"Ah." The old man settled back, lacing his hands together. "Now I understand. Machina has your brother, yes? And you are on your way to rescue him."

"We-...I was sir....now I'm not sure...." He replied,his voice cracking as his body seemed to be,slowly.

"Worry not. I mean you no harm. But you would do well to abandon your plan to rescue your brother. Machina is too strong. No weapon can hurt him. You'd be throwing your life away."

(What a downer. Jeez.)

(Yeah.)

Jason looked down. "I'm dying. Shard by shard,scale by scale...it wouldn't make any difference anyway." He said softly,the color in his freckles the only movement of the colors as the underside of his wings and color of his frills froze and suddenly drained to gray...dead gray.
His freckles where a dark,broken hearted blue.

"If Machina has stolen your brother, he must be waiting for you," the old man said, leaning forward as he spoke to them. "He wants you for something. I can feel the power in you all but it will not be enough. The Iron King is a master of manipulation. He will use you to further his own schemes, and you will not be able to resist. Go home, dragon. Forget what you have lost and go home. That's the best advice I can give you." He couldn't turn back now. Think about all the people that had sacrificed everything to see him this far. Puck. The Elder Dryad. Ash.

He shook his head,then for a moment...thought. He looked at his dying form and then looked to the king. "Sir,as much as I respect the advice...I'm not going to take it. I'm going to continue. I may die,sooner than this form will at it's braking pace,but I'm not going to go home. Not to my human home nor dragon.Thank you sir." He said,standing with a stiff sound of cracking glass. He shook himself a bit and seemed to gain control over his body again. It melted back slowly a bit in reverse to what had been done,tho it still was cracked and a little glassy.

"Foolish dragon," the old man growled. "I know more about Machina than anyone his ways, his power, the way his mind works and yet you still will not hear me. Very well. Rush to your doom, like everyone who came before you. You will see, as I did, far too late. Machina cannot be defeated. I only wish I'd listened to my councilors when they told me as much. Go, then," he whispered, shooing him away. "I cannot sway you. Perhaps a single unarmed dragon will succeed where an entire army has failed." He laughed then, bitter and petulant. "Good luck to you, foolish one. If you will not listen to me, you are welcome here no longer. My subjects will take you under his fortress, through the secret tunnels that honeycomb the land. Its the quickest way to rush to your destruction. Now, go. I am through with you." A few packrats started back out

Jason nodded, and shook his neck out with a couple of cracks and some glass pieces fell to the ground below him,shimmering a beautiful pearl white. He followed the few packrat's that began out.

More tunnels. They rested infrequently and caught what little sleep they could. The packrats gave Jason some strange mushrooms to chew on, tiny white things that glowed in the dark and tasted like mold, but allowed them to see in pitch blackness as if it were twilight. This was a good thing, because their flashlights eventually flickered and died, and no one offered fresh batteries.


It was hard to keep track of time. All the caverns and tunnels seemed to meld together into one giant, impossible maze. Even if Jason did get into Machina's fortress and rescue his brother they wouldn't be getting out the same way.

Jason's underbelly was only stained red now,the glass like liquid coating the wound and partially solidifying to hold it closed. He still couldn't shift form his present prince form at the moment,but didn't mind. He said nothing all the while,feeling pure guilt for having caused more death out of the war than in it. 'I'm sorry...I'm so sorry....you should've found a better dragon,I'm nothing but a sack of useless scales.' He thought,holding back dark silver tears as his freckle scales shifted with heart broken blue and guilty light gray.