Now. She looked up. She took in his large, muscled, tan body—dripping with sweat. He had a shovel strapped to his back and his bike seemed too small, causing his legs to splay out to compensate. His shorts ran up his legs revealing ripped thigh muscles with visible arteries pumping blood, as his legs pumped the pedals with rhythmic powerful force. Whrr whrr. She wondered how the rusted tin can of a bike didn't fall apart under the force of the rider. Would she?
He didn't so much as glance at her as he passed. Her heart was racing. She was looking for something up in this mountain range, two days into her trek, but for a moment she forgot all about that. Could he be here for a nest? There were many spires around after all. But no, surely they would send more for a nest; he must just be passing through. She watched him go for a while, then sighed.
* * * * *
He had to pedal harder. He was weary from the steep incline he had climbed, but time was running out. He was given an impossible distance to travel in too little time. The Golden Sun fell as the Blood Moon rose; the Rose Moon kissed the Royal Sun, but there would not be an eclipse, they would have told him. What about that girl? He didn't like civilians so close, but if all went according to plan she would be fine. And if not? Well, she had already been in danger, she just hadn't known it.
The rider was approaching the base of the spire. He was never late, but this time he was. The Golden Sun was fully set now, leaving just the deep purple light of the Royal Sun. He got off his bike and continued on his bare feet. Late or not, stealth was needed this close to the nest.
Something was sneaking up on him. He spun in an instant and reached out, grappling a man's arm and neck. He got a foot behind the man's legs and threw him to the ground. But rather than smashing the man into the ground, he caught him just before the impact, taking the momentum out of the fall. He followed the man down, placing one hand over his neck and the other over his mouth. Candle-shaped objects, wrapped in brown paper, began to spill out of the pack the intruder had been carrying. The rider realized who the man must be.
"You're the explosives guy." He whispered.
He returned a muffled reply, and the rider subsequently removed his hand. "And you must be Speed. You're late."
"I know. Can we still do it?"
"If you get off me and dig like you've never dug before." Speed dug as he had always dug before. Undermining a dragon's spire was a tricky task. You had to be fast; the Golden Sun never stayed down long, and the job could only be done in the violet glow of the Royal Sun, when the dragons' sight was weakest. You had to be silent, using finesse rather than mere brute force. You had to gently place the shovel—a sharp shovel—to the dirt and ease it in.
And so Speed dug and tunneled, in this silent fashion, until the explosives man gave him a kick.
"That's it. We have to blow it."
"It is not deep enough. We have hours before the sun rises."
"Hours? Look at the sky, man." The sky was not purple, as he expected, but instead a bright pink. He had not noticed amongst his digging, but the Rose Moon had fully passed over the Royal Sun. The moon wasn't big enough to fully block the sun. Instead, the purple light of the sun wrapped around the red moon and the shifted the light to a bright pink. The sky blushed when the Rose Moon bloomed. And dragons ascended.
"Nobody told me there would be an ascension." Speed's voice strained as fear gripped him.
"I guess your guys didn't work it out. Ours only just figured it out. It's off-pattern."
Speed calmed himself, accepting the circumstances as they were. He replied simply, "Yes."
"Could you have gone faster if you had known?"
"No. What are the odds this works?"
"Deeper would be better. I'd call it fifty-fifty. No choice but to proceed. Pack this in there," he said, handing Speed his satchel which now had a wire attached. Speed placed it at the end of the tunnel.
With the explosives placed, the two men began sneaking away to make distance. Speed stole a glance at the top of the spire. Nothing.
They made their way to a ditch where Speed left his bike.
"I can't ride as fast as you. Let me make my way to my bike and get a head start." The explosives man handed the detonator to Speed.
"Alright." The man was right, nobody was as fast as Speed.
He watched the top of the spire. Still nothing. Maybe the information was bad. Maybe there were no dragons here. Minutes passed and a gentle rain began to fall. Speed looked up and felt it appropriate to say some words.
Clouds hang above like the Mothership
Cotton candy tendrils
Their seductive mist
Droplets spill down my face
The alien’s kiss
He pressed the detonator. He ducked, opened his mouth, and plugged his ears. The shockwave rolled through him, forcing the air out of his lungs.
The shock passed. He looked at the spire to see a plume of smoke and dust obscuring the damage in the side of the spire. The top began to shift and fall, but then it stopped abruptly. It wasn't coming down. Once it settled, there was a profound silence, as if the whole world were waiting for what came next. There was a screech, and a lizard creature, the size of a small man, floated in the air above the spire. It looked right at Speed. He knew the creature well. The bane of his species. Death incarnate. Sharp pricks of fear encased his body, but he pushed through them, acting as he was trained to do.
