• Erthrisan Chronicles:

    Adventures in Erthrisa

    Chapter 2:
    Realizations, Mirrors, and Quite the Journey


    It was early the next morning when Fenrier awoke, mind still buzzing from the events of the day before. He had puzzled it much all last night, before finally drifting into strange dreams of shadows and forests and whispers. He stretched once, first in the front, claws protruding from his little paws to their full extent before he straightened up and stretched each of his back legs in turn. He extended his wings to the full length, quivering on their edge of flexibility, then folding them back against his body and looked about the cave.
    He noticed the remains of the small deer that had been caught last night for him. He walked up to it and picked among the bones and fur, before finally going out to the mouth of the cave.
    The sun had yet to emerge from behind one of the mountain ranges, though its orange glow was flashing brilliantly from behind the mountain. He sat peacefully among the remains of the deer and stones on the ground. Finally the sun burst from the top of the mountain and illuminated the entire cave and mountain slopes surrounding it. Fenrier’s ruby-red scales glistened in the bright morning light, casting brilliant lights on the ground and rocky slopes. He stood for a long time, taking in the beauty of mornings first light, the sunasatal, the sunrise. As the sun’s initial glory began to fade, Fenrier twitched slightly as he felt the ground tremble slightly from the approach of his mother, whom stopped just short of the tiny dragon next to her. She looked down upon the otherwise oblivious hatchling beneath her, and said in a smooth, song like thought, “It is magnificent, isn’t it Fenrier?”
    Fenrier didn’t understand the word she used to describe “it” but he agreed with a nod that he liked what he saw. They both watched as the sun’s light flew down the mountain slope and colored the trees far below. For a long while they looked on at this glorious place they called home. Then from beneath the mother’s giant paws, came a tiny little, silver-ish white dragon. She came close to Fenrier, before spotting his slightly twitching tail on the ground. Her eyes followed it avidly. Then the first time it slowed, she jumped on it, and so began their little play session as Fenrier turned quickly and began to nibble on her horn.
    The giant dragoness standing high above them chuckled deep in her throat.
    “Oh, to be a hatchling once more.” And with that, she turned and left the two to their roughhousing.
    After a long and happy hour they romped about joyfully, not a care in the world, enjoying the fun that was to be had from their little game. After a while though, they settled down and sat happily panting. Once they had recovered, Fenrier looked at the bleached dragon next to him, and asked what had been on his mind since he had awoken that morning.
    “Tiamat?”
    She looked at him curiously.
    “Yes?”
    He was silent for a long while, then finally asked, “Yesterday. In that forest…What happened?”
    She, too, held her silence for a while. Then she said, sincerely unsure, “I…I don’t know what happened…It’s so strange…” She waited a short while more before adding, “All I know is that after I flew beyond the trees, I was lost. I was scared. I thought I would never get out of there, so I ran and ran, trying to find help, when I ran into this old tree.” She turned glassy eyed as she tried to recall all of the previous day’s events, then continued, “It told me a whole bunch of things, about those Katsine things, and he talked about those other things, I think he called them humans.” She thought a little more, then excitedly remarked, “He talked about us too! He talked about dragons!” She let her unexplainable excitement wash over her before she finally calmed down and returned to her story telling.
    “After he talked about dragons, he talked about there being other creatures, and he said they aren’t nice at all, and he said something about spilled blood, and how it messes up the tree roots. He said that they play games with things that get lost in the woods, and that they kill them.” She looked at him with realization on her face, and she let out an audible gasp-like squeak as she said the next bit.
    “They were going to kill you, Fen!”
    He stood incredulously staring at her, then silently asked a question, more to himself than to her, “They were trying to kill me?”
    Tiamat responded anyway.
    “He said that they played a game that they tricked the lost one into coming to them, then they kill the one they played the game with.” She stopped for a moment, recalling the old tree’s fear and anxiety at the thought of the dark creatures and their game, “The Old Tree asked me if someone was here with me, and I said, ‘Yes my brother is here looking for me’ and he got real worried and started to shake his leaves and roots. Then he said he would call for help with the trees. After that we waited for a little, then he told me that I could fly out the top of the branches; he said the illusion was done and I could leave now, while I still could. I flew out of the forest and I saw that siress was coming and sire was coming too, so I flew to them and we went into the forest to find you.”
    Fenrier sat in silence for a while, and then replied, “Yeah, I remember that,” he said as a brightened look of remembrance came across his face, “You and sire, and siress, you all came out of the trees and scared those things away.”
    Tiamat bobbed her head up and down, confirming his explanation.
    “That’s right,” she said.
    Fenrier was thoughtful for a moment, then asked, “What happened when they ran into the trees? It looked like the trees moved, and then I heard screeching sounds.” He looked at her, puzzled, “What was that?”
    “I don’t know, but I think the old tree played a game of his own, and the things didn’t win.”
    Fenrier nodded, still puzzled, but satisfied with a proper story, and stood up and stretched his wings to their full extent, quivering at their final length, before yawning expansively. He looked at his sister and asked, “So where is that tree that told you the story? I want to see it.”
