Forsaken truths

Alice has been running. She’s been running her whole life. It’s all she can do. Chased by dragons who want her dead. Chased by dragons who want something from her. Something she has been tasked to carry and hide. That was her life goal. Her mission. The only thing her parents had tasked her to do.
Though she had never expected she would be being chased by dragons she couldn’t kill.

Rain pelted her scales, wet footsteps followed behind her, quickly increasing in volume, they weren’t far.

Her muscles ached, she had been running for hours days even, time blurred together.
Despite the pain, she pushed through and kept a quick pace, swerving in between the tall trees.

She stumbled forward, slipping on mud.
She fell onto a rough pathway, broken lanterns littered the trail.
The pathway felt and looked overgrown, no one tended to this trail for a while.

Alice looked back, two pure black dragons jumped between low hanging branches, avoiding the rain as best they could, their eyes glowed red in the darkness, she could see no features on them, just eyes.
Their bodies were bulky, their wings were small, they wouldn’t be able to fly.
They looked the same, one was smaller than the other but other than that, no defining features.
Maybe there were, her vision was blurry, she couldn’t see clearly.
They seemed more cautious of the rain, their attention started to drift from her to the branches above.
She could hear them hiss and snarl.

She stood up quickly, taking the chance to spread her wings, jumping up into a branch, she climbed up to a high and higher branch, she wrapped her tail around the wood, wrapping her wings around her body, obscuring herself in the dark leafs, her eyes glowing a faint green and yellow in the dark.
Alice tried to think back to some old scrolls, trying to imagine the different dragon kinds on this island, all dragons have different weaknesses, her parents had told her that, she just had to figure out what kind of dragons they were to know their weak spots.
Small wings, bulky body type, shorter horns.
Tint Wings they were Tint wings.

She heard one of the dragons hiss, its eyes scanned the area, not thinking to look up.

“We lost her.”
The larger dragon snarled, his seemingly melting wings fluttered in annoyance.
His voice sounded rough, almost like he had a torn throat.
“How did we loose her!”
He screeched, tossing his head back, glaring at the other black dragon.

“She has black scales, it’s moon high, we’re in the shaded forests, OF course we lost her!”
The other dragon started speaking quieter in a more sensible tone, as he spoke more his voice raised until he was yelling, mimicking the first dragons hateful gaze.

“She had white spots! White does not blend in.”
The tint wing with the rougher voice yelled back, flinching back as the shorter dragon hissed at him, getting closer to his face.

“Don’t yell at me!”
He snarled, his claws digging into the dryer ground from where they were standing.
The shorter dragon groaned, clutching his stomach as he sat down, coiling his tail around himself.

“Stop whining let’s keep going.”
The taller dragon growled, taking a step into the pouring rain.
He gasped pulling his claw back into the dry area.

Alice had to lean forward, clutching the leather pouch around her neck, trying to see what caused that.
She saw that some of the black had…washed away… she could see a dull orange under his scales.

Tint wings couldn’t have colour anywhere but their wings… couldn’t they?
Maybe the scrolls her parents had gifted her were out dated, perhaps Tint wings could have colour on them, though she blinked and the orange on his claw had vanished.
Was she seeing things?
The lack of sleep and rest must be getting to her.

“Idiot.”
The shorter dragon hissed, lifting up his claw and swiping the taller across the face, a liquid was clawed off his face, it wasn’t blood.. it was his scales, the dull orange appeared from where the tint wing had been hit, before black engulfed the colour.
Maybe she wasn’t seeing things.
But that… that wasn’t normal.

The shorter dragon’s tail covered his stomach as he looked up at the other dragon, almost anticipating him to go for his stomach.
The other dragon just snarled
“Touch me again and I’ll tear your organs out.”

“You can try.”
The shorter dragon said in a challenging tone, his eyes narrowing.

“I can’t deal with you any longer!”
The larger dragon roared, his tail lashing side to side as he passed around the small dry area.
“As soon as the rain clears I’m leaving your pathetic excuse of scales.”

“On the sea spirits you’re not.”
The dragon sitting down said, laughter in his voice, his head following the other’s movements.

