Failure

Mairwen could tell without the translation that things were not going well with the dragons. Before the magical creatures attacked--for at this rate there was no doubt in her head that they would-- the humans needed to find the Dragon Heir. The Princess considered looking for the egg herself, but then she got an idea.

Slipping past Junayd, who was arguing with Alaron, Mairwen tiptoed down the stairs to find a quiet, secluded spot. When she was alone, the beautiful girl stroked the Seeker around her neck. The fairy felt cool to her touch.

"I wish I could find the Queen's Egg." She whispered.

The chain vibrated for a moment, but then nothing happened. The small pixie remained in place at the girl's neck.

"Perhaps the egg has hatched. Maybe I should try a different request. I wish I could find the baby dragon." For a second time, the chain seemed to register her plea but did not comply.

That could only mean one thing. She was not ever meant to find the egg. Her countenance fell in disappointment.

"Just because I cannot find the egg does not mean that someone else will not find it!" the princess said to herself. Trying to rally herself as she added, "We just need to be able to fend off the dragons long enough for the Dragon Heir to appear. I wish I knew where Renat was. He would be very helpful just now."

The princess had barely thought about the boy for the past few days, which now made her feel guilty. She had abandoned him as soon as her brother had come home. The girl realized it was an unkind thing to do both as a princess and as a friend. In her rapid thoughts, Mairwen forgot that she was still touching the Seeker until the fairy detached from its silver chain.

Oh! She had made a wish unknowingly and the Seeker was complying.

"Wait!" Mairwen called to the pixie urgently. The little wings fluttered back to her and the girl could swear the tiny fairy was giving her an exasperated look. "We need to go by my room first. I have to get my bag…" in case we need to go; she didn't finish her thought aloud.

The fairy visibly shrugged and detoured to the princess's chambers. They were only halfway there when the ground rumbled. It sounded as if the palace was being torn apart, and Mairwen realized it probably was. She quickened her pace to her room, grabbed her bag and weapon, and then followed the Seeker's lead.

"Why is this place so huge?" Mairwen lamented. She had run nearly the entire length of the palace.

Somehow the Seeker had managed to avoid the gaze of the people as they passed. At first, the tiny fairy was good at evading people's line of sight, but then it seemed that people completely ignored a flying object when they were panicked. And people were indeed panicking now.

A woman in a servant's uniform screamed about a fire in one of the upper levels as she flew past. A few visiting noblemen were desperately trying to find an exit. Mairwen pointed them in the right direction as she ran by.

The halls were deserted by the time Mairwen came near to the open courtyard closest to the infirmary. Outside, she could hear a series of small booms followed by a roar. The princess knew Renat must be close.

-------------------------

Sure enough, out on the lawn, the scientist was hurling another of his burst balls into the air at the attacking dragons. His aim was decent, and Renat had managed to hit a couple of the beasts as they flew past. If only the balls seemed to be doing anything.

'These monsters must be indestructible!' he thought bitterly. If nothing else, this was distracting the dragons from their continuous attack.

'Why are they attacking anyway? Are they working with the gnomes?' Renat wondered. He looked into the sack where he had placed as many of his experiments as he could carry. He was running low on the little explosives.

Out of the corner of his eye, Renat saw someone running contrary to the crowd toward him. It was Mairwen, and for a moment he could swear a tiny silver creature was flying ahead of her figure. He blinked and whatever he had just seen was gone.

"Do not hurt them!" Mairwen begged as she came alongside the boy. Her breathing was labored after running so far.

"Nothing seems to hurt them," Renat responded, exasperated. "What is happening?"

"The dragons are looking for a dragon egg," the princess explained as they stayed low to the ground. "The gnomes hid it inside the palace. We need to stall them until we can return the egg to them."

"Filthy gnomes!" Renat cried out angrily. There was no reason to mess with innocent babies. He furrowed his brow. "Sorry. I will not try to hurt the dragons anymore. How do you want to stall them?"

The Princess looked embarrassed. "That is why I was looking for you. I am open to suggestions."

The scientist stroked his chin thoughtfully and then brought out a sphere. "Thanks to the materials at the palace. I improved on my design. This sticky stuff hardens around whatever it breaks on, but it will soften again with water. It should distract the dragons, but not injure them."

