A/N: Well, this is the last of it - the first arc of this story concludes at the end of this chapter. The next arc will begin in another universe entirely, but never fear, Cynder's story isn't over. If you remember the ending of Eternal Night then none of this should be surprising to you at all. It did kind of give me heart palpitations to write it, though.

The Half-Life of a Dragon Not Quite Purple

Part 5: The Well of Souls

The march took longer than she had originally thought, but it still felt far too short. They did not stop to rest, not even for a drink of water, and Cynder was well and truly exhausted by the time she stumbled through the last tunnel and out into a huge, open chamber.

As she had anticipated, Gaul was waiting for her, lounging atop a pile of bones – both whole and brutally snapped – as though it were a throne. A green light shot up high on the wall behind him, tapering to a wide point toward the ceiling – toward the top of the mountain, where the Celestial moons would soon align. The stink of rotting flesh in the air strongly suggested that many of the bones had not been picked clean before being utilized as furniture. Cynder clamped her mouth shut hard and tried not to breathe as she was prodded roughly toward the center of the room, facing the raised dais where the Ape King now presided over his court.

It wasn't just the scent of death or the sickly green glow emitting from the crystals in the walls and the floor that made this room nearly unbearable to be in. It wasn't even the huge carved statue of what could only be a young and handsome Malefor that loomed over them all like an insidious mockery of the ancient statue at the Temple. Cynder realized belatedly as she was ushered to her sentence that a growing sense of unearthly dread had taken hold of her very soul the moment she'd set foot inside the mountain. This place wasn't just a place for corrupted creatures to live the rest of their days, quietly isolated away from the Realms: this place was death personified. There was a deep chill in the air, and her paws stung slightly where they touched the bare stone, which felt icy despite the late summer humidity that she had only just left.

Everywhere throughout the narrow, twisting tunnels she had felt as though she were being watched by the statue's enormous set of glowing eyes, whose malice made her want to cower against the ground like a pathetic little rabbit. Her eyes were still a bit too wide. She forced herself to blink – several times… and then had to force herself to stop again.

Don't let him know you're afraid.

That strange ache that had been plaguing her for days began again in the membrane of her wings and behind her eyes. Gaul leered at her, his cracked lips spreading wide across his face and twisting it obscenely.

He lifted his arms as if to welcome her, apparently effortlessly, but to her it looked as if he might fall over dead any moment. He was gaunter than ever – practically wasting away, his fur matted and reeking of blood and less pleasant things, and he was oblivious. She suppressed a shudder.

"So… the traitor returns!" he proclaimed, his voice so gravelly that it was hardly recognizable.

She shook her head as if that would clear it of all of the unwanted memories surging painful and renewed to the front of her mind. It didn't help – and when she did manage to shift her focus off of her gory past, it landed solidly on Spyro, who was sure to be looking for her now. She knew him too well. She was dizzy with fear at the thought of him appearing here, like some misguided knight looking to save a damsel; with effort, she kept her footing and raised her eyes daringly to meet the King's.

"You can't go through with this, Gaul!" she called. Her throat throbbed painfully as it expanded against the manacle. She dug her claws into the stone as he regarded her with amusement.

If I weren't in chains right now, she thought savagely, I'd rip you apart until you looked just like another piece of the pile.

It made her feel the tiniest bit better.

He laughed, a horrible deep sound that reminded her of a terminal illness. It sounded as if whatever Malefor had infected him with had reached his lungs, and it was only a matter of time until it filled them up with black bile and killed him. Cynder relished the thought. But instead of choking on his words and miraculously falling dead – an image that she was fast warming up to – he sat up to peer at her, tilting his head. "Nothing can prevent this. We are merely here to welcome our Master back into the realm and join him at his side."

He pounded one gnarled fist against the piece of what Cynder guessed had once been a very large femur. It made a sick hollow noise.

"But fear not, Cynder," he added mockingly, apparently reading the rising fear in her eyes. She bared her fangs and lunged at him, only to be pulled sharply back at the neck by the unforgiving iron, choking and falling back against the stone. She hissed soundlessly at her captor, but the ape didn't even spare her a contemptuous glance. "You've been such a faithful servant – I'm sure he'll take you back."

"And if not…" he continued, clearly relishing every moment of the outrage on her face. He finally lifted himself from the horrid pile and loomed menacingly over her. His guards huddled closer to the dais, eyeing her suspiciously. They, too, looked emaciated beneath the heavy iron of what she knew to be their best armor. "You will have the honor of being the first to perish by his hand!"

