Chapter 14: Humans are Dangerous

The Vulture horde were now miles away from the dragon village. Soon, they found a human refugee camp that was in process of building a wall of lumber and a few lookout towers to make the place look like a fortress. The horde kept their distance and hid behind the thick group of trees. Aeolus sneered and said, "Hmph, how amusing. The humans are building some defenses to protect themselves. Unfortunately, it won't be enough to protect themselves from our powers." Then he looked to the leaf pygmy and ordered him, "Leafwing, go spy on the human's interior before I destroy their place."

"Yes sir," Leafwing obliged. Aeolus held the crystal containing Eitri's powers and used it to make the pygmy invisible. Then the spy went inside the camp to check out the place's strengths and defenses. The leaf pygmy observed the place as he snuck by people unnoticed, observed on their conversations, and went inside tents to see what they had. Most of the tents had sleeping bags, pillows, clothes, and some other items. Some tents and trucks had food and boxes. One of the boxes inside one of the trucks contained knives and daggers. 'Human weapons,' he thought. Luckily, these ones were too short to reach flying dragons. So fighting humans armed with these wouldn't be any trouble at all. After he left the truck, Leafwing discovered a training ground where men were shooting arrows at the targets both on ground and high in the air. It was apparent that they were training to fight off any attacking dragons as well as hunt them around in the woods.

The pygmy left the training ground and went to explore some more, when his ears caught word of the conversation between three people. One of the two men, who had a sorrowful look on his face, sighed and said, "I really hope we're doing is enough to prevent these scalies from causing another tragedy again. I mean they created a tornado and attacked everyone inside it and on ground. I'm not sure if we're going to escape the same destruction that took my family." Leafwing stiffened in surprise; this man was a survivor of the other human camp and the dragons of his village had failed to get him. No wonder why this camp was putting effort into building defenses; the man had told the other humans everything he had witnessed so that they can prepare themselves. The pygmy quickly snuck past the humans and looked more around the camp.

Once Leafwing was done, he came out of the place to report his findings to the leader. Aeolus replied, "Alright then, let's get this over with." The disaster dragon created a tornado and sent it into the camp. The tornado tore up the walls and towers and took up every object and human being into its vortex. Lutarn used his weather powers to create thunderclouds to zap the people inside while Corona, Bam, and Hewey went to attack any survivors on ground that have fled away from the tornado.

When Kathia made a movement to get off of the bench, she felt the wounds stinging her. She hissed and remained in her seat to keep herself from hurting further. 'Damn vine dragon! If I had known that place in the forest was its nest, I would have been more prepared,' she thought. As she wished she had healing magic, she remembered what the blessed water spell said about white magic. 'Hmm... I wonder if I used white magic the same way I did with fire magic,' she thought. So she channeled some white magic energy to her hand and hovered it over her wounds as the hand glowed in a light green aura. They all healed, but now the girl was left exhausted and tired. She let out a quiet sigh and said, "I better stop using magic and let myself rest for a while." In the meantime, she would read more of the spell book to see what other interesting spells were inside and which ones to practice first.

After resting on the bench for half an hour, Kathia's tired numbness went away and she was ready to move. The girl resumed her walk and did her best to stay 12 feet away from dragons. She came across a new shop in town selling horses to those who refuse to ride dragons. Kathia decided to go purchase a steed for herself, so that she could get to places faster. She used her father's credit card and bought a white stallion. She got on her new pet horse and rode it back to her mansion.

Another refugee camp was destroyed, and with it, the human survivors. The horde members regrouped with Aeolus and they looked at the ruins they had created. Two human camps down, many more to go; the Vulture horde had a lot of work ahead of them. The dragons left and camp and continued on their quest for the extinction of mankind.

The Firestars stopped for another rest; this time landing on a huge clearing between the trees and mountain. But this didn't seem to be some ordinary space on the ground. Before she had touched the grass, Atlas sensed some magical energy coming from underneath the ground. She was curious as to wonder what dragon or thing was radiating the energy from land.

