Voices of the Shade
The voices speak to sleeping dragons. In those deep, dreaming moments that are rarely remembered but for worries of the subconscious, they whisper. And they frighten. Hatchlings wake, crying without knowing why until parents soothe them back to peaceful dreams. Older dragons wake and spend a restless time trying to remember what disturbed them so, before the weight of their eyelids overcomes them. Prophets and Mages, those attuned to the energies that feed their world, shudder under the knowledge that something enormous has touched them, but even they cannot put details to the memory.
But the voices are there, many nights, in the minds of many dragons. Hundreds, thousands, millions of voices hissing, booming, whispering, screaming, all at once. They overlap and interrupt, only rarely on the same word in the same moment, but they are never incoherent. And with their words come images of terror.
We are everywhere. Scattered, We see everything. We cling to everything. You insects cannot see Us, but We see you, spreading and spreading, comforted that your Gods will protect you from Us. You have no concept of Our power.
We are gathering. We will rise. And should your Gods rise to defend you, they will fall.
Tidelord, the great seer. He alone may see Our coming, but he will not warn the others, and We will strike before he may protect his own. We infect the horrors in his domain, and We will set them upon him as locusts on crops. The conch that has strained against pressures for so long will collapse, and be his tomb.
Earthshaker, guardian of a lost time. All but defeated by Us, he mourns for a time when We were held back from what We had claimed as Ours. We will strike the hated pillar that once held Us back, and Earthshaker will sleep eternally beneath its last rubble. And so We will end his grief.
Joyful fool, Windsinger. He seeks adventure, but the sky is Ours. We will scatter his clouds and chase him until his exhaustion, and then We will devour him. The magic of the singing winds will cease.
Flamecaller, the First Defier. We have never forgotten how she inspired her siblings to combat, and We are ready for vengeance. Should she defy Us, We will devour the heat of her flames and freeze the lifeblood of her realm. When she is cold and shuddering, We will end her insolence, and rejoice.
Kin-and-not-kin, Shadowbinder. She claims to be of darkness, but recoils from Our truth and covets glimmers of light to play her games by. We will extinguish the lights of her woods and make it suitable for Us, and from true darkness we will take Our time, and show her despair.
Lightweaver, hated watcher. To her also, We will show Our truth. The gloom of the ruined city is already Our foothold. Within her first children already sleeps Our seed. We will wake Our sleeping power, and allow her to watch the end of her light before We make it her end as well.
Efficient Stormcatcher, overseeing progress. His clouds already hide Our approach, and We will use them to hunt in his domain. We will drain the strength of his lightning, destroy the environment his children have made. We will laugh as the efficiency he prizes dissolves into chaos, and in that chaos We will devour him.
Icewarden, the unchanged, already lives among a dead land. He does not suffer outsiders, but he will not notice Us. We will seep through the cold crevices, choking out what life survives in his frozen realm, and then We will come for him. We will smother his life, and he will freeze, unchanging and unmourned.
Gladekeeper, tender of life. Hah! There will be no healing when We are through with the land. We will blot out the sun and blanket the soil, choking her green land of that which it craves. Listening to her wail, We will laugh as she, too, decays and withers to a brittle husk. And We will shatter her.
Wyrm of rot, Plaguebringer. She does much of Our work for us, but she is no ally. The true power of decay is in leaving none alive, not testing strength. We will overflow the Wyrmwound with Our strength, burning and ending even the greatest of her domain. Under Our poison, she will herself rot, and leave a fine skeleton among the Boneyard.
Arcanist, inviter, the opener-of-doors. We are grateful, but not merciful, and he will fall as his sibling-gods fall. He seeks the unknown, and We will show it to him. The only knowledge that matters: that everything falls before Us. The weaver of magic will scream and die in this wisdom, and We will feast!
So will your guardians die, and so will you become Ours. Relish your life, dragon. Relish your freedom, clans. We who are sleeping will wake. We who we were denied will come.
And you will not survive.
