And When the Moon is Full.
Riis slowly awoke, slower than usual, one sense at a time. Her nose came first. She sniffed her surroundings and was rewarded with the smell of hay, water and dirt. Her hearing came next. She heard muffled voices along with a soft ringing. She attempted to open her eyes, and was rewarded with a half lidded view of the room. In exhaustion, Riis collapsed into a dream-filled sleep.
!@#$#!@#!@!#%*^!#
Riis sat at a table in a blank, green room. The empty room reminded her of a classroom of sorts. She knew she had to learn something, but what was it? After what felt like a couple hours, she stood up and started to pace. She was supposed to learn something, so where was her teacher?
Finally, after what seemed like forever, the wooden door opened and in stepped...her grandmother? Even though she was happy to see her grandmother, for some reason Riis was disappointed. Somehow she knew someone else was supposed to be here. She gave her grandmother a confused look.
"Yes," she replied to Riis' confused look. "You're right. I'm not supposed to be here." Riis look got m ore confused as the great Shadowfox stopped there to take a drink of something from a pouch on her hip. Riis suddenly noticed that she looked much younger.
"Actually, your mother is supposed to be doing this," shadowfox continued. "That is," an evil glint shone in her eyes, "if you follow the laws."
Riis smiled brightly. Her grandmother put food on the table and Riis started to eat when the next question was asked.
"So, while Ceciline was alive, what did she teach you?"
"Staff, pike, spear, glaive, etc. combat," Riis started. "Erm...Fanelian politics, or at least I think that's what it was...How to behave in front of royalty, how to judge people, how to read eyes, how to distinguish conscious and subconscious scents, scents, and the rule of why my hair is so long and when I should cut it." Riis paused here for a moment. "I do believe that's it besides playing the piano."
She watched as her grandmother thought. "That headstrong daughter of mine sure did stick a tone of stuff in your brain before she died," shadowfox said quietly to herself. Riis' ears twitched to her grandmother's voice. Shadowfox suddenly smiled. "This makes my job a lot easier!"
"Huh?" Riis was confused.
"Besides the things that you learn when you turn eighteen, the only thing that she didn't manage to teach you before your sixteenth birthday was the Chant..."
But before Fir Shadowfox had a chance to continue and teach Riis, the room started to blur.
Fir growled an inaudible curse and disappeared quickly through the door. Riis was now frightened and confused. The room blurred and faded...
!@#$#!@#!@#%!$^&*$!
Riis received another slap on her torso where the arrow protruded. She gasped and flinched as the pain traveled through her. Several laughs met her tattered ears. She opened her one good eye to look up into the eyes of Mishi. She growled. Mishi laughed.
"Did you say something, sweet?" Mishi asked her. She growled and spat in his face.
"You...don't know...the half of it," Riis rasped through a parched throat and the rope collar that was tied a little to tightly around her neck. She was backhanded for her spirit.
"Now, I can attempt to break you without any fear of that damn king and his pathetic son getting in the way!" Mishi crowed in delight. For indeed, when Riis had read his eyes, all she saw was a corrupt soul, greed, and something she couldn't quite focus her fuzzy mind on.
She wasn't aware of much until she felt strong hands flip her on her stomach and something bite sharply into her back. She cried out. Sniggering was the reply to her cry. She didn't want this, and this wasn't the way to get what he wanted.
She lay there, her back getting bitten by what only her mind came up with as a whip. She didn't know how many times it had cast its venomous teeth against her soft skin. Her back became numb after a while. She wasn't really aware when they stopped, either. She was too busy trying to stay conscious. She was put back in a sitting position, her back against they rough hay of her floor. Her mind floated in a thick fog that clear immediately when the chant the men were performing reached her bruised ears.
"Shadowfox, shadowfox
Running through the woods.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
We caught to beg a boon.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
We know you hate the cage.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
At least sixteen of age.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
Give us what we crave.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
Then we'll release you whence you came.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
It's not good to with hold.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
You better oblige to what your told.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
We caught to beg a boon.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
Your denial is your doom.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
Running through the woods.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
We caught to beg a boon."
She looked at them with incredulous eyes, her mouth working but no sound came out. "I-I can't," Riis stuttered. "I-I d-don't know how." She was near tears now. She saw something flash and dodged her head in time to doge a knife, but not fast enough to dodge all of it. A thin, red line appeared on her flawless face and ran down the side of her face, much like the tears that followed.
