by Dreagen
Rex suddenly felt a tightening in his entire body, as if it was seizing up, before being consumed by a feeling unlike any he had ever felt before. It was as if he was literally being pulled inside of himself.
Everyone watched as his head reared back, his eyes went white, and his TyRanx body faded into that of the young man they were all familiar with. Rex, now a SaVarian again, dropped to his knees and began to cry, his head lowered, his fur falling over his face. They watched in silence as he reared his head up and screamed agonizingly to the sky as tears streamed down his face.
DiNiya walked over and knelt down. Without fear or hesitation, she wrapped her arms around him, allowing him to cry onto her shoulder.
“You’re not alone, Rex,” she said, stroking the back of his head. “I’m right here with you.”
Normally Rex would have been soothed by DiNiya’s touch, would have slipped away into the warmth of her body; however, things were different now. He had been lulled into a false sense of security, allowed himself to forget that which had torn apart both worlds he had called home. The face of the enemy.
18
THE JOURNEY HAS BEGUN
For countless generations, KaNar had stood as a beacon of strength and prosperity, growing out of the Northern Continent’s Black Ridge Mountains. The town, like the rest of EeNara, was a place of limitless potential where those who walked its lands, swam its waters, and flew through its skies represented a greater truth known to this entire world. Now, however, what had been recorded in the pages of history as grand tales of battle waged against fantastical beings from another world—DraGons, monsters from beyond the sky—were a nightmare made flesh, with creatures of cosmic fire like any other, but bent on the destruction of the people of EeNara, just as it was written in the books and scrolls of history.
Seven days had passed since the DraGon Knights descended upon KaNar, burning much of it to smoldering ash. The first two days had been spent collecting the dead and depositing their bodies into the wild so they could return to the food chain, as was the way of EeNara. Among them were those VayRonx and KyVina had known personally. Both had felt a great sense of loss when they came across the body of TolNy next to NiroTy’s. It was said he had died trying to protect his grandson’s body from a pair of DraGons who had been toying with it cruelly.
The rest of the time was spent tending to the wounded, which numbered well into the hundreds. Healers from all over the continent had been arriving since the call had been sent out that KaNar was in need of as many as all the other villages and cities could spare. KaNar’s healers had to brave the daunting task of healing the survivors for the first three days on their own before the first of the others began arriving. They were a welcome sight emerging from the outer forest in varying numbers, and were promptly ushered in, where they began the seemingly endless task of getting the wounded and dying back on their feet so they could join the others in rebuilding KaNar.
VoRenna led all the able-bodied blue flames into the most damaged areas and began the arduous task of re-growing the flora that had been lost by interfacing with the forest’s many flames, while VayRonx and KyVina headed the construction efforts.
However, not all were focused on the revival of the mountain town. That terrible night had ended with an unimaginable event. EeNox, LyCora, AnaSaya, and Rex had all transformed, or shifted as many had come to call it, into DyVorians and displayed incredible power, none more so than Rex, who with his red flame became a TyRanx, long thought to be extinct. Still, ShinGaru, who had transformed into a creature that no one had ever seen and without any presence in the fossil record, eclipsed even that. DayKar had called him “ArisToky,” a word unknown in the EeNarin language, but was presumed to be whatever ShinGaru had turned into.
Rex’s transformation had lasted less than thirty minutes, but the others had remained in their new forms for a time longer. LyCora had been the first, reverting back to a SaVarian two and a half hours later. EeNox was next, changing back a little after four hours, while AnaSaya and ShinGaru were last, returning to their original forms over six hours later.
None of them had any idea what caused them to turn back, only knowing that it had happened suddenly for each, with their other bodies dissolving into their originals like ghostly phantoms.
Being small enough, they had hidden themselves away in BaRone’s storehouse located behind his shop, while the adults decided how their situation should be handled. They, of course, knew they had nothing to fear from the tribe, but were still frightened by the confusion of the prospect of what had happened to them.
