Playing Tag with a Dragon

A young woman moved silently through the trees, a sleek bow held firmly in hand. Flaming red hair flickered in the soft breeze, her green eyes searching for movement. A smile teased her lips as she reached the edge of the island and looked down at the earth miles below. Swinging her bow across her back in a practiced movement she took several steps back before sprinting towards the edge of the floating island. Reaching the edge she leapt, arms eagle spread as she soared out into the open air, nothing between her and the earth far below. A brilliant smile stretched across her face as she hung for a short second, neither flying nor falling. Suspended between the heavens and earth, time seemed to pause and all else faded away for a single freeing moment before physics re-exerted itself on the daring human creature and she began to plummet rapidly towards the distant earth, gaining speed as she fell.

She raced past other floating islands, narrowly avoiding a rough collision with several. The final island before open sky appeared beneath her and she tugged on the fingerless black gloves calmly preparing herself, both metally and physically. As she hurtled past the island she twisted much like a cat, catching a thick vine in hand and twisting it around her hand in a single smooth motion. The next motion wasn't quite so smooth, the plant jerking her to a painful standstill and she grunted at the sudden wrenching of her shoulder, coming to a stop as she hung suspended in the air, only a single vine between her and a long fall to her death. Wincing, she caught the vine with her other hand as well, securing her grip before unwrapping her hand and virtually gliding up the plant, climbing hand-over-hand. Smoothly and swiftly she arrived at the top, and the island waiting there, pulling herself silently onto solid ground before effortlessly scaling a tree.

The girl paused only long enough to smirk in the direction from which she had come before racing to the end of the branch and leaping through the air to the branch of a nearby tree. She landed easily on the branch only to quickly repeat her earlier actions, flying through the forest as naturally as any squirrel. This strange method of travel continued as she rushed towards an unknown destination.

After several minutes of travel, the flame-haired teen slowed and seemed to listen carefully for something, or someone. A moment passed before she seemed to hear what she was listening for and she quickly alighted on the ground, racing to stand at the edge of a triangular rock that overhung a large lake. Smiling mischievously, the human turned and searched the sky, waiting patiently for something to appear.

She didn't wait long. A roar echoed through the still forest, scaring many colorful and strange birds into flight and seemed to vibrate the very foundations of the island, causing it to vibrate. The beauty smirked as a huge obsidian-black dragon appeared on the horizon, flames roiling visibly in its chest like an open-hearth fire. As its eyes found hers, its wing-beat increased so that it fairly streaked across the sky towards her. It reached a point in the air above her and closed its wings to drop towards her. She laughed aloud.

"You're too late, you big, ugly brute!!!" She yelled whirling as she spoke to leap off the overhang, free-falling towards the water. The cool liquid engulfed her and she pushed off the rocky bottom of the lake, surfacing briefly to take a deep breath of air and diving once more. The water seemed to pulse over her head, stirred up by the wind that whipped off the dragon's wings, but her stroke remained steady as she swam to the edge of the lake, only breaching the surface once she finally made it beneath low-hanging rock that stemmed from the nearby cliffside. She laughed as she listened to the frustrated roars of the dragon beyond and relaxed in the water, knowing he would be unable to reach her anytime soon.

After a good half-hour of trying to reach her or wrench the rocks hiding her apart, the dragon finally heaved a sigh and alighted on the only beach at the cliff-surrounded lake. A bright light flashed and a handsome man stood in place of the dragon. He had hair as black as the darkest obsidian, and two different-colored, vibrant eyes, one a vivid, poisonous, emerald green in color, the other a deadly, piercing, ruby red. He glared at the offending rocks, as if trying to make them move through intimidation where brute force had failed.

When nothing occurred, he heaved a sigh. Inhaling sharply, "Fine!!! You win, Arima. Now get your beauteous human derriere out here before we are late for the meeting with Father!!!"

An elegant owl landed silently on his shoulder, its eyes identical to the man on whom she perched, and proceeded to preen itself calmly. The man seemed to hardly notice the owl, his mismatched gaze remaining on the rocks, tapping his foot impatiently, awaiting a response from the girl who hid within. Growling in annoyance, his eyes never leaving the hidden cleft, the man didn't see the flash of red in the water beneath him until it was too late.

Arima jumped suddenly from the water, soaking the raven haired man from head to toe. His owl, having seen the impending doom, had already risen silently into the sky. The man, sputtering from a combination of shock and water in his face, tried hopelessly to glare indignantly at the redheaded prankster who was doubled over, laughing at his predicament.

"That was too easy," she managed to gasp out between laughter. Her mirth, though fading quickly under the glare of the raven-haired man, was soon replaced by a confident smirk, "Really Kalmin, you should be glad no one else is about to see the great, 'Warrior Dragon, Son of the Mighty King' fall for such a simple prank."

Kalmin scowled at the human girl his father King Alaric had found and adopted 16 years prior and replied, "and you are lucky that those pitiful sticks you call weapons are enchanted against rust and water, else you would soon find yourself without protection."

