Spee

Buster and Randale sat in the crumbling courtyard, waiting patiently for the Seers to return with the dragon who’d fallen from the sky along with the castle. They turned as they heard the sound of approaching wingbeats, but what they saw was not who they were expecting.

Two large imperials were approaching.

Randale stood and put his back towards the castle, facing the unexpected company. He gently lifted a wing to shield Buster since she was so small; he didn’t want her to get trampled.

As they neared, Randale recognized the blue and pink dragon in the lead; it was Eclipse, his clan’s chief warden. Beside her was her firstborn, Xileram, a dragon who had gone to join the lightning flight, but was always there as her second in command when she needed another strong body for backup. This fact alone was somewhat unnerving, but Randale tried to remain calm.

The two Imperials began their decent, hovering above the small courtyard before carefully landing in front of Randale and Buster.

“Randale.” Eclipse addressed him as she folded her wings neatly. “We’ve been trying to find you for a quite some time. Care to explain what’s going on here?”

“I’m not sure I can,” said Randale honestly.

“Why don’t you start with what you’re doing the whole way out here.”

“I’m searching for my brother,” he said. “As you know, he’s gone missing, and has not been found… and things have not been right since he left.”

“Yes, we’re aware,” said Eclipse. “We have scouts searching for him as well, you don’t need to be out here by yourself. Obsidian is worried.”

Randale sighed. “He noticed.”

“He notices everything.” Eclipse raised a wing and turned her head to the side, gesturing back the way she and Xileram had come. “Why don’t you come home with me.”

“I can’t do that,” said Randale. “I have to find Spyral.”

“We’ll find him,” insisted Eclipse. “You need to go home. We can’t afford to have you out here by yourself. It isn’t safe, not after what happened to Spyral and your mother. Your father has a way of making dragons lose their minds…”

“No, no,” Randale shook his head, laughing a little despite the situation. “I don’t know what happened to Spyral, but I can tell you that my father’s spell did not cause my mother to lose her mind, it made her body lose its soul. The spell was meant to open her mind to another realm, but instead it trapped her soul there. All that time that the clan thought she had lost her mind, she was actually searching for a way to get back into her body… but instead she ended up in mine. That’s why I was born with her colors; she was able to bind to the egg before I hatched.”

“Her soul? In your body?” Eclipse sounded skeptical.

“Yes, I swear,” said Randale. “She isn’t gone… she can speak to me with her thoughts.”

“Then tell her to tell me something only she and I would know.”

Randale was silent for a long moment as Eclipse watched him with untrusting eyes.

“… My mother says… when she was still an egg in the nest, her parents had to return to the light domain where they were born for a short time. When she hatched, you were there watching over the nest instead, and she was thoroughly convinced that you were her mother for the next few moons of her life, despite the fact that she looked nothing like you. She… she says when her own parents tried to tell her that you were not her mother, she called them liars, and fled to your den to tell you they were trying to kidnap her.”

“And so I let her stay with me until she was old enough to realize I was just the warden…” Eclipse lowered her head slowly. “My dear Haze, it really is you…”

“You can help us,” said Randale. “Inside this castle are gateways to other realms in other worlds, and my brother will be coming. The seed that my father trapped inside of him will lead him here so that it can escape—”

“And then what?” Xileram asked. “What happens if the seed makes it to a gateway?”

“It will gain access to the magic in that realm,” said Buster suddenly. “And if it does, it will have magic you can’t even begin to fathom, magic that can turn your world upside-down and leave it in shambles if you aren’t in its good graces.”

The two Imperials grew quiet for a moment, their expressions both confused and a little irritated.

“A talking toad?”

“My name is Buster,” she said, “and do not be fooled by my current appearance, I am no toad to you.” The tiny creature stepped into the ground between the huge dragons, facing the two wardens fearlessly. “Your friend here, his father had no idea what kind of magic he was tampering with. This thing you call a seed, it’s much more than that. It’s a being of its own, trapped inside a dragon so that it can survive in this realm, and it does not want to be here… and I can tell you right now, it blames you. All of you.” Buster looked around at the dragons that stared down at her.

“… But we didn’t do this,” said Randale. “Only my father did…”

“It doesn’t care. One dragon from this world might as well be all the dragons in this world to this creature. As far as it is concerned, it has been imprisoned here by one of your kind. If it manages to escape from that dragon before the situation can be explained as an accident and its respect can be earned, it will be the end for this world… it will see to that.”

For just a moment, the dragons thought they saw a shimmer of red from deep within Buster’s eyes, but it was gone before they could be sure.

“What is this thing?” Eclipse asked at last. “This creature that’s trapped inside Spyral?”

Buster looked away, a grave expression slowly falling upon her tiny face.

“She was once my sister.”







The two warden Imperials looked up abruptly, their expressions a mixture of confusion, irritation, and fear.

Before them, Randale reached up slowly, placing a hand on his blue mask before slowly removing it and lowering it to chest, his features revealing that his age was very young for a dragon of his species. In his green eyes was a look of dread.

The mood was broken rather quickly by Buster, who sat up slightly and then turned to face the entrance to the castle, her voice breaking the silence with,
"Oh, somebody's coming."

The Imperials turned to face the archway that led to the castle entrance, their gazes falling upon a comparably tiny dragon-shaped figure that slowly passed through the archway and into the courtyard. It was about a third the size of Allegro, although its shape and colors were very similar, if not lacking some of the more in-depth details. The dragon was bright blue with a tinge of green, and had a shiny pair of magenta wings and a plated belly that matched the wings in coloration, although slightly less vibrant. A pair of bright pink and magenta horns curved up and forward from the back of its large head.

"Hey Buster, what's going--"

The little voice stopped as soon as it was fully through the arch and the little dragon noticed the towering dragons that stood around the edges of the courtyard, their horns branching like massive antlers, with bodies that were far too long and faces that were far too mammalian.

"What are those?"

The little blue dragon lowered its upper body to the ground as if about to pounce, clawed hands gripping the vibrant green grass.

"Those are dragons," said Buster.

"They're way too big!"

"They're from another realm."

That sentence seemed to calm the dragon slightly, as it slowly returned to a quadrupedal standing position.

"The portal I took wasn't supposed to take me to a realm with weird dragons," said the little blue dragon, it's pink eyes still locked on the Imperials with a look of distrust. "It was supposed to take us home."

"The portals aren't working right anymore," Buster told him. "Something's happened that messed with our magic." She paused before adding, in a more urgent tone, "How many of you used the portals on this island after the school hours ended?"

"I don't know," said the blue dragon. "Fireball was with me, but he took off again, so at least him. And I think his one friend from class was making a trip to get some glowing crystals to grind into paint or something. Why?"

"Just curious." Buster turned back to face the three Imperials, who were growing more confused by the second.

"This is Spee," Buster said to them. "He's a dragon from the world I'm from."

The Wardens looked at each other slowly, the irritation fading from their eyes as they silently exchanged a thought. Randale lowered his head slowly so he could get a better look at the tiny dragon.

"I like your horns," said Spee. "They're like trees without leaves."

"Thank you," said Randale, his voice slightly shaky. The last thing he was expecting was a sudden compliment. "I like yours too."

"They're not done growing," Spee replied, sitting down and brushing the hair-like spines that crested his head to the side, away from one of his horns. "But my brother thinks they're going to curl forward past my eyes when they are."

"Fascinating," whispered Randale.