Up there is what I imagined Hillena to be like. It's a lovely picture I found on the internet:) If only I could draw such wonders.........

Well, on with the chapter! I sincerely hope you like it, and if my grammar or spelling is too bad, please tell so I can fix it.

I hope you understand some of what happened between the prologue and this chapter OwO. If you didn't, feel free to ask XD.

Arumi

The rainforest was calm; morning birds twittering, budding leaves rustling in the wind, the faint footfalls of forest animals. A hint of morning dew hung on leafy green fronds and colorful flowers scattered amongst the dense foliage. Weak, early morning sunlight filtered through the trees and lightened the damp ground with yellow light.

This was the world Arumi opened her eyes to.

Arumi yawned, still half asleep, and crawled out of her cozy little den at the edge of a small clearing in the middle of the rainforest. Slowly stretching her body out, she observed the quiet whisperings of the forest around her, taking comfort in its familiar sights and smells. The sunlight shining through the dense leaves warmed her scales and soothed her eyes. Arumi let out a deep breath.

She had had a nightmare again.

Arumi really should have been used to it by now, seeing as she was subjected to a nightmare almost every two days, but she remained sensitive to the visions that attacked her consciousness during the blackness of night.

It was truly depressing how her life had become so horrible and erratic in the last three months.

Three months. That was all it took for a four year old dragonet's life to turn upside down. Three months, for a young dragon to develop an impossible power.

Back then, before three months ago, Arumi had had an actual home with an actual family. She had lived with her parents in a small village up north in Dantalis where she had real friends, attended a real school, and generally lived a normal life.

The catastrophic day where everything changed had been exactly three months ago on Arumi's fourth birthday. The day had started out fine, but had abruptly shattered when Arumi collapsed and blacked out, pain coursing through her veins. Her parents had done their best to bring her back, but they could do nothing to shield her from her first vision.

Flames. Earthquakes. Great, heaving sections of earth caving in and bursting out like a cracking glacier. Rivers of fire streaking through the land, devouring everything it touched with malice. Arumi could do nothing but watch as her home disappeared beneath waves of fire and collapsing earth. She could see her parents, screaming for her help, but she was immobilized, unable to reach out as her life became undone in her own mind.

But this wasn't it. After everyone and everything Arumi had known vanished in the smoke filled chasms created by the collapsing earth, her vision widened and she could see surrounding villages, towns, sprawling landscapes with mountains and plains erupt in flames and get swallowed by the earth. Tortured screams of the fleeing dragons and the calls of panicked animals filled the dusty smoke-filled air. With the crash and boom of falling buildings and the dry crackling of more and more land succumbing to the fire combined, the din was unimaginably loud and frightful. Arumi cringed, fighting to move her frozen limbs to shield herself from the horrific roar of destruction.

But she couldn't do anything as more and more dragons and their villages perished, helpless to the sea of crimson fire and buckling earth. More and more, as far as the eye could see, destruction rained down, taking more and more lives. Screams and pleads for help drilled into Arumi's head, piercing her heart and driving deep into her very soul. They wound around her like sharp thorns, binding her, trapping her, their pain becoming Arumi's pain and their cries becoming her cries until she couldn't take it any more.

The last thing she saw with her frozen eyes was a great black force, ramming into Hillenia from all sides, shaking the world so hard her vision shattered and she woke up.

No one really knew what happened that day. Arumi's parents assured her that she just needed rest, and that everything would be fine in a few days. The blackout was nothing but a side effect from the increasing earthquakes that shook the earth every now and then.

That's right, earthquakes. Like the ones in Arumi's vision.

But the earthquakes in real life didn't collapse the earth. Nor did they swallow up towns, or caused great fires. Hillenia simply was an unstable realm, made up of many islands connected by raised earth flats in the Great Sea. Many small islands (named: Hidden Islands) were inhabitable, often breaking apart and crumbling into the ocean. Yes, the earthquakes had gotten more frequent with stronger intensity, and it DID make rebuilding the already collapsed towns harder, but soon enough, the dragons would figure it out. They always did, for dragons were smart.

Arumi was just worried, that was all.

But she knew she wasn't "just worried". For after that day, she developed a power; a sort of ability that shouldn't be possible. Probable yes, but impossible in this world. It was as if the screams of the dragons in her vision had stayed stuck in her mind, except the screams became voices, and each voice belonged to a different dragon in real life. Arumi could hear these voices, and often they were too loud. She would have to run away to a deserted place and recover before she could interact with others again.

And she didn't hear these voices with her ears. No, she heard them with her mind.

A telepath. That's what she had become.

Arumi had been naive, thinking her friends and family would truly believe her. She hadn't realized back then, but now as Arumi recalled what had happened, she saw the same false smile, the same averting eyes, and the same uneasy words assuring that everything would be alright.

Everything had not been alright.

Arumi's parents, after two weeks of denying Arumi's frantic warnings, passed away in a great fire, caused by an abnormally large earthquake with many other dragons in the village.

Nearly a third of the small town was gone, and Arumi had fled her home, too horrified and grief stricken to properly realize part of her vision had come true.

Now here she was, southeast of Dantalis in Awares (a-ware-ees), a place known for its rainforests that stretched in a loose circle around the island. Here she was undisturbed, and she wouldn't be able to ruin anyone else's lives with her vision that only made sense to her. She could start life anew.

