The End Of A Struggle ☆ WoF Short Story #1

. The End of a Struggle .

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  She jumped at her mother, talons outstretched and sharp. Coral flung her head back and pulled her tail up to protect herself. The tip of her tail flicked up, trying to create a barrier between her and her daughter. Orca's mouth was bearing its sharp white teeth, the teeth of a young dragonet, one that's yet to be stained with years of prey and battle. Outstretched talons clawed at Coral's gills, clipping into them. Coral shut her eyes, knowing this was it. This was her end. Her daughter had won.
  A sudden lurch stirred the water. The talons on her throat were pulled back, drawing blood as they did. Coral opened her eyes, one at a time, to see her daughter's eyes start to turn to clouds right in front of her. A ring of rust smelling water curled around Orca's abdomen, flowing up towards the ceiling of the underwater palace throne room. Orca's eyes met her own. White pearls of emptiness stared at her. Coral forced herself to look down. That's when she saw it. The narwhal horn on the tip of her tail had impaled Orca through the chest and out the side of her back, the tip of the once clean white, covered red and orange.
   With every gag and struggle, blood gurgled out of Orca's mouth with bubbles of white foam. Coral kicked herself away from her daughter, the narwhal horn ripping out with a gut-wrenching tearing noise that shuttered through the water and down her back. Orca's talons went to her chest, her body floating down to the ground, folding over itself. Coral righted herself, sick to her stomach. Orca turned her head to look up at her mother, and for a second, all Coral saw was that little green dragonet, with big blue eyes, asking about the pretty sea anemone in the garden. But her eyes weren't blue no more, the cloud overtaken them.. She was gone. The closer she swam to her daughter, the warmer the water got. The taste of rust made her gills flare in irritation. To Coral's surprise, she was smiling. Orca was giving her the biggest smile she's ever seen. A broken, sinister smile, full of bloody teeth, covered in a smoke screen of the smell of death. Her scales flashed brightly, enough that every dragon in the cave could make out what she was saying, despite the blood. "...I did this all wrong. You're going to rule forever, aren't you...Mother? You should thank me..." She sputtered a cough. "No one can stop you now..." Before Coral could even react, her daughter was gone. Her eyes rolled back, her mouth agape. The silence was loud in the throne room. No one dared to make a sound.
   That the queen's daughter was dead. And Coral would be queen for the rest of time.

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