SCREAM! BELLOW! YELP! ROAR! Bedlam yanked her straight out of that deep, vivid dream into a bolt-upright, quivering sitting position. What … huh? Her companions were on their respective feet and paws facing a huge, gleaming boulder which had not been there last night? Eh … had it? Suggids, why the wild alarm? Allory rubbed her eyes as the obsidian surface split open into a smile she remembered all too well.
“Sstormy morningsss, snnnacksss,” chortled the boulder.
Alright, that was a beastly chill.
Nearly fainted.
The supposed fighter the Felidragon believed in had obviously never met a soggy wet scrap called Allory. Had it rained last night? Confused … and Yaarah appeared twice his usual size, for every hair on his body stood bolt upright in stark testament to his shock. His fur gleamed with orange and crimson notes in the radiance of a glorious dawn, only one cut by this awareness of terror she failed to grasp because her eyes were all gummy and smeared … she rubbed them vigorously.
“Behind me!” Ashueli hissed meantime. Blades in hand, the Elf quivered with readiness.
Realisation thwacked her in the gut. Oh, right! Definitely wide awake now. That dream … several ultra-rapid blinks later, her eyesight finally decided to behave itself. Suggids!
Time to save the Princess before she did something memorably stupid.
“Monsteron Realm-Waster!” Allory cried gladly, flitting in front of the Princess’ wide eyes despite the clear and present danger. “A very stormy morning to you, your black and unsightly shininess! Good scare, you nearly had us soiling our trousers – those of us who wear –”
“HO-HO-HOOOOO … SSSSS!!! Putsss its little weaponsss down. Now.”
The Princess spluttered, “You … know …”
“Monsteron? Oh aye, we are acquainted,” the Felidragon moaned. “Ghastly creature.”
“Of courssse isss ghassstliesss,” the bigger beast purred, clearly well pleased by Yaarah’s reaction. “Isss pointsss, no?”
Ashueli sheathed her blades. “Huh. Could have warned me.”
Oh dear, the Princess of War and Mayhem had no reason to twirl her fancy blades? The gesture communicated her frustration all too well.
Maybe a few anger issues over there, Sweetblades?
Allory chirped, “Monsteron, I do declare that your reeking ugliness has reached a truly epic pitch of intimidating. Wing check? Do I still have eight, or did several drop off in shock and disbelief at your ferociously bituminous stench, you venomous rogue?”
Suggids. And in other news, she was developing a dab skill with insults. Not quite convinced about the utility of such a skill, mind, nor how well it fit with her reticent and supposedly sparkly nature.
The massive Fire Raptor preened happily. “Allory Fae … iss goodss meets more!”
Ashueli produced a noise Allory was far more accustomed to hearing from her own throat. “Eep …”
The giant predator glanced at the skies as if he expected a personal thundercloud to appear and swat him over the spiky head with a punitive lightning bolt. “Musst be quickss not attract othersss, o redeemer of my egg-hopesss. I bringsss presents … you knowsss little sssshee?”
Raising his massive body, he revealed the prone form of Sabline!
“Sabline!” Yaarah coughed in shock.
The other Felidragon stared fixedly over her shoulder. Monsteron’s talon prodded her head around until she faced them. Clearly, she had no control of a single muscle in her body. Her open eyes stared fixedly at them, smouldering with colours Allory did not understand. Lime green and black? In a Felidragon? Could that be Raptor poison at work?
Monsteron roared, “It fightsss off three Fire Raptorrsss, brave little she, but isss ambushed. It fleeesss and hidesss in deep cavesss. I ssnatchess it for meal but it sssspeakkssss name of Allory Fae. Iss lucky. Wantsss it?”
“We’ll take this spavined wretch off your paws,” she agreed eagerly, suppressing an urge to gag in horror. Poor Sabline!
“We’ll do what?” Yaarah huffed.
Does this mean the Sable Sabrefangs are not the egg stealers? Now I’m confused – more confused than usual, that is. Having delivered a slew of useful insults, Allory had no idea what to say next, but Monsteron saved her blushes by snarling:
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“Huh. Isss tasssty otherwissse. I leave now. FIRE AND BRIMSTONE!”
Crack! His massive paw walloped his chest, sounding as if he imagined demolishing a nice castle, perhaps a handy local one called Durhelm.
“Fire and brimstone!” Allory yelled back, smacking her fist against her chest with rather less impact. Ouch. Bad idea. That would bruise.
With a vast swoosh of his wings that momentarily turned dawn into a fear-inducing dusk, Monsteron launched off the ridgeline and flew rapidly away over the waters, gleaming gently in the first rays of Middlesun. Three pairs of eyes watched him go. Sabline lay unmoving where she had been discarded.
“Well …” Allory began uncertainly.
“Well,” Ashueli spat.
“Well, what do you have to say for yourself?” Yaarah growled in a grating fury. “Back for another swipe at our Allory?”
“Gurgh,” Sabline choked out.
“Aye, so you can speak? Then you may start by apologising!” the scholar hissed. “I’ll tell you something else. If you ever dare to terrorise my Allory like that again, gnarr-GRRR, I will –”
“Gurgh?”
“What?” he snapped. “Speak properly!”
