The Crash of the Aries

A black hole? But, there just couldn't be one so close to Earth without the whole planet getting sucked in! She looked over at a boy, no more than thirteen, as he stood there staring at it, fear plastered to his face. She walked over to him and wrapped her arms around him, blocking his view of the window. She closed her eyes. If this was the end, hopefully it'd be painless...

A few minutes passed, and Eternity suddenly found her eyes flooded with sunlight. She squinted, releasing the boy and looking out the window. A gasp, and she found herself pushing the boy toward the center of the compound. She got just enough of a look to realize that this was not Earth before turning to follow the boy. Running toward the center of the compound. They were going to crash! Before she could make it, the impact sent her flying sideways. A sharp pain at the back of her skull told her that her head had hit the floor, and then she slid under a metal desk that was bolted to the floor. She hoped it would be sturdy enough to protect her... And with that, everything disappeared.

Ug, she hurt all over... Mostly her head. Probably a concussion, hopefully nothing worse than that. She felt something warm on her leg, and there was a spot of sharp pain. She forced her eyes open and moved to sit up, only to bash her head against the underside of a metal desk. She groaned, and the metal sent out a ringing sound that seemed unnatural to her ears. She looked down at her leg, realizing the warm was caused by her own blood, and the shard of metal sticking out of it. She groaned again, reaching down to pull the metal out. At least it wasn't rusted metal... She tossed it away, aware of the scratches now covering her right palm. She shifted her weight and crawled out from under the desk, gasping softly. Those bodies... The instructors... Were they dead? She grabbed the edge of the desk and used it to pull herself to a standing position. That smell... Smoke!

"Anyone who can walk, get up and get out!" she yelled into the room. "This place is on fire!" She wasn't making much progress herself, but she managed to find a break in the hull of the station, limping around due to the injury to her leg. But it didn't seem as bad as it had looked, the metal hadn't gone in all that deep, and the bleeding was already slowing down.

Suddenly, there was a shriek, and she heard murmuring in a familiar voice. She reached into the break in the metal, judging the size before slipping through it. She looked over at the direction of the shriek, limping over toward the one surviving instructor. She opened her mouth to speak before gasping quietly. "Is that... A... Dragon?" she asked softly, looking at the beast before them. "Now I KNOW we're not on Earth anymore..."

Eternity flinched and stepped backward when the black dragon moved, and she stumbled when the big blue one took its place. She recovered pretty quickly though.

"Yeah... We're not from around here," she said, her voice tight as she spoke. Get away? But... Eternity turned around and ducked back inside, moving pretty quickly now, having completely forgotten about the wounded leg. "Serenity!" she cried out. "Serenity, where are you? Hurry up, we need to get out of here before this thing blows!" She stopped when she saw a fluff of brown hair peeking out from under a pile of rubble, and her face paled. "No... No, no, no!" She began pulling things off, tossing them into a pile off to the side. "No, please, not my sister..." she kept muttering. She got enough stuff out of the way to see that it was indeed her sister, and that she wasn't breathing. "Serenity!!" she cried, fighting back the tears. Her mother had made the girls all get CPR and first aid training, that's what happened when you had a nurse for a mom. Once Serenity was free, Eternity went right to work. Thirty pulses, two breaths... And again... But it wasn't working...

Her sister's skin was starting to go cold, and Eternity simply stopped, the tears flowing unrestrained down her cheeks. She touched her sister's face with one hand, there was no color left in those cheeks... She bowed her head for a moment, then stood and began to drag her sister's body toward the airlock. She didn't try to hide the fact that she was crying, but when she pulled Serenity's body away from the wreckage, she simply knelt beside the motionless girl, holding Serenity's head in her lap, like the way people did in the movies. Looking at her sister's face, she held Serenity close and cried, her shoulders shaking.

We mean you and yours no harm, little ones. Now, come on out and we shall see to those bumps and bruises.

The voice shocked her out of her stupor. Was that the dragon's voice? Eternity turned her head and blinked away the tears.

I am sorry. Another dragon...? They were telepathic, then... Eternity looked up at the green dragoness whose head hovered above her. She reached one hand tentatively up and brushed her hesitant fingers against the dragon's hide. It was leathery, but surprisingly soft at the same time. She looked back down at her sister, and made her decision.

She gently laid her sister's body down and stood, looking up. She took a breath and made her way over to where the other ones were gathering. She poked her head inside and found a first-aid kit, breathing a sigh of relief. "Alright, let's get a head count once everyone's outside," she said to no one in particular. She wiped the tears from her face. She had to be strong for the younger children. She might just end up as one of the oldest ones here, if something had happened to too many of the rest.

