On Destiny's Wings: A Journey of Embers (UNDERGOING REVISIONS)

Chapter 10: The Organization

Sundrop froze. Dozens of dragonlings on the platform were looking around, frightened. The black dragons in the cavern did not waver. They merely stilled, their breathing quiet, as they watched the empty air. The murky waters in the pits rippled with anticipation. Where had that voice come from? Who did it belong to?

Suddenly, Sundrop felt a nudge at her side. She jumped, startled, and turned to look at what had brushed her. To her surprise, Whirlpool was now standing next to her, her pale icy eyes wide and confused. Her beautiful webbed tail was quivering uncomfortably. Sundrop inched closer to her and pressed their wings together. Whirlpool let out a quick breath of relief. The young FireClaw dragoness watched the WaterClaw. They appeared to be close in age, Sundrop only a few scale heights taller than her blue counterpart. Side to side, they looked so different. She thought hard for a moment. She was comforting a dragon of a completely different species. They lived eons apart, yet somehow found themselves standing next to one another. It made Sundrop feel angry that the two had met under such terrible circumstances. 

"Those who oppose the Organization and its purpose will be eliminated," the loud serpent-like voice boomed again. Sundrop looked around, ears flat against her head, fangs bared in fear. 

It was then that a dastardly black form melted out of the shadows. Sundrop watched, frozen. It slunk out from behind the spiked throne to the far side of the platform, long hooked claws reaching up and clutching the pointed rocky spires. It hauled itself up with its snaky body, slithering against the throne with its scales, before curling itself comfortably into the chair. It flicked one of the red gems embedded in the spear-like stones with its toothy claws. 

This dragon was black and metallic like the others, but something about him was different. He was unnaturally large in every aspect of his body. His paws were bizarre, with three long toes extending forward, and one positioned in the back. His talons, the deepest of ebony, reminded Sundrop of those that eagles possessed. They were dangerously hooked. His neck was long and arched, sporting gems of red between the scales there. A pair of wings extended from his back. They were ragged and torn at the tips. It almost looked like they had been burned with fire. His tail was so long that it looped in on itself multiple times and dangled against the floor. It ended in a whip-like point. Sundrop dared to look up. His face was painted with dozens of scars. One of them, the most noticeable, was a slashed strip of flesh that began at his right temple, and stretched all the way down to his lower left jaw. It was so bad that even with his maw closed, some of his fangs were visible. His horns were elegantly tall. They wound in gentle spirals before ending in a dagger-like tip. 

The last thing Sundrop noticed were his eyes.

Red. Red like the deepest of blood.

She felt Whirlpool stiffen beside her. The dragonling pressed even harder against the WaterClaw. She was frightened too. Her brother was nowhere to be seen, and this awful reptile was seated in a throne before them. He wasn't even female. Sundrop knew of only queens. It was the natural order of things.

"W-What's the Organization?" a small brown dragonling asked from the back. Sundrop and Whirlpool, along with the rest of the dragonlings on the platform, turned to look at him. He was short, with traces of random emerald scales scattered across his body. He was younger than Sundrop by about two moons. His wings weren't even fully developed.

The nasty dragon in front of them glared down his muzzle, blood-red eyes glinting with some kind of twisted amusement. His snaky body relaxed as he spoke.

"Your new home," he hissed adamantly. He placed one of his bizarrely divided paws on his chin and snickered.

The brown dragonling flattened his triangular ears, tail droopy. "B-but this isn't my home!"