“Where is my brother? Is he gone like sister?”
Skem felt the feathers rise on the back of his head, when he spotted the pale skull hovering above him in the dark. He didn't like Umbi; the Fae only ever had bad news for him. Yet she was the only company he had.
“Purge demands to see you. Now.”
Biting the inside of his cheeks Skem suppressed his desire to start yelling in frustration and fear. He knew better than to do that by now; Umbi's wings may only consist of torn shreds of leathery skin, but she was quick and cold and would not hesitate to sink her claws into his trembling flesh if he kept on disobeying her.
So for now Skem slowly made his way over to the tunnel Umbi had climbed out of; a mixture of barely contained anger and anxiety forming whimpers inside his throat. Under the attentive, dead eyes of his so called
keeper they made their way through the underground. Skem still wasn't used to the way of Umbi crawling on the ceiling in absolute silence over him. He didn't dare to look up. He feared seeing her, but he felt himself slipping into the dangerous territory of pure terror by thinking about the possibility of looking up and seeing no skull, no Umbi, nobody. The fear he held for Purge was nothing compared to that of being utterly alone in the dark broken only by the light of the blue glowing mushrooms along the way.
Where are you? A whimper, louder than before, escaped Skem's mouth and he nervously clicked with his razor-sharp claws on his hind legs.
Why didn't you take me with you? Why did you left me here?
The mushroom's glow was soon superimposed by the sick, yellowish light that crept into the tunnel from the entrance, where Purge would awaited them. Skem stopped.
“What is wrong? Move,” Umbi demanded; her voice as light and gentle just like her grasp around an insect she'd crush the very next second. But Skem didn't move; couldn't move. He wanted to scream at the Fae, to demand answers as to where his siblings have gone, why they left him, why they forgot him. He wanted to be brave and fight his way out of this horrible place, where he heard other dragons scream at night and the walls seemed to be alive and moving when he wasn't looking at them directly. Instead he was just shaking and staring wide-eyed at the ground.
He didn't hear Umbi climbing down the wall – something she never did before. So Skem didn't see the claws coming closer towards his head. Even later what happened then would remain a miracle for the both of them. Because Umbi wasn't hurting him; she wasn't even gripping and forcing him towards their destination.
Her touch was not soft, but it wasn't painful either. It took a while for Skem to realize that she was petting him. In an almost scary, awkward way it calmed his racing heart. Then it was over and Skem looked up at her unmoved skull, that had never showed emotion. Until now.
“Move. Don't make Purge wait.”
And so Skem moved.
