TSB chapter 10
#10 of Trials of SirBlood
Dread awoke feeling weak and bruised.
Dam, being small and weak sucked. He already was smaller than Sirblood to begin with, and also weaker. He had a new outlook on life. Sirblood was right, life was different when you wheren't top dog.
Dread laughed at his condition, he felt hopeless. But it was kind of comfortable not having to deal with all the stress of command and being able to kick back, and well, just relax. Nod off this way, nod off that, no one here was going to court marshall him for doing anything.
Dread shook his head hard, was he breaking down? Keep your wits soldier! You are trapped by the ENEMY! Don't accept their way of life! Retreat and bring back reinforcements!
Dread sighed aloud, he couldn't do that if he wanted. Live life as it is now, he had no choice.
Dread yelled at himself for thinking that! They had no right to keep him here like this!
They could of killed him. But for some reason Sirblood had decided to spare him. He owed him this much to sit it out and learn.
No! The enemy had shown weakness! That meant he was weak! And unable to kill!
No! The look in Sirblood's eye was way more than enough to tell him that the dragon could kill. Crossing Sirblood would be ill advised.
Damit! Dread was torn between himself! Between the military side and the new side that had emerged due to the compasion that Sirblood had shown him.
No! This is wrong! Leave! This is nothing but an illusion! The enemy is playing tricks on you!
Sirblood is being sincere! Leave now and you violate his trust! He is the only one to ever be kind to you! He spared your life even though killing you would have been much easier!
He said he should of killed you!
He didn't! And he had the chance to TWICE!
Dread felt like his head was going to explode! The sides of his head fighting what he had recently come to know as life.
Use Cinder and Pyro! You can tempt them to help you!
No! You won't be able to! Sirblood's influence is too strong! He is right and the Fire Dragons are evil!
Even thinking that is horrible! You would betray your clan! Cast yourself into exile!
Exile would be better than what the Fire Dragons are doing!
Dread didn't really want to rape the Ice Dragoness to begin with. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Peer pressure and bad habit were the demons of that act.
He must apologize!
For what? Doing what you where told to do when you captured an enemy of the opposite sex!
Just because you where told it doesn't mean it's right!
With that final thought Dread realized that, maybe, just maybe, Sirblood was right. And then the military side of his mind fell to peices. What do you do when every thing you where told your entire life was a lie? A totaly unexcusable lie? One made to cause pain?
Dread cussed softly as all he knew shifted from as deeds looking as a spotless white good, to looking like a pitch black evil.
He curled into a ball and cried softly as his mind went blank, he was wrong. And now he knew that, he would never be able to go back. He just couldn't face them anymore! The new look on his former life made him cringe in disgust!
It's wrong, and now he knows. He had but one choice, put his full trust in Sirblood. There was no other way, he just couldn't look himself in the mirror if he kept living like he had. This is the end of his old self, and the start of something new, something better.
Dread uncurled from his ball with a new mission, one of hope, instead of one of pain. He strolled over to where Sirblood was sitting.
Sirblood looked on the tiny dragon with a smile. Sirblood noticed the change.
Dread looked up at Sirblood and tried to speak, only to be stopped by Sirblood who raised a paw to silence him.
"Tell her you are sorry yourself." Sirblood said calmly.
Dread looked at Sirblood in disbelief. Could he read minds? Or was the change that apparent?
Dread set out to find Opite.
He found Opite sitting by the side of a stream.
Opite sensed him and turned quickly knocking him down and pinning him.
Dread sighed, "I deserved that."
Opite looked on the changed dragon with new eyes. "What has made you say that? Did Sirblood threaten your life?"
"No, If anything, Sirblood has saved me." Dread sighed looking up into the eyes of the dragoness.
Opite released her grasp on Dread and moved over to sit down on the nearby bank. "Tell me then."
"I was wrong, and I realize that now. My life was a lie, and I don't want forgiveness for what I did. I just want to apologize for what I did. I know you will never trust me, and I don't ask that you ever will. I just want to say that I am sorry. And it is with a heavy heart that I ask you to forgive, but I don't ask that you give it lightly, or at all. I just wish for you to know that, I am sorry." Dread said not able to look Opite in the face.
Opite looked at new found dragon, and with a wave of her hand she removed his collar. Dread blinked heavily up at Opite in total shock.
"You aren't the dragon that raped me, at least you aren't anymore." Opite sighed, Sirblood really did know what he was doing.
Dread just fell back and sat there. So this was what it was like to be forgiven, even if he was free from capture before. But this was the first time he was truely free. He felt relaxed, like he could stay here forever.
"You can go Dread." Opite said even though she felt the name no longer suited him.
Dread sigh, he had to, well if apologizing felt this good he should apologize to Cinder and Pyro.
Opite smiled as the dragon got up and moved off. After making up her mind Opite followed.
Cinder was sitting over near Pyro talking to Finala. When of course, Dread aproached.
The group was silent as Dread aproached.
"What do you want?" Finala asked.
There was a colective gasp as Dread raised his head to show he no longer had the collar.
"How did you get out of it!?!" Cinder and Pyro roared getting up on their feet and standing at alert.
"To apologize." Dread said much to the surprise of the group.
"What?" Cinder asked.
"I am sorry for exiling the two of you." Dread said with a heavy sigh.
Pyro sighed kind of happy that he had been exiled now. Now more Fire Dragons, and he now had Finala. "Well, its an apology that you didn't have to make."
Dread tilted his head to the side at this. So he wasn't alone in thinking that this was better.
"But it's good to have you as a friend." Cinder said standing up not even noticing his collar fall off. He reached out and shook Dread's hand.
Friends? He really hadn't had friends before. He only had comrades, and that wasn't the same thing. Oh, so this was what it meant to be accepted.
Pyro smiled at the turn in events, and pulled his collar off. He held it in his hand and looked it over carefully, he sighed and put it down. Finala smiled and licked him across the muzzle.
Happy part eh?