Long ago, her Mator had whispered, beginning in the way her stories always did, there were two ancient beings. One brought light, shining and golden, and it was his to behold. The other brought darkness, silent and empty, the absence of all things good.
With a shiver, Coquina yanked her eyes from the sky and continued the journey, letting the echo of her Mator’s voice fill her mind. Even in the gloom of the forest, the thought of her Mator brought her peace, and she clung to it. Even if her Mator did speak of evil.
Each of them created their own holder of their power. The being of light created the first sun, the Prisol, and let it bless all of Crysaliar with light in his day. The being of dark created the moon, letting the earth fall to shadows in her night.
In a gap in the trees, the moon gleamed above. Coquina glared up at it, hateful of its silver glow.
For a time, the two beings and the followers they created lived at peace. But the being of light was always more loved. All creatures rejoiced beneath his sun, but hid away when the moon rose, and the being of darkness ruled. She became jealous. She wanted to be loved in the same way.
Branches raked across the surface of Coquina’s scales. She ducked her head lower. It was true even now. So rarely did dragons stay out after the Prisol had set, returning to the safety of the mountain caves before dark came.
So, in an effort to make the world love her as it did the other, she stole a fraction of the pure light and gifted it to her moon, and spread it to form stars, so that even the night held a light of its own.
But the light was weak and pale, a mere shadow of the other being’s light. Instead of the pure gold of the sun’s light, her light was white, pale and tainted. She is the being we call Selen, and that stolen light is what the others think you hold in your scales, Coquina.
Coquina gave her flicking tail, glowing white even in the night’s darkness, a fleeting glance. Stolen light. Too pale to be pure and good.
She had asked her Mator where demons came into it, and so the story had worsened. When the pale light shone on Selen and her creations, it had transformed them into hideous demons. She should have stayed in the dark, but she hadn’t. She’d taken what was not her right, and for that she condemned herself to evil.
With a sigh, Coquina shook out her scales and forced herself to move faster. She wasn’t a demon. She was a dragon, and the white scales were as Tidi said often: a mere twist of genetics. An oddity she couldn’t control, and it didn’t help to dwell on it.
The red dragon crawled from the back of her mind, tapping at her consciousness, as if to remind her of his existence. She growled to herself. Perhaps she’d just listened to her Mator’s stories too often, and now she was going crazy.
A sudden sensation made her freeze. A tingle in her spines, not unlike the one she’d first felt when she’d stepped into this forest. All other thoughts leaving her, she focused on that sensation, and followed its trail.
This had to be another clan border. She walked the rift between Conupium and Viridium. And that meant that any second now--
A wing beat. Coquina jerked her head up. The slightest movement of air caught her attention, and she narrowed her eyes, hoping the moonlight would catch onto scales. But through the leafy covering, she could see nothing but strips of the night’s black between branches.
Another series of flaps sounded, and then the tree creaked above her. The guard had landed.
Barely daring to breathe, Coquina crept from under the larger tree and ducked under the denser cover around it, pressing her wings to make her as small as possible. Squinting through the cracks in the canopy, she searched for something unusual, but in the darkness everything was a mass of darkened green and brown.
A leaf twitched, caught by a sudden breeze. Or perhaps not a leaf at all. Latching her gaze onto it, Coquina spotted glints of moonlight reflected, edging out a triangular shape just a touch brighter than the green of the leaves around it. It twitched again, flicking upwards, and she was able to trace out the rest of the shape.
A long, curled tail. Short, curving spines running up a scaled back. Darker horns that curved back on themselves, highlighting the top of a snouted head.
A Teffré. From the triangular scale at the tail’s tip, to the amber eyes illuminated like miniature suns that Coquina now made out, he was a Teffré. Or she; it was difficult to make out at this distance.
Her first ever real-life sighting of a Teffré. A giddy excitement thumped in Coquina’s heart. By the way his amber gaze stared off into the darker western sky, back to the rising moon, he was a Conupium guard. A dragon not from Hiedium, as every other she’d met was. A different clan, and a different subspecies entirely.
Her first ever encounter with an outsider, and yet she’d have to kill him. The joy rearing inside faded instantly, severed by that one thought. Cold dread rose to replace it, like blood pouring from her wounded happiness to drown all sense of determination.
Coquina’s claws slid into the earth, letting mud envelope them. Her wings suddenly felt weighted down, as if Latriis were pinning down each one, hissing icy threats in her ears.
It would be so easy. How in Selen’s cursed light had it become so easy? The guard was sitting there, almost motionless, focused only on the sky before them. He didn’t expect a threat to come from behind. She could just sneak around and pounce, lashing out with her tailspikes, and he’d be dead within seconds.
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t even move.
No. Tidi’s voice, snapping at her complaints. The tone she’d taken on her first day of Proeliar training, when Coquina had been too scared to go. No, you can move. You’re stronger than this. Remember what you’re doing this for?
Yes, Coquina whispered to her friend. Yes I do.
She gave the dappled crescent of the moon a glance. An eye, squinting down at her, mocking her weakness. Selen triumphed at her white-scaled demon’s weakness. The longer Coquina let her heart hold her down and stop her from serving her clan, the more she earned the hatred of the dragons back home.
Selen’s light was weak and pale. A mere shadow of the sun’s light, and that of true dragons.
Coquina was not weak and pale. She was a dragon, and she was strong enough to do this.
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