Pt. XIV

With the tribe’s future secured and her duty fulfilled, Akir’Ischa turns her gaze to her old valley. The time had come.
She did not fly to the valley at once. Instead, she circled the sacred ridge one final time, her wings cutting through the night air like blades through silk. The tribe stirred as she broke her circle, but she did not need to explain. The weight of her wings, the set of her shoulders, the fire in her eyes: she had one more thing to do, and that was going home.

The valley unfolded beneath her like an old wound, its edges still raw with memory. The trees had grown taller, their branches weaving a denser canopy over the clearing where her hatchlings had once played. The scent of the place was different now—less of blood, more of life. The river still sang the same song, but the melody was softer, as if time had sanded down its sharper notes.

She circled once. Twice.
Then she landed.

The earth remembered her. The imprints of her claws from centuries past were gone, but the feel of the place -the way the wind curled around the rocks, the way the sunlight slanted through the pines- it was all the same. She closed her eyes and breathed in.
The wind carried the ghosts of her past: her mate’s laughter, her hatchlings’ chittering, the roar of her grief when she had thought all was lost. The ghosts of their sounds in the rustle of the leaves. The shadow of their wings in the shape of the clouds.
Grief rose in her like a tide, but she did not let it drown her. She had come here to face this, not to flee it.
A roar split the air: not from her, but from the ridges above.
The valley had a new guardian.

The dragon who descended was younger than she expected, his scales an almost dark blue, his eyes sharp with territorial wariness. He landed between her and the heart of the valley, his wings half-spread, his tail lashing. “You are not welcome here,” he growled.
She did not bare her teeth. She did not bristle. She saw the tension in his shoulders, the way his claws flexed against the earth. He was not afraid. He was uncertain.
“I was Chronicler of the Slabs,” she said, her voice low, steady. “I come not to claim, but to mourn.”
His nostrils flared. “This is my domain.”
“And it is well-kept,” she acknowledged. “I ask only for a single night. No hunt. No challenge. Only…” She hesitated. The word tasted like ash. “Closure.”
The dragon studied her for a long, silent moment. Then, slowly, his wings folded. “One night,” he said at last. “Dawn sees you gone.”
She dipped her head. “You have my word.”

She did not go to the clearing where they had fallen. Not yet.
Instead, she flew and climbed to the highest ridge, high above her old lair, where the wind was sharp and the view stretched endlessly toward the horizon. The peaks where she had once watched her mate teach their hatchlings to fly. Where she had stood, heart swelling, as their tiny, awkward wings beat against the sky.
She sat. And she waited.
The sun bled into dusk. The moons rose. One full, one red, one silver. The valley below exhaled the day’s warmth, and the stars began their slow, ancient turn.

And then…
A sound.
Not a voice. Not a memory.
But a presence.
She turned her head.
There, at the edge of the tree line, stood a shape. Smaller than she remembered, but unmistakable. A hatchling. Her hatchling. The one from the vision, with eyes like her mate’s and scales that shimmered like embers in the dark.
Akir’Ischa’s breath caught.
The hatchling tilted her head. “You came back,” she said. Not in words. Not in sound. But in the way the wind carried her scent.
“I never left,” Akir’Ischa whispered.
The hatchling smiled. A flash of teeth, a spark of mischief. “You did. But you returned. That is what matters.”
And then she was gone. Not vanished. Not dead.
But fulfilled.

The grief did not disappear. But it changed. It was no longer a blade in her chest. It was a seed in her soul, one that had finally, after centuries, been given permission to grow.

Dawn approached, the sky a canvas of gold and violet as the stars faded like embers into the coming light. The dark blue dragon was near, watching silently as she stood in the clearing where she had left her memories.
She did not weep. She did not roar.
She sang.
A song of fire and flight, of love and loss, of the cruel beauty of time. And as she sang, she pressed her claws into the earth, drawing symbols in the dirt: names, memories, promises.
When she was done, she turned to the dark blue dragon who had now approached her.
“Guard this place well. It is more than land. It is memory.” she said. He kept silent as his gaze flickered to the symbols in the dirt. “Go in peace, Chronicler,” he said.
She took to the sky one last time, the valley shrinking beneath her.

She did not look back.