Cicily, Our Last Hope

Chapter 4: A New Beginning

        Alone.

        Cicily was alone.

        She had flown to her cave and spent the night. She had made sure to rest every half hour so her wings wouldn't tire out. She wasn't sure what direction she was going, or how many times she had turned. She let her heart guide her.

        It turns out her heart was a pretty bad compass. She went in about five adjacant circles before she gave up on the whole "following her heart" idea. Looking through her belongings, she realized that she was almost out of food. She was hungry, cold, tired, and even more. She wanted her mother and her bed and her cave and her painting.

        The sun was rising and she hadn't slept.She sat up, ready to retire to whatever home she could find, when all of a sudden she saw a glimmer of light directly in front of the sun, near the ground. She was jumping to conclusions, she knew, but this was her one last hope. She grabbed her things and hopped up, spreading her wings and diving yet again towards a new start.

It took her only seventeen hours to reach her new destination. It was what she'd hoped for, what she'd believed for. It was a shiny, metallic rock. She sighed, her eyes getting teary. Cicily slumped onto the rock, pulling her knees into her chest and burying her face in her legs. She looked up suddenly as she realized that the rock was slowly spinning. Once, twice, three times it spun as she sat, frozen in curiosity. When she looked back up after the last spin, she was completely astounded at what she was seeing.

There was a huge gate. She couldn't see past it. It was about a mile away from the rock, and it was guarded by two men. Normal men, not dragon men. She wondered if they were, perhaps, sorcerers. She decided to approach them in human form, so she transformed back. She approached them cautiously, and acted very ladylike, though she hid a small dagger behind her back.

"Hello madame, what's the passcode?" one of the guards questioned.

"I've forgotten, I've been gone so long."

"Ah, so you can just transform and we'll let you in."

However unsure Cicily felt, she couldn't give up this opportunity. She shut her eyes, channeling her emotion slowly. She wanted to take her time revealing herself. her skin paled gradually, starting at her eyes and working outward until her entire body was covered in the white scales she had grown to know. She felt her teeth becomiing sharper, her ears pointier, and the beginnings of her wings sprouting. Her fingers tingled as her fingernails became sharper, and she felt a power in her chest as her heart started working harder.

Suddenly, her body went numb. She reached up and felt a dart in her neck and her eyelids became heavier. She fell into the arms of one of the guards, and the last thing she heard before she blacked out was: "we've caught another imposter!"