Another spasm of fear shuddered through her. The tone of his voice was revoltingly passionate, as though he really believed every word – as if it were truly an honor to be murdered by a twisted Dark beast that could hardly even be called a dragon anymore, if what she had seen in the Dark Realms was really him. There was another, almost proud undertone to Gaul's rumbling voice, too, which only served to further nauseate her. In some perverse way, she knew, the Ape King had come to consider her in recent times as a sort of daughter, his personal project come to a glorious fruition.

He'd taken his time wandering to the front of the dais, gazing out unseeing with his luminous green crystal eye over the wide, curved room as if he were speaking to a full audience. Cynder swallowed down bile as she realized that this might be what was in store for her – Gaul, clearly, was in the very late stages, but who knew how long she had left before she really began to lose her grip on the reality of what surrounded her?

How long until she began to make choices she couldn't remember making? How long until she lost herself entirely – would it eat her away, as it was obviously doing to the Apes one by one, and leave her an empty husk to be ordered about? Or would Malefor want a more useful, more deadly soldier once again?

It didn't seem likely that he'd spare her sanity. She doubted that he had spared his own.

"Long have we waited!" Gaul bellowed, forcefully shattering her anxious reverie. He raised his armor-backed fists high in the air and shook them. "Long have we suffered! But soon, our Master will return, and his coming shall bring forth a new age of power for the Apes – and we shall have our revenge!"

Behind her, she felt before she saw a beam of blinding violet light connect thinly to the center of the worn, intricate stonework of the floor. The apes all beat their chest and screeched in agreement, and Gaul's ghastly laugh echoed a thousand times through the chamber and down the various tunnels that lead through the mountain, drawing the ghostly voices of deceased dark creatures out from the walls. Cynder shrank away. She allowed her captor to tug her unsympathetically outside of the circle of strange symbols, and as he wrapped her chains around and around an iron post jutting from beside Gaul's mound of bones, she managed to drag herself slightly further away from the apes and sat half-hidden behind a pillar, her mind heavy with what was to come.

Gaul was probably right. Even if Spyro came for her – and damn him if he did, but she knew him too well to believe that he'd abandon his pursuit of her now that he'd seen her captured right in front of him – he might be too late. And if he wasn't, then he might as well be captured, too. Gaul was deluded and corrupted beyond helping but he was terribly intelligent. He had not been taught by Malefor himself for nothing. He had years more experience with dragon magic than Spyro did, and battle in general; if it came down to a head-on battle, Cynder could hardly even imagine what would be left of him.

"No," she whispered to herself, watching Gaul order about his soldiers lazily from his resumed perch on his throne. I won't let him. I WON'T.

If he tries to kill Spyro – her heart missed a beat at the thought, and she closed her eyes grimly, burning – I'll tear his heart right out of his worthless chest.

There was something black and ugly beginning to boil somewhere deep and untouched inside of her, deeper than every impulse she'd suppressed thus far, something that terrified her… But at the same time, it was terribly comforting. More and more these past few days she could feel a gathering power in the air around her, between her toes and in the beds of her claws. The shadows behind the pillar seemed to wrap around her like seaweed, alive and whispering unintelligible words of comfort, of promise.

At least she wasn't as defenseless as she'd thought she would be.

His hands were still just as huge and inescapable as they'd been when she was a young child huddled in the closet. He closed them around her wrists and squeezed, viciously baring his teeth at her and laughing shortly. "Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm leaving," she told him. She felt it ring true in her bones. "I'm eighteen, get out of my fucking way."

"You aren't going anywhere, miss eighteen." His voice dropped an octave and his fingers curled more tightly, cutting off the circulation entirely. "I still claim you on my taxes, I still own you. Sit your snotty little ass back down." She felt her nostrils flare.

"Get your hands off of me."

The waver in her voice hardly even registered. She felt too-awake and alive in places she'd never even considered – she could feel the nerves beneath her fingernails, underneath her ring which fit now over her pinky finger, and behind her ears, at the corners of her eyes, at the nape of her neck and at the creases of her elbows. She could especially feel them beneath the crushing pressure of his calloused fingers.

"That's no way to talk to your father," he snapped, and gave her a shake.

"What are you doing?"

