A/N: So I may have committed the sin of too much exposition and maybe a few too many commas. But hey, it's done. I spent a lot of time on this part of the story, and in a lot of ways its my favorite part. I love to feel Cynder's guilt as she tries to navigate life after her transformation. I can only hope that I've communicated it as nicely as it sounded in my head.
The Half-Life of a Dragon Not Quite Purple
Part 2: The Temple
The bitter, poison taste of Malefor's control lingered in her mouth even days later when she finally woke.
She was inside the Temple, but not as she'd ever seen it. She blinked her eyes open groggily, shocked at the light streaming in through the high windows and the wide-open doors. The last time she had been here, visiting her… her troops…
Her head began to ache.
"Ah, you're awake! Splendid! Wonderful! Magnificent!" The verbal assault made her cower back into herself, and Volteer's looming yellow face morphed into an apologetic frown. "Oh, I'm sorry, I'll be quiet."
"Yes, that would be nice," came another rumbling voice, which sounded thoroughly exasperated. Cynder wanted to turn to look at him, but couldn't; she knew that voice. Terrador the Earth dragon had given her one of her most brutal battles, near the end, and she had injured him very badly before imprisoning him beneath Boyzitbig, just before it erupted. He was supposed to be incinerated – but here he was, clearly alive and well. And so was she. As the memory seared to the front of her mind, Cynder stayed perfectly still, paralyzed with fear. She had never thought she'd be faced with him again, especially like… this.
She took a quick, disorienting glance down at herself just to be sure. But it was true – her worst fears were confirmed when she saw her slender whip-tail shrunken down to a quarter of its previous size, her legs short and her wings so small that she wasn't even sure that they would keep her aloft. She could feel her eyes welling up with tears, something that she could scarcely remember happening to her… perhaps it had, in childhood.
Not that she cared to remember any of that.
Terrador had waited patiently for her to process this, but as the minutes passed and Volteer's lips began to twitch once more, he let out a deep sigh. "Come along, Cynder. Spyro has been awake at least an hour – and he's anxious to see you."
He WANTS to see me? she thought incredulously. The idea was appalling.
I tried to kill him – he already saved my miserable life. What more does he want to do with me?
Still, she was in no position to argue, so she rose stiffly from her nest of moss and blankets – which had clearly been well-tended to by somebody – and obediently nodded, following Terrador at a stumbling snail's pace as she made use of her new tiny legs for the first time. She wondered silently how long it had been, since they'd knocked themselves unconscious on the way back into these Realms, but she didn't feel comfortable asking. Not him. Perhaps not at all.
Her throat didn't feel right, she noted as she swallowed reflexively. Not that the rest of her did. But it was distracting.
She could feel Volteer's anxious presence too-close behind her in the hall. It was enough to set her on edge.
Do they really think that I'll try to escape?
When they arrived in the main chamber, Spyro was already there, surrounded by the other two concerned and doting Guardians. He spotted her right away and broke into his toothiest grin, Ancients only knew why, and she cautiously sidled up next to him. The larger dragons formed a half circle around them. It felt rather like a judgement – if it was, it was one which she deserved, she decided.
But no judgement came.
"Feeling better, Spyro?" Ignitus asked, low and tender. Unbidden and unreasonable, Cynder felt jealousy surge through her, rooting her to the spot with the cold fury of it. Perhaps if he had managed to muster that level of concern for her –
Get a hold of yourself. The past is the past. He couldn't have saved you.
"Not really, Ignitus…That battle drained every last bit of my strength. I can hardly even lift my head." Cynder did her best to contain the burst of alarm this elicited in her.
"Yes, it will take some time for your powers to return." The fire master seemed unperturbed, at least, which was a slight comfort. Spyro hung his head, as though ashamed – and seeming belatedly to realize that the implication might have been easily misinterpreted, Ignitus hastily continued. "But they will in time, young dragon. They will in time."
Cynder startled as Ignitus swung his massive head towards her earnestly, swallowing a gasp. He was massive now, in comparison to her. She'd never felt so powerless before another dragon and it made her woozy.
If he noticed her sudden dizziness, he was kind enough not to comment on it. "Cynder, ever since I failed the night of the raid, I've dreamed of this day."
"It wasn't just you, Ignitus," Volteer interrupted, unusually somber. His bubbly demeanor from minutes ago had disappeared. He peered down at the two young dragons apologetically, his wings flaring to emphasize his words. "We all failed."
Cyril and Terrador nodded solemnly in agreement, but Ignitus' eyes were still clouded.
"Be that as it may…" He seemed to take a deep breath, and smiled despite the melancholy mood that seemed to hang over them now. "We're together again now. Thanks to Spyro." He paused, glowing down on Spyro with all his fatherly pride, and Cynder watched as Spyro averted his eyes and flattened his wings to his side in embarrassment. "Well done, young dragon," Ignitus commended.
Spyro lifted his eyes again. "Thanks, Ignitus, but we still don't know what's happened to the Dark Master…"
That same question was increasingly prominent in Cynder's mind, as well; but again, she was too invested in fading into the background and hopefully going unnoticed for the rest of this meeting of minds. It seemed like she had a decent chance of it, with Spyro as the center of attention. Her jealousy had disappeared almost as soon as it had flared to life, shattered by the realization that she didn't want the attention that he couldn't seem to shake.
How does he stand it? She was already tired just thinking about it.
Terrador cleared his throat and stood taller. "No matter, Spyro," he rumbled. "There will be time to talk of the Dark Master later. Now, it's time to be grateful for your success."
She found herself nodding in agreement but made no sound. She hadn't spoken a word since she had woken up, in this tiny, frail body, and now that she thought about it, she wasn't sure that she could. She was afraid of what foreign sound might issue from her sore throat if she tried. Perhaps, she reasoned, the Master had stolen her voice when he had retreated from her mind. Maybe she wouldn't have to speak ever again.
That could be a good thing…
Dimly, she was aware that Sparx had been speaking in the background. Flies, in her opinion, were obnoxious – this one in particular seemed to dramatize everything and complicate dangerous situations almost beyond salvaging, and she had only met him a handful of times. Mostly in passing.
It had still been enough for her to know that she didn't like him.
"You were a big help, Sparx. No doubt about it." Spyro was offering, the good humor restored to his voice. Cynder felt her heart thump painfully in her chest at the sound.
Right. They had to keep the gnat around – because he made Spyro happy.
Happiness was the LEAST that that dragon deserved, Cynder thought to herself wistfully. He was her savior. Now that she was fully awake, she was beginning to realize just how much danger he'd put himself in to save her… Even the most bitter parts of her, the bits that told her that she was now indebted, chained again to a purple dragon, couldn't completely resent him.
He had saved her. There was no tiptoeing around it. He could have left her at the mercy of her Master – a shrunken, useless husk, a failure, and she would have deserved it – but instead he had braved the portal, braved the risk of being trapped in the Dark Realms with the dragon who would kill him savagely and eat his corpse, and rescued her.
Minutes after she had tried to rip his wings from his body, he had looked at her and recognized her as his kin.
Had said that it wasn't her fault.
She was desperate to believe him; but she couldn't quite conceptualize that he might be right.
"… no respect, no love, no credit…" Sparx was ranting. Cynder grimaced and ducked her head as Spyro turned to make exasperated eye contact.
That's the second time he's done that. Wonder was blooming somewhere beneath her scales, at the blackened, deadened center of her.
"My goodness," Ignitus said drily, turning to the other Guardians, "and I thought Volteer talked a lot."
As Sparx continued to ramble, Spyro stepped casually backwards and shifted closer to her. She could see his exhaustion, mirroring the bone-deep fatigue she felt in every joint and muscle, in the way that his wings drooped uselessly towards the ground.
"He'll shut up eventually," he whispered, eyes crinkling good-naturedly despite everything. She felt her snout crease in answering amusement, but no noise came from her throat. She still couldn't bring herself to try, for fear of failing.
If he was expecting a verbal response, he had the decency not to look disappointed when he didn't receive one. If anything, he seemed to understand.
Closing her eyes, she basked in the empathy, even though she had never done anything to deserve it. It was all that was anchoring her to the earth.
It was nearing dusk, and no further information had been gleaned in the days since their awakening in the Temple. Cynder, for her part, did not feel any less tired – the exhaustion only seemed to deepen the more she tried to stay awake. Both she and Spyro had been keeping odd hours, falling asleep at a moment's notice every few hours, for days.
He was troubled, she knew. It was horrible to watch. They were the same age, but he had led such a sheltered life – and now a war loomed on his rose-gold horizons, extinguishing them with cruel, impenetrable darkness.
The Dark Master would destroy this innocent dragon. And Cynder was powerless to stop it. She was powerless like this, and she loathed it.
She glimpsed a gold-tipped tail disappearing around the corner as she sat up groggily from an attempted nap, and ignoring her nausea, she sat up and forced her weary feet to follow him out onto the balcony. There he stood, looking up at the star-speckled sky searchingly, so lost and alone… She sidled up beside him carefully, wrapping her tail around herself lightly to keep out the chill of nightfall.
"See anything, Spyro?" she whispered, still illogically paranoid that the Guardians would hear her and begin the interrogation that she expected from them.
"No…" He sighed, meeting her gaze briefly before turning his head back towards the darkening sky. His scales still seemed dull, even in the soft starlight and the flickering light of the gleaming golden torches fixed to the side of the Temple behind them. "But I've got a bad feeling."
Cynder suspected that it was the same sinking feeling that she had felt lingering in her gut since she had been coherent enough to really think about what would happen next. Without even thinking about it, she dipped her head in agreement and moved closer to him. He didn't move away; she breathed a sigh of relief that her presence was welcome. Right now, the last thing that she could stand was loneliness.
