The Throne of Bones.

2. Ashrótt the Vermilion Disaster.

The serenity that encased Wolfberry suddenly felt suffocating, and the once peaceful blue star now seemed like a foreboding beacon trapping them beneath a target.  

"Come." Mithos called his son, spreading his wings and sprinting away before a powerful downward thrust shot him off the ground like a diagonally aimed arrow. 

Minto was quick to follow his father above the roof of Wolfberry Forest where his mouth opened agape as he witnessed for the first time a dragon gliding across the skies above the forest in the distance.  

Sitri rushed back to her family in the air, grabbing hold of Minto's hand. "Come, we must leave here." She urged her husband. 

"It harms nothing." Mithos scratched his chin.  

"Maybe it is a peaceful visit?" He added. 

"Mithos it's a Dragon, their very presence invites chaos, we must leave this forest and relocate to someplace far away before its true nature comes to surface. 

"Fire..." 

"Then what of the many lives here in Wolfberry?" Mithos argued. "Surely we should warn them?" Mithos turned to his wife with a complex look. 

"Fire..."  

"We are better off leaving now." Sitri threw a bag full of food she had been holding to him and turned her back. 

"By the gods, Fire!" Minto shouted to his parents grabbing their hands and attempting to drag them. 

Just as he did this the air became hot and unstable before the very atmosphere shook as an explosion in the distance shot up a pillar of Vermilion flames, causing Wolfberry trees around it to shatter and uproot.  

"That is near Sarlone!" Mithos gasped.  

"Mithos! Enough of your foolishness, you risk our lives if you stand passive now, we must leave immediately!" Sitri grabbed him by his hair and hissed in his ear. 

"How can I just watch so much sacred land go up in flames and not aid?!" Mithos rebutted with a roar before flapping his large wings faster to gain more height. "Take this." He threw the bag to Minto. "Sitri, I will not abandon this forest, take Minto to the Bloodgrass mountains and wait there for me, I will stop this beast before it rampages any further." 

"Mithos-"  

"Go!" He snapped at her, causing her to withdraw her outstretched hand and take hold of Minto's.  

At this very same moment, a Vermilion explosion enveloped an area several hundred feet away, debris instantly began soaring through the rest of the forest as the blast magnified into a dome of destructive fire that incinerated everything it grazed. 

Sitri quickly grabbed Minto by his head and wrapped her wings around him, the same time she did this, Mithos spread his arms wide and brought them together with a roar. 

The air was immediately displaced and everything went white as the approaching flames exploded back in the other direction. 

Wolfberry now looked like sunset again, orange fires blazed in every direction, and above all the screams and cries for help down below was the great dragon gliding slowly through the thick black smoke. 

"Are you hurt?" Mithos landed softly beside Sitri and Minto who were both huddled together by the root of a Wolfberry tree that had been shattered halfway to the top a few dozen metres from where they were originally. "Sitri." Mithos attempted to touch his wife but was shocked when she craned her neck, bared her fangs and bit into his hand angrily causing maroon coloured blood to escape the punctures. 

"Sitri!" He hissed, dragging back his hand quickly. 

"You, you fool!" She cried out, barely managing to open her wings that were now bruised and bloodied with several tears and broken bones , in her embrace was Minto, unconscious and breathing with difficulty because of a shard of wood that had pierced his side and broken his ribcage, some of his bones in his side were even exposed to the open air, and his heart was visible and spewing out dark blood. "Had we left when I told you..." She caressed her dying child's face before coughing up a mouthful of purple blood.  

"Sitri-" Mithos gasped seeing she also had several shards of wood bedded in her body. 

"Keep the monster at bay!" She snapped when he tried touching her again. "I will heal our son." 

"But you're-" Mithos began again, but recoiled when her wrathful eyes turned to him. "...Rest assured." He muttered before turning his attention to the Vermilion monster in the sky. 

"Dragon!" Mithos roared before taking to the skies toward the approaching Beast. 

The Vermilion Dragon had the build of an experienced soldier with muscles trained and carved through millennia of battles, four powerful legs branded sharp black claws and it was tailless.  

Its underbelly had the bright glow of fire while its scales were varied from yellow to orange to red, and its wings alone sounded like thunder while it's roar was like a hurricane.  

