DIGRESSION/RANT - I keep seeing Navarog/Gavin being turned into a simpering wimp, who comes crawling back begging for forgiveness and/or for love. If that's your thing, more power to you, but if any of you harbor any illusions about that being the case here allow me to clarify - DEMON PRINCES DO NOT TURN INTO PANSIES, I DON'T CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM. That doesn't mean he doesn't have the capacity for goodness in him, or the ability to love, but for Pete's sake he's not a sparkly vampire. Consider – the Sphinx had the guy locked up for centuries in the quiet box. He's so evil that the Sphinx thought him a threat AND if his crazy wasn't exponentially increased by the fact that he spent hundreds of years with no contact to the outside world, I'm a monkey's uncle. He's probably got friggin' borderline personality disorder! If you sense the Gavin in this story progressing towards pansie-fication, please, alert me immediately, and I will remedy the situation.
Now that I've got that off my chest….
Disclaimer – I do not own any aspect of the fantastic Fablehaven world. Brandon Mull is the owner to whom I express much gratitude for fostering a healthy belief in magic in myself and many others.
Kendra tossed uncomfortably in her sleep. Her room felt unusually chilly for a summer night. She knew she should wake up, but she'd been having a lovely dream about Bracken. He had been holding her hand and singing sweetly to her. She couldn't understand the words, but she knew that they didn't match up with the song. The tune was indulgently maudlin. The words were obscure, yet insistent.
Lucidly Kendra reached up to touch a smiling Bracken's face, but he caught her hand. Kendra watched his hazy expression flicker. Bracken's demeanor changed instantly. He looked as though he was… desperate. A crinkle creased his smooth brow. Purple crescents under his eyes brought out the concern he was now looking at her with. He'd stopped singing. Kendra frowned. What was wrong with him?
"Kendra, where…" Bracken began, but didn't finish. A jolt ran through Kendra's body. The ground under them began to tremor. Kendra reeled back. Bracken reached out to catch her, but missed. And then Kendra was falling. The sound of roaring wind engulfed her. A low guttural hum buzzed in her ears.
Kendra opened her eyes. She saw rolling white plains beneath her feet. Her dangling feet. She screamed. Her hands should have flow up from her sides. However, her arms, she discovered were immovable. She looked down towards her stomach. Huge onyx colored talons encased her securely. A deep rumble similar to a laugh drew her gaze upward. Immense yellow slanted eyes met hers.
Kendra couldn't move. She couldn't speak. Navarog was using his dragon fear to incapacitate her.
The glowing yellow orbs lowered till they were directly in front of her. Kendra willed herself to shut her eyes. If only Seth were there. Together he and she made a dragon tamer. Without him there was nothing she could do to impede Navarog's control of her.
Kendra felt Navarog's warm breath move around her, increasing her anxiety level. He smelled like he hadn't brushed his teeth since she last saw him. Before he'd been eaten by Raxtus. Kendra remembered she still hadn't figured out how his being alive was even possible. If she'd harbored any doubts before, it would be impossible to do so now. The dragon before her was not going to be explained away.
Almost without thinking, Kendra blinked. Her hypersensitivity called it to her attention. Taking advantage of the opportunity she forced her eyelids to stay shut with all of her might. To her relief, they stayed closed.
Success! Kendra would have whooped in triumph if she could. But victory was short lived. She felt scales brushing against her face, sending chills down her spine. By some miracle, her eyelids stayed shut.
Quite suddenly she was aware that there was no longer the sound of beating wings. The claws around her began to feel softer (though the tightness of the grip remained the same).
"Kendra." To her surprise, she heard Navarog's human voice. "Open your eyes."
Kendra obeyed without thinking. Navarog held her tightly, as they were speeding towards the ground, the wind whistling around them. Kendra made a noise like a squeak and wrapped her arms around a smirking Navarog.
Panic set in with immediate comprehension. "Are you crazy?! We're going to die now!" Kendra wailed over the wind. Her hair lashed wildly about her face.
Navarog regarded her coolly. "You wouldn't look at me." He spoke normally, which was the equivalent of whispering in the situation. Kendra had excellent hearing though, a byproduct of her condition.
"So you decided to commit suicide?!" she screamed.
