It took a while before Ellindris faltered. In fact Kingdom Albreton was in sight, the white grasses reflecting the rising moon, when she plummeted towards the ground in a nose dive, Jasmine still clutched in her mouth.
"Ellindris," Kur called, and that was what snapped the Dragon Queen back to attention. She puffed out her chest, gave one decisive flap of her wings before she landed heavily on all four of her feet, her tail smacking the ground with enough force to stir the wildlife of the albino grasslands. A great scurrying flowed from where she had landed like a shockwave as Kur descended quickly but with far more control to land next to her.
"Sorry," said Ellindris, tensing her muscles and stretching her wings to launch once more. Kur fixed his eyes on the bloody hole in Ellindris' left wing.
"Stop. That is enough," he said, curling himself over her to keep her on the ground. "You need rest, my love. How is your wing?"
"There is no time to fret over me!" Ellindris said curtly, "We cannot pause for even an instant! That wizard could already have—"She had to stop, shut her eyes to wait out the wave of pain that had silenced her. Her left wing twitched. She could taste Jasmine still limp on her tongue. And Kurventhor was not budging.
"Ellindris, put Jasmine down. We are no good to anyone if we are fatigued when we arrive." He added with a dragon's toothy smirk, "And there is always time to fret over you!"
Ellindris scoffed, but she put Jasmine down in a flattened section of grass. "Your priorities have always been questionable," she said, trying to sound as spiteful as possible. Finding this adorable instead of off-putting, Kur pressed the rest of his weight down on top of Ellindris, careful not to touch the hole in her wing. Soon he was sprawled entirely over her, nuzzling her neck with his snout.
"My priorities never bothered you before," he said, shifting off of her back but remaining snuggled to her side. He waited for Ellindris to settle down, for her to relax completely with her head on the ground, and then he rested his own head atop the slope of her long snaky neck. Watching over Ellindris and Jasmine, Kur didn't notice the peculiar cloud that traveled against the wind so high in the sky.
It was Enkaiein's whinny that woke him when an equestrian silhouette eclipsed the moon. Ellindris stirred in her slumber at the sound, instinctively tensing, scales rising hot and prickly. Kurventhor took a moment to glance at Jasmine, still deep asleep, and then he calmed Ellindris with a soft, chilly breath to her forehead, right between her horns in the divot that defined the top of her snout. Immediately her scales flattened, cooling to the mild temperature of the air in the field. She breathed in and then out, long and content.
Kurventhor looked back at the sky, wings half-unfolded, teal eyes squinting to make out Enkaiein and something smudgy whirling over and around each other in a violent dance. Kur knew it was Enkaiein, whom he hadn't seen in the longest time, because the winged black horse bled rivulets of ink in the entrails of its flight path, some of them encircling the thing—a cloud, it seemed—he was fighting. Just knowing it was his old friend Enkaiein, whom Kurventhor presumed to be dead, alive and kicking through wisps of the cloud, was enough to launch Kur into action. He spread his wings and flew, frigid air cutting the cloud in the middle of its path towards Enkaiein.
"My old friend!" Kur said, placing himself next to the inky horse with a few precise mighty beats of his wings. As the cloud, grey and conglomerating, folded back over itself a safe distance away, Enkaiein answered.
"Kurventhor, Dragon King! How fortuitous that you come to my aide!" The cloud formed a wicked face at its center now, filled with sparking lightning and menace. It crackled towards Kurventhor but Enkaiein got in the way.
"Fortuitous indeed," Kur chortled, "Being addressed with such formality by an old friend who once again has saved me." Then Kurventhor reared, arching his back so his neck and tail nearly touched, and he spat a stream of ice directly at the cloud when Enkaiein flew out of the way.
But Fragmaroginog didn't become the world's greatest wizard by letting people beat him. He lurched over the stream of ice and headed directly towards Kurventhor, faster than any natural cloud could travel. Enkaiein swirled his entire form into a globule of ink and intercepted Fragmaroginog. As the cloud came to an abrupt halt, Enkaiein swallowed it whole by reforming around the cloud, sealing it inside himself. And then he reformed into the great winged horse once more, wings spread boldly and proud before Kur.
