Pounding Heart

17 : A Breath of Death

     We took to the skies, Moridax accompanying us as we flew above the clouds.

     "Tagonia, eh?" He laughed. "Always wondered what made Grilop want to go there. Guess I'll get to see for myself now."

     "And be welcomed." Nota emphasized with a laugh. "Queen Esperanza is very kind, you'll see. You can meet everyone!"

     "And you can visit Grilop's forest." I added.

     Moridax closed his eyes with a sigh and quietly whispered to himself "trees..."

Kintes flew beside me. "How upset do you think she'll be when we return?" He grinned mischievously.

"Let's just say the gods won't be able to save me." I snorted and nudged him in the side.

He smiled at me for an extra moment, and my cheeks started burning. I quickly looked away.
No, Zepth! I told myself. You literally just got betrayed by the last dragon you starting falling for.

Since we were already trespassing on enemy territory, it wouldn't hurt to leave the same way. We flapped our wings and the wind carried us over the ocean between the Shadow Sea and White Sea; a fairly calm section of water.

The stars were beginning to appear and twinkled above us. We would be flying all night...

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The blinding white ball of fire known as the Sun peeked over the nearing mountains of Tagonia. Our wings were aching and my feet had fallen asleep. Nota kept blinking the sleepiness away, barely keeping up with the rest of us.

I tilted my wings up slightly, and let them catch on the breeze. It pushed me back towards Nota.

"We're here." I said. Her eyes instantly lit up, and she picked up the pace.

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We nearly tumbled out of the sky and onto the dirt. The quiet meadow we landed in suddenly began swarming with dragons. My mother desperately searched and then locked on to me.

There was a flash of relief, then it was quickly replaced with fury. She charged over quickly and grabbed me.

"Do you have any idea how worried you made me?!" She growled, dragging me through the plants.

"I'm sorry!" I laughed. "You knew I'd go, don't deny it. Besides-" Mother let go of my tail and dropped me. I landed with an oof. "Besides, look! I'm still in one piece. Not even a scratch!"

"You are definitely your father's hatchling..."

"Zepth!" Deltul came running out and slammed into me, knocking me back to the floor. "I thought if you survived and came back, Mom would've killed you herself!"

"Still alive..." I choked under his weight. "And needing air..."

"Oh, right." He pushed himself back up and helped me. Nota, Kintes, and Moridax walked over to us. "Zepth, who's the death dragon?"

"That's Moridax. Grilop's grandfather."

"Whoa." Deltul's eyes widened as Moridax leaned down to look at him. "You must be like one hundred thousand billion years old!"

Moridax gasped and turned around with a grunt. He muttered to himself and shut his eyes.

"Welcome back everyone." Mother nodded and looked to the old dragon. "Er... most of you. Welcome to Tagonia, Moridax."

"Meh, it's so so." Moridax raised an eyebrow and suddenly spotted the nearest tree. He practically tripped over himself running over.

I don't know what I was expecting. Moridax just head butted into the tree and stayed still, taking long happy sighs.