Under the full moon the elves pray to their foreign goddess of the moon. The elves are near death but to the slavers all that means is that they might lose some coin. The elves are in various states of despair, some curl up in terror, others lay defeated, and a few curse in a language not known. But their words can be guessed and all those words do is annoy the slavers.
"Mantis knight deal with them," says the baron Gress Flam currently behind the cage.
The knight moves towards the cage, swords in hand. Ready to maim.
An elf moves in front of the others hoping to protect them from any possible harm knowing she cannot do anything to help them. Her name is Sefia and she was a war hero. But now she is not even a martyr to her people, she is just a failure and she feels like it.
The knight grabs her through the cage by the cranium. Slamming her into the bars. She whimpers and resists pushing against the bars. but before she can the mantis knight takes out his sword. The knight points his sword forward and stabs shallowly into her eye. This makes her bleed out but she holds in her voice and simply grunts.
All the slavers laugh at this. To them you see the elves are not people, they are simple animals that look like humans so they treat them like beasts.
-spike-
I fly high off the ground but can still see the tiny details. I can see the animals that look like sheep and the bugs that fly around them. I can see the large trees unlike any from my origin world. I can see the narrow road and tracks in it. I can see the slavers who walk along this road probably thinking they are safe. They think they are safe because they don't know about me.
I look down to see the elves. They are fairly stereotypical: long ears, otherworldly beauty, but there are differences, for one these elves only wear rags, they seemingly haven't been fed since their capture, and have this hopeless look in their eyes. Indeed they are only skin and bones. I don't feel sick at their treatment but I know it is wrong logically.
The elves I remember are beautiful yes but also in tune with nature and ancient and legendary. It's hard to explain the feeling of looking at something from legends packed tightly into a cage utterly emotionally and physically destroyed.
The slavers are in carriages next to them. All the carriages are pulled by normal looking horses. They are all brown and large, not as big as me but large for horses. The slavers look well fed and in front I can look into the carts and see the men in armor are in front of the cage while the well dressed men are behind it. The men in armor are the mercenaries or soldiers who are hired to protect the cage while the men in the back are the nobles. So I know who to kill first now.
I stalk them from the night sky I'm too high for them to see. I'm raring to go. My belly is a dark blue making me blend into the night. I'm perfectly blended into the sky perfect for a surprise attack. The night and the full moon send me into a fury that makes me want to kill and there is no one better to put my sights on.
I dive. The dive is silent like an owl. From something of my size you would expect the sound of a jet plane but nothing is heard. All that is there is the silent field. So the first sound the slavers hear is the sound of a torrent of flame.
The flame is a light blue this time similar to the moon and the slavers' carts are reduced to ash. I soar and see that I missed a cart so I breathe once again. I look at what I have done and see nothing but charred black grass. And an armored man standing on a burring blue cart. He has a mantis's head for a helm and two long curved swords one in each hand but he doesn't scare me so I ignore him.
"Danger, danger." a voice speaks in my head.
I look behind me and luckily no fire has hit the cage. I land on the cage and prepare for takeoff. But before I get off the ground I hear a terrified yell from a man hiding behind a cart. "Mantis knight, don't let that dragon steal the slaves."
I look behind me quickly and growl at the knight in response. He lunges at me with swords in an X formation. I have complete confidence so I let him try to slice me. In a slice, my self-confidence was shattered by a sharp pain in my right front leg.
I jump away and roar, breathing fire at him. The mantis knight narrowly dodges the flame and runs at me, this time going towards my throat. This is easy to dodge. So I dodge out of the way only moving my neck before swiping at him with my claw. He narrowly dodges this as well.
One would expect a human to be afraid at the sight of a dragon but this "mantis knight" doesn't have a care in the world.
What is happening? I'm all powerful. Who is this mantis knight? I have to kill him or I'll be killed.
I flap my wings floating into the sky. Reaching the zenith of my accent I fall and boom! I slam onto the ground right on the knight. I move too fast for him to dodge. His helm is now unrecognizable as a mantis but he is still alive and ready to strike.
he slices at my throat again and I dodge again this time though he uses his other sword and slices the base of my long neck. Blood rushes from the wound and drips onto the ground.
I jump back and roar again but this time it hurts a bit.
"You are definitely not human." I say.
"..."
"What are you, creature?" I demand.
"I'm human." The mantis knight says, "I'm just someone who knows how to carry himself."
"Alright." I say. "But I'll put you down like a dog."
The mantis knight raises his sword, and I ready my breath. He runs to the side as an inferno of fire rushes at him. He runs at me and I decide to make a risky move. I spin around and whip my tail into him, sending him flying.
In the air he spins his swords around him and through some magic he stops himself and floats down to the ground.
"What!?"
"What is it dragon? Do you not know about wind magic?" the mantis knight says.
The mantis knight spins around on the ground, raises his swords for a second spin and then launches at me with a gust of wind.
He angered me I'm mad he just gloated about his ability in front of the great me. I'm mad so I do something stupid. I bite at him. He spins in midair one again cutting the inside of my mouth but through the pain I bite down.
