Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“What do we do?” Cynder asked, as the ground shivered around them.

The crystal that now held Malefor still glowed, with just part of the massive amount of energy bound up in the planet’s core… everything was in pieces…

Spyro was looking around with apprehension, but then it turned to wonder. “I… think I see it,” he breathed. “It’s – I think you’d have to be a purple dragon to get it right, to even have a chance, but when I’m here like this I can see how it works. It’s, uh, there’s fire at the core, and earth, and ice and fire on top… and lightning for energy…”

His gaze darted to Cynder’s. “I can fix it. But I have to be here… you should go.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Cynder told him. “Don’t argue with me on this, Spyro. Just do it.”

Spyro was about to protest, but swallowed and nodded.

He focused, and his wings lit up slightly. Then, just as he took control of the planet itself, Cynder whispered something.

“I love you.”

Spyro didn’t remember most of what happened after that.

Controlling the planet… fixing the planet… had been an incredible, transcendent experience. Something too amazing to describe… but he didn’t truly remember it, either. Just that blazing moment of understanding, and the rightness of it all, then a moment of panic and darkness.

And now, resting on a pebble-grit beach.

“Are you okay?” a familiar voice asked.

“Cynder!” Spyro said, jolting upright. “I was… what happened?”

“I grabbed you,” Cynder replied. “When you did… whatever it was… and you started to pass out, I got a good hold and then phased us through the ground with Shadow. It took… less time than it probably should have, but I was exhausted by the time we got to the surface.”

Spyro blinked a few times, astonished. “Thanks,” he said, then swallowed. “I mean – really. Thanks.”

He looked around, seeing a river valley around them with low hills either side. There were taller hills behind them, then taller still, until the largest ones were almost mountains and were lost in the haze.

It was beautiful, but like nothing he’d ever seen before.

“...where are we?”

“I don’t know,” Cynder admitted. “I didn’t really have any idea which way to go, so we could be thousands of miles away from the temple.”

“And no idea which way to go,” Spyro added, frowning. “I always at least had a start point before… I guess maybe we should just look around and see what we can find?”

“Right,” Cynder agreed.

Spyro paused, then, something rising to the tip of his tongue.

“I love you too,” he blurted.

Cynder looked embarrassed, but then happy, and Spyro let out an unconscious breath from relief.

“I think… I didn’t really realize it until you said it,” he went on. “But when you did, it suddenly made sense.”

The black dragoness had stepped away, ready to take off, but she came closer again and touched Spyro’s muzzle with her own.

“I don’t really know how that works,” she admitted. “I’m kind of guessing. But… let’s find out where we are, together?”

“Together is a good word,” Spyro agreed.

They crouched, wings spread, then leaped into the air.

Climbing higher didn’t help, not at first… not that Spyro or Cynder had really expected it to. A planet was a really, really big place, something Terrador had taught them both, and you couldn’t fly high enough to see all of it at once.

That was something the excitable Volteer had told them from his own personal experience.

As they reached a mile or so in the air, though, Cynder pointed. “Look – over there!”

Spyro banked around, following her gaze, and tilted his head slightly. “Is that a castle?”

He brightened. “Maybe whoever lives there will know where we are… relative to where the temple is, anyway.”

“Right!” Cynder agreed. “That’s what I thought.”

She inhaled, then exhaled a wash of wind that swirled around them both.

“Race you!” she announced, and began flying hard for the castle.

“Hey, wait up!” Spyro called. “You need to say a race is happening before it starts!”

By the time they were getting close, both dragons were more concerned with getting a rest than who had won the race. It had been a very exhausting last few days, and Spyro quite like the idea of being able to settle down and have a nice long nap.

The one he’d had after their adventure in the planet’s core didn’t count.

“I hope whoever lives here is friendly,” he said, drifting a little closer to Cynder so they could talk. “Somehow I forgot to wonder about that before.”

“It’ll be fine,” Cynder assured him. “We’ll take care of each other, right?”

Spyro nodded, then looked down at the ground around the castle. There were two large courtyards sunk into the ground, one just ahead of them and the other off to the left of the castle, and he could see a balcony to the right as well which had a strange sparkling whirlpool rising out of it.

“Let’s go there,” he said, nodding to the balcony, and Cynder slipped back slightly into escort position on his wing.

He circled once, getting lower, then his wings flared and he landed. He nearly stumbled before managing to shed all his speed, and let out a sigh of relief.

“Phew…”

“I know what you mean,” Cynder agreed.

“Who’s that out there?” a voice demanded. “Flame? Ember? You been runnin’ around here again?”

Spyro stepped back, not sure what to think, as a big dragon – a bipedal dragon, with a faint purple colour to his scales and an outsize shepherd’s crook, leaned around the door to the castle.

“Um, hello?” Cynder tried. “We’re a bit lost, and… do you know where we are?”

“Stone Hill, of course!” the dragon replied. “Now what are you doing here, and why are you all painted up to look different?”

Another big bipedal dragon, this one blue-scaled and with an extravagant tattoo on his right arm, stepped out into the doorway. “Or they could just be new here, Astor,” he sighed. “What are your names, you two?”

“I’m Spyro,” Spyro introduced himself, and flicked a wing to his right. “And that’s Cynder.”

“Is he a purple dragon?” Cynder asked, baffled.

“Eh?” Astor said. “’course I’m a purple dragon. What do you think this is, green?”

“I think someone needs to go and get Nestor,” the blue dragon decided. “Astor, why don’t you go and get Gildas and Lindar, and I’ll make these two dragons something hot to drink.”

Almost an hour later, there were several more dragons around at Stone Hill.

Spyro and Cynder had been introduced first to Gildas and Lindar, the former a paint-splashed dragon who said he’d been halfway through a portrait when Astor had turned up and the latter a smiling blue dragon with a collection of large watches all over his person.

He’d jumped into the whirlwind pedestal with a jaunty wave, and vanished out of sight in seconds, and then the dragon with the tattoos – Gavin, as he introduced himself – had made them all a hot drink with little floating sweet bits in it.

Spyro liked it a lot. He thought this “coco” stuff was something he could get used to.

It quickly became clear, though, that there were a lot more than four dragons around, and Spyro had a bit of trouble keeping track of them all. There were Tomas and Nestor and Delbin, who were all relatives of the ones they’d met so far (or something – it was a bit hard to follow) and then there was a tough-looking dragon called Titan who was different enough to make make it eye catching.

Then there was Lateef, and Bruno, and Cosmos, and most of the newcomers got involved in a long discussion while Spyro watched.

“I’ve never seen so many dragons in one place,” Cynder said.

“Well, you’ll have plenty of dragons to see if you stick around,” Gavin told her, rummaging around for something in a nearby cupboard. “How many is it now… I think there’s nearly eighty of us.”

“Eighty?” Spyro asked, startled to his feet. “Really?”

Gavin paused, actually thinking about it, and began tapping his arm as he counted. “Let’s see, now… can’t forget old Shoutfire… yes, I count seventy-eight all told.”

“Wow,” Spyro said, blinking. “I’m just… not really sure how to think about that.”

He yawned, then shook his head. “Sorry…”

“It sounds like you’ve had a long day,” Gavin said. “The heads of the five worlds will want to speak to you two, but then we should be able to let you get off to bed.”

“Five worlds…” Cynder repeated.

“That’s right,” Gavin said, splaying his claws this time to count on them. “Artisans, Peace Keepers, Magic Crafters, Beast Makers…”

He flicked his tail up for the fifth. “And Dream Weavers. Stone Hill is part of the Artisan lands, and all the dragons here focus on art.”

Spyro looked at Gavin’s collection of mugs, then at the flask dangling from his wrist, and the big blue dragon chuckled. “I know what you’re thinking. But a good hot drink is an art… speaking of which, here.”

He took out a pair of small cupcakes from the cupboard. “Devlin from Town Square made these, and you should have some with your cocoa. Cooking is an art form as well.”

It might have been the day he’d had, but Spyro had never tasted anything so wonderful.

“Dragon temple,” Cosmo mused, once Spyro had finished. “Hmm.”

“Perhaps it is not a temple, but a dojo,” Lateef suggested. “And not a dragon, but a dragonfly.”

Spyro brightened. “You know dragonflies? Does that mean you know dragonflies called Flash and Nina?”

His tail flicked back and forth. “They’re my parents, or, adoptive parents, but they raised me alongside my brother, Sparx. He was a dragonfly.”

“Don’t know any by that name, kid,” Bruno informed him. “Sorry.”

Spyro nodded, trying to conceal his disappointment. “I guess it was a bit of a long shot.”

“Hey,” Cynder said. “Spyro?”

He turned to look, and she gave him a long look.

“It’s okay,” she reminded him. “We’re together, and we’ll work this out.”

Spyro smiled back in thanks, then returned his attention to the dragon leaders.

“I don’t remember the Peace Keepers ever running into any of those apes you mentioned,” Titan provided. “So no luck there. Sorry, kid.”

“Perhaps we should focus on the things where we can help,” Nestor suggested. “Spyro, Cynder, the two of you can stay in any of the Artisan realms as long as you wish.”

“Thank you,” Cynder said, speaking for both of them this time. “Only… I want to ask. How far away are the other realms?”

“The core of the Artisan lands is around an hour’s flight away,” Nestor told her. “Town Square is a little further than that, and Dark Hollow is only about ten minutes from the homelands. High Gallery is the furthest.”

“The distance is true, and yet an illusion,” Lateef said. “Leap into the sky and a portal will take you to a homeland. Jump into a portal and it is like you have leapt into the sky”

Spyro didn’t really know what to think of Lateef. He seemed a bit strange, and rather than normal dragon’s wings he had wings like a bird… but a bird whose feathers were patterned with the starry night sky.

“A portal?” he repeated, then yawned. “Sorry, it’s… uhh… maybe tomorrow?”

“Of course,” Nestor agreed, straight away. “You should get to bed, after such a hard day, and we will talk more tomorrow. Lateef, if you would?”

Lateef spread his arms and crossed his legs, rising up to float on his tail alone. “Of course, Nestor. No unquiet sleep will trouble them tonight.”

Spyro wondered whether that meant that Dream Weavers was literal, but he was already yawning again.

He managed to push through long enough to get sorted out, curled up with Cynder in one of the castle rooms and with a blanket pulled over them, then dropped straight off to sleep.

“Hey, wake up.”

The young dragon grumbled something, hiding his head under his wing.

“I said wake up,” his friend insisted, a bit louder this time, and Flame muttered something inaudible before reluctantly lifting his wing and looking up.

The dawn sunlight greeted him, and he winced before hiding his head again. “I thought you were supposed to make sure other dragons got the sleep they needed?”

“That’s only when we’re actually doing our job,” Ember replied. “Anyway, I’ve been up for hours steering the balloon. You’re the one who wanted to get some sleep.”

“Yeah, because this was all your idea,” Flame pointed out, then shook his head and jumped up to rest his paws on the lip of the balloon basket.

That set it swaying slightly, but it wasn’t enough to be a problem, and it meant he could see where they were. They were clearly already into the Artisan lands, with the big main castle visible in the distance, and down below them and getting closer every second was the balloon pier.

“We should probably start heading down, now,” he decided. “Argh, five minutes after waking up and I’m already having to drag a balloon around… what made you decide on doing this, again?”

“Aren’t you interested?” she said. “Azizi said the reason Lateef left in such a hurry was that there were two new dragons in Stone Hill – young dragons, sort of our age!”

The pink dragoness spread her wings. “I mean, you’re not that bad-”

“Thanks,” Flame interjected, rolling his eyes.

“-but it’d be nice to have some other dragons around to mess around with,” Ember continued.

She glanced down. “Though, um… could you hurry up and bring us in to land? I think we’re about to pass over the giant dragon head.”

“Never understood why they built that,” Flame said, but took the big mooring rope in his paws. “Hey, Magnet, make sure she doesn’t crash us or something.”

His dragonfly did a loop-the-loop, buzzing agreement as Ember began to protest, and Flame gripped the rope firmly before jumping off.

He may not be able to fly, not yet, but he could certainly flap downwards and that was all they really needed to get a balloon to the ground.

Spyro woke up more rested than he’d been in at least… he couldn’t remember how long.

Since before Avalar… before he’d frozen the three of them in time at the Well of Souls… maybe even since they’d left the temple.

He hadn’t realized the sheer weight that had been on his mind until now. Maybe it was finally having a night without that pervasive worry that had let him rest…

Stretching, Spyro looked back at Cynder – still asleep, though shifting slightly.

Or maybe it was that they’d been safe together. He didn’t know.

“Good morning!” Lindar said, and Cynder jolted awake. Her tail flicked up, the blade ready, and Spyro raised his wing.

“It’s okay, Cynder,” he told her, using his wing to get her attention.

“Right, right,” Cynder realized, blinking a few times and bunking sleep out of her eyes with a paw. Her wings relaxed, and she stopped holding her tail like she was about to attack with it. “Sorry.”

“I think I would say I’m the one who should apologize,” Lindar told them both.

He inspected one of the clocks festooned about his person. “Well, it’s still quite early. I think you should have plenty of time for breakfast, but Nestor and the others wanted to have a longer conversation with you.”

“Breakfast sounds good,” Cynder contributed. “I think I’ve mostly been running on gems for way too long.”

Lindar gave them an odd look, but shrugged it off.

“Except for the pastries last night,” Spyro reminded her.

“Except for those,” Cynder agreed, licking her lips slightly.

Ten minutes later, Spyro was learning about eclairs.

They were sort of nice and sweet, a long bun full of cream and with delicious chocolate on top, and Spyro was trying to decide if they were big enough that he should try nibbling bits off or small enough that he could just swallow a whole bite full.

“Thank you so much for this,” Cynder said, as Spyro decided to try nibbling to begin with. “We just… appeared out of nowhere, and…”

“You’re visitors,” Gavin told them both. “Even if you don’t decide to stay, that’s true.”

“We should really get back to the islands… if we can, I mean,” Spyro said. “Volteer, Terrador, Cyril… Hunter… Mom and Dad… they’re going to be worried about us.”

He looked up. “I wish I’d paid attention to how to navigate by the stars, then we might be able to tell where we are.”

“I’m not an expert,” Gavin mused. “But you overhear a lot when serving drinks. And I think you’d need to know the time back at where you started, to know that.”

Spyro was about to reply, but he saw something up in the dawn sky.

“A dragon just… appeared up there, out of nowhere,” he said, pointing.

“Oh, didn’t you hear?” Gavin asked. “Maybe you didn’t. Someone’s on the way from the homeland.”

He looked up as well, following Spyro’s gaze, and frowned. “Oh, hold on. That looks like Flame… and Ember, if I’m not mistaken.”

“How can they appear out of nowhere?” Cynder said, putting down her half-finished eclair and watching as the two new arrivals banked around.

“It’s how portals work,” Gavin told them both. “I’m no Magic Crafter, so I couldn’t tell you the details, but the idea is that a portal takes you straight to the sky over where you want to go. And if you take the whirlwind over there-” he pointed, “-then it sends you right back through the portal it’s linked to. Saves a lot of time.”

Spyro blinked a few times. “Wow… back home it’s walking or flying.”

The first of the new dragons arrived at that point, stumbling slightly as he hit the ground, and waved. “Morning! These are the new dragons, right?”

The orange-and-yellow dragon stepped closer to Spyro, tilting his head. “His horns look weird.”

“Manners of a Gnorc,” Gavin chided. “Spyro, Cynder, this is Flame. He’s a Magic Crafter.”

“That makes it sound like I can actually do it yet,” Flame complained. “I’m a Magic Crafter in training. Emphasis on training.”

