The morning was Sheilah’s favorite type of morning- the air was cool and crisp and dry, the sunlight was warm and featherlight, warring with the breeze for dominance.
The Redstone formations this far north were a deeper, more vibrant red than they were at the Dragon’s Terrace. It’d been some time since she’d really been aware of who she was or even where she was, so she looked around herself carefully while checking the knife at her belt.
Her clothes were ragged and tattered, the light leather worn and shredded.
“Ugh.” She muttered, fingering the ragged remains of her shirt. There were parts that looked ... clawed, and one of her sleeves was scorched. How had that happened?
Her mind shied away from the memory, so she shook her head and gave it a thump with the heel of her head.
“Breakfast.” She muttered to herself, and then froze as something caught her eye.
The Redstone was a maze of spires and canyons and wide open spaces, tufts of sage and other plants struggling for a tenuous foothold in the unforgiving soil. This far north, plants were few and far between, many of them carnivorous, poisonous, or both.
What caught her eye wasn’t the plants, however. What caught her eye was a massive spire that seemed to stretch all the way to the heavens. The top was scorched and melted, black char staining its top.
“Adlan’s Rest.” She muttered to herself in wonder.
Adlan was her great-great-grandfather, and a legend in his own right. He’d known more about dragons than any other of the Clan, and he had been the last to follow the Ancient Ways. She picked up her quiver and slung her bow over her shoulder and began to climb.
*****
The spire was nubby and filled with hand and footholds; climbing it would not be a problem for anyone, even someone who wasn’t from the Clan of the Dragon. She scaled it easily, hands and feet finding easy purchase until she reached the top.
She pulled herself up and from the top of the spire, she had uninterrupted vistas in every direction, like her dreams. She could even see the pinnacles where those of the reclusive Thunderbird Clan made their homes.
Her mind went hazy, and her heart squeezed painfully in her chest, her chest tightening. She wanted- needed- something. She was suddenly seized with a desperate sense of urgency and an overwhelming feeling of being incomplete, as if part of her was missing an essential component- more, a grievous sense of loss, a loss so deeply personal and profound that it felt as though her heart was being torn from her chest.
She didn’t notice the tears streaming down her face, or the trickle of blood from her nose as she screamed, screamed with all the grief and fury of her soul.
*****
She vaguely remembered climbing down from the spire, slipping a few times, scraping her knee, bumping her elbow.
“Dragons are great at climbing up; not so great at climbing down.” She muttered, quoting Fialla.
Adlan, a hero recognized not only by the Dragons, but by all of the clans in the Redstone, had loved his wife dearly, and her loss had unmade him. According to the legend, he’d climbed this spire and let the power of the Dragon consume him.
Sheilah trembled and shook as she stumbled away from the spire, her knees wobbled, her eyes wandered and it was difficult to hold on to her bow because her hands were slimy with sweat. She wiped her nose and stared as her hand came away bloody.
She wondered what she was doing all the way out here.
“...dragonlings. Right.” She muttered to herself, absently wiping the blood off on her pants leg. She looked around her area for places where a dragonling might go to roost, but there didn’t seem to be any of the usual places where a dragonling might sun or rest.
Where was she?
*****
She returned to her camp at the boulder she’d chosen to sleep under, and without warning, a trickle of icy cold sweat slid down her back and she froze as her skin crawled. She immediately squatted where she was, and looked around as she pulled an arrow from her quiver and nocked it on her bow.
She couldn’t see it, but she knew, could feel something just out there. She eyed her camp carefully.
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Was it one of the hive lizards?
She eyed the sky. No hunting eagles in the sky.
The plants were poisonous, but only if eaten. They didn’t stir, there was no wind.
Nothing crawled or slithered on the ground, nothing patrolled the skies, so where was this inexplicable sense of danger coming from?
She strained her senses to the max, desperate to figure out exactly what it was that stalked her.
One of the shadows at the top of the boulder shifted and she suddenly realized that it wasn’t a shadow, it was a pattern of mottled red and black.
