Dragon Riders: Legacy(Book 2) Completed

Chapter 34:Don't Mess With The Blind Girl:Moray

   All Moray remembered ever since he got to Sanctuary was the Rider that saved him setting his limp, semi conscious body down on an extremely soft bed.
   A soft, warm hand feeling his burning forehead, and the feeling of a cold, wet towel being placed on his feverish forehead.
  After that, peace as his high fever lurded him back to sleep.

  A loud crash and talking voices caused him to stir in his sleep.

   Later in the day around noon he awoke from his feverish sleep, feeling better.
   He sat up in his bed, wincing slightly in pain, like his previous injured ribs were healed over night.
   He looked around his surroundings.
   He was in a large room with many windows along the sides of the two longest walls. There ten beds in the room, five on each side of the walls as the windows. Wooden doors led out to the corridor and the other set led to a separate room in the back part of the Hospital Wing.
   He looked around the room for Riptide. He found him sleeping by the side of his bed. The injury of the knife was gone, like it never even happened. He found it strange that just yesterday he was in pain and Riptide had a knife sticking out of his neck, and now they were both better after just a day of rest. It should have taken weeks for them both to recover from the injuries they sustained. But instead it had taken about a day, which made no sense at all.
   He heard a door open, and he turned his head to see who entered the room.
   He saw a woman about twenty years old with blue-green sea colored eyes and red-brown hair enter the Hospital Wing.
   "How are you feeling?" The woman asked him.
   "Better," he responded.
   "Good. Then you wouldn't mind staying here for another day or two?" She asked him.
   "No," he told her, relieved that he would have some more time to rest up before his training really began.
   "I'll go get you both some lunch, and after then I want you both to go back to sleep till dinner." The woman told him motherly, and then left.
   He felt Riptide's mind awaken.
   "What time is it?" Riptide asked sleepily.
   "Noon," he responded to Riptide's question.
   "Are the Riders bringing us something to eat because I don't know about you, but I'm famished." Riptide asked.
   He chuckled at Riptide's words.
   "Yes," he told Riptide.
   "What? I'm hungry. It's been about two weeks since I've had a proper meal and not just snacks to sustain me."
   "Someone's clearly a growing little dragon." He joked.
   "Watch it Mr. I Pass Out Every Five Seconds."
   "Oh, it's on Mr. Hungry." He and Riptide joked with each other.

   About fifteen minutes later the woman returned with a tray of food. A bowl of raw fish and water for Riptide and some steaming soup for him along with a pitcher of water.
   The woman handed out the food, and then went into the separate room in the back of the Hospital Wing.
   He found the soup surprisingly delicious. He could tell Riptide thought the same about his raw, fresh fish.
   When the both of them finished, he picked up the bowls and placed them on the tray and put the tray on the side table.
   Then he went to sleep like woman ordered him to.

   Around dinner time the woman brought him and Riptide another meal.
   After his dinner he went back to sleep.

