The Silver Reckoning

Chapter 5: Sickness

A thin stream of elronium metal slid down Silver's throat as she carefully added another coat to the edge of a steadily growing wall. She coughed slightly as she did, the metal coming out forcefully and uneven, spraying from her mouth. She shook her head with a small groan, a pulse running through her head, before looking back at what she had been working on. Forming the end of her tail into a blade she began to scrape off the unneeded elronium.

She had been working like this for weeks, or at least that's what she had heard from the rather talkative scientists who constantly meandered around with seemingly nothing to do other then watch her or play with the many strange machines set around the area. They were constantly surprised by Silver as well, impressed with the accuracy at which she managed to breath her metal and create the machine.

Silver was sitting on a platform that could rise and descend, with a strange contraption under it similar to a spring. It allowed her to get to the higher parts of the machine without having to fly, which was very useful since it was difficult to be so accurate while flying.

Another cough struck Silver's body, and she groaned again, taking a small break from creating the machine and lying down on the cool metal surface of the platform. There was a horrible throbbing in her skull, and her throat was raspy and sore. She didn't know what was wrong with her, but this small dose of sickness had been plaguing her for the past couple of days, and hadn't been getting better.

Breathing as deeply as she could she forced herself to her feet and looked toward the sharp edge of the half finished wall she was creating. Angling the metal she began to work again, adding a little then taking a bit off with her tail, then repeating the process. It was slow work, but it kept her mind focused on what she was doing, not what she was building. From what she had gathered from the scientists she knew that this was supposed to be some sought of weapon. What it did however was a mystery even to them.

The hours of the day slowly dragged by and Silver found herself suffering from more and more coughing fits. Stars danced before her eyes and spells of dizziness assaulted her. Every time this happened she took a step back and closed her eyes to refocus. She hated this, everything about it. The place she was in, what she was supposed to be building, the overwhelming amount of humans and the docile dragons. She missed the sky, the feeling of natural winds breezing under he wings. She missed her friends and found herself longing for the comfort of Celestia, or Zepos.

For a moment the thought of changing her decision of making the machine. She often did, but forced the thought from her mind. No, she couldn't do that either. A shudder ran through her from a small chill that wound up her spine. She had never been sick before, or at least not that she remembered. Dragon's rarely got sick. It was horrible.

"Dylan, I think something is wrong with the dragoness," she heard the voice of one of the humans speaking, "She looks unwell."

"Yes, she seems to have been deteriating for the passed couple of days," replied the other human, Dylan, "Silver! Would you come down here for a moment please."

The metal dragon looked tiredly down at them, before the device forced her to obey. She opened her wings and leapt off the small platform she had been sitting on, going to glide down to the ground below. She had done this many times before, easily, but this time all strength seemed to have left her and her wings folded under her weight. With a grunt she hit the ground, hard. She groaned again as that headache formed through her skull, pounding her head like a drum.

The two humans cried out in alarm and she vaguely heard them calling for help as they ran over to her. Their voices bounced back and forward in her head unintelligibly, causing her to whimper slightly. All she wanted to do was close her eyes, curl up and sleep. Another cough ran through her.