The sound of her mother's voice made her blood run cold. She pulled desperately, trying to break free – escape – her mother wasn't supposed to be here. She wasn't supposed to see this. He wasn't supposed to have the option of hurting her all because of April, because of how she'd pissed him off –

Her mother looked tiny in his shadow, but defiant, her eyes locking onto her daughter's pale wrists and then on her husband's face. Her expression morphed to be menacing, eyebrows pulled sharply together and curly hair a mane around her face, bristling like a lion. April swallowed hard and breathed, "No, mom, get out."

"Don't you touch her," she snapped, voice turning upward sudden and shrill. All that April could think of was the drab hotel room she had dreamed up, her suitcase sprawled open on the neat, thin carpet and the light streaming in through the curtains like freedom. The image seemed to be shrinking away, impossibly further. Unreachable.

"I'll touch her if I want to. I'm keeping our kid in line," he laughed, the sound of it harsh and sinister. "Don't worry about it, sweetheart – it's under control."

"I'm calling the police!"

She shook her head wildly, fiery hair flying. "Mom, stop –!"

One of those huge calloused hands spread wide and smacked her across the face. Her teeth mashed painfully into her lip and blood began to seep out of the corners of her mouth.

The lapse took her entirely off guard – she hadn't even realized that she'd fallen asleep, or maybe she hadn't. Maybe she'd been awake the entire time.

As usual, the details slipped away from her almost immediately and left her with just a deep, uneasy feeling growing larger in the center of her where she imagined her innate power might originate, if she had any. That she was this close to death and still no closer to finding out what any of it meant upset her and made it very difficult to stay still. What distressed her most of all, however, was that she hadn't meant to fall asleep. It was imperative that she stay alert until the threat had passed – until she was sure that Spyro wasn't coming.

Ancients, please don't let him come, she prayed hopelessly.

Cynder fretted well into the night. Her hypervigilance was beginning to wear on her already – she was appalled at her own lack of endurance, but thus far since the first lapse she had managed to keep her eyes open… Mostly because every time she began to drift, one of the apes would make some disturbing noise, or the mountain would begin to moan ominously, and she'd be wide awake again and staring into the green light that was steadily creeping up the rocky walls like arteries. If Spyro did arrive, she intended to be the first to know. She would keep an eye on the sky, and all of the tunnels – every possible entrance that he might come jaunting through. She had her orders already, to attack him on sight, but she intended to warn him off if she could before Gaul could ever lay a hand on him. It was the only way he'd live to fight another day.

In the end, though, Spyro's cautious arrival late that night was announced to her by Gaul's sudden cackling.

"The purple whelpling!" he goaded, gesturing broadly with his gnarled hands again. Cynder's head jerked painfully around as Spyro came into view, approaching with his head down and his wings raised threateningly. He looked so small in the huge, empty chamber, facing the humongous skeletal heap of dirty fur that was Gaul. Her stomach twisted.

"It's fitting that you should be here tonight… as we bear witness to the dawn of a new age." He paused for effect, one corner of his mouth turning up slyly. "And the failure of your pathetic race of dragons."

"I wouldn't miss it, Gaul." His voice was colder than she had ever heard it. From her hiding place behind the pillar (where her rump was, admittedly, growing numb from hours of sitting perfectly still and silent) Cynder could practically see the snort of fire in the back of Spyro's throat. The power of the elements that he'd lost had clearly been replenished while they'd been apart, and he looked like he was bursting with it. He narrowed his eyes up at Gaul fearlessly. She felt her throat close up in terror that felt strangely like a building wave behind her skull.

"Then please… have a seat." Gaul stood suddenly from his seat, faster than Cynder had honestly thought him capable, and alarm shot through her as he whipped out that dreaded staff – pain, it hurt so much, she had to try harder, she couldn't do it, she HAD to do it or the pain would never end, she was so small, her wings, too small, too small to hold her, tearing, pain – a beam of cloying green energy shot from the pulsating crystal at the end of it, pulling Spyro violently to the ground. Gaul's laughter turned cruel.

"Foolish dragon… you are no match."

Spyro shook the magic off like water, standing with some effort and glaring up at Gaul again. There was a tiredness to his eyes still, but Cynder knew that it meant nothing – he wasn't leaving. He was determined. "I've gotten this far, haven't I?" he asked quietly.

