This is another piece of my book! I hope you like it! I've decided to call it Dragon Fire. Click/Space (there's information in the project). PROLOGUE: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/618185454/ NEXT: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/638180033/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (Star's POV) I felt a strong sense of déjà vu as I circled down to the river waterfall where Raga, our grandmother, lived. I had flown this very loop many times while I lived here, after our parents disappeared. Raga was unique among dragons. She had some sort of magic that allowed her to sometimes see things far away, even in the future. Because of this, her name was pretty well known throughout the world. She was sometimes visited by foreign dragons who wanted her to use her gift for them, although she only agreed if they were in trouble, and not simply wanting to take advantage of the gift. Ironically, she was blind, so she could not see what was right in front of her. “Star? Is that you?” came her rasping voice as I landed on a rocky ledge next to the waterfall. “I saw you would come, in my dreams. Come in.” I ducked behind the thundering falls into the cave behind them. The old dragon was a dim gold, with a bit of brown. Her eyes were a milky white. “Hello, Raga,” I said quickly. “Sunny has disappeared. Can you help me find her?” Raga gave a low growl in the back of her throat. “Sun is missing?” she said, her voice as rough as sandpaper. I nodded. “I came back from hunting, and she wasn’t in the cave. I couldn’t see her anywhere. Also, there was a strange scent that I have never come across before. I brought some moss that was covered in it for you.” I pushed the scrap of moss towards her. “Do you know what it is? Did it take Sunny?” She tipped her head. “I do smell a strange scent.” Raga sniffed the moss carefully. “I know this scent, and it brings back bad memories,” she growled, her sightless eyes narrowing. “Really?” I said, apprehensive. “What happened?” She did not speak, but waved me to the back of the cave. She gestured with her tail towards a pool. I had seen it before, but never thought to ask about it. Its surface was a beautiful cream color. “This is a Seeing Pool,” Raga told me, answering my question before I asked it. “It will give you answers that I cannot describe to you. You must drink from the pool.” I lay down and lowered my muzzle to the pool, taking a sip of the odd liquid. It was slightly salty. My eyes closed, and then there was only blackness. (switch to Sunny's POV) Slowly, like I was surfacing from a pool of water, my senses returned. I was lying down, but I was moving… Was I being carried? I felt the metal band around my muzzle, and the ropes holding my wings in place. They hurt… I tried to open my eyes, but they were too heavy. I felt myself sinking again into the blackness. A long time later, a single thought floated across my mind. “Star…” Then I sank into the fog again. This time, I dreamed. But my dreams were filled with the sky-shaking roar I had heard earlier. It followed me everywhere, and I ran to escape it, until I felt a jerking on my wings. I twisted around, trying to see who was doing it, but no one was there. I roared, and felt a sharp jab on my muzzle. The dream was fading, and I opened my eyes. I was in a large, empty room, and there were two big metal doors, big enough for a large dragon. There was a passage going away from the room, and I foggily wondered where it went. I looked up, and froze. There were two humans standing over me. One of them was holding a stick. He was prodding me with it, and when he saw my eyes open, he shouted, “Get up!” The other one yanked on the ropes binding my wings again. I looked around me again, trying to figure out what had happened. My mouth was held shut with a metal band, and my feet were muffled in cloth, probably so I couldn’t hurt anyone with my claws. What happened? I was waiting for Star, and then… As the men jerked on my wings again, I slowly got up. They yanked me along the passageway, leading me into a bigger room. There were more humans, and one in a long white robe started to examine me. I was still too tired to fight, so I let him. He prodded my sides and chest, and I had a feeling he was seeing if there was anything wrong with me. The report was apparently good, because he seemed satisfied. “It’s a healthy young female. It should be good for breeding in a few years. Claws are sharp, though. You might want to get them removed.” What are they talking about? Removing my claws? How dare they call me an “it”! (continued below)
(switch back to Star's POV) I jerked my muzzle out of the pool, sending droplets of the cream liquid flying. “What?” I roared. “She’s been captured by humans?” Raga blinked her blind, white eyes sadly at me. “Yes.” She lowered her head and a single, cream-colored tear fell into the pool. For a moment, I was distracted. “Wait, is- is this pool made of your tears?” She smiled slightly, another tear falling. “You know that we are all descended from Ralorn and Liralyn, our King and Queen.” I nodded. Every dragon knew about the elemental ancestors of all dragons, the pair all dragons worshiped. Raga was one of the few to speak their names. Other dragons called them the King and the Sky Mother. She went on, “I was blind from birth, and Liralyn blessed me with Sight so that I would live long.” I stared at her. “The Sky Mother gave you the ability to See?” I asked, wonder and awe in my voice. “I never knew how…” I trailed off. “Yes, Liralyn gave me Sight, and that brought something else, something I did not discover until my mate, Jardis, died.” A few more tears rolled down her muzzle and into the pool. “Before that time, I had never shed tears. But that day, I wept and did not stop weeping for months. By the time I had no tears left in me, I had wept a pool of tears. When I dried my eyes and saw it, I instinctively knew what it was. A Seeing Pool. A pool in which a dragon could see into the mind of another, at any point in time.” “So that’s what just happened,” I said slowly. “I was in Sunny’s mind! What was that place, Raga?” “It is called, by those dragons who know of it, the Facility,” she said. “I was there, once.” Her voice trembled slightly. “It is an awful place, Star. Dragons are forced to labor there, their jaws held together with metal and their wings bound to their sides. After a while, you can’t remember what it is like to fly.” I growled, horrified. Not remember how to fly? “What did they make the dragons do?” I asked. “Some of us, the strongest, were made to pull large machines. The young ones they captured, like your sister, Sun, were put to work melting metal for their machines.” “But, how did they melt metal if their jaws were held shut?” I asked, interested in spite of myself. “Couldn’t they just burn the humans and escape?” “Some tried, but the humans had fireproof clothing, and there were too many to overpower.” She sighed heavily. “And, after a while, most gave up. They no longer wanted freedom. They forgot what it was like to fly and to hunt. They forgot how to live.” Her voice was barely a whisper as she spoke her next words. “And they died.” “Did you know anyone that… gave up?” I asked softly, almost fearing what she was about to say. When she answered, her voice trembled. “My sister, Jara, was among them.” “Oh, Raga,” I said quietly, stretching my neck to press my head against hers. “I’m so sorry.” She lowered her head and several more tears fell into the pool. “That was a long time ago,” she said, shaking herself. “What we have to focus on is your sister, not mine.” She looked at me with such a sharp gaze I thought she could see through me, even though she was blind. “Will you go after Sun?” “Yes,” I answered. “I am going to get her back.”
