Pain (Open!)

When I was a hatchling, I used to love watching the stars, watching the planets play in the sky. I wished that I could fly like that.

Then one day.. I could..

And then it was all taken away from me.



The wind roared without pausing for breath, a constant whirring in Athena's ears as she dived from cloud height. Almost the whole of Elesmera was laid out before her like a map. Beautiful. Sadly, it wouldn't last long. But it would last long enough.

"You forgot to look up, Lightning Boy."


Her lungs complained, her bones cried out, but Athena ignored it, eyes wide and stinging from the powerful gusts of wind blowing into them.

She smirked."Somewhere interesting."


On the ground, she was limited, when she was up here, the sky wasn't even the limit. She had once gone beyond the sky, and up to the stars.

Care to join us for a flight, my little warrior?


Once, she had an other half.

Once, she had little ones she wanted to protect.

Once, she had best friends she would throw away her life for.

And it was all gone, in moments.

Athena's life was like one of those funny, fluffy flower things. One puff, and all the pieces of it scattered onto the wind, never to return.


Athena closed her eyes as she basically went upside down, her back now facing the ground as she stretched her wings, feeling the wind push her limbs upwards.


And that was what made her angry.


She opened her eyes, flipped, and stretched her wings. They were strong wings, she trusted them. They lifted her off the ground moments before she would have hit the ground and broken every bone there was in her body, and smashed every organ.

Spreading them as far as she could, Athena parachuted back up into the air, lazily flapping them as her speed slowed and she ended up at a leisurely pace, unlike her previous break-neck, stunt-pulling, bullet speed.

Athena gazed into the horizon, and followed it.

Upon the forest floor laid trees of yesteryear, fallen in storms long forgotten. The seasons had been harsh, stripping away the bark and outer layers, yet rendering them all the more beautiful. They held the appearance of driftwood, twisting in patterns that reminded Hestia of seaside waves; even the color of the moss was kelp-like. They were soft, damp, yet her talons come away dry. Hestia tilts her head upward, feeling the soft breeze cool her forehead. The pines were several houses tall, reaching toward the golden rays of spring. Birdsong came in lulls and bursts, the silence and the singing working together as well as any improvised melody. A new smile painted itself upon her scaled face, dim, yellow tinged eyes semi-illuminated by the dappled light. Before she knew it her feet have begun to walk, body and mind both on autopilot - time was not something to be worried about while she wandered these woods. The passing of time was meaningless at the moment.

Sniffing at a batch of flowers nestled in the shade of an evergreen tree, Hestia inhaled their sweet, nectar-tinged scent with a soft sigh, a gentle smile creeping onto her face once again, molding her cold, hard features into something warm and beautiful.

That is, until she heard the sound of roaring wind.

Lifting her head, Hestia's train of thought was broken when she saw a light green.. thing diving towards the ground. Lifting a talon off the ground, Hestia slowly stood up onto her back legs, her tail curling up and around as she watched the thing as it dived closer and closer to the ground. As it drew nearer, Hestia squinted as she attempted to try and tell what it was, but her poor sight failed her once again, and she could only made out the basic shape as it dived past the visible canopy and disappeared.

Cursing her eyesight, Hestia took off in the direction the thing had dived in. The ground shook as her heavy paws made contact with the hard earth, crushing fallen trees and snapping them like twigs, and barreling through hedges and overhanging branches like a child barreling through a bunch of cuddly toys.

It could be a projectile, an explosive beam, anything. It could threaten her woods, her mate's grave.


Hestia intended to protect it.


Taking a final leap, Hestia bounded uphill. The trees slipped away, and she was left with open sky, with blurry clouds far above. They looked light green to her, but she had once been told by her mate that they were a bright white. She wondered what white looked like. Beautiful, obviously. The moon was also a wonderful white, she had been told, painting the world a silvery shade that she couldn't even begin to dream of. It saddened her, she had gone through her whole life so far and had never glimpsed anything more then the light and dark shades of green. Darkness looked like a thick green, misty blob to her, making her as blind as any bat while in darkness.

She wondered what black looked like.


Hestia finally reached the top of the hill, and was pleased to see that she could see the entire forest from here.

She looked up, and saw the blob moving slowly across the sky.

With a growl, Hestia stepped back and took aim. Smoke billowed out of her thick, yet slim nostrils as she inhaled and exhaled loudly, releasing an elephant-like snort as her throat began to glow a bright green.

And with a growl, Hestia's eyes flashed a brilliant yellow, and she fired.

The fire went straight up towards the blob. Because of her vulture-like vision, Hestia found it hard to aim, combined with the blurriness, but she was a pretty good shot when she wanted to be.

Warm thermals pushed her gently upward in a seemingly never ending spiral. How could she ever land, why would she ever want to land? It was peace itself ascending to the heavens, seeing the view usually bequeathed only to the birds, their birthright and domain. As she glided on, above the white cliffs, over the heather and on toward the Sky Empire's cliffs she began to loose height. As the wind tousled her feathers and bent them back she longed to extend time, to savor the moments, burn them to memory for a time when she was old and no longer able to fly with the birds.

Then she heard a loud crackling as a torrent of green came at her from below.

She looked down, and that was her mistake. She should have barrel rolled. She should have dove without thinking. Instead, she did the prey's move. She panicked and looked for the source of danger.


And then came the consequence. Then came the burning.


The pain had an unpleasant warmth to it, a burning eating at her stomach like Andromeda once gnawed on her leg, or tried to, but painful and numbing. Pain seared through her abdomen better than a branding iron, her mind conceding to the torment, unable to bring a thought to completion. Without meaning to her body curled into the fetal position as her wings went to her stomach, an agonized shriek escaping her maw, something primeval and all the while the pain burns and radiates.


