1 Darkness and Dragons

Ellie:

The air was cold so high up, but heat radiated from the creature against me. Opalescent scales reflected the stars, shimmering against the moonlight. I leaned forward, resting my head on my hands against the long neck before me, and sighed, "It's so beautiful up here, Sol."

He grumbled in agreement, beating wings so transparent that I could see the clouds and stars through them between the sinewy latticework of pale white bone beneath. He tilted to one side, causing me to tighten my grip with my thighs, but I knew that he would never let me fall.

Sad? He asked, sending me the feeling of watching rain fall between oneself and their destination.

I sent back the gray uncertainty between dreams and wakefulness- I didn't know what would happen next. Tomorrow, I was to travel to a land I'd never seen before, to marry a man I'd never met. This was all a great honor, I'd been assured… but more importantly, it would ensure peace between the East and South Dragon Clans.

Raging fire went through her veins, the heat of a never-ending inferno that told me that my companion would fight if I asked it of him. Of course he would. He and I were two parts of one soul, bound to one another in a way that no one else could ever understand.

"It's okay," I sighed, sitting up and looking up toward the moon, still so high above though the clouds and mountains were below us. The air was thinner up here. It was hard to speak verbally. Had I not been who I was, it would have been impossible to breathe.

I shivered as frost formed on the tips of my eyelashes and I reluctantly suggested that we go home. It was getting late and we would have a long day tomorrow. I rested my hands against the crown-like horns before my seat- the nook where his neck and shoulders met, which seemed contoured perfectly to fit my body- as he drew his wings in abruptly and shot downward, diving through the frigid and damp clouds toward the sea down below.

Like him, I loved the feeling of the wind biting at my face. I loved the thrill of the free-fall that was a part of all aviary creatures' instinct. Drawing my hands from his back, I held them out to the sides in a cross, feeling the air against my body as I clung with my legs to his body.

The jolt of his wings opening brought us flat once again, the wind rocking his body as he soared several hundred feet above the sea. The clouds were above us now, blocking the view of the moon and stars, but the sea was nearly as beautiful.

Taking a deep breath of the much more substantial air, I asked him to go lower by transmitting the feeling of seaspray on one's skin, the skimming of fingertips in the rough, icy water. He did as I wanted, dropping once more toward the sea, and tilting his body so that he trailed one wing into the water and I could reach down with my fingertips to the water and inhale the fishy scent of seaweed and salt.

The world was perfect in that moment. Everything was peaceful and calm, the world exactly as it should be- I felt as though I was the luckiest person in the world.

But of course that could not last.

I felt Solarion tense, watched his eyes flick backward, over my head, and narrow. Danger. He would never allow me to feel fear, but he wanted me to be warned that there was something coming. I looked back over my shoulder, upward, to see the dark figure of another dragon, and for just a moment, I wasn't sure if we should be wary or not.

They dove toward us, as a bird of prey comes down on a rabbit. The glistening of ivory-colored fangs showed an instant before flame shot from its mouth toward us. Sol was faster than the other dragon- he was faster than most- but he could not outrun that dive.

Instead, he ducked under the water, shielding us both from the flame, and I clung to him with all of my strength as we dragged into the pitch darkness of the sea. It was frigidly cold, so cold I wondered if the flame might be preferable as my body went numb.

It was yet colder when we reemerged, and I gasped for breath, blinking salt out of my eyes, and looked back at the attacking dragon. He was so dark that it was difficult to see anything more than a blob coming toward us above the water.

Beneath me, I felt Sol tilt once again, and I startled, realizing that he was reacting to something else, and looked ahead of us to see another assailant. This one was deep crimson, the scales of his belly glowing like embers as he gathered up heat to his throat.

I flattened myself against Solarion, trying to make myself the smallest target possible, but Solarion twisted so that his own scales reflected as much of the flame as possible. He could not shield my bare left hand, however, and pain sliced through it- all the more sensitive due to the cold numbness I'd felt just moments before.

A cry escaped my lips, and I felt Solarion's anger flash through both of us at my pain. Something- a dragon, presumably- slammed into his side, throwing us both under the water once again. This time, the full weight of my opalescent companion knocked the wind out of me, the crowny horns I held onto jabbing into my ribs abruptly.

I lost my grip, my body going weak in that moment, and I could feel his panic. The panic any parent feels when their child has vanished from sight in a busy place. The panic you have when the ground beneath you suddenly falls. The panic a dragon has when his rider is no longer there.

I myself was too cold and stunned to feel anything but his reaction. All of my body was numb with cold, weak with the force of being dragged under the waves. For a long moment, I was completely still, floating in complete silence, nothingness- as though I'd joined the stars I'd been looking at a moment ago.

My head came back above water and I sputtered the taste of salt out of my mouth and lungs, fighting clumsily to stay afloat as I searched the sky for the dragons. I could see nothing, though the water kept covering my vision and pulling me back down.

If I can't see them, I thought, Maybe Sol can hear me.

"Help!" I screamed, my voice feeling pitifully weak with the coughing, the lack of air that I felt I should be used to, "Solarion! Help!"

It was an odd feeling, having gone from the freedom and power of the sky to being cold and drenched and sinking so far downward so quickly. It didn't feel real. All of it felt like a nightmare. Especially as my body stopped listening to my frantic commands to stay up, and darkness swam over my vision as the air vanished above me.

I'm sorry, Solarion. I tried my hardest to transmit that feeling, knowing that he must be worried for me, but I couldn't sense him near.

I was completely alone.