“How could we be DyVorians?” EeNox asked the others. “Or be able to shift back and forth like that?”
“Or what that even makes us,” LyCora replied. “SaVarian or DyVorian?”
“Maybe we’re both?” AnaSaya said, trying to contribute to the conversation, but as usual was shut down by LyCora.
“How can we be both? How can anything be two things at once?”
“I didn’t say I knew, myself. I just thought I’d offer a possibility.”
“Which is more than you’ve tried to do, LyCora,” EeNox added, giving her a disapproving look.
“Well, don’t hold back if you know something the rest of us don’t.”
ShinGaru had been sitting off to the side, silently watching them with a benign expression, when he finally spoke. “Easy, you two. Fighting amongst ourselves isn’t going to get us any answers.”
“I know,” LyCora said, sounding almost defeated. “It’s just that…this is so surreal.”
“It is a lot to take in,” AnaSaya agreed.
“Regardless, we need answers.”
“Your mother never mentioned anything about this?”
“What, that I can turn into a VyoNyvora? No, I’m afraid she failed to mention that.”
“No need to be sarcastic,” AnaSaya said.
“I don’t recall asking your opinion on the matter!” LyCora hissed.
“Hey, back off,” EeNox exclaimed. “I get it that you’re stressed out because of this, we all are, but that doesn’t give you the right to just take it out on the rest of us! Least of all AnaSaya!”
“You might not be so quick to defend her had you seen what she did, or rather didn’t do, when we split up.” AnaSaya turned and looked at the floor, no longer willing to look anyone in the eye. “She had no problem just standing back while those things were trying their damnedest to kill me.”
“You must be joking,” he said, sounding unconvinced.
“When have you known me to have a sense of humor? If it hadn’t been for TolNy, I would have…” She stopped when she remembered that terrible moment when they had brought his body back along with that of his grandson. He had been horribly burned, while NiroTy looked half eaten. It had been truly a heartbreaking sight, one made all the more disturbing because she had been fighting alongside him only hours before. LyCora shook her head in an effort to force the images out of her mind.
“She has every reason to be angry with me,” AnaSaya said at last. “I did indeed refuse to help when she needed me most.”
“AnaSaya,” EeNox gasped. “But why?”
She looked up with a face marred by exhaustion. “My mother taught me something about my flame when I turned eleven that she made me promise not to ever repeat. But…I feel that this constitutes a special circumstance. She told me that the lavender flame did not evolve to heal, like most believe, but instead to control the life energy produced by one’s flame.”
“This is the first I’ve heard of this,” LyCora stated.
“I’m not sure I even understand,” EeNox added.
“It was that way for me, too. The way she explained it was that millions of years ago some DyVorians learned how to siphon the life out of other living things to not only sustain themselves, but also as a defense mechanism.”
“In other words, what better way to kill something than to simply rip the life right out of it,” ShinGaru said with AnaSaya nodding in tur
n. “Interesting, to be sure, and not as much of a secret as you might think.”
“Wait, you mean you’ve heard of this?” AnaSaya said with a look of surprise.
ShinGaru nodded. “Albeit not much, I’ll admit. Some of the older texts in the biology wing of the Guild speak of such ability, but explain that it is extremely rare and that it only crops up in the wild as a result of extreme environmental pressures.”
“Not to mention that it would take an expert level of mastery with a lavender flame,” LyCora interjected. “Sorry, but just because your flame, in theory, has the ability to do something doesn’t validate your choosing not to help. It’s like a CyTorian saying they won’t carry medicine to someone who needs it because they could run into a storm and be struck by lightning where they would fall and land on someone on the ground. It’s ridiculous.”
