Jim darted through the trees, trying desperately to stay ahead of the strange winged people that were chasing him.

The sharp sound of metal sliding against metal was Jim's only warning before he felt hands clamp onto his arms and yank him into the air. He screamed and thrashed, trying to pull himself free, but he couldn't get any leverage. Another pair of hands grabbed onto his legs, holding him still as the winged figures flew straight up.

"Stop struggling!" One of the figures yelled at him. "Unless you want us to drop you!"

Jim glanced down and yelped when he realized how high they'd gotten. He immediately stopped thrashing. He couldn't afford to be dropped from this height.

"Thought so," the other snorted.

Jim rolled his eyes and took the time to look closer at his two apparently female captors and their friends who were falling into formation around them. He couldn't make out much under their armor and masks, so he chose to ignore that much at least. The armor itself was a silvery color with some bronze accents. The wings were the same silvery color and attached to their back in some kind of bump or ridge.

Jim did a double take when he saw one of the bumps move. A head lifted from the person's shoulder and turned to face Jim. Jim's jaw dropped. That meant the wings weren't a part of them. They were just humans wearing some other creature trained to carry them where they wanted to go. More importantly, it looked like those creatures were related to Stalklings. And they might have something to do with humanity's old stories about dragons, something Jim had attributed specifically to Stalklings up until now.

Jim turned his attention from the strange people to his surroundings. It looked like he was on an island somewhere, judging by the massive amounts of water he could see in all directions. Below him were large expanses of forest and he could just barely make out some building hidden among the trees near the shoreline. A head of them was a massive spire of stone that seemed to be where they were going. Getting down from there wasn't going to be easy, and it would be completely impossible if they checked in on him often enough or left a guard.

"So, uh, I'm Jim. Who're you?" Jim asked trying to make some conversation to pass the time as they flew.

"We are Wingmaidens," the woman holding his arms answered. "Atali will speak with you when we land. Save your questions for her."

"Okay then," Jim said, fighting down the urge to shrug. He fell silent and waited patiently as they flew.

When they finally landed and they women dropped him unceremoniously on the ground, Jim thought he managed to surprise them slightly by landing gracefully. Even in his armor, Jim knew how to handle himself. Blinky had started comparing him to a cat with his ability to land on his feet, or at least roll with it.

One of the people, this one not wearing a helmet, but rather a crown of some sort, and Jim could clearly tell she was a woman. She seemed to be the most important of all of them.

"You must be Atalia," Jim said, holding out his hand to shake it. "I'm very glad your people didn't drop me. I certainly didn't make it easy on them at the start and my armor's got to have made it difficult as well." They had the power here and, quite frankly, Jim was probably somewhere he wasn't supposed to be. It wouldn't pay to be hostile.

The woman raised an eyebrow. "Atali," she corrected, shaking Jim's hand, grasping his forearm. Jim was surprised and confused by the gesture but rolled with it. "I am surprised they spoke with you."

Jim laughed with a small smile. "Only to tell me to wait to talk to you. So, what are we going to talk about."

"How did you come to be on our island?" she asked bluntly.

Jim winced. "I don't actually know."

"Oh? Then what do you remember?"

He'd been trying out a new stone he'd found and cut. Then there'd been a light and a headache, and he was here. He didn't think he could say that. "I really don't know. One moment I'm, well, not here. The next I am."

"I apologize," she said. "But I'm afraid we won't be able to trust you without a better story. We will be calling someone else to retrieve you. Until then, you will be under guard."

"Oh, come on!"

"You will not be harmed. We will only be keeping an eye on you until we can escort you off our island."

Jim sighed. "Fine. Just, where am I?"

"You are on Wingmaiden Island, I'm afraid I can't tell you much more than that."

"Alright. Where will I be staying?"

"We will bring you back down to our village. Unless you would rather stay here?"

Jim thought for a moment. "I think I'll risk the trip down."

Atali smiled at him. "Very well. Wingmaidens!"

Jim yelped again as he felt someone grab his arms and lift him up again. This time he had one Wingmaiden on each arm, carrying him through the air. The flight took several minutes, and eventually they touched down, much softer this time, and he was directed to the hut he would spend the next several days in.

