FSE

Furry search engine

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Chapter Fifty Four

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Revaramek hit the water so fast he wasn't sure if Asterbury blasted him off the hill with his power or just hit him hard enough to knock him flying. He plunged into the black water with a tremendous splash, vanishing below the surface. Its thick warmth surrounded him, weighed against his wings. He clamped his jaws shut, flicked his flight membranes closed to try and protect his eyes, and struggled for the surface.

The more the struggled, the more he sunk. Revaramek had always liked to swim in the deep holes and rivers of the marsh. But that water wasn't toxic. This stuff could kill him with too much exposure. The dragon's heart thudded in his chest. His empty lungs burned from the panicked, thrashing exertion, desperate for a breath. His wings and pads tingled as if tiny claws and teeth were pricking him everywhere. His tail bumped something hard, and he pushed his hind paws down. One brushed something firm, the other sunk into mushy silt.

Swim.Don't panic. Swim.

In the back of his mind, he heard his mother's voice. A flash of memory in his mind. His mother, copper and green, curled around him, telling him what to do if he ever fell in the mire. The image was both familiar and unknown at the same time. It was as though he was recalling someone else's life, so close to being to his own. His own mother once gave him similar advice. Yet he was so young when he first left the swamp, he hardly recalled the specifics of his life there. Another flash came to him.

Swim. Don't panic. Swim.

The same phrase, remembered more clearly. He saw his mother again, lowering him into the clean water of the marsh, teaching him how to swim now that the water allowed it. Her copper scales growing duller even in the sun, but not yet as sickly-pale as they would be later. She'd...sacrificed everything to find him a place to grow up, a place to survive. And what had he done? He'd come back here to...

No.

No, he'd saved that world from something far worse.

Revaramek knew what he'd condemned himself too. But he'd be damned if he'd let himself drown in this gods-forsaken poison quagmire. Don't panic, he told himself. Just swim. He braced his hind paw against the stone, and pushed off of it, driving himself upwards. This water would kill him over time, but poisonous or not, his body was made to swim. Webbed paws front and back spread wide, pushing him through the water with every paddling stroke. He splayed his tail fan, snaking it back and forth, propelling himself towards the dim light in the distance.

The dragon broke the surface with wheezing gasp, and a choking cough. He swam back to the shore, still hacking. If he'd swallowed too much of that water he might not last long enough for Asterbury to kill him. Beads of black water clung to his pebbly scales as he crawled up the muddy bank and mossy hillside. He stank of bitter poison and mud left behind by things long dead and rotted.

Asterbury stood in exactly the same position he'd been in minutes earlier. As Revaramek shook himself off, the urd'thin just stared at him. His ears were slightly splayed, and embers burned in the roiling ink of his eyes. No breeze ruffled his fur or stirred his cape. Asterbury's hands hung limp. He hadn't even balled up his fists. If not for his slow, even breathing, Asterbury would have looked frozen in time. For some reason, that was even more frightening than all of his usual raging fury.

"If you're gonna kill me, may as well just do it." Revaramek stretched his wings, beating them against the air to fling away the last of the foul droplets. "Won't change anything, though. You're still stuck here."

Asterbury reached up and undid his cloak.

Aylaryl lowered her head, nudging the urd'thin with her muzzle. "What are you going to do?"

"Stand away, Aylaryl." Asterbury tossed the cloak aside.

"But Aster-"

"Stand. Away."

The purple dragon backed away from Asterbury one slow, nervous step at a time. She flicked her ears back, her silver-white eyes wide.

Revaramek took a few shaky steps towards the urd'thin. He knew what would happen to him here, after Asterbury realized he was stranded. But that didn't make facing it any easier. His paws all went cold, his wing tips were numb. The dragon's whole long throat was dry with a thirst no water could quench. His belly sank away, pooling somewhere in his hind paws. Death was frightening enough, but somehow he didn't think Asterbury was going to make it quick. At least he knew Mirelle and her village were safe.

