[img]http://i.imgur.com/0o3rtTR.png[/img]
[center][size=1]@Maddiebird @skyeset @wakener @Adriel @Fuurin @Redwood @shadeofchaos @kryptica @Shade @IanLeStraud @CheshireGrin14 @Aetherstorm[/size][/center]
[right][font=book antiqua]Chapter Eleven
Ghost in the Thicket[/right]
[font=book antiqua]Tia flew.
Up through the air, regardless of the harpies, and out through the universe she went, and she stopped only to smile at Hawilton as the hatchling slept underground.
Tia did not see the ghostly mirror dragon who was waiting, just went right on past and vanished.
~~
Vieve seethed.
[i]At least if she dies I’ll have her all to myself.[/i]
Vieve had thought that. [i]She had actually thought that.[/i] She was disgusted with herself.
Because she [i]didn’t[/i] have Tia. Tia was the faintest fleeting spark who vanished into the aether like fog rising. Gone. Vieve had seen her leave, seen her evaporate into the beyond, to the happy hunting grounds, wherever they were.
And still Vieve was [i]here.[/i]
It was so unfair.
Vieve wanted to scream. She wanted to fly until she couldn’t move her wings. She wanted to run until she collapsed. She wanted to rip out the bones of the earth and cast them into the sky, and rip great rents in the bark of trees, and pummel the ground with her tail until she couldn’t feel it anymore. She wanted to [i]pound[/i] something, and feel it give way under her mighty claws. She wanted to make her outside ache as much as her inside did.
Her mighty claws were ashes, her tail was eaten by worms. She did not have an outside anymore. She was only a tiny bit more than nothing, and there was no outlet for her frustration.
Why couldn’t she have saved Tia?
She had seen the serthis coming, watched it bite, watched as it prepared to bite again, then slithered away as Golden Moon approached. She could have stopped it. [i]She could have stopped it.[/i] If she had just tried harder.
She had broken through, before. In that cave, with Hawilton’s egg, Vieve had scared away the fox, so that Hawilton could hatch and live.
And, one of those nights when Hawilton was alone and cold, clinging to life so fiercely, Vieve was as close to the hatchling as could be, thinking the name, [i]Hawilton, Hawilton, Hawilton, Hawilton...[/i] Trying to help her to live.
And the hatchling had heard that ghostly cry of [i]Hawilton![/i] and she knew her name. And it gave her strength, to fight and to live.
Why couldn’t Vieve have done it again? Why couldn’t she force her way through and bare her ghostly fangs at the serthis so that it fled and never hurt Tia at all?
She had tried. She had tried with all her might, fighting with every last speck of her being, trying to make a sound, touch something, to warn the snake away, but nothing had happened.
It was a story, that’s what it was. When Vieve’s grandmother told her sad tales, Vieve would try to change the ending. [i]No, run the other way![/i] she would shout in her mind. [i]Don’t eat those poisoned berries! Don’t go into that cave![/i] Of course, the story would end the same, every time, and the hero would die. Vieve’s efforts simply did not matter.
That was her life now, her death. This was her death. And she despised it.
She hovered in the the sky, halfway there, among the stars. They glittered with a coldness she had never before felt. When she was alive they had seemed so caring, and warm. She knew she would have to go down to the earth and see the grief of Golden Moon and Red and Hawilton, but not yet. She could fly as long as she wanted to, hover, no wings. So not yet.
~~
Golden Moon slept.
It was a heavy, unnatural sleep, brought on by Blair’s knockout herbs. He had no choice but to drug her; she was making too much noise, crying and carrying on. If it went on much longer the harpies would hear her and that would be the end of them.
She saw Jadeite, Drift, and Var in her dreams. She saw Hope, too. They were all sleeping, around a campfire, the wide dark prairie all around them, and the stars like a net of diamonds. No matter how loudly she called out to them, they did not seem to hear.
~~
Blair watched.
He watched the dark entrance to the hollow and also watched the spiral. Her glasses dangled precariously off the end of her nose and one lense was cracked. Carefully, he reached out and removed them, placing them next to his tail. He didn’t want them to be crushed; leaving him to guide her around.
