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The distant sound of thunder rolled down the carved mine shafts and bounced against the pale limestone so that it seemed as if the very mountain was growling its displeasure with the world. Alaine only knew it was the sound of thunder because he was still locked within the miserable kennel that they kept him in when he wasn't use and the fact that his wings had started to ache so badly that he wanted to keen. The rains had come again to halt the stilted progress of the miners who worked to free gems from deep within the heart of the earth. Soon the floods would start and the mine shaft would be buried under several feet of water. It would come in a cold black torrent that would fill his kennel until he was forced to sleep standing on all fours like a horse, or else drown.

Drowning might not be so bad... Alaine turned his head with a grate of metal as the spiked muzzle added another furrow to the soft limestone at his paws. No, drowning might not be so bad, but his treacherous body refused to die no matter how badly he longed for it come.

He shifted and tried to move his stunted wings to relieve that burning ache that stabbed his bones and only hissed in pain before settling them back down again. He stared at his own forelegs with despair as the scales had started to flake off again. The flat black scales were edged with a white fringe and so soft that a whip could strike and cut them if it landed right. His scales should have been the color of one of the jewels he hauled from the mine and hard enough to stop a spear from doing more than bruise him, but they were a far cry from that. He wasn't sure what color they were supposed to be, nor was he positive he would ever see them be healthy. Healthy scale required a good diet, air and sunlight. Healthy scale required freedom and the winds fluttering beneath his wings as he soared over the earth. None of which he had ever possessed and none of which he would ever possess.

Alaine blew out a sigh and stared at the flickering flames outside of his cage and tried to find a comfortable position in the cramped quarters. He was a dragon, he was one of the blessed of the Goddess Aratha to touch the sky, but no matter how he prayed to her or called her name he was denied his birthright. Sometimes he entertained the idea that she could not hear him below the earth and she might answer if only he would be allowed near the surface, but times like now, when the despair was bleak and overpowering, he wondered if his pleas went unanswered because she could not see him. She was a dragon herself, made of the moon and sun, what business would she have with a creature like himself?

Or perhaps she died with the rest of my kind.. The drake closed his pale eyes and felt his spirit tremble at that thought.

He had been little more than a hatchling when the world had changed, but he could remember it with a bitter longing that left him feeling sick. He had had clutchmates and a father and a mother who had crooned over them and sang the old songs in voices that had sounded like waves hitting the sand. Then THEY had come. The elves with their cruel ways and weapons. They had come to the island speaking of peace and prosperity between their peoples as they wanted a land to live on. The dragons had been generous for their island was large and they preferred the skies and high mountains and trees, there was little reason to send away the elves who offered sweet gifts of cattle and sheep as a peace offering in exchange for the land.

Alaine winced as he barely recalled the events, but he knew what happened, everyone did. The elves bragged of it. The sheep and cows continued as offerings, but only for as long as it took for them to create a stronghold and then they animals were drugged. It was a slaughter the likes of which no one could have imagined from creatures so small. The ones that hadn't been killed outright were hunted down and driven from the island if they were smart. But he, and others like him, had not yet learned to fly and the elves found a use for them. He had been snatched with his clutchmates by the flat faced elves and thrown into a pen with so many others who had balled and squealed for their dead parents. They hadn't even tried to speak with them. The elves had treated them like animals and ensured they would never inherit their birthright.

The drake's wings twitched in the white hot memory of his wings being spread and a blow from a mallet used to break the upper and lower wing arms. The pain had been overwhelming and he had heard others shrieking out as they had been crippled. They had been thrown back into the pen without any care given to their broken wings or even some relief of the pain. That had started his hellish nightmare where he was used to drag the heavy carts in the mine for as long as his aching body would allow him. His keepers gave him the same care they would give any mine beast. He was fed, given a place to rest, and other then that ignored. The elves had no use for him except that he keep working and those that didn't or tried to balk at what was asked were killed.

