Hiding
Stoneshine’s pulse quickened but his brain slowed down. Instead of his usual overthinking and rushing thoughts, the world stopped. Faintly he could hear Azalea exclaim, “What?” And badger Finch with questions. That felt very far away, though. To him the earth was slowly tipping out from beneath his talons. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t do anything to stop it. He couldn’t even call out for help.
“Stoneshine?” He was leaning his full body weight against Azalea, making them both lean heavily to the left. Stoneshine’s eyes blinked repeatedly as they tried to adjust to the room again. Although it was almost night time, the room was lit with at least ten lanterns of all different shapes and sizes. “Are you alright? Do you need to lie down?” There it was, she was checking up on him again.
“I’m— I’m fine,” he answered as he tried to put his weight back on his talons. His knees buckled and he fell to the floor with a thud. A few of the Talons stopped what they were doing and looked over their way.
“Should I get a doctor?” Asked Finch. Stoneshine waved away the idea and said, “No, no, I’m fine.” Then everything came back to him and he realized that he in fact, was not fine. He jumped to his talons and began to move backwards, his head spinning. “Woah, watch out, Stoneshine!” Azalea hollered moments before he backed into the cold, stone wall.
“I— I have to— I have to go,” Stoneshine sputtered as he looked around for the door. Before he could bolt, Azalea reached out a talon and held onto his arm firmly. Quickly, she looked at Finch and said, “We will be at the waterfall two hours northwest of here until Honorbringer leaves, can you get there and inform us when he does?”
Finch nodded, looking determined, “I know where it is.”
With that, Stoneshine pulled Azalea out onto the street. When he looked at Azalea her mouth was moving as if she was talking to him, but he couldn't hear her. All he could hear was his heartbeat and his mind saying, “He’s here, he’s here, he’s here.” Azalea looked frantic as she tried to calm him down. Dragons who were still out in the streets were beginning to look at them with strange glares. Stoneshine felt Azalea carefully bring him into a small alley ignored by all the other dragons.
“Hey, hey, hey, breathe,” the pink dragons directed at Stoneshine. “In… out… In… out..” There, surrounded by darkness with only the sound of their breathing and the far away clatter of dragons, Stoneshine finally began to regain control.
“What am I going to do?” He gasped.
“We’re going to go to the waterfall. That should be safe enough for now.”
“I can’t ask you to stay with me during this, you’re putting yourself in danger!”
“It’s a good thing you aren’t asking. You’re my friend and I don’t leave friends behind to get…” She couldn’t finish the sentence, which Stoneshine appreciated. He didn’t want to mention his probable death either. She looked to the right, to where the alley merged with the main road. “We just have to make it out of here without your uncle seeing us,” she said with a grimace and a sigh. A look of recognition flashed across her face in the time it would take a butterfly to flap its wings, as if she noticed the sudden negativity she expressed. She brightened her smile and lifted her voice back up.
Stoneshine frowned, he wished Azalea knew that it was okay to acknowledge that the situation they were in was frightening. She had made a good point too, the chance that Honorbringer was patrolling the streets was high. Going down the wrong road could lead to his death. His stomach sank. He closed his eyes and prayed to the universe and the moons, anything to survive the night.
“Are you ready?” Azalea asked him, her talon resting on his to give support.
“Yes, I– Let’s go,” Stoneshined responded, taking a deep breath.
Trying to go through as many back alleys as possible to avoid Honorbringer, the two dragons wove in and out of the moonlight. Whenever a dragon masked in shadow would come across their path, Stoneshine’s breath would hitch and he would freeze on the spot. Azalea was his acting brain, she led the way, looked past corners, and made the decision of what path they would take. Finally, finally, they saw the exit archway, with a MudWing and a SandWing guarding it.
They rushed through the process of giving the guards their names, anxiously fidgeting and looking back at the way they had come. Jumping into the sky, the dragons beat their wings with strength an despiration. The dark grass beneath them pressed down to the earth under the force of the air. For a moment in the sky, stars twinkling above him, Stoneshine forgot the terror weighing down on him. He wondered what Azalea was thinking about. He told himself that she regretted meeting him, he had turned her simple life into a game of death, after all. Who knows what would happen if Honorbringer caught Azalea with him, or if she tried to protect him. There was one thing he knew, however, and that was that he would give up his life if it was to save his first friend.
The two hours to the waterfall were horribly long because of the anxiety torchorously racing through his mind. Death scene after death scene were played on repeat, some of his own death, some of Azalea’s, and some of the dragons he had seen in the war. Death. It occupied his mind like a fever, tight in its grip. The only relief was when Azalea brushed her wing tips against his as they were gliding through the air.
The mountain the waterfall flowed from now towered above the two dragons like a dragon’s claw scraping the clouds. Stoneshine swooped down to the muddy earth, letting the comfort sweep through his body and numb the anxiety. A glimmer of hope peaked through the darkness, maybe he could survive this. Honorbringer couldn’t stay here long if he didn’t find Stoneshine in Sanctuary. Or that’s what Stoneshine told himself.
