[IC] Rising For Retribution { Crank x Soulserenity20 }

[Crank]

Silence had become a hardship.

It was so difficult to ever process why, or how it could have ever become something like that. Silence used to be a thing to be treasured, something to be enjoyed while it lasted. Why did that change? Why did it now weigh down so forcefully on the she-dragon's heart? It had become like a pressure that she longed for to disappear. Lumen wished she could somehow lift the burden from within her chest and let her deep breathing return back to it's normal pace, yet it couldn't. It squeezed her heart like a vice, made her chest tight, forced her breathing to become labored. The silence had seemed to condense as it entered her body, just for the sake of paining her, it seemed. Why couldn't she make it go away?
A shuddering sigh came from the she-dragon, one which passed through as more of a high-pitched whimper with the strain being pushed onto her mind and her body.She had already tried to forge noise herself, but it wouldn't work. She had tried to listen to the ambiance of the day, but it had gone. It was as if the wildlife had hurried away as the humans had hurried into the dragon lands.

The silence was filling the open area she rested on, a cool stone with a smooth texture, protruding from the edge of a cliff and looking out over the expansive forests of the lands. It was so beautiful, yet . . . yet it was not. Though the trees were lush and untouched by the devilish hands of the humans, and stretched as a thriving, powerful network over the otherwise grassy, plant-covered grounds, they were still. They were not pulsing with the beauty she would always see whenever those of her kind flew over them, whenever she felt the presences of her dragon-kind within the proximity along with her. The breeze was not even drifting through the heavy air; it was as still as it had ever been for Lumen. It was too still, far too still for her liking. The very thought of such a lack of movement and such a lack of liveliness made a shiver roll down her spine. Though she wasn't cold in the slightest, it was one of the few things that truly chilled her to the bone and sent tremors to her core.
All the she-dragon could take comfort in was the presence of the goddesses up above. The thought made her head tilt up towards the heavens, her gaze drifting along the numerous stars twinkling about the blackened void of sky. A pearly white moon hung among them, the main jewel which ordained the many crystals surrounding it, a piece of dark velvet decorated and completed with all the glory and immense beauty of it's surrounding jewels. The stars and the moon, the gifts the night brought.

The she-dragon felt the corners of her mouth pull up, her luminescent pink eyes seeming to glow brighter. She could feel the presence of the goddesses surrounding her as she stared. She could feel a portion of the heaviness in the air be sucked away and replaced with the cool, comforting presences of the two goddesses residing in their marvelous palaces up above. Her ancestors were few, and though she could feel them only faintly with the company the goddesses brought, they willingly helped to lift some of the burden away from her tight chest. Her labored breath loosened somewhat.
Though these changes did send a note of content through Lumen, she knew they would not satisfy like the company of another living creature would ever be able to do. The reminder made the smile on her expression fade away, her brightened eyes darkening once more with the loneliness that echoed without sound through the landscape. It was always very difficult to deal with her situation, with the lack of company that emptied her life and most likely would never be filled. It depressed her, unhealthily so. She knew that dwelling on such dark thoughts could lead to shocking actions.

The reminder made her sensibility step in and repress the saddening thoughts to the back of her mind. You cannot continue with this self-pity, Lumen, her mind sternly communicated. Dwelling in this place would do her no good, despite the comfortable location she was resting on. Her legs shifted on the smooth stone at the thought, and she felt herself suck in deeply in order to release a sigh. She should keep traveling, get somewhere safer, more closed away to allow some better peace of mind. The she-dragon timidly stood herself up, unfolding her tucked legs and setting her clawed feet, one by one, onto the stone, lifting her relatively small stature {for a dragon, at least} from it's lazing position and into a standing position. Her muscles rolled underneath her scaly coat of hardened midnight, her hair - glimmering with tiny speckles of star-like orbs - gently waving with her moving head. The she-dragon arched her back, stretching her front legs similarly to a cat, and stretching her back legs by arching her spine inward, leaning forward rather than back to do so.
Once Lumen's body was relatively worked back into wakefulness, she allowed her eyes to close as she stretched her final and most vital muscles, used for any and all long-distanced traveling - her wings. They stretched themselves to their fullest extent, the full extent of their shimmering beauty showing off in the darkened night. They seemed to release a light glow, the orbs of light in their confines twinkling just as the gems in the skies did. Lumen was a magnificently gorgeous dragon, despite the fact that she never admitted to it out of her modesty; it was no wonder she was such a prized specimen to be hunted after.

