Fight or Flight

Distant Future

Long abandoned by the Kymari for unknown reasons, the backwater planet boasts some of the harshest environments in the known universe, housing monstrous creatures such as the polar bear, malinue, and hippopotamus. It has not been but a few centuries before that borkles and raptors had been introduced along with sicora, but history has forgotten what wiped them out, leaving their short stays in the world without much trace.
Legends say that the backwater planet is the origin of the human species and what came to be known as dragons, both species notorious for being some of the most active sicora hunters in existence. It is unknown what drives the dragons and humans' bloodlust for sicora, nor how they're capable of sensing them when nothing else is capable of such a feat.
Ivy has not been on this planet in a long, long time, not since she was a girl. She vaguely remembers the days of old when her father still lived, and the Kymari settlements thrived. Now she is old, and the settlement is overgrown, the houses crumbling from centuries of neglect. A sad smile tugs at the corner of her mouth as she stands at the still-standing door of her childhood home, phantoms of memory acting out in the yard, echoes of voices long gone silent ringing in her ears.
She turns dimmed eyes to the clear blue sky, hoping maybe to catch a glimpse of those fabled creatures she knew so well. She had come too late in the day, she knows; the morning song had passed hours ago. But maybe if she is fortunate, just maybe, she may get to see her Warren again. Oh, to be youthful again, to be able to track through the forest. She doesn't have much time these days; her energy is wavering.
She turns, the rubble grinding under her feet. Perhaps the dragons are simply hiding. They never were trusting creatures, and Ivy is sure that the new generations cannot be used to other sentient beings roaming the land. It only makes sense that they would be cautious, especially since the only visitors after the Kymari were bent on taking them. Ever so carefully, Ivy makes her way to the walls' gate, wistfully running her hands on what the new generation would consider relics of the past. She is old, even for Kymari kind, but by some strange fate, she is not so feeble as those elders younger than herself. She stops at the threshold of the open gates, smiling to herself.
Statues five times her size stand guard, one on either side of the high arching structure. The one to her left, a Kymari male, bears a familiar face, the face of her father, scares and all. The other statue, a dragon, sits with wings unfurled atop another Kymari male, her long serpentine neck arched so that the head peers down at whoever may enter the city.
That is a dragon she has not thought of in many years, but one to whom the Kymari are deeply indebted. Yes, that is the dragon first taken in by the Kymari, the first to hunt sicora, Tasha, if Ivy remembers correctly. The black that had at one time colored the harness around her is peeling, but still there enough to help Ivy's struggling eyes make out the raised surface from such a long distance.
Whatever happened to her, Ivy does not know; the Kymari left long after her handler had passed on, and her recollection is not what it once was. The chances are that she passed away with her handler, whether in battle or peacefully, she does not know. It makes her glad that the dragons would honor them in such a way. The forest has not touched either statue with its' creeping advance, and both are in pristine condition, apart from the peeling black of the harness.
Ivy pulls her eyes off the figures, turning them out to the tall trees looming over even the gate's arch, casting deep shadows over an oddly defined path paved in flat stones. It seems the dragons have done more than just erect statues. She adjusts the way her weapon lays across her back, keeping it in a position where it will be easier to get access should she need it. The forest has never been a welcoming place, and Ivy has no plan on letting it take her out of this life before her time has come to an end of its own accord. Old she may be, but dead she is not, and fight she will.
Wearily, Ivy steps through the threshold and into the forest, her time as her father's successor guiding her movements as they always have. Her blood rushes through her, carrying the thrill to every fiber of her being, a familiar feeling from her youth. Maybe a century has passed since she passed his mantle to her son and him to his by death. Now an elder, her business has been limited to those dull things that her grandfather had always complained were draining him of life. At first, she had not understood what he meant, but now she knew. Being out in the wild again filled her with life, but at the same time, the acute awareness of just how much her body lacked.
Were it not for the lanterns hanging from the lowest branches over the path she would be blind in such deep darkness. Had it always been so dark in this part? 