__________________________________________
Honorbringer stalked through Sanctuary’s streets. He had been directed by a busy SandWing vendor the night before to the center of town. A plan had formed in his mind: he could say he was looking for his nephew– which he was, even if the dragon was only four years younger than him– and get the Talons of Peace to look in their logs to see if Stoneshine was there. Against his wishes, he had to give the dragon guards outside Sanctuary his name.
He sighed, for some reason he didn’t necessarily want to kill his nephew. He’d killed many dragons before, and while he didn’t particulariry enjoy it, he never second guessed his directions. Following orders had been drilled ito his mind since the day his father forced him to join the Association. He also knew that if he didn’t kill Stoneshine, he would not be able to return to his Mother or the Association without heavy repercussions. And he couldn’t ignore how poorly he would handle disappointing his father’s memory. If he was afraid of his father’s ghost, he was surely afraid of what his alive mother— or even worse, Falcon— would do.
Clouds hung in the air, heavy and gray. The wind whistled and smelled of rain, which gave Honorbringer conflicting emotions. He loved when it drizzled, but a downpour would make his life more difficult. Then again, his midnight scales would blend in with the shadows caused by a storm.
Honorbringer spotted the center building up ahead on the stone path. No more overthinking his situation, time to enact his plan.
Inside the building, candle light danced across the ceiling, illuminating the room in warm yellow. He wandered to the main desk at the center of the room. A SkyWing sat, focused on a scroll in his talons. Honorbringer cleared his throat. The red dragon looked up disinterested, “Name?” He asked.
“Honorbringer,” the NightWing stated flatly. One might think it was foolish of him to give his true name, but NightWings are proud dragons who raise names high in priority. Hiding a name would be the worst level of lying.
To his right he saw a smaller peach SkyWing freeze and swirl his head around to look at him. He thought that was strange, no random SkyWing should know who he was. Maybe the barely full grown dragon was afraid of NightWings, he told himself. But he kept a wary eye on him just in case.
“What do you want?” The SkyWing in front of him grouched.
“I’m looking for my nephew, I was wondering if I could look at your logs to see if he has entered here. His name is Stoneshine,” Honorbringer said.
“I’ll look,” the SkyWing replied as he turned and pulled out a scroll from under the desk. He unrolled it and began to study the characters. With a sigh, the SkyWing raised his gaze and glared at the peach SkyWing. “Finch! Get back to work and stop staring. One more daydream and you have extra chores,” he bellowed. Finch jumped and turned back to whatever work he was doing before Honorbringer entered.
“Hmmm… Yes, it looks like he was here, but left last night,” the SkyWing informed him. Honorbringer nodded and muttered a thank you. He then followed a hunch and went over to talk to the staring SkyWing, Finch.
“Hello,” he started, “Do youknow where my nephew, Stoneshine is?” Finch’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped slightly. “N–No, no I don’t,” the peach SkyWing answered. Honorbringer rolled his eyes, it was unbelievable how bad of a liar this dragon was.
“I’ll ask one more time, where is Stoneshine?”
Finch gulped, looking around for an escape. There was none.
“Let’s take a walk, shall we?” The question sounded more like an order. For a moment Honorbringer was worried that the dragon would cry for help, but as he suspected, the SkyWing went with him, too afraid to do otherwise. Honorbringer guided Finch to a secluded alley, keeping a sharp claw digging between his scales.
“One last time, and I want you to think very hard before you answer, where is Stoneshine?” Honorbringer made sure to put his voice in just the right tone to seem as if he was seething with anger and one wrong move would get the dragon killed. He had taken a class on giving threats with intent to extract information, and he had excelled. Of course, Honorbringer didn’t exactly want to kill the SkyWing, it would be a waste of effort, messy, and would slow down his mission. Usually he let helpful pawns go once they gave up the information he needed. To him, there was no need to kill innocents.
“I– I can’t say where they went, I promised not to,” Finch stuttered. Honorbringer made a note that Finch had spoke as if someone was with Stoneshine. He sighed again and moved his claw so it rested on the peach dragon’s neck. He pressed the point into the leathery skin.
“I hate to do this, you know, it really would be easier if you just told me,” he said, trying to get Finch to open up. The SkyWing was crying now, eyes shut with terror, giving no response. Honorbringer had one last trick: make the dragon think he was really going to die.
“I am going to count to three, okay? You have until then before your blood spills out of you. One… Two…” Just before he reached three, Finch quickly began to tell his captor about the waterfall.
“There’s a waterfall north-west of here, a two hours flight. He’s there,” Finch said between sobs.
“Good for you, you just won two hours of your life back.” Honorbringer stared hard at the crying dragon. “Now, you are going to lead me to this waterfall.”
The dragon assassin and his captive flew for an hour and forty-five minutes—until Honorbringer could see the waterfall through the mist the tired clouds were emitting. Hovering, he let Finch turn around and bolt back the way they came, heading back to Sanctuary. With the help of the clouds, early darkness was settling in, making the peach dragon disappear into the haze.