Something purple and glowing zipped out from behind his wings and buzzed, and Spyro blinked.

“What’s that?” he asked. “It looks kind of like a dragonfly.”

“Huh, you mean Magnet?” Flame asked, glancing sideways. “Yeah, he’s my dragonfly… he’s not kind of like a dragonfly, he is one.”

“The dragonflies I knew had arms,” Spyro said.

“Wait, wait, wait wait wait,” Flame asked, wings flaring out. “You knew dragonflies with arms? ...you don’t have a dragonfly yourself?”

He looked up at Gavin. “Where did they come from?”

“That’s a good question,” Gavin said. “You might want to wait to ask it until we’ve got an answer, though.”

“We know exactly where we came from,” Cynder commented. “We just don’t know where we are now.”

“But seriously, you don’t have a dragonfly?” Flame asked. “That’s weird. All dragons have dragonflies.”

“And when did you get your own dragonfly, young Flame?” Gildas asked, looking up from his coffee for the first time.

Flame blinked. “...well, yeah, last year, but…”

“Weren’t there two dragons flying in?” Cynder interrupted. “Where did the other one go… didn’t you call it Ember?”

“Oh, yeah, Ember,” Flame realized. “She was actually the one who said we should come here. Where is she, come to think of it…”

Spyro looked around, and nearly missed a pink shape hiding behind one of the tall trees on the upper level.

“Hey, Ember!” Flame shouted. “Come on down!”

Ember edged out from behind the tree, looking nervous and eager at the same time, and swallowed visibly before gliding down to the same level the rest of them were on.

“Eesh, and you’d never know she was the one who jammed me onto a balloon after dusk last night,” Flame commented, rolling his eyes. “She’s normally way louder than this. And more annoying.”

“So…” Cynder began, thinking out loud. “If all dragons here have dragonflies, does that mean that Ember does as well? And so do all of you, uh, older dragons?”

“That’s right,” Gavin told her. “Frappé doesn’t usually come out to deal with customers, but he’ll say hello if I ask him. Generally once we’re older our dragonflies slow down a bit, but that’s getting old for you.”

While he was explaining that, Flame’s dragonfly Magnet had been inspecting Spyro close-up.

“You knew dragonflies with arms?” he asked, in a buzzing voice which took Spyro a moment to understand. “I kind of want arms.”

“Wow, imagine if Sparx spoke like that,” Cynder said. “I’d be able to ignore all those comments of his.”

“Don’t you do that anyway?” Spyro asked.

“It’d make it easier,” Cynder said.

As Spyro chuckled at that, Ember finally came over.

“Um…” she began, looking down with her tail coiled around her, then finally looked up slightly. “It’s nice to meet you…”

“Yeah, I think she forgot to have breakfast or something,” Flame said. “Corda, any idea what’s got into her?”

“I can guess,” answered a pink dragonfly, doing a flip. “But I think if I said it then Ember would be kind of annoyed-”

“Don’t you dare!” Ember demanded, then her eyes widened. “Eep!”

Cynder glanced at Spyro, then back at Ember.

“...I’m not exactly an expert,” she began. “But are you shy? About meeting Spyro?”

Spyro blinked. “...you know, that might actually be the first time that’s happened.”

“What about that time in the mole city?” Cynder asked. “Does that count?”

Spyro waved his wing. “Eh… could be either way?”

At the same time, back at the central Artisan lands, Nestor sat down.

“What do you think, Lateef?” he asked. “You’ve had a night, but I don’t understand how Dream Weavers work.”

“There has been time enough,” the mystic replied, his starry wings spread. “Time enough to know a little, though not enough to know a lot.”

Bruno snorted. “That’s clear as mud.”

“And yet a fine mud may be baked into porcelain,” Lateef said, reprovingly. “Mud is not so unclear as you may think.”

He took a pinch of powder from one of his pots, and spread it into the air.

“The two young dragons have faced more trial and stress than many of us,” he announced. “And in that I count our lives entire, old traumas all, while their young years bear yet more.”

“Dang,” Bruno muttered.

Nestor nodded. “I agree with Bruno, that is troubling. Did you get any sense of what?”

“Beyond the words they said, there was but little to use to tell,” Lateef said, after considering. “But there was loss – deep loss, for Spyro. And guilt, for Cynder, of things she did and things she regrets. And a little of Spyro’s loss was Cynder’s work, but not her fault, and she regrets it nevertheless.”

“It’s making my wings itch,” Titan said, flexing his hands slightly. “That kind of thing happening to young dragons is exactly the sort of thing the Peace Keepers should prevent… I know we couldn’t have helped, but I still want to keep them from facing it again.”

He pointed at Lateef. “And you’d better make sure they get the comfort they need!”

“I think perhaps that is more my speed,” Nestor suggested.

He spread a wing, indicating the whole of the Artisan lands. “I was already inclined to suggest that Spyro and Cynder stay here, with us, until we can find some way for them to get back home. Being with their families and the people they left behind would be better, perhaps, and I would not want to keep them from what they truly want.”

“I will put all my efforts into scrying their land of origin,” Cosmo promised. “Andromeda, make a note.”

His dragonfly made an affirmative buzz.

“What I think is, little ones like that don’t know how to slow down,” Bruno mused. “They can’t cope, not really, but they feel like doing anything less than all they can do is wrong. So they burn out.”

“We don’t know that,” Nestor said, frowning. “If Spyro’s account is correct, then doing anything less than all they could do would mean the doom of the world.”

He tapped his tail with his hammer, thinking. “You are right, though. We have been at peace for many long years, but I will try to make it clear that that is the case. We do not require two more defenders, especially ones so young who should be relaxing.”

“That said, I’d feel more comfortable if we knew they were safer,” Titan admitted. “From what they both said, they know how to defend themselves, but keeping dragons safer is my job.”

“Hmmm…” Bruno said, fiddling with one of the teeth he kept on a necklace. “I think there’s something we could do.”

“Ah,” Lateef said, with an enigmatic smile. “Double their wings and safety flies with them both.”

“...yeah,” Bruno mumbled. “No, wait, hold on… right, yeah, I get what you mean. And there is only one…”

He looked puzzled. “How did you know that?”

“There are many things that are clear, to those with eyes to see,” Lateef pronounced.

Nestor concealed a smile.

Spyro looked at the whirlwind pedestal in front of them, tilting his head a little.

“Um… are you sure we have to do this?” he asked. “It just seems kind of… sketchy.”

“It just sends you up in the air,” Flame told him. “I don’t get why you’re freaked about it, you at least can fly properly. Even though I’m a dragon, I might theoretically get hurt if I messed up.”

He shrugged his wings. “Of course, the portal’s going to catch you.”

“That’s actually what I find strange,” Spyro replied, stepping back a little and looking up. “I don’t see it… and I haven’t exactly had good experiences with portals.”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Flame replied, tail flicking from side to side.

He nodded towards the pedestal. “The way it works is, when you get on and get flung up in the air, it triggers the linked portal and you can just fly right through. It usually puts it close enough you can get there in four or five seconds, though I guess if you weren’t a dragon you might need it tweaked or something.”

Cynder stepped closer, giving the whole thing a dubious look. “And this isn’t going to open into Convexity, is it?”

“Con-wha?” Flame said, sounding baffled. “No, it’s to the grounds of the main Artisan castle. Look, I’ll go first if you want.”

Spyro exchanged a glance with Cynder, then stepped forwards. “No, I’ll go.”

“Suit yourself, I guess,” Flame told him. “Just remember, you’ll come out of the portal on the other side at the same height you go into this one, compared to the portal boundaries. So if you go in near the top you’ll come out near the top. It’s, whatsit, intuitive.”

The purple dragon nodded, then jumped with a flutter of wings and entered the stream of whirling stars.

Immediately he went soaring upwards, caught by a current of magical air so strong that he turned halfway through a circle. Stone Hill dropped away below him in moments, and he rode it until it faded away – then looked around for whatever the portal Flame had mentioned would look like.

It took a moment, but then there it was. Like the view through a doorway into a different room, but without the actual wall or door there – there was just the threshold.

Spyro banked slightly, beat his wings twice, and went through.

“There we go!” Flame said. “See? It’s easy.”

“Yeah,” Ember agreed. “And it’s much quicker than waiting for a balloon. Especially if Flame’s in it as well.”

“Hey, where was this five minutes ago?” Flame demanded. “Did you have some coffee while I wasn’t looking, or something?”

While they bickered – and Flame was right, Ember was a lot more lively now – Cynder stepped forwards a little, and held her forepaw in the stream of magic.

Something about it whispered to her, and she closed her eyes to feel the stream of wind over her scales.

In, and out…

Cynder was probably only there for about ten seconds before she blinked and refocused, but it had been surprisingly… relaxing.

Peaceful.

There hadn’t been enough of that in her life.

“So, uh, are you going to go up there, or are you planning on sticking around?” Flame asked.

Cynder replied by putting her other forepaw on the pedestal side, raising her wings, then jumping straight up and letting the wind catch her.

When Cynder landed on the other side of her own portal trip, wings flaring as she stopped herself before crashing into something, she was met by Spyro and a large, cheerful, blue dragon wearing an apron and holding an enormous cake.

“It’s lovely to meet you both!” the dragon announced. “Cake?”

“Umm…” Cynder began, staring at the confection that probably weighed twice what she did.

“This is the dragon who made those pastries Gavin was sharing,” Spyro explained. “His name’s Devlin. Apparently he heard about us and got inspired?”

“And this must be Cynder,” Devlin said, then visibly realized he was holding out a giant purple-and-black cake and put it down. “Oh, silly me, I’ll cut you a slice.”

“Thank you, Devlin,” Nestor said, getting the attention of all three of them. “Spyro, Cynder, if you don’t mind we’d like to hear a little more about where you came from and what you’ve been doing.”

“I think that’s okay,” Spyro agreed. “There are some things that I’m not sure I can tell, though… at least, not without asking.”

Nestor nodded, understanding.

“As for that,” he added. “We are going to do our best to get you home, but I don’t want to mislead you… I do not know how long it will take, and I suspect it may take a long time. What I said last night remains true, though – you may stay here as long as you wish.”

The portal to Stone Hill flashed, and Ember came through. She took one look at the crowd where she’d landed, mumbled something, and tried to hide behind a wing.

Flame appeared a moment later. “...cheating!” he said, apparently the end of a conversation he’d been having back in Stone Hill, and landed next to Ember. “Told you, it doesn’t count as a race if you say it’s one after you’ve already started!”

When he got no response, he shrugged, then looked at the others.

His expression lit up. “...hey, is that a cake?”

“So… we didn’t know all of this at the time,” Spyro said, looking up at the leaders of the Dragon Realms.

They were standing back, far enough that he didn’t feel crowded, but it still made him a little nervous. Not because of them, because they’d been really nice, but just… talking about all this.

“I’ll do the really simple version and then go back to give more details,” he added. “So, it kind of starts with a purple dragon called Malefor, who turned evil, and tried to take over the world or destroy the world, or maybe both at different times.”

Spyro thumped his tail on the floor. “He had an army, and they attacked the dragon temple to try and find my egg, because I’m another purple dragon and we can do things other dragons can’t. He kidnapped Cynder and corrupted her when she was young, making her a fully grown dragoness who had to obey his orders, and Ignitus-”

Remembering the reddish fire dragon made Spyro’s voice catch, and he swallowed before shaking his head. “He hid my egg away, and I was raised by dragonflies until my powers started coming in. Then I helped Ignitus rescue three other temple guardians – Volteer, Cyril and Terrador – then had to rescue Ignitus himself, because Cynder was taking their powers to open a gateway into Malefor’s prison.”

“He was trapped in Convexity,” Cynder supplied, softly. “He could give orders, but his army was what did most of his work. Then Spyro stopped me.”

Spyro nodded. “And that made Cynder turn back, and… well, I saved her, but doing it made my powers burn out. Then we lived in the temple for a few months, until…”

He thought about how to put it, and decided to give the simple explanation at first. “The temple was attacked again, and we were separated. I went looking for Cynder, and slowly got my powers back, but I found that Malefor’s army were going to bring him back, and I went to stop it.”

“I was already there by then,” Cynder said. “I… I’d rather talk about it later.”

“Of course,” Nestor agreed. “Spyro?”

“We tried to stop it,” Spyro told him. “I… don’t think we ever found out how well we did, but when the cavern we were in collapsed I froze us all in time – Cynder, me, and my brother Sparx. We didn’t get out until maybe a year or so later, when Malefor was launching a full invasion. He attacked the Valley of Avalar where the cheetahs live, and he attacked the city of the moles… before there’d been his ape soldiers everywhere, but now it was much worse.”

“We tried our best,” Cynder said, looking downcast. “We really did, but Malefor’s plans were so… we nearly stopped his monster called the Destroyer, but it finished a magical ritual and started setting the world on fire. Ignitus got us into the burned lands to try and stop Malefor, but he… didn’t make it.”

Spyro swallowed, hard.

“I always thought he might be my father,” he admitted, in a small voice. “I was never sure, but… I realized after he was gone that I’d never even asked.”

He opened his wings, then folded them back again with careful precision. “And… we got through the burned lands, and fought Malefor, and we managed to stop him. But he broke the world, and I put it back together. That’s about all I remember.”

For several long seconds, there was silence.

“I think,” Nestor said, stressing the word, “that I may need to get some of the other Artisans here to take notes.”

Going through the whole story, with Spyro explaining everything that had happened and Cynder filling in where she could – sometimes with details that Spyro had never heard before – took up most of the morning.

It was also the most difficult thing Spyro had ever done. And the most exhausting… and, at the same time, it left him strangely lighter.

“And, well… you heard this bit before,” he said, reaching the conclusion. “I put the world back together, and Cynder grabbed me, and… then I woke up not far from Stone Hill.”

Two dragons from Dark Hollow had been taking notes, and the scratching of their pens carried on for another few seconds before dying away.

“Thank you, Spyro,” Nestor said. “And thank you, Cynder. I know that was hard for you.”

Cynder nodded, swallowing slightly, and Spyro spread his wing over her slightly. Just enough so she knew it was there.

“I have a question, kid,” Bruno began. “You said that Ignitus knew you were a purple dragon before you hatched?”

“Yes,” Spyro confirmed. “I… think he said my egg was purple, and that’s how he knew.”

“Huh,” the Beast Maker said, considering. “That doesn’t normally happen… maybe that’s just something different about your type of dragon.”

“It’s not,” Cynder said, raising her head. “When I… when Malefor was… I was told that I should look out especially for a purple dragon egg, in case I saw one, but my own egg was black. Dragon eggs are the same colour as the dragon that hatches from them.”

Bruno glanced over at Cosmo. “Any thoughts?”

“I would think that would be your area of expertise,” Cosmo said, twirling his staff.

“All right, eesh, don’t act like an attack frog,” Bruno grumbled. “I’m not sure how the difference has come about, but… I think the dragons from where you’re from are a different sort of dragon to the ones from what we call the Dragon Realms. Dragons who breathe fire are the overwhelming majority here and it’s rare to see any others… kind of hard to think of one, actually.”

Spyro thought about that for a long moment.

“You’re still dragons,” he said. “And you’ve been nothing but kind to us. I…”

He stopped, trying to marshal his thoughts so he could say what he meant to say.

“I think we’re a long way from home,” he said. “And part of me wants to leave so that we can find our home again, but I know that there’s no way to even start moving in the right direction.”

Cynder moved. “And… I don’t think I’ve known what home means, not for a long time. Maybe ever.”

“Right,” Spyro agreed. “So… what we’re saying is, I think we want to stay here. If that’s possible.”

