Scorched Scales (ARK Fanfic)

Chapter 3 | Moonlight

I set down a tent and crawl inside. Then, I lay out all my supplies and begin counting aloud.

"Let's see here . . . Forty-four tranquilizer arrows, thirty-seven narcotic, and that's all I need." I plan to knock out a direwolf, kill some animals for meat, give the direwolf some narcotic and meat, and then just repeat steps two and three until it was tamed.

I peek out of the tent. Night had fallen and stars were strewn across the sky like spilled salt. The moon was full and edged everything in silver. My smarter half was telling me to wait until day so I could actually see what I was taming. But I'm restless and I just want to get this taming thing over with. So my reckless, impulsive half kinda takes over.

Snow chitters on my shoulder and nuzzles my cheek, as if he was encouraging me. I sigh. The white jerboa slithers off my arm and curles up in the tent. Before long, he's asleep. 

Meanwhile, I stab sticks into the ground around the tent and sharpen the end that was sticking out to a point. Now anything that tried to get at my jerboa would be repelled by wooden spikes.

I clamber up a boulder and survey the rocky landscape. A trio of raptors were terrorizing some morellatops  in the distance. I spot only two direwolves, rather unusual considering they normally traveled in packs.

One of them was light brown and gray, the other was white. I decide on the white, take a deep breath and draw back with my arrow.

My bowstring twangs.

The wolf snarls and rushes toward me.

I grit my teeth and shoot again. The other wolf is coming too.

They reach the base of the boulder and bark at me, but they can't climb the stone face. Another arrow flies from my bow. Soon my arm aches from the exertion. But then -- the white wolf growls . . . and slumps over, unconscious! 

I switch to stone arrows and kill the other wolf as quickly as I could. Then I leap off the boulder and feed the downed wolf a few narcotics before turning and harvesting the dead wolf for meat.

What felt like hours passed. I stay by the wolf the entire night. A few times, I leave its side and kill a few creatures for meat, which I then feed to the wolf.

Finally, when a gray smudge on the horizon signals that it was almost dawn, I glance down at the wolf. And this time its eyes are open.

I yelp and scramble away. The wolf stumbles to its feet, howls, and bounds toward me.

"You're tame." I marvel. "That wasn't too hard, just tedious." The wolf has black markings on its back and face, a detail I had not noticed before. "How about . . . Moonlight. Yes, Moonlight is your name."

Moonlight tilts her head at me. I step forward and pat her soft, furry head. Then I sling my leg over her back and clutch at the longer hairs around her neck. I'm riding a wolf!

"C'mon, girl." I coax.

She begins walking forward, then starts sprinting and before I knew it we were back at the tent.

I scoop up Snow and cuddle him close to my face. "I did it, buddy!" I whisper excitedly. I introduce him to Moonlight, then climb back on, placing Snow on my shoulder.

"Alright, we got a lot of ground to cover." I say. "Let's go."

Moonlight speeds over the ground, her paws like lightning. I'm amazed. She's so fast!

The sun is beating down heavily, as usual. The horizon wavers with heat, and soon we're all damp with sweat. 

When a stream glistens in the distance, I cheer hard enough that I almost fall off Moonlight's back. We finally reach the water and I slide off immediately. Soon my waterskins are full and our mouths are dripping with the clear liquid. 

I mount Moonlight, and we're off again.

Snow is draped limply across my shoulder, panting. His fur is strange and sticky with sweat. My slick fingers keep slipping off Moonlight's scruff. Finally, I give up and slide off her. I weave a quick rope from fibers and tie one end around her neck. I tie the other around my waist. Then I lay myself across her back and just try to move as little as possible.

It's a long day.

After far too long, the sun begins to set. I pull out my map and squint against the golden glare of the setting sun. My jaw drops.

"We're almost there!" I rasp. Then I say it louder, the scratch in my voice fading as I try to draw confidence. "We're almost there!"

I leap off Moonlight and turn my face to the sky, then fling my arms wide like I'm trying to hug the zenith.

"WE'RE ALMOST THERE!" I shout. My voice echoes off the rocks and dunes and comes back to my ears. As the first chill of night sweeps over my skin, I feel a rush of confidence.

"C'mon girl!" I swing onto Moonlight's back. 

We run through the entire night. And when the sun rises, we just kept running.

Moonlight is a good little direwolf. She loves the running, loves the challenge and the exertion, and even though she's exhausted, she kept running.

"Good girl!" I praise her, petting her ears. Then I check my map again. "We're so close!"

I look at the horizon. I can see a ridge of mountains marking the edge of the World Scar. And if I squint at the base of the mountains . . . I think I can see it! A sandy-colored lump that looks a little too square and pointy. 

Then,  suddenly something possesses me to look up. I feel a chill trickle down my spine, prompting a shudder, then I look up at the sky.

Lit by the rosy hue of dawn, a sky-blue lightning wyvern passes over me. It beats its wings slowly, as if weighed down by exhaustion. Suddenly it glances down at me and emits a SKRAGHHH sort of noise. It flaps its wings hard and soared towards what I thought was the base.

"Pretty sure the Wyris are supposed to stay unseen," I muse to myself, "And we caught that one. It must have been so weary . . ."

As I near the base, the amount of wyverns overhead increases dramatically. I see the sky-blue one once more, along with a blueish lavender lightning wyvern, a coppery bronze fire wyvern, and a dull green poison wyvern.

Finally, I reach the point where I can clearly pick out details of the base. It's made of full adobe, with behemoth gates that seemed to stretch to the Iridescence.* There are towers at every corner, with auto-turrets peeking through the doorways that acted as windows.

There's a morning where I wake up and I'm so close, so unbelievably close, that I just whistled and started running. I can't even manage to summon up the patience to mount Moonlight!

I reach the massive adobe gates, panting.

Then, with the auto-turrents trained on me but not firing, I gather all my scraps of courage. My heart pounds in my chest. I raise my right hand and curl it into a fist, twisting my arm so the knuckles face the gates.

I knock on the gate door.

*The Iridescence is the word used to describe the iridescent ceiling that stretches across the sky.