Speed got on his bike and pedaled hard. Dirt and rock began to fly up from the ground around him and fling themselves at him. His bike rumbled and he had to fight to retain control. The dragon was learning his new powers. It floated after him in pursuit.
* * * * *
A gust of wind came over her, and the trees swayed around her. A fox stood fast, squinting and staring down the wind. The outline of his fur whirled like the translucent edge of a flame, caught in the purple of the Royal Sun. After the gust passed the fox found a fallen rotting tree and began sniffing. The fox dug his snout into the soft wood and made a snack of the maggots burrowed within. A rabbit bolted out of a nearby bush, and the fox seemed none too interested, being content with his maggots.
The maggot ate the rot, the fern fed off the maggot, the rabbit ate the fern. One day the maggots would take back what the fox merely borrowed. But it wasn't equilibrium that she sought, so she moved on.
She decided to venture off the path and came across a tiny stream leading to a spring. There was a small cave where a mole was shuffling through the dirt, engaged in his moley business. Forest animals drank from the spring, and she wished to join, if only to soak her tired feet. Days of travel and the difficult climb up the mountain had worn her down. The soothing tranquility called to her weary body, and yet it was not what she truly sought. She kept searching.
She looked up at the sky and saw that a moon was passing over the sun. Where they overlapped, the moon was completely black. The rest of the red moon was still lit by the setting golden sun below. She could see craters, speaking the story of the moon's life. One's story was always presented surface-deep if you looked closely enough, and tonight she was looking very closely.
The moon continued to pass over the sun. A pack of rabbits were happily gnawing at the plant life. They were painted in now-pink light filtering through the sparse trees. None feared the pink sky but man.
She returned to the path, following it through the trees until finally the forest ended and the path opened up to a flat earthy plane scattered with tall rocky spires. She wondered what could have created these 300-foot earthen fingers, reaching up to grab the sky. Something caught her eye from one of the distant spires. The top shifted and dust billowed out from below it. Soon after, she saw a landslide trigger from an adjacent cliff. The ground began to rumble under her feet, even at this distance. She knew what this kind of activity meant during this kind of eclipse. Power. Danger. Fear. Is that what she saught? She headed that way.
It wasn't long before she noticed a faint sound in the distance. She squinted and saw a tiny dark speck with a large dust cloud around it. It was the rider from earlier. He must be going fast, but no speed should be producing a dust cloud of that size. The speck grew larger and she could see that it was not a cloud of dust following the rider, but rather dirt and rock being torn from the Earth around the rider. She saw the slender lizard creature floating after the rider in a perfectly steady path through the pink sky. She woke from her trance, realizing that she had knowingly been heading towards a dragon this whole time. What was she doing?
The rider made a sharp turn through a cluster of spires, and the dragon pursued him. She knew she could run or die, and took this as her queue to kick off her sandals and run. She ran hard, back to the forest. She ran through familiar trees, trying to find her way back to the spring with the cave where she could hide the until danger had passed. Suddenly a muscular shirtless man on a bike flew past her, landing and stopping with a sweeping turn in front of her. It was the rider.
"Get on." Sweat dripped down his ripped chest, careening around the edges of dried dirt and mud. Was this a dream? The trance threatened to return.
"Get on!" Thunderous cracking drew her attention to a nearby boulder, suddenly exploding into shrapnel that flew around her. Her eye tracked above the rock to the dragon, floating steadily towards them.
She flinched and climbed onto the back axle—all she could fit on were her big toes—but before she had managed to fully secure herself he had already taken off. With his tree trunk thighs powering their movement they accelerated surprisingly quickly. He again made a sudden turn and headed for a dense tree-line. The turn jostled her and she instinctively grabbed at his shoulders but they were sweaty and she quickly lost her grip and started to fall backwards. Without so much as turning to look, his arm shot back and grabbed the collar of her shirt. He navigated obstacles and bumpy terrain with one arm while she clawed her way up the other. Once she righted herself, she wrapped her arms around him and locked both arms together in front of his chest. Nice muscles.
"We're going to die!" She cried out.
