Wings of Fire: The Prequels

4.9

A new scene overtook the old, letting him escape a gruesome sight. Nonetheless, he was jumping at the change, he quickly got to his feet (as much as he could seeing as he was suddenly underwater) and snarled at his new surroundings. Surroundings that were extremely surprising and surprised.

"Gust?" the familiar sight of Cyclone and Fins' scales flashing at him relaxed him a little. Another look around revealed that they were in an empty room that was in the Deep Palace. His and Storm's empty room, he realized with a lurch.

The door was closed, much to his relief. On the ground, a dreadfully familiar silver bracelet was there. That only made Gust realize the gravity of the situation.

"I'm... I died, what...?" mumbled Gust, forgetting about the other two in the room for a moment. "Titanic... then Baltic... then I... and now I'm here? This doesn't make any sense! Animus magic can't bring back the dead!

"Wait, my wound," Gust froze a small mirror from the surrounding water, tilting the ice to give him a view of his neck. The open wound was gone, replaced with a light scar that had cracks coming from it like the scar on his shoulder. Tossing the mirror away, he didn't even react as the ice shattered.

"Animus magic is ridiculous!"

"Gust," said Cyclone, advancing towards Gust who froze and tensed in preparation for an attack. Realizing that, Cyclone stopped with only a small amount of his hurt visible. "Calm down, you're here with us now. You need to tell us what happened so we can help you."

"I-I guess..." said Gust, frowning a little at the thought of the events. "How long have I been gone?"

"What do you mean 'How long have you been gone?' Did you not keep track of the days?" asked Fin, slowly stepping into line with Cyclone to have Gust carefully watch him every second he moved.

"I haven't," said Gust without any hint of remorse.

"You've been gone for months, Gust. Everyone thinks you're dead," said Cyclone with a small scowl. "Some even suggested that you ran away and were surviving but everyone agreed that you died somehow."

"Mm," Gust carefully nodded along before sighing. "Do you want to hear what happened?"

"Please, you owe it to me after making me stress out so much," said Fin with a playful glare.

"He was rambling about all the things that could go wrong every day," said Cyclone, ratting out his boyfriend with a smirk.

"You weren't much better!" Fin protested, shifting his glare to Cyclone who looked away and whistled away the accusation.

"Anyway," Gust started, getting both of them to snap their heads towards him and Gust flinched in response. "I can't tell you everything because it could put you in danger. But you know those maps of legends that Fin showed us on our first trip to the Summer Palace? The ones about the twin animi and the crazy animus?"

They nodded, a look of understanding passing over Cyclone's face. Gust continued, "They weren't just legends. They're real and two organizations were going after the artifacts. One of those two killed Storm and one of them 'killed' me. Before they 'killed' me, I went after all of the artifacts and collected them before they could get their talons on them."

At the end of his explanation, Gust tapped his throat where the scar was. Dull pain still throbbed from it, a final spiteful act from Titanic. A dragon who Gust had killed.

"By the moons," Fin said, looking at Gust wide-eyed. "That's where you've been this entire time? Taking power away from dragons who want to kill you?"