Chapter 4.

The world was waxed into a jumbled mess, with sounds so muffled it was as if they came from underwater, sights looking overly blurry and surreal, and scents so alien and incomprehensible, nothing made sense anymore. She couldn't even determine is she was laying on her belly or her back, is she curled or stretched all over... Her foggy mind barely registered that maybe she's being moved, but to where and why, she had no clue. She had no idea what happened to her, or what is going to happen. She wasn't even sure if she's alive at all. Even opening and closing her eyes were difficult for her, let alone trying to figure out a situation nobody he knew was ever into.

Sometimes, she managed to observe a few things. The voices she heard were unlike any dragon's, and they spoke in a way she couldn't understand. The lighting rarely changed: sometimes it was lighter, others it was darker. Once, she was almost sure she felt a breeze of wind against her scales, but she couldn't even think about opening her wings, let alone trying it.

Time lost all of its meaning as she just flowed with the events, like a pebble being dragged along in a flooding river's violent currents. Then slowly but steadily, her mind descended into the comforting darkness again.

Much later when she woke up, she felt a bit more collected. She hesitantly opened her eyes to see... absolutely nothing. A terrified groan escaped her mouth as she shook her head left and right but the darkness showed no sign of going away. A hoarse male voice called her on the name:

"Laranys? Is that you?"

The voice seemed oddly familiar, and after a few moments of thinking, she managed to associate a face to it. They've met quite a few times before, they even used to play together years ago, they weren't too far from each other in age.

"Volkownyr?" she tried.

After a rustle of something being dragged on the floor accompanied by soft clicks of metal pieces, the voice sounded a lot closer.

"It's me." Volkownyr said "You've got something on your head, hold still and I'll try to get it off."

Laranys ceased her stirring, and she felt a mouth carefully clamping down at her nose, and it began to slowly pull the fabric off her head. Seconds later, she saw Volkownyr in front of her, with a brown bag hanging from his mouth.

"By the grace of the Spirits!" she cried out "What happened to you, Volk?"

The young male's face was full of deep gashes; some still had droplets of blood around it. When he slightly opened his mouth to let the bag fall, she saw more scars on his chest, and as her gaze trailed down towards the bag, she was appalled by the sight of his right leg. He was missing two claws from his paw, along with a small chunk of it. He looked like he was caught inside a whirlwind of sharp stones, and the sight of his ragged wings only added to Laranys' suspicions.

"These damned humans blew a hilltop on me." Volkownyr groaned "I've got lucky; Arthie got the worst of it. Be glad you didn't have to see what's left of him."

Laranys couldn't decide which one horrified her more: Eienarth's gruesome fate, or the nonchalant way how Volkownyr presented it. Was this the dragon whom she used to catch fish together with in the shallows of the river?

Her silence was quickly interrupted however.

"But if you are here" Volk began "That means-"

"They attacked the valley!" Laranys cried out. Her mind became overwhelmed with the sudden onslaught of returning memories. Her breathing tensed, heart began to hammer inside her chest as she relived what happened to her a short while ago.

"Nyssie!" Volkownyr stepped closer, with a concerned look in his eyes "Nyssie, look at me!"

The dragoness slowly looked at him, her narrow pupils and intense breathing obviously indicating her shock. The sight immediately stirred up pity inside of Volk.

"Nyssie." He said softly in the most comforting tone he was able to muster "Please, try to calm down, and tell me what happened."

"I... They..." she swallowed and continued in a shaky tone "I was at the riverbank when... when something huge flew above us, and... and it spat out a green fog... it made us fireless. Everything was in chaos... I tried to hide behind a boulder, and heard roars and explosions coming from the entrance of the valley... eventually the humans came, and... and... they threw their iron vine-things on me and dragged me into a cage of some sort... then Grandpa came and tried to get me out... and... and..."

Laranys began to shudder and her eyes became watery. Volkownyr took another step towards her, but was powerless stop her from bursting into tears.

"They shot him..." she sobbed "... many times! They..."

Volk closed his eyes, and stepped beside her, throwing his wing around her shaking and crying form. Laranys collapsed to the floor, burying her face into her paws. Volkownyr felt his throat becoming tight, as he settled down next to the wailing dragoness. He had no idea what to say, so he stayed silent, and rested his head on her neck. It took a good amount of time for Laranys to calm herself down again. Then, an even more depressing thought crossed her mind:

"Volk... if they attacked the valley... what if they-"

"No." Volkownyr said strictly. "I refuse to even consider that. With Furies like Naveron, Salkonyr, or you father for example, I am sure they figured something out to evade the attack."

