The first thing Silver felt as she began to regain consciousness was the smooth, comforting sensation of her metal nest. The cool touch caressed her bare yellow scales, causing her to sigh in contentment. She went to move, trying to curl up closer around herself, and she growled as a sharp jab of pain ran up through her spine. Her eyes snapped open and she instantly tried to move again, but as soon as she did another spiral of pain wound through her, causing her to whimper again.

"Hey, hey! Settle down dear," came an unfamiliar feminine voice, speaking in Drakin, "You're in no condition to move just yet."

Silver glanced upward as much as she could without moving her head to see a life dragon walk up next to her. It was a female, middle aged with wary looking eyes and drooping wings. Her green scales sparkled dully from some invisible light source, and there was a kind smile on her maw that made Silver instantly comfortable. The metal dragoness relaxed, doing as she was told and trying to avoid moving.

"There you go," said the life dragoness, pouring a stream of green energy into Silver, "Feeling better now?"

The injured dragon gave the barest hint of a nod, not trusting herself to move more then that. The pain that had spun through her had retreated for now, but it was still there and any sudden movement would bring it up again.

"Sorry I wasn't able to heal you fully," sighed the green dragon, "But you were quite badly injured, and I'm not a very powerful life dragon."

"It's fine," croaked Silver with a rusty voice, before letting out a powerful cough that caused another rack of pain to run through her. She groaned.

"Don't talk. You'll only injure yourself more," the other dragoness smiled kindly, before glancing back as another presence entered the room, "She's awake!"

"Really?" came the excited voice of a drake, also in speaking in Drakin.

There was the sound of pattering feet as the other dragon raced over to them. Silver tried to glance over in that direction but couldn't quite move her head in that direction. As the drake got closer a strange, yet familiar aura cascaded down upon her. It had exactly the same effect as Firefly's aura did, but it was cooler, almost like the aura of the moon, and far more prominent. There was no mistaking it. Equilibrium. If Silver could move at this moment, she would, her trust for the life dragon and her companion suddenly decreasing.

The metal dragoness's surprise continued to grow as the drake revealed himself. Her eyes were instantly drawn to the shining silver scales running down his back and across his wings, glittering like stars in the light. The drake had a long winding tail, covered in the same beautiful silver scales, with rows of spikes running across his back and to the tip. The strangest thing about him however was the under side of his wings and body. At first glance she would say they were purple, but on closer inspection she realised they were more black, with starlike patterns running down and through them. She couldn't help but stare.

"Well done Serel," exclaimed the strange looking drake, "I was worried that I wasn't quick enough."

Serel gave a small laugh, "Don't be so quick to congratulate me. She still is quite injured."

"But at least she's alive," sighed the drake before turning toward Silver.

The metal dragoness was watching the two of them suspiciously. There was nothing overly threatening about them, besides the immensely powerful aura radiating from the strange looking silver dragon, and by their conversation Silver could tell that they didn't exactly want to hurt her. As far as she could tell they had saved her life, though how she had no idea. All she remembered before she fell unconscious was the descending tail of Tetrad.

"Hey," said the drake with a kind smile, almost similar to Serel's, "Are you okay?"

Silver gave another small nod.

"Good. My name's O'hen, and I already know yours, Silver, the only metal dragon of your age," O'hen said.

The dragoness tilted her head slightly. That was a strange name for a dragon. But he was a strange dragon.

"What... species?" she managed to speak without coughing.

O'hen seemed to hesitate for a moment, before sighing, "Well, there's no point in hiding it from you. I am a time dragon."

Silver blinked, and took a moment to fully take in what he had said. Time dragon. She had heard rumours of them of course, legends of the strange silver dragons appearing throughout history, but no one could ever prove their existence. They seemed to only appear during times of great crisis, or when the world happened to be in trouble. Silver had never really believed in them, as she had never seen one before, but now there was one standing right in front of her.

"Time...?" she grunted out, slowly turning and having a better look at O'hen.

"Yes, the only one of my species," he said with a bow of his head.

She moved slightly and glanced around the place they were in as much as she could, searching for something. It was a strange looking room, or cave, she couldn't tell. The floor and roof were made from some strange material that looked almost like space, with a black milky-way background and stars strewn throughout, twinkling like the night sky. Swirls and patterns of galaxies were dotted around as well, the colourful images almost hypnotising. There seemed to be no end to the cave as it stretched out as far as Silver could see and further. It was like she was lying in space. Behind O'hen was the strangest part of the cave. It was a massive white line that looked like a condensed spider web full of white energy. Branches sprung out of it, which duplicated more and more and if Silver looked close enough she could see images dancing within the white energy.

"Where's... the.... others?" asked Silver, a little worried for her companions.

"They are fine," said O'hen, following her gaze to the white wall of energy, "I made sure they survived after I rescued you."

