One Broken Past

Chapter 9

Their commander paced back and forth in front of them while they listened intently to their leader. They were ready for this, they trained hard for this, they needed to come home in victory. "So! We shall do this to reclaim some of our land and strangle the life out of those pathetic mutts!" there were cheers, hisses, and rattles of excitement. Good the commander thought, this should go well and before he knew it the battle cry was heard from Wintile and Sandire responded quickly and rushed out across the open field.
Metal hit metal over and over again, the ConstrictingScales were quicker and began suffocating some of the KnightWolves but something was wrong. The commander noticed that the wolves were breaking free from the ConstrictingTails grasp, Onslin was confused. How is this possible? The wolves should be dead! she growled and rushed in to see for herself after she offed another KnightWolf. She wrapped herself around one of the KnightWolves to see why they weren't dying, sure enough an arrow was fired and stuck into her tail.
She hissed in pain but continued to strangle the life out of the KnightWolf, without warning another dog came up and quickly cut deep into her tail, that's what made her release. She quickly turned to the dog as he was quickly pulling the wolf to safety, she pulled out her sword and swung at the dog but he dodged it and the wolf got up and swung at her and hit her armor.
They swung back and forth at each other, sometimes hitting the other in vulnerable spots. She hissed in pain as the two KnightWolves slashed continuously until she couldn't fight them off anymore and she hissed before slithering away from them.

"How much longer can we hold them off?!" one ScaleWarrior hissed to another, "I'm not sure! I don't think we're going to make it!" one of the KnightWolves growled, "that's right, you won't!" and before he could react in time the KnightWolf stabbed his sword into the neck of the ScaleWarrior. The other ScaleWarrior hissed in shock and continued fighting off the KnightWolves that constantly slashed and cut him until he too was killed off.
ScaleWarriors were falling left and right, the commander stood back away from battle looking out over the battlefield and watched in horror as more and more ScaleWarriors were sliced and killed. She knew she had to do it, she just didn't know if she could.
She stood up taller from her slouched position and gave a weird sounding hiss as the retreat cry. The ScaleWarriors immediately responded and began retreating back into Sandire, none of the land seemed to change which made Onslin feel better but she knew Titir wouldn't be happy still.

"Oh my god Onslin! Are you alright?" Yunsir exclaimed as she slowly slithered her way into the castle, she looked like she was going to pass out at any moment. "Titir! Onslin is here!" she called in to him, and she helped Onslin slither in, she felt bad for the poor commander.
"Onslin, please tell me you at least got some of their land" she just sighed and looked away, "not even an inch" Yunsir and Titir looked surprised and disappointed. "You disappoint me Onslin, I don't understand, you said that the ScaleWarriors were prepared for the battle" she sighed and looked down at the floor.
"I thought we were but, they learned how to break out of the ConstrictingTails grip" Titir didn't look pleased. "So they've finally grown smart and learned how to break out of the ConstrictingTails grip huh?" he sat in his throne in thought.
"Come Onslin, let's get those wounds healed up" Yunsir helped her out of the castle and toward all the ScaleHealers. The rest of the ScaleWarriors were there getting treated, some of them looked at her in sadness and pain, she felt bad enough as it was.