“I should say it is,” Nestor told them immediately. “Spyro, Cynder… we will be happy to have you.”

“And there’s something else,” Bruno said, full of enthusiasm. “Isaak got here just half an hour ago.”

He gestured, and another dragon – this one a Beast Maker like Bruno, at least as far as Spyro could tell – stepped forwards. He had a strange staff, and a harness decorated with purple feathers, and there was a small spark of golden light balanced on one horn.

“It’s good to meet you,” he said, and reached up with his free hand to the spark. It buzzed, jumping from his horn to his finger, and he lowered it down so they could see.

It was a dragonfly.

“There was one more dragonfly than there were dragons, last time,” Bruno explained. “Of course, there were only a couple of dragons! But it’d make us all feel better if you had a dragonfly to watch over you.”

Spyro frowned, uncomfortable with the idea.

The golden dragonfly wasn’t his brother, and didn’t look the same, but he still didn’t like the idea of replacing Sparx.

Cynder glanced at him, then spoke up. “Do they have a name?”

“Nope!” the dragonfly buzzed, and did a loop-the-loop. “Any suggestions?”

“Not Sparx,” Spyro insisted.

The dragonfly waggled his antennae. “Weird way to do it, but whatever. Going to go through all the names you’re skipping?”

“I think I’ve got an idea,” Cynder said. “What about Flicker?”

After meeting Flicker, who’d spent about twenty minutes muttering the name to himself before suddenly deciding that it was perfect, the two of them were introduced to all of the other Artisan dragons and taken on a whirlwind tour of the Artisan lands.

Every land so far was different, and pleasant in a different way, and Spyro could really see the benefits of the way these dragons did things. High Gallery was atop a mountain, a cool place to go in summer and somewhere to go to just… fly, with the wind in your wings.

Cynder clearly liked it there, which made Spyro feel happy just by association.

Then Dark Hollow was almost the opposite. It was quiet, and calm, and dark, and it was where the Artisans kept an extensive library.

Both young dragons could read, a little, but not fast or well, and the moment he heard about that Oswin decided that they’d have to learn… and that he’d be happy to read for them, as well, until they’d had the chance to learn.

Town Square was different again, a collection of buildings in the middle of a broad lake. Most of the Artisan dragons had a house there even if they lived somewhere else, and Alvar said that there’d be one ready for the two of them within a day or so.

Spyro thought it was nice that it was going to be one house for the two of them. They’d have different bedrooms, in case they wanted to sleep apart, but… Spyro didn’t think that was going to be likely, somehow.

And finally, there was Sunny Flight.

“These places are great!” Flame announced, weaving around both Spyro and Cynder. “There’s this enchantment on the entry portal that’s specially designed for young dragons, so they can fly properly even if they couldn’t normally!”

He did a roll. “Only problem is, uh, it doesn’t last all that long. But there’s a couple of fairies around who can pick you up and take you to the whirlwind if you leave it too long. Anyway, it’s kind of like an obstacle course.”

“So a flying challenge, right?” Cynder asked, beating her wings and accelerating slightly.

“Right!” Flame agreed. “For this one there’s four targets – arches, chests, barrels and planes. The arches you need to fly through, but the other three you just need to touch with your flame – or, uh, whatever you have instead of flame, I… guess?”

He shook his head. “Whatever. Once you get all the targets, you’ve finished! And it’s great fun!”

Cynder glanced at Spyro, and smirked.

“Ladies first!” she announced, and surged forward suddenly.

“Hey, wait up!” Spyro demanded, but Cynder was every bit as fast as him and she’d got the jump. She zipped towards the first target – a train carrying two barrels – and spat out a jet of wind at the barrels as she went past.

“Oh, cool, it does work!” Flame said.

Cynder was already following the train track around for the next pair of barrels.

After they’d spent a full hour in the Speedway – Cynder had managed to set and keep a record Spyro couldn’t quite reach, though both of them had beaten their previous times at least thrice – both the young dragons were panting by the side of the river, just outside the portal to Sunny Flight.

Flicker was there as well, buzzing around a fruity drink Argus had brought him, and Flame was upside down with his wings dangling in the water.

“I can not keep up with you two,” he said, sighing. “Ahh… I really needed that.”

“I can’t save your wings, you know!” Magnet buzzed.

“Yeah, yeah,” Flame waved off. “You two must have got a lot of practice at that stuff.”

“Mostly flying away from terrifying things,” Spyro said.

Cynder snorted. “Or flying towards them.”

“Or that,” Spyro admitted.

Flame rolled over, flapping his wings to shake the water off, then tilted his head.

“Hey, so here’s something I was wondering,” he said. “Where you’re from, how many dragonesses are there?”

Spyro blinked, tilting his head, as he really thought about that question for the first time.

Now that he considered it, he’d only met one dragoness here. All the other dragons in the Dragon Realms were male. And Cynder was the only one he’d known before then.

“I… well, I only really knew five dragons, back home,” he admitted. “Six if you count Malefor. But Cynder’s the only dragoness among them.”

“There were more dragonesses than that,” Cynder said, her eyes focused on something far away and long ago. “I… hope that most of them fled.”

“Ouch, sorry,” Flame said, raising his paws. “I was just thinking, because there’s nearly eighty dragons in the Realms, and the only two girls are Ember and Mrs. Shoutfire.”

He shrugged. “I asked one of the Beast Makers once, and I… well, I didn’t understand the answer, but apparently it’s a coincidence or something.”

The orange-red dragon glanced between Spyro and Cynder, then scratched his neck. “So! Any idea what you two are going to do for a hobby, or whatever? I kind of have fun tweaking the Supercharge ramps back home, but I’m also learning how to do enchantment stuff with Altair in Windy Mountain.”

“A hobby?” Spyro repeated, considering. “Um… well…”

He thought about it, and blew a little stream of fire out of his muzzle.

It was weaker than it had been in the past, but he’d been glad to see his powers hadn’t completely burned out. Again.

“...maybe I should learn to cook, actually?” he said. “Or bake, or… I don’t know, whichever of those things I can, really. It’s been so tasty to try that stuff.”

“There you go, then!” Flare announced. “And, hmm, Cynder… well, I guess you’ll want to stay around Spyro, know what I mean?”

He did something amazing with his eyebrow ridges, and both Spyro and Cynder stared at him in bafflement.

There was a faint ‘hmph!’ from the hedge maze, and all three dragons looked over just in time to see Ember squeak and duck out of sight.

“Girls,” Flame summarized.

“Hey, watch it,” Cynder said, then considered. “I… don’t know, really. I suppose flying doesn’t count?”

“Nah, not really, not with Artisans,” Flame said, with the certainty of a young dragon very sure what his elders did to pass the time. “It’s all about making arts and crafts, things like that… hey, you could use that tail to carve wood? I think Nils does sculpture stuff, and obviously Nestor makes things with wood but they’re more like… you know, chairs…”

Flicker buzzed over to the tail in question. “And I can make sure it doesn’t get sore! That’s the kind of thing a dragonfly does!”

“Hey, ssh,” Magnet stage-whispered. “You’ll make them realize we can do that.”

“It doesn’t get sore,” Cynder said, quietly, but she was already thinking.

The idea of actually making something… of being able to sit down after some hard work, and look at a thing she’d made, and know that she was responsible for it… and that it was a good thing…

It was something that the black dragoness suddenly found powerfully interesting.

“So, I know what you do,” Spyro said, then. “But what about Ember?”

“Oh, she does…” Flame began, then paused. “Uh… Dream Weaver stuff? Making sure dreams don’t escape? I don’t know, I’m not a dreamatologist.”

Spyro took a deep breath, feeling for the flame at his heart, and exhaled.

It was a new way of using his powers. Instead of a powerful gout of flame, intended to be as hot as possible and focused into as short a time as possible, he had to aim for the heat to be as steady and even as possible.

He didn’t have to keep it up for the whole time his creation was in the oven, but he did have to refresh it every minute or so – the metal sides of the oven heating up and then letting the heat out again, to warm the creation inside.

There was sticky dough on his paws and between his claws, layered into his scales, and spatters of sugar and eggs had ended up everywhere. There was even a bit of milk on his wing, and Spyro didn’t know how that had happened.

“Once more, I think,” Devlin told him. “Then leave it a minute, and they should be ready to come out.”

“How do you know?” Spyro asked, before flaming the oven one last time.

“Experience, Sypro,” Devlin smiled. “It’s part of the baker’s art.”

Spyro turned, trying not to tread flour everywhere. “But I’ve been doing this for a month now, and I don’t seem to be getting much better.”

“That’s because you’ve been doing something new every day,” Devlin smiled. “And you have been getting better, you know. I remember when you started out.”

That did sound familiar, actually… Spyro winced at the reminder. Devlin had found it hilarious, but when Spyro had sneezed and blown up the entire gathered set of ingredients for a chocolate cake in a delicious-smelling but sadly inedible explosion…

Cynder had laughed herself sick.

And then enjoyed the cake when they actually baked it.

Smiling at the memory, Spyro stepped back as he counted down in his head. “So… they’re ready now?”

Devlin nodded, and Spyro opened the door of the oven.

Inside was a tray of half a dozen large scones, just lightly browning, and Spyro put them onto a wire rack to cool down properly.

“That should make for a lovely addition to lunch,” Devlin said. “Well done, Spyro.”

“Thanks!” Spyro replied. “Do you need me for the washing up?”

“I think I can manage myself,” Devlin told him, and Spyro brightened.

“Thanks – I’m going to go see how Cynder’s doing… er, actually, I’m going to wash in the lake and then see how Cynder’s doing…”

“Probably for the best,” Devlin told him.

Cynder’s tail rose up like a scorpion’s, ready to strike. The metallic blade glittered, and she focused carefully on her target before whipping it out.

There was a thock , and chips of granite went flying.

“Good, but a little energetic,” Nils told her.

“It was energetic because I wanted to get rid of a large amount of material,” Cynder explained.

“In that case, good,” Nils amended. “Where will you strike next?”

Cynder considered, pacing around the half-shaped block of granite.

“I think I’m going to need to work here,” she said, picking up a piece of chalk and marking a surface. “And it’s going to need me to use my claws, for better detail.”

“Quite correct,” the sculptor told her.

Cynder reared up, supporting herself with one forepaw on the statue, and got to work on the curves of the shape.

She was trying to make a rendition of Hunter’s falcon, the first time she’d been making something herself , and Thor had helped her make a little clay model to hash out what the shape should be. Now she was scoring away little bits of granite, ready to begin work on the feathers before long, and she lost herself in the rhythm of the work.

The idea of actually making something for herself , something that wasn’t destructive or urgent but just relaxing and beautiful… it was a nice one.

“So after I’ve got the shape about right, I polish it, right?” she checked.

“Indeed you do,” Nils agreed. “So don’t take off anything you feel you might need later!”

Cynder was about to move on, but a familiar voice interrupted her. “Hey, Cynder!”

“Spyro!” she said, turning. “How’s it going?”

She glanced at Flicker. “I guess he’s still gold, so you didn’t have to deal with an explosion.”

“One time,” Spyro said, shaking his head and then shaking water off his wings. “It happened only one time, Cynder.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever blown up lunch,” Cynder replied.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Spyro said. “Flicker, Cynder, what kind of jam do you like? I made scones.”

Cynder paused to think about that, and realized with a kind of lurch that that was a question she could answer… after thinking about it.

She’d never had jam before arriving in the Artisan Lands.

“Apricot!” Flicker buzzed.

“I’ll try, um, raspberry?” Cynder decided. “I think I liked that one best.”

“Great!” Spyro smiled. “That’s not going to be for half an hour or so, though, so… I guess I’ll just sit here and watch?”

“It’s going to be kind of boring,” Cynder told him.

“That’s fine,” Spyro assured her. “I won’t mind."

Chapter Text

Late one night, a few months after they’d ended up in the Artisan Realms, Cynder woke up with a start.

She’d been dreaming about… something, she couldn’t remember the details, but it had involved Malefor and Ignitus and a creeping, insidious evil flowing through her bones. Making her do something she didn’t want to do… making her want to do something she knew she shouldn’t…

“Hey,” Spyro said, softly. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

Cynder nuzzled closer to him, to where his wing could cover them both, and Flicker hovered overhead with golden sparks raining down around them both.

“Do you think we need to ask Lateef and the other Dream Weavers for help, again?” Spyro said. “You know it’s meant to be their job.”

“I know it is,” Cynder agreed, her own voice as soft as his. “But… I feel like I need to be strong enough to handle it without them.”

Her voice hitched. “Because we’re going to leave one day, and I want to work all this out before then.”

“You don’t have to feel like you’re broken,” Spyro told her. “Not because you have nightmares, or because of what happened. And not because you want to be stronger, either.”

He touched her nose. “Besides… if you don’t want to leave, then we’ll stay here.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to leave,” Cynder protested.

“You kind of did,” Flicker opined. “Not really with words, sure, but it’s the way you said it.”

“But-” Cynder began. “I mean-! Once we find out where the temple is, then…”

“Then we can go there and say hello,” Spyro agreed. “Maybe with some of the Realms dragons too, because I bet Volteer and Cyril would love to meet them. But just because that’s where we came from doesn’t mean we have to go there, because…”

The purple dragon’s tail lashed slightly. “I love you, Cynder. And if we went back to the temple but that made you sad, it’d make me sad too. So I think we kind of need to… decide where home is, when we have a choice. And we’ll decide that together.”

“Together’s a good word,” Cynder agreed, wrapping her tail around Spyro’s, and blinking a few times. “Sorry about… me…”

“Don’t ever apologize for that,” Spyro insisted. “Not one word.”

Cynder nodded, eyes closing a few more times, then yawned deeply before relaxing back down to the pillow.

“Love you,” she said, drowsily.

I don’t deserve you, she thought, but didn’t quite say it before dropping off to sleep.

The next day, all three of them – Spyro, Cynder and Flicker – were in the Artisan Homeland, at Delbin’s request.

The cheerful artist wanted to paint a picture of the whole trio, preferably posing, and after several minutes they’d decided it’d work best to use a nearby stone pedestal as a stand. That way Spyro could hold himself in what was a lot like a ‘rearing up’ position for several minutes, while Cynder crouched below him with her wings flared and Flicker buzzed above the two of them.

“That’s right,” Delbin said, brushing busily away. “Don’t move that wing too much… any chance I can get a little bit of flame?”

Spyro blew out a brief stream of it, and Delbin nodded. “Wonderful!”

Then there was a brilliant flash of green light, and Delbin turned to stone.

“What just happened?” Flicker demanded, as Spyro recoiled – wings flaring and sending him into the air, from where he could watch as other bolts of green light flashed down. One hit Nestor, freezing him in green crystal halfway through planing a board, and two more hit either side of the stone plinth – barely missing Cynder, and hitting where Spyro had been before taking off.

Then a barrage of red light came down as well, mostly crashing into the maze, and within seconds there were greenish monsters everywhere. Spyro actually saw one of them appear, a red gem scattering out from the hoard that was kept there before being hit by red light and magically transformed.

“Those are gnorcs,” he said, realizing. “Didn’t Oswin say that Gnasty Gnorc had a spell to turn gems into soldiers?”

“Sounds familiar,” Cynder replied, taking off as well. “Spyro – what are we going to do?”

Spyro didn’t answer for a moment, thinking.

But really, the answer was obvious.

“We’re going to help out,” he decided. “Let’s see if we can get Nestor turned back.”

Up close, the green crystal was… strange.

And oddly familiar.

“Is this reminding you of something, or is that just me?” Spyro asked, turning to Cynder. “I’m not sure what, though.”

