While most would find it awkward to answer the door at nine in the morning to find a foot-tall gopher in leather armor on their doorstep, Calley, fully dressed with a green cloak flowing from her hands, only grinned and swooped the limber little rodent into her arms. "CALLA!"
When the maow squeaked in an equally happy tone, Makzin wondered for not the first time if Zane hadn't named the young monax after Calley. Calla was young, only six years old, and only recently old and skilled enough to start accompanying Zane and Gideon on travels far from home.
The ecstatic ten-year-old swung Calla around, Nips bouncing at her feet. "Yay, you're coming too!"
Zane, coming up the path from the dragon parked in the street, grinned in the morning light. "Of course she is..."
Calley, hugging Calla tight to her shirt-front, gave Zane barely a glance, her violet eyes focusing immediately on the immense form of Sadira, who was crouching in the empty street just in front of the small bridge leading over the brook. The dragon�s maroon scales and black crests were highlighted with the yellow morning light. �Wow� is she our ride?�
Zane glanced back at Sadira, nodding to Calley with a light smile. �She agreed to take us, since this is supposed to be a day trip. The truck would take too long. A truck cannot drive as the dragon can fly�� he said with a smirk. �Her help is much appreciated.�
Makzin came to the door, his large travel pack slung limp over one shoulder, his paintball gun in its holster along the side of the bag and a sharp-looking axe strapped to the other side. He shoved a worn lunchbag at Calley as he passed onto the porch. �Get your pack, Cal, hurry up.�
Calley juggled Calla, her cloak, and the lunch for a second, bending to drop the little monax to the wooden planks of the porch before grabbing her old bookbag from inside the door. �Can Nips come, too?� she asked, looking to Zane hopefully as she opened her bag and crammed the lunch in.
�Does it look like there�s room?� Makzin glared back at his sister.
Sadira smiled softly, eyeing the humans affectionately and ignoring Makzin's spiteful reply. �Of course your little friend may come,� she regally responded, without a hint of the arrogance that most dragons were notorious for. Her amber eyes lit up at Calley�s elated grin.
The little girl caught up her pet erinacci�how her stick-like arms could lift the fat rodent was a mystery�and jogged through the yard to figure out how to properly mount the dragon. Sadira softly instructed the girl on where to climb so that she wouldn�t to slip on her iridescent scales.
Makzin grumbled to himself, swinging his pack onto both shoulders. Zane chuckled, slapping his young friend on the shoulder; �Loosen up, Makz� don�t worry about it. We�ve got room.�
�I didn�t want to bring her. My parents just dumped her on me last night.�
��and I didn�t want to see that bayyo rampaging across the mountains and putting innocent people in the hospital,� Zane somberly responded. He looked away, focusing his gaze on Calley as the girl clambered up Sadira�s shoulder, pushing the basketball of an erinacci ahead of her. �Don�t worry about it. There are more important things to worry about.�
Makzin worked his jaw, abashed, but remained silent. He turned back to the house. �Timber! I�ll call you when we get there!�
* * * * *
Sadira, weighed down with three humans and a pair of small maow, lifted off lazily from Laurel to soar high over the mountains, eyes narrowed into the glare of the morning sun. The wooded mountains gave way to low foothills, which eventually gave way over the couple hours to the artfully-shaped skyscrapers of Talston city. A wide strip of undeveloped beach ran between the city and the ocean; harbors dotted the natural river outlet instead, leaving the beach�s continual re-sculpting to the wind and sea. The blue ocean blurred into the sky in the distance.
Zane, perched at Sadira�s neck, had no need to give the dragon directions. She tilted towards the north, dropping altitude as she ran along the beachline towards the lighthouse.
Resting on a small sea cliff overlooking a private beach, the Talston lighthouse was a considerable structure, its neighboring buildings serving as the city Guide Hall. The lighthouse was built of interlocking, mismatched stones, giving it a cobbled look; the ancient lighthouse was the source of Talston�s name, derived from �tall stone.� The adjacent buildings were worked of the same stone and looked just as old and sturdy, with long windows that appeared to be of rippling, blue-hued glass. On the front of the main building, the stones had been arranged into the Hall�s emblem, an artistic rendering of a water drop.
The building farthest from the lighthouse was roofed with a gridwork of greenhouse-style windows, looking through onto an immense, dark pool. Lush vegetation lined the inner walls, basking in the morning sun, their roots reaching down into the pool amongst reeds and lilies in full bloom. The pool itself was riddled with islands and floating platforms and rope-bridges crossing between them. As they passed over, a giant turtle maow surfaced in the center of the pool, his dark form standing out against the pool�s light-colored bottom.
They passed over the Hall and circled around back towards the cliff. Overlooking the ocean, standing vigilant over the rocky, steep, shrub-strewn slope to the duned beach, was an enormous wolf, the lone rider on its back watching the dragon with intense eyes.
* * * * *
Setting down in the tall grass north of the lighthouse, Sadira knelt to allow her passengers to disembark. Makzin, stuck at the rear with Calley between he and Zane, didn�t wait for his young sister to try to work her way down the dragon�s arm; he simply pat Sadira on the flank to alert her before he swung down the dragon�s side and into the tall, wind-bowed grass.
"Um, Makzin, can you catch Nips?� Calley questioned, peering down at him from around Sadira�s wing. Her brother rolled his eyes but held out his arms, preparing to catch the lump of erinacci. It took the lazy Nips a few moments to will himself to leap, but trusted Makzin well enough to catch him; luckily for Makzin, erinacci could flatten their sharp back quills completely so as not to poke unless rubbed the wrong way. Flattening allowed a more stream-lined form to burrow with, though Nips was too fat to be able to tunnel as speedily as most erinacci were capable.
Makzin dropped the heavy hedgehog into the grass, turning away to face the approaching cliff-sentinel.
The rider was female and dressed in a form-fitting blue and black wetsuit. Her midlength blue-black hair was tied back in a high ponytail; around her neck were a pair of goggles styled like those used for snowskiing.. Around her right upper arm was a dark band of water-proofed leather worked in a Celtic design; imbedded in its center was a smooth, aqua gem.
Her mount wore a matching collar, though proportionally larger. The Talston Guide Emblem was also printed into the collar, part of which was a matching gem undoubtedly enchanted as well. The enormous grey-and-white wolf quietly woofed a solemn yet friendly greeting to Sadira, who nodded back in turn, though carefully so as not to dislodge Calla, who had climbed up to just behind the dragon�s head to stare out at the ocean in awe.
(cont'd)
