Chronicles From the End of an Age

Living Mountains - 39Yrs BTA

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"I really don't think this is a good idea," the concerned voice of a young wind dragoness was yelled through the sky.

"Oh, come on Aerial," a wind drake responded with glee, "You agreed last night. You're with me on this Istria? Right?"

The third dragon, another dragoness, nodded her head, "Yeah. Come on Aerial, don't back out on us now."

The three dragons were flying over bare stony ground. There were no trees, no plants, no animals. The sky was grey, with a silver circle above showing what light of the sun broke through. The ground looked broken, as though it had been shattered into a thousand pieces. Holes dotted the surface, leading to dark depths of unknown magnitude. A soft whispering breeze laced the air, pulling the wings of the three dragons onward, toward the cause of all the destruction.

Ahead of them, the ground rose into the sheer cliffs of desolate mountains, each of which pierced through the high clouds above them. The same grey stone made the mountains, and much like the ground below they were devoid of all semblance of life. The mountain range stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions. A giant impenetrable wall that split the earth in half. They were too high to fly over without running out of breath, and for those that flew around, it took several days. Any that had entered the mountain range had not come out alive.

Aerial remembered the day these mountains appeared quite vividly. It had been the middle of the night. She had been woken up from her nest by the surprised yelp of her sister, Istria. The ground was moving in what seemed like a minor earthquake. As per protocol, they had woken up their brother, who was somehow still asleep, and they had quickly left their rest and flown up into the air with their parents. It was too dark to see anything at the time, but that morning word quickly went around that something strange had appeared in the distance. A long grey line of mountains that were even taller than their current mountain range had appeared in the distance.

The first expeditions into the mountains had been met with disaster. No one had made it back alive. Since then they had been deemed off-limits, any dragon going there would do so at their own peril. That had been five years ago now, five years of fear and trepidation. There were several theories about why the mountains had come to be of course. Some thought it was an act from Gaia, the element of earth. Other's believed it to be a vengeful earth dragon of unimaginable power. Still, others thought it was an illusion conjured by mind dragons to keep them under control. But no one really knew.

"I just think you've become way too obsessed over this Soluth," Aerial told her brother, "No one who has entered these mountains has come back."

"Yeah... but it's been nearly four years since anyone has dared to enter," he told her, "And I reckon that whatever created these mountains has surely grown lax in that time. If it is mind dragons, well I can fight off a group of mind dragons."

"Mind dragons are our allies," hissed Aerial, "They wouldn't do this."

"Then there is even less reason to worry," chimed in Istria, "We will just take a quick look... see what we can find... then head back home. Easy as that."

"If we even survive," grumbled Aerial to herself.

She was the only one of the three of them that has been against the idea. But she had to come along of course if only to keep the other two safe. They were way too adventurous for their own good. The three of them had only turned eight a month ago, and Soluth had been insistent on them having a trip to the mountains before settling down. 'It was their one chance at adventure', he had said. But as they grew ever close to the gigantic stone wall before them Aerial grew more and more concerned that this was not the type of adventure she wanted to have.