by Dreagen
The two boys made their ascent, taking note of the peculiar cloud formations overhead. They were a golden sepia tint and seemed to churn continuously like a sea in motion. Slowly, one of them began to distend from the others in what could have been a funnel but gracefully turned into the long serpentine form of ShinGaru. Rex watched as the elegant creature floated down to the hill where he came to rest in a circular pattern around the two girls, and turned back into his SaVarian form, just as he and EeNox reached them.
They all looked at one another, with no words shared between them, yet all of them seemingly knowing what the other was thinking. One thought in particular seemed to persist past all the others; someone was missing, someone very important. As if moving as one entity, they turned their heads left and saw a lone figure standing far off in the distance. The scene was one of jarring desolation. Behind the black silhouette was a blood-red sky and what looked like a broken sun behind it being held together by sinews of cosmic fire, dying as it slowly fell behind the curvature of the world. The most nightmarish thing about it was that the scene was dead silent. Not a sound could be heard, but a desperate plea could be felt from the sad, shadowy figure. So strong was it that it could almost be heard as a voice. One that rang out in their heads: Don’t leave me.
Rex’s eyes immediately shot open and were greeted by darkness before quickly adjusting. He could see the others stirring uncomfortably in the shadows, all of them fully awake and clearly agitated. It was not until after a minute of watching their wide-eyed expression darting to one another did he realize how heavily he was breathing.
Finally, EeNox broke the long and uneasy silence. “At the risk of sounding crazy, were you all really there with me?”
“And did you see…her?” asked AnaSaya nervously.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“How did we have the same dream?” LyCora asked.
“I think for the same reason we all shifted when Rex did, on both occasions,” ShinGaru said. “We seem to be all connected, or linked in some way that allows us to join our minds.”
“But how is that possible?” LyCora asked now, more insistently.
ShinGaru slumped back down. “I wish I knew.”
“That was DiNiya,” Rex said bluntly.
EeNox nodded. “She was right there but felt so far away, and…” His voice began to tremble. “So scared.”
Rex rested a clawed hand on his back. “I’ll get her back.”
“We all will,” he replied.
“Do you think she was trying to reach out to us?” AnaSaya asked. “Trying to tell us something, I mean?”
“Perhaps,” ShinGaru replied. “There is still so much about what we are and what we can do that is a mystery to us.”
“DiNiya is like us though, right? A DyVorian flame implanted into a SaVarian form?”
“That’s what my father said,” EeNox replied.
“So doesn’t that mean she has the ability to shift like us?”
Everyone pondered the question. DiNiya, despite all her personal strength and unyielding desire to help others, had always seemed somehow broken as a person. The disappearance of her flame seemed to have been a physical manifestation of what had happened inside. For anyone who had known her prior, they remembered her as a bold and adventurous little girl, who from the moment she could stand on her own two feet would chase after everyone as if they were on their way to some grand adventure and did not want to be left behind.
“It should be her leading us,” EeNox said with a smile. “She was so strong, even back then. I was always right behind her in those days. Looking back on it now it seems silly, but I was always so scared to be far from her. It was like she was always there looking out for me.” He lowered his head. “To see her…to feel her…so scared.” He looked up to his friend with desperate eyes. “Rex…I don’t know what I’ll do if she dies.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Rex replied in a stern voice. Everyone looked at him with surprise and expectancy. “She’s not going to die. I’ll see to it myself.”
“There you again, making it all about you,” said LyCora. “Must you always forget that we’re here too?”
Rex narrowed his gaze as he regarded her with an almost suspicious look. “You know, there’s something I’ve been wondering this whole time.”
“Oh?” she replied cautiously.
“Prior to DiNiya being taken, you never showed any sort of concern for her. Hell, you acted like you downright hated her. Now here you are…a long way from home on a rescue mission to save the one person you could never stand to be around.”
LyCora looked at him with a serious expression, not speaking or even blinking. Rex could feel his flame begin to stir, and all the while those piercing blue eyes bored holes in him. Finally, she turned and looked down, a solemn expression now emanating from those same blue eyes. “I didn’t always hate being around her, you know.” EeNox sighed, knowing the time had come at last to dig up the past. Rex, on the other hand, fixed his gaze on LyCora and awaited a long overdue explanation. “She used to be my best friend.”
LemaRes had been watching the back and forth between DayKar and DiNiya from afar since she had brought the girl back with her. Wanting so terribly to cut in every time the girl mouthed off to him in defiance, she sat back and watched the drama unfold with fists clenched and teeth bared. How dare she? she thought angrily. What right does she think she has? If she truly believes that simply because she has forgotten she should be absolved of her sins, then she should be punished tenfold. I will see to that myself if I have to. When DiNiya had attacked her mate, thus showing signs of her flame beginning to awaken at last within her, it had taken everything LemaRes had to hold back from pouncing on the girl and tearing her in half. Still, she trusted DayKar more than anyone. She had to, after all, otherwise not even his commands not to interfere regardless of what transpired would have been enough to stop her from shielding the one she loved from harm. None of them would be here today, alive in this time, if it was not for him and what he sacrificed. For that she would forever serve him, follow him to the threshold of oblivion and beyond.
