What was this? Without being able to control it, her legs had suddenly lost their strength.
Sonata held tightly to the deep brown bark of the tree to combat her newfound weakness. She forced one shaking foot in front of the other, but once she got far enough she had to let go of the tree, it was a different matter. Faster. She tried to hurry before she lost her balance. She reached to grab a hold of the next one, but by then her balance was already too far gone, having trained to it's limits just to cross the land from the first tree to the second.
She toppled to her knees, her legs finally giving out. Her body trembled to try and stand up. She didn't have the strength to do it. It was suddenly so weak. She pressed her forehead to the tree, eyes squeezed shut as she tried to get a grip on herself.
She needed to go home. Sophia was stuck there alone, helplessly waiting for her. She needed to go home.
So she gritted her teeth together, pressing her forehead harshly against the rough, frosted wood.
"Nng!" She pounded her elbow against the tree, resisting futilely as the the tremors of her body were coming back all over again. She tried to stand up, again, but with just one arm, how was she supposed to support her body?
"Hah...ah...ah—" she could feel the tears she didn't have the strength to cry wallowing her eyes.
No, nono. She needed to get a grip on herself. She needed to control herself, at least till she made it to the cave.
"Aaaaah-" She gripped the stretch of flesh just under her armpit, about level with where the last of her arm was. Her body lost its strength, and she could feel a harsh blow as her body crashed into the snow.
But the knowledge that no one was around anymore to act strong in front of, compiled with the knowledge that she'd scare Sophia if she woke to the sound of her sister's hellish screams once she was closer: It was a formidable force to mentally reckon with.
She couldn't hold it in anymore. She buried her face against the snow and screamed, her body shivering in pain. She screamed, gripping her torso by the remnants of her arm. She screamed. Now that she let it go, she couldn't hold it in anymore. She could feel her strength being pulled from her with every gut wrenching jolt. She was going to hurt her throat, she wasn't used to using the upper, pterodacyle range of her voice.
She screamed. Not even just out of pain, anger. There was so much anger. Anger that'd been boiling inside for so long. She was angry at her mom for leaving her there, for leaving Sophia there with her, knowing how she fell sick every Winter, knowing she was so much more fragile than Sonata. Knowing it was that much more likely she could do anything and just accidentally die. Leaving them with barely a week's worth of food and then not coming back for them even after Seasons passed.
It hit her like a carriage she'd only been detachedly watching approach from far away.
Nobody was going to come back for her, ever.
She felt her stomach lurch to try and cough out food, but her nibble of a meal earlier was a small enough snack that her stomach was too empty to vomit. The acid she could keep from getting any further than her throat, though it felt her coughing. Her fingers scratched at the bandages wrapping her newly severed arm.
Now it registered, and she knew it for sure. She'd been abandoned here. They'd both been abandoned here, wether it was intentional or situational. No one in a state to save them knew they were there.
Leaving them in an obscure location and telling them to stay put and stay hidden no matter what.
Leaving them with just enough food to be long gone before they began to grow worried, wondering if she was really coming back.
Leaving both of them with just one warm article of clothing, as though only even expecting one of them to still be alive by the time Winter came along.
As though predicting everything. As though calculating it all coldly from a distance, as though Sonata and Sophia weren't her own two children.
The memory of those cold, gigantic slitted blue eyes crossed her mind.
Her breath choked in the middle of her throat as she shivered against the cold ground, her vision flashing in and out. It became harder and harder to stay aware of her surroundings.
Why was she supposed to stay quiet? Why wasn't she supposed to leave the same area? Was it truly because of some traitorous dragon hunting her and her sister down? Was it because it was dangerous, the further she went from the cave?