    Tiamat looked at him with her big, silver platter eyes, and said slowly, “I…I don’t know if I can remember exactly where it was, but if you really want to see, then I guess I can take you there. But let’s wait until tomorrow; I don’t want to go back so soon.”
    Fenrier reluctantly agreed, and they went off on their daily flight through the air together.
    During their flight, though they agreed to head to the forest tomorrow, they spiraled down towards the shore of a crystal clear lake, which was directly in the middle of the old forest, but was about a league or two across, so no tree could cover it.
    As they came to land, they noticed how the water gleamed in the sun’s light, shining brilliantly off the smooth, glass surface. Fenrier and Tiamat stared at it mesmerized as they came to a landing on the greenish-yellow shore. They took in its glossy sheen, and Fenrier fanned out a wing and tapped the waters surface. It was freezing and he quickly withdrew his wing from the surface, and they watched the small ringlets that expanded from the point of contact.
    “Ooooooo,” Tiamat said in wonder and awe, as the little circlets extended towards the middle of the clear, blue lake.
    “It’s so smooth…” Fenrier agreed.
    Tiamat and Fenrier stared a while longer at the glistening pool, then Tiamat looked at Fenrier with a serious look on her face.
    “I bet you can land on it.”
    Fenrier shook his head slightly after she suggested this.
    “That’s crazy.”
    “Nuh-uh.”
    “Yeah it is.”
    “Why don’t you try?”
    “Why don’t you try?”
    “Hatchling.”
    Fenrier glared at her, then in a resigned, slightly irritated tone, said, “Fine, let’s see if I can land on it, then.”
    Tiamat grinned, baring her tiny (but ever growing), dagger like teeth. Fenrier looked at her, and couldn’t help but notice how big she had gotten in the first two weeks. Though they still didn’t compare to their parents, she was still getting along to where she could stand next to a ten-foot tree and be half as tall as it was. He himself, being quite big for any dragon his age, was almost twice her size, though they hatched only days apart. His claws were already nearly 3 inches in length, and sharp as a razor, while her claws were only 1 ½ inches in length, but still as deadly.
    She looked at him expectantly.
    “Well?”
    “I’m going, I’m going....” he grumbled.
    He stretched out his wings once more, and flapped once, sending dust flying, then a second lifted him from the ground, and he was in the air and soaring. As he flew over the gossamer lake, he gulped, then noticed how much like the ground it seemed, except for the unnatural stillness of it, and its smooth surface called to him. Fear and doubt gone, he folded his wings and went into a dive towards the lake far below. He increased his speed until he was like a red bullet, zooming through the sky, on a direct course for the water’s surface. As he came closer, he lowered his paws slightly to prepare for landing. He soared over the surface and could see his reflection in the depths below, staring at him from the bottom. Slight doubt had returned, and with one eye closed, folded his wings.
    It was as if everything had been slowed down. He noticed one of his paws wasn’t straightly aligned with the water, and as he tried to adjust it, one of his long claws caught some water, yanking the rest of his paw down, and with a powerful pull, sent him somersaulting across the waters surface. Three times he spun, and on the third spiral, his tail gave him a little more altitude and he landed on the surface, belly first, and floated there for a moment.
    He could hardly breathe, and it didn’t help that a few seconds later he sunk into the icy water, that even his inner flame couldn’t contain warmth in his body. Icy water cold reached out touched his spines and wings, sending him into a flailing shock, as his every instinct told him to get out of the liquid ice. His head rose above water, and he gasped for breath in a squeaking/whimpering/growling combination of sounds. Finally, like a duck with soaked feathers, he managed to burst out of the waters cold embrace and flew into the sky like a Katsine chasing sugar. Shivering uncontrollably and shaking off water from his freezing wings, he angrily flew to the shore, where he could see Tiamat on land rolling over for laughing, even with her dragon voice, she was able to open her mouth wide and giggle and guffaw at the sight of him.
    He came to a landing nearby, growling angrily, though she continued to clutch at her ribs as she lay there, laughing until her breath wouldn’t come. Normally, his every instinct would have told him to jump on her and express his anger in the way he saw fit. But then after a while of watching the little dragon laugh, with great tears coming from her eyes, and her tongue hanging from her mouth, he couldn’t help but reluctantly begin to chuckle as the comic of his crash finally sank in on him. Then, he too, was overcome with an insane case of the giggles, and he fell down next to his sister in the cool grass.
    Eventually the hilarity wore down, and they simply lay there on the golden beach and basked in the sun, warming their scales under the sun’s brilliant rays. But soon the air grew chill, and the sun began to sink below the mountain ranges. They continued to lie there, even after the sun had vanished from the sky, and only the red skies in the east were visible. Fenrier finally turned his head towards the dozing dragon next to him, and muttered, “We should be going soon. It’s getting dark.”
    Tiamat stirred, and looked at him, a bit of sleep still attached to her eyes, as she sleepily nodded her head. They both released themselves from their worldly bonds and stretched luxuriously. Fenrier looked at his sister.
    “Ready to head home?”
    “Mm-hm.”
    With two slow flaps, they both lifted off, and they flew towards their mountain home in the distance.

