I have a piece of music for you, Such Great Heights, by The Postal Service, (Ben Folds performs an excellent cover version that I love too, for the record) it really suits Spyro and Cynder. It's a really nice song, play it randomly, or put it on after the two dragons start flying for the second time, your choice.

Spyro and Cynder flew together, the ground passed by far below them; the volcano that was their first landmark loomed ahead. The winds and weather were perfect for flying, the sun was pleasantly warm and the two dragons had a brisk tailwind to speed their way. Every few seconds Spyro flapped his wings lazily to maintain his course; Cynder didn't even need to do that.

Warfang had disappeared into a smudge on the horizon. Cynder was glad to be gone; the great dragon city had never looked quite as nice as it did when it was fading into the distance. Now there were no friends or enemies, there were no Guardian dragons, no teachers, no crowds of strangers. It was just her and Spyro flying alone, together.

"If this tailwind lasts then we should reach the mountain in less than an hour." Spyro called to her. Cynder shifted her wings slightly to bring her course nearer to Spyro's so they could talk.

"Of course it will last. I'm creating it." Cynder said. Spyro stared at her in amazement.

"I should have known you could do that." Spyro said. Cynder twirled.

The black and purple dragons flew silently for a few minutes. Spyro stole glances at Cynder, soon he he noticed her noticing he was looking. After that he stared unashamedly.

"What are you thinking?" Cynder asked.

"The way you fly is beautiful. I was wondering what it might be like to be a wind dragon." Spyro said. "Can you tell me about what it's like?"

"I'll do my best."

Cynder twirled again as she thought; trying to find a way to describe how flying felt to her was difficult, she didn't even know where to start. Flying made her feel like her body weighed nothing at all, she could stop or accelerate to unbelievable speeds at will, twist and turn in easy defiance of the three laws of motion and complete disregard of the force of gravity, she felt like she could do anything, how could you explain the way that felt to anyone?

Wind was freedom, it was whatever she wanted it to be, taking her wherever she wanted, however she wanted. Intimately caressing her wings and body, surrounding her completely, flowing into and through her until she couldn't tell where she ended and the sky began. It was a deeply personal feeling, and simply impossible to describe with words.

She came out of her twirl upside down, but she flew that way as easily as she flew upright. Spyro stared.

"How can you do that?"

Cynder flipped back to normal, it was disconcerting talking to an upside down Spyro.

"Wind doesn't need up or down, it just goes where it wills and so do I. I don't quite know how to describe this."

Cynder found herself wishing Spyro had a wind element; he deserved to be able to experience what she could. She wanted to share it with him.

"Relax, stop flapping your wings." She told him. Spyro obeyed, he began to lose his course, but he waited for Cynder. Cynder glided below him, matching his course perfectly. The wind gently raised the two of them in harmony. Spyro didn't need to flap his wings any more, the wind kept him aloft as it did Cynder, but it just wasn't the same.

Cynder flew closer, bringing her hips into contact with Spyro's, then the rest of her body, she even aligned her wings and tail with Spyro's.

Spyro traced Cynder's scales with his paw; the line of her upper back was a gentle curve that it felt natural for Spyro to rest his paw on. He felt the muscles move easily below her smooth skin. Her entire body resonated magic. Cynder in flight felt different to Cynder on the ground; her scales were somehow connected to the wind, it rushed over and around her body, surrounding her. When Spyro put his paw right against Cynder's scales the effect stopped, but the wind clung to her body in in the tiniest gaps between the two dragons.

Whatever it was that Cynder was doing with her wind magic, or perhaps it was simply the feeling of her body in contact with his, it made Spyro's skin tingle.

The wind expanded and closed in around Spyro too, it was an unnerving experience; it surrounded him and left no part of him untouched. He focused on Cynder; she was doing this, so it couldn't be bad.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"Improvising." Cynder said.

"You don't know then?"

"No."

They were going to the volcano; it filled the sky before them. Cynder estimated the near side of the slope to be about twenty kilometres away, still distant. Cynder pictured an arc that would take them right there, in effect she visualised a wind tunnel like the ones that could be found in the old city below Warfang, but this one would be faster, much faster. She reached out with her magic, asserting her control over the air between her the mountain, she had no fine control over the wind at that distance, but she could influence it, even from far away.