(Author's Note: The comment exchange at the beginning of this thread is in reference to this story. Due to the forum rehaul, I had to delete and re-post the two original stories of the thread in order to make their links in the table of contents work again)
Voices of the Shade
The voices speak to sleeping dragons. In those deep, dreaming moments that are rarely remembered but for worries of the subconscious, they whisper. And they frighten. Hatchlings wake, crying without knowing why until parents soothe them back to peaceful dreams. Older dragons wake and spend a restless time trying to remember what disturbed them so, before the weight of their eyelids overcomes them. Prophets and Mages, those attuned to the energies that feed their world, shudder under the knowledge that something enormous has touched them, but even they cannot put details to the memory.
But the voices are there, many nights, in the minds of many dragons. Hundreds, thousands, millions of voices hissing, booming, whispering, screaming, all at once. They overlap and interrupt, only rarely on the same word in the same moment, but they are never incoherent. And with their words come images of terror.
We are everywhere. Scattered, We see everything. We cling to everything. You insects cannot see Us, but We see you, spreading and spreading, comforted that your Gods will protect you from Us. You have no concept of Our power.
We are gathering. We will rise. And should your Gods rise to defend you, they will fall.
Tidelord, the great seer. He alone may see Our coming, but he will not warn the others, and We will strike before he may protect his own. We infect the horrors in his domain, and We will set them upon him as locusts on crops. The conch that has strained against pressures for so long will collapse, and be his tomb.
Earthshaker, guardian of a lost time. All but defeated by Us, he mourns for a time when We were held back from what We had claimed as Ours. We will strike the hated pillar that once held Us back, and Earthshaker will sleep eternally beneath its last rubble. And so We will end his grief.
Joyful fool, Windsinger. He seeks adventure, but the sky is Ours. We will scatter his clouds and chase him until his exhaustion, and then We will devour him. The magic of the singing winds will cease.
Flamecaller, the First Defier. We have never forgotten how she inspired her siblings to combat, and We are ready for vengeance. Should she defy Us, We will devour the heat of her flames and freeze the lifeblood of her realm. When she is cold and shuddering, We will end her insolence, and rejoice.
Kin-and-not-kin, Shadowbinder. She claims to be of darkness, but recoils from Our truth and covets glimmers of light to play her games by. We will extinguish the lights of her woods and make it suitable for Us, and from true darkness we will take Our time, and show her despair.
Lightweaver, hated watcher. To her also, We will show Our truth. The gloom of the ruined city is already Our foothold. Within her first children already sleeps Our seed. We will wake Our sleeping power, and allow her to watch the end of her light before We make it her end as well.
Efficient Stormcatcher, overseeing progress. His clouds already hide Our approach, and We will use them to hunt in his domain. We will drain the strength of his lightning, destroy the environment his children have made. We will laugh as the efficiency he prizes dissolves into chaos, and in that chaos We will devour him.
Icewarden, the unchanged, already lives among a dead land. He does not suffer outsiders, but he will not notice Us. We will seep through the cold crevices, choking out what life survives in his frozen realm, and then We will come for him. We will smother his life, and he will freeze, unchanging and unmourned.
Gladekeeper, tender of life. Hah! There will be no healing when We are through with the land. We will blot out the sun and blanket the soil, choking her green land of that which it craves. Listening to her wail, We will laugh as she, too, decays and withers to a brittle husk. And We will shatter her.
Wyrm of rot, Plaguebringer. She does much of Our work for us, but she is no ally. The true power of decay is in leaving none alive, not testing strength. We will overflow the Wyrmwound with Our strength, burning and ending even the greatest of her domain. Under Our poison, she will herself rot, and leave a fine skeleton among the Boneyard.
Arcanist, inviter, the opener-of-doors. We are grateful, but not merciful, and he will fall as his sibling-gods fall. He seeks the unknown, and We will show it to him. The only knowledge that matters: that everything falls before Us. The weaver of magic will scream and die in this wisdom, and We will feast!
So will your guardians die, and so will you become Ours. Relish your life, dragon. Relish your freedom, clans. We who are sleeping will wake. We who we were denied will come.
