The Fight for Salvus

Teeba-ei was not a general, not a warrior or a commander - he was a Tsotska whom responsibility had been thrust upon. And now, as he stood in the center of town, directing dragons and riders alike into danger, he couldn't help but feel that this wasn't what he was meant to be doing. There were sixty or so minds connected to him, depending on him, not even counting those that weren't his own dragons, and he could feel everyone's conflicting emotions as the battle raged on. He could sense the growing fear in everyone. The fight was being lost, slowly but surely. Something needed to change, and soon.

By his side, near the fountain at the center of town, Nubiti and Otulius stood guard, with Gemma circling high above. Teeba had his eyes closed as he tried to plan, to give out orders, to keep everyone safe at once. Time was running out and he couldn't think fast enough. He tried to send out bravery, tried to convince dragons to draw back rather than sacrifice themselves.

A tap on his shoulder drew him from his mind - Teeba opened his eyes and found himself face to face with Otulius. *On your guard,* his dragon whispered mentally. *Someone's here that shouldn't be.*

*They broke through the defenses?* Teeba asked in surprise. The answer, of course, arrived a moment later, as a dragon coalesced from the shadow of the nearest building. Dark dragon. A very familiar dark dragon, to boot. Nubiti took up a stance protectively in front of Teeba and Gemma flew tighter circles in the sky, prepared to intervene.

"Anonymous, was it?" Teeba said to the new dragon, in the slightest hope that he could defuse the situation before things escalated. "Your rider sent you?"

"Tenoch?" the dark dragon said. "If you'd like to think that. All that matters is that your end is here and now - does how or why really matter?"

Teeba frowned. "It does to me."

"So you can try to convert them with another speech on goodness and truth? We're far past that by now. The real world isn't good endings and fairytales, Teeba-ei. Sometimes, the villains win." Anonymous was walking forward, slowly. Teeba refused to step back, to give him any ground.

"Not if I have a say in it," the leader of Salvus said. A mental nudge to Gemma, circling high in the sky, and before Anonymous could respond the large dragon had swooped down to grab him, claws outstretched. They passed neatly through Non's shadowy scales, leaving not a hint of injury behind.

Anonymous whirled backwards, an instinctive defense. "So you do have some fight in you! Not enough, though," he taunted. A moment later he charged towards the trio on the ground. Otulius rose to meet him while Nubiti snapped at his heels. Gemma snarled up above. Teeba leapt to the side and frantically fished one hand through his pockets for something - anything he could use. His non-metal hand landed on some scraps he hadn't had the time to build anything with. Good enough.

As Non dueled with the three dragons, Teeba took out the metal shards and threw them towards him. Most phased right through, but one of the smaller shards seemed to actually land a hit. Not an impossible fight, then.

Still, with Anonymous's ability to avoid attacks so easily, a four vs one wasn't as simple as it had seemed. Non was a swirling tempest of chaos and darkness, dodging attacks and firing magic every which way. After only a minute of the odd dance, everyone was incredibly tired just trying to keep up.

Nubiti faltered first. She tripped on a bolt of magic sent by Anonymous, and the dangerous dragon used it to his advantage. He lunged for her and clawed at her scales, at her face, at anything he could reach, and by the time Otulius and Gemma managed to get Anonymous away, to get him focused on them, Nubiti wasn't moving.

"No!" Teeba cried, as if the world itself was ending. He ran to his dragon, got down on his knees and held her in his arms, searched desperately for any sign that the mental connection was still there, that she was okay. It appeared in his mind after a long, horrible moment. Faint, but there. She was still alive, still present, but he feared that might not be the case if she didn't get help.

Without having to say a word, Gemma landed by his side as Otulius continued to spar Anonymous. She offered Teeba a silent reassurance - one that meant *I'll get her to safety, I'll make sure she lives,* and Teeba nodded in relief. Gemma carefully picked up Nubiti in her arms and began to fly away.

Teeba watched them go. Which, of course, meant that by the time Otulius called his name it was already too late. Teeba turned, arms up to defend himself, but Anonymous was already there, dagger in hand. It struck true into Teeba's heart, and for a moment he felt the shock of pain, of despair -

- and then time stopped. Everything grew brighter, fuzzier - is this what death was like? - and when he blinked, he was somewhere else entirely. Shards of metal danced around him in an empty grey void that was so painfully familiar. The reflection realm.

"Nubiti?" Teeba called into the void. "Otulius? Gemma? ...Syntyche?" He didn't know why he was here, what had gone wrong, why there was a ringing in his ears. Someone blurrily formed out of nothing in the distance ahead. Were those... five heads? Was he seeing double or something?

The five headed figure stepped up to greet him, and Teeba frowned when he was able to make out who it was. "Company? Did you die, too?"

"You're not dead. Not yet," the Company said, though Teeba couldn't tell which head had spoken. "But you are dying."

Teeba let out a shaky breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "That's it, then." He looked out at the endless expanse of nothing around him and wanted to cry. "All my dragons, I - they're all gonna go with me. It's my fault, really. I kept wanting to help and now I've just made it worse. And the town! Salvus... Ashgar and Syntyche..." Teeba collapsed forward into the Company's chest and held on tight, desperate for things to be different, for him to have not gained the attention of such a rubbish militia at all. "This wasn't how it was supposed to happen."

"Perhaps not," the Company said, and their words echoed around in the empty space. They leaned back, so that Teeba detatched from them, and then waved one arm forward. "Walk with us." As the Company began moving, Teeba followed, numb and sad and angry and a hundred other things at once.

In the silence, the Company spoke. "We chose you for a reason. As did every other dragon and rider and soul who chose to stand by you today. You have heart."