Danielle and Kylie slid down their aunt's tail and stretched their legs to weed out the stiffness. Unlike their aunt, they were unaware of the magic energy in the earth. The magi dragoness channeled her energy to both her feet and her eyes to give herself an x-ray-like vision to see what was under the land she was touching. There was a giant castle underneath there. 'Why the hell is there a building underground? Who put it there?' Atlas wondered out of perplexity. It was pretty normal for buildings to be on top of land, but this castle was weird. Atlas wanted to get to the bottom of this, so she used her earth magic to separate the soil away from the castle.

The hatchlings saw what was happening to the land. "Aunt Atwas, what are yew doing?" asked Kylie.

"I'm trying to uncover a building that's beneath the ground," answered the magi. "You better move out of the way before you two fall into the hole," she told them. The sisters obeyed as they ran way from the gradually opening hole and went to the edge of the trees. After a little while later, the giant castle was revealed. From its size, it seemed way to too big to be that of a human's castle; even the double doors were dragon-sized. "That's pretty impressive for a human's home," said Atlas in admiration.

"Aunt Atwas, what's dat?" asked Danielle, who with her sister are looking at what their aunt was seeing.

"Is dat a house?" asked Kylie, thinking it might be the same thing as Henry and Yukki's home.

The dragoness answered, "No, it's a castle. But I've never seen one this big before." Now she had a desire to see what was inside the old building, but first... She flew over to her nieces and said, "We're going inside, kids. I want to check the place out." She took up the hatchlings and flew down to the castle doors. The sisters looked up above the doors to see an image of a flame inside a circle. Atlas opened one of the doors and went inside. The Firestars looked at the dusty lobby of the castle and saw stairs, hallways, and two cracked statues of dragons, one of which had a head and a wing broken off. Atlas decided to search the ground floor first, so they took the hallway to the left. The stony walls were chalked with a few tiny holes on its surface. The spaces in the walls that used to hold the objects were either empty or its object has been damaged.

After going through the hallways and two rooms, the Firestars came to an interesting place. Inside the room was armor and weapons for dragons. The armors consisted of wings, helmet, chest plate, greaves, fauld, and tail plate. The gauntlets were clawed to reinforce the dragon warrior's claws for added damage, the tail armors had maces or blades attached to the tip, and some of the helmets had horns for the hornless dragons to be able to ram into their foes. "Wow... no way!" Atlas said, looking impressed at the old weaponry. The place was an armory and the family had stumbled onto its treasure.

The hatchlings looked at the place in wonder and Danielle asked, "Aunt Atwas, what are dose?"

"Armor and weapons, Danielle," the magi answered. "Tools, I'm going to need in case we run into any dangerous humans." The dragoness took the best armory pieces for herself and equipped them on.

Kylie poked at one of the armors and said, "Dey kinda look like dwagons."

"That's because they were made for dragons," explained Atlas. "To protect themselves in wars and battles."

"Are dere any for us?" asked the whiptail hatchling, looking around for armor her size.

Atlas looked around before answered, "Nope, there aren't any. The castle's soldiers would never let hatchlings fight in battles. It's too dangerous for them; they could get hurt out there."

The Firestars left the armory and went to other places like the throne room, the dining room, the the training room, the courtyard, and the dungeons. Then the went upstairs and to see what the above was like. The first thing they came to was a library. The hatchlings started to get bored and Danielle spoke, "Aunt Atwas, isn't dere anything intewesting to do?"

"I don't know, Danielle. Why don't you go read a book or something?" suggested Atlas as she picked out of the books. She opened it and began reading the dragons' history on wars.

Kylie asked curiously, "What's a book?"

Danielle, felt the books were foreign to her, asked, "And how do yew wead?"

Atlas closed the book with her paw between the pages so that she doesn't lose track of where she was at. She looked to her nieces, thinking that now would be a good time to teach them the ancient dragon language. "Looks like, I'll have to teach you girls the ABCs," she said. The dragoness patted her tail on the space beside her and beckoned, "Come over here, we're going to learn how to read a book. No matter how many days it takes." The hatchlings bounded over to their aunt and sat on each side of her. Atlas began to point out the letters in the book as to which alphabet was which and how to pronounce them.