“I think you’re right,” Cynder agreed.

She leaned closer. “I don’t know how hard it is, but… it can’t be much harder than granite, can it?”

Spyro considered that.

“I guess not,” he agreed. “Just be careful.”

Cynder walked around the frozen, crystal-encrusted Nestor, looking at the pose he’d been trapped in, then decided to start with the planer. It was a tool, rather than the dragon himself, and if the worst happened then he could just get a new planer.

“I’ll start here,” she said, looking back to explain to Spyro, and leaned up to get a grip on Nestor’s left arm. The moment she touched him, though, there was a flicker of light and the whole of the crystal started to shake.

“Whoa!” Flicker buzzed, zipping down to hover protectively over Cynder, and both young dragons stepped back as cracks spread all over Nestor. Light glowed out from inside them, and then with a crash and a blinding flash the crystal exploded into shards.

Most of the shards fell apart entirely, splintering into nothing, but a few came arcing back down towards Cynder and suffused her in a blue-green glow.

Nestor staggered slightly as he was freed, then stabilized himself and brushed his jerkin down.

“Thank you for releasing me, Cynder,” he said. “This must have been Gnasty Gnorc’s work, but we’re lucky you were here.”

“I didn’t really do anything,” Cynder protested. “I just touched the crystal.”

“And I’d still be trapped if you hadn’t,” the Artisan leader told her. “I would appreciate your help, but I think I can take it from here otherwise.”

He took off, flying over to the frozen Delbin, and touched his own crystal prison.

Nothing happened.

“...huh,” Spyro said. “Do you think it had something to do with where those crystals went?”

He flicked his tail. “It kind of reminds me of what happened when I absorb spirit crystals – well, more like when you absorb spirit crystals. I don’t usually see it from the outside.”

“Maybe,” Cynder replied, thinking about it. “It was kind of familiar… but why would it happen just for me?”

Spyro was quiet for a long time, as Nestor started seeing if he could hammer the crystal away.

“I was thinking about that,” he admitted. “I think it’s not a ‘you’ thing, but an ‘us’ thing… it’s something I’ve been wondering about for a while.”

Cynder looked at him, worried about his tone of voice.

“You’ve had such a weird life,” Spyro explained. “I don’t know how Malefor made you older, but it was something Ignitus hadn’t even guessed was possible until he heard. And then after that, when I froze us in crystal… and then we spent days connected together…”

“Spit it out, Spyro,” Cynder insisted. “If it’s bad news, it’s bad news, but don’t make me worry.”

“I think that your magic might be a bit like a purple dragon’s magic,” Spyro said in a rush. “I think that’s how you could use the power of the Aether when we fought Malefor… it’s not the same, but it’s the only thing I can think of. And I don’t remember how to freeze people in crystal, but…”

He gestured towards Delbin.

Cynder considered what Spyro had said, and took a deep breath in.

Then she let it out, slowly.

“Let’s go and test it,” she said. “You first this time.”

Almost exactly the same thing happened when Spyro touched Delbin’s knee. The crystal around him began to crack, and glow, wobbling back and forth until it suddenly exploded to reveal the burly painter.

“Thank you, Spyro,” he said, then showed them the painting.

As it turned out, he’d nearly been finished already. The three of them were posed in dynamic style, without Delbin having painted the stone supporting them, and he’d managed to make them all come to life – with about the only thing marring it being that the painted Spyro was currently lacking a wing.

“It seems you two will have to release all the dragons stuck in crystal,” Nestor added. “I am sorry, Spyro, Cynder. I know how much you’ve been through.”

“Hey, there won’t be a problem!” Flicker buzzed. “I’ll keep them safe. Besides, from what I’ve heard they can take care of themselves!”

He looked over at one of the nearby Gnorcs, who yelped and ran away. “These guys don’t seem much of a threat!”

“That may be so,” Nestor conceded. “But there may be more danger elsewhere.”

“Right,” Spyro nodded. “We’d better get going.”

He looked around, but Cynder was already advancing.

“Let’s start with Stone Hill,” she said, nodding towards the portal. “It’s right there, after all.”

Spyro agreed, spreading his wings, and he and Cynder raced for the portal before flashing through neck-and-neck.

Almost the moment he landed, Spyro found himself facing off against a charging ram.

“Whoa!” he yelped, lowering his own horns, and hooked the belligerent beast up into the air with a practiced move before jumping up and smacking it with his tail.

The ram hit the ground with a wham, and exploded – sending a red gem out to bounce on the floor.

“...I guess Gnasty Gnorc didn’t just turn gems into Gnorcs,” he said.

“I’m kind of impressed,” Cynder told him. “How long is it since you did any practice, and you went straight back to it!”

Spyro waved a wing, a little embarrassed. “Well… yeah, but… what are we going to do with all the gems?”

He indicated the whole area. “Gnasty could turn any of them into soldiers if he wanted to, right? And besides, it’s untidy.”

“I know!” Flicker told him. “There’s a thing dragonflies can do, we can send gems and other things like that to a safe place… you know, somewhere you can get them if you need, but there’s no way Gnasty would be able to get at them once I’ve done it. What’s a good place?”

Spyro and Cynder exchanged glances.

“Uh… the only place I can think of is our house,” Cynder admitted.

“Fine by me!” Flicker agreed, and buzzed over to grab the gem.

There were a few more highly aggressive rams scattered around Stone Hill, along with some crook-brandishing foes who looked very much like extremely tall Manweersmalls.

Spyro wasn’t sure if that was a contradiction in terms.

The first time they ran into one, it swung a crook at Spyro hard enough to knock him over, and Flicker flashed gold before fading into a bluish colour.

“Watch out!” he advised. “Those things hit hard!”

“Are you okay?” Cynder asked, as Spyro picked himself up.

“Yeah,” Spyro replied. “It didn’t hurt much.”

“You’re welcome,” Flicker told them. “By the way, can I get a butterfly or something?”

“Just a moment,” Spyro requested, eyeing the shepherd. “I want to get past this guy first.”

He closed his eyes and focused, feeling for the heat in his core, and after a moment’s focus he exhaled sharply – sending out a jet of flame that washed over the shepherd and made him explode in a shower of sparks.

Leaving behind another gem.

“Great!” Flicker said, retrieving the gem. “Now, someone hunt down a sheep for me and get me a butterfly.”

“I’ll do it,” Spyro decided. “Cynder, do you mind helping Gildas?”

Cynder didn’t even bother properly answering, and jumped into the air to fly to the top of the tower where Gildas had been caught and frozen.

That was enough of an answer for Spyro, though.

Spyro busied himself looking around for a sheep, with Flicker in position behind him, but he’d only just spotted one when Cynder came hurrying back over.

“Spyro, trouble,” she said. “Gildas told me – there’s a thief who stole a dragon egg around here.”

Spyro stopped in mid-air, wings beating hard as he halted in place. “There’s what?”

He knew there were dragon eggs around – a few of them at least, with years to go until they hatched – but if one of them had been stolen then that was…

He couldn’t quite put into words how bad it was.

“Are they still in Stone Hill?” he asked.

“I think Gildas said- over there!” Cynder said, interrupting herself, and rolled over into a dive. Her wings whipped at the air, accelerating her into a rapid plunge, and the thief – an unidentifiable creature wrapped in a blue robe – taunted her for a moment before realizing just how fast Cynder was moving and turning to run away.

Spyro was following, ready to help corner the thief, but it turned out to be entirely unnecessary. Cynder converted her dive into a balletic swoop that had her touching down just in front of her target, and as the thief turned to flee she struck.

Her bladed tail flicked around in a rapid swipe that didn’t quite connect – but a swirl of white appeared around it in an instant before launching out as a cutting blade of wind, hammering into the thief about halfway up its body and dispersing it in a shower of sparks.

The egg went up into the air, and Spyro snagged it before it hit the ground.

“House?” Flicker suggested.

“If it’ll be safe there,” Spyro agreed, and Flicker vanished it with a moment’s effort. “Nice work, Cynder! I didn’t know you could do that with your wind element!”

“Neither did I,” Cynder said, examining her own tail from multiple angles. “Is that what it’s like for you when something just clicks together like that? You find yourself doing something you didn’t even know was possible?”

Spyro chuckled nervously. “...actually, that used to happen all the time.”

Sorting out the rest of Stone Hill didn’t take long, which was a bit of a relief. There turned out to be two dragons there Spyro had never met before, Magic Crafters with some experimental equipment that captured images and sent them all over the Dragon Realms.

It was a lot like the scrying pool at the Dragon Temple, only the other way round.

When they freed Lindar, though, with another swirl of fragmenting crystal and another faint thrill of energy – for Spyro, this time – the blue dragon looked a bit sheepish.

Which was quite an achievement, with how many actual rams had been wandering around.

“Do either of you know who that was, who froze us all in crystal?” he asked.

“Gee, what am I?” Flicker asked. “Dragonflies count too!”

“Tell me about it,” Lindar’s dragonfly agreed, Clockson doing a loop-the-loop over Lindar’s ear before the clockmaker waved him away.

Spyro chuckled slightly. “I count you, Flicker.”

“Much obliged.”

“But I… think we guessed it had to be Gnasty Gnorc,” Spyro added. “There isn’t really anyone else it could be, and besides, a lot of gems got turned into Gnorcs.”

“Not just Gnorcs,” Cynder nitpicked. “We haven’t seen any here, unless that egg thief was one.”

Lindar winced. “Well, that’ll teach me to call him ugly on live DNN… in my defence, I didn’t think he had a television.”

Spyro exchanged a glance with Cynder.

“Okay, we have to get that story some time,” the dragoness said. “But I think that’s just about it for Stone Hill, so we should get back. There’s a lot of dragons to rescue.”

“Of course, go ahead,” Lindar agreed. “You want to save in as little time as possible.”

Spyro had to stop to sound that one out, then shook his head.

“Race you to the whirlwind?” he offered.

“You’re on!” Cynder agreed.

“Don’t forget to get me that sheep!” Flicker called.

After only one more prompt, they did remember to get Flicker that sheep.

It was the first time the dragonfly had actually needed a butterfly snack to recharge, and seeing him go back from blue to gold was nice and reassuring.

Then, however, they had to get moving, and after a moment’s hesitation Spyro and Cynder went for the portal to Dark Hollow. That meant a trip through the hedge maze, followed by gliding down to land, and almost as soon as he’d touched down Spyro noticed something odd.

“...that’s a gnorc with a shield,” he said.

He glanced at Cynder. “Is that allowed? I think some of your – I mean, some of the apes used barricades, but…”

Cynder smiled, doing her best to ignore the slip of the tongue. “Do you think it would put the shield down if we complained?”

“I wouldn’t want to bet on it,” Spyro admitted. “Okay, let’s go.”

He loped forwards, taking the lead, and feinted towards the shield-wielding gnorc. It held up the shield to block, wobbling slightly as it braced against an attack Spyro hadn’t actually delivered, then stabbed forwards with the short sword it held in its other hand.

Spyro dodged backwards, avoiding the blow, and Cynder inhaled before launching out a whirling stream of wind. That knocked the gnorc backwards entirely, Cynder’s jet of wind catching the shield like a sail, and as it fell over Spyro lunged forwards to smack it down.

“Thanks,” he said, as the gnorc dissolved in a shower of sparks, and Flicker sent the resulting gem to safety. “I think I probably could have handled that eventually, but that was easier.”

“Suuure you could,” Cynder said, drawing out the word with a chuckle. “You’re not just saying that because I rescued you, are you?”

“What?” Spyro asked, holding back a laugh. “No, not at all! I’m genuinely grateful, I’m just trying to be honest!”

“Well, if you can handle one yourself…” Cynder paused, then flicked her tail towards Alban’s study nook. “There’s one up there.”

“Right,” Spyro said, taking off, and hovering for a moment as he contemplated the shield-wielding gnorc.

Then he spat a fire bomb at it, which detonated on contact and blew the soldier into the air. Spyro surged forwards with another burst of fire and caught the gnorc before it landed, smacking it four times in a row before finally slamming it off the platform.

Cynder looked at the defeated gnorc as it vanished, then at her panting boyfriend.

“Show-off,” she judged.

This time, Spyro couldn’t help but laugh.

“I did kind of overdo it,” he admitted, after he’d got it out of his system. “I’m not really in practice using my elements like that any more.”

Cynder flapped up to join him.

“Neither of us is,” she agreed. “But that’s kind of good, in a way. It means we haven’t had to stay on top of things.”

Spyro thought about that.

“You’re right, Cynder,” he said. “I shouldn’t be so gloomy.”

Alban took only a moment to rescue after that, and he thanked Spyro for the rescue – then paused.

“You might want to watch out for those gnorcs, though,” he added. “If these ones have swords and shields then there might be others who take up more effective weapons.”

“Those were tricky enough,” Spyro admitted. “But – oh, right, you mean as we keep fighting Gnasty’s minions?”

“Exactly,” Alban confirmed. “And that means that you, young Spyro, and young Cynder there, must be ready to develop new skills of your own.”

Cynder shrugged her wings slightly. “That’s… kind of already been happening.”

“Excellent,” Alban said. “Well, good luck to you both!”

“What do you think about that?” Spyro asked, as they hopped back down. “...and where did that locked treasure box come from? I don’t think that was there yesterday.”

“Maybe it’s more stolen gems,” Cynder guessed. “There was one in Stone Hill, with Gavin, but he said he’d just have to work out how to get into it later.”

“I bet if I had a lockpick I could do it,” Flicker volunteered. “I… um, wow.”

Cynder stopped as well, looking at the gnorcs in front of them.

Three had swords and shields, and were holding them up to block the dragons. Behind the shield wall was… a very, very big gnorc.

“What’s the largest thing you can knock into the air?” Spyro said quietly. “Think you can do something that size?”

“Maybe if I were the Terror of the Skies,” Cynder answered, feeling faintly proud of getting the words out. “But since I’m not enormous right now… no.”

She tilted her head slightly. “Any ideas?”

“I think I’ve got one,” Spyro said, after a moment. “Do you think you can deal with the gnorcs with the shields?”

Cynder thought for a moment, then nodded. “Sure!”

“Then I’ll handle the big one,” Spyro declared. “I’ll do a countdown. You go on one. Three, two, one-”

Cynder leapt forwards, summoning her wind around her and twisting into a roll. Her wings caught and directed it at the same time, intensifying until a tornado formed around her, and two of the gnorcs yelped and began trying to run – only to get blown over, knocked down by the sail effect of their shields.

The third gnorc tried to fight, but it was all it could do to hold the shield steady – until Cynder’s tail flicked up underneath it, tugging the tip of the shield upwards so her whirlwind could catch it and sending the gnorc hurtling into the air.

She had to stop only a second or so later, aching from the sudden burst of magic, but Spyro was already leaping over her. His own breath flared, and he hammered the big gnorc with a jet of flame that sent it reeling backwards.

It didn’t quite finish the gnorc off, though, and it roared before raising a big club.

Cynder jumped into the air as the third small gnorc came down, seizing it with both forelimbs. She twisted for a moment, aiming, then slammed the gnorc down towards Spyro’s foe – sending the small one into hitting the large one, and resulting in both bursting into gems.

She landed with a thump, and slowly let out a breath as Flicker gathered up the treasure. “Phew…”

“That was impressive, love,” Spyro complimented her, and the way the term slipped out sent a frisson of delight through her.

Spyro was relieved to find that the Dark Hollow library – for all that its librarian had been turned to crystal – hadn’t been damaged by the gnorcs.

