The Darkest Dragons

CHP. 22 "Was It Worth It?"

Raine's P.O.V

I chuckled as Caleb and Abelard went to sleep, I looked to Arian and Faaris to see them also looking at them with amused looks. Sometimes they made me forget everything I had been through. Sometimes. I frowned now, how long has it been since we left home? A year, maybe two? I poked the fire a bit letting it pop and crackle. What would we be doing right now if nothing had ever happened? Would we be begging to hold the baby? Would we still be pestering the guards? I tried to settle my mind but a twig snapped off to the right. I don't know how but Abelard and I were up immediately looking around and reaching for our daggers. Caleb woke up with big eyes but when Faaris blew a little plumb of fire making a rabbit flee in terror we settled down. I stood for a second in a terrified embarrassment. When did we get so jumpy? Would we always be? Jordan came over and put a comforting hand on my shoulder, "Come and sit down, you need to rest." I nodded and sat down, Faaris came over and laid down behind me, giving me comfort by heating up. Raincloud gave a little purr and I smiled. I looked over at Abelard who was trying to fall sleep again. I noticed how his hand was interlocked with Caleb's and I smiled once more. He blinked happily before relaxing fully. I leaned my head onto Jordan's shoulder and whispered, "I want to be home, do you think we will feel more safe there?" He nodded against me, "Of course, you will be home." I looked at the stars, "Will you?" He tensed up before relaxing again, "Home is wherever you are Raine. I will feel safe." I sighed, "I hope my parents will be able to trust you, I mean..." HE nodded, "I understand if they don't. The sorceress told me that I would be unharmed but they may imprison me or banish me from ever coming back. To be honest I am only afraid of that, I think imprisonment will be okay, you would come and see me right?" I chuckled, "Everyday." He carefully took my hand in his and I found he was shaking. I lifted my head to see him, he had tears streaking down his face, slow tears. "I- I don't know Raine, I deserve to be tortured.. taken away... I deserve to die for all the terror I have caused. Your parents will hate me and I understand that. My father hurt your parents and he hurt dragons. I hurt dragons. I hurt you. I hurt your brother- oh god your brother. I think he hates me to and with good reason, I almost killed him! In fact I did, the medics probably had to revive him." At this point he was all but wailing and sniffing. He had given up on trying to wipe them away. "I don't deserve my life, or love, or even happiness." He brought his hands up to his face in despair and I finally had a chance to speak, "Do I not deserve happiness?" He looked to me quickly, "Oh Raine you deserve the world!" I smiled and said, "Then live, be happy. Become my world." He looked to me, his hands falling to his lap slowly. His eyes were searching before he smiled, very slightly. "You really mean that?" I nodded, "I am not someone who speaks for the joy of hearing my own voice." He chuckled and drew me in closer hugging me, my head under his chin. "I will. I will become your world and be happy just for you. Thank you." I sighed happily and he murmured, "Things will get better Raine. I promise." With that I fell into sleep. 