"Titir, even if we lost this war it doesn't mean we lost anything, we may have lost some or our ScaleWarriors but at least we-"
"Shut up, if you couldn't kill anyone what made you think you'd succeed at making me feel better?"
"I don't know, I just thought that I could maybe-"
"Well you can't, why don't you go and see if the ScaleHealer needs help, if you can even do that right" she looked at him with sad eyes and sighed. She sulked out of the castle and walked over to where the ScaleWarriors were getting healed, but she tripped over one of the battle axes and it ended up giving the ScaleWarrior next to it another cut.
"Watch it slithering! I have enough cuts and scrapes as it is!" he snapped back at her, "it was just an accide-" he hissed at her. "Why don't go be useless some where else!" she got teary eyed and walked away from them and headed towards the ScaleHealer.
"Hey Lilliar? need any help?" the ScaleHealer looked down at her and noticed her sad expression and tears in her eyes. "Looks like someone got yelled at again huh?" she whipped away one her tear filled eyes and glared at her, "I was only trying to help" she said sternly. "Well maybe you can grab that jar and give it to Wilon?" she hesitantly looked at the jar and walked over to where it sat and reached up for it. She wrapped her fingers around the jar firmly so as not to drop it, she slithered over to where Wilon sat attending to another ScaleWarrior.
"Ah, thank you darling" he said calmly as he grabbed the jar from her, she smiled "you're welcome" curiosity got the better of her and she just had to ask. "What's inside the jar?" Wilon poured a little onto his hand and rubbed it over one of the ScaleWarrior's cuts, it started to fizz and the ScaleWarrior hissed in pain. "I know I know, just bare with me here" she nodded in response, she asked again.
"What's in the jar?" Wilon looked over at her, "it's a special kind of venom made by the ScaleHealers, it's very useful for healing just about everything" she looked fascinated by this. "That's cool, is that how they find out that you're a ScaleHealer?" Wilon nodded, "yes but your parents had to be ScaleHealers in order for you to be one because the venom is genetic only" she looked disappointed and sad.
"Oh" Wilon lifted her head and looked her in the eye with a sympathetic look, "don't be so upset, maybe you're one, who knows, your parents might have been ScaleHealers" she smiled. "Maybe..." he moved his hand away from her and went back to attending the ScaleWarriors wounds.

She needed to know, she just had to, she needed to get to Lilliar tomorrow, or, maybe tonight? How about right now? Yes, she needed to see Lilliar right now, her life depended on it.
She walked out into the night and made her way toward Lilliar's house, she knew she'd be awake already since Lilliar's a "stay up late" kind of Slither. She knew the guards didn't want her out late at night, she had no idea why, and she had no idea why it was only her. Everyone else could be out at night except her, this of course made her feel angry but that didn't stop her from slipping through the shadows unnoticed.
She knew the guards patterns and waited for the perfect moment to move, once the guards walked past where she stood pressed up against a wall, she quickly flattened herself on the ground and slithered across the ground behind the two guards who heard nothing. She smiled at them for not noticing her.
The next group was tricky, they constantly looked around sometimes at a pattern other times it was random. Tonight it looked like she was going to have to use a distraction, she picked up one of the rocks from the pile she had made, she remembered the day she was collecting them and how people laughed at her for having such a "stupid past time collecting pieces of earth that's everywhere" as they worded it.
Anger swelled inside her and she used that anger the throw the rock at a wooden barrel away from where she needed to go. The anger subsided and she smiled as they both looked in the direction of where the rock had landed and she took that opportunity and slithered across the ground once more into the shadows on the other side.
She made it to where Lilliar lived and knocked on the door lightly, she heard Lilliar slither over to the door and open it, she looked down at her in surprise. "How did you get here?" she whispered, "come on, get in here quick" she grabbed her arm and pulled her inside.
"How on Nigh did you manage to slip past the guards on the way here?" she sounded more impressed than scared for her. "It was easy, once you figure out their patterns of their patrol around town" Lilliar looked a little worried for her but she was smiling.
"So what made you come and see me?" Lilliar slithered back onto her couch and she followed behind her. "I wanted to know if I was a ScaleHealer" she looked at her confused, "why?" she sighed. "I thought maybe since I don't have any parents I might be a ScaleHealer" Lilliar nodded slowly and got up from where she was laying and slithered into her kitchen and grabbed an empty clear glass jar with a wide mouth and one of her cloths and placed it over the bottle. She then grabbed a string and tied the cloth to the top of the jar making sure it covered the mouth of the jar completely.
She came back to where she lay and sat down next to her, "bite through the cloth at the top" she looked confused. "ScaleHealers venom is a specific color, if you are a ScaleHealer then I will be able to tell" she looked from Lilliar to the jar and then once more at her then back to the jar. She shrugged and bit through the cloth at the top and let the venom flow through her fangs. Lilliar couldn't believe what she was seeing, it was something she wasn't expecting.
"Y-your venom" she looked at Lilliar confused and stopped biting the cloth, "what, what is it?" she looked at what Lilliar was looking at and she to was a little frightened. "That's not the color venom of ScaleHealer, is it?" Lilliar shook her head, "I've seen yellow venom, I've seen green, I've even seen red, but never, in my decades of being on Nigh, ever have I seen black" she looked at the jar again and noticed it wasn't just a clear black like the other colors, it was pitch black, and they both were concerned as to what it meant.