A Fading Star Will Rise Again (A How To Train Your Dragon Fanfic)

1- Forever

Esteria

Esteria's large, dark wings unfurled as she leapt off a violet crystal. As the daughter of the current King of Dragons, Asazin, she'd learned to sense when something was wrong within the kingdom, when someone was in trouble.

Her brilliant blue eyes gleamed with worry as she glided through corridors, towards the source of the loud rumbling. Her heart pounded louder than a thunderdrum's roar. What's happened?

The glowing stalagmites littering the cavernous area she flew through flickered, dimming the light. Pools of perfectly crystal-clear water rippled as the ground shook, the rumbling growing louder.

As Esteria reached the point of destruction, she dove down to the trembling ground, her talons click-clacking against the rock as she walked. She stared at what used to be the Sand Wraith's hatchery.

She stood before a crumbled cavern, debris strewn everywhere. A pile of eggs lay safely outside of the destruction's range. Shards of crystal gleamed eerily before the largest mass of debris.

Unaware of the gathered dragons behind her, Esteria lifted the piles of rock. Setting them aside, her breathing faltered as she looked down on an obsidian-black, motionless figure.

A heap of shadow is what it appeared to be. Completely still, dark as the darkest night. Esteria fell to the ground before it, finding the peacefully closed eyes of her father's lifeless body.

A sob-like roar escaped her. She pressed her snout to his, and closed her eyes to contain her silent pleading before the kingdom. Grief and terror flooded her body, she was trembling uncontrollably.

She wrapped her tail around her father's corpse, holding him close. He was no longer warm, his comforting touch no longer there. He just felt cold, his scales dry.

Her mind flashed through images of Esteria sitting with her father, the wonderful alpha who had ruled over the Hidden World, being as fair and just as Alphas could be. With him gone, she'd be taking his place.

I could never live up to him. I'm nothing but a disappointment of a dragon.

A final sob escaped Esteria as she acknowledged that he was gone for good. Never again would she speak to him. He was gone, forever, and she was alone.

Her body ached with grief, but she stood, allowing Azura, a violet stormcutter, to lift the body and carry it away to be buried. Her heart seemed still as she began to follow Azura away.

She froze midstep when a crumble came from a pile of rock. A sandy-brown figure emerged from the rubble, limping.

A Sand Wraith held a single egg, safely placing it beside the rest. From the crowd of dragons that had gathered to see Asazin, burst a shimmering white Light Fury, with pinkish tinged eyes. She rushed to the Sand Wraith who Esteria recognized as Oasis, and the Light Fury was Serenity.

She watched the two exchange, but something didn't feel right. The dragon looked fine, beat up and injured, but he was alive. This didn't settle right in Esteria's gut, something was off.

Suddenly, the Sand Wraith collapsed to its knees, a grunt escaping him as he fell.

Serenity cried out in horror, sitting before him. Her eyes moved through the crowd and landed on Azura and King Asazin, and her face fell. She looked petrified.

Oasis' breathing was unsteady. He smiled up at Serenity, letting out a soft coo of comfort for her.

Serenity curled up closer to Oasis, holding him as Esteria had held her father. She sobbed with long, grief-filled roars while Oasis let out his last breath, and died.

Esteria felt the grief she'd tried to bottle-up rise within her again as she watched Serenity sob over Oasis's lifeless body. She clenched her eyes shut and tried to hold it in. All she wanted to do was disappear, curl up into a ball and cry her heart out for her father. Not before the kingdom. Her kingdom. She had to be strong.

That day, something inside of Esteria broke. She would never be the same again, a gaping hole left in her heart.

Lyra Stellar

The sound of Lyra's teal high-top skates on the paved trail soothed her throbbing headache. She pushed herself onward as fast as she could as if speed could take away her fear.

The images still flashed through her mind, of gunshots and screaming, of the blood-covered streets of her hometown.

She clenched her eyes shut and tried to push the memories to the back of her mind. All she wanted to do was forget, but sometimes the memories one most wants to forget, are the memories that remain forever.

She sped up, the crisp autumn breeze making her chestnut-brown hair blow all over her face. But it didn't bother her, she didn't stop to tie it behind her. She just kept skating.

As she neared the part of the trail that went right behind the white-sand beach, she slowed down. She allowed herself to glide to her favorite spot under the trees as she listened to the crash of the waves. Lyra used her toe-stop to stop herself, and she carefully walked off the trail and into a grassy area with tree cover overhead. She sat on a large rock and stared out to the sea, which looked endless. She couldn't tell where the ocean ended and the sky began, it was just endless blue.

She steadied her breathing and moved her thoughts to the ocean. She wanted to shove the horror of her past in the water, drowning everything forever.

The beating of Lyra's heart fell in sync with the crash of the ocean waves against the white sand, and Lyra felt at peace for the first time that morning.