Enyi Credensin's Story

The air was thick, hazy, full of dust and smoke to that breathing hurt and she desperately wanted to cough, but she didn't dare. She crouched, human-formed and as small as she could get, in the shadow of a fallen wall, under a table with two legs broken so that it made a protective tent of wood. Nothing had caught her yet; she was unhurt, but if anything did catch her, she would be hurt, or dead, soon after. As different an experience as death might be, she found that she didn't want to experience it yet, and so whenever anyone threatened to approach her hiding place, she shrank as far back into darkness as she could. Paws thundered by her, cries and shouts sounded everywhere around her, but she went unnoticed and unfound. She was safe, but she was trapped, for if she moved, she would be seen, and if she went invisible and moved, the magic would be sensed, or she heard, or both.

While she hid, she watched. From the shadow of the dragon-sized table, she could see everything that passed in the road and village that the blown-out house's wall revealed. Her eyes darted from fallen rubble, to rising smoke, to splayed body, to stampeding demons. She had never seen anything like it: death, destruction, the demons' joy in killing and the dragons' utter fear as they tried, and failed, to escape. She had watched as an Air demon dove from the sky and plucked a toddling kit, a child she knew and had babysat on more than one occasion, up off the ground and soared away with her screaming in its claws. She had watched as another demon landed on an older kit, not much younger than she was and who had made eyes at her for almost a year now; the demon broke his back easily and, while he was dying, laughingly broke all his wing-bones. She had watched as a well-respected elder, broken and bleeding after crawling free from the ruins of his home, limped his way down the mountainside, collapsed in front of her house, and lay still, not even breathing, until a pair of demons swooped down to carry him away, quite possibly to become their next dinner.

Yet she had done nothing. What was there she could have done? Even if there had been some way she could have saved them, any of them, fear and a sickening fascination held her rooted to the spot, staring and staring and staring as death dealt itself all around her.

Raids were nothing new; the Air demons had fought them, off and on, for decades, since before she'd been born. Their attacks were always the same, always quick and from the sky, always physical with only blunt, killing magic that could be easily avoided or countered by the simplest wind mage. She, herself, had warded off an Air demon's spell more than once. It was the physical attacks they had to worry about: the coordination with which the demons flew, their strength and speed of attack and withdraw, the stones they lobbed onto rooftops and, with the occasional lucky throw, onto a fleeing child. None of that was new, though, and all of it was expected, planned for, unsurprising, and though difficult, not impossible to survive.

It had never been like this. They had to have had help, this time. Their tactics were different, their numbers greater, their tricks more creative. No Air demon would be clever enough, or brave enough with their opposite element, to think of collapsing the mountain around them, destroying half the village in one thunderous slide of earth and stone. Many, she suspected, were trapped in their inner-mountain dens; many more had been killed when the mountain shifted and their homes collapsed. She and her mother had only just gotten out in time, somehow sensing the imminent collapse, or hearing the rumbling and expecting an earthquake, or with some hint of presentience that some Air dragons were known to have. It didn't matter how. They were both safe from falling rock, if not from rampaging demons.

No... wait... her mother hadn't gotten out. Her mother had been crushed, leaving the daughter to escape. Hadn't she?

::Hold still, my child, my daughter,:: the familiar voice murmured. She was no longer alone under her table. The larger, firmer body of her mother, in human form as well, pressed protectively against her, keeping her against the wall behind them.

"Mom," she whispered, eyes still on the devastation and carnage on the little, mountain-village streets outside their hiding place.

::Hush, sweetheart, they'll hear you--::

"What's this!" a booming voice demanded, and suddenly her mother was gone.

::Stay still, stay quiet, they won't see you, please, goddess, they won't see you--::

The mental voice, her mother's frantic thoughts and warnings, suddenly cut off with a scream.

And Enyi could do nothing but stare.

Then she was free, and she sat straight up in bed, shivering uncontrollably and clenching her jaw tightly shut on a scream that she dared not voice. She had half of the blankets clutched around her, and the other half sliding off onto the floor. Memory came instantly: she was in her grandfather's room, on the space station called Star City. Her mother hadn't died at an Air demons claws, not directly, though her second-cousins had, as had so many others in her village. Instead, she'd had a long, slow death under tons of rock. Enyi had escaped, scratched and with a wrenched ankle, only to hide under that table alone and... watch.

"Enyi?"

She looked up at Aedelian's voice, suddenly realizing she was weeping and quickly trying to wipe her face. The older Air dragon, human formed and looking his usual, awkward self, stood in her doorway in the dark, looking down at her anxiously. Had he heard her, had she cried out? ... No. No, she'd made no sound, not in memory, not even in the dream-- except that one whisper which gave them away, which he never could have heard. Her mental shield, protecting her thoughts, was still in place, so it couldn't have been that... unless she'd been dreaming so hard, he'd just heard her through the shield. Or he'd been purposefully peeking, but she thought he had enough respect for her to respect her wishes, as well.

"I'm all right, I was just--"

"Dreaming," he finished softly. "I know, I heard." He held up a hand with a smile she couldn't see in the dark, but felt instead. "Not on purpose."

Her grandfather stepped into the room, uninvited, and sat down on the edge of the bed, putting a hand to her cheek and brushing another tear away with his thumb. Enyi didn't have the heart or energy to rebuff him or tell him to leave; she just sniffled a little, trying to keep back more tears. More than almost anything-- almost more than the embarrassment of being thought an immature little baby-- she just wanted to let him hold her like her mother would, and cry on his shoulder. But she was so determined to be grown up, to be responsible: she was on her own now, even if she was living with her grandfather. He had his own family and didn't need to be worrying about her.

But when he didn't speak again, just scooted over and wrapped his arms around her, she didn't resist and buried her face in his nightshirt.

"You know it wasn't your fault," he said quietly.

She couldn't speak, her throat too closed with tears and the after-taste of fear. ::I didn't do anything... I hid. And I watched. I should have done something.::

"What else could you have done? An Air demon would have done the same thing to you, if you'd gone out to do something."

There wasn't anything she could say to that. She knew it was stupid to think she might have helped someone and still survived, herself; she was a weak mage, barely above average telepath, and had no fighting training-- not that anyone else did, either. But it still nagged at her that she saved herself while she watched others die: she'd saved herself at the expense of others. Worse, she knew Aedelian would be the type to dive in and save someone's life, even if he did know he would die, himself, for it. Particularly people he knew and loved. Every other Air dragon in that village, she knew, would have done the same.

So, she lied: she just nodded, sniffled into his shoulder, and let him hold and reassure her, even though she didn't take very much reassurance from it. He loved her, he welcomed her, he would protect her with everything in him, but he wouldn't understand her.

There's something different about me, she thought tiredly, after he'd gone back to bed and before she fell into an exhausted sleep. I don't know what it is, but there's something. There has to be.