He received no answer, so he continued:

"If you think it over, there's no way Leader Lohengrin would've let the whole clan perish by the claws these bastards. I think if he assumed that it's a fight they cannot win, Leader Lohengrin would've ordered the others to pull back or even leave the valley." he explained.

Laranys didn't reply, instead, she began to eye her surroundings. They were inside a large cage, and the cage seemed to be in some sort of cave, but the walls seemed too smooth and their surface didn't look anything like stone. She soon discovered that there were a few, perfectly circle-shaped holes on the wall, which were opened to the... sky?

"Where in the name of Wotahn are we?" she asked in dismay.

"I was more or less conscious when they dragged us here" Volkownyr began "It appears we are inside of one of those huge flying things the humans use. Judging how the tremors began and went away, and from what I saw through those holes, I'd say we're airborne."

"But... how come there's no wind blowing through those holes?"

Volkownyr followed her gaze and looked at one of the mentioned holes.

"Maybe they're covered in some kind of transparent material. I really don't know."

After a few moments of thinking, Laranys spoke up again.

"But if we're in the air... then they are moving us. But where? And why?"

"I have no clue... but I think we will find out soon." Volkownyr sighed.

The two Night Furies were waken up from their uneasy slumber by loud noises and tremors. Volkownyr tried to peek out at one of the windows to see what's going on around them.

"It seems like we landed..." he stated "I can't see much... But I think we're on a huge plain of some sort, and I can see the mountains far away-"

A door snapped open on the other side of the plane's cargo hold, and a human came in carrying two buckets, escorted by an armed one. The armed human pointed his gun at the two Furies. Volkownyr growled and bared teeth at him, but slowly retreated to the back of the cage, keeping himself between the humans and Laranys. In the meantime, the other human spilled a bucket of fish on the floor of the cage, and put the other bucket next to it, which was full of water. After they were done, they growled something to each other and left.

"They brought us food." Laranys commented sarcastically "How nice."

"Absolutely." Volk replied in the same manner "You remember when you said they used a kind of gas to keep us from breathing fire?"

"Yeah..."

"Have you tried your fire ever since?"

The question brought a stunning realization on Laranys. How come she never even thought of this? But her eagerness was quickly washed away by the disgusting goo she managed to cough up instead of the usual flammable gas.

"Just as I thought." Volk assessed, seeing the younger dragoness' tries "I'm willing to bet my wings that the fish is full of the same thing their gas contains to keep us nice and tame."

Laranys carefully sniffed a fish, and hesitantly bit off a tiny part of it. After some chewing and thorough savoring, she concluded:

"It does have a slight aftertaste. And not because it's stale."

Volkownyr sat back on his haunches, eyeing the fish and thinking. A few silent moments passed, then he slowly spoke up:

"I'm thinking about whether we should eat or not."

"Well..." Nyssie frowned "I can go without eating for a couple of days."

"Me too, that's not the problem." he thought out loud "Thing is, now we are fed, so we can move and think relatively clearly. Other than being blocked from our fire, we are not hampered in any way. But I don't know how far will they transport us..."

"And after a long period of starvation" Laranys caught up with her companion's chain of thought "we wouldn't be able to plan our escape, or would be too weak to try it."

"Exactly." Volkownyr nodded. "Currently I can't see even a remote chance of getting out of here relatively soon; the cage is too strong for our claws and teeth, I even tried to push the grids apart but I couldn't. I think we should try to play along for a while, and keep an eye out for any opportunity."

Laranys let out a sad sigh.

"You have a point." she admitted. "But it's not like we aren't going to starve anyway."

Both of them took a look at the half dozen fish laying on the floor, and the lone bucket which was only halfway to full. This would've been a decent meal for a hatchling, or an acceptable appetizer for a fully grown Night Fury. They were in-between, but definitely far from being hatchlings.

"Still better than nothing." Volk sighed too.

"Right. Lets eat before they change their minds and come back to take it away."

They quietly ate their deplorable amount of food, and after drinking out the bucket, they settled down next to each other at the other side of the cage.

"This waiting makes me crazy." Laranys fumed after a while.

"Me too. But we have to stay sharp and be ready for anything." Volkownyr replied.

"Volk?"

"Hm?"

"What do you think" Laranys began, and swallowed tensely before going on "were other Furies from the clan captured with us?"

"I don't know it for sure. I didn't see anyone else, but that doesn't mean anything. What I did see however, were more flying things like this one. It is possible that others are carried separately from us."

