Blue Caravan #3, Ignition Yellow #9, True Blue #21

[dray]

Name: Dray
Story: everwood
Colors: True Blue 21) The death of a friend is equivalent to the loss of a limb. Ignition Yellow 9) I'll find somebody who will stitch me up, though I've never been better than when falling apart Blue Caravan 3) Something keeps you faithful when all else in you turns and runs
Supplies and Styles: Not this one!
Word Count: 3,570
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Notes: Tragedy strikes Brandili's family home and she intends to fix things before they get worse. (This happens quite a few years after the previous post!)



Urdasvale was still sullenly smoking, a day after the initial attack. The survivors had retreated to the Ingal-Veknan family cabin to take stock of the damage. The town hall and the general store had gone up in flames, and the Goldleaf Lodge up the side of the mountain was nothing but a blackened scuff across the high mountain tributary, so Tani Ingal had taken matters into her own hands to get people out of the line of fire. The shadow of wings still occasionally criss-crossed over the valley, and they'd all seen what happened when someone caught the attention of a dragon.

Brandili was only grateful that her girls were still in one piece, though Anahi had broken an arm, and Vianne, in her strangely placid way, had taken to sitting in a corner and sprouting little greens from her cheeks and hands and feet, eyes glassed over as though she were a hundred miles away. They'd lost their other mother already; she couldn't imagine losing one of them, as well.

The mourning wasn't over yet, either. Though the women who yet remained were recently split over an intense debate on what to do about the lingering danger, Brandili had left early to attend to her friend. Dorada had been badly burned, the day before. She'd escaped being picked up and flung when the dragons had been fighting, but caught in the by-blow of fire... well. She was now eased on a pallet, nonsensical when she woke, now silent in merciful sleep. Brandili sat on a cushion near the mangled woman's head. "Don't make no sense," she murmured, quiet, glad this cabin had multiple rooms and that she had privacy. "You run, you keep running, you put the whole world between you and what chases, but it just keeps catching up, don't it?"

She was afraid to touch the other woman; they'd salved the burns and she couldn't imagine the agony of having those disturbed. "I brung it, this bad luck. I'm sorry, Dorada. You were always the steadiest shot. Look at it this way, though," she dropped her voice low. "When we go, you'll come back the next life the toughest bitch to square her shoulders against the world." She frowned, eyes hot but dry. She didn't cry, as a rule, but she did feel a well of emotions. Dorada would most certainly die, in almost as grisly a way as they'd found her wife's body a few days before. Brandili was tired of seeing the people she cared for so badly done in.

They convened one last time at sundown. The dragon that remained over Urdasvale seemed to be scouting it, now and again, and didn't seem inclined to leave. Who knew where the other'd gone— dead, more likely as not, as they'd all seen the pair actively battling mid-air before things had gone drastically wrong. Whatever the case, it was agreed that they should get the children out of town under cover of night. It was a two week walk to the next nearest village, but they were all versed in foraging, and at the height of summer it would not be difficult to stay fed, if just barely... and once the word had spread that a dragon lurked in the valley, there would be dozens of knights and monster slayers come up this way to have its head for a trophy.

Brandili didn't like it, for a number of reasons. She wanted to see her girls safe, of course, but she knew that if Urdasvale was put on the map in such a drastic way, it would mean terrible things for their future. Vianne, for example, would not be widely accepted for her monstrous sprouty looks... and then there was the fact that Brandili's ex-husband would get wind of this and turn up to steal Anahi away— it wouldn't be the first time.

No, she had to put a stop to this. She'd have to see the dragon slain before word got out and glory-seekers poured all in. "You've got to keep an eye on the girls for me," she made Sezerra promise, when the younger woman was helping all the children pack up their belongings. "If anything should happen," this in a low voice, while she helped with the preparations, "I need you to split off the River Road just after Oraston and follow the main track east into the forest. Vianne and Anahi know the way. Their uncle lives out in a small camp on his own. He must be the only other one who knows they're there, besides you."

Sezzera had been trying to quiet her infant godson, and she cast Brandili an incredulous look. "You're not possibly staying behind?"

"Not for long," Brandili replied. She quirked her lip, half a smile, tired. "A few of us hunters are keeping watch tonight. If we have to, we'll create a distraction."