“I’m not sure if it’s just that they don’t think books matter, but… it’s good,” he said. “Some of the stories here… I bet even Sparx would love to hear them.”

“He always has been one to freak out about whatever was coming his way next,” Cynder agreed, smirking, then jumped over to free Oswin.

The slightly fussy librarian brushed himself down, then looked closer at Cynder as the tracery of crystal dissolved into her scales.

“Fascinating,” he said. “Do either of you know what it could be?”

“I’ve got an idea,” Spyro replied. “We never really had time to learn a lot about Aether back at home, but I think it’s involved…”

“Yes, I think you mentioned that,” Oswin mused. “Well… keep an eye on it. And once you get there, ask the Magic Crafters and Beast Makers if they have any ideas. It’s their area of speciality, after all.”

Spyro nodded firmly. “Right.”

“Now, I don’t suppose you’ve freed the others?” Oswin added. “Because if you have, there’s a wonderful secret passage that leads right to the whirlwind.”

He jumped up, wings flapping to keep him in the air, and pushed on a book which Spyro thought was called Secrets of the Sor- something . It slid inwards with a click, and the whole bookshelf swung aside.

“Through here,” he invited. “It’s a bit small for me these days…”

After returning to the grounds of the Artisan castle, they were ready to head on to Town Square – only to be met by Nestor at the mouth of the hedge maze.

“I’m sorry, Spyro, but something urgent has come up,” he explained. “Gildas flew over to see what was going on at High Gallery, and found that one of Gnasty’s henchmen had taken over the whole castle.”

“That’s not good,” Cynder said, tail lashing. “Who is this henchman of his?”

“You’re thinking of Gaul?” Spyro asked.

“It’s hard to forget him,” Cynder replied.

Spyro couldn’t argue with that.

“A mysterious figure, known only as Toasty,” Nestor told them. “Tall and with a pumpkin for a head, and wearing a concealing black cloak. Gildas tried to fight, but he was injured by a sharp scythe and had to run – Astor’s taking care of him now back in Stone Hill.”

“Is it serious?” Cynder said, worried.

“He’ll be all right,” Nestor assured her. “It’s nothing life threatening, and there’s a lot that Cosmo’s wizards can fix. But there was something else you should know.”

Spyro nodded firmly. “Whatever it is, we’ll hear it.”

“Toasty told Gildas that he had been appointed to rule over the Artisan lands,” Nestor told them both. “And he is clearly ready for full-size dragons. I am afraid that this is a fight that we may have no choice but to place on your heads.”

Cynder bowed her head for a moment.

“I guess… there’s not much point in pretending we’re not who we are,” she said. “I know what’s right, so I know I’m going to help.”

“And I’m with you all the way,” Spyro agreed. “What do we do?”

“Free Argus,” Nestor told them. “He’s the one who knows how to open the dragon’s head. Then go through to High Gallery. Save Nevin, and defeat Toasty.”

Before Spyro could agree, Cynder was already on the move. “Come on, let’s go!”

“Hey, wait up!” Spyro called.

Nestor watched them go, then put both hands to his mouth. “Flicker!”

The golden dragonfly paused. “Yep?”

“Keep them both safe.”

“Oh, it’s simple enough,” Argus told both young dragons. “I’m not surprised Nestor thought it was locked, though. You just need to have gone through a whirlwind in the last half hour, it’ll open when you get closer.”

Spyro tilted his head slightly, then stepped cautiously towards the dragon’s head.

It opened up smoothly, yawning to reveal the portal in the middle.

“Why does it do that?” Cynder said.

“If you want the truth, it was a bit of a prank at the time…”

Spyro took a deep breath, then advanced on the portal.

“Don’t think you’re going through without me,” Cynder warned, following him, and they went through just a second or so apart.

It had taken Spyro a while to get used to how it felt to use a portal. It was like stepping through a door where the door opened out the side of a mountain, perhaps, and his wings flashed open as he was suddenly in mid air miles above sea level.

His ears twinged slightly from the pressure change.

High Gallery was below and in front of them, as Cynder flew up to take position on his wing and Flicker buzzed between them, and Spyro slowed as he took a close, careful look.

There were Gnasty’s minions, all right. More of the big shepherds – lots more – and ominous-looking grey dogs as well.

“I don’t see this Toasty,” Cynder said.

“He must be on the other side of the castle,” Spyro decided. “Let’s try and find Nevin first, he’s probably indoors.”

He flared his wings, slowing down, and landed on one of the platforms out towards the edge.

The moment he’d hit the ground, one of the shepherds whistled. Three or four of the wolf-dogs jumped up from where they’d been snoozing, and barked madly before charging towards Spyro in a rush.

Spyro spat out a jet of flame at the first one to get close, and it flinched back with singed fur before crouching and pouncing on him – making Spyro dodge backwards with a flip of his wings to avoid getting flattened, before spitting flame for a second time at the dog that had tried to get him.

That did the trick, the dog exploding into a gem, but three more were already following. Spyro dodged backwards a second time, launched a fire-bomb just as one pounced so that it was knocked away in an explosion of fire, then dodged back one last time and fell off the castle.

The last two dogs had been trying to attack him, and Spyro’s disappearance meant they followed him over the edge.

“Spyro!” Cynder called. “Are you okay?”

Wings beating, Spyro rose back over the edge of the platform. “Yeah, though I am kind of embarrassed.”

Now she knew he was safe, Cynder let out a sigh of relief – then looked a bit embarrassed herself. “Well… in my defence, knocking someone out of the sparring ring was usually a win.”

Spyro touched down. “Let’s just pretend that never happened, and keep going.”

“Wait until I’ve grabbed those gems,” Flicker requested, vanishing downwards.

Fighting through High Gallery was the toughest challenge so far, with the tough attack dogs and ornery shepherds eager to try and swarm both dragons – whether outside or indoors.

“At this point, I’m mostly glad they can’t fly!” Spyro said, hovering overhead, then the next dog began barking frantically and charged.

Cynder rolled to the side, making the first attack miss, and another dog began rushing towards her as well. Her wings went up, flaring slightly, and she looked back and forth just long enough to keep track of both approaching hounds before twisting herself into a wind tornado.

The sudden upcurrent launched them into the air, and Spyro blasted them both with a jet of flame.

“All right!” he said, as the dogs dissolved and left their gems behind. “That’s more like it.”

“Next time it’s your turn on the ground,” Cynder told him, sticking her tongue out. “Wait, I think I see Nevin!”

She paced forwards, and Spyro landed next to her.

“Which of us should it be this time?” he asked.

“I’ll do it,” Cynder decided, stepping forwards and touching the crystal.

It shook back and forth before exploding, and Nevin managed to catch his palette before it hit the ground.

“Watch out for this one, Spyro, Cynder,” he said. “He’s got many tricks up his sleeve.”

The bigger dragon stepped to the side, and Spyro got his first look at Toasty.

“He reminds me of those skeletons Malefor raised,” Cynder observed.

“I think you’re right,” Spyro agreed, frowning. “We’ll have to watch out for that scythe. Ready, Flicker?”

“You bet!” the dragonfly agreed, doing a loop.

“Got any tactics for this one?” Cynder checked.

“I guess… don’t get hit, and be ready to help the other one out?” Spyro frowned. “It’s hard to know what to say.”

He advanced, cautiously, then glanced back.

“There’s dogs in the long grass,” he reported.

Apparently that was enough to set them off, as a dog began barking frantically before pouncing on Spyro. He dodged out of the way, rolling to one side, then Toasty’s scythe came slamming down in a two-handed blow that knocked him sprawling.

“Watch out!” Cynder yelped, jumping forwards, and her tail blade flicked around. A wind slash came jetting out, aimed directly for Toasty, and the big scarecrow left off his follow-up attack to block.

The dog was coming back for another attack, and Spyro spat a fireball at it – blasting the dog before it landed, launching it into the air and over the cliff – then glanced at Flicker.

Their dragonfly friend was already blue, and there was no sign of any sheep around here. That was bad.

“Really wish we had some armour right now,” he admitted, almost all his focus on Toasty, and avoided the next swipe of the big scythe. Their enemy seemed to be double-jointed and have the reflexes of a cheetah, though, as he flipped the scythe’s angle of attack around ninety degrees and swung at Cynder instead.

Her tail blade blocked his attack, wind swirling around the tip, and she let out a huff of effort – then yelped, as Toasty kicked and a blade on the end of his foot knocked her backwards.

“That was another kind of scythe blade!” Spyro said, before launching a stream of potent flame at Toasty. He kept it up for at least ten seconds, until the robe began to blacken and hiss, and Toasty turned to flee – giving Spyro a chance to hook the main scythe out of his grip.

Flicker was green, now, and Cynder picked herself up as Spyro panted a couple of times.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Just too much fire at once,” Spyro explained. “I’ll be fine. But what about you?”

“Flicker kept me safe,” Cynder replied, looking up at where Toasty had gone – another grassy area, with the signs of what might be two or three dogs hiding in the grass. “We might need to come back later, Spyro.”

Spyro thought about that. He really did.

But… there was no two ways about it.

“We need to stop him,” he said. “Who knows how hard this is going to be if we let him prepare again?”

“I think you’re right,” Cynder agreed. “I just had to say.”

Spyro smiled warmly.

He’d always known Cynder was braver than him, in a lot of ways, and asking that question was bravery. It sounded odd, but being willing to risk sounding like a coward was a difficult decision.

Spyro and Cynder charged together, and this time Cynder exhaled a rush of swirling air as soon as they got close enough for the dogs to pounce.

The jet sent both hounds careening backwards, into the garden walls, and they collapsed in a daze. Cynder turned to focus her attention on Toasty, and just in time – the strange skeleton-construct-thing swiped at her with one of his bladed feet, and she had to duck underneath it to avoid being hit.

Spyro tried flaming again, but this time after he’d been going for just a second Toasty darted forwards – the thick coat smouldering – and hit Spyro with a backhanded slap, cutting off his fire breath and knocking him for a loop.

“Spyro!” Cynder called, worried, and Spyro shook his head before rolling away from a followup attack – only to be pounced on from behind by one of the now-recovered dogs.

Flicker took the hit with a buzz, his greenish glow cutting out entirely, and Toasty ignored Cynder’s wind blade – focused entirely on Spyro, as he pulled back his leg for another powerful kick.

Something in Cynder’s chest rebelled against it.

She couldn’t let Spyro get hurt.

Spyro must not be harmed.

Love and pain, pre-emptive grief and all too immediate rage all swirled together in her heart, and touched something deep that resided there.

Changeable, but predictable.

Gentle and yet capable of massive destruction.

Touch it… feel it… and call it forth.

Her wings folded for a moment, then flared, and she sprang into the air following an instinct she hadn’t known she had. Air swirled around her, instant clouds defining a howling vortex, and Toasty was just turning to look when it all suddenly exploded outwards in a storm of blades and a blast of swirling, concussive pressure.

Both dogs exploded into sparkles of light, and Toasty’s cloaked figure was hurled backwards by the blast. A thousand blades of wind cut his cloak to pieces, revealing the terror of High Gallery to be nothing more than a scorched-looking sheep on stilts, and he staggered back into the third and final area before finally regaining his balance.

Cynder didn’t let him do anything more than that.

The Wind sang through her, and over her, rippling on her wings and eddying off her claws and tail. She charged forwards, straight at her foe, and her wings opened with a sweep that threw all three of Toasty’s remaining dogs over the walls of the castle.

He lashed out with a scythe, and Cynder jumped over it – then she slammed her opponent into the air with a horn strike, jumped skywards, and unleashed a flurry of blows that hissed and whined with the windstorm that rode in her heart.

When she finished, the enchantment holding Toasty together had burst – leaving the black sheep as nothing more than a pile of gems.

“Are you okay, Cynder?” Spyro asked, and Cynder whirled. She bounded forwards three steps and tackled Spyro, hugging him close, and the tension drained slowly from her limbs.

Spyro was really starting to appreciate why it was Nestor who was in charge of the Artisans.

It wasn’t that he was the strongest, or the oldest, or the fastest. There wasn’t anything which would make you pick him out of a crowd, and he wasn’t even really the best at what he did – he was good, but all the Artisans were good.

But he was, as far as Spyro was concerned, the wisest.

“It seems we owe you both a great debt,” Nestor said. “And you, Flicker. But this is too much to ask you to keep up.”

“I don’t think so,” Spyro replied. “Or… I don’t think so, I mean.”

He shifted his feet slightly. “I know that we were in danger. But we already knew that was a risk.”

“Not like this, Spyro,” Cynder objected.

She opened her mouth to say more, then bit the words off and rethought.

“I… I know that it’s not really very different,” she went on. “But seeing you in danger like that, and knowing it was enough danger to hurt a grown dragon… maybe kill a grown dragon… I didn’t like it. And part of me thinks that we’ve done enough.”

“Cynder…” Spyro began, concerned.

“And I hate that part of me,” Cynder went on, the words rushing out of her like she couldn’t stop – like she didn’t want to stop. “Because it feels like I’m not saying it for the right reasons. It feels like it’s because I don’t want Spyro to get hurt, and like I don’t care as much if someone else gets hurt instead.”

Spyro spread his wing, laying it over Cynder’s back and wordlessly hugging her closer.

“I understand what you’ve said, Cynder,” Nestor told her, solemnly. “And what I can tell you is this.”

He put his hands together. “To feel as though you have done enough, and to want to not go on… that is a perfectly natural thing to think. The Artisans world is a place of peace, or it should be, and you two are still young – and the young are to be protected and kept safe.”

Nestor transferred his gaze to Spyro. “We probably could help out enough that you wouldn’t be in danger, or as little danger as possible,” he added. “There’s almost a dozen dragons unfrozen now.”

“But it’d put you in more danger, wouldn’t it?” Spyro asked. “Like you say, you’re not used to fighting.”

He frowned. “I don’t even know how badly that scythe hitting would have hurt. We don’t have our armour, but I know we took a couple of nasty blows against that golem at least…”

Cynder twitched slightly, and Spyro turned to look at her. “I wish we could,” he added. “I wish Ignitus, Volteer, Terrador, Cyril… I wish they were all here. But they’re not, and…”

He shook his head helplessly. “I don’t think I’d be me if I let someone else get hurt in my place.”

Cynder began to chuckle slightly.

“I don’t think you’d be the Spyro I love if you did,” she admitted.

Spyro nuzzled her.

“I’m here,” he reminded her. “We’ll be okay together.”

“And… you’re right,” she added. “I don’t think I’d be happy with it either.”

She drew in a deep breath, then let it out, and some of her worries seemed to go with it.

“And there’s something else, as well,” Spyro added. “You did your first Fury!”

“That’s right,” Cynder agreed, blinking a few times, then stepped back. “That’s right – I did!”

Nestor managed to incline his head quizzically in such a way as to let them know he would appreciate details, without actually being intrusive.

“Our sort of dragons each have an element,” Spyro explained, turning to face Nestor again, though his tail absently flicked out and twined around Cynder’s. “I’ve got more than one, and you remember why Cynder has more than one as well, but most dragons just have a single element.”

The Artisan leader nodded.

“And the strongest power that any dragon has around their element is called a Fury,” Spyro went on. “It takes a lot of focus to pull it off, but it can also happen more or less… by itself, in a fight. That’s why it’s called a Fury.”

He tapped his paw on the ground. “It’s like a burst of power where your element overflows and bursts out of your scales, and you’re full of energy.”

“And the only adult dragons either of us really knew were masters of their elements,” Cynder said, taking over for him. “There were… there were some dragons I fought as the Terror of the Skies who couldn’t use one, or who I don’t think could use one because they never did, but I don’t like to think about those days.”

