62 I've seen one of those in a book!

"Even without the improvements we have more than enough magic power available and I already have some upgrades planned, that should reduce the consumption even further. We will soon be able to make flying islands a reality Aaron, isn't that exciting?"

Aaron sighed, rolled his eyes and did his best not to appear as if anything was wrong.

'Myra Myra! Why would you bring this up now? We are after all in the middle of a business deal with an auction hall representative.'

Unable to just ignore her excited face Aaron did his best to appear impressed and just mumbled something about adding security in case they end up falling from the sky. He could already see the destruction caused by a 'test' island falling from a height of hundreds of meters and crashing onto the ground, leaving nothing but rocks and a huge crater.

'Yes, I will definitely have to make sure to add multiple security measures to prevent that from happening.'

Aaron did not worry about Myra being unable to make them fly … for some time at least. It was about what would happen when they came back down that sent shivers along his spine.

Right at this time Myra got some thoughts transmitted from Rae.

'Mommy, are dragons evil?' Myra was a bit surprised why her daughter would bring up dragons, but she quickly answered the girl from what she could vaguely remember. There were several books about dragon stories and some of the kids she was playing with probably brought it up.

'Don't worry darling, most dragons are rather peaceful. They are simply too big though, that's why many humans are afraid of them, but there's no need to fear them, they are fun to take on an adventure. Their constitution makes them strong enough to traverse even across the stars easily and they make awesome mounts. Even your Brightpaws would be jealous!'

The communication soon ended and Myra focused on the conversation again. They were discussing details about a branch for the auction hall and what it would require to start.

"I think we should …" Myra suddenly stopped in the middle of her sentence.

'Rae?' She waited for an answer, but didn't feel anything. Frowning, she sent out yet another call.

'Rae please answer me, are you alright?' Still nothing.

Aaron noticed that something was wrong, but he had no idea what was wrong.

"Myra are you alright? You look troubled?"

"I lost contact with Rae." She said with a voice that was bouncing somewhere between confusion and worry. "I don't think she is in danger though, it's just as if she's too far away for me to contact her this way."

Aaron turned to the manager and quickly told him that they would have to leave right away.

"The auction will take place in a few days, if you cannot make it, you are welcome to stop by any time after that to collect your profits." Manager Roris did not know what was wrong, but from the few sentences that were said it seemed like it was something important.

Myra and Aaron quickly left heading back towards the inn at their fastest speed. This time Myra pulled out all the stops. She dragged Aaron along at a speed that was way faster than what he would have achieved on its own.

'She's not holding back at all, the only thing that limits her from going even faster is me. Once again it feels as if I am just baggage.' Aaron could only sigh and do his best to get stronger.

Once they returned they already noticed the huge uproar. Their guards were flying around like hornets that were defending their nest.

"Queen Myra! King Aaron! It's good that you are back. Big trouble. A dragon kidnapped the princess!" Thur was in a tizzy still confused what had happened just a few minutes ago.

"Explain what is going on! Give us some details." Aaron commanded in his usual cold voice. The only thing holding him back from shouting at their guards was that Myra seemed to still think that Rae was alright.

Thur kneeled down, frightened by Aaron's more than unhappy mood.

"My King, there was a huge dragon in the sky, it's shadow alone covering the whole village and the lake. It seemed to have stopped above the Princess and then conversed with her in some way, before the Princess was flying up to it and they both disappeared as fast as lightning."

He waves his hands as if to explain how huge of a dragon it was and how fast it was gone but his hands simply couldn't properly express what he wanted to tell them and he quickly gave up with his motions.

"It was as fast as lightning, there was no chance even to follow it with our eyes, let alone catch it. I've immediately sent out a messenger to find you as well as scouting the area with all the guards we have here, but so far we couldn't even find a trace of that huge beast!"

"Oh…" Myra seemed to realize something that she had said not too long ago.

"Oh?" Aaron looked at Myra questioningly. "Did you forget about something important?"

"Rae asked me about dragons not too long ago." - "She did? What a coincidence. What did you tell her?"

