The Crimson Dawn
Dried Skin Jerky

Both Icarus and Atlas were disappointed with being stuck on the ground as Zale and Apallon flew above them, the shadow of the giant, golden Dragon taunting them. Icarus felt it as an insult that he had to stay with the wagon and horses. It didn’t help that he was almost as restless as he had been the first time he and Atlas had met; Atlas promised that he’d get his time to fly but three days had passed, and he hadn’t gotten it. Altair didn’t help come up with excuses.

When night fell and the fire died out, Atlas stared up at the stars, listening to her new companions as they breathed. They were asleep. Good.

Icarus stirred, hearing Atlas’s thoughts and he raised his head a little, turning his yellow gaze as she laid on his ribcage, the fire within in keeping her warm. His eyes lit up in curiosity when Atlas quietly rose to her feet, grabbing his saddle and fastening it onto him, now he was excited.

We’ll get in trouble. He said in a playful manner and Atlas grinned at him. His yellow eyes reflected her.

“Oh, since when do we care about trouble, Icarus?” Atlas teased. Icarus walked farther away from the campsite before she climbed onto his back, and they flew. It was freeing being up in the sky, the icy wind blowing into her face, but she wasn’t cold, not with Icarus beneath her. Atlas had never noticed how much the earth felt like a cage until she had been in the sky. Perhaps that’s what the humans of Sylverstorm felt like on their island in the sky, that they were free from the cage of the earth.

Hold on! He called to her, in her mind.

That was Atlas’s only warning and before she could even register it, Icarus dove towards the earth, her hands slipped on the reins for a moment before they tightened.

“Icarus!” Atlas screamed before she laughed and the Dragon laughed with her, a deep rumble that vibrated through her. Once they dove too close to the trees he spread his wings out and they were soaring above the evergreens. “Apallon doesn’t do that.” Atlas giggled as the wind softly blew on her face.

He’s a stick in the mud. And he doesn’t know how to have any fun.

“Well, I’m glad to have a Dragon who does know. But next time give me more warning, I almost slipped!” Atlas’s tone was light and playful and she kept her grip tight on the reins, and he rumbled at her tension. She loosened her grip a bit but not too much in case Icarus pulled another stunt.

If we all flew then we’d reach our destination in two days.

“Not all of us can fly, Icarus. We weren’t lucky enough to have wings like you.”

Unfortunate creatures. You’re missing out. Icarus said with false sympathy, his voice in her head a comfort she never knew she needed. Icarus let out another rumble before leaving the evergreens and flying straight up, where the eye of the raven watches. Atlas laughed against the cold wind and despite her every instinct telling her not to, she let go of the reins and leaned against the saddle. A bright grin on her face as she laughed and tried to reach the night sky.

✧

Atlas was sore the next morning and refused to wake, hiding her face beneath her sleeping bag as Altair tried to pry her from the warmth and dreams. He growled at her, annoyed by her refusal and she hit the ground hard when Icarus stood.

“There. Even the Dragon knows it is time to wake, and usually it is him in your place,” Altair demanded as he pried the sleeping bag from her hands and pulled it down, so her grumpy face glared at him. He was deterred in the slightest. “Up.”

Atlas groaned and slipped out of her sleeping bag, rolling it up and slipping it in her back before throwing it on the wagon. She fixed her rumpled, red shirt before tying up her hair into a loose braided bun and sticking her sharp, silver hair pins into it. She grabbed a wooden bowl and got the clumpy oatmeal out of the pot that was cooking over the dying flames. It stuck to her tongue and throat after she swallowed it.

“I can’t eat anymore,” Idris complained but Vale pushed the bowl back into his hands, silently ordering him to finish it up. He whined like a child.

“It is not like we are used to extravagant food… it is better than the Deep Bugs from the mine,” Vale nudged, and Idris seemed to go pale at the thought of it. Atlas smirked as he gobbled up the rest of the oatmeal.

Once breakfast was finished and the horses were fastened to the wagon again, they started on their way once more. The sun was a little above the trees now and Atlas was wondering today would be different from the last three days of travel. Was she supposed to wish for the same boring days of walking? Her first day of traveling out of Kestva had been pretty exciting, but she imagined that wasn’t how it was usually supposed to go.

Atlas climbed up onto Icarus’s back and he got a jolt of excitement before he realized they weren’t going into the air. Atlas lay backward in the saddle, staring up at the sky and Apallon as he glittered under the light.

Atlas heard Cyra yell out in frustration, no doubt from one of Esmer’s little jokes. He liked frustrating her, it was the only thing that Atlas liked about the pirate, but he liked frustrating her because she annoyed him with questions. Questions that Atlas imagined he didn’t have the answer to; such as how did the pirates get you, where are your parents, where is your Lethoris’ pride. All those questions, of course, were phrased more eloquently than that. Then she asked questions he could answer like how come you never left them? That seemed to bubble inside of him. Atlas imagined the answer to the question, maybe it was because it was the only thing he had ever known. Perhaps he had liked it there. Then there was the answer that he had tried.