"Yes. You have been quite elusive," Gaul admitted plaintively. He examined the purple dragon before him with sharp curiosity and raised the staff again, advancing with it brandished threateningly. Cynder wondered with bated breath if he was searching for something of his twisted Master in Spyro, and had to choke down a scoff. There was nothing of Malefor in Spyro. Not even the color of his scales – her Master's scales had taken on an ugly dark and reddening hue many years ago, and in the Dark Realms he had looked even more warped by his own mad pursuit of power.

"Had I but known that all it would take would be your miserable amity for Cynder."

She blinked back sudden, strength-sapping tears, unable to even see Spyro's face through them. There it was, confirmed – this was her fault, and Gaul knew it. Now Spyro knew it too. Surely he had to see that she hadn't been important to them at all… This was a trap to begin with. They'd known that he was too good, too pure, to leave a friend behind.

I am the worst kind of friend, she lamented. I've lead my only friend to his death.

"How tragic, really… that she should be the one to destroy you."

That was her detestable cue. Inhaling sharply, Cynder leapt from behind the pillar without even stretching. The rear half of her body was numb and her aim was clumsy, but she still managed to knock Spyro squarely to the ground, landing on top of him with a sharp exhalation that she couldn't quite contain. Before he could even roll back onto his front she picked herself up and danced lithely away. Her mind was whirring. It was like the arena all over again – but the stakes were so much higher.

The Celestial moons glowed blue-white and fuschia between jagged peaks of rock above them, blurring together.

"You don't need to do this, Cynder," he said as he picked himself up off the ground, in that very serious way of his. His eyes sought hers pleadingly. She detected a note of desperate sadness in his voice that nearly broke her mangled heart in two.

"Just like old times, huh, Spyro?" she murmured just loud enough for Gaul to hear. She looked into his eyes deeply and willed him to put two and two together, wings spread out the same way they had been nearly a day ago when they faced each other in broad daylight.

His eyes widened comically. Ancients help us, he's not subtle, is he. She cursed Sparx' influence. Before he could muck it all up and give them away, she leaned forward as if to snap at him and risked the barest whisper.

"Same as last time." She hastily decided on a plan. They were all equally terrible, after all, and they had to do something. Time was of the essence now. "Line me up with his staff."

To his credit, he didn't even nod, just began to circle her in their now-familiar way. She watched Gaul from the corner of her eye, enraged by the arrogant sneer he wore, as if he were already victorious. Joke's on you, she thought, and launched herself into the air and directly at his staff, claws extended, just as Spyro threw himself out of the way.

Gaul snatched her out of the air with one huge hand and squeezed her until she felt as though she'd suffocate. He shook her mercilessly about, her tail flopping uselessly about beneath her and her head jerking from side to side like one of her training dummies, and there was nothing she could do – her limbs, her wings, were all trapped to her sides in the Ape King's leathery paw, and it was all she could do to keep from losing consciousness even as her lungs began to burn and the blackness encroached on the edges of her vision.

"This isn't over," he ground out menacingly, and threw her as if she were nothing but a weed against the wall.

Her skull cracked against the stone. She collapsed to the ground without even time to regain her breath, and clung frantically to the sound of Spyro's gasp as the pain blossomed down her spine and her eyes rolled back behind her closed lids.

Tear his head off, Spyro, she slurred inside her spinning mind. For me.

And then Spyro, and Gaul, ceased to exist.

The sirens were too distant. The blood was roaring in her ears. It dripped from her bruised mouth. Her mother was screaming out in pain, and she was going to murder her father.

"You'll be dead before they get here, cunt," he seethed as he shook her. "I'll kill you both! I'll kill them, too! And it will be your fault. How do you like that?" Her pink-polished nails scrabbled uselessly at his wrists as he pinned her up against the wall.

She kept her eyes glued to him as she slowly felt her way along the counter, fingers trembling, searching. They skimmed the cool metal edge of the sink and followed the edge of it around toward the wall, then made contact with the wooden block – bingo.

There was a curious sense of disconnect as her fingers wrapped around the plastic handle. She imagined the blade plunging into his back. How the blood would well up around the metal and the resistance as she jerked it back out with a sickening sucking sound, bringing a tidal wave of dark crimson with it. He'd twist and stare at her, wide-eyed in disbelief. Her eyes, identical, would be reflected in blooming black saucer pupils, and he'd gape like a fish as he released her mother and let her crumple down against the floor, stumbling back a step towards his only daughter, shuddering as the blood spurted from his back across the ugly brown linoleum tile and painting the wall in spatters and uneven streaks.

