Hello everyone! I'm so sorry that it has been a while since I posted. I want to let you all know that this story will coming to a close soon, but I will be starting another Winx fanfiction as I said I wanted to do a couple chapters back. If you have any suggestions, anything you want to see in my next writing, etc., send me PM or review it. I'll get it either way. People with the best ideas or questions may just find their names in the story. ;) (If they are okay with that.)

I also wanted to thank JeanMorry for sending me to inkitt . com and their writing contests. I'm very excited to tell you all that I will be adding this story, edited and completed, to the writing contest. I will also have the final chapter up soon. Just adding finishing chapters and making sure that it doesn't feel like I've jipped you all. Thank you for being devoted readers and I look forward to any comments, questions, or reviews you send my way. Thank you again. Y'all are the best! :)

Meadow and Aaron ran, tall green ferns reaching for the sky and slapping at their skin. There fear nearly palpable, they could hear the footfalls of their pursers, but they didn't stop. They ran until their lungs hurt, right into the base of a large tree, covered in vines.

"Meadow, are you okay?" Aaron pants out to his friend.

His question is met with silence but he knows she is there, just behind him. He can hear her trying to steady her breathing. Finally, a muffled "sorry" comes the darkness.

He takes his eyes off the entrance they came in and turns to her. He's not his dad, but when mom makes that kind of sad sound, dad always hugs her. Figuring it will work, he reaches for her and hugs her. "It's okay." he says, just like his father would have told his mother.

"Aaron," Meadow chokes out, trying to talk to him. Her tears are hot on her cheeks and her throat feels swollen. She ties to speak again, but a sob breaks free. Scared that the dragons will hear, she clamps her hand over her mouth.

"Shh" Aaron hushes her. "It's gonna be okay. I promise." he whispers to her. They may be small, but they are mighty. (Like fleas!)

"Hey Bloom! Where are you?" Stella calls out to her best friend.

"In the kitchen Stella. What's up?" Bloom responds, cool and calm. As Stella rounds the corner, the kitchen is anything but. Flour covers the walls and ceiling, chocolate splatterssticking in places and puddles of milk and caramel on the counters. Bloom herself is in the center, by the stove, staring at it, an apron tied around her waist and flour in her hair.

"Um, what happened here?" Stella asks, gingerly stepping into the room.

"I'm baking." Bloom answers calmly. "7 layer bars. They'll be delicious when they are done. What's up?"

"Oh, right. Have you seen the kids?"

"They are out at the beach playing in the sand and sea like they always are. Tecna and Timmy are on watch right now."

"I know they are, but our kids aren't there. Well, Mason is with Sky, but Aaron and Meadow aren't at the beach. I thought maybe they were in here with you or in the house."

Bloom finally looks away from the stove and turns to Stella, concern beginning to etch her features. "No, they aren't in the house. Are you sure they aren't outside? I left them on the porch about an hour ago."

"I'm positive. Brandon helped me to look for them, but they aren't with the other kids and they aren't in our house, or any of the others. Yours was the last one to check. And, f they aren't here, or anywhere else we have looked, where are they?" Hysteria was a ways off, but was quickly approaching, if Stella's voice was anything to go by. Bloom knew she had to help her best friend quickly, but more than that, she had to find her daughter and nephew.

"I don't know where they are Stella, yet. We'll look around one more time, okay?" Bloom walked to Stella and took her the elbow, leading her out of the kitchen and down the porch to the sand. "Let's go find our kids." Bloom says one last time determined to make this right.

"Meadow, I think it's safe. We have to get going soon. Our parents are gonna be worried really soon. We've been gone a long time, I think." He turns and reaches for her hand, grasping it and pulling her with him as he exits their hiding space. He looks around, the tall grass revealing nothing. He can finally let out the breath he's been holding, and he turns to look at his best friend. "Meadow?"

Her skin looks pale, her eyes red from crying, but she turns her face to his (not that he is much taller than her yet) and she smiles. It's a ghost of her usual smile, but he'll take it. At least she's still with him and not giving up.

