The New Solare - 9. Chapter 9- The Crater

Darifer was hanging from the ceiling again. The collar around his neck had three chains that led to piercings on his chest and a particular ring that his master had fastened to the base of his second head. Each of his wings had two sets of piercings running down their length, with black ribbons running down through the loops in an intricate manner.

A clawed hand scratched the underside of the lavender astral dragon's tail and trailed along the soft scales with the sole purpose of stimulating arousal. A set of teeth bit down on Darifer's shoulders possessively as the clawed hand slid around to pump the hardened length. One of the blue fingers slid up to press the pad into the dragon's slit, drawing forth a whimper from Darifer. "Astral filth," were the words hissed into webbed ears.

::::::

The council room was large and round. The middle of the wall was embedded with windows that ran around the entire circumference. The room was in one of the taller towers of the fortress. The only way to enter and leave it was through a long, spiral staircase. From there, the Sentains could see all of the different segments of their homelands. Sindri, Gonuret, and the Gallants followed the Sentains into the room. But, it was difficult for the younger dragons to keep from gaping at the different angles of the view.

The Sentains sat down in an orderly manner from youngest to oldest, leaving Sindri to sit beside Vitara. Gonuret sat beside him, and the others filled up the remaining chairs. Madhal sat to Gonuret's right followed by Ilohir, Kelius, Emyve, and finally Ruthed. The conference table was large and heptagonal in shape. Two dragons sat in each of its sides. Sentain Vitara stood up to be seen from everyone's point of view. "Let me introduce to you each of the council members. To my left is Sentain Dranel, from the sea. To his left is Sentain Liana from the rainforest. Followed by Sentain Riah from the taiga, Sentain Arasie from the grassland, Sentain Lyre from the Volcanic Isles, and the grand Sentain Yuneza of the desert."

"They say 'grand' as if it's supposed to be some sort of reverent title," Sentain Yuneza scoffed to Ruthed. "We both know that it merely means 'grand of age.' Ninety years old is only a decade away from one-hundred, after all." She jested with a snicker that made her appear at least three decades younger than her actual age.

"We are here to discuss the repercussions that the shifting of the tectonic plates has caused on the planet," Sentain Dranel began.

"You mean, we're here to bash our heads over this table as to why the world seems to be peeling itself off like a banana," Sentain Yuneza suggested.

"Y-yes, in plainer terms," Sentain Dranel added with a slight blush forming on his face.

Sindri choked on a small laugh as Sentain Dranel, and Sentain Yuneza went back and forth. Well, the meeting was certainly more entertaining than he thought it would be.

"If we're going to do something about it, we can't sit around using fancy words all day," Yuneza pointed out. "Let's hack it all out and be done with it."

Ruthed was trying hard to not laugh out loud with Sentain Yuneza's lively wit. He eventually had to cover his mouth to hide his growing grin. He wanted to try and be somewhat professional here! Especially with Emyve sitting right next to him. When he settled down a bit, he finally trusted himself to speak clearly. "I agree. We need to take action, not sit around and talk all day."

"Sentain Yuneza is right," Sentain Lyre agreed. "We need to form a team that is willing to personally investigate what is truly happening on the other side of the planet."

"But we need to go in prepared." Sindri reminded them both.

Ilohir nodded. With a slight frown, he noticed that Kelius had barely said a word. Normally, the copper dragon called for action! He reached out and gently shook his shoulder. "Kelius? Are you alright?" He asked, and then, he heard the sound of snoring. "H-he's sleeping..."

Ruthed snickered, having a pretty good idea as to why Kelius was so tired. "Guess he had a little too much fun with his new roommate." He whispered in Ilohir's direction.

"I volunteer to investigate that area with the Gallants," Gonuret suggested. The Sentains looked at one another, but it was Sentain Yuneza who spoke.

"Guess it's time to dust out one of those small aerial ships that our Sentain ancestors were so fond of before they realized that they used them to travel for so long that they had forgotten how to fly."

"…is that why we can only glide now?" Ilohir asked, his curiosity spiked.

