Ruby returned to the dragons' campsite later in the day. After her encounter with the Star Dragon, she had needed some time to blow off some steam. So she had searched around the Star Tower for any signs of the clones, not that she really expected to find any, and burned down a small forest. Nothing like mass incineration to improve one's mood. Consequently, she was in a passable frame of mind when she backwinged for a landing. Ebony and Jia lay beside, flanking, that... thing they found in Neo-Vane. Nall sat off by himself, head hanging and wings hunched as he faced away from the rest of the dragons. She looked thoughtfully at his back before padding over to Ebony, since he was farther from the thing than Jia.
"How'd it go with the Star Dragon?" the black asked.
"It didn't," she replied with a shake of her head. "What's wrong with Nall?"
Ebony shrugged a wing while Jia lifted her head. She looked over to Nall then to Ruby.
"We don't know," she said finally. "He's been like that since he came back. He won't talk to us and shuffles away if we stay too close. Something must have happened while he was scouting, but we can't get anything out of him."
"Maybe you'll have better luck than us, lover girl," Ebony said, waving a paw towards Nall with a little grin.
"Ever wonder how you'd look without fur?" Ruby asked casually. She looked up as if from pondering and blew a small stream of fire from the corner of her mouth.
"Okay, jokes aside, Pyro," Ebony said, holding his paws up in surrender, "something's eating Nall. Hopefully you can help."
"Eat Nall?" Ember perked up and looked around in confusion.
Ruby turned away, as much to cover her distasteful regard for Ember as to head towards Nall. She padded away, ears twitching, as Jia explained to Ember that nothing was actually eating Nall. As Ruby approached, she glanced over the white dragon. Besides his lack of fur from his last encounter with Twyla, he didn't appear to be physically wounded.
As she neared him, he started, just a bit, as if only now realizing her presence. Nall's gaze shifted in her direction then jerked away, but not before she could see pain in his eyes, bloodshot and watery.
"Nall...?" she asked. Ruby lifted a paw towards him.
Nall flinched from her touch and made a quiet choking sound in his throat. This worried her and her brow creased beneath her fur. Nall had been having doubts lately, she knew that, but there was something different about his posture that she hadn't seen before.
Ruby settled herself beside him. "Nall, talk to me. What's wrong?"
The white dragon didn't move for a few seconds, then he angled his head towards Ruby. But his head was bowed, he apparently found her toes more interesting than her face. She searched his features and was surprised to see a tear running down his muzzle, but he still made no attempt to speak.
"Dammit, Nall," she said softly. "You're scaring me. Can't you tell me what's wrong?" "I met her," Nall said. His head sank lower and he did not lift his eyes.
A chill ran down Ruby's spine, setting her fur on end. "Who? Twyla?"
"No," he said, in the same quiet, pained manner. "Your clone."
Ruby sent a scathing glance in Ember's direction, unable to help herself. The thought was enough to raise her hackles, but when she looked back at Nall, her anger faded. There was something else in his expression besides pain. Shame? Ruby tried to get a better look into his eyes, but Nall edged away. There had to be more to it than just meeting her clone. Much more.
"What aren't you telling me?" She nudged him with her wing, serious. "I... thought she was you," he said. A few more tears dripped down his nose.
"Tell me, Nall."
"I slept with her," he said, choking on the words. Ruby's muscles stiffened from muzzle to tail. She just stared at him, paralyzed like a hunted beast, and neither of them spoke as the seconds ticked into minutes. Finally, she said just one word.
"Why?"
Nall finally lifted his head, his tear-filled eyes meeting hers. Ruby could see the hurt and fear in them, but her own emotions simmered inside her, rising to the boiling point.
"I thought she was you," said Nall. "I would never... I love you Ruby!"
She could only look into his eyes a few seconds more before she made a wordless sound of pain, an ugly squawk that would more likely come from a gull than a dragon. Her eyes closed, rimmed by tears, then she turned and ran from him. She threw herself into the air, just flying, not caring where.
Nall's heart wrenched. The scene was not so different from the one only hours before when the clone had left. He stood quickly, his wings half extended, intending to follow, but he was restrained by a black paw on his shoulder. Nall turned to confront the green eyes of Ebony.
"Ebony... what are you... I need to..." He moved to pull himself free, but the eyes of the black dragon held him fast.
"Let her go, Nall," said Ebony quietly. "She needs time alone."
"But... I love her," he said helplessly.
