Chapter 10

Broken Promises

Blaze dropped Spyro in a patch of grass and began gathering wood for a fire. He watched Nita out of the corner of his eye, making sure she didn't flip out again. She remained calm, but her eyes were fixed on the black bands on Spyro's arms that were pulsating dark energy about every minute. Nita hit the purple dragon's tail with her paw lightly, but he didn't move. At that moment Blaze came back with a pile of firewood in his arms. He dropped it then blew a small stream of fire. Nita eyed him with a disappointed look crossing her features. Blaze simply ignored her and warmed himself, knowing what she was thinking. Eventually Nita gave up on trying to stare the dragon down and returned her gaze to Spyro. The black bands seemed to drawn her in; she couldn't stop looking at them. She knew this was wrong to do, and a plan was already formulating itself in her mind…

Blaze noticed the brown wolf's seemingly growing agitation and made a quick decision. He yanked her necklace off of his neck where he'd been keeping it and tossed it to her. It hit her in the side, knocking her out of her trance. She shook herself. " What was that for? Why are you giving that back?"

" You've fulfilled you're purpose wolf. You found the purple dragon. You can leave now," the fire dragon told her expressionlessly.

Nita was shocked. It took her a minute to recover. " What? No...No! I don't want to leave yet. Look Blaze," she stressed his name sarcastically, " you've already dragged me way too far into this. This is bigger than just bringing some escaped prisoner back to jail. This is wrong Blaze, I can't explain why, but this just feels wrong. You have to let him go."

Blaze's calm and reasonable face broke into one of surprise. " Nita, you are the strangest creature I've ever met. Here you've been dying to get away from me since we met, and when you finally have the chance, you decide to stay and give me a lecture about how you had another one of your weird "feelings." Look, I'm just doing what I'm told. Stop making this harder for me!" Blaze was so worked up that tears began to stream down his muzzle. This only made him angrier that her was crying in front of her. He looked like a baby. He tried to compose himself as a small stream of smoke began to pour from his nose.

Nita realized this would be a bad time to keep yelling at him. Making him angry wasn't part of the plan. She took a deep breath. " Blaze," she said calmly, " why is this so hard for you? I'm confused. If you feel like this is wrong, why are you doing this?"

" It's not the dragon Nita, it's me. The only reason I did this is to make my father proud of me for once. It's so hard to please him. I was just trying to do what I was told," he bowed his head slightly, avoiding her probing brown eyes.

Nita instantly saw what the problem was now. She decided that since he had been honest with her, she would be honest with him. " Look, to tell you the truth, I only helped you out at first cause of my necklace, but after I saw how you felt about this whole thing and how you seemed in so much pain all the time, I wanted to help. And then after you got those bands…"

The red dragon looked up at her. There was a strange light in his blue eyes. " You wanted to help me?"

" Yes, you seemed so confused and I felt like maybe I could change things."

Blaze pondered this for a moment. " So, you're solution is to let him go," he said, gesturing towards Spyro. It wasn't a question.

" Yes. I think there's a side to this story we haven't heard yet, Blaze, and that it could change everything. Something's just not right here."

" Well, if that's your answer, mine is no," Blaze looked Nita in the eyes as her face fell. "I'm just doing what I'm told. Can't we just get this over with and deal with whatever happens, right or wrong?"

" Fine." She could she the turmoil in his eyes and didn't want to make it worse. She'd said what needed to be.

With that Blaze curled up to sleep. He closed his eyes for a minute. Nita waited patiently. When he opened them, he was determined. " Nita?" he asked quietly.

" What?"

" I've decided you can stay, as long as you want. Just promise me you will agree with my decisions and not run off with the purple dragon. Let me do this," he seemed pleased to actually have some authority.

" O.K," she agreed. That was something she could do. Before she lay over to sleep, she picked her necklace off the ground and put it back on her neck. She stared at it for a moment, gave a quick glance in Spyro's direction, and shut her eyes. For the first time in a while, Blaze actually smiled a little and shut his eyes again, sleep finally taking over.

It was the middle of the night, when Nita thought it was finally safe to open her eyes again. She glanced at Blaze and found him soundly asleep. She grinned slightly as she stood up and crept over to the unconscious purple dragon. She grabbed his tail in her mouth and pulled him into the woods beyond the campsite, by a small river. The wolf dropped him, gagging a little at the disgusting reptilian taste. She then circled the dragon, like she would her prey, making up her mind how to do this. After all, Blaze had said not to run off with the purple dragon, nothing about letting him go and letting him run away. She would still be keeping her promise. After analyzing the situation, Nita finally chose to just yank the braces off. Using all her strength, she opened the clamp on the first one and yanked it off, the evil contraption instantly turning back to its innocent looking gold and green color. When she got the second off, the wolf swore she could hear an angry roar, seeming upset with the dragon's release.

Nita wiped the sweat off her brow and grabbed the bands. She flinched a little at the dark aura that seemed to pulsate from them. Without a second thought, she threw them into the river, watching them go a little way before they sunk to the bottom. The wolf then grabbed a pawful of water and splashed it into the dragon's face. She watched as Spyro slowly opened his eyes and tried to stand up. She helped him, and he seemed to finally notice her. " Who are…?" He didn't even have time to finish before Nita silenced him.

" Look, you don't have much time. Blaze will be waking up soon and you need to get out of here."

" The fire dragon?" Spyro asked delusionally.

" Yes. Just stop asking questions and run. If he finds out I did this…"

Spyro managed a small smile. " Thank you, um,"

" Nita," she breathed, " I want to help you. I'll do what I can to keep him off your trail. I'm a friend."

" Thank you Nita," he said again, smiling fully as he regained his strength. " I won't forget what you've done."

" Yeah, yeah, just go. Now," she growled pushing him roughly.

" Yes Ma'am," he said and took off into the sky, out of her sight in minutes.

Nita smiled. She knew Blaze would be furious and this would make things worse for him, but it was the right thing to do, and it would pay off in the end, whatever the end would be.

Finally I've got Chapter 10 up. I've been pretty busy so it's been hard. So as you can see, the plots still developing. Didn't know Nita felt that way about Blaze did you? Anyway I hope I can put the next chap up soon. It will probably be a while. Anyway, please review and see ya later!