The dragoness let out a small sigh of relief. At least they hadn't been killed. Shuffling slightly she hissed as another spike of pain wound through her spine. There was still one question she wanted to ask however.

"Where... am I," she breathed.

The time dragon tilted his head, thinking for a moment of how to answer the question, "I brought you to my realm I guess. It was the only place I could without you being killed."

"But where?" she insisted.

"It's hard to explain. You're... out of time. You're not on earth anymore if that's what you are asking. This is a place I created where time doesn't exist. I will explain more when you are feeling better. For now, rest."

"But..." Silver murmured, suddenly feeling extremely drowsy. Before she could ask her question her eyes closed and she slowly fell to sleep.

* * *

The next time she woke she couldn't help but realise that the pain in her back was far less prominent, enough so that she could move without hurting it. Her limbs still didn't work properly however and she couldn't even budge her wings. Serel looked up as the silver dragon when she realised she was awake. The life dragoness walked over to her.

"Hey, hey, be still."

Silver let out a deep breath, "This is very annoying."

"I can imagine," chuckled Serel, "But don't worry too much. With my care and you're young body, you'll be up and ready to go before you know it."

The metal dragon nodded, laying her head down on the soothing metal nest, "Where's O'hen?"

"He's out hunting at the moment. When he gets back you should eat. You've been out for a while."

Silver's eyes widened slightly, suddenly worried, "How long?"

Serel chuckled again, "How would I know? This place is out of time remember. Day and night doesn't exist here, time doesn't exist here. You could stay here for as long as you like and not age, grow, and the best part is you wouldn't miss a day in the real world."

"Haha, that's awesome," Silver laughed.

"It is really. A generally useful place."

The metal dragon nodded her head in agreement, curling her tail further around her and laying her head on the edge of her nest, looking out over the strange white streams of energy along one side of... wherever they were. She tilted her head, studying it in more detail. There were definitely images moving within, though of what she couldn't see.

"What is that," Silver asked, gesturing to the wall.

Serel followed her gaze and let out a small grin, "That, my dear, is time, in it's fullest. From beginning to end. Every possibility, every future, every past, everything. All there."

Silver looked at the wall with new interest. Time. It had never really been something she had thought about before. As a dragon she had a lifespan of hundreds of years and old age never really was something she worried about. She was only eight after all. But this brought everything into perspective. A hundred years really wasn't a long time.

"How far does it go?" she asked, curious.

"I have no idea. O'hen would, he understands time far better then I do," explained Serel, "But be aware of a massive lecture. Once he starts talking about it all its difficult to get him to stop."

"Oh, are you and him mates then?"

The life dragoness laughed, "No. He doesn't have a mate. His nature, job, and the very fact he is a time dragon prevents him from taking that step."

"Wait, so you're saying that he hasn't ever had a mate?" Silver said, a little confused, "But I thought there would have been time dragons before him at least."

"No," Serel said, shaking her head, "There has only ever been him."

"It must be rather lonely then," said Silver, finding it a little impossible to believe. She didn't exactly no his age either. Similarly to Firefly, he could have been anywhere between ten and fifty by the way he looked. It must have had something to do with equilibrium.

The white energy that represented time suddenly pulsed and part of it began to grow outwards, slowly reconfiguring into a dragon. Before long O'hen once again stood in the room, the vast and powerful aura he emitted cascading through the room once more. A dear hung from his mouth and he looked bigger then the previous time Silver had seen him. When he saw the two dragonesses he let out a small smile and padded over to them and dumped the dear next to the metal nest.

"How are you feeling Silver?" he asked with concern.

"Better then before," replied the metal dragoness with a small smile, "I can talk now."

"That's always an improvement," O'hen laughed before turning to the deer.

With his talons he ripped off one of the forelegs from the deer and placed it across Silver's nest. The dragoness hesitated for a moment, glancing at him, before sinking her teeth into the flesh. It wasn't until she started eating that she realised how hungry she was. Before long the whole leg was gone. She glanced back at the deer, wanting more.

"My, my, you are hungry," the time dragon pulled the carcass over to her and watched as Silver eagerly dug into it, ignoring the small spikes of pain that ran through her spine.

Once she had had her full Silver licked her lips and lay her head down on the nest again with a small yawn. She felt so tired, and yet she didn't want to go to sleep quite yet. There was still so much she wanted to ask the time dragon.

"How old are you?" she started, glancing at the time dragon.

He laughed, "From whose point of view? To Serel I'm only a couple of thousand years old, to you I would be well over ten thousand."

"What?" Silver blinked in confusion.

"Here we go," muttered Serel, but couldn't help smiling.

