Chapter 8

"Was that all of them? Only these three?" The slithering, hissed voice was as scaly as the jeweled head of the dragon that the female rider who, in accordance to the subservient dragon bowed down beneath her aquamarine ringed finger, was casually petting now. She was quite pleased with her own deeds. Justice had been served with the sentence of the wicked race of fairies who were responsible for the demise of her clan--or so she had been told by Lord Dermail as a child. She and one little boy had come home from their play with the mystic dragons one day they were destined to command, so long ago, it seemed.

They had met Lord Dermail just a day earlier then---and he seemed a kind, old man who wanted nothing more than to speak with their clan's Master, the rising leader and star reader. In fact, it was Lord Dermail's kind offer to bring the two chosen dragon masters to visit the nesting cave containing the young fledging dragons which were to be their own that day.

He said he loved dragons and so wanted to see the hatchlings. Dermail even told the two children a story on the way there. A tale of danger and derring-do, a tale of justice and injustice. It was of evil, frivolous fairies who despised their own weakness so much that they swore to conquer the strong--such as the Dragon Clan--and destroy everything that was just. They would kill everyone so that they, the jealous fairies, could take that strength and power magically to become stronger themselves and not the weaklings everyone knew the petty, little beings of the South were.

Lord Dermail had finished his stories of his own adventures of justness and bravery and strength whilst they petted their two baby dragons, wide-eyed and curious. And he brought the pair of children back home. Neither were aware of the havoc that had been wrought upon the clan while they were gone.

All the noble and strong warriors had been taken down and slain by an unknown enemy who had already come and gone. Their cries of anger and tears were comforted only by "kind" Lord Dermail's sympathy. The boy and girl could clearly see, flapping away in the distance an iridescent haze of fairy wings. And the despised dust of their attackers' were sprinkled on each of the clan's dead. This was undeniable proof of the massacre the evil fairies took out upon the strongest and most just clan on this world...

Fanned by Dermail's winds of hatred, the fire burned inside Meilan's soul and it was still as hot and scalding as was that day, so long ago.

"One day," Lord Dermail had said, "One day you will impart revenge for your clan. One day when you are both older and stronger you and your dragons both will serve justice upon the wicked and unjust fairies."

Well, for Meilan, one of the two dragon masters of the now gone Dragon Clan, the day of justice and sentencing had come. This was the day her true hatred and strength could be released upon the unjust for what they had done in the past.

And now longer would there be an immortal life of injustice and frivolity for the fairies. They had the blood of her ancestors on their hands and cursed names...

PLUCK!

What was one more shriek inside of the screams within her soul? The pile of the three sets of magic wings lay on the once bright and happy floor. The mound of dying fairies were left cruelly beside their life forces. They felt their immortal existence on this world coming to an unjust end...

Sylvia's chubby hand reaches for Iria's no longer strong one. The final question of "Why?" was on her silent lips as Middie looks away from the scenes of death and destruction about them. She was searching for one last glimpse of the light that had been within her soul...

And all rivalry for Cathrine disappears, slipping away as her life and those of the others come to a tragic end.

"My job is finished here. You deal with the rest." Meilan feels the justice in her heart complete. The warrior she was wanted no part of the gathering of fairy dust magic from their detached wings. She saw no use in this wicked weakness, but this was Lord Dermail's request--to not destroy the delicate wings, but bring them safely back to him.

For he wanted to decide on how to dispose of the cursed things in his vast wisdom.

"I have a Water Nymph to pluck out now--that is if Wufei has left some joy of sentencing justice for me! We'll be back for you, Fire Nymph." Meilan's haughty pride in herself and her own abilities was almost sickening.
Lucrezia the Fire Nymph rolls her eyes at the departing Dragon Master who had done nothing but inflate herself and brag of her "mighty" strengths.

That dragon of yours is the one with the powers. You would be nothing without it, foolish little girl. As Dermail puts it, you children have never grown up. You've matured with nothing but revenge to hold onto. Revenge? Your revenge is NOTHING compared to mine...What he has done to me....

In her mystical fires, she looks to where the target of her own revenge was. To where he kept himself hidden away amidst the warmth of his castle home. He sat in front of the fires she had craved for eons and was deprived of---until now...

A platinum head of long straight hair, with haunting chilled eyes of blue ice, freezes it visage upon her blazing hot heart.

So, she diverts her gaze from this vision and collects instead, the fairy wings. She was biding her time for the moment of her freedom from this bondage--and that would be the moment of the Peacecraft King of the North's death.

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The red fire ablaze upon the fairy palace's peaks could be seen for miles around. And even for further distances--that is, if you were in the sky.