He had never had a patient die before. It was an unfamiliar feeling, one that he didn’t quite know how to describe, and one that he did not like.
He had been dwelling on the name, Tiamat, too. He still didn’t know where it came from. It frustrated him to no end. He had always considered himself smarter and quicker than most other dragons, but here was something he didn’t know. It was on the edge of his memories, just out of reach. He growled softly to himself and placed his head down on his paws. He wanted to sleep, but there was no one to take over the watch. He had to be vigilant.
There was a scuffle from the spiral’s corner of the hollow. Blair sighed in relief, hoping that she would take over the watch, and stood up to poke her awake. He hesitated, not sure if he wanted to get too close, but she didn’t seem to be stirring. As he frowned, the noise came again. It sounded like a rat scuffling around over there. “Hey,” he said, quietly, hoping to startle whatever it was out of hiding.
“Sssssss”
That didn’t sound good. It wasn’t a serthis, though; he would have smelled it, and besides the little burrow was too small to hide one. Some sort of small, pesky creature, it must be.
He tiptoed carefully over to the spiral and noted with surprise that a small, red nocturne sat on her back. He had not seen it before. It was quite young, maybe a few days old. It hissed at him and blinked sluggishly; its eyes were deep blue. A waterborne, here, so far inland.
“Hawilton?” it said.
Blair knew how well a nocturne can mimic voices, but it still gave him the creeps. A fully formed word, spoken with the voice of an adult, out of the mouth of such a young hatchie; it was unnatural.
It jumped off the spiral’s neck and flapped over to where the dead hatchie’s body had lain (Blair had taken it outside and buried it deep), sniffling the dirt and dried leaves furiously. Blair sighed. Surely it would start howling in a minute, once it figured out what had happened. He reached into his belt pouch, taking an extra-small dose of knockout herbs in his claws.
Why was this happening to [i]him[/i]? Why did he have to be the one stuck in a tiny hole with two inconsolable whiny dragons and flocks of harpies swarming overhead? He wasn’t some sort of miracle worker; the best he could do was knock them out with his herbs to make them be [i]quiet[/i] for claw’s sake so they didn’t all [i]die[/i].
The rusty red hatchie didn’t seem to be that upset; though, it simply curled up in the still-warm leaves and appeared to fall asleep. [i]Huh.[/i] Maybe it was too stupid to know what death smelled like.
Then he blinked awake; daylight was streaming into the burrow. How long had it been? He must have been more tired than he had thought.
The spiral was still sleeping quietly, and the little red nocturne had crawled into her arms during the night. Blair didn’t really want to wake them up; what if the spiral started crying again? He decided to scout out the area first. No point in waking anyone up if they were still stuck in the burrow.
After bathing himself thoroughly with his tongue to get the pungent flower oils off, he crept quietly out of the burrow, taking heed of the crunchy dead leaves. He stood tense at the opening, straining his ears and nose for any sign of beasts.
Finding none, he began to make his way quietly up the hill, in a curving path. He would spiral outward from the burrow, checking in the surrounding area for any danger. The beasts had most likely all flown over in the night, but it was entirely possible that they had left a few scouts behind. He fluttered and glided awkwardly over the ground, hesitant to leave any sort of trail or risk making noise.
The smell of blood caught his attention.
He landed and crouched in a clump of juniper, tucking his gray wings over his white-patched sides. He did not panic; he had dealt with enough blood to recognize that it was not freshly spilled. Most likely there had been a scuffle among the beasts, or perhaps a flight of dragons had launched an attack against the flock.
The wind shifted, and decay drifted over and caught Blair full in the face. He coughed quietly and wrinkled his snout. It was a dragon, all right, quite dead.
He lay crouched in the juniper for several minutes, debating on what to do. It was an unfamiliar dragon, so he didn’t particularly care, and it was obviously long dead and past all help, from the smell of it. But finding out who it was and how it died was gathering information, and information could be valuable.
But, he needed to get back to the burrow; what if the bloody spiral woke up and panicked and she went crashing through the forest looking for him? That would be a mess, a very noisy mess, one that might end in death if any scouts were still around. Or it could be a trap.