And then she realized she was dropping.


As it was she barely had time to scream before the trees harshly knocked her back and sideways. She tumbled over and over through the thick foliage, tearing through vines and crushing smaller trees, before coming to an absolute stop in the shade of a young pine tree, which groaned and fell over on top of her. Silence; it scared Athena more than the pain. Shouldn't she be moaning or calling out? She tried to move but she was pinned by the tree.


She had flipped so many times that Athena had become disorientated before she even sustained the concussion that had her drifting in and out of consciousness. She was fleetingly aware of the bloody taste in her mouth but she couldn't figure out what it was. At times her eyelids fluttered and she thought she must be at home in bed with her family because it was so dark. Then why the cold and the feeling of such a heavy thing on her? Why the pain, God, why so much pain?

She struggled to free herself only to be rewarded with more pain. Out of the corner of her eye, Athena saw the bramble plant that had tangled around her leg, blood now gushing from the open wound. 'Brambles' to her sounded like such a friendly word, cuddly almost, like the name of a young EarthScale. It doesn't quite conjure up the thick drooping branches covered with large woody thorns, each of which is strong and sharp enough to draw large droplets of scarlet blood as it stabs you with ease, hooking below your scales and digging mercilessly into your hide. It doesn't suggest how your legs will look after blackberry picking, like you've had fifty lashes around the calf muscle. To her, the brambles were like a well armed malicious octopus, tempting you with the berries then gleefully maiming you as you came to get them.

Athena's stomach rose to her mouth when her eyes shot to her underside. The scales were burned off, now stained black and red, the flesh a ripe pink.

Athena opened her maw and retched, blood splattering across the now crimson grass. When her vision went blurry she knew she was clocking out, this time for real, not for the few seconds she'd been experiencing over and over again a few moments ago.

With a whimper, Athena closed her eyes as she let sleep take her.

Hestia watched her green flames as they shot up towards the projectile, jade fingers eager to start touching and burning.

She expected the beam or whatever it was to explode, but instead, she recieved a blood-curdling shriek that froze her in place. She watched as the creature, smoke trailng behind it, fell through the canopy and disappeared. In the distance, Hestia could hear the crunches and painful thuds as the thing tumbled through the forest.

"Merciful Arkhor, what have I done?" she whispered, before taking off through the trees.

Her paws pounded the hard, baked dirt with a force that shook the earth, the branches of the thick trees quivering like frightened hatchlings. Her breath came out in steamy, grey puffs of smoke, her yellow tinged eyes feeling sucken into her head. Hestia was barely aware of her plowing through a few small trees, which uprooted and fell before her huge body. Her wings clipped great walls of branches that ripped off their hosts like a sticker peeled off their paper.

Breaking through the final line of trees, Hestia skidded to a stop in a small, open patch of wood that was lush with damp foliage.

And beneath the sunlight, which deviously cast it's rays in such a way it revealed all the wounds and general gore, was the thing, now a dragon.

A broken, dragon.

Hestia felt her stomach claw it's way to her mouth when she saw the brambles tangled in her leg, blood gushing from the wounds, and her general body bruised red and blue. Her entire underside was charcosl black, the scales burned off, leaving the pink hide.

She had done this.

The older female's breathing hitched as she stepped forward. The dragon didn't respond. Hurriedly, she approached the downed dragon, her eyes trained on the wounds. Carefully, she shakily pressed a claw to her throat.

Thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump.

Good, she was still alive, her pulse weak, but she was breathing. Relief washed over Hestis as she thanked Astaria for sparing her. But then, she suddenly felt helpless. What was she supposed to do?! The older dragoness had received many a beating in her lifetime, but never one as bad as this. She had never been on death's door like this one. She was used to dealing with minor cuts and bruises, and at the worst, a sprained limb. Never something like this.

Neptune hated wolves.

He couldn't understand why anyone would have an affinity with such vile creatures.

He muttered angry curses under his cold breath, which came out in damp, misty clouds that faded as soon as they appeared, his webbed claws carrying him through the forest which was now tainted with the scent of blood.

Neptune's blood.


He bore an impressive wound upon his face, narrowly missing his eye as it swooped over his snout and ended at his front teeth. Hopefully it would scab over and heal without leaving any scars. It would be mortifying if dragons asked how it got it and he had to say he got attacked by a putrid canine with a face even it's mother couldn't love.

As Neptune stepped over a log, he suddenly felt the earth trembling beneath his paws. Brow furrowing, Neptune looked around. Was there an earthquake going on? The tremors stopped almost as soon as they began, and for a moment or two, the SeaScale was confused.


Then, he heard a loud shriek.


Snapping his gaze to the sky, Neptune looked up just in time to see a smoking dragon falling over the canopy, smoke trailing behind it. His crimson eyes widened and his jaws parted a few inches. "Holyyyy sugar," he said under his breath.

Curiosity and concern for this dragon's wellbeing sent the male loping into the trees at a gait that surprised even himself. Weaving through the trees without much grace and leaping over fallen trees rather clumsily, Neptune found himself at the bloody crime scene in just under a minute.


His heart dropped to his claws, and his stomach rose to his jaws.


There, in the grass, lying in her own pool of blood, a heavy tree painfully slumbering upon her form and her underside torched black, was a female IceWing.


The Royal Protector felt pressure at his head. It was like there was a bunch of water closing in on his upper body, yet it was as if he were a FireWing, unable to fight the side effects of being so deep in the sea.

Stepping back, it only took Neptune a moment or two to register the EarthScale female standing before her.