So many killed. He hadn't known the other dragons, they were all penned separately and kept away from each other even when working, but he had mourned their deaths. He had no idea how many still remained, only that he knew that most had died or been executed. The last one had killed an elf, an event that had given him heart until they had come with a foul muzzle to strap onto his head so he couldn't use his teeth ever again. He could barely suck up the chopped blood and meat that they gave him as food. It was only a waiting game until death came for him and took him away on the sweetest of wings. He had no idea how old he was or how long he'd been here, all he knew was the steady press of days.

Alaine rolled his eyes up and stared at the ceiling of the mine and tried to imagine a world where he could see the sky. He could still remember it, large and spread out above him in brilliant sapphires, azure, purple, red, pink, endless black and deepest grey. All the moods of the skies that had spilled overhead when he had gazed at his parents with perfect love and trust came to his mind as he tried to will the stone away.

_Wise Aratha, why are you silent? Are you dead and gone with all of my people or do your eyes slide away from the wreck that I am? _ The drake heard the soft roll of distant thunder as he murmured the words and dropped his eyes back to the ground.

He could wish his death all he wanted, but it would not come, not yet. His body wouldn't die, not even when he longed for it. He didn't survive on the slop they gave him to eat nor the 'care' they gave him to ensure he could still work. He lived on a deep seething rage that formed deep within his spirit. A dark pit that could swallow the world if only he could offer it freedom. As he felt the muzzle wearing a sore along the edge of his jaw he added to that wrath, he fed it on more humiliation on top of a thousand and the black pit swallowed it eagerly.

~ ~ * ~ ~

"MOVE ON THERE! HYAH!!!" The crack of the whip hit Alaine's back with a blow that made his soft scales shudder as he threw his weight into the heavy collar.

His blunted claws scraped against the rock as he hauled his load up the tunnel with the elves pulling against the muzzle to force him forward. He narrowed his eyes and refused to look at them, refused to acknowledge them any more then he had to. A cold knot of rage lapped at his mind as he stepped forward again and again with his tail awkwardly held up so that it didn't catch beneath the wheels of the cart. The harness strained over his weak malnourished scales as he blew out a breath and tried to haul to too heavy burden higher up along the path that led to the dumping grounds. It was the highest point he could get to in the mines, the rest of it was sealed to him and his kind.

He was herded by seven elves, though he didn't recognize any of them, their faces changed often in the mines as if they were on constant rotation. It took seven of them to get him into a harness and supposedly it was to keep him in line. It was a goad to have creatures that barely came up to his shoulders pushing and driving him forward with sharp whips and hooked prods that could stick beneath his scales and yank outwards to tear them. They had any number of painful ways to ensure that he obeyed them, but he had been here long enough that he rarely required them. He knew to avoid them where he could and when he could. He could remember a time that he had possessed pride and fought them or tried to ignore what they'd done. His pride had been sacrificed long ago, it had been eaten and destroyed in the anger that seethed beneath the surface.

"Lazy beast." One of the elves slapped his haunch as the cart slowly creaked behind him and he suppressed the urge to snarl and snap at him.

He had been trained out of such behavior long ago. He was muzzled, he could not more bite them then he could take to wing to evade them. He couldn't even speak to them. He knew their language, he had listened, he had learned with all the bright intelligence of youth as they talked above his head and among themselves. Once upon a time he had even tried to speak it, but the words were anathema here for a dragon. He was an animal, and they refused to even allow him the right of speech. He lunged forward as he heard the man behind him make a jest about adding to his stripes. His lips curled back over his fangs as he lunged forward and took the last few steps towards the level portion of the mine where the rocks would be left for the mules that came down.

They weren't there now, they came during the day, or perhaps night, or whenever he was allowed to sleep. The beasts wouldn't tolerate the scent of dragons. He stumbled over the level ground and dropped his head panting while his wings tried to droop down. The angle was all wrong, his badly healed bones protested being drooped towards the ground so he had to half spread them to his sides so he could try to catch his breath. His tongue lolled out of his parted jaws as he sucked in air, unable to spread them like he used to because of the muzzle. He had never thought he would wish for things to go back to the hell they used to be, but the damned elves always came up with new ways to torment him.

