Day One Hundred Two:
The three hatchlings absorbed much of the company’s attention for the next couple of days. Sonance proved to be quite vocal about everything while her mute brother was given special attention while they developed a way to communicate with him. Halcyon proved to be an attentive student, even so young, and was already engaging in mimicking the fin movements of his mother in a silent language. Baines knew of a form of sign used among other deaf and mute dragons, but regretfully, he had never prioritized becoming familiar enough with it to be of any use now. Quietly he was merely thankful that Halcyon was not also deaf. Considering the dangers they faced, he preferred him to be without a voice than without the ability to hear them in case they called out a warning.
Eilian proved to be a different problem entirely. The Mirror was also rather quiet, but not because he was mute. Instead, he simply chose not to interact with the group, preferring to observe from the sidelines. That wouldn’t have bothered Baines so much if it weren’t for the fact he did not seem to have much if any emotional response at all when spoken to. Clarion was constantly trying to get him to play games with her and the other younglings, but even if he went through the motions, he did not laugh. He did not smile. He did not frown. His expression remained blank throughout everything. The one most distressed by this was Ehsan, understandably, as the hatchling also did not show affection, no matter how much she poured on to him. Even though Amosis was there to comfort her, it was becoming disturbingly often to see the young dragoness break down into tears which she tried to hide under her mate’s wing.
Needless to say, the concern Baines felt for his clan only ever increased by the day.
There was a cry from overhead and Blithe zipped on ahead of them with Capricious close behind. Baines frowned. They must have spotted something up ahead and their reaction renewed his feeling of anxiety.
“Hurry up!” he called back to the others, sprinting on ahead. The large shadow of Bladebeak passed over him and he could hear Zunmonah encouraging the others behind him. He soon burst into a clearing a moment after Bladebeak and Ailana landed next to Blithe and Capricious, all of them peering down at a small form on the ground. Joining them, he saw it was a Raptorik dressed similarly to Serhat, lying unconscious on the ground with bloodied feathers scattered about them. Capricious crouched over them employing her healing magic, her face grim.
“What is it? What happened?” Ehsan yelled ahead of the others who had just burst through the tree line.
“It’s a Raptorik,” Ailana answered. Tremayne and Serhat exchanged a glance and Snapper’s companion took a short flight to quickly close the distance. They let him kneel down by his fellow Beastclan and he froze briefly.
“Do you know them?” Baines asked, catching the gesture. The Raptorik shook his head.
“No.” He look up at Capricious to ask, “Alive, she?”
“Yes,” she answered quietly. “Though just barely. I’m not sure what did this to her, I’ve never seen wounds like this before…”
Indeed, the injuries were strange when Baines took a moment to inspect them. The flesh was torn, but not as if by claws or other sharp objects, yet it did not appear to be crushed either. It looked as if the skin had been pulled away, for lack of better analogy, but he couldn’t even fathom how…
“Get away!” Tremayne suddenly bellowed. Everyone’s heads jolted up and their eyes snapped to Eilian, Clarion, Erebos, and Bramble, who were staring at something in the ground a short distance away. All of them looked up as well, except little Eilian, who was quite fixated.
“There’s a crack in the ground!” Clarion called. “I can see a cavern below! It looks huge!”
Her voice was chipper with excitement, but her words filled Baines with dread. Equally discomfited, the others shifted about and stared down at the ground around them, hardly trusting where they stepped.
“Get away from there, younglings; come one, we have to keep moving,” Blithe told them and Clarion’s fins drooped in disappointment.
Suddenly the injured Raptorik on the ground jolted awake, clamping onto Capricious’s arm with a talon. Her eyes were wide with terror and she spewed out a stream of words in the Raptorik tongue, shaking the Fae urgently.
“What is she saying?!” Bladebeak asked frantically.
Serhat snapped out of his surprise and translated, “She says, ‘It comes! It comes! Flee; escape!’”
