TEN
Oily black smoke blinded us. Roars of battle sounded, little creature's walked over us, bit us, injured us. I tried to bite them, to claw them off mia vabyr'ban and myself, but more and more came.
Shifter's, inside! Zaos commanded, allowing everyone to hear.
"We can't see!" a shifter shouted back.
Walk in one direction! Copper, Brass, use your sleeping breaths! Other's, hold your breaths!
The sounds of people dragging in air and scrunching snow was all that I could hear.
Do not forget, they cannot see us, as we cannot see each other, Zaos reminded us. Move around so that the dragons above will not hear what we are doing.
Exhales sounded, and we moved. Zaos kept a wing over my back to keep us together.
I wondered if this was how my family felt when they were killed. Helpless. Surrounded by darkness. Panicked. I wondered whether they just gave up. Understood that they were about to die. My last and only memory of them flashed in my head.
...I could see my mum and brother, my mother straightening her hair, which was naturally curly, and my brother, brushing his hair since it would do the same as my mum's if he didn't. I couldn't see my dad, but he was in there too... One of them pointed the nozzle of the gun at my mums chest, over her heart. She'd pushed my brother back, who now looked at the gun with a look of shock... My mum. Brother... dad, were dead.
Red. It stained everything.
My last thought... was: I failed them.
I roared out in anguish. Roared out for all the other times I hadn't been able to.
I remembered what the spider had said before I'd asked my dragon when we hadn't been one to kill him.
"The black dragon. He started it because he was bored, but then it became competition. Who had the strongest shifter..."
My family, and my memories of my family had all gone because the black dragon had been bored. I roared out this time in rage and despair.
Taking flight, out of the oily smoke, I headed for the black dragon who'd been flying above where I'd been. Roaring at him, I smashed into him. He snarled me, slime spitting as he did. He was much bigger than me, bigger than Zaos, but the black dragon was more skeletal, his body appeared to be partially deteriorated, my paws sunk into where I gripped him.
He used one of his two great horns that curved forward and down from the side of his heads, to attack me. He dislodged me from his side, he flapped his leathery black wings to pull himself back up from where I'd made us fall. I grabbed the end of his glossy black scaled tail with my teeth, exhaling on it with a chilling frost.
He snarled and tried to whipped his tail. But I had a good hold. He curled his body towards me as I used my claws to climb him. It was a viscous battle of teeth and claws that neither of us wanted to submit to.
I felt warmth behind me.Mia Valishara, Onver said. It is me behind you.
Help me, Sargtlin.
Of course.
I felt Onver fly over me, and attack the black dragon head on. I exhaled a paralysing breath on the black dragon, hoping, but doubting it would work.
Feeling insects crawling over me, I covered myself in a paralysing cloud, making the insects drop like flies.
I spoke to the dragons on our side, showing them my plan as I did. Brass, bronze and mia vabyr'ban come. Everyone else, return to the castle.
The dragons who stayed attacked widely, letting the other's hide. I hadn't realised how many colour dragons and how many of their shifters there had been here until now. There were at least five of them to every one of us. We'd done well considering we were still alive.
Looking down, I saw that only traces of the black dragons oily smoke remained. Apparently I'd done a good job at getting his attention.
Once the copper and gold dragons and all shifters were inside. I called the wind, made it circle around us. I felt Ovner use his energy to help make it stronger, then mia vabyr'ban, then the other dragons linked our energies together.
I pushed off the black dragon, but not before his back foot's claws sliced my stomach. I roared in pain, descended, to land, but a red dragon had seen me and had decided to attack. Exhaling the ice left in me – which wasn't much, he shook his body to clear the melting ice and continued on his way to attack. A silver flash caught my eye, and mia vabyr'ban was suddenly there, attacking the red dragon.
Landing, the other metal dragons covered me, and I made the wind stronger. Turned it, twisted it until the sky met the sea, using more of the other dragons energy, leaving my wound and focusing my extra energy on the twisting to-be hurricane.
I felt the other dragons around me, curl, making ourselves a smaller target to the hurricane. I felt Onver join our dragon pile, and then mia vabyr'ban. Now that they were safe, I poured my anger, and despair into the hurricane. Making the howling wind deafen us with my emotions. With a sudden thought, I used the wind to blow the snow over us before freezing it in place, I layered us, protected us as I pulled the coloured dragons who could fly in the wind, but not fight it. The black dragon was death, the red, fire, the blue, water, the green, earth, and the white was ice. They could dance in the wind, but they could not fight it, could not control it as a silver could.
Silver dragons offer safety, protection, love and peace. And that is why the Valishar could not do what we did. Her words ran through my mind like a memory. We could because we are part white, it allowed us to kill...
A silver could do what I was doing, but they wouldn't until they'd thought of other ways to get rid the problem, and would do that I was doing when they eventually realised it was the best thing to do. My white side allowed my to understand immediately that killing them now, would keep us safe from them in the future.
I gave myself to the wind, the hurricane, the water that was in the hurricane I tightened it, and froze it. A dragon wouldn't die by being frozen, especially a red dragon. I made them, the colour dragons that had been caught, freeze from the inside out, distinguished the flames in their bellies.
I could see what it looked like as though I was standing next to it. A twisting sculpture of ice with colours shining through out it because of the sun that was rising.
Using the wind again, I made waves, reach higher and higher until I knew that the dragons would die. Making a final wave, I froze the water, at the same time I unfroze the hurricane. I had them where I wanted them. Roars of pain, of ice stabbing into them like a thousand needles echoed, would echo for miles around.
Feeling the colour dragons die, knowing that that was the only revenge I would get for myself and my girls, I let darkness drag me under.
Muffled voices reached my ears. Why were they always talking? People really needed to learn how to be quiet.
"Don't you die!" Roxie? "I need a wish! And when ever you say something it seems to happen! You die, and I'll drag you back! You hear me!"
"Roxie," Quyet said quietly. "She needs to rest. Besides, they say a dragon can be really snappy when they wake up injured, and we don't want to have to find you a new arm because you were stupid."
Ah! Quyet understood.
"Rest! Rest! I'll tell her rest! She's been asleep for days!"
"Her injury was worse than anyone had thought, Roxie."
"I don't care! She needs to wake up! I take back that I said the dragon king was gorgeous, he's a monster underneath! And I don't understand a word he says any more!"
Quyet sighed as I opened my eyes.
"Tuon'nid tal tham mia vabyr'ban!" a male roared. Zaos.
"See what I mean?!" Roxie demanded. "I don't understand a work he just said!"
"He said 'don't go near my other-half'," I translated.
Several heads turned as one to look at me.
"Your awake!" Roxie went to dive on me, but as she did, an arm wrapped around her and the words – "Tuon'nid tal tham mia vabyr'ban!" were roared again.
Sighing, I grumbled about sleeping too much.
Arms wrapped around me and I sank into the familiar embrace. Zaos. Mia vabyr'ban. Mia jaless. Mia nar ta'mia aiglos.
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