Her heart thumped painfully. She felt her mouth twisting into a snarl, lipstick-stained teeth bared and ready to tear out throats.

"Get your fucking hands OFF OF HER," she shouted, drawing the knife out so quickly that it nearly sliced her cheek.

The sirens were deafening now. She couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. She took several fast, staggering steps in his direction, feeling almost drunk, and her forearms locked up painfully as he turned his head to look at her with a sneer.

"You gonna stab your daddy, princess?" he laughed. "Go ahead. I'm dead already." Her mother made a furious, desperate noise in the back of her throat and wrenched her shoulder from his grip, only to be slammed back against the wall forcefully. April charged forward blade-first with an inhuman screech, black and red encroaching on the edges of her vision.

"I'll fucking kill you!"

He moved as if in slow motion, throwing himself out of the way – the gleaming tip of the blade barely missed his side and before she knew what had happened, before she could process her actions or his or her entire lifetime's worth of panic, his huge calloused hands were wrapped around her wrists like iron, whiskey breath fanning across her face.

There was a cursory knock on the door. Everything happened too-fast and terror-laced. The knife clattered to the floor and spun away, her mother wailed louder than the sirens, the door burst inward to reveal two, three, four policemen with guns out and grim expressions but April could hardly see them behind the man directly in front of her, squeezing her too-thin wristbones 'til they cracked like toothpicks. She fought back a confusing image of bared fangs and huge, spread wings, wicked claws rending his flesh apart and sinking deep into his chest to pull out his crushed, still-beating heart. A dark aura seemed to overtake her mind like mist, she couldn't see –

What is that –?

"What the fuck is this?!" he roared. April shook and yanked, meeting less resistance than she had anticipated. Her head cracked back against the wall.

She lay there dazed and approaching unconsciousness, shuddering, even as the four men in uniform wrestled her father into cuffs like they would a rampaging bear. A shadow hovered protectively over her – mom.

She attempted a weak smile and failed. She could barely make out those pink nails digging into the fleshy heel of two shaking, determined hands.

I really would have killed him before I let him hurt you ever again, she thought dazedly. She couldn't focus her eyes anymore. Someone was standing over her now, shining something too-bright into her eyes, but she could only loll her head to the side and mumble her discomfort. I really, really would have.

It should have felt like an ending. Like relief. But instead the trembling overtook her, turning her body to useless mush. She was an adult, but she felt more like a child than she ever had. She was a different person now. A murderer in her own mind.

I would have…

Things were not okay.

And she would never be sane again.

That one had been, in retrospect, the worst yet. The worst by far.

Cynder surged to her feet, wild-eyed and half-conscious, her heart beating wildly in her ears. How long was I gone? Where is Spyro – where is anyone? She stumbled away from the wall and toward the dais, only to stop short and stare with growing dread at the crumbling hole in the floor where the carefully carved stone circle had been. The sinister beam of purple light streaming down from the moons above had grown wider and more intense in her absence, and it shot straight down through the hole – down to where she could only assume that Spyro must be.

The faint buzzing of Sparx's wings alerted her to his presence. She turned to look at him helplessly. For once, he didn't regard her with suspicion – he, too, was wide-eyed with panic. "What happened?" she asked, her voice cracking with strain. Gaul's hand had evidently crushed part of her larynx.

"I don't know – Gaul did this thing, with the staff, and he – the floor just, it just FELL, they both just fell through!" Sparx clutched his tiny head and buzzed in frantic circles around her for a moment, hyperventilating. "Oh God, what if he's dead!"

"Gaul's down there too?" She endeavored to take deep, calming breaths, but Sparx's proximity wasn't helping. It took all of her wavering self-control not to swat him out of the air with her tail. "We have to go down there. We have to help Spyro – he isn't ready for this."

The dragonfly froze in place and fixed her with an incredulous look. "Are you kidding?! He'll murder us! Have you seen that thing? He looks like Malefor killed him and resurrected him to be a – a heartless killing machine or something!"

Cynder narrowed her eyes into slits, her patience nearing the end of its metaphoric wick. "Yes, Sparx, I know… exactly… what Gaul is capable of."

