[Gift] Trial 2: Gloom and Doom

The stars wheeled slowly overhead. They were far from the only spectators of the four dragons moving below — countless empty eyes peered through the tall savanna grass, following the flickering flames of the two dragons that took the lead. Flamekeeper and Igni blazed a path through the dark, pushing the shadows back, but the surrounding gloom always pressed back again and quickly, a suffocating presence that dimmed the light of the skies overhead, wisps and tendrils of shades flickering just out of the firelight.

“I don’t know why I bothered,” Hestia complained from safely within the ring of light. “Coming all the way out to the middle of nowhere to accompany two little dragons on their way out into the world.”

Flamekeeper bared her teeth, frustration making her velvet scales rise in a much subtler threat.

Igni swept in before Flamekeeper could engage. He bounced along near to Hestia, giving her enough space but fawning adoringly to keep her from butting heads with Flamekeeper. “Think of your audience, dear Hestia. They’ve come from the great beyond, dozens of lost souls looking to you for guidance, just as we do.”

Jupiter huffed quietly to himself, tail rattling as it thrashed behind him, warding off any wayward spirits or, worse, living nighttime predators who might be tempted to come after four distracted dragons. His and Flamekeeper’s antennae both flicked at the distant cackle of hyenas, far enough not to be immediately concerned with though near enough that the light might draw them.

Flamekeeper growled in her throat, digging her claws into the dry earth. She could still feel the summer’s presence in the dirt underfoot, the oppressive heave of heat as it hung heavy in her lungs.

Hestia’s ears twitched towards the sound of the hyenas, red eyes glaring into the dark. Her short tail curved over her back, a threatening display that might have worked a tad better if it weren’t so short.

“I’m certain,” Igni crooned, “they’re off chasing weaker prey than us.” Hestia’s eyes narrowed at him, disliking the idea that someone else might be more appealing, even in terms of edibility.

“They had better,” Flamekeeper said, “if they know what’s good for them.” Her tails twisted behind her like furious snakes, and she leaped into the air, bringing her heavy claws down on a dry, brittle log that had splintered off from a nearby rotting acacia tree.

The sound cracked through the still of the night.

Jupiter’s snake-like tongue flickered out, tasting the air. A scent heavier than hyenas came too close to them, and each step became heavier, claws unsheathed. “Flamekeeper,” he said as calmly as he could.

She rounded on him with a fierce flare of her wings. Jupiter’s neckfrill widened slightly in instinctive display — he was one to defer to others, but he was not weak, not to be intimidated by another dragon, even one as vibrant and loud as Flamekeeper. “I smell a lion,” he said quietly, hoping not to be overheard by Hestia. “But there’s something wrong with it. It’s been tainted by this place. Undead. Possessed. Something rotting.”

“Let them come,” Flamekeeper said with bared teeth.

“I can also smell water. The dark things are not always pacified by it, but if we must make a stand, that would be our best bet.”

A deep chuff rumbled like thunder through the grass, and Flamekeeper could smell it too — something that ought to be dead.

Igni puffed up his feathers and Hestia began to growl louder, digging her claws into the ground as she faced the new threat.

Flamekeeper growled, but determined to listen to Jupiter. “Igni! There is a spring; lead us to it.”

Igni shifted from foot to foot to foot and so on. He opened his beak to argue, to ask how, before reminding himself that Flamekeeper didn’t know, didn’t care, just simply wanted it done.

He reached out with fledgling power, feeling the plant life around him, searching for where the leaves grew greener even in the dry season, where life congregated, brought by countless animals seeking something to drink. “This way,” he said, hoping he was right. “Follow me.” And led like a beacon, unseeing, into the night.

Jupiter followed quickly, but Hestia remained stubbornly behind with Flamekeeper.

A silhouette among the shadows moved, and Hestia began to bark. The distant cackle of hyenas answered her, seemingly an echo, a mockery.

The great beast heaved forward on unsteady feet, baring its impressing fangs at Hestia and Flamekeeper before shattering the night with a roar that sent birds into the sky.

Flamekeeper’s antennae lashed forward, striking the lion with one flame and another, a flash in the pan, but enough to startle him, to throw his already unwieldy body off balance.

“Go,” she snarled to Hestia, and it seemed to break the spell. She took off in a quick lope after Jupiter and Igni, following the dance of his flames as Flamekeeper took to the sky, flying quick as a shot after the others. Overhead, she could see how the murky shade surrounded them, suffocated them like an oven’s heat, dimming even Igni’s brilliant fire and the gleam of Hestia’s many eyes.

Though she was not on the ground, she heard the lion lurch to his feet, and she dropped out of the sky just as Igni’s feet stamped through a clear spring, untouched by anything but wildlife.

On the eastern horizon, the ink-dark night began to give way to the first navy blue of a distant morning. They would have to hold their ground until then.