The words barely had time to register when the very ground began to shake and rumble. The younglings, now alarmed, began to rush back to the others save Eilian, who hadn’t moved an inch. Clarion went back to grab him despite the fact that he was several times larger than her, calling out, “Erebos!”
The Guardian charged back toward her obediently, but before he reached them, the earth gave way. Clarion flailed about as if she’d forgotten how to fly, the darkness closing in on her with surprising swiftness. Her scream was drowned out by Erebos’s desperate roar as he lunged forward to catch both her and Eilian. Bladebeak leapt after him, sinking her claws into his hindquarters to drag him back from the widening hole. The Guardian drew back, releasing who he had caught in his mouth only to discover; it was only Eilian. Clarion was nowhere to be seen.
“CLARION!” the Guardian bellowed, diving back toward the sinkhole, but Bladebeak kept a firm grip on him.
“You have a death wish, Guardian?!” she spat, growling with the effort of restraining him. He ignored her, still bellowing out Clarion’s name.
“Please, please, we have to go,” Tremayne spoke and Baines turned to see them in a wide stance, eyes spilling tears and fixed in concentration. “I’m so sorry, I can’t- I can’t hold it much longer.”
Realization dawned on him in a split second; they were holding the entire mantle of the earth together on their own.
“Everyone move!” he roared out. “This whole place is collapsing! Grab the Raptorik and the younglings and run!”
This spurred everyone into action. As the dragons collected their younger members, Tigress snapped at Bree’s heels, herding her in the correct direction. Erebos protested at first, but Bladebeak zapped him with her electricity to stun him enough for her to drag him away. They and Tremayne were the slowest, so Baines stayed back, though a fear gripped at him as he watched the ground fall away directly behind the Snapper’s heels. Serhat flew near their head, offering encouragement while the earth threatened to swallow them whole.
After what felt like an eternity, rumbling stopped and the mantle ceased to crack and collapse. Tremayne breathed out a heavy sigh, slowing to a walk.
“Are you alright?” Baines asked them, and they merely nodded in response, clearly exhausted. The Mirror chanced a look over his shoulder at the crater behind them. Even exposed to the light, it was difficult to see through the shadows, but he did spy what looked like the massive columns of an underground structure. Their trespass must have been the tipping point to facilitate its collapse. Or…
He shook his head. He couldn’t give in to such superstitions as that.
Erebos bolted upright and he stared about wildly before his gaze settled on Bladebeak, an intense rage burning brightly inside his eyes.
“HOW DARE YOU TAKE ME AWAY! HOW DARE YOU LEAVE HER BEHIND! HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU!” he roared loud enough to shake the trees, twisting about to attack her. The Ridgeback’s spines stiffened in her battle stance and she met him head on. Cinderhoof, Tremayne, Serhat, and Baines all had to scamper out of the way as their two largest dragons fought. The Mirror was at a loss; he had no idea how to handle a situation like this. For all his experience, he’d never been around a Guardian that had lost their Charge.
Bladebeak, being larger and at elemental advantage, was able to subdue the Guardian, throwing him down and pinning him to the dirt.
“She was already gone, Erebos!” she snarled. “We already lost her, an’ you were goin’ to die too!”
“You should have let me!” he snapped back. “I should have fallen with my Charge!”
“Should Eilian?” she roared back. “Would you sacrifice someone else’s hatchling for your Charge?”
He opened his mouth for an immediate retort, but something shifted in his eyes and what came out instead was a low wail. He stopped struggling and deflated, looking no less distraught, but at least the fight had left him. Bladebeak stepped off of him, but he didn’t move.
“… Come on, Erebos. Time to go,” Baines tried to say to him, but he only moaned again.
“I’ve failed,” he choked out. “I’ve failed… Pa would be so… so angry with me-“
“You saved Eilian,” Baines pointed out. “Without you, we would have lost him too.”
