The four dragons flew together once more. This time, Jia lead them, having sensed the power of her crest coming from the southwest of the Illusion Woods, which gave them a good expanse of the continent to cover. The blue dragon flapped her rainbow wings with considerable effort due to the drain of her magic, but she did so under her own power, as she insisted. Ruby and Ebony had their paws full just trying to stabilize Nall. The loss of so much of his feathers and fur made flight for him difficult at best, so the others tried to steady him whenever he showed signs of faltering. Nall endured their aid without complaint, his face sobered by the gravity of the past few days.
Somewhere, hidden within the mountain craigs and cratered valleys of Lunar, had to be Twlya's base of operations. Magic powerful enough to invoke the creation of a new dragon could not be enacted just anywhere, and certainly not without suspicion. With a direction to go off of, the number of possible locations narrowed significantly in comparision to searching all of Lunar; a daunting task for the four dragons even at full strength.
"No reason to fly all over the place," said Nall. "I doubt she's using a barn as a hideout to create the new 'protectors' of Lunar."
"Well, you never know," Ruby drily interjected.
"But it's not likely," he replied with all seriousness. "So let's think of what's in this direction that she might use."
"My cave," Ebony offered helpfully.
"Even you would notice if a bad guy had taken residence in your cave."
The black dragon rolled his eyes. "Okay, so what else?"
"Lionhead?" said Jia.
"It is sort of isolated," Ruby admitted, "but it's full of big, nasty monsters. Usually you don't pick a place to stay where you have to fight for your life to walk to the bathroom."
"Well, is there anything else..." Nall trailed off, a light sparking in his eyes. "Of course!" he snapped, surprise on his draconic face. "Why didn't we see it before?!"
"Neo-Vane!" he and Ebony blurted out simultaneously.
Ebony grumbled. "They used my power to fly that place, I should have thought of it."
"It makes sense," said Ruby, catching a thermal and climbing without effort of her wings. "After everyone cleared out there's been rumors of fiends, demons, Zophar's ghost, what have you haunting the place."
Nall nodded. "Okay, so we've got a place to check out, but we can't just barge in there. There's Twyla to worry about, and there's also likely to be copies of each one of us." The white dragon wrinkled his muzzle in contemplation.
"She's repeatedly said she doesn't want to hurt us," said Jia, craning her neck to glance at those behind her. "If we don't start a fight, they probably won't."
Ruby snorted a small spout of flame. "Yeah, Jia, but how else are we going to get our crests and power back?" Her voice tightened with exasperation.
"Jia does have a point though," said Nall. He resolutely flapped his wings, not quite able to catch the same thermal as Ruby. Nall angled his heading towards Neo-Vane's resting place in the south and the others followed his lead, forming a protective triangle around him. "We'll scope out the place, but we won't have to start a conflict if we don't want one."
Jia fell back to glide alongside Ebony, almost through instinct. Without even turning her head she could feel the nervousness coming from his body. He probably didn't relish the idea of facing himself, and quite frankly, neither did she. But she knew as well as any of them that they couldn't sit idly by and let Twyla have her way, not after the accusations she had made. If they did, they would only corroborate Twyla's opinion of them.
The rest of the flight passed in silence, as each dragon let their thoughts absorb them. Before long, they could see a range of mountains ahead of them. Nestled within a few of its lofty peaks, in the same place where it had come to a forced landing, lay the crumbling city of Neo-Vane.
With a jerk of his head, Nall signaled the other three to follow. He circled down to the city which was supposed to have become the center of Lunar's magic. But that dream, like the city itself, was now abandoned; the dreams of a madman.
Nall landed heavily in front of the Neo-Guild Mansion, turning his head this way and that as the other three settled behind him. Feelings of ominous danger wafted around them, much the same as they had when the city still flew, but now the stone streets were empty, as were all the homes the dragons could see inside. Windows, shattered by the elements or the city's contact with the ground, opened into rooms which held the tumbled remains of furniture and past lives. Statues of Althena still dotted the city, false images of the goddess constructed in the name of greed and chaos. A silent blanket pressed itself over the city. The dragons could hear only the sound of their own breathing and the dark whispering of the wind through the streets.
The entrance to the guild mansion had been magically enlarged, its stone walls molded into a new shape big enough to fit a full grown dragon. Nall, locked his jaws tightly, knowing they had not been in doubt in coming here. He pushed open the gargantuan double doors and glanced back to the others. Under an unspoken agreement, the four entered the mansion, Nall in the lead, followed by Ruby and Ebony, and Jia coming last of all.
Nall stepped into the audience hall of the mansion and brought himself up short with a sharp intake of breath. He backed up suddenly, running into Ruby who muttered an oath. She lifted her head over his shoulder to snap at him when she saw the same sight. Her words died in her mouth.
"What? What is it?" Ebony asked, crowding around them. He came beside Nall, then turned quickly and lifted a wing to block Jia.
"Jia, don't look!" he ordered sharply.
She had never heard him use that tone with her before, and if she had the time she might have stopped, but she already lifted her head, looking past the other dragons. At first she thought they were staring at a pile of rugs or furs; blue, red, and white colors contrasting with each other on the stone floor of the audience hall. But after a second that impression passed and she knew what they were. Corpses. The bodies of dragons, but not dragons. They lay there in horrid heaps, cast aside as if so much trash. Worse still was the condition of the cadavers. Twisted, malformed mockeries of dragons-seeing them was like looking into a mirror where the glass had broken. The smell of dried blood filled the room with the choking scent of the recent past. Some of the dragons had bled from openings they shouldn't have possessed. Perverse and unnatural, it seemed almost a blessing they weren't living.
"Goddess..." Jia cursed softly, turning away, tears in her eyes.