A few hours later, The Vulture horde was now in a desolated part of the forest. The trees looked as if they had been destroyed by a wild fire. They were leafless with their trunks and branches blackened with burns. The horde looked around, intrigued and wondering what had transpired here, when they smelled the fresh blood in the air. Bam felt as if something really bad was going as he asked nervously, "Uh Aeolus? Is that?" He was hoping that his assumption was wrong.

"Dragon Blood, yes. It looks like a massacre is going on. Let's go!" said Aeolus, wanting to help his fellow dragons. The horde ran through the woods and came across a scene of bloodied dead dragon bodies with slash wounds and arrows sticking out of them, along with charred and eaten human ones as well. Apparently, a battle had happened here and was responsible for the tree's disastrous fate.

The horde looked to see a lone and dying light yellow-maned white dragon standing on top of a hill. He fought to keep his feet standing as he looked back at them and muttered out weakly, "Run..." Then at the next instance, he was zapped by a lightning bolt. The white dragon dropped dead after his fatal shock. The horde reacted in shock as they saw they gasped and flinched.

Their moment was pretty soon broken by the shout of a man, "Look, there's more dragons! Kill them!" The dragons looked to see an army of about a thousand people shooting their arrows at them. The horde got struck by the arrows and roared out in pain. Bam retaliated by blowing out a big fireball at them to burn a small number of soldiers. Aeolus zapped lightning out, killing only 15 people. The healer dragon cast a barrier spell around the dragons to shield them from any more arrows and spells. But of course the barrier wouldn't be able to hold out against these attacks for too long as too many would destroy it, with magic spells adding further damage.

The healer dragon looked to leader for great ideas and asked desperately, "Aeolus, what do we do? We're never going to survive against this many humans with all of them attacking like that."

The disaster dragon partially agreed with Hewey's perception on the situation, but he had a trick that would definitely turn the tables around quickly. "You're forgetting that I can summon earthquakes and tornadoes," he told Hewey. With that, he cast a tornado down on the humans, sucking the men in the middle into the vortex. But then the tactic was ruined when some magical force quickly dispelled the tornado. Aeolus gritted his teeth and thought, 'They have magic users among them.' This was bad, because magic-using humans could make the horde's life more difficult and give the army an advantage. The dragon looked back at Hewey and said, "Right, we retreat for now." He took the Eitri's stone and used it to warp the horde out of the battlefield.

The Vulture Horde was now lying in the woods' clearing, taking the arrows off of their bodies and getting healed by Hewey. Bam hissed in pain from the sting of the open wounds before saying, "Darn humans! I didn't think we'd be running into a big army like that so soon."

As Hewey was using his magic on her, Corona said frowning, "I'm pretty sure we would have ran into an army anytime, Bam. I mean we are traveling around Solomos."

"Yeah but, I..." Bam tried to voice his surprise of the very early encounter of the army, but couldn't find the right words without sounding dumb. He gave up and continued with a hint of sigh, "Never mind."

Aeolus, one of the dragons healed, thought up a plan to destroy the human army. After finding his solution, he looked at the dragons said, "Since we found an obstacle on our mission, we're going to need a way to destroy it."

The horde looked back at him as Leafwing asked doubtfully, "How? Their numbers are big and they got magic-using ones. I mean did you see the way they got rid of your tornado? I bet they could also stop your earthquakes, too."

"Which is why we're going to bolster our numbers," the horde leader said, standing up determinedly. He told them his plan in mind, "We're going to look for other dragons and get them to join our horde. Once we have enough, we will stamp out the humans."

The leaf pygmy's mood brightened up with confidence and said, "Hey, that could work."

"Of course it will," Aeolus said. "And it will work more if we fight them at night with Eitri and Zylanon on our side." A magic using dragon and another who sinks into the shadows to strike prey will make things even easier.

Bam smiled at his cousin and said, "I like the way you think, cous!"

"Thank you, Bam," the disaster said, appreciating the praise. After everyone was healed, Aeolus said to the dragons, "Vulture horde, let's move out!" They traveled through the woods, while being on the watch for their enemies, so that they won't run into them.

Two hours after teaching her nieces how to read the letters and pronounced them, Atlas started to teach them how to read. "Alright, let's start from the first word right there," she said, pointing to the beginning of the first paragraph. The hatchlings looked at the word before their aunt asked, "Tell me what it says."

