New Flames

Chapter 24

"Flame?"

The world came to a slow focus as he blinked himself awake. Summit Central materialized around him - or more specifically, a medic's room did. He was laying down, his wing folded over himself, a few torches and a window lighting the room and the dragons in it.

Flame didn't have the strength to feel very much, especially when he started to remember why he was in that bed in the first place, but what he did see gave him something to stay awake for.

Avalanche gave him a huge, toothy smile and her eyes were clearly red and still wet from crying. She grasped her son's talon as she bent over him from the bedside.

"Oh, gemstone. Don't try to talk," she breathed, stopping herself from crushing her dragonet with a hug. She lifted herself and saw Flame try and fail to struggle to hug her back. "...Or move. If I understood correctly," she said, "you might be numb for at least another day."

"Again, I apologize," Placoid's voice responded, as the SeaWing fixed his glasses from the end of the hospital bed, "I sshouldn't have been quite sso forceful."

"I don't think he or Ire would have been quite so thankful if you had been any less delicate," Rail's voice piped up as the hybrid appeared from the other side of the bed. Avalanche nodded in quiet acknowledgment as she wiped her eyes from more tears.

Flame certainly agreed. "As much as I'd like to feel my wings right now, I certainly prefer being alive."

"Alive..."

Placoid and Rail must have seen the distress form in his eyes as his face contracted. The SeaWing quickly jumped in.

"She'ss alive, Flame," he assured, giving him a meaningful look, "she'll need some time to recover, but Buzzard made sure she'll get all the medical attention she needs. And I think Ardor is keeping her company now."

"She does want to talk to you, though," Rail added in, shaking their wings as they made a thoughtful face that clearly spelled out 'I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS RIGHT NOW', but they managed to hold that back as they said, "I think we all want to, in one way or another."

"To understand what happened," Placoid concluded, "and how to stop it from happening again."

Flame thought about it, in his quiet stillness.

"They want answers," he thought, "I'd probably want them too... but would they believe me after everything that happened? Some of them already see me as a liar, or as inherently unlikable and murderous." He paused. "I wouldn't believe a dragon who just tried to kill their friend," he reflected, "would telling them that this happened because of an enchantment cast by a centuries-old animus change anything? Isn't it still my fault?"

"Well, he told me a dragon enchanted him," Avalanche exclaimed, "that NightWing animus who attacked Jade Mountain Academy. A young IceWing in the Talons had... worrying stories about him."

"That IceWing probably hates him the same amount as me, tribe or no tribe," he realized, "so maybe the stories they told mother were... not exactly depictions of the truth."

He remembered Darkstalker with vivid clarity, now more than ever. The animus wasn't an outwards monster. He wasn't manipulative like Flint, violent like Viper, or cruel like Morrowseer. He was charming, generous... and much too smart. He'd given Flame exactly what he wanted - but not without a reason. He accused the SkyWing of fulfilling an ominous prophecy, to cast the shadows away from himself.

"I never stood a chance to see through this back then," he sighed at that thought. "I would have been mad and seething with revenge and violence. Stonemover saw all of them when I was chained next to him. But now... he was exactly the sort of monster that I had never known. The kind who listened - and lured me right into his trap."