Shifting Sands (A WOF Fanfiction)

Chapter One- The Den

Scorpion  

    The Scorpion Den. Home to criminals, thieves, murderers, cheats and drug lords. A lot of shady stuff had gone down in this ragtag city. The Scorpion Den is notorious for its history, the blood spilled on the packed down sand. Scorpion loved it. She lived for the chances she got to come here, which had started becoming more numerous since she'd struck out on her own. When Scorpion glided through the twisted, thin streets, dodging wings and barbed tails, what was crossing her mind wasn't the homeless, the dodgy merchants, or even the fact that she shared the name of this infamous place, it was the distant music, its haunting melody and steady beat. She noticed the tiny pieces of colorful glass and stones that had been placed in the road instead of the dead lizard lying on the other side of the street. Yes, she took note of everything and was always watching her tail, but that didn't mean she couldn't pinpoint the straggling beauty here and there.

Truthfully, it reminded her of herself in the way that a rough life and distant hopelessness had tried to beat it down. It had beat it down, but made it tougher, stronger, and more able to take the next hit. It had carved it down into a beautiful, dangerous, unpredictable storm. An unstoppable force of nature.

    Realization that she had reached the destination brought her out of her reverie. The guards blank stares flicked over her persona before reaching the realization of who she was. Still, one of them questioned her.

"Business?"

    "Take a guess. You know who I am." The guard who had kept silent pushed open the gates to the Talons of Power Headquarters, also known as Rattlesnake's Palace. The guard who had spoken quickened his pace to lead her through the ridiculous gardens that were chock-full of gold statues with dark eyes, imposing topiaries, and sentries, and into the throne room. He then fell into a deep bow towards the one and only Great Pig herself, Rattlesnake. Surprisingly enough, there wasn't a Scavenger torture session of some kind going on in front of the bejeweled throne. Rattlesnake had inherited not only Vulture's twisted sense of humor and fashion, but also his entire palace and whole fortune. The latter of which she had to murder her brother for. She had grown to a gigantic size, and was now considered ancient, at a hundred-something years old.

"Ahhhh, Scorpion. Lovely." Rattlesnake's tongue flicked briefly in and out and she fixed her gaze on the grovelling guard before her. "Stop wasting our time, get back to your post." There was a brief pause as he realized everyone's gaze was on him. "That means now, soldier." Scorpion stepped out of the way so the guard could make his way back to the door. Rattlesnake then addressed the advisers and other dragons around the room with a snap. They all slunk out the doors, and closed them to give the two dragonesses privacy. "I called you here on urgent business. The-"

    "Okay, Rattlesnake, cut the camelcrap. Stop trying to act like Blister, all cunning and calculating. Because you're not." Scorpion knew that this was a risky move, and that Rattlesnake could easily call her guards and haul her away, to whatever they had here for dungeons. She could only imagine. But she needed to learn what Rattlesnake wanted so that she could take her payment and get out of here. She hated this place, dripping with jewels and wasted opportunities. It reeked of stupidity. The older dragoness' eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared, but she did not call her guards. That was another thing Scorpion knew. If Rattlesnake needed her enough to call her all the way here then she needed something done that only Scorpion could do for her. When Rattlesnake continued, her voice was dripping poison.

"Fine. I need you to assassinate a young runaway we recently had. His name is Oryx. He was, until a couple days ago, our finest blacksmith. He just turned eleven, and a couple guards took him out for a patrol to test him. Let's just say it was a complete failure. His current residence is located somewhere in Sanctuary, and so I figured you would be just the right assassin to do the job. I will, of course, pay generously." So this was what Rattlesnake wanted. Someone to do her dirty work. Gold. Just shut up and take the gold. It took gritting her teeth to keep from walking out right then and not caring what happened.

    "Okay, fine. You know how this works. Gold, and then service." Hint, hint. Grunting, Rattlesnake reached behind her wing and pulled out a sizable sack of coins. They jingled and clinked as the older dragoness tossed them to her. Opening up the top of the sack and examining them proved the coins were genuine. You always had to check, especially here. "Well, pleasure doing business with you. Expect a head in this sack within a moon cycle." Further ruffling showed that there was a couple papers on Oryx's information. Time to get out of here. And with that, Scorpion whirled around and strode out the doors, sack of gold jingling softly at her side.