Now she watched him take to the air and disappear over the edge of the tower on another routine patrol with four other knights. Time for a little catching up, she told herself, for despite knowing he would no doubt be upset with her for disobeying a direct order, she also had a duty as his mate to see that he was not needlessly putting himself in harm’s way—a thought that would have seemed laughable had the girl been anyone else. LemaRes sensed it the moment she came in contact with her that she was her old enemy, the very same red flame who she had dreamt of killing with her bare hands for centuries.
“Care to share the burden of your thoughts?”
Turning around she saw an immense DraGon perched behind her, regarding her with an almost sympathetic look.
“VoRon,” she said. “What are you doing here? I thought the Grand Marshal had you trying to get all the tower’s functions back online?”
“A task I have been diligently performing since being given the order,” he replied. “Still, being cooped up down in the bowels of this topographical eyesore is doing these old joints no favors.”
“You could always ask for some help. I’m sure he doesn’t expect you to do everything on your own.”
“Oh, well now, that would indeed be a great help. Still, I’m not sure he would be willing to spare any more capable young knights thirsting for the thrill of battle to help an old flame like me. That is, of course, unless a certain someone who has him wrapped around her little finger asked him nicely for me?” he added with a wink and a smile.
Try as she did to resist the urge, LemaRes laughed. “Still a bold one, even at your age.”
“I know not what you speak of, my dear,” he replied, feigning ignorance. “I am merely making the most of the resources made available to me.”
“Uh huh,” she replied, crossing her arms while smirking.
“So what do
you say? Help your old teacher just this once?”
“Well, I suppose I could make mention of your request in passing, should the opportunity arise.”
“Wonderful!” he replied happily, clasping his hands together.
“But I make no promises.”
“Of course not.”
“I don’t have nearly the kind of pull everyone seems to think I have with him.”
“It’s not ‘pull’ I believe you have with him, but a way through that hardened exterior of his.”
“You have more faith in me than I do. Since we’ve awakened, we have not spent one moment alone together.”
“DayKar is very busy these days,” VoRon pointed out, trying to sound understanding but knowing full well that his former student felt things more deeply than most. Ever since she was a child, she had been the sensitive sort, taking everything much more personally than he found to be healthy, something that extended to love, for she had eyes for a certain young DraGon named DayKar who had hatched in the next roost over at the same time as she and her brother. From that moment the two were inseparable. Everywhere he went she would follow, enamored by his strength and cunning. As they came of age and she developed into a strong and capable warrior, DayKar began seeing her as more than just the girl next door. VoRon remembered the day on which they announced their betrothal all too well. He had been happy for the both of them, but her especially, for he feared what a rejection of love would do to her. Still, DayKar’s feelings for her seemed sincere, and being that they both were from influential families of considerable station, their love was allowed to blossom with no interference.
He was the Grand Marshal back in those days, and it did not take long before he named DayKar as his successor whenever he should ultimately have to step down from the position, or fall in battle. Fortunately, it had not been the latter, and he was allowed to step down gracefully, watch his prodigy rise to claim the rank, and name his mate as his captain and successor. The event was coupled with their holy union. He remembered the ceremony well. Everyone of any position of importance in the clergy or Order was present to watch them be joined together in the eyes of the Nova Queen. It was a day to remember, a memory marred only by the backdrop of war. Still, that was all so long ago, and here they were still marooned on this strange world that would serve as their entire race’s salvation, their second chance. He only hoped DayKar was still up for the task. Turning his attention back to the present, he focused his gaze down on the girl pacing slowly below. “How are things progressing with her?”
“Don’t get me started,” LemaRes replied without any attempt to hide her contempt.
“Old wounds heal slowly,” he replied solemnly.
“I know what can help speed things up.”
“LemaRes, don’t start this again. No good can come from holding on to the past. I taught the both of you that, remember?”
“Yes, I remember. However, just because I can’t change the past doesn’t mean I can’t make the most of the present.” With that, she spread her wings and silently glided down toward the platform.
DiNiya stood trembling with rage and sadness. Her mind was splintering, coming apart at its seams. Every time she closed her eyes, she could see EeNox, ShinGaru, AnaSaya, LyCora, and Rex standing atop a distant hill on the horizon with a beautiful cascade of clouds behind them, a picture of completion that she desperately wanted to be a part of. She could feel them so close yet so far out of reach. She cried out, but instead of her voice she heard only a whisper escape her lips. Now she feared that she was too far for them to reach, to hear…to care. No, she thought. They would never do that! Rex and EeNox will surely come! Then she laughed to herself. While it was expectant of her brother, she was continually surprised by how connected she had come to feel to Rex. “The alien boy who came from another world,” she said with a smile. Despite this, he was more like her than anyone else she had ever known. Perhaps she was really more like him…alien.
“Lost in thought again?”