Cynder imagined herself flying through that path she had imagined, how the wind would carry her there, how the world would blur as she flew past it. The volcano seemed so close, like she could reach it in a single minute, ten minutes tops. All she had to do was fly fast enough.

The wind surged around and through the two linked dragons, Cynder set her wings and Spyro's in a back swept position, and then they accelerated.

Spyro left his stomach behind him, he wanted to scream, partly in terror and partly in exhilaration, but the sheer speed and shock of the acceleration took the sound away.

Everything blurred around them, the only thing Spyro could see was Cynder, and he was holding onto her for dear life in a most heroic manner. Comet dash caused the fastest acceleration Spyro had ever experienced, and that was dizzying enough, but this was much more intense. He felt sick.

Spyro knew nothing about transonic flight physics; he had never even contemplated the idea of sound having a "speed" He had certainly never imagined that such a speed could itself be out-flown. Thirty five seconds into their flight he reimagined what he knew about the world as Cynder reached Mach 1, the speed of sound.

There were three primary problems an object must face in order to reach that sort of speed.
Firstly: thrust, just flapping harder isn't going to help a dragon reach a speed of three hundred meters per second. Naturally occurring wind could travel at about half the speed that Cynder wanted, but with her magic Cynder created a wind around her and Spyro that was much, much faster.
Secondly: control, it was to control their flight that Cynder had created her wind tunnel before she'd even started to accelerate, it would keep them on course.
The last, and most important, thing was not dying: Put simply, they were flying through air, air had to flow around them, the less aerodynamic an object was the more air had to flow around it, that flow caused friction and friction in turn caused agonising burning pain.
The air pressure around and in front of them would drop severely; once they breathed out it would be impossible to breathe in again. Cynder countered this with the same strategy as she would use to protect herself from rain, hail, fire or other annoying threats; she created a shield of air around herself and Spyro. The shield was meant to take the force of their passage and divert the air around them harmlessly, allowing them to fly unhindered.

Cynder felt her wings beginning to strain; the shield of air she would usually create was the wrong shape to protect both her and Spyro, her wings weren't protected from the force. She was going too fast and she was still accelerating, hanging around the sound barrier was an extremely bad thing to do.

Cynder could protect Spyro and herself from the devastating effects of the air rushing by them at that speed, but if she didn't accelerate enough then some of the air they flew through would be passing over them at supersonic speed while other parts of the air wouldn't be. It was nearly impossible for her to shield the two of them from two different types of force at once, she had to go faster, slow down, or get burned. She chose faster, of course.

The supersonic expansion fan was a side effect of their speed. A cone of water vapour rapidly formed around the two dragons, obscuring Cynder's vision; she couldn't see where they were going. The vapour trail itself was one thing Cynder understood well; it was formed by the changes in air pressure and temperature caused by their speed. She had learnt about the supersonic expansion fan so she knew how to counter its effect, but now she was stretched to her limits just protecting herself and Spyro so she couldn't clear it away.

She had to slow them down; her wings were really hurting and she wasn't able to protect them.

Cynder's magic was delicately balanced. She had to keep the two dragons on course, protect them from the effects of their speed, and now she had to try to stop them. She could do any two of the above with relative ease, but not three. All she had to do was stop accelerating, simple physics, right?

Cynder's magic usually ignored physics, but both Imperia and Malefor before her had made sure she knew how it all worked. Without thrust the velocity of the two dragons' flight would be stopped by the equal and opposite reaction of… blah? She hadn't paid quite as much attention as she should have. Still, she knew enough.

She strengthened the effects of her shielding, glad that it eased the strain on her wings. The dragons began to decelerate. The mountain, Cynder guessed, was still about five kilometres away so they were safe enough, but she had forgotten one extremely important thing.

As the two dragons dipped back below the speed of sound Cynder sighed with relief as the supersonic expansion fan began to fade from existence. She was caught completely off guard by the sonic boom.

The sound the two dragons had been safely ahead of until that moment caught up to them with a deafening crack, Cynder yelped in surprise and pain, the sound was shockingly painful and she lost control of her winds.

Not good.

