Like always, the freedom had to end, and with its demise came Tidi’s words. “You still haven’t answered my question. You never do.” She dropped back, gliding through the air beside Coquina. Her eyes had lost their sparkle, instead narrowed, fiercely stern. “I know that whatever made you pull away from the training wasn’t a simple headache. What was it?”
Coquina’s mind drifted back. The harsh yells of Fresto, the Subil Proeliar who oversaw her group, for her to try harder. Strike faster. The spines on her tail weren’t just for decoration; they were a weapon, extensions to her claws, ready and sharpened to make a killing blow.
In a real battle, he’d said, you wouldn’t stand a chance. You hesitate too long. You think too much. You have to be quicker.
And she’d tried, she really had. There hadn’t been much option. Fresto had moved on to another pair, and she struck out at her partner with all the force she dared use. She couldn’t even remember the dragon’s name. All she knew was that they bested her again, as they always did. She couldn’t beat a real Celïsora dragon, with real spines and a proper size.
But before she could dwell on it, the pulsing in her head had begun. When it had first happened, a good while ago now, she hadn’t known what to do. Now she did. The ache was only a warning of what was to come, and she couldn’t let herself be seen like that.
So, using the speed Fresto had been so eager for her to apply, she’d hurried away. When heads weren’t looking, it was easy to dash and hide amongst the trees. She was small and light-stepping. She ran as far as she could before the pulsing gripped her entirely, and she was lost to her own mind.
Tidi poked her with a tailspike. “Come on. Just tell me.” Her eyes flashed along with her grin. “You weren’t actually performing a demonic prayer to Selen, were you?”
Not knowingly, at least. Coquina had no answer for her friend. Time and time again, these flickering images flashed within her mind, and not once had she told a soul. She was afraid of what they might think. It sounded absurd, even to her.
Visions. She shook her head slowly. Perhaps she was proving them all right. Perhaps she really was some demon dragon, daughter of the sickly moon, unknowing worshipper of Selen.
“I don’t know what it was,” she said, truthfully. But that was as far as the truth could go. She looked at Tidi again, and though her friend hid it well, there was suspicion lurking in her gaze. Even she couldn’t deny the possibility so many others wondered.
“Every so often,” Coquina began, choosing her words carefully, “I just get this urge to escape. It’s so suffocating, being around all the other Proeliars. And Fresto is… well, he’s pretty harsh.” She forced a laugh.
For a moment, Tidi’s eyes narrowed further. “Then what was with the trance-thing?”
Coquina shrugged. “I wasn’t lying. I did have a really bad headache.” She offered her friend a smile. “That leaf really helped, though. Thanks.”
A silent moment passed. Then Tidi relaxed, and inwardly, so did Coquina.
“You’re welcome,” Tidi said, returning the smile. She shook out her scales and glanced up at the highest of the two suns, now directly above them. “Prisol-high,” she muttered with a sigh, then glanced back at Coquina. “I’ve got an appointment now. Some Concil Proeliar managed to get their wing torn. On a particularly sharp branch, apparently, because Concils never fight amongst themselves.”
They shared a laugh. Coquina twirled in the air again, letting the sound fill the air as she turned.
Wondering about her scales and her visions could wait until another time. She was free now, and she was going to stay that way. The visions would pass, as all things did. And the stares didn’t matter when she couldn’t see them.
“Have fun,” Coquina called after Tidi as she curved towards a distant mountain. “Catch up with you later?”
Tidi turned back, hovering in the air for a moment. They met eyes. “Sure,” she said, before disappearing into the sunlit sky.
Coquina dropped to the closest ground she could find, claws finding a hold in the rocky heights, as she watched her friend disappear. The chill touched the scales on her back again, making her shiver.
Perhaps she was safe for now. But she had seen the suspicion in Tidi’s eyes, flashing once more before she covered it. Her friend knew she was hiding something, and like a true Medicor, she planned to find out what.
With a sigh, Coquina tore her eyes away. She’d barely figured out what it was herself yet. Maybe once she did, she could explain it all to Tidi.
What she’d seen earlier had blurred into distorted memories now, as if they happened years ago, but their rough outline could still be recalled. The ending may have been the same, but she had never seen the egg before, nor the green dragon who watched over it. Usually, her visions were less clear than that - jumbled flashes of colour that seemed to make less sense the more she thought about them.
Only one other had been close to that level of discernibility. A dragon, one glittering with pale blue and white scales like mirrors, walking amongst shards of ice. Her eyes had been closed. But the moment she snapped them open, pupils wide with fear, the image fell apart, harsher ice and searing fire rearing up to replace her.
It was all so frustratingly strange. If they were all a wild trip of Coquina’s imagination, then she was more creative than she thought. Perhaps it was something she’d ingested. She made a note to ask Tidi if any medicinal plants had colourful side-effects.
Grey scales shifted in the corner of her eye, and she noticed a dragon sat lower down the hillside, partially hidden within a small alcove. He camouflaged perfectly with the rock save his bright blue eyes, which focused sharply on her.
She flinched, until she realised that he wasn’t glaring. He stared softly, head tipped curiously to the side. He was only small, she realised, far smaller than her. He couldn’t be more than a few years old. An innocent juvenile. Relaxing, Coquina smiled back at him. His tail flicked in and out of the rock as he beamed back.
Then another grey-scaled dragon whipped out of the cave, and her stare was definitely fierce. “Leave my son alone, demon,” she hissed.
Coquina didn’t hesitate. She flared her wings and took off, leaping from the mountainside. But she was slow enough to catch the words the juvenile chose to reply with.
“But she’s the Alspex, Mator! She’s magic!”
Dipping her head, Coquina beat her wings harder. She didn’t need to be there to know his Mator’s defence.
Demons use magic. It’s what makes them so deadly.
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