She walked over to a boy who was holding his arm close to his chest. She got to her knees and opened the first-aid kit. "Can I see your arm?" she asked him softly. He nodded and held it out for her, but he held his wrist still with his other hand. It looked like it was swelling up. "Okay, this might hurt a bit. Can you be a big boy for me?" He nodded again. Eternity reached into the kit and pulled out a splint, making it a specific shape and fitting it to the boy's arm. She tied a gauze triangle into a makeshift sling. "Now just keep it still, alright? It'll take a while to heal." He nodded again, and the girl turned to help the next person.

Kaira wheeled as she heard her name, and her eyes locked on the gash in Theo's shoulder. "One moment," she told him firmly, prodding it gently. Satisfied it was not as severe as it looked from a distance, she looked around them. "Help me find the littlest ones. We're still missing at least 2 of the 12 year olds," she told him. She was praying they were okay. "Theo, I don't know where your sister is. I'll just say that now," she added, looking him in the eye. She then turned and headed for a cry of pain, kneeling beside the young man who uttered it. "Easy now. We need to free that leg," she soothed him, then pushed on the metal bar entrapping it. "Theo, come help me!" she called, as he was currently the only one she could see near enough to help her.

The Amethyst who had called the children out was now their bed, many of them cuddled up against her side, entombed in warmth and the comfort she emitted constantly. She looked up as an older Pearl came over to check on them, lifting her wing so her Queen could see them, then lowering it when Gerith was satisfied. The black Pearl then turned, looking around them, and noticed that young Aketh had disappeared. She didn't have time to worry about the blue Pearl right now though. They had others still to work on and help. They are doing much better. Are calmer now, she told her rider, who nodded and continued to watch the girl who'd been comforted by Emerald Risath-still hovering near her- help those needing it.

.: Serenity Miller :.

The little girl had stuck close to Serenity throughout their exploration of the remains of the station. They had come across a few others, not all of them alive. Still Serenity had herself a decent gaggle of little ones to be keeping out of trouble as they carefully made their way towards what Serenity hoped was the out edges of the station. If they could find the hull, they might be able to find an airlock and open it enough to escape into whatever world they had ended up in. Anything would be better than remaining where they were, with the dead air and the flickering fire, he growing heat which told Serenity's sense of logic that something was going to go even more badly wrong soon.

"Sen" One of the younger children grabbed the bottom of her shirt. "What's wrong?" Serenity asked, immediately concerned by the odd look on the little one's face. "I can feel air" The child said, pointing towards a corridor which was less twisted and damaged than the rest of the spaces around them. Serenity nodded "Good catch, we'll go that way" As before, she took the lead, wanting to be the one who found anything dangerous, or at least, more dangerous than anything else in here.

One of the children stumbled and the immediate whimpering cry of pain had Serenity wincing in sympathy. Motioning for the rest of the children to stop, she backtracked to the one who had fallen. The child had gone white and a quick inspection showed blood mixing into the back of her hair. "Alright, let's get you up" Serenity didn't want the girl walking on her own, not when she looked too dizzy and pained to make a straight line. Motioning for two of the other children, they helped get the girl onto her fee,t linking their arms together under hers to keep her steady. "You two okay with her?" Serenity asked, and got a pair of affirmative responses. "Okay, let's get out of here"

Later on, Serenity would admit that the sight of the dragon who was standing at the end of the path they had been following, had been enough to make her breath stop for a moment in both fear and wonder. She shifted herself to stand between the younger campers and the threat, but the creature seemed friendly as it made a cooing sound and sniffed at them. Another person, one who was wholly unfamiliar to her, approached and Serenity was so grateful to see another human, to see a concerned and worried face, that she let them lead them away. She could see that the person was speaking, but in her dizzy relief she couldn't hear them. Her own heart beat pounded in her ears and she stumbled, one of her rescuees reaching out to steady her.

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.: Theodore Miller :.

Theo winced as Kaira poked his shoulder. It might not be bleeding quite as freely any more, but it did still hurt. "I figured" He said when the woman stated that she didn't know where his sister was. It had been difficult enough keeping track of people during a regular day on the station. Here and now? He was surprised they had as much of a clue as they did about who was were. Of course, the fact that there appeared to be some kind of giant monster hovering over some of the children might have something to do with that. Theodore wasn't quite sure any more than he wasn't badly concussed, because he really would not have considered that these creatures, who appeared to be dragons of some variety, were real. Only the fact that the others seemed to be seeing them too reassured him that he wasn't seeing things that weren't there.

Finding a small boy, Theo carefully scooped the lad into his arms, doing his best not to jostle what was clearly a wounded arm. The other children appeared to be being put under the care of the large purple creature and Theo approached to set the boy down with them. The dragons seemed friendly, and appeared to be working with the strangers who were helping with the search for the children and Theodore wasn't the sort to be easily put off just because something was strange or different.