"Whatever you do to me, I'll still be the hero." He arched his neck in pride, staring down at the urd'thin, defiant despite his terror. "I still saved the village."

"Is this what you wanted, Hero?" Asterbury spat the word like a mouthful of the poison that now surrounded them. "To be face to face with your arch nemesis? For you and me to have our climactic confrontation?" As Asterbury spoke, wind rushed in from all around them. It howled through the half-dead trees, an eerie sound like an entire choir of mournful spirits. "What was it you said to me yesterday?" The winds all reversed direction, and the sound changed, lower and trembling. "That you were going to kill me?" Gusts blew back towards them. The howling chorus rose, angrier. "Well now's your chance, Hero. No magic. No tricks. Just you and I, finishing this. Just like you wanted. But before we begin, listen..." He tilted his head back, swiveling his ears. "The world is singing."

All at once, a gale erupted, swirling all around them, a vortex with Asterbury at its core. The winds whistled through holes in stone, howled through cracks and crevices, shrieked through boughs. The world itself became an instrument for the wind, a spectral choir singing for Asterbury. The song rose and fell, swelled and grew, a thousand voices all filled with fury and sorrow.

"The world sings, Hero!" Asterbury spread his arms wide, tipped his head back, and howled at the churning clouds, another anguished voice added to the din. "It sings for me!"

Revaramek shivered, his scales clicking. Was this what it sounded like in Asterbury's head? At the far side of the hill, Aylaryl flattened her wings against her body, staring up at the trees with wide eyes and flared spines. All around them, the water pushed up against the shoreline, lapping and splashing. Further into the swamp, it churned and eddied, then surged together, roiling in a spiral around the hillside. The movement kicked up gray froth atop the dark water, and soon, they were in the eye of a squall, the center of writhing maelstrom.

A storm that sang for Asterbury.

While Asterbury savored the sound of an entire world bowing before his power, Revaramek sprang. With claws and teeth bared, he leapt at Asterbury, snapping for his throat. Last time he tried that, he'd caught the urd'thin off guard. But this time Asterbury barely seemed to acknowledge him. He stepped back, just out of reach, and met the dragon's muzzle with a fist. The impact struck Revaramek with such power it jerked his head sideways, forcing the rest of his body to follow. Revaramek stumbled to the side, tasting blood and seeing double. Pain throbbed in the dragon's muzzle. Blood dripped to the moss, and he saw several sharp, bloodied teeth strewn about.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Asterbury glanced at his fist. "Was I holding back to much? I shouldn't do that in our last battle, it's disrespectful."

Revaramek licked some the blood from his muzzle, but more of it welled up from where his teeth had been. "You're a real asshole."

"Yeah. I get that a lot."

The dragon wiped more blood with his paw, hissing. "Thought you said you weren't gonna use your magic."

"I'm not." Asterbury turned his hand over, staring at it. "The powers, the storm, the changes, I call upon that, but this?" He balled his hand back up into a fist again. "This is me. You should know well enough I'm not just some urd'thin, anymore. Long ago, in ages past, the story..." He put a hand his chest, over the emblem carved from bone. "My story. Bequeathed to me the strength of a great and glorious hero, that of our first chief. My ancestor. That I might protect his creations. The stories change, but I stay the same from tale to tale. I'm afraid this is as weak as I get."

Revaramek growled, blooding dripping from his jaws. "That's not really fair, is it?"

"I didn't say fair. I only said no magic, no tricks." Asterbury paced around the dragon, his inky gaze locked on Revaramek. There was no sign now of his usual twisted smile, no bad jokes, no cackling laughter. "If you truly wanted to kill me, I think you only ever had one chance." He gestured at the arm Revaramek had mangled days earlier. "You shoulda tried to kill me then, while I was temporarily crippled, instead of gloating to Mirelle."

The dragon shook his head, blood running down his jaws. "Would it have worked?" He matched Asterbury's pace, circling back around him.

