Opheria

Opheria

The Daughter

Proud

Opheria's chest heaved a relieved sigh as her claws touched the edge of home. Barren stone scraped away the snow, offering cold warmth to her frozen feet as she followed the dim, almost black, thermal silhouettes of the pack into familiar darkness. The wind echoed down the descending caverns, through the eternal maze of paths and back out into the wailing cold outside. It clawed over her scales, picking open anxious memories of her fool-hardy first attempt to walk the tunnels alone as a hatchling. It harried her forward, after the faint shadow of her mother's swaying tail. It was only her embarrassment, both at her childish cravings and her actions on the field, that held her back from the iridescent Mirror’s flank.

The cave twisted intricately around her, sloping up and down, left and right. Opheria counted every turn, touched every clawed marking in the ground, until they reached the last turn and her paw settled over a deep, panicked gouge. The other mirrors vanished, and she tipped after them into void. The seconds ticked in her head, jumping two, three, ten in queue as she tucked her wings and fell faster. Her timer jumped forwards, her confidence escaped, and she opened her wings wide.

"Hatchling." The snicker echoed in her ear as she watched warming arrows drop away and disappear into the abyss, but her wings refused to refold. Opheria drifted the final meters and landed in the gently-cracking boneyard that carpeted the cliff's foot. A grimace creased her muzzle as she stepped onto something soft; something snapped, muffled and wet. The empty path ahead, absent of the soft light from her pack's chilled bodies, forced her to forget it and pick up her pace once again. She did not fear the rest of the path, but she did fear worsening the look her mother would cast at her later, filled with pity and disappointment.

Her scrabble calmed as the chasm widened and the darkness softened against the hazy first touch of torchlight. Her pack came back into view, haloed in the glow, and stoic to her return.

Learned by each of them from one too many headaches, each mirror ducked their head as they rounded the final bend, where the path ended against the hide of a slumbering giant. Opheria closed her secondary eyes against the bright wall of cosy light as the Guardian grumbled awake; his blind head swept across the line of dragons, nostrils flared wide as he searched for a familiar scent. He found it at Scree, who had not paused her stride past him.

Opheria's tail flicked as she hesitated under Ater's inspection. If luck favoured her, she could escape into the winding core before her mother's attention could turn on her; if she kept moving, even with Fenrir tracking her she could hide for the rest of the day.

"You seem upset, 'Phe." Opheria startled as Ater pushed his massive nose against her flank, so gently that she didn't even stumble. All at once, his unseeing eyes were the only in the room not focused on her.

"It's none of your business." She hissed, wings raised high to shelter her from the piercing stares. Ater jerked back as if slapped. Guilt hit her hard, twisting her gut over itself twice. An apology tried to force up her throat, but before it was ready:

"Go on through." Ater jerked his head towards the heavy door behind him, open and spilling happy light and distant songs. He turned away, quick enough to catch Opheria's wings in the gust, but she hesitated to leave. Ater had been nothing but kind to her since her had first found her as a hatchling, crying among the bones below the drop after she had tried to chase her mother out onto a hunt, and scraped her legs trying to climb the steep walls. However, her pack had already moved on, and so she morosely followed, hope held in her heart that Powell's was still open.

The short walk ended in another heavy door, less warped than the first but aged and dark nonetheless. Its deep oak was turned a welcoming hue by the ever-burning braizers at its flanks. A gentle push, and the final barrier between her and home swung itself open onto the dying bustle of the fire-lit commons. Warm light spilled over her scales, dancing through pastel pinks and blues, then back to white as she shifted; Opheria had always been proud to have inherited her mother's hide.

She stopped, unable to take the final step down the slope and into the clan's heart, even with the chill breeze biting her tail.

"That was pretty harsh, Ophie. Maybe you're more like Scree than I thought." Nix's signature cackle grated against the soft hum of clan life and walked razor fingers down Opheria's spine. She growled as the pale Mirror pressed against her side, a proud grin on her face, while the rest of the pack dispersed into the Commons. Her mother had gone, she didn't know where.

"Fly off, Nix. I'm not in the mood." Opheria tried to walk away, but Nix's claws latched around her shoulder quick as a striking viper. The elder Mirror dragged her to a table and forced her to sit.

"Phe, don't be so worried. I know you mother can be scary when she's made, but it's only because she cared. My first time in the field, I got put in the brig for a week! For dumping snow on everyone! Granted, there was a dryad in that snow, but it was only a little intentional." Nix's voice broke into a laugh, the kind that made Opheria wonder if she had taken one too many hits from an ice giant, but it tapered fast into something soft and nostalgiac. Her scar-riddled muzzle tilted towards Opheria as she looked at her with gentle, maybe even loving, eyes. "My point is, we all make mistakes. Don't let it keep biting at your hide, because one day it's gonna eat its way through."

A small sound, caught between a sigh and a chuckle, left Opheria. As did a small amount of the tension knotted through her stomach.

“Thank you, Nix.” Happily, Opheria butted her head against the other Mirror’s shoulder, careful of the living machinery that consumed Nix’s chest. It whirred gently as Nix shifted to push her away.