Immediately the world devolved into a whirling, screaming storm of chaos. Cynder was torn from Spyro's hold and the two dragons were sent spinning uncontrollably.

Sky flashed. Grey earth replaced it. Sky showed up again and Cynder was dizzy trying to keep up with what was happening. She tucked her wings to protect them and she couldn't even tell if she was falling up or down, her internal senses were totally scrambled. She had to stop herself and there was only one way to do that, as if her poor wings weren't already painful enough.

Cynder unfurled her wings and snapped them open, they caught the air and she clenched her teeth to stop herself from screaming at the pain. She was slowed enough to get her bearings and she brought the wind in to stop her unwanted spinning.

Cynder regained her dignity with silent thanks. Glad that only one special dragon had been around to see what had happened. Spyro was… was… where was Spyro?

Cynder looked around; the volcano was close, closer then she had thought, perhaps a kilometre away. There was no lava below Cynder's position that he could have crashed into but there was a great deal of ashen forest and jagged rock. Spyro was nowhere to be seen, he hadn't hit the ground. Cynder looked around, but saw no purple dragon. Finally she looked up.

There he was. Cynder sighed with relief. Spyro was circling high above her, unharmed but looking a bit sick.

"Are you alright?" Cynder called, the wind lifted her gently towards Spyro, she winced at the sensation, her wings were sore. This hadn't exactly been a huge success.

"It's good we didn't eat before we left, or I'd have thrown up. Otherwise I'm okay." Spyro replied. "I don't know how you can cope with doing that."

"I messed up. I'm sorry. It should have been easy." Cynder said.

"You don't have to apologise Cynder." Spyro said, and then he grimaced. "Can we land for a bit? I'm not feeling great."

"Neither am I." Cynder admitted.

The two dragons gently touched down on the slope of the volcano. The volcano was still active, but hadn't erupted violently since the defeat of the Dark Master. The lava flows mostly spread from the western side of the volcano, Cynder had flown herself and Spyro to the eastern side. Cynder landed on a precipice of rock and looked over the mountainside. Spyro landed beside her and the pair of dragons lay down together to rest their wings.

"So what did you do wrong?" Spyro asked. Cynder looked at him. When Imperia asked that question she was nearly always teasing, but Spyro seemed genuinely interested.

"When I was first learning to fly with wind magic I always spun and crashed, but I was always flying slower then. It took me almost a whole year to master the skill I tried up there."

"Does it have a name?"

"Not any that I know of. Imperia didn't mention one. She taught me of course."

"Of course. So is that sort of what wind magic feels like?"

"Did you get the feeling that the wind wasn't just around you but inside you?" Cynder asked.

"Yes, it was really… sort of… intimate." Spyro said.

"I surrender my body to the wind, but the wind serves me, so I can go where I want as easily as I can control the wind itself. I am not explaining this well at all am I?"

"No, you're explaining really well. I think I felt what you mean, you're doing well to describe how easy it felt."

"That's how wind magic feels, it's a delicate balance that can be thrown out by anything, even growing bigger messes it up. I didn't even think that adding your weight would do the same thing."

"Even growing bigger effects your magic?" Spyro asked in fascination. He let the comment about his weight slide, it made sense.

"Oh yes, I stop practicing for a week and I have to relearn supersonic flight nearly from scratch, any change in my body effects the way that the wind works. According to Imperia the fastest I've flown is about one thousand and five hundred kilometres per hour, she claims to have passed two thousand, but I find that a bit unbelievable."

"You don't say." Spyro said. "If we hadn't gone from out there-" Spyro jabbed his tail at the horizon. "to here, like a falling star then I wouldn't have believed that it was possible for anything to go that fast ever. What does super sonic mean?"

"Supersonic. It's at roughly one thousand kilometres per hour, the vapour trail and changes in air density meant that we were flying faster than the speed of sound."

"And the exploding sound as we slowed down?"

"In a sense we outflew the sound of our flight. The way I stop flying at that speed is meant to be controlled. That way the soundwave doesn't affect me, but I forgot all about it this time."

Spyro couldn't quite get his head around flying at that sort of speed. He looked down the mountain at rock ledges and patches of dead trees, trying to work out how quickly Cynder could arrive at each one.