And you will not survive.
(Author's Note: The comment exchange at the beginning of this thread is in reference to this story. Due to the forum rehaul, I had to delete and re-post the two original stories of the thread in order to make their links in the table of contents work again)
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Misadventure on the First Hunt
Patience. Patience was the key to life, and Magnus was well on his way to mastering it. He held himself low, wings folded as tight as possible, the only motion the rare twitch of his tail tip and the silent, eager flexing of his foreclaws. Each muscle tensed and relaxed in turn, keeping him from cramping without rustling the leaves he hid amongst. Magenta eyes were locked on a tree a single bound away from his hiding place. They had to come back out some time.
Movement! With a surge of leg muscles, he exploded from the bushes. His jaws snapped shut on one emerald ratsnake and knocked another off the tree trunk. He pinned the second with his left foot before it could slither away. A quick stab of his longest footclaw stopped its wriggling, and he bit the one in his mouth in half before stashing both in the satchel he wore. Hunting in daylight was harder than he'd thought it would be. His grey-speckled body and dark, blood wings were much better suited to night hunting, but his mother had absolutely refused the idea of it. His first hunt had to be in daylight so he could find his way home.
Now if that sunlight gave him any aid in finding his brother, who was supposed to be sniffing out more prey nearby, he would be grateful to it. Their parents had decided Magnus and his brother should take their first hunting trip together, since their sisters had done their first fishing together.
He suspected it was a plan by his parents for him to keep his brother out of trouble. Which he seemed to be failing at, going by the disappearing act. Sighing, he decided scaring prey was probably worth it, and called out. "Caius! Where are you?"
Silence.
Silence.
More silence.
Just as he started taking a breath for a shout, he heard footsteps. A few seconds later, his shining magenta sibling burst into view like a startled quail. Caius skidded to a halt, teeth showing in a gaping grin. "Hey, Magnus! Look what I found!" He held out his foreclaw, and Magnus looked down at a roughly-hewn iron buckle, a dragon head carved into its centre.
It was a neat trinket. Magnus had seen a few similar to it when their clanmates came back from scavenging. Still, he frowned at his brother. "Weren't you looking for prey? I don't think we can eat this."
Caius' crest flared, and he stashed the buckle in one of his own bags. "I know that, but I thought the hatchlings might like it."
The truth was he'd tripped over the thing while stalking and scared the prey away, but Magnus didn't need to know that.
As they slinked along, careful to stick to thicker foliage, Caius eyed his brother's gathering-bags, full almost to bulging. His own only carried the buckle and a few salamanders and leopard geckos he'd managed to surprise.
Catching movement out of the corner of his eye, Caius turned away from his brother and crept through the underbrush towards a pond. Resting on the water's surface was a black swan, preening its right wing. He crouched, watching it drift towards him. Closer. Closer. It folded its wing and re-settled both, still several metres away from the Wildclaw's hiding place.
Caius lunged. The swan spread its wings.
A great splash heralded Caius' entry, chin-first, into the pond's shallow waters. The swan took off, leaving Caius with a mouthful of tail feathers and a drenched underbelly for his trouble. He sat up, spitting the feathers out and shaking water from his coat. A little growl escaped him as he glared after the bird. Just a few inches off...
"You lunged too soon." He turned to find Magnus lifting his head from hiding in the nearby bushes, and he snorted.
"It was bad luck. I could've gotten it." Shaking water from his legs as he stepped back onto dry land, Caius glowered as his brother chuckled.
"You know what they say, Caius. Bluster doesn't fill a dragon's belly. You need to learn to hunt patiently."
"And you need to learn that surprise is the most important part of hunting." Caius stuck his nose in the air. Magnus looked at him funny, but the magenta sibling had found something to distract him from the disagreement. "Hey, you smell that?"
Magnus frowned, lifting his snout to catch the scent on the wind. He grimaced. "It smells like rot."