"Probably not." Asterbury shrugged. "But you came as close as anyone in a long time. The body's mortal, as far as I can tell, but only by the thinnest margin. It bleeds, it breaks, but it's only ever temporary. Sometimes it feels like it's just a vessel for something greater. It'll heal itself if it's damaged too badly, faster even than I can consciously mend. You could snap my spine, and a moment later I'd be dancing a jig on your skull. Still..." He trailed off, gazing into the raging swamp beyond. "I may have died when I was young, in one existence or another." Asterbury stretched an arm, examining his runes and bracelets. "Truth is, I don't remember anymore. If I did die, seems I came back to life. You injured me more than anyone else in recent memory but-"

Revaramek charged him, lashing out with his forepaws in quick succession, claws whistling through the air, disrupting the wind's sorrowful symphony. Each blow was harder than the last, aimed for Asterbury's face, throat, chest, belly, his limbs. And each was batted aside by the urd'thin without so much as ruffling his fur. After the last blow, Asterbury moved in a blur and slammed his fist into the back of Revaramek's jaw, right into one of his fire glands. The pain left the dragon screaming, his legs wobbling. He struggled not to fall as he stumbled away.

The urd'thin went right back to his thought. "...All my memories are sort of mixed up, you know. Sometimes I get déjà vu, just like you do. I have this weird feeling that I've lived all of Vakaal's lives and all the lives of his father. I can never tell if it's all at once, or one after the other. Maybe it's not parallel, maybe the four stories are all a loop, and only me...well..." He gestured at himself. "Asterbury...finally broke the cycle. Or maybe The Storytellers broke it when they caught us..." His voice drifted, and his hands dropped. "I just...sometimes I don't know anymore. Sometimes I just wanna..." The song quieted just a little, and he turned away to stare at Aylaryl. "Rest." A smile crossed his muzzle while he gazed at her. He sighed, ears drooping. "Point is, for as long as I've called myself Asterbury, you're the only to ever give me a real challenge, to ever really harm me. So, you've got that to be proud of, Hero. In fact, you should-AWWFFFFHH!"

As soon as Asterbury seemed genuinely distracted, Revaramek slammed his broken-horned head into his back. Something crunched, and the force of the blow lifted Asterbury off his feet and tossed him through the air. Something else cracked when the urd'thin hit the earth and tumbled across the hillside like a limp doll. He rolled up against one of the broken walls encasing the former gate. Revaramek almost wished he'd used his fire, but he knew the urd'thin would hear the tell-tale sharp inhalation. Aylaryl screamed her friend's name, and Revaramek held a glimmer of hope that maybe he'd actually killed the little bastard.

His heart sank when instead, the urd'thin pushed himself to his feet. His body wobbled like a broken accordion, but already things were snapping back into place. Asterbury's form bent and twisted at odd angles, only to wind itself back into shape like some macabre puzzle. The urd'thin's muzzle scrunched and jaws clamped as he held back a scream. So the little monster wasn't lying about his body healing itself.

This time Revaramek didn't wait around to watch. Instead, he charged forward, sucking a breath. He roared, blasting every bit of fire at the urd'thin he could muster. Asterbury threw his hands out at the dragon. Fur singed away from his fingers, the skin beneath blistered and charred. But the world bent around him, and his fire split like light through a prism, diverting around the Asterbury.

Revaramek hurtled through the end of his own flames, trying ram his head into Asterbury again while he was busy diverting the fire. But the injured urd'thin ducked away, leaving Revaramek scrambling not to slam into the broken wall. As Asterbury dodged under him, he rammed a fist into the dragon's chest plates. Green scutes shattered. The impact thudded into the dragon's heart, stopping it for a beat or so, stunning him. Revaramek gasped, yet even then did not relent.

Twisting back around, Revaramek snatched Asterbury up in a foreleg, claws sinking into flesh. Still moving, he smashed Asterbury through the top of the stone wall. Bricks broke and tumbled across the hillside. Something new snapped inside the urd'thin just before he came loose from Revaramek's grasp. Revaramek was pleased to finally hear the little bastard scream. He stumbled back, grasping his chest in a forepaw.

