As her mother flew bravely on, trying to protect her baby as best she could, little baby Mavis was bombarded by the howls of despair and screams of death being wrung from the throats of so many innocent creatures. She didn’t understand what was happening and was becoming increasingly scared, squealing her protests to her embattled mother.
“Try and control your telepathic volume, my dearest. We will soon be home and I will get us safe, hidden within the deepest parts of our volcano cellars,” Queen Anivad telepathed to her frightened daughter.
Roger directly felt how absolutely terrified and confused the small baby Mavis was.
He could also see that the evil army of the night, the mind-controlled Fire-worm hordes, were still falling from the Cavern’s ceiling like a relentlessly raging rainstorm of pure hate intent on only death and destruction, as they came hailing down in their thousands to join the fearsome fray.
As Anivad desperately flew through the dark smoke-wreaked skies, so full of embattled core creatures, all shrieking and screaming their war-cries of hate, she twisted and turned while also shooting torrents of Dragon flame at any enemy that came near her. Repeatedly, she dodged and avoided near-fatal collisions with the myriads of mad mindless marauders.
“As you know, my Skyling Children,” Elder Mavis interjected, “all True Dragons are well versed in the skills of telepathy; however, here, I am very young, so I will now use the point of view and the direct experience of my desperate mother to relay to you the full horror of this terrible day.”
“Oh, is that you down there, I can see beneath us now?” asked Mary. “That tiny, baby Dragon, who’s just barely clutching hold of Queen Anivad… I mean… your mother? Oh, Mavis, that must have been terrifying for you!”
“Yes, child, it was. But now I will show you my first meeting with a Fire-Worm Lord,” Mavis answered her somberly.
The baby Mavis hung on for dear life, as her mother swept and swooped through the sky, weaving and wending her way onwards, still avoiding incoming attacks from all directions. All she could do was cling tightly to her mother’s stomach as she desperately dived and dodged her way towards their Cone-Home, looming ever nearer.
Then, a few moments later, just as they were about to land on one of their Home-Cone’s balconies, her mother was suddenly and without warning, hit from high above, by yet another onslaught of dive-bombing Fire-worm creatures, that Queen Anivad hadn’t seen in time.
These were spider-worm minions and had come, as if from nowhere, falling from the murky sky on sticky, red strings, like a deadly battalion of stinging, six-legged paratroopers. They fell and cascaded all around her, like a barrage of fiery, red-hot hailstones; Each, by itself, unable to inflict any real damage to a full-grown Dragon, but together, they definitely could. Just by sheer numbers, they could overwhelm her, and especially while she was desperately trying to protect her defenseless child and fight her enemies at the same time.
The children gaped in despair as they watched and understood how Mavis felt, realizing how it was not for herself that her mother Queen Anivad most feared, but for the life of her child. Even as a babe, Mavis had understood, that just by her presence alone, she had been unwittingly endangering her mother’s life; And she felt deeply and dismally guilty about it.
“Oh Mavis, this is terrible,” Mary gasped, “but it really isn’t your fault, you know!”
Baby Mavis felt her mother’s huge wide wings desperately beating the air and her strong, sinewy body stretching, with every muscle straining to its uttermost limits, as in her heroic acrobatics, she battled on to get them both to safety. But there was nothing baby Mavis could do. She felt terrified and useless and small.
More than anything else, despite being but a defenseless hatchling, she wanted to do something to help her mother. She innately sensed great harm was being caused by these demonic spider-worms, and to her Cavern-Home World too. She was just a weak, unskilled Dragon Baby, who could barely fly, but her heart was of the illustrious and noble line of Sivad, and she would have given her own small life to help save her courageous mother.
It was now impossible for any True Dragons to see very far in the smoky, deep gloom of the Cavern at all. And Queen Anivad was having to rely on her sixth and her seventh senses. And all that baby Mavis could see and feel was the teeming Spider-worm-Army falling on them like a relentless swarm of stinging hornets.
Her mother continued blasting great gouts of deadly, red dragon flame at the worms, incinerating many of the mindless Minions. But, alas, this was too few of the deadly creatures. The Core Worm Lords had been breeding their Minion armies for many centuries and had a seemingly endless supply of such slaves.
The truth was there were just too many of them for one lone Dragon to vanquish all alone, and little by little, they were sapping the Dragon Queen’s strength, and what was even worse, they had damaged her beautiful wings too, so now she could no longer properly fly.
Mavis softly spoke into the children’s minds, as they shared her mother’s ancient memory. “You must know and feel this as I have known and felt it, children; your oath will then be as an eternal bond of immortal Dragon-blood between us!”
The Queen couldn’t get a firm hold upon the Home-Cone’s ledge on which she desperately landed with a skidding jolt. She scrabbled at the rock, desperately trying to get a proper purchase on it, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t regain her balance. The spider-worm horde thronged gleefully about her and now pushed her backwards, step by step, until finally, she stumbled and fell, hurtling out of control, down to the fuming ground below.
Queen Anivad controlled her perilous fall as best she could, crashing in a tangle of wings, crushing many Minions under her, but clutching her child, the baby Mavis to her scaly breast.
She called out, trumpeting as long and as loud as she could, and mind-calling as well. Desperately needing her husband, Mavis’s beloved Father, Divad Sivad, the long-ruling King of the True Dragons. Anivad knew, only he had the strength and power that could save them. But alas, he was too far away, and unknown to her, was furiously fighting for his own life.
The Spider-worms, and the scuttling scourge of the Core-World, some nearby Giant Centipedes, charged at her as one, all realizing she was weak and exposed, and being well informed of the importance of her as a prize to the Core Lords. They fell onto her, as one biting, stinging and spitting mass of hate; As one huge, hungry horde, of all-consuming evil.
Roger and Mary felt and saw, through baby Mavis’s horror-filled eyes, the sudden flashes of red hot flame, illuminating the vicious attack upon her fallen mother. The courageous Queen did all she could to keep the foul and putrid Core vermin away from her youngest Dragon child.
But the baby Mavis still felt every drop of the splattering, golden-hot Dragon blood, and the viscous worm-venoms, hitting and hissing upon her mother’s bruised and bloodied flanks.
Queen Anivad flamed and flared; Twisted and turned; Desperately trying to fight off the seething sea of Worm-Vermin, now scurrying all over her body. And at the same time, still trying to protect her precious dragon child from their frenzied, evil onslaughts. Knowing these deadly creatures would make short work of such a defenseless Dragon-babe as Mavis.
Baby Mavis could hear only the echoes of dread and horror and anguish from all around her. Her once so beautiful and peaceful Cavern home had now become a seething and chaotic Hell. As she clung to her mother’s belly, she saw there were more Fire-Worm hordes pouring in for the kill, scuttling and scurrying around her Mother in ever-increasing numbers.