“You are a despicable and sorry excuse for a Warlock!” Cyra insulted and Atlas sat up to listen to the argument flare up.

They’re going at it again. Who do you think will stop it this time? Not the small boy, too timid, maybe it will be the Elf.

Atlas ignored Icarus as she sat and watched.

“I’m not looking for your approval. Or your advice on what I should be!” Esmer shouted at her and Atlas could see it all bubbling to the surface. Would he explode? Implode? Simmer down? Not the last one.

“Please, Cyra, perhaps we should-” Bastien tried speaking but was drowned out.

“Perhaps you should!”

“Hey! Will you two be quiet? Gods, you are like children that cannot be seated near each other. We do not get to choose how we were raised or where. If we got to, I am sure we would’ve chosen better things for ourselves,” Atlas interrupted their squabbles, it never worked for long but at least it would bring blessed peace for a few hours. Atlas wondered what road trips would be like… she never wanted to go on another one again.

So, it was you again. Looks like I lost that bet.

Who had he been betting with? Atlas sent him a quick inquisitive look before glaring back at Esmer and Cyra who had gone to the opposite side of the wagon to walk.

“I, personally, wouldn’t choose another place to grow up in,” Eden stated, mostly to herself but it was so quiet everyone heard her.

“Yes, we get it, the torturer had a perfect childhood,” Atlas sighed as if it wasn’t surprising as she laid back on Icarus but truthfully, you would think that the torturer would have some trauma to work through.

“I don’t regret mine either,” Altair offered but that wasn’t surprising. Elves were weird from what Atlas had gathered from him. He didn’t like Atlas’s conclusion on his race.

As the sun reached the top of the sky, Atlas rolled over and landed on her feet, her nap interrupted by the bright light in the sky. Idris shaded his eyes and Vale put on the hat they had picked up from a selling stall on their way out of Aspyn. The siblings were from the Underground, unused to the sun they had been under for about a month, Vale still called it a lightbulb sometimes. Atlas had no idea what a lightbulb was but everyone else seemed to. She didn’t mention her lack of knowledge on it because she didn’t want to bother with the mockery it would come with. She had gotten enough of it from the Blues. A lightbulb was a light source, that’s all Atlas really needed to know or understand.

Vale held the reins to the horses, they were a little clumsy at first with them but over the last three days had gotten the hang of it. Eden sat in the wagon, on top of the crates, she complained but she didn’t have to sit there. The two of them quietly chatted away with one other.

Bastien kept close to Cyra, he was small and timid. At first, Atlas thought that he was too arrogant to condescend to talk to the rest of them, like Cyra was, but he was just too skittish. Idris would entertain Esmer and sometimes Atlas would catch Bastien staring. Too bad Cyra was too overprotective to let him go near the tattooed boy and the pirate.

Zale was in the sky with Apallon, and Altair liked it on the ground. He walked behind everyone else, not because he was slow but to be able to watch over everything and everyone. Atlas got the impression he didn’t like anything new. New surroundings could be dealt with, he had easily been able to survey and gotten to know the earth but new people? It was harder to get to know them. Especially for a socially inept Elf. Altair disliked this observation as well.

“I am perfectly socially capable among my own kind!” He had argued when they stood alone gathering river water a few nights ago. Atlas had told him that she doubted he was even among his own and he silently glared at the river before they left to rejoin the camp.

Altair brushed up against Atlas and she snapped her head to him, and then smiled. “Done, observing our companions?” Atlas teased him, and his red eyes gave her a quick side look.

“Not in the slightest,” he told her.

“Trust them?”

“Not to work together. Certainly not as individuals. But I have a little only because they are all Champions… except for the boy. He doesn’t seem quite useful.”

Atlas elbowed him softly. “Give Bastien a chance. He might surprise you, besides he can’t do much with his “Angel” hovering around him.”

“Angel?”

“Cyra. I heard them talking one night when they thought everyone was asleep. He called her an Angel.”

“Lovers?” Altair asked and Atlas snorted at the implication. “So, Guardian?”

“I think the women are the protectors.”

“And the men? If they need protectors, what use are they?” Altair inquired, giving the two Golden-Eyes a quick look.

“I guess we’ll see. He’s shy, don’t go too hard on him, okay?” Atlas suggested and Altair made a detached noise, it wasn’t an outright no, at least.

✧

Atlas curled up in her sleeping bag against her dragon, ready for another night of restless rolling around, and head spinning. Maybe later in the night they’d go flying again, that seemed to put her mind at ease, she hadn’t found another remedy. Igraine had helped, she would make a special tea and when Atlas was smaller she would hum a song. But Igraine was gone now, and that tea and song was gone with her.

