A hot wind blazed through their tent, the radiant shifting form of the Seraphim touching down just outside. Staring at it had been Dreiki’s first mistake. He was paralyzed, feeling its many eyes digging into his soul and pouring molten iron into it.
Recuso!
He pried his eyes away, leaping over Luna to defend her from the same attack. The seraphim blazed with anger. How dare Dreiki touch one of theirs. How dare she already be ‘tainted’. There was still salvation, though. Salvation under the wings of the Seraphim. Because it would forgive them. It was gracious, after all, so Dreiki would have a painless death.
Luna launched a wave of ice at it in response. It vaporized before it could touch it. She didn’t need to speak like an angel to get her message across.
Their tent blew off of them as Ezo snarled with its back hunched. The drake stepping between them.
“Oi who turned on the sun- Oh shit it’s the angel!” Lawtrick shouted from the other tent, “Oruk wake up!”
The Seraphim turned to their tent, a radiant pillar of light crashing down on top of it, leaving nothing but a smouldering pile of salt and ash behind.
“Lawtrick! Oruk!” Dreiki shouted.
The Seraphim turned, its many shifting eyes now locked onto him and Ezo. The maddening chorus of the angel’s chime reverberated across the mountainside, an avalanche of stone scattering down its peaks.
Yet above the deafening cry of the Seraphim sang a clear whistle and the step of boots to gravel. Savekio paced forward, his cloak billowing in the hot winds, “Arukuniir ga Inkshala Oruutiir. Wakfuri! Wake the fuck up you old bastard! It’s breakfast time!”
His voice carried clear through the mountainside as the ground once again shook. That’s when Dreiki realized it. Arukuniir did not just live on the mountain. It was the mountain. With a thunderous clap, the air broke around them. Dreiki felt the mountain soar higher into the sky as rocks and debris pelted the Seraphim. Another voice rang out from all around them, deep and gristled from age, “Savekio. Inkshala Wakfuri. I am awake.”
The Seraphim, having been knocked away by the movement of the mountain now flew forward at blinding speed. Faster, though, was the massive whip-like whisker of the dragon’s maw. It snatched the Seraphim out of the sky, its radiant power blazing in a discordant feral rage, cursing the dragon for all eternity before its mountainous jaws crunched down on it.
“That’s what you get for salt pillaring my clothes jackass!” Lawtrick said from over Dreiki’s shoulder.
He jumped, “When did you- How?”
“What do you mean how? I ran.”
Oruk palmed his mouth with a yawn, “Thanks for the help by the way, I’d be a pile of salt right now. I’m not exactly a morning person.”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“That’s twelve times friendship now buddy!”
“It is. It is.”
The seraphim still had some fight in it. Trapped under its jaws, it shouted its intentions. Its vile vengeful curses, and its promise that it would rejoin its god and destroy these lands.
“Shushkala. Shut up.” Arukuniir boomed, crushing it between its teeth and swallowing it. Smoke billowed from its nostrils like a pair of active volcanoes.
Dreiki could hardly comprehend how massive the dragon was. He could only take it in parts. The massive ever shifting color of its eyes, whiskers which put even thick oak trees to shame, a lengthy neck which carried the peaks of what used to be mountains on top of it. Even the peak they now stood on, was only a single spike along the ridge of its back. If this beast could stand on its hind legs, it might have been able to touch the moon and stars above. Even now, Dreiki could see the bend of the planet around him along the horizon. In the far distance, only the tops of the great Ingen trees stood taller than them now.
Its large glassy eye lowered down to look upon them, “Greesha, Arukuniir ga. Greetings, I am Arukuniir. And the wyrmling, you are Savekio’s yes?”
The dragon’s repitlian eyes opened up, its black slit turning to the shape of a four pointed star.
Dreiki swallowed, “I am Savekio’s disciple, and his grandchild in name only.”
“Ah, Blodshalleth. Chosen blood, the best kind. And Savekio, Eldisharri you have gotten old, my friend.”
“Can’t live forever. Let’s skip the pleasantries. Since you’re awake, it’s time to start moving. The Jackal has his fangs over the throats of the Venator Knights. We will be using your back as a place of refuge for the next few years while we knock his teeth out.”
“So I have heard in my dreams. And Wyrmblodsha, Lawtrick, my son.”
“Greesha! Wyrmblodsha!” Lawtrick said.
The dragon’s eye jolted as it scanned each of them, “Ezopax, Savekio Riinukura, Lawtrick Riinukura, Oruk Alakilam, Lunaiel Xanakkul, and ‘Forgotton one’ Dreiki Iriik. Solshalleth Kiiri? I surely have slumbered for long. I remember when she was but a wyrmling.”
“We will be relying on your vast experience and wisdom to train my disciple. I promise you that he will help to sharpen your son in more than just combat,” Savekio said.
“Understood Savekio. Then I shall walk deeper into our motherland. It has been too long since I have last stretched my legs. If only I could still fly.”
“I aint the only one who’s gotten old, eh?” Savekio said.
A low resonant laugh echoed through the valley, rumbling the ground beneath their feet, “Surely not! Blodshalleth. I shall make sure our journey is smooth Recuso Altix”
As the dragon stepped forward, it no longer shook the earth, nor sheared the mountains on its back. It walked, disturbing nothing in the world. Dreiki looked on at the hole in the clouds behind them. Only a single step was all it took for the dragon to journey the length of an entire city. He felt a strange sense of finality looking down at the lands he had called home for the last two years. Everyone had to be looking at them right now. Who wouldn’t? They were a moving mountain!
That meant that all of his friends were looking. Everyone he had met up until now. Even if they couldn’t see him atop these peaks, he still felt compelled to wave down at them, a grin on his face.
Until we meet again.