teardrops.

She and Cynder were on an icy loft platform ringed with fractured pillars and the remains of walls. There was a giant tunnel with light at the end of it to the west birthing like a giant mouth from the earthen wall of the chamber, and more islands between that and them, bobbing like black stars in the glare.

Wait a minute…

"…Ugh, why would you-…" Cyrila winced when she tried to scrunch her pained nose. "…-ouch."

"Don't try to talk too much, Cyrila, I might have fractured your skull, you know." Cynder hummed, more chainlinks clattering loudly.

"...Was such force upon my unmarred head warranted?" Cyrila sneered.

"I suppose, you could've come quietly." Cynder wing-shrugged expressionlessly, as she rolled her arm around another chainlink, wrapping it through a banded, black-iron band sticking from the face of a snow-dusted pedestal. She yanked hard, compressing Cyrila's leg to the pedestal floor. The Ice Dragoness grunted. "But you're the Guardian with an ego to outdo the other three. You surrendering is like snow touching the sun for gods' sake. I wasn't about to land and ask you nicely with a proffered cup of tea, for you to peacefully become my prisoner."

"The Cloud Ripper engaging in a moment of civility? What a site that would've been…" Cyrila mumbled, angling her snout down to look at herself. "…What are you doing to me?"

"Just finishing up…"

Cynder had her chained to the cracked remains of a pedestal. The bands sealing the chains into the soil past the edges glowed a dull blackish-blue, and they gave off that annoying buzz she was hearing. They were obviously enchanted. With what, she didn't know. But it was doubtless that it was meant to keep her from using her powers to escape.

"Not simply chains, as you might've wished, hmm? The bands are branded with the essence of Shadow Gems." Cynder politely pointed out when she noticed her staring. "I have a whole collection of the things lying around back home. It's quite easy to crack one open, bleed the Mana into a solvent and process it through a chant unto an object. Waste not want not, yes? Your Ice Element is completely drained, and will remain so until the bands are removed, or you expire."

"You've never attempted to-" Cyrila gagged and spat blood onto the ground, cringing, when she felt the tangy splash of the substance soiling her chops. "-capture us like this before…"

"I've never had a reason to enact a plan like this before." Cynder sighed, stepping back, and preening her snout about the setup approvingly to check her work. "You all have made my life exuberantly difficult since the day I hatched. I don't expect any of you to just up and pass me by on the eve of such a reckoning."

"All those years of torment have finally lost you your wits." Cyrila sourly chuffed. "Bringing me here will hardly keep my allies from coming after me. Haven't you heard? The Purple Dragon has been found, Cynder, and I highly doubt that they are going to sit back and watch, as you kidnap a Guardian of the Elements. But how could you not know? I thought this dragon gave you a fair spanking due south…"

"If I spin the argument, and start prodding at your pride, I guarantee I can have you shedding tears of fury in but a second." Cynder smiled, twirling around with extra gait in her hips and stalking away. "Look at where you are, Cyrila. You don't think I know how poetic it is that I should slowly flay you to death in this place?"

Cynder pointed with her tailblade to the other side of the chamber. Cyrila quivered angrily as she glanced to follow.

Behind a floating, scythed-in-two castle was a tunnelway almost completely sealed in luminescent, icy blue crystal. A waterfall cascaded in a distant whisper over its lower lip and vanished into the blackened depths that awaited any who fell from the floating ruins of the platform they were on.

Cynder smiled sadistically at her.

"I'm going to make you beg for me to kill you, right in front of the tombs of your entire family, and your people."

"When I get out of these chains, I am going to make you suffer~!" Cyrila exploded, the chains jingling as she wreathed and wiggled and writhed against their might. She tried to swipe her tail only to find that it too was wrapped up in a link and nailed to the ground with a fifth band. A sixth wrapping of chains constricted around her body like a rope, pinning her wings. "You can't keep me in here forever!"

"No, not forever." Cynder returned with a more grim expression. Her tail curled over her flank, wrapped around an item that was colored a dull, reflective gray. "Look at it."

Cyrila stopped struggling and looked at the object, her breathing getting louder and heavier.

"…Cynder," Cyrila whispered. "do you even know what you can do with such a thing?"

"I'm well aware, and have no need for your two-gems." The black dragoness stepped over to the front of the pedestal, and gingerly slipped the colorless, quartz-looking crystal into a bowl-shaped slot bulging from the edge of the metal just ahead of Cyrila's nose.

