Chapter 7: Surrender

"Surrender your own poverty and acknowledge your nothingness to the Lord. Whether you understand it or not, God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you and offers you an understanding and compassion which are like nothing you have ever found in a book or heard in a sermon."

- Thomas Merton

Dirt and gravel rushed below her vision, and wind flowed past her muzzle as she rushed forward.

An infantile Kilat curiously watched the way her golden feet swayed in mid-air as she hung from the mouth of her mother by the scruff of her neck. Her father galloped alongside his family, looking back every so often. Unlike most dragons, his scales shone pure gold. No secondary color stained them, a trait unique to her family, it seemed.

Next to her parents charged three smaller dragons. Each, perhaps twice or thrice her age. Their colors varied between pure yellow or pure blue, but Kilat would never realize her mother was an Ice Dragon until the day she met Explodon in Mungo Volpe seven years later.

Her parents exchanged words, and two of her older siblings gazed at them with worry. The eldest had pity glazing his eyes when he stared at Kilat, the youngest of them all. Dark and furry figures obscured her vision, silhouettes painted by the scarlet flames flickering in the background. A slender dragoness far larger than her parents roamed the night skies and expertly sniped down any family that dared to brave the tempting emptiness of the air.

Suddenly the jaw keeping her above the ground went away. Kilat dropped and she felt herself rolling. Her mouth opened to shriek in pain, but the Electric dragoness for some reason couldn't match the full agony with the fact everything around her felt dulled. Her mother's cerulean paws vaulted over her, and before the child she stood, fangs snarling at the armored bipeds obstructing them, brandishing their weapons.

Her father, an Electric Dragon, batted an arrow that came her way and destroyed it before it struck the child. Kilat watched a yellow, illustrious orb gather in his gaping mouth. It emitted cracks of light and sparkled brightly, growing brighter and more luminous until the adult dragon's lips puckered and his tongue bolted forward, jettisoning the golden sphere at the one that raised a bow at his youngest daughter.

It crashed into the ground, where it expanded a thousandfold and erupted into a flash of light and electricity.

The light never faded. It intensified as the seconds passed, growing brighter and brighter until her dream came to an end. An older Kilat opened her cobalt eyes. She felt the heat of the sun bearing down on her body. Colorful geologic columns lined the sides of the Dry Canyon, and the bright red of igneous rock ran across the rim. Had the ten year-old dragoness been able to fly, it wouldn't have been so high, so unreachable for her.

But even if she could, the loss of her left wing rendered that null and void. Kilat shook off the stupor her dream left her in. It wasn't the first time she's seen her real parents and siblings while she slumbered. She had seen them try to escape together quite a few times in the past, while she lived in Mungo Volpe. Lani once explained to her they were trying to meet up with his family, so they can escape Malefor's army together as one coordinated unit.

The preadolescent dragoness panned her eyes around her. She grimaced at the expanse opening behind her. It was a long and deadly fall to the bottom of the Dry Canyon, across which a deep and treacherous river zigzagged. Had Kilat known more about the war four years ago, she would've recognized this river to be the very same one flowing from the great dam to the south. Kilat released a terrified whimper, realizing how close she had been to dying without realizing it, and so soon after she promised Lani to live on. But she couldn't have helped it, could she? She had been too confused, too enfeebled to notice she stood at the cusp of a cliff's edge, not until it was too late.

Kilat moved to stand. Apes were agile. Apes were flexible. Even if there was a good chance they couldn't scale down the steep walls of the Dry Canyon easily, the Electric dragoness didn't want to bet her life on something this. They've already taken everything from her. Her parents. Her siblings. Explodon.

And Lani. Dear sweet and loving Lani.

But as she stood, a spike of pain shot through her right foreleg. Kilat looked down and gasped. Her foreleg had bent all the wrong way. It was broken. Her right hind leg still ached from whatever that invisible Ape did to her. Worse, she left a pool of blood in her wake. Her stump had bled again, and the wound apparently exacerbated during her fall.

"Why is everything bad happening to me?" Kilat questioned the Ancestors. She mewled, gazing up at the orange glow of the afternoon sky. One of the Dragon Realm's two moons was already rising from the horizon. Then terrible coughs came out of her. Kilat sniffled. Sticky gunk dripped from her nostrils and her body felt remarkably hot and sultry.

The dragon child looked around. The mezzanine level of the canyon sloped precariously and flatly in some places, but it mostly held no shelter for her. While bushes were a dime a dozen, it seemed devoid of trees to take shelter. Of course, Spirit Gems were nowhere in sight. Not in a place as damned as the Dry Canyon.

There.

