Night Fury's Wrath

Chapter 23: Of Those Lost [Part 1]

-Welcome to arc three, the final and longest arc in the story! We'll start it with something calmer; the family reunion. This chapter will have a bunch of POV swapping—marked with (^-^)—, but the POVs will only be one of three characters; Auroon, Stormfly, or Aurora. As I said before, this chapter is about the family's reunion, so it'll probably have a lot of feels and will definitely have a lot of thinking. 

Sorry about how late this update was. Now without further ado, enjoy!

-NFD

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My muscles burned, my lungs desperately sucked in air, my heart hammered in my chest, but none of that mattered. Lunar-Magic was consumed to push me past my physical limits. It hurt, but with every body-length, I was closer to Mom. With every body-length, I was closer to my big brother. That was all that mattered.

An instinct warned me that the white speck ahead was getting closer at a concerning rate; it went ignored. Mom's voice cut through the air a little louder than before, but her words were still lost to the roaring wind. I tucked my legs even closer to my body, flattened my ears, and narrowed my tail-fins, managing to push myself even faster. I squinted my eyes against the slicing wind as the world became a blur, rapidly advancing on Dad, who was still ahead of me. 

But not for long.

In mere seconds, I overtook Dad, faintly hearing his startled shout as I zipped past his left. Then, something strange happened. Pressure built up against my face, and, right before it became painful, it just... disappeared. A haze of white 'clouds' briefly consumed my vision, the air rushing around me felt very heavy, and an ear-shattering BOOM shook me to the core. All of that happened in a split second. 

The next thing I knew, my instincts were screaming danger. I felt myself tumbling out of control through the air, but my senses were so scrambled that I couldn't understand how to right myself. My head throbbed, my ears rang painfully, and my body was too tired to do anything but fall limply—regardless of if I was capable of a full thought or not. I was afraid, but I couldn't do anything. 

I collided with something. I wasn't sure if I'd hit the ocean or a rocky bit of land, but I could still breathe—or gasping for air, in this case. I hoped that if it was land, I didn't have any broken bones on impact. My spinning vision and light head didn't help matters-

I jolted awake, my eyes snapping open with fright. I was falling! I was-

Unfortunately, that earned me a dizzy spell that had my stomach rolling. I lurched and vomited the contents of my stomach, surprisingly not hearing it splatter on the ground—my still ringing ears might have something to do with that. I managed a weak moan before my gut squeezed again, forcing a bit of bile up as well. I took short pants of air, seemingly unable to get a full breath, as I hung limply from-

Wait, what?

I opened my eyes an inch, woozily waiting for my vision to settle down. A long expanse of ocean water slowly passed under me. Puzzled, I gingerly turned my trembling head to the right. A white leg pressed just behind my foreleg and held me under my chest; I could feel something similar to my left. That explained why I couldn't get a full breath. Was Mom carrying me? I struggled to lift my head to look, but my neck gave out and let my head drop like a rock.

I'd pushed myself too hard, I realized. I flew at my top speed, then used my magic to surpass that. Obviously, doing that put excessive strain on my body, and now, I was paying for that reckless decision. What was I thinking? I've never flown that fast before! I could've gotten myself killed, and Mom would be so-