A breeze whispers through the canopy up above, carrying the birds' songs in its wake. The trees shiver, their branches swayed by the force of it as a stronger gust of wind rips through them, spattering the stone path with fat droplets.
In the past, Ivy would have been unbothered, but she now had to stop to pull on her cloak, making sure to secure the hood far over her face.
"Grand Mother, we should get back to the shuttle. The storm is—"
Ivy holds up a hand, glancing at the young Kymari. Truth be told, she had forgotten he had accompanied her. "I am well aware, but it is much too late to turn back." She frowns, turning her gaze to the canopy. Her first thoughts had not been to take so much time in the city, but such is life. "It will be better if we can find shelter here, or perhaps with the dragons."
The look the young Kymari shoots here is barely hidden away; anyone older may have disguised it for something else instead of floundering so.
Ivy grins, a habit gained from many centuries around the humans, shooting him a knowing look that completely unnerves him to the point that he nearly trips over his own feet. "Child, not all dragons are so small."
Something flitters in the dimmest corner of her vision and Ivy turns only slightly, studying the outer vegetation. So someone has come, eh? She had wondered if they had received her message. The rain picks up, the stones nearly drenched in the downpour.
"Help me keep my feet under me, will you, Warren?" Ivy holds out her pail, wrinkling hand to her grandson expectantly.
He takes it, holding it tight and supporting her from her elbow as the two makes their way down the now slippery path.
A flash of light splits through the
She can swear there was just a pair of eyes glowing in the foliage.
Warren stops, his muscles rigid and a deep frown etched into his face. He looks so much like his grandfather, almost a reflection of him.
"Something the matter?" Ivy feigns ignorance for the sake of it, after all, it is his duty to protect her here and he needs to learn the planet.
"I thought I saw something..." He trails off, angling his body to cover her.
How sweet. "Oh, and what did you see? My eyes fail me."
"It looked like a sicora-"
"Nonsense. It must be a dragon," then loudly to be heard, "forgive my grandson the insult, he is not accustomed to the sentinel's appearance."
A form drops out of the canopy, gliding down on rich green wings to land just out of reach. "Aunt Ivy, is that you?"
Ivy grins at the old sentinel, "Keniv, my precious, how are you? I thought you may have gone by now like your father."
A sense of sadness tinges from the dragon, but nevertheless, she folds her wings, thrumming as she rubs against her senior, Ivy getting the sense that she is letting Warren hear. "I am well, soon I may settle to let the young care for me, but not just yet." She turns tail, gesturing for them to follow. "I wanted to see you one last time, father would have too, if he could have."
Ivy's brother Ry had the unfortunate luck of befalling the same fate the original dragons had, and, after a long fight trying to reverse his condition without success, settled with his fate. Keniv and her three brothers were the results. Unless she was mistaken, he had perished in a cave in, crushed by boulders. 
The static music of rain and wind drowns the steps of the three as they make their way down the path, deeper into the forest.
Statues occasionally stand hunched over the path on stone altars, lanterns clenched in their jaws, shedding flickering light over the paths that branch off beside them. Were it not for the storm, Ivy would see the open-roofed towers at the end of those paths, or the gardens planted near them for the hatchlings housed within. Were it not for the storm, Ivy would see the houses scattered in the deep of the forest off the main path, some built into the trees and others on the ground.
Not but a quarter of an hour later, they reach the dragons' den, a spire of white stone carved with intricate care.
Two massive sentinels stand guard at the entrance, their shoulders and wings covered with gleaming armor.
Ivy recognizes them, or at least their features are familiar to her; perhaps she knew their parents. She waits patently for Keniv to announce her and her grandson, knowing only that it must be done. She shifts, holding tightly to the other, her strength withering by the moment.
The sentinels' eyes stay trained on them, unmoving. How they endure the cold that so many of their own shrink from she does not know, but they are the nobler for it.
The door opens, warm light spilling out to greet them.
"Ivy, it's good to have you home again."