She wouldn't be so quick any more, she couldn't travel more than two hundred meters from him. At "Supersonic" Cynder flew at about one thousand kilometres per hour. Spyro was quite sure he could work out how fast that was per second. One thousand divided by sixty was like ten over six, or one point six. That was sixteen kilometres each minute, divided by sixty again for the kilometres per second was about point two eight kilometres each second.

At full speed, not counting her acceleration time, Spyro was pretty sure that meant Cynder would cross the entire length of their chain, 400 meters from one side of Spyro to the other, in around two seconds.

Two seconds.

"How long can you fly at supersonic for?" Spyro asked Cynder.

"About ten minutes at most and I need to rest after doing that. Also I can't do it if there's too much rain or wind in my flight path." She told him.

"I slow you down."

"No." Cynder said.

Spyro sighed.

"Yes I do, it's just a fact. I still would even if you couldn't fly at supersonic anyway. You'd get there faster without me, and I'll bet you can fight and hunt better without me, you know more about Malefor then I do, so you'll be more use when we arrive at Darkmire's tomb."

Cynder shook her head.

"There's nothing we can do about it. Besides I wouldn't be here at all if it wasn't for you, I'd be stuck in Warfang. It doesn't matter who would have been more efficient because we're going together now."

She reached out her paw and Spyro took it.

"It's just like a honeymoon."

The two dragons smiled.

Ten minutes later Spyro and Cynder were flying again, Cynder's wings still ached after what she's put them through but she wasn't complaining, it was good to stretch them. She created another tailwind for the two of them, this time it was justly appreciated by Spyro.

"About our date last night," Cynder began. "You paid for my dinner because I have no money."

Dragon currency took the form of gems; these gems were constructs of magic. This was convenient for most dragons as it allowed them to complete transactions without requiring any material payment and also meant that money pouches or personal safe-rooms were unnecessary. The obvious disadvantage of this currency was that hypothetically it was possible for a dragon to "hack" the system and cheat themselves to having infinite gems. Such a thing had never happened before, if it did there would most likely be, to use the technical term: a complete economic shitstorm.

This was the extent of Cynder's knowledge about money, not one of few her teachers had ever taken the time to explain the system to her, Malefor had never needed gems, Volteer had simply assumed she would already know about them and it hadn't even crossed Imperia's mind to teach Cynder that boring stuff when there were fun things that could be done. Cynder wouldn't have known even if she did have gems, it wasn't like there was a convenient icon in the top right corner of her vision to tell her.

Spyro was answering her, Cynder returned her attention to him.

"Don't worry about paying me back Cynder. You're priceless to me, I don't mind at all."

"I'm priceless?" Cynder tried to decide if Spyro had called her that intentionally or just improvised it.

"Priceless." Spyro repeated. He was going to stick by his statement.

"Thanks Spyro." Cynder gave him a smile, "Still I feel I owe you two romantic dinners. I can hunt food for us while we travel; I know nearly everything about this whole area, up to the lake."

"Is this where you spent your time while you were away?" Spyro asked.

"Not at first, I used to spend most of my time at the old dragon temple so I could meet Imperia there until I grew stronger and could fly faster and further. Then I ranged all around the forest. After I learnt more advanced wind magic I went to see the sea."

"To see the sea? You mean the Legacy Sea?"

Spyro referred to the sea on the very northern borders of the dragon realms, easily weeks of travel away, there were only stories about what was beyond it; Nero, the young electric dragon, had assured him that no dragon had crossed the Legacy Sea in living memory. According to some legends the dragon Ancestors held their council on a floating island "Beyond the waves" whatever that meant; it also referred to the sea as "The Sea of Destiny" for strange legend reasons. The legend was just as annoyingly vague as the one that told the origin story of The Dark Master, Malefor. Stupid ambiguity.

"Yes I travelled to the Legacy Sea, I'd never been to the sea and I wanted to go. When Volteer heard about that he made a whole list of places for me to visit. The rift lakes were on the list, so was Tall Plains. After that I went looking for mountains."

"Mountains? Any particular mountains?" Spyro asked.

"I prefer tall ones." Cynder said.