"It is your move, my friend," said Enkaiein.
"Ready yourself," said Kurventhor, and he awaited Enkaiein's signal: a nod and puff of the jet black breadth of his chest. Then Kurventhor circled back, a short of roundup before the shot, and he took a deep inhale and spewed ice directly through Enkaiein's chest where Fragmaroginog was stuck and writhing. But Fragmaroginog wasn't going to go down that easily. As Enkaiein felt a rush of energy inside his body the wizard erupted into lightning, catching fire to the ink that dried across Enkaiein's chest. It burned there like a brand and smoldered outward, making the ink spread and bulge as if it were an embossing.
"Enkaiein!" Kur bellowed.
Enkaiein shrieked so reverberating and high pitched that it woke Ellindris, who was surprised to find herself alone alongside the still unconscious Jasmine. The girl barely stirred at the sound, only moaned and twitched one edge of her mouth, but Ellindris turned sharp eyes to the sky, seeing a scene almost unfathomable to her. For one thing she and her husband assumed Enkaiein had returned to his home in Olden some time ago, a few months before Fragmaroginog's first possession of Kurventhor, when the wizard used the dragon to break Kingdom Albreton's outer wall. More disturbing though, was how Enkaiein appeared now.
The ink forming his skin was red hot and blazing, smelling of oil and char. The great horse fell to the ground, landing in a splatter, the cloud swirling and rolling across his now formless body. Kurventhor charged out of the sky.
"Cretin!" Kur roared. His voice was a dragon's boom that rumbled the field and all its white grasses.
Fragmaroginog curled the edges of himself around Enkaiein's core: a single black feather wrapped around a unicorn's horn with ink that bonded the two items together. The wizard intended to switch bodies then, to ensnare Enkaiein (surely a much better match for the Dragon King than his current vessel) in possession, but something pure and glowing forced Fragmaroginog's soul directly out of Enkaiein's heart: a luminescent vine of sorts, wriggling and blue, pulsating in a steady, drumming rhythm.
Kurventhor smashed down on the cloud, freezing the air with his aura, his scales poking up as a snake's might when it sheds. But his blast of cold would not last against a Phoenix heart. Lightning and fire and a whoosh of rain all sped into one to break free of Kurventhor. Then Fragmaroginog floated above in his cloud, fast as an eagle falling on prey and more agile than a deer loping between trees. Kurventhor hissed, launching again in pursuit as Enkaiein's body reformed, a perfect slimy contrast with the albino grasses below.
It was Ellindris who landed near the churning ink now.
"Enkaiein," she said, too soft for a dragon, leaning her long neck over the puddle, "Enkaiein what has become of you?" She stared at the pool of ink as it folded and reformed in tiny waves, like an ocean all its own, black liquid rushing back and forth to cover more of the core each time, that little blue vine directing the flow so that the horn and the feather solidified together seamlessly, collectively.
"He escaped!" Kur said indignantly, landing out of the sky next to Ellindris, "I had him in my talons and he escaped! How could I have been so—" He watched, suddenly out of words as Enkaiein's ink swept off the ground and formed completely into the winged horse at last, leaving not a trace of black clinging to the grasses.
"Oof," said Enkaiein.
"Are you alright? And how did that trickster come to possess a cloud?" Ellindris asked, encircling Enkaiein to inspect him for anything that might be wrong. To not such an ancient beast, this action would have been so bold as to be called an invasion of personal space, but Enkaiein cared nothing of the concept.
Shaking himself off with a slight shudder Enkaiein responded, a twinge of pain evident in the waver of his words. "I shall be fine... in time. One cannot purge that which is eternal, and I was born of idea."
"I am glad to hear it," Kurventhor said, shoulders and wings sagging, no longer held aloft with tension from the skirmish.
Jasmine groaned, causing both dragons and Enakaiein to glance her way. She gulped, cleared her throat and then pried her eyes open, sitting up slowly like someone just recovering from a head injury, which considering the placement of the burns, wasn't all that inaccurate. "What..."