She looked around again, and spoke up:

"There is still a lot of room for others... I just can't wrap my head around this whole thing. They start to shoot up our home, killing a lot of us. In the meantime, they even capture a few of us but they don't kill us, instead they start to take us to who-knows-where. This doesn't make any sense. What can they do with caged dragons? Will they just kill us slowly, or-"

"During training" Volk interrupted her "I've learned about what to do when you're caught in a sudden storm and have no shelter. My instructor said that just fly with the wind. If you fight it and try to go as you want, it'll slam you to the ground and break your bones into pieces. Let the wind take you wherever it wants, then you can figure out how to get home."

"So you think we should do what we would do in a storm?"

"Yeah. I don't want to go into wild speculations without anything to back it up... so I'm going to wait and see."

"Makes sense." Laranys commented.

"Heh, good old Wordy usually made sense..." he smiled, then realized what he just said and quickly began to apologize "By the Spirits I shouldn't... I'm so sorry Nyssie, I'm a complete idiot!"

"It's alright." she said quietly.

Volkownyr took a rueful look at her.

"I didn't mean to remind you of him..."

"I do want to remember him." Laranys explained sadly "I just want to remember about the good things."

Volk opened his mouth to answer, when the main doors of the cargo hold opened with a loud rumble, allowing some fresh air and sunlight in. And a swarm of roars and cries. The Night Furies stood up and ran to the other end of their cage for a better view. They saw lots of humans, pushing and pulling another cage, which had a dragon inside. That dragon was enormous compared to them, and by the way he was covered with a strange web of some sort, the two Furies assumed he was caught in mid-air.

One of the humans shouted something, then two other humans drew weapons, and shot something red into the straining and roaring dragon. Within a few moments, the dragon went silent and motionless.

"How in the name of-"

"Tranquilizer." Laranys whispered.

But the two armed humans didn't stop there, they ran up the loading ramp and reloaded their guns.

"Stay behind me!" Volkownyr cried and began to shepherd the younger dragoness towards a corner, while facing the humans, growling and hissing at them and spreading his wings. Laranys wasn't too scared about the incoming sleep again, but she was horrified how many bloody holes were torn in Volk's wings. She wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to fly again.

She was about to voice her concern towards him, when the darts came, knocking them out in a matter of seconds.

As the world slowly began to assemble from the fragments, Laranys couldn't help but let out a pained groan. Intensifying pain raked into her mind, the sudden dose of sedative caused a sharp headache during the wearing-off period. She slowly lifted her head and shook it in an effort to clear it. The first thing she noticed is the blunt humming coming from the sides, meaning that they were in the air again. She rubbed her forehead with the back of her paw, which seemed to lessen the pain a bit. Her peaceful contemplation was disturbed by a deep growl coming from startlingly close. She swung around, and the sight stunned her.

In the other corner of their cage, there was an enormous dragon, from a kin she'd never seen before. It was covered in reddish-brown scales which were darker on its back and got whiter around its belly. Curiosity overcoming her fear, Laranys carefully stepped closer to examine it. Its strange scent indicated that he's a male, and he lived in forests and places which were completely unknown for her. Laranys was mesmerized to see the creature had two full sets of wings. Night Furies had a set of primary wings and two sets of tailfins at the base and tip of their tail for additional control and manoeuvrability during flight. This dragon here had large and seemingly powerful wings at his shoulders, and another, slightly smaller pair a bit below, towards his hips. She couldn't get a clear picture about his exact dimensions because he was still covered with the strange, brown, human-made web, which tied his wings to his body in a surely unnatural and painful position. But even then she was sure that this dragon is at least three times bigger than her father, who was the largest Night Fury she knew. He had a round head with two horns and a grumpy expression which made him look like... an owl.

During her sniffing and looking, Laranys accidentally poked the dragon's upper left wing with her nose. The effect was immediate: the half-asleep dragon roared out, making her scream and as she tumbled back and fell through Volkownyr who was lying behind her. The sudden uproar woke him up too, he rocketed to his feet but when he saw what's at the other side of their cage, he instinctively jumped back too, accidentally knocking his head into the metal grids and falling on Laranys with a pained yowl.

"Argh... Volk!" Lyara moaned under him.

"I'm sorry!" Volkownyr barked and quickly got off from the smaller dragoness, and faced the dragon, who bared his teeth and growled menacingly at them. Volk roared at him, and the dragon seemed a bit surprised at first, responded with a much deeper and threatening roar.

"Volk, wait!" Laranys cried, after getting up again.

"If it is a fight he wants-"

"No! Look at him, he's shocked by the pain!"

Narrowing his eyes, Volkownyr took a good look at the other dragon's features. Now, he noticed that the dragon's pupils were narrow slits, and his chest rose and fell rapidly by the hasty breathing.

"Let me try to help him!" Laranys said.

Volk took a scared look at her.