"Alright, alright, don't get all sappy on me." Nix rolled her eyes as hard as her sockets would allow. She tapped the back of her paw under Opheria's chin, lifting it high. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm late for my appointment." Nix nodded her head towards Insidiis, who waited at one of the corner tables with two steaming drinks. With nary a goodbye, she pranced off to join him. The blue-white Bogsneak was a rare sight inside of the lair; snow still clung to the pelt he wore and his thermal picture was barely warmer than Nix's. It was doubtful that he would stay long enough to change that.

"Opheria." She flinched at the sound of her name, cold and sharp as the raging storm outside. Opheria glanced behind herself and found her mother's blood-red eyes staring sternly down at her. She ducked her head low, gaze to the dise, but the pack leader ignored the wordless apology.

"Come with me." Scree ordered, then turned and walked into the tunnel that lead towards their home. With no other choice, Opheria trailed her ten steps behind, lagging at the edge of her mother's ire. Scree kept a firm pace as she wound through the caverns, but when they reached home she did not stop. Instead, she took Opheria to the shortcut she often took to the council hall; a narrow corridor, with a sharp branch that went to the lower levels, then the brig.

Nix's flippant story filled her head, and fear gripped Opheria's heart. The brig was dank, cold, and filling with the few rare captive monsters of the Breach who could speak. Only Pathounax could stand to stay down there for more than a day, and it was only out of obligation to his Charge.

"Mother... Where are we going?" Opheria asked carefully, paused at the edge of the hallway. Her head sank low as she looked between the closing walls, and the old clawmarks that she now imagined to be from prisoners and not the tunnel's making.

Scree's head lifted to glance back at her daughter, who met her questioning look with confusion. The panic was clear in her eyes, and her rising heat signature.

"I'm transferring you to Star's division; you're not ready to be on the field. Icewarden, you're not ready to be in battle!"

Opheria would have preferred the brig.

"I am ready!" Her wings lifted high and her stance set wide, but before she could let forth the fierce protest in her chest, her mother silenced her. Scree opened her wings and swept over her, a shape of crimson feather and white bone that cut hollows into the light and pinned her under a blood-filled stare. The imposing figure of her mother, of the Frostguard's sword in her foes' final moments, severed Opheria's tongue and froze the wound solid.

"You are not. I was rash to take you into a fight; I cannot put the rest of the pack at risk just to protect you from one little beast!" Opheria's eyes flickered over the crude, red-splotched linen wrap around her mother's middle; the claw mark underneath was shallow and fast-healing, but that did nothing to lessen the guilt.

"Mother, I'm sorry!" Sympathy flashed over Scree's burning glare, then blossomed outwards into her wings. They folded back in half, offering Opheria the space to speak. The younger Mirror stood from her cower, but her head and wings stayed cowed.

"I panicked." Carefully, Opheria lifted her eyes back to Scree, and saw her soften back into the mother she recognised.

"I know; it's my fault, little one. I took you out into the field before you were ready. You've got your father's heart, and you're just too young to know when to ignore it." Scree pulled her close, tucked protectively under her vibrant wings. A warm tongue swiped over the new scratches at the base of her horns, grooming away the phantom echoes of a sting that the cold had long numbed. Opheria relaxed as her mother's chest rumbled with soothing purrs, which she soon mimicked.

"Please Mother, just one more chance. I promise I can do better." The memory of that cursed harpy; the fear in its face; the foul victory in its sneer when she released her grip, flared through her mind. She wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

"I know you will, little one." Arms and wings wrapped around her in a tight hug, pulling her into a soothing world of orange-red as light filtered through her mother's feathers. They tickled at her side, but they were warm and soft with enchanted life. There were days Opheria envied the magic-born feathers that sprouted from each of her parents' wings. They excited her for the day she could will her own into life. "Just not yet."

In her mother's embrace, Opheria felt small and young; more-so than she had felt in a long while. Before today the world had seemed so secure, so certain, so contained, but roaming even just to the territory's boundaries - a spirited fligh that taken half a day one way - brought with it the revelation that Sornieth was so much bigger than its map promised. She clung close, indulging in her mother's comfort with imaginings that she was a hatchling again, tucked away safe from the world behind her mother's iron wingspan. Her body swayed with Scree's relenting sigh, before the elder Mirror's claws lifted her chin to meet their eyes.

"I won't transfer you. For now, you will remain at home when we go on the hunt. Until you're ready, you will train... Then we will see if you can do better." It was an ominous promise, the kind her mother made in the council chambers. It guaranteed many more years stuck within the lair, repeating her lessons until her mother deemed her passing and she had grown mad with boredom. She was almost tempted to take the transfer and hope that Star would place her in a hunting or gathering troop instead of internal affairs. However, the memory of her mother's pride when they had set off this morning for her first hunt with the pack drove her ambition away from surrender.

"I just want to make you proud." Opheria whispered, as if confessing to sin. Her mother tutted gently, petting her claws over Opheria's horns just as she would when putting her to bed as a hatchling.

"You already do." Scree hugged her tighter, and let Opheria hold on until she began to worry her daughter might have inherited her father's strength, with how hard it was to breathe. She patted Opheria's back firmly, and the young Mirror broke away to gin up at her, determined.

“Then I’ll make the whole clan proud instead.” Opheria’s grin grew as she watched the pride fill her mother's features, stronger than ever before.

“I know you will.”