Broken

by **shadowsowner888** 12/3/2009, 7:19 pm

Maturity: Vague laying of eggs and a fight scene without any bloodshed, I think.
Fantasy: Dragons, magic, and aliens.

Basically, this is the sequel to All in Good Time. nod

Broken

----- I moaned. “Adreeeekin,” came the sound of my voice, surprisingly anguished. And I couldn’t even bear to open my eyes, it hurt so bad.
----- “It’s okay, Aezamien, it’s okay,” he murmured, pressing his head against mine. I opened my eyes enough to see his anguished face, staring at me with all the love and worry in the world.
----- Then the pain lapped away again, like waves on a shore. I took a deep breath while I could, before it came back. I looked to my round stomach as I did so, and then back to Adrekin. “Not too much longer . . .”
----- “I know, Zamy. I know,” he whispered, pressing his face against mine again. He paused a moment, then asked, “Do you want me to get Ferlon?”
-----I shook my head. “No, no. He’s busy enough. I’ll be fiiiIIIIiiine-” I’d moaned again, as the pain came rushing back. A shudder rippled through me. “Or not,” I whispered.
----- “I’ll get him,” Adrekin said, asking me in a way. But he’d only leave if I wanted him to. And I didn’t. I didn’t know if I could bear this by myself, even for only a few minutes.
----- The pain got even worse for a moment, and I winced, whimpering. Makeitgoawaymakeitgoaway. “No, don’t,” I said quickly, but with the hurting clear in my voice. “It’s not worth it. I’ll be fine alone. There’s plenty of other dragons that laid their eggs without anyone else helping.”
----- “Are you sure?” he asked, gently nuzzling my cheek.
----- I nodded, squinching my eyes shut again.
----- Over the next few hours, it was a torturous experience, and it almost made me with I had let Adrekin go get Ferlon. Ferlon, besides just being a skilled magic-user and our king, had knowledge of medicine . . . things that would help me. But I’d rather have Adrekin by my side than have him leave to get all the help in the world.
----- Especially in this time, as the Viroxians were doing who-knows-what. They were this group of dragons that had been banished a long time ago, apparently, and over the last few years they’d been attacking us in revenge. But they were almost . . . not dragons. They were so different. Most importantly, the difference was that they were so much more powerful than we were.
----- And if even one found me now, and Adrekin left to get Ferlon . . . I whimpered at the thought. It frightened me. I didn’t want to die - and I didn’t want Adrekin to die. If the Viroxian came even while he was here, I’d still be scared to death, of losing him. Because he would protect me, I know, as best he could . . . but how could it be enough against a monster twice his size?
----- At least he had his teleportation power. That could help. But it took energy, and while it wasn’t a whole lot . . . it’d leave him weak, and then if something else found us, wherever we ended up . . .
----- “Zamy. Zamy. It’s okay,” Adrekin said, his deep voice cutting into my thoughts. I realized I was hyperventilating, near tears. “It’ll be over soon.”
----- I just nodded. He didn’t need to know all the depressing things I was thinking. “I love you,” I whispered though. As if all those things would happen, and if I was going to lose him.
----- “I love you too, Aezamien,” he whispered, pressing his head against mine yet again and closing his eyes.
----- It was over very quickly, after that. The worst pain of all came, but it was surprisingly easy other than that. I laid the eggs, three of them, and finally the pain was gone. Tiredly I closed my eyes, curled protectively around my children. There was so much peace in my heart now. It was over, and I was nearly a mom . . .
----- Then my vision just about came true.
----- A screech ripped through the air, paralyzing Adrekin and I slightly, and my eyes widened in alarm. They were coming! No! They couldn’t! They would kill the eggs, before the babies even got a chance to live . . .
----- Already Adrekin was tensed, ready to race out of our little house and fight the monsters off. So I copied him. As soon as they landed, we would race out and fight them off, powerful and fearless . . .
----- Suddenly, an arrow-pointed tailtip plunged through the leafy roof. I shrieked, dodging out of the way - then I realized what it was trying to do, as the Viroxian tore the rest of the roof away. It wasn’t targeting anyone but our family - but the eggs. It wanted my babies.
----- “No!!” I roared, as its teeth plunged down towards them. There was a silver one like me - a girl, and a red one with silver speckles, that one a boy, and then a plain red one like Adrekin that was slightly shimmery - that one a girl, too. Already I loved them so much, our children; it would kill me if any of them were harmed. So I lunged towards the Viroxian’s jaws, breathing out as much flame as I could.
----- It squawked angrily, pulling back, then suddenly lunged at me. Adrekin snarled as he leapt at it this time, knocking its head out of the way just before it hurt me. I quickly joined him, sinking my teeth into the Viroxian’s neck. *STAY AWAY FROM MY BABIES!!*
----- It yanked its head away from the house, trying to shake us off, but we held tight. So the monster screeched again, freezing our movement just enough to rip itself free - and then, its voice still going strong, it crushed the red eggs.
----- “NO!!!” I wailed, anguished, and desperately lunged at the monster. It would die for that. But it pulled back with a triumphant roar, and leapt up towards the dark clouds.
