The Fifth Queen

Catching Up

“So it is you.” Dart said.

She was speechless. The last time she had seen Dart, he was small and light. Now he was huge and muscley. He had a long scar going down his neck, and he had rips in his wings.

“You’ve changed.” Mora said.

“You haven’t.”

Mora was silent again. She regretted coming down here. She wished Opal was with her.

“Why are you living down here? Why aren’t you with the other dragons?”

“I knew you’d return. I didn’t want you to find me, but here you are. I suppose I didn’t choose my hiding spot well enough. How did you find this place?”

“My friend…Opal…she showed it to me.”

“Oh, that pale green dragoness that stumbled in here no too long ago. Yes, I remember her.”

Mora didn’t know what to say. She had expected him to be in terrible condition, but she was quite wrong.

“If you didn’t want to see me, why did you rescue me?” she asked.

“I like the silence. Down here, I can’t here the other dragons, but if you died, they’d all go mad and my beloved silence would be gone.”

“So you saved me because you liked silence? That’s…interesting.” Mora said.

“Why did you return? I thought you told me that you could never come back?”

Mora looked down. “My daughter…our daughter, Ammolite, was taken. I thought she was taken by the humans, but I was wrong.”

“It must be hard, you wanted a daughter so bad that you neglected your own son, and when you finally get one, she is taken from you.”

Mora didn’t like his tone of voice. She felt a growl rise in the back of her throat. She flexed her claws and narrowed her eyes.

“I don’t understand. She is your daughter too! And yet you talk as if you don’t care about her.” she growled.

Dart walked over to her, his eyes slits, his long fangs bared. “You think I don’t care about her? Maybe if you hadn’t chased me away she would still be here! You would have your perfect daughter and I wouldn’t have to spend years under ground, wondering what my children are like!” he flared his wings and walked quickly over to Mora.

Mora tried to back away from Dart, fearing that he was going to attack her. She slipped and fell on her back. Dart leaned over her and lowered his head, his nose inches away from hers. Her eyes turned to fear filled slits as she stared into Dart’s narrowed eyes. She accidentally let out a whimper.

“Maybe I was wrong. You have changed. You’re more pathetic than I remember. The Mora I remember would never be pinned down by anyone. You would have clawed your way out. But here you are, pinned down a second time! Yes, I saw your little quarrel with Marrow. How are you going to fight your way out of this one, huh? Why don’t you just claw me like you did before?” he hissed.

Mora lowered her ears when she remembered what he was talking about. When she was close to having Marrow, she would attack Dart and chase him out of the cave, but she didn’t know why she had wanted to attack him. He would still rebuild her nest and bring her back food even after she had attacked him.

“Do you have nothing to say?” he asked.

What happened to you? Where is the old Dart that I loved all those years ago? She wanted to ask him so many questions, but had no idea how. Why did she have to freeze up in situations like this?