He had a point, but Caius didn't care. A few seconds were spent gauging the direction of the wind before he set off in the smell's direction at a trot, Magnus trailing with many disgruntled mumbles about a bad feeling.
It didn't take long to find the source of the smell. Within ten minutes of walking, they saw the flora of the Starwood Strand begin thinning out, each tree looking slightly deader than the last.
Magnus knew where they were long before they came within sight of the tough, living tendrils of the Wandering Contagion. The rotting smell was coming from the gases floating in barely-visible streams above the ground. The speckled grey took a step backwards, his hunting claw tearing a thin hole in one of the tendrils that oozed a pus so foul-smelling he almost gagged.
Just to look at, the land of the Plaguebringer was as different from their birthplace as the two brothers were from each other. The contagion stretched out as far as their eyes could see, scattered here and there with glimpses of whatever hardy, hideous creatures could survive there, and the bones of those who couldn't. Magnus nudged his brother. "Come on. We're too far from home. We'll have to fly back."
Caius wasn't listening. He stared at the contagion spread out before them, specifically at the dashes of movement from its unsavoury inhabitants. "Why don't we hunt a bit before we go home?"
There was no time to protest, as Caius set off into the Contagion a second after he'd spoken. Magnus stood with his mouth hanging open for a second. "Caius, wait!" Against his better judgement, he chased his brother into the Plague lands. The magenta had already come across a group of panther anoles and decapitated three of them with his footclaws.
"These things are ridiculous! They charge right at you." Caius was laughing as he stored the reptile bodies in his bag.
Magnus knew about the lizard's poor survival tactics from their father's hunting stories. It would probably be poor form to compare them to his brother's own self-preservation instinct. Before he could make another plea to return home, or at least get out of the Contagion, Caius had taken off again, and the younger (sensible!) brother had no choice but to follow. "Caius...!"
The older brother raised his head, half an anole sticking out of his mouth while two more were scooped up in his foreclaws. "Whashissit?" He stored the two in his claws so he could take the one out of his mouth and then tried again. "What is it?"
"You know Mom and Dad told us not to go out of the Starfall Isles." Again Magnus stepped away from something sticky that he tried hard not to think about.
"I know, so they'll be impressed that we caught prey from around here!" Caius tapped his oversize footclaw against the ground, looking around for more easy targets.
A fierce snarl interrupted any counter-argument Magnus might have come up with. "Hey!"
Both brothers spun. Standing on a rot-covered mound behind them were two Mirror dragons, lean and giant, and bearing the bright red eyes of the Plaguebringer's children. The speaker, a carmine female with obsidian wings, bared her teeth. "You're on our turf, hatchlings!"
Technically they weren't hatchlings, but Magnus hardly felt like arguing semantics with a pair of Plague dragons. His wings opened some, instinct demanding he make himself appear larger. "A-are we?"
The male Mirror at the carmine's side beat his thistle wings. "Don't play dumb! That's our prey you're killing!" He hissed and leaped, and all Magnus could see was the death promised by his claws.
Caius threw himself into his brother, sending them both down in a tangle of limbs as Thistle-wing landed where Magnus had been a second ago. Scrambling to his feet in front of his brother, Caius swiped a foreclaw, a streak of Arcane magic sparking briefly in the gesture's wake. "Leave us alone!" As Carmine came closer, joining Thistle-wing on the offensive, he unbuckled the strap of his hunting bag and threw it to the side, spilling the lizards out onto the toxic ground. "Here, you can have it back."
Thistle-wing looked down at the pitiful results of Caius' hunt and snorted. "We have hatchlings to feed, Wildclaw." And he advanced again, intent painfully clear.
Terror and panic seized Caius. He couldn't fight two full-grown Mirrors. They had to get away. "Magnus, fly!" He gave the command at the same second as Carmine lunged, and he jumped to meet her only for her to twist mid-air and smash him with her whip-quick tail. He crashed onto his stomach, rolling onto his back as she jumped on him, and a swipe of his footclaws caught her in the chest and forced her to back up. He heard wings flapping and knew Magnus was trying to take off.
