"It's your turn, Gwyneira."

Gwyneira didn't hear him, hypnotized in watching the other dragonets twirling about in the air. She felt transfixed, watching their agile forms flexing their strong wings and showing off their skills to each other beneath the beautiful dome of the Cepheus Prime Ballroom. The dim light of the closed ballroom made the dragonets practicing their aerial dancing look like eerie specters-- mostly cloaked in shadow. Through the massive glass dome above, copious stars and galaxies could be seen spread across the plains of space, though most of the dome was currently blacked out, leaving only a small pinprick of the view, and a thin stream of light penetrating the lonely dark of the room. She could only faintly see the ornate details of the ballroom, such as the golden-multi-ringed floor, the intricately carved silver walls, and the many stories of the ballroom.

"It's your turn," Hephastion repeated.

Finally she tore her gaze away from the flying dragons to Hephastion, his scarlet face staring at her inquisitively. Despite the gloom of the empty ballroom, his ruby scales still shined and his golden eyes made it suddenly feel much lighter. The fire volcanic then prompted with those golden eyes to their virtual Dragon's Chessboard, where he had just made his move. He indicated with a shiny black talon his most recent move. "Are you going to move?" He asked gently.

Gwyneira nodded her icy blue head. "Yes— Yes, sorry," she apologized, and studied the board for a moment. With a pristine, icy white talon, she picked up a virtual chess-piece and made her move.

Hephastion held a talon to his chin and stared at the chessboard with intense concentration.

Gwyneira let her attention slip back over to the practicing dragonets. She sadly twitched her own delicate, pearly white wings tinged with frosty blue. She could only imagine what it felt like to feel the wind beneath them in an aerial dance...

Only imagine...

She could feel it there sometimes... A phantom sense, her physician called it. She could close her eyes and listen... One heartbeat... Two... Three... Four... Five...

But only an echo of a sixth.

She looked down at the icy white of her chestplates. Somehow it felt wrong for her scales to shine so bright without a Light Magic Heart beating in her chest.

And without light magic, she couldn't manipulate the air as the other dragonets could to dance as they did now. 

Suddenly a black talon settled on her own resting on the little metal table between herself and Hephastion. Startled, Gwyneira looked down and was immediately met with warm golden eyes looking back at her. "Don't think about them," the volcanic said. Hephastion had a certain way of saying things that made them sound as if everything would be alright; as if, for at least just then, everything in the world was okay. Thus was how he said his words now. "You may not be able to aerially dance..." He indicated with a nod of his head towards the chessboard. "But you are a master at just about everything else."

Gwyneira tilted her head down in modesty and smiled, albeit a small one. "Not everything," she denied meekly. "You are far superior at making jokes," She said as she raised her eyes to meet his gaze, a mischievous air now about in her expression.

At this Hephastion grinned. "Ah, well, perhaps," he agreed. "But hey, my jokes won't get me very far compared to your skill in mathematics," he pointed out.

Gwyneira shook her head and sighed, disguising a larger smile. "Never mind," she said and tapped the edge of the chessboard. "It's still your move."

"And hopefully it's the last?" An older voice interrupted. Gwyneira looked away from the board to see their Governess making her way over to them.

Their Governess was, in her view, a beautiful dragon. Her lavender scales glinted in the light, and her bright, pale blue eyes always carried a sort of laughter to them. The tall, rounded, feathery sail that ran from between her horns down to her neck, from between her shoulderblades to the base of her tail, and from the top of her tail to the end of it, flared proud with the same color of her eyes. Her delicate, thin, curving horns were a bright white with soft rose colored streaks. At the end of each of her long, thin, delicate legs and feet her sharp white talons curved in what in older times would have been good for gripping trees. The pale blue membrane of her delicate, nimble wings suited for agile jungle flying, was so thin in parts that one could see right through it. Her aquamarine chestplates gleamed with little white flecks.

"I think Gwyneira had me checkmated anyway," Hephastion said sheepishly, and he reached out with a talon an tapped a button on the chessboard, making the virtual yet highly realistic pieces blink out of existence. Despite what he had said Gwyneira spotted six or seven moves he could have made to free himself from his check but...

Oh well.

The Governess smiled at them, then turned around and looked up to the air where the other dragonets continued to experimentally perform daring loops and drops. "Okay, dance lesson's over! You can come down now, Gwaine, Euphora, Nimueah. You three will be brilliant for the Eclipse Ball, so you should save your moves for when you've got an audience," she called with a hint of a chuckle.

