Cody had a long, uncomfortable, dreamless sleep that night, if night it was. In his sleep he could feel a growing sense of Separation Anxiety from being away from Inferno. He had been away from Inferno before, but either they were too far away to touch each other’s consciousnesses or something about the magical protection of the cages prevented it. Cody assumed it was the latter, or perhaps both.
When Cody awoke he came to his senses enough to reassure himself that whatever happened, he would see Inferno in a few days. After a minute or so of convincing himself, he allowed for his eyes to explore the cage-cell that he and Mournful now shared. With his eyes more accustomed to the darkness he could see more, but there wasn’t much more to see. The only surprising new detail was seeing mournful sitting on the opposite side of the cube-shaped cell ten feet away. In her hand she held a small white bowl and a little gray spoon that she used to slurp the contents of the bowl. There was a second bowl beside her.
“What’s that?” Cody asked as he rolled out from under the cot and approached the bowl.
Mournful looked at him carefully before answering, “A fermlar.”
“Which is…?”
“It’s what we, or rather they, call the food they serve prisoners. Basically a stew made from old bits of meat that have no other use, and they call the stew lar. Putting the stew in this kind of bowl to serve is called fermlar,” Mournful explained as she ate another spoonful and placed the half-eaten bowl of stew on the floor beside her.
Cody picked up his bowl and studied the greenish-grey mixture of shredded meat and salty water…at least he hoped it was water. He reluctantly picked up the spoon and slowly put it into his mouth. He gagged, but swallowed the vile mouthful to avoid making a mess. He glared at the bowl for a moment before setting it aside, as Mournful had done.
“I would have to be half-starved to eat that,” he grumbled.
“That may yet happen,” Mournful pointed out grimly.
Cody looked at her and asked, “Why? The others should be here in a few days.”
“You honestly think they’re just going to heal Inferno up and let us go? They’ll heal Inferno alright, but after that we’ll all be prisoners until we are sentenced to death, or worse.”
Cody didn’t dare ask what the worse could be. Instead he sat in silence, debating what they should do next. However nothing came to his mind that sounded remotely interesting or useful. Finally his questions from earlier returned to him and he face Mournful for a moment, wondering if she was in the mood to talk. He decided to give it a shot.
“So why were the gryphons so different from you?” he asked first.
Mournful shrugged before answering, “I don’t know if you figured it out yet, but every one of the Dreamkeepers can turn into an animal at their choosing. I can turn into a gryphon, my sister is a snow leopard, her mate is a white lion, their sun is a white mountain lion, and their daughter is a white tiger. I can’t honestly tell you why I’m so different from the other gryphons, but for whatever reason our differences are only beneficial for me so I don’t complain.”
Cody thought about what she said. “You claim to have not seen them in so long, yet you know a lot about their children. I didn’t even know they had a daughter.”
“Her name is Watchful. She is younger than her brother Careful, but both of them are very honorable from what I remember. As for your question: our kind ages much more slowly than humans. I won’t tell you how old they are, but they still aren’t that old. For a while after my banishing I managed to get some news from these people. I learned about Blissful and Willful’s children before I left for what I had thought would be forever,” mournful told him.
“What about dragons?” Cody asked, reaching the issue his was most concerned with.
“What about them?”
“It’s pretty obvious; at some point or another your, I mean their kind was at least allied with the dragons,” Cody pointed out. “You seem to have an endless knowledge of dragons, and all along the cave ceiling on the first path there was a massive dragon, which must have meant that they were important here at one time.”
Mournful sighed. “At one time we were close friends with the dragons, back in the earliest days. Then, when my great-grandfather was still king, the dragons allied with the races of Semiones. We all thought it was fair, considering we had human and animal sides but the dragons had only their animal side. The Dragon Warriors and Dreamkeepers were even closer friends than ever before. But then…”
Noticing that Mournful stopped Cody looked at her carefully and encouraged her to speak with whatever willpower he had. A tear dripped down her check and she turned away from him slightly before answering.
“Then a dragon, Severity, and her rider came to us in a storm. I led them here and they said they needed council with my father, who was then king. Then they…they were the ones that killed him.” Mournful paused for a long moment until Cody thought she was done speaking, but then she continued, “The Clan killed Severity, but her rider escaped into the night and we never saw him again. That was when Blissful assumed command as queen and banished me.”
Cody was silent for a very long time, as was Mournful. After a while he knew that she had come over her grief most of the way, but he was still thinking about what her words implied. After a while he came up with another question.
“Do you know much about Heyrone and Argos?”
Mournful seemed surprised by his question but shrugged and answered, “I knew that soon after Severity died the Dragon Warriors just…disappeared. I thought they were gone for good until I began to see Argos flying around the mountains as a hatchling. I could communicate with some of the animals of nature, and some of them told me bits and pieces of Argos, but I learned nothing of Heyrone in all my observations and spying.”