The Ice Dragoness shrieked, and redoubled her struggle against the chains. She opened her mouth and tried to blast Cynder with a cone of frost. All that came out of her throat, however, was a ragged hiss, and a tiny wisp of white air.

Cyrila slumped, defeated.

"Don't worry, I've been told the process is rather painless." Cynder muttered, twirling her talons around with a few muttered magical words. The gem flickered white, and the staccato buzz overtaking the air redoubled in volume. "It's what I'm going to do to you afterward that you should be afraid of."

Cyrila moaned as the chainlinks sealing her to the ground began to glow white. She teetered and landed in a sprawl, her tongue dribbling out of her mouth, her eyes becoming heavy as illuminated rivulets of raw life-force began to flow out of her body, down the chains, and into the pedestal.

The platform pulsed eerily and the gem began to become filled gradually with a blue-colored tinge, like a bottle slowly being brimmed with fresh milk.

"If by chance the Purple Dragoness does show her face, keep her busy long enough, so that I can arrive." Cynder muttered offhand as she trotted away. A towering, white-furred Ape of her Cold Legion grunted. "And if the Fallen is with her, restrain him, but keep him alive. I'll kill your entire battalion by peeling their flesh off, if you fail in that regard."

She turned her snout to the floating ruins around them.

Ghostly looking.

If only she had time to stay and study them. Getting rid of the guardian monsters had been trouble enough to warrant such rewards…

Though, she supposed using charms was, in a sense, cheating.

"If the dragon proves too much for your men, pull as many back as you can, and regroup to the rally point. Let my dead cousins have a go at her, I'm sure they'll prove adequate."

Cynder smiled and glanced at Cyrila.

The Guardian- even though she was slowly dying –was able to gather enough energy to inhale sharply and blink in terror.

The ground thudded underneath the tread of heavy footfalls. Masses of hollow collagen rattled like a roomful of children's toys. Great limbs lurched like tree trunks, and the unholy hiss of foul breath meandered into the air.

Cyrila scrunched her eyes shut and screamed defiantly.

Cynder started laughing.


{🐉}

The Fallen had been right in assuming the Moles as competent blacksmiths. Their metalworking was artistic. They could manipulate raw ore like wet clay: hammering golden plates onto hardened skeletons of steel, trimming beautiful designs from edges of brass no thicker than a fingernail.

Bangs, hisses, screeches from the forges, and the murmur of trained teams were the ambience of Wyrm's manufacturies beneath its foundation. The air down here stank like brimstone and oil, and was muggy to the point of being unbearable to any not used to it.

"It was a tall order. It took up half our stations. We're held up by almost fifteen-hundred items of quota in exchange for maybe ten or twenty pieces? And I thought I heard it all before Starbrun said it would be worth it…" Grumbled the sturdy-looking Mole foreman.

"He actually said that?" The Fallen blinked.

"Moreso hopefully, than with resolve, I'd reckon." The rodent's usual neutrality was tempered with a noticeable, but brief, glare over his shoulder at the taller human. "But that's not for me to decide."

The Fallen glistened with sweat as the foreman took him from forge to forge, smelter aisle to smelter aisle, on a quest to see the promised treasures for his reaping. Rivers of molten metal illuminated them both orange as they passed by forge-pathways bound for smelters. Flashes from hammers meeting birthing-blades flickered everything in the world white with each shrill strike.

"Your measurements are a little different than what we're used to, but I think we made due, and to expectations." The foreman emphasized the latter bit of that statement, evidently, finding importance in it. "We didn't go too flashy with it. The fittings could be tweaked, and the gorget was initially mishandled, needs to be completely redone."

"How long until all the kinks can be buffed out?" The human wiped his brow, grimacing at the moisture slicking his arm.

"Gimme' and my boys another three hours?" The Mole adjusted his smock as they neared a heavy iron-topped table on the edge of the forge house. "Feast your eyes on the blood and sweat made pretty in the meantime. The breastplate's my own work. Look but don't touch. We're still buffing and priming."

Starbrun had not been lying about the quality of Castle Wyrm's underworld staff.

It was a suit of armor, and it was beautiful.

While the majority of the girth glistened a dull silver, all the trims and edges were colored brass and gold. The breastplate was a two-piece linkage sealed via ring-suspended hook-belts. The chesting was flat and sloped, but was emblazoned with a thinly sculpted sigil of the city of Warfang above a forwards perspective of a snarling dragon's head, that actually formed the shape of the belly extension. Golden edged scalemail was to be wrapped protectively around the stomach, the arms and legs, and the interior thighs.