Sea spirits?
Since when was that a saying for tint wings?
Since when was that a saying at all?

Just seeing these two odd dragons bickering was eye opening for Alice.
She was always told dragons were intensely loyal to their own kind.
At least the prophets were.

The first time she had interacted with dragons outside her own kind, seeing them argue and insult and harm each other… she wondered if maybe it was just the tint wings that were like this.
Her parents and tribe had always said those dragons are more temperamental than others.

“We’re supposed to be a team remember?”
The tint wing clutching his stomach hissed, tilting his head slightly.
“To get the prophet? He will kill us both if you go on your own.”

“He’s going to kill us both anyway, we lost her.”
The taller dragon said, his tone calmer.

He?
Alice tilted her head, looking deeper into the forest, almost expecting a third dragon to appear, but no third dragon came.
Was there supposed to be three tint wings chasing her, if so where was he?
Why are they separated from their… superior maybe.
They spoke of him with fear in their voices, even only slightly, it was hard to pick up on but they had a faint quiver in their tones.
She could see their bodies tremble slightly when she leaned forward.
Her claws shifted on the branch, trying to get a better grip on the wood.

The two dragons went quiet, they looked scared.
The larger tint wing paced around anxiously, his wings shook as he walked, they almost looked unnatural on him, his wings were large, larger than tint wings were supposed to have, he looked as if he could fly, even though they can’t, the other dragon’s wings looked normal for a tint wing.

Alice peered closer trying to get a better view of the dragon’s appearances, seeing if she could spot any other irregularities.

The smaller dragon looked fine… though his wings seemed too low down on his back, his head looked too long, his bottom jaw looked too big for him.

Aside from his already way to large wings, he looked normal, again his bottom jaw looked to big, his tail seemed to thick, behind his ears looked lumpy.

Why was she watching them?
She wanted to run but something in her said to stay and watch.
Watch what?
Two dragons argue and be hostile towards each other.

She turned her head to the trail, looking towards where it was leading, trying to think back to maps she’s seen of this isle.
She knew she was in the shaded forest, the largest forest on the dryland,
She knew she was near a dragons territory, she saw claw marks on some near by trees.

Now was not the time to not remember the geography of this place.
If she was chased to the wounded ledge she would be cornered, no dragon can fly there, the water below is too harsh to swim so that wouldn’t be an option.

Mountain wing’s plateau maybe… no she had passed mountains while running into the forest, what tribe resided opposite the mountains.

“Tint wings.”
The smaller dragon said, standing up, finishing her thought.
Tint wings clearing is where she was near, up the trail.

She could hear voices, separate from the two male dragons.
A lot more dragons.
Her heart started beating faster than it already was, she could see the tint wing with uncanny low wings was fearful.

“Nightingale we’ve got to go, they’ll kill us.”
He said looking up at the larger dragon, she guessed he was the one named after a bird.
Tint wings weren’t named after birds were they?

“Shut up pike they won’t find us if we’re quiet.”
Nightingale hissed, but…Pike…still looked nervous, even without facial features he still managed to look scared.

Alice’s eyes were locked in the trail, the voices became louder.
Footsteps became more audible, she could even make out shadows.

She’d have to get back to running, the Tint wing patrol will kill her.
Wouldn’t they?
She was always told they were the most aggressive, the tribe to avoid if she ever found herself on the dryland.
Judging by the pure black tint wings who had been trying to kill her, she’d take a gamble that the whole tribe would be like that.

Her head snapped back to the two male dragons as she heard a twig break.

The two dragons were at the border of the dry and wet grass, their wings dangerously close to the rain.
They were trembling.

Alice squinted trying to get a closer look at what they were afraid of.
All she saw was a.. a puddle?
A puddle of some sort of black liquid.
That wasn’t there before.

The puddle bubbled, a large dripping claw shot from the substance and gripped into the grass, the black liquid fell from it.

Her breath grew heavy as the upper half of a dragon pulled itself out from the puddle.
It looked the same as the other two.
A pure black tint wing with glowing red eyes.
But something about it felt so much more sinister.