"It has only touched its psychokinetic powers. If it showed control of the elements, I would be scared." She suddenly felt the hairs on her arms rising and both of their shirts seemed to hover over their bodies. The air around them resisted movement. The rider reached out to touch a nearby tree, and there was an immediate painful loud crack and she felt a sharp shock pass through her where he skin touched his. She yelped with the jolt.
"We're going to die!" She yelled again.
"We may," he stated, "but it will have a harder time tracking us in there." The tree-line was approaching. Sudden gusts of wind spawned around them and assaulted them from every direction. But the rider was too steady, too skilled, for this attack to work. They slipped into the trees, and indeed, there was a break in the dragon's attacks. Yet the rider's pace and intensity did not slacken. Instead of dodging the dragon's attacks, his attention was now focused on avoiding tree trunks and branches. After some moments without attack, she realized that she had been completely tensed and was holding her breath. She relaxed and breathed. "What are you called, rider?"
"I am Speed." His reply came after a delay, once he had come upon a patch of terrain that was easier to navigate. His voice was gentler than before.
"Then you are aptly named, for I never imagined one might be capable of out-riding a dragon."
"The forest protects us. And what is your name?"
"I am Resonance. My chief is a theoretician; nobody really knows what it means." Her voice was wavy and uneven as her body absorbed the bumpy ride.
"I like the sound of it." He spoke as if he were sitting peaceably on a serene field, beneath the shade of a calm tree as the gentle wind brushed his cheek.
The dragon occasionally held sight of them for long enough to volley another wind attack at them, but the trees absorbed much of the attacks, and what made it through was too weak to threaten the steadfast rider. Still, it persued.
"It was you who toppled that spire, wasn't it? It held a dragon's nest?" she asked.
"The spire still holds the nest. I failed to topple it."
"You picked a poor time to attack."
"The eclipse was unknown to me. Your picked a poor location for your walk. Has your tribe managed to remain ignorant of the dangers of the spires?"
She could not hold resentment towards him, for she knew he was right. "My tribe knows the dangers well. I was drawn here. I am a painter."
He paused before replying, as if considering. "One must follow their muse."
It made her nauseous to see the trees zip by, being narrowly avoided, so she closed her eyes and pressed the side of her head against the rider's back. Skilled though he may be, the forest floor was uneven and there were many rocks and fallen branches. Her toes cried in pain with every bump. She knew where this route would lead. She knew that this was the easy part, and cringed to imagine what was coming.
The trees became more sparse, and the attacks of the dragon became more vicious. Rocks and trees burst and shrapnel flew into them. She cried in pain as she was struck and began to bleed, but he remained resolute.
A large rock levitated at their side and was suddenly flung right at them. The hill sloped down and they picked up some speed and ducked under the rock as it flew past. Her toes begged for an end. The slope steepened further and she could now see what she had been dreading: the slanted edge of the cliff that would take them all the way down.
The wind continued its attack, mixing gusts from different directions and creating unpredictable twisters that not even the rider could fully compensate for. They passed over the edge, gaining a bit of air, and as they did so, a gust hit them from below and to the side, lifting and spinning them. Her footing was knocked loose and her legs flew freely behind. She held onto his body with all her strength. She pulled herself in and wrapped her legs around his stomach, locking her feet together. She took her arms from his chest and placed them higher, locking them around his thick neck. She felt the muscles in his body tensing and straining to their limit in an attempt to control the bike. Before she even realized what was happening, the bike's front tire made contact with the slanted rock of the cliff. The tire burst and spokes snapped. The back tired landed and the bike began to spin out. She was sure they were finished. As the bike completed it's second rotation, the rider managed to hold it steady and force it on a straight line again. For the first time, the rider stopped pedaling, letting gravity do the work while he entirely focused on steering the busted bike. The front tired creaked and clattered as its malformed shape was battered against the rocky surface. Even with this, the rider kept their path true. They flew down the steep cliff side, every bump seeming to threaten to throw them off completely, but they always landed. Finally, distance was building between them and the dragon, and now all his attacks landed behind them. They were escaping his range.
The cliff-side was massive and the bottom was still not in sight. They hit a smooth patch of slate rock and accelerated further. The bike rattled like an animal in its death throes, but it held. The dragon was disappearing behind them. The bottom was coming into view. It was as she had already known, the cliff did not level out gradually as it met the ground, it simply met the ground.
"We are doomed!" Resonance cried out.
The hardened earth below them drew closer. Of course, this bike had no breaks, little good they would do. Speed took the bike left and right to try and pull some momentum out, but it was no good. They rushed headlong into their demise.