“Except it’s not a theory because I have killed someone by using my flame in that way,” AnaSaya said in a small voice. LyCora immediately fell silent, while the others leaned forward. “It happened four years ago. My mother and I live on the edge of the wild, where it is not uncommon to meet DyVorians of the wild tribes. Most of the time they mean no harm, simply only requesting passage through. However, on one particular day, a GaroVora came into the garden. He was an old bull, wounded both in body and pride from having lost to a younger male for the right to lead his herd. He was blind with rage and pain, and immediately began destroying everything. I was playing in the garden when he charged me. My mother tried to stop him, but he was too consumed with his anger. I thought I was going to die…that’s when I felt it.” She gripped her chest, now breathing quickly, nearly hyperventilating.
“It’s all right,” ShinGaru said as he gently placed an arm around her. “No need to panic, you’re with friends now.”
“You d-don’t understand!” she stammered. “I…I killed him. I just, I mean…I looked up and saw those horns coming straight at me, and then something happened and I saw my flame come out of me without me even telling it to. It passed right through him, and then pulled back into me. Before I even knew what happened, he was dead and I was on my feet…I don’t even remember standing up…”
“AnaSaya, what you did was an act of self-defense,” he explained in an effort to console her. “Because of your actions, you no doubt saved your own life, but quite possibly that of your mother. Sometimes in nature we are forced to take life in order to survive. It is very different than killing out of spite.”
“I realize that, but it was the way it made me feel afterwards that frightened me!”
“The way it made you feel?” EeNox asked.
“I felt so alive, like I was almost floating above the ground. I could feel his life being drained from him as my flame drank it in ravenously. The worst part of it was that I enjoyed it. It was like quenching a deep thirst that I never knew I had until that moment. I was afraid that if I ever did that again, that I would not be able to stop myself. Don’t you understand? I don’t want to hurt anyone! Most of all not the people I care about, and believe me, I care about all of you! Even LyCora, who I know hates me and for reasons I can’t fault her for!”
LyCora shifted in place while EeNox just smiled. “Well, then,” he said, brushing a strand of her disheveled fur out of her face. “I think it’s safe to say the feeling is mutual.”
“And if such a power truly does dwell within you, then I am very happy you are on our side,” ShinGaru added.
The two of them then turned to LyCora, as if they were telling her it was her turn to say something nice. She regarded them both with a look of visceral irritation before returning her focus on the smaller girl between them. “You said you felt scared when you saw that GaroVora coming straight at you.” AnaSaya nodded silently. “Well, I can tell you that I know exactly what was going through your mind at that moment because it was the very same thing that was going through mine when I saw that DraGon charging towards me. I have never been so terrified in all my life, and all I wanted in that moment was for something, anything, to happen to make it stop. You were fortunate in that you had some innate power you were not aware of and that it manifested itself at a time you needed it most. I was not so lucky. Then again, I suppose TolNy saving me when he did could easily constitute as luck. Dumb luck, in my case.”
“But you are very powerful,” AnaSaya declared. “Even now I can feel how much so just by sitting next to you.”
“Kind of you to say, but back there I wasn’t powerful enough. You might have been. You might have been the one to save me, but you didn’t. And if TolNy had not stepped in when he did, I would be dead now.” AnaSaya began to cry quietly, not wanting to make a bigger scene than she feared she already had. To her great surprise, LyCora leaned into her and placed a hand under her chin, lifting her face up to meet hers. “It sounds to me like you have an incredible power within you, one that could do incredible things once harnessed. But if you continue to ignore it the way you apparently have, it will manifest itself in dangerous ways one day, and then you truly will end up hurting the people you love.”
“But how?” she asked. “How do I take control of something so dangerous?”
“By first acknowledging that it is as much a part of you as anything else.”
“Will you help?” she asked. “Will you teach me to control the dangerous aspect of my flame, like you did for Rex?”
LyCora regarded her for a moment before looking at EeNox and ShinGaru, who both gave her a silent nod. With a light sigh, she looked in the girl’s eyes and said, “Very well. I will do what I can.” AnaSaya’s face suddenly lit up. “But I make you no promises. To be honest, I’m not really sure what I did for Rex. His power is obviously far greater than any of us could have expected.”