Staggering upright, Caius tried to run, but Thistle-wing's tail swept his legs out from under him. The air burst from his lungs as Thistle-wing's foreclaw came down, pinning his wing. He struggled desperately, but froze when a yowl split the air.
His eyes snapped to the sound. Magnus hadn't gotten off the ground. A third Mirror, a nightmare of jade, had appeared from nowhere and now loomed over Caius' younger brother. The membrane of Magnus' left wing was torn, the same leg oozing blood from a long gash down the thigh. The jade male's bloody claws raised again, poised over a grey throat. "Magnus!"
Magic swelled in him again, bursting from his whole body and forcing back both Thistle-wing and Carmine. Whole body aching, Caius got to his feet and charged as Jade turned to look at him. "Get off him!" This time the magic was aimed, a bolt of energy right into Jade's chest, blasting him off Magnus and onto the ground. Caius was at his brother's side in an instant, tucking his neck under Magnus' and pushing him to his feet. "Get up, Magnus! Get up! We have to fly!"
The Mirrors were regaining their senses, but Magnus swayed, almost toppling over. Caius pushed him and Magnus struggled into a weak lope, only four steps before he kicked off with his right leg and flapped for altitude. Caius sprinted after him and lept into the air to follow.
Desperation gave them strength, and within seconds they were high in the air. Caius ducked his head under his wing to check behind them. The Mirrors weren't pursuing. He heaved a sigh, but then looked ahead at his brother. Magnus' flight was uneven, the tear in his wing throwing him off while his dead-weight leg dripped blood.
Another bit of their father's knowledge flashed into Caius' head: when mixed clans migrated, larger dragons flew at the front so smaller dragons could ride the wake of their wings and fly easier. He put on a burst of speed, angling himself in front of his brother. "Stay behind me, Magnus. It'll be easier." He looked under his wing again, tried to smile. "Come on. You can make it home."
Magnus' face was twisted with pain, all his effort going into his wingbeats, but he nodded.
~
By the time their home came within sight, the sun was setting and Magnus was barely keeping himself ten metres off the ground. He descended as soon as he could see their lair, but didn't have the strength or coordination to land properly. Rather, he got his right foot down, and then staggered and collapsed, wheezing, to the stone. Caius landed beside him and was about to call out in a panic when he saw their parents rushing out of the lair, a male Fae he didn't recognize flying beside them.
The trio reached the brothers, and the Fae went straight to Magnus. The small insectivore pulled a bottle from a bag at his side and poured it over the wound. He was a medicine dragon.He'd take care of Magnus.
Caius became aware of his parents staring at him as the Fae began weaving magic to ease his brother's pain. Slowly he met their eyes: his mother's calm Water-blues and his father's unreadable Shadow-purples. They watched him, though his mother's eyes occasionally darted to Magnus, and waited for an explanation.
The adrenaline was gone, replaced with a sick certainty that this was all his fault. He sank to the ground in front of his parents, the story bursting from him in half-formed words that were almost buried in sobs.
~
Their father carried Magnus into the lair on his back, laying him on a bed of leaves and giving him food from the stocks (Magnus' hunting bags had been torn away by the jade's claws). While their parents settled down to sleep a short distance away, Caius laid himself at his brother side, careful not to jostle his injuries. "Magnus...?"
The speckled grey opened one eye. "Caius..."
He couldn't deny a flood of relief at the clarity in his brother's face. "I'm sorry, Magnus. I should've listened to you..."
A little chuckle. "Yeah, you should have." Magnus shifted, nudging closer to Caius' magenta head. "But it's okay. I'm used to you being thick-skulled."
Caius nuzzled his brother's cheek. "Next time we hunt, we'll stay in the Strand. And... and you can teach me to hunt properly. Okay?"
Magnus nodded. "Sure."
They laid like that, pressed as close as possible, for several long minutes. Before sleep could take him, Caius lifted his head with a sudden thought. "Hey, Magnus."
"Mm?"
