The Forgotten Zodiac

Tasia snapped her wings open and spiraled downwards, making sure to land close to Nate.

Seria quickly pulled away from the male dragonian after breathlessly thanking him for saving her, then moved over to Diana to help her. She hesitated when she saw the drakeling licking the little girl, then carefully moved forward and ran a hand up and down Diana's legs, holding the child gently in her other arm. "Shhh, shhh..." she soothed, heading the broken bones.

Luna stepped forward to help Forin, burning away all of the goop from his body so he could breathe. She flinched when Zephyr bellowed and slammed into a wall, causing the entire castle to quiver. He threw his weight against the wall, crushing the larger drakeling between the hard stone walls and his own heavy skin.

The small drakeling whimpered at the roar, skittering back into the shadows. It was just a kit, barely older than Nate. Drakelings aged so slowly that ten years was like a single one for them. The two fighting now were hundreds of years old, having lived underground for ages until they had been called forth by Obelisk.

The green one, the one pinned now, screeched and snarled and twisted about, but the direction it was pinned in only allowed it to claw up the wall. The blue drakeling was flying in mad circles around Vaira, snapping and clawing only when it saw an opening.

Vaira shot a burst of fire up at the blue one, trying to bring it down out of the air. She sucked in a deep breath and let out an enourmous burst of pink-tinted flames that rocketed up into the air, scorching and twisting up towards the drakeling.

Welk took lion form and raced off into the castle, deciding to try and see if Werr was here. He ignored Jag's call of where he was going, not caring about anything other than finding his friend.

The second drakeling crashed landed after that. Another disadvantage these monsters had was due to the fact that they were far from firepoof. The blue one landed hard in front of the younger drakeling. The little one, colored black and grey, scrambled forward. It bared its toothless jaws at Vaira, letting out a tiny squeal that was apparently supposed to be like the high-pitched roar of the older ones.

Vaira brought her massive jaws forward and gave a full-throated roar at the little creature, nearly deafening everyone else there. It was nowhere near as loud as Naybrin's roar, but it was still loud enough. She closed her jaws and growled, blowing a thick plume of smoke out at the little drakeling.

Tasia had watched Welk run out, and she now trotted away from Nate and followed after him. She knew Welk shouldn't have gone off by himself. It was dangerous to go alone.

Nate ducked around things, following quickly after Tasia. He wasn't about to let her wander off on her own, not in a million years.

The little drakeling whimpered with obvious fear. The larger Drakeling let out its full screech, putting its claws over the younger one and pushing it back behind her (as it was indeed a girl). She smashed into Vaira bodily, clamping toothy jaws down on the dragon's leg, the most it could do with half of her scales smouldering from the heat of the previous attack.

Vaira snarled and whipped her leg around, slamming the creature into a wall of the castle.

Zephyr had taken his fight up into the air, circling around and around the castle as he and the drakeling attacked each other. The emerald dragon roared and blew out a blast of green-tinted fire, then closed his mouth and held the fire inside for a moment. When he released it, it was a huge fireball that blasted across the sky.

The small Drakeling, whimpering as it coiled up and peeked up at Vaira, staring up at her. His eyes were wide with panic, fear and anger at the same time. It was terrified, but the poor thing's parents were being attacked. He couldn't help but be upset. The green dragon screeched as it mostly avoided the fireball, but his tail was caught up in the blast. The rest of the flames, however, smashed into the roof of the castle, easily setting it ablaze.

"You guys, we need to get out of here," Werr looked up as a piece of the ceiling fell to the floor, crashing to the floor mere inches from him. The smashing and destruction was easily becoming too much for the castle. Werr had already untied the king and princess, then he realized something. "S-Seria, heal Cici so she can release these two!" Werr said desperately.

"Ugh..." Forin struggled to sit up, coughing a bit. Diana wailed and wiggled out of Seria's grip, moving into Forin's arms.

Seria nodded, then moved over to Cici and placed her hands on the fairy's body, healing her quickly.