Kaira called him and Theo quickly came to where she was. There was a boy trapped under a heavy metal bar. Crouching next to it, Theo carefully worked his hands under the metal, trying his best to avoid getting cut, though he was not entirely successful. "On Three" He said to Kaira.

"One. Two. Three." On the final count, Theodore set himself and lifted, muscles straining to shift a bit of metal which had never been intended to be moved by human hands in full gravity. His shoulder flared with sharp pain and all the other smaller injuries burned, but none of that was as important to Theodore in that moment as the fact that he had gotten the metal up high enough for Kaira to pull the child free.

The wave of heat hit him as Theodore carefully lowered the metal bar back to the ground. "Damn it" He swore as Eternity shouted out that the station looked ready to explode. "Pass him to me" He said to Kaira, indicating the boy. They had to get out of here and he thought himself better able to move quickly with the burden of the child than the doctor would.

Another girl! Eternity knew she was Theo's sister, but not the girl's name. "Alright everyone, come on! Find a dragon and get on, they'll take us to safety!" she told the younger kids. She pushed the older girl toward a dragon with only a few people surrounding it, and then she went over to the Emerald that had comforted her before. She prayed she'd gotten her sister's body far enough away from the explosion for it to be undamaged.

"Nice moves kid," the Emerald's rider said to her. They landed a good distance away, and Eternity lept off under her own power. She turned to the dragon and rider pair.

"Thank you," she said politely, a small smile on her face. But her blue eyes remained dark. She turned and saw everyone start climbing off dragons, and immediately started counting. "Miss Kiara, I count thirty," she said quickly. "But there are a few that look like they're not going to make it back to... Wherever these dragons are from," she admitted softly. There were a number of crying kids, and older kids who looked like they wanted to cry but were being strong for the little ones. This was the one she belonged to. And there were a few more who were just too stunned still to feel much of anything. She took a breath and stepped forward. "Alright everyone, we know these dragons are not going to hurt us. They've just about saved the lives of every person here. We don't know this world, what dangers lurk in this forest." She looked at Kiara, the only surviving instructor. "You probably know what I'm about to say, don't you? Our only hope of survival is if we go..." Her voice faded, and she placed a hand to her head as a dizzy spell overcame her. Her face went pale as the pain in her head overcame her now that everything was over.

"Easy there little lady," said the rider, grasping her shoulders firmly to hold her up. He put one arm gently around her waist. Normally this would've caused Eternity to shove him away and call him a pervert, but her mind was just too fogged up to think. She did push him away, though, as her stomach lurched, and she fell to her knees at the edge of the cliff, her breath coming in shallow gasps. She coughed and retched over the edge of the cliff, dark from the smoke that she'd inhaled when trying to save her sister. She moaned and sat back against the rocks, the rider sitting next to her with one hand on her back.

"Let's get them all back," he called to the other riders. He knew the message would be carried by dragon telepathy to the ones that his voice couldn't reach. "Let the healers have a look at them." He looked back down at the pale-faced girl. "But you, we'll wait until you feel like you can fly again, alright?" She nodded slowly. Any movement made the pain in her skull worse, and sent waves of nausea through her stomach.

.: R'ver and Amethyst Alexith :.

Alexith was not the biggest of Amethysts, in fact she was right at the smallest end of the size range for her colour. But she was still in the middle ranges for dragons as a whole and far stronger than any human could hope to be. They had done what they could for the injured as they pulled them from the wreckage of the craft, and they had carried those they could from away from the site when the call came that the place was going to explode.

We do have some healers here already Alexith spoke up when the queen called for healers to be brought to the scene. A moment of consultation with her rider and then she continued R'ver requests more numbweed and redwort, and one of the regular antiseptics as well. He also says they will need slings for those who can not walk, and braces for those who might have hurt their backs.

The dark haired rider was already moving through the gathered riders, speaking quietly to those he knew had some experience with dealing with the injured, doling out advice and generally getting things organised so that those who had the least experience where working in tandem as an extra pair of hands with people he could trust not to make mistakes. More healers would arrive soon, perhaps even someone with their mastery, a rank which R'ver planned to try for but had not yet made it to. Whomever came with enough rank and age to take over from him would find the place well set into motion.

Spying a red headed women kneeling next to one of the injured, R'ver approached. "Journeyman R'ver, of Amethyst Alexith" He introduced himself curtly as he knelt down next to the younger female, pulling his emergency satchel in so that he could start looking through the contents. "Follow my finger please" He said to the child, slowly waving said appendage back and forth before her eyes, his own sharp gaze watching for how well she tracked the movement. "You their healer?" He asked the woman who had been searching the girl's hair.