Then the whole wall exploded, stone debris battering him. One struck him on the nose, splitting it, another cracked across his head, staggering him. Bright spots whirled in his vision as more broken stone bricks slammed into his body, cracking scales, bruising flesh. He staggered back, vision clearing just in time to see Asterbury dashing across the stony debris. Revaramek spat what fire he could at the charging urd'thin. He scorched fur but did not slow his enemy down at all.

Asterbury slammed blistered fists down against the crown of Revaramek's skull. The impact drove him to the earth, smashing his jaw against the ground. The rest of him followed as everything went dark and bleary. His body felt sluggish, as if it didn't want to respond to his commands. Something grabbed his horn, hauling his head up off the ground. He turned his head and snapped his jaws down, cutting flesh and crunching bone. Hot blood filled his mouth, tasting acrid and scorched. Again he heard Asterbury scream.

The dragon wrenched his head sideways, trying to tear Asterbury's arm clean off. Instead, Asterbury moved with the dragon, then pressed against his muzzle to get his other hand into Revaramek's maw. With fingers between his teeth, he pushed Revaramek's jaw down with unstoppable force. Afraid he'd break his jaw completely, Revaramek spat Asterbury's damaged arm free, lashing out with a forepaw at the same time to grab him around the ankle.

In a flash he hauled Asterbury off the ground, only to whip him right back down against the muddy earth. Not wanting Asterbury to have a chance to bend the world again, Revaramek jerked him back up by the same ankle, snapping it, then threw the gray-furred monster as far into the swamp as he could. Asterbury skipped across the surface of the water like a flat stone, then vanished into the darkness.

In the distance, Aylaryl shouted, sounding frightened. Though Revaramek wasn't sure he could actually kill Asterbury, it was nice to know he'd battered the little monster enough to put a scare into his minion. Or was she frightened for him? Maybe she was just worried he'd have to use more of his power to win than the world could handle. Revaramek panted, limping across the hill towards the water. Pain rolled from his chest down into his front legs, and from his head all the way down his neck. The water bubbled and roiled where Asterbury sank.

"Now we're even, you little shit!" Revaramek snarled at the swirling water. He panted heavily, hoping to catch his breath before the little rodent inevitably reemerged.

It did not take long. The choir of mournful winds picked up, the desolate notes rose higher, and Asterbury emerged from the water. First his ears, then his horns broke the surface, and the rest of him followed. Dark liquid slicked down his fur, soaked his vest and breeches, dripped onto the spire of mud-caked stone upon which he stood. The column rose until Asterbury was completely out of the mire. He took a deep, gasping breath, then stretched and tested his limbs.

Revaramek heaved a sigh and tossed his head. "That's just cheating."

"You're an impressive creature, I'll give you that." Asterbury strode towards the dragon. Stones rose to the surface and made a path beneath his feet. "It's almost as if the story fights back on your behalf. Helps you touch me where everyone else would just...miss. It'd be a lot more exciting if I wasn't furious about your betrayal."

The dragon snorted, pawing at the ground. His claws tore ruts through the muddy earth and trampled moss. "Not really a betrayal. You said yourself you we didn't have a deal. But I am pretty proud of myself for trapping you here and saving the village. Holding my own in a brawl with a god does make me feel pretty good, though."

"Is that what you think I am?" Asterbury tilted his head, a hint of a smile creeping over his wet muzzle. "A god?"

"Dunno." Revaramek shrugged. "You said something earlier that made me think you must have known about where the storytellers got their name. Where you came from."

Asterbury's ear twitched. A ghost flickered in his eyes, something haunted and sad. "So you know that too?"

"Jekk told me everything."

