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Homecoming

Written By: Skabaard

Polly walked awkwardly out of the room in the morning, grumbling fiercely, but nothing could hide the satisfied grin plastered over both their faces. Emma lingered a little longer, cleaning herself languidly before checking on Amena, who had, quite vocally, slept wonderfully. The dragoness felt the same way. She hadn't slept so well in so long. The wonders of a warm bed shared with an even warmer, familiar body. She'd missed real mattresses. The city-dragon in her, she supposed.

The ranch came to life far before she was ready to drag herself out of the comfort of the room that had been prepared carefully for her, and when she emerged, desiring breakfast, people were already hard at work. After a left over meal of eggs and crusty bread, she jumped into helping out where she could. Emma wanted to at least express her generosity for a fraction of the hospitality she was being shown. She'd mostly been happily tasked with picking up heavy things and moving them from point A to point B: bales of hay, stacks of saddles, crates and boxes of every description. She didn't quite have the technical skill to work at the more intricate tasks, which was okay with her. Amena busied herself with watching, her deep blue eyes the size of dinner plates, the farrier hammering horseshoes into shape and the cooks busying themselves in the kitchen, preparing already for the evening meal.

The day passed quickly, and she could already feel her good cheer peaking in the back of her mind. Another huge meal, another restful night's sleep, this time with the bed to herself, as Polly had, quite clearly, not yet recovered. True to the winged equine's word, a big commotion was raised the third day into her comforting stay by the arrival of a short, skinny man riding an Alacorn the color of midnight, its huge, black wings casting an impressive shadow before it landed. Excitement had leapt into her throat as she'd explained the situation. She knew Captain Mennus of the Southcliff Skyguard, though not personally, and he had sworn to carry for her a message to the Silver Lance with all due haste.

With that weight removed from her shoulders, she felt even better, though a little sad, because it meant an end to her time with the McClains and their army of employees. Barely another week passed in peace that she had grown unused to in her time in the mountains and forests, and spring had finally pushed the last dregs of winter from the air to light the world with a bright sun and color it with a blanket of verdant life. Polly had taken Amena to see one of the yearling Alacorna, a jet black one who excitedly bounded in circles around the overawed woman and flapped its wings to no great effect, and they'd both been given extensive tours of the entire ranch as a whole.

She couldn't wait to be home, with her friends and family, but now that she was secure, she didn't feel in so much of a blind rush, and she was shocked as a titanic, thundering crack, as of many, staccato peals of thunder, snapped her from her work. Her eyes had risen from what she had been doing, and she dropped everything as she threw herself into a reckless, headlong sprint across the pasture and toward the main house, toward what had materialized in the middle of the scattered buildings. A half-dozen familiar faces turned toward her, and she vaulted a fence and launched herself through the air toward them.

The Archmage, his arms open, caught her from the air as she collided with the breadth of his black-scaled chest, and those same thick arms closed around her tightly, holding her feet off the ground. Her mother recovered with uncharacteristic quickness from the teleportation spell, and quickly added her arms to the embrace that surrounded her. Her father's rumbling bass vibrated endlessly in the broad expanse of the chest that she clutched with thoughtless vigor, but despite that, his whisper was almost hoarse. "With every winter, comes a spring." There was long pause, and the arms bordering her shrouded her in hard, protective warmth. "I knew you would find a way. I knew you would come back, Emma. I knew it."

It sounded almost as if the tremendous dragon was speaking more to reassure himself than her, and she squeezed him happily, squished as she was against his torso by the weight of her mother against her back. "Of course, Dad. Some things just kept getting in the way. I'm fine. I'm fine, I promise, a little banged up, but fine." Her breath left her lungs in a rattling wheeze as she tried not to bawl like a child. "I... I missed you."

The Archmage laughed weakly, sliding the length of his triangular snout against hers and favoring her horns with his nostrils as he breathed her in. "And I you, little one, more than anything, I did everything I could to find you, I swear it, but whatever happened in Timbergrove did something to your aura... it scrambled it up and... I'm sorry Emma... If I could divine at all, maybe I could have found you. I... I tried... so hard. I'm sorry."

The dragoness wriggled enough to free a hand so she could lovingly scrape her scales over the head pressed into her. "Hush." she crooned as her father's shadow eclipsed the universe around her.