----- I tried to follow it, but Adrekin held me down. “Aezamien, you can’t!”
----- “I have to!!” I wailed, and suddenly realized how hard I was sobbing. I collapsed on the ground. “It - it - they’re dead! They didn’t even get a chance to live!” My soul was shattered, into a million tiny pieces. This was the cruellest kind of torture, to let someone feel such hope and joy, then rip it all away from them.
----- “There’s nothing you can do. It’ll kill you too,” Adrekin whispered. But I could tell from his voice that he, too, wanted the monster to suffer. And I was crying so hard now that I couldn’t even answer him.
----- It was some time later that I woke up, having fallen asleep in my misery. Adrekin was beside me, still awake. I looked up at him, my face miserable.
----- He was tired. “Are you okay?” he asked anyway.
----- I shook my head with a sniffle, lowering it back to the ground. Then I remembered the silver one. She was alive still, wasn’t she? I hurried to my feet, scrambling the short distance to go and check. I could smell the life on her, especially compared the the shards of red and silver shell left behind . . .
----- I stopped those thoughts quickly. It was already hard enough on me. So, my mind blank, I brought the egg to the nest in the hollowed-out part of our dilapidated home. My nose pushed the moss into place around it, and then I curled up on the egg, warming it against my belly. I couldn’t let her die, too.
----- “They didn’t even get to live,” I whispered.
----- “I know,” Adrekin said sadly, covering me with a wing. “I know.” He didn’t say it would be okay, and I was grateful. Because while I knew it might not hurt so much eventually . . . I knew, truly, that it would never never be okay. Time heals all wounds, but a part of my heart would always remain permanently broken, along with the other two eggs.
----- “Feras. Vairn.”
----- Adrekin tilted his head, blinking at me.
----- “Those were their names. The red one, the girl. She was Feras.” The tears were coming again. “And Vairn was the red and silver, the boy.”
----- “Oh.” Adrekin blinked again, then said, “So who’s this one?”
----- That was different. She was still alive . . . he had to choose, too. “What do you want her to be?”
----- “Whatever you do,” he said, smiling a bit.
----- I nodded, and thought. “Al . . . Altarra?”
----- He nuzzled me. “That’s a beautiful name.”
----- Suddenly a voice hummed in my head. *Aezamien. Adrekin. Ferlon. Hear us.*
----- Adrekin and I froze, alarmed. Was it a Viroxian? But it seemed too . . . warm . . .
----- *We have heard. And you must remember this which we tell you . . . silver and gold will come together, and free the land of Xanadu forever. The two of them, salvation will bring, a he and she dragon, the colors of a ring. Only by entering their birthplace of old can slate become silver and bronze become gold. Children of dragons and humans they’ll be, tales of these warriors passed down through history.*
----- Then as the voice reverbarated away, I thought that was it, and wanted to scream. What had just happened? But apparently the speaker wasn’t finished.
----- *This is Altarra’s destiny,* the voice whispered. *Remember.*
----- When we spoke to Ferlon about it, he wasn’t surprised. The voice had told him, too. But there was a more pressing matter at hand than figuring out just what the prophecy meant - the future of Xanadu was at stake.
----- After hearing about the Viroxians’ attack on my children, it was the last straw. This had happened too many times before, and Ferlon knew it was too dangerous for them to stay here any longer. Those that did survive wouldn’t much longer.
----- So he gave us a week. The parents in Xanadu would go in secret to the Second Kingdom, and watch the humans. Then once we found a suitable family, we would return, and then Ferlon would perform a shiftling spell on our children. He’d turn them into humans. Then we would take them . . . and give them to the humans.
----- The one Adrekin and I were giving Altarra to . . . his name was Joe. He was a good man, though I wasn’t so sure about his mate . . . but we knew that he at least would take good care of Altarra.
----- It was with a breaking heart that I gave her to him. *Please, Joe, don’t let anything happen to her,* I begged, near tears.
----- “I won’t,” he said. He seemed too awestruck to smile, but I could tell he meant it. “She’ll be safe with me.” He looked down on the baby’s sleeping face - Altarra would be asleep for a while; that was the effect the shiftling spell had.
----- *Thank you,* I whispered, my voice choked. Adrekin pressed against my side, reassuring me.
----- “Er . . . what’s her name?” Joe asked, looking up at us.
----- We hadn’t told him much. Only what we knew about the Viroxians, and why we needed him to take Altarra, and what Ferlon did to her and what would happen when she was older. The ability to return to her dragon form. We’d said nothing about any of us as individuals, Altarra and Adrekin and I, to keep us safe. Just in case.
----- *She needs a human name,* I managed to get out, burying my face against Adrekin. *You must give her one.*
----- “Okay.”
----- “We need to go, Aezamien,” Adrekin whispered gently, glancing around. The other humans would notice us soon.
----- I nodded silently. *Thank you, Joe. We’ll come back when it’s safe.* And as Adrekin and I hurried away into the sky, to head to a safer place before teleporting home, I couldn’t help but hope that ‘safe’ would be soon.