To Begin Again

Healing

It had been nearly five years since Malefor had been defeated and the world restored to its natural, non-destroyed state. The alliance of cheetahs, moles, and dragons had long since emerged from the caves, and yet there was still unrest in the world. Unrest that the remaining three Guardians believed could be settled by the two dragons that saved the world: Spyro and Cynder.

But these two dragons weren't exactly in top condition. Their bodies were extremely damaged from their fight with Malefor, and their minds weren't in the best of shape either. Months were spent trying to heal the physical wounds, and the mental damage ran even deeper. For the longest time, Cynder avoided speaking as much as possible. Her eyes, holding once a beautiful and powerfully confident gaze, now looked shattered from the inside out. Spyro wasn't nearly as mentally damaged, yet Cynder's condition seemed to take a toll on him. Every time they were in the same room, Cynder would avoid his gaze. He tried speaking to her many times, but nothing ever seemed to spark conversation.

Spyro seemed to take her silence to heart, walking with his head hung after every failed attempt of starting a conversation. His very gait seemed to drag and his eyes dimmed with sadness.

It wasn't long after they were found that the Guardians realized that the two young dragons were damaged in more ways than their bodies and silence showed. Two nights after they all relocated to Warfang once again, the screams started. At first it was only Spyro, waking up from a nightmare and destroying everything in his quarters in an effort to end his hallucinations. It wasn't long before Cynder soon followed, waking the whole city with her screeching and wailing. The moles were much too afraid to try to comfort the two dragons, and the Guardians didn't know just how they should fix it. Sleeping draughts were brewed for Cynder, restraints put in place on Spyro, but nothing seemed to work. The draughts weren't strong enough, the restraints were snapped. Eventually a partial solution was found. Spyro moved into the room next to Cynder, and when one awoke, the other soon came to comfort them. It tended to keep the episodes quieter and shorter, meaning that everyone got a little more sleep.

For five years, the three Guardians watched, their spirits lifting as the duo's well-being slowly began to improve. Terrador was the most understanding of the three. He, like Spyro and Cynder, was thrown into war at an age that was too young.

A promising dragon, trained in the art of combat, was exactly what the dragons needed to continue to suppress the uprising of Malefor's forces. That was what Terrador offered, half of his twenty years of life devoted to learning leadership in hopes of one day achieving guardianship. Sadly, the elders thought differently and threw him into the dragon army as a general. In his seventy-seven years spent on the battlefield, he saw ninety-four of his soldiers and friends perish at the hands of the apes. As strong and experienced of a leader he was, Terrador found that he was helpless against the Dark Master's creation. Brought about to try and speed the end of the war, she was exactly what Terrador feared.

Cynder was monstrous and clever, seeing chinks in the defenses of Terrador's forces and sending the Dark Armies to exploit the weakness. Never giving a decision a second thought, she was confident in her choices and never backed down. When the order came from Malefor to captured the Guardians, she sought out the Earth Guardian first. Thraklor was old and weak. He had lived nearly five hundred years, much longer than most dragons. He had gone into hibernation three times, and he was nearing the fourth period of deep sleep when Cynder came to take him. Thraklor was blindsided when the Terror of the Skies came to take him from his home. He put up a fight, but Cynder won out. There was a twist though: the dragon was too old and lacked the power needed to charge the crystal used to break Malefor's prison. Cynder didn't release Thraklor, though. She killed him.

The remaining Guardians met, and together they elected Terrador as the Earth Guardian. As soon as Cynder's spies reported this to her, she easily snatched Terrador from the battlefield and imprisoned him at Munition's Forge.