"I told you she would agree with me." purred her mother, who drifted away from her back to paw weakly at her wings. "What happened to you, young one? Who did this to you?"

Emma could have laughed at the steely tone of the silvery dragoness's voice. Her wings had begun to slowly heal, and they itched atrociously at times, but the leathery membranes were still nearly completely gone from one of the skeletal limbs, and the other was a tattered patchwork, having left her flightless for weeks on end. "I didn't know her name, but I would imagine she fared less well than I did. There was the explosion, and it just... pulled me in and spat me back out north of the Ordis."

Her mother showed long, ivory teeth in a viciously proud snarl. "And you of course just waltzed over the mountains in the dead of winter." A powerful hand slid up her back, between the ruined appendages, and scales softly rasped against her horns as the much larger dragoness behind her nuzzled her affectionately. "I'm proud of you, Emma."

Her tail thwapped happily against her mother's chest for a long moment, but eventually the enormous arms that held her free of the ground relaxed as the Archmage pulled in a steadying breath and let her drop confidently to her feet. Emma had been on the ground for less than a second before a small, deceptively powerful hand clapped her on the shoulder and forcefully jerked her around. That hand's twin swung around before she could blink and cracked across her cheek hard enough for its owner to grunt a hoarse curse and shake it away. The dragoness opened her mouth to question, but her words were stolen in an abruptly passionate kiss that robbed her of the impetus to speak.

Lips parted from hers after a few seconds that was entirely too brief. "That is what you get for just up and disappearing like that!" The short, wiry shark morph standing before her huffed angrily before breaking into pitiful sobbing and collapsing into Emma's arms. "They thought... they thought you were dead. No one believed it, and when your dad figured out that you were alive but couldn't find you... we tore Arvandor apart, Emma. We looked for you, but weeks and weeks passed, and... Fuck, Emma, you can't... you can't just do that! I... I couldn't... I just... Emma."

"What she means is that we missed you." softly murmured a lanky horse morph whose long arms wrapped around Emma and Mel both. Toby squeezed tightly, and her partners pressed intimately against her scales. They both smelled like friends, like home, and she let her own snout rest against that of the piscine woman who looked so dainty next to her, purring gleefully in the back of her throat. They two lingered even longer than had her parents, and she slowly kissed away Mel's tears. Anguish didn't suit the shark's toothy visage, which, the dragoness noted, was capped by a short crop of sea-blue hair as opposed to the red it had been months ago. It suited Mel's greyish sharkskin much better.

The dragoness peered over her shoulder as another set of arms was added to those wrapped around her, followed quickly by yet another. Lithe and slender paired with big and well-built, she wriggled ecstatically as Ivy and Calian joined in. "I missed you too. I'm sorry it took so long, but I had to make sure my plus one made it home in one piece. I'm glad you made it out, Ivy. I was afraid that you... you'd gotten hurt too."

The husky squeezed her harder and chuckled. "Well... the explosion certainly took off a lot of hair, but I made it out fine-ish, all things considered. Did the woman from the tank...? Did she really make it?"

Emma wiggled her way from the tangle of arms wrapped around her and dodged around her father's column-like legs to peer in the direction of the kitchens. "Amena! Amena, are you in there?"

The frost-haired amnesiac peeked her head through an open door, her eyes widening in utter awe at the panorama that filled the area between various buildings with scaly giants and fluttering blue capes. She darted from the building, nearly tripping in her excitement. Someone had lent her an apron, and the dusting of flour that speckled her already pale skin made it want to blend in with her braided mane. "Emma!" she cried excitedly, sprinting through the arch of a very surprised dragon's legs to collide with the smaller dragoness, "Emma! They're letting me bake bread! I can bake bread! It's crusty and brown and it tastes so good! You have to try some, but first you should introduce me to your friends, right? I don't know if I can make enough to feed all of them."

With a joyous laugh, Emma rested her snout atop the smaller woman's head for a brief moment, pushing a quick kiss into her scalp. "Don't worry about it. They can take care of themselves. These four are my friends, from the Silver lance. They were the ones who helped me rescue you. Mel, Toby, Ivy, and Calian. Friends, Amena. Amena, friends. And the two dragons are my mother and father, Daryn and Clara."

