49 Chapter 49 Iolite (1/2)

She cringed behind the stalagmite as screams rent the air.Clutching a tiny piece of egg shell, colored in a light electric blue, she listened as her people were slaughtered.

”Is that all of them?” asked one of the top-siders.Its feathers gleamed in the strange light they brought with them.

”I believe so, your grace,” came an answer, from a small, crystalline person.

He almost looked like one of them, which was why they didn't attack immediately.Iolite knew that anything that approached their caves was normally killed immediately, and brought to the great Dragon Xoannaedainth, as an offering to keep him pleased with them.It was rumored that the great dragon had saved their people long before, but no one remembered how, or why.

”Good.This hunt was worth the effort, but not worth repeating.Leave the bodies for the other denizens here to feast on.”

Iolite waited, in the small hidden crevasse as the intruders retreated from her home. After hours of being cramped up in the small hole, her body was stiff to respond when she finally left it.With the last of her eggshell held tightly, she wandered the cave now filled with the bodies of her people.They had been cut down with strange weapons that went through their crystal hide like butter.

What should she do now?

As she wondered this, she found herself before the mouth of the great Xoannaedainth.Shivering, she wanted nothing more than to flee, but it seemed to have already sensed her.

”Come closer, little one.Your kind don't normally shiver.”

”I'm the only one left,” she whispered, drawing closer to the heat emanating from its mouth.

”What happened?” it asked.

”The top-siders came and killed everyone.The weapons we had, didn't work against them.”

”Bring me their bodies, those of your fallen, and I will bless your people again, to live once more.I did this once, a long time ago, because you are like children to me.Bring them to my belly, and lay them out for me.Then I will do this for you.”

Iolite knew that the dragon had always been revered by her people, and she had no reason to disbelieve it now, so she went to work, dragging the bodies, one by one, into the mouth of the great Xoannaedainth.Yet, no matter how many she brought, there always seemed to be room for more.