The she-dragon opened her eyes, and gazed out over the trees. She calculated the drop distance, and steadied herself, her wings folding in just a tad. She stepped forward, her front claws clinging to the edge of the stone, and glanced down below her at the sheer drop.
With one last, very deep breath of preparation, Lumen coiled her muscles in. She crouched. And, with a single bound forward, she dropped. Her body aligned vertically, her wings close to her sides as she went into a dive towards the ground. The wind whistled around her. Her eyes widened, pupils thinning.

In the nick of time, her wings flared out, and she pulled herself upward, the chilling air finding it's way underneath her sparkling appendages and carrying her upwards. They bent in and pushed against the air, flapping with strong beats and making her ascend towards the glimmering sky, among her ancestors and her goddesses. Her eyes illuminated, her body reaching towards the crystals, which were so inviting to her senses. She smiled. Flying during the night was something that could never be beaten by any other activity - it lifted her spirits remarkably high as she approached the heavens, the presences of soaring spirits and heart-lifting souls her ancestors once held surrounding her very being in her flight.
The she-dragon couldn't contain herself, and called out to the skies in a clear, melodious tone of song, praising the goddesses and all their glory. She loved to travel during the night, loved to give thanks to the Lady Moon and the goddess Stella. She loved to feel her ancestors fly at her sides and take her soul to beautiful places she couldn't find on the ground. She could fly for hours in song.

These were moments that truly did make her happy, and as she navigated the lands with her sharp senses intact, she enjoyed, relished, even, the feeling flight and spirits gone by gave to her body.

[Soulserenity20]

Obscura's dreams were his own worst nightmare, for when he awoke, the beautiful thoughts that filled his sleeping mind became ghostly reminders of the fulfilled days he once enjoyed. The days of companionship, of belonging; the days when he didn't feel like he was the last of his kind. The days when he knew there were other pairs of great wings blotting out the sun in the sky. His dreams brought him comfort in his slumbers, and for this he cherished them. But in his waking hours, he loathed the fresh reminder of what his life had come to be. Why did his parents leave? Had they stayed, he wouldn't be alone. They were selfish; they had only lived a few thousand years, how boring could life be after a few thousand years? Dull enough to give up their only son?

He paused. Disgusted by his disrespectful thoughts of his beloved late parents. This wasn't their fault. It wasn't any drake's fault. It was the humans. A wisp of multicolored flame slipped out from his mouth with a snarl. It was too early for such heavy thoughts to be clouding his mind, yet it seemed that more and more often he found himself filled with rage and despair. He felt so helpless, so useless, after so many years of searching for another. Had the humans truly killed off the rest of his species? Had his frozen, desloate kingdom really been the protection that kept him from the same fate? It was too early. Far too early.

The great black dragon rose from a melted dip in the icy floor of a vast cave, deep within a frozen range of mountains in the far north. This cave had been his home since he was a wyrmling, no larger than a stallion. He stepped out from the icy bed and stretched out his mass, wings fulled extended in all their brilliant splendour. The moonlight that reflected in from the entrance of the cave caught the membranes of his luminescent appendages and pulled out more of their dazzling shine. He was a proud specimen of the Boreal Draconic species. His wings were given to his bloodline from the great Aurora Borealis, queen of the northern skies, many, many millenia ago.

As he relaxed his muscles, he debated his plans for the night. Where would he search this time? Where could they be. The others?

There had to be others.

He couldn't explain how he knew; perhaps it was some instinct or ancient magic that connected all dragons; but a part of him knew for certain that he wasn't the last of the great dragons. His heart beat lunged for another, though he did not know who, or where he might find this dragon. But he couldn't give up. What else could he do with his life? Solitude is worse than death; not solitude in itself, but solitude eternal. He would keep searching, until his weary bones kept him from the skies. Only then would he rest, and he would only rest until he had the energy to search again.