"Including what they-"

"They ruined it, I know. Tortured you and father. Left the rest of your people to die." Revaramek glanced away, his whole head throbbing as if Asterbury was still punching it. "Think you cracked my skull." He let out a long sigh. "You and...all your people, all the versions of you they tortured, all the tribes they left to die without their shapers to keep them safe...you had every right to want revenge. But...Jekk didn't do it. He was just a stupid kid. I suspect everyone you wanted revenge on has already fallen by your hand, or died old and bitter long ago. Now you're just..." Revaramek shook his head, waving a paw. "Taking it out on innocent people. You almost saw that, I think. Almost found reason to stop. But you couldn't, and so..." He set his paw back down, gazing at the urd'thin. "I saved those innocent people the only way I could. And so here we are. I dunno what you are. God, demi-god, creation of the divine...hell, maybe you are The Storyteller. Doesn't matter. You're trapped here either way. Might be able to blast yourself out if you get angry enough, end up in another random world. but then you'd lose Aylaryl. That uncontrolled gate would kill her. And we both know you wouldn't do that. So now you're just...god of the swamp."

"God of the swamp, indeed." Asterbury walked towards the dragon. The choir-winds faded a little. "Do you know why he chose urd'thin?" He waved a hand across himself. His fur all dried in an instant. "Why The Storyteller made us urd'thin?"

Revaramek stood his ground, lowering his head to glare into Asterbury's eyes. "You say that like you know."

"A theory, if you will." Asterbury ran his fingers through the fur of his chest. "I've been to a lot of worlds, some of which aren't even in that codex. And most of them have urd'thin. Like me." He ran both hands over his big ears, glancing at Aylaryl. "Most of them have dragons. And gryphons, and va'chaak, the koraa'gi wolf people. Most of them have humans, and others too. And everywhere I go, someone's stepping on the urd'thin. They think we're vermin, scavengers. They conquer our villages and build cities over our nations. They drive us into their swamps, into their sewers, into thievery. Into scavenging. And then they look down on us. We're like the stories, where there's always some wicked little race, goblins, kobolds, whatever your world calls them. They're always looked down on, shunted to the side, kicked around. They're reduced to doing terrible things, just to survive. And then what? Then they're seen only as dangerous vermin, as filthy little scavengers. The day I finally realized that was our lot in life, in every story...that was the day I took my new name. Cut it out of a noble, in a city built atop our stolen nation. But do you know what we are? What urd'thin are, as a people?"

Revaramek tilted his head. He'd heard some of those stories. "You're survivors."

Asterbury brightened, his ears perked. A hint of his usual twisted yet charismatic joy bubbled up. "That's right! We're survivors. We're a very adaptable people who can live almost anywhere, do whatever it takes to survive. But despite that, in every world, somehow we end up downtrodden. I think The Storyteller saw that. Saw a chance to take the people everyone else spat upon, and pull them out of their sewers and slums and their oppressed villages. He saw a chance to make urd'thin special. For...maybe the first time in our history as a species." He splayed his ears back, sighing. "The men in robes didn't just...ruin my tribe, they...they ruined this special place, set aside just for us. Our chance to be pure. To be beautiful. They stole it from us. Now I'm all that's left. I was meant to spread life itself...and instead..." He lifted a hand, clasping the rune across his heart.

"Death." Revaramek swallowed, then glanced around. Colossal trees, slowly dying, towered all around them. "You're in the right place, at least."

"So I am." Asterbury looked up at the dragon, fury returning to his eyes. "Thanks to you."

Revaramek tensed himself, cocking his head. "Are we gonna fight again or are you just gonna-"

Asterbury's assault came as a blast of concussive force that hit the dragon out of nowhere. It slammed into him like a fist the size of a tower, cracking bones and sending him tumbling over the ground. Crying out, he tried to tuck his wings to keep them safe. Something still snapped, sending new bolts of agony shooting down his wing and into his shoulder. He rolled to a stop, struggled to his feet just in time to see Asterbury hurtling towards him, now wreathed in crackling, blue-white lightning.