"We'll see you tomorrow, sweetie," Mishi said off-handedly as he and the small group that accompanied him left her cell. She rolled over, now acutely aware of what the whip did to her back and cried herself to sleep in the straw.
@#*%!#@!(%^!$#!*#@%!#@$!
Van had given explicit instructions to his administrators about how to run Fanelia. He even told them that he'd told several people about his instructions so he'd know if they were being followed the right or wrong way.
So now as his little troupe traipsed through the woods, following Dutch in his erratic following of the scent trail, the whole atmosphere was ruined with the sound of thunder. Van and Koyo looked at the sky while Hitomi laughed at their expressions.
"I see nothing funny with the situation here, Hitomi," Van scolded her. Hitomi just smiled at them and kept on laughing. Her laughter was contagious. Soon, Koyo had started to laugh. Dutch even threw his harsh, barking laughter into the mix. Van was flabbergasted. He didn't think that dogs could laugh. He looked at Hitomi. The corners of his mouth slowly pulled up and before he knew it Van was smiling and laughing with the rest of them. They all laughed harder when the rain started.
!@#$#!@#%!^$&!*$
Riis groaned as she sat up. She could barely see out of her right eye. At least I can see out of it a little bit, she conceded. She flinched as the door to her room opened. She attempted to crawl back but fell as she tried to put weight on her injured wrist. Her beatings were becoming more and more lethal.
"Shh," a voice told her. Her eyes watered with the bright light coming from the corridor. She heard the door close and she slowly opened her eyes. Before her stood a girl that was slightly older than Riis herself was. She had fox-red hair and vivid amber eyes. Riis guessed that they were of similar height. A similar tunic that Riis wore accompanied her plain homespun skirt, and in her hands she carried a tray littered with objects Riis could only begin to guess at.
"Hello, shadowfox," the girl said as she squinted her eyes in her glowing smile, something that Riis had almost forgot about. "My name is Tayoru. I'm going to be taking care of you." She quickly looked at the door, falling silent, listening. She turned back to Riis. "I'll also be taking care of your wounds against orders." Riis' ears strained to hear her soft whisper.
"Thank you," Riis choked out. Tayoru clucked in anger. Muttering about the evils of men, Tayoru went to work. She got Riis to stand and they walked slowly over to a chair and table that Riis had never noticed. She had been consumed too deep in her pain filled existence to notice anything but the start and stop of her torture.
Riis sat down stiffly. She almost wished she were lying in the hay on the floor again. The chair was wooden and uncomfortable. She slouched to the table, hissing in pain as her ribs and back protested against the movements. Tayoru had her sit up and take off what remained of her tunic. This time it was Tayoru's turn to hiss.
All along Riis' back were inch wide wounds. Some were still welts and others were pussing and oozing down her back while still others wouldn't let go of the fabric of her shirt. Riis yelped each time Tayoru pulled her shirt out of a wound, the action causing it to bleed again. With all the pain Riis couldn't sit up anymore. Slowly, ever so slowly, Riis started to slide right. Tayoru, her back turned to Riis searching for something on her tray, was oblivious to this action of Riis' until she heard a muffled thud. She turned to see Riis curled in the hay next to the chair.
Tayoru knelt with a basin of steaming, soapy water and an old, clean rag. After wringing it out, Tayoru, as gently as she could, started to clean the wounds on Riis' back.
Riis, when she felt the bite of the soap on her wounds, muffled a cry and bit her lip. She could feel the grain of the fabric against her raw flesh. Every now and then she cried out when Tayoru had to squeez the puss out of one wound or another. Eventually Riis fell into a blissful sleep.
!@#%!@#$!@#%!@#$!@#(&^*!
Riis started awake very disoriented. The room spun and her vision blurred. Thoughts were running of their own accord through her mind. After what seemed like forever, her thoughts settled and she remembered her visitor, Tayoru. She also realized that her back didn't hurt anymore, and on further inspection, all of injuries other than her breaks and sprains didn't hurt anymore. She was beginning to like this Tayoru a lot. Riis smiled for the first time since she was stolen from Fanelia when she smelled the food on the table.