Obscura took to the skies. Their perfect silence wrapped him in a familiar embrace as the chill of the north swaddled him with maternal winds. He felt at home in these barren lands, and though he wished he didn't need to, he left them far too often to travel across the globe in search of another. Each night he scowered the lands from the air, and each day he took on his human form and slithered through the cities of man, seeking the presence of another draconic soul. Once or twice he thought he was getting close, but the winds and time itself stole away the trails, leaving him again to start from scratch.

There had to be others. Somewhere. And he would find them. He would find them.

[Crank]

No matter for how long of a time she soared, the sights never dropped in their glory. Her eyes were glowing in the darkness. They darted to the side as she released a high croon of pleasure and dove, the air whistling past, the ground seeming to move upwards rather than have her move towards it. Her wings flared, and she shot back up again, back towards the stars and closer to the beauty again. She pulled in her starry appendages and spun, maneuvering herself in complicated patterns in the sky, dancing for her goddess, for her ancestors, and for her own enjoyment.
Despite all of the excitement, and all of the vigor of the night, there was an odd . . . emptiness that resided somewhere in her heart, a void of sorts that frustrated a part of her. It was unaffected by the mood now enveloping her. Why? No matter what she did, no matter which way she flew, no matter what angle she gazed towards the glimmering heavens, she couldn't fill this one spot of coldness. Unfortunately, it was familiar once she recognized it, and she couldn't help but feel her carefree mood drop a note. It was still there. There had to be a way to fill it.

There had to be someone out there to make it whole.

When this thought came, she fell into silence, her crooning calls ceasing. Suddenly, the situation had turned from a lovely nightly fly to a silent, hopeless search. Loneliness washed over her all over again, quite unexpectedly. Even as the spirits soared at her sides and carried her forward, she couldn't help but feel this empty spot pang at her heart. Her wings, which were steady in a glide, now beat up and down, up and down, allowing her to gather speed. The forests were a blur far beneath her, yet the stars . . . they remained steady, still. It was a fascinating contrast. She knew there were probably living things crawling about within the trees and patches of land that occasionally and briefly interrupted the sea of green. Many most likely had mates and even small families of their own.

The mood changed too quickly for Lumen's liking.

Silence, along with the ambient whistling of winds underneath her wings and at her sides, reigned once more. Though peaceful, the loneliness was like a weight attached to her tail, like her mind was trudging through mud. It was detaching; it sent her soul adrift from her body in a way not at all good, yet not quite horrible, either. Thoughts. Hopes, Wonders. A feeling that could never be explained through words. She remained like this for a long time, with the grand pearl of the skies drifting across calmly, sluggishly, towards it's destination on the next horizon
All the while, she would dip back into her senses and check around. She took in the sights, the scents, and the sounds warily. Even if no human could keep pace with her own speed in the air, and even if a human could never have the aim or the patience to injure her at the altitude she flew, she was still, still careful. Natural instinct? A burden of sensitivity from a wretched past? She thought, knew, in fact, that it was both. She took in air through her nose and released it in a note of her downtrodden mood.

. . . Wait.

Lumen blinked. She took in air through her nose again, pulling up and slowing herself until she was simply hovering, wings beating strong to keep her in the air.
There was something else that she caught.
It wasn't . . . natural. As in, it wasn't something you could capture from normal surroundings. This was a scent that stood out. There was a slight breeze as she hovered still, and it carried a scent that confused her mind, her instincts, and her heart.
It was a brisk smell. It was an alluring smell. It was a draconian smell. She had captured scents like this before, long, long ago, when her kind was still in the reaches of the world. It was a scent that made her body tingle with instinctual excitement. But as her body shivered, her mind attempted to repress it. This can't be true, a voice whispered in a disbelieving uncertainty, the winds are deceiving you, Lumen, this cannot possibly be the scent of another living dragon. Her senses rose, and screamed at her to follow it, for it was fading with the shift of the breeze, but her mind was scolding her for believing such natural trickery.

Her hope, though, was what leaped into the fray and won.

Her hopes risen only half-heartedly, in case this truly was a form of derision by the earth, caused her to snap back to attention with her senses. She huffed, her wings doing a beat forward to move, turning from one side to the other in shifting paths as she sought out the very faint trail of the mysterious smell. Even if it was nothing, her curiosity was now pressing for her to find out, and to rest this curious case. She needed to find and confirm to have her thoughts be put to rest.