Or perhaps it was only Spyro that she craved closeness to.
She'd never been so close to another young dragon, she reasoned, and so she forced herself to ignore the quickening beat of her heart as she felt his heat sink into her bones.
"Me, too," she mumbled.
The garden and its softly glowing rows of colorful Crystals held no answers for either of them, nor did the sky. Not even the soft gurgle of the stream could soothe her fears. They stood close together, in silent, fearful solidarity, until the heaviness of their recovering bodies forced them back inside the Temple and to their respective alcoves.
She wished that she could help him. But she had been corrupted long ago, a war machine, a great mutated monster with terrifying powers, and now… now there was nothing left in her.
She wouldn't be useful in the coming war.
But for now, he seemed as disoriented as she was – and she didn't want to lose this tentative connection that Spyro had forged between them.
He glanced back at her as they separated, staring into her face with startling intensity. For a moment it seemed like he wanted to say something – she could see the green of her eyes reflected in his, meshing with the liquid violet of them – but in the end he just smiled halfheartedly and waved a goodbye with his tail before trotting away. Cynder bit her tongue and didn't shout after him to ask, watching him turn the corner and disappear. It was tugging at her exhausted curiosity now like a tireless little firefly she knew; in fact, she was pretty sure that he was watching her suspiciously now from behind a pillar, but she didn't have the energy to confront him. She didn't even have the energy to follow after Spyro like she wanted to and settle in to nest with him for the night.
What would happen, she wondered, if she tried? Spyro was trying so hard to chip away the last of her defenses and break into her heart. She tried to banish the thought from her head as she patted down the moss with her paws and gingerly curled up to sleep for the night, but it wouldn't leave her alone. He had nothing – just as little as she did, maybe, if you didn't count Sparx – but he was willing to put his vulnerable heart on the line to try and draw her out of the withered husk of her innermost defenses. Naïve as ever. There was something charming about that kind of innocence.
She only wished that she had the courage to bridge that last little gap that separated them.
The images flew past her too quickly to process, all too-loud, too-bright, and the screaming could have been hers or maybe her mother's – the shouting, the shouting was definitely her father, building himself into one of his towering red rages that left holes in the walls and doors hanging from their hinges, and her mother bruised and crying out on the floor, reaching for her;
"Please, stop, David she's just a child –!"
She lost everything in these moments. Her name. Her self-control. She jerked her arms uselessly until she was gasping in pain, her shoulder dislocated. She was being herded towards the closet doors, which loomed menacing and larger than ever over her tiny body.
Why was she so small? Where were her wings?
The door banged open; bent wire hangers bared like teeth and moldy boxes full of keepsakes from another life gaped at her, but the darkness overwhelmed it all. She could hear the whimper leaving her throat before she could stop it. The burly man – her father? This monster? – leant down and snarled in her face, his sour booze-breath turning her stomach:
"Let's see how long it takes you to cry for daddy now."
Her mother let out a wounded noise, like a cornered animal, but it was muffled as the darkness snaked out its tendrils and pulled her in, the door slammed shut behind her.
She trembled in the absence of light. She was surrounded by her nightmares. Shapes moved and snarled quietly, ominously, amplified by the quick heaving of her little terrified lungs and the dreadful soundtrack of her mother's begging as her father slammed and shouted and threatened death to all of them. Everyone. This whole building full of people, this whole block – and her.
Most of all, her mother begged for her. Her young life. Her innocence.
Although she was too young to understand such a wide concept, April (was that her name? had anyone ever bothered to name her?) felt a chasm opening at the bottom of her chest forebodingly; for if she'd ever had any innocence, which she was starting to doubt, it was surely gone now.
For some reason, she felt like she had lost it long ago in darkness just like this.
But that couldn't be right.
She was only five years old.
These dreams confused her. She woke from them disoriented, as if she had forgotten she had wings, a tail, forgotten the entire shape of her and everything she'd been through… Minutes after waking she felt the last of it slip away, leaving her with only a lingering sense of foreboding.
The sunlight and Spyro's laughter often chased this away, but still, Cynder worried.
As the horrified shock and disbelief at the events that had transpired in Convexity had passed, Cynder found herself more and more convinced that something was still wrong – not just with the world around her, but within her.
Her mind itself felt broken. Whatever Malefor had done, whatever powers he had granted that disgusting ape Gaul in order to subdue her and create the monster she had worn the guise of for so long, it had warped her. He had known exactly how to corrupt her; he had carefully, brutally carved away her natural softness and shattered her mind, rebuilding it in a disturbed facsimile of the dragon she could have been. The dragon he would have been had he remained free. For him, she'd become a ruthless killer, more a weapon than a dragon with her own thoughts, her own heart.
In the quiet hours before dawn, when the Temple was dark and silent, she trembled with the fear that perhaps that murderous beast still existed somewhere inside of her. Was she a killer, after all of this? Spyro could have been wrong – it could still have been her fault, all of it, and she felt often that it was. That the atrocities she had committed, many of which she could still remember in all of their gory detail, were all down to her own twisted design.
Cynder was afraid to be alone, though she wouldn't admit it – or, perhaps more accurately, couldn't.
Who would she tell? Spyro?
No – he had more than enough to worry about.
The corridors of her mind were a terrifying well of darkness and barely contained hatred, and she was not sure if it belonged to her, to the monster, or if it had been left behind in His insidious wake. Her insides were sharp and unpredictable, and often left her bloody if she so much as tried to examine her memories of the past years. In particular, the months shortly after her hatching was obscured, and after the first shot of lightning-hot pain that had lanced through her skull she had ceased her efforts to recover it entirely.
There will be time for that later, she told herself, but even she was unconvinced by the wavering tone of her mental voice.
That other evil voice was gone from her head, as was the heavy presence of the Master; but as tired as she was, she couldn't bring herself to drop her guard. Several days were spent with her eyes forced wide open, her tail whipping fearfully at every soft footfall echoing through the halls, at every voice she did not immediately recognize, even at the glimpse of her own reflection in one of the pools in the garden.
Lunging backwards, she had found herself face-to-face with her own dark and rippling reflection in the clear water; her eyes were stretched wide in fear, but they were still recognizable. They were the only thing that hadn't been altered when Spyro had forced the evil out of her. Her body was smaller, younger and less deadly, but it seemed that her eyes would always remain the same. She took a strange, guilty sort of comfort in it.
Someday surely someone would recognize her as a mercenary, but for now, the opinions of the other dragons were all that mattered.
She stared at the markings that had appeared inexplicably bright on her forehead, one large rounded triangle and two smaller, thinner ones pointing downwards beneath it. To her they looked like twin crescent moons beneath the fullness of their mother.
She wondered if she had ever had a mother. Spyro spoke of his mother the dragonfly with a quiet reverence. Unconditional love and care were foreign to her, so much that she felt uncomfortable with the idea, but nevertheless a strange yearning took up residence in her chest cavity and refused to leave. Every time the wind blew across her back she was distracted by it, thinking… wondering.
She could not shake the lingering sense of unease as the days blurred together, and reality blurred similarly into the nights. There was the odd sense that nothing mattered – they were in limbo. The threat had receded, taken with it their most powerful defenses, and they were helpless to do anything but wait for them to be returned. The growing helplessness was horribly reminiscent of her time under the Dark Master's control, and Cynder couldn't tolerate it. She was growing restless. Her scales itched, and her wings yearned restlessly to take her away, to find some way of striking first. Of taking something back which should have been hers.
Of redeeming herself, maybe. If that was possible.
She knew that Spyro felt it too. His eyes had changed, though she didn't think he'd realized it yet, so caught up in his endless troubling thoughts that he hadn't taken a good look at himself. They glowed in the moonlight, more deeply violet than his scales, and iridescent. He was beautiful in a way – but so small. So young.
Cynder knew that she was young as well, but she didn't feel so at all. Not at all.
Another week passed before Ignitus approached her alone.
(She had not counted the hours, exactly, but it would be a lie to say that some pitifully small and insecure part of her hadn't been holding its' breath.)
Cynder found herself shrinking back against the wall as a monstrous shadow fell across her path. She was on her way back inside from a session of quiet absorption in the gardens, where she'd lain in the sun and rubbed her face against the nearest Crystal (fuschia, reminiscent of Spyro's eyes in the morning light) for several hours, and she had been perfectly relaxed until now. It was nothing but instinct; she was already chastising herself for it, embarrassed, not wanting Ignitus to sense the fear that choked her half to death… But he was nothing if not tactful, at least when it came to her, and when he finally turned the corner fully and leant down to speak to her, he made no mention of it.
"Cynder… I had wondered if you would come to speak with one of us. About your abilities." He seemed less than comfortable, which only served to make her more anxious.
She blinked slowly up at him, calculating all of the reasons that he might word it this way – what he might be avoiding.
"What… what do you mean?" she asked, her voice so pitifully small that she winced and cleared her throat. "Abilities?"
If she closed her eyes she was sure she could have conjured dozens of gruesome images, the sticky, oily feeling of using Malefor's gifts to hurl the earth and breathe wicked flame. She hadn't felt it lurking in the beds of her claws or in her throat in quite a while now, nor would she want to use those powers again if she could. A sick pit opened in her stomach; was this why she'd been allowed to recuperate here all this time, despite her crimes? The Guardians must want something from her. She'd been anxiously wondering since she'd woken up what it was. If Ignitus was going to ask her to try, to summon up the dregs of Malefor's power from her ravaged insides, she was afraid that she would have to tell him no.