Arima just laughed, retorting smoothly, "That would only be true if father, Hacose, Venus, and you all managed to die." She paused for a second contemplating what she had just stated, "though I do believe I would then count myself lucky as I would no longer have to deal with aggressive, over-protective males." She feigned, considering a thought before raising her hand and adding, "I would miss Venus though."

Venus, the snowy-white owl that had been unsettled from Kalmin's shoulder after Arima's watery appearance, glided to the proffered hand and continued her interrupted preening. Glaring daggers at the elegant bird, Kalmin retorted, "then you would have no company whatsoever and would soon perish from loneliness. Traitorous bird." He muttered the last part almost too low for Arima to hear. Unfortunately for the male, he underestimated the human woman's hearing.

"She is not traitorous," Arima quipped back. "She just has better taste than a mere dragon like yourself," she sniffed, turning up her nose in a mock haughty manner.

"I am a Warrior and the first one to be born since the dawn of dragon-kind," Kalmin responded in the same haughty fashion. "There is nothing 'mere' about me." The two looked at each other with heat for a couple of seconds before they burst out laughing. Kalmin ruffled Arima's curls and she squawked indignantly, untangling the soaking wet knots as Kalmin turned away. "C'mon, little sister. Even Father's favorite can't get away with being late to a meeting too often."

Arima heaved a dramatic sigh and tossed her hair as Kalmin turned away. Red blossomed through his left eye, looking for all the world like a bloodstain, as his skin darkened to a gleaming black and his chest split apart under the pressure of the bright orange flames within. He winced, as he always did at that part, and Arima turned away sympathetically. As much as she would love to tease her brother for grimacing at a fairly common transformation, she knew enough about Warrior dragons to know that they did not show pain easily. And a ribcage splitting apart could not possibly feel pleasant. Being full human meant that, magic or no, she would never know the agony of shapeshifting. Behind her, the pained gasps turned to growls, and then a low roar. Churned earth rumbled around her and a blast of heat pressed against her back as the fire in Kalmin's chest reached full flame.

He let out an earth-shaking sigh.

"Alright, princess, I'm done changing. You can turn around now." A voice that rang and hissed like a flaming arrow sticking into a metal shield spoke to the girl in the language of dragons, a strange, nearly musical language that rose and fell like the currents of wind or water that the dragons rode and, when combined with their powerful vocal cords and lungs, could travel over many miles and still be understood.

"Listen, chunky, if I needed your input, I would have asked for it a long time ago." Arima turned around and crossed her arms, responding in the same language, something that was no small feat as few humans could train their throat, tongue, and chest to produce the incredible variety of sounds that the language required.

Kalmin fixed her with a red gaze as she sprang onto his foot, which was even with her hips, and crawled up the heavy, slick scales running up his powerful foreleg. He flexed and she fixed him with a withering glare as his rolling cords of muscle unbalanced her, hands only just managing to snag a hold before she tumbled to the ground, now a dozen feet below. Maneuvering up the wide, slick plates on his shoulder, she reached up and snagged one of the spikes that lined his spine, carefully settling into the natural saddle-like crevice on his back where neck and spine met.

"Congratulations, you look like a chipmunk," Kalmin deadpanned.

"Shut it, you overgrown stovepipe."

"I'm not a stovepipe!" Kalmin cocked his head, deeply offended. Arima ignored him and kicked her heels against his sides.

"Yaw, Bessie. I have places to be and I don't have time to wait for you to chew your cud."

"People don't ride cattle," Kalmin growled, crouching. Arima leaned back to compensate for the forward shift.

"Really? But they're big enough to ride."

"They're slow and stupid. Humans just eat them."

"Slow and stupid? You are a cow! We wouldn't even have to barbecue you!"

Kalmin took off with a sudden gust of air. Arima snagged the spike in front of her, barely saving herself from a deadly fall. If Kalmin had been human, he would have smirked, as it was his chest rumbled in a dragon's version of a snicker.

"Jerk!" Arima yelped as she righted herself. "I'm so telling Dad."

Kalmin flapped his wings and flipped backwards, sending Arima's hair tangling over her face. She yelped again as Kalmin levelled out. "I'm sorry, little sister, but I can't quite hear you!"

"Says the dragon with ears that can hear an arrow being released from a bow a mile away!" Arima retorts, "and that only strengthens my resolve to tell Pops!! You do realize that right, Flame Brain?"

Kalmin just snorted, smoke bursting from his nostrils. "And you really think that you will be able to convince him over me?!"

Arima smirked knowingly. "All I have to do is use the 'teary eyed' method on him for him to believe me."

Kalmin would have paled if he had the ability, the flames in his chest seeming to flinch and flicker. He knew that whenever Arima got close to tears his father would do whatever it took to make sure that they didn't spill over. Being the only one in the entirety of the Nest to know this left him at a distinct disadvantage to convincing anyone that this tiny, lean human was emotionally manipulating the most powerful creature alive. He growled as he saw Arima's eyes change from a vibrant green to a midnight blue, a sure fire sign that she was feeling smug. He sighed. This was going to be a very long day.