Zephyr plunged through the air, closing his teeth on the male drakeling's leg and dragging the creature through the sky. He threw his head around and let go of the creature's tail, sending it plummeting to the ground inside the castle. He then followed it down and held it with one paw as the others climbed up on his back.

Vaira growled down at the baby drakeling, then slowly stopped and stared at him. She made a low chuffing sound in her throat, like what a female dragon would make for either her own baby or the baby of another female that she was taking care of. Dragons who formed packs helped with each other's children, after all.

"Vaira, go!" Zephyr suddenly said, and she snapped out of it. She bent her head back and nodded at him, then took off from the ground.

Cici grabbed both the king and princess, lifting them up through the holes in the roof, successfully getting them out of the way. She barely made it out; the castle itself started collapsing, and within a mere matter of seconds, massive clouds of dust, dirt, and small pieces of rubble overwhelmed the castle. When that settled, Storaph Castle lay in ruin. One of the Drakelings' tails could be seen under the massive stones that lay on top of it. It twitched, but then lay still. The other one, the female, somehow managed to unbury its head. She opened her mouth, letting the young slip out from between her teeth. It crawled between its two dead parents, looking from one to another. It rubbed its claws together, curling up pathetically and starting to cry quietly. It was a bit difficult to understand, but it whimpered and squeaked, expecting to be hit by a fireball any second.

Vaira was watching him from her vantage point high in the sky, then suddenly dropped down and swept low over the castle. She landed by the baby drakeling and balanced carefully on her back legs, reaching out with her claws and scooping the baby into her hands.

"Vaira!" Zephyr called, not wanting her to mess with the creature.

She ignored him, instead tucking the baby drakeling down into her pouch. Female dragons usually had thin pouches in their underbellies, where they carried newborn baby dragons that were unable to fly yet. As dragon's commonly laid egg batches of anywhere from five to fifteen eggs, it got hard carrying that many babies in just their paws. Thus the pouch.

She tucked the baby drakeling down into her pouch and took off, soaring high into the air.

*

"You!"

Fwoosh.

"Have!"

Crackle.

"Got!"

Sparks flew.

"To be FREAKING!"

A burst of fire.

"KIDDING ME!"

Welk roared and threw all of his weight into the heavy stone slab blocking the way out of the dungeons, where he had been trapped whilst looking for Werr. He put all of his magic behind his next fire blast and threw it forward, trying to melt the slab down. It didn't do anything other than get extremely hot.

Welk cursed and sat down on the ground, feeling trapped in more ways than one. He rubbed his forehead and eyes, sighing quietly. "Why did this have to happen?" he murmured softly, shaking his head slowly.

((Put this in before the *, otay?))

Werr was not without realization of this. He was currently being held back by Forin, however. "There's no way he survived that rockslide, j-just stay!" He screeched at the human king. Werr wasn't backing down without a fight, though.

"NO!" He was screaming his head off, figuratively speaking. "Let go of me, Welk was still in there! WELK!!"

"Shut up! Nate and Tasia were down there too, we won't leave all three of them!" Forin snarled at him. "Just calm down! We have to think of a plan, you moron!"

Werr relaxed (slightly) after that, letting Forin pull him onto Zephyr's back properly.

*

((And this one below it.))

"Calm down, Welk. Conserve your energy," Nate shouted at him. They were blocked off, in a different cell. To make matters worse, Nate's leg was pinned under a pile of rock. "Tasia?" He called, struggling to see past the dirt in his eyes.

((Dun.))

There was a shifting of the rocks nearby and Tasia pushed the rubble away from where she had been trapped, easily able to shift the rocks. "I'm here," she said, moving forward and touching Nate gently on his shoulder. One of her wings was bent at a painfully awkward angle, obviously broken. She placed her clawed hands over the biggest stone on Nate's leg and pushed hard, managing to shift it enough to get it to fall over. Once it was off, she picked up and moved all of the other rocks until Nate's leg was free.