Would they still let her stay at the Temple, if she didn't give them what they wanted?
"You are a dragon, Cynder." Ignitus said firmly. She blinked hard and nodded reluctantly for him to continue, which he did promptly. "And you have great potential… Spyro came into his abilities naturally, and recently." He looked intently into her eyes, projecting kindness fiercely enough to make her joints quake. "I am sure that, had circumstances been different, you might have as well. Malefor's influence corrupted your natural growth, and twisted it. Now that you are free of that influence…"
She swallowed, and forced herself to interrupt before he could continue. It was too painful to let him, or herself, hope. "I don't think that I have any."
She hadn't spoken to him directly since his capture, and if memory served (and unfortunately, it did) she had been… unforgivably cruel. Vicious. Even possessed by the Dark Master's sinister power, she had been bitter about Ignitus' neglect. He had been the last to see her egg, untouched and innocent, before it had been snatched away and enveloped in the darkness. If he had only stolen her egg as well, and sent her floating down a river, maybe…
But that didn't mean that he deserved the pain she'd inflicted on him. She focused on that guiltily.
He didn't seem to make the same connection, or if he did, then he passed no judgement. "Nonsense. Every dragon is born with an affinity. You are no exception."
She felt his eyes roam her lithe form very briefly, as if assessing her, and held her breath. No, no, no – she didn't want this hope, but it welled up in her anyway, like a natural hot spring. Uncontrollable.
Finally, he gestured to her forehead where the new markings gleamed like trapped moonlight, and murmured, "You are a midnight dragon. Do you know what that means?"
"No." The floor seemed to quake beneath her; it took her a long moment to realize that it was her that was quaking. She sank her claws into the grooves of the stone to anchor herself, feeling foolish in her excitement. "No one ever taught me about anything."
Except for killing, of course. Killing and magic that didn't belong to her.
This seemed to pass silently between them, and Ignitus' brows creased in sad sympathy. It forced her to look away from him. "That was – is – a crime. We dragons have a rich heritage, Cynder. You… and Spyro, as well…you both have been robbed of so much knowledge. So much history…"
He seemed to withdraw into himself, then, and for the first time Cynder realized that his flame-orange scales were bronzing at the edges. Ignitus was very old. He spoke of the Ancients often, but Cynder wondered if he might not be only a generation younger than those dragons of old… The other Guardians were certainly past their prime, with the exception of Volteer, but Ignitus moved – and spoke – like a dragon who had lived centuries, and seen far too many tragedies. His eyes were large and wise, his movements slow and unbearably regal sometimes. Sparx would say he was nothing but a great lumbering fire hazard, which in Cynder's opinion was just another reason that the dragonfly was nothing but a tiny, mouthy nuisance. Because Ignitus was imperfect, but he was clearly worthy of more respect than the rest of them put together… he had earned that much, with his tireless efforts to protect them. All of them.
She was startled to find his eyes fixed back on her, looming and curious. "Your mother…" He took a breath, as if deliberating how much information to dole out. Those words alone had her heart beating wildly, breath caught in her throat. "She, too, was a midnight dragon. I knew when I first saw your egg laid in its nest… it was pitch black, and beautiful. The same color as her scales… and as yours are, now."
He bowed his head in reverence. Cynder felt a silent whine begin in the back of her throat.
Her mother.
Hadn't she wondered only days ago if she'd had a mother, once? What had become of her?
She could be anywhere, but Ignitus had spoken of her as if she was buried in the past. Cynder knew what had happened to the other dragons who had frequented and inhabited the Temple. Ice filled her veins and stilled her heart with painful suddenness.
Did I kill her?
Ignitus seemed to read her horrified thoughts, and he shook his head. "No, Cynder, your mother was very old… she was a nest mother in her last season, and you were among her last heirs." He closed his eyes wistfully, remembering; Cynder longed to see what was behind those closed lids so badly that her chest cavity ached.
"She laid only three eggs, that season. Your siblings were crushed… in the raid. Before they could ever have hatched." His voice trailed into a regretful whisper as it always did when the raid was brought back to the front of his mind. He lifted his head to gaze about the Temple, as if to reassure himself that that time was past. "You would have been the only midnight dragon among them, Cynder. You are very special."
"No – no." She couldn't internalize that. It just didn't fit. Her eyes fell shamefully to the stone floor, wings flattening to her flanks. "I'm not special, Ignitus… no matter how special my mother was. If I was special, I wouldn't have been so easy to…"
"Malefor is a very powerful foe," Ignitus said gravely. He paced heavily to the right, towards the small window which was set too high for Cynder to reach. The light dappled the small scales on his face like something angelic, while Cynder remained on the ground in the dim torchlight and flickering shadow which lapped comfortingly at her ankles and draped over her shoulders, blending right in with her scales, like coming home. "You could not have stopped him. Even if you had been fully grown."
She felt the old anger surge up in her, then, the helpless kind which had motivated some of her nastiest kills. "Then what is the point? What's the point of all of this, Ignitus, if none of us are strong enough to defeat him? Or will you admit that I'm just weak?"
He levelled a quelling look at her. "You are not weak, Cynder, but the strengths of the midnight dragon lie elsewhere… Spyro is our only hope. He is a purple dragon. His strength lies in the elements, and the power of the Ancients which flows through him."
"His abilities are gone," Cynder muttered, not realizing her own petulance. She was troubled. Ignitus watched her with all of the patience of a parent – a foreign feeling to her, as she had never had an adult in her life with any good intentions. His tail curled protectively in a wide circle around the both of them.
"They will return in time," he said soothingly. "As will yours. If you had not been corrupted..."
She couldn't stand to hear those words again.
"I have no abilities to return, Ignitus. My powers… they were his. He infected me with them…" It was more and more difficult to speak, her throat so clogged with emotion, with memory. She did not want to relive it all; but the surface tension could only withstand so much, and she was beginning to fear that she would break it, and it would all come spilling out like black ink to stain everything around her. She was nothing but a container full of wickedness. The last words came out a fearful whisper.
"I don't even know who I am."
"Have patience." Ignitus said firmly but not unkindly. "As I said, the midnight dragon is a creature of great potential… There have been only so many throughout history, you know."
She didn't want to fall into the trap of curiosity, but she was horribly deprived, she realized. Ignitus had been right when he said that she had been robbed of her heritage. Under Gaul's hateful tutelage, Cynder had hardly even understood that she was a dragon until she had grown prematurely huge and mutated, complete with her dark transplanted powers.
There had never been a time that she had been able to appreciate, or even comprehend, the true nature of what she was. She had never reveled in magic beyond its capacity to maim her opponents… she had never stopped to play, as she had seen Spyro do, to frolic and joyously learn to manipulate the elements the way they were meant to.
She had never felt special. She had never considered any of this to be special… or anything more than a tool. The realization felt crushing. Her childhood… gone. Her innocence… had never even existed. She had been fashioned into a killer the moment she had hatched from the safety of her egg, and the world she had broken into had turned out to be one of unending darkness, poison, sickening fear, and unforgiving, howling wind.
She thought of Concurrent Skies, and how alone she had felt lurking among the crystals by herself, her distorted reflection surrounding her and providing a poor companion. She thought of the many questions she had learned not to ask, and the wanting she had repressed.
And so, she couldn't help herself from asking just one of the questions that had begun pressing at the edges of her skull. Her voice trembled. "What was my mother's name?"
Ignitus smiled sadly. "Andromeda." The syllables seemed to ring in her ears, unfamiliar but hauntingly beautiful.
Cynder let loose a quiet sob.
"Did she name me?" she managed, even though the world seemed to quake around her, threatening to fall to pieces once again. It was always doing that, and it was getting tiresome, always being assaulted by this panic, this crisis that only seemed to affect her.
"I am afraid that she did not have the time. In our culture, Cynder, a nest mother does not name each of her children… The elders are often given that prestigious task. A young dragon does not have one, or two parents, but a whole community of mentors, and a whole nest full of peers that they may consider their kin in one way or another. But," he said thoughtfully. "I believe that she would have wanted to name you."
His eyes roamed the slender, pointed shape of her wings, her tail. "Yes," he confirmed again, more to himself than to her. "You are the last of her bloodline. She would have given you a name, had she been alive to."
Head spinning, Cynder felt herself lowering her belly to the floor before she had a chance to decide if she even wanted to. This was… too much.
But she needed it so badly, this and so much more. The questions were practically pouring from her ears now, down her throat, flooding her lungs and her veins and her throbbing heart.
She couldn't find her voice to speak, so for once she was glad when Ignitus spoke for her.
"I know that you must have questions, young dragon. I will always be more than happy to answer them. I have… much to make up for."
His neck stretched downward so that he could touch his chin to her head, very gently; he murmured a good night and then he was rising again to turn the corner and disappear, leaving her prone in the torchlight, her hot tears decorating the stone beneath her head.
She did not know how long she laid there imagining the past, as it could have been and as it might have been. She conjured up an image of her mother in her mind – Andromeda, unbearably beautiful, enormous and lithe the way that Cynder should have been allowed to grow, hovering protectively over her little nest of dark, glittering eggs. She imagined the apes as she remembered them, hairy and snarling, beating her siblings' eggs into pulp against the rocks, cracking them open and letting them slide lifelessly out of the glittering pieces…
And then she remembered how she had been – the huge, tattered wings she had battered the air with, the terror she had inspired in every creature she encountered, sometimes only seconds before she ripped out their throats.
The darkness wrapped around her like a suffocating blanket as even the out-of-reach daylight began to fade, leaving only the torches to illuminate the hall.
She didn't want to know what her mother would think of her now.