Branching wing-shaped pauldrons matched a triangular gorget, that was chiseled to resemble layered plates of draconic neck-scales. Greaves made in likeness to screaming wyrm skulls protected his legs and fit snugly with a pair of bulky, bowl-like kneeplates that were scythed cleanly down the forward face for the tail-shaped shinguards. The guards curled around his lower legs like vines, capping cleated boots, each layered with bronze edging on a stacked hill of plates going up each ankle.

The rear cuirass was ridged, to mimic a dragon's spina; scutes up and down the back. Protective hip skirts of thick scale-plates draped from circular seals, that each had a reflective bulge of perfectly polished copper as irises, so clean that they looked like spheres of pure amber.

Finally, an open-faced helmet designed to leave the wearer's head within the fanged maw of a drake topped the suit. It was nimble, and relatively lightweight. Though the Fallen took some time to adjust to the feeling of armor on himself again. It had been so long since he'd adorned an older variation than what he was used to.

After the suit came a gladius styled shortblade with a length colored pure gold from a hilt, carved into the visage of three interconnecting oak leaves studded with a pair of tiny rubies. The handle was wrapped with supple crimson hide, studded with gold rivets. It came with a sheathe of red leather, banded with steel cuffs, and a belt whose lock was a flat dragon's face.

"This one took longer on account of the length." The foreman gestured to the sword. "Ours are a bit shorter on account of the, uh…" He craned his neck back to look up at the underside of the Fallen's chin. "-…the height difference."

The Fallen creased his lips, appreciating the craftsmanship for but a second, before sweeping forwards to pick the sword up, much to the foreman's anxiousness.

"W-When you're handling her," He quickly chided. "mind the weight difference at the head! All the special ores we mixed in with the usual setup might not make it easy for a first time us-"

The Fallen removed the gladius from the table soundlessly, and twirled the weapon between his fingers, windmilling thrice, before catching the length in one hand. He vaulted on a heel and graced the blade in a wide swing, followed by a pair of dicing cuts and a singular thrust aimed for throat-level.

The foreman blinked.

"…You made your point. There's no need to be flashy."

"And the last two orders?" The Fallen breathed, steadying the fresh butt on the floor by his hip and leaning on the hybrid testingly.

"Those took some doing. You better not lose them…" The Mole wagged a finger, gesturing to another table. "Two chambered revolving forearm shot, pin-secured right beside the hammer-mechanism, fair stopping power, though we thought the kickback from one paw was a little catastrophic-"

"How catastrophic are we talking about?" The Fallen smiled down at the latest contraption.

"The last fellow who test-fired her ate his own fist."

"Beautiful."

"-Walnut stock and spin detailing, steel-capped at both ends here and here, the grip's reinforced with smooth leather, and the trigger's straightened, to avoid finger-hooking. This certainly isn't one of our standard Flintlocks…" The foreman sounded like he was describing the talents of a child, as he hiked onto his toes, and doted almost lovingly down at the weapon on the tabletop.

"Can you cock it?" The Fallen put down his sword, and carefully manhandled the gun. It looked like an oversized pistol, but according to the Moles, it was actually set to the standard of a rifle. Almost like a sawed-off. But it wasn't a slugger.

Interesting…

"Release latches there and there." The foreman hopped on his little feet to point.

The Fallen pinched the indicated gnobs, and the whole front of the weapon's body cocked forward and revealed the innards held underneath the ironsights spine. This was a heavy double-round revolver-feed, colored gold and silver. The foreman handed him a pair of fat, coppery shell casings.

"The barrel was too big for a timer, so we added a thumb-latch by the safety keeper here. Give that a click, and the lock there should kick it right around to the second feed port."

"Why only a two-shot?" The Fallen slid the rounds in, his hand gliding over the weapon cleanly to lock, click and yank the hammer. He aimed it at a passing cluster of forge workers, who yipped in fright.

"Oi, Flintlock rifles only have one!" The foreman slapped fruitlessly up at his hands to make him stop. "Bad repayment to shoot me boys, oi'?!"

"…Oh. Right. Right and right." The Fallen was lost for words for a moment.

Wrong time period to be a chooser. It was hard to remember sometimes.

"This ammunition looks like it'll hurt." He cocked it again and jittered a shell free to hold it in his palm. The thing was bigger than his thumb.

