Chapter Nineteen: Old Friend
It was almost two days before Reign stopped to rest. Jonah had left her in the first day of their journey, mentioning something about getting back to his troops. It was horrible for him to leave her like that. But she knew that he had only gone with her this far was to make sure she was too far to go back. And she was. Her stallion--Cypress--was the one who demanded that they paused in their travels by throwing her off his back. The horse had a very profound personality--he snorted when Reign got up laughing and dusted herself off. It was the first time she had laughed in forever. She walked up to Cypress and massaged his muzzle, apologizing. The horse closed his eyes at her touch and rocked gently to the soothing strokes of her hand on his snout. He was slightly disgruntled when she pulled away, but when she returned with an apple for him, all was forgiven. As he was chomping away at his fruit the elf went into the trees. She returned a few moments later with a small bundle of twigs, branches, and two logs. She set them on the ground a few feet between her and the horse. Then, lifting her hands to the sky, she closed her eyes and spoke.
"Similia similious curantur." (Fight fire with fire.) A small sphere of light appeared in her closed hands, and she dropped them to her side, releasing the ball of fire onto the wood. The fire illuminated their rest stop--another clearing, in another forest, on one very depressing journey back home. She went over to Cypress and removed his saddle and reins. After setting them down, she reached inside one of the side pouches and pulled out her own dinner--a few vegetables--and two more apples for her stallion. When she pulled out the second fruit, an object fell out along with it. She picked it up and rolled it between her hands; she was lost in oblivion, thinking about him, and missing him. A solitary tear escaped her eye and fell to the ground. Cypress noticed her sudden change of attitude and nudged her slightly. She immediately broke free of her void. Reign turned to him and took his mighty cheeks in her hands, whispering familiar thank-yous to him, as it was quite often he would be the one to shake her from her dream world. She went over to the fire, leading Cypress there also. She sat down, pulled out a carrot, and stared at the object that had caused her mind to travel elsewhere. It was, in fact, the globe that he had gotten her for Christmas. A time that seemed so long ago.
When she awoke to reality, it was not because her horse had touched her, but because she heard strange noises from the trees surrounding them. The rustle of leaves, the snapping of twigs, the slight shaking of the ground beneath them--all were signs that something big was hiding in those trees. Reign sprang from the ground, drew her sword, and demanded that the creature show itself. There was a long moment of silence before the noises started up again. Whatever the creature was, it was now right at the edge of the clearing. Its shadow suggested it to be an enormous animal; even Cypress backed away from it. Reign, however, walked closer and demanded once again for the monster to reveal itself. It did indeed do so, and very gracefully at that. Its left foot was visible first, stepping into the clearing and into the moonlight, which lit its razor sharp claws and shining green scales that covered the limb. Next came its other foot and legs, ridiculously muscular. Then came the chest, jutting out, lean, and with the heart visibly beating against it. Following that was a head--held high and proud. Two glistening gray eyes stuck out from overly defined brow bones. Its snout was of medium length, but its teeth made up for the lack of. Small horns stuck out on either side of the head, with two larger ones at the top of the crest. Advancing farther into the arena, a long and strong torso could be seen, which ended with a spade-spiked tail. The legs resembled that of a lions--also muscular and well defined--but with the same forest green scales that covered the rest of the body. But by far the most noticeable feature of the monster was the two giant wings that protruded from the middle of its back. They stretched far into the trees on either side of it; the creature itself was as tall as a Quidditch pole.
By the time it had entered fully into the clearing, Reign had already replaced her sword, and Cypress moved carefully forward as his memory slowly came to recall whom exactly this monster was. It was the Siberian Korento that they had met on their way to Hogwarts (though not knowing that they were headed there at the time). Cypress began to remember how they had met on one unusually cold summer night, how they had experimented and created that ridiculous potion, and how Reign had left him to wander the forests of England by himself while she hid at the Wizarding School. Reign bowed deeply in front of the great dragon, and he did the same for her.
"It is good to see you old friend. How have you been?" She asked as she returned to the fire. The dragon followed her and laid down by her side, answering,
"Very well, though I've been very bored. And you, elf?" Reign sat staring into the flames for a moment. She looked up into the deep eyes of the dragon--which were such a dark gray that they reminded her of his--and her eyes swelled up with water. She batted them repeatedly so as not to let another tear escape. Noticing her dismay, the dragon lowered his head and whispered in a soothing tone,
"Tell me your troubles." So she did. She spent the entire night telling him her story. The creature remained silent, listening intently to what she had to say. Cypress was asleep by the time she finished, but the dragon had never been more awake. "I am so sorry to have caused you this great pain."
"No, dear friend. It was not you who caused it. It was my idea to experiment; it was my fault that this damned thing ever came into existence." She pulled out the vial from her pouch and threw it across the clearing. It smashed into a near-by tree, but instead of seeping into the earth, it collected into a puddle. The shattered pieces of the bottle magically fastened themselves together, and the potion was as it was before it was tossed. Reign sighed. The dragon wanted to comfort her, but he felt that putting his foot on her shoulder as a sign of reassurance would have crushed her, and so he thought better of it. Instead he settled for looking up at the night sky, which was filled with millions of stars.
"Reign, look up at the sky." She raised her head, with tears now pouring out of her eyes. She wiped them away, ashamed that she let them fall. The stars were brilliant that night, shining as if they were a million fireflies just come out on a midsummer's eve. "Those stars are like all the creatures of this world. Some are large: others, small. Some shine brighter than the others, and there are still others who pull those in around them and lead them in their orbit," he explained. "Do you see that one in the southern most corner out to the east?" Reign shook her head. "That is the sun of the solar system Aurora. It is the brightest star in the sky. It is the center of the galaxy, reigning down upon all the other stars." He looked down into her eyes. "Reign, you are that star." The elf smiled. She put a hand on the dragon's snout as a sign of gratitude, and then turned to look once more at the sky. When she did, a shooting star feel across her view. She made a wish. Then she closed her eyes and leaned back against the dragon's powerful chest, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.