"Are you nuts!? He looks half-crazy; he can tear you apart in seconds if he wants to!"

Laranys pushed him out of her way with an angry grunt, and walked up to the dragon. She stared deeply into his eyes, and slowly, distinctly spoke up:

"Listen. You are hurt. If I can take a look at you, I might be able to help. Will you allow me?"

The dragon slowly, hesitantly blinked in acknowledgement.

Laranys stood up to her hind legs, and placing her forepaws on the side of the dragon, she looked over his wing, searching for any kind of obvious injury. She quickly found out what was wrong: the web the humans used to catch him bended his wing backwards too much, and dislocated the large bone from the shoulder-joint.

"He has a sprained wing." Nyssie diagnosed. "Volk?"

"Yeah?" came the not too keen reply.

"I need your help to remove this thing from him before I attempt to put his wing back in its place."

"Okay." Volkownyr sighed.

Overcoming his uneasiness, Volkownyr approached the dragon, and stood up beside Laranys. Together, they began to carefully cut through the net with their claws, and removing the pieces to allow free access to the injured area. After a few minutes of work, the dragon was free of the ropes.

"I think I can help him..." Laranys said "But it's going to hurt."

"How about we make him bite into something?" Volk asked.

"Good idea." Nyssie nodded, and walked to the other side of the cage, where the empty water bucket were. She picked it up with her mouth, and carried it over the injured dragon.

"I'll try to put your wing back to its place. It is going to hurt, so I'd like to ask you to bite on this. It'll help to stand the pain." she explained to him.

The dragon looked nervous, but he hesitantly nodded, and opened his jaws wide. Laranys carefully placed the bucket into the mouth, and the dragon firmly bit down on it.

"Okay, now give me some room." Laranys told to Volk, who took a few steps back and watched her as she climbed up on the dragon's back.

"Are you ready?" She asked from the injured dragon, which gave an agreeing grunt.

"Volk, please grab onto his leg and try to hold it in place."

Now Volkownyr clearly looked like he's having reservations, but he did as she asked. Laranys readied herself, and pulled her fangs back as she bit down on the dislocated bone. She waited a few seconds, then forcefully pulled the bone upwards, then let it go as the joint pulled back into its place.

The dragon's roar was muffled by the bucket, but he bit down so hard, he crushed it with his jaws. He instinctively shook himself and kicked wildly, sending both Night Furies to the other end of the cage. Laranys groaned at the painful impact, but at least this time Volk didn't fall on her. She must have knocked her head, as the world seemed to spin around, forcing her to shut her eyes and tighten her jaws to keep the earlier, scarce meal inside.

She felt a brush of air on her face, and she opened her eyes instantly, to see the huge face of the dragon only inches from hers.

"Are you alright?" he asked in a deep surprisingly and caring tone.

"I think so. Volk?"

"I'm fine." came the groan beside her. "More or less."

"Please forgive me; I couldn't really think straight." the dragon said in an apologetic manner. "I owe both of you a great deal of gratitude. You've spared me from a lot of pain, I feel indescribably better now."

"Glad to hear it." Nyssie smiled at him as she stood up "My name is Laranys. My friends call me Nyssie."

"I wish we could've met in more pleasant circumstances, but nevertheless, I'm glad to meet you Laranys." the dragon smiled at her "I am T'Arakhniz, but you can call me Rak. And who is your friend?"

Volk stood up too, raising his wings slightly, sticking his chest out to try to look more majestic. Considering the fact that Rak was three times taller than him as he sat, his efforts were not too impressive.

"I am Volkownyr, son of Zaathanyr, Guard at the Auxiliary Night Guard Wing of Clan Toemnir." he announced, earning a disapproving glare from Nyssie, and a light chuckle from Rak.

"I see that some things never change." he grinned "Your kind was always famous for its wayward insistence for noble titles. But you're also renowned for your wits and compassionate nature, and I'm happy to say that you two won't bring shame to your kind's reputation anytime soon."

It took Volk some time to find out that this was a compliment, so he just sat down, and stayed silent. Then Rak turned back to Nyssie.

"Can I ask what kind of dragon are you?" she asked.

"You've never seen a Stormcutter before?" Rak asked back and when he saw Nyssie shaking her head, he went on: "I'm not that surprised; your kind has lived estranged from other dragons for a long-long time. But now I'd like to ask: what do you know about this place and the humans?"

Volk and Nyssie exchanged a meaningful glare, then Nyssie spoke up:

"Well, we are almost as unsure as you, but I can safely say that we're all in big trouble now."

A/N: Okay, the mystery around Cloudjumper is solved: he's a Stormcutter!

Good to know. ^^

Review! Please? :3

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