Many more greetings were exchanged, intermingled with warm, friendly hugs, and Amena couldn't seem to help herself from squealing like a giddy schoolgirl at each unfamiliar face. When Ivy hugged her and whispered a warm salutation, she clung to the husky, running her fingers over a canine muzzle as she breathed a reverent. "I remember your voice. You were there too, with Emma and the tank."

The dragoness grimaced as she gave everyone gathered there her story and an explanation of what happened, and Amena busied herself giving and receiving as many hugs as she possibly could. The frost-haired woman lingered on her parents, remarking that her mother was even prettier than she was, which, while true, still made an exasperated huff rush through her nostrils and made Mel giggle. As they stood and talked, the initial rush of euphoric relief dwindled to a pleased contentment, and Emma finally felt like she was finished with her journey. Her father dropped to a knee to calmly ask probing questions of the amnesiac's condition, which were all eagerly answered, and the dragoness leaned heavily against Toby's sturdy frame as Mel sandwiched her between them in a continual embrace.

When Amena let out a squeaky mixture of grunt and moan, Emma perked up. The slender woman shivered and lifted hands to her head as her hair, from its roots, began to turn a hazy grey. The splash of color darkened and leeched outward until the amnesiac's thick mane was tinted a pitch, dark black that seemed to almost absorb the light that touched it. Emma stiffened, knowing what was likely coming, but the Archmage reacted with only pleased surprise when the tip of a willowy, black tendril poked up from the neckline of Amena's dress, followed by several more.

Everyone around them looked incredibly taken aback, but the huge, golden dragon just chuckled, muttering a satisfied, "I _knew_I felt something strange about you. Tell me, Amena. Do you know anything about where your friends came from?"

"N-no..." squeaked the stammering woman, "I had them since I got away from the tank... We... They feel you. You have so much... They... Oh..."

The Archmage just let out an intrigued hum as one of the glossy tentacles reached out toward him to touch his outstretched fingertips. It wriggled over his fingers and hands, exploring his proffered limb, and the dragon chuckled again. "That's unfortunate, because I have no idea what they are." He directed his attention downward at the now pair of tendrils rubbing over his scaly arm. "Hello, little creatures. Who or what might you be?"

"Hungry..." Amena moaned. Emma swallowed nervously and pushed herself off of Toby to stride forward.

Before she could make it more than a step, though, the Archmage rumbled out a wry laugh. "Well then, let's get them fed, why don't we?" The dragoness barked a warning, but her father had already whispered a few quiet words. Contrary to what she expected to happen, however, she was shocked when Amena yelped in surprise as the quartet of wandering tendrils the were pouring from her clothes abruptly rushed back from where they came, sliding back into her dress and disappearing with soft rustling. Her hair grew pale once more, slowly returning to its icy coloration, and Emma was dumbstruck. "I hope they found that to their liking." murmured the Archmage, "I always did find food for thought to be the most fulfilling."

The woman who was utterly dwarfed by the dragon looming over her wobbled on her feet for a second before falling back into Emma's ready arms. "Wh-what... what did you... Oh... my goodness, they're... we... You're... so strong... so much."

Emma blinked up at her father as Amena continued to wheeze and moan and quiver against her. "What did you do?"

"I gave them what they seemed to want." hummed the Archmage with a self-satisfied grin, "This is remarkable. It's not often that I'm presented with something I've never heard of, let alone seen." He leaned forward, letting his head approach the ground enough for him to actually speak directly to the amnesiac. "I don't know everything that's happened to you, Amena, but if you'd allow it, I'd like very much to help you. I can give you a home, if you'd have it, and I'll do everything in my power to figure out what's going on surrounding your problems and your... intriguing friends. Would you come with us when we leave?"

Amena's dainty hands clutched desperately at Emma as if to be separated from the much smaller dragoness would mean death or worse. She just wrapped a bronze-plated arm around slim shoulders and squeezed soothingly. "Don't worry, Amena. These are the people I told you about. I promise we'll help you if we can. It's my home too, and I'll be around for you."

Swallowing heavily, the frail human whimpered innocently, "Do we have to leave right now? I just put a loaf of bread in the oven..."

Everyone seemed to find the humor in that, and there was a chorus of surprisingly lighthearted chuckles from the crowd huddled close to her. "Of course we can stay. I'll need to get home eventually, but I don't think a few hours will hurt anything. I wouldn't miss out on trying your cooking for anything."

