Published July 15, 2022
Emerald was silent as she and Zoltar walked back into the cave. Somehow the light of the glow worms and various flowers seemed to have grown dimmer since the morning. Zoltar didn’t take much notice though. His heart and mind were racing in anticipation. Was he finally going to get some answers?
He followed Emerald eagerly as she padded over to the river. She came to a stop near the bank and sat down, curling her tail in close to her chest as Zoltar joined her.
They sat in silence for a few long moments as Emerald seemed to gather herself.
Finally, she heaved a sigh and whispered, “I guess there’s no easy way to go about this…hu?”
Zoltar didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to risk losing out on the chance for some answers.
Emerald let out a nervous snort, scratching a talon along her shoulder as she began, “We’ve always feared the Death Grippers. They have always…hunted…our kind.”
She paused, as if waiting for his reaction. Zoltar stared blankly at her. That was it? This wasn’t really a surprise. Those wretched creatures had tried to make a meal out of him the last time he’d travelled through the maze. They’d do the same to any dragon, Wisp Talon or not.
Why were they such a big deal to the Wisp Talons? It wasn’t like they were special or something?
Besides, the creatures didn’t seem to travel far from the maze. Couldn’t the Wisp Talons just stay in the forest to avoid them?
“They aren’t the same as other predators,” Emerald said quickly, after Zoltar didn’t react, “At least…not for us. You’re probably wondering why they’re so dangerous. Why can’t we just use our camouflage or venom to defend ourselves?”
Zoltar nodded. That was exactly was he was thinking.
Emerald shook her head sadly, “We can’t. Our only hope is the stay hidden in the forest. We must never approach the maze. The mist neutralizes our scales the moment we touch it, turning them a dark grey. As long as we are in contact with it, we are unable to shift our colour.”
Zoltar’s mind buzzed with questions, “But why can’t you use your venom and couldn’t you just move away from the maze? Surely once you’re back in the forest, you’d be able to camouflage again?”
“Ha…I wish it were that easy. They make the vapour. It oozes out of them, cloaking them while at the same time rendering us completely defenceless. Our venom’s no good either. They seem to have a very high tolerance to the toxin. By the time it did any damage, we’d be dead.”
“Oh,” Zoltar murmured, starting to feel bad for his previous thoughts. At least he’d had fire and his barbed tail when he’d faced the creatures. Not that they’d helped him very much. Without Felistia’s intervention, he would have been killed. The Wisp Talons had nothing.
“It must have been hard for you to come to the cave yesterday…” He said slowly, “being that it’s so close to the maze.”
Emerald nodded, trailing her talons through the river as she sighed, “If Jasper knew what I’d done, he’d kill me.”
She smiled slightly, “No need to tell him though. It’s not like it matters all that much anymore, seeing as you’re staying here now.”
‘So that’s why she wanted me to stay on the mountain,’ Zoltar realized. He flashed back to the previous day. Emerald’s scales had been a drab grey when she’d entered the cave. He remembered vividly how they’d exploded violet as soon as they’d left the beach. She must have been in contact with the mist. She’d known what would happen. Why had she risked so much to see him?
Were things that bad on the island that she’d risk her scales just to talk to an outsider?
“Emerald?” Zoltar asked softly, “Why are you doing this?”
Emerald glanced up quickly as if startled by the question, “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean,” Zoltar continued, running a talon along his tail nervously, “I refuse to believe that this is just for a friendly conversation. This is dangerous. The only reason you’d be willing to do this was if there was something forcing you to do it.”
Emerald dropped her gaze, her eyes darting from him to the floor as she got to her paws, “I don’t think I should-“
Zoltar cut her off, “There’s something you’re not telling me. Something else is going on here, isn’t it? Something that explains why your tribe is sacrificing dragons to those creatures. What is it, Emerald? I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.”
Zoltar knew he’d struck the right cord when Emerald paused, “That’s what you need, right? My help?”
He was so close, just little more and he’d get the answers he so desperately needed.
Emerald sighed, shaking her head.
“It wasn’t so bad a few years ago,” she whispered, not turning to face him as she spoke, “They stayed in the maze back then. So long as we didn’t get too close to the beach, we were safe, but… it didn’t stay that way. Not after Comet’s death.”
She trailed off, her scales now a rolling cloud of storm greys.
“Comet? The Wisp Talon King? What does he have to do with the Death Grippers? Wasn’t he murdered by a Moon Talon?” Zoltar blurted before he could stop himself.
Emerald shook her head, “No. He was murdered by Ice Talons.”
“Ice Talons,” Zoltar echoed. He’d always known that it couldn’t have been a Moon Talon, but an Ice Talon. What had they had to gain from murdering the Wisp Talon king?
“We found a few of their scales in the area and…well…no other dragon could leave those claw marks,” Emerald said grimly as she anxiously ran a paw over her tail, “It was definitely them.”
“Is that what made you close your borders?”
“Yah. Eclipse ordered it soon after Comets death. He said it was the only way to protect us. He couldn’t have been more wrong.”
Emerald shuddered, wrapping her wings in closer, “When Eclipse banished all outsiders, he hadn’t realized how important they actually were to us. Without dragons living in the caves along the beach anymore, the Death Grippers were free to roam the forest. It was slow at first, enough that we thought they were just once off incidents, but we couldn’t ignore it for long. Every full moon there would be a death. We don’t know how. All Wisp Talons were ordered to stay in the village. No one should have been out and yet…without fail, come morning, someone would be missing or found dead.”