After limping to the table and sitting down on the uncomfortable chair that she had sat on hours before, Riis saw the food was half a loaf of hard bread and a bowl of chicken broth. She was really beginning to like this Tayoru girl.
!@#$$%$#@!!@#$!@#$!(^&
Van, Hitomi and Koyo had taken shelter in a weeping willow. Dutch, on the other hand, wouldn't have anything to do with the willow. He was perfectly content to stay out in the rain. Van, not wanting to travel with a wet smelling dirt dog eventually hauled the stubborn animal into the shelter of the weeping willow. Dutch displayed sharp white teeth while he growled menacingly, obviously telling him something. Van ended up sleeping in a high branch of the tree while his wife slept on a comfy bed of dead leaves. Koyo perched with his father and Dutch, after shaking out his fur and drying off next to the fire, slept next to Hitomi. What a wonderful way to end a most uneventful and mundane traveling day. Who knows what would challenge the travelers on the 'morrow?
!@#%!#$!@#$!#$!#$
Hitomi awoke to wining. Thinking it was just Koyo having a bad dream, she snuggled back into the leaves. When the wining persisted, she cracked open one eye to see Dutch sitting with his head hung, staring at the ashes of the fire...and crying. Hitomi crawled over to the heart broken animal and patted his head. Dutch turned his sad beautiful eyes on her. So different were they from the laughing ones he had sported when they had first met it caused Hitomi's heart to go out to the animal.
"There, there, Dutch," Hitomi consoled as she scratched him muzzle. "We'll eventually find her. All we can do now is hope that she is still alive." She was surprised when Dutch nodded. He looked at the tree and Hitomi smiled when she saw the devious look of mischief in his eyes. He looked back at her and she nodded. Hitomi's green eyes were the size of saucers when Dutch performed his feat.
He had taken a running start and, using his claws, gripped the bark of the willow. Before Hitomi knew it, he was standing on the lowest branch. An utterly cruel idea came to her.
"Dutch," Hitomi said with a mischievous smile adorning her face. "Why don't you go wake the boys up?" She suppressed a giggle as Dutch wagged his tail and leapt to the next branch and the next. She laughed outright when she heard the yells from above.
!@#%!#$!#@%!#^*!$#@!#%
Van groggily pushed the fuzzy thing out of his face, still half asleep, muttering something about chickens and no bacon if you don't mind. He was returning to his dream when the fuzzy thing pressed into his face again. This caused....something very interesting in Van's dream.
Van, instead of being on the farm where he was before, He was in the middle of a field that he thought he recognized. Out of the tall grass, a little fuzzy animal, similar to a chinchilla, jumped and latched itself onto his face, licking his forehead. Van thought the little creature was the cutest thing and tried to get it off so he could get a better look at it...but it wouldn't come off. He tried everything and the fuzz ball wouldn't let go of his face.
Van opened his eyes to see a huge pink tongue lick his face. He shrieked and jumped up. This caused three things to happen; one) Van woke Koyo up, two) Van lost his balance, and three) Van fell out of the tree. He greeted a laughing Hitomi when he landed on her bed...under the tree...on the ground. Van glared daggers up the tree at the laughing Dutch. Koyo climbed down and helped Dutch come down as well.
After breakfast was eaten, with Dutch out in the lead, the royal rescue team continued on their journey.
!#!$!%$!@#!%^&!*$#%!
"So, Koyo, what have you been up to lately?" Hitomi asked her son as the passed a particularly large grove of trees and outcropping of boulders.
"Just studying the same stuff dad did when he was my age," Koyo replied.
"I never did find out what that was," Hitomi mumbled to herself. While the others were consumed in their musings none realized that Dutch had stopped. He was sniffing the air while slowly sinking to the ground trying to make himself inconspicuous. When he couldn't take the pressure anymore, Dutch ran back to the group of arguing people barking warning. Behind him a land dragon hissed and took a huge intake of air preparing to spit fire.
"Run!" Van shouted as they scattered.
!@#%!&^!#%$!#@!&%#$!
A/N: five straight pages of typing. YAY!!! Right now as I type this I am sitting in a chair in the Granville Towers on the campus of University of North Carolina in a dorm with someone that I hate who is at the moment fast asleep. The reason being down here: basketball camp. I've played almost as much basketball in five days as I have in a month during the regular season.