Spyro found her by the fountain, feeling sorry for herself. She was so absorbed in her task of despondently tracing the lines of the golden dragon maw with her eyes that she scarcely noticed his approach, until he headbutted her shoulder and snorted loudly in her ear.
She whirled about and fixed him with her most reproachful expression. "I'm busy."
"Yeah, you looked busy." His soft, smiling sarcasm was sometimes too much for her; Spyro was one-of-a-kind, as far as she was concerned. Cynder swallowed down the strange, unwelcome fluttering of her heart and attempted to glare at him. It obviously fell flat, because he laughed, "Redesigning the fountain? Or the entire Temple?"
He settled down beside her and let his tail curve maybe just slightly too close to her. Friendly. She blinked at it until it started to blur, and then turned her eyes skyward as the burning rose again behind her eyes. Spyro was like a magnet for her tears, she thought morosely.
She didn't mean to confess anything to him. It just... slipped out. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do now."
He peered upwards as if chasing her gaze, humming thoughtfully. "Well… I guess it depends on what you mean."
"I don't know who I am. I don't feel real." Like peeling bark, the words fell from her, lightening her load. Revealing her pale, empty insides for him to see. "I don't have any abilities like you, Spyro. Ignitus says that I would have… that I should. But I don't."
Now that her horrible insecurity was out in the open, she already felt foolish. Spyro was quiet for a moment as he absorbed it. She was thankful for that. She didn't know how soon she could bear it – because it would be either condemnation or lies.
Maybe she was no better than the others. Maybe she was placing too much unreasonable hope in a dragon no older than herself, and nearly as frightened as she was. She closed her eyes and berated herself for it.
Spyro has enough terrible expectations… He has his own burdens… You're going to become one of them if you keep using him like this…
He spoke very slowly, as if even he was unsure of if his ideas were possible. "Maybe Ignitus is right… You have to give yourself time, Cynder. Every dragon has an element, right? You can't be the exception, just because you were kidnapped."
"That's a nice way of putting it," she grumbled, but it was hard not to smile. He had such a naïve way of seeing things.
She often wondered if he knew, if he could even guess, the sorts of things she had been through. She suspected that he didn't have the scope to imagine it quite yet – which wasn't his fault, really. He was young. She'd never been allowed the luxury. He'd never experienced anything like she had, thank the Ancients.
Maybe I should tell him, she thought guiltily. Maybe I've been hiding things… because if he knew, then he wouldn't want to sit with me like this, and talk beneath the stars. Not with someone like me.
Spyro wouldn't befriend a killer.
Still, by some twist of fate he had, and perhaps he deserved to know. Just in case he wanted to get away from her – save himself the trouble, and the pain.
"Spyro," she began quietly after a long, peaceful moment. He was gazing dreamily at the sky, but he turned to her when she called his name, those large eyes full of more understanding than she deserved. She forced herself not to look away. "I don't think you understand… the things I've done. The things that he did to me."
"Hey – wait," Spyro protested, front legs rising suddenly, as if the look on her face had inspired him to spring up to defend her from herself. "Don't you go thinking that any of that was your fault. Cynder, you hadn't even hatched yet when you were taken!"
She blinked, taken aback by his vehemence. Unmoved, she shrugged and continued, "It doesn't matter, though, because I still did all of those horrible things… Maybe I was ordered to do them, but I did them."
"You aren't bad," he insisted, shuffling closer to her and pressing their flanks together. "You're amazing. I would never have been able to stand that… I don't think I would have lived through it, but you did. And now you're here!" He gestured emphatically with one paw around the ivy-covered garden, towards the Temple which rose serenely over them like a shield from the real world. "You're still you. That counts for something."
Am I still me? She shook the distracting thought from her head and heaved an exasperated sigh. "Spyro, I don't think you get it. I killed a lot of people… I killed dragons." She swallowed bile, and thought that she saw him do the same. He sat down again without being told, though their wings still brushed. She couldn't decide if he'd done that on purpose.
"I tortured people… for information… for fun." She drew a shuddering breath, suddenly lightheaded all over again. This day just keeps getting better, doesn't it? "I wore chains but they stopped using them to drag me around by the time I stopped growing… I liked feeling powerful, Spyro. I would have killed you."
She could still feel the phantom sadistic delight she'd taken in pounding him into the ground. Little one, she used to call him. Bite sized.
Perhaps she had felt badly for it back then, too, but that wouldn't have stopped her from murdering him in cold blood. Had Malefor commanded it, she would have sunk her fangs all the way through him and watched him bleed to death on the ground before her.
He didn't miss a beat, tail wrapping tightly around her side. The tip nudged at her chest. "You weren't in your right mind," he said confidently. Her eyes were still intolerably dry from her earlier crying spell, but she could feel her tear ducts swelling all over again, hot and itchy. She didn't want to cry anymore, but she couldn't help it – there was just so much wrong, with her and with the world. Why did Spyro bother with her?
"I've already forgiven you, Cynder." He peered at her compassionately, tipping his head closer to her in invitation. "You need to forgive yourself."
She tucked her head underneath his chin, part out of desperation to keep him from seeing her tears begin to fall, but mostly because she needed his comfort.
"I don't think I can."
Evidently he knew that it would be useless to argue with her any further, because he didn't say another word for a long, slow moment, just staring into her eyes intently as if he was trying to figure something out. Cynder forced herself not to look away even though she desperately wanted to, feeling the tears flood closer to the surface every moment. He unfolded one wing carefully and rested it over her back, like a thin, comforting orange blanket.
She let out a ragged breath.
"You can cry," he whispered, and she couldn't help herself.
It made sense to her, that she would have another nightmare that night, after she had found a quiet alcove to tuck herself into – far away from everyone else. There were too many thoughts spinning wildly, nauseatingly through her mind, and at first sleep was difficult. Soon, though, she embraced it… if only because she could no longer bear to be awake.
It was short, but just as horribly confusing as the others.
There was a one-story brick building, the blinding sun between the clouds, and a horde of clamoring children looking up at her, some jeering and some wide-eyed with fear.
She had worked hard to climb this far up and outwards. Her limbs had never seemed so stubby and weak, and she gasped for breath, the metal bars digging painfully into her knees and the heels of her hands. The ring her mother had given her was too large by far, so because it was beautiful and because she felt terror every time she felt it slip up and down her finger, she'd tucked it into her pocket for safekeeping while she climbed this contraption. They were called "monkey bars" which, in her half-conscious daze, she found incredibly strange. The other children had simultaneously egged her on and threatened to tattle on her to the supervising teacher currently dozing in a lawn chair in the shade of the school building.
She couldn't remember why she had climbed up here, but now that she was so high up from the ground she was beginning to feel dizzy. The wind pulled at her hair and the hood of her jacket. She could hardly hear herself think over it.
One child called something up to her, a crude, half-heard insult, and she felt her fingers curling in towards her palms instinctively, cheeks flushed with cold and rage. It was the same classmate who had stolen her paper at lunch. The drawing she'd worked so hard on – two purple and black blobs, morphing together, but it had meant something in her mind, and it had hurt when he'd torn it in two right in front of her and dropped the pieces into the trash can proudly.
It was too much. Too much. This, on top of home, everyone always yelling, and the darkness gaping inside of her all the time trying to suck her in – she was SO ANGRY –
She was on her feet, swaying unsteadily on the bars, shouting down at him until her voice failed her, but before she could clamber back down to safety the wind swept viciously around her and she felt the empty air beneath her feet only moments before she was plummeting to the ground, teeth piercing and bloodying the inside of her mouth, the bones of her arms crunching loudly enough that that sleeping teacher came white-faced and running towards her –
She couldn't hear what she was saying, her mind gone numb, images coming unbidden –
Her father with his hands wrapped tight enough to bruise around her ankles, dangling her out the window, she couldn't have been more than three years old, why hadn't she remembered this before now, was that her mother crying or her own terrified sobbing –?
"April, April, tell me your birthday, honey, can you feel this? Can you hear me? Has somebody called 9-1-1?!"
She squeezed her eyes shut and took a shuddering breath. It tasted of iron.
Her scream was stolen by the wind, too, but hell – it was LOUD.
She was beginning to develop a theory, about the dreams.
She mentioned it to no one – not even Spyro – but it weighed heavily on her cracked mind even in the daytime, like an open wound, and she was increasingly worried that someone would catch on – that it was becoming obvious to everyone that she was slowly going insane.
The lingering images of the Dark Realms that haunted her in every waking moment of the day had been nagging her for weeks, almost too horrible to comprehend. She couldn't even put words to some of the things that she had seen beyond the portal – she was afraid to try, as if even speaking about the place would provide it a doorway into these Realms, and she – along with all of the others – might be sucked back into it, even as it came pouring out to corrupt every bright and innocent thing that it touched.
The Dark Master really must be twisted to have survived there for so long, she thought with a fearful shudder. Or maybe it had made him twisted – maybe, before all of this, he had been only a minor threat, and the Ancients had only made it so much worse by deciding to contain rather than kill him.
If she had been imprisoned in somewhere half as terrifying… Cynder was terrified enough of what she had been crafted into here, in this Realm. Had she been poisoned as a hatchling with the very same toxins that she'd inhaled in the Darkness?
Was she hellspawn?
In the end, she chose to stop thinking about it, if only to preserve the remnants of her self-esteem. The only thing she knew for certain was that things had changed the moment she had passed through that portal. Her mind was fragmented now, her abilities conceivably stolen from her forever – and she blamed Malefor for it with every burning, vengeful speck of her being.
