Seeing Over the Mountains, Chapter Four

    Bridges of stone and rock spiderwebbed beneath the mountains below, radiating outward from the major buildings like cracks in glass panels and breaking up the open space. The deeper into the mountains we went, the more the buildings huddled together, as if against the wind. A line of three doors cut into a cliff face below.
    Scaled shoulders shifted beneath me as Syraine folded her wings and began a tight spiral. Her claws click-clicked against the tiled walkways just a moment before I felt the rest of our weight thud down.
     The center door of the three cut into the cliffside before us would lead to my dragon's sister, Selene.
     She rapped on the wood with her paw as I slid off her back, even though the doorway was plenty high enough to admit me while mounted. But it would be rude to do that now.
     "Come in..."
     The breath of wind from the opening door set dozens of fragile little decorations aflutter, swinging from their threads. The shimmers of glass and metal danced around the edges of the room. They'd been polished since we'd last been here. This was progress.
   The only furniture between us and the opposite door were a rug and a couch, of sorts, in the center.
     Curled up on the latter and staring absently out the window was a white dragon, sparking in the faint sunlight. Lurking deeper was the grey in her scales, dulled from blue.
     She smiled when she saw us, but it barely touched her eyes. They were still mostly chilled, like deep snow after just a few hours of sunshine.
     The pale dragon waved us over. Syraine took a seat on the rug, wrapped her tail around her paws. I sat beside her, leaning against her warm, solid flank.
     "Glad you could stop by." Selene bowed her head and half-smiled again.
     "Are you... any better?" Syraine asked, gently as if one of the glass ornaments lay in the white dragon's place.
     "A little I suppose, but I'll never be whole again."
     After a big fight between Syraine and Selene's late bonded partner, Lyn, over something nobody remembered now, we'd had pretty restricted contact with my dragon's sister for a long time. Then one warm afternoon flying with Syraine was shredded by anguished cries as we flew over the woods.
     The sound guided us to an area of trembling earth, scarred and ripped by the figure at its center. It had been months since we'd last seen her, but there was no mistaking the then-glossy white scales of my dragon's sister.
     She bucked and twisted like a thing possessed, her tail lashing and glistening red from its myriad cuts. The tendons in her neck and back stood taut, like ropes of an overburdened bridge. Lightning bolts crackled from her maw, spewing skyward in fits. The dragon's claws raked furrows in the soil, spraying up chunky, dark earth. The the usually pristine sashes draped about her shoulders were caked in browns and reds, ragged edges tailing on the wind.
     The white dragon lunged forward, away from us, and curled her foreclaws into the flesh of a nearby young oak. Shuddering with the effort, she began to haul it free of its anchor.
     Syraine seized this opportunity to land, paws "thunk"ing onto stripped earth. I rolled off one side, keeping a tentative distance back.
     "Selene?" My dragon called. Then stronger: "Selene!"
     She stilled, a flash-frozen waterfall. Then the oak began to slip, farther and farther, just a little more, until it collided with the ground. Selene turned to face Syraine and I, eyes barren as the scene about her.
       Silence.
      Even the lightning crackle had stilled.
      "Selene." Both of us spoke this time. "What's happened to you?"
The nearby woods' disturbed inhabitants chittered and scrambled through the damp brush.
      'She won't look at me.' I pointed out, privately, to Syraine.
      The purple dragon eyed the white cautiously. "It's... Lyn?"
      Curling her claws into and out of the mud frantically, Selene finally found her voice, ragged from screams and lightning bolts. "Severed... from me. I felt her die."
     "How-" I breathed.
      The white dragon shivered, sinking to the ground as her energy flooding out of her
like water through a burst dam.
        'Let's get her home,' Syraine suggested, in my ears only. Then, openly, "If you lean on me, I can help you fly home."
       "No!" She bellowed. Seeing us cringe back, Selene jolted and added, "No one knows where. I need - find the... the body." The white dragon staggered upward, flinging mud violently off her wings. She unfurled them to their full length, shakily as a hatchling. "Don't follow." Turning away, she lurched more than leapt into the air.
      'Should we...' Syraine's eyes met mine.
     "No." I rested a hand on her flank. "Let her do this alone."
     'Yes... Let's give her her privacy.'