"This is the last load. This shaft is mined out, we haven't had site of a vein for some time and barely enough to make it worth our time working." One of the elves, the one with dark red hair that fell to his ankles in a braid moved to one side as the handlers began to unhook the cart.

"It should have happened decades ago. But, most of the mines I worked at before were ones that had already been in operation for a long time or been picked over. These lands are the richest we've ever found. The opals alone have offered a kings ransom in the old country." One of the others spoke up and Alaine blocked them out as the traces fell slack and he was allowed to go to the water trough.

"If we sold them. They're moving the dragons to the eastern side of the mountain face tomorrow to start digging out new pits. A pity that they don't have the talons the old ones had, they would have been useful." The redhaired one gave him an appraising look and the drake fought to keep from jerking his head up. Being moved? "They want more opals to send to the front."

He dropped his head down and shoved his muzzle into the tepid water before sucking in a great draw of it. He kept his ears relaxed against his head so he couldn't be accused of showing interest in his 'masters', but they were keen enough to listen in on what was being said. The spread of the flat limestone wasn't made for whispered conversations and voices tended to echo, even the voices of the elves who had high pitched piping sounds. He needed to hear more about the move and what was to happen!

"A loss for all of us that they would give them to foot soldiers, some of them are perfect and larger then any that we've found before and what is done? Broken up and tossed to soldiers." Another of the elves replied, but Alaine wasn't listening.

He had heard the talk before, the elves often bemoaned the loss of the opals, though never the other jewels. Sapphires, rubies, emeralds, those were sent off without a single word, but the opals they coveted. He wasn't sure why, but they were prized above all else and the fact that they were given to soldiers nearly enraged them. As best that he could tell the elves had some special use for them that was supposed to be reserved for those that had noble blood or perhaps they simply enjoyed the look of them. He had no use for them, nor could he recall anything from his short memories of his kind that told him that dragons would have craved them.

Moved, he was to be moved with the rest of the dragons. He knew of no tunnels down here that led to other parts of the mountain, they were all connected in a honey comb as they were chipped out and jewels removed. That would mean he and the others would be taken out to the outside world, beneath the spread of the sky and Aratha Herself. They would be out from beneath the mountain and beneath the sun or stars or even clouds. The thought made something stir in his breast as he lifted his head up to swallow the last of his water. It was a disturbing sensation as he gave himself a shake to try and settle the hard leather straps over his haunches more comfortably.

_Has it been so long since I had hope? _ He wondered to himself and allowed one of the elves to turn his head around.

~ ~ * ~ ~

The days melded together. He slept, he woke and felt hope that he would be taken out of this cruel place, but each day he was set to work and never offered any tantalizing hint as to when they would be allowed to leave the damned place. At first he had dismissed it as the elves procrastinating such a move, after all, they had never dared it before and what were the chances that they would actually do it now? He tested the air each day and strained to taste the change in the air and even strained to watch the few other dragons who worked. Did they know more? Could he ask them? He often entertained the idea of breaking his bonds to ask the question that trembled on his tongue, but there was no hope in that. He knew no other tongue but that of the elves and if he spoke and asked such a question, he would be deemed useless and he would meet his end as so many others had before him.

It was a chore to remain patient and watchful, but he managed to keep himself under control as he worked the heavy loads of rock. Each day the discontent among his 'masters' was a palpable one as he hauled up great rocks, but none of the lighter loads of gems that he was used to. At another point he would have despaired at being forced to haul such heavy loads with no relief day after day, but it was only another hope that they had lost track of any veins that would allow them to take out any sizable loads of the gems they so craved. Every load was another reason they should look elsewhere and another chance he might have of seeing the sky he dreamed of so often. A chance for the goddess to look down and see that her children still lived in need of her. He wasn't sure how many days passed before he finally heard the clattering of heavy chains and people began filter through the tunnels.