"Tall ones." Spyro repeated, okay then. Tall mountains were admittedly quite nice, he agreed with Cynder on that point. Spyro realised this was a chance for meaningful conversation, so he seized it. "Why do you like mountains?" He asked.

"I like them because they're so big. It makes me feel small when I fly around them. I find them beautiful because of their shapes against the horizon. They make me feel special, when I perch on the summit of a mountain I sometimes feel like I'm the only dragon it the world." Cynder smiled.

"Nice mountains make me feel relaxed. I don't like snowy ones because they're too cold. The mountains around the south of Warfang where Waterfall Cave is are really nice. Darkmire's tomb was on Volteer's list too, but there was snow, so I wasn't planning on going."

"Now we're going there anyway. After we get there maybe we can do some sightseeing." Spyro suggested.

"I'd like that." Cynder smiled.

"Me too." Spyro said.

The barren volcanic plains were soon replaced by the unburnt forests that had once covered the Volcano's slopes. The forest in turn gave way to grassy plains rather like those around Warfang. Cynder took the lead from Spyro with perfect confidence; she had much more experience with keeping her sense of direction on long flights.

The two dragons flew over a long lake, for a moment Spyro thought it might be what they were looking for, but then he decided it was too small.

"What is that lake?" He asked Cynder.

"You remember when we broke the dam to stop The Destroyer?" Cynder asked.

"Yep, it didn't work."

"Well this is the reservoir that formed behind the dam." Cynder pointed to their right. "The dam must be down there somewhere, or at least what's left of it."

Beyond the water of the reservoir the forest returned to power, the seemingly endless sea of trees broken only by the occasional clearing. Spyro and Cynder kept flying.

The sun passed its zenith and began to ever so slowly fall towards the horizon, the two dragons eventually began to look for a place to stop.

"I think we've gained time on where Flare guessed we would be. Your wind magic sped our way." Spyro said.

"I can't say for sure, but it's possible we can reach Darkmire's tomb by nightfall tomorrow at this rate." Cynder said.

"We could fly through some of the night if you want. Get there earlier." Spyro offered. He was tired, but he was reluctant to show it. After a moment he realised that Cynder might actually take him up on that offer. "Actually no, we should find somewhere to stop." His belly growled helpfully. "I'm hungry." Spyro added.

Cynder laughed.

"I'll see if I can fix that. Let's fly for about twenty more minutes, if we see food or a good spot before then we can stop early."

"Deal."

The two dragons were only flying for ten minutes before they found both food and camp in quick succession. A mid-sized clearing looked like a good spot to touch down; it looked even more appealing when the dragons saw that there was a small herd of wild sheep already encamped there.

The wild sheep of the dragon realms were nothing like the tame ones, tame sheep had been kept by dragons since history began, for food and for wool mainly. There had always been the occasional canny sheep to escape the dragon owned flocks and make for freedom. Usually they died in the wild, hunted down by Dragons, Wolves, Cheetahs or any number of other hungry predators. It was ironic that the wild sheep had reaped such benefit from the dragon wars, particularly because their domestic brethren had all been… eaten.

Under the reign of terror lorded over first by Cynder and Gaul and then later by Malefor the sheep had marched to victory like nobody else, not even the end of the world could stop them. The war with the fire dragons had come up before the dragons could get their ex sheep under control and thus sheep had continued to flourish in the wild.

Cynder couldn't help but find the whole thing strangely funny.

The sheep that survived all this were barely comparable to the bouncy fluffy things the dragons had kept. These sheep had less in common with those sheep and more in common with wild boars, even the ewes had horns and they were all willing enough to butt heads with any threat. Cynder had underestimated the ferocity of sheep before and been on the receiving end of kamikaze assaults that would put the most savage orc to shame.

They were like super sheep. They still made good hosts for Phoenix Butterflies, so there was that.

It really was pretty funny.

Cynder stopped about two hundred meters out and floated there in the air, watching, Spyro stopped next to her.

"Do you have a plan of attack?" He asked. Cynder looked at the herd, there were twelve sheep sitting in a group.

"How hungry are you?" She asked.

"Hmm… Can I have one whole sheep?" Spyro's belly made a small protest. He sighed. "Actually maybe a sheep and a half?"

