Dragon Wars: Land Of Myth Chapter Fourteen Part Six
March 25th, 2011 | Published in Dragon Wars | 8 Comments
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Chapter Fourteen
Part Six
Mela wasn’t sure which surprised her more: how awake she felt, the number of people staring at her, or the fact that there was a semi-conscious dragon slumped in Sarah Tyler’s arms.
“Yeah, I’ll explain that in a minute,” Lucas said, “But we need to get your screen back up before you pass out again.” He sat on the edge of her bed and touched the tip of his fingers to her forehead. “You do it like this.” An image of threads emerging from the centre of her being and weaving into a net around her dropped into her mind. “It’s symbolic, of course, but do you understand?”
“I-I think so.” Mela cast one more curious glance at where Halia was slumped. Sarah Tyler’s expression was a mixture of confusion and concern. Mela frowned but turned her attention to trying to put up a screen.
“Good girl,” Lucas said. “That’s very good-” He broke off as a voice sounded in Mela’s mind.
Please don’t. I need your help. The voice was faint and weak. It was also the one from her dreams.
The stunned expression on Lucas’ face and the startled squeak from Halia suggested the others could hear it as well.
“Who are you?” Lucas asked. “And why should she help you? Not that she can; all she can do is eat and sleep.”
I can’t tell you. It might hear… and I’m sorry. I didn’t realise that would happen. The range must be too extreme. I guess I need her right here to do it.
“And why should we trust you when you won’t tell us who you are?” Matthias said.
“You’re the one who summoned us,” Karen said simultaneously. “I recognise your voice.”
Yes. There was a long pause. And you’re right, you shouldn’t trust me. But I really can’t explain. But ask the dragon – she knows what I am – or the wind warrior, she’s the one who accidentally woke me up. That’s why it tried to kill her. But be careful where you talk about it. It paused again. You’d better put your screen, Mela. I don’t want to influence you against your will, and I seem to be doing that.
Mela hesitated and then did as it said. Afterwards she slumped down on to her pillows. “I’m tired and hungry again!” she complained. “And what was that?”
“You’ll feel better soon now,” Lucas said. “And I don’t know but it was influencing you and your shield blocks it.”
“Apparently Halia knows, though.” She looked down at the dragon who was clinging to her. “This girl really is a healer.”
“I told you that,” Matthias said. “It ought to be impossible, but-”
“But she is and that’s uncomfortable. Yes,” Sarah interrupted. “But you’ve got to stop abusing her like this. She’s been cannibalising her own body to prop up her essence.”
“She’s been what?”
“She means that you don’t feed me enough,” Halia said bitterly. “I know you don’t mean to starve me, but you would have realised if you bothered to look. I’ve tried to tell you, but who listens to a dragon when they say they need to eat?” Her tone softened slightly. “I don’t mind helping, but I’d rather not have to damage myself to do it.”
Matthias frowned at her, obviously trying to see what Sarah was talking about. After a moment his eyes widened. “What the hell have you been doing to yourself? How have you- I would have looked if I’d known that was possible. Are you crazy? You could have killed yourself!”
“No,” she said softly. “That wouldn’t kill me. It might inconvenience me for a few years if I pushed it too far, but it wouldn’t kill me. My essence is more important than my body, I can always make a new body. Doing the opposite is far more dangerous. You should be careful of that – you’re far more like us than you realise.”
“What?” Matthias shook his head. “I think that we’re overdue a long talk. But more importantly, what was that thing? It said you knew it? And Sonia…”
“I don’t think your wife remembers it and I know of it, but we shouldn’t discuss this here. The Core might be listening-” She broke off as Sarah Tyler swayed slightly. “Oh, did I take too much? I’ll give some ba-”
“You’ll do no such thing, you silly girl,” Sarah snapped. “I’ll be okay.” She looked up at Matthias. “She needs more, Matt, but I’m at my limit.”
“I’ll deal with it later,” he said. “I never thought I’d ever see you willingly feed a dragon.”
“I never thought I’d meet one who deserved it,” she replied. “How did you capture her?”
“I got careless,” Halia said.
“She was spying on Elapyron City when I sensed her. She got a bit too close and I grabbed her.” He sighed again. “We’re going to have to risk holding part of the conference on Earth, aren’t we. We need to know what Halia knows, but we need to be somewhere out of the Core’s reach. Let’s get everyone together.”
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Hell, with everyone wanting to comfort Mela and the others, id like to do the same for Halia… poor thing just trying to help, even though captured and bound…:(
Yeah, Halia’s not in a good situation. :/ But at least her captors are beginning to get an inkling of that.
Hi Target nice seeing you here, to
🙂
erm, I meant: too
Indeed poor Halia *comforts her*
I hope she will get enough food to get going again…
…and that really sounds bad…
mjkj
We’ll be back to Halia soon. 🙂
Glad you’re still enjoying it.
Caught up to present.
I just realized what’s been bothering me about this story. Lack Of Reaction. I mean, R, K, and D were fighting against the Dark Warrior in the beginning, right? before they knew he was their brother Dan. And Dan has been in the same scene with one or several of them already, and no one has commented about it or asked him what went on? If they did, I missed it.
Also, there was a fair bit of animosity between the children and Matthias, but once they found him here at E_____ (wherever they are right now – I don’t have the place names down yet) they just seemed to accept his presence? And have none of them seen their mother to notice how much healthier she looks since, like, ever?
I dunno. The way everything is taken as Matter-Of-Fact feels abnormal to me. There was more of a deal made about the stars being so different than the fact that suddenly all four siblings were tied, heart and soul, to a mythical beast.
Thank you! Feedback on what isn’t working is very helpful. 🙂
There are reasons for most of the things you’ve mentioned and I need to work on them during the rewrite.
The most important reason for this – and one I intend to hopefully make clearer on the rewrite – is that Astrals in general tend to be more emotionally controlled and less volatile than normal humans. They have to be because losing control of your emotions can lead to losing control of your powers (and that would be bad). There are other reasons but I need to deal with them more as well.
There was less fuss about the kids being tied to their heartfriends because they always had been tied to their heart friends, they just (except Karen) hadn’t met them yet. But they knew them from their dreams and it feels normal to them. But the rest of the oddities about Talonyka just don’t feel same, so they weird Lydia out. Plus Karen knows a lot about what’s going on and
You have to remember that they only had two encounters with the Dark Rider before they found out he was Daniel. And they found out via communication from The Waldhafen Council, who have a positive opinion of him from his helpfulness. And when Andrew meets Jayden Emms for the first time it’s clear from his thoughts that he knows about Jayden torturing Daniel, so a lot of the information has passed between them off screen. (Much of it had already been dealt with in other scenes and I dislike stories that keep repeating stuff personally).
As to the Dragon Lord being Matthias. The kids (except Daniel) had learned little of him before they found out who he was. By the time they found out it was becoming obvious he wasn’t the enemy. Andrew’s having some problems with the situation because he always believed their father’s mad stories, but having met Jayden Emms he’s more focused on dealing with someone he can sense is a menace. Lydia is mostly relieved that her father isn’t really a nutty conspiracy theorist. Karen had more information in the first place and at least an inkling of what was going on. Daniel is still not sure he can trust his father – he has the least reason to, after all, but he’s also willing to try.
One of the things I’m planning to do on the rewrite is add a prologue/prequel bonus story set a few days before the main story starts that will show that the family has always been a close one and give a taste of the weirdness that seems to seek them out. Indeed there’s going to be a series of bonus stories from their childhood when I have time to write them.
Thanks again for the useful comments. 🙂