Authors Note: This is NOT written by Zimba. This is written by Icedragon26, her friend. And I am sorry it is late. Really. **coughs** Oh, and IceDragn26 own U'klim and that's it!)

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Stormwing Fun

Chapter 2

By: IceDragon26

Lauren ran as fast as her feet could carry her. She was a fast runner, but the rain and tree branches around her seriously made her slow. Besides, she had stopped to help Emma off the ground anyway. Lauren burst in to a clearing, her breathing labored. Imi, Amanda, Amy, and Ariel were all sitting huddled near the trees. The damp air was filled with everyone's gasping and the heavy raindrops dropping from the leaves around them.

Imi immediately got up, something sticky wrapped around her arm. A spider web.

"Lauren." She whispered, voice filled with dread. "What kind of creature makes this stuff?"

Lauren looked it over, and then gulped feverishly. "Spindrens." She answered warily, then smacked herself, realizing those were in a made up world. "I mean, spiders."

Imi shook her head. Their eyes locked a minute, fear making their hearts beat out of their chest. They were in Tortall. Lauren groaned. This was so farfetched. It was a spidren.

Lauren sniffed the air, a dreadful scent filling her nose. She wheezed and her whole body shuddered. Imi and the other girls shook as well. A shadow passed over them, making Lauren look up in the rain. A figure, half bird, half man flew over them. He had steely feathers and a grin full of malice. His skin was dark and he had black hair and steely green eyes. He looked as if he was around seventeen.

Lauren gasped. A stormwing. But didn't they only come for deaths? What if the others were- Lauren shook off her thoughts and called up to the stormwing. Imi looked at her like she was crazy. In fact, she must have been.

The stormwing circled downward and land in the clearing. The three of the Foxy Five squealed and huddled more together. Imi looked like she was about to hurl. Lauren gulped down that sensation.

"Hello." She managed to say. "I'm Lauren and this is Imi."

Imi nodded to the creature, looking sick. The stormwing sneered at them.

"What do y'all want?" he growled. "I got no time hangin' round here. Death be soon a comin'."

"Death?" asked one of the Foxy Five. The stormwing flashed a smile in their direction and turned back to Imi and Lauren.

"Yeah." He answered. "Name's U'klim, by the way. Just passin' by when I heard those wretched Spindrens a passin'. Nasty folks they are." U'klim trailed off then suddenly took off in flight. "Sorry ta leave so soon, girlies. But that spindren's a comin this way and I'm in no folly to mess with it. I just was a wantin' lunch."

Lauren gasped as the spindren came barreling through the bushes. The spindren looked around, eyes gleaming with hate and hunger. Amy, Amanda, and Ariel both tried to scramble to their feet, but their legs were barred together by the spindren's sticky web. It approached them carefully. Imi, thinking clearly, hurled a huge rock at the creature. It turned around, clicking its pincers together. Lauren picked up a big stick in the brush and ran out to meet the spindren angrily. It scuttled foreword and swung its foreleg across Lauren's side. Lauren flew across the clearing, bleeding heavily, and became unconscious, hitting a tree.

"Lauren!" Imi screamed. She started to panic as the spindren came closer. Imi turned to flee but her legs were glooed together by more of that cursed web. Imi hit the ground hard, and lost everything after that.

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Lauren was awoken by the most horrifying, awful stench she had ever smelled. Lauren opened her eyes warily and found that wretched stormwing U'klim above her, looking down in to her face. Lauren, being afraid of being eaten by the stormwing muttered that she was alive. As she tried to talk, blood oozed from her stomach. Lauren cried out in pain.

"Hush!" U'klim said, annoyed. "I'm a tryin' to help ya, love!"

It was true. Next to U'klim was a bunch of bloodied up towels. U'klim gingerly dabbed some of the blood. "Sorry, love." He muttered. "But you ain't livin' for much longer."

Lauren moaned. "Why are you helping me?" she wheezed.

U'klim smiled sadly. "I can't eat no humans. I was one once. Used a stormwing feather ta get out of danger, and was this way ever since. Now I'm forever searchin' for some type of a magickin' to get me back."