DiNiya turned and saw LemaRes perched where DayKar had previously been. The smaller female DraGon regarded her with a type of reserved hatred, one that she could feel in the air around them both like a dense fog. It was a most unsettling feeling, one that she hated even more than what she felt in the presence of DayKar. “What happened?” she called up boldly. “Did he tire of torturing me himself?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” LemaRes replied. “You’re hardly worth the effort. It’s the other one he truly wants.”
“Rex,” DiNiya said.
“Yes, the Doom Bringer. It was his power which awakened us from our centuries-long slumber.”
“What? How? The killings started before Rex arrived, so how could those have been you?”
“I never said they were,” LemaRes replied with a smirk.
“DayKar,” DiNiya said as she lowered her gaze.
LemaRes laughed as she dropped down in front of her and walked by, gazing up at the star-filled mosaic that was the night sky. “He really didn’t tell you much, did he? Well…I suppose that is to be expected. DayKar always did keep things close to the heart. Never letting anyone get too close…never truly letting anyone in.”
DiNiya watched the DraGon lose herself in the majesty of the cosmos above, her voice now revealing a fragile heart beneath the hardened, mean-spirited exterior.
“I remember when we first came here,” she went on. “We were so young, so full of hope and promise. I’ll never forget how I felt the first time I saw this living sky. It was a night like this. I had grown up in a dead world where the sky had turned permanently dark. Blacker than any black you could imagine. My parents would tell me stories of the sky when it was still alive and filled with colors and lights. I never thought I would ever see a sky like that, but then we came here, and it was like a dream come true: a new world…a new start. That’s what he told me.”
“Only this new world wasn’t empty,” DiNiya said with malice in her voice. “And instead of reaching out to its people and asking them for safe harbor, you brought war down upon them. A people who you knew nothing of! Spare me your sob story, monster! I’ve already heard it my entire life and the tears are not yours to shed!”
“Silence!” LemaRes roared.
“You tried to kill us all, and now you want me to pity you!”
“I said be quiet!”
“Like you suffered some great loss!”
“I’m warning you! Shut up!”
“You murdered so many people I loved. People who didn’t deserve to die!” She could feel the fire in her blood raging beyond where it had ever done so before. “You speak of coming from a dead world, but it was your kind that killed it in the first place, and that’s exactly what you’ll do to this one!”
“I swear to the Nova Queen I will rip that impudent tongue right out of your head if you don’t shut your filthy little fucking mouth!”
“You deserve to lose everything,” DiNiya pushed, faint red wisps of flame now rising off of her. “Deserve to watch your precious love die by choking on his own blood in front of you!”
LemaRes erupted in flame just as there was a second, brilliant explosion of red canceling it out. She was sent reeling backwards. With a quick surge of power, she managed to stop herself in midair. DiNiya was breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
“So, DiNiya,” came a cunning voice. “Is that how it happened?”
DiNiya froze while LemaRes gazed up, wide-eyed. Hovering twenty meters above them was DayKar, arms crossed, armor gleaming in the moonlight, with a look of cold resolution.
“Is that how you killed that boy?”
Rex and the others were now staring intently at LyCora. She knew she could no longer hide what she and EeNox had been keeping a closely guarded secret from Rex. “DiNiya and I…well…we were inseparable,” she said with a slight laugh. “My mother would bring me to KaNar all the time back then. I always looked forward to it more than anything because I knew I would ge
t to see my best friend. She and her shy brother who would always follow us from behind, thinking I didn’t realize he had eyes for me.”
“Wait,” EeNox said. “How long did you know?”
“Since always,” she said, giving him a gentle nip on the neck. “The two of us would always go off on what we called ‘our adventures,’ pretending that the depths of KaNar’s inner forest was an unexplored world, and that we were the bold explorers who were venturing into it first.”
Rex listened with both a sense of curiosity and familiarity. For the two of them sounded not all that dissimilar from him, with their desire to discover something that no one alive had yet touched, experienced—to be the first at something, to be special. He was also warmed to hear something that seemed normal by his standards for once, when it came to the lives of people in this world.
“We wanted so much to be like all the brave explorers in the stories we heard growing up from the moment we came into this world, grand tales where ordinary people could become the stuff of legend and be remembered for all time. Seems so silly now when I look back on it, but it still makes me happy.”
“So what went wrong?” Rex asked. “What pulled you two apart?”
LyCora looked terribly uneasy now, and she glanced over to EeNox for any form of support. The TarBoranx could no longer meet her gaze, however, opting to look at the ground instead. With a trembling sigh, LyCora continued. “One day, during the harvest season, my mother and I came for a visit. As usual, I was excited to see DiNiya. I ran upstairs as fast as I could, but when I got to her room I saw she was with someone else. Someone I didn’t know. A boy.”
“GoroTy, formerly of the capital,” EeNox said somberly. “His parents had been close friends with ours before my mother died. I remember when I heard the news about his…killed in a convoy crossing in wild country by Ridgebacks. Apparently they had accidentally crushed a clutch of eggs with the wagons when they took a shortcut through the forest, and right into their nesting grounds.”
