The Fire, Part 2

It was that dream again.

She was mildly aware it was only a dream, and yet she still couldn't fend it off, and before she could push it away, it was upon and around her.

"Wake up. Sophia?"

Sophia took her sister's cheeks against the palms of her hands, slightly shaking her head back and forth, her soft curls shifting easily at this motion without the resistance of the rest of her body.

Sonata stared into those cold eyes, unsure of what she'd seen, what was even getting through to her, what she could say. She wrapped her arms around the small being, biting her lip.

"I'm here, Sophia." She tried to soothe the scared little girl in her arms. She was slightly stiff in the embrace of her hug, almost like Sonata was a stranger. "It's okay now, I'm here. You're safe."

She held onto the little girl for a few more moments, the wind blowing their hair and playing with her cape. When she was abruptly made reaware of the sound of crackling in her ears, she looked up. The fire wasn't any closer, but it was still dangerously close, just a few tall walls of dark green shrubbery away. They should get going, she needed to find their parents and get out of here. She needed to find out what was going on. The servants had been nowhere in sight for a couple of hours, now. No one put out the fires, no one screamed in panic. Something here was very wrong.

The princess untangled herself from around her little sister, but when she stood up she found a tiny hand grasping tightly the fabric of her dress, though the owner was still expressionless, frozen, staring off to space. Sophia pressed her lips together and held her breath before she leaned down and gently untangled the hand from her dress, replacing it with her own hand.

"Come on, Sophia." She took the little dragon's other arm and made her cover her nose and mouth with her sleeve. "Cover your face like this, okay? There's a lot of smoke." The small being didn't react, but didn't drop her hand either. Her eyes were fixed on the ground, her hand clutching Sonata's very tightly.

"Lets go." They began to walk.

It wasn't too hard to get out of the maze. It'd been there since Sonata was a baby, and it was a perfect place to escape from her scary family and and their suffocating demands. Everything her mother expected of her her father wouldn't even acknowledge, and everything her father scolded her for just made her mother turn away or clutch her head in annoyance. It was scary to have such powerful beings in conflict over you. Even when they took an elvish form, they were still dragons big enough to swallow her up in a bite or slice through her skin with a flick of their claws if they wanted to, it was impossible for a creature as small as her not to do everything she could to escape their prescience. And that just happened to involve learning the ins and outs of this maze better than any of her servants or tutors or nurses could...or so she thought.

"Careful!" The grabbed a hold of Sophia just before she tripped over a bench, hugging her to her side. Was there even someone inside of the shell she was protecting so carefully right now? How could she be so unaware of the world around her? It scared her. This combined with the fire and the silence everywhere, it didn't feel real. She gave Sophia's smaller hand a squeeze. "Stay close to me, okay?"

The wind changed, fainter again. The ash and smoke settled down into the leafy corridors like a thick fog. Sonata coughed into her sleeve, squinting to try and see in the dense smoke. Where had they ended up? She'd begun to lose track of which way they'd come, now that she couldn't even see the routes and dead ends branching out around one another. Sonata clutched her little sister close. If she lost her again, she wasn't sure she'd be able to find her. Where were the adults? If they were somewhere close, that would save her a lot of panicked wandering, but she doubted that was the case.

"Mamà! Papà! Uncle!" She called into the fog.

She kept hurrying, going mostly by the shape of the bushes on the walls she could see around her, and scattered guesses of where she was now.

She thought she saw a clearing ahead, and dashed towards it. They were out, and she could sort-of breathe. Sonata glanced back at her sister, who was following a little tiredly behind, but otherwise not unconscious. It was then she noticed there was more than one fire. The tall flames that reached towards the sky grew out from the maze of roses behind her and a distant tower she could barely make out from around the castle wall in front of her. There were multiple intertwining tendrils if smoke from different places, Sonata could barely tell where they were coming from. The world was a horrid red, orange, and black.

A loud, low rumbling attacked Sonata's ears, but it was an indecipherable sound from a distance away. Her hand holding Sophia's trembled.

"Come on, we need to find the adults." She tried to explain. She wasn't even sure if her sister could hear her.

Sonata swung open the heavy wooden door in front of her and began to ascend the narrow hall of steps to the main corridor.

"Mamà! Papà! Anyone?"

The cold floor sent chills up her body as she held her long lemongrass green skirt up with one hand, trying not to trip over it and fall.

"It's okay," she assured herself, "we'll find them. They're probably somewhere in the main ha-"

A loud, not as distant roar struck the castle. Sophia instantly stopped in her tracks. Sonata could feel herself panic. That was a dragon. Was it someone she knew, or were there strangers? Was someone fighting? Were the adults there? How far away were they? Sonata ran to the nearest window with the shutters open, staring wide eyed as another horrid sound shook the hallway.

ROAAR. Was that more than one dragon?

The patter of footsteps, she felt the figure besides her cling and bury her head against her leg. Sonata could feel tears well up in her eyes, she covered her ears as she looked around from what she could see straining to see through the tall arched window. All there was was the courtyard outside and the windows across from her, all the could see was the blazing fire in the sky and a few glimpses of some towers peeking out from the high walls obscuring her view. She screamed, "Mamà!?"

Nothing. "Mamà!?"

She reversed without turning away, slowly taking one soundless step back after another as her ears strained for some sort of response. She looked back to Sophia, still clinging to her for dear life.

"Sophia, let go. We need to find Mamá."

Sophia didn't let go. "Sophia, I need to be able to move." She wrestled herself and her clothes out of those tiny sticky fingers. They stared outstretched where they'd been.

She wouldn't be able to follow along in this state. Sonata needed to be able to run from room to room. If the fire was close again, she'd slow them down.

"Do you want me to carry you?"

No response. Sonata moved the small outstretched arms to clasp her shoulders, wrapped her arms around the curve of the small figure's back, and picked her up against her shoulder like one would a large, fleshy book. She wasn't that heavy, for Sonata who was already a lot stronger than a normal eleven year old would be. She was just like a very big package filled mostly with air, one that was enough of a hassle she felt like she was slightly falling over when she walked too fast. One that was also very fragile. That, and her curly hair kept getting in the way of the left side of her face.

"Hold on to me." She said, unable to tell if Sophia's arms were actually holding on to her or were just that heavy. Glancing at the window one final time before she hurried down the hall.