Riis slowly awoke, slower than usual, one sense at a time. Her nose came first. She sniffed her surroundings and was rewarded with the smell of hay, water and dirt. Her hearing came next. She heard muffled voices along with a soft ringing. She attempted to open her eyes, and was rewarded with a half lidded view of the room. In exhaustion, Riis collapsed into a dream-filled sleep.
!@#$#!@#!@!#%*^!#
Riis sat at a table in a blank, green room. The empty room reminded her of a classroom of sorts. She knew she had to learn something, but what was it? After what felt like a couple hours, she stood up and started to pace. She was supposed to learn something, so where was her teacher?
Finally, after what seemed like forever, the wooden door opened and in stepped...her grandmother? Even though she was happy to see her grandmother, for some reason Riis was disappointed. Somehow she knew someone else was supposed to be here. She gave her grandmother a confused look.
"Yes," she replied to Riis' confused look. "You're right. I'm not supposed to be here." Riis look got m ore confused as the great Shadowfox stopped there to take a drink of something from a pouch on her hip. Riis suddenly noticed that she looked much younger.
"Actually, your mother is supposed to be doing this," shadowfox continued. "That is," an evil glint shone in her eyes, "if you follow the laws."
Riis smiled brightly. Her grandmother put food on the table and Riis started to eat when the next question was asked.
"So, while Ceciline was alive, what did she teach you?"
"Staff, pike, spear, glaive, etc. combat," Riis started. "Erm...Fanelian politics, or at least I think that's what it was...How to behave in front of royalty, how to judge people, how to read eyes, how to distinguish conscious and subconscious scents, scents, and the rule of why my hair is so long and when I should cut it." Riis paused here for a moment. "I do believe that's it besides playing the piano."
She watched as her grandmother thought. "That headstrong daughter of mine sure did stick a tone of stuff in your brain before she died," shadowfox said quietly to herself. Riis' ears twitched to her grandmother's voice. Shadowfox suddenly smiled. "This makes my job a lot easier!"
"Huh?" Riis was confused.
"Besides the things that you learn when you turn eighteen, the only thing that she didn't manage to teach you before your sixteenth birthday was the Chant..."
But before Fir Shadowfox had a chance to continue and teach Riis, the room started to blur.
Fir growled an inaudible curse and disappeared quickly through the door. Riis was now frightened and confused. The room blurred and faded...
!@#$#!@#!@#%!$^&*$!
Riis received another slap on her torso where the arrow protruded. She gasped and flinched as the pain traveled through her. Several laughs met her tattered ears. She opened her one good eye to look up into the eyes of Mishi. She growled. Mishi laughed.
"Did you say something, sweet?" Mishi asked her. She growled and spat in his face.
"You...don't know...the half of it," Riis rasped through a parched throat and the rope collar that was tied a little to tightly around her neck. She was backhanded for her spirit.
"Now, I can attempt to break you without any fear of that damn king and his pathetic son getting in the way!" Mishi crowed in delight. For indeed, when Riis had read his eyes, all she saw was a corrupt soul, greed, and something she couldn't quite focus her fuzzy mind on.
She wasn't aware of much until she felt strong hands flip her on her stomach and something bite sharply into her back. She cried out. Sniggering was the reply to her cry. She didn't want this, and this wasn't the way to get what he wanted.
She lay there, her back getting bitten by what only her mind came up with as a whip. She didn't know how many times it had cast its venomous teeth against her soft skin. Her back became numb after a while. She wasn't really aware when they stopped, either. She was too busy trying to stay conscious. She was put back in a sitting position, her back against they rough hay of her floor. Her mind floated in a thick fog that clear immediately when the chant the men were performing reached her bruised ears.
"Shadowfox, shadowfox
Running through the woods.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
We caught to beg a boon.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
We know you hate the cage.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
At least sixteen of age.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
Give us what we crave.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
Then we'll release you whence you came.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
It's not good to with hold.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
You better oblige to what your told.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
We caught to beg a boon.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
Your denial is your doom.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
Running through the woods.
Shadowfox, shadowfox
We caught to beg a boon."
She looked at them with incredulous eyes, her mouth working but no sound came out. "I-I can't," Riis stuttered. "I-I d-don't know how." She was near tears now. She saw something flash and dodged her head in time to doge a knife, but not fast enough to dodge all of it. A thin, red line appeared on her flawless face and ran down the side of her face, much like the tears that followed.