Or was it to ensure their bodies wouldn't be found when they quietly and obediently faded out of history? Was it to make sure their corpses weren't too hard to find, to be able to confirm it after they safely slowly died of starvation? That was a way to die, wasn't it? Was it to make sure their lifeless bodies weren't desecrated by human hunters, scavenging for materials? Knowing her parents, they would rather have her dead and untouched than captured alive by lesser beings, wouldn't they? They'd probably rather return find the remains of their offspring curled up, having slowly starved to death, than the ruins of a quick death under the maw of a rival dragon. That was how they were. That was how dragons really were.
Sonata couldn't take it anymore. Pain, pain. So much pain.
She felt sick. She felt sicker than when she'd lost her arm, just moments ago. A wave of disgust and despair overwhelmed her like poison leaking out from her core, sending an unpleasant, numbing feeling through her arteries.
Did her mother have a reason to want the two of them dead? Did she have it in her to really abandon them to die?
She barely left them with a week's worth of food. She barely left them with a couple of changes of clothes. They had blankets, but they were only light Summer things. Sonata had an idea how things were supposed to be washed, she just sort of dunked them in the river and rubbed at the stains until she was exhausted. She could barely call her baths bathing, without soap. She didn't know how to hunt, except that it was a thing dragons could supposedly do. Her mother hadn't prepared her to do any of these things, but even a hint.
If her mother was ever planning to come back for them, she was have come back in days. She wasn't coming back. Even if she gave her the benefit of a doubt, she'd been forsaken. They'd both been forsaken.
A scream of pain tore through Sonata's throat. The tears she thought she could control overflowed down and settled by her lips.
She tried to stop, but her body was consumed by a range of sobs. Sonata scratched her fingers against the ground, her shoulders shaking as her sobs made it harder to breathe. The world around her began spinning, it was harder to keep her eyes open.
Get up, get up. She knew she needed to get up and stop her screams before she blacked out here. But by the time such thoughts prevailed over the raw need to cry it all out, she was already too far gone.
Even if she had the ability to return for them, did her mother expect them to still be alive? Did she care enough to check?
Though she felt pressure in her chest, she couldn't hear her own voice anymore. Idiot. Why did she send the dwarf stranger away? She couldn't even get up on her own. Wasn't she playing right into the trap. Had she willingly abandoned a chance to save Sophia, with her head so clouded from fear?
She felt her throat hiccup out another muted sound. The blizzard she knew was there was so much scarier without noise, scarier even as the sensation of cold began to muffle out. Without being able to resist, the dragon's shoulders slumped, and she lost consciousness.
•••
A much, much smaller Sonata placed one tentative step in front of the other, peering across the corner of the large rose bush filled with only leaves. It didn't really get hot in the North, save for some very intense flashes at early Summer that were almost gone as soon as they came, but mid-Spring was pleasant. The weather was only a little chilly, and green, unbloomed rosebuds were poking up here and there.
Her small feet wore just one muddied shoe, the other long lost somewhere, probably just as messed up as the first one.
Her green eyes, in their glassiness, reflected the image of the clear blue sky and the small rectangle of lawn surrounded by hedges on three sides.
There was nothing on the other side, but she looked around again to be sure, rubbing her damp eyes dry until she finally threaded lightly out of the shadows of the flower maze.
She sniffled a little, not full out crying, but her lips and eyebrows pouting and fluttering in and out of those stages right before it. She kept wiping her eyes to smudge them away.
They were scary. Her parents were very scary, even to just remain be in the same room with them for extended periods of time. Especially when they were mad, not to mention it would make them even more mad when Sonata cried. That was okay, though. She was old enough she should be have been able to be brave and not show her weakness. Except she wasn't.
Her parents were scary when they were mad. So sometimes she would yell back, which didn't get her in half as much trouble as crying, except it still got her into more trouble in general. And it was at that point where the scolding and the interrogating fumbled downwards into such an extended, never ending stash of anger that she would flee.
Sonata wiped the tears off her cheeks, using her palms and then the back of her hands, when those got wet. She would probably be in a bit more trouble for running away, but it was nothing new. At the very least, her parents' anger would have probably cooled off a bit by the time she came back. Even if that meant she was in more trouble, it was the actual anger that made her scared. There had been too many instances already in her very short life where she'd almost been injured because of her parents losing sight of how fragile she was under their strength.