Lauren gasped as a sharp pain swept through her body. "It hurts." She said, now crying. Suddenly she was reminded of the spindren and shot straight up, scared to death for her friends.

"The spindr-" she got out, but a pain in her arm stopped her. One of U'klim's feathers, half off his body, was stuck in her arm.

Lauren stared at it. U'klim did as well. The world abruptly shone with a bright light and then it ended.

Lauren had turned in to a stormwing.

Her wound on her stomach was instantly healed. She now had half her normal body and half of a steely feathered bird. She wore only a small strip of white cloth around her torso, the remains of her shirt.

Lauren screamed and hobbled around on her new bird legs. U'klim gaped at her, looking as though he was about to laugh, in which he did.

Lauren shot a deadly glare at him. "What did you do to me?" she said, anger making her voice quiver.

U'klim laughed, his green eyes dancing. "You're like me!" he chuckled. "Cut yourself with this feather and you be a findin' that you be one like me!"

Lauren groaned and hopped around on her new legs, not used to this. And definitely NOT expecting this. U'klim eyes her with interest.

"You should come a searchin' for that magic with me, love. We'll be humans again."

Lauren shook her head, brown hair falling over her face. "I have to find my friends."

"NO!" U'klim said loudly. "You're friends are human and they won't be a wantin' you. Not with that stench of yours."

Lauren sighed miserably. He was right. She guessed she did stink. She didn't really notice it. She didn't even think U'klim stunk anymore.

"It's okay." U'klim said gently. "You're with me an' we're goin' after some way to cure of of this, right?"

Lauren looked in to his eyes and sighed regretfully. "I guess so." Lauren suddenly felt enlightened. "Will we meet a dragon?"

U'klim chuckled. "Sure, if you were a wantin' to."

Lauren nodded vigorously. She had always dreamed of meeting a dragon. U'klim smiled. He suddenly looked handsome through Lauren's stormwing eyes.

"Now, before all this starts, we got to be a teachin' ya to fly."

Lauren laughed, forgetting the woes of her friends and everything else. She was going to fly, see a dragon, and see Tortall. Amazing.

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Two days later, Lauren soared through the air with U'klim next to her. She was worried about her friends. After she had learned to fly, the two stormwings had been searching for them. They hadn't found one of the nine girls still there. Puzzled, Lauren sighed and landed on a thick branch of a tree. U'klim settled next to her.

"Sorry for holding you up like this. I'm just worried about them." Lauren confessed and found herself preening her metal feathers. Sickened, she stopped right away.

U'klim shrugged. "It's okay. I was just wantin' company."

Lauren grinned at him and looked down to the forest floor below her. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to go and start looking for a way to get herself in a human body again. She dreadfully missed walking rather than flying. She was afraid of heights.

U'klim noticed Lauren's distress and gently hugged her around the shoulders.

"We'll find them, love, and you're old body. Just you be a watchin' me."

Lauren snuggled closer to him. U'klim had been extremely friendly with her the past days and she enjoyed his company. U'klim, surprised by the affection, didn't object.

"But now, love, we must be getting' off to see that dragon I promised ya."

Lauren yipped in glee, startling U'klim away from her a bit. Lauren giggled as he ruffled his metal feathers.

"Why do you call me love?" she asked curiously. U'klim looked at her strangely. It was a strange question that came out of nowhere.

"One can only hope." U'klim said in a manly fashion.

Lauren didn't comprehend it. "U'klim, why am I still alive? Didn't that spindren almost finish me off?"

"I dragged ya away from him, love." U'klim answered. "Seems I'm your knight in shinin' armor, huh?"

Lauren giggled. "You're not a knight, but you do shine."

U'klim sighed, annoyed. "And on that note, let's be getting' off to see that mass of fire breathin' scum."

U'klim took off in to a shining blur against the sun. Lauren sat for a minute and thought

One can only hope? I get it! Hey! That scoundrel!

Lauren, blazing with embarrassment, came after her stormwing friend.

"U'klim!" she screeched. "You're a naughty man, get back here!"