"Thank you." Amena whispered into her collarbone before turning up to the much more significant pair of dragons, "Thank you... I... I don't know... Thank you for everything."

Emma sighed happily as her ward slowly pulled away, lingering against her fingertips before practically prancing back to the kitchen. She then stalked toward her father and easily scaled his towering form, wiggling back between his warm, accepting arms. Her tail flicked outward, curling around her mother's wrist, and she pulled them together around her, truly needing to do nothing to encourage them to envelop her in a comforting embrace once again. Rumbling purrs of three different octaves vibrated between them, and the Archmage plopped down on the grass, dragging Emma and her mother both into his lap to squeeze them possessively together.

Clara mewled almost as happily as Emma, and her father cradled her as he whispered. "I missed you, Emma. I never gave up on you. I never gave up."

"I knew you wouldn't. Sorry it took so long. It was a busy few weeks, what with... walking and occasionally sleeping and trying to dig my way into ground squirrel dens. It wasn't so bad. Amena kept me busy enough."

"I bet she did..." hummed the Archmage dubiously as he pulled Emma from his chest, his hands under her arms hoisting her like the child of his she very much was. "Now let's take a look at your wings, shall we?" The huge dragon spun her around like a doll and tugged gingerly at her wings, encouraging them to open. The hiss that escaped his throat was as reflexive as it was angry. "It's just physical damage." he sighed after a moment of contemplation. "With the difficulties the spell gave me, I'd worried it had done something worse to you."

Emma grumbled wordlessly; she could think of few worse things than having her flight robbed from her for so long. As if he knew what she was thinking, he laughed, and the sound carried with it a relief that she could practically feel in the air. The Archmage held her still, leaving her wings outstretched, and he only spoke softly for a hint of a second before she felt the already itchy patches on her wings suddenly tingle furiously. She growled and squirmed, peering back over her shoulder to watch the ebon hide that had once graced the bony struts of the lengthy limbs coming back into being with agonizing, effervescent slowness. Emma just tried to stay still and not interfere with the likely delicate process.

When it was done, she dropped to the ground and, after getting her footing, she threw out her chest and swept wide her wings, spreading them to their fullest extent and slowly swinging them through their complete range of motion. She had missed the way the inky membranes shadowed the grass around her. Air filled the hollows between her delicately boned struts with sharp popping noises, and she flapped them a single time, feeling her weight spread over their breadth and threaten to drag her feet off the ground.

Instead, her knees hit the ground, and she let out a long, pent up sigh. The last of her worry, her subconscious concern, left her body, and she slumped forward onto her hands as her wings sagged down to her sides. Tears of frigid relief threatened to fall from her abruptly watery eyes, but she blinked them away, scrubbing at her face with a knuckle as a hand fell to rest on her shoulder.

When she looked up, Ivy was standing in front of her, a gentle smile stretched over a canine muzzle. "Before you went on vacation, you left something behind." From the satchel slung over her shoulder, the husky pulled a length of rich blue cloth and draped it over the dragoness's shoulders.

Blinking, Emma rose back up to her knees and laughed dryly. She'd thought it had been either lost or destroyed, and it was with a wry grin that she lifted her hands and affixed the thick blue cloth around her neck, letting it drape over her right arm and shoulder to display the metallic, argentum lance inlaid into the fabric. Unlike other things that could be deemed "clothes", wearing her cape felt right, and she rubbed the cloth between her thumb and forefinger.Now she felt complete.

Despite now having her wings, she kept her feet on the ground for precisely that reason. All she needed was the knowledge that she could when the desire arose, and she and the other Lancers lounged around the ranch while she was filled in on the goings on around the rest of Arvandor. Polly showed herself for a bit, long enough to grumble vigorously at the prospect of feeding three dragons dinner before zipping off to her duties. A few days of inactivity coupled with solid meals day in and day out had left her stuffed, though, so she couldn't imagine herself eating all that much. Her parents were likely capable of likewise restraining themselves.

After hours of idle chatter over simply manual labor, it was once more time for the evening ritual that had people pouring in from every corner of the ranch. The meal was as it seemed to always be, extensive, and the cooks, Amena included, were hardly daunted by the addition of a few extra mouths, regardless of how threateningly large a couple of them seemed to be. They ate and loitered for as long as they dared, but eventually Emma said her goodbyes and wished her fondest of farewells on her Polly and her family, but eventually she looped an arm around Amena's shoulders and all of the McClain's guests clustered around the Archmage, linking hands and holding on to their intestines as her father whispered a string of innocuous, nonsense syllables.