Erebos was unappeased and he said, “But… But Clarion…”
Bladebeak’s claw reappeared to grip at his horn and she jerked the surprised Guardian’s head up to look to her.
“Listen, pipsqueak,” she hissed at him. “Without me, you wouldn’ be here whinin’ like a baby. So rather than waste all my effort in savin’ you, you better get up off your *** and come on. You owe me. GOT IT?”
Baines was about to reprimand her, but he stopped when Erebos moved, putting his claws under him and pushing himself to his feet. Bewildered, he watched as the Guardian meekly followed the Ridgeback to catch up with the others. The Mirror looked over at Tremayne, who appeared equally perplexed, but they merely shrugged and followed after them.
Baines let out a sigh, not entirely sure what had just happened, but not wanting to dwell on it. They had other things to worry about.
Rolled Ehsan, Clarion, and Blithe.
Coli loot:
-sigh- Looks like I got too comfortable. This one was on me... I went against a three pack of mages because I got too impatient waiting for a two pack. I thought Clarion would be ok because she was level 5, but... I was wrong.
Not gonna lie, this was kinda difficult trying to think of an excuse of why a Guardian would allow their Charge to die before them. I hope this sounds... reasonable?
Man, I feel like I'm unusually cruel to my dragons sometimes.
EDIT: Had written in some stronger language for Bladebeak that I forgot to edit for posting and the censorship apparently triggered for some other words (which weren't meant to be profanity, but I forgot that they might be picked up by the filter), so I did a little editing to fix some of that. My bad.
Blithe is now level 17.
Ehsan is level 10.
Inventory: Scatter Scroll x1, Breed Change x1
@Weredogalism @Riff @Skulljester @AstralDragons @Petall @MisterMylez @BarbaraFett @PinkyDaPinkSlime @loser @OneRingOfPower @MagmaticMachine @Rosesinger @Eversnow @chewynoodles
The three hatchlings absorbed much of the company’s attention for the next couple of days. Sonance proved to be quite vocal about everything while her mute brother was given special attention while they developed a way to communicate with him. Halcyon proved to be an attentive student, even so young, and was already engaging in mimicking the fin movements of his mother in a silent language. Baines knew of a form of sign used among other deaf and mute dragons, but regretfully, he had never prioritized becoming familiar enough with it to be of any use now. Quietly he was merely thankful that Halcyon was not also deaf. Considering the dangers they faced, he preferred him to be without a voice than without the ability to hear them in case they called out a warning.
Eilian proved to be a different problem entirely. The Mirror was also rather quiet, but not because he was mute. Instead, he simply chose not to interact with the group, preferring to observe from the sidelines. That wouldn’t have bothered Baines so much if it weren’t for the fact he did not seem to have much if any emotional response at all when spoken to. Clarion was constantly trying to get him to play games with her and the other younglings, but even if he went through the motions, he did not laugh. He did not smile. He did not frown. His expression remained blank throughout everything. The one most distressed by this was Ehsan, understandably, as the hatchling also did not show affection, no matter how much she poured on to him. Even though Amosis was there to comfort her, it was becoming disturbingly often to see the young dragoness break down into tears which she tried to hide under her mate’s wing.
Needless to say, the concern Baines felt for his clan only ever increased by the day.
There was a cry from overhead and Blithe zipped on ahead of them with Capricious close behind. Baines frowned. They must have spotted something up ahead and their reaction renewed his feeling of anxiety.
“Hurry up!” he called back to the others, sprinting on ahead. The large shadow of Bladebeak passed over him and he could hear Zunmonah encouraging the others behind him. He soon burst into a clearing a moment after Bladebeak and Ailana landed next to Blithe and Capricious, all of them peering down at a small form on the ground. Joining them, he saw it was a Raptorik dressed similarly to Serhat, lying unconscious on the ground with bloodied feathers scattered about them. Capricious crouched over them employing her healing magic, her face grim.
