Chronicles of Yugure: Plummeting into Uncharted Depths

Day Six

The sun slowly fades out of my eyes so that I can get a clear visual of my surroundings. The sky, oh how marvelous! Colors so vibrantly odd but enjoyable. Reds, purples, oranges, they all are absorbed into my optics as I stare at the heavens. The silhouette that I had seen turns to a dark green, much darker than my emerald scales and forest green pelt. I can tell immediately that the dragon is a female. An easy way to tell a dragon's gender is its body shape. Females are more slender and sleek with a bit of a pleasingly arched back. Their poise is always more graceful then the males' bulky, rough body that is mostly in a haunchy position.

"Welcome to the Second Realm, I am Vashti. Please, come meet our Lord," she curtsies to us. She is quite lovely. Her orange eyes resemble the colors of ripe pumpkins and spices speckled about, creating a red tinge that was only shown in the light of the sun. Her osteoderms-the spikes on her back, neck, and forehead-were a shiny Phthalo green, a dark shade of green. Her chest plates are perfectly symmetrical and had no blemishes to their pale green luster.

I return her curtsy with a bow, "I am Enoki, and this is Lady Hawk. We will happily follow you to meet your Lord," I nod. Hawk seems somewhat concerned with this remark and I look at her, "What?" Is all I say as we follow on foot to keep our conversation away from earshot.

"This is not always a smart thing to do, following a strange dragon to her Lord," she snaps at me in a quiet tone. "What if it is the evil ones she speaks of?" Her face turns as she spits. This bugs me terribly. How can one be so judgmental of a clan she hardly knew anything about?

I also spit, "Just because one is from Kurai, does not mean they are untrustworthy villains!" My voice is a bit higher than I should allow, but I can tell that it is still not audible to the she-dragon. Lady Hawk's expression changes into one of confusion. Her eyes look at me as if I have just spoken in gibberish.

"I did not mean Kurai, Enoki. I meant the Mist," is all she could say before our guide lands in front of us.

The female folds her wings up tightly and lowers her head in a submissive state. "Please excuse me as I fly ahead to get the Mistress of the Lord. She is to greet you and escort you into the Kurai campsite," my stomach goes to the floor as she mentions my father's clan name. So it is Kurai that will be greeting us. That means my father is possibly nearby. Hawk and I both nod and allow her to take off to find Lady Kurai.

As soon as Vashti is out of sight, I blurt out, "You don't despise Kurai?" Her face is completely straight for a minute, then, she can not hold it in any longer. A loud laughter emanates from her smaller frame.

Her white pelt falls to the floor, "Oh of course not! Those superstitious Tsumes have no clue who is an enemy and who is a friend. The League of Mist is the ones they should be afraid of. They were recently found guilty of being Kurai extremists. They wished to take over all of the Second Realm and govern it how they see fit. And they say it is all in the name of Kurai, which is just a flat out lie. They worship the late Lord Reikokuna like a god; which he wasn't even close to being God. His evilness began the war between the two clans, Hikari and Kurai and it ended with both his death and the kind Lord Heiwa of Hikari." Her history lesson makes me feel much better about all of this, but I am still afraid to know if my father has any part in this League of Mist.

I nod, showing that I am listening to all that she has to say, but something worries me, "Where are they now?" I shuffle my claws, not knowing where to put them.

"Banished," she replies, "to the realms beyond this one and the next." She implies the First Realm.

Our conversation is cut short, of course, by the arrival of the Lady of Kurai. Her dark blue colors give her the look of a midnight sky in the Fourth Realm, the world where most non-mythical creatures live. Her beauty is indeed hard to match. I can tell why she is the Lord's mate. She has to be one of the most beautiful dragons I have ever seen, considering the fact I have really only seen two, this is easy to say. "Greetings, travelers of the other realms, and welcome! I am Lady Fayyim, and I am to escort you into our wonderful village," nodding gracefully at us as she spoke. She definitely has the grace to be a Lady.