A Forlorn Riverbed
The silence in the air was heavy as three dragons made their descent towards the forest floor once again, this time heading straight for a dried-up riverbed just visible through thick foliage.
Neither of the two male dragons nor the three raiders dared to utter a sound.
.. Why? Because there was a highly volatile female dragon right alongside them.
To my surprise, none of the others had made fun of me once I gave a more detailed description of my embarrassingly forgotten mapping skill.
Neither did they get mad. They were very clearly neutral about the whole thing.
However, their forced calm in the face of my blunder was even worse.
At this point I'd have felt better if they had actually laughed at me!
At least it would be done and over with.
Instead we were now stuck in an awkward predicament where I was annoyed without an actual good reason to be, and the boys were too nervous to say anything and set off the ticking time bomb that was me, Allura The Forgetful.
Even in the air, my tail periodically swished from side to side in irritation, causing my flight to become shaky.
If I didn't get ahold of my emotions soon, I may just give poor Leon motion sickness on my back from all the random dips and bobs we were doing.
Not surprisingly, the mapping skill worked wonders.
Given the points I'd foisted into it, it had better be wonderful.
.. Though its evident usefulness simply made me all the more agitated for having made us blunder around the forest for so long when I'd had the darn skill all along.
Luckily the thing had still been fresh in my mind when I'd left my mother's nest, and I'd had the wherewithal to actually add the location to it before taking off into the wild blue yonder.
The marked location on the partially transparent magical map fairly mocked me and my foolishness. I was the only one who could see the map hovering several inches before my snout, so at least I didn't look weird on top of looking like a witless hatchling.
"Come on, Allura..." murmured Leon, patting the scales of my neck as we neared our destination.
"Cheer up. What matters is that we made it here, right?
And despite Benson's desire to get home before the end of the festival, we'd actually prepared with the thought that this trip might take us a couple of weeks.
So, technically we are still ahead of schedule! "
"I feel stupid," I huffed quietly so that Leon was the only one who could hear it.
My depressed state is making me admit to faults I normally would not have, maybe even to Leon.
Not where there were others who could possibly overhear them, at least. I could feel the sting of frustrated tears in my eyes.
"That isn't true! Has there ever been a more beautiful, graceful, awe-inspiring, and brilliant dragon than you?
I rather doubt it. One small mistake is but the tiniest speck of dirt.
And is it not my honor and privilege to be the lucky man who is permitted to remove even such minor specks of dust from your glorious being?
" He brushed a hand over my mane a few times, avoiding the bird casually sleeping in it, like riding dragons through the air was a typical Tuesday for her, as if the action alone could rid me of any sort of blemish, big or small.
I narrowed watery eyes over my shoulder at the prince.
"I feel that every time we talk, your words drip with ever more honey, Leon.
" There was an annoyed, growly edge to my words.
.. but it was all bark and no bite. Even the princes' ever-obvious forays into blatant and flowery flattery seemed to be leveling up.
Practice makes perfect, I suppose. Still.
.. as always, it managed to improve my mood.
Especially since I could see the mischief sparkling in Leon's eyes as he continued to pat the super pale pink/white hairs of my new mane.
He chuckled, and I could visibly see the tension leave the shoulders of the other men—dragon and human alike—as if the sound of Leon's laughter had been the sign they'd all been waiting for to signal that I wasn't about to go postal on the lot of them.
I had to admit that, though I didn't think I'd attack anyone, the thought of tearing up half the trees in the forest seemed like a healthy way to vent a little of these annoying emotions.
"I-Is this it?" Benson asked, sliding down Grysbok's back and stomping onto the pebbly riverbed after we all made it to ground.
We'd had to take turns landing, given the tight spacing between the trees.
As a hatchling I hadn't really noticed, but the foliage here was rather dense, leaving just the riverbed itself as the only viable landing place.
And it was not a large riverbed, however deep it may have been.
Grysbok and I could—maybe—stand side by side comfortably within it, but there was no way Kalon could have fit next to either of us.
"A little farther up, I think." I stated this while mentally commanding the map to zoom in closer.
I could see that the river opened up a little more just around a bend here.
Though the ground space was more available, there were several massive trees growing along the edges there, making it too hard to safely land, meaning we had to walk the short distance.
"A riverbed is an odd choice for a nest," mused Kalon as he led the way along the crumbling path between the two sides of the dried-up river, his head a little above ground level while it still towered over me. "Very strange..."
"Why?" I asked, not liking that the older dragon's words even slightly suggested that my dam was somehow flawed in her choices or reasoning.
"Typically dragons nest as high up as possible.
.. or at least find a cave if their size permits.
" Kalon went on to explain. His voice was low and gentle, as if he were respecting the resting place of my mother.
Given the curtesy he was showing, I decided to ignore the fact that he also seemed to suggest my mother was somehow dumb for picking such a place.
