These Alien Dragons

Chapter 17 (T.T.)

The dragons that were recovering or adjusting to their new broken bodies stayed at the Community of Coasts. It was the southernmost TreeWing Community in the Great Forest, and it was close to the southern end of the Ocean of Storms. It was also where I woke after being operated on and found out that I now had one eye instead of two.

Silver stayed with me during my day sessions, as I learned how to live with my scarred self. At night, he stayed with Eel before the cycle repeated the next sunrise. Whoever this "Leaf" dragon was, had trained the sky-creature well.

I did not see Peak throughout my recovery. At first, I thought that he was on a different flight to recovery. But as the sunrises went on, bleeding and blurring into each other, I came to believe that he was dead.

Ashes had led us here, but, like most things in life, the price of it was death.

Death.

It came for everyone, no matter who you were.

Sometimes it came at the right moment, like an Elder who had a life well-lived; other times it ripped life away before it could start, like my siblings who were crushed in their eggs. No doubt their assassin was still out there, killing my brother's eggs (if he had any).

On the days where I didn't have any training, I decided to head to the Community's old library, which still functioned despite its battered state. There I reread the first five books of Skies of Fire before finishing The Depths of the Ocean.

Ocean's ending was like a massive wave that had suddenly crashed over me. I thought that Root's mate was the killer, but I was wrong – Kestrel was.

I was also wrong about those black boxes that began zipping around the sky unexpectedly a while back. They weren't like the ones I had seen at the Island of Talons – these were bent on destroying the planet.

Because of this, droves of dragons had abandoned their respective territories for higher ground. Or what was left of the world.

The dragons that came here, to the swamps and the Great Forest, were placed into what was left of the Community of Marshes before they were allowed refugee status. If a dragon was not allowed refugee status, they were either arrested and brought to the Community of Trees, the capital of the Great Forest, or were killed on the spot.

Good to know that dragons did have a sense of sanity at the end of the world.

The refugees who were injured were brought here to the Community of Coasts to recover. Some of them were VolcanoWings who had defected from Vulcan's army, although many dragons were suspicious of them when they arrived.

I decided to meet my enemy up close, and introduced myself to them. The dragons introduced themselves as Fumarole and Obsidian.

Only two of them.

Two members of our adversary had defected to the other side.

There were only two reasons for this: they had either awoken from their Vulcan-induced stupor and knew what was really going on, or they were quickening the world's demise by coming here.

Nobody trusted them, and their huts were guarded heavily as they recovered.

Whenever I spoke to either Obsidian or Fumarole in their huts, the guards outside verified who I was by asking questions before letting me in and the guards inside watched our every move as we spoke.

One misstep, and it would be all over.

Thankfully, nothing really happened during those meetings, although I heard whispers amongst the other dragons that taking in the VolcanoWings would be the gravest mistake the Undercurrents made in their umpteenth Turn history.