Hedron nap time

Sorin thrust his sword into the air and shouted an ancient word of unmaking. The hedron shard crumbled to dust, and the cocoon began to crack. Stone surfaces broke and slid, and the structure fell in on itself.

Ugin exploded from the hedron cocoon, rocketing into the air. The whoosh of air blew Sorin's hair back as Ugin shot upward in a flurry of wings. Soon, Ugin was only a bright speck against the sky, trailing spirals of shimmering mist through the air, tracing a jubilant path. The air crackled around him. Sorin noted that the clouds seemed to roll and curl in concert with Ugin's flight, as if the dragon obeyed the clouds' laws—or the clouds obeyed his.

Sorin sheathed his sword, watching the dragon bank with a billow of his wings. Ugin finally seemed to realize that a force had set him free, and became aware of Sorin back at the lip of the chasm.

Ugin returned, hovering in the air above the broken ruins of the hedron cocoon. The dragon's voice rumbled. "Sorin?"

"Indeed," Sorin said. "What happened here? You were trapped?"

A faraway look came over the dragon's face. Ugin blew a gust of mist from his nostrils in a moment of contemplation. "Saved, I believe," said Ugin.

***

"He thought me his rival for power, and attacked me. Used my own dragons against me. But someone intervened on my behalf." The dragon examined the hedron ruins below him, and inspected the landscape again. Dragons wheeled in the sky, spitting bright flashes of fire. "It seems I took some time to recuperate. How long?"

"Over a thousand years, if the locals are to be believed." Sorin took a note of pleasure in dispensing knowledge to the aeons-old dragon. "I had almost forgotten the look of your face."

***

SORIN'S RESTORATION