She took little satisfaction in the guilty way he nodded, his eyes flickering to the shrunken but still-visible scars that she bore on her wings and across her neck. She didn't have time to gloat anymore… her time was up. That dream, unlike the others, was still strong and horribly vibrant in her mind, which could only mean that her mind was beginning to split apart at last. A horrible sense of urgency gripped her, tighter than Gaul's massive hand ever could have.

I have to help him before I –

She couldn't even bear to think the words. Sparx interrupted her thoughts again, in any case, buzzing around the rim of gaping hole and whining, "Oh God, oh God, all I hear is explosions, oh God what if he's dead, what will I tell our mother –"

Cynder shut her eyes tightly and blocked him out. Long minutes passed, the only noises the crash of rock and distant, pained grunts from far below, and Sparx's increasingly distressed rambling. Finally, when the sounds from below abruptly stopped and didn't start up again, she sat up straighter and crept warily closer to the edge.

"What's happening down there?" she murmured, mostly to herself. Sparx evidently felt better with her beside him, because he dared to peek even further over the edge.

"Spyro? You okay, buddy?" he called timidly. Cynder snorted.

The small, snarling form of a dragon poised for battle shot up through the widening beam of dark magic. Sparx shot back from the rim and screamed. Cynder backed away more slowly, gazing up at Spyro like she had never thought she'd see him. He was upright, wings spread to their maximum length, his eyes gaping white holes in his face; as Cynder watched, breathless and filled with the worst kind of thoughts, he jerked from side to side and struggled to free himself. Is he trapped? He seemed to be – he was looking down at himself, confused and helpless and probably as horrified as both of them felt.

He looked, she realized sickly, exactly like Malefor – exactly like she had, in those early days she could hardly bring herself to remember in any detail.

No. No, oh, no. Not him. NO.

"Oh, no," she heard herself whisper out loud.

Sparx, beside himself, propelled his tiny body up toward his friend as though he could save him from himself. He didn't react – he didn't immediately seem able to even see them. Cynder steeled herself.

I have to fix this.

Joints weak with guilt and terror, she stepped back towards the beam. "Spyro, stop!" she shouted at the top of her lungs.

Though he couldn't see her, he must have heard her – he growled sinisterly and snapped in Sparx's direction. "Woah, calm down man, it's me!"

Spyro groaned and struggled weakly again, flailing his limbs. When he opened his eyes, they were clear again – he's still in there! "I… I can't…" he bit out. Relief surged through Cynder like an icy blast, and she did the only thing that she could think to do.

She backed up and took a running leap, flapping her aching wings powerfully and knocking him clean out of the pulsating light. It seared through her scales and penetrated her to her core – she could feel it, evil burrowing under her scales again, wrapping itself back around her organs and worming into her heart – but there was something else there now, forcing it out, and she didn't have the time right now to spare a second thought once the relief caught up to her. She staggered and let out a shaky breath as she regained her balance.

"Spyro…" Sparx tentatively approached his friend – his brother – but Spyro evidently couldn't bring himself to look at him.

He shook his head slowly, eyes downcast and brimming with poignant shame that temporarily made Cynder's heart feel alive again, just so that it could clench up with painful empathy. "What have I done?" It wasn't clear who he was talking to.

"You're okay, Spyro. You're with friends," she said softly, leaning in towards him. Her whole body ached with the look in his eyes, the reflection of her expression in them.

"I'm sorry… I… I couldn't stop." His violet eyes carried a haunted look now, gazing only briefly at her before sliding right through her to some existential place that existed only in his head.

This wasn't how she'd imagined their reunion, or their victory. There were a million ways that Cynder wanted to console him – more words than she'd ever have time to say, she realized – but it turned out that there was no time for even one. A monstrous chunk of rock came slamming through the jagged opening, blocking their view of the empty black space where the Celestial moons should have been – blocking the sky entirely, except for a tiny sliver. Through the tunnels came a foreboding rumbling noise. Cynder's eyes darted wildly about for another route of escape, but there were none to be seen.

The Mountain was collapsing.

"That's our only way out!" Sparx wailed.

Cynder wanted to hit him. She jumped up and eyed the hole desperately, turning to face her companions. "Come on! Now's our chance!"

Spyro lifted his head and regarded her miserably. He made no move to get up. "Just go."

The black rage in her chest threatened to spill over. "Get up, Spyro!" she yelled, flaring out her wings and stepping back toward him despite her better instincts. "We're not leaving without you!"

You wouldn't leave without me.

