//------------------------------// // 34 – "Why Would I Think" // Story: Spike Quits His Job and Goes on Numerous Quests // by B_25 //------------------------------// ~34~ "Why Would I Think" The early morning rays filtered through the exposure in the ceiling, falling along the length of the red carpet spanning the throne room until they came to rest on the drake’s whose head and back leaned against the wooden door. A warm orange glow began to protrude past the sealed eyelids, earning a grunt in response from the drake, who then began to shift in his sleep. “...a~hh...my head…” A claw pressed itself into the scaly forehead in an attempt to alleviate the pain surging behind it, with the bonus benefit of shielding off the assaulting rays of morning light. But the ringing that began once more in the dragon’s ears was the final nail in the coffin of him going back to sleep, as his heavy eyelids were forced to split. “...where…am I...” The desolate throne room flooded his view immediately. The red carpet he sat upon leading forth into a collapsed tower split all across the floor, where afterward, it resulted in several stairs ascending to a throne. Spike pushed his feet against the carpet as his back slid up the wooden door, using all the power behind his gritted teeth to not collapse from the numbness that possessed most of his body. He shook his head upon standing, swaying off the claw off his forehead to its proper place. His eyes focused on the room once more, trying to read exactly where he was, despite the tendency for everything in the room to sway left and right. “Who in the world builds a castle in the middle of nowhere?” Spike asked the nothingness inside the room, beginning to limp forth across the carpet to the throne, drinking in the features of the room along the way. The suits of armor lined across the walls of the room watched the drake’s trek. Some stood with their sword impaled in their proper slots, the plated hands resting upon them, as they stood with straight shoulders and eyes that governed the room. Other suits of armor held their swords pointed at the now exposed sun, while their other non-existent arm underneath the plating flexed its muscles at whoever dared to look its way. The shattered tower obscured the drake’s path upon him reaching the half point of the room, forcing him to either scale the tower once more like had done some unknown time ago or taken the longer route around it. A purple claw came to rest on the highest stone of the tower it could reach, as the foot below it did the same. Then the other purple claw shot past the first to an even higher stone, and when it came to grasping it, the bones inside the claw cried out in agony as spasms began to course throughout the arm. “Whoa – ack!” The drake recoiled back from the pain, his other claw and foot slipping from as a result, as he fell back onto the red carpet with a thump that shook the room. Beams of light exposed the minuscule dust that circulates the room as they once again lit up the sealed scaled eyelids. From the numb pain that would soon transition into raging agony to a blaring headache now turned pulsating heaved, the drake couldn’t help but began to laugh from the floor as fresh tears began to burn down his cheek. Spike opened his eyes as he slowly rose back up, the laughter not waning in the slightest, as the tears salty taste reached his tongue. He leaned against the tower for support, as he shuffled down its longer length, trying to reach the opening near the right wall. The laughter began to fade into slight chuckles, intermixed with the occasional whimper of pain. “...why...would I ever think...that falling through stuff and going through excruciating pain would ever be cool or fun?” Spike didn’t receive an answer to his question as his shoulder slipped past the tower into the exposed opening, catching his fall quickly enough with a stomp of one of his legs, and using all the muscles in that thigh to recoil back. A claw came to massage the same thigh as pinpricks of pain be to appear and disappear all throughout the leg. The drake paid no attention to the new sensation as the new suit of armor before him encompassed all of his vision. He thought he could hear soft whispers enumerate from its individual plates, alluring his consciousness in a lucid trance as his feet began to shuffle toward it. The golden suit of armor stood tall with its hands hanging by its side, its helmet’s eye sockets exposing the black fog behind it, and leaving the lower half of the face open. From within the cold confines of the golden hand, a light blue light began to trickle into existence, slowly expanding outwards phasing past the plates into a proper aurora. It began to shuffle forth, underneath the dragon’s vision, as its soft touch began to caress the smooth purple scales on his claw. Spike didn’t feel the connection being made between him and the armor as he continued toward it in a trance, levitating his arm toward it. If that action was made by his will or by the mysterious power was unknown to both sources. In response, the golden arm too rose in correlation to his, until the two beings were reaching out toward one another. Soon the talons of scales and metal came to collide and connect, as the armor searched through the dragon’s soul to find its master. Bolts of pain coursed through the dragon’s body as the golden claw began to crush his under its iron grip, forcing the dragon onto a knee, and pushed down ever more into him. Spike snapped out from his trance and looked upward at the black holes that were the armor's eyes, seeing nothing behind them that could be controlling its actions, only wondering why it was now harming him. The golden suit of armor had found an intruder in place of its master.