Atlas’s mind focused on the quiet of the night, the cold seeping through the top of her sleeping bag and burying deep into her bones. She pressed herself more against Icarus and her mind wandered again, pulling an embarrassing memory of when she spilled on an older Red, she ran, he gave chase and they both ran straight into Teyla, knocking her to the ground. Atlas shook it off before she got to the end, the lecture wasn’t almost there word for word but it was just her mouth she could see moving. The boy and her spent the next day running drills for an extra hour and a half. Then Atlas thought about the Shaken Sands and what awaited them.

Nobody knew how the Shaken Sands had become so desolate if it wasn’t already like that. It was before the Shattered Age but Atlas had heard tales about people who had ventured in. Most don’t replace their way back out, the few that did weren’t the same. They were horribly disfigured in ways even Teyla’s abrasive nature wouldn’t talk about and their minds were shattered. Runo said they were shells of their former selves but when Teyla heard that she corrected him:

“Shells would’ve been kinder to their families. Shells are empty. Abandoned. They’re still in there, and their families had to deal with the mad ramblings and screams of their loved ones.”

Atlas had nightmares for days after, which only made her sleeping problems worse on her and Igraine. That was one of the only times Runo had something interesting to teach.

When Atlas’ thoughts began to calm, falling into a slower rhythm, her breath evened, and she fell asleep pressed up against Icarus’s warm scales.

Atlas grumbled in the night as she rolled over, half asleep and about to fall back into her dreams when something sharp pressed up against her neck. Her eyes snapped open, her mouth instantly clamped over with a dead hand before she could even make the slightest sound to alert her companions. There was only one and he brought a Chimera with him. The ugly thing wasn’t made for flying, it had the body of a wolf, the talons of an eagle and the tail and head of a male lion all stitched together to make one hideous beast.

“Now.” The Blood sighed, closing his eyes and going close to her neck, breathing her in before he pulled his head away. “Me and you are going to have a little fun.”

Atlas reached her hands into the dirt before she was carefully pulled out of her sleeping bag. The dead lay silent.

Icarus!

She tried to call him, but she didn’t know how to without her voice. How could he talk to her in such a way? He used his mind, sometimes so did Apallon and Zale. She could do this, she just needed to fucking figure it out and fast.

Icarus! Damn you, you bloody beast! Wake up!

She called again desperately, clawing at the hand that clamped over her mouth.

Icarus!

Icarus’s eyes snapped open, feeling her terror and getting his lazy ass out of dream town. He snarled when he saw the scene before him, their companions sleeping in the dirt while Atlas was being dragged away with a knife to her throat towards a Chimera, who snarled back. Apallon awoke next, the golden dragon not as impressive in the night as he was during the day.

The Blood dropped Atlas with a laugh, she fell to the ground, coughing and was thankful for the fresh, evergreen air instead of the musty smell of a tomb in her nose. “So, the Wolf’s Champion commands a Dragon too? He’s not very impressive looking.” He growled, grabbing her arm, burning through the fabric and she screamed.

By now her companions were awake, Altair flashing forward and putting the sword at the dead man’s neck. He didn’t need any instruction, he released Atlas and smiled up at Altair as Atlas fell to the ground, tears rolling down her face as she cradled her arm. It was on fire.

“Put the blade down, Elf, I still have the Chimera at my command,” the dead man threatened. Altair gave the Chimera a glance and then smirked.

“It’s about to become Dragon food.”

The Blood swiveled his head, the Chimera was bound by magical knots, one thread golden and the other silver. It thrashed and fought against the magic before Icarus took it in his jaws, chomped, one half falling to the ground. He chewed for a moment before swallowing and did the same to the other half.

Hm, flavorful. Although it would’ve tasted better with a hint of goat. I like goats.

Atlas would’ve laughed if she wasn’t rolling in pain. Someone picked her up with rough and calloused hands before laying her in their lap, Atlas looked up and, in the darkness, recognized Vale’s goggles hanging from their neck. Atlas whimpered slightly, feeling someone tugging at the sleeve of her shirt. Idris was rolling up her burnt sleeve and she hissed when his fingers accidentally brushed her burn. He was sitting in the way of her view of Altair and the blood, and she couldn’t see what was happening anymore.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I can take away some of the pain, but healing is big magic for a beginner like me,” Idris apologized, and Atlas noticed the dark circles already formed beneath his eyes. Magic took energy.

“I’ll help.” Atlas jumped slightly at the new voice; it was Bastien.

“Will you just get it done?!” Atlas moaned. “Anything will help at this point.”

The two boys nodded and put their hands together and it hovered above her arm, Vale held her down as she tried to thrash from the pain. She relaxed as it slowly started to cool, relief filled her and her eyes drooped closed.