    * * *

    They arrived upon the mouth of the cave, tired from the flight, but satisfied by the day’s events. They meandered towards the back of the cave, where their sire and siress were already laying, breathing slowly. The mother jumped slightly at the sound of Tiamat’s squeak, and raised her head and looked at her with great ruby eyes. She nuzzled the little hatchling softly, and it murred and rubbed its own muzzle on its mother’s. Fenrier slowly approached and was greeted by his mother with a nuzzling of his own. They curled close to her, and she unfolded her wing and covered her offspring, and together they slept peacefully through the night, except for the dreams that loitered in their minds.

    A fog surrounds Fenrier’s thoughts as he is thrust into a dream, not of his design.
    He looked about the fog, seeking to pierce the thick clouds of mist that enveloped him. He began to walk forward when he hit something in front of him. Raising a paw to his snout and rubbing it, he looked at the object ahead of him.
    Before him was a great tree, with roots thicker than any he had ever seen, with branches that expanded out farther than any other he had encountered. The Old Tree slumbered peaceably in the shadows of night, unperturbed by the sounds and noises, and unaware of the hatchling that had run its nose into it.
    Suddenly the tree stirred, as though it had been disturbed. Its leaves began to bristle, and its roots began to shake the earth beneath Fenrier’s feet. He heard a voice in his mind, seemingly coming from the tree itself.
    “No…No…No…!”
    Fenrier felt shivers as a strange whispering sound came from the mists.
    “Old tree, your time is nigh…”
    “Yessss…we want to play a game with you now…”
    “You have no blood, but we can make an exxxception…”
    The great tree bristled again.
    “NO…NO…NO…! Beeegonnne, foul creatures of the dark! Leave the forest be!”
    One of the creatures laughed with a threatening hiss.
    “Now why would we leave, O great tree?”
    “Yesss, we have yet to play a game with thee…”
    “Come my brotherssss…lets play…”
    They all began to laugh menacingly, and Fenrier began to discern their shapes as they circled the tree, growing ever closer.
    “The time to play has come…The time to play has come…”
    As Fenrier observed, one of the creatures passed close by him. He could almost smell its foul breath. As it passed he held his breath, and for some unknown reason the creature hesitated, and looked straight at him. Its eyes were like fiery blood, and its fangs were curved and sharp. Whatever was left of its face, however, was shrouded in darkness.
    “What is this you have with you?... I did not sssmell it before, and I cannot see it…Who wishes to join you, great tree?”
    The other two had stopped to watch their brother look into the mist at something that wasn’t there.
    The creature reached out with a cold clammy black hand, straight towards Fenrier’s muzzle. It sped up its reach and Fenrier jerked back in surprise, narrowly avoiding the clawed grasp of the creature. One of the other creatures stirred.
    “What isss it brother?” one of them asked.
    “What do you see?”
    The first creature hissed and replied, “That’s just it, I can’t see it, but I know it isss there…”
    The third creature stirred restlessly.
    “Let us bother with it no more, our time is nearly up, and we need to do what we came back to do…”
    “He isss right…Let us complete our game…heh heh heh…”
    “Then let us get on with it then. Ready brothersss?”
    “We were always ready, brother…” they replied in unison.
    It turned towards the Old Tree, it branches quivering without wind. Grinning, some unknown substance dripping from its fangs, it asked, “Are you ready, spirit of the forest? Heh heh heh…It doesn’t matter, were ready, and if your not…all the better…”
    “NOOOO…NOOOO…NOOOO…!!!”

    Fenrier gasped as his eyes popped open and he looked about, panicking slightly as darkness surrounded him. He stood up and wandered to a small patch of light and nuzzled it. It felt soft and leathery on his snout. He poked it a few more times, and it twitched slightly before he heard a sound of something large lifting from rock. He heard his mother’s voice.
    “Is that you, Fenrier?”
    Fenrier squeaked his confirmation, and she lifted her wing to allow light to flood in upon him and his sister, the latter still dozing near her mother. His mother looked at him concerned.
    “I heard you growling little one. Was your dreams disturbed?”
    Fenrier shook his head vigorously, trying to clear his head of the strange images that lingered. He squeaked and yawned, and his mother didn’t press him further. She lightly nuzzled the little white dragon, and it too awakened and yawned widely.
    “Awaken my children, and greet the new day.” She crooned, then began to recite a poem, that she had learned when she was a hatchling.

    Awaken, my children
    My darlings sweet
    Stretch you legs, ruffle your wings,
    Awaken from your sleep!

    Awaken, my children
    Take to the sea-blue sky
    And be sure to watch the glittering sunrise
    Before it dies.

    Awaken, my children
    Let your wings flare
    The multi-colored fires of your wings
    As you rush through the air.