"Oh, I'm sure of it," Sentain Yuneza agreed with a snort. "But, in this particular case, it will make the journey to the other side a lot faster." She stood up. "I'll need the Solare, the Lunare, and Gallants to follow me. The rest of you should take the time to go to your home biomes to brace the tribes for any worsening conditions."

Sindri felt a pang in his heart when he thought about his home biome. But, he had a feeling that all of them were feeling the same kind of pain in their hearts. If the entire planet were suffering, their home biomes would cease to exist.

"Sentain Yuneza, what about the desert biome?" Sentain Liana asked in a concerned tone of voice.

Yuneza sent her a wry smile. "Gallant Mavius is more than capable of taking care of the desert in my stead."

"He will be most pleased to be of use once again," Sentain Vitara responded.

"Take heed, young Solare, and Lunare," Sentain Yuneza said as her gaze fell on the two. "Your positions will change in ten years, but your tasks in protecting your fellow dragons will never be finished." He informed them as they stood up to follow her. "Someone wake that grassland Gallant up and we'll be ready to go."

Ruthed, eager to please his now favorite Sentain, quickly rushed over to pinch Kelius awake. "Come on, when's the last time you've ever seen an actual spaceship with your own eyes!"

"Owww, what the fuck?" Kelius groaned as he sat up and blinked, slowly looking from side to side at all the empty chairs. "Is the meeting over already?"

Emyve chuckled and replied. "Yes. Come, grace us with your presence. I'll fill you in on our mission along the way."

Sentain Yuneza led them back down the spiral staircase and into a separate hallway that had yet another spiral staircase that led somewhere beneath the fortress. "So many blasted stairs…this is one of the very things I look forward to not doing anymore once I turn one-hundred." She grumbled on her way down.

Sindri tried to not laugh upon hearing her complaints. "There are quite a lot of stairs. At least it's good exercise?"

Beneath the fortress was, what appeared to be, a hangar. In the distance, a runway could be seen that opened up to the forest beyond. Everyone looked on in awe. How could something so extensive exist beneath an entire fortress?

"This place is amazing! I would never have thought that something like this was under the fortress." Ilohir stated, Sindri nodding in agreement.

Emyve had studied the blueprints of the fortress about a day or two ago. He was the only one that was not surprised. "During the construction of the solar powered bullet trains, our ancestors used these ships to ferry the workers back and forth without their becoming too exhausted to fly themselves home."

"I didn't even know this was here. I could have sworn Ansar, and I looked all around the fortress," Ruthed added.

Madhal, who was keeping an eye on Kelius to make sure he didn't fall asleep and tumble down the entire flight of stairs, was pleased to note that the copper dragon was now fully awake and gaping at their surroundings. "So, we are to use one of these ships to travel to the opposite side of the planet?" He asked.

Sentain Yuneza nodded gruffly. "The simulation room holds only two dragons at a time, but I want all of you to learn how to fly them before you take off as a group. The program lasts for two hours, so you will have to take turns." She glanced at each of them in turn. "Be prudent and attentive, for you will serve as our eyes." That being said, she left them to their tasks and walked up to Sindri. "Bid farewell to your life mate and come with me, young Solare."

Kelius glanced at Sentain Yuneza upon hearing that, realizing that he wasn't going to be able to give his own life mate a proper goodbye. "Sindri, tell Ansar for me, will ya? I wouldn't do things this way if I had a choice, you know?"

"Well, operating this thing can't be that hard if the simulation is only two hours long, right?" Ruthed asked.

"The lessons are far more condensed than you think. Though you are only inside for two hours, it will feel more like two months." Emyve explained.

Sindri frowned when he realized that he wouldn't be allowed to go with the others. It was probably for the best, but it did nothing to ease his concerns... "Yes ma'am," He said before hugging Gonuret. His grip hinted to the other dragon how he wished he didn't have to let go.

Gonuret squeezed his beloved tightly as well, waiting for him to pull back enough to lean down for a soft, tender kiss. His hands reached up to thread through the Solare's hair as he pressed their foreheads together. "I'll do my best to return as soon as possible."

"You better come back as soon as you can," Sindri said quietly. He nodded towards Kelius in acknowledgment, smiling a little. "I'll be sure to do that. Though, who knows when I'll get to do so if he's as tired as you are!" He added, sticking his tongue out to mess with him.

