14A whole plate full of cookies goes to Blytheboo, as they were the only one to submit a review. I really like reviews, so please remember to give me one, 'kay?
Also, sorry about taking so long to post the next chapter, I have almost the whole story thought out, but I have so many different ways that I could do it, it takes me forever to write things down.
And in case you can't tell while reading this chapter, I am in a rather random mood, so it's a bit of a strange chapter.
As always, I don't own the characters or the book.
As morning came, the Dragon Lord summoned a meeting with the Dragon Knights, for there seemed to be a lot of information missing from what he knew. After his knights had arrived, Lykouleon gazed at the three men and sighed.
"Alright, I want to know whatever you can tell me about what is going on. How about we start with you, Rath, since you seemed to recognize her yesterday," Lykouleon announced.
"Er, well, it was several years ago, and it wasn't a very big deal at the time," Rath started off, looking rather embarrassed at being put on the spot. "I think it was about three years ago, we were lost as usual, and ended up in some forest. We saw a little kid there, and she showed us how to get back on track." The other two knights nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, she was picking apples… they were really good," Thatz added in a state of blissful happiness. That didn't last very long though.
"How can you manage to remember what food she had with her three years ago, but you can't remember your manners for even one day?!" Rune demanded, as he repeatedly hit Thatz in the head with a giant hammer.
"Very well, and you believe that the girl found in the forest is the one from three years ago?" Lykouleon asked after watching Rune and Thatz with an amused glance.
"Seems like it, yeah," Rath said, and then got up and skipped to the door. "I'm guessing that we're going to go see how she's doing, right? So let's go!"
The four men left the office and went down to the hospital ward.
Lykouleon walked up to one of the nurses and asked if the girl was awake, to which the nurse replied that she was, and promptly showed them to where she was. When they arrived, the silver creature from before was nowhere to be seen, and the girl was staring out a window, and only looked away from the window once to glance distantly at her new visitors, then looked back at the window.
The men watched her for a moment, until Rath got up and grabbed an apple from a nearby tray. "Want an apple? You like apples, right?" He asked the girl, offering her the apple.
The girl looked at him, surprised, as if she hadn't seen him there before. There was a strange clarity in her eyes, as if she understood more about the world than any girl her age had a need to. She then nodded her head and took the apple, and started to eat it, all the while staring at Rath. "Have… have I met you before? You seem rather… familiar," She finally asked, after she was halfway done with the apple.
"I'm not sure. I think we did, but if we did, it would have been three years ago," Rath replied, glancing to the others for support, but Lykouleon was just studying the girl's reactions, while Rune and Thatz just shrugged their respective shoulders.
Suddenly, the girl's eyes lost their clarity again for a moment, as if she was thinking about something far away. Then, just as suddenly, they were sharp and bright again. "Three years ago? Then that was…but, you're from…I'm in Dragoon?" she asked, looking confused. The four nodded their heads.
"Yes, we found you in a forest near a village that was completely destroyed by Nadil's army. I am guessing your name is Ayame?" Lykouleon said, giving her a sad smile. The girl nodded. "So, Ayame, when you were being brought here, a silver creature appeared by your side and attacked one of the guards. However, it didn't harm anyone else, and just sat on top of you. Do you know what it was?"
Ayame looked thoughtful, then studied Lykouleon. "Hmm, hold on a sec. I know who those three are," here she glanced at the dragon knights, "but I don't know who you are."
"That's true, I forgot to give you my name, my name is Lykouleon, and I'm technically the Dragon Lord," Lykouleon replied with a smile.
"Technically? What does that mean?" Ayame asked. After getting the muttered name 'Alfeegi' as a reply, she sighed and looked up at the ceiling as she whistled a short note, then turned back to Lykouleon as a small silver creature came flying onto her shoulder. "The 'silver thing' was most likely my friend here. She's a dragon, though I don't generally show her to many people, since most people either are scared of her or try to steal her. She's good at hiding, but since I've been traveling for the last two and a half years, she doesn't have to hide much. Her name is Aya."
"Hey Ayame, if you were traveling, why were you back near your village right when the demons attacked, and how did you get hurt so badly?" Rune asked, speaking for the first time.
"I was wondering when you were going to ask about that," Ayame started, her gaze turning sorrowful, "It's all my fault that the village was attacked. Nadil had heard about Aya and had decided to try and capture her, so he sent a few demons after us. Of course, a couple of demons are no match for a dragon, so the demons died. Nadil apparently wasn't happy about that, so he sent a bunch more demons, but we defeated those too. And then he sent a whole army of demons. Now I don't know about you, but generally one kid and a dragon can't take down an entire army of bloodthirsty demons. So, like any scared kid, I ran for it. They still managed to track me down though. I would have died if it hadn't been for Aya and the fact that most of them got distract and went down to eat the villagers and forgot all about me. I hadn't even know I was near the village…"
At this point in the story, Ayame had started crying, and the silver dragon was licking the girl's face, trying to make her feel better. Ayame looked like she was about to go on when the dragon's head suddenly turned to the window. Seeing that, Ayame quickly got out of the bed she was in, almost falling down once, and walked over to a window.
"Oh shoot," Ayame said quietly, "It looks like the demons don't like to give up."
Confused, Lykouleon and Rath walked over to the window and saw several demons in front of the castle. The only odd thing was, they were inside the Dragon Lords barrier.
The thing with the Demon in the Dragon Lords barrier, for anyone who doesn't know, is that demons can't get in the Dragon Lords barrier, not unless they have dragon blood in them or they have a Light Dragon pendant like Rath and Cesia.
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