The Silver Reckoning

Chapter 21: Betrayal

Silver breathed in deeply. In through her nose, then out through her mouth, forcing herself to relax. Her eyes were closed, and her wings were pressed tightly against her back. She made no movement, besides the occasional twitch of her tail and the tensing of her body. Surrounding her were the metal statues she had created, their still bodies in a mixture of poses, staring outwards with empty eyes.

But as Silver breathed, there was a movement among them. A tilt of the head, a flick of the tail. Slowly it began to move forward. It was the one she had shaped after an ice dragon, the frill of horns evident on its head. The metallic dragon tilted its head, and looked over itself in slight interest, as if surprised to be alive.

"Well done Silver, now keep up that contact, and open your eyes," O'hen spoke in his deep voice.

The dragoness continued to breath deeply, before slowly doing as the time dragon had asked. But as soon as she did, her focus on controlling the statue dissipated as she turned to controlling herself. The statue instantly froze solid in its new position. She let out a cry of frustration and stamped her foot down on the ground, and the ice dragon statue blew up, metal flying everywhere.

"Now that wasn't very nice," grunted the time drake.

"This is so... Aargh!" complained Silver, glaring back at him, "How on earth did my father do this? He hadn't even reached equilibrium!"

"There's a simple answer to that," replied O'hen, "He had..."

"More control," sighed the dragoness, "I know, I know. You've told me a hundred times."

It had been something she always wanted to be able to do. Her father had told her the story of how he had created a metal version of himself to fight as a decoy while he infiltrated an A.O.D.H base. It had worked very well, but it had been something Silver had never been able to accomplish. Now, here she was, so close, but still unable to do so.

The time dragon walked over to her and sat down beside her, "You'll get it eventually."

"That's what you keep saying," she murmured in reply.

He studied her for a moment, seeing the tensed up wings and agitated tail. She was in no condition to even think about trying to control her metal, when she was barely in control of herself. It was hard to see her like this, but there was only so much one could do as the master of time. He wished he could tell her everything, what he had planned, what victory required, but he knew he couldn't.

"Maybe we should have a break," he suggested.

"That's a good idea," the silver dragon slumped to the ground with a massive sigh, a headache having formed in the base of her skull. All this focusing couldn't be good for her head.

The two of them sat in silence for a moment, before O'hen decided to try something to ease her mind.

"Hey, if you're curious about something, anything at all, involving the past, future and present. As long as it doesn't risk anything in the future, I can tell you almost anything."

Silver looked up at him and thought for a moment. There were a lot of questions she had wanted to ask him, things such as the dragon riders she had seen in her dreams of the past, or the war that was the beginning of the third age. It all interested her, but at the moment she wasn't really in the mood to be given a history lesson.

"Am I allowed to ask who I will end up mated to?" she asked, without even really thinking.

"Hmm," he tilted his head, "Well, there are a lot of different answers to that. There used to be futures where you ended up with Gravon, and even Shiro, that fire dragon from D.E.D, but they are gone now. At the moment, it's more between Retrix and Zepos I guess. There are futures where you end up with one or the other. Sometimes you end up with both."