"The attackers came from the ice domain. The domains are impossible to violate but, things can come out. It's not easy but it's possible.
The faery of ice has not used her domain for centuries, too busy with the mundane information gathering. The creatures were not introduced by her. As these beings showed draconic qualities the queen suspected that her pet was at fault.
Mother build this castle and she can go where she pleases. The faery cannot be stopped, most limits are made by Mother. Fate made Mother to have eyes inside the Plane of Creation, to have real time news of the ever expanding work made by Life.
While Mother can travel freely her dragon could not. You should have seen it! I would have loved to see it... I was not born yet but! My watery sister was! The dragon followed Mother everywhere like a loyal pet should. The first time this majestic creature slammed its snout on a passage it could not go through... It raged. The dragon tried every attack, every movement, every single technique and trick it knew about. In the end the majestic beast was reduced to yowling impotently, crying at the wrong it was subjected to, mewling for its owner to be back and bring it with her.
Mother, after seeing the dragon so heartbroken, decided to give it the same freedom of movement. So that it could follow her. A boon no other being has. No faery. No Death. And obviously no Life."
-Bee May, the faery of knowledge
"Gwinnett and Penelope were the first to see the new draco/bird/thingy beings. I'm really curious on how they will decide to name them."
Humans, humans are really hard to understand, sometimes. Wolves are easier, they are similar to them.
The two brothers were sad to see their leader, their sister go away. But she had to protect the human female, the matriarch. The droppers, that's how the humans call them. They don't call themselves, they don't need to. If they had to... they would choose the word Family.
Wolves fight to find the strong, they follow the strong because there is strength in numbers, and there is strength in a powerful member of the pack, of the Family.
The droppers, they don't need to fight each others. Their strength is their own and is the strength of the collective, then there are the females. The females are important, really important, they bring new life, they can give them numbers. More strength, the females are the leaders too. Why? Humans would ask why, Family would not. Protect the leader or protect the female? An hard question for the humans, maybe an hard question for the wolves. An easy answer for the droppers, make the females the leaders, so you can protect both.
Wolves fight each other for power, to know who to follow, what do to. Humans fight each others because... The brothers did not know, the Family did not know. Who is a good human? What is a good human? The Family was attacked by the wolves, they were losing. The humans helped, they awakened the first matriarch, they killed the leader of the wolves. The first matriarch liked the humans, the Family would like the humans as well. If the humans respected and helped the Family, the Family would protect and respect the humans.
Humans were getting ready to attack other humans, their human wanted to fight, the Family would fight too.
The human with red fur on his head jumped in, he was faster than the other humans, he could walk in the shade like one of the Family, he was silent, he knew that attacking from the above is really effective, most never look up.
The human was still for too long, he was bored, the brothers could understand that. Their humans where not many, the bad humans were much more. The Family would help, unheard, unseen, like the red furred human asked.
"Hey, something strange in going on, these bandits smell of fear. They are dirty and their weapons are bad, they don't even have armor." Little Wolf got closer to a dropper and whispered, it was not one of the brothers. It didn't matter, they had a way to communicate with each other.
Little Wolf snuck a little deeper inside the enemy shoddy encirclement and saw a man, he wore leather armor instead of simple dresses and he had plates of steel to protect the vitals, the steel was covered in what smelled like soot, so that the shiny metal would not reflect the light of the fires. He had a sword, blackened like the armor, it was resting near the troath of a child.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Little Wolf moved, he appeared near the two and swiped his backhand over the face of the man. His head left the shoulders in a spray of blood, his body stood standing. The man did not even notice he was not whole anymore, the head sailed over the kid painting him with the blood of his detainer. The kid learnt how to be silent while he was kept prisoner. Being silent meant they could forget about him for a little while, it was better than the alternative but, as the sticky liquid hit his face he let out a whimper.
