Through the Ruins

The ruins had been created from the fallen corpse of an ancient giant. 

There were many such places, sourced from a time before the Empire of Arhra’Toar. Relics to a bygone age, when humanity had blended their lives with fae beasts freely. When magic was not regarded as a curse, but a gift. When these giant beings gifted their remains to be welded and woven into everlasting temples and palaces, returning themselves onto the humans that cared for them in life.

Or so the stories went.

Sthuna cared not at all for the history of this place. Not even for the omen it might have represented to him.

He had one goal and one goal only.

His limbs carried him swiftly through what had once been a grand hall. Carved from a massive blackened rib cage, now sunken and covered in lichen, it was warped into deep spirals that sank into the earth. He followed them, claws silent under a lush floor of emerald moss.

Through the cracks between collapsing rib walls, tongues of lightning leapt across the sky. Somewhere deep within these ruins, the Xolotl was drawing down the storm. Coaxing it to a churning, boiling tempest. The heavens opened and a torrential downpour began to beat against the walls. It soaked into the moss, making it dense and wet.

Aarik complained something fierce as the rain soaked him through the arches. Sthuna ignored him. If nothing else, the rain drowned out his Keeper’s sounds. It made it easier to move with stealth as a storm waged around them.

But the gods were in a humorous mood today. They decided to truly give Aarik something to complain about. As Aarik turned his head to squint up at the storm, a waterlogged clump of something brown and gelatinous slipped from above. It landed squarely upon his face with a wet thud.

Aarik cursed and spat, conjuring the kinds of dark words reserved for the lowliest and filthiest of establishments. Another collection of angrily burst blood vessels to add to his eyes, Sthuna presumed.

Sthuna was deeply amused.

A tiny bit of rainwater and mud hurting your fragile constitution, is it?

Sthuna would have loved to say the words openly. But he didn't. Merely mocking his Keeper in his mind.

That didn't stop Aarik from taking out his frustrations on the dragon, however. He took every opportunity he could to step on the delicate spade of Sthuna’s tail. Sthuna let him do so twice, and evaded thrice. The blows would be worse if Aarik was aware that Sthuna was avoiding them - and Sthuna needed to be at his best to catch the Xolotl.

The creature he hunted moved as if it floated. 

It left no marks upon the soft earth or the moss around it. It could not be traced through tracks or through bits of organic matter left in its wake. It was like chasing a shadow. The only reason why Sthuna was able to track it in the first place was due to the injury it had sustained.

He followed the scent trail deep into a twisting spinal column staircase.

The nodes of the massive spine flared into individual steps, creating a descent that must have, at one point, been smooth and sleek. Now things clung to the platforms like little isolated ecosystems. In addition to the moss that was everywhere, seemingly erupting from the bones themselves, hungry vines twisted themselves around the columns. Hushweed grew in long, thin stalks of red, clustering around the moss and feeding off of the water it collected. He counted small bones on a number of steps, indicating a cycle of life and death that moved on, uncaring of the world outside this place.

As Sthuna descended to the bottom of the spinal staircase, there was a flurry of movement near the base. Where the stairs met the floor, clusters of rain frogs scattered, plunging away with ripples. It was their sudden leaps that queued him into a surprise; the entire great hall down below was flooded. What he had presumed to be a moss covered floor was, in fact, a makeshift lake, covered in a thick layer of flowering duckweed.

The entire palace was a veritable sinking corpse.

Sthuna came to a careful stop. The scent trail hovered above the waters. It seemed to be guiding him to the other side of the hall, where the space trailed off and turned upwards. Another room.

It was close.

He could swim just fine through waters such as these, but his Keeper…

“Oh for GOD’S sake. Where’ve you gotten us to, now?”

Sthuna spoke for the first time in a while. “... I will test the depths.”

He ignored the angry remarks echoing behind him, and especially the hands that attempted to hold him back. Sleek as a snake, he slipped into the waters, barely disturbing the surface. His secondary eyelids slid into place, giving him a lens through which he could view the world beneath the waters.

Schools of dark colored fish darted by him. Everything was colored and subdued into nations. Low lit brown and murky blue.

The hall was vast.

A magnificent set piece, even weighed down by water and time. He could see hundreds of winding corridors, like the segments of a honeycomb, spread across the space. It was hard to discern precisely where they went with the water and all the new plant life that had to take up residence. But it was clear that they tunneled deep into the earth below.

Fascinating.

And perhaps a touch eerie.

He didn't particularly want to stay too long. Not with hundreds of holes in the floor staring up at him. But he was diligent in scanning the depths, seeking anything that might represent a threat. Anything large or lurking.

Nothing.

Sthuna resurfaced. He was mindful to swim slowly. Simply not seeing anything on a cursory assessment did not rule out the possibility of something more dangerous than the tiny aquatic fauna lived here.

Sthuna eyed Aarik, who was still standing on the spinal staircase, arms folded.

“Deep.” Sthuna said.

“Oh is it?” Aarik sneered. “Hadn’t realized. Can’t you provide anything more useful than that? No. Nevermind. Come.”

Aarik clicked his tongue as if Sthuna were a dog.

Sthuna glided close to the edge of the stairs. He’d been trained in this. Aarik was commanding him to roll over in the water, acting as a buoy for his less water-adept Keeper.

He complied.

Aarik entered the water with a splash. He snarled a little about this and that, the cold water, the threads of clinging algae. His hands curled at Sthuna’s spine, around the specialized muscles where his wings emerged.

Once Aarik secured his hold, Sthuna cut through the waters, tail like an oar, pulling his Keeper across the hall. His Keeper wasn’t a dead weight - he kicked up his feet, swimming along with Sthuna, but he was heavy. A burden. And close proximity with Aarik always made his scales itch. Yet, as his dragon Sthuna's responsibility was to make sure that his Keeper was safe. Always. Or, at least, until this hunt was successful.

Dull grey water flowers bobbed gently as Sthuna brushed against them. He felt the tug of their slimy tendrils as he passed.

It was quiet.

Still. Save for the little things.

The drip drop of water from up above. An occasional fluid plop of some unseen creature vanishing into the waters.

Even Aarik, at last, seemed to see the sense in staying quiet. They were truly hunting now. And they were in a place that was not their own. Traveling through deep waters in which they could not see the true bottom. Unwanted invaders traversing through the rotting corpse of an ancient being.

There was a sensation like a curved claw drawn along his spines.

A shiver ran through him.

Something wasn't right. His instincts were picking up on it. He kept his movements small and calm, not wanting to draw attention to it. But his eyes moved rapidly, scanning the water line. Nothing discernible.

The scent of the Xolotl flared. Ozone and burn cedar. His nostrils flared.

Wrong. 

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Something was -

At the juncture of instinct and training, Sthuna made a decision. He whipped his head back and sank his teeth deep into Aarik’s shoulder. He used his hold to drag both of them under the water.

Sthuna plunged down into the dark depths of the water as Aarik screamed.

Wrong, wrong, wrong-!

Sthuna had mere seconds to process the proximity of the Xolotl. One moment, there was nothing. And in the next it was simply there. It stood above him, upon the water's surface. The empty, blackened skull of a hound staring down at him, as if peering through glass.