The Legend of Voden: The Rise of the Hollow

Chapter 7: Berry Bad

Iceleta darted out of the cave without much thought. 

If it was a chance she saw, it was a chance she took. 

She had to see her father. She missed him. 

With unmatched agility, she braved the winds and scaled down the rocky cliffs that separated her home from the forests beneath her. She had traversed the mountain cliffs so many times before that she could remember every crack and every little crevice of it by heart. 

She could only hope that her father hadn't fallen into the mountain crag, which was basically a massive pitfall that had limestone spikes at the bottom that were as sharp as spears, as well as the primitive skeletons that lined the floor of the chasm. The memory of discovering this "hell-hole" was always fresh in her memory to this day. There was a perfect reason, after all, she had always dubbed it "The Jaws of Death, Population: Death" in the past; it had always given her bad vibes. 

Now, she knew why.

Iceleta couldn't imagine how she would react if she found her Father dead. 

No, he can't be dead, she insisted. He can't be. Father can't be that dumb. He must've known how to protect himself and thus he was able to escape. She figured it would be a waste of her time then, looking for him again, but perchance he was taken off guard and he fell off the cliff-

Iceleta made her decision, albeit the fact it was an impulsive one.

She would not back down until she found her father, dead or alive, one way or another. Or she would die trying to do so. 

Of course, if she ever had a choice, she'd very much prefer her father to be alive when she found him. So that she could give him a warm hug for family keepsakes, and then lecture him afterwards for abandoning a dragoness to take care of herself and her little brother. 

Iceleta chuckled at the thought. Perhaps it was the wind dying out when she had no longer felt the usual cold coming from her heart. 

It was already nearing dawn when Iceleta flew over the forests in search for her father. She was about to give up when she spotted a gleam of light against the trees. She closed in to investigate the area as she knew for a fact that only a dragon's scales could reflect off that much light to produce a significant flare.

She glided towards the spot where she saw the brief glimmer, and among the bushes, she could spot a yellow body lying against a tree. 

"Father! Is that you? " she called out. "You need my help over there?" 

No response. His body hadn't moved even a single muscle.

Father would flinch at the mere sound of flapping wings towards him, so that must've meant the explosion knocked him out real cold. It was a good thing he wasn't knocked that far though-she could even see her favorite berry-picking bush beside him from up in the sky.  She hoped he hadn't made a mess out of her berries though-she really loved that berry bush, and she needed the berries for the tavern's signature: The Strawfait Starlight, which was a really "hot" item among the regulars. 

But if Father harmed even one single fruit of my precious berry bush, I swear to Aurora that I would make him pay. By forcing him to work in the tavern to make amends for his crimes, of course.   

If he hadn't died already, that is. 

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She could see better when she landed near her father and oh, what a mess he made. 

Her favorite berry-picking bush was ruined. The plant itself was mostly fine, except for a few leaves and some snapped twigs, but the berries were all reduced to a pulp, squished by the mere weight of his body when he fell. At least, that was what Iceleta thought when she saw the fresh drag marks in the ground, most likely made her Father when he made his clumsy landing. 

She didn't know what to groan at anymore; the amount of cleaning up that she had to do later, or the aspect of her clumsy father crashing himself into a tree. She sighed and rolled her eyes in disbelief as she caught sight of his unmoving body, lying against a tree stump-

When she realized that the dragon lying in front of her was definitely NOT her father. 

He was too thin. Too young. And most definitely too vulnerable. Iceleta swore his look was so vulnerable that he couldn't survive even in a minute in the woods or the Thieving Alley of the City.

He had the wrong shade of color to his scales too. His scales were not just plain yellow; they were a pale yellow, the type of yellow you would find in an old dusty paperback scroll. As far as she could remember, her father's yellow had more of an orangey tone to it, courtesy of his Ignis bloodline that marked him as a Fire dragon. 

It was only when her face was mere inches away from the fallen dragon, only did she realize the dragon in front of her was a complete stranger. 

She wondered how she had completely mistaken him for her father but nevertheless, she was relieved when she knew that her father wasn't the one to be thrown off a mountain and to land in a berry bush in the forest. 

Yet, she didn't feel as quite relieved when she realized the red stain on the grass was too liquid for it to have come from berry juice.