“What is it? What happened?” Ehsan yelled ahead of the others who had just burst through the tree line.
“It’s a Raptorik,” Ailana answered. Tremayne and Serhat exchanged a glance and Snapper’s companion took a short flight to quickly close the distance. They let him kneel down by his fellow Beastclan and he froze briefly.
“Do you know them?” Baines asked, catching the gesture. The Raptorik shook his head.
“No.” He look up at Capricious to ask, “Alive, she?”
“Yes,” she answered quietly. “Though just barely. I’m not sure what did this to her, I’ve never seen wounds like this before…”
Indeed, the injuries were strange when Baines took a moment to inspect them. The flesh was torn, but not as if by claws or other sharp objects, yet it did not appear to be crushed either. It looked as if the skin had been pulled away, for lack of better analogy, but he couldn’t even fathom how…
“Get away!” Tremayne suddenly bellowed. Everyone’s heads jolted up and their eyes snapped to Eilian, Clarion, Erebos, and Bramble, who were staring at something in the ground a short distance away. All of them looked up as well, except little Eilian, who was quite fixated.
“There’s a crack in the ground!” Clarion called. “I can see a cavern below! It looks huge!”
Her voice was chipper with excitement, but her words filled Baines with dread. Equally discomfited, the others shifted about and stared down at the ground around them, hardly trusting where they stepped.
“Get away from there, younglings; come one, we have to keep moving,” Blithe told them and Clarion’s fins drooped in disappointment.
Suddenly the injured Raptorik on the ground jolted awake, clamping onto Capricious’s arm with a talon. Her eyes were wide with terror and she spewed out a stream of words in the Raptorik tongue, shaking the Fae urgently.
“What is she saying?!” Bladebeak asked frantically.
Serhat snapped out of his surprise and translated, “She says, ‘It comes! It comes! Flee; escape!’”
The words barely had time to register when the very ground began to shake and rumble. The younglings, now alarmed, began to rush back to the others save Eilian, who hadn’t moved an inch. Clarion went back to grab him despite the fact that he was several times larger than her, calling out, “Erebos!”
The Guardian charged back toward her obediently, but before he reached them, the earth gave way. Clarion flailed about as if she’d forgotten how to fly, the darkness closing in on her with surprising swiftness. Her scream was drowned out by Erebos’s desperate roar as he lunged forward to catch both her and Eilian. Bladebeak leapt after him, sinking her claws into his hindquarters to drag him back from the widening hole. The Guardian drew back, releasing who he had caught in his mouth only to discover; it was only Eilian. Clarion was nowhere to be seen.
“CLARION!” the Guardian bellowed, diving back toward the sinkhole, but Bladebeak kept a firm grip on him.
“You have a death wish, Guardian?!” she spat, growling with the effort of restraining him. He ignored her, still bellowing out Clarion’s name.
“Please, please, we have to go,” Tremayne spoke and Baines turned to see them in a wide stance, eyes spilling tears and fixed in concentration. “I’m so sorry, I can’t- I can’t hold it much longer.”
Realization dawned on him in a split second; they were holding the entire mantle of the earth together on their own.
“Everyone move!” he roared out. “This whole place is collapsing! Grab the Raptorik and the younglings and run!”
This spurred everyone into action. As the dragons collected their younger members, Tigress snapped at Bree’s heels, herding her in the correct direction. Erebos protested at first, but Bladebeak zapped him with her electricity to stun him enough for her to drag him away. They and Tremayne were the slowest, so Baines stayed back, though a fear gripped at him as he watched the ground fall away directly behind the Snapper’s heels. Serhat flew near their head, offering encouragement while the earth threatened to swallow them whole.
After what felt like an eternity, rumbling stopped and the mantle ceased to crack and collapse. Tremayne breathed out a heavy sigh, slowing to a walk.