"Grab Snatcher, Boulder and Black. I'll help the other team with Mock and Duck." A large elf, heavy by his kinds standards, barked out orders as he came down the line of kennels that had once been full.

Alaine lifted his head as they called out his 'name'. He had a name, one he clung to as much as he could, but they either never knew it or didn't care if possessed one. Instead they called him Black. The same sort of names that they gave the donkeys and mules that worked in the mines, but today he did not care. The overseer, Lonan, came with men bearing heavy chains that took several people to hold up at a time and great manacles meant to go around a dragon's neck. He fought not to look eager as they spread through the corridor and he heard the rumbles and hisses of other dragons along the line. The chains gleamed silver in the light as Lonan came and unlatched the door with a heave that set the bars rattling.

"Get it out and moving! I want this done now!" The overseer glared in at him and the drake stopped himself from hissing.

Instead, he held still as the group filtered into his kennel and started to fling chains up and over him as if he were some sort of easy going cow. Another one held a heavy looking bucket that sloshed thick red blood over the edges and boasted several fist sized chunks of meat instead of the regular slurry. The drake nearly quivered as two elves clambered onto his back and yanked his head back using the muzzle so it was forced down towards his chest and away from any chance to swing it at them to use as a weapon. It made his skin crawl to have them touching him, but he held still and pretended to be as meek as the beast of burden they treated him as. He barely growled when the heavy collar was pushed up and over his neck and clapped down with a ringing sound.

If he misbehaved, if he showed himself aggressive or troublesome, they might not move him. They might just put a sword through his head and call it a day's work. To be out of this stinking kennel, even to be shoved into another one, would be better then to stay here. Any change would be better and any change meant there might be the smallest possibility of escape. So he allowed them to wrap the chains over his tattered wings and hooked the ends up beneath his muzzle so that his head was held at an awkward angle that made his neck ache. It was a suffering that he was willing to deal with and nearly embraced as they elves hooked leads onto him and the one with the bucked shoved a few hunks of meat into the metal of his muzzle.

Alaine used his tongue to scoop up the cold hunks of food, but it was better then he'd had in a while. He supposed they were willing to bribe them in the hopes that they wouldn't cause a fuss or fight during the move and that worked just fine with him. He tilted his head back against the chains to swallow the meat as he heard the rest of his miserable kind snarling and snapping irritably. Did they not know what was happening? How could they not understand that today they would see the SKY?! It was a day that they should have all been waiting for, hoping for. One that stirred past the anger he felt at his captors and coaxed him into a feeling as close to happiness as he had ever come to.

The drake found out why his kind had snapped and snarled as they were hauled up the higher tunnels and towards the freshest scent of air he had ever tasted. His joy at seeing the first slice of star spangled sky was lost as he got his first close look at his fellows that he had managed in so many years. Their dull scales and broken wings were pitiful, but it was the blank look in their eyes that stole his joy at seeing the upper world again. They didn't look like dragons that raged against their captors or understood the joy of the sky above them, their eyes did not reflect anything but exhaustion and confusion as they were tugged by their handlers out of the mineshaft and into the night air.

It was disturbing enough that Alaine barely fought as the sharp tools jabbed at him and hooked against his scales. They yanked and pulled roughly so that he was forced to turn around the opening and push his shoulder against the rock. Only one looked as if he were sensible. A small fellow with stunted horns and one angry looking eye. He was goaded and had twice the number of handlers on him and he fought every inch. He snarled and snapped as they pushed and whipped him and forced him up behind the last of them, while he was forced to take the lead. He longed to fall back to see the one who had held out against the injustices that had been done to him, but the elves refused to even allow him that. When he slowed the lash cracked against his rump and he was guided towards a carved out rough looking road.

