~CHAPTER 5~
Fangtooth swerved through the nighttime sky, feeling the wind whistle under his wings. Now this is something I can get used to, he thought dreamily. Flying is better than swimming.
He caught up with Fireburst and said “So… uh… where are we going?” he asked.
“Anywhere we want that’s not Jade Mountain,” she replied. “Wait a minute.” Her face paled at the sight of what was below them. To Fangtooth, it looked like a small valley, but then he could see burnt trees, rotting plants, and the remains of what looked like a small village.
Fireburst was staring hard at the ground, horror marking her face.
“Fireburst, are you okay?” Fangtooth asked. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”
Tears welled up in her eyes and she ran her talons across her scars. “I… I used to live here.”
“My family, my friends…. they all died in an explosion.”
“Oh.” said Fangtooth, feeling stupid because he didn’t have anything to say.
“I was only four, and some… some... STUPID, IDIOTIC NIGHTWINGS KILLED THEM!!!” she roared in despair and her scales brightened, almost like a lantern. Then they all set on fire.
She turned to face him, flames licking at her face. “AND THIS IS MY CURSE!!!” she howled. Pale, glistening tears slid down her face, extinguishing the fire.
“Your curse?” said Fangtooth. “I didn’t know that you had a curse.”
Fireburst looked furious with herself. “Okay, I’ll show you my curse. Only if you promise not to tell. Don’t tell anyone, not a soul.”
Fireburst lifted up her fire opal chain and showed it to him. She turned it over, revealing an old scroll stuck to the back. It read:
Enchant this scroll so that the wearer shall become immortal and will reverse the process of death.
She showed it to him. “This is my curse. I will never die.”
Fangtooth stared at her. “That’s a curse?”
“Of course it is, snail brain! Immortality is another way of saying everyone else dies! Everyone.. you love.”
“How… how were you cursed?” “This amulet was given to me when I turned two. It had been passed down through generations… so I guess the SkyWings DID have animuses, back in the day.”
“Well, why don’t you just take it off?” said Fangtooth. “If you don’t want immortality, you know, I could have it.”
Fireburst snorted. “Well, seaweed head, it doesn’t quite work that way. You see, this amulet reverses the process of death. That means, if I take it off, the process will continue, a-and…. I’ll die.”
Fangtooth felt wrenching stabs of pity for Fireburst.
“Who killed your family?” The question blurted out of his mouth before he could stop it.
“Oh… I don’t know.” said Fireburst sadly. Her talons clenched. “All I remember is black dragons swooping across the sky, calling ‘We serve the eyes of chaos.’ ”
She froze. “That sounds horribly familiar.”
Fangtooth felt that strange feeling of remembering that name, too. “Yes,” he agreed. “It was in my dream.”
Fireburst stared at him. “Your dream? But… I heard it in mine, too!”
Fangtooth shuddered. “It was terrible. Dragons dying, a NightWing with his eyes missing, a laughing insane dragon on a throne of skulls. Weird and creepy, if you ask me.”
Fireburst went white. “I...I had the same dream.”
“What? So that means… so that means we had a shared dream.” replied Fangtooth.
Fireburst gulped. “So our minds might be trying to tell us something.”
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