"Once you get better, we should climb a Crystalspine Mountain. No flying allowed."
Halfway to his dreams, Magnus smiled. "Only if it's the mountain closest to the lair."
Misadventure on the First Hunt
Patience. Patience was the key to life, and Magnus was well on his way to mastering it. He held himself low, wings folded as tight as possible, the only motion the rare twitch of his tail tip and the silent, eager flexing of his foreclaws. Each muscle tensed and relaxed in turn, keeping him from cramping without rustling the leaves he hid amongst. Magenta eyes were locked on a tree a single bound away from his hiding place. They had to come back out some time.
Movement! With a surge of leg muscles, he exploded from the bushes. His jaws snapped shut on one emerald ratsnake and knocked another off the tree trunk. He pinned the second with his left foot before it could slither away. A quick stab of his longest footclaw stopped its wriggling, and he bit the one in his mouth in half before stashing both in the satchel he wore. Hunting in daylight was harder than he'd thought it would be. His grey-speckled body and dark, blood wings were much better suited to night hunting, but his mother had absolutely refused the idea of it. His first hunt had to be in daylight so he could find his way home.
Now if that sunlight gave him any aid in finding his brother, who was supposed to be sniffing out more prey nearby, he would be grateful to it. Their parents had decided Magnus and his brother should take their first hunting trip together, since their sisters had done their first fishing together.
He suspected it was a plan by his parents for him to keep his brother out of trouble. Which he seemed to be failing at, going by the disappearing act. Sighing, he decided scaring prey was probably worth it, and called out. "Caius! Where are you?"
Silence.
Silence.
More silence.
Just as he started taking a breath for a shout, he heard footsteps. A few seconds later, his shining magenta sibling burst into view like a startled quail. Caius skidded to a halt, teeth showing in a gaping grin. "Hey, Magnus! Look what I found!" He held out his foreclaw, and Magnus looked down at a roughly-hewn iron buckle, a dragon head carved into its centre.
It was a neat trinket. Magnus had seen a few similar to it when their clanmates came back from scavenging. Still, he frowned at his brother. "Weren't you looking for prey? I don't think we can eat this."
Caius' crest flared, and he stashed the buckle in one of his own bags. "I know that, but I thought the hatchlings might like it."
The truth was he'd tripped over the thing while stalking and scared the prey away, but Magnus didn't need to know that.
As they slinked along, careful to stick to thicker foliage, Caius eyed his brother's gathering-bags, full almost to bulging. His own only carried the buckle and a few salamanders and leopard geckos he'd managed to surprise.
Catching movement out of the corner of his eye, Caius turned away from his brother and crept through the underbrush towards a pond. Resting on the water's surface was a black swan, preening its right wing. He crouched, watching it drift towards him. Closer. Closer. It folded its wing and re-settled both, still several metres away from the Wildclaw's hiding place.
Caius lunged. The swan spread its wings.
A great splash heralded Caius' entry, chin-first, into the pond's shallow waters. The swan took off, leaving Caius with a mouthful of tail feathers and a drenched underbelly for his trouble. He sat up, spitting the feathers out and shaking water from his coat. A little growl escaped him as he glared after the bird. Just a few inches off...
"You lunged too soon." He turned to find Magnus lifting his head from hiding in the nearby bushes, and he snorted.
"It was bad luck. I could've gotten it." Shaking water from his legs as he stepped back onto dry land, Caius glowered as his brother chuckled.
"You know what they say, Caius. Bluster doesn't fill a dragon's belly. You need to learn to hunt patiently."
"And you need to learn that surprise is the most important part of hunting." Caius stuck his nose in the air. Magnus looked at him funny, but the magenta sibling had found something to distract him from the disagreement. "Hey, you smell that?"
Magnus frowned, lifting his snout to catch the scent on the wind. He grimaced. "It smells like rot."
He had a point, but Caius didn't care. A few seconds were spent gauging the direction of the wind before he set off in the smell's direction at a trot, Magnus trailing with many disgruntled mumbles about a bad feeling.