“I gave you one job..”
It croaked out, his voice distorted and crackly.
“And you can’t even get that right.”
The dragon looked as if he was melting, each step it took to pull itself out of the puddle left a black print behind.

“W-wait, sir we… we can still do this.”
Pike said, his voice full of fear and desperation.
He was shaking.
Nightingale looked more confident, but he couldn’t mask the fear he felt perfectly.

The melting dragon shook his head disapprovingly.
“No no no… I told you two to kill a prophet, and you let her get away.”
He grabbed pike’s chin, pushing his head back slightly into the rain, the black of his horns washing away to reveal grey underneath.

Alice stood in shock as she heard more desperate pleas come from pike.
She flinched as the smaller dragon shrieked, he was flung back into the rain, all the black washed off him, underneath the black substance on his scales was a dull blue, it took a second before she realised that, pike wasn’t a Tint wing… he was a wailing scale, his fake wings splattered onto the floor in messy pools of black.
He reached out a claw desperately trying to get back into the dry but he tripped on his slowly shrinking legs.
He scrambled to a stand, reaching out one last time.

Alice had barely taken in the fact that he was a completely different dragon species, before she could see the trickle of red blood fall from his stomach, it only took a second before blood gushed from his now open stomach, his organs splattering into the ground as he tumbled to his side, lifeless before he even hit the ground.
The grass around him painted red.

The prophet covered her mouth, she could feel vomit forming in the back of her throat, rapidly rush up to her mouth, she could feel the burning sensation of bile scorching her inner flesh.

The dragon who rose from the puddle looked towards nightingale.
Nightingale shook his head stepping back, he opened his mouth to let out a scream or a beg but the other dragons claw slashed across his throat, sending him stumbling backward into the rain, the black was washed away, just like pike he wasn’t a Tint wing, instead of a wailing scale, nightingale was a mountain wing.
The rain washed away the liquid from his feathers, blood started pouring from his throat, Alice could see that his head was only attached to his neck by a thread of his skin, his black and orange feathers started becoming red.
He looked up trying to scream up only blood spirted from his throat, she could hear the gurgle of blood in his mouth start to drown him.

It took a mere second before he fell to the floor, his body spasms and shakes as more blood spilled from his mouth before he finally drowned and his body lay still.

The two living dragons locked eyes with each other.
Alice stared into his pure red eyes, sensing nothing but hatred and anger from within him.

They stared at each other in silence for a while before the red eyed dragon turned away, stepping into the pool of black liquid, his body submerging quickly, the puddle soon evaporated into nothing, the pools of black around the dead dragons went with him.

Alice took in a sharp breath, forgetting for a moment she was in a tree, she threw herself back planning to run but she fell in a panic from the tree, landing in the wet floor bellow her, as soon as she corrected her position into a sit, the bile at the back of her throat forced itself out of her mouth.
She spewed out a sickly green liquid, coughing once it stopped.

All it took was one sight of the organs on the ground near her for the vomit to build back up, she chocked it out, the burn at her throat at the vomiting hurt more than any fire she had felt.

Droplets of tears formed in the corners of her eyes, the more she spewed out.
She coughed, the last of bile escaping her mouth, she used her wings to obscure the corpses from her view.
She took deep inhales trying to calm herself, but her heart kept racing.

She was practically gasping for air as those footsteps of Tint wings stopped, she looked to the trail, seeing through blurry vision, around ten black dragons, standing in front of her.
She thought for a moment she was dead, tears fell from her eyes.

One of the dragons rushed up to her, crouching down beside her, he coiled a wing around her cold body.
All but one tint wing went to look at the bodies.

“A prophet.”
The Tint wing said, her voice laced with curiosity, but also hate.
“Did you do this,”
She snarled.

“Rose!”
The dragon next to her hissed.
“the poor thing is terrified, and she has no blood on her claws, we need to bring her back to camp.”
He stood, allowing Alice to lean on him.

“Alright you go, I’ll be here.”
Rose said with a nod, walking off to the other Tint wings.

Alice and the male dragon began a slow walk up the trail.