The head spun, round and round until it hit the ground. It ended its flight near a woman, her dress was shredded, under each rip a whip wound could be found, some still bleeding. She had a sharpened stick as a weapon, she heard the sound of something wet hitting the ground. She turned around ad took a tentative step forward in the darkness. Her leather boots, with wooden soles who once were her pride, stepped on something squishy and sticky. The moonless night did not give any help so she knelt and used her free hand to touch whatever she stepped on. She did not notice istantly what the object was but when she did she shrieked.
The forest became alive, a flurry of motion Little Wolf did not expect this to happen, he just wanted to fight after so long, maybe eat something and make Mira happy, get some energy back of what he expended.
"Kill the ones with metal! The others are victims, knock them out and bring them to my friends." He whispered to the dropper who bleated to the sky, the sound didn't even end when he felt the first dropped descend from the trees.
Fianna was clear, women can bring new lives but, kids are the future and they need to be protected. He did not want to fail his mother's teaching so when he saw the child he... just acted. One hundred and five, now that he was in the middle of them and knew what to look for he could smell the soot on the leaders, the real bandits. They were twenty five, twenty mixed in with the other encircling the soldiers, five togheter farther away. He knew he could trust the droppers, he was sad he could not fight a hundred of people alone, not even Mira did something like that, she did beat the soldiers from time to time but it was never a fight. Little Wolf snuck near the five armored enemies, four had streamlined armor, perfect for efficient parries and deflections, it was lightened so they could move freely while still being protected. Their weapon were of what looked precious metal to him, they were not normal bandits for sure. The fift person had a huge metal armor, it covered him from the boots to the head. He did not appear armed, more like a cowardly leader stuck inside a dome for protection than a fighter that wanted to cover his body in armor and be more aggressive with his weapon while trusting the defences of his armor.
"What is going on?"
"We don't know yet, sir. The slave masters will let us know once they retreat. Probably someone tried to be smart and alert the soldiers and the slave master killed the hostage. No matter, we will send waves of slaves to harass the soldiers each night, keep them from sleeping and then we'll launch our attack with the deathbrand slaves."
"No, you won't!"
The night was so dark inside the forest that without the moon it was impossible to see anything, they had trained the slaves to move around the trees to get to the resting spot that the soldiers would have choosen to use. The fires of the soldiers camp was the only light but, so far back inside the forest darkness was everpresent until it wasn't. Two red circles appeared shining in the dark, two golden circles inside of them, they moved togheter, slowly, gingerly, they moved silently in the dark orbiting around the four guards and their leader.
Little Wolf stuck low and clipped the leg of one of the guards, he screamed as he felt the pain spread from his limb. "What is-" blood red light appeared on the guard's leg, five blood red glowing gashes appeared and started growing. The guard screamed harder, the blood red light was eathing him alive. The other three moved away from the screaming man and dragged the leader with them. Little Wolf closed circled them slowly, keeping the same pace, then he closed his eyes and turned the other direction, they could not hear him, they could not see him. He stabbed another guard, the middle one, a clawed finger pierced his steel chestplate, in the middle of his ribs, directly into a lung. The guard took a breath to scream but nothing came out, the Demonic Energy was feasting on his lung, there was no air left to use.
"What do you want? Who are you? WHAT ARE YOU!?" The scared tin man yelled, Little Wolf could smell his fear and piss, mostly his piss. One of the guards hit the leader in the back of the head with the pommel of his curved sword, when the leader hit the ground hard the last guard alived moved and with his presence know the traitor stabbed, the blind hit did connect but the plating saved the guard's life, for a little. Little Wolf's claws tore the poor guard throat open. The blood red light consumed the three bodies in seconds, nothing remained of them, not even the metal. Little Wolf collected the energy, it was not a bad haul basically he was back to the day he started jumping around for his drawing practice writing lessons.
The last guard sheated his weapon and did something unexpected, the bandit used the wordless scout signals! He said that he was a friend and he knew the way to the base, the leader was important, he would lead him for his life and the freedom of the slaves but they needed the leader alive. The deathbrand would kill anything that moved or die trying unless the leader stopped them every day.
"Uh? Ok, guide me?"