“Are you alright?” Baines asked them, and they merely nodded in response, clearly exhausted. The Mirror chanced a look over his shoulder at the crater behind them. Even exposed to the light, it was difficult to see through the shadows, but he did spy what looked like the massive columns of an underground structure. Their trespass must have been the tipping point to facilitate its collapse. Or…
He shook his head. He couldn’t give in to such superstitions as that.
Erebos bolted upright and he stared about wildly before his gaze settled on Bladebeak, an intense rage burning brightly inside his eyes.
“HOW DARE YOU TAKE ME AWAY! HOW DARE YOU LEAVE HER BEHIND! HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU!” he roared loud enough to shake the trees, twisting about to attack her. The Ridgeback’s spines stiffened in her battle stance and she met him head on. Cinderhoof, Tremayne, Serhat, and Baines all had to scamper out of the way as their two largest dragons fought. The Mirror was at a loss; he had no idea how to handle a situation like this. For all his experience, he’d never been around a Guardian that had lost their Charge.
Bladebeak, being larger and at elemental advantage, was able to subdue the Guardian, throwing him down and pinning him to the dirt.
“She was already gone, Erebos!” she snarled. “We already lost her, an’ you were goin’ to die too!”
“You should have let me!” he snapped back. “I should have fallen with my Charge!”
“Should Eilian?” she roared back. “Would you sacrifice someone else’s hatchling for your Charge?”
He opened his mouth for an immediate retort, but something shifted in his eyes and what came out instead was a low wail. He stopped struggling and deflated, looking no less distraught, but at least the fight had left him. Bladebeak stepped off of him, but he didn’t move.
“… Come on, Erebos. Time to go,” Baines tried to say to him, but he only moaned again.
“I’ve failed,” he choked out. “I’ve failed… Pa would be so… so angry with me-“
“You saved Eilian,” Baines pointed out. “Without you, we would have lost him too.”
Erebos was unappeased and he said, “But… But Clarion…”
Bladebeak’s claw reappeared to grip at his horn and she jerked the surprised Guardian’s head up to look to her.
“Listen, pipsqueak,” she hissed at him. “Without me, you wouldn’ be here whinin’ like a baby. So rather than waste all my effort in savin’ you, you better get up off your *** and come on. You owe me. GOT IT?”
Baines was about to reprimand her, but he stopped when Erebos moved, putting his claws under him and pushing himself to his feet. Bewildered, he watched as the Guardian meekly followed the Ridgeback to catch up with the others. The Mirror looked over at Tremayne, who appeared equally perplexed, but they merely shrugged and followed after them.
Baines let out a sigh, not entirely sure what had just happened, but not wanting to dwell on it. They had other things to worry about.
Rolled Ehsan, Clarion, and Blithe.
Coli loot:
-sigh- Looks like I got too comfortable. This one was on me... I went against a three pack of mages because I got too impatient waiting for a two pack. I thought Clarion would be ok because she was level 5, but... I was wrong.
Goodbye, Clarion.
If you would like to claim Clarion, please comment below.
Arvel is still up for grabs, too.
If you would like to claim Clarion, please comment below.
Arvel is still up for grabs, too.
Not gonna lie, this was kinda difficult trying to think of an excuse of why a Guardian would allow their Charge to die before them. I hope this sounds... reasonable?
Man, I feel like I'm unusually cruel to my dragons sometimes.
EDIT: Had written in some stronger language for Bladebeak that I forgot to edit for posting and the censorship apparently triggered for some other words (which weren't meant to be profanity, but I forgot that they might be picked up by the filter), so I did a little editing to fix some of that. My bad.
Blithe is now level 17.
Ehsan is level 10.
Inventory: Scatter Scroll x1, Breed Change x1
@Weredogalism @Riff @Skulljester @AstralDragons @Petall @MisterMylez @BarbaraFett @PinkyDaPinkSlime @loser @OneRingOfPower @MagmaticMachine @Rosesinger @Eversnow @chewynoodles
