Haren

*unable to properly bind machine to mirror due to genetic make up and escape
*killed and revived as a thing of flesh and bone and muscle to be loyal
There was sand beneath him, ever-shifting, as he stalked along. Canyon walls enclosed his patrol as they snaked their way along the heightened paths. Every hush of wind, every trickle of sand, every careful breath demanded his full attention; too many things were going wrong.

Too many dragons disappearing. Too much clan-blood spilled. Not enough answers. Not enough action. Not from the guardian whom he acknowledged as the leader. Not from the tiny fae who he could not understand. It was as if they were waiting for something and the very thought made his scales crawl.

Haren clacked his jaws together as they walked, disturbing the silence that ran through the howling canyon, impatient and uneasy. His apprentice, a formidable beast of a ridgeback, rattled her spines at the noise. The golden sky-dipped skydancer flicked his wings. The wildclaw flanking him flared her crest, the soft shuffling of feathers filling out the chorus. It eased him to hear they were as alert as he was. Good hunters, good fighters, and, had they been mirrors, a good pack.

“Do you sense it?” He keened out in response to that stillness he did not like, digging claws into defenseless sand “How the winds change. How the storm cries.”

“No” A gravelled response, chipped with ice and glass, “but you have better eyes.”

“Yes. but you do not sense because you do not look. Do not listen. Still a hatchling.” His tail lashed back and forth, as he considered the storm-darkened horizon. Crackling lightning spilt white-blue light down upon the expanse, illuminated shadows.

He stopped at the site they had visited what seemed like a hundred times, pacing and circling the shoved away corner. Bones and dried blood were the only thing that remained of their clanmate; the carrion eaters had seen to that. Snuffling the ground was an empty gesture for there was nothing here. No trail. No soul. No evidence. And now, not even a body; the Shifting Expanse had a way of seeing to that.

“We leave” He was eager to move on, away from the blank nocturne skull that glared at him.

“Wait a moment” the skydancer chirped, antennae fluttering against the breeze. It made the mirror impatient, but he could give one singular moment to the dragon; his moments were rarely wrong. All four eyes honed in on the feathered dragon as the gold head turned ever so slowly to the wildclaw, devoting to him his full attention.

“Discordia, I was perhaps hoping to ask you something that I’ve found concerning about your behavior,” The skydancer pranced a step forward, scanning his surroundings before continuing. An oddly cautious tick that made Haren nervous. “This is actually why I asked to join the evening patrol today. With both the clan Protector and the Matriarch In-training here, I thought you would have a more troublesome time with lying to me about your involvement with Cidi’s murder and the disappearances of our fellow clanmates. Azira. Deep. Vyrr, Freyja. And Samson, your mate.”

Haren watched the wildclaw’s feathers flare and his own lips curled back in response. A snarl for a snarl. Her shifting feet spelled prey-like nervousness; he coiled his muscles like a spring should she choose to flee. But the position of the wildclaw's toes and claws, the way they gripped the rock beneath the sand, were not ideal for fleeing but for attacking. He clicked his jaws open and shut, preparing to fight.

The world seemed to grow chillier with the setting sun and the words that came from his apprentice were not ones he had been expecting, much less understood.

“It’s been long enough; it should be now”

His gaze flicked toward her, an unspoken question on his tongue. It was met with a warm spray of crimson. Haren sprang to the side, away to observe the scene; the skydancer of gold and blue gurgling and sputtering under Amarath’s claws, the wildclaw that turned toward him in a challenging screech. The chittering hiss that escaped from his throat was one that surprised him… worry. caution.

Every instinct within him screamed to reunite with the pack but his pack was here. Here. turning upon him. Again. His tail lashed in agitation as he took steps back away from the threat. There was only the sound of his clanmate's death throes, wild beseeching cyan eyes staring up at him. Nothing to do for him but leave him to scrabble for his last breaths, not even a quick death. There was no mercy in that.

The charcoal tiger-struck ridgeback loomed toward him.

“I told her that we could not keep you. Your loyalties are too ingrained. Instinctual. I told her that it must be me. There is no other dragon strong enough to deal with you. Do not return there. There is no one to return to. There is no one left.”

He had known her since her arrival as a broken fledgling ridgeback. Had groomed her, trained her, guided her into the hunter she was today. This one was his. As inexpressive and callous as she was, as stone-faced as she had delivered those lines, he could read the minute ticks that gave her sorrow and regret away. Her kind-hearted mercy as she spoke her last two words to him.

"I'm sorry."

The sound of shifting sand spurred him to action and he dodged away from the bipedal wildclaws wicked talons. Amaraths claws skimmed across his side as he pushed off and away. Back into the canyons. Back toward home. Back toward pack.

Saraneth. Belgaer. They would be there. They were always there. They would know.





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