Nall's form cut easily through the air, using what remained of his magic to aid his flight. The action once came to him as naturally as breathing, but now he felt the strain on his reserves whenever he called upon more than his body could physically do on its own. The stress was like a dull ache in the back of his skull, or a pinching of his muscles, depending on what he asked the magic to do. Still, he expended the energy. It had allowed him to thoroughly search the area around Neo-Vane without wasting any precious time. Now he swept to the north, continuing his hunt for signs of the fake dragons.
His course had taken him all the way to his own cave in the arctic tundra, without a clue to anything out of the usual. As he looked down over the area, wings only flapping occasionally to maintain his trajectory, his memories drifted back through the centuries. This area hadn't always been a frozen wasteland. Back when he was a child, the land had been a temperate forest with cool rivers and mountain lakes in place of the glaciers and blankets of snow. In those days, Nall's biggest concern was making sure his friend Alex didn't forget to practice his songs--or forget to eat considering all the time he spent in front of his hero's memorial. Alex, Luna, even Ramus, they had all lived together here in the quaint village called Burg. But Burg was long gone now, buried beneath many years of snow and ice. Gone like his friends.
Nall pushed down the pang of pain that came with the memories. He really missed them, more than he'd care to admit. He remembered how only a century ago he had waited for Lucia in Althena's tower, as he had promised. Luna had known Lucia would come one day, as she had known that dragons' lifespans are much longer than those of humans, like the one she had become. She had asked him to be there to show her message to Lucia, the message telling of the power of hope, love, and friendship. The power of humanity. She felt the message would be better received if a dragon was there to confirm its authenticity.
When Lucia and her Hiro had arrived, Nall started the message as he had said he would, and explained its significance to Lucia, but he couldn't stay. He couldn't bear to see Luna again, speaking as if she were alive, when he knew she was gone. It seemed a curse of the Dragon Tribe to make human friends, friends they would lose to the brief lifespans of humanity. Even though their absence left an empty space in his heart, he wouldn't trade his time with them for anything on Lunar. A thousand years could dull his sorrow. In a thousand more he might be able to forget for a time. But even if he lived for all eternity he would never lose the memory of them.
He was so occupied with his thoughts, that he didn't spot someone else heading towards him until she was almost upon him. The white dragon craned his neck around to see the red form of Ruby approaching. He thought that she hadn't been gone nearly long enough to have had a decent conversation, and assumed that the meeting with the Star Dragon couldn't have gone well. Still, the sight of her lifted his spirits and brought a smile to his muzzle before he even noticed. The sadness he had built around himself began to disperse like mist beneath a bright sunlight.
Nall took in a breath to broach a question to her, but seeing that he noticed her, she signaled and began to descend. Figuring that it would be easier to talk on the ground instead of shouting into the wind, he followed.
The red dragon landed in the snow, sinking several feet into the white fluff through a combination of her weight and fiery body heat. She shuffled around a bit uncomfortably for a moment before she hunched her wings and lifted her head to track Nall's landing. The white dragon landed a short distance away, legs apart and talons spread wide to extend his mass over the maximum area possible. When he took the few steps he needed to reach her, he barely left a discernible pawprint behind him, being used to moving through the winter terrain. Nall lifted his head, looking towards the other dragon.
"How did it go with the Star Dragon?" he asked.
She glanced at him, barely meeting his gaze, and lowered her eyes bashfully. Her fur seemed even redder against the white backdrop of the snow.
"I didn't come to talk about the Star Dragon," she said.
He tilted his head, studying her quizzically.
"It went that badly?" he asked. He tried to add a bit of a joking tone to his voice, but it came out flat.
Instead of answering, she moved alongside him, rubbing against his side and sliding under one of his wings. Her breath made small clouds in the air. Of course she would be cold in a climate so different from her favored volcano. He moved his wing more to cover her and offer her some warmth. Nall opened his mouth to speak again, but all that came out was a squeak of surprise. Ruby had curled the end of her tail around one of his hind legs and rubbed it slightly with the tip.
"You're... rather affectionate today..." he said, swallowing a little from the reactions he could feel from her touch.
"Maybe I'm just tired of hiding it," she replied softly, sliding one of her paws up to rub at his wing muscles.
Her touch excited him, sending a shiver of enjoyment through his form.
"Um... Ruby? What... are you doing? We don't... have the time..." he began to protest weakly.
"No time for love?" she asked invitingly.