She couldn't even feed now without feeling the uncomfortable absence of something inside of her where his magic had been. She felt empty.
Time seemed to pass strangely at the Temple, and Cynder grew less patient with each sunrise. The Guardians were puttering around, tending to the crystal beds in the gardens and the tunnels and seeming to do nothing else remotely useful. Cynder tried to feed from the crystals as she was supposed to, and to sleep regularly, to pretend everything was normal… but it was becoming clearer and clearer that it wasn't, and now both of those things were becoming uncomfortable for her. She wanted to do something, if only to make herself feel better. Please. Just a distraction. Ignitus had rejected her request for training, even when she had convinced Spyro to second her plea. He claimed that they were weak and far from ready for any sort of battle; nothing they could say would sway him.
Of course, goody-goody that he was, Spyro accepted this with more grace than Cynder felt she'd ever be able to muster and went on his merry way to do the same as the rest of them – that was to say, nothing. She wanted to spit fire sometimes just watching him talk with Ignitus like he was some sort of idol. It was appalling.
She'd come to revel in the fire master's wisdom, and his seemingly endless kindness towards her… but. Well. Perhaps she was just jaded. But Cynder still didn't like the way that Spyro fawned over him, clamored for his attention. It was… just a bit too much. Spyro didn't lack common sense, she knew that much, but he was understandably naïve, and this was bordering on hero worship. She wondered cynically if Ignitus secretly craved it – if he had spent so many years lonely, hopeless, and downtrodden that the mooning of a pupil was all that kept him going.
In her opinion, Ignitus shouldn't allow it. But no one was asking for her opinion.
Really, though, she was in no position to judge anyone for mooning. Cyril had been lovely as well, so much so that Cynder couldn't even look at him for fear of crying and embarrassing herself. When there was little else to do and she could get away with lurking in the shadowy corners while the other dragons mingled, she watched him furtively, scales flushed and fluttering at the way that he moved. So sleek and silvery, with a rare bare-throated laugh that made her weak. He was a quiet, thoughtful sort, in a way that reminded her strongly of Spyro – which, admittedly, was probably the main reason that she preferred him.
That, and he was always doing things that would have made any young dragon swoon… like bringing her fresh bedding at odd hours, or asking if her head was feeling better.
She lied consistently, when he did this, which she should probably have felt worse about. But there was no reason to worry the others. She could cope with this alone.
Terrador's watchful gaze followed Cynder practically everywhere she went, which did nothing to settle her scales. And Volteer's jabbering was a mind-numbing constant that Cynder was always desperate to escape.
And so all of those things, in combination with her increasing paranoia, led Cynder inevitably to the empty corridor where Spyro had let slip that the training dummies were kept.
The air in the cramped little closet was stale and dusty with disuse, although Cynder was sure that Spyro had made use of this very equipment at least a month ago. Dust motes floated heavily in the thick, humid summer air, rendered visible by the low-burning torchlight in the corridor behind her. Her shadow was too-long, and reminded her too much of her old self – her old body.
Cynder took a single, cautious step inside – and immediately sneezed. She froze, twisting her neck backwards to make sure that she hadn't been followed. It was unreasonably late, and the other dragons should be well into their sleep cycles by now – even Spyro, who unlike Cynder had gotten over the nightmares after a fortnight of ragged edges, and now slept through most nights without screaming even once. But one could never be too careful.
When she'd regained her breath and her balance, she crept forward once more, keeping low to the ground as she surveyed the items at her disposal. There were perhaps twenty wooden training dummies in the guise of apes, complete with straw stuffing and leather simulated "armor".
Cynder scoffed, but secretly it was a little impressive – just not useful.
They were still right now, but Spyro had described the way they ran about when they were told to, trailing magical energy like sparks. They must be enchanted. Cynder circled one battered ape-dummy critically, searching out any sign of a crystal used for activation. It was propped against a wooden cage, looking rather sad and defeated with its neck slumped forward and it's armor coming loose around it's back, hanging off of its square shoulders. There were no crystals to be seen, and she bit back a disappointed huff.
Of course. Her mental voice had lost none of its snark, mocking Ignitus' deep, droning timbre nearly perfectly. 'This equipment is meant to be used with supervision only.'
Well, she had no dragon magic at her disposal, now or possibly ever, so it seemed that she'd have to make do with beating on them the old fashioned way.
Backing away again, Cynder peered beyond the dummies to the racks of wooden weapons and mock-armor against the far right wall, and then up towards the hooks near the ceiling. The shape was too familiar, and she felt her scales on her back as she squeezed between two piles of limp ape dummies to get a better look. From the silver hooks hung long, thin dark chains coated in a thick layer of white dust, obviously untouched for many years. Cynder's entire body screamed at her to run, but she fought down the disturbing instinct, backing away slowly to make sure she hadn't missed anything else. Her ankles felt curiously heavy, as if something were curled around them, but when she looked down at them there was nothing but the shadows of the equipment, hardly even visible against her dark scales.
The closet was dominated largely by dummies and little else that held any interest to a magic-less adolescent dragon. There was a battered wooden chest in the corner, glowing faintly, which she could only assume contained specialized crystals which not even Spyro had probably been allowed to touch this early in his training. Those were also useless to her, but… it was interesting.
She noted it for later.
The room that she had taken to hiding in during the daytime was large enough for this purpose, but it was quite a ways away. Cynder shook her head and thought hard.
The Guardians always slept in the main chamber that lead out to the balcony, under the mosaic-distorted moonlight. But Terrador often woke before dawn to wander the corridors and occasionally check on the young dragons he considered his charges. Spyro, too, was always looking for her when he woke.
If I start now, Cynder thought to herself anxiously. Then I might be able to get four or five of these things tucked away before anyone notices…
Sighing quietly, the black dragon reared up on her hind legs and set about clumsily re-tying the leather laces on the dummy in the dark.
She had her work cut out for her, but she'd be damned if she couldn't defend herself later. Soon.
The apes wouldn't give her any leeway. She would have to be in the best shape she could be; she couldn't afford to let her reflexes dull, lazing around all day "recovering" as she'd been told to. Cynder wasn't a child. She didn't care how small she looked – she was no naïve dragonling like Spyro, no innocent angel as Spyro would like to believe.
She knew all too well what was out there, beyond the dreamlike safety of the Temple grounds. And she was prepared to rip throats out if she had to.
She beat the stuffing out of those dummies for the week afterward as if her life depended on it. While at first her body resisted, within a few short days she had remastered a good portion of the movements she'd been drilled on since hatchlinghood.
Cynder had spent a good portion of her short life in a body that had hardly seemed to belong to her. She remembered the quasi-freedom of being able to stretch her wings and feel them cast a shadow across the earth – but with every stretch had come pain, and her body had always ached, even after it had stopped growing quite so rapidly. Gaul had only laughed when she'd complained about the pain, and so she had been able to do nothing but watch the holes grow in the membranes between her bones, and clamp down on the nauseous pain whenever it came over her.
Her Master had no time for her weakness. She had had a part to play, and she would learn to play it flawlessly, or she would cease to be useful and join the other dragons from her nest, shells left shattered and stomped upon in the hollow Dragon Temple. At least, that's what she'd been told.
Gaul had been a ruthless taskmaster; he hated dragons with every last filthy hair on his body, and he aimed all of that resentment towards Cynder, who was helpless to do anything but take it and obey. She had learned to dodge and roll with the wind; to flare her wings and block her opponents from their escape; to use her tail like a spear-tipped whip. She had learned to slash with her growing claws, and to mercilessly wrap her jaws around fragile necks and jerk them until they snapped.
She also learned to inflict pain before death, to be cruel, to taunt her victims until they were broken without having been touched at all.
The dummies couldn't hear her, so she stayed silent except for her panting breaths and occasional furious growls as she rammed them over and over again with her head, her tail, and her bony little shoulders. Her diminutive stature had taken getting used to at first – it was a whole new style of fighting, from this angle, looking up at her 'opponents' that were up to three times her size. But it wasn't that much more difficult, and soon she was running up the walls and launching herself sideways into the helpless dummies so hard that they flew across the room and split open against the walls.
It shouldn't have been so surprising to her that the training was not enough to calm her mind. But the frustration that had knotted somewhere in her chest, wedged just beneath her frantic heart, was immoveable.
At least, she thought wryly, it keeps me from killing Sparx.
No amount of violence was enough to keep her thoughts completely quiet and in order. But the time passed more easily this way, even as she fretted and obsessed and remembered – and at the end of the night, having spoken to no one, she was finally tired enough to sleep. Several nights passed dreamlessly, blissfully, and Cynder almost began to feel hope that she had balanced herself out.
But Spyro was observant, and she couldn't hide from him forever.
It was a matter of luck that she hadn't yet accidentally activated a crystal. She knew that the moment it happened – when the glowing began, she scrambled backwards, spitting straw from her mouth and quaking as green light burst from the dummy's throat, where a crystal glinted in the low light. As it fell backwards, thrown off balance by her hasty retreat, the ground shook – Cynder felt terror seize her around the neck like a vice.
She was panicked. She couldn't move! The earth was shooting up in chunks from around the prone ape, and all she could think was –
"You had better be faster than that," Gaul threatened, shaking his staff above his head and calling down the purple-green light that always spoke of agony. She cringed away, mouth already gaping and bloody, shaking with fear.
"Come on, Cynder," he hissed mockingly, marching closer and prodding her roughly with the sickly verdant crystal at the tip of it. "Your Master expects better than this. Get up!"
Her hide hissed as the hot crystal burned a hole straight through one of the dark scales on her flank. It melted and warped back into place only seconds later, and Cynder looked away, sickened as she was forced to stumble back to her feet.
