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Chapter Nineteen - Pit

Inhale.

Scales shifted as she felt her lungs fill. She dragged on the air of life, clung to it with all her might. Her chest rose, rose... Pain! Pain, such tearing, ripping pain! It burned through her, sending her body convulsing, air hissing from her maw.

Exhale.

The world was a blur. Large, lurking forms looked down at her. They were dark shapes of green and black. They stood there, silhouetted against bright blue, glaring down upon her broken form. They had come. He had come. Returned to finish her. To cut her, to force her upon the ground and rape her-- none of it had been enough. None of it had been enough for them. For him.

She blinked, and the lurking forms of the dragons became nothing but trees against a bluebird sky.

Alone.

Alone in the woods, alone to die. Alone with nothing but the cold earth, pain, and her vagrant fever dreams. As the world blurred around her once more, she thought she felt the sweep of wings against her. Indeed, someone had come to her. Come to carry her away. To relieve her of the struggle.

Nothing.

The pain stayed, she stayed. They would never let her die! This pain, this wretched curse, would stay with her. She began to sob, a fit of coughs soon erupting. Black blood was wretched, clinging to her scales. It left her, and the dragon's body was quiet once more.

She knew not how she had gotten to this place, or, more so, where _this place _even was. She had a vague recollection of being carried, of resting between the shoulder blades and wingbases of..._Nimbus? _But it was fleeting; a distant, opaque thought that she saw only flashes of through a thick haze.

But there was another memory that came to her clear as the cold winter sky. Over and over, the thought played. A sequence; the last scene in an act. In her far-gone state, it came to her as a vision, dulling the pain. She could see him, as if he was right there in the forest with her. Him, Nimbus, with his wings and tail curled around her.

Her body screamed for oxygen, and she inhaled.

He was crying, shaking, even. She could feel his body vibrate against hers, his teeth chattering as he spoke, as if he were chilled. His words, muted, silent as the black of night. Yet, yet she could hear them. Hear them, spoken in her mind.

The pain tore through her as air was forced out.

I'm sorry Celsko... I'm sorry, Dear Sephive, I'm sorry... _Here, she tries to comfort him, but the drake turns away, twitching, and slams his snout down into the cold stone. No, no... Should've been there, should've... should've been me. He turns back to her, blood dripping from a nostril. I am nothing._

Never had she seen him like this, in a vulnerable state. To her, her friend had seemed to live in a silent fortress of solace, an impenetrable palisade. He lived within himself, his true, unchained self never stepping forth into the light. It had come close to the surface, once. That night, ever-so long ago, she had caught a glimpse. And here, in this memory of but the day before, she saw this true Nimbus yet again. The loathing; the hatred of an everlasting inner monologue had been briefly revealed.

I can't take it, Celsko, j-just can't anymore. They're all ignorant fools, they don't understand any of... of this. How I wish, Celsko, wish I could end it. All of it, Celsko. Fucking mad-- mad, mad, MAD! What is the worth? What is my fucking worth? Nothing Celsko, I am nothing...

From above, a leaf came loose. It fluttered, gently gliding down to the earth, where it landed directly on her snout. It was in a world she did not inhabit.

The vision from the night before faded, systematically growing fainter with every thundering heartbeat. From the grey haze of the fever dream was borned a new vision.

Again, yellow eyes surrounded by storm-grey scales looked into hers. They were Nimbus'; identical to the eyes that she had looked into the night before. Yet, they were not in any way the eyes of the Nimbus she knew now. They were youthful, jubilant, and innocent; in their depths holding not despair, but hope. The drake was but a whelp, and as was she.

Whelps, incapable of flight and dependent upon their parents, but oh-so alive.

A meadow surrounded them; a meadow filled with the most beautiful arrangement of summer flowers, the edge of which was but the crest of the mountainside, dropping off into a vast emptiness, contained only by the craggy peaks on the opposite side of the valley.

There was laughter, and there were young voices, crying happy, meaningless words to one another. Whelps, of all different colors and breeds, played ecstatically around the two of them in a flurry of scales and wings.

For a second, contentment panged within her chest as she was lost in the joyous memories.

Look! a childlike, yet, familiar voice chirped. The dragoness raised her eyes, looking once more at the young Nimbus. _Your frillies changed color! _The little drake used his tail to point at her jawline fins.

She recoiled, fearing the tail getting dangerously close to her face. At this, a frown crossed Nimbus' face. Why are you sad? They're so pretty... like a flower. Mother always says how pretty the aquatics are with their frillies.

The adult mind of the dragoness fought its way into the skull of her younger self, ridding it of her whelp-like intuition to smile and replacing it with the vivid memories of this same drake, this same innocent little creature ripping the top of his head open, screaming something about a black drake.

Nimbus... w-what happened to you? she whispered in awe, backing away from the little dragon. He was this, once, this innocent little dragon, not the Nimbus she knew.

At her question, a puzzled look crossed the drake's face. He looked at her, eyes surveying her youthful face; as if looking for the answer to the question within its scales and contours. For a moment, it seemed a reply was balanced of his scaled lips.

His words never came.

Inside black irises, she saw fire. The jubilance and innocence were ripped from the yellow eyes, all happiness crushed and strangled until it lay as a dead husk.

Wordless, he stared at her, the only movement coming from his whiskers swaying in the breeze and the gentile rise and fall of his chest..

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

They breathed in unison.

The pain jarred her, bringing her to the horrid and triumphant realization that life still clung to her.

She was not able to bear the sight of the whelp staring up at her. She wanted to run from him, to find her parents and lay between, basking in their warmth, comfort, and safety. Yet his eyes - oh, how the eyes paralyzed her. It took all of her strength to merely turn her head, now looking up at the mountains. The same peaks that had glared down at her her entire life. Beautiful, they were. The beautiful walls of the pit in which she lived. Though their peaks and ridgelines were the same, their appearance had changed. The sun no longer shown upon them; instead, tremendous grey clouds loomed. The greenery, now nothing but a brown drab of near-winter trees that had been stripped of their leaves, capped near the barren peaks with frosted evergreen.

Thoughts pervaded her obstreperous fever dream yet again.

Into this world, we hatch... he hatched. Innocent, jubilant, wanting to make this earth his own, this life his own.Yet our world has done everything to rob it from us. Dear Nimbus, why can we not remain whelps forever?

And for the first time in her memory, her pensive calmness was devoured by the same insanity that held Nimbus in its talons. For Celsko, the world had only just begun.

And she watched as the whelp began to tear at himself, large drops of blood shattering against the dead grass beneath their paws.