Nall curled his neck to look at her. He didn't have to ask what definition of the word she meant, he knew she meant both. And he wanted her... she was beautiful, her warm body against his in the cold air, her touch against his skin. Something bothered him, it was all too much, all too fast. He tried to form some sort of protest, but Ruby's continued caress caused those thoughts to flee his mind. All he could think of was her.
"Well, maybe we can spare a little time," he muttered weakly as she dragged him down.
Jia made herself comfortable during the hours since the other dragons had left. There wasn't much else to do while waiting, and Ember wasn't much of a conversationalist, however eager she might be. The blue dragon would have preferred a bed of slippery rocks, but the dusty ground could do in a pinch if one just found the right spot. Ember had tired after a brief while of waiting and gazing at the sky. She seemed to have faith in Jia's insistence that their friends would return, but the effort proved too much for the little dragon and she curled up to sleep when at last she couldn't lift her head to look anymore.
Jia watched the tiny slumbering form with an attitude she could only describe as motherly, even though she had yet to lay any eggs of her own. Ember looked so peaceful in her sleep. She was just an innocent child really. She might have Ruby's memories, but she regarded them with the simple mentality of the newly hatched. Any dragon over ten years old could have been more verbose than her, young dragons were famous for their chattering mouths, if nothing else, but perhaps Ember could still help them. The small creature had said she didn't know where the cloned dragons had gone, but she might have heard a clue that she didn't understand at the time. If Jia could get her talking she might learn something, maybe even about this mysterious Twyla. The attempt couldn't hurt.
The blue dragon pushed herself to her feet and stretched her rainbow wings. She promised Ebony she would stay careful and alert. Lying in place too long would remove some of the limber from her muscles and she still remembered how the plantella had crept up on her while she had guarded Ebony.
She craned her neck over the little dragon and tenderly smiled. Ember had probably slept enough. Much longer and the entire day would be gone. After a moment, Jia lowered her head and nudged her lightly with her muzzle. Ember stirred, lifting her dirty-red head and opening her mouth in a large yawn, her tongue curling. She blinked a few times before turning her attention towards Jia and gurgled brightly.
"Jia," she said simply, as if her presence was joy enough.
Jia nodded kindly and patted her on the shoulder.
"Yes, it's me. Would you like to talk a little?" she asked.
Ember thought a moment then nodded vigorously with a smile.
"Talk. I talk."
Jia sat on her haunches and pondered how to broach the subject. She figured it was best not to confuse the dragon, which could be a tall order given her limited intelligence, so she decided to go with what Ember already assumed, namely that Twyla's dragons and the Dragon Tribe were one and the same.
"What do you remember about us?" she finally asked.
Ember's face fell immediately, ears flopping down, dejected. "You leave..."
"But we came back, didn't we?"
"Yes, come back, family." She smiled again and thumped her stub of a tail, apparently forgetting the former sadness as rapidly as it had intruded.
"Before we left, what do you remember?"
Ember scrunched up her nose as she tried to pull the memories from the depths of her mind.
"Nall and Laln and Jia and Ebony and Twyla..." she said haltingly.
Jia nodded encouragingly. Evidently Ember was confusing her recollections from Ruby with the ones Twyla had tried to implant. It wasn't a stretch to imagine that Twyla would alter the minds of the dragons she created, or else they would behave exactly like the originals and they wouldn't be stealing the Dragon Tribe's power. To what extent had she changed them though?
"Go on," Jia prompted, when Ember seemed to run out of names.
"Love... family," said the little dragon. She peered up at Jia and, seeing her waiting, tried to think of more. "Twyla make more family... blue... but they sleep..."
Jia closed her eyes, realizing that Ember was talking about the failed clones of herself, and tried to push away the image of the scene that she had seen in the Neo-Vane guild mansion. Hearing nothing more from Ember, she opened her eyes to see the twisted shape looking up at her expectantly. Apparently that was the extent of her general knowledge.
"Thank you for the information," said Jia.
The small creature beamed.
"Now can you tell me about Twyla, dear?"
"Twyla... black..." Ember said, making trailing gestures with her gnarled paws from the back of her head down the length of her neck.
"Yes," said Jia, nodding in confirmation, "she has long black hair."
Ember smiled brightly, feeling encouraged.
"Twyla, family... love... good," she said, eyes wandering at a disturbing angle independent of each other as she struggled to find more to say. Ember scratched at a patch of dead skin behind one of her ears, and after a moment became more bothered by that than her lack of words.
Jia wasn't surprised that the woman would put it into the dragons' heads that she was good and loved them. In fact, she didn't doubt it was true. During the confrontation in the forest, she had seen no hate in the woman's eyes. Twyla was driven, committed, and perhaps blinded by that, but she was not evil. Those were dragons that followed her, not dragon fiends.
