Fading Echoes - The Echoes, Book 2 - HTTYD Fanfiction

Chapter 5: Running

      (Really cool video!  Check it out!  ^^)

   Tree leaves whipped across Aphira's face.

   She didn't know why she was running.  Maybe it was because she was scared of being different.  Maybe she was afraid of what Mother and Father would think when they found out she hated the dragons.  All of them.  All except for one.

   Aphira tumbled over a log, but she was quickly shoved to her feet by Blackout.  Guilt tore at Aphira's stomach and threatened to choke her as her missing foot came into view.  Surprisingly enough, the open wound had healed quickly, and although Blackout was limping she was still fairly quick.

   Aphira glanced up a tree.  Tree climbing:  one of the few things she was good at.  She glanced behind her with narrowed eyes, stilling for a moment and holding her breath.  She could barely hear the calls of the Riders of Berk.  She turned, produced a rope from the golden pouch she had around her waist, threw it up to a sturdy looking branch, and began climbing.

   Her legs burned as she forced herself up, her muscles straining as her energy faltered with every upward step she took.  But she knew one thing:  Blackout was beneath her, ready to catch her if she had to fall.  The branch that was supporting her weight had started to bend down slightly, and the rope was slowly sliding toward the thin end of the branch.  

   Aphira finally made it to the branch.  She eyed the branches above her for a more stable one.  Her heart jumped as she spotted a thick, stable branch further up.  "Aha!"  She said, then murmured it to herself several times over until she got the energy right.  Her heart sank as she mentally measured the distance.

   There was a long way to go.

   But she made it!  With every slight slip, every almost-fall she had, instantly Blackout was there, stabilizing her and making sure she made it to the top, even when roars similar to her own rang out across the forest.  

   Aphira, panting, put a hand on the branch and one on her hip.  She was sitting on her feet as she put her rope back into her pouch, then she laid on her back, the rough bark scraping against her shirt as the wind whistled through the trees, reminding her of her first fall.

   "Mother, you said we'd climb to the top today!"  Aphira laughed, tugging at her Mother's arm.  They were two branches away, they couldn't quite now!  

   Mother looked down at her, pity flashing in her protective gaze.  "No."  She said sternly.  "Not today."  "Then I'll go by myself!"  Aphira insisted, throwing the rope carelessly to the top branch - a skinny, evidently weak one, but Aphira didn't care.  She was getting to the top if it killed her.

   Funny enough, it almost did.

   And it wasn't even her weight that made the branch give out.  Aphira had practiced so she was quickly out of her Mother's grabbing range - well, she wasn't, but out of the safe-to-grab range - leaving her to find a safe branch to anchor on.  However, only one other branch was above the sturdy one Aphira had chosen to perch on, and it was slightly lengthy, but in no way stable.

   Then the wind blew through.  Aphira remembered the way it blew her hair over her cheeks, making it brush her nose.  It tickled.  Then, the branch snapped.

   Aphira jerked herself out of the memory with a shiver.  "Mrow?"  Blackout cooed, concerned.  Aphira pet her head, making the black-and-white dragon purr.  

   Aphira smiled, a spark of guilt flashing through her as she remembered the many times that Whip had pleaded for her to come out and play in the trees with him for so many months after she recovered from the fall.  She had run from the possibility of falling again just like how she was running from this.