A Dance With Flame

Chapter Two: Tea Leaves

Author's Note: Peaceful Tea---CJ Music

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~:Dawn...:~

The Cerulean Archipelago.

~:I almost forget what it looks like here.:~

It is a land gripped by lingering winters, hardships, and struggles.

~:I almost lose the image of a lazy, creeping sun just starting to crest the snow-covered, eastern horizons to the burdens of war...I feared I would never see it again.

I feared that my body, my bones, and my memory would all be lost to the mainland and to this ongoing, futile struggle that had buried any semblance of happiness I had with bitterness and heartache.:~

It is a chain of islands sheltered and pooled together under the watchful eye of a dormant giant---their creator and guardian. The once-active volcano that shaped this frozen world from nothing but magma, fire, and heat stands at the epicenter of its tightly woven community of earth, ice, and seclusion from the outside world.

This place, this Nation, and these people, however, are not without their burdens. The dragon masterfully soaring above the tapered canopies of pine and juniper trees knows it to be so.

~:Most of all, I feared that the Crimson bastard yet to seat the throne would come for me. He's already claimed countless of my men---why not add my head to the pile to top it off?:~

She flies with absolute urgency. The dragon's worst fears have just been about realized; the thought alone is enough to cause the great beast's lips to curl upwards and expose the beared, ivory fangs underneath, and for her flight to only quicken.

The enemy is just a few weeks shy from these very shores.

Like a black fabric torn from the night sky itself, an Ebony Dragon ferociously and seamlessly weaves through wind current after wind current. Unstoppable, the great beast races against the rising sun; her exhausted breaths, while leaking from her maw in thick, condensed clouds, dissipate quickly as she continues forward with no plans on slowing down---as if they had never happened in the first place.

Inhale before exhale, exhale after inhale---the dragon uses her claws to gain traction in the air like a loping wolf would with the ground. Before long, the forest line ends...

~:If it were any other time, any other life, I would be marveling at the rising sun and count myself lucky to experience such a joyous, and beautiful thing, but there is no such thing as luck in a time like this.

The war has made sure of it.:~

Continuing from the trees and dense woodland below, an endless expanse of frozen earth begins, harboring in it only rock, ice, and snow. Without a second thought, the Ebony Dragon stoops from on high and stoops to only a few meters above the ground, racing across the landscape like never before.

Far off in the distance, the dragon's wild, violet eyes catch a glimpse of her destination. The city's capital, a large, enduring town, takes refuge in one of the many valleys present in the shadow of its slumbering carver, waiting patiently for the Ebony Dragon's arrival.

Her throat rumbles with a high-pitched, ecstatic growl. There's nothing more she's ever wanted in the entire world than to return home, and seeing it as safe and secure as she left it nearly two years ago only bolsters the longing in the dragon's full, aching heart.

~:I sent myself off to fight on the mainland to protect all that resides here. My people have otherwise intergrated into the Cerulean Clan; we are now one people prospering and struggling all at the same time...:~