Golden halos shimmered over the night sky. A Boneguard soldier had approached Shiori, having mistaken her for one of their order. She was asked to remove a pair of stray molts from the area. A simple task.
Under the radiant sky, Shiori used her Earth magic and the shadows cast on the ground to get her bearings. Wild monsters and their remains littered the land as she stomped forward to her first destination. Her feet cracked hardened rib cages poking out of the ground. It was easier for her to tell the difference between textures here.
A dragon fluttered at high speed, darting in front of her.
“Who’s there?” Shiori caught a faint smell of a healed wound.
“Oh, it’s Pria! Hi, Auntie.”
After a moment to reflect, Shiori shook her head disapprovingly and continued moving. She decided to leave the young Veilspun’s lecture for later. The magic signatures of the ley lines crisscrossing the land pulsed in time with the false pustules on Pria’s face. One molt appeared in Shiori’s tremorsense - a jagged blot in the soft earth.
“Since you’re up at this hour, can you tell me what you see up ahead?”
After receiving confirmation, Shiori approached and dug into the molt. Pieces of dead skin flew off. For several minutes, she stomped down until the molt was nothing but flakes to be covered up by the Wastes’ mutating landscape. Startled crows cawed in the distance.
Shiori sent her earth magic in a burst around her. Several dragons approached - fast.
“Get under my cloak. We’re being followed.”
“Wait, won’t that infect it?”
“That’s what soap and water are for. Hide, now!” It grew harder for her to hear past her thumping heart as little Pria dove under the folds of the cloak.
Her wings went up instinctively just as the first of five pairs of children reached the ground around them. “It’s nighttime. None of you should be out at this hour. Go find your parents.”
She was met with jeers about her filthy Flight. While the children’s teeth couldn’t leave a mark, one was stalking in a circle, favoring their left paws. Had any of them noticed Pria? She couldn’t take that risk.
Shiori gritted her teeth and rose to her hind legs.
The children scattered as she fell, cratering the earth beneath her. One of them snarled and darted out of formation, trying to attack from behind.
Shiori flicked her wing down. She heard the child screech as they slammed into the ground at high speed. Heavy breathing ran down her back. Little Pria was making less of a ruckus than she expected.
A metallic sound whistled through the air. Shiori stood motionless as a meteorite collided into the ground, shattering in thousands of sharp, crystalline pieces. She crouched down, protecting her torso.
The attacking children, with no such protection, ran off in a panic.
“They’re gone. Finally.” Pria emerged from underneath the cloak. “Are we going to another one of those molt things? I want to try breaking one with my magic- ”
A pair of feet suddenly appeared in the radius of Shiori’s tremorsense. She stopped in her tracks.
“Auntie. Auntie! There’s a Skydancer that just appeared over there.” Pria’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Can we go say hi? She’s past the weird rock.”
Shiori snorted. The things kids say these days. She can’t possibly be serious.
Then a chained weapon with a ball of spikes on one end fell to the ground.
She bolted forward with a speed that made the Skydancer trip backwards. A shaky voice - presumably the Skydancer - gave a barely audible apology about the insults the children threw her way. An uneasy silence followed.
“Cover our backs, then. It would be nice to not be interrupted in the middle of my job,” Shiori said, moving on without another word.
Behind her, Pria’s buzzing wings vibrated so loud that Shiori could barely make out the conversation she was trying to have with the Skydancer. Key word being try. The earth pulsed as another molt appeared up ahead.
Shiori approached the molt and cleanly cracked the top off. That Skydancer cannot be that nosy and that tight-lipped at the same time, she thought. She was armed! She could have helped me! By the Eleven, she could at least apologize for eavesdropping! What a royal pain!
She took the frustration out on the molted flesh, crushing it into larger pieces than the first one and stomping on those instead.
“Something’s wrong with Ms. Skydancer,” Pria said, flying over to the molt. “Her runes are lighting up all weird.”
The Skydancer’s feet disappeared from the solid earth.
Where did the Skydancer go? Shiori took the cracked pieces of molt and threw them aside, shattering a few on nearby rocks. She tried to calm down an increasingly panicked Pria, who was screaming that the Skydancer vanished into thin air.
Another meteorite screamed through the sky, colliding into a rib cage. Bone shards scattered on the ground. This job was quickly becoming not worth it.
“We’re going home. We’re not safe here anymore.” Shiori took Pria under her wing and began to lumber back off to the den. “And don’t think you’re not getting a lecture when we get back. Why were you even awake at this hour?”
Pria protested for a few minutes before giving a loud sigh of resignation. “It’s so bright out. I didn’t know it was past my bedtime.”
“This happens every time Lightweaver’s children vie for dominance. Every Brightshine, every Valentine’s. Our collective elemental powers can change the very landscape of the world.”
They continued homeward. Bonepriests slithered under the ground, scared off by the impacts of misaimed meteors. The report to the Boneguard soldier could wait until morning – or until the Arcanites had finished their aerial bombardment.
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