InsaneJournal

Ficbit.


It's the strongest instinct a being has, when faced with insurmountable danger and confusion. Every beast, every man or woman or child possesses it, the urge to stand and fight even if it's hopeless, or to flee and seek familiar shelter. To go home.

Home for him is hot by most standards, humid and dark, lit by luminescent fungus and less understandable forms of life. In the sheltering embrace of solid stone, long forms doze nestled with their kin or hunt in the shadows, some long of claw as well as fang, some limbless but swift and deadly. Moss makes the ground underfoot a pleasure to walk on even without shoes, the sharp edges of eggshells and rising of debris-nests easily avoided as if he'd done this a hundred, a thousand times before. Everywhere is the sound of water, gently dripping into still pools in the dark, leaving stone glistening, feeding the life that thrives here. Small blind fish dart away from the sound of his footsteps as he pauses by the edge of a small stream that runs through this area, watched alertly by the aged eyes of a white crocolisk. He's not food to it, and is in no danger. This is, after all, home.

A place of refuge.

There used to be voices, he remembers. Pleasant chatter, the occasional laugh, the sounds of friendships and occasionally emnities, but all he can hear when he listens now is the sounds of the beasts that make this place home, the tick of raptor claws on stone and their birdlike chirping to their chicks, the slide of a cobra's scales on scales, the ponderous steps of Kresh, older than anyone who's ever stepped into these forgotten halls. Sometimes, the high, thready wail as a steam geyser vents, giving these caverns their name. It's all familiar, remembered .. except for the lack of voices. When he'd left, there had been people here. Living, talking, singing, planning what was to be their eventual overtaking of the Barrens, and reshaping it to their image and tastes. Dreams of power. Those dreamers were gone now. He finds marks of their presence months or longer past, in long-cold campfires and blankets gone rotted and torn for nesting material by the beasts of these tunnels. Trinkets and jewelry, the bone and bead windchimes that sang when the wind coursed through. An old, forgotten knife. Here and there, a skull, a scattering of bones shaped wrong to be a raptor or crocolisk or cobra, there a skeleton tucked into the corner between two stone formations, a rusted knife lodged between white ribs.

It seemed strange somehow that despite the evidence of death, that these caverns and streams would still be home, and still had a deep sense of all-pervading peace. He abandons the search for his forgotten kin, stepping around a nest of peeping mottled blue raptor chicks that lean towards him with begging mouths open; he has nothing for them that they would eat, and makes a note to return later perhaps with something taken from one of the old crocolisks. Removing one of the great ones would give the younger crocolisks a chance to fill the gap, where nature would dictate they wait another decade or more. The chicks' elder siblings, left to guard the nest, watch him with interest but not hostility. Like calls to like, and they know he is a reptile in warmblood skin. His fingers brush against old lamps tucked into a niche in the wall, and powered by a bit of energy, it swells to life, warm and golden.

In the glow of summerish light, somber yellow eyes regard him solemnly from the entrance to the tunnel that had led once to a sleeping druid. The unexpected sight forces him to freeze in place, suddenly alarmed and surprised.

"You are either incredibly foolish or incredibly brave in returning to this place, Ayrionthar."

~ ~ ~ ~

There is much he can't explain to Naralex, or won't. He knows he's watched, knows his teacher's gaze often rests on the ornate, still-glowing scarring on his back, can read the recognition in Naralex's eyes and knows there are questions the older druid wanted to ask but hasn't yet. He could be waiting until the information is volunteered, but if that is true, he'll be waiting a long time. There are some things that simply weren't to be told to others.

~ ~ ~ ~

Jingle.