Nall made a gutteral sound deep in his throat, angry; worse than that, furious. Ruby simply stared, jaw hanging open slightly in shock and legs weak at the knees. Ebony, needing something, anything to distract himself, moved over and put a wing around Jia, trying to comfort her as much as to provide himself solace.
Nall's quiet curses filled the hall like a mantra as he tried running through every profane word and phrase he had ever heard. Ruby finally wrenched herself away, eyes squeezed tightly shut as though that would make the image go away.
"You come back!" said a new voice--new, yet familiar.
Three of the dragons turned towards it. Jia buried her head in the crook of Ebony's shoulder and wing, still crying. If she heard the newcomer, she chose to ignore it.
A dwarfish, limping figure approached them from the shadows on the other side of the hall. Its soft face resembled Ruby's, yet at the same time was completely wrong. The creature's fur was a dull red and missing in patches, exposing raw pink skin. Its head seemed too large for its body. Conversely, its stubby wings would never support flight. Its hind legs were too long, pushing its body forward so fast its tiny forelimbs staggered at twice the speed just to stay ahead. The creature nearly plunged to the floor when it stopped only a short distance from them, but at the last moment it managed to plant its gnarled feet firmly on the floor beneath it. The creature smiled happily, with a dim intelligence shining in its otherwise dull red eyes. Though barely half the size of Ruby's full grown form, it showed no fear of them, only simple pleasure.
"You come back," it repeated.
"Oh goddess..." Ruby said quietly, repeating Jia's curse.
Nall growled quietly.
"Who're you!" he snapped, channeling raw anger into his words.
The creature flinched as if struck, and looked down with some semblence of thought on its face. After a few seconds passed it seemed to make the connection. It lifted its head with such effort the cords of its neck stuck out from beneath the skin.
"Ruby," it said. "I Ruby."
"You are not me!" said Ruby, horror rasping in her voice. "Not me..." she repeated quietly, almost a whimper. She backed away, folding her wings protectively about herself.
The malformed creature smiled at them again.
"You come back, family." It hobbled over to the pile of corpses, regarded them sadly. "They sleep... No wake up... She sleep last."
It nudged the body of an imperfect copy of Jia, which simply rolled over, a malformed paw falling to the side. The eyes of the dead clone were milky and opaque.
The creature glanced back towards them, dull eyes moist and uncomprehending. "I all alone. Why they no wake up?"
Ruby squeezed tears out from between closed eyelids.
"Kill it," she said quietly.
"No." Jia pushed her way past, trying to suppress the feelings of revulsion in her own body as she looked straight at the unfortunate creature.
"No!?" Ruby hissed, raising her head to glare at Jia. Her eyes wavered though, trying to avoid looking at the thing that answered to her name.
Jia twisted her head over her shoulder. "It's not its--not her --fault how she was created or what she is," said the blue dragon softly. "She's an innocent, and helpless. We have to help her. I know it hurts, but-"
Ruby snarled. "That her is a perversion of us, of me !"
Nall stepped between them, shuddering slightly, but head held high in determination. He gently brushed a wingtip under the red dragon's chin, tilting her gaze to look into his eyes.
"Listen. Jia's right. Its not her fault what she is."
Ruby scowled. She whipped about and stalked from the chamber. By the exit she lashed out, screaming, and tore deep gouges in the wall with her claws before disappearing altogether. Ebony simply stood quietly, watching Jia. The blue dragon turned back towards the smaller creature.
Jia bent down and tried to look as kindly to it possible. "Where did the others... Where did we go before we came back just now?"
"You leave." The answer was simple and forceful; an accusation.
"Yes, but to where?"
"You leave me alone."
"I don't think she knows, Jia," Nall said quietly.
Jia looked back at him, almost angry, but her gaze softened and she nodded.
"Back to square one, we arrived too late," said Ebony. He let out a deep breath. "I'm going to try and calm Ruby." Turning away, Ebony left the room quicker than he had to.
"Ruby, I Ruby." The creature smiled and nodded happily.
Jia glanced at it before curling around to face Nall. She leaned her head close to his, speaking in low, hushed tones. "Nall, we can't leave her. Twyla's left her for dead. I don't think she's coming back here--not after she realized I sensed my crest--and this poor thing can hardly take care of herself."
Nall looked squarely back at her. "So what do you propose we do?"
They both knew her answer, but she forced herself to say it nonetheless. "Let's take her with us."
"You know Ruby isn't going to like that."
"I know. But I think she'll understand."
Nall nodded. "I agree. It'll take time, but you're right." He glanced meaningfully at the deformed red, who had planted herself on her hindquarters as she gnawed at an itch under one diminutive wing. "She'll die if we leave her here. There's nothing for her to live off of except-" He shuddered, looking at all the corpses. "And I'll be a snow mongel's uncle if she can hunt worth a damn."
Jia shifted back around and opened her mouth to call to the little one, but her words died in her throat. She couldn't call it Ruby, that would only make it harder for the red dragon to accept her.
The creature looked up, seeing Jia's eyes on her, and tilted its head expectantly.
"Listen," said Jia slowly, "how would you like it if we call you 'Ember' from now on? Isn't that a nice name?"
It blinked uncomprehendingly.
"It shows we care because we're giving you a new name."
The dusty red creature looked at her for a few seconds with innocent eyes, then smiled and seemed to accept the logic.
"Ember, I Ember."
Jia nodded, swallowing tightly to hold back her revulsion. Though she tried, she knew she would need time, a lot of it, to become comfortable beside Ember. Now, in the terrible room full of corpses, was not it.
"Ember, I'd like you to come with us, okay?"
"I come," she said simply. Ember looked at them both. Something worked within her mind, making a couple of connections.
"Nall, Jia, family." She smiled.
"Yes," Jia said quietly. An uncontrollable shudder ran through her form. "Family."