The dragon spat fire at his attacker, but Asterbury was already up underneath him. This time the urd'thin slammed both fists into the dragon's chest, hard enough to flip him up into the air, over his tail and onto his back. Before he even had time to worry about whether that shooting pain in his chest was a broken sternum, he landed on one of his wings. It broke beneath him and Revaramek screamed, a ragged, guttural sound of agony.

Revaramek forced himself to try and get back to his feet. He staggered to the side, limping. Hot pain reverberated through the dragon's chest with every panted breath. Before he'd even gotten his balance, one of the only remaining walls surrounding the gate chamber detached from the ground. Revaramek turned his head away just before the entire wall hammered into his body. Stone shattered against his shoulder, ribs broke beneath it, and Revaramek collapsed.

Blood coated his tongue when Revaramek coughed. He tried to rise, but one of his forelegs just wouldn't cooperate any more. He managed to turn his neck, only to see both a front leg and a wing hanging at unnatural, twisted angles. Aylaryl yelled something in the distance. He wasn't sure if she was telling Asterbury to finish him off, or begging him to show mercy. With a long, pained groan, Revaramek laid head down, forcing himself to keep breathing despite the anguish each breath brought him.

"How's your heroism feel now?" Asterbury strode around in front of him, his arms folded.

Despite himself, Revaramek laughed. It sent stabs of sharp pain deep into his body, but the laughter kept coming till he finally managed to find words. "Feels like...victory."

"Well, at least you're facing the end with dignity and defiance, hmm?" Asterbury put a boot on the dragon's head.

"Doesn't matter. M'a'hero now." Some of the words were hard to form. His jaws were swollen already. "Meerrelle's safe. Town's safe. You lost."

"So I did." Asterbury leaned forward, grabbing the dragon's remaining horn. "And all it cost you was your life, sent back to die in the swamp." With his free hand, he pressed a single finger to the base of the dragon's horn. Blue sparks blinded him, fresh pain burned across his head, the living horn cut away and cauterized at the same time. Asterbury pulled the horn away, its edges molten where he'd sliced it from the dragon's head. He shook it at the dragon. "I'm keeping this. It's sad, really. Your mother sacrificed everything to get you out of this swamp, and all you did was bring yourself back here."

"My mother..." Revaramek put effort into every word, wanting them to ring clearly in Asterbury's ears. "Was a hero. I..._was a hero. I'm...happy to die here...to make her proud. To save...all those lives. Do you think..._your father...would be so proud of you now, Vakaal?"

Asterbury froze. "I told you not to call me that."

Revaramek snorted, and somehow, found another laugh with himself. "Whoops."

"I'm gonna drown you in this swamp." Asterbury stepped away from the dragon, hooking the horn into his belt, near his stolen dagger. "Aylaryl. Fly."

"But, you don't have to-"

Asterbury lifted his hands over his head. "Now, Aylaryl. While you can."

The waters all around the hill burbled, rising in a foamy wall. Asterbury thrust his palms out to either side, and all the water swept away from the hill where the gate once stood. The swiftly receding water left ancient shoreline exposed. Wet silt and thick mud covered ruins unseen for countless years. The swamp bed sloped away. Gnarled roots of strange, towering trees covered the bottom in tangled clumps. Bizarre aquatic creatures floundered in the mud and amidst the roots as the black water built itself into walls. A black tsunami rose in all directions around them.

"Asterbury, you don't have to kill-"

"Aylaryl, I don't want to have to rescue you from the swamp! Take to your damn wings!"

"He helped you save me!"

"Only so I wouldn't take it out on his precious town!" Asterbury lifted his hands higher. The raising water changed the sound of the wind's choir, higher and higher. "Tell you what...if he's lucky, the swamp will-"

"No!" Aylaryl bound towards him, snarling. "You've already beaten him, you don't have to end him this way!"

"Fly, Alyaryl!"

"I will not! I won't let you-AAAAAHH!" Aylaryl shrieked in surprise as Asterbury grasped her with his power, and hurled her high up into the air.

