Chapter Nine
“You alright?” Moonblood looked over at Skylo as he asked the question and nodded.
The sun was barely rising over the horizon and tiny streaks of orange raced through the sky in an attempt to transform the world into day. In the opposite direction, stars were fading from sight, and appearing to be, from existence as well.
A voice resounded through Moonblood’s mind: Birch will guide you. Moonblood had no clue what it meant, but figured it was a remnant of his odd dream. But, funnily enough, he felt really different, yet the same. As he looked at Skylo, a thought raced through his mind: Air. It seemed as though he was actually given the abilities of every other dragon element. Then again, it was probably just mental, having that happen was like the stories to tell dragons still firmly wrapped in their eggs.
Moonblood couldn’t help but stare at Skylo’s turned body for a long while, thankfully without the dragon noticing. The young Chaos dragon got up to his paws and stretched, that being difficult still heavily coated in armor.
Chaos dragons are so weird. Moonblood jumped as he heard the voice in his head. What scared him I wonder?
“What got you scared all of a sudden?” Skylo asked as soon as the thought waved from his mind.
Moonblood thought for a moment, wondering how much he should reveal before replying, “Thought I heard something. Probably just overreacting to something stupid.”
Maybe, The voice in his head said right before Skylo shook his head and walked away.
Moonblood smiled and said to himself, “I probably am overreacting to something stupid.”
Just then, one of the elves climbed out of his bag of fur. It was Harmen.
“How are you this morning?” He asked in a pleasant tone as he bent backwards slightly and his back cracked.
“I am good. Still curious about numerous things, but fine all the same. And you?” Moonblood replied as he studied the elf.
Again thoughts ran through Moonblood’s mind: probably shouldn’t mention that his thrashing tail nearly killed me last night…. “I’m fine,” the elf replied.
Moonblood tested his theories: “My tail nearly killed you last night?” Harmen’s eyes widened slightly as he replied, “I suppose you might know, since it was your tail.”
It’s as if he could read my mind! Moonblood began to feel odd, suddenly being able to read the thoughts of another being and coming to the realization.
Some sort of movement caught Moonblood’s eye. He glanced over to see Hydra helping the elves get everything together. Upon noticing him, the Water dragon abandoned her task and bounded over to him.
Moonblood somehow convinced himself not to peer into her mind, if that even was what happened with Skylo and Harmen.
“What’s on your mind?” Hydra asked with genuine curiosity.
“Nothing of importance,” Moonblood lied.
Hydra seemed to buy it as she quickly responded, “Well, we should be at the ocean in about a day’s time. And one of the elves said that in order to get across without having to swim at all, we would have to cross with theDragon-StepIslands. Then again, that would require us going about a week’s travel out of the way…I, of course, was opposed.”
Moonblood smiled slightly and then focused on what she had said that wasn’t supposed to be amusing in the slightest; theDragon-StepIslandswere a ring of hundreds of islands stretching from the current continent to the kingdoms of Chaos, Water, and Air. Each island was as little as a minute’s flight away from each other to a few days’ travel from each other.
If they chose to go through theDragon-StepIslands, it would take them an extra two weeks. But if they went straight, they would have to swim very often to rest a little while, which would largely increase the chances of being hunted by an entire school of water demons.
“I would say we should take theDragon-StepIslandsto avoid our near guaranteed deaths,” Moonblood concluded.
Hydra snorted in distress, sending a plume of transparent white smoke into the air and making Moonblood quickly add: “But I’m sure the islands will have lakes and ponds for you to swim in. Ones that are water demon-free!”
Hydra didn’t seem satisfied but waved her irritation away with a swish of her tail.
“Are we ready to leave?” Moonblood asked as Skylo approached with an eager expression on his face.
“Yup, just as soon as you two are,” the Air dragon replied.
Moonblood suddenly noticed that all of the elves were on Skylo’s back with all of the supplies ready to go.
“We figured it would be best if you didn’t have to carry us and your armor,” Tawon explained.
Moonblood nodded and crouched, ready to take off into the air. Skylo and Hydra quickly did the same and flew off into the sky. Determined to make a race out of it for entertainment, Moonblood launched into the sky, his wings somehow pulling him ahead faster than he had intended. With a sickening thud, he rammed into Hydra accidentally and they spiraled to the ground at an alarming speed.
What’s going on!? Moonblood asked himself as he forced his wings open and just barely scraped over the tops of the trees. Hydra, however, wasn’t so lucky. She crashed through the trees, bringing several of them to the ground.
An angry growl reverberated through the air, “What did you do that for!?”
Moonblood rolled away just as Hydra leaped towards him and watched as one of her claws passed right in front of his muzzle, missing it by a millimeter. The Water dragon twisted and swung her other paw at his head. Once again, he dodged it by a tiny bit.
After a few more times, Skylo floated down beside them and managed to calm his sister down.
“What happened?” Skylo asked.
Moonblood searched for an answer before replying, “I don’t know, I just flew into the air and underestimated my strength.”
“What little strength you have!” Hydra added as she launched herself at Moonblood too quickly for him to respond.
Moonblood felt Hydra slam into him and they rolled through the forest until they came to the edge of a cliff. Moonblood’s front half was dangling over the edge, his wings flapping wildly but being unable to move him from Hydra’s grasp.
The Chaos dragon twisted his head and gazed at the water below, splashing against the sheer cliff wall. It was a fairly large lake that probably connected to the ocean they were headed towards. Hydra’s right paw pressed firmly against his throat and Moonblood got a good look at the injuries she received from her fall.
Hydra’s left wing was torn and bloodied, three of her talon-like claws had been chipped as if she had tried to dig through rock, and some of her scales had been ripped off of her hide. No wonder why she had been so angry.
Moonblood stared into her stormy blue eyes and gripped the edge of the cliff with his claws as tight as he could. The ground below him crumbled. Hydra held him firmly with both her talons and her gaze. Then the entire cliff side fell into the water, carrying the two dragons with it.
Both the dragons barely managed to avoid a hard crash into the water but slipped beneath the blue waves nevertheless.
One though raced through Moonblood’s mind, I’m going to have to fight Hydra in her own element.
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The Dragon Warrior
الخيال (فانتازيا)Moonblood is an average dragon from the element of Chaos, born among other dragons and destined to grow with them. When he sets off on his own, he hopes to find a comfortable lair for himself, complete with a horde of treasure and a world to himself...