Ebony nodded. "I know that, and she knows that. She just needs time to sort through her feelings. She'll come back when she's ready."
"You heard..."
"Yes."
Nall sighed, his haunches sinking back to the ground and his head lowering. He spoke softly.
"Hurting Ruby is the last thing I ever wanted to do. And right now the Dragon Tribe has to be united more than anything else. I'm such a fool." He pounded the earth with a paw. "I'm not half the dragon Quark was."
"No," Ebony said sternly. "It wasn't your fault. You thought it was Ruby, and the clone looks and sounds just like her. She caught you at a vulnerable time and that's all that happened. Heck, Twyla probably sent the clone to work at pulling us apart."
"No."
Ebony stared at Nall, surprised by the conviction in his voice. Nall returned the look with a steady gaze.
"I saw the emotion in her eyes, Ebony. It was love. She wasn't manipulating me. She couldn't help it herself. I don't know how she's taking it now, but she honestly was hurt when I didn't return her love."
Nall sighed and his wings sagged.
"They are dragons, Ebony, same as we are. They have their own feelings, emotions. They aren't evil... What right do we have to fight them? How can we fight... ourselves? Heck, maybe they would do a better job than us."
"They are doing what they think is best, Nall. We have to do the same--do what we think is best for Lunar. That's all that anyone, probably even Twyla, expects from us."
Ebony gave Nall a light pat on the shoulder, then turned and walked back towards Jia. The white dragon would need time to think. Nall looked in the direction that Ruby had gone and curled up into a miserable ball.
She had grown up without knowing her father, and when she was little that bothered her, but her mother assured her that everything would be all right. Her mother was a strong woman, raising her daughter on her own, and she told the girl to never lose sight of herself. She would be great, she would be strong, and someday she would be worthy of joining the ranks of her father.
Her father was the best, guardian and champion of the goddess Althena. Nothing could come to harm under his domain. Mighty and powerful, his voice alone gave evil pause. So her mother told her, so the legends said. Her father was gone during the early years of her life, but one day she would see him, one day she would rise to take his place among those most holy champions of Lunar.
And so with that hope the child grew. Her mother passed away, but the girl kept that fondest wish close to her heart. The memory of her father's legacy sustained her and she trained for the day her heritage would be realized. She had studied in Vane for a time, but left when it no longer suited her. Magic came to her as naturally as breathing, she could master spells faster than any of her peers. It was a waste of time to remain. Truly, her bloodline had been blessed by the goddess since the start of time. Nothing seemed out of her grasp. When the time came she would be ready to inherit her father's position.
Then came the tragedy. The black dragon had gone insane and Dragonmaster Dyne had gone to fight him. She found out about it too late. By then her father was dead and she had never gotten to know him. When the tears passed, she knew it was time, time to claim the role she had been born for.
But instead another was chosen, and her birthright denied. No one had sought her out, no one told her of what had transpired. She had to discover, on her own, that there was another, and that these great dragons had never kept her in the picture at all. They probably didn't even know she existed, hadn't bothered to find out. But still, she would watch. Perhaps they had chosen right. She would give them the benefit of a doubt.
Meanwhile, she trained. There was never an end to it. She could always become better, meddle with things that would otherwise be forbidden or forcefully shaped by the magicians in Vane. They didn't know what she was. They didn't understand. Then as she watched over the years and witnessed the failings of the dragons and their choices, she knew that this power would eventually let her set things right as they should be. Her magic strength grew exponentially, and with that strength she would protect others like her, so that they would never have to experience what she had gone through, betrayed by those into which they had placed their trust.
Her mother would be proud of her. She knew that. But as for her father... She hadn't known him, so she honestly couldn't say, but she liked to think that he would understand. This was for the good of Lunar, protection of the innocent, people like the child she had been.
Aji padded down the main hall of the Crystal Palace, taking in the sights. The shimmering structure was very old, possibly as old as Lunar itself. The whole building was made from crystal and designed for one purpose, the reflection and refraction of light. It fashioned the sun's beams and starlight into art, creating prismatic displays in every direction one turned.
Aji hadn't known the place existed before coming here, largely because Jia hadn't either. It was on a small island a few hundred miles into the ocean northeast of Nall's cave. The island wasn't on any maps, boats typically did not sail that far from shore, and its existence was a mystery. Clearly some great power had come here before in order to create such beauty, but whoever that was had vanished long ago. Twyla had lead the tribe here, saying it was a good place to stay out of sight until they were ready to act. They didn't need the distraction of having the former dragons on their collective tails.