The rider spoke.
Earth, skin of the Mother
Let this seed burrow
And see its flowers bloom
They hit the ground. But they did not crash. Instead they sunk as if diving into the ocean. The soil softened and moved aside as they passed through it until they came to a stop. She lost contact with Speed and found herself lost and buried in the soft dirt. She writhed and moved in the direction that she felt must be up until she felt a hand grasp hers and pull her out. It was Speed. She jumped with joy, laughing and ecstatic, barely able to believe they had survived. Realizing how it had happened, she tried to speak but found she first had to spit dirt out of her mouth.
"You are a poet!" She said, too excited to even finish cleaning her mouth.
"Yes, and I fear I have struck a bargain with the Earth, the terms of which are unknown to me."
"Oh but how do you remain so cool. Have you fought dragons before?"
"No, but I've served with those who have."
"But you show no fear in its attacks, nor do you celebrate your narrow escape. How can you remain so staid?"
"I am duty-bound."
"But you are not grave, merely dispassionate. Did you feel no thrill when riding for your life? No exhilaration rushing down the cliff? No relief at surviving?"
In the absence of typical shows of emotion, she decided she would interpret his slight delay as an expression of annoyance. He did eventually reply, "Each was a moment, as this is yet another moment. Each moment passes, leaving us for another."
"And all moments are as the same to you? There is no preference for one over the other?" He did not answer. "I suppose you expect me to learn your code of pauses and silences to decrypt your emotional state?"
"I expect you will now head for back to your borough. We have escaped for now, but it's only a matter of time before it acquires its sense for sending magic, and then there will be nowhere to hide. I attacked its nest. It will come for me."
"It will come for us all once it has had you." Another silence passed, but this time she let it hang.
"If you have decided that this is your path, then it is not for me to dislodge you. We must make way to my camp. There are those that will know how to make a plan to contain it while we wait for those who can fight it."
* * * * *
And so Speed continued in the direction in which he knew his base resided. He led the pair of them through the thick forest beneath the mountain, safe from the dragon. They walked in silence a good ways, until Speed—seeing his companion without the peril of the dragon looming over them—saw something different in her face, and felt he would like to hear her voice again.
"You are a painter. Are you any good?"
Resonance began rummaging through the small bag she had. "I made this earlier, the first time you passed me on your way to the spires." He saw her hesitate for a brief moment, as if second guessing herself, but then she produced the item and handed it to him.
It held very few brushstrokes.
"How long did this take you?"
"It is only a sketch, I spent but a moment on it."
"It has my essence. I have never seen one captured so quickly. What will you command of me now that you have it?"
"Command of you?"
"Is that not the meaning of being a painter? To capture an essence and issue your command."
"No, that is a perversion. Tell me, what does it mean to be a poet?"
"To empty yourself. To allow the truth of the moment to come to you and to speak it. To bend it to your will without breaking it."
"Painting is much the same then. The painter does not 'capture' anything, she simply observes what is, and suggests what could be." A look appeared on her face that Speed could not recognize. "But now I am wishing I had not told you, and instead tested my luck with a command."
Speed found himself wishing that he had more to ask about painting, but he came up short, so he simply walked on. The Golden Sun rose again, and the purple sun was on its way down. The long walk gave rise to feelings of weariness the desire for rest, but Speed quickly shunted those away. He had a purpose, a target, and Speed never looked back once he had his sights set.
The fort was nearing.
Speed began to notice the smell of fire and burned meat. He ran forward.
"Speed!" Resonance ran after him.
It was as he feared. The fort was destroyed. Charred bodies lay scattered. Those that were lucky enough not to be burned alive had been bludgeoned by debris that the dragon had hurled about. It's powers has clearly amplified. Why had this happened? He knew that his own actions had killed them, and now he was left behind. He stood. Resonance was nearby, saying something to him. There was no direction for him now. There was nothing.
Something was moving. A man was crawling out from beneath a toppled wall. A survivor. He snapped himself out of it and ran to the man.
"Is that you Speed?" the man coughed and Speed helped him to his feet.
"Cook. Are there any others?"
"I fear not, Speed. We may yet live. We must travel south to send for those who may slay the ascended."
"I cannot leave. It must be contained. The two of you will go South. I will keep it here for as long as I can."
"What if it finds us on the road?" the cook asked.
"Then there is nothing I could do for you."
"Of course. You are right. And where do you go?"
"To the Mothership."
