Rox & Van

“Burblegarburbleglug” was the only sound Roxxas needed to wake him from a sound sleep. That sound meant that all three of his stomachs had officially run empty and it was time for him to wander the woods once again to find something to fill them. Since the ‘Great Fall’ finding food in the Levanar Wood had been a difficult endeavor and Roxxas lamented the task. He knew he had to eat and that finding food to fill the empty void inside of him would probably have been easier had he ventured west to Venera with his kin, but Roxxas felt that one does not simply leave a home of 700 years no matter how desolate it had become. His isolation and lonesomeness proved to him that his was obviously the dissenting opinion. For Roxxas though there was still hope to be found in the Wood and thought to himself daily that one day life would return to Levanar and food would be abundant again, he just had to be patient.

“Burblegarburbleglug” came the sound again, more insistent this time.

“I’m up, I’m up.” Grumbled the weary dragon.

Roxxas lumbered his thinning hide out of rest, shook his once glamorous purple scales until all of the soot and dust that had rested upon them overnight had been mostly cleared, then proceeded as he did every morning to choke and cough in the ash cloud that he created when he did so.

“Blasted ash, you’ll choke the air from my lungs long before I starve.”

Roxxas extended his great neck into the air to escape the ashen cloud plaguing his lungs. At one time he wouldn’t be able to see past the tapestry of trees that once made up the Levanar Wood, but now he could see straight over the hell-scape that his home had become. Where once there was a sunrise, now only an orange foggy light remained. Where there used to be the pleasant smell of pine, wood, and leaf now there was only death, decay and dirt.

Roxxas’s heart sank.

“Burblegarburbleglug”

“Alright! Alright! I’m looking!” He bellowed!

“Which direction should I choose today?” Roxxas asked himself out loud, “Yesterday, I found a tasty morsel in the North Wood even if it did have an after flavor of ash and despair.”

“Perhaps today,” he turned his body eastward, “I’ll head to the East Wood.”

“There are still a few trees there.” he whispered hopefully, “Maybe fortune will smile on me and I’ll find not only a buzzard or two but also the poor creature they feast upon. Won’t that be quite the meal!”

Roxxas’s head dropped and he chuckled a deep yet tainted laugh, “Best not to get your hopes up, Rox.”

Roxxas crouched down upon his legs, now mostly lean muscle and thin scales, and thrust upward into the air through the dirt and smoke to the heavens above the death clouds where the sky still shone blue. His wings flashed outward in a mighty glory and he pressed through the sky at a leisurely pace eastward. He closed his eyes to enjoy the breeze and breathed in the fresh, pure, clean air. He coughed violently and gagged as he attempted to expel ash from his lungs. His eyes began to burn. Seems closing them was probably not the best idea. The ash and dirt had clung to the moisture in his pupils and formed a sticky paste that glued his eyelids closed.

Roxxas made the attempt to pry his lids open but the glue had hardened, dried out by the air rushing into his face. He panicked, then brought his clawed paws to his face and furiously attempted to dispel the dirt from them. The dust on his scales only added to the problem. His panic increased and he began to falter, his wings flailed in the air.

Roxxas fell. Fast.

The wind ripped over his body, friction tearing at him pulling his scales off of him until he left a purple sparkling trail in his wake. His heart raced. Roxxas did his best to capture his bearings, calmed himself and with one last effort of adrenaline filled might his eyelids ripped open!

Victory! He could see!

And what he saw was not good. His body was coming very close to a forest canopy, sharp branches and darkness awaited him below. Roxxas thought he was hallucinating, the East Wood was not this full of life, but he couldn’t linger on that, he was about to crash. Roxxas threw his wings up in to the air to slow himself, but it wasn’t enough.

His body tore through the tree tops. Sharp branches tore at his skin, his glimmering blue blood rained onto the ground below. And then…Roxxas’s body hit the ground. But, not as hard as he thought he would. Something broke his fall. Something wet and gooey. Something like…mud?

“ARRRRGHHH” Roxxas cried out his roar shook the trees around him as his whole body became overwhelmed with pain and defeat.

He rolled onto his back and looked up. “That was not pleasant.”

Roxxas blinked his eyes to shuffle the remaining dirt from his sockets and saw that the sky above him was blue and the trees that surrounded him were green. He held his wings, now torn and scarred, in front of him and was shocked to see mud and water dripping from them.

“Mud? Water?” He mumbled, confusion clouding his words, “Blue skies? Green trees?”

“Ah, I understand.” He exclaimed confidently, “I am dead”

“It is about time. I can finally join my brothers in the great forest in the sky.” He said peacefully, “And berate them for abandoning me!” He said less peacefully.

Roxxas tried to push himself up and on to his feet. Mud caused him to slip and slide as it shuffled off his battered body. “And perhaps, I can finally bathe properly.”

Pain rushed through his hind legs as he heard his bones snap.

“That’s not a good sound.” Then Roxxas crumpled back to the ground. “Maybe not dead, but very close to it, I reckon.”

“Burblegarburbleglug” his stomach lamented louder than before.

“Blasted stomachs. Maybe if I open my mouth, something will crawl into it.” Roxxas dropped his mouth to the ground and opened his jaws wide and waited.

The woods began to rustle.

“Oh, here comes something now.”

Roxxas caught the movement of what seemed like a smallish creature in the richly wooded darkened forest in his peripherals.

“Food? Come here food!” He beckoned, “There is a creature inside of me that wants to speak to you. It is rather urgent.”

A small nymph like child no bigger than Roxxas’s front paw pushed out of the darkness and into the beam of light caused by the dragons fall through the canopy above. Their skin was green and appeared to glisten, their ears pointed and large and their eyes were glowing with a vivid verdant hue. Wherever the small nymph stepped, grass and life sprouted up behind them.

“You are not food.” Roxxas lamented unfazed by the life sprouting child, “Small creature? Can you bring food? I fear I cannot move just now.”

The child waddled over to Roxxas and laid their small hands upon his huge lame thigh. Pain shot through the dragon as his bones cracked back into place, the tears upon his skin sutured, his belly fell empty no longer and then Roxxas felt a satisfaction and restfulness in his body he had not felt since before his land fell to the dark hearts of the Grimoire. He was vital and full of life once more.

Roxxas threw himself off the ground with the energy of a fledgling dragon and roared high and loud into the surrounding forest. A blue flame burst from deep within his gullet as wildlife burst from the trees away from this sonic and burning assault. Roxxas’s eyes shone with a youthful passion, his vision as sharp as it was in his youth before age and heartbreak dulled his senses.

The verdant child pushed off Roxxas’s thigh and meandered back into the wood as if nothing happened, grass patches following them all the way. Roxxas stood nobly in place staring deep into the mystery wood and exclaimed.

“I knew it, I am dead.”

To be continued…