“So the dragons basically just disappeared?” Cody asked in shock, surprised by both her knowledge and her age, which obviously surpassed what he expected by a great deal.
Mournful nodded and pulled her knees up against her chest in thought. “You know, even after seeing Argos, I never thought the Dragon Warriors would return. I always thought that he was the last of a dying breed…until I saw Inferno. I was still bitter about the death of my father, so I don’t know what came over me when I attacked…I’m sorry, and thank you.”
“Why are you thanking me?” Coy asked in surprise.
Mournful smiled a bit and answered, “Thank you for coming. I don’t know what would have happened if Inferno had never hatched for you. I would still be all alone somewhere off in the mountains if it wasn’t for you and that foolish friend of yours.”
Cody chuckled. “You would rather be caged up at the heart of a mountain than free in the open air?”
“At least I’m with someone I care about.”
Mournful suddenly seemed to realize what she had said and blushed enough for it to be evident even in the dark dungeons. She turned away and fell completely silent. Cody paid her little attention as he began to realize how close they had become over the short time they had been together. Even though she was obviously so much older, she didn’t look it. Cody found himself twiddling his thumbs in his lap as he thought, and was beyond relieved when he heard the quiet snoring coming from the other cell that implied that Avalsmokes and Omen were asleep. With that worry out of his mind, he put his hand on Mournful’s shoulder and gently turned her around to face him. She seemed to relax under his nonchalant expression and stopped blushing so furiously.
“How did Inferno hatch for you?” Mournful asked, trying to change the subject.
Cody was relieved and felt the tension in his shoulders lessen. He slowly began to tell Mournful everything that happened since Inferno hatched, concealing Merikh’s true name for some reason that he didn’t understand. Regardless, he told her all about what happened to them since leaving the security of their home and wandering blindly across Semiones with nothing but a dream for guidance. He told her about all the friends and allies he made, and all the loss he experienced, and then the battle in the caves. He ended by telling her about how sad he was about losing Autumn as a friend. He never considered Autumn as anything more than a friend, but the more he thought about her the more he remembered what fun times he had with her as friends when they were children. He reluctantly voiced his worries to Mournful and looked down at the floor, trying not to think about where he was or what had happened.
“Dragons always change people,” Mournful told him, “some for the worse and still, some for the better.”
Cody felt her fingers pull his chin up and their lips met. Cody’s initial surprise soon mingled with joy as he savored the moment for a second more and pulled away reluctantly, his cheeks and ears burning when he realized what happened.
“Is that true?”
Cody could have sworn he jumped ten feet when he heard the strange voice on the outside of their cell. He looked out to see a somewhat older woman with big, gleaming amber eyes and brownish-black shoulder-length hair. His eyes narrowed when he realized that she was asking about his story and that she had probably been listening to them since before then, which was something he hadn’t considered.
“Yes, it happened,” Cody answered when he got over his initial anger. “Why were you watching us!?”
The woman smiled, before responding, “Oh come now, you don’t have to worry about anyone like me blabbing to anybody important, even if Blissful wants me to find out everything about you.”
As the woman turned to the small light, Cody could more easily guess her age and figured that in human years she would probably be only a couple years older than himself. He was going to say something when Mournful silenced him.
“Graceful, does she really want you to tell her everything about us?” Mournful asked.
The woman pushed her hair back and answered, “Why yes, she does. She’s not going to be happy when she finds out about that big dragon, Argos is he? And that Micah…and all those eggs!”
“Please don’t tell!” Cody blurted.
Mournful clapped a hand over his mouth and said, “Graceful, please, you wouldn’t tell her? You must believe that I wouldn’t dare lie to you or anyone else here. And I certainly never would have led Severity here if I had known what she was planning.”
The woman, Graceful, seemed truly torn in her mind. Cody watched her for over a minute as she seemed to be having some deeper conflict within herself. She shook her head several times but remained mostly silent the entire time. Finally her eyes opened and she looked carefully at Mournful and Cody in turn.
“You don’t know what you’re asking me to say, Mournful. To say that I side with you is treachery at its finest.”
“I’m not asking you to harm your queen, only to help me,” mournful pleaded, keeping her hand firmly on Cody’s mouth to keep him quiet.
Graceful gave a deep sigh, answering, “You’ve always had my support Mournful. I don’t believe that you would have intentionally killed your father, nor that you intend to hurt us now the same way. That being said, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I believe you are the rightful queen.”
Cody’s eyes widened in surprise; he had never expected for Graceful to go that far. The dungeon master shook her head the whole time she walked away from their cage and back to her quarters. Even when Mournful pulled her hand away from his mouth he remained dead silent as he continued to struggle to grasp what had happened.
“What just happened?” Cody asked lamely.
Mournful looked at him with a mixture of pride and smugness written plainly on her features as she replied, “We've won over a useful ally.”