"Sorry, Aylaryl, but I won't let you drown yourself with him!" The urd'thin peered down at the broken dragon. "It's a shame you and I weren't born into the same story, at the same time. We might have been friends." He leaned forward to the dragon, dropping his hands. In the distance, the sound of crashing water swelled and grew. "I wonder, do you think they'll ever remember your sacrifice?"

"I didn't do it to be remembered. I did it because I gave my word."

"So you did." Asterbury straightened up. "Better take a deep breath, Hero." Then Asterbury was gone, leaping into the air after Aylaryl.

Even though the water was coming, even though he saw death approaching, Revaramek was not about to let Asterbury get the last word. If he was to die, then he would die a hero. He knew, in his heart, he had saved that village. He knew, in his heart, his mother would be proud. And he knew, in his heart, that he had beaten Asterbury. Let the poor, broken monster rot here for all eternity, he'd brought it on himself.

Revaramek took a deep, agonizing breath as black water crashed down across the hill. He did not use his last lungful of air to try and survive the un-survivable. He used it to get the last word.

"Enjoy your swamp, Vakaal!"

And then the churning darkness consumed him.

*****

The water hit Revaramek so hard that any breath he might have had left in his lungs would have been crushed out of him anyway. The impact twisted him, wrenched his broken body around in ways that sent sharp new agony coursing through his damaged bones and furious nerves. He wanted to scream as he tumbled through poison, but had no air left with which to give voice to his pain.

Instinct bade him clamp his jaws shut and close his flight membranes even as there seemed no hope of survival. Revaramek would fight to survive to the very last heartbeat, if only to defy Asterbury one last time. He tried to fight the unstoppable currents that spun him every which way. If he hadn't had so many broken bones, he might have been able to swim. His webbed paws and finned tail were made for this, but as ruined as his body was, there was little Revaramek could do but flail in a vain attempt to break the surface.

His haunch slammed against something hard, a tree trunk, maybe. Something cracked in his hip, and it took every conscious fiber he had not to scream. Tthe currents spun him around the tree, and pushed him onwards. He struck something else in his midsection, bent around it, and then tumbled on through the raging tide of black water.

The dragon's lungs burned, and his chest throbbed in new, and far more horrifying ways. Before long, his body would try to breathe, and then it would be all over. Still he fought. Gods, he hoped the poison didn't burn him inside before it drowned him. His head swam, his thoughts wandered. Some of his terror ebbed away, and in a strange, detached way, he wondered if he was already drowning.

Somewhere deep inside him, Revaramek felt warmth. That strange little ember he'd called upon to help save Aylaryl. It was still there. If anything...it felt warmer now, a spark that had grown into a tiny flame. It was as if being back in the world where he'd hatched had drawn a little more of that dormant power out. He tried to reach for it...only to realize he was literally pawing at the water. That wasn't going to work. He smashed up against something hard, and sharp. It cut into him, the toxic water stung his fresh wound. Blood drifted through the darkness.

Any second now, he'd take that first, and last, gulp of poison.

But he didn't want to drown. This...wasn't how his story was meant to end.

Revaramek the Resplendent...hero of the marsh...was not meant to drown in poison.

The little flame grew.

With the last of his conscious thought, Revaramek seized at the flame, imagined himself breathing life into it, coaxing it to grow. To let its fire burn away this poisoned vellum, and cast light upon a new page.

Revaramek...

Did...

Not...

Drown.

Something brushed his scales, a coiled and alien thing. Tendrils, tentacles, vines and thorns, things he could hardly fathom in his half-conscious state. They twined around his broken body, clutched at his shattered limbs, crawling across him. More of them grasped at his muzzle, held it shut, others curled against his nostrils, squeezing them closed. His body jerked and seized, struggled to gasp and gag, instinctively battling to breathe. Yet, even if it could, all that would enter his lungs now was poisoned water.

