The Rogue Rider (An Inheritance Fanfiction)

Chapter 14: Hidden Memories Part 2

Akaysha's eyes slowly drifted open. She blinked in confusion, wondering what had caused her to awaken. The dismal left-over flames of the fire cast a rather ominous glow over the sleeping dragons. The night sky above was dark with clouds, though Akaysha couldn't scent any rain in them. The forest around was full of noise, though it was further away than usual, the night time animals not wanting to get close to the large reptiles.

The dragoness sighed softly and lay her head down on her forepaws, trying to figure out what had caused her sudden alertness. The other dragons had gently touched her mind before, but she had kept them fiercely out, not trusting herself to keep hidden the secrets she kept. Ragin would be disappointed if she showed them anything. The dragons had been a little surprised, but had respected her decision to remain quiet.

She twisted her tail as she tried to fall back to sleep, but found herself unable to. With a rumble of annoyance she went to lightly tap Ragin's mind to see if she could wake him up, when she noticed something rather startling. His mind was open. For the first time, besides that moment when she was a hatchling, his mind was completely open to her.

She lay their silently, thinking through her options, but curiosity got the better of her and she guiltily reached her mind into Ragin's, eager to learn more about her rider.

* * *

The first thing Akaysha was aware of was pain, running through all her limbs and into her chest and lungs. Her breaths were coming in ragged gasps and her unwieldy and weak hands clasped desperately at the hilt of a short sword. Sweat made it hard to grip and her arms shook with the effort. However, despite the hardship she was experiencing she couldn't ignore the feeling of frustrated determination.

It took the dragoness a moment to adjust to reliving another's memories. She was a little startled as she jumped into it, because the strength of emotions swelling through Ragin was nearly overwhelming. His beating heartbeat pulsed through her head over and over like a drum, and small scratches of spiking pain covered her entire body.

For a moment she considered pulling out of the memory, unused to the invigorating responses of this strange body, but she stopped herself. She had been drawn to this memory for some reason. It struck her as a rather prominent turning point of Ragin's life, thus she decided to see it through, even if it was a little startling at first.

A quick more detailed look allowed her to know that this memory was around two years after the previous one she had seen. It seemed the elf, Vanir, had begun training the boy with the sword. And it was hard training, nothing like she had ever seen before. In this specific memory, Ragin was eight years old, but his mind was hard as rock. Any childish thoughts had been swallowed by years of training.

With a cry Akaysha, or Ragin really, rushed forward at his opponent, striking with a rather surprising amount of force for his age, trying his best to hit the far larger swordsman in front of him. This other swordsman acted around the strike with ease, striking upwards with the blade and with the practice of centuries, catching the hilt of Ragin's far shorter blade with his own, then ripping it upwards and out of the boys hands.

Ragin staggered forward, straight into his opponents fist. Akaysha mentally winced as she felt the bones of her rider's nose shatter under the hit, and he was sent onto his backside. For a moment the world seemed to grow hazy and dark. Pain was everything he knew. Salty blood was tasted in his mouth. Tears blocked his vision and Akaysha felt a strange pressure in his chest. But that was all only for a moment. The pressure disappeared and Ragin wiped the tears away from his eyes, ignoring the obviously broken and bloodied nose.