Kylie and Danielle processed the word in the mind and thought about how to say it, before the whiptail hatchling answered simply, "In."

Atlas nodded and said, "Very good! Now what does the next word say?" Her finger slid to the second word.

"Te-he," said Kylie, trying to pronounce "the".

Her aunt corrected her, "It's actually 'the', but good try anything." Moving to the next word, she asked, "Now what does this say?"

"Teh-hird?" answered Danielle, wondering if she got the answer right.

"Third," the magi dragoness corrected. "Just remember that th word is pronounced like d, but with emphasis on the t."Then she gave them an example of the pronunciation as she said, "Like THIS!"

"Ohhh," both sisters said, getting what the magi said. So the family continued to read the book about the Fire castle's origin and its king. Long ago, after the dragons migrated to the new world, the four kings built separate their own castles: the castle of water, the castle of earth, the castle of fire, and the castle of air. The castle of fire belonged to a really strong king who led an army of dragon warriors. The warriors would train and battle everyday to become the strongest. Tournaments were held at the castle's arena to see who was the best.

Sometime later throughout the few centuries later, the air king left his castle and took the tower away with him away from his home to be with his human lover. The castle of air lost its protection because of that. The fire king saw this as an advantage to further expand his reign and sent his army to take over the wind castle. But one of the air inhabitants gained power as its new king and used his guards to defend the castle. The fight went in favor of the fire army as their brute tactics, skills, and wits gave them the advantage and the air army was defeated. The fire king declared the castle of air as part of his kingdom and thus gained the other areas the castle of air once had as territory.

Much later in time, the humans stormed the castle with their advance weapons that bested those of the dragons. The fire army lost the battle with most of its soldiers dead, the inhabitants becoming enslaved, the castles' treasure was looted, and the fire king slain. The king's adviser used the last of his strength to seal the castle underground so that the humans wouldn't defile it again. Thus, the days of the castle of fire had come to an end.

"Huh, so that's the story," said Atlas, now knowing how the fire castle came to be. "I tell you, this castle has some pretty interesting history," she said, admiring the warrior culture. Perhaps, now that the fire king was no longer alive, Atlas would take the castle as its new queen. 'Yeah, Queen Atlas! I like the sound of that,' she thought feeling pride and joy of being the new owner. The sisters had noticed something pretty weird about the air king's love life. They knew it was normal for dragons to fall in love with other dragons, but what the air king did was a bit comical.

A few hours later into evening, Kathia went out again to do some shopping this time. She purchased the camo wear, baits, helmet, traps, and dragon call device from the hunting store. She rode the horse through the streets until she came across a familiar person who was just going to the Golden Pony inn. Kathia decided to catch his attention with a greeting and said with a smile and wave, "Hi Jason!"

Jason whirled around to see the girl and her horse. He smiled back and waved to Kathia before walking out to her. "Well well, what have we here? I don't see you all day, and poof, you get yourself a horse. Who knows what else you'll do when I'm not looking," he said, teasing her a bit as she giggled. "So how have you been Kathia? Been practicing that magic?" he asked, still grinning.

The girl answered gleefully, "Yep, and I've been teaching myself new spells. And I just bought me a new book." She showed her new spell book to him and said, "This one teaches you about elemental spells. I learned how to use the bubble shield and the burning touch spells. I used my fire spell when I was defending myself against a vine dragon." Then she opened her bag and showed Jason her prize. "And look, I killed a purple dragon and cut off its antennas," she said proudly.

Jason looked impressed as he stared at the antennas, "Very well done with those dragons. Glad to hear you're making progress. I'm not getting quite as far, normal arrows only work on their soft spots so I need to improve my aim even more."

"Well what I did back there was aim for the head," said Kathia, giving a tip. "That's probably like the softest spots of all dragons."

Jason chuckled. "Head shots only count if you hit them. I doubt the beasts will stand still long enough for me to get a clean shot," the man pointed out tauntingly. "And you need a clean shot if you hope to puncture those tough scales," he added smirking a little.

The girl advised a simple solution, "Well then you gotta be quick before it moves."

"Yeah, I suppose," the man said. Then he gestured towards the inn behind him and asked, "I was about to make something to eat. Care to join me?"