Finally, curiosity got the best of Blair, and he started to make his way towards the smell, creeping slowly through the underbrush. He kept to the shadows, stealthily, in case it was indeed a trap.
He came to a rocky ridge overlooking a deep thicket, bordered by tall groves of trees. It was difficult to see into; the tangles of thorns and ferns were very dense, trapping the morning fog in their snarls. Despite being open to the misty morning sky, it felt ominous; the thick, tall, overgrown plants seeming to conceal hidden dangers.
The stench of blood came from within.
Blair began to circle around the thicket, crouching behind rocks and trees, trying to see if he could spot anything within without actually shoving his way through the thorns. He craned his neck as far as he dared, searching. There, through a gap in the leaves, he spotted brown scales, feather and bone.
Noiselessly, he drew an arrow from his quiver and tied a piece of cloth around the point. He nocked it and shot it through the leaves, where it thunked against the brown scales and fell harmlessly to the ground. The scales did not move; nothing moved. The trees did not explode into harpies and no beasts leapt out and attacked. Just to be certain, he shot a few more arrows into the thicket, taking careful note of where they went so he could retrieve them later. One snapped a low-hanging branch and it fell, crashing into the thicket with a cacophony of rustling leaves, a little louder than he had intended.
When no beasts came to investigate, he rose from his hiding place and minced his way through the brambles, until he came to the dead dragon.
Blair winced and stepped back as clouds of flies rose into the air. It was a he, a mirror, and so unfortunately young. He clearly was part of one of those savage mirror packs that migrated to the woods from the plaguelands, painfully skinny and full of wiry muscle, a wolf’s pelt with the face still intact worn on his body and face like a grotesque costume. Bones and skulls, some of prey animals, some of beasts and harpies, were tied to the pelt. None of it smelled good, especially now, under the smell of death.
The most obvious thing, though, was the slashed throat, maybe the work of a harpy’s talons or a beast’s dagger. It was slashed so viciously that the head was thrown back as though the neck were broken, a wide, red second mouth.
Blair did not like this; it was time to get out of there. He backtracked around the boulders and back down the slope. His progress away from the hollow had been slow and stealthy, but if that fallen branch hadn’t alerted anything, he decided, it was fine to rustle a few dead leaves on his way back. [i]What would happen if I left them?[/i] He found himself wondering. Surely they would be fine, with the beasts moved on to somewhere else. He wondered where they were headed, too. They didn’t [i]migrate[/i], as far he knew, and he knew plenty. Did something destroy their old roost? Were they an army, on the move? Did they just wake up and decide to go storming across the tangled woodlands and terrorize innocent dragons for no good reason?
No. Maybe a clan leader would worry about that. Somebody with a home, a family, friends, lots of belongings would worry about that. Blair didn’t need to worry; he was one dragon, on his own, independent. He could just hide, or fly far away, whenever need be, and make his food gathering off the land or curing sick dragons. He had no ties.
Except, he realized, for those two dragons in that hollow. That brought him back to wondering if they would be fine on their own. He wanted to get out of there fast, get far away from any weird beast armies and harpy flocks. They would be fine, surely. Maybe they would stay in that very hollow, make a home, find a place to get water and just live there.
He could just leave, before they even woke up. He would forget about them soon enough.
No, he decided. He could easily see them a little further, until it was safe.
Besides, he wanted to find out more about Tiamat.
~~
Vieve lingered near the body of Stick. Two deaths, one after the other.
It wasn’t like she’d never experienced a death before, of course. Death was a part of her life, always had been. Many of her hatchlings had died, her clanmates died, her parents, sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles and friends and mates. Dragons did not live long lives in the Wood, in Vieve’s clan. The life of a bandit was thrilling and short and usually ended suddenly and violently.
But that never made it easier, never made each death less of a weeping gash in her heart. Careless accidents, murders, suicides; it only took a moment for a life that seemed to sprawl out endlessly ahead to be snuffed out. With each ended life it felt that part of Vieve’s heart died, too.