He manages to resists this by pushing my mouth open. so I throw him at the cage. He slams into it. Causing it to rise off the ground for a second before landing on the ground again.
The mantis knight uses the cage as leverage to get up; he's unhurt. How is that possible? But the mantis knight turns around and seems to be stuck to the cage. He tries to move for a moment long enough for me to see what is happening.
An elf has grabbed him, a female elf with a fresh cut across her eye. Looking angry, despite her emaciation she grabs hard and the mantis knight cannot seem to break free. The perfect chance.
The mantis knight struggles for a moment before pushing her off by her face. He is then met by my teeth which bite through his neck. I then rip off his head and spit it out under me.
I hear a scream from behind the cage. There is a well dressed man cowering behind the cage. "How could a mantis knight lose this is inconceivable."
I jump on the cage once again and look down at him. He screams. I just stair.
"Who are you?" I say.
"I-I am the baron Gress Flam." he says "a-and if you don't want dragon hunters after you, you will leave me be. I-in fact if you help me take these slaves to the capitol you will be handsomely rewarded."
I laugh at him. "Me, help you?" I continue to laugh, making the earth shake. the man cowers even harder.
"Please let me live."
"Maybe I will if you deliver a message to your noble friends." I say.
"What? What do you want me to say?" says the baron Gress Flam.
I put my head in front of his, he is so small his entire body is the size of my head. "Anyone who enters my territory be warned I have a distaste for slavery and next time I see a cart full of slaves the ones carrying them will be burned alive. Be so kind as to tell the entire kingdom please. Unless you want to become my dinner." I say "oh yes if I do see another slave caravan I will find you and personally put you on my plate. Understand."
"Yes, yes I understand." says the baren.
The elves look at me with fear but I came here to save them so I must leave them. No, I must save them. I'll feed them and take them back to their home. With my leg and neck already healed, I jump on the heavy cage and easily fly away with it.
Some screams and gasps escape the cage but they soon die down as I take them to my lair.
-Daisy-
I wait for Spike until morning when I see him flying with a cage in claw. He should be headed to the elf forest now but he seems to be coming this way. He saved the slaves but why? I'm happy he did it of course but dragons don't care about humanity and nothing I have seen from him would make me think otherwise.
He swoops in front of me with the cage in hand causing a gust of wind all around me. I see he is covered in blood. But who's blood?
"Spike, are you hurt?" I say.
"No, I took some cuts but I'm better now." he says.
"Come, I'll heal you." I say.
"Can you heal? If you can, I am not the one who needs healing." he points his head towards the elves.
"I see." I say.
Spike drops down from the cage and rips the door off of it with his bare claws.
The elves stay still for a moment until an elf with a slice over her eye steps out after that the others follow. The elves are covered in scrapes, slices, and look like they haven't eaten in days.
"Oh my god." I say.
The elves are covered in bruises and cuts and look like they have taken quite the beating,
"Daisy, if you can heal them please do." Says the dragon. "While you do that, I'll cook some food. I'll whip up some razel meat."
So while he cooks I heal the elves with my level of magic. I can only heal so many at once but I start, nonetheless. Healing them one by one. Soon I healed the one with a slice through her eye. It seemed to have happened soon enough that it can still be healed without a scar.
"Crazy," she says
"What is?" I ask.
"That dragon helped us, it helped anyone." she says "I'm Sefia by the way."
I say. "He's definitely strange but we'd probably be worse off without him."
"Do you or Spike side with the elves?" asks Sefia.
"No we don't." I say. "We don't have any beliefs about the war. I don't know why he helped you."
"Dinners ready!" says Spike.
All the elves come to the plate.
"Woah slow down I know I'm a good cook but you can wait your turn." said the dragon.
They ate and ate before sleeping right there in the field. The elves hadn't had a good night's sleep in days.
The next day the elves get ready to leave.
"You know if you get back in the cage I could fly you to the elf forest." Says spike.
"With respect we never want to get back in that cage." says Sefia.
"That's fine but do you know where you're going?" Says Spike.
"That's the village of half soil right?" Says Sefia.
"Yup." Says Spike.
"Then that is the forest of Akas." she says.
"Yes." I say.
"Then we can get back, no problem." says Sefia. "We may not look like it anymore, but we are soldiers."
-Voice-
So the elves leave Spike and Say their goodbyes and watch them. After a week of trekking through the wilderness the elves make it to a stronghold belonging to the elves.
After they get let into the stronghold they leave two days after for the elf main city. Where they meet up with their families once again. Sefia meets an old man surrounded by guards.
"Sefia is that you?" says the old elf.
"Yes father, I'm back." says Sefia.
"I thought I would never see you again." says her father.
"You escaped?" he asks.
"No, we were saved."
Sefia's father looks at one of his guards. "Hey, tell the knights, the nobles, and the city the princess has been saved."
"But by whom?" asks her father the king of the elves.
"You're not going to believe it but."