They couldn't even walk in the middle of it, they were forced to walk with their soft scales scraping against the hard edge of the mountain. His scales tore as he tried to tilt his head up to see the sky he had dreamt of for so long. The sky he remembered of his youth. The sky who had been his only dream, his only happiness, his only hope for so terribly long. He tried to see the moon, Aratha's evening face, but the sky was only spread with the glitter of her scales as the stars twinkled down at him. The sky wasn't black as he recalled it, but blue and black and brilliant shades in between where the stars flashed and cast their light oh so sweetly. It was everything he had dreamed. Everything he had wished and hoped for, and so close to him he felt as if he could reach out and touch it if only his chains were loose.

He cast a wary glance to the side of the road which was a sheer drop off into what sounded like the ocean. He could hear the crash of the waves and scented the salt water on the air. There wasn't even a token fence that might have warned someone away from it, only the elves goading him ahead kept him away from the edge of the cliff where he might tumble into the water. Not that his handlers would have tolerated such waste, they would have driven him back if he'd even tried to walk in the middle of the road instead of pressed against the cliff face.

"Keep them against the wall! Beasts only have two choices, ahead or the ocean, and be damned if I'm going to lose one now." Lanon barked out from ahead of them and his chains were tugged as he walked and his view of the sky taken away.

Two choices. There weren't just two choices! He should have been able to spread his wings to the winds and cast himself up into the sky so he could leave the puny wingless ones behind where they could founder and cry helplessly. He flicked his wings out and tried to raise them up while his nostrils flared with the taste of salt and wind wrapping around him. Freedom was the sky. Freedom was flight. He lifted his wings up higher and ignored the stabbing goad that was shoved against his haunches. Why was he standing here when he could feel the touch of Aratha calling for him to claim back what was his own? He snarled at his handlers and heard the snarl picked up behind him as he whipped his wings back and instinctively shifted his weight towards his haunches for that all important leap that would send him soaring through the air.

The elves scattered around him as he struggled to yank his muzzled head up away from the hated collar so he could better see the entrancing spread of the stars. He could imagine them singing to him in the same sweet voices that his parents had once offered him. The rush of the waves that hit against the cliffs echoed in his ears as he drew in a deep breath. The scent of the night filled his senses and nearly left him dizzy, he didn't know what half of them meant, but he would find out He could find out. He'd leave them all behind, find a mountain to call his own and be rid of the stinking elves that had destroyed his life. His wings raised up their full length and pain crippled him and caused the drake to shriek out as bone grated on bone.

His broken useless wing crumbled to his left before the right followed suite as they bones refused to line up properly to allow him to truly use them. He heard the elves yelling at him and felt the chains being yanked harder as pain thrummed along his back. For one glorious moment he had allowed himself to forget that he had been crippled, forget that the sky was not his by right any longer. He tilted his head and stared up at stars he would never see close up, never touch and dance among them, never call out to his mate as they darted along the wind. The sky was a place that would always be closed to him. He tried to flex his wings, but they refused to close as the bones wouldn't line up the right way and his handlers forced him to keep moving. This wasn't what he was. This isn't what he was born to be. Some trapped beast caught in a half life and trapped to the earth by creatures a fifth his size.

Aratha, do you ignore me because I am no longer worthy? Have you turned your head from me because I will never greet you as I should? _ Bitter despair mingled with his anger as he stared up at the sky he had so longed to see and felt a rumble growing in his chest. _I will not be this thing! This mockery!

Alaine's rage spilled through him, not the cold comfort he had sought as his refuge from the horrors of his life, but something hot and alive. It raged through him like fire; as if his blood should start to boil within his veins and burst past the pitiful shell of his broken scales. It was a rage forged of a thousand cracks of the whips and blood that had leaked into the cold comfort of the rocks in his kennel. It was a bitter thing that made the world slow around him as he twisted his head until the chains started to groan in protest from his attempt to tear them away. His tattered wings rose up above him as he sucked in a breath and belled out his chest. The drake turned his head and roared out, the sound muffled by the muzzle, but still loud enough to screech through the darkness. He would not be what they had made of him!

