The biting wind dug into the drakes’ scales. From the shelter of the cave, the outer world had seemed a perfect place, with warmth and light in abundance. Reality however, struck like a harsh blow through the chill mountain wind. Shivering, Israkur and his sister took a moment to plan out their next move.

“I say we go down the mountains into those forests. There must be food there and the trees will protect us from this wind.” the black suggested.

Seeing no fault in getting out of the wind, and also feeling hungry, Israkur readily agreed, taking the lead on the way down. Slowly but surely they made their way out into the open air. Their family’s cave had been in a valley’s end. Massive mountains stretched out in all directions, sloping down to form a forested trough.

The mountain slope was carpeted with gently swaying grasses and small flowers. Insects buzzed around them and soon, the two were frolicking among the knee-high plants. They would each take turns lowering themselves as much as possible and stalking the other. Then they would leap forth and triumphantly pin the other to the ground. Israkur let his sister win occasionally, of course, but he felt justified by the glee on her face. Living in the cave with the others, she had closed herself off. Only now that she was free did she regain the joyful confidence all beings held in their youth.

After playing a few more rounds of hunter, Israkur felt his stomach rumbling. Looking back to his sister he said,” Come on! Let’s get down to the forest! I’m hungry and we can’t just call you black for the rest of your life now can we?”

Excited at the prospect of getting her own name, his sister nodded and joined him, moving steadily forward. Unfortunately, living in a cave had given the two drakes a flawed sense of time and an underdeveloped depth perception. When they looked forward, the forest seemed to loom ahead, trees rising just about twice their height. Of course, the trees were much, much larger and consequently, much, much farther away than they expected. One hour turned into two, two hours turned into four, and four finally turned into six as they finally arrived at the edge of the evergreens.

The trees loomed up above them, ominous and imposing. Nearly ten times as tall as the young drakes, they would have towered above even Arina and Arthran themselves. The two stand in awe, craning their necks upward to look for the canopy.

“Are all trees this big…?” Israkur mumbled in a shocked voice.

“I don’t think so,” his sister replied. “From what I remember,” she continued,” I think these are mana woods. All the plants and animals here are actually Beasts.” she concluded with awe and a hint of worry.

Magical beasts were not a specific race like humans or dragons. Instead, they were naturally occurring plants and animals that took in the mana of the world around them and as a result grew into far stronger forms. As such, they were vastly diverse and had no minimum or maximum level of power. Their strength could ;however, be measured by the size of their core, a gem of crystallized mana, but that was rather dangerous to do as beasts looked upon measuring cores akin to a physical attack. This was because, in their forests, they constantly fought one another. Devouring the defeated beast’s core, they could greatly strengthen their own and evolve.

Dragons also had a form of core as their heart of the future. A dragon’s core however, could not either absorb a beast’s or be absorbed. Instead, it siphoned mana out of the dragon’s meals: as a consequence, dragons quite literally became what they eat. A dragon that consumed massive amounts of life mana, would also produce far more life mana and evolve into a forest dragon for example. Taking this in account, dragons had to be careful when eating beasts: if they accidently ate the core of any beast, they could potentially scar their heart, preventing them from evolving. Yet by the same toke, a beast that ate a dragon would be purified by the dragon’s heart into a different type of mana: a process that was not only extremely painful as they were turned into energy one atom at a time, but also guaranteed to be lethal.

Walking into the forest, Israkur was stunned by the change in the air. The wind, which had previously bit into their scales, chilling them to the bone, seemingly disappeared, leaving behind only a soft rustling as the pine needles gently danced above. The firm, grassy, ground was covered by a thick carpet of needles and underbrush, leaving open air and thick tree trunks all the way up to the misty canopy above. The air surrounding them grew musty with hundreds, if not thousands, of new smells vying for their attention. Overwhelmed by the strangeness, the two drakes crept onward, taking care not to draw attention to themselves.

Stopping for a moment, Israkur whispers,” I think we should we scout a little deeper into this forest first. Then we can start hunting for food ”

“Alright.” his sister readily agreed.

