Cindrix the Redeemed's page

Kill them! Make them pay for their wickedness! I shall reign my terror down upon them and rend their frail bodies! I will crash down from the heavens and crush their bones to dust! I will breath death upon them, and should they have any strength left they will flee from my presence, and cast themselves upon the rocks, for that quick death will be more merciful that what I shall do to them!

A pained grunt is followed by a huff of cold air from the sleeping dragon that fills the space with tiny crystals of frozen water, suspended in the air for a few moments before dissipating from the latent heat. The scales and spines along her back raise up as the muscles in her body tense for a moment, before relaxing again.

A guttural, stuttering throaty growl suddenly escapes from the mouth of the white dragon in the corner, now laying completely on her back with her head and neck curled back along her body, and all four legs sticking weirdly into the air. One wing is splayed out on the stone floor while the other is tucked neatly by her side, adding to the oddness of the strange contorted sleeping position. As the noise rumbles out of her maw, the splayed out wing and the opposite, rear leg begin to twitch and move as her dreams play out in her mind.

Two ugly frost drakes move to intercept her flight path to the many-headed beasts of burden below. Her jaws snap and Ish the puny rider makes tiny cuts with his blade. A drake falls lifelessly to the ground far below. The others will take care of the last drake, for the Hydras are close now.

Ish on her back seems to be doing something, since she can feel the pressure of his legs on the stirrups, but clearly she is doing all of the heavy lifting. She eyes the second beast and a meaty spot under one of it’s legs, pulling at the ground to bring herself closer for another strike.

The long, pearly scaled dragon stretches her hind legs out on the floor behind her with her head curled back into her forearms. An icy draft leaks into the room where her obsidian skinned master and his companions are resting. She delightfully curls up over the rend in the wall, effectively blocking the chill from entering the room. Wisps of frosty breath roll out between her deadly teeth in rhythmic puffs, causing a myriad of crystalline shapes to form on the floor, only to melt in between breaths and reform at the next.

The fact that her master enjoyed such awful warmth was easy to overlook. Beyond Commander Pharamol, he was the first to affirm her, encourage her, and care for her without beating or ridicule. She could deal with his incessant need for heat. As she rests, the scenes of the previous battles play back through her dreaming mind, perhaps a bit colored by her own biases.

She screams through the air, across the line of the wall and towards one of the brutally viscous frost drakes. Darting and ducking her agile neck, she smashes her open jaw against the beast’s neck, tearing open a grievous wound. The statue-man on her back sinks his puny weapon deep into the creature’s side, just to the left of the other puny rider. Magnificent white dragon and black rider streak by, leaving the frost drake writhing and plummeting to the depths below in their wake.

Another drake unleashes a wave of frozen breath, but Cindrix laughs, bathing in the cool breeze that tickles her scales. She holds back the urge to launch at the beast, waiting for her master to give her the signal. Finally it comes, and the two dart back and forth across the sky, dropping the wicked bullies like lambs at the slaughter.

With a slow groan, Cindrix rolls over on the hard stone floor, involuntarily reaching a hind claw up to scratch at an itch near her shoulder. In her sleep, she sneezes suddenly, splotching a hunk of slimy ice against the wall merely inches from where Ishbaad sits, scratching some strange book with a tiny stick. Her sleep remains uninterrupted, however, as her dreams shift to the next battle.

Cindrix, gaining confidence and trust in Ishbaad bit by bit, allows the stone man to climb aboard the saddle. She feels tugs and pulls on her scales as he slips his feet in stirrups and pulls the straps tight that will keep him on her back while she dives and rolls in the air. The words and conversation around her happen so fast she quickly gives up trying to understand what the two small creatures are saying. Patiently, at least for a half-feral white dragon, she waits for the specific tug on the stirrups attached to her new rider’s feet to give her the direction on what to do.

Moments later she feels both straps pull up against the sides of her neck. She takes the cue and begins to flap her leathery wings, rising and falling with each wing beat. Crouching close to the ground, she times a powerful leap forward into the air with another downstroke of her wings, and in an instant dragon and rider are screaming upwards through the air and into the sky above Spurhorn.

Slowly, and with great effort, Cindrix closes her eyes to revel in the moment and the declaration of the tiny creature she has only just met.

The effort is not born of strain, but of a release of mistrust. For so long she was always on high alert, ready for an attack to come from any direction, from any creature. Where she had only known abuse from her kin, she had finally been introduced to care and gentle treatment at the hands of the Triaxians here at Spurhorn. Despite that, she would not allow herself to trust. She would not allow the wall to come down and become vulnerable to anyone who could hurt her again.

Until now. It is not instinctive, nor is it a pleasant experience. Through force of will her eyelids flutter closed, until her measured breathing begins to finally help her relax. With each passing second her reactive anticipation of a brutal attack subsides, until she finally accepts the contact from the strange, obsidian-skinned man by her side.

When her eyes suddenly snap back open, it is several minutes later. She hops excitedly into the air, flapping her giant wings and doing a quick summersault before crashing back down on her feet, wagging her overly large tail and knocking over a neatly stacked pile of grains as well as a wooden scaffold, scattering tools and other odds and ends across the floor.

”TIP… SPEAR!!” She cries. If dragons could smile, Cindrix’s face would have been beaming.