"Three sheep it is then. Hmm…" Cynder pondered for a moment. She could catch the sheep without any difficulty on open ground, but after she brought down one or two by surprise it could be annoying chasing another through the trees.

"Can I help at all?" Spyro asked. Cynder considered his offer.

"Yes. Fly down to the near side of the clearing as quietly as you can. Once you get there wait until a count of twenty, then make a disturbance and get the sheep to run. See the big tree on the other side of the clearing?" Cynder pointed to the tree, Spyro nodded in acknowledgement. "Get them to run towards that tree, I'll wait for them there."

"Got it."

Spyro glided down towards the clearing, making sure not to startle the sheep early. After he was in position Cynder gave him a nod and began to glide away silently. Spyro sat and waited, counting to twenty.

Cynder looped quickly around the clearing and laid her ambush with time to spare. She waited, poised to strike, for several seconds before Spyro made his distraction.

He used a comet dash of course, it had everything Cynder could want: speed, noise and fiery explosions.

It was such a good distraction it rather distracted Cynder, she was staring at Spyro, wreathed in spectacular fire, with admiration and barely even noticed the sheep start running towards her. Spyro launched fireballs to the left and right of the herd to keep them running in the right direction, Cynder recalled that she was meant to be catching them dinner. Spyro had done his part.

The black dragoness cloaked herself in shadows; the sheep never saw her even though they were running straight towards her. She prowled forwards and created a blade of wind on her wingtip, this technique was one of her favourites, it added range and versatility to her fighting style, and nobody ever expected her wingtips to be as lethal as her claws.

She caught the first sheep with her paws and drove it into the ground before easily breaking its neck. The other sheep didn't know what had hit them; they could only see the faintest outline of Cynder's form. She flicked her wing out, aiming to kill a sheep to her left, she put more force into the blow then she had meant to and her wing cut right through the sheep's horns and skull, violently bisecting the unfortunate creature's head. She glanced to her right as one of the last sheep ran past her that way, her tail struck out and she buried her blade into the sheep's spine, killing it instantly.

Too easy.

She released her shadows and looked back at Spyro; he smiled at her and started to walk over. He glanced around at the fires he had created, he swept his wings casually and all of them were instantly snuffed out.

"You got them?" Spyro asked. Cynder nodded.

"No problem, I was a bit messy on the second one though." She said.

Spyro looked at the second sheep. Well he looked at most of it; there was a section of skull over in the bushes that he couldn't see at the time.

"How did you do that?" He asked.

"A wind blade, I focused it on my wingtip. I used a bit too much magic and made the cut too big."

"Well remind me never to piss you off." Spyro said, examining the sheep. Cynder shifted the first sheep onto her shoulder and carried it partway back into the clearing, and then she put it down again. Spyro moved his sheep to the same place.

"We should bleed these." Cynder said.

"How?" He asked. Bleeding was typically done by hanging the dead animal up for a while to allow all the blood to collect in its head, this made it much easier to butcher. Spyro doubted that this was quite what Cynder had in mind.

Cynder answered the question for him by sinking her teeth into the throat of the sheep and beginning to drain it of blood. Spyro watched, his initial reaction was mildly disturbed, but after a second he realised that was a stupid reaction. Dragons ate raw meat as easily as cooked, they just preferred cooked meat because it tasted better. Spyro hadn't eaten raw meant in a long while; food in Warfang was prepared by chefs.

Cynder finished with a sigh and licked blood from her teeth. She put the sheep down and fetched the last one. She noticed Spyro's look and wondered if he was thinking badly of her.

"Meat cooks better bled, and blood stands in for water." She explained.

Spyro nodded, recognising that drinking the blood was a logical thing to do. He felt bad for his momentary reaction, Cynder was right.

He wasn't very thirsty, but it seemed a good idea to drink and stay that way if they wouldn't reach drinkable water until sometime tomorrow. He bit down and his mouth filled with blood.

Unlike Cynder Spyro had no idea what he was doing, blood spilt and he opened his jaws, then more blood spilt and he growled in annoyance. This was messy; Cynder had made it look so easy and dignified. He looked over at her, she shrugged and smiled.

"I can't help you." She said with amusement.