"You are mad. Nobody has ever crossed the canyon that surrounds the Mothership. Not even you could do it Speed."
"You oaf!" It was Resonance. She was crying.
"Resonance—."
"My path remains the same." she wiped the tears from her eyes and steadied her voice, "I will come with you."
"Your name is Resonance?" Cook asked. "A name of much beauty to match your own." The man was still gathering himself, and speaking his chivalrous words through fits of coughing up blood. Might I ask what your interest is in this man's quest?"
"I am a painter," she explained, "and I must follow my muse."
"Ah a painter. Perhaps if you face the dragon, she might capture its essence?"
"Can those beasts be said to possess such a thing?" Speed asked.
"My man, all things possess an essence. Please think of what you are saying."
"Of course, you are right. Still, the essence of a dragon has never been captured."
"Then you have two impossible tasks to complete."
"Not if the Mothership holds what I believe it to."
"Very well. Might you speak me a poem before we part?"
A silence filled the air, and all that could be heard was Speed's heavy, slow breathing. He considered the man before finally speaking.
The heart is aglow
A spotlight for evil to stalk
But do not cower before the shadow
Along the path you walk
Do not diminish your flame
We do not play fear's game
"Ride well my friend." Cook clasped Speed's arm.
"Ride well," Speed responded.
The man got on his bike and began his journey. Speed got another bike from beneath the rubble of the armory. The Royal Sun had fallen. The dragon's senses would be at their strongest. They did not have long.
* * * * *
She felt silly riding on the back of his bike, but there was no way she could have kept up with him on her own. At least this time they had installed pegs that would fit her whole foot. She had heard of the Mothership before, a remnant that aliens had left behind. Others in her borough spoke of seeing it. An ominous presence hanging over all of them. A reminder that they had been given up on. She never felt drawn to see it for herself.
They got off their bike and looked down the hill they were on. It ended abruptly at a canyon. Across the canyon was a rock monolith jutting out of the ground with the black alien egg perched atop it. Who could say how deep the drop was? An inscrutable fog guarded the canyon's mysteries. On this side of the canyon, there was a ramp that had already been constructed. How long had Speed been thinking about this jump?
"Cook was right. It is impossible." She said.
"I can almost make it."
"That's bad."
"I thought you liked the thrill of danger?" There was an edge to his voice that Resonance did not like. She saw no crack in the man, yet none could have seen their friends ripped apart like that and move on as though nothing had happened. Not even the indomitable Speed.
"There's no thrill in certain death. Do not think your slain friends would have you throw your life away for some twisted sense of honor." She regretted saying it, and yet the man's face did not so much as wince in reaction.
"I do this because it is the only way I might slay the dragon."
She decided to stop prodding. "What is it you think resides on that ship?"
"A weapon. Something that can kill a dragon."
"And how is it you know of this weapon?"
"When we were taught about the aliens as children, I could not accept that they abandoned us. I thought there must be a reason, just as a parent would not abandon their child without reason. I scoured every book I could find on the aliens. I snuck into my chief's library and read all that I could. There was no answer, but I did find schematics of some of their older ships."
"Even still, the jump is madness."
"You will paint us across." Passion touched his voice. "I was wrong to say we will die. We may, or we may not. I do not believe it is by chance that I happened to stumble upon a talented painter, in a place she shouldn't be, with a stubborn insistence on joining me on my desperate quest. Something has guided us here."
This upset Resonance. "I assure you, nobody has made my decisions for me. I was upon that mountain for my own reasons, just as I joined you for my own reasons. Nobody made me do this."
"The hand of fate commands no more than the painter's brush. It works with the deftest touch. One can never be sure if it has acted."
"You seem sure."
"One cannot ask more of life than to be allowed to stake their life on their strongest beliefs. You have had many outs and have taken none of them. You too have staked your life." His stare bore into her. Certainty, fear, conviction, madness. A desperate request.
"I will ride with you."
She thought he might be on the verge of tears, but he turned quickly and moved to the bike. She followed behind, put a hand on his waste, and turned him to face her. He was indeed crying. She placed her hand on his trembling cheek and let his tears flow over her. He clasped her hand and pressed his face into it. The sky roared.
In the distance was a thin streak of fire being trailed by a dissipating cloud of black smoke. The line of fire curved. It was the dragon, hurtling towards them.
"It has sent for us and now there can be no escape. We must go," Speed said.
