Chapter 8; Demonheart.

One…Dion took a deep breath, tensing up his body like a spring…Two…He crotched low against the ground and spread his wings. His legs ready to jump at any moment…Three… Dion leaped up into the sky. His powerful legs unleashed the full force that was caught within them moments ago, leaping his body into the sky. Dion's wings unfolded and he started to beat them furiously. Gushes of wind blasted from under his wings, trying to hold him in the sky. His mind was only focused on one thing; to fly. He leaned forward trying to get some more lift, generating more altitude. To no avail, he leaned too much, his wing beats where unregulated and he fell into the grass. With an loud uhmpf he landed flat on his chest. The impact knocked the air out of lunges.

“You are improving" Rakshasi complimented Dion's 'flying' skills. “But do try to feel the beat. Do not flail your wings around. Make each beat smooth and controlled" She helped Dion on his feet again. He took liberty of the break that Rakshasi created with the tips to get some fresh air in his lunges. “Easy for you to say you are born a dragon" Rakshasi punched him in the side. The force of the punch reminded Dion how much he had strengthen over the past weeks. A human would have been seriously hurt, even a few weeks ago his scales would not have handled the punch so well. Now, it was a different story. His scales formed a tough barrier to resist the punch to turn it into nothing more than a friendly punch in his side. They took each moment they can to train Dion's wing muscles up to strength. Days where a whole lot easier since they had lefts the human kingdom and into what the human called “the wilds." The wilds where a large area to the north of the kingdom. No one know exactly how large it was or what was on the other side. Rakshasi told stories how strong dragons flew over the wilds for many days. However she did not remember what it was like on the other side or what the dragons encountered on the way.

“Again, you see yourself as human" Rakshasi used a smooth tone in her voice. “No I do not" Dion protested “I merely state the fact you are hatched a dragon, grown up as one, fought as one." Rakshasi could not help but to supress a small chuckle at the protest of Dion. It sounded a bit like the defence a hatchling would give. Maybe he was just an hatchling, given that dragons ages more slowly than humans. “Okay then mister dragon. Try again" Dion, not wanting to admit defeat, spread his wings to take himself to the sky again. He counted his wing beats up from one “Ir" His large wings moved down to replace an large quantity of air. “Jiil." He folded his wings slightly to minimalize the profile and moved them up again, ready for the next beat. “Ir" he growled again as he pushed his wings as fast down as he could. He could feel his feet momentarily leave the ground. “Jiil" he moved his wings up to trust down another time. He stopped counting out loud, it restricted the airflow to his lunges. The frequency of the beats increased to a pace that he could keep himself hovering. He felt light on his feet as most of his weight was carried by the wings. He paused his beating to give a run up. His powerful legs carried him around ten meters away before powerfully leaping into the air. Dion caught the rushing air under his wings and propelled himself into the air. He could feel the rush of air created by his flight over his scales. He was struck by a moment of euphoria. A feeling that could be easily described as a slave who got rid of the chains of captivity for the first time. He turned his neck to look back to Rakshasi. She was waving her hands and shouting something to him. The rush of wind and the beating of his wings distorted the words of Rakshasi. Most likely she was just happy, for the moment that is what Dion had in mind. What he did not pay attention to was the fact that moving his neck caused him to turn in flight.

“Dion!"  He could hear Rakshasi suddenly shout in his mind. “Tree" Dion snapped his head back to see where he was flying to. Just in time, he could barely fold his right wing against his body in time. The sudden drop in lift on his right side caused him to told and roll on his side. Now with no lift under his wings he tumbled two meters to the ground. Dion tried to restore his flight but the tree was to close by, causing his right wing to hit the tree.

“Dion?" he could see Rakshasi kneeled besides him. A worried look on her face as she was trying to get his attention “Are you alright?" Dion growled in pain for his answer. He could feel a numb sensation in his back. With a little effort and the help of Rakshasi he stood on his legs again. Shaking the dirt off his scales. He did not really mind that he just crashed the only thing on his mind was the fact he managed to fly. Out of joy he embraced Rakshasi who gave a gasp from surprise.