The fact that she was so often in danger of being crushed or slashed was counterproductive. It was unpleasant. So it wasn't like she was only running because she was emotional.
Sonata wiped her hands off onto her dress, walking step by step through the grass. She ducked through the segment of maze where she was very exposed, dashing down a narrower leafy corridor, wiping her face.
"Who's there?"
Sonata jolted. Her arm flickered down and out of her field of vision. Deeper into the maze, there was a shadowed figure too far away to recognize.
She stumbled back. Maybe if she turned and ran away now, he wouldn't be able to recognize her either. But there was an unexplainable oppressive aura leaking from the figure's gaze, a lot like when her parents were angry. Only, this person's aura was unrestrained, like a hand weighing down on her so she couldn't move.
The figure took his time approaching her, his gaze shifting from her to the roses as he walked. Bit by bit, he stepped out of the shadows, and his overgrown, pine green hair, almost black, messy and out of place in a way that resembled horns came in to view. He wore a dark green cape and a muddier-green doublet, plain things unlike the patterned, decorated things nobles usually wore, except in the clasps and the cuffs of their collar and sleeves, small, intricate designs in gold. Those were probably too expensive for a worker to wear. So maybe this person wasn't one of the castle workers. Maybe he wouldn't know people were looking for her, Sonata thought. He might have been here this entire time, from before she ran away, and not even know the castle was in a commotion. That's what his solemn, detached expression made the little princess believe.
"Who are you?" He repeated. Or..? No, she'd been wrong. Upon closer glance, this person didn't look relaxed at all. His body stance was tense, and his movements were more slow and calculated than calm. Even when he was turned away, he wasn't releasing his attention from Sonata. When his gaze met hers, they were so serious they would send small shivers down her spine all over again. She could move again for a while now, but she didn't think this dragon would leave her unscathed if she ran.
"Well?" He pressed the tiny figure in front of him, barely a couple of feet away. His eyes quivered.
Was it anger? She couldn't tell if he was specifically angry at her, though. What did he have to be angry about? Sonata didn't just escape the wrath of two adult dragons with the intention of falling into the wrath of a third.
Sonata didn't want to risk angering him any more than he already was. She just wanted this to end. Maybe if he knew who she was, he would let her go. She grabbed a hold of the sides of her skirt and curtsied. "Hello. My name is Sonata Verena Degestelle. I'm the princess of dragons."
The intensity in his cold eyes eased back to their cold gaze.
"Ah. You're the hatchling."He sighed.
Sonata frowned. She was very much not a hatchling. She'd been safely out of the range of a "small child" and into the range of a normal "child" for a while, now. She was almost five, and she'd been doing normal "child" things like being tutored for a good year now. Even if she couldn't hold chalk, she had to repeat things back to her tutors over and over and remember so much stuff because they would constantly ask her questions about things she learned a while ago. Babies got to go outside and play all day. If she had to do work, it wasn't fair to call her one.
There were many adults who came into the castle who wore expensive clothes, but only a dragon would regard her in such a belittling way. Unfortunately, she was still to small to stand up to them without putting her safety on the line, but one day she would grow up and make them pay.
The corner of his lip twitched upwards, his grim eyes regarding her with slight bemusement. "It's been long time. You were very tiny, last I'd seen you." He said something that should have eased the fires of her indigence a little, but the tone of voice he used somehow infuriated her even more.
Sonata's head slightly turned in question, her brows pressed into an angry frown. The round spheres of her bright green eyes studied the strange man standing just a couple of feet away. She opened and closed her hand behind her like she was considering backing away, but it didn't feel like he was being hostile anymore. Not enough to risk offending an adult dragon's pride. "You know me?"
"It was a long while ago, it's no wonder you don't remember," he shrugged understandably. He smiled softly, an terrifying expression that sent chills down Sonata's spine. "You were very small. So much so that your bipedalform could barely even count for shapeshifting" he finished with a repressed chortle that sent a crease to the little princess's brows, which had only just begun to lose their frown.