They got on the bike and headed down the hill. Speed pedaled harder than she had ever seen him pedal. Resonance struggled against the air they tore through, gathering supplies from her bag. She placed a wooden palette against Speed's back with a scrap of paper pinned down. She already had some paints set out. She painted the hill and the land on this side of the canyon. They approached the ramp. She painted the mist, creeping out from below the canyon. They hit the ramp and flew. She set the brush to draw the rock monolith on the other side of the canyon. She paused and observed the scene before her. They were not going to make it. She found it curious how the monolith disappeared into the mist, making its base completely invisible. She began to paint the rock. But she did not place it as it appeared. She painted it closer and wider. And why not? There was so little in reality tying it to its previous conformation. She found this a rather easy truth to bend. As she placed what she knew to be the final brush stroke, the scene before them began to shift. The rock appeared to warp and grow, as if being seen through a lens.
Their bike descended and landed on the rocky surface laid out beneath them, naturally as if that was where they were always going to land. Speed controlled the stop with ease.
The streak of fire was nearing. There was no time to waste. They dashed for the opening on the bottom of the black ship. Speed immediately took a turn, scaled a ladder, and ran further into the craft. Resonance did her best to follow, but could not keep up. She tracked him only from the echoes of footsteps.
And then they were out of time. The terrible roar of the dragon's flame erupted just outside the craft. A sudden surge of heat swept over her. The hull of the spacecraft began radiating heat. She moved away and tried to find shelter from it. Hot metal began flying apart and invisible molten claws were tearing the walls open. The exterior was almost fully peeled away. She could see the dragon. It paused upon seeing her, but it disregarded her and continued its demolition. More of the hull was ripped open. Soon, the craft would collapse.
Through the exposed hull, she could see Speed crouching and hiding on an upper level. He held something in his hand. A great sword, black like the Mothership. She recognized some kind of power in it, the way one might recognize power in a charging bull. But what exactly the sword's power was, or how she recognized it, she could not say. He stalked closer to the unaware dragon floating just oustide.
Speed was in the air before Resonance even saw him move, instantaneous like a coiled viper. But the dragon was quicker. It turned on him as if it had known the attack was coming all along. Speed was suddenly suspended and paralyzed in the air in front of the small lizard, holding the sword so close to its heart, but unable to complete the attack.
The dragon did not speak, but she felt its voice inside her mind. "So this is the insect who disturbed my nest." Its voice was like wet slime dripping down Resonance's brain stem.
Speed was able to work his mouth and reply. "Another will destroy you. We are getting better at hunting you. The human spirit is strong." In the face of death, Speed remained resolute.
Resonance took out her palette and began painting.
"'The human spirit,'" it mocked. "Humans always fall back on fairy tales when their power proves feeble. When I slayed your colony, they asked for mercy, for pity, compassion. As if simple tricks would work on one as great as I."
The Dragon took note of Resonance. She felt it scoff smugly in her mind. The intrusion sickened her. "Your puny magics won't work on me. A filthy human will never capture the pure essence of the dragon."
But she wasn't painting the dragon. She was painting the tired and bedraggled rider held in the air, serenely accepting his certain doom. Brave, stoic, and faster than anything. A beauty held by no other, fixed in this moment, in this man. There was a sword in his hand, and he was thrusting it like a lightning bolt.
Speed's hand shot forward and the blade plunged into the dragon's heart and pierced cleanly through its back. The dragon transmitted the briefest shock into her mind before its slug-like presence was pulled out and the sanctity of her consciousness was restored. The grasp on Speed was released. He plummeted to the ground, while the dragon fell over the edge of the canyon. A trail of fire followed the dragon, and after some time it must have landed, as a huge inferno erupted in the canyon. It was over.
Resonance climbed down the side of the Mothership and ran to Speed. He was trying to get up, but was too hurt. "Slow down Speed, you are injured." She tried to get him to sit back down, but he resisted. "Speed!"
* * * * *
Speed was in shock but he knew he had to move. There was one piece of this puzzle left. One mystery he had longed to uncovered. He was crawling, shaking off Resonance's attempts to stop him, too focused to explain. He neared the edge of the canyon and looked over. He smiled, looking down at the bottom of the canyon, seeing through the patch of mist that the dragon's fire had cleared. "Look," he managed to say. There were more Motherships down there, perhaps hundreds more hidden throughout all of the fog.
He looked to Resonance, who stared down in awe. He stood and put his arm around her and knew he had all he needed. A direction to travel in. And now, someone to travel with.
Peanut Gallery