AN: Hey guys, sorry that it took me a while to update ^^' Writers Block is a biatch and a lot happened to me irl. I don't want to promise anything that I can't keep, but if you need some content while waiting for chapters, I have my fanart account, where I post sometimes :3 It's called mavifanart if any of you are interested.
Have fun reading 3
Chapter 17
Pressed against the quivering flanks of a very furious dragon, blood pumping in her ears with a deafening force, all Levy could think about was her own fear. Hades was here. He would see her, he would imprison her again and she'd be the downfall of an entire kingdom, not to mention the man she loved so dearly. The few seconds it took for Hades to approach the hissing, growling reptile felt like years as she desperately tried to keep her breath quiet and her twitching legs still. Oh how wonderful the feeling of running away would be, in this moment she'd rather the entire Erkarian army giving chase to her than be stuck in such a situation.
"Well, what kind of a greeting is this? You truly are an ungrateful child, Rheyvaer."
"RRRgh you are not worthy of speaking the name bestowed upon me. You defiled it!"
A jolt shook the dragons body as his wing pressed tighter against Levys side and she heard a choked noise coming from his throat.
"Enough! I will not be insulted by MY OWN creation!"
"hah...your creation? Don't…flatter yourself you vile creature. YOU couldn't create even a spark of life, much less hhhhhhgrh.. A DRAGON ", Rheyvaer growled as if he was straining and another rumble shook their surroundings, causing Levy to tense.
"Your cheap tricks remain unimpressive."
"You will learn discipline one day, stubborn beast. Shall I put you in timeout? A good heap of magic drainage should make you docile for a while."
A different voice suddenly appeared in the cave, barely audible over Rheyvaers rumbling growl.
"Your majesty, people are approaching the portal."
"Oh, our special guest must have arrived then. Please let them in, Thevos."
Just a moment later, a muffled conversation followed by sounds of a scuffle echoed through the cave.
"TELL HIM, you incompetent FOOL!"
"Yyy-yy-our, your majesty, the, the prisoner is not in, i-in, in her r-room."
"Oh, I wonder how she would have gotten out when you were guarding the door?"
"We...we, NOooo, hhah, we f-f-f, hnnngh, we fell asleep, your majesty." The voice answered, forced, as if having the answer pulled from their throat.
"No..YOUR MAJESTY PLEASE, I'M SORRY, IT WON'T HAPPEN AGAI…"
The bloodcurdling screams that followed this guilty plea had Levy pressing her hands over her ears, even though she knew she'd hear them echo in her nightmares. If she had any doubts about what Hades was capable of, he had eradicated them with this most heinous act. Her hands still pressed down on her ringing ears, her eyes wide with shock as fear she felt tears streaming down her face, a voice appeared in her head.
"Human. Calm yourself. " That was Rheyvars voice, softer than she'd have thought possible from how he'd spoken before and apparently only audible to her. "I need you to think about your bonds, possibly your mate and focus on it."
Levy, unable to speak even if she wanted to just agreed in her head, hoping he'd pick up on her thoughts. She closed her eyes tightly, shutting the cave out and retreating into her mind to search for memories of Gajeel. Not very hard, as he'd been occupying her mind these past days, but concentrating was a different thing under these circumstances, the guards' cries of torment were fresh in her mind. She tried the same method she used to bind her magic, imagining threads that bound her to him and to the memories they shared. She grabbed those strings tightly, engulfing herself in them like a comforting cocoon before imagining them all tangled up together like a ball of wool. There he was, his fangy grin, his smell, the soft rasp in his voice whenever he said her name, the warmth of his embrace, his eyes, his presence, so overwhelmingly strong she felt like she could just reach out and...
Her eyes flew open when a jolt of movement jerked her back into cruel reality. A scaled wing pushed her upwards and when she finally understood what Rheyvar was doing she grabbed onto the horn - like structures on his back and hoisted herself up. A burst of magic sent static through her and for a moment she thought it came from the gigantic white mass that had appeared in front of them, but looking back she looked directly into Hades' eyes and she knew who had caused the eruption of power. The friendly old man was long gone, replaced by someone entirely different, only recognizable by the grey hair and long beard. His face was twisted in a furious grimace, Levy could have sworn his eyes were black. A fiery purple vortex engulfed the lower half of his body, flames licking at his hands that stretched out towards her. Time seemed strangely slowed as she watched a large spearhead form in his hand and fly towards her face, pulling a chain connected to Hades' palm. Rheyvars sudden steps jolted her before it could make contact with her chest and she turned forward, right as her entire world went white.
Just a moment later she wasn't blinded by pure white, rather by ... sunlight? The soft yellow glow and warmth on her face at least led her to believe as such, so she tentatively opened her eyes, half expecting to see some form of afterlife. But what she saw was blue sky, turquoise waves and an all too familiar castle with a white tower.
"Farkesi..." she breathed, completely overwhelmed by the sight in front of her, half expecting it to be an illusion, a last cruel trick from her captor. But it was too real, the breeze too playful for it to be a mere illusion from someone as cruel as him. "How...? What happened? " the question came naturally to her, but she wasn't even listening for an answer, her mind filled with only one thought: home. Seeing the humble form of Farkesi Castle brought tears to her eyes again and holding onto the dragon beneath her was all she could do to keep from breaking down at the immeasurable relief that washed over her. The bells on the market place rang out, most likely announcing the end of the day on the market, but to Levy it felt like a welcoming. In this second, high in the sky above Terya, she was safe.
"I opened a portal." Reyvar stated dryly, but Levy overheard his tone, still shell-shocked, but now realizing what had happened, which sprouted new questions in her mind.