Whatever held him in its spiraling grasp pulled him, moved him, shifted him against the currents. Darkness closed in on what was left of his vision. Any second now, his heart, pumping furiously and yet deprived of oxygen would give out. In the back of his barely conscious mind, Revaramek thought it a shame that Mirelle wasn't here to stomp him back to life this time.

Revaramek tried to scream when something suddenly squeezed his broken ribs. There was no air in his lungs, and so he was forced to take a ragged gulp of air, only to give it all away in an anguished howl. He gasped again, and for the first time realized it was air he was breathing. He found himself floating atop the sloshing black water, with strange, spined tendrils holding his head up in the air. More such tendrils anchored him in place even as the surging currents struggled to carry him away. He must have lost consciousness before he even broke the surface. Now that he was awake and breathing, the grip around his midsection slackened a little.

Vines and unseen tentacles curled around his tail, his hind legs. He offered no resistance as something pulled him up against the trunk of one of the massive trees. Then more things below the water grasped at him, easing him around the tree, holding him steady as the currents changed, and the waters began to recede.

As the water dropped, he caught glimpses of large, bulbous creatures beneath the surface. Whatever they were, some of the tentacles belonged to them. Others coiled around ancient trees, or stretched from deeper in the water. They passed him off across the surface, from one to another. Only when the flood had diminished, did they ease him back to shore. He felt muddy earth and solid stones beneath his paws, but lacked the strength to crawl away from the water. Thorny vines dragged him further from the water's edge. Then they slowly withdrew towards the pale-skinned, tentacled monstrosity at the water's edge. It shifted away, submerging, water displaced around it.

Revaramek lay with his head in the mud, panting. His vision dimmed, and consciousness slipped away again.

When next he opened his eyes, it was getting dark out. He hadn't moved. Pain throbbed in every part of his body. His heart sank. Somehow, he'd survived Asterbury's flood, but if he was too injured to hunt, he'd starve. Hell, if he couldn't fly, he couldn't seek out the sources of clean water to drink. He'd die of thirst long before anything else.

"Well, look at you, Hero."

Oh, Gods-damn it.

Asterbury's voice didn't frighten him. It just grated on his raw nerves.

"Still breathing, somehow."

Revaramek wished he had the energy left to tell Asterbury to nuzzle his ass. Instead, all he managed was an incomprehensible groan.

"You know, from above, it looked as if the swamp itself was trying to save you." Asterbury's boots squelched in mud, but Revaramek lacked the strength even to turn his head to watch the little bastard. "It made me wonder if that was your spark, or if this world's just glad to have you back. Maybe you aren't meant to die here after all. Maybe you still have a story to tell, here."

Revaramek took a few deep, agonizing breaths, trying to steady himself long enough to spit out a few words. "Can't you...just let me...die in peace?"

"You mean you don't want to spend your last moments having a friendly chat with your old pal Asterbury?"

Oh, Gods. He was cheerful again.

"Think I...like you better...when you're mad. Cause ya...know when to shut up."

"Indeed. Speaking of liking me better, you should be proud of me. I'm learning to manage my anger, use my powers more efficiently for Aylaryl's sake. Why, if I keep this up, I'll be able to do anything I like."

Revaramek couldn't help himself. "Except...leave the swamp."

"Right. Except that." Asterbury strode back into view. Flickering blue light erupted above Revaramek as Asterbury brought lightning into being above his head. "Which is why I came back."

"Just shut up and do it, Vakaal."

Asterbury snorted. He lifted his hands up over his head, cradling a small but roiling sphere of angry, crackling indigo bolts. They twisted across his fingers, ran down his arms, coiling across him. He pushed his hands closer together, tightening up the sphere. The light brightened till it hurt Revaramek's eyes. He squeezed them shut, and took a breath.

"Goodbye, Revaramek."

Asterbury smashed the lightning sphere down against the dragon's head, and searing, electric agony tore through every fiber of his being. Revaramek screamed, his body convulsed, and as broken limbs twisted into form, the pain became too great. Blue light filled his vision, only to be overwhelmed by darkness and silence.

At last, he fell into peace.