Once he was alone in the dark hut, he turned to the mirror on the wall, looking closely at his armor. Everything looked the same except for the Amulet, which now glowed purple instead of blue, the same color as the stone he'd placed in it. Using the stone had sent him here, removing it should send him back. Jim wrapped his fingers around the edge of the Amulet as much as he could with it embedded in the armor. He pulled gently. Nothing happened. Normally that much force from him was plenty to dismiss the armor. Jim pulled again, harder this time. His fingers slipped from the edges.

Jim was stuck in more ways than one. He couldn't take off his armor. And if he couldn't take it off, he couldn't take the stone out. He was going to have to let this run its course, whatever it was.

Jim groaned and flopped on the surprisingly hard bed. Looking closer at it, he discovered it was just a wooden slab with blankets and a thin layer of a straw like material. The pillow seemed to be made of some kind of wool with a coarse cloth covering. Jim simply lay back down and tried to get comfortable. It, at least, was better than sleeping on rocks like he did in the Darklands.

Jim scowled as he hid the unconscious guards in his hut and slid into the shadows of the trees. He just couldn't stay in there anymore. He couldn't sit still and play the good little prisoner, so he left. He was probably going to be caught and put straight back in that suffocating room with even more guards, but at least he'll have done something.

Jim breathed the fresh air as he ran. The ability to just move was intoxicating after spending so much time in one spot. The sunlight and the wind even more so. The more he thought about it, the more it reminded him of when he got out of the Darklands. Jim pushed the thought away and enjoyed himself as he moved undetected through the trees. Jim laughed and ran and simply existed free of constraint for hours.

The sun was setting when they finally began to catch up with him. Thick leathery wing beats came from over head while Jim darted through the shadows and stayed beneath the trees. Given the fact that they weren't already searching from under the canopy, he figured whoever was looking for him was much bigger than the Wingmaidens and couldn't properly maneuver in the dense forest.

A branch snapped behind him. Jim turned, hoping it was just some small local wildlife. Instead he saw a massive two headed, scaly, winged creature glaring at him. Jim took off running.

Two excited whoops came from the thing that started crashing through the trees, trying to follow him. Jim refused to waste the time to look back and continued trying to find the most complicated route with the smallest gaps between trees. Hopefully he could wear the thing out.

A flash of light and small explosion that left a tree on Jim's right badly damaged had Jim veering left and ducking under two more shots from his right.

Now he had two things chasing him. Flanking. Herding. The trees were thinning. If he remembered correctly there was a clearing up a head, which meant the flying ones that couldn't get beneath the trees would be waiting for him there. They'd just pluck him up like the Wingmaidens had last time.

Suddenly, Jim stopped, leaping backwards into the air, avoiding another blast from the thing on his right and a swipe from the jaws of the two-headed thing on his left. Jim twisted in the air, landing and dashing back the way he'd come from.

A series of spines embedded themselves in the ground directly in Jim's path, forcing him to back pedal and fall on his butt.

The three creatures had him surrounded and began moving in closer, stalking him slowly. Jim finally got a good look at the one that had been on his right, black and low to the ground, small in comparison to the two headed one, with some kind of purple light emanating from its mouth, likely one of the blasts it had shot. The one that had the spines was tall, two legged and blue, with a crown of spines on its head and more running down its tail, as well as a more beak like face. The two headed one, which Jim stopped to look at more closely, had long snake-like necks and stocky legs and was green in color.

"That's enough, Toothless," a voice said.

Jim blinked and turned back towards the voice. Towards the… okay, he'd admit it. There was no way it wasn't a dragon. It was a flying, fire breathing lizard. What else could it be? Sitting on the dragon's back, just behind its head, was a boy, probably a young man a bit older than Jim. Glancing back at the others, Jim noticed they all had people riding them. The blue one's rider sat behind the wings, and the two headed one had two riders, one for each head, gripping the horns like they were handles.

"Now," the man on the black dragon said, addressing Jim, "can you please stop running."

"Uh, sure," Jim answered staring. "I can do that."

"Great," the girl on the blue dragon said. "Let's go."