The girl's mouth started to water in excitement over being treated to a meal. "Of course! I would love to," she said. Then she went with him into the inn.

"I'm glad you'll come but don't get your hopes too high. I doubt my cooking is on par with what you're used to eating," Jason warned as he led Kathia through the street and into the inn.

The girl wasn't about to believe this until she tried his dish. "Well I'm sure your food can't be that bad. I mean what does it taste like?" she asked as they entered the dining room.

"Well..." Jason started as he motioned for her to take a seat. "People say I must have blown out my taste buds years ago."

Kathia sat at the table and spoke with confidence for him, "Well I'll be the judge of that after I get a taste."

The man disappeared into the kitchen with a slight chuckle. The sounds, and soon the savory smells of cooking, were soon to follow. "If there is anything you need just give me a holler, OK?" his disembodied voice called from the kitchen.

Kathia asked, "Alright! Well could you give me a drink, too?" It was a good idea to always have a drink along with a meal, so that she could wash the food down.

"Sure thing!" came Jason's reply.

The Vulture Horde came across a cave with two dragon guards. The guards saw them and asked, "Who goes there?"

Aeolus stepped forward and answered, "I am Aeolus and this is my horde."

The guards looked to the other dragons before turning their eyes back to the disaster dragon. "Aeolus? Well fancy meeting you here! I'd never thought I'd see someone like you," one of them said excitedly. "So did you come here to hide from the humans?" he asked.

"Something like that," said Aeolus. "But I'm actually doing is looking to recruit some strong dragons to wipe out that army." Then he asked, "Tell me, are there any powerful breeds in that cave?"

"Well we don't know everyone's exact ability, but if you want to find them. You'll have to come into the cave yourself to see," said the other guard. The guards let the horde through and they went inside the cave. Upon entering, the horde saw a crowd of dragons with their hatchlings and eggs, all huddled up in barely closed spaces. Aeolus's eyes looked to each dragons to see which ones looked like capable fighters and which ones don't. To his disappointment, it seemed like a majority of them were weak breeds, something the disaster dragon didn't want in his army. Soon, the horde made it to the very end of the cave where they met a lone red dragon.

Aeolus looked down at him and asked, "Excuse me, do you know where I can find the leader of this horde?"

The red dragon lifted his head up and replied, "You're talking to me. What? Do you need me for something?"

The disaster dragon felt a bit glad about this perfect coincidence, as it made things easier than going around the cave to search for him. "As a matter of fact, I do! You see, we came here to this cave in hopes of finding dragons with special abilities that we need to taking down a human army," he told him.

The red dragon's eyes widened with fear before he asked, "A human army? You mean one that slaughtered our fighting dragons?"

Aeolus couldn't help but wonder if the army the red dragon seemed to be afraid is the same one that he encountered earlier. He decided to test his theory by asking, "If you're talking about "them", then maybe you might be familiar with a white dragon who has a yellow mane?"

The cave leader looked surprised for a second before he softened into sadness. He looked away and murmured, "That was my friend, Dedries. We were both slaves who worked together at the farm. Dedries was always the braver of the two of us; he was the one who led half the horde into attacking the army."

"So you do know that dragon," said the Vulture Horde leader. "He died in front of us when we were traveling. His comrades were already killed by the time we got there." Then he closed his eyes in pity and respect for the deceased dragon. "I'm sorry for your loss," he murmured.

Corona and the other horde members bowed with their eyes closed as she said, "And so is the rest of the horde."

The cave leader smiled a little bit and said, "Thank you. You have no idea how heart-breaking it is to lose your best friend." He wiped a tear out of his green eye.

Remembering his family, Aeolus sympathized with him as he said, "Actually I do and some, if not all, of us have gone through something like this, too. The world's a tragic place when humans are in charge." After the cave leader nodded in agreement, the disaster dragon continued in a determined tone, "Which is why we're going to destroy that army and avenge all those who died."

The cave leader looked at him as if he was crazy and asked, "Are you nuts?! There's only six of you and the army destroyed twenty-five of us. What can a small group of you guys do to stop them, when Dedries's horde couldn't?"

