FSE

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Chapter 2

Oblivious to the world around him, Cordenth lost himself within Lyndis company. Tenderly he held her in his paws, with such tender care that it should have been a feat worth marveling over. Lips met one another in a haze of soft groans and rumbles. When she giggled he tried to drag more out of her, even if he had to resort to tickling his fair maiden with his tongue. Unfortunately for him she was not one to lay back and take it, and was soon on the offensive, laying down an expert assault on his most tender frills. It ended with a caress of his cheek, getting lost in her eyes. He was but putty within her hands.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” She mused with a devilish smirk.

“Perhaps.” He replied, nuzzling at her nose. How his thoughts began to wander to lewd and passionate things. He shifted his haunches, anticipation starting to build.

“That the moons are brilliant tonight?” She avoided his lips, staring off to the twin moons, dangling above as if two dancers upon a hall of stars. “You have to admire their precision. You’d think one of them would have hit by now…Course that would be terrible for the rest of us.”

“If we’re going to talk precision.” He nibbled gently at her neck, delighting in how she spasmed, desperate to stop his assault. “I know were yours can be placed.”

Her hands traveled to his throat, caressing as she held the dragon’s eye to her own. “On the nose of the dragon? It wouldn’t be very gentle dragon like him if it were otherwise.”

Rumbling at the little game, he curled ever closer around her. Around her waist his paw did travel, a primal surge running up his tail. “Naturally, though I must warn you. Dragons are known for their silver tongues, and wield them like swords my lady. We also like to feast upon flesh.”

“Is that so?” Inward she leaned, clearly happy to play her part. She caressed, he rumbled. “And what flesh would you say is your favorite?”

“Half elven of course. What else could it be?”

“How peculiar. Now where did you develop the taste for such things, don’t tell me you galivanted with some starlet, a pretty minx thing that battered her lashes at you?”

They chuckled together, the air only growing warmer. He nuzzled against her with a vibrant rumble, only making her pat his snout and accuse him of avoiding the question.

“You could describe it as such, if you boil it away to it’s most simplistic means. But if you must know, she was beautiful, free spirited, always said what was on her mind.” Words grew ever softer as they drew closer, practically to a whisper. “How couldn’t I?”

Lips that had only been held apart for mere minutes, returned to press into one another. She caressed, he groaned, pressing into her passionate advances. When they parted, their was hunger in each of their eyes, a need they hadn’t worked out in many a day. Eyes wandered together to his haunches, where a sliver of reddish pink, pierced through his underscales.

“It would appear you have a weakness in your armor sir dragon.” Lyndis said, turning to him with a most sly smile. “How on earth did this happen?”

“The question could be said how could it not? When one is in the presence of such an alluring specimen? I’d dare say the most alluring in the land.”

“Just this land?” She gently smacked his cheek, “I do say you wound me sir dragon.”

“Did I say land?” He nibbled at her ear till she giggled, “I meant entire realm. Yes, that is adequate.”

Silence fell as they returned to passionate kissing, his paw tenderly caressing the back of her head. Nothing else mattered but her as the heat that had slowly built, became a raging fire that had to be extinguished. His chink in his armor only growing wider. Before he could pull away and begin what was sure to be a night of passionate, well-deserved stress-relief, a small voice coughed from behind them.

“I know it might not be the best of times, but I must interject.” Vishta meandering into the dragon’s glance, ignoring how it sought to disintegrate her. Within her claws she held a parchment of paper, a ghostly owl resting a few feet behind her. “I received a message. One that needs our attention.”

He flared his nostrils, giving the diminutive lizard a snort of derision. Of course, she would go about interrupting things as they were this close! Extending a wing he motioned her to depart. “I’m sure whatever meager message you received can wait till morning. If you excuse us, we really would like to get back to our mating.”

“Cordenth!” Lyndis blurted, smacking his scales.

“What?” Cordenth peeked down, tilting his head. “That’s what was going to happen wasn’t it?”

“Yea, but we didn’t need to go telling her that!”

“To be fair, she’s not stupid Lyndis. She would have certainly heard it, and I’m confident she could deduce what was happening. Oh don’t give me that look, it’s not like I’m going to saunter off and have myself a rut with a passing reptile or something.”

“Yea, think that puts a nightcap on it.” Standing tall, the future queen composed herself, though failed to hide the redness in her cheeks. Lyndis tore herself away from the dragon, much to his labored sigh. “You got our attention now, what does it bloody say?”