"But why did you never do it before? You could have escaped from Hades whenever you wanted!"
"Untrue. I have to be able to tap into some kind of connection to the place I want to go when I open a portal. All I ever knew since waking up was that cave, so I had no idea how the world had changed in the time I was gone. YOU however have strong connections to this world and even better, to someone with traces of my kin, so I used you as a catalyst."
"I cannot sense any magic from that building." Rheyvar added, fully awakening the analytical part of Levys brain.
"He's not here? Oh, he must have traveled to the border, Hades did mention he was at the frontline. Lets see, Erkar is in the west, so about a week on horse in this direction." She instinctively used her legs to direct Rheyvar like she would a horse, but the dragon did not move, merely snorting indignantly.
"What do you mean by "on horse?""
"Oh, right. So when humans started to…you know what? We'll talk about that some other time. Can you work with mountain ranges? It's about half the length of the Gthar."
"And that is?"
"The mountains up north from here, the ones that cut the south of the continent from the rest."
"Ah, now that is a direction. We should be there by tomorrow evening; we'll rest during the night. Don't fall off."
Holding on for dear life was all Levy could do when Rheyvaer spiraled upwards with a few beats of his mighty wings. Once high enough he opened his wings wide, stopping in the air for just a moment before leaning forward to glide comfortably in the direction of their destination. Levy was sure her heart would give out after all it had been through that day, although she had to admit that flying on the back of a real dragon was a feeling she'd never forget. Even though being so high up curdled her insides with dread, the view and feeling of complete freedom proved exhilarating, especially after so long in captivity. Rheyvar seemed to enjoy it as well, alternating between gliding, beating his wings to spiral up and doing several short nosedives that had Levy holding onto him for dear life as he carried her over fields and forests with unbelievable speed.
When the sun started setting Levy felt her limbs getting heavy, her eyes almost closing as Rheyvaer now stopped doing spirals or nosedives and just occasionally rose higher to be able to glide for prolonged times. The first star appeared on the night sky when he stopped rising and darkness engulfed them when he landed on a grassy hill, jolting Levy awake, as she'd been nodding off for some time.
"Sleeping on a flying dragon? There are few easier ways to get killed, be glad that I kept you from falling."
"I'm just very exhausted and you flew so smoothly. Thank you for looking out for me." Levy answered, sheepish to be scolded like this.
"Don't get used to it. I will rest now and advise you to do the same. I shall continue at daybreak, with or without you."
Levy had turned her back to him and walked a few wobbly steps away since she slid down his side, but now startled and whirled around when she heard a sound that could only be described as the ground itself ripping apart, paired with a deafening cacophony of rustling, snapping branches that made her fear Hades had found her already and unleashed some sort of attack on them. Instead she saw Reyvhaer, now holding an entire tree in one of his massive paws, making it look like a sapling even though Levy estimated it to be at least a few decades old. She watched in awe as he snapped it in half, the earth shaking when the crown fell with the noise similar to the one of a large wave crashing ashore. In seconds, half of the grass in front of her vanished and made way for a wide pit where the tree crown now came to rest.
"Move." Levy hurried to the side at Rheyvaers command, already having noticed the same light between his jaws that had scared her back in the cave, just a few hours ago. She closed her eyes in time to not be blinded by the bright ray of light he released with a deafening roar and only opened them when the heat slowly subsided, now replaced with the crackling of flames consuming wood. The tree had been reduced to a pile of glimmering coals that filled the pit now, emitting a soft red light and welcoming warmth. Rheyvaer curled his body as best as possible around the embers before laying his head to rest on the remaining trunk.
Levy, now feeling the exhaustion wash over hear like the shadow of a cloud on a sunny day decided that the safest spot around was next to the fire-breathing dragon and walked over to his shoulder where she sat down and leaned back against him, an action that caused him to open one of his blue eyes. She ignored the glare, more concerned with her belongings. The makeshift invisibility cloak hadn't survived the journey, it likely ripped when Rheyvaer pushed her onto his back, resulting in Hades noticing her in the first place. More importantly, did the books survive? After unpacking the bag she gave her notebook a good look over, relieved to see that it only suffered some dents, nothing that would put the contents in danger. The book on magical theories was in even better condition, much to her relief.
After eating both the bread and the apples she'd kept as rations she enlarged the blanket and covers from the castle to their original size and laid them out as a bed for the night, before the sight of the white fabric struck a memory in her.
"Hey, how is your wound? I could try to bandage it with this if you'd like," she offered the sleepy dragon, holding up the blanket cover to his eye for him to assess.
"The wound you sensed is internal, you just mistook the concentrated flow of my magic power for blood. It will regulate itself over time."
"Why did you take my offer back in the cave then? Also, why are you still going into the direction I pointed you. You could go anywhere you want, now that you're free."
"Intrigue, that's all. You offering to help me showed a great deal of compassion, one that no one else had displayed so far. And I want to meet one of the dragon blood descendants, see how much power they retained from our kind."
She'd planned on asking Rheyvaer some questions about these blood descendants or at least make a plan, but sleep overwhelmed her soon with a dream of the dawn that would herald her return the next day.
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finch6, Dragonfly2311, Firiare, rao hyugga 18 and MelinaRedfox328, thanks for your reviews and I hope you're still around to read this update, I also hope the next one won't take me as long ^^'
You definitely kicked my butt quite a bit, even though it may not seem like that. Knowing that you guys are looking forward to the rest of this story motivated me to keep working on it :3
Thanks for reading and see ya in the next one 3