Incoherent Perspectives
Chapter 3 - Daughter of the Exiled Heir

There was an eerie silence that overcame the palace until Queen Galaxia spoke up. "You will not be going Solara. Aurora can go, I'll send Nova to keep an eye on her. Louis can go along as well. You, however, Apollo... We need to talk." Aurora began leaving the castle and looking back at me. She was walking slowly and purposefully so that I could catch up. I looked back at the queen once before running off to follow Aurora. We soon arrived at the wall and Nova appeared to be examining the waterfall intently. "Nova! Come along," Aurora shouted. Nova immediately flew down, landing next to Aurora. "Where did you see the intruder?" I asked.

"The top of the waterfall, they appeared to be signalling someone," Nova responded. What did she mean by signalling someone? I took a path up to the top of the waterfall, although Aurora followed me, Nova just flew up to the top. When I arrived at the top I could see Nova looking over to a strange ditch. Was that where she saw the intruder go after they left? She was looking at it intently like an eagle stalking prey. Aurora didn't want to see what she was staring at, so I volunteered. I headed down a slight incline that I could assume was the ditch Nova was distracted by. I looked back up the hill at them, Aurora kept signalling me to continue and Nova was looking at me strangely. She had a weird expressionless emotion and all the colour seemed drained from her face, almost frozen in fear.

I reached the bottom of the ditch and saw nobody, that was until some strange shadowy mist zoomed right toward me. Aurora noticed when the figure had passed me. They tackled me to the ground and had an entire talon over my mouth to silence me. I was looking up and there was a black dragon with blue eyes. Much like the bio on the Alpha's rock, I had read back in Alcove Forest. I moved her talon so I could speak up. "What is the meaning of this?" I shouted angrily. She just placed her talon over my mouth again and was shushing me. "Don't shush me-"

"Shut up," She said in an angry whisper. "My mother doesn't need to know I'm here,"

"Your mother?"

"Yes. Queen Xiotern dummy," Wait a minute. Was she the Ignius Noctern stated in the prophecy? An Ignius Noctern, daughter of Xiotern, wise and fair of face. I monologued in my head. That meant two down and three more to go. I had to figure out some way of telling them they were needed for the prophecy. "Would you get off of me?" I said angrily. "Silence. Who are you anyway? You aren't a dragon," The Ignius Noctern asked, confused and suspicious. "Louis Blachet, now get off of me!" Her jaw dropped. She got off me and backed up slightly. Something told me she was going to ask about the prophecy. "Aren't you... The creature for the Prophecy?" Yep, there it was. I nodded my head and she smiled brighter than the sun. "You can call me Asteria." Asteria held her talon out in greeting. I only smiled awkwardly and nodded slightly.

But out of nowhere, Aurora came from the heavens and tackled Asteria to the ground. At first, I was watching on, confused about what to do next. But when blood was drawn that drew the line for me. Asteria happened to scratch Aurora on the neck which caused Aurora to jump back and yelp in pain. "Okay! That's enough you two," I said, attempting to break them apart. I stood in between the both of them. Aurora had a talon over where Asteria had scratched her. All Asteria did though was growl at Aurora. "Knock it off!" I shouted. But soon Solara came gliding down and landed right near Asteria. "What happened here?" Solara asked. Solara saw Aurora holding onto her scratch from Asteria. Solara moved her focus over to her older sister. "What happened to you?!"

"Our intruder here ended up scratching me and drew blood," Aurora said. "Seriously! Here, I'll take you back to Mother and I'm pretty sure she can get Aunt Luna to check it out for you."

"Alright. Louis, I hope to see you back at the palace," Aurora said, flinching slightly every time Solara touched the wound, even if it was gentle. When I looked back at Asteria with an unimpressed look on my face, she knew exactly what she had done wrong. She had her head looking down and wings draped at her sides, sadly. "She struck first though," Asteria said. I simply raised my eyebrow and gave her that look of 'seriously.' They were both in the wrong for fighting in general, but Asteria was certainly in trouble the most. Considering she drew blood and Aurora's attacks were equivalent to a pillow fight at a slumber party... When she wasn't trying, and I doubt she was.She didn't have any scars, well... maybe one now but before she didn't. Asteria however had tonnes of scars, cuts, scratches and burn scars from previous ordeals I'd suppose. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Asteria had killed a dragon before.