She swiped at her eyes. “And I’ve always wondered if Malefor had broken something about me, so I could never do it. But now…”

“I didn’t know about that part,” Spyro said.

“I’d be surprised if you did,” Cynder countered. “I never mentioned it before. Just… I don’t know.”

“I think I have a plan,” Nestor said. “Spyro, Cynder, those of us who have already been freed have tried breaking the crystal, but it seems invulnerable. And that means that there is no real need to rush around all the Realms as fast as possible.”

He looked down at them, and now he was stern. “I think it would be a very good idea if the two of you got a good night’s sleep before moving on to your next destination.”

“I’m… guessing you mean before we move on to the Peace Keepers,” Spyro said. “Because we haven’t got to Town Square next, and that’s sort of… where our house is…”

The sun was setting over Town Square, and over all of the Artisan Lands, as Spyro opened the door to their house.

“It looks like the Gnorcs didn’t manage to get in here,” he told Cynder, stepping aside to let her in.

“And nor did the bulls,” Cynder agreed. “What happened there, exactly? That seems more like a cooking thing than a sculpting thing, which is why I ask you.”

Spyro chuckled. “Well, I suppose that’s a good point. But no, I’ve got no idea why Gnasty made some bulls.”

He went through their main living room to the kitchen, and tapped his tail on the ground. “Speaking of a cooking thing, what do you think about having some fried chicken?”

Cynder perked up. “That sounds nice!”

“Then that’s what I’ll do,” Spyro declared.

He opened the door to the pantry, and got buried in gems.

“Whoops,” Flicker said. “In my defence, I kind of had to guess where to put them, and that’s the most store-room-y room in the house…”

“Just tell us you put the eggs somewhere safer?” Cynder asked.

“They’re on your bed, actually,” Flicker replied. “But you unfroze Shoutfire, so I’ll send them to her and do that with the future ones.”

As he shot off upstairs, Spyro managed to dig himself out of the pile.

“At least they weren’t still Gnorcs,” he decided.

Late that evening, after they’d shared their supper on the roof, Spyro lay back with a sigh.

“So,” he said, after a long pause. “Wind dragon.”

“I know,” Cynder agreed, still sounding a little overwhelmed at the concept. “I called the wind and it answered…”

She leaned up on one elbow, looking over at Spyro. “Does it normally work like that for you?”

“The first time my powers awakened, I got the breath first,” Spyro replied. “I didn’t develop a Fury until I trained in the temple. But the second time, when the Chronicler was reawakening them, the fury came first.”

He looked up at the stars. “And… speaking of that, Cynder, I sort of, well, realized something.”

“What’s that?” Cynder asked. “Is this another one of those things you can only think up if you’re raised by dragonflies?”

“Not really,” Spyro answered. “I think, anyway.”

He took a deep breath.

“I don’t know how much of what Malefor could do was because the Ancients taught him,” he said. “And how much of that was him being a purple dragon, instinctually wielding powers only a purple dragon could, and training them over time.”

“What are you saying, Spyro?” Cynder asked.

“I’m not sure if this is possible, Cynder,” Spyro replied. “I don’t want to get your hopes up. But I think that maybe I could eventually… do something about your elements? Even take one away if it’s not one you want…”

His voice trailed off, and Cynder stared at him.

Then she shook her head, and tears splashed to the roof.

“Why do you keep doing this?” she whispered.

“Cynder-” Spyro began, concerned, and Cynder cut him off with a raised paw.

“It’s not bad,” she explained, and swallowed hard against the croak in her throat. “It’s not – I mean – you keep managing to be such an amazing dragon, and I don’t even know how I’m supposed to react to it, and-”

Spyro rolled over, embracing her.

“It’s because of you, Cynder,” he said, quite seriously. “With you, I want to make your dreams come true… and my own seem that much easier to achieve.”

Chapter Text

Bright and early the next morning, Spyro, Cynder and Flicker met Nestor by the Artisan Home's waterfall.

"Peace Keepers next, right?" Cynder checked. "I know that's the closest, and it makes sense."

"You are correct," Nestor nodded. "The Peace Keeper lands are far from here, but not nearly so far as any of the other homes."

He sat down. "Cynder, Spyro. If you want any help, from any of us, you have but to ask."

"I know, Nestor," Spyro agreed. "And I understand what you mean by that, too… but if you start talking about who should or shouldn't have to fight, then you just end up with nobody doing anything."

He shook his head. "I'm choosing to help."

"And so are we, Spyro," Nestor assured him, then chuckled. "But you may find it easier to get good help from the Peace Keepers."

"Don't forget, we're in this together, Spyro!" Flicker buzzed. "I won't let you down!"

Cynder touched the tip of Spyro's wing with her own. "He's right," she said. "I can't think of anything that would make me not want to be right by your side, Spyro."

Spyro smiled in thanks, but then they had to set off for the long flight to the lands of the Peace Keepers.

At first, there were rolling green hills below them, part of the green coastline the Artisans had settled on and made their own. Then the landscape grew yellower, replacing the green coast with a different type of grass further inland, and as the two dragons and one dragonfly flew the ground rose beneath them.

They weren't travelling blind, there were way stations every twenty minutes which had a little pointer to the next and that was usually enough, but it was more than halfway to noon when the ground suddenly dropped away beneath them to reveal a wide, dark lake and red sandy rock all around.

"There it is," Cynder said, flying ahead a little and pointing. "That looks like Titan's house… there, see?"

"I see it," Spyro agreed. "And… I think your eyesight is a bit better than mine. Do you see any Gnorcs?"

"Yeah," Cynder confirmed. "In the box canyon behind his house. And they've got some kind of weapon."

The two dragons exchanged a glance.

"I can handle it!" Flicker said, confidently.

"I don't doubt you can," Spyro told him. "But let's try and make sure you don't have to… Cynder, what do you say we drop down to that lake and fly in low?"

Cynder considered that.

"I say I'm getting there first!" she replied teasingly, a current of whirling air flickering for a moment around her wings.

"Hey, I didn't say-" Spyro protested, then laughed and surged ahead. Cynder did too, and the pair of dragons swooped down almost to the level of the lake before zooming across the wavelets towards the home of the Peace Keepers.

Cynder was the one to release Titan, and the martial dragon let out a sigh of relief.

"It's good to see that you're okay," he said. "What happened?"

"Gnasty Gnorc, we think," Spyro explained. "We're almost sure, anyway… there's Gnorcs everywhere. I don't know how he froze you when you're inside, but he missed Cynder and he missed me."

"I've been wondering about that," Flicker admitted. "You two are immune to the magic, it seems like… or, you can make it disappear in other dragons."

He buzzed around in a loop. "I'm no Magic Crafter, but what if the spell targeted all dragons and your own magic sort of sucked up the bit that told it where to go?"

"That's as good an explanation as any," Spyro admitted.

"Well, I know you were living in the Artisan world," Titan went on, absently hefting his battleaxe onto his shoulder. "So I'm guessing that they're all okay?"

"We freed them all," Cynder said. "Every last one… but thieves were stealing dragon eggs."

"That's no good," Titan frowned. "All right, you two, come with me. We're clearing out the Peace Keeper lands."

Even as he spoke, a Gnorc yelped. The green creature pointed a spear at them, and charged, and Titan spat a jet of flame at it.

The Gnorc exploded into a gemstone in a whoosh of smoke, just a second before a surge of electricity passed through where it had been.

"Spyro, you've remembered how to use your electric breath!" Cynder gasped.

"It's as much of a surprise to me as it is to you," Spyro said, trying not to burp.

Spyro had been trained by Ignitus and the other elemental masters in a little bit of how to fight on his own, beyond the mechanics of how to attack into an education on tactics, and Cynder had spent years as a commander of ape armies – even if she mostly wanted to forget the whole experience – but something neither of them had had any real training in was how to fight as a small group.

Titan ran them through the most basic principles in a few hushed minutes, explaining how to turn their experience fighting as a pair into more of a style, and how to work out what was best handled by one dragon or another. Then he held out his paw, giving them a three-two-one count, and all three dragons went charging out into the Peace Keepers' portal nexus.

Some of the Gnorcs yelped and began to run away, others grabbed at spears and waved them, but three of the nearby ones began pushing large metal cannon around to point at the dragons.

"I'll go right!" Spyro called, accelerating, and jumped into the air with a flap of his wings to speed himself up. The first cannon boomed a moment later, and Spyro dropped back to the ground with the cannonball whipping past close enough to give him a breeze along his tail.

"Careful, Spyro!" Cynder shouted. "Look out left!"

The Gnorc in charge of the next-nearest cannon was bending down to light it, and Spyro rolled to the right as the cannonball shot towards him.

"Go!" the black dragon added, and Spyro charged the pair of cannons over by the ridge. He switched to fire for a moment and used that for a speed boost, then swapped back and fired out a fan of electric breath that caught both cannons. The lightning arced from there to the Gnorcs Cynder had noticed, sending them both sprawling backwards and making one dissolve into a gemstone, but it also made the cannon fire with a wham and the cannonball knocked Titan's axe out of his claws.

Cynder's tail slashed out, firing a wind blade which cut the top off a Gnorc's spear, and the unlucky creature wailed at being suddenly disarmed before running in the first direction he saw. Meanwhile Titan demonstrated that he wasn't helpless even without his own weapon by diving forwards and lashing out with his horns, then picking up a spear Gnorc and throwing it into the one who'd fired the first cannon. Both Gnorcs went flying into the nearby lake, and Flicker gasped.

"Hey!" he buzzed. "I'm going to need to go and get those!"

"Save it for someone who cares," Titan snorted, scanning the area for a moment before going to fetch his axe. "We should clear out the whole portal nexus first."

The central plain area was mostly populated with spear Gnorcs, who didn't seem very willing to stay and fight the dragon trio as they swept through the area, and before long Spyro and Cynder had chased down the fleeing Gnorcs as Titan brought up the rear.

"You're doing well," he said. "It's good to see that. I know you said you did a lot of fighting, back where you came from, but I'm never sure until I see someone doing it personally."

"It's something we're both… I don't know," Spyro admitted. "Or, I don't know how I think of it. I'd rather be good at this than not be good at this, but I don't like that it's necessary. Or how we got a lot of this skill."

Cynder nodded. "I know what you mean," she said. "But knowing we can do this properly, it helps me feel… safe."

"And knowing I'm around helps, too, I bet," Flicker buzzed.

"That's true," Spyro smiled, then leaned to the left a bit. "There's a frozen dragon over there… who is it? I don't recognize all the Peace Keepers off the top of my head."

"That'll be Magnus," Titan said, then slowly grinned as he looked between Magnus and the four timid Gnorcs forming a spear-wall between him and them. "I'm sure he'd love to join in."

"I think it's your turn," Cynder pointed out, and Spyro nodded as he reached out. The crystal fragmented into tiny pieces, surrounding Spyro in a swirl of blue light, and he flared his wings slightly at the sensation.

As the prison dissolved, Magnus laughed. "So, I'm guessing you're the ones who rescued Titan, rather than the other way around?"

He posed. "But since I'm out, the rest of you can stop worrying!"

"Just because you don't use a weapon doesn't mean you're stronger than the rest of us," Titan said, snorting. "Same story for you as for me, I assume."

"A bolt of magic froze me in crystal, and then half the hoard came to life as Gnorcs," Magnus agreed. "Still, I'm sure – look out!"

Spyro whirled to see what Magnus was pointing at, and saw another of the Gnorc cannons had been laboriously turned to point at them through a gap between a rock spire and a tent. The cannon boomed just as he spotted it, and a cannonball slammed straight into Cynder – knocking her rolling backwards, nearly into the nearby lake.

"Cynder!" Spyro called, glancing at Flicker in panic, and saw the dragonfly had gone blue with the effort of absorbing the attack. Then he broke into a sprint, lightning fizzing over his wings, and went straight through the tent in a single bound before exhaling an electric arc that lifted both of his Gnorc targets into the air.

Grabbing one Gnorc with both foreclaws, Spyro blasted it with electricity and then slammed it into the other in an explosion of sparks. The electricity under his scales wanted to burst out in a Fury, and it nearly did, but the memory of Cynder being near the lake stopped him.

He didn't want to ever hurt Cynder, even by accident.

"I'm okay," Cynder said, once Spyro was back. "Just surprised. It hit like crashing, but not dangerously."

Spyro pressed his wing against hers, trying to give her support without being overprotective. "I was worried…"

"I know," Cynder said.

She nodded up at Flicker. "I guess we owe you some more butterflies, huh?"

"You should watch your temper, Spyro," Titan counselled, then raised his paws at the look he got from both young dragons. "I'm not saying your reaction was wrong, Spyro. I think you did the right thing. I'm only telling you this because it could be a weakness, and I want to make sure you learn everything I can teach."

Spyro frowned, shaking his head a bit. "I… think you're right, Titan. But I think it's something about our kind of dragons, as well… I nearly went into an elemental fury, there. Cynder did with wind yesterday. It's part of us, the way we touch our elements, and it just wouldn't make sense for us to try to shut ourselves away from it."

"You know yourselves better than we know you," Magnus said. "Just make sure problems don't sneak up on you, like I couldn't."

He stroked his chin. "I think Gunnar was around here as well, I saw him before the spell. So let's go break him out!"

There was another egg thief, next to Gunnar, and the moment the thief saw Spyro and Cynder coming he yelped and began to run away around the nearby lake.

Fortunately, though, there wasn't anywhere for the thief to run to, and the two young dragons exchanged a wordless glance before splitting up – one going left, the other going right – and caught the thief in a pincer movement before Cynder blew him into the wall and Spyro flamed him.

"Quick work," Titan approved, as Cynder freed Gunnar. "You're taking to this well."

"We know each other well," Spyro replied. "Or… I don't know. It just seemed to come to us, back when the necklaces chained us together."

"Maybe it's because I know how other dragons fight," Cynder wondered.

"I don't think it is, Cynder," Spyro told her. "I'm thinking about how you're going to react, too, and I'm not going to let you believe you're slower at picking that up than I am. So it's nothing to do with that."

"That's all of us who were here at the time, I think," Gunnar said. "Hmm."

He glanced up at Titan and Magnus. "What do you think? How should we handle this?"

"Divide and conquer, or mass and attack together," Titan considered. "Hmm. I don't know."

"Did you see who was put in charge of the land?" Spyro asked. "In the Artisans world it was a sheep called Toasty, he took over High Gallery."

"Oh, I think I know," Gunnar decided, pointing. "There was a big gnorc who went into Mesa Grotto yesterday. I mean, really big."

"Won't be any match for us," Magnus said. "And by us, I mean me!"

"Hold on, Magnus," Titan said, holding out his arm. "Before you go charging in, there's something we should think about."

"What is it this time?" Magnus asked. "You're always finding reasons like this. Why bother thinking when you can just charge in and solve all your problems that way?"

"That doesn't work, Magnus," Titan said.

He turned his attention to Spyro and Cynder. "You've dissolved those crystal prisons every time, so far… but what I'm wondering about now is, if that is because your own magic sucks up the magic of Gnasty's spell, then you might be the only dragons immune to it."

"Right, I get that," Cynder said. "And even if we're not, so long as one of us is free the other one can break them out."

"Exactly," Titan nodded. "Good instincts."

He pointed. "Which means that the two of you might have to be the ones who battle Gnasty, or be there when the battle with Gnasty happens. And that means you're going to need to improve. Improve your magic, improve your tactics, re-connect with all the abilities you know you have but which you haven't yet managed to use."

"I get it," Spyro realized. "What you're saying is that… you think we should fight. Not doing it alone, but doing a lot of it."

