Mega Dragon: Harbinger of Death

THE ENCOUNTER

The journey to the capital was an excruciatingly long one for Aroha. The distance from Juza itself to the Croft kingdom’s capital was long. Croft was one of the bigger kingdoms on Maori after all. But now, she was stuck on this tiresome journey with her spawn of the devil sister, Zhiyi, even though she was the only one that thought of her that way. But how couldn’t she not? She had to listen to her ramble on about things she could care less about, for what might be a day’s journey. Oh, the misery. She wanted to be a healer. She knew it was going to an arduous task. Gruesome maybe. But not this gruesome! How did she not realize that she would be stuck with Zhiyi in the same space for an entire day? And to make matters worse, possible her entire life!

Back at home, it was easy for Aroha to avoid Zhiyi. Zhiyi rarely stayed at home once she was done with her chores or her parents didn’t have any task for her. So, Aroha mostly stayed at home. It made it easier to avoid people as well. And whenever Zhiyi came back, she left. It was simple. They only needed to be in the same space for small parts of the say. Aroha could live with that much. But now, anywhere she turned to was Zhiyi. And it would only get worse.

Zhiyi on the other hand was having a lot of fun talking to herself because Aroha was clearly not paying attention to a word that came out of her mouth. “Aroha, did you hear that prince Ara is currently in the capital? We might actually get a chance to meet him. He’s so dreamy!” Zhiyi exclaimed. She was only a second away from drooling amidst her reverie of the handsome, young prince that all the girls in the kingdom couldn’t stop talking about. Even girls from other kingdoms as well. They were easily the most sought-after men in all of Maori. Some even said that the princes were more beautiful than women. Aroha always believed that to be an exaggeration but Zhiyi already fell in love with them prior to first sight. Just like every other girl on Maori.

But Aroha only felt disgusted. The more love a person received, the more disgust Aroha felt about that person. The only exception to that rule were her parents and to some extent, Zhiyi. While Zhiyi irritated her most of the time, that was only on the surface. She genuinely cared about her little sister, but it didn’t mean she wanted to be around her though. She could love her from a distance. That was by far the more convenient situation for her.

“And what about prince Zenon? I heard he came back with prince Ara this time? Isn’t he so dreamy? What if I meet both of them and they fall in love with me? Oh, what will I do? Who will I pick? How will all the other girls look at me? I bet they will all be envious of me,” Zhiyi exclaimed like she was the star of a drama. Her exaggerations only added fire to Aroha’s displeasure. She didn’t need to act like that. With the excessive hand gestures and swooning. All on a b****y horse! But she knew how much Aroha hated it, so it was fun for her. It was a good way to enjoy herself on this long journey. If she wasn’t born a healer, she might have turned out to be an awesome actor. And she would definitely have a lot of fans. It wasn't like she didn’t have a lot of those already. She was a people person. And Aroha hated people persons. So you can see the problem here.

It was never clear where she picked up that attitude from, but Aroha had always been like that since she was a child. Zhiyi had a thesis regarding it. Aroha was born a gifted child. Gifted children easily attracted a lot of love and hate at the same time. What shifts the scale is usually their attitude. And Aroha had a terrible attitude. It was easy to dislike her. Even worse that she was good at everything but one; making friends. She was used to all the hate, so naturally, she reacted as such. A sort of defensive mechanism if you would say. And to top it all up, she was bad at the one thing that most people were actually good at. So of course she’d loathe them all. And she would be more than justified. She had gone through enough to be justified.

Zhiyi never had such a problem. But even a sweet girl like her had her enemies. But they feared Aroha too much to try anything with Zhiyi. For a healer, she was especially good at inflicting pain on others. Even when the boys messed with Zhiyi when they were little, Aroha would easily beat them all up. Some of them still suffered from the trauma to this day. The only one that was allowed to mess with her little sister was her. No one else. Anyone who dared to would have to answer to her. And that was never a pretty scene.

They were a total of six armed guards that accompanied them. Even though they weren’t supposed to, they were having a laugh from Zhiyi’s performances and Aroha’s priceless expressions. From all the claps and cheers, they could easily have been mistaken for a traveling circus. Aroha wasn’t so pleased. How could they derive so much joy from her misery? Damn those guards. If they weren’t protecting her, they would be sorry by now.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you froze up when you finally meet them,” Aroha teased. Hardly did a day pass that she did not mention one of the two. It was almost like her morning meditation for her; a daily routine. Most times, people get so overwhelmed with emotions when they finally meet their idols that they just freeze. She had seen it happen a few times. Her parents were very prominent individuals. As much as she would hate to admit it, Zhiyi was an idol to some people already. They would fluster about with their eyes all over the place when they met her. And she would smile so warmly and sweetly at them. Oh, how repulsive.