Ember stopped her scratching and began to look around, as if just realizing something. The dead skin hung grotesquely off the tip of her ear. In her eagerness the dragon had scraped away the living flesh as well. Blood dripped from the raw wound, but the little one seemed to feel no pain. Perhaps she couldn't. Jia moved a paw over Ember's head, calling on the power for a healing spell. It would seal the cut, even if it could do nothing else for her maladies.
"Where... Twyla?" asked Ember, having found not her anywhere in the area. She peeked around Jia's paw just as the healing completed.
Jia plucked away the dead skin, now free from the rest of the body. "She's just... busy right now," she said.
"Leave?" Ember asked, the dejected look returning.
"Well, we came back, didn't we?" Jia asked. "Just because a person is gone doesn't mean she won't return."
Ember thought about it for a few seconds before nodding and smiling again. Jia was relieved that Ember accepted her reasoning. She didn't wish to lie to the child, or mislead her for the matter, but explaining everything would be impossible. For Ember, ignorance was bliss. It gave her hope when there would otherwise be none at all. And, Twyla was quite busy. Of that Jia had no doubt. The woman was constructing her new Dragon Tribe and even for a sorceress as powerful as her, that could be no easy task. Jia lifted her head to the sky, wondering if the others were having any luck.
The two forms lay curled together in the snow, but neither of them could feel the cold. Nall looked at the face close to his own. She seemed to have fallen asleep, wearing a peaceful expression, perhaps the happiest he had ever seen her. What they had experienced had been like nothing he had ever felt before, nothing he could describe. Both of them had been taken up in their passion, losing control, letting their instincts take over. Dragons they may be, but they were still animals, as are all sentients when one gets right down to it. All creatures have instincts, even those as long lived as dragons, and sometimes they can not be ignored. Nall smiled proudly and licked the furry red muzzle before him.
She stirred and smiled a little, muttering sleepily. "Laln..."
Nall felt a cold dread clench his stomach and pulled his head back. Laln. She had called him the name of the other white dragon, the copy. He stood with a jerk, disentangling himself from her, telling himself it couldn't be but somehow knowing it was. His actions woke her and she blinked lazily before opening her mouth in a large yawn.
"What's wrong?" she asked pleasantly, head tilted curiously to one side.
Nall stepped back from her, where he could see the whole length of her body and yet he could visually tell no difference. "You called me Laln," he said, trying to hide the emotions that were boiling up inside him.
She opened her mouth, shut it, opened it, and shut it again. Finally, sighing, she pushed herself to her feet and gave herself a shake, sending the snow flying from her fur. She looked at him and said evenly the words he had been afraid to hear.
"I'm not Ruby."
Horror and dread set on him full force. He wanted to vomit except that he hadn't eaten since he began his search. Instead he retched, a dry coughing sound that produced nothing but spittle. What had he done? How could he let himself be fooled, he was such an idiot, he had... he couldn't even form the idea in his mind it was so despicable.
"Does it matter?" she continued, smiling coyly. "Just because I'm not her doesn't mean we can't be friends... or more." She came forward, causing Nall to flinch back.
The red dragon hesitated. "What's wrong? Are you're scared of me? We shared..."
"A lie!" Nall snapped, his eyes glaring like two shafts of frigid light. "You seduced me when you knew I thought you were Ruby! We shared nothing but a lie!"
She reeled back, head pulled away as if struck. The red dragon curled her tail around herself, shaking. "But," she said weakly, "you love me..."
Nall could feel his resolve sap away, but he forced himself to remain strong, forced himself to remember what he had done and that this was not Ruby. How could she think he loved her when she had just deceived him, when he had never met her before? Staring into those eyes, so much like Ruby's, he saw the same emotion there, and he knew she loved him. Now he had to return that love with ice. Twyla had made her clones too well. He tried to remain angry with her, but it wouldn't work. No, this was all his fault, he had to take the responsibility. He turned away from her and said quietly:
"Just go."
He heard her take a step towards him, heard the uncertainty in her voice.
"But..."
"Go!" he snarled, shooting her a feral look over his shoulder.
The red dragon pulled away, staring at his eyes for a moment of disbelief, before she turned and ran from him. She leaped into the air and darted away, becoming a fireball in the night as her emotions overcame her control over her flame. The small part of Nall that was still rational knew that he should try and follow her, find out where the clones are, but right now he didn't care. The cost of what he learned as already more than he was willing to pay. He didn't care about anything except his own disgrace... and how this would hurt Ruby.