As Vishta began to recount the fragmented message she’d received from a fellow K.I.N agent, Cordenth could only flop dramatically to the ground. There he squirmed and shifted. Evidently the message involved some sort of danger to some barely even a village within the siigonis territory. It hardly even seemed worth the brain space that it required to say the name, Gearmell. He announced his displeasure with an exaggerated groan and flop of his tail. The atmosphere they’d been building was officially dead, and nothing was going to be going the dragon’s way this evening. Just as he thought things couldn’t get any worse, Vishta turned to him with the biggest eyes he’d ever seen, a crack ever present in her voice as she asked him to take them there, immediately.”

Do some flying in the middle of the night? After he already did so for most of the day? Was he just some sort of fancy horse to them? He flipped over with an exaggerated groan, stretching out his wings to the sky. When they pinned, he scratched his scales, gently admiring them in the light. When he yawned, he overextended it, holding the kobold’s attention for as long as he could. Just as her brow began to furrow, he levied her with a heavy sigh, “Despite thinking it over, I’m going to have to decline.”

*

They say that a dragon’s stubbornness is of the greatest in all the land. That they will stick to their decisions, regardless of the arguments presented against them. For pride runs deep within their veins and admitting such a thing could be seen as weakness. Cordenth’s however seemed lost to the wind, the moment bribing came into the equation.

To add to this assault, the guile of his companions knew no boundaries. They levied praises upon his scales, spoke highly of his character. He even believed that mentions of being a hero were levied on the table. He disregarded Vishta of course, her arguments had no weight, nor did he concern himself with her opinion. Though when he looked to Lyndis, she played him like a fiddle. He had no chance. In minutes he found himself beholden to them, spreading his wings in preparation as they packed their things with haste. When they clambered onto his back, he shot like an arrow, claws cleaving through the soft soil. Broxl and Vishta, screamed much to his delight as he pounded his leaps, leaped into the air, and spiraled upwards into the twilight sky.

When he straightened himself out (and their screams had ceased), he peered back with a devilish grin. Their scales were practically white, hands clenched tight to his harness. Very unlike the composed form of his beloved. Though he laughed away into the night air, insisting it was their fault they wished him to depart with such haste. They did not share in his amusement.

Cold slithered around his paws as the night carried on, the shadowed landscape below passing without a sound. Moonlight flickered across the mirror like pools, more than once pulling his eye to marvel at his passing form. He lingered on the tired expression of his beloved, trying to fight against slumber’s insistent demand. She was losing the battle with each beat of his wings, until with a gentle sigh she slumped against his scales, hair fluttering in the wind, defeated.

Only Vishta fought off the siren’s call, stalwart even when Broxl slumped. The mysterious kobold seemed as dedicated as the dragon himself, constantly staring off to the horizon, a sliver of fear within her eyes. She shivered and clutched tight her cloak, saying little despite the dragon’s looks. Even when he asked her who had sent the letter, she remained as tight lipped as ever.

“Then why should I be wasting my time? I don’t chase ghosts and echoes you know. I should find a place to land right now.”

“And disappoint your dearest Lyndis?” The kobold countered, her voice like a sword. “Come, we both know you’d never want to do that. Besides, I thought you wanted to be the sweetest dragon and help me?” She batted her eyes at him, doing her best to put on what Lyndis would refer to as puppydog eyes.

“You can drop it. You’re not Lyndis nor a human. That little trick won’t work on me.”

“Worth a shot.” She composed herself, dusting her claws on her leather vest. “Then because the agency will give you a reward for your…Heroics.”

He chortled, ignoring the clearly backhanded way she’d phrased that. “Shower me with gold if you wish kobold, but having connections with you would be far better.” Amusement flickered between his horns as he pictured series of kobold fetching him whatever he wished. His eyes and ears wherever he went, no one would suspect a thing. “Well, is there anything you can share with me?”

“That this is very important to me.” Vishta replied with a reserved tone. “And…I’ll be in your debt once we’ve completed this…I know this might not resonate with between your horns…But sometimes the not knowing if someone is ok is more rattling than the answer.”

“So it’s someone you care about.” He mused, adjusting their flight when she gestured. “Mate? Male…Female? Don’t go holding in the details now, you have my interest!”

She shied away from his peering eye, “Just know they’re quite dear to me…I do believe that’s all for now…And if it will tide your curious mind, what they found might be critical for securing this alliance with the Siigonis.”