Mairwen looked at the little ball, which seemed to be made of spun sugar with little chocolate candies inside. It looked deceptively harmless, yet Mairwen believed in her friend.

"Let us give it a try!" the princess said with a determined nod. She and the scientist stood from the grassy ground and waited for the next terrifying dragon to pass overhead. Instead, they heard the pounding footsteps of one of the large creatures come up behind them.

Renat spun quickly to lock eyes with a cerulean dragon. Its red eyes were both confused and annoyed by the brave humans. Roaring, it attempted to imbue them with the proper amount of respect. Then it charged.

Renat wasted no time, he reeled back his arm and lobbed the ball at the dragon's maw. It crashed onto the dragon's snout and burst. It took a few heart-stopping seconds before the brown chocolates collided and joined to form a hard shell, which quickly encased the blue beast's mouth. The dragon snapped his jaw shut only to realize it was now cemented in that position.

The two humans jumped quickly out of the way as the dragon spurted fire towards them out of its nose and a small gap in its mouth. Its claws raked at the hard substance at its mouth.

Pieces of the brown stone chipped off, but it mostly stayed intact. Neither fire nor sharp blades would completely break it. The scaly beast began to thrash about in anger. The ground shook slightly, and the castle nearest them threatened to come off of its foundation.

Mairwen took a step toward the dragon. "Go wash in the water. It will come off."

Her gentle words woke the dragon from its rage. It nodded at her words, lifted from the ground, and took off towards the nearby river.

"Well, that worked! How many more of those do you have?" the princess looked expectantly at her companion.

Renat became embarrassed. "Only a dozen or so. One of the first ones I made malfunctioned and caused all the ones nearest it to burst. There is a nice little cave of brown stone in the shed there. I lost a lot of my experiments."

"Nevermind," Mairwen comforted him past his failure and added, "We will use what we have."

Together, the two were able to remove four more dragons from the onslaught. It was not much, but the lizards had learned to steer high and clear of the scientist pretty quickly. At any rate, the creatures seemed wholly determined on attacking the castle to get to their egg.

"Do you have any of those smoke vials?" Mairwen asked.

"Yes..." Renat looked at her curiously. "But the dragons can breathe fire. I doubt smoke will bother them."

"Maybe, but if we shoot it up into the castle here to make it look like it is on fire, perhaps they will leave this portion alone." Mairwen could see other parts of the building were in flames. It broke her heart to see her home being ravaged. If they could save even a part of it, then she would try her best.

Renat made as many vials as he could and handed them to the lovely lady. He had not noticed her bow and quiver before, but it made sense that the princess would have her favorite weapon.

"Hold this," she said as she passed her satchel to Renat, who looped it over his shoulder.

Mairwen tied off the vial and drew back her bow. She deftly hit the highest window with amazing accuracy. A few more vials were shot via arrow to the upper tower, and the lower levels were thrown by hand. Soon the palace was smoking, but with harmless fog rather than fire.

"I have another idea," the scientist said with a grin. He passed her the bag in his hand of various balls and vials.

"I will be right back." The boy scurried off with the princess's satchel toward the experiment shed.

Mairwen could not help but smile when Renat got excited like that. She found his enthusiasm adorable.

Inside the shed, Renat winced as he glanced at the brown mess of stone. It curved like a cresting wave, for it had dried mid-splash. Failures happened, he reminded himself. He just needed to stay focused.

The young scientist had made another ball that contained a jelly substance. Balls worked well for holding many of his inventions. This particular ball could easily put out a fire, though he had not been using it for this purpose.

They might not be able to stop the dragons from ripping the castle apart, but at least they could lessen the damage by fire.

Finding the item he wanted, the boy got on his toes and reached up to the top shelf. Suddenly the ground shook again, knocking Renat off balance.

He fell into the shelf of the burst balls, causing one to roll off and fall to the ground. The scientist's eyes opened wide as he barely had time to react to what was happening.

--------

Outside, Mairwen grew impatient of waiting. Perhaps Renat needed help. She took a step toward the experiment shed when a dragon landed next to her and shook the ground.

Before she could react, the ground shook for the second time as the shed burst from the inside with the loudest bang the blue-eyed girl had ever heard. Thoughts of the dragon flew from her mind as she ran toward the wreckage with fear and trembling.

"RENAT!"