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The Weakness of Blood

As time went by, the Dark Sentinel was normal. There were no other assaults though there were still many trespassers claiming to have forgotten the borders between the light and the dark. Avila and Cynder resumed their jobs despite of the high tension in the dragon group. The leaders became uncertain whether to believe their subordinates or not. Even if Avila, Cynder, and the demon dragons were out of this mess, there were still suspicions around them, seeing that the four of them had very deathly powers which could kill dragons instantly, giving a fatal injury in an instant.

Yet, the dragon that killed Mikha didn't show up.

It had been a month since Mikha got killed, and Avila's logical explanation proved too burdensome by the dragons. The black dragoness also had checked the place where the black twins got attacked, but didn't find any clues regarding the fact. She had also asked the only witness, Sikha, about the characteristics on their attackers, with no results.

"Damn it...we can't solve this shit without any progress," said Avila while inside the Fuzandre village to Yrelka. The demon dragon was drinking a bowl of water while lounging on her usual pedestal. She was thinking about it, too, but of course she was an outsider, so she couldn't do anything to help, although...

"Hey, Avila, about my eye," said Yrelka, referencing her injured eye. "I took glimpse on my attacker before he ran off."

"Wait, what do you mean?"

"I once said to you that I've got this scar from a black dragon, right? I saw him near the side of my eyes, and of course I can identify him by his roar, as he had a distinct roar."

"Wow, you really are an observer...for a demon."

"Oh, c'mon, now! I'm also a being!"

Avila ate a little of the food given to her before leaving the village back to her quarters, as she had kept Cynder long enough and the day started to end, too. After getting out from the forest Cynder asked, "Hey, how's the hunt?"

"It's sucks. I've no food to get!" In truth, Avila ate what was provided by the Fuzandres as she was accepted in their village. Cynder didn't think about it too much, so they just calmly walked back to the Sentinel, where Fenrico waited them.

"Hey, Rico! What's up?" said Cynder.

"Nothin'. I've just finished basking. It's getting dark, huh?"

"Yeah...hey, about that..."

"Oh, Avila, I wanted to ask you about where you put the explosives from our weapon vendor."

"Huh? I...I thought it's near the entrance of the cave opening. It's volatile, right? We can't put them inside our caves until the humans take it."

"The humans can't take them again," said Fenrico short. "Their section of armory had been full since they ordered too much while the soldiers couldn't use them. Because of this, Geoff asked me to control the explosives in the dragon's cave, to make sure it's safe. I suppose, your cave, maybe?"

"It's small!"

"Not all of them. I put some in my cave, and other's as well. Though, I really think your cave section is the safest place. You two can't breathe flame, right? It's a shame."

"We can't risk living in a cramped place either, Fenrico. You know we're both females, right?" said Cynder.

"If you take only one crate?"

"That's fine as long as it can be in use."

Fenrico then gave a smile then left both of them. Avila in turn had a vision that disturbed her. What actually she saw was when she blinked, she saw some patches of white things near Fenrico's paw scales, claws, and his teeth, as if he was dirty.

"Hey, Avila, guess we need to live being cramped for a while. Is that okay with you?"

Since Avila was deep in thinking, she didn't heed Cynder until the black dragoness realized what Avila was doing and said, "Thinking of something?"

"It's just...I never remembered taking those explosives from Ark. Maybe it's just a wild imagination. But still..."

"Are you all right?"

"Y...yeah, maybe I just needed a sleep, after all," she said while yawning and swishing her tails. While walking to her shared room she kept thinking. Did she, by any chance, flew to Ark's place and took the crates back to the caves and forget about it? Maybe so. She was too deep inside her thoughts that she forgot about any events before her discussion with Yrelka. She didn't even see the way when Yorloka bumped to her feathered head.

"Oh, sorry, girl," he said while trying to tidy Avila's feather head. "Did that hurt?" "No, I'm fine. What are you doing here, anyway?"

"I was asked by Javoux if I want to stay for a while and take a watch. In fact, it's nice to have dragons to talk to again after centuries being under the lake with only dragons to take care of and sacrifices to take. If...you will?"

Avila smiled. She could finally change the personality of a dragon. She gave a toothy saber-grin to Yorloka before saying, "I don't really mind as long as you never betray me."