He didn’t press her further during the flight, letting the diminutive lizard loose herself to the stars. To her credit she stayed the night with him, saying little as the time passed them by. When his joints began to creek, she offered to get him an oil for it, when he yawned, she promised him the strongest mitarinok she could find. When the sun began to rise, he whispered a prayer to himself, it allowed him to keep going. More than once he’d begun to drift downwards, struggling to keep himself awake.

The sun rose in all its glory, unaware of the weariness of those awake. It brought tides of it’s radiance, warmth, reaching out to paint everything below in a shade of honied gold. Darkness was chased away, replaced by vibrant greens and blues. Among these he found a blot of darkened shapes, twisted abominations to be found in this great tapestry. The closer he drew, he could spy the shape of human roofs, practically marring the countryside. When he spied the curling smoke, rising from its structures, he was almost happy from snout to tail.

“Rise and shine mortals, your great dragon has delivered you to this abysmal excuse of a town!” He announced with a brassy voice, maneuvering his wings to shutter them back and forth to better wake them. As they blinked and rubbed their tired eyes, he regaled them with how he’d suffered to bring them to this broken town. He wheeled around through the air, scanning for any sign of the culprits, and more importantly, if any had a bow to assail him. Not that he was worried of course, but they would be prime targets for a bout of gas. The others of course were locked upon Gearmell’s rotting corpse. “A thank you would suffice you know.”

They looked like typical human structures, of the one’s Cordenth had seen, save they were bolted or held to the trees by series of straps and pullies. They spread out across the marsh, even crossing the water below, connected by thin walkways of sturdy rope and white oak. These crisscrossed from tree to tree like a spider’s web, some even spiraling around great trunks. At the water’s edge there were still the fragments of boats, shattered by a weapon’s hefty kiss. They stood tall as if a graveyard, a warning to all who might enter. The air as the dragon sniffed, was filled to the brim with death and iron, when not containing the thick aroma of rotten eggs. Despite his draconic eyes, there was no sign of the populace below. No one moved, there were no corpses to answer where they’d gone, there was an eriee calm that would have bothered him if not for the nagging fatigue in his limbs. He yawned, either there was no one there, or the night’s travel had final afflicted him.

“I haven’t heard a peep out of you, but this might come as a shock…I don’t believe anyone is home.” He tilted a wing, swooping high above the shattered remains of what he could only fathom was some general store, he spied some coins winking in the light. The urge to snatch them whispered to him, but he put it away with a flap of his wings. “Nothing but an empty shell…Talk about a waste of time and effort. Can we land and get some sleep?” He gave a dramatic yawn, “I can feel my dreams calling to me now…Rest of you can explore if you wish…”

“I’d like to take a bloody look before we go about swanning off.” Lyndis replied first, her voice hushed and filled with concern. “Who know where anyone might be hiding.”

From merchant hall to house, each was smashed as if a great beast had landed and torn through every beam. Closer that they drew, dried blood could be seen strewn about the old wood, staining it with misery. As the wind brushed through, what was left could only weep, creaking and threatening to collapse into the uncaring waters below.

“If something could make an entire town disappear, I doubt they’ll be anyone hiding.” He grunted.

“Let’s find a place…to land…” Vishta stuttered, her face pale. Claws clutching her chest as she took shallow breaths, eyes darted from housetop to housetop like a cornered mouse. “If anyone could survive this…It would be him.”

“Dragon, you heard her. Set us down. I also wish to look closer.” Broxl caressed the end of his snout, “If it were an attack, how it happened under the water clan’s nose is a mystery.”

“Landing in a shattered town, where everyone seems to have died?” Cordenth scoffed at the notion, pumping his wings to bring them higher. “I think you all need your heads adjusted, it’s clearly a trap. Lyndis, back me up on this one.”

“I mean, if they expected people to be coming, I suppose.” She shot back, “By the looks of it, they got what they wanted…Who’s going to set a trap for a group of scavengers?”

“You’re aware you referred to us as carrion birds, correct?” He rolled his eyes when she only nodded, insisting that they needed to know.

“Besides, we would have you to keep us safe, yes?” She tilted her head, eyes seeming to swell, the perfect weapon to break the dragon’s stubbornness. “Unless you’d rather miss out with your sleeping.”

He shook his head, hissing as he brought them lower. Grumbling, he whirled around the broken buildings and trees, careful to not catch his wings and membranes on any sharp surface. It took a fair time, but he managed to find a spot he could land with only a sliver of trouble. He cursed as branches dug in at his scales, scraping against his sensitive wing membranes. Landing, the wood beneath him whined in protest, threatening to crack and spill them to the water below. He shooed his companions with a wing.