"You could blow a hole in an Orc the size of my head if it performs the way we think it will. We hollowed them out using one of the drill heads, resealed them with wax, and custom washers. There's enough rounds waiting for you for several encounters." The foreman pointed across the forge to a larger weapons station where Moles were riveting together heavy, metal-plated wheels meant to be mounted on what looked like cannon carriages. "Normally, these rounds end up in the chain magazines for the gatling guns. We have enough of them lying around, that we thought you'd appreciate the extra firepower."

"I'd kiss you if you weren't a rodent." The Fallen glanced from the gun to him. "…And a dude."

"Uhhuh." The foreman grumbled. "The last thing is for your own protection. Give it a try."

An arm-sleeve shield was on the next table, not wide at all, thin and long, thick enough to stop the blade of a sword or an axe, nimble and bolt-plated in the center, so that it could bend with the Fallen's elbow joint.

"The weight from this sleeve will play havoc with your sword arm, you know that?" The foreman shook his head as he watched the human clip all the belts in place.

"It isn't for my swordarm." The Fallen cocked and flipped the gun in the same hand and brandished the two pieces, outstretched with an eye pinched shut. "…God damn I look cool."

"Good to see our output disaster earned us a happy customer." The foreman rolled his eyes, pointing at the gun. "Fitted?"

"The grip needs to be back a little more, but I'll manage. You boys didn't do too shabby." He winked.

"From such a high appraisal I see." The old Mole didn't look impressed. The Fallen immediately liked him.

You have no idea, my furry little friend…

"I think I'm going to call this baby a Hand-Cannon." The Fallen slipped the firearm into a loose pouch on the hip plates. One last glance about himself proved to him everything was in order. He smiled as he slipped on his brand new, shiny helmet. "I'm off to kill shit, and save some Guardians. Wish me luck."


{🐉}

Ignitia was shaking the whole morning. She hadn't slept at all last night. All she could think about was Cyrila, and Volteera, and wherever they were, and whatever Cynder was doing to them.

Poor Bilou had tried to offer her some tea when she had left the temple, and she had snapped at him, and shooed him away quite angrily against her better judgment. Later on, she had encountered a pair of students who were arguing under one of the campus trees, and instead of her normally level-headed response of politely breaking up the exchange, she had instead physically grabbed both of them to stop the scene.

"What do the two of you think that you're doing?!" She had snarled, reveling in the terrified expressions written on the younger dragons' faces. "Break it up~!"

Not one of my shining moments of example… Ignitia now closed her eyes, and tried to take a deep breath.

She'd already had a period in her life where she'd screamed at everyone around her for reasons not of their own fault. She couldn't afford to slip into that again.

"You both look like hell." Starbrun grumbled. "That's understandable, I myself, have not slept much either in these trying times..."

Ignitia looked at Spyra beside herself, blinking when she noted that the purple dragon appeared almost identically to her. She was shivering a little, glistened with sweat, and she had bloodshot eyes…

"Are you alright, Spyra?" Ignitia blinked again at the sound of her own voice, which- to be clear -sounded like a voice of one of the living dead.

"I'm just dandy…" Spyra refused to meet her gaze and rolled a fist into one of her eyes, growling when a sleep-crusty escaped her efforts.

"You didn't sleep?" Ignitia asked.

"I slept fine."

Spyra warded off any further quizzing by turning away from her to groom one of her wings and nibble the joint. Like hell if she was telling Ignitia that the fucking nightmares had come back, and that she'd woken up in the middle night, screaming, in a cold sweat. That wasn't her business. Just like her spat with the Fallen wasn't any of her business either.

"Ignitia," Starbrun stepped closer to her, his voice lowering to a whisper. "at least let me send a few Wings with you."

"You have no Wings to spare, Councilor." Ignitia smiled. "Trust me, the stories you have heard about Spyra? About the Fallen? I am quite safe with them as my companions."

"Traveling without an army is foolish." Captain Harad snorted, his heated gaze turned out to the rest of Immortal Square as the city center sprawled around them, bathed pink from the first rising morning sun above. "If it is true that we have already lost two Guardians, I hardly see what will be gained by losing a third…"

"Pfft, ya' know, 'cause we're all a bunch of intoxicated retards, right, Hackjaw?" Spyra rolled her eyes.