***

I woke up before dawn, I was still curled in Jordan's arms. I carefully unwound myself and got the fire going again and Faaris called, "Don't go too far, I will wake them in a little bit. I feel it, we are almost home." I smiled and nodded. I went down to the small lake and drank some water and washed my face. I saw the rabbit from the night before. Probably not since it was such a big forest but I liked to think it was. I drew out my dagger and aimed and slowly drawing it back I let it go flinging it towards the poor creature and with a thump it was dead. I waked over grabbing the knife and examining the rabbit. It was a large male who seemed to have been eating very well to my satisfaction. I carried it back to camp and a little ways from camp but in view I quickly skinned and gutted it. I found a pretty good stick and stuck it before setting it up over the fire. I was turning it when the others woke up to the smell. "Raine? Are you...cooking?" I nodded, "Yes Abelard. I figured we'd have a big breakfast." He just shrugged before shifting and rolling over onto Caleb. HE groaned deeply, "Abelard get off." Abelard just hummed and nuzzled into his neck. Caleb huffed again but shifted Abelard into a more comfortable position so he could see us better. Abelard just went back to sleep. I laughed, "Who knew Abelard could be so affectionate?" Caleb just rolled his eyes but smiled. Jordan sat up and stretched. "Gosh that was a good night sleep. Oh what's for breakfast?" I chuckled raising an eyebrow, "It's rabbit." He suddenly laughed and said, "Did you go out and hunt that rabbit that spooked us last night?" I laughed this time, "Not my intention but yes." He just laughed some more before shrugging. I turned to Faaris still watching the rabbit cook, "So how do you know we are close to being home?" She hummed deep in her throat. "Well me an Arian used to explore the castle with Briggen and he showed us this really cool room that had all these maps and I remember the tundra being pretty close to the coast so we can just follow the basic instructions that Haven told us she used in her story to get home." I nodded my eyes wide, "Wow, yeah that would work." She blinked happily at me and we made small talk until I finished with the rabbit, "Here guys!" I cut off a leg for myself and we passed it around eating our fill. I stood off and tossed the bone towards the forest and stretched. "Okay come on guys, we better go, it's dawn now." I checked the sky again to see the sun halfway above the horizon. It splayed out red and orange colors. everyone was up in a little bit and I climbed up on Faaris and waited for everyone else to mount before taking off. I felt better being in the sky and we changed our direction a little bit to aim ourselves towards the Tundra, or where I hoped the tundra was. We were quiet for a while, still kind of groggy form waking up but when the sky started to become a deep blue color and the sun was away from the horizon, everyone was awake and... bored. I I looked around and thought about something to do as everyone chatted and fidgeted. I slowly smiled as an idea came to mind. I opened a link with the dragons and they agreed instantly. They were bored too evidently.  I counted down from three and suddenly all of their dragons, as fast as possible, flipped so their bellies were facing the sky. I heard three girlish screams as they were all flung from their dragons. I laughed as Raincloud, Arian, and Nightcloud all dove down to catch them. They came back up with a wild look in their eyes, Caleb looked betrayed, "Raine why would you do that!?" I laughed some more and shrugged, "I was bored?" Abelard started to laugh and he said in my head, "Nice one, here let's turn all their dragons invisible. I nodded slightly and suddenly Nightcloud and Raincloud were gone. Caleb and Jordan had a moments panic before turning around and staring at us angrily. "Really guys?" we both shrugged and then Jordan asked, "How did you even come up with that, you didn't say a word?" I coked my head before realizing that they probably didn't know about our 'sibling bond' as our mom liked to call it. I answered, "We have this weird bond where we can hear each other if we want to talk to each other and we can feel each others pai-." I stopped speaking the moment I saw Jordan's eyes widened in horror. He looked at Abelard in complete sorrow and terror, "Y-you mean t-that he-he." Me and Abelard slowly nodded. Abelard whispered, "You mean the night she was tortured? Yes I felt that. I also felt the time she passed out when she had gone invisible and when she had been burned. I also can feel anything minor she does." I cringed at the look Jordan gave me and Abelard. He looked like he hated himself and that he was disgusted with himself. I leaned forward, "Jordan it wasn't you-" He turned on me, "It wasn't my fault? Not. My. Fault!? Everything that happened to you practically happened to him! I cannot believe I put you both through that! If I had never sent someone after you then you wouldn't have had to go through that! You would be home, cradling a baby, playing pranks or whatever you used to do! Having breakfast with the king and queen and learning combat or how to be a queen... I took that away from you... I took-" His voice cracked as he turned away. "You deserve to be happy Raine and I can't give you that." He became silent and I looked at him sadly, how could he not understand how happy he already made me? I looked to Abelard who said, "He- he really feels like that? I mean... it is true." I frowned, "He fixed that though, he risked his life to fix what he did. HE didn't even do any of it. He was like hypnotized. Look at his eyes, you will find that they're green not red. Every time we had fought him his eyes had been red. One night in the castle, the only times he was ever angry or said bad things, he had red eyes! He had told me once that he had also captured you and that was why I was so obedient, I thought he had you, but he had also been different he had this odd dangerous vibe to him and he had had red eyes. The man who had tortured me had red eyes too... when he was dead it all stopped. His dragon could have also been doing that, he had red eyes too." He looked surprised as he mulled over the information before he called Jordan's name. Jordan turned slowly, his eyes red and puffy, but green. Abelard stayed silent and after a tense moment Abelard smiled, "Don't worry about it Jordan. Someone bad was controlling you and you are safe now. You are among family now so... don't beat yourself up about it. You might have been the one who brought us away from home but we are going back with new knowledge and a heck of a lot more friends than when we had left. I would have never met Caleb. We would never have met Ryan. You wouldn't have changed." Jordan looked at Abelard with teary but hopeful eyes, "You don't hate me for the pain I caused you?" Abelard shook his head, suddenly looking a lot older than we were, "You fixed that stuff remember, you made up for it. You saved my sisters life more than once and I could not bare to live if she had been hurt. Plus if our grandmother let you live then I hold nothing against you." Jordan smiled and nodded looking towards me; I smiled at him and nodded. He turned back around but seemed to be a lot happier. It would take a long while before Jordan was completely over everything. It would take a while for us to get over it too... it was a mildly traumatizing experience. We flew on in silence for a while till I started to get colder and colder. The sun was a little further than midway and The trees were starting to thin out and lose their leaves, as well as more evergreens started to pop up. Faaris warmed herself up but Caleb looked to be having trouble as well as Jordan. I looked to Abelard and he seemed to have the same idea as we both reached for our coats. I hopped over onto Raincloud who didn't even waiver at the weight and said, "Hey, you need this." He turned to see the jacket and seemed surprised, "D-don't y-you need-d it?" I shook my head and said, "Obsidian dragons can raise their body temperature whenever it get's cold. I am afraid Sky dragons can't." He nodded and reached out, still shivering and grabbed the large coat, putting it on. He sighed and murmured, "Thanks Raine. This feels so much better." I nodded and I jumped back over to Faaris who seemed pleased. I looked over to see Abelard and Caleb tucked under a longer coat, huddling together on Caleb's dragon. I chuckled and Arian flew circles around them. I asked Faaris, "Do you think we are getting close?" She nodded and said, "Yes, there is already signs of snow." I looked down to see patches of white and grey. It was getting more snowy and icy the closer we got. "We just need to go a few miles into the tundra to find the village. We can stop there." She nodded and we picked the pace up a little bit.