"We'll see you tomorrow, sweetie," Mishi said off-handedly as he and the small group that accompanied him left her cell. She rolled over, now acutely aware of what the whip did to her back and cried herself to sleep in the straw.
@#*%!#@!(%^!$#!*#@%!#@$!
Van had given explicit instructions to his administrators about how to run Fanelia. He even told them that he'd told several people about his instructions so he'd know if they were being followed the right or wrong way.
So now as his little troupe traipsed through the woods, following Dutch in his erratic following of the scent trail, the whole atmosphere was ruined with the sound of thunder. Van and Koyo looked at the sky while Hitomi laughed at their expressions.
"I see nothing funny with the situation here, Hitomi," Van scolded her. Hitomi just smiled at them and kept on laughing. Her laughter was contagious. Soon, Koyo had started to laugh. Dutch even threw his harsh, barking laughter into the mix. Van was flabbergasted. He didn't think that dogs could laugh. He looked at Hitomi. The corners of his mouth slowly pulled up and before he knew it Van was smiling and laughing with the rest of them. They all laughed harder when the rain started.
!@#$#!@#%!^$&!*$
Riis groaned as she sat up. She could barely see out of her right eye. At least I can see out of it a little bit, she conceded. She flinched as the door to her room opened. She attempted to crawl back but fell as she tried to put weight on her injured wrist. Her beatings were becoming more and more lethal.
"Shh," a voice told her. Her eyes watered with the bright light coming from the corridor. She heard the door close and she slowly opened her eyes. Before her stood a girl that was slightly older than Riis herself was. She had fox-red hair and vivid amber eyes. Riis guessed that they were of similar height. A similar tunic that Riis wore accompanied her plain homespun skirt, and in her hands she carried a tray littered with objects Riis could only begin to guess at.
"Hello, shadowfox," the girl said as she squinted her eyes in her glowing smile, something that Riis had almost forgot about. "My name is Tayoru. I'm going to be taking care of you." She quickly looked at the door, falling silent, listening. She turned back to Riis. "I'll also be taking care of your wounds against orders." Riis' ears strained to hear her soft whisper.
"Thank you," Riis choked out. Tayoru clucked in anger. Muttering about the evils of men, Tayoru went to work. She got Riis to stand and they walked slowly over to a chair and table that Riis had never noticed. She had been consumed too deep in her pain filled existence to notice anything but the start and stop of her torture.
Riis sat down stiffly. She almost wished she were lying in the hay on the floor again. The chair was wooden and uncomfortable. She slouched to the table, hissing in pain as her ribs and back protested against the movements. Tayoru had her sit up and take off what remained of her tunic. This time it was Tayoru's turn to hiss.
All along Riis' back were inch wide wounds. Some were still welts and others were pussing and oozing down her back while still others wouldn't let go of the fabric of her shirt. Riis yelped each time Tayoru pulled her shirt out of a wound, the action causing it to bleed again. With all the pain Riis couldn't sit up anymore. Slowly, ever so slowly, Riis started to slide right. Tayoru, her back turned to Riis searching for something on her tray, was oblivious to this action of Riis' until she heard a muffled thud. She turned to see Riis curled in the hay next to the chair.
Tayoru knelt with a basin of steaming, soapy water and an old, clean rag. After wringing it out, Tayoru, as gently as she could, started to clean the wounds on Riis' back.
Riis, when she felt the bite of the soap on her wounds, muffled a cry and bit her lip. She could feel the grain of the fabric against her raw flesh. Every now and then she cried out when Tayoru had to squeez the puss out of one wound or another. Eventually Riis fell into a blissful sleep.
!@#%!@#$!@#%!@#$!@#(&^*!
Riis started awake very disoriented. The room spun and her vision blurred. Thoughts were running of their own accord through her mind. After what seemed like forever, her thoughts settled and she remembered her visitor, Tayoru. She also realized that her back didn't hurt anymore, and on further inspection, all of injuries other than her breaks and sprains didn't hurt anymore. She was beginning to like this Tayoru a lot. Riis smiled for the first time since she was stolen from Fanelia when she smelled the food on the table.