"Jasmine, it is good to see you awake," Kurventhor said stepping closer, "How is your pain? Not too terrible, I hope."
"Pain, what? What," Jasmine suddenly remembered her run-in with dragon fire, Ellindris' dragon fire to be exact. "My face! My hands!" She looked down at her hands, trembling but soon relieved at the fact that they appeared normal, uninjured. She remembered the incident in the Icy Mountains, Ellindris' healing saliva, and got up onto her feet to spin around, wondering when she got here in this field with this luminous white grass and Enkaiein. Wait a minute, Enkaiein! Wasn't he supposed to be locked up inside Castle Albreton? How did he get out? "Enkaiein, how?"
"Sit down," Ellindris ordered, tone commanding and unsympathetic. "You are dehydrated."
Jasmine sat, sobered. Enkaiein moved forward, bobbing his head in a horse-like greeting.
"Jasmine," said the great horse, "I have not seen you in days and here you are with a marred visage. My apologies for not assisting you further. Perhaps I could have prevented it."
"Marred face? But I thought—" She fingered her cheek, eyes wide when her fingertips graced along bulbous flesh, scars like dried ridges all down her face. "I thought you fixed me," she said to Ellindris, "I thought that was why I was in the water! I thought my face... my face..."
"I am sorry," Ellindris said actually genuinely sounding guilty, "But I had to stop the healing process. The pain was too much for you."
Jasmine's eyes gleamed, tearful. Kurventhor bowed his head, sighing.
"It is true," said Kur, "We had to stop, for your sake. But any danger to your life is gone. The damage is merely cosmetic."
"Cosmetic?" Jasmine's teeth clenched, her eyes narrowing in disbelief and anger. "Cosmetic! My face is ruined! You fixed my hands, so fix my face! Why wouldn't you do that in the first place? I don't understand. I don't..."
"Look at her, all bent out of shape," Ellindris scoffed, "Over something so trivial. Looks mean nothing girl, only power."
"Ellindris, dear, she is human. They are sensitive. All they have is their image."
"Jasmine," Enkaiein interrupted the dragons, his presence looming and dark. "Forgive me but I agree with them. You are overreacting. When I first met you I thought you had the heart of a hero. Does a hero fret over what they look like? Is a hero concerned with praise for their beauty? Or are you angered only because you wished to seduce Prince Albert and can no longer do so?"
Jasmine shrunk back, two dragons and an ancient being so noble and hovering over her. She felt like a flea or a germ, something to be eradicated, being lectured by such beasts. But she couldn't help it. She had no talents, no real confidence in her skill as anything but a rider, and her horseback riding days were over a long time ago. She had gone on this quest, taken up the mission to save the three kingdoms not because she was noble, not because she had the heart of a warrior, but because she wanted to be recognized for something, even if it wasn't something from her own world. And Albert... she didn't care what he thought that much, did she? She certainly didn't want to seduce him or anything.
But when she thought of him, her heart skipped. Oh god, how had she not noticed it before? She had liked him from the start, fallen in love with his charm and his princely nature. Was she so shallow? She didn't even know herself anymore. She let out a humorless laugh, full of self-loathing and discontent. She didn't even feel her lips twitch up on the burnt side of her face.
"Who am I kidding?" She whispered, "Coming here to this world, hoping it would be something better than home, wanting to be noticed. I'm still nothing. My looks are all I had, they're all I've ever had. And now my own mother wouldn't even recognize me."
"If you're so concerned with it then learn a skill that isn't based on appearances," Ellindris said, staring Jasmine down with those flashing dragon's eyes. "I do not see what is so daunting about that."
Jasmine's mouth hung open silently, hoping for words to erupt out of her. When they didn't, she clamped her jaw shut, breathed in and out and stared Ellindris down. The dragon had phrased it so simply. Learn something new. Like it was nothing. But learning isn't easy and Jasmine was burned beyond recognition as far as she could tell. What would her mother think? She hadn't thought of her mother since this whole crazy adventure began and to think of how she might react now gave Jasmine a sense of how deeply involved she was in this strange world and its creatures and kingdoms.