"I need to rest," she pleaded, her voice half-gravel, half-whine. She was not big enough yet, she wanted to explain, she just needed more time and then she could fight back –
Gaul's staff smacked her in the mouth and pain burst down through the roots of her fangs. She howled and dropped back to the floor as more green light splashed over her, the blood dripping from her lips, and the earth began to rumble menacingly and split apart beneath her feet –
"Cynder!" Spyro cried, barreling into the room at a breakneck pace as Cynder began to shriek. She hardly had time to come back to herself and shake the fear-soaked memory from behind her closed lids before he was tackling the poor defenseless dummy into the wall, shattering the crystal in his claws.
He spun back to face her, that stricken expression lingering on his face. He searched her eyes. "Cynder? Are you alright?"
"I –" Cynder backed up and leaned against the cool stone of the wall, shuddering. She couldn't think of any way she could word it that would actually fool him. "I'm – fine. Just startled…"
Her heart was beating so wildly in her chest that she was sure he could hear it. The panic constricting her throat like the shackles she had worn only a short time ago refused to leave, and her voice was raspy with it – as if she needed any further humiliation. She fluffed out her wings to shield her face, huddling protected beneath them.
Spyro approached her slowly, concern etched in every part of his body. He was winded – she suddenly wondered how loudly he had screamed, and what she had said that had made him come so quickly from wherever he had been. In all likelihood, she realized with a sinking feeling, he had been sleeping… and she had woken him from his pleasant dreams with her stupid, senseless overreaction.
The more she considered it, the more ridiculous she felt, until she was pressing her forehead to the dirt. The shame crawled over her and dug under her scales and into her bones.
Spyro wouldn't have reacted like this, she seethed at herself. It's just MAGIC. You're a DRAGON. What did you expect?
"You… weren't having a nightmare, were you." He said slowly. It didn't sound like a question so much as a tentative statement. Without even looking up, she knew that he was glancing around at the evidence piled about the room – the targets lining the walls, the dummies awaiting her awkward repairs heaped broken all atop each other off to the side, and the worn path of her paws, the line where her wingtip skimmed the wall each time she ran alongside it to gain momentum.
"No… No, I was…" She wished she could find the words. She felt like a dirty liar, lying here like this in her shame, having to be rescued from an inanimate object by a dragon with only a tiny fraction of her experience.
"Cynder, it's okay… I'm not mad," Spyro said cautiously as he came to rest his chin across the back of her neck comfortingly. She shifted as if to move away, but already his warmth was making that impossible, seeping into her and forcing her heartbeat to slow. "I've kind of been wondering where you've been lately, so I guess at least now I have an answer."
His good humor was too much to bear right now. Cynder took a ragged breath and let it out, shaking her head beneath his and rubbing her markings into the earth. "No, it's not okay, Spyro… I don't know what's happening to me."
"You're still recovering," he whispered, so earnest, even though she knew he was only parroting Ignitus' tireless mantra. "Why are you fighting it? You need to rest."
"I still hear him," she whispered brokenly. Spyro shut his mouth and just looked at her, gentle and coaxing her to keep talking. How can you be so damn supportive of someone who tried to kill you half a dozen times? Her mouth was running without her now, in cracked whispers. "I still hear his voice, Spyro. I still see… I see Gaul – I hear him, and – and he's telling me that I have to focus, and do things, and…"
"That's not true anymore," Spyro offered. "You're safe here. Whatever happened to you before… You're free, here. No one is going to make you do anything that you don't want to, Cynder. We just want you to be okay."
Okay? She couldn't muster incredulity but later she was sure that she would. She gritted her teeth. "He was all I could think about, Spyro," she bit out. "All that I was allowed to think about. I don't know how to get rid of him."
"My mind is playing tricks on me." She was glad that he hadn't asked her to look at him. She could still see Gaul's manic face in her mind's eye, and her wings trembled. "I keep having these dreams – and now even during the day, I see things. I see Him."
There was no question of which Him she was talking about now. They both shivered.
Spyro nuzzled slowly against her, his pulse throbbing on top of hers, his breaths starting to calm. "I've been having dreams, too," he confessed tentatively. His eyes still roamed her face wonderingly, and if she'd had the capacity to she would have wondered what was so interesting about the way she looked. He did this too often lately, whenever they were alone.
She just slumped further towards the ground, unconvinced. He's not getting it. "I don't think that they're the same, Spyro."
They definitely weren't, actually – Spyro was extraordinary, and he probably had special, prophetic dreams or something, fitting of a purple dragon – but she had no way of convincing him without divulging the contents of her own. And she might… if she could properly remember them. But when it was all so shrouded in doubt and fear, Cynder couldn't justify troubling Spyro, too. She was clearly enough trouble for him as it was.
"I know you're scared, Cynder. But I'm scared too. You're not alone."
"I know."
They lapsed into semi-comfortable silence then. Slowly, the fear began to leech out of her: she visualized it siphoning from beneath her scales like thin black smoke and coalescing outside of her body, a huge dark shape made of plasma, with glowing hungry eyes – it took the shape of her old body, she realized, spreading huge wispy wings and silently opening its maw as if to shriek at her. But there was only silence.
When she opened her eyes, the room was empty, still dappled cheerfully with the light of the torches lining the walls. There was no terrifying silhouette standing over them.
She let herself relax, at last. Safe.
There was no one to harm them here. Not now… Not yet. This had all been an accident. Next time, she would be prepared; she wouldn't freeze or fall into a crazed panic the moment she made a wrong move. Not even if Gaul himself was coming for her throat.
"I wish that you hadn't seen me like this." She forced the words from her clenched jaw, unable to meet his eyes. She knew what she would see there.
He's seen you much worse, her mind whispered traitorously.
"I don't think you're weak," he promised. As though that were the worst of her troubles. She choked back a laugh and laid back down against him, mentally bracing herself for the cleanup. There was still time left, and she had none to waste, so she would have to get up soon and continue her session.
"I'm way faster than you," she said, with exhausted flippancy. "So you'd better not think I'm weak… I'll get you." She felt him rub his snout along the slim line of her jaw and she arched her neck to allow him room. Oh. That feels good.
"You're on," he said challengingly. Despite his words, he didn't move a muscle. They were perfectly comfortable where they were for the moment. In the background, she could hear Sparx coughing angrily, and she snorted with laughter both at Spyro's mocking tone and at his little familiar's outrage at their casual touching.
The mirth was almost enough to drain the last of the anxious tension from her body. But a lingering sense of dread remained.
She was falling apart. She could feel it.
"After this," he was saying, looking suddenly entirely too cheerful. "We should go lie in the gardens for a while… I bet you're feeling tired. I know I will be, soon."
She felt herself nod but her mind remained preoccupied, even as she followed him into the center of the room to begin their sparring session.
Despite all of Spyro's clumsy attempts at comforting her, Cynder could feel her sense of self beginning to slip right back out of her grasp.
She couldn't tell if she was asleep or if her nightmares had taken shape in the shadows playing on the walls of her childhood bedroom. There was one with huge, tattered wings that she was sure would eat her; another, mangy and shaking a stick at her as though to beat her with it; and the last, most terrifying, a pair of huge deranged eyes set in a dark, crackling hide, fangs like stalactites come to sink down through her flesh –
April kicked the sheets frantically from around her feet, fumbling for the journal stashed beneath her pillow and the stub of a pencil wedged into its binding.
She had to draw it. Her fingers shook, but she forced them to move, to put down stroke after stroke until the lead was flat against the wood. She couldn't let them disappear this time.
If she was going to be eaten, she at least wanted someone to know by what.
"No… no…" Cynder groaned, twisting and writhing in the dirt. "No – STOP! Please, stop it, I don't want this!"
She could not be sure if she was awake or sleeping. The flashbacks and the lapses in consciousness had become so erratic and intense that she could never really tell, anymore. No matter how tightly she squeezed her eyes shut, the unwelcome memories wouldn't cease – the strange dreams wove between them, frightening flashes of another violent world and another fleshy body that seemed so stretched and ungainly it was practically useless.
It was as if she'd accidentally unlatched the wrong door somewhere in the secret center of her mind and let all of this in, she thought miserably. The rips in the oily fabric of the Dark Realms sprang to mind, glimpses of other realities, but she discarded that frightening idea quickly. It was her own stupid fault – it was her own actions that tormented her, and the rest must be her punishment. It was only what she deserved; it had only been a matter of time until it all came back to haunt her.
She had spent several days like this, wracked with guilty spasms and prone to fits of sudden, terrifying hyperventilation. Twice, Ignitus had nearly caught her during one of her paroxysms, but she had managed to successfully avoid practically everyone else.
There was a strength to her small size and drab coloring that she hadn't considered until then.
The sun continued to rise and fall, and the moons continued to loom larger and more ominous above them. Ignitus had shuffled about for a while, muttering something about the Eternal Night – some great evil lunar eclipse, which Cynder could hardly be bothered to worry about considering her already deteriorating mental state. She hadn't tried very hard to decipher it. She had, in the depths of her gut, the hideous certainty that none of it mattered… she began to wonder if she would even be alive long enough to see this supposed evil.
Her mind was weakening, she surmised. She was still decaying after all. Removing Malefor's magic from her body had only slowed the process…
But it was all catching up to her.
Her personal training had ground temporarily to a halt, except for short, frenzied bursts when she was so overcome by her own helplessness that she simply needed something to take it all out on. Spyro, she knew, sometimes watched her from the hallway; the scales on the back of her neck prickled and burned in response to his concerned attention, but she never turned to meet his eyes as she lunged and tore at the dummies. He seemed to realize that company wasn't what she wanted right then, or needed.