“We knew they must have found the village,” She dropped her gaze as she whispered, “Eclipse proposed that we give them what they wanted…one dragon every full moon. He reasoned that it was better than waiting for them to start picking more of us off.”
She shivered, a rippling of sickly white rippling over her scales, “I know it’s awful, but we had to do it. We had no choice. If we hadn’t…they would have gotten bolder. They’d have…”
She trailed off, unable to keep going.
There was a long silence between them, only the gurgle of the nearby stream disturbing the quiet.
“So… you started sacrificing outsiders, any dragons who trespassed on your island, to keep the Death Grippers at bay?” Zoltar murmured.
“Yes,” Emerald whispered, hanging her head as she refused to make eye contact with him, “I know that it’s terrible, that it’s wrong and that there’s nothing I can do or say to make it right, but you have to believe me when I say that we had no choice.”
“Do you really believe that?” Zoltar asked quietly.
“What?”
“Do you really believe that your tribe did all they could before resorting to slaughtering innocent dragons to protect themselves?” His voice had a steely note to it now.
“Come on. That’s not fair. What were we to do?”
“You could have contacted dragons on the mainland, told them about your predicament. You could have opening up trade to the other tribes and only excluded the Ice Talons. It’s not like you had to get rid of everybody,” Zoltar hissed, a strange anger burning inside him.
“I could say the same thing for you and your other outcast friends. No one invited you onto the island. You know that it’s dangerous and that we don’t want you here. It’s not like you have to stay. You’re not being forced to live here,” Emerald growled, getting to her paws.
Her scales blazed a crimson red as she hissed over her shoulder, “You know, I didn’t have to share all that with you. You asked. I’m sorry it’s not what you wanted to hear, but it’s the truth and we both have to live with it. It’s painful enough without you ripping me up about it.”
With that, she turned and stormed out of the cave. A single crushed flower marked where she’d been before, it’s light dying with the fading of her paw steps.
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139,297 Literary Works • 672,524 Reviews
Hi felistia!
First Impressions
Uh oh, looks like gathering information isn’t going to be as easy as Zoltar thought, now that he’s angered his tentative ally. I wonder why Zoltar seemed to be blaming the whole tribe when it seemed in the previous chapter that this Eclipse dragon was the one calling the shots and that Zoltar knew that? That part was a bit confusing to me at first. I liked the point about how the Death Grippers have this almost perfect counter to the Wisp Talons’ natural defenses – I thought that made a lot of sense. Emerald’s story was also quite gripping to read.
Plot
Something I like about how you develop the plot in this scene is how it’s ‘dramatised’ in the dialogue. I didn’t feel like I was reading exposition, even though a lot of information was conveyed, because the scene is very emotionally charged. There is the lingering sense of dread and ominousness about what Emerald has seen from the previous chapter and also Zoltar’s motivation to find out more.
On a second read, I noticed that Emerald says “we” here, so it looks like the tribe agreed to Eclipse’s proposal sometime before he started taking over. It’s kind of interesting to see a theme in this part of the story of fear making societies do crazy things. Now that the tribe as a whole seems more responsible for what’s been happening, I wonder how that will affect Zoltar’s previous conviction to help them.
Worldbuilding
So this is more of a question section, because I’ve only read a few chapters of the story and may not know the whole set up of the world. This chapter did get me more curious about the biological aspect of these dragons, though.
From the start of this book, it seems that each tribe is kind of settled in a location that matches the powers they have. Like the Wisp Talons are in an area where they can camouflage easily under typical conditions, while the Shadow Talons have fire-breathing and used to live around a volcano. If the Death Grippers are so deadly, how were the Wisp Talons able to thrive on the island in the first place? Or were the Death Grippers a recent arrival? And if so, are they ‘like’ the dragons or are they considered as far as the dragons know to be non-sentient?
Characters
I think something that’s interesting about the character development here is that it shows Zoltar’s trait of caring about ‘the right thing’ also seems to have negative consequences for him.
The phrase “strange anger” implies he’s not really saying all this quite in his right mind. My impression was his emotions had taken control in reaction to his sense of right-and-wrong, and that cost him the alliance that he’s been building up with Emerald.
I also thought the way Emerald delivered the story and reacted to Zoltar’s response was believable. The part where she retaliated against Zoltar at the end showed a side of her I had not expected! But it does make sense because people tend to say things that are ‘out of character’ when angered.
Overall
I thought this was a pretty intense chapter. I feel worried for both Zoltar and Emerald, since now Emerald might not have someone willing to help her tribe, and now Zoltar is stranded in unfamiliar territory. There’s this lingering sense of ominousness – I wonder if further danger will cause them both to unite again to survive it, or if they really are going their separate ways from now.
Hope some of this helps and feel free to ask for more feedback!
-Lim
Hi felistia,
Mailice back with a short review!
Let´s continue where we left off!
I like how Zoltar behaves very superficially here, not asking about Emerald's feelings but continuing to have an ulterior motive in mind. It shows his defensive attitude towards her, which is an interesting contrast to Felistia and Shiraku, where he at least invented a white lie to keep himself safe.
You can see that particularly well again here, how partially obsessed he is.
Here I'm suddenly a bit overwhelmed, I think you could try to describe this a bit more extensively to bring the reader up to date with the latest knowledge, otherwise it can seem confusing, especially later on.
I found the "Yah" a bit inappropriate, especially because Emerald does not find it easy to talk about herself and what happened. An "Indeed" or "Yes" would definitely fit better here.
In retrospect, one is always wiser, and I find it interesting that Zoltar shows this here now. I think he is also reflecting on himself here, and thinking what should have been done differently.
Have fun writing!
Mailice