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Growing up as orphans had led Zephyr and Flare to depend on each other much more than usual and as such the two shared a close bond between them. Save for their differing elements and the colors of their scales, one would have thought the two brothers were identical. It said a lot about the two of them that when they were finally old enough, both of them immediately volunteered to fight for Warfang. There was one big difference between them though; whereas Flare wanted to be in the front of the fighting, Zephyr had instead volunteered for messenger duty. From the moment that Zephyr had first managed to catch the wind under his wings, he had felt as if the sky was calling him and thus the chance to fly all he wanted, while still helping the city was no choice at all for him.
This was the first time that the two had ever been separated, but neither one of them would let such a thing slow them down, not even when the war began getting worse. Like other squires, they had been kept out of the fighting as much as possible and instead assisted where they could out of combat. At least until the Terror of the Skies made her first appearance and the war began turning for the worse. It was when Flare’s mentor was butchered in battle and Zephyr’s was grabbed straight out of the sky by the Terror of the Skies herself, that the two of them began to understand just how bad the war was getting. From then on it had turned into a desperate scramble to somehow hold back the unstoppable advance that the apes had begun under the monster that was the Terror of the Skies. Drakes that were just now unlocking their element for the first time were all but being press ganged into the war effort as any dragon with even the least bit of experience was pushed onto the front lines.
Thus instead of the camps near Warfang that had been established for training new dragons, Flare and Zephyr had found themselves instead at one on the front lines. Dozens of dragons and almost twice that in moles or even the odd cheetah had made their home here. Dragons of all colors and sizes, most of which were not even full grown, could be seen rushing about the forward camp that had been established. It was the latest in a series of wide spread redoubts and forward bases that had been established, its fortifications were quite formidable thanks to the growing expertise among dragon and mole engineers. Though its defenses had staved off the apes thus far, they had not yet been tested in a real assault and everybody prayed that would remain the case. In charge of all of it was one of the better commanders that the dragons had; a noble by the name of Parilis whose skill in Electricity was said to be only a step down from the legendary Volteer’s. “Zephyr!”
Zephyr and Flare both turned at the sound of the base commander. The times that the twins were even at the same base were far and few between and Zephyr was more than a little sad that it was more than likely being cut short now. “Yes Commander?” Zephyr asked as he broke into a short run, before coming to a halt in front of the Electric dragon.
“With Procella’s death, it falls on you to deliver this to Guardian Ignitus.” Parilis stated as he handed a scroll to the silver dragon. “Do NOT let this fall into the enemy’s claws.” Before recent events, Zephyr would have thought the commander was being unnecessarily serious about it. Procella’s death at the claws of the Terror of Skies herself had put paid to that though however and now Zephyr could only pray that his trip to the Dragon Temple was uneventful.
“I won’t let you down, commander.” The younger dragon promised as he received the scroll and tucked it into the secure messenger’s satchel that he had been given for such an occasion.
“See that you do not.” Parilis responded gruffly as he turned back to the reports laying on the stone table.
Once he was dismissed, Zephyr immediately went back to where Flare was standing. “I have a delivery to make.” He answered the Fire dragon’s unspoken question.
Not many would have been able to see the tightening of Flare’s face as he reigned in his worry. “Stay safe.” Zephyr however knew his brother far too well to be fooled.
“I’ll be back before you know it.” The Wind dragon promised. Good-byes given, Zephyr made his last preparations for the trip; a light meal, refilling the waterskins in his pouches, and ensuring that the harness and the bags strapped to it were all tightened down as much as possible.
It seemed like only half an hour had passed between receiving the scroll and finishing the preparations for his long trip to the site where the scroll was to be delivered. After double checking that he had everything, Zephyr took off and settled in for a long and hopefully boring trip. To be sure, the first few hours of the trip were indeed boring to his fortune, but Zephyr maintained a vigilant watch in all directions regardless. Messengers had a worryingly low survival rate and though he was confident in his ability to escape dread-wings, those were not the only things that he had to worry about. Zephyr could only hope that the Terror of the Skies was too busy at the moment to intercept him herself as he did not fancy his chances in escaping from the evil dragoness.
It was the second half of his trip that Zephyr spotted his first problem; a flock of dread-wings rising up to meet him. There was a reason that Zephyr had been trusted in delivering an important message though. As it turned out that in spite of his young age and lack of experience manipulating his element, Zephyr had a natural agility in the air that was hard to match and could out-fly any non-Wind dragon that he came across. Thus while dangerous, dread-wings were not too big of a threat to him as long as he could see them coming. It did however mean that the enemy knew about him now which likely made the rest of his journey much, much harder than it should have been. While he would likely need to save his strength for the rest of the trip, Zephyr could afford to use minuscule amounts of Wind to increase his speed by a small amount.
Wind was actually a rather tricky element to augment oneself with unlike Electricity and Earth, it was much easier to instead generate a tailwind to increase one’s speed than it was to actually infuse one’s wings with the element. Zephyr chose to augment his wings instead, simply to save on the amount of energy that he was using; a process that took quite a bit of his valuable attention in order to accomplish. The fact that he could even do such a thing at his skill level, while splitting his concentration was something that his mentor had been deeply impressed by, as she had much greater control than he and had only recently managed to do the same thing. With his wings now shimmering in a light coating of Wind, Zephyr found each wing-beat propelling him much further and rapidly opening up the distance between him and the dread-wings that were attempting to catch up to him. It was evident that the chase was on now though as another flock began taking off directly ahead of him and Zephyr knew this was likely to be some rather tricky flying.
