𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗛𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿 - 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑙

Chapter 3

     Eclipse squeezed her eyes shut as the light around her grew as bright as all the stars. It swirled around her, making some sort of tunnel upwards. Eclipse squinted up at it, and saw what looked like a hole at the top. She could see lush undergrowth through it. She flew up to the top of the light-tunnel, and examined the forest on the other side of what she now assumed was a portal. She tentatively reached one of her forepaws toward it, and felt herself being yanked forward.

     There was a sickening drop, and she rolled over on the ground.

     She blinked open her eyes, and saw that she was in the forest she'd seen. She looked back to where she thought the portal would be, and was just in time to see the light from the other side of the portal blink out as the portal closed.

     Eclipse took a deep breath, and thought about where she had to go.

     She flew to the tops of the trees, and scanned the environment. It looked slightly familiar, yet she didn't know where she was. She decided to go look for a place to sleep as her eyes were growing heavy. It was almost sunset.

     Eclipse landed back on the forest floor, and padded toward the sinking sun until she came to a large cluster of bushes.  She gathered leaves and moss and laid them out under the foliage, then wedged herself beneath the bushes. It was a little cramped, but after a while, Eclipse fell asleep.

     Eclipse was awakened by the sound of voices. At first she thought it was just the Drolgons in her Pacree being noisy when she was trying to sleep, but then she remembered that she wasn't home. She looked at her paws to see that more of them were faded. She peered through the leaves surrounding her, and saw shapes moving around.

     The Darkbeasts! They've found me! She thought with a jolt of fear.

     But then she looked closer, and saw that these creatures had gray, reddish-gray, and black fur. No reddish glow to them. They were smaller than Eclipse, maybe almost half her size. She shifted her wings to get a better look at the creatures through the bushes, when she realized she'd just stuck her wing through the bush for these creatures to see.

     Stupid, stupid Eclipse!

     The creatures started barking and rushing around.

     "Dragon!" They shouted. "Dragon!"

     Eclipse thought this very strange, since dragon wings had scales, and Drolgon wings – like hers – had fur. She stepped out of the bushes, and found that the creatures were wolves. Big ones.

     "Hello," Eclipse started, a little nervously. "I'm Eclipse- I'm not a dragon, I'm a Drolgon."

     The wolves looked at each other, and then whispered things.

     "What's a Drolgon?" The biggest one asked.

     Eclipse was very surprised by his question.

     Oh, right- the spirits said I'd be going back in time. I guess this is before Galaxy was born.

     "A Drolgon is- uh- just kind of... something I call myself." Eclipse stuttered. She didn't think it would be a very good idea to tell these wolves what a Drolgon was before a Drolgon was even a creature.

     "Drolgon sounds a lot like dragon..." a smaller wolf muttered. "And she looks sort-of like a big wolf-dragon..."

     "A wolf-dragon?" Another one scoffed "there'd never be a wolf-dragon, what with the war, you snail-brain!"

     The war? Eclipse thought. What war? Does she mean that there's a war between the dragons and the wolves?

     Apparently yes, because as the wolves led Eclipse back to their Alpha to decide what to do with her, she saw gruesome, bloody dragon heads on tall sticks that were stuck in the ground.