As he left, Avila returned to her quarters and on the stack of hay, she laid on it. She kept thinking on what Fenrico said, being disturbed by it. His tone was not like the cheerful dragon as he used to be. Maybe it was because of him almost getting a close call from being blasted to pieces by a fire ball. She also noticed that Fenrico got a drastic change of personality for the past three days. Did something happened to him, that he became like that?

She was already exhausted by the time she thought about that. She went to sleep almost soundly. In her dream, she was watching the stars with Seraphor, where the memory struck her.

It was a sound night, where Avila could see the kingdom below the cave where they chose to dwell was having a night of happiness. She could see dancers wearing masks resembling some predators dancing in the middle of the parade, and of course she had this sensation of loneliness where she felt only she was the one with misery, not the humans and her mate.

Her gaze to the lively kingdom was interrupted by the embrace from the newly regenerated wing of her silver red mate. Seraphor also watched the place with eagerness.

"What a lively night," said Seraphor with a smile. His blue slit eyes reflected the color of the lights below.

"Yeah," Avila replied. "But, seeing this makes me wonder about my own peril inside my heart."

"Your own peril?"

"It's just...seeing many beings, dragons and humans alike, very happy made me feel...empty. It's like something hollow is grafted in my heart and left me...miserable in the middle of happy beings."

"Oh, Vila, but I'm here for you, right?"

Avila didn't reply Seraphor. She was just deep into thinking about herself. The hollowness of her heart was because of the fact. It was common fact for her that she had been hated by many beings, even her mate, before they fell in love. Avila had been wondering if her friendship and love would last and this caused the hollowness in her heart.

The black dragoness was deep in thoughts when she was startled by another embrace, not coming from any leathery wing, but a genuine hug from her mate. Seraphor's front legs circled her body and almost suddenly, Avila felt warmth from him. It wasn't because of him being a fire dragon or not. No...this was something more.

"Whatever it is, Avila. I don't care less. It's true our past wasn't as good as what we gained, but I'm here to be a guardian to you, so as to make you forget the thing you hate most and start loving this world like a normal dragon. It's okay if you won't accept this world, we're in this together."

Avila was thinking if the confession was genuine in heart or not. Years of trapped inside the hatred of her race and the world made her somewhat emotionless and each time, she was always thinking of darkness. Her friend, the darkness, became her salvation whenever she was full of anger and she knew, now, that it drew her soul closer into madness and death. She grasped death, but it was only time madness took her soul.

Her dreams had started to become more violent when she was forcefully pulled out from the dream world by a sudden violent shake from a small paw. Opening her yellow eyes she saw Cynder over her.

"Avila, wake up, girl! We've got a situation here!"

"What the hell is wrong?"

"It's the twins, they..."

The black dragoness gasped on what she heard. It was as if a bomb exploded near her and she became deaf momentarily when her head swooned out of concentration. Death started to pile around her every moment spared. She turned her body, walked on all four, and used her wind to control her movement speed.

"Why is it so sudden?! Damn it! I can't believe that dragon strikes!"

She ran toward where she knew the two-headed dragon could make watch in the middle of the night. She knew the place, and of course she was lucky she wasn't got killed. The dragon was not bluffing by killing the herbalist dragon. He killed one of the warriors.

The dragoness ran faster than she could imagine before bumping to Yorloka. When she recovered the demon dragon said, "Avila, he's dead! The fucking two-heads is dead!"

"I know that already! Where the hell is the body, Yorloka?!"

"I won't look if I were you," he said sadly. "He's like my sacrificial victim."

Avila had no time to be disgusted by Yorloka's word and rushed in the atrium. Somehow the other dragons were also there, watching the body. Once Avila was there she couldn't hold her disgust over the condition.

The two-head twins were somehow killed without even have time to retaliate. Poio's head was decapitated with a rough cut, like a claw frantically cutting the head, unlike a sword's cut. While the rest of the body somehow didn't get any injuries, Pio's wound was as if he was tormented for a while for blood loss before he was killed. A dragon's claw made a cut at his throat and he suffered blood loss. Even if he survived, his vocal cord was broken and there was no way he could talk. Aside from that, there was the same punctured wound like Mikha, but it went through their leg.