"How did this even happen?" Jasmine asked absentmindedly, no longer staring at Ellindris.
"It is my fault," Ellindris said, assuming Jasmine was referring to how she became burned so badly, "I foolishly told you to hold on tight to me. In the heat of battle I forgot the limitations of human bodies. I apologize for that."
"No, not that," Jasmine said.
"Then what?" Kur asked, but it was Enkaiein who answered instead of Jasmine.
"She is pondering how she became so attached to this world, one so unlike her own," he said knowingly, "It is not the first time I have seen someone so disoriented over the revelation. Do not worry. It will pass."
"You," Jasmine said, turning to Enkaiein, "Who are you talking about? Who else was brought into this world from somewhere else? I don't understand. I thought I was the only one. I mean it was Prince Albert who used your ink but I always figured by the way he acted back at my house that it was his first time doing something like that. Don't tell me it wasn't. Who else could have hopped between my world and this one?"
"It was your very mentor," said Enkaiein as he gestured with a twitch of his wing to Jasmine's grey clothing, the ones Lindargra had given her. "Lindargra is not from this world. She is from my homeland, a fact that this Fragmaroginog character seems unaware of. But Lindargra is dead now. If she were not, Fragmaroginog would have had no way of possessing her cloud."
Jasmine felt like a brick hit her in the face. Lindargra was dead? It couldn't be. Lindargra was scarier and more competent than anything else Jasmine had come across in this world, at least that's how it seemed, or how it had seemed, up until now. This whole thing was wrong. When did everything go so awry?
"I never liked that girl," said Ellindris out of the blue, "She hunted with that wizard for some time before breaking away from him. I have not forgiven her for what she did, even in death."
"You did not know her as I did," said Enkaiein in a kind but scolding manner, and Jasmine was thankful for the changed subject. Kur plopped down in the grass beside his wife but closer to Jasmine as Enkaiein and Ellindris conversed, apparently not wanting anything to do with the conversation.
"No creature knows anyone as well as you do," Ellindris was saying to Enkaiein in a manner that suggested she wasn't too happy with that fact.
"I cannot help that," Enkaiein said. He drooped a little, all at once, his ink swimming over itself. "Ellindris, Dragon Queen, do you still hold your grudge against me for not coming to your aide during the initial conflict? I have apologized so many times. I do not know what else you want of me. Can we not leave that in the past?"
"If you two would give me a word," Kurventhor finally said, "I do not think it wise to deliberate this right now. There is a wizard on the loose headed towards our allies and we all need our rest. Let us put our arguments aside and sleep for now. We can follow the cloud in the morning, when we are refreshed and not as cranky."
"I am not cranky," Ellindris spat.
"Of course not, my love." Kur cooed, patting the ground, "Come under my wing, my love; you need a cuddle."
Ellindris glanced sideways, locking eyes with Jasmine in an odd sort of way, almost as if she were embarrassed. Then she dipped under Kurventhor's wing, shoved her side against him a little more forcefully than necessary, and tucked her snout beneath his neck.
"There, is that not better?" Kurventhor asked, dropping his wing to cover Ellindris' hunched back.
"Do not patronize me," Ellindris said. And then softer, "Of course it is better. I am tired."
Kur smiled, shifted so he was comfortable too. "Enkaiein, do not let my wife ripple your ink."
"Very well," said Enkaiein, "I will rest with you until morning." He puddled into a half-formed blob, part horse, part wing, part sticky, viscous fluid, and slunk nearby Jasmine. He said in a hushed tone, one Jasmine was certain only she could hear, "I do not think Ellindris' harshness is directed towards you. In fact, I do believe she has taken a liking to you, as difficult as that may be to believe."
"Yeah right," Jasmine said, rolling over, touching the side of her face, the good side, the side that didn't remind her that her mother may not even recognize her if she ever found a way home. "Whatever you say, giant inky horse guy."
"You will see," said Enkaiein.
And then they slept, together and apart, dreams wild and convoluted, a maze of emotion and, in Jasmine's case, anxiety.