Not long after they had arrived, Aji had asked Twyla about the structure. The dark-haired woman explained that it once held a magical artifact belonging to a being of light. However, some thousand years ago the artifact had been taken to help a band of warriors involved in a great struggle, and the palace was left without a purpose. Twyla had stated that she was quite willing to put it to use again. When Aji asked how Twyla knew all this, she had waved off the question with the statement: "I've done a lot of research on that era."
Even though her surroundings were beautiful, and by rights should be calming, Aji had trouble concentrating on them. Something nagged at her like a bug trapped under a scale, and she wasn't sure what. In addition to that, and easier to identify, she worried about Yur. Yur had returned from patrolling a short time ago in tears. Laln had tried to speak to her to find out what was wrong, but she had snapped at him, both figuratively and literally. Laln had no wish to lose his fur as he had seen the ugly results on the original of him, so he backed off. Yur had flounced off somewhere to be alone, and Laln had taken off as well. Ostensibly to take his turn at patrol, but also to take his mind off worrying about her.
Aji paused to examine a pedestal struck by a beam of light. She could see no use for it, the pedestal, and the light didn't seem to be having any effect other than to create the illusion of a mystical aura. She could sense no magic about it now. The dragon assumed that something used to be on the pedestal, perhaps even that artifact Twyla had spoken about. Glad to have something else to think about besides another worry, even if it was something as trivial as long dead history, she decided to ask Twyla if she knew what it was for.
She walked through gleaming hallways and illuminated passages in silence. The corridors and arches were lined with statues of a beautiful woman with feathered wings. She wasn't Althena, instead someone whose identity had been lost with time. Aji believed that she might have been the being of light in Twyla's story, though she really couldn't be sure.
Before long Aji came to the room that Twyla had chosen for herself. The tidy chamber, as was the rest of the palace, was translucent. The light concentrated in a single spot in the center, where Twyla now knelt. She was motionless, her head bowed, with the dragon crests spread equally around her on the four points of the compass. Each crest had a different colored aura around it, showing the power transfer that occurred within them. The black crest lay in front of Twyla, but her eyes were closed in concentration, and she didn't appear to pay attention to it.
Aji debated disturbing her over what was obviously an inane question when the woman lifted her head. Twyla brushed some strands of her ebon hair from her eyes with the back of a hand and looked towards Aji. She smiled, but her expression was weary.
"Yes, Aji?" she asked quietly. "Is there something you need?"
"I don't want to interrupt..." said the dragon, already taking a step back out of the room.
"You're not interrupting," she said, sighing and moving gracefully to her feet. "I was attempting to increase the speed of the power transfer, but it seems that some things take time. I think we'll have enough of that though. The old tribe should be fairly drained by now."
Twyla stretched her limbs, picking her cloak up from the floor and pulling it over her shoulders before looking up at the blue dragon.
"What was it you wanted?"
"It's not important," Aji said, feeling a little silly now for disturbing Twyla for the sake of curiosity. "I was just wondering what the pedestal back there was for. Light shone directly on it, and it looked too perfect to have been an accident."
Twyla bowed her head and rubbed her forehead lightly with her thumb and forefinger before returning her gaze back to the dragon.
"It was part of the key to the door to the main chamber. Three statuettes were placed on three pedestals and they reflected light through each other to open the door. They were removed long ago, but the palace no longer holds the crest anyway."
Twyla took on a distant look for a few seconds before shaking her head.
"It all happened a long time ago and doesn't matter to us now. If I could have gotten the crest, I'm sure it would have helped us, for the good of Lunar, for the good of the Dragon Tribe, but it's long gone."
Aji paused, absorbing those words. "For the good of Lunar, for the good of the Dragon Tribe." Twyla had said those things before. When the new tribe had left the imperfect red, when Twyla had killed the calf, she had said something of the same. Aji truly believed that Twyla cared for her and the others, and that she cared for Lunar. Twyla wanted to help the world more than anything else.
Aji also remembered the pile of failures that had occurred during the creation of the new tribe. Some were still alive and bleating when she was born, last of the tribe. Twyla did care, yes, but she was driven. She would go through great lengths to do what she believed was right. Perhaps her determination had blinded her.
"Is something wrong?" Twyla asked.
Aji blinked a few times, realizing she had drifted into her own thoughts while Twyla still stood patiently beside her. The blue dragon smiled down at her friend and shook her head.
"No, I was just thinking."