[Soulserenity20]

Obscura had taken on his human form and currently wove through a South American city. Its streets were filled with people; noisy, obnoxious, ill-manned people. Humanity was not something he had ever truly come to terms with for he simply could not understand their society's functioning; how could a race so insignificant spread their seeds across the world and into every nook and corner flourish in their own filth. Humans were no longer the noble creatures of the past. Dragons once made a pact with the ancient ancestors of man; man would allow the drakes to take on their form only if they offered protection and to honor a treaty of peace. Back then, man feared the great dragons and so sought out refuge in agreements of peace. But that was then.

Since the time of the dragons man had forgotten the fear of the drakes, they ahd forgotten the respect, and so the human form of a dragon became a means of blending instead of standing out as their kings. Obscura's human form was a generous one; handsome, muscular, strong, and yet he found no appeal in it. He only ever took on this atrocious form when he needed to infiltrate the massive cities of man. Throughout his life he saw how the species had grown in numbers and in intelligence. He was not so proud that he would assume their vast numbers alone would be enough to destroy him should they so choose. And the fear that dwelled in man's heart of the drakes was not a respectful fear, but a destructive one; the modern may no longer sought out a peaceful existance with things unknown but rather pursued the destruction of anything that could return the favor.

A man carrying a stack of porcelain jars filled with spices and grains nearly plowed Obscura over. "Argh, these damn cramped roadways!" he would curse after leaping out of the way only to bump into a mother and child causing the child to break out in a shrill cry. "I can't take this anymore." His stress levels seemed to hover at a pitch fever whenever he entered into the cities of man. A cramped street with noise and smells of the worst kind surrounding his senses was hardly the place for a great dragon. He had been searching this city for nearly 3 hours already and his senses offered no tell of another of his kind. In his human form his physical senses were lowered to suit the human figure he adorned, but he still had his sixth sense; the one that told him when one of his own kind was near.

It was time to leave and search elsewhere. Perhaps the great jungles to the south; the rainforests of america were one of the few places left that a dragon could live unseen by man, but as the filthy species hacked away at the body of the great woods this precious refuge would only fade away with time. Man was destruction.

It took nearly 45 minutes to make his way back out of the city by foot and find a safe place in the hills where he could shed the wretched skin of his human form and return to the glory that was his own true form. He stretched out his wings and took in the fresh air that rolled off the grassy hills. He could taste the smog floating off the city in the distance, it sickened him to no end but he had accepted this tyrany of man and simply took refuge in the memory of his home in the north, untouched by man, protected by the freeze. As he took in the scents with his newly revived senses an eerie, powerful surge of excitement coursed through his body. There was something out of place in the scent of the air. Something he had not smelled in ages. At first he couldn't quite place what this odd smell was, but then, after a few moments of disbelief he knew.

His entire body surged with lust and desire while his mind struggled not to break down at the idea of this scent being no more than a phantom of his memories. He opened his mouth a little to draw the scent into the gland at the top of his mouth in the same way that the felines did. He could taste it and he knew. He knew this scent, though in a way it was unfamiliar to him. The scent of nobility and power, the scent of ancient glory and beauty, the scent of his dreams and his memories clashing in a powerful aroma of ecstasy: this was the scent of a dragon.

Obscura lifted his great mass to the skies, forgetting and not caring to shield himself from the view of the city below; the formation of yet another legend was of no comparison to the emotions that flowed through him. He jetted up, higher and higher into the clouds, above the clouds, where the air was pristine and untainted by man. Tears welled up from his eyes as emotion took hold of him. He looked in every direction, inhaling this precious scent, struggling to pinpoint its provider in the heavy winds of the upper atmosphere. Where was this dragon?

He took off at a speed so rarely seen in his person, his wings lit up the darkening sky in a dazzling display of what would appear to be the aurora borealis. No doubt there would be stories on the humans' "news papers" about the colorful display but he did not care for the events of their insignificant lives. He did not care about anything at this point, only finding the other. All about the sky he soared and circled, following the scent as it was whisked about in the swirling drafts of the wind currents. It was getting closer but still, he could not see the source. Doubt plagued his heart; this would not be the first time his memories brought about a phantom sense. This time seemed different though, it seemed real. It seemed perfect.