"It's as if a giant tormented him," said Coraero. "Avila, what can you say from this?"

"This is definitely not a normal wound, seeing that we didn't have claws sharp enough to cut this thing. This looks similarly like the wound I did..."

"What did you say?"

Since Avila talked in the undertone, she realized she was being heard and said, "Nothing. I wonder...which one of you was with Pio and Poio when he died?"

No dragons made any gesture to make Avila knew they were what she meant.

"Damn it, this is not going anywhere!"

"There should be a Light somewhere..."

"No!" exclaimed Avila with a roar. She knew the culprit was one of them. "This wound had Darkness all over it! The element can be reshaped into cuts if any dragon was skillful enough."

"So your concern...is correct? H...how can I believe a dragon had the same deducing skill as a human? I thought Jon..."

Avila suddenly heard something inside her head but couldn't be sure what was it until she could see the same apparition that haunted her while she saw that every dragon there stopped, as if time stopped.

"Dreamt enough silver red, Avila?" said the dragon with a chuckle. "I must say, he was one hell of a dragon."

"What do you want? Can't you see we're in front of a body?"

"Do I have to remind you that you're a death dragon? That human-like deducing won't help you if you don't cheat a little."

"There's no point in cheating if you don't even know what is happening."

"Oh, but I can see you have such a gift you took from me."

"What is it, then?"

"As you can see, Avila, I'm blind," said the dragoness while walking. "I don't even know your form, or even your eyes. I can see what you want to ask. 'How can you see me if you're blind'?"

"What...what do you mean?"

"Being blind gave me a death power that surpassed any vision you had seen. Being contrast-inversed and color-blind are nothing compared to any death dragon's power, that normally exchanged their body, soul, and vision to be given a powerful death power no one could imagine. You only have a tiny fraction of it."

"Just tell me what you want to say and let me deal with this mess!"

"You might have seen it in your life...." She made a toothy bloody grin. "Blood..."

At first Avila was confused by what she meant, but after a blink, her vision shifted like when she was staring at the lake. The patches where the blood was had glowing like fluorescent fluid and Avila's quick thinking gave her a sudden jack inside her mind.

"I...Impossible...the white glowing patches I saw was...blood stains."

"Indeed, whelpling. It's just a tiny fraction of our real potential," she said while vanishing. "I won't interfere with you this time. It's not your fate I control. You're on your own now...except your death, of course."

With that, she vanished out of sight, while the world returned to Avila again. Coraero then said, "Avila...you're like you've been entranced by something."

She didn't reply, but with another blink, the world became so dark that only patches of blood were visible. She then said, "Did any of you...touch any blood?"

"No, we don't wanna touch anything and Sikha was still in the forest."

"In the middle of the night?"

"Finding herbs, I can say."

"That's strange...if you claimed never touching any blood, why...why Rico and Baritgetv had...traces of blood on them?"

"What?"

They all turned to Fenrico and Baritgetv.

"What do you mean, Avila? We never touched any blood," said Fenrico.

"You mean the traces in my mouth? I ate fresh bloody meat this evening so..."

Baritgetv was cut short by Avila. "Can you at least explain the bloody thorns behind your back? Fenrico, the blood traces were all around you, like mist."

"You're joking, right? There's no b..."

"Stop, Rico. What do you mean, Avila? Explain?"

"Like I said earlier, there was a dragon that can reshape darkness. There are truths yet to be found."

Suddenly Avila made a cold aura that made the room became more and more freezing and then they realized Avila was growling while some dark mist started to form all around her. Cynder realized that she used darkness and enhanced her claws. She suddenly ran toward Fenrico and made a claw slash attack.

Her claw attack was cut short by some aura holding her claws. Then Fenrico lifted his arm-like front leg and grabbed Avila's smaller body and throw her away. He then shot a powerful jet of fire toward the nearest dragon there, burning him while he writhed with a roar while Baritgetv shot Oschiosco with his thorn, which went through his front leg. He was off-guard when he almost got killed by a volley claw slash when Yorloka used his spirits to stop the attack.

"Guess there's no hiding now, fuckers," said Yorloka with a grin.