"Hey Haku? Can I ride on Retsu?" Ryumiko asked.

Haku raised his head a little to glare at the girl with one large green eye. A clear and direct rejection of her idea.

"Why not? I don't see any reason why it's such a problem!"

The muscle beneath her jolted a little as he appeared to huff, telling her that he thought that the reason why was obvious. Ryumiko pouted.

"Well it's not like you're any fun! Can I? Even if just for a little bit?" she pleaded.

When Haku shook his head in response, she frowned, promptly plotting her manipulative plan to get her permission from the stuffy dragon.

Retsu and Yukaoi, who had been flying either side of Haku had been listening into the conversation. Retsu was watching the discourse with amusement, which didn't go unnoticed by his sister. Yukaoi guessed that Retsu had an interest in the girl. He was generally very silent and hardly warmed up to people, preferring to observe others from a distance.

Yukaoi was glad that Retsu was finally finding someone he took an interest in, but if Ryumiko really turned out to be a Noble, then it would be unlikely that the Dragon leaders would let them be together so easily. So here she was, caught between preventing her brother's possible heartbreak, or trying to find a way for them to escape the Dragon Clan. Yukaoi shook her head. No, neither had even said they were interested in each other romantically. She was getting ahead of herself...

The dragon siblings were both surprised when Ryumiko grabbed Haku's mane with such gusto and yelled, "Fine! If you want to be unreasonable, then so will I!"

Haku felt his body plummet, as Ryumiko forced him to nose dive towards the ground at an alarming rate. He let out a roar of warning to the girl, which was immediately ignored. The blue eyed girl grinned as they got uncomfortably close to the ground, before she pulled him back up, sending them flying straight up into the air again.

The white dragon spirit cursed the fact he could not change out of his dragon form while the girl was in control and settled for roaring his frustrations of which only Yukaoi and Retsu could understand.

Retsu was torn between continuing to watch the entertainment of a small girl tormenting the dragon by having complete control over him, and stopping Ryumiko's tyranny by letting her fly on his back. When she began to hurtle down to earth again in another sharp nosedive, Retsu decided it was in everyone's best interest to save the river spirit's dignity.

Ryumiko was stunned when she was suddenly ripped off Haku's back and flung into the air. Too shocked to react, she watched silently as Retsu hovered below her, waiting to catch her. With a sharp intake of breath, she grasped onto a white mane once it was in reach, and huffed when she hit his unforgiving red scales. They started flying as soon as Retsu felt her safely on his back.

Haku shook his head once free of Ryumiko, glad to regain control of himself.

'You shouldn't let her get her way. She'll get more bratty that way,' Haku growled to the red dragon.

Retsu smirked a little, 'I think I'd prefer to indulge her than listen to your fruitless squabbling and threats that she clearly can not understand.'

Once Ryumiko had composed herself a little more, she whacked the top off Retsu's head, "Hey! Don't do that ever again!"

She felt his muscles vibrate and she knew he was laughing at her again.

The girl never ceased to bore him, and she never seemed to run out of topics to talk about. She talked about what she did in the Living World, what she and Chihiro got up to as children, what she saw from Retsu's back and she made up stories to tell him, a talent she learned from Chihiro.

Ryumiko had no problems with talking to the dragon one-sidedly. She knew that he was listening to her, and they had worked out how to communicate small things. For example, whenever Ryumiko talked about some technology Retsu had no knowledge of, he would look at her as if to tell her he didn't understand something.

Haku had listened to the parts involving Chihiro, while Yukaoi had listened to the whole conversation while keeping a look out for any danger that came their way.

They reached Zeniba's shortly, causing further excitement to stir inside Ryumiko. She smiled as she recognised things from Chihiro's stories. The swamp-land surrounding the path, the small cottage and the lamp that greeted them with a welcoming wave. The difference being that Chihiro had only seen this place in the evening, whereas Ryumiko was seeing this in broad daylight, and she saw that Zeniba's home looked a little like a farm. She could even see a few animals grazing in a distant paddock.

"Is that it?" she asked Haku excitedly.

The dragon nodded and they began their descent to the ground. Before Retsu even grazed the ground, Ryumiko jumped off and ran of in a flutter of teal, towards the cottage with the eagerness and energy of a small child. She stopped before she reached the front door, and took her time to marvel at the accuracy in which Chihiro had drawn this scene.

The front door of the cottage opened, much to her surprise, and revealed a figure that was familiar to her, one that had been painted many times and scared her a little when she was younger.

"Uh..."

"No-Face! It's you!" she cried, running up and hugging the shadowed spirit as if they had been old friends reuniting. Poor No-Face had no idea what was going on.

"Ryumiko, let go you're crushing him," Haku told her dryly before walking into the home.

Inside an old woman with an overly large head sat by a bright crackling fire, her kind brown eyes watched her visitor, "Back again Haku?"

NOBODY PANIC! I have returned! It's been a long month I know, but due to some crappy circumstances involving writer's block, creative nagivation malfunctions and friends with much too complicated situations hindered my ability to write! But I made it!

Also I will do another re-cap in later chapters for anyone else who has problems following on. I know I write difficult to understand stuff so I apologise, but I'm trying to keep this story under a 50-chapter limit so I'm panicking ever so slightly in getting all my details right :)

Many thanks to you dear reviewers!

Masaki4everDead (NYEH! I didn't update soon! Don't send No-Face D: Haha, I think it's heading along those lines between Ryumiko and Chihiro.)

Moongirl12121 (I wish I could update all my other stories too! But back when I had all five going at once, all the stories semi-blended into one, and some I don't even remember what the ending was supposed to be. So I'm going to go one baby step at a time and go with two at a time. It's working much better than before :3 Poor annoying voice XD Thank you for reviewing!)

Mysticbreeze327 (Haha, I'm not quite sure how the interaction between Ryumiko and Chihiro will go yet... Undecided, unlike Haku... he's gonna be skinned alive.)

NuraWakana123 (I'm glad you like the story and thank you for the reviews :3)

Animala Swan (Thank you for reviewing :D)

LilyFragrance a.k.a. Fan-chan (I'm happy you enjoy my story! Also glad that my OC is well-received :D Who wouldn't stare at Retsu? He's a mega-babe X3 Thank you for lovely review!)

Laugh. While. Crying (Yeah, don't worry about not understanding everything, I'm going to go over it slower in the next chapters with Zeniba but yeah. Thank you for reviewing!)

InkWoven (I'm sorry I'm so confusing! I'm cramming too much info, which I'm trying to avoid. So I made this chappie new-information-free! :3 Oh, be excited for the reunion of Haku and Chihiro. 'Twill be very interesting and hopefully amusing. And what can I say? Commas are my best buddies! Thank you very much for the compliments!)

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