The sinister aura eluding from his anonymous face fueled the flames of tension in the atmosphere. Ember screamed and shouted, rattling the rusted iron bars out of frantic fear. The man chortled a burst of unsettling, eerie laughter that echoed off the dense dirt walls. There was only one dimly lit lantern above Ember, and she couldn't see whoever was hiding beneath their mask of darkness. She reached her hand towards the man, his touch sends chills clenching her veins. He abruptly leaned in, revealing only parts of himself he wanted to reveal.
"Soon, you'll be mine." He whispered softly, his warm breath brushing against her ears.
DAYS EARLIER....
The Turning starts. Her village does a ceremony every year, celebrating the child's first Turning.
It was a boy named James and he was so nervous to the point where he shook uncontrollably. The soothsayer began chanting the countdown of the time when James was born.
Five!
Foour!
Three!
Twooo!
OOOONE!
At the very last second, his bones started cracking as he screamed in pain. It was horrible to watch but what came after was incredible. Ember dropped her jaw in awe as he turned into this beautiful dragon that glowed in the sun.
He was a wind dragon. Everybody started calling his dragon Royal. The dragon roared cheerfully as it bolted up into the sky and flew away.
Ember chuckled and couldn't wait until her Turning and see what kind of dragon she has. A month goes by and she's standing in the same exact position James was in.
Ember breathed slowly and remembered all of the things that Aunt Jenna taught her. Her cousin-adoptive-sister, Emily, looked at her proudly and smiled. She giggled and that gave Ember a feeling of warmth and great comfort.
The village's leader raised his hands, which abruptly stopped the pounding of the drums. He announced Ember and congratulated her. Everyone cheered for her as the countdown started.
Five!
Fear sank in as her hair stood on end.
Four!
Panic rose within her, her heart pounding.
Three!
Cold sweat started to form all over her.
Two!
She suddenly felt queasy and warm.
One!
Pain surged throughout her entire body. Her bones started to crack.
"AGHHHHH!!" She screamed.
Every bone crack was a worse pain than the last. It became hard to breath within all of this pain. Ember could feel losing herself, and turning into something else.
A creature.
A dragon.
Ember breathed heavily as her skin torn apart into scales and horns grew out of her forehead. Her mouth and nose grew outwards into a snout. After an excruciating amount of pain, she turned into the rainbow dragon.
A mixture of all elemental dragons.
Earth
Wind
Fire
Water (Ice)
The spirited rainbow dragon roared proudly as she soared through the sky. All of the people down on the ground looked up in awe. Some were surprised, some were astonished, and some were afraid. Others stood and laughed loudly as they watched the rainbow dragon fly.
She has the body of an earth dragon, the face of a fire dragon and few spikes of an ice dragon. The wings of a wind dragon and the smooth scales of a water dragon. She mostly had the earth dragon so she was neither cold nor warm to the touch.
She blasted fire out into the sky, which was a rainbow of colors. It colored the sky for a few seconds until it disappeared into thin air. She was so happy and excited that she did all kinds of tricks and flips in the sky.
Eventually, She flew gently down to the ground, she sighed happily and laid on the soft, muddy, dirt. She fell asleep as she shrank and became Ember again.
⚫️ ⚫️ ⚫️
Ember arose in her bedroom left with aching muscles. She groaned as she laid still. It hurt too much to move. Ember sighed deeply.
Woah that was one heck of a dragon.
Ember smiled as she felt her power coursing through her. The power of all 4 Elemental Dragons within her core.
In her spirit.
Her aunt walked into the room, "Hey Ember... that was amazing! You have a rainbow dragon! I mean wow!" She chuckled and hugged her tightly.
"Ow ow ow ow!" Ember voice croaked as her aunt hugged her tighter and tighter.
Finally, her aunt let go, "Sorry, it's just.. oh! I'm so proud of you! Your parents would be proud." Aunt Jenna gave her a warm smile and Ember grinned happily. Ember sat up slowly on the bed. She grunted as Aunt Jenna inhaled sharply.
"Yea right after the turning, it hurts a lot. Especially if you have a powerful one." Ember nodded and grimaced. Then her sister went into the room.
"Hey Emily!" Ember greeted her sister.
"Hey Ember! Wow... I'm jealous of your dragon." She giggled. Her eyes were filled with astonishment and wonder.
Once Ember felt better, she went out with her sister in the village. Emily's going to teach her about the dragon part of her and the quirks of it all.
"So what do you wanna name your rainbow dragon?" Emily asked.
"Spectrum." Ember had it all planned out. She smiled profusely.
Finally, this life-changing day came at last.