The disaster dragon answered, "It's simple; we're going to recruit a bigger number of dragons, all of whom have powerful abilities or specific traits useful for battle." He planned to have the number doubled compared to Dedries's horde, so that he can have a higher chance of destroying the army. "Also, some things we need to know about the humans' army would be very essential to us," Aeolus said.

"Well if you must know, then I'll tell you," the cave leader said. He took a few steps around the disaster dragon and informed him, "After the dragons started destroying human camps, which was right after you spread the word on how to kill him, three of these camps joined forces and combined their dragon slayers to exterminate us in revenge." Aeolus scowled and held back a growl; what makes these humans' vengeance justified when they were the ones who harmed dragons first? The cave leader continued speaking, "They would slaughter every dragon, hatchling, and egg they could find. We thought Dedries's horde could stop them, but the humans' magic was too powerful. They were overwhelmed and that's how they were all killed." He hung his head low in despair as he finished off his words, "I know, because Dedries told me his last words of the situation through telepathy."

"What kind of magic did they use?" inquired Aeolus, wanting to know about the magic-using human's abilities, so that he could find ways to thwart them.

The cave leader answered, "Well from what I heard, they could create barriers to block out fireballs and cast a wide-ranged spell that would destroy those caught in it."

Aeolus added in, "They've also canceled out my earthquake power."

"Well gee, that just makes the army sound even more dangerous," the worried cave leader said.

"That's true," the disaster dragon agreed. "But no matter how powerful they are, they will be destroyed in the end. And when that happens, I guarantee that you'll never live in fear from them again." The Vulture horde leader was pretty confident in his goal. No matter how many losses it may take, he will do everything he can to achieve victory. Bam grinned and nodded along with his cousin's words.

The cave leader looked at the disaster dragon with a quizzical expression and asked,"You sound determined, mister. Who are you?"

"I am, Aeolus, and these dragons with me are the Vulture horde, which I personally lead," the horde leader answered. If the cave leader had to ask him for his name, then the guards either forgot to tell him through telepathy or they weren't smart.

The cave leader's expression brightened up in surprise and delight. "Aeolus? You're THE Aeolus?!" he asked.

"Yes, I am," the horde leader answered.

A smile formed on the cave leader's face before he continued, "It's an honor to meet you! You know, Aeolus, you're like a hero to us all. First you shared with us the Spell to break ourselves free and now you're going to destroy the army. I wonder what else you'll do next." He let out a short hearty laugh.

Bam quickly spoke up like a child interrupting an adult and said, "Well sir, if you really want to know; my cousin also wants to kill all the humans around the world, so that we don't have no more problems from them."

"Really now?" asked the cave leader in admiration. "Sounds like you're doing some good work there. I like that."

Aeolus smiled at the praise and said, "Why thank you for your comment, sir. I enjoy doing work that benefits dragonkind."

"I'm sure you do," the cave leader said and nodded. "Anyway, if you're going to recruit dragons into your horde, then I would recommend asking Orion if he wants to help. He's a magma dragon; he can withstand any kind of heat and he can breathe out lots of lava." Before Aeolus could ask why this Orion dragon didn't go with Dedries's group, the cave leader said why, "He's one of the guards on break, but I think we could do with one less guard, I mean we got six of them. 5 won't be too bad."

The disaster dragon thought that a magma dragon would sound useful, in case the humans used fire magic. He said, "Very well then, we'll go meet him."

"Alright, I'll him know you're on your way to him," the cave leader said, hinting he was going to use telepathy.

"Thanks," Aeolus said. Before he would leave, he had one important tip he needed the cave leader to know, "Also in the future, tell your guards to let you know who's coming into the cave, alright?"

"Sure thing, Aeolus," the cave leader replied. Shortly after the Vulture horde left, he facepalmed at his own incompetency and blamed himself quietly, "I can't believe I forgot to tell my guards that."

After waiting some minutes later, Kathia started to hear a commotion nearby. "What the heck?" she asked, getting out of her seat to check out the scene that piqued her curiosity. She went over to edge of the dining room bordering the main lobby and found some policemen investigating the dead receptionist. She heard the police saying that the man had been impaled by a spiky-haired blonde killer, whose name hasn't been identified yet. This made Kathia froze in cold fear as she thought, 'Oh gods, we have a murderer!' Chances were that he or she was still somewhere in this inn, probably killing the next unfortunate victim.