Aaron had a scolding look this time. It was one thing if Myra made things explode and ruined buildings, but causing danger for their daughter, well he was not very happy about it.

"I told her they are very peaceful creatures and make good mounts." Myra sheepishly said stepping from one foot to the other.

"What else did you tell her? I doubt Rae would just leave with a dragon even if they are nice right?"

"I might have told her something like that they are fun to take on an adventure."

Aaron sighed again. "Now Rae is sitting on a dragon and going on an adventure and she is out of range for you to contact her. How far away would that actually be?" He was nearly afraid to ask, but he couldn't avoid it.

"Probably at least no longer on Gaia. Don't worry though, I'm sure the dragon will bring her back soon. I hope it will at least. Let's think of a way to track them."

"Yes, please do that. I would not be very happy if that dragon turns out to be the evil one among a lot of friendly dragon siblings." Once again Aaron ended up with his face in his palms, not believing what happened to his normal life.

'It's my fault too! I should have put more importance on telling Rae not to just leave with strangers, including strange dragons!'

Aaron started to run circles in the area while Myra did her best to create a formation to track their lost kid. Her usually happy or relaxed face looked as worried as Aaron's.

"I think this should work. It might be a little bit uncomfortable though following them. I'm not used to taking along someone else with me."

Aaron just shrugged and stepped next to her without even thinking about it. "Doesn't matter, I've had worse. I'd rather be there when we find her rather than having to wait her and going mad worrying."

"Alright. I'm sorry." Myra did not know what to say, but Aaron's hand on her shoulder gave her a little bit of comfort. "Don't worry, we have to tell her not to just leave without letting us know first, I'm sure she's fine."

Using her spirit form to travel through the stars was easy enough for Myra, but taking along not just her own body, but also Aaron's was harder than she had expected. Myra resisted the pain and exhaustion that her spirit suffered and quickly followed the trail that was left by Rae's pendant.

If it were not for the fact that the pendant included a part of her soul, tracking them would be next to impossible even for her, but as she just had to find the 'other' part of her soul, she still managed to do it.

Aaron meanwhile had no idea how far they were flying or travelling. He had never been in space, had never even heard stories what it was like, but he would not have expected it to be this … empty?

Compared to flying through the sky it was very different and with the slight feeling of dizziness that did not want to go away the journey was indeed rather uncomfortable.

'Have we spent too much time on the kingdom instead of teaching Rae?'

Many questions plagued Aaron and Myra would have probably asked herself similar questions if it did not take all of her concentration just to follow the trail.

--

In another part of the universe a dragon was gliding through the void between the stars. The dragon was several thousand years old, yet in the eyes of its kind it was still young.

On its back was an even younger human child, a girl not much older than five. Many would expect the child to be scared, but she was rather impressed by the strange looks that she experienced.

Travelling between the stars was unlike anything her books had told her about.

"Big dragon where are we?" the childlike voice asked, for the first time realizing that there was no easy way back to the inn. Everything was a little odd, even her body felt strangely squished, her voice was more like a thought and felt strangely out of place as well.

'We are in a place between the stars that is called Virgo on my home planet and we are heading for a galaxy that they named Milky Way.' a strange voice was drifting into her mind. It was definitely not a normal voice and was more alike to something like telepathy, like Myra would use to talk to her from a distance.

Rae didn't know what a galaxy was, but if it was called Milky Way, the place was perhaps home to shepherds?

When the dragon asked her to exchange stories she readily agreed and when the dragon invited her to its home, she expected it to be close by. Who would have known that it was in some strange … what was it really? Special dimension? Some strange place home to shepherds.

"We have to be back before dinner." Rae mumbled before closing her eyes on the dragon's back.

This travel really made her dizzy. 'Brightpaws doesn't have to get jealous, I don't get sick when travelling on phantom cats.' She thought to herself before falling into an uncomfortable sleep.

She did not notice that their speed decreased soon, nor did she notice that the huge dragon soon concealed itself in some way that she had never seen before. It even got smaller before landing on a small ocean covered planet, right in the middle of some mountainous jungle.