Ruthed couldn't help but snicker. Apparently, Sindri had an idea as to why Kelius was napping earlier, too.

The Solare looked to the others after he let go of Gonuret. "Everyone, stay safe, okay?"

Ilohir nodded, taking Madhal's hand. "We will."

Yuneza waited until Sindri was finished with his goodbyes and well-wishing before walking with him back up the spiral stair cases. "I know how you feel. When I was Solare, I always wanted to be in the forefront and wanted to do all the leg work myself. But, you have to realize that you are now the representative for all tribes now. You have to be at the center, the core. You must gather the information and re-distribute it as necessary."

Sindri nodded, slightly frowning. "I know. I just feel a bit useless staying here while they're out there." He sighed. "But, my place is here, unless otherwise needed." Though, the real fun part was having to tell Ansar the news.

When they finally reached the top of the tower, where it connected to the rest of the fortress, Sentain Yuneza stopped and gazed up at Sindri. "I'm sure you can find your way back from here. You will soon be of much more use than you can possibly imagine. Conserve your energy for now."

The new Solare looked a bit confused at what Sentain Yuneza was suggesting. Did she know of what he could end up doing? He simply nodded in response and headed towards Ansar and Kelius's room. "Ansar?" He called as he knocked on the door.

When the desert dragon didn't answer, he opened the door and noticed that the covers were drawn and the room was cast in shadow. He saw the lump under the covers and walked towards the mess of curly hair that poked out from beneath the sheets. "You're still sleeping?" Sindri asked as he reached out and gently shook his friend's shoulder. "Ansar, wake up."

A small frown formed on Ansar's face as he whined. "Again? Darn it, Kel, I'm dead tired..." He yawned softly and rubbed at his eyes. "You still have that meeting, remem-" His voice cut off when his yellow eyes caught sight of, not Kelius, but his best friend. "Sindri!" He squeaked, lifting the sheet up to his chin subconsciously.

Sindri laughed when he heard the squeak. "Calm down; I didn't see anything." He assured him before smiling a bit deviously. "You two certainly didn't waste any time. And here, I haven't even gotten any yet!" He reached over to ruffle his friend's curls. "The meeting's over, and it's been decided that a team is going to personally investigate what's happening on the other side of the planet. So, the new Lunare and the Gallants won't be around for a while. Kelius told me to tell you that he wouldn't do it this way if he had a choice." Sindri explained as simply as he could since it was a lot of information to take in and Ansar had just woken up.

Ansar's face was a bright pink shade all over when Sindri poked fun at him. But, the expression on his face became more and more serious as he heard the Solare out. "That's so far away..." He pondered out loud. "I hope they get back soon...and safe."

::::::

The Lunare and Kelius had taken the first turn in the simulation and were already inside the ship, preparing it for take-off. "The technology that our ancestors had at their disposal was amazing," Gonuret mused.

"I'm surprised any of this is still operational," Kelius commented, knocking on the wall made of some strange, iridescent material.

"Much like the craft of blacksmithing, it seems as if certain dragons were tasked to perform regular maintenance."

Kelius sighed as he sat down on the co-pilot seat. "I just wish we had more of a warning. It just went from a meeting to 'time to send all of you Gallants off to investigate.' I would have liked to spend a little more time with my Ansar."

Gonuret shook his head slightly. "At least you had some private time with Ansar, to begin with..."

A devious grin formed on Kelius's face. "So, the rabbits did keep you up all night? That's a shame. I would have thought you could have handled the rabbits and Sindri all on your own." When Gonuret remained silent, Kelius gaped. "Wait, you mean the two of you didn't even get down last night? Are you kidding me! We practically handed Sindri to you on a silver platter, and you couldn't even give him the night of his life?"

"Now is just not the time," Gonuret replied stiffly as he ran some tests on a panel. "The safety of the tribes comes first." Before Kelius could reply to that, Ilohir and Ruthed joined them on the ship.

"I see you two have already started to get things going here," Ruthed said as he got to work on another panel of the ship. "This is so exciting! This could be our only chance to run one of these ancient ships! We should take turns flying...can we?" He turned to ask the Lunare.

