Written by Monica

"Heh, that was funny," said Moons, calming down from laughing so much. "Well, let's keep going, we should be close to Sann'Doria by now…."

"YESH!" yelled Hebi, running along the path ahead of everyone else.

-sweat drops on everyone-

As the group moved on, Grim couldn't help but mutter, "Well, this should be interesting, to say the least."

Moons, who was walking in front of Grim but behind Draco, had heard Grim and replied, "Oh, believe me, it gets more interesting as it progresses."

"Damn, you heard me?!" Grim exclaimed, looking surprised.

"Well, it helps being a wolf," Moons said, tapping one of her wolf ears.

"SOO, Grim, how's it going?!" said Hebi happily, who had popped up out of nowhere.

"Holy --! When did you get here?!" yelled Grim, jumping out of shock.

"Eh, just a few seconds ago," grinned Hebi.

Laughing, Moons walked off to talk with Draco for a bit. As she was leaving Hebi and Grim, she called back to Grim, "Don't worry, you get used to it after a while!"

"So, Draco, I guess you're gonna be stuck like that for a while, huh?"

Yup, but it doesn't really bother me. I think it's pretty cool!

"Hehe, yea…. Hey, what's that?" questioned Moons suddenly, pointing at a very large wagon tied to a tree at the side of the road. It had two griffins tied to it, obviously being the ones who pulled the wagon.

"Ooh, griffins! Cool, I've never seen one before!" Moons exclaimed, walking over to the griffins for a closer look.

Draco suddenly noticed something behind a tree not too far from the wagon. Moons! WAIT!! Don't get near the wagon!!

Moons stopped and turned around. "Huh? Why?"

-cracking sounds-

"What the…? AAH!!"

Draco shook her head and sighed, looking at the hole that had appeared where Moons was standing. Apparently someone had dug a pit and covered it, and, well, Moons uncovered it the hard way.

Grim and Hebi had by now caught up with Draco.

"Hey, Draco, what was that yell? And where's Moons?!" asked Hebi, looking around. She soon spotted the hole, and walked over to it.

"Moons? Umm, how'd you get down there?"

"Oww… I fell! Didn't know there was a trap here…" answered Moons, rubbing the back of her head. Hebi started LHAO while Emerald stuck his tail in the trap so Moons could climb out. As she was climbing out, a tall man came out of the woods, holding a jug of water.

"Hmm, I see the trap I set was an efficient one," he said, chuckling.

"Yes, quite efficient…" Moons said, dusting herself off.

"I do apologize for the inconvenience, but otherwise I wouldn't have felt my griffins were safe," the man remarked, petting one of the griffins. "So, what brings you five around here? From the diversity of the group, I would assume it's not a coincidence you're all traveling together, especially since most of you have weapons," he added, looking at each of them.

We're all headed to Sann'Doria, the elf city Draco replied. We're looking for information on a certain demon-controller who's been going around making demons go all crazy and attacking people

"Ah, I see," the man commented, seemingly not at all fazed by the fact that he was talking to a dragon, and that the dragon answered back. "Well, I do happen to know something about that… but I won't tell you unless you race me!"

"Race?" asked Moons, giving "quoi" look.

"OOH, there's gonna be a RACE?! I wanna race!!" Hebi exclaimed, jumping up and down.

"Yes, a race. You can all join in. You can ride on my griffins. And you can fly yourself, if you can," he said, looking at Draco as he said it. He was now unhooking the two griffins from their harnesses, and whistled to the wagon, where two more griffins came out.

"SWEET! This is gonna be fun!" yelled Hebi. Moons laughed, also excited about riding a griffin. Grim just smiled and shook his head.

"Well, here you go," the man said, handing a griffin to Grim, Hebi, and Moons, while still holding a rein himself. "Once we're up in the air, I'll explain how this works. Oh, and the griffins are all real tame, so don't worry about being bitten."