Knowing that it was likely to leave him exhausted later on, did not stop Zephyr from pouring more energy into his wings. Moments later the dread-wings had reached him and Zephyr had far more urgent things to be concerned with. Being a Wind dragon had quite a few advantages when it came to out-flying things like dread-wings or non-Wind dragons, but perhaps the biggest one was simply redirecting the wind that was providing him lift over his wings instead of under then. It was one of the first tricks that the messengers learned when it came to escaping and while it was an old trick, old did not necessarily mean bad. In the moment before the dread-wings would have gotten into reach to begin clawing at his scales, Zephyr furled his wings and stalled. The claws that had been aimed at his face hit nothing but air as Zephyr dropped rapidly through the empty space beneath him; all of the wind being redirected. A second dread-wing went into a dive to try and catch him, but Zephyr had already thrown his Wind-infused wings open and dodged it by rolling to the side and then pushing downward as hard as he could.
The force of his augmented wings propelled him an impossibly long distance and Zephyr resumed a more normal wing-beat, though accelerating far more rapidly than he had any right to be able to manage. The dread-wings behind him were nowhere near as agile as he was and within minutes Zephyr had put enough distance between them that he was no longer concerned with them being able to catch him. When the shrieks of dread-wings faded into the distance, he allowed himself to relax just a little and let off on the Wind flowing into his wings. Despite being incredibly conservative with his energy, he had burned through almost a quarter of it just evading the dread-wings. Still if it was only dread-wings that he had to worry about, Zephyr felt like he was going to be fine as it was unlikely the apes had been able to establish too many cannons between him and the Dragon Temple as he was within dragon-held territory now. Which was why the ominous feeling starting to fill the air took him by surprise.
Honed instincts together with an incredible connection to the sky were the only things that saved him as he rolled hard to the side, just narrowly evading the large dark shape that had dove down at him from out of the sun. Zephyr did not need to look behind him to confirm his worst fears as there were very, very few things that could have been and not a single one of them was good. Based on the sheer feeling of… wrongness however, Zephyr had a feeling he knew exactly who had just tried to kill him. Now was not a time to be careful with how much energy he was using. Not if he had any hope at all from escaping the TERROR OF THE SKIES who was now chasing him!
In less than a second Zephyr doubled the amount of Wind flowing into his wings and did not bother stopping there. Three times the amount of Wind flowing into his wings as before and combined with the prohibitively energy intensive tail-wind caused him to shoot forward at breakneck speeds that would have had any non-Wind dragon staring in outright disbelief. If this was all that it took to beat the Terror of the Skies though, they would not have lost nearly as many messengers as they had. Unfortunately there were two small problems that kept him from making a clean escape: The fact that the Terror of the Skies was almost three times his size and thus had a much larger wingspan and the fact that she could use Wind as well. ...Among other elements as Zephyr only barely managed to dodge the tell-tale pink shock-wave that heralded one of the most well-known Fear techniques ever documented; the Siren Scream. “You can’t escape me!” The Terror shouted, but Zephyr had already zoned out the sound of her voice.
The skies played host to one of the most lethal games of tag ever as the Terror of the Skies threw attack after attack his way. Zephyr dodged for his life as he rolled, dove, and twisted out of the way of his pursuer. Despite the fact that his life was on the line, he did not feel a single bit of fear. The realization that one false move could mean his death did not cause him to panic as he came to one single realization.
He was in his element.
Zephyr felt more connected to Wind than ever before and as he evaded the Terror of the Skies time and time again, he became lost in something larger than life. It was as if he had been swallowed up by the sky itself with his every movement an extension of the Wind that roared across the world. It was no longer about him escaping from the single most deadly dragon since the Dark Master himself. No, the Wind guided his movements now and his every action seemed to become more and more efficient, as if he was a part of something greater. It was as if a whisper on the wind warned him of the glob of acid that shot through the air behind him, the orbs of Fear that seemed to home in on him, or the shadowy flames that licked at his scales. The cyclone thrown at him came apart with the slightest bit of will and little by little, the distance between them began to grow. The last leg of the long flight seemed to become a blur as Zephyr immersed himself in the very essence of Wind.
~
When the news circulated that Zephyr had actually managed the delivery despite the fact that the Terror of the Skies had been spotted in the area, it had caused rumors to circulate. All of a sudden everyone wanted to challenge him in races or tests of agility and to the surprise of everyone, the young dragon could out-fly all but the oldest and most skilled wind dragons. By the time the war had ended a surprisingly persistent rumor had popped up that he had even managed to out-fly the Terror of the Skies herself. Zephyr himself only had vague memories of his frantic flight, from the moment that the dreaded dragoness had attacked to the moment that he had landed at the Dragon Temple was all just a blur. Flare later privately told his brother that the wind dragon seemed to have changed; he was much more carefree and happier, as if a fundamental part of Zephyr had changed that day.
So began the tale of the Silverwind.