The Legend of Spyro: A Duel with Destiny

Awaiting Judgement

I'm back! I'd like to thank everyone who asked how soon the next chapter would be coming out, hearing your interest means a lot to me and was a big motivator. This chapter has been slower than usual because I've written and will be releasing the chapter that comes after it next week (or perhaps the week after), the two chapters go together and I wanted to work on them both before publishing them.

For this chapter I have a song, something that Flare might sing to Imperia:
In Circles, from the soundtrack to the game Transistor. It's haunting and beautiful, and it fits incredibly well for this chapter and the next.

Thankyou everyone for your patience! I hope you enjoy the results!

Cynder watched the moles and dragons working together; busy repairing the damage done by Malefor and Hope in their fight.

They worked fast; Cynder and Flare had spent perhaps an hour walking and talking, but within that hour a system had already been set up.

Moles were organising rubble into piles, while other moles were writing and drawing up plans to show the earth dragons exactly where their magic was needed.

Earth dragons among the crowd were busy turning shattered rubble into usable stone, or pushing walls back upright. Terrador had put his trainee Seizo to work, the bespectacled young earth drake looked very much at home as he tallied up the number of houses damaged and the amount of stones needed to fix them all.

Terrador himself had already flattened out the main crater left when Malefor and Hope's convexity blasts had touched; the rock and dirt that had been within the initial sphere of light was missing, as if it had been completely vaporised, leaving a shallow burned hole in the ground, the bottom filled with fine black ash, almost a hundred meters across and several metres deep in the middle; however even as Cynder and Flare arrived they saw Terrador was slowly making the ground there bulge upwards, removing the damage completely.

"They're making it all disappear." Cynder said. "It won't even look like anything happened by tomorrow."

Flare tilted her head. "All of the evidence of what happened here? Yes, they're making it all disappear. They're very efficient at it. Does it bother you?"

Cynder shrugged and didn't reply.

"Do you know why we want to make it disappear?" Flare asked.

Cynder looked at the fire dragoness, wondering if she was being tested; Flare's gaze was not judgemental, she was simply curious to hear Cynder's thoughts.

Cynder thought over the question for a few moments; trying to put her thoughts into words before she eventually answered. "We don't like being reminded of our failures. It's easier to pretend bad things never happened."

Flare nodded. "Even when we can, and should, learn from them."

"So you agree?"

Flare nodded. "I think it's one of the forces which drive this. Getting Cyril to admit it would be like drawing blood from a stone, but I have little doubt that he would want the damage repaired in order to remove all evidence that anything went wrong here. But I think that, while you are right, you have raised an even more fundamental question: why do we not like being reminded of our failures?"

"If you ask 'why' enough times eventually everything stops making sense. Imperia and I have played that game before:
'why do sheep go feral?'
'because they have a desire to survive'
'well why do they have a desire to survive?'
'because the sheep with a stronger will to live have more babies who also have a stronger will to live'
'why does a stronger will to live cause more baby sheep?'
it just goes on and on and usually ends with 'where did everything come from?' and none of the answers I've heard to that particular question have ever satisfied me."