Sonata stared down the intruder in her garden suspiciously, wiping away the last of her tears with an almost dignified little flick of her hand and filling her lungs with a deep breath of air. "Who are you?" She finally interrogated him, forcing the discourse back to her initial question. Her voice was small, but but it already held hints of an adult's authority. All she had to do was lose the little quiver at the end.
Egetris's lip twitched as he turned and took a seat down. There was a line in the wall of the maze where it opened up to expose the stone castle wall behind it for a few paces. There was a convenient extrusion of stone along the base, enough to be a bench.
He didn't answer her question, patting the space besides him for her to take a set, which she did.
"Are you supposed to be here?" The little dragoness finally asked, propping herself up onto her elbows to gain some height as she scaled the small obstacle. "Did you sneak into the castle? I can scream. You'd get in a lot of trouble," she threatened.
Egetris scoffed. "I doubt you're supposed to be here alone either, little dragon." He smiled softly at her again, but this time it was more smug. He took a hold of her waist with one arm, easily picking her up onto the stone. "If you want, you can call people here, indeed. But I don't think I'll be the only one hassled."
Sonata pressed her lips together till they went pale, but she couldn't think of anything to argue back. She crossed her arms, huffing back down into her seat. She didn't ask to be helped.
The two of them sat in silence. Sonata kept an eye out for her pursuers, but this was a part of the garden even she wasn't that familiar with. Weird. She knew it like the back of her hand, maybe she'd taken a turn somewhere that was hard to notice. If so, she was probably safer waiting here than aimlessly wondering around.
"You look like her."
Sonata's head snapped back up, but the man sitting a little distance away wouldn't meet her eyes.
"Or maybe it's been so long that anyone could look like her."
Her eyes remained fixed on the curious adult dragon, trying to sift through his words to somehow unlock the mysterious meaning to the words he was teasing her with.
As if going on about his same train of thought at his own leisure, Egetris answered her wordless question. "I had a daughter, once. But she's been gone for a long time."
Sonata continued staring motionlessly up at the man. She didn't think this was the type of conversation sane adults would be having with a random child.
His gaze moved to her, and she shivered.
"How unfortunate. You have your mother's features, but alas, they were wasted on my brother's ugly green eyes."
Sonata's small cheeks reddened. She scrunched her brows in anger, snapping back, "Your eyes are ugly!"
The dark haired dragon stared at her blankly for the most awkward of moments, then belatedly laughed, cocking his head backwards in an extended dark chuckle. It made Sonata uncomfortable. What was so funny?
"Yes.." he cought his breath, wiping a stray tear from the laugh off his eye. "I suppose it is still my side of the family. And they say eyes do reflect the souls of their owners." He smiled darkly, almost condescendingly, for an odd reason Sonata couldn't really place her finger on. "But at least my colors aren't in the mirror image of those two old vultures." His brows frowned and his expression darkened at that statement. Sonata shrank backwards a little, but he wasn't angry at her in particular. He wasn't even looking at her.
Sonata wondered if she could leave now, but she couldn't decide if this person was the type who would grow angry at her for leaving without excusing herself, or laugh at her face for being formal after he'd just called her... whatever it was he'd just called her. She was sure it wasn't anything good.
He brushed his almost spiky dark green hair out of his eyes. "What was your name again?" He sighed.
The small dragon shuddered out of her thoughts, and her body stiffened to hide it. "Sonata."
"Sonata..." He smiled softly, though it didn't take an ancient one to see that it didn't reach his eyes. "What a quaint little name for a twee little dragon...Hestia picked that. It sounds like something she would do."
Sonata tilted her head, lost in the adult's one sided ramblings. "What?"
"Your mother."
The small child was still quite lost. How did this person know her mother?