It didn't take long to find the source of the smell. Within ten minutes of walking, they saw the flora of the Starwood Strand begin thinning out, each tree looking slightly deader than the last.
Magnus knew where they were long before they came within sight of the tough, living tendrils of the Wandering Contagion. The rotting smell was coming from the gases floating in barely-visible streams above the ground. The speckled grey took a step backwards, his hunting claw tearing a thin hole in one of the tendrils that oozed a pus so foul-smelling he almost gagged.
Just to look at, the land of the Plaguebringer was as different from their birthplace as the two brothers were from each other. The contagion stretched out as far as their eyes could see, scattered here and there with glimpses of whatever hardy, hideous creatures could survive there, and the bones of those who couldn't. Magnus nudged his brother. "Come on. We're too far from home. We'll have to fly back."
Caius wasn't listening. He stared at the contagion spread out before them, specifically at the dashes of movement from its unsavoury inhabitants. "Why don't we hunt a bit before we go home?"
There was no time to protest, as Caius set off into the Contagion a second after he'd spoken. Magnus stood with his mouth hanging open for a second. "Caius, wait!" Against his better judgement, he chased his brother into the Plague lands. The magenta had already come across a group of panther anoles and decapitated three of them with his footclaws.
"These things are ridiculous! They charge right at you." Caius was laughing as he stored the reptile bodies in his bag.
Magnus knew about the lizard's poor survival tactics from their father's hunting stories. It would probably be poor form to compare them to his brother's own self-preservation instinct. Before he could make another plea to return home, or at least get out of the Contagion, Caius had taken off again, and the younger (sensible!) brother had no choice but to follow. "Caius...!"
The older brother raised his head, half an anole sticking out of his mouth while two more were scooped up in his foreclaws. "Whashissit?" He stored the two in his claws so he could take the one out of his mouth and then tried again. "What is it?"
"You know Mom and Dad told us not to go out of the Starfall Isles." Again Magnus stepped away from something sticky that he tried hard not to think about.
"I know, so they'll be impressed that we caught prey from around here!" Caius tapped his oversize footclaw against the ground, looking around for more easy targets.
A fierce snarl interrupted any counter-argument Magnus might have come up with. "Hey!"
Both brothers spun. Standing on a rot-covered mound behind them were two Mirror dragons, lean and giant, and bearing the bright red eyes of the Plaguebringer's children. The speaker, a carmine female with obsidian wings, bared her teeth. "You're on our turf, hatchlings!"
Technically they weren't hatchlings, but Magnus hardly felt like arguing semantics with a pair of Plague dragons. His wings opened some, instinct demanding he make himself appear larger. "A-are we?"
The male Mirror at the carmine's side beat his thistle wings. "Don't play dumb! That's our prey you're killing!" He hissed and leaped, and all Magnus could see was the death promised by his claws.
Caius threw himself into his brother, sending them both down in a tangle of limbs as Thistle-wing landed where Magnus had been a second ago. Scrambling to his feet in front of his brother, Caius swiped a foreclaw, a streak of Arcane magic sparking briefly in the gesture's wake. "Leave us alone!" As Carmine came closer, joining Thistle-wing on the offensive, he unbuckled the strap of his hunting bag and threw it to the side, spilling the lizards out onto the toxic ground. "Here, you can have it back."
Thistle-wing looked down at the pitiful results of Caius' hunt and snorted. "We have hatchlings to feed, Wildclaw." And he advanced again, intent painfully clear.
Terror and panic seized Caius. He couldn't fight two full-grown Mirrors. They had to get away. "Magnus, fly!" He gave the command at the same second as Carmine lunged, and he jumped to meet her only for her to twist mid-air and smash him with her whip-quick tail. He crashed onto his stomach, rolling onto his back as she jumped on him, and a swipe of his footclaws caught her in the chest and forced her to back up. He heard wings flapping and knew Magnus was trying to take off.
Staggering upright, Caius tried to run, but Thistle-wing's tail swept his legs out from under him. The air burst from his lungs as Thistle-wing's foreclaw came down, pinning his wing. He struggled desperately, but froze when a yowl split the air.