"Well, Serel here is from a very different time to you. She is from what I call the first age. A time when dragons and humans lived together in peaceful unison. One of my favourite points in history really. You are living in the third age, where humans rule the world. The age of technology really, though the next age probably has far greater advancements."

"Wait, so you're from the past?" Silver looked over at Serel.

The life dragon nodded, "Remember, this place is out of time, from here you can go literally anywhere."

The metal dragon's eyes widened, "So you're saying I could go back to whenever I wanted?"

"Yes..." O'hen frowned, looking at her.

Her mind travelled back to two months prior, the battle where her father lost his life. If she could travel back to then... she could save him. She could prevent her brother from going mad, and, now that she thought about it, she could go even further back to the time when they were still in dragon valley and warn everyone about A.O.D.H before they attacked. It was perfect. She opened her mouth to voice her idea when O'hen interrupted her.

"No. It wouldn't work," he stated before she could go any further.

"You didn't even know what I was about to say," growled Silver.

"Oh, I had a fairly good idea. You want to go back and rescue your father, don't you?" he said, tilting his head.

Silver's silence answered his question.

He sighed, "That wouldn't work on multiple levels. Time is a complicated thing and to change it is to create horror. If you rescue your father, there is a chance that everything could end well, but if being a time dragon has taught me anything then it is that messing with time only creates things that a far more horrible then what you prevented. Trust me when I say that his death that you witnessed is one the better ones."

Silver growled, "What do you mean by that?"

"If your father is rescued now then there is a high chance that far more horrible things could happen to him in the future. I've seen futures where he goes mad, his mind is ripped apart, and you are the one that is forced to kill him. If you prevent his death, then it is very probable that that future my come to pass."

She hesitated, before nodding slowly. She understood what he meant, but it didn't make it hurt any less. If she could just see her father again, then that would be a dream come true. Sighing she glanced back at the time wall.

"Can you tell me what will happen in my future?" she asked.

"Well, there are multiple futures that can come to pass for you. Depending on how you look at it there are thousands upon thousands. So its kind of hard to tell what will be you definite future."

"Oh... is there anything you can tell me?" Silver asked.

"Well, ask a question and I'll see," he grinned.

"Does A.O.D.H fall?" it was the first thing the dragoness could think of.

"I think the correct question for that is will they succeed," he said, "And the answer is both yes and no. In some futures yes and in some futures no."

"That... isn't very helpful," she growled.

O'hen shrugged, "It's the best I can come up with."

"Can you tell me what they plan to do?" asked Silver, for that was one mystery that Sky Mountain hadn't managed to solve thus far.

The time dragon sighed, "I can't tell you that. To give you that knowledge would mess up the timeline to quite a degree."

"Yeah but... wouldn't it make the timeline better?" the metal dragoness frowned, unsure of O'hen's reasoning.

"No. I'm quite sure of that. I've learnt through experience that trying to change things from what really happened is not the best way of fixing it. Sure, there is always the chance that it will end up for the better, but nearly every time I have meddled with time it has ended up badly."

"And saving me wasn't meddling with time?" snorted Silver.

"It was, and I hope it wasn't a mistake. But I can't afford to let you die Silver."

The dragoness frowned at that, "Thanks... but why?"

The drake smiled slightly, "I'll try to explain it simply. Every so often time... narrows down, almost, so that there are only three or four possible outcomes. They may come about in many different ways, but there is always those three or four. Usually it signifies the beginning of a new age, and half the time one of those futures ends time. I call them time funnels. In the midst of these... time funnels... is an individual, or a group of individuals, which affect the outcome quite significantly. And, Silver, a time funnel is approaching, and you are one of those individuals."

Silver frowned, taking a moment to consider what she had just been told, "So... what would happen if I died?"

He chuckled again, "It depends on the situation. You could die in such a way that A.O.D.H is destroyed and their plan ruined. You could die in a way that makes their plan successful. You could die of old age in about five hundred years from your current time, either regretfully or contently depending on wether you succeeded, and there are others as well."

She snorted and said sarcastically, "That's comforting."

"O'hen, stop scaring the poor dragoness," said Serel stepping forward with a growl, "Silver, stop asking him questions, you'll never get the answer you're hoping for."

"I kinda guessed," replied the silver dragoness.

"It's all I can give you I'm afraid," said O'hen, "But Serel's right. You should get some more rest. Soon, hopefully, we'll be able to get you up and walking."

"That'll be good," Silver shuffled slightly, "Sitting in this nest for so long is making me cramp."

The time dragon laughed. Silver grinned back before resting her head on the metal nest and letting sleep come to her once more. Healing was, for some reason, a very exhausting pass time.

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Hey guys! New chapter! I hope you enjoyed, vote and comment if you did. This chapter was quite a bit longer then I thought it would be. Next chapter will be out soon. See Ya!

Pennator^^