From above the clouds, the Princess Dorothy had dipped her high-flying pegasus down into the fluffy white things, just to see what would happen. It was the fun and sheer joy that only the freedom of the skies gave to her rebellious soul. But it wasn't as fulfilling as usual.

What is wrong with me today? It's not as if I could possibly be afraid of my upcoming wedding!!! I've certainly done this enough times.

Sarcastically, to herself, Dorothy reminisces all the wedding ceremonies she had attended as a bride---but never was there a groom to make it down the aisle.

"It's strange, Pegasus." She whispers in the ear of the noble steed she was lofted upon. "But today, I feel as if something is coming. Something exciting--something.....AAAAHHHHHHHHH!!"

Dorothy lets out a rather unladylike screech when her thoughtful dreamy eyes open---to find a pair of equally thoughtful and dreamy eyes staring back.

"How--how--how...?" The usually very easy to speak Princess finds herself stuttering in the shock of not being alone up here in the vast, lonely clouds she so often visited. After all, only those who owned Pegasus (and Dragons) could fly so high up in the atmosphere. And only a select few could master either of the mythic beasts of the air, so...

"W--who--who are--who?" Dorothy remembers her cousin's words and takes a deep breath before she opens her flustered eyes again.

"Who are you?" She finally finishes, and for the first time takes in a wide-eyed view of the huge falcon who had, unseen and unnoticed, flown up and was now hovering beside her and her skittish pegasus. Both Princess and winged horse were too absorbed in the glorious still, silent clouds to pay any attention to the entrance of the golden-brown feathered beast and his rider mere feet beside them.

The blue of the sky was shamed by the sky blue in his eyes. The sun above them dulled by the radiant sunshine of his hair.

Shaking herself from these flights of fancy.

I must be spending too much time with my fanciful cousin...

Down-to-earth Dorothy jerks her head back from the sweet face so close to hers. It startled both him and her pegasus who whinnies in surprise.

"Whoa! Pegasus! Calm down!" But it was the beating hooves inside Dorothy's own heart that needing the calming. She blushed bright red, for some unknown reason, as the golden boy's eyes landed upon her again. The laughter in them was something she had not seen for some time...and for some reason, right now, could not place from where she had known them before...

"Forgive me. Did I frighten you?" The kind concern entered his blue eyes and was a sort of beacon of light. Dorothy's conscious told her that it was merely Pegasus' rearing that caught her breath in her throat--that it was the fright that caused the pounding in her chest and in her heart.

But the "better"side of Princess Dorothy yet prevails. She took hold of her golden reins firmly before she decides to speak to this intruder on her solitary flight.

"No, of course. I do not frighten so easily." She states with a snotty nose up in the air look on her every upturned feature. The slitted sides of her eyes gave the honey-colored falcon a slightly approving look as it kept time with her own pegasus' steady flight path.

"I am glad." The boy's smile was like a rainbow as it spreads across the space. It disconcerted Dorothy so much, that she slips and loses hold of the reins held heretofore, tightly in her hands.

The hands of which are now grasped gently, yet firmly, by the boy, to steady her dizzy spell.

"Never before have I seen such beauty..." The boy's mouth was as sweet as a bird's in song. Dorothy found herself enraptured with every syllable he uttered. His hands were still clasped to hers while his eyes searched hers deeply.

"Everything I've seen here is so beautiful. The clouds, the sky are beautiful. The seas below are beautiful. The lands and the forests are beautiful here. This pegasus and her rider are especially..." He lets the last compliment slip away into the "beautiful" clouds. His gaze looks down to where both sets of their hands lay interlaced as their two flying beasts soar beside each other in perfect unison.

"Who are you?" Princess Dorothy breathes, finding herself, strangely, at a loss for words; other than the burning question to know who exactly this young man was.

"Oh. How silly and thoughtless of me. Forgive me, Princess." His chuckle was lilting and neither seemed to notice their fingers around each other still. They were both so entranced in one another's eyes.

"My name is Qu--" The blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy begins to say his name when suddenly his falcon and her pegasus both rear up in fear, breaking the tender handclasp between the two humans.

"Good heavens! Eixip!!" Dorothy screams out in horror at the sight in the distance. She commands her pegasus to fly towards the rising smoke.

"What?!" Quatre calls out after her speedy departure from him above the clouds.

"The palace of the fairies!!" Dorothy's high voice yells back in fear as her pegasus dives through the clouds, straight towards the billowy smoke. She no longer noticed the golden falcon nor its rider, who without a second thought, plunges down right behind her. Both creatures of the air dive down into the unknown danger within the fairy palace in the land of Eixip, fire consuming all...