"Should something happen, we should all have at least some physical experience with flying the ship, so yes," Gonuret replied.

"Sweet!" Ruthed cooed while Emyve looked down at him with a wistful expression on his face.

"Hey, Emyve..." Kelius drawled as his eyes fell to half-mast. "You took advantage of last night with Ruthed, didn't you? I mean surely you didn't let the opportunity pass to consummate your love with your lifemate, right?"

The redhead carefully studied the expression on Kelius's face along with the fact that Gonuret refused to meet anyone's eyes. "Not quite to the point of consummation, no..."

Gonuret crossed his arms and sent Kelius a triumphant look of 'see, we're not all horn dogs here.'

Ruthed merely raised an eyebrow. "Hey now, that doesn't mean that we didn't do a little SOMETHING or other...little Em got quite a little show from his bed."

A blush came across Emyve's cheeks and nose as he feigned interest in the panel that Ruthed had already prepared while Gonuret groaned in disappointment.

"See?" Kelius practically purred. "Shame on you, Lunare. Shame on you."

A few moments later, Madhal and Ilohir entered the ship. "Is everything ready?" Madhal asked.

"We should get going," Ilohir added.

"Yeah, let's see what this baby can do," Ruthed said from his seat, his tail swishing in anticipation behind him. He had been surprised to see just how their ancestors customized Astral technology to fit their needs. Even the back of the chairs softly molded to comfortably cushion their wings.

The Gallants and Lunare took off towards the other side of the planet. They took turns flying and co-piloting, and when it was once again Gonuret and Kelius's turn to fly, they finally caught sight of their destination. Even if they didn't have the coordinates programmed into the ship, the opposite of their planet was rather hard to miss. What appeared to be a giant funnel made out of all kinds of earth and metals jutted high over the water looking like an inverted cliff. As they looked on at the mass, Gallant Kelius was the first to voice his opinions on what they were seeing.

"What the fuck?" Kelius hissed as he looked on. "It looks like the world had a terrible case of indigestion and its ass exploded!" Gonuret sighed beside him. "What? It seriously does!"

Ruthed snickered hearing Kelius's…description of what they were seeing. "It really does look like that," he said as he looked on.

"It appears to be a massive crater," Emyve concluded.

"There doesn't seem to be a platform wide enough to land on..." Gonuret pointed out as they flew overhead. "The inside looks dark and deep, but the scanners seem to have found many plateaus that we could land on. Should we go down?"

"E-ew..." Ilohir muttered, trying to erase the mental image he was just given from his mind. "Well, we're not gonna find out anything more just sitting here looking at it. I say we go down." As he looked around the others seemed to agree.

"Yeah! I wanna explore it!" Ruthed added.

"Then, prepare for landing, everyone," Gonuret warned as they carefully descended into darkness. For a long while, the atmosphere outside of the ship was pitch black, but as they got closer to one of the platforms, strange lights could be seen, though none of them could quite pinpoint the source of them.

"Ok, what now? We can't just all hop out of the ship, I mean what if there's more air pressure down th-birthedfromapuredragon'sass!" Kelius ended in a yowl as something rather large landed in front of the ship. "I damn near pissed myself. Are all of you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"I don't believe you're wrong on any account," Gonuret replied dryly as he kept a wary gaze upon the creature before them. "That is a pure dragon. The problem is that they were supposed to have been extinct." After a thick moment of tension, he looked behind him to see that the other Gallants all had a mixture of shocked and pensive expressions on their faces. "As Lunare, I'm going to try to communicate with it. The rest of you stay here."

"You are out of your mind if you think that I'll let you go out there by yourself. Sindri would kill me and bury me if anything happened to you, and then Ansar would bring me back to life only to kill and bury me again because his best friend lost the love of his life before he was properly fucked. Just…no. I'm coming with you," Kelius retorted.

"…Fine." Gonuret said. "But, until we know that it's safe, the rest of you stay here." He concluded.

The two of them were rather quiet and anxious as they climbed the hatch of the ship and opened it on the side to come out. The pure dragon was immense. Its form took up most of the platform, which was the size of at least three compartments of their bullet trains. Its wingspan was four times as wide. The creature was blue, the purest blue that they've ever seen. The underside of its wings was a concentrated yellow, as its eyes. Gonuret was about to introduce himself when Kelius spoke.