“Welcome to the clearly seen better days Gearmell.” He gazed out with a wrinkled snout, glaring at the network of bridges above. “Even then, such an eye sore. Course, whatever happened only made it slightly worse.” He padded a few steps, pinning his wings. “Going to be a waste, good chance whoever we’re looking for is dead.”

“Radiant Star.” Lyndis scowled as the silent kobold took a tentative step, Broxl right behind her, hands on his blades.

“What?” He whirled around, lashing his tail. “Look around, the buildings are practically ruins, not a window hasn’t been shattered, everything stinks and practically rubble at this point. And need I mention the death here is as repugnant as her confounding perfume?”

The queen gestured to the kobold, who was clicking her claws together as she scanned the ruined buildings, muttering that they were searching for an inn where he’d been staying. That’s were he’d be hiding.

“Are you daft? Woman’s clearly mortified. Is it that hard not to be a total cunt right now?”

“And instill her with false hope?” Cordenth snorted dismissively, “The sooner she faces the facts of the situation, the easier it will be to-“

She pressed shut his jaws with a look that could kill. “And let’s let her hold onto that hope for however focking long she wants to, alright? Now come, lets pay attention. You did say this was a trap.”

“That’s a rather rude way to say thank you.” He rolled a paw to his chest, tilting his head away in a dramatic fashion, curling his tail as if he were wounded, “After I exhausted myself through the night on your requests. You’ll pardon my scales if my patience is worn thin.”

“Stop your prattle, now is not the time for talk.” Broxl commanded, crouching upon the wooden boardwalk. He seemed to caress the air with his claws ever so gently, as if feeling invisible threads upon the air. When Cordenth glared at him, he pressed himself down, pushing an ear against the planks. His eyes closed, his heartbeat stilled, attuning his senses to the tinies bit of vibration. For a time, silence overtook them, only the wind reminding them time was ever marching onward. He stood with a hardened look on his snout.

“Well?” Cordenth grumbled, “Did the wood tell you anything?”

“That whoever did this is long gone, not a creature stirs within this place.”

“And it could just tell you this?”

“There are ways of my people. You will have to trust dragon. Nothing alive stirs within, not even animals are approaching.” His snout wrinkled, “This place has been cursed, they know better.”

“And yet here we are.” Sighed Lyndis, “Least it’s not the first time.”

“Well, least it answered the question of the hour.” He scoffed, trotting to the broken remains of a shop, its door crushed in, pots and pans scattered half haphazardly across floor dripping with shadows. “Vishta’s little friend is surely dead.”

Vishta bit her lip, the remaining color draining from her scales. She stood, frozen, like a statue as Lyndis wheeled to Cordenth, amber eyes aflame.

“Don’t listen to him Vishta.” She rested an arm on the kobold’s shoulder, “Radiant Star is just being grumpy, when he doesn’t get his beauty rest, he’s a total cunt.”

Cunt? Him? Cordenth couldn’t believe that such words of him tumbled out of her mouth. He’d been the one to fly them here, and without protest! His limbs even now begged to fall beneath him; consciousness depart him. He very well might have if his blood didn’t burn with such aggravation over such rude behavior! Just as he was concocting a scathing rebuttal that would put his love in her place, a yawn reared it’s ugly head, scattering his string of thought to the wind.

He glared at the sky with a flicking tail, they better let him get two days of sleep for this audacity of a side trip. He turned, the others were gone, but he could how they practically stomped their way along the planks. Were they even trying? He was about to follow, but as he took a first stride, a calmness swept across his scales. There he remained, frozen, a tugging upon his heart to the foliage beyond. It’s destination he didn’t need to see, the voice from his visions whispering in the back of his skull, to find, rebirth, renew. It took Lyndis shouting to tug him back to reality, letting him shake off whatever had gripped him.

“You alright?” She was to him before he could blink, caressing his snout. Despite their argument, concern swelled within those amber seas. “Could you hear me?”

Only just, but he didn’t wish to startle her. He rolled his eyes with a snort. “Course I’m alright. Just tired is all.” He swished his tail, trying to fight off yet another yawn. “Flattered with the concern though.”

With a weak smile she tugged him forward to her forehead, she sighed. “Try to keep it together for a wee bit longer, then you can sleep deeper than a dragon turtle hibernating. Believe you me, I don’t need to see what more sleep deprivation does to that wonderful personality of yours.” She smacked his cheek playfully, “Don’t go scaring me alright? Else I’ll be exceptionally cross!”