Spyro huffed. By the time he was done with his sheep Cynder had finished off the third, she was still perfectly clean.

"I'll need to teach myself how to do that." He said. Cynder nodded.

"I did, you can't imagine Imperia taught me to do this can you? It gets easier."

Spyro licked his lips, but he missed a bit of blood. Cynder automatically leant forwards and brushed it off him; Spyro smiled and nuzzled her cheek.

"Thanks." He smiled. "So what now?"

"Could you get firewood?" Cynder asked. "I'll start preparing dinner."

"Can you wait? I want to see what you do." Spyro said. Cynder nodded.

Spyro went and collected firewood, arranging it and lighting it extraordinarily quickly, clearly he wanted to watch Cynder prepare the food as soon as possible, or perhaps he was just hungry. Cynder smiled, thinking about him.

Spyro tended his fire and watched in fascination as Cynder skinned and prepared the first sheep. The usual method of doing this was to start cutting at the belly, Cynder had taught herself a different method starting on the sheep's back. This meant she had to cut through the stringy wool but made it easier for her to skin the sheep's legs.

"Oh, look." Cynder held up what looked like a bit of wool.

"What is it?" Spyro asked.

"A phoenix butterfly cocoon." Cynder smiled. "Let's see…" She threw it into the fire. There was a small flash, after a second a yellow and pink butterfly flew out of the flames.

"Butterflies that adapted to make their cocoons on the wool of dragon sheep. They developed the ability to survive and hatch in extreme heat." Spyro said. "That's either the cleverest or the stupidest thing any butterfly has ever done."

"It works, so I'd say it's clever." Cynder delivered her verdict.

Spyro watched her carefully slip the skin off the sheep and begin to gut it. She made a pile of "bad bits" and put a few "good bits" aside like the heart and liver. Cynder had learnt the edible parts from the inedible bits partly by sight, because entrails just looked disgusting, and partly by trial and error. She staked the sheep and put it over Spyro's fire.

Before long three sheep were cooking together, there were no herbs or spices of any sort for Cynder to add, but the meat itself she could cook very well, carefully turning it to make sure it was evenly cooked.

"Done." Cynder said eventually. Spyro took his sheep and Cynder took hers after setting the last one so it wouldn't burn.

"This is one romantic dinner paid back." Spyro said. He took a huge bite and chewed happily. "This is great."

"What romance?" Cynder asked after she'd swallowed her mouthful.

"I don't know. We can work that out together."

"After we've finished dinner." Cynder gave Spyro a teasing smile.

"Yep."

Or not.

Spyro abandoned his food to try to kiss Cynder instead, Cynder pretended that she would rather eat her dinner then reciprocate Spyro's attentions for a few seconds, then she abandoned the pretence and put her food aside too so that she could wrap her arms around the purple dragon.

Food could wait. Spyro had priority.

Cynder had fallen asleep quickly enough, but Spyro lay awake beside her. He listened to the sound of her breathing; he could feel her side moving against his. She looked so peaceful when she was asleep. He occasionally glanced around the clearing, reasoning that he was watching for danger that night, but really he was just watching Cynder sleep instead. He rested his paw on her shoulder and every few seconds he stroked her black scales. Doing so relaxed him.

Spyro didn't want to sleep, sleeping meant dreaming, and his dreams were rarely good ones. Last night he'd had happy dreams, maybe Cynder gave good dreams? But he didn't want to push his luck.

"You aren't sleeping." She said quietly. Spyro looked down at Cynder in time to see her emerald eye slowly drift open. She looked up at him gently. "Why aren't you sleeping?"

"I'm keeping watch." Spyro said, he leant down and kissed her forehead. "You can sleep."

"I have nightmares. I don't want to sleep if you won't." Cynder admitted.

"I have nightmares too." Spyro murmured. "I wish I could just lie awake all night and never feel tired."

Cynder shifted to rest her head against Spyro's chest. Spyro sighed; the touch was comforting to him.

"If you didn't want to go to sleep all you had to do was say so." Cynder smiled gently.

"I don't want to go to sleep." Spyro said. "Are you planning to do something about that?" He smiled.

Cynder answered him with a kiss.