    The two hatchlings murred to the melody-like sound of their siress’s voice. As the last words left her, the two hatchlings cuddled close, and the great dragoness embraced her offspring, and then nuzzled them along.
    “Go on now, heeds the poems words, enjoy the sunrise, fly through the air, and awaken from your sleep!”
    Squeaking happily the two dragons wandered to the mouth of the cave. They stopped and watched the sunasatal, as the poem had instructed. As the golden warm light washed over them, Fenrier looked to his sister.
    “Are we going to see the Old Tree today?”
    She looked at him and grinned a toothy grin.
    “That’s what I said yesterday!”
    “All right! Ill be close behind.”
    Tiamat snorted.
    “Ha! You wish!”
    With that, she jumped off the cliff ledge and flared her wings, rising on a warm updraft and soaring through the open skies. Fenrier followed suit and joined her high up, racing to outrun each other, laughing and squeaking happily the whole way. After a short while (and many muscle cramps in the wings later) they arrived at their target destination, somewhere near where she had first dove to the forest. She looked about, seemingly lost. Then her face brightened.
    “That’s right! I landed over in that clearing over there,” she said pointing with a paw at the open grotto to the west, “And then…I ran…that way…” she followed her path with her paw, more for herself than showing him, “And I ended up right about there.”
    She pointed down at a small patch of trees. It was a strange bit, as this set of trees was a different color than the rest. Instead of the vivid forest green, the leaves were dead and brown. Fenrier looked doubtful.
    “Are you sure?”
    Tiamat squinted at the distant trees.
    “Yes I’m sure that’s them. But…why are they brown…?”
    “Let’s go see.”
    Tiamat looked unsure, then said, “All right, lets go.”
    They folded their wings and started their dissent towards the small patch of trees that seemed, with every second, to become more dead looking.
    Tiamat flared her wings as she came in to land, Fenrier close behind her.
    As he came to land, he found her staring at a dead old tree, wings drooping, mouth slightly agape as she stared on at the decaying branches and rotting roots. Fenrier looked at his surroundings, until his eyes came to rest on the dead behemoth of a tree.
    He noticed that when this tree lived, it had had beautiful, fresh leaves, strong, thick bark, and long, sturdy branches. Now as he looked at it in the morning light, he saw the decay it had undergone had stripped it of its former glory. What he gazed upon now was brown and rotting bark, leaves falling from the trees branches at an alarming rate, and its branches already were fragile and littered the ground. Fenrier looked at the pitiful tree, then looked to Tiamat, who continued to stare at the dead Old Tree.
    “Um…Tiamat? Are you sure this is it?” he asked her uncertainly.
    Tiamat didn’t answer. Fenrier asked again.
    “Is this the tree you were-?
    “Yes!” she cried out sadly, “This is the tree! But it is dead…” She threw herself on the ground and began to squeak sadly. Fenrier was nonplussed, and could do nothing but sit and watch his sister. Eventually her squeaks subsided and she looked back up at the Old Tree.
    “W-What could have happened?” she asked no one in particular, “What did this?”
    Fenrier couldn’t answer her, and so sat and listened to her ramble on about why it had happened. He shook his head vigorously and one of the bones in his neck popped, and with that one resounding crack, all the images of the scene he had witnessed from his dream.

    A fog surrounds Fenrier’s thoughts…The night had been foggy.
    A great tree, slumbering peacefully…Why was it so similar to this one?
    Three dark shapes circling the tree…Who had they been?
    “The time has come to play…the time has come to play…” The eerie voices were so familiar…