The snap of the whip cut along the line of his spine as he reared upwards and yanked roughly against the oversized chains that contained him. His nostrils flared as the elves started to abandon his placid kindred and chains were thrown over his back to try and yank him back down to the ground. They slapped against his scales and dragged over him, but for the first time he did not give into obedience that had been beaten into him. He shrieked out his rage as a whip cracked along his muzzle and lunged away from the side of the cliff. The elves clung to him and tried to drag him back as he forced one slow step forward after another. His breath came out in a wheeze as chains wrapped around his neck and yanked hard enough that the links bit down over his vulnerable throat. The pain didn't matter anymore, the feel of blood spilling down his flanks where the goads cut into him didn't matter.

"GET HIM BACK!!" The overseer's voice screamed out as the large elf tried to hook a goad on his sensitive nose.

_Yes, come to me. Come to me and I will at least have that vengeance. _ Alaine lunged another step and saw the spread of the ocean beneath the cliff.

The ocean was a sky in its own right, the dark waters reflected back the stars, but they rippled and twisted with the crashing of the waves that lunged towards the island. He could not greet the stars and his Goddess, but he could show himself to be a true son to her. Aratha might turn her eyes from him, but was it because he was this broken creature or because he continued on in the service of this filthy elves that had destroyed his island? That would end this night and he would take as many with him as he could as his vengeance.

He twisted his head and caught his muzzle against the overseer before lunging forward towards the edge of the cliff. He spread his forelegs out and tried to snag them, those crawling cruel creatures, he tried to bring them to his breast as his powerful haunches bunched up in a mockery of leaping to the air for flight. His wings even tried to spread as he heard Lanon scream out an order to be saved by the men that still tried to us the chains to drag him back. He wouldn't turn aside, not this time, his death waited for him below in the churning black waters of the ocean. As far away from the sky and his Goddess as he could possibly come, but at least he would no longer give in. At least he would bring honor to his species.

The drake shrieked out one last time before kicking off the edge of the cliff and swept his broken wings forwards to try and drag the elves with him. Two he clutched to his breast, but Lanon was tangled in the chains of his muzzle and collar as the wind whipped around his body. Alaine closed his eyes and lifted his head as the wind swept by him cool and sweet. It caressed beneath his wings and sides in the way he had always dreamed it would. For one glorious moment in time he was suspended between the sweep of the stars above and the raging of the ocean below, only the screams of the elves broke through the peace that it brought his abused soul. And those screams satisfied the white hot rage that spilled through him, he would have his revenge.

The drake wasn't prepared for the crash into the ocean, one moment he had been free within the air and the next the breath was knocked out of his chest as his weight crashed into the cool salt water. His roar was strangled as the roll of the waves swept up and crashed against his side and the current twisted around him. Instinctively he kicked his hind legs out against the water to push his head up, he released the elves he had clutched with his forelegs as his treacherous body still tried to live, but this time there was nothing he could do. The weight of the chains dragged him down no matter how hard he fought to remain above the surface. He bobbed for a moment with his head pushed out of the water and his breath coming in wheezing gasps before the dark black depths wrapped around him and pulled him under. The cold water closed around him as he was dimly aware of the elves frantically trying to make it to the surface

I hope you die with me... _ He hissed out in his mind as he allowed the water to wrap around his aching body and the salt stung his open wounds. _Let the waters wash me clean of your taint... I am content, Aratha, I have died a dragon this day.

_ _

Alaine's wings flexed and his legs kicked around the water as the spill of the stars above him disappeared into the murky depths. The waters bathed his sins away and his lungs burned for air as he gave himself over to the ocean. He had felt the open sky around him and the wind running beneath his tattered wings. Yes, he would die a dragon this day, not a slave, not a beast of burden, but a dragon. The thought brought him peace even through the pain.