The Ember of Life

Chapter 5

Dertharion was also trying to sleep. He lay in the hut's single bed, watching the moonlight that slipped in through the door's cracks crawl across the floor. Zendrayus lurked somewhere. But whether inside or outside the Green didn't know. The sickly dragon, despite his light-colored scales, could hide in shadow surprisingly well. Shifting in bed, the Green clutched his satchel close. He did not trust the White. Zendrayus HAD saved him, and not taken the Ember...

But Dertharion was not known for his trusting. Besides, the White's horribly decrepit body simply screamed evil. The Green shuddered at the thought of the Plaguehide dragging him all the way to the hut. Touching his scales. Repulsive. He had thought that the Whites were all dead. What a pity that this one had survived.

The Green slid out of bed. He was fed up with lying unable to sleep. Quietly, he pushed the door open with a claw and crept out. Turning to stroll along the building's side, he almost walked straight into Zendrayus. The White sat leaned up against the outside wall of the hut, fast asleep. Each one of the Plaguehide's rasping breaths sounded like his last, so agonized and scraping were they. Dertharion glared darkly at the White. Such arrogance. He was so unafraid of Dertharion fleeing that he was taking a little nap. The Green could feel his poison creeping up his throat in response to his anger, but he swallowed it down.

Now was no time to pick a fight. He needed the White to introduce him to Saliss and put in a good word for him. Otherwise, the monarch's cold-bloodedness might make him retract the reward. Dertharion needed that reward. All his life, he'd been nobody. Just some dragon everyone kicked around and used for their own gain. But soon...He licked his lips as if he could taste the gold. Soon, soon...he'd be somebody. Zendrayus made a faint growling sound in his sleep, interrupting the Green's dreams. Dertharion glanced at the White. The Plaguehide's whistling breaths were beginning to get on his nerves, so he went back to his bed to dream of his future wealth and power. He always knew he'd be somebody one day...

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She had always been afraid of being alone. When she was much, much younger, barely out of the egg, her father had punished her by making her sleep outside of their small house. At night. Alone. The sounds of the night had seemed so much louder, so much scarier as she lay shivering on the ground. All the nightmares of her own imagining had surrounded her, and finally she could take it no more and screamed -

-Jet startled awake, breathing quickly. She wasn't outside, surrounded by the night; she lay inside her house. The interior of the hut was rose-tinted with early morning light. She sighed, resting her delicate head back down on the soft floor. Nothing but a dream. Well, a memory. Nothing but a revisited memory. She closed her eyes, calming her breathing with an effort. That was not her any more. She was no longer the frightened hatchling of her youth. Pushing all the strange dream shards away, she sat up. The little hut felt shockingly empty without Ebony's comforting presence by her side. Ebony. Jet blinked a tear away and looked at the egg cuddled close to her.

"You're all I have now, little one."

Jet bit her lip hard. She had two options. She could moan about her husband's absence, and be an absolute wreck when he came back, or she could take it quietly, and have no sorrow in her heart to take precedence over the joy when he returned. One was much harder than the other. "It's the hard things in life that are the most worthwhile, sometimes, my love," she told the egg, taking comfort in its living presence.

"Jet? Is that you?" A black dragon shoved her head through the entrance veil. Jet looked up, shocked, her body instinctively curling around her egg to protect it. Then she relaxed. It was only Pitch, one of her friends.