In the distance the whole forest could hear the dragon as he opened his mouth and spoke. "Wolfberry, I am Ashrótt of the land of Néthark, there is a thief among you who possesses a treasure stolen from the great Dragon King Mardálokás, bring this thief to me, I will continue to waste your pitiful land until the treasure is before my eyes!" Ashrótt's voice echoed across all the land.  

The dragon once again opened his mouth and from the back of his throat came a concentrated pillar of Vermilion that travelled across the skies at the speed of sound before exploding a distance away, causing another wave of fire, heat, and debris to expand across that area. 

From the clear skies, clouds began to form racing from hundreds of miles away toward Wolfberry faster than perceptible, on powerful winds that grated away at everything that they touched.  

Ashrótt roared in surprise when several bolts of lightning crashed against his face. 

"You dare!?" The mighty beast roared to the skies before shooting off several arteries of fire into the rapidly building clouds above the forest. 

"Ashrótt!" Mithos' voice exploded across the air louder than the dragon's own roar.  

Slowly, the mentioned turned his eyes until his vision settled on the Fae that resisted him. "Leave this forest, or face my wrath, I surrender this option to you only once!" 

"Do you have the king's treasure, which I have tracked here?" Ashrótt asked lowly. 

"Leave this forest!" Mithos snapped again. 

"Then, you; a lowly Fae, dares confront my magnificence without the treasure of the King, and threaten me!?" A growl came from Ashrótt's throat accompanied by another sudden pillar of flame shot directly at Mithos. 

Mithos dodged the massive attack, flying upward and watching as it sailed across the sky and into the clouds before exploding in the distant.  

"Wolfberry, lend me your strength." Mithos whispered as he saw another pillar already in his face.  

He clasped a single hand and opened it toward the dragon's harsh breath, magic from the suffering forest around him began entering his body in magnanimous waves and his golden hair began glowing white. 

The pillar of flame set to destroy Mithos made a U-turn back toward the dragon as the atmosphere warped and swirled around it.  

In this same instant the skies made an unholy noise as though they were speaking, then while the redirected fire crashed into the surprised dragon a giant bolt of lightning descended from the clouds, sending shards and scales and fire exploding in all directions as Ashrótt fell from the sky, causing a mountain of debris and smoke to rise into the air. 

Mithos' eyes began to glow white while droplets of tears fell from the corners, and then his wings also began glowing, he suddenly seemed like an angel in the sky, defying the Vermilion devil below. 

His sudden transformation was that of unbridled rage, his link had been cut, Sitri had just passed away, and from what he could feel, Minto was still dying.  

He became bitter with rage. 

From the floor of the forest a group of halfling creatures with wings congregated and took to the skies to aid the outcast Fae, and not a moment later, the very land began to tremble and shake, cracks opened up and sinkholes opened up where healthy land once bedded, the skies became turmoil and the wind became unruly. 

"For your impudence, you and all the creatures of this filth will suffer the hand of I! Ashrótt the Vermilion Disaster!" The dragon roared at the suddenly massive gathering that opposed him before taking to the air like a clap of thunder and lightning. 

The night had passed with cries and explosions as all of the able inhabitants of Wolfberry battled against Ashrótt, and at the end of it, only four figures remained to witness the first sun rise. 

All of Wolfberry Forest laid desolate. 

Ashrótt had defeated his opposition, but had found no remnant of the King's treasure, so had peacefully left those who remained, though their numbers were little. 

There was nobody left to lick their wounds either, of the raining four, a heavily injured Mithos cradled a barely breathing Minto, and his wife's corpse.  

Behind him was an Elf so old her body was wrinkled and her hair grey, she too had suffered heavy injuries and on her side was a half-breed girl around minto's age in appearance, with a broken horn on one side of her head, and the other missing completely, she too had been fighting the night before and was just as bloodied as the other two. 

All that remained of the once sacred forest was ashes and corpses burnt and crushed beyond recognition. 

"Mithos, in the end, we could not protect this forest, and though some are still alive, the forest will take many years to recover." The old Elf said to the motionless Fae. "We should hurry with your son to the nearest settlement before his condition worsens." 

While she was speaking, Minto's eyes had been slowly opening, and the first thing his eyes focused on, was his mother's corpse on his right, and his dead father on his left.  

He could not move yet, he could not speak yet, he just laid there and stared until his consciousness faded into darkness again. 

Desperate for his son's safety, Mithos had done exactly what Sitri had. 

Using his very life force to rejuvenate his dying child's soul. 

It would take a while before the boy could come to terms with such a reality.