    “You have no blood, but we can make an exxxception…” They had killed something or someone.
    Fenrier shook his head again. He saw Tiamat looking at him inquisitively. He could feel her question on her mind, and said, “It…” but stopped himself. He had been about to say that it had been nothing, but he changed his mind.
    “I know what killed the tree…” he said slowly.
    Tiamat’s eyes widened for a moment, then turned skeptical.
    “You know what happened? How? You were sleeping with me under siress’s wing. I saw you sleeping. How do you know what happened?”
    Fenrier was silent for a moment, crushing the brown leaves beneath his claws idly. Then he looked up and said, after a deep swallow, “You know those black things that tried to kill me?”
    Tiamat was staring at him obliviously, for though the answer stood out clearly before her, she was unaware.
    “Yes, I remember them.”
    “Last night… In my dream…at least I think it was a dream… I saw…” he swallowed again, seeming to have difficulty speaking, even with his mind, “I saw…the old tree…it was sleeping right here…then it woke up and it sounded scared…it was all shaking and everything…”
    Tiamat sat, drinking in his every word, for even though he was only half way in telling, realization began to fill her mind, and an overwhelming sense of dread filled her to the brim.
    “And then I heard them first…” A shiver ran down Fenrier’s spine as he recalled the silkiness of the whispering hisses coming from the mist, “They were hissing and whispering…talking about playing a game with the tree.” He shuddered again.
    Tiamat, having heard of what the game that the creatures played consisted of, watched Fenrier with wide, wary eyes the size of discs. He continued on shakily.
    “I heard the tree saying “No” a lot of times…and I remember the creatures laughing at him…then they began to circle and come closer to him, chanting those strange words…” he hesitated before he went on to add, “As they came closer though…One of them stopped…it looked at me…it even tried to reach out and touch me with its black claws…” his voice faltered for a moment, and Tiamat took the time to piece together what she had heard so far. It was an odd predicament. For one, the dark creatures had been killed by the forest. Two, how had he been able to see all this if in fact he had been dreaming? And three, how did it all connect to the Old Tree’s death if it had, after all, been a dream? She tried to answer these questions in her own mind, but Fenrier lifted his head and went on, and she turned her attention to him once more.
    “They had all stopped to see what the matter was…they asked why the one had stopped, and he said he had felt something…But then he gave up when the others said their time was almost up…and then they closed in on the tree…and…and…I…” He faltered again, then said, “I didn’t see what they did to the tree, but they killed it. It turned brown and started decaying, and then I woke up,” he finished.
    Tiamat was silent as he finished his story. She sat in silence for a long while, pondering and puzzling, unable to see how all this could possibly work. The creatures were dead, that much they knew. Yet they had managed to come and kill the Old Tree. And then there was the bit about the short of time. Why would they be short of time if they were there to kill the tree? Could they not be in daylight? Were they weaker in the mornings? All of these buzzed through her head, jumbling her thoughts and making her head hurt. She imitated Fenrier, shaking her head vigorously. Finally she spoke.
    “I don’t know what happened for sure, but if what you said is true, then those things may still be near. We will worry about how, when we have returned to our nest.”
    Fenrier silently agreed with her, nodding his head solemnly.
    Together they spread their wings and began their journey back to their hatching place.