Egetris exhaled. "Your name, little one." He readjusted his legs which had jutted straight out during his laughter, once again sitting awkwardly on the platform that was close to the ground. "It's too strange for something my brother would pick. And it seems to run in her family to pick names that aren't so...dragonly."
Sonata stared wordlessly. Somehow, she felt like she'd just had her pride trampled on, and she didn't even understand where it'd happened.
"Goodness. You're either a very silent, or very reserved child."
Sonata frowned at that. "It's not nice to call people names."
Egetris shrugged. "It wasn't teasing. Reserved is good. Reserved is intentional. Silent is creepy, and very stupid. You'll make a lot of people aware of the little gears turning in your head. Worse yet if you're being shy." His eyes fell unblinkingly on her for an uncomfortable extend of time. "I'm not using words too much above your vocabulary level, am I?"
Sonata shook her head no. Even if he was, she wasn't about to just give him another way to tease her. Did he just say 'stupid'? She was sure she heard him say the word. Was she being teased? But she didn't want to risk playing into his trap, if he was only going to correct her like last time.
"Who are you?" She gathered the courage to ask again.
His green eyes were studying her again. It felt as though she was being dissected and taken apart by that gaze. It was hard to move your body when an adult dragon was staring at you, let alone continue a conversation.
His expression softened. "You would call me uncle."
"Whats that?"
"Oh, dear. You really shouldn't let your confusion be known as easily as you do." He chuckled. Sonata closed her mouth immediately, but he didn't tease her any more than that. His eyes were lost on the flowerbeds bushes in front of them, and Sonata couldn't feel his oppressive attention on her anymore. Even when his eyes turned to her.
"Would you like to play a game, little dragon?"
Stranger danger told her she should say no, but she was feeling particularly in need of a way to vent her pent up energy, that day. The small princess nodded.
"Alright then, it's a very simple game. I'm sure you've already played it. You hide, and I'll try and find you."
Sonata began to get up off the rocks.
"But wait."
Sonata's head snapped up to meet his eyes.
He nodded his head towards the wall behind him. Sonata stood up on the wall and took a couple of cautious step closer. Just beyond where the man was sitting, on the wall behind him was a small, neglected back door. She'd never noticed that door before. Where did it lead to? Sonata's eyes moved upwards to the windowless building behind them, smoke billowing out from the multiple chimneys. Now that she thought about it, it smelled vaguely like smoked meat and rising yeast. Was this building the kitchens, from the other side?
He picked her up again and set her small body down on the opposite side of the wall, right in front of the small door. She cautiously tried the handle. It was unlocked.
It opened into a dark back corridor, a light coming from just beyond the corner on the end. She lingered at the doorway, only taking a couple of very cautious baby steps inside as she studied her surroundings. Come to think of it, the smell of food was a lot stronger, here. And she was a little bit hungry from crying.
Suddenly, she felt herself being firmly pushed inside, and the door closed behind her.
"Ee, I wonder where she could have gone..." she heard a man's voice murmur to himself, from behind the door. She peeked back curiously, but it wasn't like the garden was a better place to hide than inside the castle. She just didn't have any way to get into the emptier parts of it without going through the front. And, besides, she really was hungry.
Wether or not they were still playing hide and seek, it could wait until her sticky fingers snuck around and got a little snack.
//The gears are turning. Who was the owner of the adult dragon whose voice was shaking the castle as it burned, and was the true enemy truly the obscure foe they were fleeing from, all this time?
I struggled to decide wether or not I'd have to simplify tiny Sonata's throughs, but I'm going to go with 'she thinks in images and abstract memories anyways' so I don't have to adjust my writing style too much. The flashback takes place before Sophia was born, so Sonata's five, six years old tops. A hatchling dragon is already past a one year old's motor skills and cognitive ability, though, so mentally she is a little mature for her age compared to humans. Just a little.
Honestly, this chapter felt so long but so empty for whatever reason. But it's four thousand words in, I'm done, I need to move on to other things.
Now, grace me with your comments, human mortals~