The Fifteenth Chapter | The Hollow Ravens
Alvera stared down the seemingly bottomless hole.
"You expect me to go down there?"
"Well, of course."
She looked at him strangely. How on Earth did he expect her to get down there? Not only was the hole dirty, it was, well... a hole! A deep hole at that. If she jumped with no expectation of how far the jump was she would either: Overestimate the fall and not be prepared or underestimate the fall and not be prepared. What was he expecting her to do?
"Cedrick, are you trying to kill me?"
"Well, not exactly. But we need to get down there somehow, don't we? And I'm not going to carry you," he smirked back at her.
"Okay, now you're just being unfair. I don't have my wings yet. Can't exactly fly down there, can I?"
"Well, I guess you'll just have to figure it out, now won't you?"
He proceeded to take advantage of his own abilities and safely navigate his way down the tunnel, merging more and more with the darkness the farther down he flew. The sound of his wings flapping faded into nothing as he reached the bottom.
"It's your turn now!" He called up, eventually, his voice echoing off the walls.
Alvera was gobsmacked. How the hell did he even expect her to-? What? Just by how far the echo vibrated off the walls, she could tell that it was a deep drop. Would she even survive if she plunged headfirst? Well, not headfirst, maybe feet first? She sighed unenthusiastically and stared down the hole. Should she just slide down? Would that be the best decision? Maybe.
She sat down on the ground, trying not to think too hard about how utterly ruined the back of her dress was going to be after, as her legs dangled over the edge of the hole. Did she really have no other choice? Didn't seem like Cedrick was coming back for her anytime soon.
"Cedrick, come on. You can't seriously expect me to get down there by myself."
"Sorry, I can't hear you. You're too far away!"
"Really?"
Alvera was not amused.
"Really!"
"For God's sake, fine then."
She took a deep breath and used her hands to push the rest of her body straight into the hole. From the very beginning, she was moving fast. It was steeper than she imagined and at a point, she was forced to just fall without having the stability of the walls to make sure she wasn't plunging to her immediate death. She screamed most of the way down, and she wasn't even afraid to admit it. The drop was absolutely terrifying and she had her eyes squeezed shut from the moment she pushed off at the top. At a point, she remembered that her skirt was flying as well and she had to make a conscious effort to hold it down.
Finally, she started to see a light at the bottom of the hole. She braced herself for impact and thankfully she didn't hit the floor too hard. As a matter of fact, she didn't hit the floor at all, since she landed in someone's arms. Cedrick's. He had somehow caught her, even at the speed she was falling, and was holding her bridal style.
"That wasn't so hard, was it?"
"Cedrick put me down." Alvera was thoroughly annoyed. If he was even an inch off, she could have died, or at the very least suffered some form of physical damage from the fall.
With no refusal, Cedrick immediately put her down. She dusted off her dress to the best of her ability and glared at Cedrick.
"What was the point of that?" She huffed.
"To test you," he shrugged as if it was the most obvious answer.
"For what? How much damage my body can handle? I'll have you know it's not a lot."
She huffed and sent him another glare. The hell was his problem?
"Calm down, M'lady. You're fine aren't you?"
"But what if you hadn't caught me? What would you have done then?"
That shut him up, but he still looked amused.
She rolled her eyes and finally started to take in her surroundings.
There was only one way to go, a tunnel that led straight. The walls had all sorts of weird markings and symbols engraved into them. One, in particular, was repeated over and over again, in various sizes. Was it a language? Maybe.
The tunnel was lit up by lanterns attached to the walls. They were placed in immaculate lines and the flames inside flickered as if about to go out. Silence consumed the tunnel, and not even a single voice could be heard.
"Ladies first," he said.
Alvera almost scowled at him but decided against it. Instead, she just followed the tunnel. Her eyes glided over the strange writing on the wall as they got closer and closer to the end of the tunnel. Once they finally reached it, Alvera was amazed at what she witnessed.
The tunnel let out into a massive cave that other tunnels seemed to connect to as well. Large glowing insects lit up most of the cave while strings of lanterns and dimly glowing crystals lit up the rest. From the base of the hole, a massive tree trunk had sprouted out of the ground and its leafless branches extended out, groping the roof of the cave. Stalactites hung from the ceiling and the bottom of the tree was surrounded by large patches of grass. Several dragons were resting there.
Four huge pillars helped hold up the ceiling while Hobbit hole-like structures were plastered all over the walls. Long, wooden bridges extended to connect them to each other. The largest bridges were surrounding the tree, going down in three layers. Dark-skinned, wingless beings crowded the bridges as they navigated their way around. Each one possessed two horns growing from their head, some did have only one though. It was a full-blown underground city.
"Wow."
"Impressive right? Out of all the Realms, the Hallow Ravens' Underground City took the longest to build."
"I can see why," Alvera answered.
"Alright, come on. Let's go see if we can find Lady Pandora."
"Pandora? As in Pandora's box?"
"Yes. She was named after her. Apparently, she was a little demon as a child. She has mellowed out a lot as an adult, but still. She doesn't talk much though. The whole Realm doesn't, it's kind of a rule."
"What? Why?"
Before Cedrick could even answer, a large winged beast swooped past and landed behind them in the tunnel. Its body was covered in small green scales and its slit black eyes were encapsulated by piercing yellow irises. A blast of hot air escaped the beast's nose as it scoffed. Snow white horns protruded from its head as it sat down facing Alvera and Cedrick, allowing the rider to get off its back. The person steering the beast climbed off. Alvera stared in awe as the winged beast towered over her. It was as majestic as it was scary but it didn't stop her from wanting to touch it. However, it was possible that neither the dragon nor the rider would be too fond of that idea, so she decided against it.