    * * *

    They arrived as the sun began to set over the mountains, though it was still early in the day everywhere else. Fenrier landed first, wings flaring as he came to a steady landing on the rocky surface. Tiamat landed close behind, claws clacking on the cliff terrain. Fenrier watched as Tiamat folded her wings, and they both slowly proceeded into the cave.
    Their parents were both gone, most likely off hunting. Tiamat and Fenrier were both completely capable of hunting for themselves, and they did from time to time, but without the knowledge of their siress and sire. They didn’t want them hunting anymore after their experience in the forest, but they continued to do so anyway.
    They had agreed that they wouldn’t speak of it until they arrived at the cave, but even as they sat and the thought of it all floated in their mind, they did not speak. They sat in silence until the sun had faded from the sky, and the moon had risen. Their parents still hadn’t come back.
    Finally Fenrier spoke up.
    “So, do you think…that’s what happened?”
    “Huh?’
    “Do you think that my dream was for real?”
    Silence.
    After a while, Tiamat said, “I…don’t know. It’s all so confusing to me.” She looked at him curiously. “How do you see something in a dream, and have it be real?”
    Fenrier was thoughtful.
    “I don’t know, to be honest. It’s never happened before,” he replied.
    Tiamat looked at him with her big round eyes, and asked, “Do you think siress knows anything?”
    “Hm?”
    “Do you think she knows about real dreams?”
    Fenrier thought about it. “I don’t think so…I’ve never thought about it before, and I don’t think she told me about it ever.”
    “What about sire?”
    “He might…Like I said, I don’t know.”
    “Well we should ask siress first,” Tiamat stated, “I have a feeling she may have a better idea then anyone right now.”
    “Right.”