With a mental sigh, she turned away from the body. Lingering above it like some mournful specter wasn’t going to do anything beneficial. She needed to find Hawilton, make sure the hatchling was okay in the caves. Vieve had seethed with anger when Golden Moon had left Hawilton behind alone in the supposed safety of the caverns; didn’t the spiral realize the serthis could come back and finish off the coatl chick any time they pleased? Didn’t she understand that she might not be able to get back and retrieve the hatchling?
Vieve moved slowly, surveying the path that Golden Moon had taken away from the caves and towards Blair and the hollow, making sure there were no new dangers. [i]Not like you could do anything if there was anything wrong,[/i] wheedled her thoughts.
[i]No,[/i] she thought firmly. She had saved Hawilton’s egg from that fox, had broken through back into life, and she [i]could[/i] do it again if she had to.
But then why couldn’t she save Tia?
[i]Shut up, Vieve.[/i]
Whatever happened was done and over and she couldn’t change it, so it was no use thinking in circles. None at all. Zero. NONE.
(Still, why?)
She found she was at the cave, jarring her out of her thoughts. It seemed that once you lost your corporeal body, the laws of space didn’t apply to you quite as much as they used to. Not [i]teleporting[/i], not exactly. More like moving pawns over a game board; you could be somewhere, then see a place far away, and want to be there, and then you just picked yourself up and moved and you were there. Vieve wasn’t sure how to think of it or explain it (as if there was anyone to explain to).
Vieve found Hawilton very easily. The hatchling was huddled in a corner, shivering and damp. She looked completely miserable. Vieve’s heart ached in a way that she had never felt before. In life, when the ones she loved were afraid and hurt, at least she could wrap a wing around them and warm them and comfort them. Here she couldn’t do anything, couldn’t make her presence known, couldn’t share her body heat, couldn’t whisper comforting words. It [i]hurt[/i], this helplessness that was her existence now.
Hawilton made a tiny whimper and Vieve wanted to cry but she had no tears and no eyes to fill with them.
She got as close as she could to the hatchling, nestled right up against the barrier between life and death, and tried so hard to break through and give some warmth.
And she went through, back to life.
~~
Hawilton listened.
She listened for the snakes. She listened for the drip of water to drink. She listened for something to eat. She listened for birds cawing and wind in the pine branches and the crunch of dead leaves and everything that had become home to her.
Most of all she listened for Golden Moon and Tia because she was lonely and cold and hungry and very very scared.
And she heard something.
[i]ha wilt on[/i]
Not even a whisper, not even a thought, so much less than a thought, only just there, stuttery and fragmented. But there.
[i]im h re ha wi l on
Im here its ok y
i l ve y u haw lton
gol en moon’s com ng to h elp you its ok ay[/i]
That voice, the same voice that whispered to Hawilton her name when she was just out of the egg and so alone.
[i]i l ove you so m ch
your e sa fe its ok ay
go ld en moo n is comi g to hel p you
im h re
im here[/i]
“Who?” whispered Hawilton. “Mother?”
[i]v eve
i am
v iev
VIEVE
i am vieve i love you
gold n mo n is coming to help you she is coming it s okay
i w ll keep you sa fe until golden m oon comes
its okay sh hh[/i]
“She’s coming?” the tight ropes coiled around Hawilton’s chest loosened a little. “Tia too?”
No answer.
“Tia?”
Silence.
[i]gold en will te l you
Ju st rest
and b e warm
i lo ve you so m ch
thats all y ou nee d to kn w right now
hawilton[/i]
It was fading.
[i]im try in to st ay bu t its har
i lo v ou haw ilto
Its oka[/i]
Gone.
“Vieve.”
“Vieve, come back.”
“Please.”
Nothing.
[i]’Golden Moon is coming’[/i] Hawilton held those words in her head, clutching them tightly to her heart.
[i]‘Just rest’[/i]
Hawilton didn’t know she was tired but she fell asleep right then and there.[/font]
[size=2] [i]hello im sorry that took ages and im sorry another character got killed off (nice going rngesus) and im sorry nothing really even happens in this chapter and that its really short ahahahahaahahaaah
OH YEAH IMPORTANT: does anybody want Tia or Stick? I'd give em to you for free because I REALLY don't wanna just exalt the dudes because im weak QwQ
[/i]
Chapter Eleven
Ghost in the Thicket
Tia flew.