"My name's Kelius, I'm the second head representative of our kind, the Lunare! And this is my assistant, Gonuret! We come from the surface!" Kelius yelled.

Gonuret held back the urge to gape incredulously at Kelius. If he tried to correct him now, he didn't know how the pure dragon would react. They needed to know what was going on with the planet first, so he kept quiet. The blue dragon let out what appeared to be a snort and shook its head.

'I can hear you just fine without your having to yell, young astral dragon.' He responded. The voice was male, and it echoed in their minds telepathically.

Gonuret and Kelius looked at one another to confirm that they had both, in fact, heard him.

'Have you come alone?' The pure dragon asked.

"No..." Kelius replied reluctantly. "We have others waiting for us in the ship. Gonuret, why don't you go and tell them to come out."

'I see...' The blue dragon sighed, sounding a bit disappointed.

Gonuret took the cue to rush back into the ship. "It is a pure dragon," He whispered to the others. "He responds telepathically, but doesn't seem to be able to read our thoughts, or he would have realized that Kelius lied about being the Lunare."

"Wait, what!?" Ruthed questioned.

"Shh, for whatever reason, Kelius is posing as Lunare for now. The important thing is that we try to get the dragon to tell us what it knows about the planet." He looked at the four of them and took a deep breath. "He doesn't seem to know how many of us there are, so I want two of you to stay here guarding the ship, the other two will come with us. Choose among yourselves."

"I wanna come see this!" Ruthed retorted, hopping up from his seat before looking at Emyve. "Wanna come with?"

"Madhal and I could stay here," Ilohir suggested, honestly feeling a bit nervous as it was. He wasn't sure that his heart could take this right now. He needed to let the situation sink in. And he would definitely prefer that Madhal were with him as he worked through the anxiety.

Sensing that Ilohir was a bit stressed, Madhal wrapped an arm around his shoulder and tucked the jade dragon close to him. "Yes, we will stay. All of you better stay on alert out there."

Ruthed nodded before heading out of the ship with Emyve, his mouth gaping open upon seeing the big blue dragon.

'I am Duke Borev.' The pure dragon finally introduced himself as he lowered his head. 'Climb onto my neck, and I will take you to see the royal family. If you fall or slide off, I will not be returning for you.'

Ruthed nearly jumped in excitement at the chance to ride a pure dragon. That was until he heard the part about falling off. As soon as they climbed on, Emyve made sure he had a good grip around him, so Ruthed felt a lot safer. He kissed the redhead's cheek before they took off.

When the pure dragon dived off the platform, the majority of them assumed that they would keep going directly down, but the dragon began to fly parallel to the ground. Glowing stones of all kinds lit up the path all around them and, a few minutes later, they found themselves gaping at an underground palace. An immense rock formation settled above the highest peak of the palace that glowed so brightly that it resembled an artificial star...one that remarkably emulated sunlight.

"If only Ansar could see this..." Kelius whispered the same thought that ran through Gonuret's mind about Sindri.

Emyve had a theory that the shifting could have involved the pure dragons in the past, but he would have never imagined that the pure dragons still existed. As he gazed upon the immense palace, his mind rapidly began to guesstimate the amount of pure dragons that lived there, and his conclusion tossed his original theory right out of the water.

As Duke Borev landed, the armored guards simply bowed their heads and let him through. A smaller, jittery-looking, yellow dragon immediately approached him. 'W-welcome back, my duke...'

'Fringe. Gather the royal family into the throne room. Urgently.' The Duke ordered.

'R-Right away, my duke.' Fringe replied before skittering off on the ground faster than any of the astral dragons could keep up with.

By the time Duke Borev entered the throne room, the royal family was already there. The smaller dragon that seemed to be cowering behind the larger dragon was the same blue hue as Duke Borev. The larger dragon was a pure red. Emyve noted that, much like their own throne room that had been converted into a reception hall, the pure dragon throne room was barely more than a hall with a dais.

'Brother. Brother's wife. I bring you proof that astral dragons are still alive.' Duke Borev stated as he lowered his neck back down for the four of them to slide off.