She snapped out of her thoughts when she heard Jason calling from the kitchen. "Hey! What's going on out there?" he asked.

The girl turned her head to face the kitchen door and answered, "There's been a murder here in the hotel. Somebody killed the receptionist and no one knows why." By then, people and a news crew were coming in to check out the scene.

Jason left the kitchen to catch up with Kathia and see what was going on. "What's everyone crowding around for?" he asked again quietly when he stood next to her. There was a lot of worried whispering going around. The word murder was being cautiously uttered here and there as if it were a slimy unpleasant thing.

Kathia answered, "They're obviously taken an interest to the crime scene. I mean look at them. They're all want to know who did this, so that want to stay away killer." She could see the bystanders gossiping among themselves, all asking questions and speaking their concerns.

"Tsk! Just what we need; a madman on the loose. Like we humans don't have enough problems on our plate," the black man muttered in a frustrated tone.

Kathia crossed her arms and nodded in agreement as she said in annoyance, "I know, right?" The smell of burning meat drifted through the air and Jason cursed as he ran back to the kitchen. As she watched him run back to the kitchen, the girl took one last look at the crime scene before she went back to the table.

She heard Jason curse out some funny words before he said, "Someday I'm going to make a human only colony. We'd crack down on murderers without mercy and kill any dragons daring to enter it. It would be a safe haven for everyone."

Kathia smiled at the idea and thought, 'Sounds like my kind of place.' Maybe when Jason makes his dream colony, she can go and invite all the anti-dragon people in Windfall and the new city being built and move them into the perfect place for home.

After a short while, the hunter returned to table baring two dishes with barely saved squirrel meat and tasty looking steamed vegetables, and two glasses of water. "Er... well I'm not normally this bad with cooking. I hope it's alright," he said placing the plate between some cutleries in front of the girl and the glass before setting the others down in front of himself.

Kathia decided to give the squirrel a try first. She cut a piece of it and blew at the hot steaming meat to cool it down a bit before she put it into her mouth to chew. The taste was bland and it was probably because it was over-cooked. The bitter black burned spots certainly did not help the food. 'Wow he wasn't kidding when he said that I wouldn't be used to something like this,' she thought in disappointment. But nevertheless, she had to force herself to eat the rest, so that she didn't offend him. After the squirrel was finished, the girl went to eat the vegetables next. At first she expected them to taste bad, too. But surprisingly, they were good; probably not gourmet good, but still delicious anyway. The girl happily ate the veggies until they were good. "Mmm, that was tasty!" Kathia said, wiping the corners of her lips with the napkin.

"I'm glad you liked it. Can't say I was overly fond of the squirrel, but I think I got those vegetables down pat," he said merrily giving his mouth a wipe with the napkin.

The redhead replied honestly with delight, "You sure did!"

"It's pretty late, I better get you back to your place for the night," he said standing and collecting the dishes. "But we should meet tomorrow afternoon and show off our skills."

The girl replied in enthusiasm, "Yes, that would be fun! I'd like to see what you can do. And I'm going to show what I learned." She couldn't wait to show him her magic spells that she learned from her two spell books.

After an evening hunt, Atlas brought back some food for the family and they all ate their dinner. Once their meals were eaten, the sisters went to play around with each other, while Atlas read some more books on the castle's history and culture. The forging book she picked up taught her how to make weapons and armor for warriors, how to mend them, and how to remove rust. This seemed to be quite useful as all the armor and weapons, including Atlas's, were rusted. So to renew them, she used the magic taught from the book to make her equipment brand new again. On the thought of forging, she thought it would be a good idea to make armor for Danielle and Kylie to protect themselves, in case she was ever gone. But of course she would have to find some ore tomorrow as it was late at night. The family went to the tower where the king used to rest and slept there.

Author's Note: I'm putting Atlas's part back into this chapter, because I realized it took only a day for her to get there and it also took only a day for two new characters (who are yet to be seen; not mine) to get there as well.

Dedries and Orion (c) me
Strider (c) Lorddraco8967