“Demon!" A child's voice shouted in fear. Dion had to break the embrace to look around, across the field near to the backpacks with the eggs he could see a child of perhaps seven years old pointing at them and shouting for help. Dion growled, knowing the parents would not be far. Rakshasi hissed as they could hear two other shouts coming from deeper in the forest. A man's and a woman's voice, obviously the parents. With little thought of how the child would react Dion rushed to the backpacks. He did not pay attention as his long tail smacked the child away. The child started to cry even more and Dion could see the parents armed with short bows appearing from the forest edge. With the bags secure Dion rushed away towards Rakshasi. The two adults rushed to their child, their bows ready to shoot. In a smooth motion Rakshasi took one of the backpacks from Dion and lead him away to disappear into a tree line. Leaving the shouting humans behind them. A short while later Dion paused to get a break, he still had to recover from the rush he got for flying and the fact he had hurt his back in the fall. He kneeled down on the ground to catch his breath. “We have to move" Rakshasi pressed Dion not to take too a pause to long. Dion replied only once his heart stopped pounding in his chest. “You said this region was uninhabited" he grunted to Rakshasi. “Well apparently it is not" she snarled rather agitated back at Dion. Who stood back on his feet to face her. “Is there something you would like to tell me?" He tried to hide that he had grown a rather annoyed by the fact that they did not seem to get rid of humans. It was not her fault that the humans where constantly near them, or was it?  Rakshasi gazed straight in his eyes, her stand soften. She too taken control of her emotions. “Like what dion?" she replied calm with a cold undertone . “What I have to say to you about this dion?" Dion took a deep breath. He had grown rather tired of confronting Rakshasi to get a better idea about what was going on. The fact that most of the times she was rather closed off about her pas did not make it easier for him. “Well like how we are at least a week's walk away from the borders of the kingdom and still we have people calling us demons…why?" Rakshasi gazed past Dion. For a moment Dion did not know if he gotten any answer at all or if she just changed subject. “Dion" she said after a long pause, her words came out un easy. Dion could feel a great deal of discomfort trough the mental link. He could remember only one time before he felt this level of discomfort: When he asked about his families past and it turned out that a great uncle was an Nazi collaborator during the second world war. “It is a long story Dion.." She tried to dismiss the question, hoping that he would drop it. Dion however would not. “For once I would like to hear it. It might as well be that I never become human again…" While he said the words he realized he did not feel the same amount of sorrow for it. Every single step they took where to make sure that dragon's would survive this era.  With the promise that Dion would become human again, yet he felt that with every step they took Dion wanted more and more to stay dragon. “So that is what you care about" Dion could see a flare of anger in Rakshasi's eyes.  Before her anger could grow Dion spoke again “What do you think yourself? I been ripped from my own world into a strange body and feared like I am the devil himself." He looked stern into her eyes, not blinking, not showing any emotion. He did succeed partially, her anger did not grew anymore., it turned into embers slowly smouldering. “And thus you want to easy way out?" she gave a small growl to him. “Rakshasi, I do not know. I can feel my own humanity slip by the day. I do not know that if the time comes I want to stay dragon or become human again." A small hiss escapes his mouth. He bared the teeth subconsciously, a sign he felt threatened. “The least you could do is tell me why we are being hunted like some kind of demon." He could tell that Rakshasi was perplexed by his answer. He could see a small tear forming, it rolled from her eye in the grooves of her scales until it fell down on the ground.  Her breath became slow and deep before she replied to him. “Alright, I will tell" she turned around, away from Dion and facing the depths of the forest. “But I don't have to tell you that soon there will be guards, or worse hunters behind us." Dion got the hint and followed Rakshasi deeper into the forest. For him it was an achievement that he gotten her to talk without making as big a fuss like last time. “It all started long ago" Rakshasi told Dion with a twisted tone of anger and sorrow. “Before the humans started there kingdom. Dragons and humans did not combat each other. Not that we were friends or allies at that time. There was always competition between the species. Humans blamed us for eating away all the wild gain, over the course of years while they started to try and pry more and more hunting grounds from us. We quickly saw what the humans did to the lands, their hunting techniques diminished the amount of wild gain available. In return we tried to chase the humans away. It happened a few times that a human or a dragon got killed but never there was an vendetta between the two species" she took a pause to avoid a low hanging branch. Her claws dug in the ground as she accelerated her pace over the ground, not wanting to stick around for long. “It changed however when the humans started to burn and chop down forests to make land free for farms. They might not even realized that their actions gave food shortages in the territories of dragons. When it became mating season and many of us needed to feast to survive without food long enough to lay the eggs the problems started. With barely enough wild gain with in a territory the female dragon's where forced to hunt down the cattle of the humans. They could always eat plants if they had shortages. The humans however did not shared our opinion about food. Specially the rich who couldn't get a nice part of meat anymore started to ask their subjects to deal with the dragons. By the time the first king was crowned a feud had grown between us and them. We were openly burring down farms that where on our territory. Human where never strong enough to deal with us. The kingdom brought change in that. Not all humans had to work hard in the field and more and more soldiers joined the army. We quickly became demonized by the humans for our behaviour. A behaviour they started. Many humans who are not with the kingdom still remember this past, the past of burning villages."  Dion listened with great care to the words. The story together with the emotions that seemed to seep through the mental link of the two put him in a trance.