Up through the air, regardless of the harpies, and out through the universe she went, and she stopped only to smile at Hawilton as the hatchling slept underground.
Tia did not see the ghostly mirror dragon who was waiting, just went right on past and vanished.
~~
Vieve seethed.
At least if she dies I’ll have her all to myself.
Vieve had thought that. She had actually thought that. She was disgusted with herself.
Because she didn’t have Tia. Tia was the faintest fleeting spark who vanished into the aether like fog rising. Gone. Vieve had seen her leave, seen her evaporate into the beyond, to the happy hunting grounds, wherever they were.
And still Vieve was here.
It was so unfair.
Vieve wanted to scream. She wanted to fly until she couldn’t move her wings. She wanted to run until she collapsed. She wanted to rip out the bones of the earth and cast them into the sky, and rip great rents in the bark of trees, and pummel the ground with her tail until she couldn’t feel it anymore. She wanted to pound something, and feel it give way under her mighty claws. She wanted to make her outside ache as much as her inside did.
Her mighty claws were ashes, her tail was eaten by worms. She did not have an outside anymore. She was only a tiny bit more than nothing, and there was no outlet for her frustration.
Why couldn’t she have saved Tia?
She had seen the serthis coming, watched it bite, watched as it prepared to bite again, then slithered away as Golden Moon approached. She could have stopped it. She could have stopped it. If she had just tried harder.
She had broken through, before. In that cave, with Hawilton’s egg, Vieve had scared away the fox, so that Hawilton could hatch and live.
And, one of those nights when Hawilton was alone and cold, clinging to life so fiercely, Vieve was as close to the hatchling as could be, thinking the name, Hawilton, Hawilton, Hawilton, Hawilton... Trying to help her to live.
And the hatchling had heard that ghostly cry of Hawilton! and she knew her name. And it gave her strength, to fight and to live.
Why couldn’t Vieve have done it again? Why couldn’t she force her way through and bare her ghostly fangs at the serthis so that it fled and never hurt Tia at all?
She had tried. She had tried with all her might, fighting with every last speck of her being, trying to make a sound, touch something, to warn the snake away, but nothing had happened.
It was a story, that’s what it was. When Vieve’s grandmother told her sad tales, Vieve would try to change the ending. No, run the other way! she would shout in her mind. Don’t eat those poisoned berries! Don’t go into that cave! Of course, the story would end the same, every time, and the hero would die. Vieve’s efforts simply did not matter.
That was her life now, her death. This was her death. And she despised it.
She hovered in the the sky, halfway there, among the stars. They glittered with a coldness she had never before felt. When she was alive they had seemed so caring, and warm. She knew she would have to go down to the earth and see the grief of Golden Moon and Red and Hawilton, but not yet. She could fly as long as she wanted to, hover, no wings. So not yet.
~~
Golden Moon slept.
It was a heavy, unnatural sleep, brought on by Blair’s knockout herbs. He had no choice but to drug her; she was making too much noise, crying and carrying on. If it went on much longer the harpies would hear her and that would be the end of them.
She saw Jadeite, Drift, and Var in her dreams. She saw Hope, too. They were all sleeping, around a campfire, the wide dark prairie all around them, and the stars like a net of diamonds. No matter how loudly she called out to them, they did not seem to hear.
~~
Blair watched.
He watched the dark entrance to the hollow and also watched the spiral. Her glasses dangled precariously off the end of her nose and one lense was cracked. Carefully, he reached out and removed them, placing them next to his tail. He didn’t want them to be crushed; leaving him to guide her around.
He had never had a patient die before. It was an unfamiliar feeling, one that he didn’t quite know how to describe, and one that he did not like.
He had been dwelling on the name, Tiamat, too. He still didn’t know where it came from. It frustrated him to no end. He had always considered himself smarter and quicker than most other dragons, but here was something he didn’t know. It was on the edge of his memories, just out of reach. He growled softly to himself and placed his head down on his paws. He wanted to sleep, but there was no one to take over the watch. He had to be vigilant.
