What Are the Chances?

'Kids, don't gamble.'

Yona glanced over her shoulder and said, 'This isn't really gambling, Yun.'

The princess's crew of misfits were lazing around a campfire, making assorted bets on the smallest member of their party — Pyu-kyu the squirrel.

'Yeah, thanks for the input, Mom,' Hak said around a mouthful of fish.

'Keep it to yourself!' Yun snapped.

Hak completely ignored him. 'Five seconds or less.'

'Ten,' Zeno said with a grin. 'He knows how to wait for a good one.'

Jeaha looked up from polishing his knives. 'What are we even betting with, anyway?'

And splashing water broke the silence. A fish crested the fast-flowing river beside their campsite, and the tiny squirrel reared up for the kill and dived, screaming, with a carnivorous spark zapping in its eyes.

'Seven. Split the odds?'

'Odds? What's odd?'

'Did they not have gambling two-thousand years ago, Yellow Dragon?'

Yun whacked them both over the head with the serving ladle that he had slung over his shoulder. 'Hak, don't pick on him. Zeno, get a grip before Hak swindles you out of your life savings.'

Pyu-kyu dragged her whopping catch onto the riverbank: a salmon that may as well have been a leviathan. The squirrel squeaked in satisfaction, and spat drops of blood like a grizzled warrior flinging blood from their sword.

Yona blinked. 'Wait, Jeaha has a point — what are we betting with?'

Hak smirked. And pulled a pouch of clinking rin from his robes. 'Well, we could bet with real coin — if you felt like playing with the big kids, Princess.'

Gija sniffed. 'This is vulgar. Your Highness, don't let him — '

Yona scoffed, and her eyes drooped in a dry smile. 'If I had access to the Royal Treasury, I'd wipe the floor with you "big kids,"' she said, to Gija's horror.

'And that is gambling!' Yun bellowed. 'Hak, take your coin and jump off a cliff. The last thing we need is — '

Jeaha laughed, and pulled out a silk purse from the depths of his coat. 'Relax, kid. Who cares if it's all in the group? And join us, why don't you?'

Yun sighed, from what sounded like the depths of his soul. 'Sure. 30-to-1 this goes south in less than five minutes.'

'So? Think the rat'll go for another one?'

'No way. It could live off that beast for a week.'

Pyu-kyu suddenly shrieked and bounded across the campsite like her tail was on fire.

'What?' Yona leaned forward. 'What…?'

Sinha lifted his mask, and squinted. '…It's a field mouse.'

'Oh yeah, this is getting good,' Hak joked. 'Odds and bets, everyone?'

The two rodents circled each other, hissing and shrieking in a circle of dirt.

Yona flinched. 'Oh, can someone stop them? We shouldn't let them fight…'

'Nah, let 'em go for it, kiddo.' Jeaha chuckled, watching Pyu-kyu fling herself at the mouse and wrangle it into a stranglehold using her oversized tail. 'They're just scuffling. Besides, look at the little champ — she's wiping the floor with him. Hey, Hak, what are we betting with?'

Hak's voice dripped with sarcasm. 'What about minutes of acquiescence?'

'Ooh, lovely.' Jeaha nudged Yona. 'I better win this, because I had something I wanted to ask you — '

The flat of Hak's naginata blade crunched into Jeaha's shoulders, and the Green Dragon choked and coughed. 'I'm betting twenty minutes 10-to-1, Droopy-Eyes, and when I win I want you to hold your head under the river.'

Gija blinked 'Hak, Jeaha can't hold his breath for twenty minutes.'

'That's the idea, White Snake — '

Pyu-kyu pelted towards the group with the field mouse following in hot pursuit, both of them screeching their heads off.

'Jeez, train your squirrel better, Sinha,' Hak grumbled. 'I just lost twenty minutes.'

Sinha didn't answer.

Jeaha smirked. 'So, Yona — '

And Pyu-kyu and company shot right past them and kept running, screaming for their lives.

'Eh?' Yun blinked, and swivelled to watch their retreating fluffy tails.

Yona turned back to the woods. 'Wow, it's almost like they were being chased by something.'

Sinha flicked his mask up again. 'Yona…'

'What?'

And a whopping, foaming-at-the-mouth, straight-out-of-the-gates-of-hell spitting-mad bear burst from the woods and careened towards them like a wave of chariots.

'Holy Crimson Dragon King!' Gija yelped, and everyone leapt to their feet and scattered, backing up as fast and as far as was humanly or dragonly possible.

'Never thought I'd hear you swear, White Snake…'

'Don't call me — '

'Time and place, you wild beasts!'

Trees buckled under the monster's rampage, shredded to incense sticks by the dozens. Jeaha vaulted into the air with an irritated look on his face, watching the chaos with knives in his hands. 'Yeah, let's get out of here, kids. This looks like a pain.'

'Uh, no.' Hak's naginata burned glowing patterns in the air, and his heel carved the earth as he took an offensive stance. 'We're not running from some cranky overgrown pet, you sideshow act. Pull it together.'

Gija blinked, and said, 'Oh. Right,' then unwrapped his hand and dove into battle with six feet of claws and sinew, yelling, 'Protect the princess, everyone — '

Yona pulled Gija aside for a second and said, 'I can protect myself, thanks!' before shoving him back into the fray and springing to the side with her bow drawn.. The skirmish looked like a fireworks show, with the dragons streaking through carnage in clashes of fangs, claws and steel.

'Hey, Princess!' Hak yelled.

Her head jerked up and she saw his shadow cutting a pattern in the sun as he vaulted over her, a grin on his face. 'Ten-to-one on you nailing this pest between the eyes!'

Yona grinned back 'You got it.

And she nocked her bow — and her arrow flew in a vortex of colour, straight and true.

The End

A/N: Reviews welcome, and thanks for reading!