"I'll pray to the Mother you won't need to." Sezerra took her friend into a side-hug, and Brandili returned it, whole-hearted. "You know as soon as I tell Anahi you're staying behind, she's going to want to stay, too."

Brandili felt her heart welling again, and put a cap on it. Gruff, she turned away to hide the pain on her face. "She'll make a decent hunter yet."

Her promises to Anahi and Vi were taken with much less warm stoicism. Vianne, at nine, was usually such a stolid girl, but hearing that her remaining mother was staying behind even for one night had her clinging to Brandili's leg like a burr. Anahi, too, had put up a caterwauling when she was forbidden from getting her training sword from back home, where she'd left it in their hurry to make for safety. "I'm a hunter!" she proclaimed, standing proudly tall at ten years old and only just ramping into a new growth-spurt.

"Does the youngest hunter take down the largest buck all her own?" Brandili retorted, back turned, afraid to face her girl in full. The shock of pearlescent yellow hair that had begun to grow in was a constant reminder that Anahi was the daughter to a man she despised, and though she loved her girl, there was a fire in her that was right out of Brandili's youth that made it difficult to give her a tongue lashing when needed. "You have a more important job, besides. You help Sezzera defend the children, as the others are all carrying heavy loads."

Anahi scoffed, aware of the token importance. "Mama, don't make me go! I don't want to visit Boyce anyhow. His place is weird and quiet and nobody's around for miles. He just makes us weed the garden and forage for berries. It's boring."

Finally, Brandili turned. She'd set her quiver at her hip, counting the arrows with her fingers run over the notched ends, a habit born of practice. "Oh, girl." Coming down on one knee, she looked up at Anahi and placed her hands on the girl's shoulders. "Trust me, take quiet and boring whenever you might. The rest has a way of finding you no matter how you might want otherwise."

"But I don't want otherwise," Anahi said, frowning balefully. "And you're only standing watch, anyhow, that's not so b— " She stopped, struck, and said, "you're not just standing watch, are you mama?" Vi, who'd unclasped herself from her mother, now wrapped her arms around Brandili's neck in a surprisingly vice-like grip for a child. Anahi clutched one fist in her palm, anxious all of a sudden, and Brandili cursed to herself that her children were quite so clever. "You're going to take down the biggest buck! You can't!" Suddenly there were tears in her eyes.

"That's stupid," Brandili felt compelled to respond. "We're only waiting for you all to make it a night and a day's walk away. We'll meet again long before we get in town, and if we get held up, I'll come for you at your uncle's home as soon as I can."

Anahi took longer to console than Brandili would have liked, and Vi, while remaining more or less silent on the pleading front, had been as hard to pry off as a barnacle. The rest of the remaining town, some thirty or so adults and all their children, were gathered together under the awning outside the cabin, and Brandili watched through the window with the three hunters who yet remained behind, impassive in the face even as her heart roiled, to see them all sneak off in groups under the darkness. She glanced skyward, waiting for the little spark of light that would sometimes circle around, but nothing presented itself.

Once the last of the villagers had scarpered, the four of them dispersed into the open to watch and wait. What they could do against the immense beast was not discussed. Unlike chasing a stag from horseback— after all of their mounts had been scattered— this creature could take any two of them in its foreclaws and throw them half-ways across the valley. They'd seen it happen to a few hapless victims. That was excluding the force of its fire-spitting maw. They weren't working in tandem to take down a beast of prey, and the usual fire of a well-oiled team was muted tonight. They didn't wish each other luck, lest they sour what little they had left.

Brandili had meant to encamp near the barn, half caved in from an initial attack on the livestock that had rendered the area with a two-day-old stench of dried blood and discarded meat. She instead flicked home, her own cabin small, empty and aching with Akadine's ghost, all their things abandoned. She pulled Knick from over the mantle and shoved it in her belt, and fetched her satchel from it's safe place under the floorboards. A single gold coin lodged under the floor now winked in the low light and she paused, looking at her grandmother's face emblazoned on the head-side. A coincidence, surely; she remembered years ago when her daughters had been sitting here after Owen had visited, talking about gryphons and the Crimson Sea and of being princesses to a far-off land... but she'd forgotten that he'd given them coins that reminded her of home. Maybe this part of the world was right, to worship their ancestors... the coincidence felt right, somehow. Her grandmother had been a fierce woman. She could use that strength.