There was a scuffle from the spiral’s corner of the hollow. Blair sighed in relief, hoping that she would take over the watch, and stood up to poke her awake. He hesitated, not sure if he wanted to get too close, but she didn’t seem to be stirring. As he frowned, the noise came again. It sounded like a rat scuffling around over there. “Hey,” he said, quietly, hoping to startle whatever it was out of hiding.
“Sssssss”
That didn’t sound good. It wasn’t a serthis, though; he would have smelled it, and besides the little burrow was too small to hide one. Some sort of small, pesky creature, it must be.
He tiptoed carefully over to the spiral and noted with surprise that a small, red nocturne sat on her back. He had not seen it before. It was quite young, maybe a few days old. It hissed at him and blinked sluggishly; its eyes were deep blue. A waterborne, here, so far inland.
“Hawilton?” it said.
Blair knew how well a nocturne can mimic voices, but it still gave him the creeps. A fully formed word, spoken with the voice of an adult, out of the mouth of such a young hatchie; it was unnatural.
It jumped off the spiral’s neck and flapped over to where the dead hatchie’s body had lain (Blair had taken it outside and buried it deep), sniffling the dirt and dried leaves furiously. Blair sighed. Surely it would start howling in a minute, once it figured out what had happened. He reached into his belt pouch, taking an extra-small dose of knockout herbs in his claws.
Why was this happening to him? Why did he have to be the one stuck in a tiny hole with two inconsolable whiny dragons and flocks of harpies swarming overhead? He wasn’t some sort of miracle worker; the best he could do was knock them out with his herbs to make them be quiet for claw’s sake so they didn’t all die.
The rusty red hatchie didn’t seem to be that upset; though, it simply curled up in the still-warm leaves and appeared to fall asleep. Huh. Maybe it was too stupid to know what death smelled like.
Then he blinked awake; daylight was streaming into the burrow. How long had it been? He must have been more tired than he had thought.
The spiral was still sleeping quietly, and the little red nocturne had crawled into her arms during the night. Blair didn’t really want to wake them up; what if the spiral started crying again? He decided to scout out the area first. No point in waking anyone up if they were still stuck in the burrow.
After bathing himself thoroughly with his tongue to get the pungent flower oils off, he crept quietly out of the burrow, taking heed of the crunchy dead leaves. He stood tense at the opening, straining his ears and nose for any sign of beasts.
Finding none, he began to make his way quietly up the hill, in a curving path. He would spiral outward from the burrow, checking in the surrounding area for any danger. The beasts had most likely all flown over in the night, but it was entirely possible that they had left a few scouts behind. He fluttered and glided awkwardly over the ground, hesitant to leave any sort of trail or risk making noise.
The smell of blood caught his attention.
He landed and crouched in a clump of juniper, tucking his gray wings over his white-patched sides. He did not panic; he had dealt with enough blood to recognize that it was not freshly spilled. Most likely there had been a scuffle among the beasts, or perhaps a flight of dragons had launched an attack against the flock.
The wind shifted, and decay drifted over and caught Blair full in the face. He coughed quietly and wrinkled his snout. It was a dragon, all right, quite dead.
He lay crouched in the juniper for several minutes, debating on what to do. It was an unfamiliar dragon, so he didn’t particularly care, and it was obviously long dead and past all help, from the smell of it. But finding out who it was and how it died was gathering information, and information could be valuable.
But, he needed to get back to the burrow; what if the bloody spiral woke up and panicked and she went crashing through the forest looking for him? That would be a mess, a very noisy mess, one that might end in death if any scouts were still around. Or it could be a trap.
Finally, curiosity got the best of Blair, and he started to make his way towards the smell, creeping slowly through the underbrush. He kept to the shadows, stealthily, in case it was indeed a trap.
He came to a rocky ridge overlooking a deep thicket, bordered by tall groves of trees. It was difficult to see into; the tangles of thorns and ferns were very dense, trapping the morning fog in their snarls. Despite being open to the misty morning sky, it felt ominous; the thick, tall, overgrown plants seeming to conceal hidden dangers.
The stench of blood came from within.
Blair began to circle around the thicket, crouching behind rocks and trees, trying to see if he could spot anything within without actually shoving his way through the thorns. He craned his neck as far as he dared, searching. There, through a gap in the leaves, he spotted brown scales, feather and bone.