She saw a small waterfall flowing down the rocks, where the narrow river in the forest fell to join the larger one cutting across the bottom of the canyon. The flow was nowhere impressive, but it did tell her two things.

There was water.

And there was a chance she could find some sort of shelter there.

Driven by a growing hope in her heart, the young child hobbled the best she could to the only source of life close to her. Kilat grimaced how the trail inclined upwards slightly, and multiple times she collapsed on her broken foreleg. What would've taken her a short time with a quick, brisk walk lengthened so much Kilat lost track of her time.

Kilat could not remember how often she felt spent. The dragoness became so desperate she started to crawl. Even if she couldn't properly use either of her right legs, the child was so resolute she did everything in her feeble power to make it there. Who knows what she would find at the base of the waterfall? If she was lucky there would be a cluster of red Spirit Gems there, enough for a full recovery.

Kilat blew the green fluid out of her nose and made her way, reaching for her only destination in tiny, little steps. No other signs of life appeared on this level of the canyon. She stopped a few times to take a breath. Yet Kilat often found herself waking up a little bit later, still lethargic, still weak and feverish, and her head still throbbing as she moved. Her stomach also growled; she was hungry too.

She made it eventually, of course. But only after what felt like days crawling across the hot and burning rock. Sweat drenched all four of her paws, yet even the air around the canyon felt torrid, still hostile. Her stomach kicked her multiple times, yearning for meat, for food of any sort. Her mouth felt coarse. Even her tongue seemed to have dried out, and it felt more like rough, tanned leather than a fluid muscle.

Kilat hungrily eyed the yellow berries dangling from a bush close to the water pooling at the base of the waterfall. She staggered there, moving with increased urgency. She needed to eat. She needed to drink. With her two forepaws pretty much out of the way, the dragon child ate the berries straight from the bushes. They were tasty. Juicy even. She finished as much as she could before gulping down as much of the fresh water as she could.

But that did not stop the constant feeling of weakness dogging her. It did not ease up and instead continued to pervade her entire body. She shivered, feeling cold out of the blue. "I need rest," she said to herself. But she didn't want to be found so easily either. Not by those murderous, dragon-hating apes.

Luckily for Kilat, she found a decent amount of foliage right by the waterfall. It seemed thick enough to keep her hidden, but unfortunately not sufficiently enough to repel anyone larger than her. The dragoness limped and tottered her way to the vegetation. She ducked under the leaves and curled by the warm rocks when she could crawl no further.

There, drawing a (false) sense of security from the shrubbery surrounding her, Kilat fell asleep. Perhaps it was by the mercy of the Ancestors that darkness took her before thoughts of Lani's sacrifice surfaced, before she broke down into tears from a lasting sadness, and indeed, before she began thinking how life would be like without a wing.

Her sleep was dreamless.

Kilat snoozed in peace for a long time before the sounds of something slurping up the water brought her back into the waking world. The sun was still out, but the sky had dimmed considerably by then to a deeper and brighter shade of orange. She felt weaker. Much weaker than before, as if her body deteriorated so much while she'd been asleep.

"Holy shit, that climb was exhausting!" someone lamented. It was male. "I swear to God, when I get back home I am never climbing again."

The person seemed alone.

Kilat rose to her feet. She stumbled, but suppressed any yelp caused by the flare of agony. The dragon child inched forward, towards the opening in front of her. Anticipation lifted up her chest. There was a traveler here! Maybe it's someone she could go to and ask for help. Maybe it's someone who can bring her to Warfang. Or at least, someone who could—

All hopes deflated when she finally glimpsed the mop of black fur across the stranger's head and the distinctly primate structure of his face and posture. It was an ape, and uncannily a furless one at that. He had deep, brown skin and wore strange clothing over himself. Kilat edged back. Fear clawed into her chest, and the thought of Lani rushed to the forefront of her mind.

She didn't want to die.

But her body betrayed her. Coughs she couldn't suppress wrenched themselves out of her throat. They were wet, and she spat out gunk from her mouth. Her head throbbed with each cough, and all the strength in her body seemed to fade.

The furless ape jumped, startled. He stopped whatever he was doing and looked in her general direction. "Hello? Anyone there?"

Her heart pumping rapidly, Kilat inched backward. Oh no, she thought. The dragon said nothing, hoping against hope she could hide from this ape long enough for him to dismiss her coughs as sounds in the wind.

Looking back, it might have worked too, if Kilat did not step back with the sprained foot. The unexpected pain permeating her body caused her to stumble and disturb the brushes she hid in. A loud, frightened squeal then flew out of her muzzle, too fast for her to stop it.