A dark-skinned lady with a wild head of curls departed from the beast and approached them. Her hair was split down the center, the left side was dyed white while the other half was black. In the midst of her curls were two downturned horns, matching those of her dragon. She was dressed in a dark green, floor-length gown with long, poet sleeves. Her irises were a striking brown and her jaw was sharp. Glittering pieces of jewelry, varying in both shape and size, were draped over her horns and her body, making her look that much more regal.
She made some weird signs with her hand and bowed. Alvera had absolutely no idea what the woman was trying to say, so she looked over at Cedrick, silently asking for help.
"This is Lady Pandora. In this Realm, they communicate through sign language. The dark is very sensitive to sound, so to be considerate, all the ravens speak in hushed whispers or with sign language, however, the latter is more widely used," Cedrick explained.
The dark?
"She signed out, 'Welcome to The Underground City, Alvera. Pleased to meet you.'"
"Pleasure to meet you too, Lady Pandora." Alvera bowed as well, thinking it would be rude not to.
She made more strange hand movements as Cedrick translated.
"She says, 'This is Percy, my dragon. Everyone here has one. Because we don't have wings, we ride them instead'. She also wants us to follow her."
She pets the dragon's scales as it nuzzles up to her like a trained house cat. It then got back on all fours and proceeded to fly away, perching on one of the branches growing out from the gigantic tree trunk.
Lady Pandora let them down one of the bridges that connected the entrance to the huge tree in the center. Alvera, unfortunately, made the mistake of looking down and immediately felt queasy. It was a very far fall, and thoughts of the one she had just narrowly survived were not helping matters at all.
The interior of the tree was divided into three main layers, each demarcated by the three bridges on the outside.
"So, what kind of magic do the Ravens use?" Alvera asked to nobody in particular.
"Dark Shadow Magic. They can manipulate the shadows of living things and make them do anything they want with just their words. They can also give them temporary physical forms that allow them to interact with actual people and things. It's one of the reasons they live underground. The dark is the best place for shadows to live. Also, it's harder to manipulate shadows when there's a lot of light around, so they try to keep things dim here."
Lady Pandora nodded as if validating his explanation. Another set of signs were formed by her hands and Cedrick proceeded to translate.
"Their horns also connect them to their dragons. They start to grow when their dragon is born and it serves as a physical link. If a Raven's dragon is injured, they can feel it in their horns. Apparently, it's very painful too."
Lady Pandora nodded again.
She showed them around her tree since that's where she lived. She also took them all the way to the bottom floor and allowed them into the Dragon Field. Despite her initial curiosity with Percy, Alvera was deathly afraid when she was surrounded by dozens of other large dragons. Some looked a lot more menacing than Percy too. Alvera was a bit confused as to why the ruler of the Realm wouldn't have the largest dragon, but she didn't think too much about it.
Alvera hid behind Cedrick as the dragons stared at them. It was only after Lady Pandora had heavily assured her that the dragons wouldn't hurt her that she agree to go closer to them. She moved towards the one she found the least intimidating, a smaller dragon with dark purple, almost black, scales and black slit eyes centered around orange irises. From the right side of its head, a single white horn stood proudly, but clearly, it was still growing.
Lady Pandora signed something behind Alvera, not like she could understand anyway.
"'That's Tatsu, he's new. Was born just a few months ago. He's one of the rare types that only grow a single horn.' That's what Lady Pandora said."
Alvera reached out a cautious hand towards the dragon. It bowed its head and allowed her fingers to carefully travel over its scaly body. The skin was rough, just like she had imagined, but it was still a thrilling experience. What happened next though, was not. Despite Tatsu's initially docile behavior, he immediately did a full one-eighty and tried to bite her hand as she pulled away.
Alvera let out a scream but was able to jump back before her hand ended up in Tatsu's stomach. Without wasting a second, she scurried back to where Cedrick was standing and resumed her initial position behind him.
Lady Pandora was a bit surprised. All the dragons were normally very friendly, provided they weren't provoked or didn't feel threatened. She couldn't understand why exactly Tatsu of all the dragons didn't like Avera. She was being gentle with him, Lady Pandora saw it. She glanced at Tatsu before going closer to a slightly spooked Alvera. She tried her best to assure Alvera and make her feel less startled, but she could tell it wasn't helping much. Initially, Lady Pandora was going to allow her to ride one of the dragons, but something told her that Alvera would politely, and immediately, decline her offer.
Instead, she suggested to Cedrick that they leave, which he translated to Alvera and she promptly agreed. Lady Pandora was a bit sad to see them go but after they left, she went back down to the Dragon Fields. She moved specifically towards Tatsu and stretched out a hand. He smelled her and allowed Lady Pandora to pet him, not opposing at all. She was still not able to understand why he didn't like Alvera.
"Nessa, I know you're there," she whispered.
The dark-skinned girl hopped down from one of the bridges and landed right behind Lady Pandora. Nessa's own mane of curly hair was pulled into a high ponytail and her dull green eyes were fixated on Tatsu.
"What have you been doing?" Lady Pandora signed.
"Not much. Just waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
Nessa shrugged, not giving a definite answer. She strode over to the dragon and scratched his head. It nuzzled up to her, offering no resistance.
"Have the dragons been acting strange with you?"
"No, why do you ask?" Nessa replied. She was one of the few people in the Hallow Ravens that spoke regularly.
"Alvera visited us today. You know, the Lady who's supposed to take over the Mirror of Alters? Tatsu almost bit her hand off. Any idea why?"
"Nope." she paused, giving Tatsu another stroke, "None at all."