First landed Gwaine, his ash black talons clicking on the golden floor. Medium and heavy armor scales typical of the Ash Volcanics of the darkest burnt crimson lined his skin, with stone gray chestplates framing his broad structure. His medium length tail lashed with excitement, his yellow eyes matching the enthusiasm. His short, sturdy gray horns branched out of the back of his skull, and little matching razors ran down along his spine. He tucked his gray wings close to his sides as one of his dancing companions also landed.

Euphora made a slightly more graceful landing, her light gray talons landing lightly on the ground almost soundlessly. She was lean for her race; Mountain Prinuae were usually hearty and padded, while Euphora was on the leaner side. Her silver and icy highlighted heavy armor scales made a lot of dragonets her race look like mobile boulders— but not her. Her face was wider than Gwyneira's narrow snout, and the mountain Prinuae's silver body was yet to grow into a matching structure. Her white and faintly icy blue chestplates were broad, and her sharp, long, ice like horns matched in color. Jagged silver ridges ran from her forehead to the end of her tail, similar to Gwyneira's icy white ones.

Gwyneira and Euphora were closely related, in a way. Not in blood, but in race. They were both Prinuae's, originating from the colder regions of their homeworld Anfeidreidd. However, they were different subclasses of the same race- Gwyneira sported the icy, more delicate form of a Frost Prinuae, whereas Euphora was a more stony relative, the Mountain Prinuae. Hephastion and Gwaine shared a similar relationship— both were Volcanics, from the more fiery, molten realms of their homeland, but Gwaine was of ash while Hephastion was of fire. Their governess was of a different race from any of them— a Jungle Naturae from the massive and magical towering jungles.

The last of the dragonets was also a relative of sorts to their governess; a Naturae of the Water variety. Numueah's webbed talons thumped down onto the floor with an impact greater than any of the dragonet's before her in her energy. Her bright turquoise eyes gleamed and she held her unusually-high-for-her-age greenish-blue spines high. Her light and medium armored aqua scales were arranged perfectly for efficiency in the water, as well as her turquoise wings. Her black horns matched her talons. Her chestplates shimmered a pearly blue. "Miss Emlyn, after history tommorow, can we come back here again? And practice some more? Can you teach us how to do that backflip that you showed us? Pleeeeeease?" The water Naturae begged.

Emlyn smiled. "Perhaps. But now we must go. Come, dragonets," she summoned, beckoning with a wing towards the great arching door.

Gwyneira picked up the chessboard in her talons, and dashed over to the governess. "I'll go put this back. I'll meet you outside in just a moment," she explained. After receiving an approving nod from Emlyn, she turned and started off away from the rest of the group towards a shelf in the back of the massive room where games were kept for dragons tired of dancing. A streak of bright light stretched across the floor as the door far behind her was opened, and a moment later it vanished as the door was closed with a slow creak. She was all alone, if only for a moment, in the Great Dragon Ballroom.

She reached the shelf and slid the chessboard onto it, then turned to cross back across the ballroom again—

When for all of a moment, she thought she saw a strange... Flicker of something in the beam of light from the top of the ballroom.

She froze and narrowed her eyes, staring at the beam of light.

— There it was again. What... Is it?

The beam of light had changed, for a fraction of a second. It has looked more like... A tear of some sort, whirling and floating, with a flash of something else...

She slowly started walking towards the beam of light, curious. She almost felt as if it was... Calling to her, beckoning.

Then she realized that it was.

She could hear voices.

Come... Come to me...

I can help you...

Come to me...

Come help me...

Come...

Each voice was different. One was of a beautiful young merwyss, another, a deep, silky arwyn. Another sounded like a young dragonets just having learnt to speak, and there was also one that sounded as old as Anfeidreidd itself. The last voice was almost a combination of them all.

Then the flicker returned. And this time it stayed.

She wandered ever closer to it, until she was within just a few tail lengths of it, entranced. Who are you...? She wondered.

She stared at the tear, until she realized... It... It almost looks like a dragon.

Curious, she began to reach out a talon towards it. And it almost seemed... To reach out a talon back towards her.

Again it spoke.

Come to me, Gwyneira.

And suddenly her vision went black as oblivion.

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Welcome to the world of Cepheus Prime! Please remember to vote if you liked it, and please comment what you think of this introduction to my new book!