She pocketed the coin after a brief prayer; if her grandmother could tame gryphons and bring them into civilized parlay with the other magical creatures her folk co-existed with, surely Brandili could take a dragon to task.

The satchel was more important, in any case. It wasn't long before she was back outside and she'd climbed to the roof of the rickety remains of the barn. She perched there, waiting, stretching now and again against muscles that wanted to cool and cramp. Then she saw it. A glimmer of light detached from the black space of the mountain and began a high wheel over the valley, like a shooting star, but redder, more ominous.

Brandili hastily tied the little bag around the head of her arrow, an arrow that seared her hands. At one point she'd meant to keep this ensorceled arrow for her husband, but matters had got away from her... this needed doing more than did an old need for revenge. Already a strong whiff of acrid smoke caught her nose. She nocked the bow and let the arrow fly, straight up. Before it had got two hundred yards the magic of the arrow burned through the protective fabric balled between it and the sulphuric powder and the other chemicals compromising her makeshift flare. A burst of blue-white light exploded, a crack of noise going up across the entire valley.

She'd covered her eyes, waited for the count of three, and looked up to see a responding fireball soaring overhead and the accompanying rush of a huge body scoring the entire sky. Before she could freeze, she fired another arrow off to really get its attention.

The dragon roared and wheeled back again, body thickly black and hard to determine against the night, save the fire that now bubbled visibly from its maw. Brandili could see it clearly outlined with that fire as it came around and made ready to blaze her off the roof; sleek black scales, or feathers, or hair, all swept back under the wind of its own passing, and an obsidian skull-like mask pointing straight at her and reflective of the fire building up from its mouth and nose.

She groped for one last arrow and shot her last attempt, aiming for an eye. The dragon stooped upon her and as she yelled, it turned aside, the arrow cracking against its brow creating a great splinter that glowed with misfired fury as it shot a fireball just to the side of the barn.

Brandili watched, dumbly shocked as it curled back on itself and swept upwards into the night, bonfire-bright light sending waves of heat over her from a scant few paces away down in the yard. What had happened?! She traced the glowing arc, much diminished against the much larger fire below her, and watched it grow still brighter. A few moments later, another explosion caught light in the night, quieter but no less incandescent for all that. She caught sight of the dragon plummeting, then.

Scrabbling down the barn, she landed more heavily than she would have in her youth, but picked herself up and ran, only just barely heedful of her surroundings as she plunged into tall grass and wove around bushes that edged the pasture. An unholy light had gone up some distance into the forest and she made for it without thought of consequence. If this thing could be taken out tonight, there was no need for anyone to make the two-week long trek. How she wished that were the case... she would make sure the dragon was dead, whatever it took...

A line of broken branches and debris opened up before her, and she closed in on the great black heap of tangled, smoking fur. Most of the fire smoldered on underbrush around the horrible creature, emanating from its head, which was curled at a painful angle from its long neck. Brandili approached with another arrow at the ready, meaning to finish the job she'd botched a minute ago.

It didn't happen; she wavered as the cracked carapace of the dragon's head revealed a hollow, lit from within, encasing a familiar face. Brandili loosened her grip on the bow and dropped it aside as she closed the intervening distance with an awkward cry. That looked like her wife's face, in there— but she couldn't get at it. The moment she tried to crack the rest of the obsidian-hard shell, she realized her mistake. Her hands sizzled, she fell back and hissed pain and, desperate, called, "Akadine, Akadine— what is this?"

The entire lumbering hulk shifted, causing Brandili a start, and the face inside the skull furrowed its brow. The familiar face looked a little different, somehow, fresher, too-scrubbed skin made more pink against the firelight that still flickered from the back of its jaw. The voice that came from human lips was resonant, hoarse in a way that Akadine's had always been, but deeper. "Bran?"

"What's happened to you?!" She waited in agony, for the dragon to try to move, wincing as it hissed, too. It had broken a wing, and it seemed to barely be able to get its massive neck untucked.

"Ha... oh... shit. I should have told you long ago... I needed a moult." Akadine peered, in an ungainly way, from behind the cracked skull. "You almost had me. Good shot."