   In the morning he was allowed to get up and walk around by the woman to get feeling back in his legs.
   After he had breakfast, the woman—who was named Valka—led him up to his common room where his other two winglet members were at.
   The common room was breath taking beautiful as well as his dorm room.
   "Fancy," Riptide said, looking around the room.
   "Ya, well lets work hard to show the Riders that we deserve it." He told Riptide, bringing down his spirits a little bit of not at all.
   "We've already proved that by managing to stay out of the demon's grasp and by being resourceful in doing so." Riptide argued back, clearly pleased with how they handled themselves back at the NightWing Palace.
   That did make sense. Riptide always knew how to convince him when he doubted himself or the things he did.
   "Thanks Riptide."
   "You're welcome."
   Voices from the common room made him think to what Valka said about his two winglet members.
   "Want to go say hi?" He asked Riptide.
   "Sure. I'm bored out of mind anyway. Oh and when can we go swimming? I really want to feel the ocean between my scales." Riptide said, expressing his desire to go swimming; according to Nalani—when she was still alive—SeaWings needed to swim in water every now and then to keep their scales from becoming dull and itchy.
   "I don't know. Maybe you should ask Valka." He told Riptide.
   Riptide moaned in not knowing when he could go swimming.
   "Let's just go talk to our new comrades. Maybe talking to them will distract me from my itchy, dry scales." Riptide said, making the choice to go talk to his winglet for them.
"Okay," he responded to Riptide's decision for them.
He adjusted his new sky blue tunic he found in one of the drawers along with a pair of black leather boots and pants. And he headed down the stairs to the large common room.
When he entered the common room he saw a boy with jet black hair talking to a girl with similar hair around his age. They appeared to be talking to each other about a schedule or something like that on a piece of parchment the boy was holding in one hand.
A snow-white dragon with silver spikes mixed in with its icy-blue feathers stood near the boy with black hair. A similar looking breed of dragon stood near the girl. The dragon had stone-grey scales, earth green feathers like a crest on its head and a plume of feathers at the tip of its tail. An earth green stripe of scales ran from its eyes to the end of its tail.
The snow-white dragon's ears twitched and the dragon turned its head towards him and Riptide as they stood there waiting for the two kids to stop talking or notice them.
The snow colored dragon had such dark ice blue eyes that they looked like they were chiseled from a glacier of the deepest blue.
The dragon must have mentally told its Rider that they were here because the boy turned to look at them. The boy had startling dark ice blue eyes just like his dragon as if their eyes had been chiseled from the same colored glacier.
The boy's curious look was quickly replaced with a kind, warm smile that made him oddly want to smile as well. His smile was almost contagious. It took almost all his might not to crack a smile at the boy even though it would be kind to do so in return.
"Hi, I'm Ermine. This is Snowdrift, Terra, and Toph." The boy named Ermine introduced himself along with the girl and the two female dragons.
"Are you an idiot like Ermine too?" Toph asked bluntly; he noticed that she didn't look at him, but just spoke from where she was standing, neither looking at him or anyone else in the room.
"I am not an idiot," Ermine said in a serious voice, his smile falling off his face.
"Sure you are. At dinner last night your fist 'accidentally' hit your spoon and sent mashed potatoes flying up into your face. Man your cousins couldn't stop laughing, especially Korren. Heck, you even got Nimue to smile, and she never smiles." Toph's short story made him wish he was there last night to see the whole ting happen.
"That sounded like fun," he smiled, wanting to burst out laughing, but he didn't want to hurt a potential friend's feelings.
"You should have been there when Hurricane went head over heels for Snowdrift, literally." Toph continued, making dinner last night sound like an amazing night.
He heard Snowdrift hiss dangerously at Toph and Terra like she was offended by what Toph said.
"Keep your grumpy dragon under control." Toph told Ermine.
"I wouldn't have to if you didn't keep making her mad." Ermine said to Toph, clearly annoyed that he was the one that had to keep Snowdrift under control; he could tell with just one look that Snowdrift didn't like listening to anyone, especially those who always told her what to do.
Then without knowing what he was doing the stupidest things he could have said to a dragon as nearly as tall as him that was very capable of tearing him apart in a few seconds. "I'm guessing this Hurricane is an admirer of Snowdrift's?"
Snowdrift swiveled her long, elegant neck to glare at him with her murderous icy blue eyes. She was definitely ticked off at what he said. Well know he knew how he was going to die. Getting mauled by an insane, murderous dragon.
Riptide growled protectively at the white dragon.
Riptide was a foot shorter than Snowdrift and Terra, but his more compact, muscular build and tail gave him the advantage of strength on his side. While Snowdrift and Terra definitely had gracefulness on their side due to their long, nimble bodies.
   "Snowdrift," Ermine said to her sternly. "That is enough. Be nice. Moray was just joking." Turning towards him from Snowdrift. "Weren't you, Moray?" A desperate look in Ermine's eyes to get him to agree with him so there would be no violence amongst the six of them.
   "Yes, I was. Sorry Snowdrift. I didn't know my words would offend you so much." He went along with Ermine's brilliant ruse, and apologized to Snowdrift.
   Snowdrift looked at him and Riptide a little bit longer.
   She then snorted, letting out a puff of frost. She went to lay down by the padded couch, tucking her head under one of her icy blue wings.