Noiselessly, he drew an arrow from his quiver and tied a piece of cloth around the point. He nocked it and shot it through the leaves, where it thunked against the brown scales and fell harmlessly to the ground. The scales did not move; nothing moved. The trees did not explode into harpies and no beasts leapt out and attacked. Just to be certain, he shot a few more arrows into the thicket, taking careful note of where they went so he could retrieve them later. One snapped a low-hanging branch and it fell, crashing into the thicket with a cacophony of rustling leaves, a little louder than he had intended.
When no beasts came to investigate, he rose from his hiding place and minced his way through the brambles, until he came to the dead dragon.
Blair winced and stepped back as clouds of flies rose into the air. It was a he, a mirror, and so unfortunately young. He clearly was part of one of those savage mirror packs that migrated to the woods from the plaguelands, painfully skinny and full of wiry muscle, a wolf’s pelt with the face still intact worn on his body and face like a grotesque costume. Bones and skulls, some of prey animals, some of beasts and harpies, were tied to the pelt. None of it smelled good, especially now, under the smell of death.
The most obvious thing, though, was the slashed throat, maybe the work of a harpy’s talons or a beast’s dagger. It was slashed so viciously that the head was thrown back as though the neck were broken, a wide, red second mouth.
Blair did not like this; it was time to get out of there. He backtracked around the boulders and back down the slope. His progress away from the hollow had been slow and stealthy, but if that fallen branch hadn’t alerted anything, he decided, it was fine to rustle a few dead leaves on his way back. What would happen if I left them? He found himself wondering. Surely they would be fine, with the beasts moved on to somewhere else. He wondered where they were headed, too. They didn’t migrate, as far he knew, and he knew plenty. Did something destroy their old roost? Were they an army, on the move? Did they just wake up and decide to go storming across the tangled woodlands and terrorize innocent dragons for no good reason?
No. Maybe a clan leader would worry about that. Somebody with a home, a family, friends, lots of belongings would worry about that. Blair didn’t need to worry; he was one dragon, on his own, independent. He could just hide, or fly far away, whenever need be, and make his food gathering off the land or curing sick dragons. He had no ties.
Except, he realized, for those two dragons in that hollow. That brought him back to wondering if they would be fine on their own. He wanted to get out of there fast, get far away from any weird beast armies and harpy flocks. They would be fine, surely. Maybe they would stay in that very hollow, make a home, find a place to get water and just live there.
He could just leave, before they even woke up. He would forget about them soon enough.
No, he decided. He could easily see them a little further, until it was safe.
Besides, he wanted to find out more about Tiamat.
~~
Vieve lingered near the body of Stick. Two deaths, one after the other.
It wasn’t like she’d never experienced a death before, of course. Death was a part of her life, always had been. Many of her hatchlings had died, her clanmates died, her parents, sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles and friends and mates. Dragons did not live long lives in the Wood, in Vieve’s clan. The life of a bandit was thrilling and short and usually ended suddenly and violently.
But that never made it easier, never made each death less of a weeping gash in her heart. Careless accidents, murders, suicides; it only took a moment for a life that seemed to sprawl out endlessly ahead to be snuffed out. With each ended life it felt that part of Vieve’s heart died, too.
With a mental sigh, she turned away from the body. Lingering above it like some mournful specter wasn’t going to do anything beneficial. She needed to find Hawilton, make sure the hatchling was okay in the caves. Vieve had seethed with anger when Golden Moon had left Hawilton behind alone in the supposed safety of the caverns; didn’t the spiral realize the serthis could come back and finish off the coatl chick any time they pleased? Didn’t she understand that she might not be able to get back and retrieve the hatchling?
Vieve moved slowly, surveying the path that Golden Moon had taken away from the caves and towards Blair and the hollow, making sure there were no new dangers. Not like you could do anything if there was anything wrong, wheedled her thoughts.
No, she thought firmly. She had saved Hawilton’s egg from that fox, had broken through back into life, and she could do it again if she had to.
But then why couldn’t she save Tia?
Shut up, Vieve.
Whatever happened was done and over and she couldn’t change it, so it was no use thinking in circles. None at all. Zero. NONE.