Her skin was pale and her eyes held intensely high levels of fear as she worked, showing how scared she had been when they had been trapped. And still was. Once Nate was free, the female dragonian bent down near his head, ripping part of her skirt away to use as a rag. She gently, ever so tenderly, wound the fabric around her ruined little fingers and brushed it against Nate's eyes, helping him clear his vision.

Nate shook his head once his eyes were clear, smiling up at Tasia. He pushed himself into a sitting position and scooted backwards, wincing as he saw his bent leg. Welk was the only one unscathed, apparently. "Welk...what were you looking for down here?" Nate asked, inspecting Tasia's wing. He wrapped his arms around her comfortingly, letting out a heavy sigh. "I'm glad you're okay," He murmured to her, then waited for Welk's answer.

Tasia smiled weakly, still quivering from fear, then nuzzled her face right up under his chin, sighing quietly and trying not to cry.

Welk glared over at them, then said "You would think I was crazy, so shut up and don't talk to me." He stood up and started pacing, stalking back and forth as he thought over several ways to get out. None of them worked, as it required force greater than he could give. He was extremely stressed out and panicky, like he had been when both Cynry and Werr had been missing. But...Werr was here, so there was no reason why he should've been this upset. He flicked his short tail from side to side angrily, then turned and flung a burst of fire at the slab blocking the door, screeching something incoherent.

Tasia watched him fearfully as he proceeded to tear up the contents of the room until he was reduced to panting heavily on the ground, barely able to hold himself up with his arms.

"We're stuck down here because we decided to follow you, lad. The least you could do is tell us why you ran off on your own." Nate said gruffly. "I won't threaten you. That's kind of pointless right now, but...I still wish to know. Humor me; as insane as it sounds, I promise not to laugh or call names..."

"You...you want...to know?" Welk panted, staggering up. "Okay then, Froggy, I'll tell you! You know Werr, my best friend and one of the two people I trust most in my life? Well, he's not Werr. The one travelling with us is a fake. Where the real Werr is, I don't know. How long we've been with a fake, I don't know. All I know is that I have no idea what to do anymore! Cynyr's gone, turned into some weird...thing, and Werr's not even WERR!" They heard him sob, along with the sound of a young body sliding down a wall. "I f-figured it out w-when we left A-Amnairus. The clone can't s-scratch my ears like W-Werr does," he said, his voice dwindling into nothing, clearly past his breaking point.

Tasia pressed her head against Nate's shoulder and whimpered very, very softly, not liking hearing Welk so upset.

Nate thought about it for a long while. "Calm yourself, Welk. I need you to tell me the last time Werr scratched your ears correctly. To be perfectly honest...I believe you. You know Werr better than any of the rest of us, and if you say that this one is a fake, I believe you. I would be a fool not to. Now then, tell me. Think back. The last time you felt Werr scratch your ears properly." He said, wrapping his arms around Tasia. His back was starting to ache, but it was hard to sit up seeing how they were in the middle of the room.

Welk panted for a moment longer, than slowly caught his breath and thought hard. He closed his eyes and pictured Werr's hand gently brushing through his blonde fur behind his ears, scratching the skin underneath. His nails were soothing against Welk's skin and had a calming effect on him. Something only Werr himself seemed capable of doing. "It was the afternoon before Werr's party, which was held later in the evening," the half-cat said. "I had taken a break from making Werr's present and had went to spend some time with him. He scratched my ears when we sat together." He sniffled softly, rubbing his crimson eyes. "That was the last..." he murmured, pulling his knees against his chest and hugging them tightly.

Tasia's hand crept down to Nate's back, already sensing his discomfort. She slipped her hand up under his shirt, placing her delicate fingers over his spine and generating her calming warmth.

Nate closed his eyes, breathing heavily through his nose. "Alright then. Cern must have done something. I doubt the fake one knows of your suspicions, and let's keep it that way. i have no idea what its intentions are, so we have to be careful." He was confident that the dragons would be back for them. Vaira would refuse to just leave Tasia, and Zephyr wouldn't just fly off alone...would they?