I'm sure she must have had perfectly good reasons!
"Though a predator targeting a dragon's nest is basically unheard of," Trent went on, taking over for the large black drake, also in a hushed voice barely heard over the rocks sliding under the weight of our bodies.
"It's just basic dragon instinct to nest in the safest place possible.
.. a riverbed is just about the opposite of that.
Not to mention a riverbed in this forest. Half the monsters here are mad, with zero regard for their own lives.
.. I wouldn't put it past them to attack a dragon's nest, even if the mother were sitting on it at the very same time. "
"The walls of the dried-up bed are high," Kalon added, looking from side to side at the dried mud surrounding us.
"meaning that any attacker would have the high ground.
Plus, the banks are hardly solid, meaning a hatchling could easily get buried should either bank give way when the baby dragon gets close. "
"Why would Mother lay us here then?" I asked, reluctantly admitting that their points were valid.
"Best guess? It's well hidden, and the last place anyone would look for a dragon's nest."
I felt the blood in my veins run cold. "You think someone was hunting Mother with the express intent on taking us from her?" I asked, enraged and confused.
Kalon stopped briefly, looking over his shoulder at Leon and me.
"It's been done before, though not many in this age would be brazen enough.
I have memories..." A far-away look crossed over Kalon's electric blue eyes.
I realized that memories from his ancestors must have been playing through his mind, reminding me again that Kalon was once a wild dragon and therefore had been given his birthright well before he'd ever bonded with a dragoon.
He shook his head and started walking once again, Trent patting the large scales on his neck, much the same way Leon often did for me.
"Back when the Pact was first made, many organizations and kingdoms hunted dragons in the hopes of raising a strong pet or slave to do their bidding.
Getting their hands on an egg was far better than trying to tame a full-grown dragon, or even a hatchling.
After all, unhatched children are not in full possession of their birthrights, making them far easier to manipulate and mold.
" An unfathomable tone entered his voice then, as if he were displeased but resigned to his next words.
"Even these days, it is the eggs that are given over for the Pact.
These ones have intentionally never been given full access to their rights beyond the most basic of things.
In the old days, such dragons would have been seen as pitiable and flawed. "
"The old days?" Trent asked, somewhat sarcastically. "Even these days the wild dragons look down on those bound to a dragoon. That's just the way of it."
Kalon sighed. "True," he looked back at me once more, this time not stopping his forward momentum as we rounded the bend in the bed.
"But to get back at the topic at hand...
it is only a speculation on my part, but I can think of no other logical explanation for a mother dragon to make a nest here, other than because she was desperate to hide.
And even then I would have to guess that your mother may have been in need of laying her eggs in a hurry. "
"Because?" I asked as the others kept quiet. Either they felt the weight of the deaths that had occurred here... or they were still being overly cautious of my currently unpredictable temper. Even Momma was keeping still and silent.
"It's not like a dam must lay her eggs the moment they are fully formed.
She can hold them in her womb almost indefinitely if she needs to, just like the hatchlings can stay in their shells until they feel the conditions are right to hatch.
Your dam should have been able to keep you and your siblings within her body, safely protected as such, until she was in a safe and secure location, even a nesting ground where other dams would've been able to aid in the protection of her nest. That is what is most common. "
"So you are saying that Mother had to hurriedly lay our eggs for some reason?"
"Yes. And the only reason I could think of would be that she was already nearing death when she chose this place..."
"What?!" I asked, alarmed. True, when I had finally escaped, my egg Mother was gravely injured and near death, but it hadn't ever occurred to me that some of those wounds may have been caused before she'd ever lain us. I'd just assumed that the men who had attacked that day had done all the damage.
"Whether from illness or injury, for some reason your dam needed to lay her eggs, no matter the poor conditions and dangers.
Only death could have spurred a dam into making such a choice.
And the fact that, not long after laying her eggs, she was besieged by so-called 'bandits'—I can only assume that she'd been attacked and then followed. It was a tactic used in the past..."
A sick feeling washed over me as I imagined my glorious and proud mother being hunted like a deer.
Rage and heartache fought within me for a female I'd hardly known, yet loved with all my being.
Kalon and Trent's thoughts made sense, yet they brought forward so many questions.
Not the least of those questions is who would have done such a thing?
Especially in a dangerous place like Zolftar, which bordered on a kingdom closely aligned with dragon kind.
Was Mother targeted specifically? Or was she just the first pregnant dragon they'd came across?
These and many other questions raced around my mind as we stepped into a familiar stretch of rocky riverbed, the sun filtering down through the thick treetops and dappling over rounded stones and what was undeniably a lot of blood.
Though it was old and likely had been washed over by rain several times since it had splattered on the ground, it was still clearly visible.
After all, even a dragon's blood was stubborn and immovable, staining the stones so that even nature would have a tough time wiping away the evidence of the atrocious crime committed here.