The furless ape heard it all. "You alright?" he asked. Concern colored his voice. But Kilat knew better. Once he saw her for what she was—once he realized she was a dragon, and the one he was probably looking for, all pretenses of care would vanish instantly. "Hey, say something!" His green eyes stared in her direction.

No.

They stared at her.

They zeroed in on her with such precision Kilat felt they just made eye contact. But that was impossible! Kilat couldn't be seen fully under the foliage. Even if the furless ape tracked her scent or followed the dried bloodstains, those would've saturated every bit of her hiding place. How—

"C'mon, I know you're there," said the ape. He sauntered closer. Kilat kept her mouth shut. She resolved not to say anything to this enemy. She was in no shape or condition to fight back, so the sooner he left, the better. She quashed the fright slowly seeping in her—

The furless ape interrupted her thoughts. "Don't be afraid," he said, his timing so impeccable it scared the Electric dragon child more. How did he…? "Just come out. It's okay. Maybe I can help. You, you don't sound so good."

She whined and retreated further. Kilat despised the fact she couldn't run. She detested the pervasive weakness running across her body, and how it still seemed so tempting to lie down and sleep, to simply give up.

"Jesus Christ," grumbled the ape. "What is wrong with you? I'm not—

That's when his emerald eyes saw the dried flakes of blood beneath his feet. He went quiet. Then the furless ape examined his surroundings with more attention. With more prudence. A few tense instants passed by before he gazed in her direction again, as though he knew exactly where Kilat watched. Those two eyes squinted, and several times he crouched and examined the shrubbery, or at least how much of it he could see from his point of view.

Something impossible emerged from his lips. "It's, it's you. You're that yellow dragon." The furless ape straightened his posture and began walking. Ambling closer.

Kilat was cornered like a common rat. "Get away!" she spoke at last. "Just leave me alone!"

"Like hell I won't," he retorted.

"I'll hurt you, ape," she threatened with a loud growl. "I'll kill you! You're not taking me. You won't get me!" Kilat didn't know how to use her element but she would find a way in the heat of the moment. Lani managed to learn his in the short time he's known Rockclaw. Surely she could come up with something on the fly.

To her consternation, he stopped, displaying a hesitation she didn't expect from one of these accursed apes. A strange emotion twisted his face, but after a few moments he shook his head. "No," he said. His approach slowed down, grew more cautious. "I won't leave. I am getting you out of there even if it's the last thing I do."

When his feet closed in on the bushes and his hands reached in to part the leaves, Kilat screamed. "No, no, leave me alone. LEAVE ME ALONE!" The stress in her voice buzzed with activity, and she felt her chest tingling from an erratic vigor stirring deep within.

Instincts borne into dragonkind rose to the surface. The image of her father burned itself into her mind's eye. The way he kept his mouth agape, the way a globe of crackling electricity coalesced into his mouth before he shot it at his enemies and killed any unlucky enough to be hit. Unconscious of her actions, Kilat opened her mouth the exact same way and let the stinging energy within her pool between her teeth.

She put everything into it. All her anger at the Apes for taking away her loved ones. All her grief at Lani's death, at Explodon's sacrifice. All her frustration at the Ancestors for failing to help her. Kilat put everything into it and aimed right at the furless ape separating the bushes.

Green eyes dilated at the sight. "Oh f*ck, you can use the Electric Orb!" He jolted back and raised his arms in defense, a very familiar trepidation flushing his eyes. But not before Kilat spat the orb at him.

She expected the compressed ball of electricity to strike him in the face, or in the arm when he lashed out in an attempt to repel it. She anticipated it to behave exactly the same way it did in her dreams: to expand rapidly after impact and burst into a deadly array of lightning bolts. Kilat felt no remorse for killing the stupid, furless ape. She warned him to leave her alone and like all those who slew her friends in cold blood, he ignored it and went for her anyway. Kilat was no defenseless dragon, even if she was a child.

But expectations were one thing.

Reality was another.

The furless ape swatted at the "Electric Orb" with his hand just as she expected, but to her immense shock, a white radiance enveloped the entire arm right as it struck the ball of lightning. Kilat watched in horror as his palm batted the golden orb away. Effortlessly. As though it was nothing to him. It flew to the far right, where it expanded and harmlessly detonated into a massive burst of electricity.

He stared at his hands for a moment, and frowned. But that did not dissuade him from resuming his approach.

Kilat collapsed from debilitating exhaustion. Her vision turned blurry, and she could no longer see clearly. Her dizziness—her weakness overwhelmed her all of a sudden, like a thief in the night. The dragoness had put literally everything she had into that last attack, and seeing it deflected so easily drained all the hope from her chest. It stripped away all the energetic optimism from her innocent eyes. Kilat broke down into tears, sobbing from anguish.