'Amazing!' Two smaller purple dragons exclaimed nearly at the same time as they ran out from behind the cowering blue dragon and approached the group. They were the size of large horses.

'These two rascals are my niece and nephew, the royal twins.' Duke Borev explained without any shred of enthusiasm.

'Where did you find them?'

'Are there more?'

The twin dragons looked at one another before giving a definite nod. 'We're off to explore!' They declared as they scampered away.

'Cero! Cera!' The queen called a little too late. 'Honestly, dear!' She chided her cowering husband. 'You need to be more firm with them.' To the astral dragons she simply gave, what they could only assume was, a smile. 'Hello, fledglings. Welcome to the palace. I am Queen Caldrea, and this is my husband, King Bale.' She stated as she stepped aside a bit so they could more clearly see his hulking form. The king was seated on top of his tail, and his head was covered beneath his paws. His wings were a telltale sign that he was trembling.

"I'm Lunare Kelius, and these are Gallants Gonuret, Emyve, and Ruthed." Kelius introduced hesitantly.

"I am certain that the existence of both our kinds is quite a shock to all of us, but we are here because the surface of the planet has been shifting violently..." Emyve spoke up. "If I am not mistaken, the same could be happening here."

'You are right in suspecting such a thing.' Queen Caldrea sighed. 'Our palace has existed long before our world began to shift. When the Astral Princess arrived, half of our kind chose to welcome her and all of her strange...technology. But, the other half hid underground in fear. Our ancestors simply assumed that the Astral Princess and her mixed dragons all died off long ago.' Her green eyes peered back down that the group. 'Both our kind seemed to have left the other for dead.'

'The tremors began long after our people settled here.' Duke Borev added. 'We've lived with them for the last century or more. If it is starting to affect the surface as well, then I fear that we are all doomed.'

Their theory was rather sobering to everyone. None of them wanted those fears to come to fruition.

"There has to be something we can do..." Gonuret replied. "Our shared ancestors would not see this planet destroyed just like that!"

"Yeah! We can't just throw in the towel and accept that" Ruthed added to the real Lunare's statement.

The Gallants and Lunare quickly huddled together to discuss a course of action, but it was Kelius that voiced it out loud for the queen. "Since the tremors are far stronger here, we suggest that you evacuate your kingdom so that everyone may take refuge on the surface. With everyone in a bit more safety, we could then work together to figure out what to do from there."

The queen gazed down at Kelius's sincere red eyes. 'Yes, I think that's the best course of action for now. We will begin with the lowest ranks of our people. The royal family will be the last to evacuate.'

Kelius gave a nod. "Allow us to tell our Solare of this so we can begin to accommodate all of you."

'Borev, take them back to where you found them.' Queen Caldrea ordered.

Ruthed let out the breath he didn't realize he had been holding. He was relieved that they would soon be on their way back to keep Sindri and Ansar informed.

'As you wish, your majesty,' Duke Borev conceded.

::::::

Madhal and Ilohir were dutifully guarding the ship and playing cards to pass the time when they heard a strange knock on the side of the ship. When Madhal looked through the front window, he caught sight of a young pure purple dragon. "Should we go out and investigate?" He asked Ilohir.

Ilohir jumped as soon as they heard the strange knock, having been on edge the entire time they were on guard duty. He blinked in surprise at the sight that greeted them. The bluenette nodded hesitantly. "We better go ahead and investigate."

As the two astral dragons cautiously opened the hatch, they were greeted by two excited purple dragons that, though far smaller than the last pure dragon they saw, were quite sizeable themselves.

'Two more astral dragons!' The one that sounded like a girl squealed in their minds.

'Are you friends with the other astral dragons?'

'Where did you come from?'

'Did you come here in that strange, stiff -dragon- shell machine?'

'How come you're not big like us and are missing some parts?'

Madhal couldn't help but chuckle at the youthful chatter in his mind. "One question at a time, and we don't have answers for them all. Yes, we came with the other astral dragons. This 'machine' is called a ship, and we used it to fly us here. As for why we are small and look like this...well, we don't entirely know. But, we do know that our kind mixed with the Astral Princess's people...and somewhere down the line, we now look like this."