She struggled to keep it in her vision, it was hard to see where the boulder left off and the beast- whatever it was- began.
She raised her bow and drew it smoothly- when had it become so easy to draw?- aimed, and released.
The arrow hurtled across the intervening space and slammed into the animal, which let out a screech of pain.
The beast rose up, and as it did, Sheilah’s eyes grew wide with shock and she took a startled breath. It was a dragonling, and it somehow had the ability to change its color.
She fumbled another arrow from her bow and released; the second arrow punched through the dragon’s mouth and lodged in there somewhere.
Sheilah tossed her bow to the side and charged forward, yanking her knife free from her belt.
After she completed the necessary ritual of drinking its blood and eating its heart, she began skinning the thing.
She wasn’t certain if the hide was particularly valuable, or if it would even continue to change its color after the beast was dead, but a red hide would be striking to look at, since dragonling hide was mostly shades of gray in striated patterns. Dragonhide was usually dark charcoal black with regular spots of yellow and orange that seemed to glow like embers.
Along the back of the dragon were plates, metallic scales that acted as armor. This was unrefined Dragon Metal- as whelplings matured into dragonlings and further into dragons, they refined metal in their bodies that eventually ended up in their scales. Those scales could be refined into metal that could then be turned into tools.
She dug her knife into them, levering them off and setting them to the side. Part of the preparations one made before their trip into the Ashlands for their hunt was to collect them for tool forging.
As she worked, she cut strips of meat from the dragonling for food, sometimes stuffing a raw strip into her mouth as she worked.
She cut one of the dragonling’s teeth from its mouth and stuffed it into her pouch, rolled up the hide and tied it tightly, tucked the plate-like scales into her pack, scuffed some dirt and gravel over her firepit, and left.
*****
There was something important she needed to do. She couldn’t remember what it was, so she set her mind to think about what it was while she let her feet find her path.
She was deep in thought when it occurred to her that she was being stalked.
Her head came up alertly.
She was being watched.
She stilled her breathing, trying to pin down the sensation. Which direction was it coming from? Above? Behind?
Things seemed to come together slowly. Where was she? Something was coming for her.
Where was her bow? Knife?
It would take too long to ready her bow. Her knife, then.
Something was coming for her.
Danger.
She shifted her position, feet digging in the grit of the gravel. She was ready to launch herself away.
Away?
Why?
Wasn’t she a Dragon?
There wasn’t anything that didn’t bow before the might of a Dragon.
She took a deep breath, readying herself. Whatever was going to happen, was going to happen soon; a matter of heartbeats.
Something launched itself at her; she shoved the ground with her legs, but her feet slipped in the gravel. Still, she managed to push off and roll a couple of feet.
Something grappled with her, a blow slammed into her wrist, knocking it numb and forcing her to drop her knife.
She twisted; somehow she’d lost the ability to see; everything had gone dark in her vision. It didn’t matter; she could somehow sense what was going on.
Something slammed into her again; she tried to push herself away, but suddenly she felt the familiar sensation of a classic arm-lock and again, she knew what was going to happen: a classic shoulder toss.
She slammed into the dirt on her back and suddenly the sky was bright and a painful blue.
An elven woman appeared in front of her; Sheilah reacted by instinct, hand balling into a fist. She tried to swing, and discovered her arm had been pinned. When had that happened?
She let out a wordless scream of fury and struggled, twisting, jack-knifing, and squirming as violently as she could to get whatever was atop her off.
Something was shouting, trying to cut through her screams, she paid it no mind as she tried to get some leverage, some movement so that she could at least use her nails. She would not go down without a fight. She was of the Clan of the Dragon. Her father was the Patriarch of the Clan of the Dragon. She was of the First Blood. She had the blood of heroes and legends flowing through her veins. She would not submit to anything.
Something slammed into her head with a hollow crack and her mouth dropped open as a wave of dizziness and disorientation washed over her. What had happened? She raised her head, and something slammed into her head again. Everything was a bleary smear of colors and a hollow ringing in her ears.
Her head hit the dirt as darkness claimed her.