(Still, why?)
She found she was at the cave, jarring her out of her thoughts. It seemed that once you lost your corporeal body, the laws of space didn’t apply to you quite as much as they used to. Not teleporting, not exactly. More like moving pawns over a game board; you could be somewhere, then see a place far away, and want to be there, and then you just picked yourself up and moved and you were there. Vieve wasn’t sure how to think of it or explain it (as if there was anyone to explain to).
Vieve found Hawilton very easily. The hatchling was huddled in a corner, shivering and damp. She looked completely miserable. Vieve’s heart ached in a way that she had never felt before. In life, when the ones she loved were afraid and hurt, at least she could wrap a wing around them and warm them and comfort them. Here she couldn’t do anything, couldn’t make her presence known, couldn’t share her body heat, couldn’t whisper comforting words. It hurt, this helplessness that was her existence now.
Hawilton made a tiny whimper and Vieve wanted to cry but she had no tears and no eyes to fill with them.
She got as close as she could to the hatchling, nestled right up against the barrier between life and death, and tried so hard to break through and give some warmth.
And she went through, back to life.
~~
Hawilton listened.
She listened for the snakes. She listened for the drip of water to drink. She listened for something to eat. She listened for birds cawing and wind in the pine branches and the crunch of dead leaves and everything that had become home to her.
Most of all she listened for Golden Moon and Tia because she was lonely and cold and hungry and very very scared.
And she heard something.
ha wilt on
Not even a whisper, not even a thought, so much less than a thought, only just there, stuttery and fragmented. But there.
im h re ha wi l on
Im here its ok y
i l ve y u haw lton
gol en moon’s com ng to h elp you its ok ay
That voice, the same voice that whispered to Hawilton her name when she was just out of the egg and so alone.
i l ove you so m ch
your e sa fe its ok ay
go ld en moo n is comi g to hel p you
im h re
im here
“Who?” whispered Hawilton. “Mother?”
v eve
i am
v iev
VIEVE
i am vieve i love you
gold n mo n is coming to help you she is coming it s okay
i w ll keep you sa fe until golden m oon comes
its okay sh hh
“She’s coming?” the tight ropes coiled around Hawilton’s chest loosened a little. “Tia too?”
No answer.
“Tia?”
Silence.
gold en will te l you
Ju st rest
and b e warm
i lo ve you so m ch
thats all y ou nee d to kn w right now
hawilton
It was fading.
im try in to st ay bu t its har
i lo v ou haw ilto
Its oka
Gone.
“Vieve.”
“Vieve, come back.”
“Please.”
Nothing.
’Golden Moon is coming’ Hawilton held those words in her head, clutching them tightly to her heart.
‘Just rest’
Hawilton didn’t know she was tired but she fell asleep right then and there.
hello im sorry that took ages and im sorry another character got killed off (nice going rngesus) and im sorry nothing really even happens in this chapter and that its really short ahahahahaahahaaah
OH YEAH IMPORTANT: does anybody want Tia or Stick? I'd give em to you for free because I REALLY don't wanna just exalt the dudes because im weak QwQ
|
micah
he/him
don't touch me I will lose my powers
be kind to everyone
you will play half life now λ
|
Aaaah... I teared up at the end, I'm so happy that Vieve and Hawilton were able to communicate, but geez Tia and Stick noooo... ;o;
Aaaah... I teared up at the end, I'm so happy that Vieve and Hawilton were able to communicate, but geez Tia and Stick noooo... ;o;
@
KitchenSink
This chapter is so beautiful, even if it is really short!!! Both Tia and Stick, it's so sad ;( It's really sweet that Hawil and Vieve were able to communicate, and now we know why ghosts in other stories can't speak for long, right? And could I have Stick, please? I already have plenty of lore ideas marching through my head for him XD
@
KitchenSink
This chapter is so beautiful, even if it is really short!!! Both Tia and Stick, it's so sad ;( It's really sweet that Hawil and Vieve were able to communicate, and now we know why ghosts in other stories can't speak for long, right? And could I have Stick, please? I already have plenty of lore ideas marching through my head for him XD
Call me Ari!
