Gray clouds obscured the
black dragon's view of the enemy.
But not for long.
Catching up to them, Panther
roared in rage. They had taken Starset, her only hatchling. The only
one that she had been able to save from them.
Them.
Humans.
The word made smoke rise from
her nostrils. How she loathed them. Now she was chasing after a whole
swarm of them who had her daughter. She would never let man take away
her last child.
Never.
She pumped her pitch-black
wings harder, ignoring the searing ache that made her muscles scream
in protest. She was in hot pursuit of two of the once five of one of
man's favorite invention: flying ships. Their so-called technology
had grown more advanced in the past few hundred years. Almost
completely wiping out the entire Nightflyer race.
The last dragon species in
the world. And Panther wasn't about to let the humans take her
future. Her race's
future.
Roaring, she opened her jaws
wide and let out a stream of hot flames. Her fire licked the back of
the ship flying in front of her, catching the back on fire with an
explosion. Swerving over the now plummeting machine, she fixed her
piercing green gaze on the final ship.
The last one.
The one that held her
daughter captive.
"STARSET!" she bellowed
with all her strength. The back of the ship opened, a large door
lowering downwards. And standing on the edge of the belly of the ship
was a man holding Starset by the back of her neck.
The human she hated the most.
He had killed her mate,
Fierceheart, the last male Nightflyer. The man wore a mask over his
face--to help him breath at this high an altitude Panther
guessed--and had an evil smirk on his face.
The same one he had when he
had set fire to her and Fierceheart's cave, killing two of their
newly hatched sons.
The same one he had when he
had shot Fierceheart out of the sky with a giant metal ballista.
And now, the same one he had
as he tried to tear apart the rest of Panther's world.
Her shattered, fragile world.
"I have something of
yours," he yelled over the cold air swishing swiftly past them.
Panther narrowed her eyes and bared her fangs at him, a warm heat
beginning to burn in the pit of her stomach.
"She's the only one other
than you left," he continued. The heat in Panther's stomach
intensified with every word he said. But it was what he said next
that really pissed her off.
"And you're gonna watch
her die."
Thank the stars that dragons
were fireproof.
Reaching for the now
scorching heat that raged inside of her, Panther drew in a deep
breath, and with a huge flap from her wings pushing her forward and
closer to the man, she let out a long jet of orange-red flames, the
only sound she heard being the roar of fire from between her maw and
the blood pounding in her head.
But her strength was failing.
She had been flying after
Starset for hours and was continuously setting fire to flying ships,
while all the while breathing thin air that seemed to get thinner by
the second.
But she fought the urge to
stop and rest because she knew that there was no escaping her fire.
There was no way he
would escape.
Something exploded within the
ship, the explosion throwing the man and Starset out of the ship.
Pinning her wings to her sides, Panther cut off her fire and started
plummeting to earth, the cold air piercing her thick scales and
making her spine tingle.
Both the man--being badly
burned--and Starset were tumbling through the open air, the man
screaming and her daughter crying for her.
"Momma!"
Starset's cries made
Panther squeeze her wings to her side even tighter.
I'm coming, little one!
Since Starset was still only
a hatchling, she couldn't fly yet and her wings were flailing around
her, small but sharp talons clawing at empty air.
"Momma!"
"I'm almost there!"
Hang on, Starset!
Panther glanced up from her
daughter to see the sandy ground of the desert coming steadily
towards them. Panic flutter in her stomach as she realized that she
only had maybe a minute left to reach Starset and fly away safely or
else they would both be killed upon impact.
Despite every ache, every
pain, and the fact that she couldn't feel her wings any more, Panther
starting flapping as hard as she physically could, angling them down
and pumping them up towards the sky to pull herself closer to her
daughter.
Once within a few feet of
her, Panther reached out a paw yelled over the driving wind, "I'm
here, little one! Now flip on your back and face me." doing as she
was told, Starset used her tail to spin around and face Panther, her
back to the ever-rising ground.
"Good. Now reach for me!"
Starset extended one of her short arms towards her mother's
stretching her claws as far as she could.
"Momma, I can't reach!"
she wailed.
"Yes," Panther called
back, "you can!"
Forcing, driving
her wings harder, Panther was able to hook the tip of her claw on one
of Starset's. Roaring with effort, she yanked her shoulder forward,
grabbed her daughter's wrist, and pulled her into her chest.
Snapping her wings open, she shot up and out, now flying horizontal
to the ground, now only about a hundred feet from the rolling hot
sands of the desert.
Dots started filling her
eyes, her vision becoming hazy and blurry. Knowing that she was about
to probably literally die of exhaustion, she flapped once as hard as
she could while tilting her head and chest up to give her lift, and
wrapped her wings around Starset as tight as she could, then started
hurtling to the ground.
Closing her eyes and grabbing
Starset with all four of her legs even tighter, she waited for the
smash of the sand on her back, bracing herself.
When she did finally hit the
ground, she more felt than heard the sharp cracks of her shoulders
and wing sockets dislocate, sand spraying everywhere, hundreds of
feet in the air. Panther tumbled down the large sand dune she had
struck and, coming to a stop at the bottom, she sucked in a huge
breath filling her lungs with warm, satisfying air. Opening her
wings, she looked down to see Starset curled up to her, quivering in
fear and shock.
"Starset?" Panther asked
quietly. "Are you hurt?"
Her
daughter slowly looked up at her and answered shakily, "No." A
breath of relief escaped Panther.
She had done it.
She had saved her race.
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