"Cool," Emily replied, "First thing about being a dragon shifter is getting to know your dragon counterpart, I mean of course you black out and it's only the dragon that's in control. But afterward, find out what your dragon did and explore that more with her. Try to become one with her so that you don't black out anymore. You'll be the dragon."
Emily explained and started turning.
She grew larger into a dragon, and spread out her wings as she roared. Ember cheered and called out to Sapphire. Ember copied her. Ember blacked out while Spectrum took over. She flew higher into the sky and hit the clouds before Sapphire.
Spectrum blew fire at her, she just wanted to have fun. Sapphire blew an ice blast back at her. She blocked it with her fire, then she spun her tail to create a tornado.
It was huge and it knocked down everything in its path. Sapphire shook her head and whimpered. She groaned and tried to stop it but she couldn't.
Spectrum looked behind her and saw what it was doing. She immediately stopped spinning her tail and grunted sadly.
No...
Spectrum landed on the ground and shrank back to Ember. Ember woke up and saw a few homes torn to shreds.
Ember covered her mouth and whispered, "No, what have I done?"
Emily walked up to her, "Jeez.. your dragon was having a little bit of too much fun. It happens."
Emily comforted her and rubbed her shoulders.
"And uh... you're naked."
Ember covered herself and went inside the house. She got changed and spoke to Emily.
"I hurt them.. I-I-.." She left a lingering silence. Emily hugged her as Ember sobbed into her arms.
"Hey-hey-hey, it's okay, I couldn't be able to control my ice powers at first. Besides no-one's hurt that bad!" Emily assured her little sister but Ember still felt a massive pang of guilt.
She helped clean up the houses and luckily the people weren't severely injured. There was some ice on the ground from Sapphire trying to prevent it. The ice looked like a wave frozen in time from engulfing it. The ice protected the houses and saved the people inside. Ember sighed sadly once she saw it.
She kept helping until the houses were fixed and everyone thanked Ember but she still felt horrible for the damage she caused.
Suddenly, a loud shouting woman was nagging at people and shoving posters of a girl in people's faces. People shook their heads left and right and Ember noticed the distressed woman and made her way to crying woman.
"Oh! Can you please help me? Have you seen Faith?" Ember glanced at the poster shoved into her face and held it. She looked at it closely but unfortunately the smiling face on the wrinkled paper was unfamiliar to Ember.
"Oh.. um.. sorry, no I haven't." Ember uttered the very words the woman was afraid to hear and she instantly regretted bothering this poor woman.
The woman snatched the poster out of Ember's hands and walked away angrily upset and frustrated.
"Poor thing must be so confused and sad. Why is this happening?" Emily commented on the hopeless woman poking at one person to another and another.
"What do you mean? What's happening?" Ember asked inquisitively and Emily somberly told her the events that's been happening lately.
"Recently, over the course of this month, there's been multiple girls kidnapped. Each one once a week, this week it's that lady's daughter. That's why Aunt Jenna's so paranoid about your whereabouts after sundown. That's when they get you and you're gone forever. It's terribly sad and it's a huge crisis in this small village. It's been happening to other shifter villages too." Emily started walking back towards home and Ember followed, listening intently.
"Anyways, don't worry about it too much since they've got our Uncle Mushu and plenty of other powerful shifters on the case. They guard all night and they've quelled down the kidnapping cases. I think unfortunately that lady's daughter was the last one before the shifter guards stepped in."
"Oh that's cool... so this is like the first time we had any kind of guards or policing in this village." Ember reflected on the changing ways in the village.
"Yeah definitely, it's pretty cool and I've always thought we should have one." Emily added as they entered into their small hay-straw house.
Ember plopped onto the bed, her exhausted body sinking into the comfortable soft-hay mattress.
••••••••••••••
BOOOM! CRASH!
Ember suddenly awoke in the middle of the night and saw giant meteorites of fire hitting the ground. It shook the whole house. The rest of her family woke up and they ran outside to see what was happening.
Ember came out with them and there were two dragons fighting, one that glowed and the other that blended in with the shadows.
Uncle Mushu gasped, "The Legendary Dragons.. the Sunlight dragon and the NightShadow dragon!" He looked in awe as Ember couldn't believe what was happening before her eyes.
She was seeing the myth come true. These two dragons haven't shown up in centuries, neither has her rainbow dragon.
Ember whispered to herself, "Wow..."
The moment of aweing and looking in surprise was over when a humongous fireball was coming their way. They all screamed and ran for their lives.
The fireball crashed into their house as the fire catched on. It spread and burned all of the other village homes.
"NOOOOO!" Ember screamed as Uncle Mushu made her look away.