"What's my punishment?" Asteria said with a sigh. "You'd have to clear that up with Queen Galaxia because I'm not responsible for handing out punishments. Follow me," I said. I began taking Asteria toward the palace, strangely, she willingly obliged. I doubted that Asteria's punishment would be anything serious. Queen Galaxia is the queen of the most peaceful dragons in Pyrix after all. I took her up the same stairs Aurora had brought me up prior and there we stood at the doors. This time the guards allowed me in despite Aurora not being here to boss the guards around about letting me in. That meant I was on Queen Galaxia's good side and not her bad side like Asteria would be on.

She did scratch their princess after all. I'd assume Asteria is the Ignius Noctern for the prophecy, daughter of Xiotern, the exiled heir. It made sense in a way. The hard part was going to be getting the Shadow Flare and Ignisarbor for the prophecy. There is a lot of bad blood between those two breeds as far as I know.

As we reached Queen Galaxia's throne, I bowed out of respect and I guess Asteria didn't want an awful punishment because the instant I bowed she did too. "This is the intruder, Nova had seen," I said to Queen Galaxia. "An Ignius Noctern, eh? Alrighty, Louis do you mind checking on Aurora for me? She's in her room in Tower B," Queen Galaxia said. I nodded and began heading to the first tower. The palace was so much bigger than I had thought and the only dragons I saw roaming the halls were royal guards and Queen Galaxia's family.

I had a relative understanding of where Tower B was but I still practically got lost. I ended up in the barracks and there were many, many rooms. 250 at least. The halls in the barracks were incredibly fancy, with the same red carpeted flooring as in the throne room and the same intricately carved pillars, hugging the doorways and halls. Paintings on the walls of previous royalty dating back hundreds of years. I reached the end of the main hall and to my right and left were even more of the barracks, decorated the same as the previous halls. There was a door that led up to Tower B, so I entered. A massive family tree hung on the walls, a lot like the one in the cave but it had the entire family back from the first queen, Queen Celeste and her princesses to the current one Queen Galaxia and her princesses. It showed Galaxia had two siblings, one named Luna and another named Nebula.

Nebula was marked as dead as he was one of the only three in the current generation that had a birth year - to a death year. Queen Galaxia also ended up having five Embers and one of them had passed away recently. It was interesting to see the entire Stella Alis royal family lineage all on one wall. I continued climbing up the stairs of the massive tower and when I reached the top, I was out of it. I saw a door which I assumed led to Aurora's room. This half of the tower was decorated with pastel-pink wallpaper and a strangely pastel-pink wooden floor. There were two guards on this level, both seemingly playing some kind of card game.

The one guard who was a smaller one, looked a lot like Nova and when she saw me, she invited me to join their card game. "Oh, hey there! Would you like to play? I can get Galaxar to re-shuffle the cards for ya," She said. "Oh no, it's fine. I want to see Aurora," I responded

"Oh, Aurora? Yeah, she's in her room over there. Maybe next time you'd like to play?"

"Uh, sure. Currently, I'm here checking on Aurora for Queen Galaxia." She had a warm smile on her face as she gestured me toward the door to Aurora's room. That was strange, a royal guard inviting me to play cards? You don't see that every day. You have the two guards at the door who don't like me all that much, then you have her, talkative and genuinely kind. I knocked on the door to Aurora's room and I could hear her invite me in. I entered and I noticed Aurora on a literal bed reading some kind of scroll. It was interesting how well these dragons could build. They lived exactly like humans did at home in medieval times. They had castles and empires all built from the ground up by actual dragons.

It wasn't anything you'd expect from dragons still trying to understand maps. I was curious about how they would evolve, or what they'd evolve into if they already knew incredibly advanced building techniques. "How are you feeling?" I asked. "It stopped bleeding but it still hurts," Aurora responded.

"Oh, but why did you jump Asteria like that?" Aurora looked up at me with a sorrowful expression. She knew it was wrong what she had done but she honestly had a decent reason to why she had done it. "I was trying to protect you. She randomly tackled you to the ground and I thought she was going to kill you. I apologize, Louis, it was instinct." Did she say she was trying to protect me? Seriously? It was hard to believe but it was true, she was genuinely worried about me and attacked Asteri just to protect me. Maybe she saw how the guards attacked intruders to protect the queen and Aurora attacked an intruder just to protect me. So far Aurora was the complete opposite of dragons in mythology back on Earth. Fierce, dangerous and cold-blooded but Aurora is none of those. She is Sweet, protective and warm-hearted. It was hard to admit but... I think I may like it here better than Earth.