"Whiplash? Whiplash!" Whip shook his friend frantically, his knees on the hard dark brown wood.
Whiplash groaned, his eyes flickering open. Whip glanced back at the arrow that was behind his foot. It had a golden mark of a fist with something streaming out the back of it, and it was tipped with some sort of green poison or something.
"Whiplash?" Whip tried again, softer this time. "Are you ok?"
No... Whiplash groaned. "That's what you get for firing at me." Blackout hissed. Whip turned to see the head hunter walking by, Aphira behind him with Blackout trailing behind them in the rear.
Whip gasped, but Aphira barely gave him a second glance.
"You fired first," Whiplash growled. "If memory serves YOU attacked OUR island?" Blackout snarled, approaching the bars. "Blackout, back off," Aphira said, and the Night Light reluctantly shrank back.
"Aphira!" Whip gasped, but once again she barely gave him another look. Whip, she doesn't care. Whiplash finally said. And neither will Kiara, once she finds out where we are.
Whip shrank inside his skin, the reality of what Whiplash was saying finally catching up to him.
She doesn't care.
Whip sat in the cell for hours, listening to Aphira, and Ryker argue loudly about Blackout and, more importantly, Whiplash before he finally came to a conclusion.
The arguing seemed distant, and so did all possibility of escape. He could think of one thing while Whiplash was trying to move his tail out of the chain they had it in to break Aphira free from the hunters.
"He should've died the first time," Whiplash commented with a muffled grunt. Whip turned, ready to remove the muzzle, but then he realized that it was on tight and would need a key to unlock. Unfortunately, he didn't have that, nor any lock picking skills.
"Then we'll have to try harder this time." Whip declared, uselessly trying to pull off the muzzle.
"Don't bother." A familiar voice said, and Whip turned to see Aphira, with her back turned on the bars. There was something strange about the way she sat - not only that, but also about the tone in her voice. As though there was a spark of emotion hidden there that neither of them could explain - a mixture of sadness, of anger, of hopelessness, and yet still of hope.
"Aphira..?" Whip asked tentivly.
"You don't get it, do you?" Aphira snapped harshly, sudden rising to her feet and turning her head so that Whip could barely see one side of her face, cast with shadows. "All the times you mess up - you can laugh it off. You fit in, you can also sink right into your place with no issue or fuss. I'm cast out for being the same, and bullied for being weird. I'm judged for being different and for going somewhere that for once in my life I feel like I belong!"
Aphira's voice broke, and tears starting streaming down her shadow-covered face. Her emerald eyes glimmered in the low cell light.
"You -" her voice cracked, then she cleared her throat and continued. "mean nothing to me." Whip stared after her, shocked, as she stalking off, swinging the cell door open and tossing in the key to Whiplash's chains.
Whiplash nudged his friend, his orange eyes worried. "Don't worry. " He mentally assured him as Whip nimbly picked up the key. "She didn't mean all that. She'll realize the truth once we take Ryker."
Whip looked at him, unlocking his chains almost automatically, as though it wa something he'd been doing his entire life. The Singetail's words seemed distant, as did his own feelings. The cell seemed blurry and Whip was numbed with shock as he mounted his dragon, simply staring ahead, lost to the world, as Whiplash broke out of the boat.
Not even the pain of an arrow to the leg shocked him out of the greif that would stun him for so long.
YOU ARE READING
Fading Echoes - The Echoes, Book 2 - HTTYD Fanfiction
ФанфикAphira had met the dragons when she was very young with her Mother and her brother, Whip. However, she didn't remember it, and not even the stories that her Mother told in vivid detail stirred her memory. But when one day, suddenly several beasts...
