2
A grim mood settled over the Temple.
Ignitus stayed in the Grotto, watching worriedly over Spyro, who hadn't moved from his place. He was there, vibrating with an almost silent croon, furling and unfurling his wings.
Every now and again, he would snarl, refusing to explain why. Ignitus had eventually surmised that the purple dragon had become somehow attuned to the turmoil of Cynder's fevered mind.
He supposed that was the reason for his earlier behavior.
Ignitus found that a whole new cause for worry. He was pushing deeper, trying to touch what sense there was in Cynder's consciousness, trying to stop her from dying.
Even as he watched, Spyro bared his teeth, hissing a low whistle that sent a shudder down Ignitus's spine.
Sparx, not bound by restrictions that held back Ignitus from interfering, was sincerely concerned for his friend's welfare, and was attempting to draw him out of his silent panic.
"Spyro, c'mon, listen to me, you've got to get up. Don't go all EMO on me."
His only response was a flick of a tail.
The dragonfly gave up soon after that, and approached Ignitus, "I hate to say it old man, but I think he's finally cracked."
The old dragon shook his head, "He is frightened."
"What's there to be frightened about?"
Ignitus looked away. Sparx didn't, wouldn't understand. "A dragon's death is a terrible thing, Sparx," he said simply.
Just as Ignitus had suspected, the dragonfly looked befuddled. "Do you mean the queen of horror-death-I mean, Cynder?"
The red dragon looked him squarely in the eyes, "After all you and Spyro have been through together, I would have thought that you would understand their bond."
"Bond? What?"
Ignitus sighed, "If Spyro's dedication to her is not plain enough, then you must be blind. He also bound himself to her years ago, when the Dark Master pierced her heart. You were, if I remember correctly, quite upset."
Sparx's stoic expression was enough to answer Ignitus's question.
"He used up the very vestiges of his energy to save her life," the old dragon continued, "binding himself to her until…one of them passes away into the void."
"But Spyro won't, if she dies, he won't die as well will he?" Sparx asked anxiously. For once there was no hint of belligerence or bluff coloring his tone.
Ignitus shook his head, "No, he won't, but that doesn't lessen the impact of loss." He purposefully didn't add the possibility of Spyro suiciding. Sparx was nervous enough as it was.
But it was not unknown. There had been previous times when dragons had suicided because the weight of their grief was too much to bear. Ignitus hoped with all his heart that Spyro would retain the sense to keep living. Even if dragonkind was doomed to extinction.
"He won't?" Sparx sighed in relief.
So, Ignitus thought, there is a true brotherhood between them. He had had evidence of that long before, and never really doubted it, but to hear the sincere fear and worry in Sparx's voice, see the shadow in his eyes, was more than enough proof.
Of course, they were all anxious, all saddened by the inevitability of Cynder's death, worsened by the fact that she, as the last female, had been the only hope for survival.
The thought of extinction was not even to be thought, to know that after they died there would be no little ones to carry on, no one to protect and brighten the land on the wings of great beasts.
Unconsciously, the words of the long dead Gaul sprang to his mind, the words he had spat at Ignitus on the battlefield, when the Ape King had been on the verge of death from his talons.
"The age of Dragons has past, it will never rise again. Tell me, do you feel the chill of death, dragon?" He laughed maniacally, pointing at the sky, and Ignitus had only just begun to hear the cries. The clouds orange with smoke and flame, Ignitus could only watch in horror as his allies, his kin, were felled one by one, their torn bodies falling limply from the skies. As each one fell, the battlefield already drenched with blood, a huge black dragon, eyes glaring red malevolence, roared with a force that tore the sky asunder…
Ignitus shuddered, closing his eyes against the memories which haunted him since he had fled from the battlefield, broken, the roar still echoing in his mind with a din that could not hide the voice in his mind that told him 'this is your fault. You failed her. Them. The war is lost.'
Ignitus remembered that it was Spyro who had given them hope, Spyro who had brought Cynder home, Spyro who brought the Dark Master's- Arenthal's- reign to an end.
But Spyro could not save them from extinction. When he died, though it could be maybe a thousand years before he did, so did the dragon race