"It has nothing to do with that! We have security forces here in Warfang! Ma'am, you are too valuable an asset to utilize in some half-assed strike operation, especially one against an entire army. Do you really think three souls are going to make a difference in this battle?" Harad snapped, his thorny wings preening. "And that you have ordered me to stand down, is just another fact in all of this that is simply insulting."

"Calm down, Harrier, or you'll pop a gasket." The Fallen gave off little metallic chk's as he stepped over to them from across the square. Spyra went to glance at him with disinterest, but found herself locked into a stare when she saw what he was wearing.

Holy shit.

Golden and silver scalemail and plate, a wicked helmet, a fat pistoleer gun and a sword on his hips…

The Fallen stepped in front of her, and grinned down at her sheepishly.

"O-Oh my…" Ignitia stepped back, flushed, her thick tail twitching behind her as she sized the Fallen up. "…Starbrun, you must have pulled some heavy strings to make him look this… this serious."

"Desperation causes strange things." Starbrun pawed the cobblestone and glanced around the mostly empty square. He paused for a moment before saying: "I dreamed of days where the Purple Dragon would come back, and I would send them off on missions I knew no one else could do. I wanted so badly to be the Councilman blessed to be alive when that time came. Now, I'm standing here, at that moment, in the flesh, and I'm hesitating." He smiled sadly at Ignitia. "Ancestors above, I wish it wasn't you. You are like a sister to me."

Ignitia, forgetting the human for a moment, bowed her head.

"I cannot abandon the other Guardians, Starbrun. There is no one else we have right now. The Fallen and Spyra will keep me safe, and I to them."

"They had better."

The Fallen sighed, but he was understanding of it. Starbrun growled that last bit entirely focused on him, and no one else.

"I request to join the party bound for Oversight." Harad chimed for probably the fifth or sixth time since they had all gathered out here. He glared defiantly at Starbrun and Ignitia. "It is my job to protect the Guardian."

"Infernia's harrying the east, Captain." Starbrun said. "I've already assigned you command of a Wing there. You are needed. We appreciate your dedication, your loyalty, but it is simply not to be."

Harad shut his mouth when it began to quiver open. With an enraged snarl, he tore away, his wings unfurling and giving off a leathery flap. He soon vanished in the pink and purple morning sky.

"I feel kinda' bad for Haggrid." The Fallen shook his head, glancing at Spyra. "He's always so angry about something."

"Tell me about it. Guy's got a chronic case of draconic-brand constipation, and I ain't got time for tha-" Spyra clapped a paw over her mouth. "No! Bad! You don't get to talk to me! Not like that!" She snapped, flapping her wings and scrambling away from him. "You are in the banished corner!"

"So, when are we leaving?" He bit his lip.

Starbrun just sighed.

"Come on, up-up." Ignitia lowered her knee, and nodded for her back. The Fallen jogged over, tenderly placing his hand over the Guardian's slender back. She shivered. "-I-I assure you, the weight isn't too much…"

"Just tell me if I poke something by accident or…" He awkwardly sat down and adjusted around, wincing when Ignitia grunted and stood back to her full height.

"Pfft, brutha', if you poke anything on her, it sure as shit wouldn't be by accident…" Spyra growled under her breath, unfurling her wings and giving them a preparatory beat. "Let's just get this shindig in the air and kick some ass."

"I would follow Terradora's instructions to the dot." Starbrun called as he backed away from them. "Approach from the south of the walls. Get behind the Dark Army's lines."

"We'll discuss the plan more on the way." Ignitia nodded, rolling her shoulders and asking over her wing: "Are you settled, Fallen?"

"Of course I am." He gave her a thumbs up. "Riding on the back of a bombshell 'ness such as yourself? I'm the envy of this damned city right now."

Spyra actually shot up into the air in flames. There was a whoosh, a scream, and a blast, and the purple dragoness was soaring west, wreathed in comet-fire.

Starbrun gawked, mouth ajar.

"Oops." The Fallen cringed. Ignitia took off, and soon, the city of Warfang was passing underneath them again, except this time, it was shrinking. "I have the feeling that we're in for a long day." He called over the breeze.

"I believe you." Ignitia zipped over the massive city walls and began to glide over one of the immense grasslands surrounding Warfang. It resembled a sea of azure in the morning gloom. The Fallen couldn't help but stare. "Fallen, w-we need to save them… my sisters."

"We will." He laid a mailed hand on her neck. She didn't just shiver from the cold of the metal. "We will."


{🐉}