Vel felt her scales crawl, but she didn't dare shiver.
"I fear neither pain nor death. Whatever happens to me- it's the way things were designed. Everything happens for a reason."
She cleared her throat.
"Funny how you talk about such traumatizing situations like you never endured it. Do you even know where you're from?"
She scoffed.
"Perhaps you were raised in that hell pit. Okay, cool. But have you
never thought, for just the smallest of moments, that maybe getting drugged up and brainwashed was kind of...
wrong? That maybe, just maybe, you wanted to think for yourself?"
She shook her head.
"You're better off than most, CloudWing. I see the wheels turning in your idiot brain. At least you can think. Lucky you got an ounce of self respect. Most of them come out of the labs barely knowing how to breath."
She cocked her head slowly, scowling, a growl rising in her throat.
"And then they
die, because there's nothing else in the world to live for. Because they're so ruined, and lost, and helpless, and so, so broken. Not even instinct can fix them after that. It's sick, CloudWing.
You're sick, CloudWing."
@-Shade-
Alicanto was silent for a long moment.
Had he been raised in the Scorpion Den? Sure, he'd wondered about his tribe and he'd wondered about his parents. Where his egg had been nested and where he had hatched. But he didn't remember anything other than the Den, so he'd always just subconsciously accepted that he'd only lived there.
And now he realized how stupid that was. Just because he didn't remember anything else, didn't mean he'd never known it. That was the
whole point of the memory clearing. Why had he never considered that he might have lived outside the Den once upon a time? He was supervised by the laboratory, even though he never recalled being in their torture cells, and he couldn't think, in his shock, of any other reasonable purpose as to why the Professor was the one in charge of him.
He knew the Den was wrong, only a
true idiot wouldn't. But there was no escaping it. Even the rebellion that had escaped would be tracked down within days and destroyed.
His headache was starting to come back, the turmoil behind his mental wall once again slamming against the unbreakable barrier. He couldn't let this dragon see how unsure he truly was of his loyalty to the Den. That was how their petty rebellion had started in the first place.
"I was given a choice," Alicanto growled, finally losing his lightened demeanor. "Whether it was after losing my memory or not, I chose to survive. This is the only way how, and you know what, I'm sorry you had to be in the middle of it. I'm sorry your choices put you between me and my freedom, but that's not
my fault."
He didn't want to hear what Vel had to say. His head was pounding now and he was feeling his patience start to slip. He might end up killing this dragon if the mental warring in his head along with the horrible pain in his body continued to get worse from her sharp jabbing.
Alicanto flared his wings again, falling behind the other two dragons, far enough to stay out of earshot of the Rainwing. Maybe once he was back in the Den and able to rest from his mission, he'd sort the thoughts out on his own.
Without another dragon trying to pry his mind in half.
Loud wingbeats sounded behind them, jolting Alicanto out of his thoughts. The black dragons descended over the trio, two of them stopping in front of them, forcing them to stop and hover. Alicanto cocked his head slightly, listening for the wings behind him, three Nightwings if he had to guess.
"Alicanto."
The largest Nightwing circled overhead, his eyes flicking from Vel and then back to the Cloudwing.
"Report."
The silver dragon rolled his eyes, shooting the black dragon an exasperated look.
"We've been over this Starholder," he said in a deeply condescending voice. "I'm not one of your soldiers. I don't have to report to you."
@_-Captain BRM-_
(I was gonna keep writing but I don't want the piece to be too long, so I'll just get Vel's perspective real quick if that's okay)