"I am," Titan confirmed. "Training would be better, but it would take much longer. And while I'm definitely planning on a strike team going after Gnasty Gnorc… I have to plan for if they fail too."

"Oh."

Cynder's voice was small, and Spyro reached out a wing to her.

"Are you okay, love?" he asked.

"I think so," Cynder replied, distracted. "I – well, I think so, but I just realized something about planning the way I did with the ape army. It's… it's not quite the same, but it's the same sort of skill to do it to keep other dragons safe, isn't it?"

"That's right," Titan said. "Now, come on. Magnus and Gunnar are going to keep an eye on what happens in the main Peace Keepers nexus, but I'm going to fly overwatch for you in… hmm… Cliff Town, I think. I'll be there if you need me, and I'll come down if Flicker's strength is fading, but I think it's better for your strength to learn yourself."

"Hey, shouldn't you ask them?" Magnus asked.

"It's okay," Spyro said. "He's right – I think he's right."

"I agree," Cynder nodded.

Cliff Town, as the name suggested, had both a large town and a lot of cliffs.

The portal let them out in the air overhead, and Spyro backwinged slightly to hover as he looked around.

"Why is this place like this?" he asked. "As a town. I didn't think about it at first, but – do all the Peace Keepers live here?"

"No, we don't," Titan replied. "It's a good question, though… this is mostly used when training young dragons."

Cynder tilted her head, then nodded.

"I think I see," she said. "It's like… it's like the dragon temple, isn't it?"

She glanced at Spyro. "It's somewhere where young dragons go to learn how to be safe. All of them, not just the ones who are Peace Keepers."

"That's right," Titan agreed. "The town has enough space that we can handle a lot of young dragons at once. Town Square's the same in the Artisan world… I don't recall the others, though. The Magic Crafters might not bother and who knows what the Dream Weavers do."

After a moment, Spyro pointed. "We'd better get down there," he said. "Go around in a circle, to make sure we don't miss anything?"

"Sure," Cynder agreed, then looked up at Titan. "Is there anything we should do to make it harder on ourselves?"

"Don't take unnecessary risks," Titan told them. "But try and learn, as well. If you have a single way to win all your fights, then the moment it doesn't work you're screwed."

"Not while I'm around!" Flicker buzzed.

Spyro nodded, then dropped down into the nearest building – a large, open-topped hall.

Cynder landed next to him a moment later, taking a position half a length behind him in support, and Spyro looked at the two armed Gnorcs that ran up to menace them.

They had metal capes… which meant Spyro was going to be able to test something.

He inhaled, then spat out a jet of lightning at the left Gnorc. The Gnorc yelped, lifted into the air, then Spyro flicked his head across sharply and the left Gnorc crashed into the right one.

"Go!" he said, and Cynder charged forwards. She hit both Gnorcs with a blast of wind magic, blowing their enchanted metal capes so they streamed away from their wearers, then swiped at one of the Gnorcs. It stumbled backwards, and Cynder flicked her tail with a coating of sharp, cutting wind at the other Gnorc.

It managed to parry her attack with a sword swipe, producing a jarring clang as her metal tail blade collided with the metal sword, and Cynder glanced back. "Spyro!"

"Here!" Spyro replied, charging in low while the Gnorc's sword was busy. It went from pleased to scared as it realized what was going on, and Spyro's head butt lifted it into the air just before Cynder's wind breath blew it off the cliff.

The other Gnorc was still getting up as Flicker darted off the cliff to retrieve the gem, and Spyro electrified that Gnorc more thoroughly.

"So," Cynder said, assessing the skirmish. "That metal doesn't protect them from your lightning breath."

"I think it helped a bit," Spyro replied, thinking. "It soaks up a bit of the energy, that is… but lightning definitely works better than fire."

There weren't any other surprises as Spyro, Cynder and Flicker worked their way through Cliff Town.

Having Titan hovering overhead to help out was... comforting, but the big Peace Keeper wasn't actually needed at any point, as the two younger dragons battled across town and then up the cliffside collection of homes. Not routine, never routine, because - as the steady Terrador had told them more than once, a routine was simply the point at which you both stopped thinking about fighting and became predictable - but with two dragons and the safety net that Flicker provided, they didn't have anything to be properly worried about.

There was an egg thief here in Cliff Town as well, but their cunning plan of running away from Spyro turned out to work particularly poorly when there were two dragons able to split themselves up, and after another egg had been rescued - the fourth, so far - they finished with that side of the river and crossed to the open training field on the far side.

"Vultures," Cynder said, as she landed. "Huh. What do you think, Spyro?"

"I guess they could just be here for unrelated reasons," Spyro replied, considering. "So far we've seen gnorcs, dogs... those really nasty sheep back in Stone Hill and High Gallery..."

"And then there's the lizards," Cynder mused, looking back over the river to Cliff Town itself. "These could just be more wildlife like those, and if they are they'll run away."

She paced forwards, and one of the vultures took off to swoop down on her.

"What do you think?" she asked, dodging out of the way. "Is this normal wild animal behaviour?"

"Not that I'm used to," Spyro replied, then flamed it as it banked around to attack his girlfriend again.

There was a flash, and a gemstone clattered to the ground.

"I'm on it!" Flicker buzzed, collecting it, and a moment later Titan landed next to them.

"I don't think we ever actually discussed it before," he said. "Is there a reason your dragonfly's collecting all the treasure?"

"It's in case Gnasty tries turning it into more soldiers, sir," Cynder explained. "For now it's all going in our house in Town Square, so if he tries turning the gems into soldiers they'll all be packed into a tiny space and explode straight away."

Titan nodded. "Good thinking. Though I hope you're keeping track of how much there is... the amount of treasure in each world was sorted out a long time ago by a lot of arguments."

"I'm doing that!" Flicker said proudly. "Dragonflies have to be great at maths!"

There were more vultures prowling the training field, but they didn't cause much trouble either, and after reaching the very peak of Cliff Town and freeing Marco Spyro was ready to head back to the Peace Keeper home.

Flicker, however, made a buzzing noise.

"So, uh... this place has a whole hundred amount of treasure, right?" he asked.

"Of course!" Marco agreed. "Or it should, and I didn't see any of it leave."

Flicker winced. "Because we're about thirty-three short."

"We are?" Spyro asked. "Really?"

He looked around, for the glitter of gems or the shape of treasure chests. "Where?"

Cynder took off, circling, and he did the same.

"I know we broke into the metal strongbox with that rocket," Spyro said, thinking. "We got all the Gnorcs and other soldiers..."

"Did you flame all those pots?" Cynder checked.

"Yeah, I think so," Spyro replied. "Maybe those big Gnorcs were trying to hide the gems in there, but I think we got them all out... we should check, I guess."

While a good guess, however, that didn't pan out. Nor did checking the inside of the hall where they'd started, nor even did a long trip down to the bottom of the cliffs, down past a cloud layer to the ground below.

When the two young dragons returned to Cliff Town itself, though, Titan was chuckling.

"Found them," he explained, and pointed. "They were behind the hall."

Halvor looked embarrassed. "It was a good hiding place," he defended himself. "Even hid them from myself, heh..."

After Cliff Town came Dry Canyon, which was a place built into the walls of a narrow, twisting canyon. A few pools were dotted around, but there were more cacti than pools, and the cries of more attack vultures filled the air as Spyro and Cynder swooped down to a landing.

Titan landed behind them, though, rather than staying overhead.

"Is something wrong?" Spyro asked, glancing around. "I thought you were going to fly overhead."

"I was," Titan agreed. "But I might need to be closer. See those Gnorcs over there?"

He pointed, and both younger dragons followed his finger.

"The ones with the shields?" Spyro checked, to make sure. "And something else…"

"Yes," Titan confirmed. "I'm not quite sure what those weapons are, Spyro, Cynder – but I do know you should be very careful. We don't know what they can do, and that's a bad situation to be in."

Cynder snorted.

"This is serious," Titan chided.

"No, no," Cynder replied. "I believe you, I just… I remembered something that happened. Before. Back before we ended up here, I mean."

"Which one?" Spyro asked. "Or was it-"

"It's a happy memory," Cynder assured him. "Or… it is now, anyway."

She flicked her tail. "I remember thinking, 'he's tiny, how can he possibly be beating me'. Then you exploded in blue light, beat me up in ways I didn't even know existed, and freed me."

Cynder twined her tail around Spyro's for a moment. "It hurt, but… it's a happy memory, Spyro. You freed me, and then you saved me even though I was your enemy."

"You weren't my enemy," Spyro told her. "You never were – you were a victim of Malefor's."

The black dragoness closed her eyes, bowing her head, and Spyro touched his forehead to hers.

Titan gave them a moment, then got their attention with a cough.

"As I was saying," he said. "We don't know what that weapon can do, so you'll probably need Flicker's help… but that shield of theirs can only point in one direction. They'll be vulnerable to the two of you working together."

"Right," Spyro said, all business now. "Any other advice?"

Titan considered.

"Not yet," he said. "I can't tell enough about how it works. Sorry, Spyro."

Spyro shrugged. "If you don't know, you don't know, Titan. We're grateful for your help."

Both young dragons approached the first pair of Gnorcs at an easy lope, wings half-unfurled and ready to move in any direction, and the closer Gnorc raised its weapon.

It went bang, and a ball of metal went flying out towards Cynder. She yelped, ducking and feeling the ball whip past her just above her tail, then Spyro charged in and knocked the Gnorc into the air with a headbutt.

Leaping into the air, he slammed the Gnorc twice with his paws. Then did a forwards flip and tailstrike, knocking the Gnorc back to the ground where he bathed it in flame and made it burst into a gemstone, but as he finished the second Gnorc fired at him.

Cynder exhaled a jet of wind to try and knock him backwards, but it was too little and too late. The metal ball hit Spyro, and Flicker blocked it with a flash of light but was unable to prevent the hit from knocking Spyro sprawling.

His girlfriend charged past him, wind curling off her wings, then flicked her tail across to launch a wind blade. The Gnorc raised its shield to block the attack, resulting in a whung of impact – but Cynder had spotted the downside of that, which was that it had raised its shield too high.

It couldn't see her.

She turned, tail lashing out to hook the lower edge of the shield, then snatched it away with a sudden yank and exhaled a blast of wind to knock the Gnorc into one of the nearby cacti.

Spyro set both it and the cactus on fire, and when the Gnorc exploded Cynder slowly relaxed.

"What was that?" she asked.

"A cannon, right?" Flicker asked. "A small one, but – yeah, it's got to be a cannon."

"That would make sense," Spyro admitted. "We'll have to feed you a lot today, Flicker."

"I'm not so sure," Titan told them, coming over with a rabbit, then flaming it to release a butterfly that Cynder's dragonfly companion gratefully ate. "I was watching, and I think you're going to be able to dodge those weapons… as long as you're paying attention."

"Right," Spyro realized, shaking his head. "I was doing my normal air kata, but that meant I was in one place – and I wasn't looking."

He sighed. "Sorry, everyone."

"This is why facing new weapons is a problem, even for an experienced Peace Keeper, Spyro," Titan said. "We try our best to train so you know how to react to everything, but we can't train against things we don't know about… the best we can do is teach you how to improvise."

He gave them a curt nod. "And you're doing well. Don't worry."

Now that they had more information about how to deal with the weapons, Spyro and Cynder moved out working as a tag-team.

The armed Gnorcs seemed to come in pairs or even trios as much as individuals, but the two of them together were able to focus on one without ignoring the shots fired by the others. Cynder used her wind breath to batter at the shield of a Gnorc, only for Spyro to charge down on it and knock the shield into the Gnorc and both of them into the floor, or Spyro used a jet of flame breath to force the Gnorc to shield and Cynder used a wind-blade swipe from the side to hit the Gnorc while it couldn't block her attack.

Or Spyro just used a Fire Bomb and blew the Gnorc into the air, though after he did that once the next one grounded their shield so the blast wouldn't be quite so effective.

There were attack vultures, as well, and the first time they encountered them they also encountered a new kind of enemy with an attack neither of them had really considered before.

"...um," Spyro began. "Cynder, are… are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"I think so," Cynder replied, frowning. "I hope so, or otherwise I'm going crazy."

She pointed, past the wooden posts, then ducked down and swiped a wind blade across to knock an attack vulture out of the sky.

"Because that," she continued, without missing a beat, "is a large Gnorc holding an attack vulture by the legs."

"It doesn't make sense," Spyro said, frowning. "Which is why I'm worried, because there must be a reason it's doing that."

He glanced at Cynder. "Still, I'm not very worried. Not when we're together, love"

Cynder smiled back, then shook her head slightly and got ready for battle.

"I think… two wings apart," she said.

Spyro nodded, and spread his wings as a measure. Cynder did as well, and the two dragons moved apart so their wingtips were only just touching.

Then they advanced.

The big Gnorc raised his vulture, and began swinging it around his head. The unconventional weapon began making squawking sounds, and Spyro stopped for a moment to stare.

"Roll!" Cynder said, urgently, and Spyro rolled to the side. Cynder's warning came just in time, as the big Gnorc brought the attack vulture down like a massive club that made a crater in the ground where Spyro had been a moment before.

Cynder lashed out, swiping with wings and tail enhanced with cutting blades of wind, then jumped back with another surge of wind around her wings as the Gnorc tried hitting her instead. By then Spyro had recovered from his roll, and spat flame, and the Gnorc roared in protest before kicking out at him.

The foot whipped just past Spyro's muzzle as he backwinged, then he switched elements on the fly from fire to lightning. Jumping into the air, he hovered there as he fired out a jet of lightning, and it latched magnetically on to the much-abused attack vulture their opponent was using as a weapon.

"Now!" Spyro called, doing his level best to hold on to the lightning breath as he did so, and Cynder took Spyro's meaning. She charged in again, launching into a full kata which knocked the Gnorc reeling, then used an uppercut headbutt to knock it into the air and used a jet of wind to blow it off the cliff.

"Nice, but I'm going to have to get that!" Flicker complained, zipping off the cliff after the Gnorc and their gemstone.

"We need a better system for them," Spyro admitted. "I know we didn't get hurt, and we know what we're expecting now, but…"

"I know what you mean," Cynder said. "Using the lightning breath was clever, but my wind element just isn't destructive enough to quickly defeat those big, tough enemies."

"Cynder, I-" Spyro began, and Cynder shook her head.

"It's not a bad thing," she said. "My other elements are a bit more dangerous… but I don't mind being a wind dragon."

She nuzzled him. "And even if it was a bad thing, it's not your fault. Don't feel bad about something you didn't do."

"Cynder," Spyro said, more firmly. "It shouldn't be like that. And if that's the rule, it should be – don't feel bad about something that's not your choice."

He thumped a paw on the ground. "You shouldn't feel guilty about what you did before, and the way you said it… it was like part of you was trying to be guilty again."

Cynder looked away.

"Maybe," she said. "I didn't notice it myself, I was trying to help you feel better, but… you might be right."

She managed a smile. "Maybe, next time, you hold the vulture in place, and I take it away? Then you can focus on flaming the big guy."

Spyro nodded, then Flicker flew back up.

"I got the gem!" he announced.

Dry Canyon's last major challenge was an egg thief – though they proved no better at dealing with a pincer movement coming from two directions than any of the others – and then the main thing Spyro and Cynder had to deal with was comments from two of the dragons they released.

Ivor said brightly that they'd always expected great things from Flame, patting Spyro on the head, and that left Spyro vaguely worried about both the old Peace Keeper's eyesight and the safety of him carrying around a very large bomb as his weapon of choice.

