DRAGONS GIFT By D-Chan



Prologue:

---Lightning flashed---

A figure ran through the forest glancing over her shoulder to check for her pursuers, but the fierce clap of thunder covered all sounds of her captors. She stumbled on a rock, righted herself and winced suddenly as shooting pains ran up her leg. Ignoring the pain, she slowly placed her full weight on the injured limb, the scream that emerged from her chest was quickly stifled by her hand over her mouth. "Shit! I need to get away and this will only make it slower. I've got to keep moving!" she thought, slowly placing one foot in front on another. The wind picked up suddenly and she shivered as the cold penetrated her wet clothes. It had been raining for over an hour and fall had come early this year. Rubbing her arms, she tried to retain some warmth as she pushed continued her stumbling trek in search of shelter.

A snap of a twig in the distance alerted her to the nearing danger. Quickly, she glanced around searching for the source, spotting movement from the corner of her eye, she panicked, "No! I've got to get away! I can't let them catch me again!" Turning her attention towards the trail, she pushed herself to run harder.

Lightning flashed, illuminating the forest for an instant.

"There!" A dark opening in the ground was revealed to her searching eyes before quickly disappearing. Picking up the pace she pushed herself to go faster, desperately trying to reach the safety of the cave before they found her.

Suddenly, a flash of light lit the sky, burning her optic nerves until she couldn't see the forest in front of her. A crack of thunder soon followed after, flinching, the girl paused in her flight to get her bearings as another flash of lightning light the sky. Blind to the danger from above, she cocked her head at the sudden snap of a tree branch breaking, blinking frantically to clear her vision, she glanced up and her eyes widened in panic. The girl had no time to scream before the branch struck her temple, knocking her unconscious.



As the storm raged on, the figure lay on the ground oblivious to the danger. A purple haired girl paused sixteen yards from her prey, searching the forest, "Where are you..you must die! Then, husband is mine forever!" Shan-Pu thought as she remembered the events of two days ago when they had kidnapped the girl from her bed. They had taken her to this spot under the cover of darkness. They knew that if anyone discovered their treachery, they would die along side the girl. Two more Amazons stepped out of the darkness and paused, scanning the ground for any sign of their quarry. The girl had managed to get away from them by feigning unconsciousness while working on her bonds. When they had left her for a brief time, she had made good her escape.

"This forest very scary. Great-grandmother say that it is forbidden to enter and Shan-Pu think she right. Stupid husband stealer, Shan-Pu better find soon," the purpled hared Amazon exclaimed as she moved off into the darkness in search of her prey.

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Suddenly, the mouth of the cave began to glow with an eerie light. A whisper of scales against stone echoed softly over the rumble of thunder. A claw emerged from the mouth of the cave as it was illuminated by a burst of lightning, then darkness filled the night sky, thunder rumbled and two red eyes glowed in the darkness. Lightning flashed once more and revealed a massive scaled head before darkness crept in once more. The newcomer noticed the girl lying there on the ground and also noticed the bloodied tree branch lying next to her. The branch had apparently felled her. The newcomer rumbled a sigh but thunder and the howling wind masked it.

The girl shivered violently as she tried to regain the lost warmth that her wet clothes tore from her body. The shadow bent down close the to prone girl, inspecting the head wound before its head snapped around at the sound of a twig snapping in the distance. Lightning flashed, illuminating the forest and revealing a strange woman standing in the spot where there was once a scaly monster. Quickly, the old woman bend down and with amazing strength picked up the girl and shouldered her burden. Turning, she inspected the area once more before disappearing with the last flash of lightning, leaving no trace of what was once there except a small indentation in the ground of where a body once lay.

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A crackling fire illuminated the figure of an old woman and her patient. The girl Xanixi had found was raging with fever and had been like this for a week now. Each passing day the girl grew worse and as her lungs filled with fluid, her breathing became more labored. "The storm hasn't done this child any good," the bell-like sounds of the old woman's speech echoed softly in the cave. Reaching out and covering the girls' brow with her hand, she tried to determine if the child needed another cold cloth to bring down the fever. Wincing, Xanixi withdrew her hand, quickly she soaked a cloth in the nearby stream. Suddenly the girl started tossing in the midst of her delirium, her breath rattling in her lungs; she struggled for each inhalation of breath.

"Damn!" Xanixi cursed as she dipped the in a bowl of cold water. Moving closer to her charge, she reached out to place in on her forehead when the girl suddenly stopped breathing. Quickly, placing one on her chest and another on her brow, Xanixi began chanting an ancient healing spell in a desperate move to save the girls life. The old woman had no idea what this particular spell would do to a human, but if it worked she'd be grateful at the chance to atone for any wrong doings of her past. As the magic worked its way into the girls system, a glow started pulsating, originating at her chest and spreading to cover her whole body.

Suddenly, something in the spell twisted, Xanixi gasped at the sensation but quickly grasped at the slipping strands of magic and molded them to her will. The old warrior completed her chant and the glow faded. Blinking to clear her sight, Xanixi checked the girls breathing and her temperature, then smiled, "Good, you will survive. The fever is gone and you are able to draw breath normally." Slowly, the old woman reached out to brushed the hair away from the girls' face and froze in shock as the human's hair started growing at an alarming rate. Xanixi quickly searched for any other physical changes and gasped, "Oh by the ancients above! How in the seven worlds did this happen!" Her magic and apparently done something completely unexpected. Somehow the spell had warped and the girls' ears had changed..

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