The Chronicler could hear him just outside the door; he knew he was separated from almost certain death by only a thin layer of wood.

How could he have found the island? It was protected by powerful magic, and nobody should have known it existed in the first place.

At least the purple dragon had knocked.

Why the hell had he knocked? The Chronicler quickly but carefully inked the final symbol in his defence pattern and rushed to the pool of visions. In the pool he could see the purple dragon was pacing back and forth outside the door, patiently waiting for it to be opened, The Chronicler doubted he would wait for long. It didn't matter now though, if the symbols contained him then they'd contain him; if they didn't then The Chronicler would probably spend his last moments of life looking up into the burning yellow eyes of the Dark Master.

The thought made his heart beat faster, he had faced death before, but that time he had given his life. He would die again gladly for a worthy cause, but the Chronicler did not want to have his life snatched away from him now.

There was another knock at the door, this one was less polite then the first.

"I will break this down if you won't open it." The voice of the purple dragon was surprisingly pleasant, the Chronicler looked closer at the dragon reflected in the pool, he seemed too bright, like he was glowing all over with lightning. What was going on?

The purple dragon seemed to sense The Chronicler's gaze, he looked around behind him, and then he looked up at exactly the spot where his image was being reflected from. He couldn't possibly have known, but he did. Malefor watched him from within the pool then he turned back to the door.

The Chronicler felt a massive surge of power, he whirled around in time to see the door shatter into fire and splinters, the door meant nothing. The purple dragon strolled through it and glanced around the room beyond. His entire body flickered and glowed with electricity, The Chronicler recognised a Thunderlance when he saw one.

Malefor walked into the room seeming completely at ease, he looked at The Chronicler briefly and then turned and scanned the shelves of books. He didn't even notice the trap on the floor until he walked into it. Walls of energy sprung up around him, cutting him off from the world.

Malefor frowned, he tried to step through the barrier, but it sizzled threateningly. He sat and looked at the Chronicler with slight disappointment.

"Why are you here?" The Chronicler said, advancing on his trapped visitor. "What do you want?"

The dragon in the force field said nothing. He just watched him silently; The Chronicler felt a prickling sensation on the back of his neck and turned around.

He turned around to see two shining purple eyes; the dragon was right behind him. He yelped in surprise and back pedalled, his heart was pounding. This new Malefor didn't pursue him, he just smiled.

"One of the Electricity Guardian dragons used this trick. It wasn't even invented when I was first alive. Creating an illusion of oneself with electricity, the only flaw of the technique is that it looks like your copy is constantly charging an electric attack. I spent ten minutes learning this ability, soon I shall perfect it."

"Thoran." The Chronicler said. The electric dragon who had later become a mass murderer had been the one to develop the illusion technique.

"Yes Thoran… that was his name. He's going to die, you know. Monsters like him have no place in this world." Malefor said. The illusion that the Chronicler had captured winked out of existence. Malefor stepped forwards, regarding the Chronicler with new interest.

"I know you from somewhere don't I?" He frowned, trying to match a name to a very out of context face. "Ignitus, the fire guardian. Yes I do know you; you're the one that I made sure Cynder didn't catch."

Ignitus stood tall, at full height he was almost exactly the same height as Malefor.

"Are you here to kill me?" He asked calmly.

The wonderful thing about writing is that it can broaden your horizons in ways you could never have imagined. Transonic flight physics is a completely fascinating field of knowledge I never would have discovered had I not needed to teach myself the basics for this chapter.

Worst F#%king scene ever.

No, I'm exaggerating, it isn't quite that bad. It would definitely be a lot worse if I hadn't had the help of John's Hourglass, he's been invaluable help for a little while now, but this chapter is the first one (of many I imagine) where I can officially thank him for improving my writing. So thanks John! I have now expanded my dedication.

As ever I appreciate all reviews and I thank you so much for reading.

I have another song for you, this one doesn't have quite so much to do with any individual character but is more like a statement. If you haven't noticed I place a great deal of meaning in music, and this song... I'll just let it speak for itself. It makes me feel relaxed when I'm feeling down or stressed, it gives me something to smile to myself about: Nothing, by The Cat Empire

"Say what you have to say, write what you want to think."

-4Dragons