AN: The fifth chapter, as requested :-P I hope it was worth the wait...oh, the pressure!

"Take my horse, she's faster and more reliable than yours." Selena whispered across the darkness of my bedchamber as we both gathered together as many of my belongings as possible, throwing them unceremoniously into a large draw-string bag.

"What? That skinny little brown mare? She's fast but she won't last a single day of travelling over harsh ground." I replied in hushed tones. Selena threw a few of my best clothes into the bag and strode across the room, grasping my hand with her own. She opened her mouth, but whatever she was going to say was lost to the night as I winced in pain when her fingers dug into the silvery scar on my palm. Frowning, she turned my hand over to examine it in the moonlight. She looked from my hand, to me, and back again, her eyes asking a thousand questions.

I sighed and lowered my eyes.

"Selena...I'm not leaving on horse-back."

She sat in rapt silence as I recounted all that had come to pass in the last two weeks, and she listened intently while I spoke.

"And so, you see, I have no choice but to leave. The old fool's decision to off-load me to a son of the crown has come at a most opportune time for me."

Upon finishing, I looked nervously into her eyes, expecting to see fear or doubt in their shimmering blue depths, but I could find no trace of either. Instead, something like awe shone out of them, a serene reverence that I had never before seen from my sister. She reached out once again, taking my hand in hers, being careful this time not to touch my scar.

"I always knew you were not like everybody else, Katharean Athem. I am glad to see that you do not disappoint."

I beamed at her, taking this compliment silently. She embraced me fiercely, and hot tears of emotion stung my eyes. In that moment, we both knew with unquestionable and unexplainable certainty that we would not meet again after that night. When I left, it would be for good. We did not doubt this, yet neither did we voice it. To give life to such a truth would only make my departure sorer on us both, and so silence prevailed.

We crept out into the grounds, thankful for the blanket of darkness covering us from the watchful eyes of my father's sentries. The stables were not far from the house and we reached them quickly, spurred on by adrenaline. I pressed myself against the bolted door and reached out to the dragon through the mental connection that I now knew we shared.

Even though I had read of it in the book, it still came as something of a surprise to me when I felt the beast's consciousness touch my own. I forced away the uncomfortable feeling that this foreign sensation brought and communicated my sense of urgency to the dragon standing on the other side of the door. I also warned that I had brought another and that she was a friend. Confident that he had understood, I unbolted the door and opened it cautiously, thanking the Gods that it did not creak loudly enough to wake the horses.

For a few moments, nothing was visible in the darkness of the stable, but slowly, proudly, the dragon emerged.

It was a breath-taking sight. He now stood taller than me, although only slightly, but strength emanated from his magnificent form in waves of electricity that scorched the cold air with their power. I turned to Selena, and for the second time that night she surprised me with her lack of fear.

"He's beautiful." She breathed. I felt an unexplainable sense of pride for the dragon...my dragon...at her praise, and I could not be sure if it was my own pride or his, now that I had re-opened the mental bond between us. I wasn't even sure if it mattered which one of us it was. If we were connected by our minds, who was to say that we were, in fact, separate entities?

I reached out a hand and rested it on his cold, smooth crown, feeling as I did so, a connection to him that I had not felt towards any other living creature, and that I was confident had nothing to do with our newly discovered psychic gateway.

Selena approached him, cautiously, and placed a hand next to mine, letting out a small sigh of relief when he did not react to her touch.

"He truly is magnificent. His eyes look so intelligent...almost human...and that colouring...it's remarkable...I've never seen a shade of purple quite like it...it's so dark it's almost obsidian, like the stone in my wedding ring..." She observed. I scoffed at the dreamy tone in her voice, but it was with the deepest affection, and I looked back at him, thoughtfully.

He spread his wings, stretching lazily, and she gasped slightly. I smiled at her as she looked at me with nervous incredulity.

"This is impossible."

"Yes, it is. But what is impossible? It's only a word...see how we defy it." I whispered, only half-joking. The dragon snorted, warningly, and I turned to see that a light was on in the house that I had not noticed before. I turned back to Selena.

"I have to go, now, before someone discovers that we are not where we should be at this late hour."

"Although it saddens me to see you go, I understand that you would not be leaving if you had a choice...but here, take this." She reached into her bedclothes and produced a small dagger with a beautifully detailed, jewel-encrusted hilt. I pulled it out of it's lightly bound leather sheath and tested it's edge with my finger, surprised, but not dismayed, when it drew blood. "It worries me to think that you will have need for it, but I would rather you have it...just in case."

"Thank you...I will keep it with me, always." I replied, tying it securely to the belt around my waist.

"I am glad. And here...I want you to have this. Keep it close to your heart." She whispered, her voice catching with emotion. Blinking away tears, she held out a closed fist and dropped something small and cold into the out-stretched palm of my hand. I could not see what it was in the shadow of the stables, and before I could examine it further, the dragon snorted and clawed the ground in panic and, instinctively, I wheeled around to see two guards come running down the steps of the manor towards us. We had been spotted.

Selena turned to me with fear in her eyes.

"Go! Quickly!" She urged, although there was no need, for I had already mounted the dragon,without knowing exactly how I did so.

"What about you?"

"I'll be fine, but you have to go, now!" She called back, her hysteria now quite apparent.

"I love you, Selena, I will always love you. Farewell...and know that you will be with me wherever I go."

She nodded, tears of fear and sadness welling in her azure eyes.

"I love-"

The rest of her words were drowned out by the beating of large, black, leathery wings and before I had time to realise what was happening, the earth, the manor, and my sister were disappearing below me as we climbed skyward.

"This is not comfortable, Puff!" I yelled, almost falling off with surprise when I heard him reply.

"Will you please stop calling me that?"

"What? You can...how long have you been able to talk?" I demanded, shouting to be heard over the deafening rush of air as we soared higher still.

"I have always had the power of speech...but you were not ready to hear me before now."

I opened my mouth to reply, but the feeling of something small and hard in my hand distracted me and I realised that I was still holding the gift from my sister. Above the clouds, the moon shone like a beacon, providing me with enough light to see clearly what it was.

Her wedding ring.

I looked up at the dragon, who was craning his neck and looking back at me with a curious expression in his eyes.

"So...you don't like the name, Puff, do you?"

He snorted in disgust and I couldn't help but laugh a little, despite it all. I studied the jewel embedded in my sister's most prized possession and called,

"What about Obsidian?"

He was silent for a moment and I could feel him thinking it over.

"That is fitting." Came the reply and I smiled, revelling in the perfection of it.

Then, finally, as we soared through the heavens, the tears that I had been denying all night broke through the dam of my self-control and fell from my eyes, before being claimed by the cruel wind, and I silently bade farewell to the person that I used to be, both fearing and eagerly anticipating the unclear future that I was entering, wondering what I had gotten myself into.

Through the confusion of my own mind, I felt Obsidian nudge my thoughts with his own, and my heart was lifted from the shadowy depths of it's grief by his promise to me.

"No matter where this strange path leads, know that I will be beside you every step of the way. You will never walk alone."