“Gurgh-gurgh!”
“Yaarah, she’s paralysed,” Allory realised aloud. Mostly. Something in there did still work, but not very well.
“Do I look like I care? Gnarrr!”
Just when I accused him of actual humbleness.
Flexing her wings, she approached Sabline to examine her, but veered off at the last second. The Sabrefang had been more than clear about what she thought about any attempt at healing. That Fire Raptor poison had to be brutal. The warrior Dragoness appeared to be wholly incapacitated. Signs of a wild scrap were blazoned everywhere upon her body, but what caught Allory’s eye was the patches of glistening wetness on the fur below her eyes. She had been crying. Just now, a fresh tear squeezed forth. Looking closer, she realised with a horrid shiver that Sabline’s eyes were glazed not so much by the paralysis, but by terrible suffering. The poison! It must be every bit as agonising as they had said.
Call her as soft-hearted as a puff of yellow jungle pollen, but she could not stand this.
Hovering in the Dragoness’ line of sight, Allory said softly, “I can try to help, but that would require touching you. I do respect your feelings, Sabline, and I am sorry –”
Yaarah made a rude noise behind her. Ashueli hushed him.
Right. Accusing the Dragoness of actual feelings? Dangerous territory.
“I’m sorry I jumped in without your permission, before. I was frightened and maybe I had forgotten how many times I had wished the same, but never had the courage to do anything … rash. Anything at all. I’ve been in that place. Can you show me – anything – a sign?” Her voice cracked. “Please. I don’t – I never meant –”
“Guuuurrrgh!”
“I very much hope that translates as ‘I’ll never do something as contemptible as that again’ in Felidragon,” Yaarah snarled, stalking off in a rather spectacular huff. A talon twirled over his shoulder. “Grovelling will be demanded! Copious grovelling!”
Actually, it sounded as if she might be choking on her own saliva!
“Ash, help me! She can’t breathe,” Allory gasped.
“What can I do?”
“Get her head turned, I suppose – aye, good, try to stretch out her throat – gently! No actual wringing of her neck.”
“Tempting.”
Yet the girl hastened to assist.
In this new posture, clear fluid began to leak out between Sabline’s fangs. How did she even breathe? Wishing she knew more about how toxins acted upon a body, Allory warned the Dragoness about what she was about to attempt. Then, she touched her dark head, shut her eyes, and sang over her for the longest time, until her lips grew dry and chapped, and her throat ached. Once again, she found herself in a place where nothing was simple and instinctual. All she knew was that something was deeply wrong. Sabline had lumps and contusions within her body which should not exist. Perhaps disease or cancer? Whatever the cause, the lesions refused to yield except to the most bloody-minded, dogged, unstinting, combative singing.
Something like that.
The poison was easier to deal with. A dark, viscous green to her mind’s perception, it seeped slowly into Sabline’s bowels and gathered there. A gross explosion announced the resumption of matters digestive, so to speak, but without muscular control the Sable Sabrefang could do nothing to prevent soiling herself.
Allory burned with shame for the Dragoness’ humiliation.
The Elf failed to run off squealing in horror like a proper Princess. Instead, she knelt beside Sabline’s head and stroked her neck, making sure the incline continued to work to clear the fluid clogging her lungs. Shortly, the Dragoness juddered and began to breathe easier, but then her body began to convulse and spasm horribly, twisting into angles and positions no Felidragon was ever meant to assume. Sabline tried to grit her fangs through it – stoic and stubborn to the core – but her hapless moaning soon reverberated around the boulders and over the quiescent water slowly lapping away in the direction of Durhelm Castle.
Allory chased her thrashing patient about, trying to alleviate her suffering with a voice that croaked like a jungle toad while contriving not to be crushed at the same time.
After ten minutes of increasingly debilitating spasms, Sabline twisted up one last time and passed out. Mercifully. Probably the best thing that could have happened, Allory decided, pausing on a nearby stone to rest her hands upon her knees and pant hard.
Holding out her hand in invitation, Ash said, “You’ve done enough, Allory. She’s breathing. Alive – probably more so than she wants to be right now, but that’s not your burden to shoulder. Come. I found you a patch of flowers last night.”
“Couldn’t sleep?” the Fae guessed, alighting deftly upon that strong hand.
The Princess winced. “Aye.”
She checked Sabline one more time. Nothing more they could do here. Besides, she spied a golden eye watching surreptitiously from behind an obsidian boulder about fifty feet away. He’d be over in a flash once they vacated the area. No doubt.
“Sit down, you bad monster,” the Elf said, prodding her shoulder with one iron forefinger.
“Is that how it is?”
“No point in killing yourself to save the world.”
“Isn’t there?”
The striking green eyes considered hers with such intensity, Allory felt her skin prickle. What was that about? Why do I suddenly feel dizzy?
After a breathless pause, Ashueli said in shaky tones, “Should I be concerned about the fact that the sapphire of your eyes just began to scintillate when we … connected? Whatever that was?”
Allory formed her lips into a soundless ‘O’ of astonishment.
“Aye, you could say that again.”
“Suggids,” the Fae breathed.
“That too. With ten extra dollops of suggid-slime on top.”