"Usually I would say ignore her," Sparx shouted above the noise. "But she's making sense this time!"

The purple dragon regarded his friends for a long moment each, swaying slightly with pain and exhaustion. He slowly dragged himself to his feet. Cynder bit back her impatience, watching him on tenterhooks. She felt unhinged. The shadows were dancing, anxious and excited, and she could feel them each as if they were part of her.

Just as he tensed up to take off, Spyro sprang back, eyes widening with dismay. Cynder followed his gaze – another boulder, this one even larger, was hurtling through the air towards their tiny opening. She got one wingstroke into the air, mouthing, "No!" But it was useless.

"Oh, no," Spyro gasped, sounding utterly sick with himself. His entire body seemed to crumple inwards. "We're trapped."

The three of them stared at each other for a long, nauseating minute as the mountain continued to shake violently around them. The thought seemed to pass through each of their heads and to the others. We're going to be buried alive. We're going to die. Chips and chunks of rock bounced off of the floor, one of them narrowly missing Cynder's head. Nothing mattered anymore. Time seemed to freeze, even as it passed too quickly, speeding toward their imminent deaths.

Spyro, she thought to herself, desperately rehearsing as the seconds ticked away. She wasn't sure that she could get them past her throat but she intended to try, as soon as she figured out how to string them together. I'm sorry. You're too good for me, Spyro. Too good for any of this. You've given me something to believe in – you gave me hope that life wasn't inherently horrible. And I stole yours away.

I wish that I hadn't dragged you down with me. I wish…

A queer look came over Spyro's face when Cynder looked up, her mouth already open to confess – or try to. She shut it quickly, discarding that idea, and watched him with bated breath. Sparx glowed fiercely, anxiously. Spyro's snout scrunched up and his mouth set in a firm, angry line as he stood straight again and beckoned them to him with a loud, sure voice.

"Get close to me. Now!"

Without question – because Spyro was a natural leader, because they all just needed comfort, needed the intimacy of standing close enough to touch in the face of their early deaths – Sparx and Cynder bounded closer and huddled against Spyro as he closed his eyes and squared his shoulders, wings curved protectively around both of them. Cynder felt helpless tears sliding down one side of her face and ducked her head against Spyro's shoulder. She couldn't let him see her cry now, this close to the end.

He doesn't deserve to feel ashamed. I'm the one who should be ashamed. She sobbed silently into his shoulder as she felt the truth in her own silent words, trembling with grief. She could feel that Spyro was still trembling minutely as well, but that only made her chest feel even more constricted. It's all my fault. I should never have hatched.

She squeezed her eyes shut more tightly in a futile attempt to halt the fresh wave of tears. She'd never get to tell Spyro how she… she'd never even get to thank him now. For everything.

I hate myself.

A vibrant amber light seemed to burst from Spyro, stretching outward in a perfect orb and encompassing all of them in its warmth. It felt almost liquidy, but it was getting thicker – strangely, Cynder didn't feel as though it was getting harder to breathe. Instead… Instead, it felt simply as though her lungs were inflating more gradually. The rocks hurtling toward them seemed to be coming in slow motion now, harmless. The amber light grew darker, deeper, slowly obscuring the chamber…

Has Spyro stopped time? she thought, and then, Oh.

He'd made a crystal. From… from his own magic…

Ignitus' voice echoed again in her mind one last time, but the words got lost. She made out purple dragon and made the connection, amazed and slightly horrified at the reality of it.

Cynder tried to flex her claws. She tried to flex her wings. She tried to think. Her mind was slowing down as well, fixed on one single amazed thought.

They were inside a crystal.

Though she was surrounded by light, Cynder felt the tendrils of shadows that had wrapped around her comfortingly earlier, this time beneath her frozen scales. It was inside of her – living, pulsing, somehow not terrifying. No. This darkness was not like the darkness that had lived in Spyro parasitically only minutes-centuries ago. Not evil like Malefor's. No…

This darkness was hers.

This was her power.

Her heart stopped beating, and her dreams called to her from the damaged, bleeding, tender depths of her mind. Her anxiety could not catch breath to renew itself. Everything was so still. Perfect. And her dreams, they would be her only escape... unlike the hole in the avalanche of poisoned rock, this one called to her despite the way she clung to Spyro and refused to think of leaving him, grabbed a hold of her and yanked. She found that she couldn't resist.

She let herself fall into them.