"Alright, it's time to get going." Aaron whispers as they carefully stray from their hiding spot. "Do you know where we are?"

Meadow's grasp on his hand tightens, she purses her lips, and shakes her head just barely to indicate 'no', she has no clue where they are.

Aaron nods, but his heart drops. They're lost. Totally, hopelessly lost. He imagines the faces of his parents, Meadow's family, their friends. They are going to be so upset when they realize that he and Meadow are gone. "Wait, if they know we're gone, they could come find us. We should stay in one place, as close to the beach as we can get."

"It's this way."

"We should go this way." They both spoke at the same time, confidence in their voices, fingers headed different directions.

Meadow looks at where he is pointing and shakes her head. "That's more into the jungle and grass. If we want the beach he have to go this way. Can't you feel the water?"

Aaron just shakes his head, but takes her hand again and they begin to walk toward where Meadow indicated. "You're sure, right?" Aaron asks before they've gone too far. He looks back at her over his shoulder.

"I'm sure," she says, full confidence in her voice and small stature. And they march on.

"Stella, over here!" calls Bloom.

Stella tramples over the grass and branches, determined to reach her best friend. "You found them?" she asks, unsure what she might actually want the answer to be.

"No, but I know which way they went. It looks like they come across a dragon's nest." She points at the makeshift nest, falling apart at one end where the young dragons scrambled out. She bends to pick up a piece of the shell which hasn't been destroyed completely. "It looks like a narolth or a tezolth. Both are gentle dragons. They probably saw the kids and chased after them, but I haven't taught Meadow which dragons are nice enough to play with. They would have run, I think."

"Babe, Bloom, I found their tracks. They ran this way." Brandon calls over his shoulder as he and Sky begin following the tracks.

"Bloom, are you sure the little dragons won't hurt the kids?" Stella looks at her best friend, true fear in her eyes for the first time in five years, since Meadow was born.

Bloom takes Stella's hand and holds, squeezing it when she says "I'm sure."

The men follow the tracks to the clearing by the old tree and nearly pass it before realizing they were looking at the dragons' footprints, not those of the kids. So they turn around and return to the clearing and find the kids' prints leading into the tree, then out again. Brandon says, "They were smart. They hid when they knew they couldn't outrun the little buggers."

"Agreed," says Sky. "But we have to find them. They've got to be hungry by now."

"These tracks look pretty recent," announces Brandon. "We should get going." The parents start off after their children again. Following the tracks to another clearing.

"Meadow? Aaron?" Call out the mothers, concern lacing their voices.

"Mama?" comes a chorus of small voices.

The children come out of a tree, pushing the root out of the way little by little to emerge unharmed.

"Mama! Daddy!" Meadow calls out to her parents, running from the tree right into their arms.

"Dad, Mama," says Aaron. He seems a little more sheepish as he emerges, but as he finally steps away from the tree, his mother catches him in her arms and hugs him to her. His father kneels beside them and wraps an arm around them too.

"Oh, Aaron, I'm so happy you are okay. I was so scared." Stella says.

"Baby girl, are you okay?" asks Sky to his daughter. "Did anything hurt you two?"

"I'm okay mama. We're okay Uncle Sky. The dragons chased us when we came into the jungle, but we ran and hid from them. Then we tried to walk toward the beach, hoping you guys would find us. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let us leave the beach without one of you."

All the parents share a look, untranslatable by the children.

"It's okay, Aaron. Neither of you are in trouble."

"I did it mama. I brought us out here." Meadow chimes in. Tears stream down her eyes at her admission. "I'm—hic—sorry!" She covers her face, embarrassed and ashamed.

"Baby," Bloom says, pulling Meadow's hands from her face. "You aren't in trouble, remember. We're just glad you are safe and sound. You learned a lesson."

"Let's get these kids home and fed, huh?" says Brandon, standing next to his family in the clearing, a smile on his face nonetheless.