The two of them crept onward, slowly growing accustomed to the forest. Walking in a zigzag along the edge of the forest, they periodically dove in deeper, exploring their surrounding while leaving themselves room to bolt if they strayed too close to a large beast. Fortunately, no such encounter happened. Instead, they stumbled upon a large clearing where a herd of deer was peacefully grazing.

Glad at his good fortune, Israkur dashed forward, not hearing his sister’s plea to stay back.

Turning their heads towards him in unison, the deer immediately bolted, dashing through the trees nearly twice as fast as he could move. Dismayed, he quickly stopped only able to watch as they fled out of sight.

“What was that?” his sister called out to him from behind.

“Well I thought that…” Israkur began.

“You thought they’d just lie down or throw themselves into your jaws? Of course the prey runs from us: that’s why we need a plan and teamwork!” she chided him.

“But Father hunted alone…” Israkur replied defensively.

“Yes but he can fly remember? We’re still about a year away from being big enough for that…”

Sighing as his stomach grumbles again, Israkur asked,” Alright then what’s the plan when we find something we can eat again?”

His sister’s eyes sparkled slightly and she quickly laid out her plan.

“Alright, first step is we sneak up to around 10 dragonlengths away from them. Then I go around them to the other side. When I’m ready, I’ll send a thought to you and you run at them. When they see you, they’ll run, but this time I’ll be there! I’ll grapple with one until you arrive and finish it off!” as she spoke she sent metal pictures of the plan to him, showing him exactly what he had to do.

Israkur quickly agreed to the plan and the two of them set off again. They moved slowly through the forest, still unaccustomed to the sounds and scents. Israkur noticed, rather depressingly, that the sun was quickly falling below the horizon. With it’s loss, he could feel the air begin to grow colder. While his sister was on the lookout for food, he searched for a good place to shelter through the night.

Fortunately, as the cold was becoming almost unbearable, he stumbled upon a large opening in the mountainside: a cave! The opening was rough and jagged, not at all like that of his parents’ cave, but he could even smell what seemed to be food inside of it. Turning back for a moment, he spoke to his sister.

“I found a cave! We can take shelter inside for tonight, it smells like there might be some food inside too.”

“O-okay” his sister replied, shivering. Israkur sighed gloomily. He wasn’t in much better condition himself.

Israkur quickly stepped into the cave, sniffing the air thoroughly only to realize that something was terribly wrong: he was not smelling only dead meat, but also a very live predator.

A low rumbling growl sounded out from the beast that had already made this cave it’s dwelling place. Looking up at it, Israkur could tell that it was a variant of a fairly common species of magic beast, the armored cave bear.Unfortunately, it’s variant status gave it greater attunement with a certain element, lowering the chance that it would be edible and, more importantly, nearly doubling its natural strength.

Leaping backwards, he neatly dodged the furious bear’s first swipe. Breathing in, he infused the air with mana and prepared to release it, but was interrupted by the massive bulk of the bear smashing into him, sending him flying away. Luckily the pine needles coating the forest floor absorbed most of the impact from landing, allowing him to quickly turn back and face his foe.

The bear was nearly ten feet tall at the shoulder, twice as large as Israkur himself. In the moonlight, he could see thick plates of rock covering it. The armor clearly indicated its attunement to the earth, causing Israkur quite a few problems.

First, he knew the bear would be hardy. With its plates and sheer size, his claws and fangs would not be able to make a fatal blow or even cripple it enough for them to escape. His scales on the other hand, would not be of much use as the bear’s might would crush bones and batter him about without having to pierce them.

Second the bear would have a massive advantage on the ground. The extent of this advantage depended on the bear’s strength: from at the minimum granting it the ability to know his, and more importantly his sister’s position, at any time to being able to raise spike to impale them or trap them to kill at its leisure.

He also knew he couldn’t escape. The cold had slowed him down and his sister was probably in even worse shape than he was.

Taking all this into account, Israkur made the first move. Sending a rushed mental picture to his sister of her dashing up a tree, he roared at the bear and spread his wings to make himself appear larger.