"I don't anymore," Teeba said. The shards of metal in the air that they passed by were different than how they usually were when Teeba visited the reflection realm. In them he saw frozen moments, frozen times, some familiar to him and some not. Reflected in one shard he could see the time he and Otulius met Fox, in another when he lost his first metal arm and had to forge a new one, meeting Syntyche, visiting his brother, convincing Aren'dra to stand down. As the two walked Teeba could see that each shard held a different moment, a different perspective.

"This isn't how this works," Teeba said, ignoring the ringing still in the air to focus on the shards of memory scattered around him, on the Company still leading him somewhere unknown. He was getting the suspicion that, perhaps, this wasn't the reflection realm at all. "Where are we?"

"Where we needed to be for you to understand." The Company halted in front of one specific metal shard, and motioned for Teeba to glance at the reflection within. It was him - or, him before time froze, before he was sent to whatever place this was, with Otulius calling his name and Anonymous approaching menacingly. An instant frozen in place, just like all the others.

"I don't, not yet. Why are you talking to me? How are you talking to me? What's going on?"

"We're here to offer you another option. A gesture of thanks for all you've done," explained the Company. They pointed at the shard in front of them again. "The realm of a day dragon is the future. Ours is the past. What's done isn't set in stone - or even metal. Not when every one of your dragons has the same respect for you that brought us to you in the first place. Your death has happened, yes, but it also hasn't. Perhaps it never need happen at all."

"I was stabbed in the heart," Teeba cried. "I think that's about it."

"Or, perhaps, you weren't stabbed at all. You have a night dragon on your side, Rider. The past can be changed..." a hesitation filled the air before they said their next words, "...for a price."

For the first time since he had arrived in the void with the Company, Teeba-ei felt hope. "You can fix it? You can save everyone? Whatever price needs to be paid, I'll do it! ...I won't let my dragons die because of me."

"It's something you can't pay," said the Company, a regretful lilt to their tone. "Time can only be changed so much. A death needs to happen. It just doesn't have to be you."

"I - you mean sacrifice someone else?" In the shard of metal, Teeba's eyes were drawn to one specific person. Otulius. His breath caught in his chest. "No. I won't."

"He'll die if you don't change anything, anyway. You can at least make sure no one else has to die as well," the Company said.

Teeba turned from the shard, looked out across the void at the hundreds of other moments in time. "I can't do that to him. Not when he's not even in on the plan. He's my best friend. And I don't..."

The Company hesitated, noticeably. "Would it help if you could ask him?"

"We're stuck in time. We can't." But as Teeba said such, he felt something that had been missing in his mind. A connection, and a friend.

*Otulius?* he thought, reaching out.

*I'm here,* came the reply, in a blessedly familiar voice, and then Otulius was there in front of him - ghostly, ephemeral, but there all the same. *What's happening, my Rider?*

Teeba lunged forward, attempted to envelop his dragon in a hug, and gloriously, Otulius' ghostly appearance didn't prevent a warm embrace. "I'm, I'm dying. And the Company says the only alternative is that you die instead, but I can't - I can't let that happen. I -"

Otulius cut him off, using one wing to pat the rider on the head. "You think I'd protest exchanging my life to keep safe the one person who's done more for me than anything in this world?" He looked down at Teeba, eyes sparkling with melancholy. "You cannot be the one to die, my dear Teeba-ei. So much would be lost."

"But you -" Teeba said, his voice trembling. "What about you?"

"I won't be gone. Not entirely, anyway," Otulius said, with certainty. "You'll just have to look for me in the stars, and the people around you, and in your heart. The time we have shared has been a blessing to me, Teeba, and dying to ensure Salvus remains, that *you* remain, would be an honor."

Teeba held on to Otulius' feathers, never wanting to let go. "Friend..."

"Let me do this one thing for you," Otulius smiled.

The leader of Salvus blinked, trying to keep the tears in his eyes from falling. "...If this is what you really want, Otulius... I'm going to miss you. My first and best friend."

The Company stood, impassive, behind them. "Time is running short, Rider, egg-friend. Are you prepared?"

Teeba closed his eyes and tried to keep the moment close - him and his dragon, together at the end, as always.

"I'm ready," Otulius said, his head resting on Teeba's shoulder. And with those words, the world faded, faded, until all was gone.

. . . .

Teeba opened his eyes to the sudden sound of the world around him starting up again. Anonymous was charging towards him once again, dagger in hand, and briefly Teeba wondered if anything was going to change at all -

- but Otulius, kind and reckless and oh so brave, leapt in front of his rider, wings extended, and this second time, the attack hit him instead. Gemma let out a roar of rage in the sky, Teeba went to grab his dragon as he fell, and out of the shadows, other dragons appeared, jumped to take down Anonymous just a moment too late. The dark dragon tussled with the other dragons for a moment before he was given a blow across his face. Non snarled, shuffled back, and vanished into the dark, gone at last.

"Stay with me, Otulius, stay with me," Teeba said as he clutched his dragon, hoping beyond hope that the ending he knew was inevitable wouldn't happen. "Please."

Otulius smiled up at his rider and shook his head. "It's been a good journey. And a blessing to end it by your side." Slowly, the dragon's eyes closed, and he faded until Teeba was only clutching at a few vines, left behind.

Several buildings away, the dragons and riders gathered around the artifact, the item they had been trying to figure out for weeks, put in the final code needed to confirm the change. A cracking sound echoed in the ground below, the world spun, and when it stopped the residents of Salvus found themselves in the middle of an ocean, somewhere very far away.

The battle was over. The war was won, Salvus was free. The remaining Militia forces were fleeing, knowing there was no chance for backup so far away from where they had started. So why, thought Teeba, did victory feel so empty?

Success was meaningless without someone to share it with. An awed silence fell over the now-island, as the riders and dragons of Salvus came to the realization that they were safe. But at what cost?