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Post by Bronzewing on Sept 3, 2021 4:33:21 GMT
those first few days
Krait leapt into the air, the young dragonet spreading his wings to get himself up to the top of a tree, looking down at the dragons below him with shining eyes.
"It is I, the king of mangoes!" he purred as he tore a fruit off the tree, throwing a few down to his friends below. A pink female leapt up to catch one, looking up at him before opening her jaws for a second- Krait tossed one at her, but it bonked into the tip of her nose before flying off into the lush grass beneath them. She picked it up with her tail, taunting the dragonet to her right before starting to bite at the fruit, holding her claws out to catch the falling juices. While she did so, Krait picked out more of the fruit, scattering the ground of the rainforest with the ripe mangoes, absolute joy on his face.
Cloudberry, the young female below him, was a good friend of his since hatching- they were of a similar age, and along with the rest of his little group he would die for each and every one of them. Cloudberry herself was flightless, wings torn and too small to gain lift, and so she usually relied on his wings to get the good fruit from the tops of the trees. And then Sublime would help carry them home, and Omnivore would take half of them, his sister Shimmer close behind- and the four of them would lay down, spreading wings over one another, talking about random childlike stories and whatever came to their minds before they got bored and played fascinating games like venom spit and throw stuff at the grownups.
Sometimes he would see his older brother, but they never played with Naja, as even from that young age they already knew that the dragonet wasn't one to be messed with.
This went on day by day. His parents, sending him out, and then playing RainWing games with the rest of the dragons he knew until he would be called back inside by his parents. He heard whispers of war, but they were RainWings and would never get involved with that sort of stuff- and when the NightWings came, they would only try to make friends with whatever non-stuck up dragonets came in. (They never had much luck.)
It was these memories of dragonets playing, of the whispers of the trees and the calling of birds, of the dragons he had been raised with... this is what his mind went back to in those first few days before he had them no longer.
He hated waking up now. Every time he did, something else was wrong, or something else escaped his head. He would clutch his claws on the ground, leaving marks across the surface of whatever he was on, trying to drag back whatever was evading him- but as Krait didn't know what that was, every single time he would lose it.
One of those days he realized he couldn't remember the name of his parents.
One of those days he realized that he couldn't remember the name of his friends.
One of those days, the memories of his dragonet life faded away into the black, only coming back on a good day when he could relish his old thoughts again and forget what was happening to him.
The blood on the floor was not his.
The blood on the floor was not his. He had all of his blood.
He wasn't sure if it made him feel better to think it was somebody else's. |
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Post by Bronzewing on Sept 3, 2021 5:21:15 GMT
get out of there
He did not know how long it had been, only that time had passed, and he had not seen anything different for what felt like an eternity.
All he knew is that somebody, something, had him laying down, barely able to move, slowly- but surely- changing every bit of him that made him Krait the RainWing into something else. He felt little of it (for the better), only small bits of feeling coming into his battered form. A claw, taking scales away from his eyes, placing something else where it was before removing it again, patching up the wound haphazardly. A claw, being twisted off and allowing him to see what was beneath his talons, before a sticky substance was placed inside and the claw was returned. A tearing noise that he hoped, very much hoped, was not coming from him.
He breathed in, heavily, his jaws tied or stuck shut, unable to speak or scream as he would wish to- but he could tell that nothing tied him down. But every time he gained a bit of movement he would soon sink back into unconsciousness, or another dragon was nearby, or he was too afraid to try to make a run for it- was there anything even left of him? He didn't even know if any of himself existed apart from the claws he could see, the blood on the ground that may or may not be his own, and the small bits of feeling he had in the rest of his body. He didn't even know if he was still a RainWing.
He ran his tongue over his teeth. Still there.
He ran his tongue over his back teeth. Something was wrong. He decided not to think about this.
He only now realized his scales hadn't changed color in a long time.
Eventually, he awoke, testing out if he could move any bit of himself- and he found that he could. His legs, weak yet working- enough to move or stand. He waited a moment to see if anybody else would come by before he used all the strength he had to stand, claws clutching the earth, tearing through the dirt beneath him, his neck and head stiff and paining. At least... at least he could move. At least he could breathe, and he tried to walk and found he could, and after a few tottering steps he started to sprint.
Out of there. Out of there. The cage door, unlocked. No ties around his body. He almost slipped on the blood, but caught his footing, and ran, and slid, and his breathing became labored and painful- but he was moving. It could have been adrenaline, or the realization that he could be free that pressed him on, or just an abundance of strength built up that caused him to be able to move. He could not fly, only feeling his wings flap weakly against his sides. He was unable to turn his head far enough to look at himself, see if he really was the dragon he remembered himself as. Did he even remember what he looked like?
Across a corner, shelves on the wall full of dragon blood, and various pieces of bodies, in colors that he had never seen before- blues and browns and white, the bright red of a SkyWing, wings of no tribe he had ever seen, the hands of scavengers- he started to look for RainWings before realizing that he would prefer not to recognize any of the scales in that pile of gore. He only hoped that a piece of himself, from the body he couldn't view, wasn't in that pile.
He lifted a claw up to his face, and realized that the pool of blood stretched all the way here.
Cages, crates, suture devices, unknown stains on the wall. He moved quick, but as nobody was there sometimes he peered into them to see what was going on, only to regret it every time he did so.
One dragon was dead, other tribes all over them in what would be a very ambitious project for whomever was doing this. Nothing like that should survive.
One was a SkyWing, again dead, the entire length of its body being nothing but eyes and visera.
One was somehow alive, nothing but a shambling mass of internal pieces and nothing that would resemble a dragon except for the changing pattern of scales on it- RainWing, no doubt, the colors shifting over and over again in an eyeburning pattern that made him want nothing but to remove the sight of it from his mind. Something about the scales gave him an itch of familiarity, and he was uncomfortable just thinking about it.
Hopefully that's not what he was. Hopefully this was a bad dream- a very bad, very long nightmare.
He slipped on the ground again, and picked up a claw, covered in blood that was not there before.
It's mine. he realized, and then got a second of strength to look back as the sound of claws echoed up the corridor, finally getting a look at himself in the dim lighting.
His skin, detached from his scales, replaced with something he didn't recognize- most of his body was the same except for the opened skin on the back, muscle open to air akin to that of a fish, his scales being put back in with something unusual underneath them-
He tried to open his mouth to scream, but felt himself blacking out, and before he could collapse he felt a claw holding up his head.
A very familiar familial face stared back at him before he was back into darkness, back on the ground.
The next time he got to look at himself, he was back together again, still RainWing, but he knew- he knew that something was wrong.
At least he was still himself, he reasoned, and he went back into the void, dreams of horrible creatures and escape haunting him. He wasn't sure what was worse now: the idea of escape, so close yet so impossible, and whatever his mind came up with to keep him sane. |
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