Arumi shook off the lingering terror left from her nightmares and sighed. She had to get to the town center soon unless she wanted a scolding and extra work for the next three weeks.

Starting roughly five thousand years ago, Hillenia had suffered from quakes that varied in strength. No one remembered a time where there hadn't been quakes, and dragons often wondered how their early ancestors had survived the earthquakes when the world was new. There were no records or stories or any recollection of a time before Great Quaking. In fact, some dragons even stated that there hadn't been any dragons back then, and that dragons had risen out of the caving earth five thousand years ago. But that couldn't be right, because there HAD been dragons back then. It was just that no one remembered what it was like when Hillenia was stable.

Because of the constant tremors, some towns always had a section of crumbled debris piled up somewhere on the island; they were the remains of fallen buildings that had collapsed in earlier quakes. But the dragons didn't leave them that way. New times and new generations passed, and a half-crumbled city was no way to lead a good life. Everyone who lived on an island with ruins had to help build it back up on the Council's orders. You'd expect the broken cities to be all up and shiny again but that wasn't it either. The same islands always suffered the same cruel earthquakes and often sent the dragons' progress tumbling.

Arumi often wondered why everyone bothered. Why waste your time building up a life that was always going to be falling back down? Why not just. . . .move somewhere else?

But since Arumi wasn't in the Council's Circle, she couldn't exactly suggest anything. And even though she had ran away to live in the rainforests and didn't technically count as a citizen of Awares, the Governor of Awares had somehow managed to find her and put her down as a worker; Arumi had figured this out on her third day while she was flying over the town center and had gotten apprehended by the clean-up director.

Giving one more moment for her mind to settle down, Arumi shook out her colorful patterned wings and lifted off the forest floor. The leaves rushed past her as she flew up and finally cleared the canopy of the great rainforest. The clear morning sky greeted her and the wind brushed through her wings and blew away her worries and fears. Enjoying the momentary freedom of the skies, Arumi tilted her wings to the right and flew toward the center city of Awares.

----

Arumi landed on the raised wooden platform where all the other dragons stood waiting to get their assignment for the day. Folding her wings around her body, Arumi watched cautiously as the other dragons moved and talked and did normal dragon things that she herself had forgotten how to do. They all looked so happy, despite the unstable realm in which they lived and the rebuilding they continuously had to work on. Arumi wondered how they did it; being so carefree and cheerful all the time. Arumi was so used to being scared and nervous and worried that she wasn't sure if she'd be able to act positive even if she wanted to.

Arumi sighed and looked up, unfolding her wings a little. She should really try to be a part of the group. . . .

Big mistake.

As her gaze lifted, she saw 39 pairs of dragon eyes all staring with varied interest right at her.

Silence.

Whispers.

Her nightmares had driven one more very important problem from her mind that day.

Arumi was considered an outcast, a weirdo. Someone who literally appeared out of the sky one day and became part of Awares. She had no family, no friends, and no home. Plus, she was so quiet everyone had thought she was mute and she was always alone. A freak was what she was.

Under everyone's intense glaring, Arumi's mental barriers began to crumble as her confidence shattered. The surrounding dragons' thoughts began to trickle into her mind, slowly trapping her in their thorny cage. Dragons wondering what was wrong with her, dragons wanting her to go away, dragons thinking what a complete freak she was.

Arumi stifled a whimper and curled her tail around her legs, scooting a little further away from everyone else. Some dragons had begun to drift away, but still their thoughts revolved around her and how weird she was. Even the director of the group stood a little ways away, waiting to see with gleaming yellow eyes how Arumi was going to embarrass herself.

What is wrong with me? Arumi wondered, What did I do to make everyone hate me so much?

All she wanted to do was start a new life and forget about her past. To leave behind her hometown and the earthquakes and the vision. But it was as if Fate didn't want her to move on, as if the heavens wanted her to suffer forever, no matter where she went. Why did she even bother to try? It was useless, really. She should just accept that her life would be miserable forever and that she was a pathetic dragon who made everyone hate her and fear her and get hurt because of her.

Just as the mental noises became too much and Arumi seriously considered running away again, a skinny black streak fell from the sky and thumped down beside her. Surprised, Arumi jumped back with a yelp. While the other dragons reacted with similar cries of surprise, the black streak uncurled itself and got to its feet.

It was a dragon. One that Arumi had never seen before.

And Arumi had made sure to keep track of every dragon in her section of Awares.

Looking closer, Arumi saw turquoise scales behind the stranger's eyes and more running down his neck like raindrops. His eyes and horns were the same turquoise color and his wings were scattered with star-like white spots. The rest of him was black, black, black.

The stranger fixed his shimmering eyes on Arumi and then at the crowd around her. A moment passed in silence, and then:

"Hey there! I'm Starlight, and I'm a newcomer from a Hidden Island."

How was the first chapter? Boring? Doesn't make sense? Hopefully you liked it. I ended this with a cliffhanger just because I felt like it, so bear with me. 

I don't have a writing schedule, so I might write the next chapter in a few days or in a week. Most likely in 2 weeks lol.

Please tell me what you thought of this, and READ ON (when I update of course:))

Byyeeeee

~Silverserpent