Maximos, meanwhile, regaled them with several minutes of attack vulture cooking recipes.

From there, though, it was back to the portal nexus and then on towards Ice Cavern.

"This is a bit of an odd place out," Spyro said, trimming his wings and dropping towards one end of the cavern. "Isn't it?"

"The rest of the Peace Keeper worlds are hot deserts," Cynder agreed, but her tone was more musing than anything. "I know it's not like Dante's Freezer, but you remember what Flame told us about the Magic Crafter worlds? And the Dream Weavers?"

"I guess that's true," Spyro conceded. "If there's enough magic involved, you can change things around. I guess I'm just not sure why it's an icy cavern."

He flared his wings, hovering, then pushed upwards again.

"Titan?" he began. "Why is this an icy cavern?"

Titan chuckled.

"It's about training, again," he said, as Cynder came up to listen to the answer as well. "You might already know this, but a dragon can be as good as they want at fighting on solid ground and still make mistakes on uneven ground. The ice here is meant to teach that lesson, so watch your footing."

"Right," Spyro said, glancing down at his claws. "I think I'll be okay… Cynder?"

"I'll be fine," Cynder confirmed. "Just watch your fire breath, Spyro, you don't want to melt something in the wrong place."

Spyro had half-wondered whether simply being in the icy landscape would reawaken his ice breath, but it didn't happen.

Instead, the two dragons ducked under high-speed snowballs and tag-teamed both normal and large Gnorcs, freeing Ulric and Todor, and their second rescuee winked before adjusting his helmet.

"Watch out," he said. "I saw some big Gnorcs wearing armour up ahead."

"Armour," Spyro repeated. "That's a problem."

"Todor doesn't seem to think so," Cynder pointed out. "Are you going to help us?"

"I will if you want," Todor replied, checking on the tension in the string of a bow as tall as he was. "But in a cave like this, armour makes your feet very slippery."

Spyro looked down at his claws again, then Cynder made an oh sound.

"I get it," she said. "Come on, Spyro, let's get them!"

"Wait up, Cynder!" Spyro called, claws skittering slightly as he got a grip, but he wasn't upset at all.

Seeing Cynder like this was amazing. It was seeing the dragon he loved, confident and happy in all the right ways. Like their peaceful times, but different, and like her time at war, but better.

Driving out the old memories with new ones.

Then he heard a yelp, and when he arrived Spyro saw that Cynder had tried using her wind breath to blow an armoured Gnorc off the slippery ice path.

Instead, the recoil from the wind gust had overcome Cynder's own footing, and she'd gone sliding backwards to fall off the path herself. She hadn't quite dropped into the mist below, but only her foreclaws and wings and a hastily-wedged tail combined had managed to stop her.

Spyro couldn't help it, and started laughing.

"Oh, shut up," Cynder grumbled, then tensed and pulled herself back up onto the ice path. Her tail whined for a moment with concentrated wind, then she braced herself and fired a slug of compressed air at the armoured Gnorc.

That did it, knocking the Gnorc into the mists below with a plaintive grunt, and Cynder exhaled.

"That's a new trick, right?" Spyro asked. "I don't remember seeing that before."

Cynder nodded her agreement.

"Well, now we know what to do," Spyro added. "Who first on the next bit?"

"You go," Cynder decided. "I've got to let my pride recover…"

"Flame can't fly, right?" Cynder asked. "I just thought – this set of platforms here might be to help young dragons learn how far they can jump."

Spyro had been springing from platform to platform, collecting up the gems, but paused.

"Maybe?" he said, thinking. "I don't think Flame and Ember can fly, no… they can glide, but it takes the enchantment in a Flight portal to let them fly. You're right."

"Always a good sign," Cynder smirked. "But it's funny to think about, really… not being able to fly, that is."

"It's something that I found easier over time," Spyro said. "It's… a knack, I think?"

He took off, hovering in the air. "At first I had to focus, then… I don't know. Maybe the times the Chronicler taught me helped me get more used to it, or maybe it's something to do with when I froze us in time."

Cynder nodded.

"It's always been easy, for me," she replied. "I think that's a wind dragon thing."

"Probably," Spyro agreed. "Or maybe it's just something you're good at, love."

That won him a smile, then Spyro collected the last gem on the platforms and they moved into the final part of the Ice Cavern.

With another area behind them, Spyro and Cynder moved on to the final part of the Peace Keepers world – the mountaintop area called Mesa Grotto.

"You'll have to be careful, Spyro, Cynder," Titan warned them. "Gnasty put one of his henchmen in charge of the Peace Keepers lands, and he's made Mesa Grotto his home. He calls himself Doctor Shemp."

Spyro frowned, looking around before asking the question that came to mind, and saw that Gunnar and Magnus had both been frozen within line of sight of the portal.

That was probably how they'd found that out.

"The only dragon unaccounted for is Trondo," Gunnar told them. "So watch out for him when you get to Mesa Grotto… but apart from that, good luck."

"Got it," Spyro said, and Cynder gave a confident nod.

"We're on it, sir!" Flicker agreed.

The three of them jumped through the portal, followed by Titan, and the big Peace Keeper split off to stay in his overwatch position while both younger dragons drifted down to the ground.

"Those big Gnorcs look familiar," Spyro said, taking a few steps forwards. "And there's an armoured one, next to-"

The big Gnorc slapped the armoured one, and it gave a blood-curdling shout before charging directly towards Spyro – yelling like a demon all the while.

"Look out!" Cynder called, and Spyro yelped before shooting out a Fire Bomb at the armoured Gnorc. It detonated, splashing off the armour plates the Gnorc wore on its chest and head, and hit Spyro head-on.

Flicker buzzed, absorbing the hit and turning blue, and Spyro ducked under a wild swipe from the staff his opponent was carrying.

Cynder's tail whipped out, intercepting the second staff blow before it could collide with Spyro, and took off in a whirr of wings. It took her only a moment to get high enough, holding the staff tight so the Gnorc couldn't use it to attack Spyro, and the respite let Spyro get a handle on things again.

He headbutted the Gnorc, knocking it into the air, then landed two powerful blows in succession that knocked the Gnorc reeling. He had to pause, then, glancing over to see if any of the other Gnorcs were aiming at them, but confirmed that they weren't as Cynder disentangled her tail.

Spyro had enough time before the Gnorc landed to deliver a final blow – a straight-forwards charge engulfed in flame that knocked the Gnorc off the cliff.

"Stay there, okay?" Flicker asked, then darted down to collect the gem.

"Are you okay?" Cynder checked.

"Yeah, I think so," Spyro agreed. "Flicker protected me again… I should really avoid making a habit of being saved like that."

"I'd prefer it to the alternative," Cynder pointed out, and Spyro nodded.

Flicker came back up.

"Got the gem!" he reported. "But I hope you've got a plan."

"I'm thinking," Spyro admitted. "Cynder, if you think of something, let me know, but… it looks like the Gnorcs here have taken hints from this being the Peace Keepers world, right?"

Cynder paused, then nodded.

"Yes," she agreed. "Yes – they've all had weapons, you're right. I didn't notice. Even if the weapons were ladles… or vultures."

"But I think I just noticed something they missed," Spyro went on, and advanced.

The big Gnorc that had sent the armoured one at them was an easy enough target, going down to a jet of flame and a flurry of blows, but not far ahead was a second big Gnorc with an armoured assistant.

"Spyro, are you sure about this?" Cynder asked, torn between concern and curiosity.

"Not really," Spyro admitted, walking a bit to the right – towards the cliff – then the big Gnorc slapped the armoured one to send it forwards.

Spyro waited as the big Gnorc got closer, then skipped to the side.

Cynder watched in amazement as the armoured one ran straight ahead, right over the edge of the cliff.

"How did that work?" she asked.

"I said they missed something," Spyro replied. "Eye holes."

Now that Spyro had spotted the trick, the rest of the armoured Gnorcs only took a few minutes to handle all-told.

It actually took longer for Flicker to gather up the gems that had fallen off the cliff, and before long they were into the hidden garden at the heart of Mesa Grotto.

"Wow," Cynder said, quietly, staring at Doctor Shemp. "I know some of my minions before looked weird, but… that Gnorc looks weird."

Spyro was too busy giggling to reprove Cynder for bringing up her evil past, and he wasn't even sure if he should criticize her for it, but he had to admit she was right.

The big orange Gnorc was holding a staff festooned with skulls and masks, with a glowing magical aura around it, and had a thick plate of armour strapped to his front.

And that seemed to be all he was wearing.

Spyro reached up to touch the crystal that held Trondo in place, and it dissolved in a whirl of green and blue light.

"Thanks, Spyro!" Trondo said, exhaling. "This guy's been bragging about himself for hours! But if you ask me…"

He leaned down, to whisper. "He should watch his back."

Spyro and Cynder exchanged glances, then looked unimpressed.

"What do you mean?" Cynder asked. "Is that meant to help, or not?"

Trondo frowned. "Uh."

He glanced up at the three pedestals arranged in Mesa Grotto. "You know, I usually do subtle hints…"

"This isn't the time for that right now," Spyro asserted. "We need to beat this Gnorc, that's what matters."

"I guess, yeah," Trondo said, sounding disappointed. "Well, uh… his armour doesn't cover his back at all."

"There we go, see?" Cynder asked. "That's better."

She glanced up at Spyro. "How do we handle this, Spyro?"

"We don't know what kind of magic he can do," Spyro replied. "I guess he's not doing anything to us at the moment…"

He frowned, thinking, then lowered his voice. "We need to make sure one of us can attack him from behind, where his armour isn't. So we'll need to split up. He's on that pedestal… maybe we can attack from different sides."

"Right," Cynder agreed. "So maybe…"

A minute later, Cynder crouched just next to Doctor Shemp's pedestal.

Spyro circled overhead, then fired a Flame Bomb, and Cynder jumped up in the same moment. The bomb exploded as Doctor Shemp knocked it out of the air with his staff, and Cynder flicked out with her tail coated in an air-blade.

It slashed across Doctor Shemp's undefended backside, then he whirled around and bashed her with the staff. The impact made her see stars, despite Flicker taking most of the force of the blow and turning green, and she staggered back a step before flaring her wings to recover.

Doctor Shemp raised his staff again, pointing at her flamboyantly, then Spyro was there. He used a mid-air flame charge to jet straight down and cannon into Doctor Shemp's back, knocking the big Gnorc sprawling forwards as Cynder rolled out of the way, and her claws dug into the ground as she braked out of her roll and lashed out with another attack.

Spyro came down to land as well, but Doctor Shemp shoved himself upright again, then ran off towards the next-highest pedestal.

"I've got this!" Cynder said, wind coiling around her wings, and she charged after the fleeing Gnorc.

"Wait up, Cynder!" Spyro called, concerned, and followed her, but Cynder got there first. Doctor Shemp whirled, swiping his staff around in a low sweep aimed to knock her sideways, and Cynder managed to get just enough warning to hop over the staff rather than being knocked into the water below.

She exhaled a jet of wind at Doctor Shemp, hovering in the air, then he flipped his grip on his staff and brought it whipping down to hit her.

This time, Cynder was ready, and she wrapped herself in a whirlwind. The impact as the staff hit her was still stunning, making Flicker's glow cut out entirely, but she caught the staff-head and her wind lent her strength – holding her in place, countering Doctor Shemp's strength, and stopping him from using the staff to attack Spyro.

"Get him, Spyro!" she called, strain in her voice, and Spyro whipped past before doing a wingover and blasting Doctor Shemp with three fireballs.

The big Gnorc wailed, yanking the staff out of Cynder's grip with desperate strength, and Spyro circled her as she dropped to the ground.

"Are you okay-?" he tried to ask, but Cynder pointed.

"The bridge!" she said.

Spyro did a double-take, then surged forwards.

Doctor Shemp had run away again, sprinting across a log bridge to the third pedestal, but Spyro reacted to Cynder's warning in time – he set the bridge on fire, then hit it with a fire bomb, destroying it and dropping Doctor Shemp into the water with a spa-loosh.

The armour on his chest proved to be his downfall, and he was dragged under in moments.

"I was so worried," Spyro said, alighting next to Cynder. "Are you okay?"

"I've been better," Cynder replied, shaking her head a bit. "But I'm okay, Spyro – really. I just…"

She tossed her head. "Maybe that wasn't a good idea, but it made sense then, and I thought – if we could get his staff away from him, it would work. Then he began to run away and I realized the bridge could…"

Spyro twined his tail around hers.

"That was brave, Cynder," he said. "But… please, don't do something like that again. Unless you warn me first. It was so scary…"

He pressed his muzzle against hers, then his forehead against hers, and closed his eyes. "I think I'm more worried to see you hurt than I am when I get hurt… and I know you're tough, but I keep thinking of Ignitus…"

Cynder's wings wrapped around him.

"I'm sorry, Spyro," she said.

"No, I don't… I don't know what to say," Spyro admitted. "I… you're amazing, Cynder, and you shouldn't apologize for that, I'm just afraid to lose you and sometimes…"

He shook his head. "I love you, so much…"

Twenty minutes later, back at the Peace Keepers portal nexus, Titan ran down how well they'd done.

Spyro and Cynder had been expecting… neither of them really knew what they'd been expecting.

It was all too easy to think about the mistakes they'd both made. But it was all too easy to remember how much of their lives had been war, before.

"...it's something to watch out for," Titan said, firmly. "If you feel you have to accept a hit, make it so it's not the last hit your dragonfly has – if you can."

"I get it," Spyro realized, after a moment. "Flicker can protect us from things going wrong, but he can only do that if he's still got charge."

"Exactly," Titan said. "I know you're both tough dragons, but I'd rather that Flicker was keeping you safe rather than you end up with injuries that might take days to heal."

Cynder grimaced.

"I keep forgetting you don't have red crystals here," she admitted. "I keep seeing red gems and thinking they're healing me, it's… hard to keep that in mind."

"We'll do better," Spyro promised. "What else should we know?"

Titan smiled slightly.

"It's very important," he told Spyro, and pointed to the Night Flight portal. "Go and have some fun."

"...what?" Spyro asked, looking around. "But we should get moving to the Magic Crafters!"

"Spyro," Titan replied, sounding firm. "I was not joking when I said it was very important. You will do the Magic Crafters no good at all if you turn up there exhausted."

He folded his arms. "I see no reason why you can't do this yourselves, though you can always ask for help. But if you try to do everything all in one go, you will make mistakes and you will get hurt – even if you succeed."

Spyro took a deep breath, then let it out with a sigh.

"He's right," Cynder said. "The crystal is protecting the frozen dragons as well as trapping them. We can wait until tomorrow morning to fly to the Magic Crafters."

"You're right," Spyro agreed. "I… thank you, Cynder. Titan. I hadn't thought of it like that."

"Relax," Titan said, making it an order. "Get advice from the others if you feel it would help, but more than anything – make sure you relax and get rested. It's the best thing you can do right now."

For a wonder, it actually worked.

Cynder set a new record on Night Flight, weaving in and out of lighthouses and staying just a fraction of a second ahead of Spyro's time no matter how hard he worked. They skated around Ice Cavern, went fishing in the portal nexus, crashed into one another after turning the wrong corner in Dry canyon and ended up in a laughing heap.

Went skydiving over the cliff at Cliff Town.

Shared a meal back at the top of the cliff, as the sun went down.

"Titan's right," Spyro said, stretching out his wings. "This is… it's important to remember that this is why we're fighting. It's not really to beat Gnasty Gnorc, it's to make sure there can be peace."

"Peace," Cynder agreed, then cuddled into his side. "You're right."

They didn't say anything more. They didn't have to.