I waited.

‘Days past’ or far more comfortably for me, the sun rise came and went, as did the moon rise, coming multiple times before I was aloud to enter again.

Before I entered the lady sat outside with me, she slid down her house, pressing herself against it, and sat down.

She was sweating, fatigued, and looked as if she hadn’t slept for days.

‘Dragon, I’ll fulfill my deal, just don’t get too mad when you see Aegle, since I'm telling you these stories.'

I felt a little confused about that but it can't be that bad, right?

***********************************************

(Here we go, world explanation time!)

Dragon, let’s start at the beginning, with the beginning of a peacefully conjoined continent of the God Chaos.

They say, many many millennium ago, when there was just the God of Chaos, he had one big continent, which served as the world.

This continent, had all the good, bad, and horrendous things of man.

They say the God of Chaos took the bad of man and the good of man, and split them, putting the good on this continent and naming it after himself, and putting the bad on the other.

Serpens. The land of evil. The isolated faults of this world, and all those who venture there, are consumed by the evil, and become the evil.

She smiled slightly, weary.

Dragon, what is your name?

Dezenym.

What a strange name. Whatever. Let us continue.

When the good and evil split, the God of Chaos too split, creating humans, archmages, dwarves, elves, giants, fairies, and of course, the embodiment of evil, which few have knowledge of.

Oh, and of course I can’t forget about the God of Order, who was born from the split.

Now, the God of Chaos still resides peacefully somewhere in a pit of darkness, so we shall continue with the God of Order.

This God decided the races had to be uniform, United, and in peace. So, he separated us,

elves in the jungle, made to utilize trees and nature,

humans in the plains, made to use our minds and population.

Dwarves made to live in caves, forever building, smithing, and creating.

Giants made to roam the mountains above the dwarves, so close, yet so far.

The fairies made not to roam anywhere, being sacred in the God of Orders mind, he made it a grave insult to him to kill a fairy, or even disturb them.

He also taught of lifeforce- the life of all beings.

Life force is about what you’d think it is, it’s life. That’s why I asked you to share some as per the deal.

If a person uses life force, without the ability to gather or store life force, they will being using there own lifespans, that’s why ‘magicians’ as we call them, are so special and rare.

This world is life force, and everyone in it is too, just another example of the split.

But, as the God of Order saw fairies as sacred, the God of Chaos saw dragons as mighty, and above all.

But being the creator of all, the ultimate being, using his last moments before returning to the void to slumber, he gave the dragons a blessing.

The blessing of life. Putting them in the magnificent bodies you have now to hold your magnificent souls.

And because of this blessing of life, dragons are semi immortal, only dying when vulnerable, or when their bodies gives up. Their souls themselves cannot deteriorate, making them appear in lesser species every so often also.

when a dragon dies they let out their life force, which is essentially infinite. They explode in a supernova and return and replenish the used life force of this world.

The dragons are sacred, and a key factor in the life of everything. That’s why hunting one will bring you great riches, but even greater enemies.

Oh, I completely forgot, what’s the girls name?

Aegle.

Hmm. Almost feels like a foreshadowing of her future, good thing I found her, I maybe be rewarded in the future! She chuckled, a little more lively.

What’s yours.

Hmm, Dezenym, do you really need to know?

Yes.

Fine, child. It’s Julia. Normal right?

Yes.

You annoy me dragon.

(Yay, end of world explanation (for now.))

*************************************************

Julia sat for a while, unmoving, you could still hear her burdened breaths

I pondered on what Julia had said.

Semi immortal? Is that why she wanted me to share life force with her?

I continued smacking myself with questions, until, my eyes wandered.

They locked on the door. If Julia was in that condition, what condition was Aegle in?

I got up, walking up to the door and looking at the knob, I jumped up, flapping my wings ferociously, and floated. I down at the dust being scattered below me, my wings flapping hard even when I didn’t think about it.

I opened my mouth and clamped on the knob, still in the air, and twisted.

The door popped open surprisingly, but the knob was a little dented.

I returned to the ground, discontent. The air was much more comfortable than the ground, but it was messy to stay up.

I walked in, to find the room dark, in shambles with empty, cracked jars sprayed across the floor, coating it in glass. The bedsheets sprayed in blood, and some sort of thing in a bloody wrapping on the old place for the tools.

The sight was horrendous. Truly. Anyone who entered was hit with a strong smell of blood, a putrid feeling, and disgusted eyes.

I wanted to leave. Run. But Aegle was in there. And I had to see her.

I ventured further into the small shack, stepping through piles of shattered glass, herbs beside them.

Palpable blood red mist, emanating from the blooded cloth wrapped item.

I walked far enough in to be next to the tool cart. I turned and went around it, ended up at the foot of Aegles bed, I could hear her pained moaning, almost the wailing of the damned.

Her breathing was pained, and she screamed every time she twitched.

I jumped on the blood soiled bed, which caused another pained scream.

My heart hurts.

Why is Aegle this way.

If only I could solve it.

How?

I sat next to her, with my eyes closed. i tried to will life itself to Aegle, as I had when I spat fire, just a warmer, kinder feeling.

The feeling of blockage passed to my nose, and sat. I opened my eyes and tapped Aegle, making the warm fire disperse and seep into her.

I opened my eyes and her pain was subdued. No screaming, no pained shivering, no blood leaking.

I looked at her closer, ignoring the gruesome scenes around her, and saw her arm, or lack of of one. Her right arm. Gone, all way down to the shoulder.

I walked out, not knowing weather to be furious or sad, her arm was gone, all because I wouldn’t follow my instincts and destroy that creature.

Where did that creature come from? Serpens?

I walked past the sleeping Julia, and I woke her, and asked her,

‘How do I get to Serpens?’

She replied simply, as she always does,

‘You’ll need to know our continents language first.’