His eyes snapped to the sound. Magnus hadn't gotten off the ground. A third Mirror, a nightmare of jade, had appeared from nowhere and now loomed over Caius' younger brother. The membrane of Magnus' left wing was torn, the same leg oozing blood from a long gash down the thigh. The jade male's bloody claws raised again, poised over a grey throat. "Magnus!"
Magic swelled in him again, bursting from his whole body and forcing back both Thistle-wing and Carmine. Whole body aching, Caius got to his feet and charged as Jade turned to look at him. "Get off him!" This time the magic was aimed, a bolt of energy right into Jade's chest, blasting him off Magnus and onto the ground. Caius was at his brother's side in an instant, tucking his neck under Magnus' and pushing him to his feet. "Get up, Magnus! Get up! We have to fly!"
The Mirrors were regaining their senses, but Magnus swayed, almost toppling over. Caius pushed him and Magnus struggled into a weak lope, only four steps before he kicked off with his right leg and flapped for altitude. Caius sprinted after him and lept into the air to follow.
Desperation gave them strength, and within seconds they were high in the air. Caius ducked his head under his wing to check behind them. The Mirrors weren't pursuing. He heaved a sigh, but then looked ahead at his brother. Magnus' flight was uneven, the tear in his wing throwing him off while his dead-weight leg dripped blood.
Another bit of their father's knowledge flashed into Caius' head: when mixed clans migrated, larger dragons flew at the front so smaller dragons could ride the wake of their wings and fly easier. He put on a burst of speed, angling himself in front of his brother. "Stay behind me, Magnus. It'll be easier." He looked under his wing again, tried to smile. "Come on. You can make it home."
Magnus' face was twisted with pain, all his effort going into his wingbeats, but he nodded.
~
By the time their home came within sight, the sun was setting and Magnus was barely keeping himself ten metres off the ground. He descended as soon as he could see their lair, but didn't have the strength or coordination to land properly. Rather, he got his right foot down, and then staggered and collapsed, wheezing, to the stone. Caius landed beside him and was about to call out in a panic when he saw their parents rushing out of the lair, a male Fae he didn't recognize flying beside them.
The trio reached the brothers, and the Fae went straight to Magnus. The small insectivore pulled a bottle from a bag at his side and poured it over the wound. He was a medicine dragon.He'd take care of Magnus.
Caius became aware of his parents staring at him as the Fae began weaving magic to ease his brother's pain. Slowly he met their eyes: his mother's calm Water-blues and his father's unreadable Shadow-purples. They watched him, though his mother's eyes occasionally darted to Magnus, and waited for an explanation.
The adrenaline was gone, replaced with a sick certainty that this was all his fault. He sank to the ground in front of his parents, the story bursting from him in half-formed words that were almost buried in sobs.
~
Their father carried Magnus into the lair on his back, laying him on a bed of leaves and giving him food from the stocks (Magnus' hunting bags had been torn away by the jade's claws). While their parents settled down to sleep a short distance away, Caius laid himself at his brother side, careful not to jostle his injuries. "Magnus...?"
The speckled grey opened one eye. "Caius..."
He couldn't deny a flood of relief at the clarity in his brother's face. "I'm sorry, Magnus. I should've listened to you..."
A little chuckle. "Yeah, you should have." Magnus shifted, nudging closer to Caius' magenta head. "But it's okay. I'm used to you being thick-skulled."
Caius nuzzled his brother's cheek. "Next time we hunt, we'll stay in the Strand. And... and you can teach me to hunt properly. Okay?"
Magnus nodded. "Sure."
They laid like that, pressed as close as possible, for several long minutes. Before sleep could take him, Caius lifted his head with a sudden thought. "Hey, Magnus."
"Mm?"
"Once you get better, we should climb a Crystalspine Mountain. No flying allowed."
Halfway to his dreams, Magnus smiled. "Only if it's the mountain closest to the lair."
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