“The same could be said for us,” ShinGaru said.
“Has anyone seen him yet?”
“Just my father and a few of the others, like your mother,” EeNox replied.
“How is he?” AnaSaya asked.
“Not talking,” he said solemnly. “My sister says he hasn’t spoken a word since he awoke five days ago, but apparently he could not stop eating for the first two days.”
“I still can’t understand why they would not even let us see each other until today,” LyCora said, sounding almost bitter.
“Probably because they were afraid,” AnaSaya replied.
“Afraid of what?”
“Of what happened the last time we were all together.”
DiNiya slumped down on the floor outside Rex’s door. She had been there day after day and most nights. Rex had refused to come out of his room since the night of the attack and had barely eaten after the first forty-eight hours. She had wanted so badly to force her way in and wrap her arms around him in an effort to make him understand that he was not alone, that whatever he was feeling, no matter how terrible, he could lean on her for support. She, however, had come to know Rex well enough to realize that the likelihood of him allowing her to do that was about as plausible as her suddenly firing off red flame from her nostrils. Still…stranger things have happened.
Rex was sitting at the far side of the room, leaning against the wall, eyes pointed forward staring at nothing in particular. He had been that way for over an hour now, his mind replaying the same images over and over again: his father running with him in the park, holding him up on his shoulders, taking him to work and showing him all the dinosaur skeletons as well as the catalogue of fossils in the basement of the museum. All had been wonderful, happy memories, until he arrived at the one where he saw the old man look up at him with pain-stricken eyes. He had seemed so small and frail in his final moments, something that was hard for Rex to deal with, for he had always seen his father as a pillar of strength. Someone he could lean against when he was feeling weak, which had always been more often than not, despite how he made himself appear to others.
Then his heart felt as if it had been stopped cold in his chest when he watched the most familiar face he had known vanish in
a flash of lavender fire and be reduced to a pile of ash. “Father,” he said in a quiet tone as tears gently ran down his face. He did not cry out, but rather sat in silence, head lowered, eyes flooding. His life had never been a happy one, but because of his father he had at least known happiness in some form. Now he was gone, killed by a monster. A creature…wait, he thought, suddenly looking up as another memory burst forth from his subconscious and slammed head on into the forefront of his mind. “I was…no wait…I changed or…woke up!” The full reality of that night was now perfectly clear, and he could remember feeling some deep call within himself and the red flame that seemed to pull him toward it. What had followed was a feeling or a sensation unlike anything he could describe. It had almost been like waking from a dream, only what he awoke to was more surreal than anything he could have concocted in his mind while asleep.
There he had stood, amongst the monuments built to marvel at the Earth’s greatest creatures, as one of them. It had all happened so fast, yet it felt so natural in the moment. He had always felt a special connection with them, but he had always just assumed it was like any other fanaticism. Never would he have guessed that it stemmed from something deeper, that his connection to them was in fact literal. He was a dinosaur, but not one of Earth—he was of EeNara, a DyVorian.
His head started to spin as the weight of this realization began to bear down on him. He placed his face in his hands for a moment before looking at the door. He had remembered DiNiya knocking at it many times, urging him to either come out, or to at least let her in. Her pleas for him to communicate with her would eventually give way to those of her urging him to eat. Try as he did, he had not been able to resist the hunger that had been burning in his belly since the night of the attack on KaNar, since he had once again shifted into a DyVorian. He had remembered waking in the night with the feeling like his stomach was on fire, baying savagely for sustenance. To his great relief, BaRone and TarFor brought him as much food as he could fill his stomach with, while VyKia would give him a now routine physical examination. He still was unsure of what she was looking for, for there seemed to be no outward sign that there was a five-ton carnivore lurking within. Aside from those moments, he was alone and it served to give him time to think of all that had befallen him.