   He looked back at Ermine, who was smiling ear to ear at their success. He couldn't help but smile back.
   "You two are complete idiots," Toph said to them, her head still down as if she didn't want to look at either of them.
   He shrugged at Ermine, confused why Toph refused to look at anyone in the room.
   Ermine rubbed his eyes as if he was trying to deliberately tell him something.
   He gave Ermine a quizzed look.
   Ermine rubbed his eyes again and closed them when he removed his hands and then opened them to see if Moray got the message.
   "I think he's trying to tell you she's blind." Riptide observed, solving Ermine's cryptic message.
   He mouthed "Oh" to Ermine, who gave him a slight nod as if he was afraid Toph might find out what they were talking about.
   He really didn't know why Ermine was so scared of a blind girl.
He moved closer to Ermine, who was about two inches taller than him.
"Why do you act scared of her? She can't be that scary, she's only blind, not a blood thirsty monster." He whispered as quietly as he could in Ermine's ear.
Ermine tried to silence him when he started talking about Toph. Now he could see why.
   "Do you really think I'm not a force to be trifled with? Am I just suppose to listen to you and do everything you tell me to do because I'm a girl?! Well guess what Moray, I'm a lot more dangerous than I look! And if you want monster, than you're got one Moron!" Toph yelled angrily, and then stormed up to her room.
   He was completely stunned at what Toph had said. He had not expected her to hear him.
   "Whoops. Now I see why you were trying to tell me to shut up earlier." He found his voice back.
   "If I were you I would go try and apologize to her," Ermine suggested.
   "That sounds like a good idea because I really don't want to be killed by her. I've already had too many people try to kill me."
   "What?!" Ermine exclaimed at what he said.
   "I'll tell you another time. Right now I've got to to go apologize to Toph before she starts planning my death."
   He went over to the Girls' staircase, and started up them.
   When he got to the top of the staircase, he knocked on the door with the grey and feathered dragon sigil on it.
"Toph, it's me, Moray. I've come to apologize for what I'd said earlier. I didn't mean to say those horrible things about you. I also didn't intend for you to hear them either. I'm so sorry I—,"
"GO AWAY!" She screamed at him.
Her loud words made him recoil, but he managed to hold his ground.
"Not till you listen to the rest of what I have to say."
He heard the cracking and rumbling sound of stone. He looked up at where the noise was coming from, and saw huge pointy stalactites hanging from the ceiling.
He was awed and horrified at how they got there.
When they started inching down towards him, he tried to flee only to find his ankles encased in the stone floor.
He was once again trapped in an inescapable place with only one way in and out. Yay!
"Toph, you don't have to do this. I know you're angry at me, but killing me won't solve your problems you have with me. You will still feel the guilt of my death everyday for the rest of your life if you do this. Do you really want to have my blood on your hands for the rest of your days, knowing you could have done something to prevent my death?"
   The stone spears kept inching towards him, and his binds still held tight as he strained against them.
   "Toph! Stop this!" He yelled at Toph, hoping she was still sensible.
   Still the sharp stalactites continued their slow descent towards him.
   Losing all hope in Toph that she would stop this, he called out to Ermine and Riptide.
   He heard footsteps and claws pound on the stone steps.
  He saw Ermine's head appear near the top of the staircase just as a slab of stone started to slide over the top of the staircase.
   It didn't look like Ermine was going to make it. But luckily at the last moment, he lunged forward towards the top of the staircase. He grasped the side of the staircase and pulled himself out of the staircase before the slab slammed closed on Riptide's and Snowdrift's faces.
   Ermine looked slightly winded from the sprint up the stairs.
   This was not how he imagined his first day with his winglet.
   "Can you move?" Ermine asked him.
   He tried to pull his feet to show him.
   "No."
   Ermine came over to look at the stone that held his feet trapped in the stone floor.
   "I'm going to try something, but I need you to remain calm and not struggle or move too much." Ermine told him, eyeing the slowly moving stalactites that would soon possibly be his end. He had survived being thrown off a twenty foot cliff, a bite from a poisonous monitor lizard, attack from the insane twins Timote and Piri, his island being overrun by invaders that worked for a mysterious king named Galbatorix, and finally he survived a hundred foot or more fall from a tower into a raging river. If he survived all that than who's to say he won't survive this either.
   "Just do what you have to to get me out of here."
   Ermine nodded, and raised both hands up towards the ceiling.
   Moray had no idea what he was doing. But whatever he was doing or going to do he had better do it quick before they become kabobs.
   Just as he thought nothing was going to happen and they were going to be impaled by Toph's stalactites. A thick, cold mist erupted from Ermine's hands in a turret of ice. The ice coated the stalactites and created a semi thick layer of ice between them and the temporally stuck stalactites.
Once he was done with that, Ermine crouched down, and placed his bare hands on his stone restraints.
"Tell me if anything starts hurting, such as immense cold." Ermine told him before returning his attention back to the stone.
   Ice started seeping from Ermine's hands to the stone that encased his feet.
   He felt nothing at first, but then he started feeling a cold chill from the freezing stone.
   He ignored it, wanting to get free of his stone bindings at any cost.