Ilohir was a bit stunned hearing the constant questions running through his mind in the voice of children. "And you thought I asked a lot of questions. I think these two have me beat," he decided with a laugh.

'You're both really tiny.'

'Though not as tiny as the Lunare guy.'

'Barely though.'

"We have friends that are even smaller than Kelius," Ilohir informed.

'Really?' They both asked.

"That's right," Madhal agreed.

Cero looked at Cera for a moment. 'Hey, do you think we can turn tiny like them?'

'Uncle did say we could do just about anything with our magic.' Cera replied.

'Yeah, that was the only good thing he ever said to us. Want to try?' Cero prompted.

'Let's do it!' Cera replied.

Then, right in front of Madhal and Ilohir's wide eyes, the scales of the pure purple dragons began to shimmer, and they began to shrink down in size. After a moment, two naked astral dragon children took their place. They both had red hair and yellow eyes. Madhal's jaw dropped. Ilohir's eyes widened even further, and his mouth gaped open, as well.

'We did it!' Cera cheered jumping up and down before the twins began to look each other over since they had never seen each other in this form before.

"T-that's amazing..." Ilohir said, still a bit stunned. It didn't help when the two children ran over to them. He took his jacket off just as Madhal took his shirt off. Ilohir covered the boy with his jacket while Madhal covered the girl. That was when Cero wrapped his arms around Ilohir so he would pick him up.

Having Cero in his arms and seeing Madhal give the girl his shirt caused Ilohir to smile. "...Maybe we should adopt one day." He then blushed deeply, realizing exactly what had come out of his mouth. "Th-that is in the far, far, far future..!"

Cero blinked and smiled with a tinkling laugh. 'He's getting really red.'

Madhal made sure that Cera was completely covered in his shirt before gently ruffling the top of her head. When he heard Ilohir's statement, he felt his heart skip a beat. His smile was warm and heartfelt. "I would love to." Before they could speak any more of it, Madhal caught sight of the silhouette of a dragon flying in the distance. "Someone's coming." He said in a serious tone. "Alright, you two, we have to go back inside for now. Tell no one that you saw us here, ok?"

The twins nodded. 'We should change back now too,' Cero added as he took off the jacket and gave it back to Ilohir.

They both quickly changed back, though the shirt that Madhal gave Cera did not survive the transformation and ripped to shreds. 'Oops, sorry.'

"Don't worry about it," Madhal replied with a light laugh, dragging Ilohir inside and closing the hatch.

When Duke Borev made it to the platform where the ship was parked, his eyes narrowed at his niece and nephew. 'Enough playtime. Go home. Now.'

'Yes, uncle.' They replied mournfully before taking off.

Not a moment later, a strong tremor began to rumble around them. 'All of you should depart.' Bolev instructed as he lowered his neck down for the astral dragons to dismount. 'All except for…you.' He demanded as his paw blocked Kelius's path. 'As the second representative of your kind, he should stay behind in good faith that you return.'

"No, we're not leaving without him!" Gonuret yelled as another tremor hit, a far stronger one that caused parts of the rock to crumble and fall.

Ruthed's eyes widened seeing the Duke block Kelius from following them. "You can't do this!" he yelled, gasping when the second tremor hit.

"Just go!" Kelius called after them. "They're not going to do anything to me! Hurry up and leave so you can come back for me!"

Ruthed frowned upon hearing Kelius's plea, but he nodded and helped Emyve drag Gonuret back into the ship.

"We have to leave now! We don't know when a slab of rock is going to hit the ship. We have to let the Solare know about all this!" Emyve reminded the Lunare.

"But, Kelius!" Gonuret shrieked.

"Damn it, leave!" Kelius yelled.

Ilohir looked on as everyone came back inside the ship except Kelius. "What's going on? Where's Kelius?" He asked as Gonuret and Emyve started up the ship.

"We'll explain on the way back," Ruthed told the other. He looked to Gonuret. "We'll be back for him. Don't worry, he's tough." He tried to assure.

With the rest of the group's safety in mind, Gonuret took off with Emyve as co-pilot. As they ascended through the crater, all they could see was a flash of Duke Borev's teeth and his glowing yellow eyes before they both seemed to disappear into the darkness.