WoF Reborn: The Last Cataclysm

Prologue

   

Blue lifted his head towards the darkening sky as the storm broke over the rocky desert beach once again. The rain beat across his wings, cold and crisp. Whitecaps broke against the shore, crashing ever up and down. Lightning crackled in the distance and thunder rumbled ominously, signaling the hurricane's vengeful return.

All the oncoming fury went unnoticed by the Silkwing. He was too lost in his thoughts, too tangled in the past to pay attention to anything else. Ever since his half-sister Luna's Metamorphosis, he had been a fugitive, wanted for stealing the Book of Clearsight, freeing the Flamesilks, conspiring with Leafwings and a rogue Hivewing, the destruction of a third hive, and, now, an entire war.

So many innocent dragons died, he thought miserably to himself. Because of me. I convinced the Leafwings to let us try to free the hybrids in Tsetse Hive. I was determined to prove that there were good Hivewings. I thought they would help us because they couldn't be controlled.

I was wrong.

Wind whipped through the sky as the storm's full fury broke upon the shore, raindrops falling faster and faster. Blue saw none of it as he remembered the single worst day in his life. Luna, a Flamesilk like him, had burned into the prison on the lower levels of Tzetze Hive on a day very similar to this one, the air filled with gale force winds and blinding rain.

As the treestuff wall fell inwards, raising a large cloud of choking dust, muted twilight had broken across the faces of over two dozen Hivewings. Some had looked scared, others desperate, and still others forlorn and defeated; but they all shared a single driving emotion toward their would-be rescuers. An emotion he had never expected.

Pure hatred.

They had attacked him and his friends almost immediately, yelling nonsense and baring their assorted venomous stingers. Blue had lashed out with his Flamesilk to save Cricket, incinerating the orange and green dragon who was about to kill her, but the resulting blaze had spread too fast for them to control, and yet another Hive had gone up in flames.

It was the fifth one in just three weeks. Queen Wasp had since withdrawn all the available forces she had at her disposal to protect the remaining four citadels, including Mantis Hive, where a super weapon was supposedly in development.

Blue, Cricket, and the others had fled back to the Poison Jungle, only to find a full-scale battle raging; green and brown dragons clashing with yellow and black ones as the Queen cackled maniacally and lashed out at every Leafwing in reach. Wasp's army had been defeated for now, but at the cost of many, many innocent lives.

All those poor dragons, dead, because of me. The Hivewing soldiers, who never knew the truth about the Book. My tribe; innocent, wingless dragonets trapped in the burning webs. Leafwings, fighting to protect their homes. All dead, because I ran away from the Queen.

Cricket padded up next to Blue, sitting down by his side on the wet pebbly sand. Seeing his expression, she lightly brushed his wing with hers. He smiled back at her faintly, glad that she cared so deeply about other dragons.

About me?...

He quickly shied away from the thought. His friend Swordtail was right; Loving a Hivewing was forbidden beyond measure, and Blue knew it, but his heart felt so empty without her. Nothing could ever bridge that void besides her company, and he always tried to stay with her. Although she probably didn't want him around at at all.

The rain pounded down faster and faster, stinging painfully against exposed scales. Apparently the monsoon season applied to the desert as well as Pantala. Blue couldn't remember many days in the last week where the sun wasn't obscured by layer upon layer of typhoon clouds, the endless grey almost as dreary as his heart.

"We need to go inside before the waves get much worse," Cricket said, looking worriedly at the sea before them. "And fast!"

She was right; the breakers had become walls of water higher than a dragon, and they were gaining strength. Any more time spent in the open would result in them being swept away, which was not a particularly appealing demise. He shuddered at the image of his corpse being smashed against underwater rocks and then finally dumped on some distant shoreline in the hurricane's aftermath.

Slowly, Blue stood up and stretched. He had lost count of the hours spent watching the ocean that day. Looking up, he caught a sliver of moon peeking through a short-lived break in the clouds, like the a delicate flower pushing up through the floors of a Hive, only to be trampled to a smashed ruin from uncaring dragons going about their business

The passage of time means nothing anymore, he thought. Night and day are the same to me, only one has dreams and the other has daydreams. And all of them are nightmares.

The charred body of the Hivewing still echoed through his mind, talons turning to ash against a backdrop of Leafwing blood spilled over the smoldering jungle trees. Soon fire closed in all around his thoughts, stranding him in the middle of a corpse-filled warzone.

The only way he could shake that image was by staring at the unchanging, endless waves of the ocean. Sleep came in short bursts throughout his mindlessness, but every time he woke in a sweat with those crumbling talons fresh in his vision, a constant reminder of his dark side. There was no escape from his pain, no relief to be found anywhere. And so the cycle repeated, day after night after painful day.

And then there was the matter of the animus portal. Turtle had created it shortly after arriving in the Poison Jungle, but he hadn't been able to cast any spells since. It led from the giant hole in the middle of the savanna to a cave on the northwestern coast of Phyrria, only a short flight south from Jerboa's hut.

Blue, Sundew, and Cricket had traveled through it in the battle's aftermath, where they met Moonwatcher and her friends on the other side. Jerboa had kindly offered them a place to stay in her shack, but it was far too small for all of them, so they had been living in a cave about halfway between the portal and her hut. Sundew left the same day, insisting that her tribe needed her more than they did.

Shortly after, the hurricane rolled in, and a stray lightning bolt struck the portal cavern roof, causing a massive landslide. Boulders larger than ten dragons and countless amounts of muddy scree now separated them from Pantala, and until the ceaseless rain abated, the risk of further collapse was too great to risk any attempts at an excavation.

An entire continent lies beyond that same landslide, he thought with despair. Three tribes in mortal danger, one far more so than the others. Queen Trillium can't hold out forever, and she knows it, no matter how much she insists on the eventual Leafwing victory in this war. The Hivewings will stop at nothing to destroy her and the jungle so long as Wasp's mind control remains.

Suddenly, Blue's scales stopped being hammered by water, and he looked upwards to see the rock overhang projecting from the cave entrance, shielding them from the elements. He had been wet for so long that the sudden warmth felt unpleasantly foreign to his chilled wings. After a moment though, warmth seeped back into them and he followed Cricket into the cavern they now called home.

Inside, Kinkajou was teaching Bumblebee how to play scales in the warm light of the flamesilk lantern hanging from the roof. A bit further back, where the shadows played across stone walls, Moon, Qibli, and Luna were talking in hushed tones so as not to disturb the sleeping Turtle and Swordtail, who were curled up on the drier patches of sand and snoring gently.

Apparently that was where he needed to be as well, because Cricket nudged him towards a small hollow near the back wall. As he settled down, exhaustion hit his eyes like a solid wall. I guess it wouldn't hurt to just rest for a few minutes... he thought drowsily, barely maintaining consciousness in the all too peaceful quiet.

Cricket lay down by his side, her tail sprawled out along the floor. How Blue wished for her returned affection! Each day he spent with her was worth a lifetime of heartache, which was the inevitable ending for his love. She deserved someone better than a heartless arsonist and killer. No one deserved that, not now, not ever.

I only hope that the Leafwings win this war, he thought, turning his head to gaze one last time at the rain-swept ocean before he drifted off into the haunting labyrinth of slumber. Maybe things could be different between us then. Maybe I could make up for the deaths and pain I've caused. But if Queen Wasp emerges victorious...

Where will the world be then?