Twice more, the dummies' crystals were shattered, and Cynder felt no remorse. It was an empty symbolic victory – but any victory would do, now. Anything to make her feel useful. Like she wasn't defenseless, wasn't just a limp leftover of the previous phase of a war much larger than she'd ever grow to be again.
Her dedication was evident in the skills she remastered in quick succession over the course of those two weeks – she could find her target precisely in a darkened room, she could sever a dummies' head cleanly from its shoulders with nothing but the lash of her dagger-tipped tail or a swift slash. She grew used to her smaller proportions in short order, and painstakingly learned to use them to her advantage, crawling about in secret through the Temple at all hours.
Cynder found that, while she may still have been small, she was deadly again.
And oh, how she had missed the feeling.
Therapeutic as it was, as the time dwindled, her focus began to slip as well. Her training suffered until she couldn't even muster the willpower to go back to her makeshift arena, not even to drag her dummies back into their hiding places – she was all but catatonic now, and her violent sleep-writhing was the most activity she'd had in at least two sunrises. Her muscles ached simultaneously with fatigue and disuse. The crystal gardens seemed too far away, sometimes, so she just went to sleep drained rather than dragging herself outside to rub against them and rejuvenate herself.
She didn't deserve any of this luxury. They should have left her to suffer – had they left her in Concurrent Skies, just lying on the ground, she would have been eaten by the wurms or dragged into their electrical pools to slowly deteriorate and drown. The threat would have been eliminated.
Realistically, she knew, she couldn't fight her demons off forever. Not here. Not where her inevitable failure would mean putting others in danger.
Spyro, and Ignitus… the other Guardians… they'd treated her with unbearable kindness, even when her unpredictable moods had gone wild and left her lashing her tail, coldly silent. She was far from stable. They just… didn't mind it. They seemed to have an endless affection for her, no matter how much she tried to put an emotional distance between them. The only one who didn't bear it with horrible patience was Spyro, who managed to look wounded any time she averted her eyes from his. She wanted to cross the distance between them and nuzzle under his jaw – which became more defined by the day, it seemed, and she couldn't pretend that she didn't admire the minute changes she saw in his physique – but there were too many things between them now, her flashbacks and her hard certainty that she was coming undone.
He couldn't see the poison that her Master had left beneath her scales, invisible but still eating away at her. He couldn't see the deepening bruises that the Dark Realms had left inside her mind. What if she became a portal? What if her body became just a vessel again, a container for evil energy, or a puppet for something much worse than Malefor?
She wasn't rid of him. Cynder knew that now, and it stole her confidence like the traitorous wind from beneath her wings.
Soon, she reasoned, she would be just another threat – or, worse, an empty shell that might be callously used as bait if it were found.
There was only one thing she had left to ask, and she would ask it of Ignitus, with no one else the wiser. It was an innocent question. She just wanted – needed – to know. If she would have to leave, and she would, then she would be damned if she didn't at least get some answers.
She found him before the pool, attempting fruitlessly to scry the future in the softly shimmering water. Cynder sheathed her claws and approached with wordless caution; her tiny, padding feet still made too much noise in the silent chamber, but Ignitus didn't immediately look up to greet her. He seemed lost in his troubled musings.
She drew up beside him to peer into the water. Her reflection's distortion on the mirrored surface was enough to make him sit up and blink at her in acknowledgement. "Why, Cynder. This is a pleasant surprise."
Cynder levelled a serious glance at him and sat gently on the stone beside the pool. Her wings tucked more tightly against her side, despite her best efforts to get her nerves under control. "I wanted to know… If you're willing to tell me."
He regarded her with quiet amusement. "Of course, if there's something that I can tell you, Cynder, I will. What's on your mind?"
She took a deep, steadying breath, but it only left her heart beating harder in anticipation. "I want to know what I am. What… what my mother was."
Ignitus assessed her with a slow, approving nod. "I thought that you would ask. I am surprised it took you so long to come… oh," he sighed. "But I understand that it has been hard for you, being cooped up in recovery these past few weeks. You have been remarkably patient with us, young dragon. I hope that I can tell you all that you want to know."
Like Volteer, Cynder reflected as she settled in to listen to the elder dragon speak, Ignitus could certainly talk. But there was something in the measured quality of his voice that drew her in. Made her want to listen. There would be nothing boring about this conversation, she realized. She was here because she wanted to be.
"What's so special about a midnight dragon?" she asked. Ignitus drew himself up and took a breath, as if preparing a speech. Cynder closed her eyes, praying to the Ancients that her broken mind would play no tricks on her now.
"You know the legend of the purple dragon," he began, his voice a low and careful. "The master of all the elements… Yes, a purple dragon is a very special creature. Spyro, especially." She found herself nodding, already entranced. "But there are others… other legends, and other special creatures."
"You see, Cynder, dragons have always been a race of very proud, very talented beasts… And every dragon is born with an innate connection to an element that they can learn to harness, to use to their advantage… and, ideally, for the benefit of all those around them." The sadness in his voice was, for a moment, overwhelming, and she knew that he was thinking of her Master – of what he might have been, if only he had chosen another path. "There are many types of dragons, and many elements. It would take me an age to list them all."
"But there are some more rare, more revered than others." She felt his gaze boring into her forehead, the strange light markings there, and her eyes flew open to meet his. He nodded, chuckling. "Yes, among them is the midnight dragon. You are the last of them, Cynder. For now." He savored the words, and she committed them to memory, swallowing. "The last born midnight dragon."
"You said that my mother was…" she began uncertainly. "I mean… if she was so special, why was she…?"
"Cynder, nest mother is a prestigious title among dragons." Ignitus sounded almost smug; he clearly did not have enough of an audience, regularly, to foist his history lessons upon, because he was obviously relishing in this one.
"I don't understand," she admitted.
What's so prestigious about laying a lot of eggs?
She couldn't imagine herself in the same position. Ignitus chuckled, as if he could see into her mind. "I cannot expect you to. You did not grow up where you rightfully should have, Cynder, and so you never bore witness to your mother's many suitors. Andromeda was very sought after… We had our romance, once," he sighed wistfully. "More than a century ago. She was very talented, far stronger than most… If she had only decided to last another decade, perhaps Malefor would not have stood a chance."
Cynder squinted at the elder dragon's expression, trying to determine how much of an exaggeration that might be. She huffed. "But what am I supposed to be able to do? What could she do?"
I want to be special, she didn't say. It seemed pointless now. She would be gone from here, isolated from her kind once again, as soon as she knew what she needed to know. I just want to know what I should expect, if I'm wrong. If I really am just recovering. If I have normal abilities after all.
She doubted it.
Ignitus took his time, as he always did. He seemed to like to make everything into a story; and Cynder had to admit that it did make it much easier to listen to.
"A midnight dragon is a creature of shadows… Not as you know them," he added, seeing the look of open dismay in her eyes. "Not all shadows are evil, Cynder, though in these difficult times I know that that may be hard to understand… Darkness, like any element, has traditionally been revered by dragons, and like any other ability it can just as easily be practiced for noble means as it can You, and Spyro too, have grown in a world where darkness is synonymous with sinister intentions – but that has not always been the case."
He weaved his way slowly about the room, dragging her eyes with him. This part wasn't easy to listen to, mostly because she simply couldn't believe him; darkness had protected her and terrorized her in turn for as long as she could remember, and she had no say in which way it would turn. Shaking off the unease this brought back to the surface, she let her eyes roam over the wall, following Ignitus' massive head. She noticed, for the first time, the minute gilded symbols on each of the torch brackets, and she recognized it though she had hardly seen it before – the written language of dragons.
It had been so long since she'd been taught to read them, very grudgingly, by Gaul, but she still managed to sound out the fragments in her head.
Fire, read one. The next: Ice. She followed the row of them all the way around the room, eyes gone round with realization. Lightning. Earth. Wind…
She belatedly realized that Ignitus had stopped speaking; he was following the direction of her gaze, and when their eyes met again he nodded approvingly.
Shadow.
"Your mother loved to play with the shadows in the firelight," Ignitus murmured wistfully, his eyes drawn closed in remembrance. "She wrapped them about each of the eggs in the hatchery, to keep them warm… To keep them safe."
He seemed to deflate slightly when he opened his eyes to see not Andromeda, but Cynder sitting there before him, small and inadequate. Or at least, that was how she felt. She couldn't blame him. He smiled, his wizened lips curving inward over his teeth. Looking at him now, she could hardly understand how he'd ever seemed threatening to her. If she didn't know any better she would say that his fighting days were long past him.
"Shadows are like living things, Cynder. You may have noticed already that you feel most comfortable in partial darkness – I would not be surprised if you could see much better in the night than Spyro or I ever could."
Would she use the ability to bend shadows, even if she could? After everything she had seen and done? Cynder picked at the question glumly. She couldn't even imagine the things that Ignitus was saying; in her mind's eye, Andromeda was regal and benevolent and could not possibly have anything in common with her. She couldn't picture her wrapped up in living shadows like Gaul or like the Master. She didn't want to.
"But," Ignitus said pointedly, drawing her attention back to him. "A midnight dragon can do much, much more than merely wielding shadow as an elemental tool. There are legends, going back thousands of years… that the black dragons could travel between realms."
"You see, Cynder, in many ways your survival was very fitting." Ignitus took on a gentle tone that Cynder wasn't sure that she liked. What are you about to tell me that I don't want to hear? She thought suspiciously. "A black dragon and a purple dragon are, in many ways, complementary."