After limping to the table and sitting down on the uncomfortable chair that she had sat on hours before, Riis saw the food was half a loaf of hard bread and a bowl of chicken broth. She was really beginning to like this Tayoru girl.
!@#$$%$#@!!@#$!@#$!(^&
Van, Hitomi and Koyo had taken shelter in a weeping willow. Dutch, on the other hand, wouldn't have anything to do with the willow. He was perfectly content to stay out in the rain. Van, not wanting to travel with a wet smelling dirt dog eventually hauled the stubborn animal into the shelter of the weeping willow. Dutch displayed sharp white teeth while he growled menacingly, obviously telling him something. Van ended up sleeping in a high branch of the tree while his wife slept on a comfy bed of dead leaves. Koyo perched with his father and Dutch, after shaking out his fur and drying off next to the fire, slept next to Hitomi. What a wonderful way to end a most uneventful and mundane traveling day. Who knows what would challenge the travelers on the 'morrow?
!@#%!#$!@#$!#$!#$
Hitomi awoke to wining. Thinking it was just Koyo having a bad dream, she snuggled back into the leaves. When the wining persisted, she cracked open one eye to see Dutch sitting with his head hung, staring at the ashes of the fire...and crying. Hitomi crawled over to the heart broken animal and patted his head. Dutch turned his sad beautiful eyes on her. So different were they from the laughing ones he had sported when they had first met it caused Hitomi's heart to go out to the animal.
"There, there, Dutch," Hitomi consoled as she scratched him muzzle. "We'll eventually find her. All we can do now is hope that she is still alive." She was surprised when Dutch nodded. He looked at the tree and Hitomi smiled when she saw the devious look of mischief in his eyes. He looked back at her and she nodded. Hitomi's green eyes were the size of saucers when Dutch performed his feat.
He had taken a running start and, using his claws, gripped the bark of the willow. Before Hitomi knew it, he was standing on the lowest branch. An utterly cruel idea came to her.
"Dutch," Hitomi said with a mischievous smile adorning her face. "Why don't you go wake the boys up?" She suppressed a giggle as Dutch wagged his tail and leapt to the next branch and the next. She laughed outright when she heard the yells from above.
!@#%!#$!#@%!#^*!$#@!#%
Van groggily pushed the fuzzy thing out of his face, still half asleep, muttering something about chickens and no bacon if you don't mind. He was returning to his dream when the fuzzy thing pressed into his face again. This caused....something very interesting in Van's dream.
Van, instead of being on the farm where he was before, He was in the middle of a field that he thought he recognized. Out of the tall grass, a little fuzzy animal, similar to a chinchilla, jumped and latched itself onto his face, licking his forehead. Van thought the little creature was the cutest thing and tried to get it off so he could get a better look at it...but it wouldn't come off. He tried everything and the fuzz ball wouldn't let go of his face.
Van opened his eyes to see a huge pink tongue lick his face. He shrieked and jumped up. This caused three things to happen; one) Van woke Koyo up, two) Van lost his balance, and three) Van fell out of the tree. He greeted a laughing Hitomi when he landed on her bed...under the tree...on the ground. Van glared daggers up the tree at the laughing Dutch. Koyo climbed down and helped Dutch come down as well.
After breakfast was eaten, with Dutch out in the lead, the royal rescue team continued on their journey.
!#!$!%$!@#!%^&!*$#%!
"So, Koyo, what have you been up to lately?" Hitomi asked her son as the passed a particularly large grove of trees and outcropping of boulders.
"Just studying the same stuff dad did when he was my age," Koyo replied.
"I never did find out what that was," Hitomi mumbled to herself. While the others were consumed in their musings none realized that Dutch had stopped. He was sniffing the air while slowly sinking to the ground trying to make himself inconspicuous. When he couldn't take the pressure anymore, Dutch ran back to the group of arguing people barking warning. Behind him a land dragon hissed and took a huge intake of air preparing to spit fire.
"Run!" Van shouted as they scattered.
!@#%!&^!#%$!#@!&%#$!
A/N: five straight pages of typing. YAY!!! Right now as I type this I am sitting in a chair in the Granville Towers on the campus of University of North Carolina in a dorm with someone that I hate who is at the moment fast asleep. The reason being down here: basketball camp. I've played almost as much basketball in five days as I have in a month during the regular season.