    “Ask me what?”
    They jumped at the voice, and turned to see her floating through the air towards the mouth of the cave. She landed smoothly, and folded her wings against her sides, before repeating, “Ask me what, my hatchlings?”
    They looked at the ground, as though they had not really intended to actually ask her about it. Finally Tiamat spoke up.
    “We wanted to ask you a question.”
    Their siress chuckled deep in her throat, and replied, “I realized that much, dear.”
    Fenrier asked the question.
    “I had a strange dream last night.”
    She nodded and said, “I heard it. You were quite noisy. Continue.”
    Fenrier began to slow down as he spoke.
    “In that dream, I watched the Old Tree get killed by those black creatures that you saved me from.”
    She crooned to him and said, “Now now, Fenrier. You need not worry, for it was only a dream. Dreams are your memories mixed together into a jumble. Sometimes they seem real, and you may be worried about them, but there is nothing to fear; nothing bad can come from your dreams.”
    Had they been older and more comprehensible they may have seen how quickly she had answered the question as suspicious, but Fenrier went on as though there had been no intervention in his story.
    “We went to go see the Old Tree so we could hear its stories. But when we got there, it was dead…”
    If it was possible for a dragon’s scales to depict how it felt, then it was showing now. Their mother’s scales went from a beautiful crimson red, to a reddish pink. Her pupils had become thin slits as Fenrier told her what she had dreaded to hear. She turned from her hatchlings, much to their displeasure, and she sat at the mouth of the cave.
    Confused, the little dragons slowly approached their mother. They fled back to the darkness of the cave, however, as she let out a low growl.
    “Do not disturb me! I must think!”
    The two hatchlings sat in the back of the cave, fearful to get any closer to the erratic dragoness. They all stayed in their respectful positions, until late in the night, their sire’s wings could be heard pounding the air as he came to land. He went to nuzzle his mate, but she growled at him as well, and he took a few cautious steps back. He sat just out of range of her claws and waited. Tiamat and Fenrier sat watching.
    After some time, he approached her again, slowly and cautiously, and when she didn’t growl or show any sign of reluctance for company. He nuzzled her softly and she murred softly and nuzzled him back. They sat their, leaning on one another, and then Fenrier could hear them speaking.
    “What is wrong, my mate?” He asked her.
    She was silent, then said, “It is the Old Tree. It is…dead.”
    He straightened his head, and said in surprise, “What?”
    “You heard me. He is dead and gone, the hatchlings have seen him.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Yes, there are two things to confirm it.”
    A pause.
    “Yes?”
    “The first is, of course they have seen his remains.”
    Another pause.
    “Yes? And what is the second?”
    She hesitated, then responded, “He had a vision of his death.”
    He tilted his head, and asked, “Who?”
    She looked at him with pained eyes.
    “Fenrier.”
    There was silence for a while as he took this in, then started slowly, “Are you saying…that Fenrier…is having visions? And not just visions, but he saw the death of the Old Tree as well?” There was a pause, then, “How is this possible? I’ve never even heard of anyone having visions, lest it be Rasinji, and she was always a little strange. But how does Fenrier have what only an Elder does? He isn’t related is he? I know that my bloodline does not intertwine with hers. Does your bloodline come from hers?”
    She stood for a moment before saying, “No, my siress, and her siress, and hers before that never could be linked to Rasinji. However, what I think is happening, is something that is passed on from one dragon in my family to another is finally on its way to him, and I suspect Tiamat will be aware of it as well very soon. This trait has existed in our blood since the times we came to this land of Yasta. I’m not sure with whom it began, but since it began, we have had the ability to, at times, see a future or a past or even a present in our dreams. Last night, Fenrier was growling in his sleep, and I was a little worried, but he seemed fine at the time. I thought I knew what it was, but I left him be.”
    They stood in silence for a short time, in which Tiamat squeaked as she attempted to get closer. The sound made Fenrier jump, as he had been listening in so intently to the conversation that he had nearly forgotten Tiamat’s presence. The sire and siress both looked back to see the tiny white dragon attempting to get closer, and chuckled deep in their throats. The siress beckoned to her hatchlings and Fenrier caught up with his sister as they went to sit with their parents. She pulled them a little closer to her belly, and nuzzled them.
    “I’m sorry for growling at you, I had to think,” she said softly, “I shouldn’t have sent you away like that, you had every right to hear what we had to say. It as much involves the both of you as much as it involves the Old Trees death. What you saw today, Fenrier was a vision of what happened in the forest, and I don’t doubt that it will be the last. If ever you have more dreams like that, let someone know so they can help you decipher them, and tell if it was true or not. Do you understand?” She asked him.
    “Yes siress.”
    “Now tell me all about your dream. I think it would be best we know how it happened so we can see if we can solve this dilemma, and pinpoint our problem.”
    As Fenrier recounted the dream, a strange feeling surrounded them, and all the rest of Erthrisa, as there seemed to be an obstruction and difference in Fate’s plans. Fenrier had not been meant to reveal it to anyone but his sister, and by unveiling it to his mother, has changed the very fabric of the cogs of Fate. Even it does not know what events will unfold from here on out…