Rumbling, he pushed back. Though needing to apologize seemed silly between his horns, earning Lyndis’ scorn wasn’t worth the price. “It wasn’t the intention. Now if it has your ears in a twist, I’ll apologize to the little lizard in a bit.”

“See? Knew you had a good heart deep down.” She kissed him, earning a grumbling purr before she whisked herself and him back to the other’s sides.

In hushed voices they strolled through the shattered streets, following up and down around the trees that dominated this place. The broken lives and dreams they’d witnessed from above became all to clear as they strolled, muscles tensed, ready to leap into action at the softest disturbance. Several times they did so, only to find it was a loose board, or a mouse scavenging for another meal. Though murmurs traveled between them of the undead’s involvement, there were no shambling horrors to be found. No skeletons, no zombies, no signs of their handiwork. For all purposes it was a ghost town, and Cordenth swore that was even worse.

He took flight after rounding another broken structure, that they insisted on searching through. He reminded them it wasn’t the tavern, but they seemed hellbent on finding anyone that might have survived.

“And he didn’t live at the inn.” Vishta retorted, “We go out and do work you know…Without complaining.”

Knowing better than to chastise the clearly grieving kobold, Cordenth changed his size and took flight to the air. They would be busy for quite some time, and he was better served gliding through the wreckage, searching for this inn that they apparently had given up on finding. He pondered why an aura of sadness seemed to pervade their words and actions, did not mortals die everyday in unrelated circumstances? Often for nothing of worth? Yes, it was unfortunate that it had happened, but they shouldn’t let it slow them down, especially went it meant putting Drenedar and his friends in danger! Talk about being so selfish!

He landed on a shattered flagpole, making it his makeshift perch. There he scanned, on the hunt to put this little venture to an end. “A true tragedy would be the death of a dragon.” He hissed softly, “Or any creature with such a prodigious life.”

There were after all more humans to replace these ones, he doubted anyone beyond this village even concerned themselves with those that were lost. He flicked his membranes with the next breeze, bringing with it the stench of the bog around them. They were better off getting back on track to the capital, getting the reinforcements to save their future kingdom, build a brighter future for dragon-kind. This whole side quest could derail that, putting everything in jeopardy. The dragon lashed his tail, flaring his nostrils. That’s when he found the inn that they were all so keen on finding, there it was, tucked beneath a weeping willow, its door shattered inward.

He tilted his head, about to shout his victory to the others but stalled. True they would love his finding of it, but they’d be far prouder of him if he searched it as well. He gleamed at the prospect of Lyndis praising him, insisting he was leagues and inches better than Broxl would ever be. Even as he focused on this thought, he watched in silence as the siigonis helped his love over a broken pile of rubble, the dragon spied her blushing. Even muttering thanks! How his eyes narrowed. That siigonis must have thought himself so clever, trying to steal a dragon’s greatest treasure.

What had formed was cemented within his mind. He’d search that inn, find the kobold, shatter whatever flights of fancy that Broxl had cobbled together in his pea brain. He wouldn’t need help, he was a dragon, and none deserved Lyndis’ affections more than he. Drunk on his own pride, Cordenth rumbled, avoiding the more ruined sections as he pounced into the air. He heard his companions call for him, but it didn’t seem all that concerned or in danger. They’d only miss him for a few minutes, what could happen in the meantime? Did they fear for his safety?

He scoffed at such a ridiculous notion, even with his fatigue clinging to him, weighing him down. He was certain anything could be achieved, he was a dragon after all, son of Emerald lady, inheritor of a demigod. He wasn’t the youthful dragon that had left his forest, naive. Nor the one at Tregaron. Even if he ran into trouble, he had claws, magic, poison breath and teeth! And if that failed him, the power that lurked beneath his scales would charm whoever got the insanely stupid idea of attacking a dragon! Though Lyndis might initially disapprove, though he wasn’t quite sure on why. It would be the quickest way to end the theoretical conflict, not even a drop of blood would be shed! Surely she’d praise his respect for life, going out of his way to preserve it!

“Fear not Lyndis!” He called out in a brassy voice; wings spread wide. “I’ll find this kobold before you ever break a sweat! I’ll count the minutes until our reunion!”

* * * * * * * * * *

Thank you all for tagging along in this adventure as we follow along with Cordenth, Lyndis, Broxl and Vishta. If you like it, don't forget to favorite and vote it a few stars. If you feel like being awesome, leave a comment below, I certainly read them and respond!

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