   The ice from the ceiling was starting to crack as the stalactites pushed through the ice holding them.
   Unfortunately his rock binds still held.
   "Toph! Release Moray! Please." Ermine begged Toph to stop this as if he already knew his ice abilities wouldn't be enough to get his free.
   When Toph didn't reply or do anything to stop this, Ermine yelled out again.
   "Terra stop her!" Ermine shouted out to Terra as ice rained down on them.
   The rock still held even though all the rock holding him was frozen with ice.
   His feet were already staring to go numb with cold.
   Then all of a suddenly the rock stalactites shot back up into the ceiling, and the stone holding him let go, sinking back into the floor. The stone slab disappeared as well.
   Riptide and Snowdrift came running up the stairs as soon as the slab was gone.
   "Toph? Are you okay?" Ermine asked hesitantly, probably wondering why she stopped it now and not earlier. Maybe Toph was just trying to scare him into leaving her alone, or not talking bad about her again.
   Then a feminine voice entered their minds.
   "Toph didn't do this, I did." Terra said, revealing who stopped all this chaos. "But now Toph needs help. She lost control. Her emotions took control of her actions. You really shouldn't have said those things about her Moray. You don't even want to know how much she hate you right now. This is all your fault that she did this." Terra's words cut him deep, making him wish he could go back in time and fix his mistake.
   A loud explosion of shattering wood drew his and Ermine's attention to the double wooden doors. The doors had been  shattered by a large rock.
   Toph came walking out of her room. An angry look on her face. Her attitude and look literally said she wanted to kill him.
   "I'm going to kill you, Moray." She said dangerously, her voice sounding cold, eerie, and deeper.
   The voice sounded familiar, but he didn't have time to dwell on it because a large rock from the floor came hurtling his and Ermine's way.
   Ermine tackled him to the ground as the rock soared over their heads.
   Riptide and Snowdrift roared in anger at what Toph just did.
   He saw Ermine wave his hand at her, sending a wave of ice her way.
   Toph managed to black most of the ice with a wall of stone. But a small amount got pass her wall and hit her left forearm.
Toph let out an agonized scream as the ice apparently sent a shock throughout her body at the coldness of the ice.
She dropped down to her knees, holding her injured arm to her chest.
Ermine looked horrified at what he did to her.
They both rushed to her side. Terra was already there.
"Toph...I-I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I just wanted to stop trying kill Moray." Ermine moved to help her, but Terra stopped him with a growl.
"You've both done enough." She growled at them, clearly beyond angry at them.
Terra's growls were interrupted by the insane laughter that came from Toph's mouth.
"I told you I would find you, Moray." Toph said in that voice he realized was the demon's with Toph's mixed in the background.
He saw Ermine give him a puzzled look that said: "What in the name of Erdas is going on."
"And would you look at that, I've found a legacy too!" The demon exclaimed in excitement, like this was the best thing in all of Erdas. "Galbatorix will be so happy."
He saw Ermine stiffen at the name the demon mentioned. Moray too had heard the name as well when the demon and his soldiers invaded his home.
What was Ermine hiding?
Another insane ripple of giggles followed the demon's words.
"Who is this mad man-thing?" Ermine asked him quietly.
"I am Rumplestiltskin. Also know as the Dark One, dearie. And you my young, powerful, potential friend are Ermine, legacy of Atiqalaaq. Before you say anything, yes I know all about your great uncle. Who do you think sent you that vision of his death? After all you just wanted to more about him, and I gave you your wish." The demon finished with a wicked smile that looked so wrong on Toph's face.
Ermine stumbled back, clearly lost for words. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out.
Rumplestiltskin let lose another one of his nerve racking laughs, but was cut off when Terra smacked her tail against Toph's head. Toph's collapsed on the ground, her glazed over sea-green eyes rolling back into her head.
"What was all that about?" Ermine asked him, looking at him for answers at just what happened.
"You tell me."
"Enough of your yammering. Let's get Toph down to the Hospital Wing." Terra ordered them.
Grabbing her arms and legs, Ermine and Moray took her down to the Hospital Wing.
They entered the large room, and set Toph on one of the beds.
"Where's Valka?" He asked Riptide.
"I don't know."
"Well that's not very helpful."
"Oh, stop your griping, and use your head. If you have one." Riptide told him, joking with him at the end.
He was going to say something back, but decided not to. His mouth is what got them all into this mess in the first place. He did not intend for them all to get into another one of these messes.
Taking Riptide's advice, he looked around the room. The only place he considered even looking was in the back room.
He went to the back room, and to his relief he found Valka in the room, which seemed to be a office/storage room.
"What it it Moray? Are you feeling pain from your injuries?"
"No, but Toph is," he told her the whole story, and he could tell by her face that she was horrified at it's events. Especially the one about Rumplestiltskin and Galbatorix.
Getting up from her desk, Valka quickly went into the hospital part of the room.
She started feeling Toph's head and checked her eyes, which were fully dilated.
"You boys go back to your common room." Valka told them.
Ermine started to protest, but Valka cut him off, and forced them all except Terra out of the Hospital Wing.
Having no other choice they went back up to the common room, neither of them saying a word to each other.

P.S. Hope you all are enjoying