Snorting at his display, the bear roared its own response and charged at him. Eating up the distance between them at a breathtaking pace, it lept to crash down upon him and batter him to death. Israkur however, was no longer there. Strafing quickly to the side, he let the bear land upon nothing but air and began to charge his breath with mana again.

The bear, unbalanced from the lack of resistance, careened onward and smashed into the side of the tree Israkur had positioned himself in front of. Dazed for a moment, it failed to capitalize on Israkur’s vulnerability.

Having been given enough time to ready himself, Israkur unleashed his breath. Once more taking the form of a single, condensed missile of mana, it lanced out to slam into the bear’s side. Crashing into the armor, it exploded, unleashing the torrent of mana contained within. Once the mana and dust had dissipated, Israkur, who had naturally moved away to a safer distance looked to see the results of his attack. Unfortunately, they were disappointing.

The bear had barely taken any damage. A few plates had been pulverized, leaving its right side exposed, but they were quickly reforming right under Israkur’s eyes. Snorting with laughter, the bear picked itself up and steadily closed in on him.

Israkur, his will to win unabated, backed away even further as he struggled to make another plan. He only had enough energy for two more blasts, perhaps if he timed them right he could…

Suddenly his plan was interrupted by a thought from his sister.

“Iskur, get ready! I’m gonna jump on it’s back to distract it and you get close and kill it with your breath!”

“What? No! Stay up there I got this!” he frantically thought back.

His sister ignored him, and leaping out off a branch, her small form landed square in between the bear’s shoulders. Surprised, by the sudden impact, the bear growled and reached up to rip her off. Nimbly moving out of it’s reach and digging into its plates to hold on, the black fully captured its attention.

Israkur knew this was his only chance. He quickly ran forward while charging his breath. Arriving at the bear’s side, he reared back to release but was immediately interrupted. The seemingly distracted bear had actually been paying very close attention to the only major threat it was facing: Israkur. Feigning to ignore his approach, it had struck a crushing blow with one of its massive paws.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“Iskur! No!” the black shouted, utterly terrified.

Her brother, her only protector, her only friend had just been tossed like a ragdoll. Crashing into a tree, his ribs cracked making a noise loud enough for her to hear even over the rumbling monster beneath her.

His limp body sunk to the ground like a puppet that lost its strings. She clawed and bit furiously at the bear, venting her anger and trying to distract it from the vulnerable Israkur. The bear however was not to be deterred. Swinging her off its back with a single shake, it casually made its way over to her fallen brother.

Moving almost torturously slowly, it taunted the two of them with its overwhelming power. Finally, it reached Israkur. Keeping eye contact with the black, it opened its jaws and slowly moved to crush his head.

Time seemed to freeze for her as its maw neared him. Closer and closer it moved as she heard only one sound, her terrified, horrified heartbeat. She knew she was about to see her brother die. Then she heard one sound, a final word from her brother: wholly unexpected but absolutely reassuring.

“Gotcha!” he smugly sounded as he raised his jaw and released his final blast of mana straight into the bear’s open jaws.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Israkur watched in satisfaction as his blast blew into the back of the bear’s throat. By some instinct, the surprised beast closed its jaws around the mana.

For a second, nothing happened and Israkur stared rather expectantly into the bear’s shocked eyes. Then, the missile exploded. The mana poured out once again, but this time, it was not blocked blocked by the plates and bones of the bear. Instead, these served to contain it, massively increasing the pressure and power acting upon the beast.

Not even a second passed after Israkur felt his mana detonate until the bear’s head exploded launching rocky plates and gore into the air.

The body sunk to its knees and fell over, the heart forcing blood out of the now severed arteries. A few moments of silence passed until eventually even this fell still.

Israkur let out a relieved sigh and winced with pain as his broken ribs shifted with the motion. When the bear had swatted him, he knew for certain that his foe had some intelligence. Hoping that with this virtue also came vices, he had faked the extent of his injuries.

Fortunately enough, the bear had given him just enough time to prepare his final blast and even gone as far as expose its greatest vulnerability. Chuckling slightly at the situation that led to its downfall, he was awoken from his reverie by his sister crashing into him.

“Iskur! Are you okay?” she panicked as she barged into him.