The raptors are agitated. The sound is metallic, the bright jingle of bells or chain-links or steel scraping against steel, and doesn't belong here, in this place. The deep sound of snuffling from lungs bigger than what the raptors possess, scrape of claws on stone, and again the jingle of metal. It drags him out of what was supposed to be a meditative state, reflecting on his own past (instead of daydreaming, as he'd taken to, imagining what it might be like to take Serpentis' place) because it's familiar, and he knows the sound and the low warbling croon that rises, echoing off stone. It overshadows briefly the hissing of raptors guarding their nests from this strange creature, but they are unlikely to attack. He knows the thing making the sounds is far bigger, and far more deadly than they.

He doesn't meet Naralex's stare as he rises to his feet and pads to the edge of the stone outcropping they'd climbed to forgotten hours before, glancing down over the edge. In the darkness, the netherdrake is easy to see, power shining through its azure scales, energy crackling over its body and through its wings, sniffing along the paths he'd taken earlier, following his scent with doglike loyalty. He'd told it to wait outside until he returned, and had lost track of time. How long has it been? Hours? Days? Long enough to be disobeyed. He can feel the other druid beside him, and can feel the disapproving frown even without looking; the spells that were wrought to keep Ashclaw bound to his will were easy to sense with a druid's keen understanding of how nature worked.

The netherdrake shakes its head and neck, and metal jingles against metal, binding-stones and delicate chains flashing in the light cast by its own body.

Naralex whistles, and Ashclaw's head snaps up, regarding them both with keen interest before spreading wings that nearly touched the cavern walls and lunging upwards. He's forced to scramble back and out of the way as the netherdrake claws its way onto the ledge, which once had more than enough space for Verdan, and dwarfed all three of them still. It's happy to see him, crooning and nibbling at his hair, and he does not look at Naralex while the drake fusses over him. He can see ribs through its skin. How long had passed?

"These aren't druidic magics," Naralex rumbles, running fingers along the delicate silvery chains, picking up an emerald gemstone connected there and studying it. "This is fel magic. Orcish magic."

"It was necessary." He's quick to try to explain, sounding both defensive and uneasy at the same time. Those chains were stronger than they looked, but if they were undone, he didn't know what Ashclaw might do. "The netherdrakes don't obey willingly unless--"

"They are dragons!" The bellow shakes the walls, or seems to, and Ashclaw shies away, alarmed - so does he. Anger can be a tangible thing down here, thick and pervasive as the humidity and heat. "They are not servants! You should be so lucky to even think of such a one as a friend, not a ... not a slave!" Naralex's anger seems to cool as fast as it had exploded, and he still won't look at the older druid, attention carefully elsewhere. "Remove these chains."

Now he looks up and over, alarmed again. "If I do, I might be--"

There's something unpleasant in the way Naralex smiles, sharp teeth on clear display. "Killed? Perhaps as you should be, for enslaving dragons. This is not the purpose of the druids of the Fang, Ayrionthar. We are not enslavers. We are not corruptors. We are here to help the world and those in it shed the skins of their past lives and live in harmony with nature. You have a skin to shed as well. I haven't asked what you've done since leaving these caverns, since my disciples went mad, and I find myself wondering if I'd want to know how far you'd fallen." The fanged smile fades, replaced by careful neutrality. "Remove these chains. This bound dragon will help you remove that old life and throw you skinless and naked into a new one. If you do not wish to change, I imagine you will die." He steps back, and crosses his arms over his chest. "And if you do not wish to, it is better that you die and not continue to pollute the Serpent totem."

They're harsh words, but no less true. Was this some sort of test then? Surely Naralex wouldn't leave him to face the rage of an uncontrolled dragon on his own.

"Undo the bindings, Ayrionthar. Face what you've done."

He chooses to run instead, shying away from the still in-thrall netherdrake and Naralex both, bare feet almost silent on the moss and stone. Naralex will unchain Ashclaw anyway, and he'll be hunted and he'll die. He didn't want to die, he didn't want to--

Behind him he feels (not hears) a weary sigh and the snap of chains being broken, and a moment later the stillness of shock and a scream of outrage from long throat and fanged mouth. He runs faster.