A twig hit Dion's face, snapping him out of the trance the story brought him in. He looked dazed and confused. The world around him felt like a dream to him. He brushed the twig out of his face. He could feel his mind sitting in two different states of consciousness. Like his mind was in two different places, two different bodies at the same time. He could feel where the twig had hit him, yet when he touched the scales of his body it felt like he was touching something completely strange. Panic rushed in his mind as he tried to piece together what was happening to him. Could one story really change the fabric of what he knew as reality. Did he believe this was his reality at all, being a dragon, walking around on an quest. Dion felt a cold tingling sensation running down his neck, his vision started to face. “No!" He growled to himself. His focus snapped back to the world only to fade again. “No!" he would not let himself be victimized by delusions. A glimpse of reality that he did not care for, that he did not hope for to be real. His steps became heavy, a battle with in him as the two parts of his mind started to war inside of him. “Dion!" he could hear Rakshasi's voice, it was a like a lighthouse on an foggy night. A clear beacon of hope guiding him home to his own mind. A blacked of darkness was lifted, his mind became free of the pressure. Rakshasi's voice had a tone of great concern. “Are you alright?" Dion could not reply to her. His own mind to divided, to mixed up to transmit even a single thought. A throbbing pain started to come to his mind, like strokes of a hammer to his skull and into his brain, into his sanity. He would not lose it now, after all he was not alone. He had eggs to care for, he has Rakshasi near him. It was all he had left of the reality he believed in.  two beacons in the strange world. “Dion?" her mind touched his own. Again he could feel a weight lifted from his shoulder. Would she be the key to his sanity?  “Dion?" His eyes glazed up on the scales of Rakshasi. Claws on his body lifted him up. A Blur of scales passed his eyes until he was face to face with Rakshasi. He could see concern in her eyes. Dion could just lie to her, then she would not be worried. Would she buy such a lie? He could feel the world spinning around him, his only focal point where Rakshasi's eyes. He could feel himself being guided, Little could he do then just stumble along. He could feel the bark of a tree against his shoulder. It offered him the support he needed, something strong and sturdy to lean against. He hardly noticed that Rakshasi removed the backpack. His legs started to shake as he lost. His ears started to fill with a high pitched tone that hurt his ear drums. The world started to spin around once more as he spiralled down into a blackness. With the sanity still left in his mind he fought back this closing darkness. Only vague, somewhere in the back of his mind, he could hear Rakshasi. She was nothing more than background noise in the spiral of his mind. An self-destruction as two worlds started to collide in him.

Time seemed to stop for him, the world a blur. He could feel, he could see but he could not interact. He found himself laying on the ground, motionless. Within his view was a blue blur of what must be Rakshasi bend over him. they sky and trees all blurred into one greenish blue. The sounds around him where distorted beyond the point he could hear what was happening. He could only see that he was moved, not feel it through his numb body. Any sensation of touch, of pain, of heat was numbed out by a mind in constant war with itself. His own emotions of fear where nothing more than a fire to an blaze that was set out to consume him. the shadows moved, the sky changed from a completely blue blur to something grey. A cold sensation could find its way into the still conscious parts of his brain. He did not know how long he had been in this trance, only that his the last bits of his mind and soul that were still in one peace where falling apart. As the surrounds seemed to become darker and darker he could hear less and less. He feared it would be the end, that this was how he would die. A rhythmical thumbing sound sometimes would keep him distracted. It lasted for a time and then it stopped. He could try and count how long it lasted but it was no use to him. He could barely even count past ten before he lost it. Often he tried to just sleep but sleep was something that was foreign to his state of mind. He could only drift to a state that seemed less conscious to him, he could not rest completely. In fear that his mind would be fully consumed by the ongoing rage. Often he could feel something being pushed into his mouth. only with great effort he could force himself to lifelessly chew on something and swallow it. hoping his stomach would not protest as his body started to go into shock. He could feel no feeling in his legs, he could feel his arms become weak. He could feel his body grow cold. In the side of his fission a blur of orange, something to heat up his body. he could not even come up with words to describe the warmth he felt. He could feel losing the fight to stay in one part. More and more of his mind was consumed by the darkness. He could no longer see just from his dragon body. he started to shift back and forth between the bodies. One dragon, one human laying in the hospital. The Thumbing sound in his dragon form starting to blend in with a soft rhythmic bleep of an heart monitor. His eyes started to close up on him, both his sets of eyes. The hospital started to become a blur. His dragon body became cold and motionless. With the last remaining breath Dion had he welcomed the death he was sure that was to come. Little did he know that his fate was worse than death.