“Besides, I wouldn’t be surprised if he returned to the Lo kingdom before we came back. Both of them in fact,” Aroha said. She knew a lot about the two from Zhiyi’s incessant ramblings at home. However, it was general knowledge that the pair visited each other a lot. Price Ara Croft was the crowned prince of the Croft kingdom and like his best friend Prince Zenon Lo; a former member of the wild forces during the war. The Wild Forces were formed of elite soldiers from the Croft and Lo kingdoms and were in charge of frontal attacks. It was a strange inclusion to this already powerful team with the first prince of the Croft kingdom; Ara Croft and the third prince of the Lo kingdom; Zenon Lo, both of whom were just 10 years of age at the time!

It was surprising that both kingdoms even allowed their princes to join such a dangerous team, especially at such a young age. But the two were so skilled in battle that their talents would have been wasted elsewhere. Well, according to the history books of course. The two kingdoms had such a strong bond because of the two princes that they visited each other often. Unlike Ara, Zenon wasn’t the heir to the Lo kingdom, but this did not diminish his importance to the Croft kingdom. Normally, it would be unsafe for a prince to travel so frequently. It made them easy targets. However, most people would be too frightened to consider attacking any of the two princes during their travels, because of their reputation. And those who dared met ruin at the hands of the royal guards before they could approach the princes. Considering how brutal those two were rumored to be in battle, one could say those enemies took the less painful route to the afterlife. Most of their enemies were usually small factions from various kingdoms, not excluding the Croft and Lo kingdom, as well as some rebel groups. They were still some that were bereaved from the aftermath of the war. They were enraged that the bigger kingdoms enjoyed peace after wrecking so much havoc on them; smaller kingdoms. But such is the nature of war. True peace is truly unattainable.

Aroha only mentioned this obvious fact because she wanted to silence Zhiyi. And get to her too of course. But she suffered immensely from the consequence of her actions with Zhiyi’s whining growing with every passing second.

It became unbearable for everyone, even the guards, but they dared not speak against Renoff royalty. “Okay, I was joking. There was no way they would leave so quickly. In fact, they might even be aware that we’re coming and maybe they came to welcome us. Remember that our parents were such good friends with theirs,” Zhiyi said in a last-ditch effort to appease the whining Zhiyi. She was such a child. As adorable as one too.

Aroha’s words only fueled Zhiyi’s fantasies and her rambling continued. There was really no right move with Zhiyi. Well, at least now the guards were having fun again. Until a large cry far above the sky made them stiff. A wyvern. It wasn’t unusual for wyverns to fly past Croft kingdom. Their numbers had dwindled for centuries so, they never strayed too far from their nests. But that wyvern was massive, almost the size of a fully-grown dragon! The loyal steeds of the beasts, the ancient beings that ruled half of Maori; the dragons had long gone extinct. Only their distant cousins; the wyverns roamed the sky. Most of the mystical creatures died out when the beasts and the druids disappeared. And a huge number of special bloodlines lost their connections to those divine beings. It was still unknown why only a few retained their gifts but it set a new class structure amongst the humans once more. Even the royal families that were responsible for turning on those divine creatures retained most of their gifts, so the rumors that they were being punished never held water.

The guards were alert. Wyverns rarely ever attacked humans without provocation, but they would never leave such a thing to chance. They might have been up to the task of taking on a regular-sized wyvern, but the one above them was far beyond their abilities. But they would make sure the girls were safe on their honor. They reined in their terrified horses and got off immediately. The guards formed a protective circle around them. Aroha and Zhiyi tried to calm the horses down. Their whining might attract the attention of the wyvern if it hadn’t noticed them already. But that was wishful thinking on their part. Wyverns had very good senses and keen sights. It was a given that it noticed them. It was only a matter of whether it would ignore them or not. Hopefully, it didn’t take their defensive stances as hostility. Like humans, wyverns possessed different characters. And a wyvern of that size could be assumed to be royalty. And royalty was easily attributed with pride.

Of all of them present, the calmest was Aroha. She had a talent for remaining calm whenever there was danger. Even though she failed to remain calm in other situations. She studied its pattern. The wyvern was studying them alright. It was moving in circles above them, which was an unusual flight pattern for wyverns. Suddenly, a familiar feeling crept through her body. It was the same as when she meditated in the forests. She could feel the wyvern at a deeper level, almost like they had a connection. Suddenly, she could hear its breath, the air around it as its powerful wings slashed through it. She could feel the motion of its eyes. And she could have sworn that she could hear its thoughts. And a voice rang through her head. “Welcome,” it said.