The ape's hands clutched the scruff of her neck. He grunted as he dragged her out of the bush. He apparently didn't care how much she snuffled, or how much she convulsed every time her injured legs bumped into the roots, into the imperfections of the ground. He didn't care as long as he got what he came for and did exactly what he said he'd do.

When the bright sky revealed itself in full, Kilat surrendered completely to her fate. A bloody and disabled mess. This was it. This was the moment she joined Lani and her family in the afterlife. The dragoness still bawled like a baby, only because everything that had happened seemed so unfair. She was just a child. Barely past ten years old. She only wanted frivolous things. She just wanted to live a happy life. Was that so much to ask from the Ancestors?

Kilat trembled. The Apes hated dragons. The Apes wanted dragons to suffer, regardless of how old or innocent they were. What was this one going to do to her? Would he gut her? Would he torture her? Would he break her leg more than it already was? Would he break another bone in her poor, beaten body?

Towering over her, the furless ape tightened his hold over her neck and jaw. Kilat soiled herself and released everything out of the hole by the base of her tail, absolutely enraptured by fright. He glared down at her, face contorting from the repulsive smell. The sense of doom strengthened. She was at his mercy and he knew it!

"Please," Kilat asked her captor, barely stopping her tears. She stared into her killer's unreadable, viridian gaze, and pleaded to him for a mercy she prayed he'd give. "J-just please, m, m-make it… Make it quick." Better a fast, painless death than an agonizing torment that was slow to end. "It, it's too much," the child begged. "Stop the pain. I can't, I can't take it anymore. P-p-please…"

He did not reply. Instead his other hand went to the rest of her body. Five fingers grabbed her frail, golden underbelly, and pulled her closer to him. The grip hurt and the pain made her whimper. Kilat felt the hand on her head snake around her neck. The furless ape forced the dragoness to raise her shivering snout, and then...

.

Then he…

.

He…

.

.

.

He did not kill her.

.

By the Ancestors, he hugged her.

He cradled as much of her in his arms as he could and nuzzled her.

"You're alive," he verbalized. "I, I still can't believe it. You're, alive!" He proclaimed it, not with irritation, not with loathing, but with relief and happiness. He ran his hand along the horns curving outward from her head. He stroked her jaw. He played with her ears, and rubbed her neck in a manner that signaled true, genuine concern for her. "Thank God. Thank f*cking God..."

Utterly dumbfounded, Kilat could not say anything in reply. Not to this unexpected gentleness. But could she have said something anyway? The child thought this person was going to kill her, to torment her as every ape wanted. Instead, he shattered every single one of her expectations and presented Kilat with a kindness she had never seen from the Apes. Not for a dragon.

The child's muzzle scrunched from the deep emotions running through her.

Shock.

Confusion.

Disbelief.

But when it finally dawned on Kilat that she was safe at last, far away from her pursuers—and in the hands of an ape, of all people—all the stress, all the grief of the past few hours rushed out. The pain accumulating in her chest surged forth as though the dam keeping her sane crumbled to dust.

She raised the only forepaw she could and wrapped it around the furless ape. The child curled into him, buried her muzzle into his blue shirt, and wept. Kilat grieved for Lani, Explodon, and the other two who died for them. She lost herself in a sniffling cacophony of broken sobs.

"No one's coming to get you anymore," he said. The only ape in the world who cared enough to be her friend.

The crippled dragon clutched him tighter. Kilat wailed harder as she heard him say the words she wanted so desperately to hear.

"You're safe now. You're safe. Everything's gonna be alright..."

Author's notes:

Aaaand there you have it. Joshua and Kilat meet at last!

Of course, before we proceed any further, he'll have to find a way to help her with her injuries. But there's also the fact she's, well, slowly dying. (She ate those yellow berries. You know, those poisoned ones. Uh-oh!) But that's something to deal with in the next chapter.

I have to be kind to my characters every once in a while, after all. Real life isn't all bad news, right? Good things happen too. It's only when good things happen too much that a "Human in the Dragon Realms" story—or any story for that matter, whether it's fanfiction or an original tale—turns into an eyesore, a headache, and a waste of digital space with little regard for realism. Of course, you know how much this reduces the entertainment value…

Okay, so I'm done updating for now. Originally, this had been a single chapter with the previous one, which is why I wanted this one out ASAP. Anyway, now that I'm done, I can take a breather, get to work on my main story, and more importantly, stop procrastinating and do real work. =_=U