Through Smoke and Ashes

Twenty One||One Down, Three to Go

My eyes opened after Alec had bid me a farewell. I was staring up at the sky until I heard someone shuffling beside me. I sit up from my sleeping mat, watching as Hames propped himself onto his elbow. He looked at me with his accusing eyes.

He nods his head in approval before he gets up and starts to wake up the others in a noisy ruckus. "Get up you stinkin' worms. The days almost half over." He roughly shoved his foot into one of the boys who didn't wake up. "I said get up you miserable cur!"

The boy awakes with a jolt, flinging his hands around at his assaulter. I heard Hames mumble something about this was why he never had children. I muffled a laugh with my mouth and got up to secure my bison hide around my body. The sun was peaking through the trees, rising above the horizon.

My gaze wandered around the camp, everyone was here except for Kayne. Just as I was thinking his name, I saw him trudging through the snow holding something. As he got closer I realized that it was my bag and my bow.

"I could have done that." I was bitter, I wanted to go and see Naxan while retrieving my things.

"I know." He handed me my things. "But I thought I would do it for you." I secured my things on my back without uttering another word.

"Leaving?" Naxan asked, I felt his eyes on me.

I let out a heavy breath. "We're going to travel with them for a little bit."

"Reason?" Naxan was curious as to why I still wanted to travel with these people. I would tell him that we were leaving, but I wanted to tell him to his face and not through the bond. But even then, I wasn't sure how to tell him that I was taking him away from the only place that he knows as home. I was scared of how he would react. He would hate me for sure. He deserved so much more than this.

Our first destination was to go to the Dreo woods, as they called it. It was separated by a large winding river where the sea had carved out the land. I only knew this from the map that I still carried around, even though I didn't need it anymore with Naxan guiding me across the island. I knew this island quite well after my time of living here, the only place we haven't visited was where Naxan had hatched. The Valairex Plains. It was a black, rocky wasteland, from what he's shown me through his memories. The sun could not penetrate through the thick, electrical storms hanging above and any vegetation growing there had died off.

He was alone his entire time as a hatchling, fending for himself and trying to survive. The other Valairex dragons residing there were not friendly with one another, they were loners, but if they came into contact with each other they would fight until the other was bloody and broken. The weaker opponent would die later and the victorious dragon would eat its prey. Naxan had escaped from one who had chased him down until he crossed where the land started to grow life back into it. The other dragon had tried to kill him, seeing him as a weak opponent because he had just hatched. I found this out by asking him of the scar he had on his hind leg. It wrapped around his right hindleg, disrupting his perfectly laid out scales. He was proud to bear such a scar, it reminded him that he was a survivor.

We had stopped before the gurgling river that separated the land. The canyon before us fell away into a deep river. The water spat and gurgled around the jutting out rocks. "How are we going to get across?" The male who was bounded to a Dreo dragon asked. He voiced my thoughts out loud, but I'm glad I didn't say anything as Hames turned back with a scowling glare.

"I've been doing this for generations before your time, kid." He unpacked his bag and grabbed a rope from inside. It had a hook on the end which he pummeled into the ground. He let the rope fall and he made his descent.

"Come on, you whimpering shite!" He shouted over the gurgling river as he made his way to the bottom where he landed on a rock that jutted out from the water. The boy looked terrified as he crept closer to the edge.