Adventures of the last Wild Dragon

Time passed both slowly and swiftly once the Eldor army began their retreat. At first it was still a bloody struggle whereupon the beasts and Syans’s devastated the retreating humans.

However, once the humans entered into the tree line the offensive against them slowed down somewhat.

A large number of beasts continued to pursue them doggedly, primarily those of a predatory nature such as wolves and felines. They were eager for a propper hunt after being dragged around for so long by Violet and Luna, as such they were determined to hunt for as long as possible now that they had the chance.

On the Syan side the majority of the army that had been chasing after them was pulled back, only a select few regiments were allowed to continue the pursuit into the forest.

As for everyone else?

Well around half of the beast army remained in place, resting after the strenuous battle or simply eating their fill from the vast piles of dead bodies, beast and enlightened alike.

It was around half a hour after the human army entered the forest that a second flight of dragons flew directly towards Violet, this time being led by Rhyana.

By this time the area around Violet had mostly cleared out, the beast lords nodding their respect towards her and Luna before wandering off to either rest or eat depending on their apparent mood.

So due to this their was a reasonably large area around them that was clear to land in. When they did Rhyana made her way over and gently bumped her head against first Violet then Luna’s own heads.

"I am glad to see you both, thank you for coming."

Then a tired but happy dogkin appeared atop Rhyana’s head and smiled down at the two companions, a radiant smile lighting up her face.

"Violet! Luna! I am so glad to see the two of you again! Please never disappear like that again okay! Poor Rhyana was terribly sad that you had vanished!" She said, a teasing tone entering her voice towards the end.

Rhyana ducked her head in embarrassment at that, accidentally sending Susan falling down only to be caught by an ice ramp that instantly snapped into place. She was greeted at the base of it by Olivia.

Violet laughed at their words. "It is great to see you both as well. I am glad that you are all okay, and, sorry that it took us so long to come back. We did have quite the distance to travel to make it though!"

After that however Violet turned her attention towards the very recently freed dragons who had been standing somewhat awkwardly off to one side.

The younger dragons had been curiously observing them since their arrival, but with Andrea’s influence had not been allowed to venture forth just yet.

"So you are all now free of Eldor influence. I don’t know what you intend to do now but know that you are free to make your own decisions. Well so long as it isn’t to return to the kingdom to rejoin them."

Her voice began as kind but gained a hint of steal towards the end.

The dragons flinched slightly at that, then glancing around at one another one of them eventually stepped forwards. His voice was slow, simple almost yet did have some clear wisdom behind his words, he was a black scaled dragon, similar to Violet, yet lacking her violet highlights.

"We are thankful. A long time bound to humans. A long time of pain. Never want to return. We fight for you now."

The beast did not sound overly intelligent, not being able to form complete sentences, yet it made a twisted kind of sense. These beasts had lived their entire lives having their intelligence and freedom restraine, both physically and magically.

Yet even with those hindrances, now that they had been freed they were already regaining that spark of true intelligence that had been so thourghly restrained whilst bound to Eldor.

After that the girls spent some time talking to the newly freed dragons, explaining some of the basic information they would need and introducing them to the younger dragons Violet had also freed.

Around that time two more groups arrived at Violet’s inpromptue clearing.

The first being the rescued slaves, they emerged from the forest and quickly spotted the now almost 30 dragons, quickly making their way over to greet them and congratulate them on the victory.

The second group however was a different matter entirely.

For it was being led by not one, but two sovereigns. Thankfully both Violet and Luna knew at least one of them, that being Masin whilst the other older Snow Leopardkin must be his father, the king of Syan.

The king was glancing between both Violet and Luna with complicated emotions clear on his face. Relief and gratitude were primary amongst them, but slight apprehension was also mixed in amongst other less obvious emotions.

When they got close enough the king stopped alongside his son, he gazed up into Violet’s violet eyes for a long moment, then he lowered his head in a genuine bow of appreciation.

"I am Mason Syan, the king of Syan. You have my eternal gratitude for your timely arrival this day. I fear what would have befallen my city had you not arrived when you did."

Violet carefully observed the king for a moment, easily able to know his gratitude to be genuine. Understanding that she decided to take on a more relaxed tone, as such she quickly transformed back into her humanoid form, her stylish and heavily enchanted kimono covering her body.

It seemed that she was not alone in that decision as a moment later Luna and Rhyana also copied her actions and shifted back into their humanoid appearance.

The king blinked in surprise upon seeing the humanoid appearance of both Violet and Luna. Obviously not expecting them to change into that form so readily, he naturally knew that some powerful beasts gained that ability, yet they were normally quite reluctant to take on what most beasts considered to be a lesser form.

Still he did not slow that to deter him as Violet responded to his words.

"Greetings Mason," her head tilted to the side slightly as she interrupted her own greeting with a question that quickly popped into her head. "Wait, your name is Mason, and you named your son Masin? Hu..."

She then shook her head to clear her thoughts and return to what she had intended to say. To the side Luna slapped her hand over her face and let out a groan whilst Masin struggled to withhold a chuckle of clear amusement.

"Ahem. You are welcome, I had heard about the kingdom army venturing into the forest, I figured I may as well bring an army of my own to welcome them into the Wilds!" A wide predatory smile adorned her face at that as she remembered the battle that had just occoured.

The king smiled wryly at her words. "Indeed, what an army it was. As I said, I do not know how we would have survived had you not arrived." He then paused for a moment, clearly wondering if he should ask yet deciding that he simply had to know the answer to the question.

"If I may ask, how exactly did you manage to gain the assistance of the Hydra? I know of that beast, it is not one to venture away from its domain. It must have been quite the ordeal to pursuade it to leave its swamp and join you."

At that Luna chuckled before coughing lightly then answering. "Actually it was quite simple really. We encountered a Treant. A truly powerful one at that, it was unable to leave its domain but was apparently owed a favour from the Hydra and called that favour in to get it to join us."

The kings mouth dropped open in utter surprise and a slight twinge of fear.

"Y-you encountered the Forest Tyrant? And, and it helped you?"

Violet tilted her head in apparent confusion, prompting the King to elaborate. "The Forest Tyrant, it is a local legend, although no one has ever entered its territory and returned alive in living memory, so we only have ancient records of the Treants existence. Other than its terrifying power that is."

Violet quickly lath ed onto the title of Tyrant however, that was the title for a tier 5 Monster, not a beast or enlightened. That momentarily shocked her, for she did not know that monsters could be conversed with, let alone bargained with.

Still she quickly shook the thought away. "Then yes I believe that we did encounter that being you described. It was a surprisingly pleasant encounter all things considered."

The king simply blinked in surprise, his understandings of monsters and of that particular monster being flipped on its head and he had no idea how to respond to it.

Thankfully Masin was able to pick up the stalled conversation.

"Violet, Luna it is great to see they two of you again, you have grown much since I last saw you. But I have to ask, what are you planning on doing with all of these beasts gathered here? I don’t quite know what we are supposed to do about them."

That stopped Violet from observing the king to glance around and understand why Masin seemed so concerned about it.

For their was still well over 1000 beasts present around the battlefield. And whilst they were not attacking the defenders of Syan. They certainly were not exactly looking to friendly towards the soldiers.

"Ahh, yeah, I probabally should do something about them. To be honest I did not think this far ahead when gathering them all." She somewhat awkwardly admitted to tehe sound of groaning coming from both Rhyana and Susan.