Eternal Fire

Chapter 39

With the wind being all but gone, and the few dregs left coming from behind her, Ember made it most of the way back, but choose to rest her wings, which hadn't been in the best of conditions when she had started her journey. She found a nice clearing, without any water in it, and landed, the night sky casting the world in a dark version of the light.

Animal scents of the night crossed the clearing, and a weak scent of a night dragon drifted into her nostrils, but nothing that should pose to be a risk to her. Finding a sheltered spot in the trees, Ember listened for anything new: nothing, sniffed: nothing. Satisfied, she curled into a ball of red scales and fell asleep.

- - -

She sat in a sheltered part of the land outside of the cave system, her family was having a mock battle like usual, but Ember needed to catch up with her fire. She couldn't quite get the fire to come out of her mouth; she was better at setting her scales on fire, but she needed to breathe fire, the rest of her family had done it.

Warming her body up, the dark stone was nearly comfortable as Ember reached down, for that pit of fire. It had taken her a while to wake the beast up, but now it was a swirling mass, ready to destroy something. She pulled at it, and it came up at her command, ready to go, she felt a flickering on her scales, but opened her mouth and tried to get the fire to come into the world that way.

She had been so close yesterday, during the lesson, but whilst the others were practicing their aim, she was one of the few that hadn't produced anything. She had not wanted to be thought as someone who was just messing around, so she had tried to not set her scales on fire, and succeeded, but had not gotten any further.

But now it was coming out of her jaws, a small stream of fire, but her scales were still on fire. She cut off the fire to her scales and all the fire she was producing went out. But she had done it, finally.

She hadn't made it to the next lesson, which would have been nine days later, four days after she'd first breathed fire, was her last day with her family. But she had made progress over the few days.

- - -

Blood ran down her neck, Ember's eyes went flying open. She tried to find what was attacking her, but everything was blue. She saw the glint of scales, but they were dull, the dullest of any dragon she had seen alive. She pushed the dragon back with her claws and wings and saw a crazed look in the dragon's eyes; they looked all over the place, not focussing on anything.

"You traitor! You brought them here!" The dragon shrieked as Ember tried to pin him. She didn't recognise the dragon, but then again, she didn't know that many water dragons to be able to know them when seeing them in the middle of the night.

A blast of water from the dragon's mouth sent Ember flying over the ground, nearly hitting the trees on the side of the clearing. She screamed as the water ran through the protective layer of scales and looked at the dragon from her position on the ground, her heart beating rapidly as pain shook her body from the water. Pushing the fire back, she stood up, creating more pain as water ran down her skin, the water dragon looked worse for wear, scales were missing or dull, scratches ran down his sides, and he was glaring at Ember like she had killed his whole family. Which she hadn't.

"You must have gotten me mixed up with someone else, I have not harmed you or your family." Ember said, her eyes following the dragon's every movement. The dragon snarled and ran over to Ember, his movements were easy to predict in his crazed state, and she dodged each and every one. "Calm down, I mean you no harm." The dragon snarled again and leapt for Ember, who flapped her wings to get out of the way, her blood landing on the ground from her wounds. Her wings ached before she fell to the ground.