TSS ll Red Haze

Ayla had actually been dozing quite peacefully beneath the shade of a tree when Kali nudged her with her muzzle. You should wake, the dragon murmured quietly in her mind. Ayla groaned and rolled over, not ready to wake up yet. Still, she opened one eye to see that her dragon was leaning quite close to her. Any closer, and she might have been crushed beneath that sinewy body. I would not crush you, Kali huffed indignantly. I thought that you might want to see this.

Ayla sat up and yawned, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she did so. She got to her feet slowly, tying the soft hide she had been laying on back around her waist after dusting it off. “What is it?” she asked sleepily. The serpentine dragon turned her head to the valley below. Ayla strained her eyes to see what the dragon might possibly have found so interesting. “It’s green,” she huffed. “Trees normally are. I can’t believe you woke me up for that.” She knew that Kali wouldn’t wake her up for just anything, but she didn’t want to think that something might be wrong. The green was an off color, one that did not agree with her.

Trees do not move like that does. I want to go look at it, she insisted. Ayla shook her head but all the same climbed up the dragon’s extended leg and seated herself between Kali’s broad shoulders. “Let’s go then,” she agreed. Kali dipped her head and tensed before throwing herself into the wind. The rush was exhilarating, immediately snapping Ayla from her tired state of mind. She would never get over how perfect everything looked from a dragon’s point of view. Still...her face twisted into disgust. There were creatures down there, people hardly fit to be called that. People that would turn their back on you, who would turn on you in an instant to make a bit of coin. The drow breathed coolly and set her sights on the green beneath them.

It was tall as a cloud, and they reached it far sooner than she imagined. “It’s fog,” she said in wonder. Fog wasn’t supposed to be green, though. Kali hissed when one of her claws dipped into it. The knuckle came back raw, the fur stripped away. What is this? she growled furiously, her eyes wide with ferocious disbelief. Ayla’s heart skipped a beat in her chest. Poison? Acid? “Kali, we have to get away from here,” she said worriedly. But go ahead to see what lies behind it, she added silently.

Kali, still angered that the fog had burned her, agreed. Something this wrong would surely leave something wrong in its wake.

Rain began to fall from the sky, hissing as it fell past them. “Great,” Ayla muttered, drawing up the hood of her cloak. It could be worse, Kali assured her. Kali looked to the sky, watching the rain fall. But this was wrong, too. It was red. “Is it blood?” Ayla asked, her heart jumping again in her chest. She had never heard of such a thing before, but she had never heard of red rain or green, poisonous fog, either. Kali hissed when a drop landed on her muzzle. In an instant, the fur began to bubble as the droplet burned down to her flesh. Kali roared, the pain hitting Ayla through their connection. “Land!” Ayla shouted desperately. The rain was beginning to fall harder, and if one drop burned so badly, she did not want to get caught in it.

Kali all but crashed into the ground, the pain blurring her vision and straining her movements. A cave yawned open nearby, large enough that it seemed Kali could even fit in there comfortably. Ayla hurried in with Kali close behind, the dragon arching her neck over Ayla to make sure that she was not burned. Almost as soon as they were in, the scarlet rain began to pour down from the skies, as if a ragged wound had opened in the heavens and was falling to earth.

Kali was crouched a little ways from the mouth of the cave, shuddering. Gozreh is angry, the dragon said quietly, stunned. But why would she hurt her children? Ayla, throwing aside her cloak, hurried to her dragon’s side and dug from her satchel a linen cloth.

“I don’t know,” Ayla said softly, trying to soothe the dragon. She touched the cloth as gently as she could to the open wounds on Kali’s face, washing off the red water before it could do any more damage. It steamed from the wounds it had created. Kali drew back her muzzle into a snarl, but did not make much more of a fuss.

“At least there’s none of that fog here,” Ayla sighed. Nor did it seem that anything or anyone else was in the cave. They were alone, for now. She gazed out silently to the red wastes that the rain was making. There was so much wrong with the world.