“Oww, my ribs!” Israkur complained as she jolted him.

Eyes opening wide, she quickly backpedalled, putting a distance between the two of them and apologized tearfully.

“I’m so s-sorry, I shouldn’t have…”

Cutting her off, he interrupted,” No, no no. This isn’t your fault sis. It’s that bear’s fault and my own for being careless. Relax, I’m fine.”

Smiling reassuringly, he continued,” Now come on. Let’s both get a bite of this bear and go sleep in the cave. I bet it’s nice and warm in there.”

Unconvinced, the black nonetheless moved to take a bit out of the bear. For his part, Israkur carefully lifted himself up. Wincing inwardly and limping with every step, he joined her eating only small bites of the bear to prevent pain from his bruised bones.

Their hunger sated, the two drakes entered the cave. It was surprisingly shallow, and had probably been only a temporary refuge for the bear as well. Fortunately, a naturally occurring tunnel snaked out from the side and doubled back to form a dead end. Big enough for the two drakes to sleep in and the most sheltered part of the cave, the two quickly chose it as their camp.

The black dragged in some of the pine needles that littered the forest floor, and soon, the two had made themselves comfortable. The black was the first to fall asleep, breathing quietly and regularly beside Israkur.

He however, was too deep in thought to sleep. From his memories and a very primitive mana scan of himself, he could tell that his ribs were, fortunately, only bruised. For a dragon, it would take him about a week to heal completely. In that week however, he wouldn’t be able to hunt and would barely be able to defend the two of them. If any beast came after the bear’s carcass, their only source of food, the two of them would go hungry.

Also worrying was the fact that he had seen no water source. Upon finding the cave, he had hoped it would be deep enough to hold a stream or just condensed water on the walls. Unfortunately, it’s shallowness meant that the two of them would have to go out in search of a creek or stream, exposing them to another danger.

Sighing slightly, and ignoring the resulting pain, he couldn’t help but wonder if it had been a good idea to leave his parents’ cave. The three brutes lived there but the blue sisters were nice and mother and father had been amazing to have around. Maybe we should…

No , he thought to himself. Second guessing himself now would only lead to regret. He knew that there was only one path open to him: forward. He would grow, he would become strong, and he would find a mate and start his own family. He would keep them all safe, especially his little sister.

With his mind more at ease, Israkur let himself slip away into a restful sleep.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The black crow winged it’s way silently over the forest. Blending in perfectly with the night sky, it traveled, unseen, over the verdant forest. Finally, after hours of flight, it arrived at its destination.

A spot of decay, a mole on the fresh face of the forest, stood triumphant below it. Dead trees bare of leaves, bore testament to the horrors that lay below. Circling lower and lower, the raven made it’s way through fetid clouds of noxious gasses and flew into the only structure in the area: a small hut.

Macabre trophies adorned the walls with skulls and vials of dark bubbling fluids being most prevalent. Working at a large table covered in bones, a hunched man was the only resident.

“Master, I have news…” the raven rasped. Strangely enough, it’s beak did not move as it made the sounds yet they were produced nonetheless.

“You’re the imp I sent to watch over the Western King of the forest aren’t you? Well, spit it out. What happened?” the man replied without turning.

“The king is dead master!”

“And? What is it to me if the bear was slain by some beast?” the man let a hint of irritation slip into his voice. The room darkened slightly as shadows seemed to crawl up the raven’s legs.

A hint of panic entered the raven’s voice as it began to explain itself,” Wait, master the bear was n…”

“You dare command me!” The man turned revealing his face. Covered in pitch black runes, it radiated with malignant power. Reacting to his anger, the shadows rose quickly, binding the bird and squeezing the life from it.

“The bear was killed by a black drake!” The raven squacked out in terror.

The man’s anger dissipated in an instant. Turning away from the raven, he let his shadows release their grasp upon it. The fearful raven dashed out the window, desperately seeking to escape its summoner. The warlock however paid it no heed.

Picking up his staff, he stared at the object that adorned it, and whispered malevolently,” looks like I’ll get myself a new pet to match you Ernebar…”

The drake skull did not respond.