"I don't take rejection well. Besides, today is as good a day to die as any. I've always had a fascination with death… Ever since, you know, I died." He deadpanned.
She didn't care for his humor. Kendra looked frantically from left to right. "Navarog! We're getting closer to the ground!"
He rolled his dark eyes. "I don't recall you being this melodramatic Kendra. But if you insist I save you I will – on two conditions."
Kendra just stared at him, painfully aware of the rapidly approaching surface. "One," he shouted, presumably to remove any doubt of her hearing him, "You will call me Gavin and not Navarog. Two - you will not resist my will like that again." Kendra felt his grip around her tighten. He leaned in so their foreheads were touching. His demeanor became grim and menacing. "Or you may find death to be a more generous offer."
Kendra didn't even consider the details. The only thought she had was an image of a red water balloon, which Seth dropped from the upstairs window intended for Kendra's head, hitting the pavement and exploding next to her. Whatever the crazed-zombie-dragon-psychopath wanted her to say, she would say if it meant saving her from looking like that balloon. "Whatever! Okay! Just save us!"
Navarog - Gavin – simply laughed. He made no move to transform. Kendra looked into his cold eyes. He isn't going to save us, Kendra realized in dismay. He had simply exploited her desperation. Kendra closed her eyes again so she his mocking gaze wasn't the last thing she would see in her life.
Then she felt Gavin's chest expanding against her, growing warmer, more… scaly. The whistling died down and the hum of beating wings resumed. Kendra felt her body relax marginally, releasing some of its tension. He had saved them. Kendra opened her eyes to see the ground barely fifty feet down. Kendra's heart skipped a beat at the sight of how close she had been to dying.
Kendra tried to clear her head. Observe and take note of everything, she admonished herself, you never know what may help you escape later (advice she'd received from Warren).
Further inspection of her surroundings suggested to her that Navarog/Gavin had taken her to rain-forest. An expansive tree canopy underneath her, massive, majestic plateaus to her left, gray, stormy skies to her right – all stunning. Tough what was ahead of her was what really took Kendra's breath away.
A splendid torrent of white-silver water cascaded down a sheer drop-off of varying shades of paint-splotch-reminiscent rock - orange and brown at the top, blushing hues of violet and burgundy toward the bottom. The falls were outlined by both thick and thin patches of lush green trees on the plateau at the crest and the valley beneath. The cloud bank allowed for few breaks for which wavering rays of sunlight could add a more camouflaged appearance to the drop-off, and mysterious shimmering effect to the falls. From what Kendra could tell Navarog was making a beeline for the falls.
In a matter of minutes they were at the falls, and Kendra could hear the deafening roar of waves crashing below. If she could have covered her ears, she would have.
Navarog increased his speed. Kendra blanched. They would splatter on the side of the cliff! He'd tricked her! He was still going to kill them.
The second time around Kendra had a bit more of time to think. She mourned for the good-bye's she'd never get to say to her friends and family. She knew they'd all be worried sick about her. She hated that she'd never be able to give them any peace. And then there was Bracken. What would have been? She would never know. Surely he'd find someone else. Small comfort that was.
Kendra squeezed her eyes shut and braced for impact. The water hit her like several streams of icy liquid being squeezed from a giant Nerf gun. The sensation was over before Kendra's body could appropriately react. Now they would slam into the rock wall. She tensed, waiting.
She felt Navarog/Gavin's grip loosen around her. Her eyes flew open. She didn't have time to grab ahold before he dropped her. Instead of falling into oblivion Kendra felt herself plop roughly onto a hard surface.
Kendra sat up with a moan. She was in a cave. Faint orange torchlight lit the rock floor and cavern walls.
"We're not dead," she said aloud, mostly to herself.
"No. If you'd have kept your eyes open and your head about you, you would have seen through the distractor spells." Gavin stood across the way, arms crossed, staring at her scornfully. "Really Kendra, you're going to have to get it together if you want to survive here."
Kendra didn't respond. She couldn't put her thoughts together properly, and she sure as heck didn't want to give the jerk the satisfaction of saying the wrong thing. Subsequently, for a while they both said nothing, and sat watching each other guardedly.
At length he spoke again, "Well, here we are. Welcome to your new home Kendra Sorenson - my humble abode - the Forbidden Dragon Sanctuary."