Brandili nearly clenched her hands in fury, terror, confusion, but the pain was too great. "What are you?! What have you done with my wife?!"

"I didn't do anything, only..." The face closed its eyes, Akadine frowning hard. "Only it's been a long time; didn't mean to let things get out of hand with that kink-tailed bastard, only he moved in on our turf. We don't like to share, much." She took in a breath, and around her face the great skull took a deeper breath so that the dragon's sides heaved. Brandili rolled back, rising to her feet as Akadine, or the dragon, or both, finally put her all into dragging her head up. "I wish you didn't have to see me like this. It wasn't supposed to be anything you had to deal with."

She was still feeling dazzled and skeptical... but the voice was right, the intonation... should she be tricked? She'd seen her wife's body, two days ago, boneless and split and horrible. It was as though it had been sucked inside out by trolls, but... she knew of snakes that shed their skins...

Brandili ripped her shirt and balled it around her palms, and took the broken portion of the jaw in her hands, tugging it close despite the heat. Inside, Akadine's face peered at her with great concern. It was no face of a tricksome enemy... "Akadine." She said, softly. "What am I supposed to do with you like this?"

"I didn't mean to let him hurt anyone," the dragon diverted, looking away. "I fucked up."

"We sent everyone away; they'll send slayers after you."

Akadine peered at her, concern turning to weary acceptance. "No... that at least they won't. You did the job."

Brandili clenched her jaw. So she had managed to set out to what she accomplished, then? The dragon certainly didn't look in any shape to get up— Akadine, rather, if she could wrap her head around the transformation. She lowered her eyes, waiting for tears. Surely this was the time for them...

"Do me a favour," Akadine murmured.

"Anything," Brandili replied.

"Take that heavy branch, there, get that crack at the back of the skull... it itches." She turned the great head a little and Brandili could see a thick crack running the edge of the skull where it met thick, scaly hair, all the way over the eye-socket where Brandili's arrow had struck home. It did not look good, but what Akadine asked... she wavered again. "Don't wait," Akadine added, jaw tight and face set mulishly.

Brandili numbly returned with the requested branch, clearing it of twigs and splintered char. She paused, pressing the wedge-end against the crack. "This is surely a nightmare," she told the woman, unable to see her face for the rest of the beast now.

"Take it easy," Akadine soothed, absurdly, and went quiet while Brandili continued to hedge. "You know what they say about coming back tougher for all of the shit you go through one life around. I can handle it... only hurry about it, huh?"

She swallowed, hard, and put all her strength into prizing the crack the way Akadine had asked. She felt sick for that, especially when she felt the visceral crack of the obsidian carapace buckling under her strength. Stumbling back when one last jet of impotent red flames licked up and out from the back of the dragon's head, she did her best not to be ill. Finally her world blurred as tears welled up.

Smoke belched forth from around the dragon's neck and occluded her view of the creature that she was growing more convinced by the moment had once been her wife. She didn't know what to make of it, but she sat silent witness to another death, too many for her to bear in such a short time after such an uncomfortable moment of hope had sprung up.

Then there was coughing, much lighter, less resonant, as the dragon twitched and sagged in final death. Brandili instantly felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and pushed upright, unsure what to do. She pushed forward through the smoke and made contact with a sweeping arm, and latching onto it, dragged a familiar body out of the wreckage. Akadine's human-shaped body was still coughing when she was laid out onto the ground, as Brandili kneeled over her, mouth silently working as though she had too many questions and too many emotions at once to put into words.

"Oh, ancestors," Akadine groaned, barely conscious. "I remembered why I don't do that a lot." She groped for Brandili's still-wrapped hand and pulled herself a little upright, coughing a little more, and was startled into a light caw when Brandili wrapped her up in both arms and crushed her in a tight hug. "Ow... c'mon now. Unnecessary."

"You have all the explaining in the world to do," Brandili cried, refusing to let the other woman go.

Akadine squirmed under the grip. "I still have fresh bones, woman, loosen up." And then, when Brandili obliged, "I'll tell you, I will, but you have to promise this doesn't go to anyone. Not even Owen— especially not him. And not our girls, either."

"You know I keep secrets more closely than precious gems," Brandili said, affronted and glad both. She was still in shock. "Let's get you home... we'll find excuses later. And then you tell me everything."