She couldn't quite contain her doubt. "Spyro and I are nothing alike. He's…"
He's good. He's brave, and loyal, and strong, and I don't think he's ever done anything wrong in his entire life…
The old dragon chuckled. "That is exactly the point, though. You are each other's foils, you and Spyro… that is what will make you great allies."
Grumbling, Cynder settled back again to listen. No matter how much she disagreed, the point was moot, and she was anxious to hear whatever else Ignitus was willing to reveal to her about her ancestry and the role she might have filled if she hadn't been ruined.
"I have not told Spyro yet," he was saying, staring down into the pool again as if lost in thought. "But the powers of the purple dragon are far more numerous and more complicated than the mastery of multiple elements."
She wondered how far back she had had to dig in his undoubtedly lengthy memory to remember this information for her, and pass it along – she wasn't sure that anyone else could have given it to her, where any of the remaining dragons had even fled to.
"Forgive me – I have been meaning to ask you, since your return, but could not think of a way to bring it up that would not upset you." Cynder straightened her shoulders haughtily at that, as if to prove that she was made of tougher stuff than Ignitus clearly thought. His eyes twinkled indulgently. "Tell me, Cynder, what was it that Spyro did to return you to your natural form?"
He looked as if he already knew the answer. Cynder had to pause and think about it – he was right, the memory was more than a little upsetting – and answered slowly, uncertainly, "Some kind of purple energy…" She could feel it still, ripping holes through her chest and burning her up from the inside out.
"I could hear them," she whispered, epiphany dawning on her face. She looked up through suddenly watering eyes at Ignitus, who stared back at her intently. "The Ancients. They… they –oh. " They ripped the evil out of me.
He looked deeply satisfied with this information, bowing his head with a slow sigh. "That was the Aether. It is powerful spiritual force – the combined power of all of our ancestors, every dragon that has ever lived before us. And only a purple dragon can pull the threads of time in order to call upon it."
It seemed impossible, but Cynder could feel somewhere knotted deep in her gut that it was right. She swallowed down her awe, but her voice still wavered a bit when she asked, "Does that mean that Malefor can use it, too? The Aether?"
She had seen that purple light that Spyro had hurled at her before, she realized, and then felt horribly sick. Malefor's version of it had been murky, threaded with blood and hatred, but it had been the same color at the core, and it had been just as potent.
"Not exactly, but… yes." Ignitus sighed heavily. He sat gingerly on the floor beside her, looking suddenly world weary. "Cynder, I hope – although, of course, what you say and do is now your choice –" He paused meaningfully, as if to reassure her, and it always will be. It did nothing to quell her anxiety. "I hope that you will not run off and repeat all of this to Spyro. He is not ready yetto know that Malefor is also a purple dragon… I fear that it would only dishearten him."
Cynder hardly had to think about it to agree. Though she was loathe to admit it, she knew that Spyro was too deeply insecure right now about everything to do with his powers to comprehend the idea that he and Malefor had been cut from the same cloth.
But they're nothing alike, either, she thought, gazing up shrewdly at her mentor as if he could explain it for her. It seemed unlikely that he would. Ignitus would only ramble about things that he felt it was time to share, and Cynder kept expecting him to get up and dismiss her without warning when he decided that he had divulged enough.
"But I am getting off topic again. I apologize. As I was saying – a purple dragon has a connection to the Aether, and the unique ability to manipulate time. But a midnight dragon is said to walk between worlds, and to absorb the things that they need from others who step in their shadows." The serious way that he said it made it difficult for Cynder to calm her racing heart as it beat more and more frantically. "While a purple dragon, like Spyro, could stop time, or call upon the Ancients in a moment of need, a midnight dragon – like yourself – could pluck the anger out of her opponents simply by sending her shadows to halt them, and travel sideways through time… and perhaps into other dimensions."
The mention of other dimensions nearly had her gagging. All that she could see, and smell, for that agonizing moment was the grotesque landscape of the Dark Realms and Malefor's huge bloodshot eyes, exactly where she had left them.
Ignitus was watching her still, and she had to swallow several times until the tingling passed and she trusted herself to open her mouth again. She wasn't sure how much longer she could endure this. She was falling apart – surely everyone could tell, by now?'
"Maybe you're right," she mumbled.
"You are still so young," Ignitus rumbled. He sounded ancient then, staring once more down into his crystalline pool as if it held all and none of the answers he was searching for. "Too young." She had the distinct feeling that he wasn't only talking about her, now.
When he met her eyes again, his voice held a note of finality. "Greatness will come to you, young dragon. You do not have to go looking for it. Remember that…"
She couldn't speak, her mouth hanging open helplessly. The elder dragon sighed and tipped his massive head towards his chest as if in prayer. "Although I fear that it may come to you sooner than you ever should have had to bear it."
Cynder left Ignitus alone in his silent chamber, mind whirling with amazement and with the aching loneliness, the burden of knowledge. Spyro would be enthralled if she went to him – she could see it, how his eyes would widen, the excited way that his wings would flutter as she told him of her mother, and of the way that dragons had lived before Malefor. He knew as little about their heritage as she did. He'd be thrilled to know that she, too, would have been "special". That he wasn't technically alone.
There was nothing she could say, though, not now… not when it was crucial that he feel their separation before it even began.
The idea of it was unbearable. She could feel her chest caving in, her ribcage collapsing around her stuttering heart, at the thought of losing her first friend. She realized with a horrible start that she loved him, as more than a nestmate and more than just a friendly acquaintance. He was not just the only other dragon her age left in this Realm. He was not just her savior and her confidante. He was…
An image swam before her, the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled and how his golden horns gleamed so beautifully in the torchlight as he nuzzled against her, offering any and every comfort that she could possibly ask of him. Spyro. Spyro. She felt his name in every miserable, heavy beat of her heart. He had done enough just by fighting her, stopping her, but still he had rescued her… still, he had taken her into his fold, given her a family, mentors, nourishment, love… still, he had listened to her, talked to her, told her that she was worthy, that they were not so different.
That was a lie. Spyro was anything but a liar. Maybe he didn't know that it was a lie, then. All the better that she was going to demonstrate it for him, so that he would be left without a doubt.
I'm so sorry, Spyro, she thought with anguish. Her heart felt constricted. I want to be there for you, too. I do...
Her head began to spin and her mind began to splinter, just as she turned the corner and watched Terrador stop dead in his tracks. He ambled with surprising speed to her side as her legs began to give.
"You're looking out of sorts, youngling," he said, catching her with one massive paw. She hardly felt the coarseness of his scales. She could see two realities at once, she realized dimly – one was here, the caverns, the knotted roots and packed earth and moss all around them, and the other some pale clinical setting, long thin appendages covered in some white wrapping, stained red. Her heart began to flutter in panic.
Terrador shushed her, and she clamped her mouth shut although she couldn't remember uttering a sound. "You aren't making sense," he said lowly. "Let me find Cyril – have him look at you. It's likely just a passing illness."
"I feel…" she whimpered, but he only shushed her again. His snout gently touched her head.
"You don't appear to have a fever. I'll bring him to you. Wait here."
Corrupted, Ignitus' voice whispered again in her mind. If you had not been corrupted…
She was causing them so much unnecessary worry just by being here. She was nothing but a burden. No one else could see it – or maybe, she thought suddenly, maybe they just didn't want to. Ignitus knew that she was corrupted. He knew, and he let her stay. He didn't want to confront the reality that she was unfixable. She had been damned at her hatching, and not even the love of other dragons could cure her now.
"No, no I'm – I'm fine," she panted. She had to pull herself together. Terrador did not look convinced; she made an effort then to still her heaving chest, even though her lungs felt panicked, starved for air. The images of red-and-white terror and flashing lights continued every time she blinked, but she could do nothing except ignore them.
They refused to be forgotten, though. Fear permeated the air around her, thick and suffocating like smog, and the light began to disappear behind the darkness that it brought with it. She felt her throat seize as she tried to call out for help.
"I don't want this," she whimpered, her voice lost to the abyss. The Dark Realms stared back at her. "I don't want to be like this!"
The Dark Master chuckled somewhere, rumbling and vibrating through the Realms to her, shaking her down to her very bones and deeper still. She felt achingly empty, but so full of so many, too many thoughts, whirling around her – ideas and dreams and terrible prophecies – Cynder forced herself to suck in a big breath, as she had in Convexity. The realization that came crashing around her when she regained her vision left her paralyzed and mute to each of Cyril and Terrador's concerned questions.
They shuffled her off to her nest in the end, tucking her into it so gently she hardly felt them touching her. Spyro stayed anxiously by her side that night as she laid prone and almost entirely still but for every unwanted breath. Ignitus didn't come – maybe she'd asked him not to. She couldn't remember now.
The thought throbbed at the base of her skull, painful and powerful, demanding her attention. She stared at the insides of her eyelids bleakly and felt them slide around, loose and untethered, on the insides of her skull. She couldn't do this anymore. Not to them. Not to herself. She couldn't even find the strength to berate herself for ever believing, even in the secret stubborn parts of her head, that she could stay here. That this could work. That she was better, would get better, would become a respectable dragon. The picture she'd conjured in her head of her at Spyro's side, lithe but deadly, determined, as a force of light in the darkness… it had shattered the moment she'd realized that the dreams weren't ordinary.
It had only been a matter of time, really, before she had to cut those fragile ties she'd made here. She hadn't wanted to acknowledge it but she knew it to be true. Part of her had always known it.
Spyro's breaths pained her as well. She could feel his concern even while he slept, more tense and fitful than she'd ever felt him. This was the second time they'd slept together.
It would have to be the last.
I have to leave.