Well, I know what they meant by 'with some help'. We left a while ago and it turns out that they meant the darkling. This meant I had to use a constant supply of flowers to keep it under our control, and let me tell you this- this darkling was getting very grumpy. Every time a flower warned out, it would be a fight to get it to sniff the next one. Eventually, I made a necklace of flowers and put it around its neck. Now, every time one flower lost its power, the next one would activate. Unfortunately, once or twice The Holly or The Abbey would get to close and they would randomly hang off the side of the boat and start kicking. That got very dangerous as we got closer to the arctic. Eventually, we made a rule that no-one goes near the darkling but me: I can't be affected by my own flowers.
We had a good journey until about half way. That was when I ran out of flowers. The darkling was, of course, furious! It leapt up and its obsidian wings beat down on us, making our kayak rock side to side. It flung itself at us in pure hatred! It bit down hard on Gips and Grakes scales, leaving hard, black dents. Gip blew a wave of fire at the darkling. While it was distracted, Grake snuck up from behind and stuck her small tail into him, and then she grew to 10 times her size, ripping the darkling's back wide open! Its body slowly turned into obsidian as shattered pieces of it fell into the endless depths below. The Holly and The Abbey picked up the oars and started paddling as Gazen and I worked together to heal our dents. I made a few potions out of some of the remaining flowers while Gazen got them back to shape. Apparently, darklings have a poisonous bite, but it wouldn't have affected us since it only bit our scales. All the same, Gazen and I made them an antidote just in case: you can never be too sure with darklings.
Once we were okay again, we began to work out how to get the rest of the way there. It was Saturday night, so we practically had 5 days to row all the way there! I quietly sat down with Gazen, Gip and Grake and we began discussing what we could do.
"Grake could become big and start flapping her wings like the darkling did", Gip suggested.
"Yeah, but I can't stay big forever! I shrink again in like… five minutes! Plus it takes hours for me to be able to become big again!" Grake argued.
"Well maybe Gip can breathe fire off the back of the boat like an engine?" I asked.
"I suppose that will get us somewhere, but after a few hours, I will have to stop like Grake", Gip decided.
"Well, in a few hours it will be dark, so let's do that", The Abbey said. Gip stood on top of the boat and fire spurted from her. We shot through the sea. I felt like we were going 1,000,000 miles per hour! Salty water sprayed from the sides of the boat as we cut through. My eyes narrowed as the wind bounced off my scales. As I watched Gip, I saw that her flames were getting weaker and weaker, her tail drooping and her scales were turning pale.
"Gip, you might want to stop now", I told her, "you're not looking to good". She carried on.
"Come on Gip. You need a break", Gazen joined in. Still no reaction. The Abbey walked over to her and put her hands around her. She flinched and drew away.
"She's freezing", she whispered. I looked at Gip. Dark, black stone was traveling through her scales. Her fire spluttered out and she fell. The Abbey dived forward and caught her in her hands. I looked at Grake, having a faint idea of what was happening. Grake was turning black. Her violet eyes turned a piercing blue.
"They're turning to darkling's", I whispered.