A soft tug on her whole body followed by a split-second of weightlessness hit her like a hammer to her gut, pouring over her scales in a wave of nausea as her feet hit the ground awkwardly. She stumbled and dropped to her hands and knees alongside her mother. She wasn't sure if it was a dragon thing, but she was certain she would never get used to that sensation. On the other hand, over the thunderous sounds of their bodies vacating the air, she could hear Amena giggling manically.

She blinked, trying to right her view of the world as sensation crept into her body from the void through which she had traveled. Contrary to what she was used to, the concussive thundering of the spell continued, rumbling through the air like an enraged titan. Her scales tingled, and she could abruptly feel grass beneath her claws. Her father must have deposited them in the central open area in the Sanctum Arcanum. It was only then that she finally made sense of the reality around her.

The grass under her felt slick and cold, and the soil beneath it felt soft and mushy. The cacophony that filled her ears died away and was replaced with the sound of a million, million droplets of water hammering down atop everything within sight. She looked up into the wrathful black clouds that filled the firmament and shivered from the full-body massage she was receiving from the rain that pounded down on her back. A sharp gasp filled her lungs as she felt as much as saw a bolt of furious, bluish lightning streak across the sky.

The air buzzed with the power with which nature battered the rain-slicked wall of the Sanctum, and every few seconds, it was released to split the air with light and fury that blinded as much as deafened her. The membranes of her wings ached as the rain washed down over her back, and they spread apart to as if to catch as much water as they were able. Tiny strands of sympathetic power sparked over her scales and sizzled through the water sluicing off of her tough hide, and she could do little but stare upward for what felt like forever, a giddy grin glued to her face.

Emma saw her mother loom over her, met the far larger dragon's sparkling emerald eyes. "Go, Emma." crooned that rich voice that was almost drowned out by the dull roar of the nearly constant thunder. "Welcome home."

She nearly knocked Ivy and Calian both over when, without bothering to rise to her feet, she lifted her wings and slammed them down again, dragging herself off of the ground to dangle, suspended, for a single heartbeat while she righted herself. With each flap, air and rain whistled through her horns, singing her the most welcome of choruses as nature's percussion drummed against her body. She rose from the ground, her tail trailing along the silver dragoness's outstretched arm for as long as it could before she parted from her parents. Her motions felt sluggish, like she was out of practice, and she snarled as she realized that thee powerful muscles that granted her flight were likely atrophied from disuse. But then she laughed with ferocious glee. That meant she had to work herself, fly long and hard to get back into shape.

She rose over the silvered, white marble walls and grey slate roofs of her home, and the sprawl of Southcliff, in all its ordered, opulent glory, spread out around her. Lofty towers reached toward the sky, silhouetted for the briefest of moments against the murky backdrop by the raw energy that cracked around her, and she eagerly forced herself over them, until there was nothing between herself and the blanket of inky clouds above her. Emma roared a fierce challenge, screaming out her vicious exultation, as she demanded respect from the winds that buffeted her and the rain that swirled around her.

The water and air around her were cold, nearly icy, some holdover of the spent winter, but that all disappeared as, as if to punish her arrogance, her scales prickled and practically glowed for but an instant. A column of brilliant light shot from the clouds that swamped her, and she accepted it with a nearly maniacal cackle. Power that made her own seem humble filled her for the time it took her to blink, and she let it roast her insides for a heartbeat before she poured it out of her, returning it from where it had come. That same power, tinted violet with a hint of her own, internal strength, burst from between her parted teeth and churned through the intervening ether to connect her with the frigid imperiousness of nature.

Spinning in a graceful backflip, she looked at the blotch of civilization whose stubborn sturdiness was savaged by the gods, and she let herself laugh again as she stabilized herself, hovering protectively over her city. She spread her arms open, welcoming what the universe could throw at her, and roared once more, allowing herself to sink deeply into her core and brace herself with the endlessness of her own strength. The skies raged at her, and she gave as well as she got as lightning flickered violently around and through her. Home.

It was good to be back.