@Draco: AAH!!!! RETURN OF THE EVIL DRAGON CATCHER GUY!!! ;)

Wow, I can't believe Rilleyo would actually ride a dragon. *gasps in shock*

Aleakim--

Rilleyo grins cruelly as his eyes sweep over all of us, daring us to fight him. He glares at each of us, one at a time. If he's surprised by the fact that I've sprouted wings since he last saw me, (which was almost exactly 5 months ago, if I recall correctly) he hides his shock well.

"Good day, children," he says cheerfully, as if we're sitting down to tea and cakes. I hiss/growl at him; I hate a lot of things, but I can't stand being called a child.

"What are you doing here, Rilleyo?" Kerra says coldly.

"Oh, not much. And you?" he asks casually.

"We were just on our way to your house for cookies!" Anex says, playing along.

Rilleyo turns to him, away from me, and I take the opportunity to leap back up into the air. I flap my wings slowly, like Elyana and her dragon showed me, and fly straight for Rilleyo.

The good news is, I make it all the way up to him without killing myself. The bad news is, he takes my still being alive as an excuse to kill me himself.

I plunge toward the ground as his dagger lodges itself in my shoulder. I curse multiple times and look at the knife. I nearly faint in surprise. The hilt of Rilleyo's dagger is carved into the shape of a dragon's head, rearing back as if to blow fire. A small circle indentation indicates where a Starlight Diamond should be. I wrench the knife out of my shoulder and try to ignore the pain in my shoulder. Putting the blade on my belt, I shake my head. It can't be this easy. Even as I'm conptemplating the idea that the dagger is most likely a fake, I hear the others calling my name.

I look up to see that everyone has already lifted higher into the air, and they're trying to outrun Rilleyo and his new friends. I take off (again) and fly toward them. I try to blow fire, but due to my inexperience all I get is a few sparks. But hey, at least my new wings work.

"Rilleyo, go to Hade," I scream at the Catcher as I get closer to him.

"Ladies first!" he yells to me in a sarcastic tone. That does it.

"Never," I say, flapping my wings in time with my words. "Call. Me. A. Lady!"

I tackle him off of his dragon, and we both plummet toward the ground.

Kim A.? Kerra? Are you out there in the big world of mysteries? Hello? Can you see this? You haven't posted since October 24! Where are you?

Endey Pracea

That had to be the most embarrassing day of my life. I collapsed. AGAIN. I most definitely just lowered Draco's and everybody else's opinion of dragon slayers. Again. First Aleakim started screaming, but that was justified. She was growing wings. And I didn't actually, scream, technically. I tried not to. It hurts going into a dragon's head. And then I collapsed. But in my defense, I was riding a dragon. Not very good on the stomach. And it only took me about a minute to recover.

Excuses, excuses. I am pathetic.

But in my defense... never mind. I don't have a defense. The second collapsing was uncalled for.

Elyana and Kerra together are fighting off three dragons. Draco is occupied with the fourth, and isn't that doing wonders for my stomach. Aleakim is... Wait. Where did Aleakim go? On the second upside down turn corkscrew thing, I see her. She's fighting Con Rilleyo on his own dragon, and she's losing. Rilleyo can't draw his sword in such close quarters without possibly injuring his dragon or himself, but he's got a long dagger out and is fighting Aleakim pretty well. The constantly shifting weight on that dragon, what was his name, Kerk? Yeah, Kerk. Kerk could barely manage to keep adjusting himself so that Rilleyo wouldn't fall off. Aleakim would probably be all right if she fell, but Rilleyo... not so much. Falling off dragons does rather nasty things to people.

Draco could probably manage just fine without me. So the next time we were just above Kerk, I jumped. Probably the stupidest thing I done so far that day, and that was saying a lot. I drew my sword on the way down. That, I'll say, was pretty cool. It's not that easy.

Unfortunately, I almost knocked Aleakim off. I could afford to swing my sword around, I didn't care if Kerk or got hurt. Rilleyo did have to worry about that, because that meant he would go tumbling down with no one to catch him.
I could hope that Aleakim might be able to save me. Or somebody else, because at that moment, Kerra's dragon nearly ripped off another dragon's wing. That dragon roared and fled, but it continued at a hapzhard angle, constantly nearly falling.

"What the drac do you think you're doing?" Aleakim screamed while I recovered my balance. She had one of Rilleyo's daggers tucked into her belt. A dagger with a dragon head....

"Jump!" I yelled. "Get him from behind." Aleakim gave me a strange look but jumped up off of Kerk and swooped behind Rilleyo, in the process nearly doing a flip. "This is no time for flying practice!" I yelled. Aleakim glared at me from over Rilleyo's shoulder.

If Rilleyo drew his sword, I was sunk. There was no way I could engage him for longer than forty seconds, maybe less, because we were fighting on a dragon. So I engaged him with his dagger, which was so long that it could have counted as a short sword.

Aleakim threw one of her own daggers at Rilleyo, and it caught him in the forearm. The wrong forearm. He was using his other one to fight me. But the dagger distracted him long enough for me to get a good cut to his thigh. He howled, and then Aleakim flew above him and slammed her feet into head. He stumbled, nearly falling, but he was drawing his sword at the same time.

There is something about a fight that makes you think so much faster. As soon as Rilleyo put his hand on the hilt of his sword, I knew that I couldn't stop him from drawing. There were two other options. One was to jump.

The second one was to stab the dragon. I was on Kerk's back, so I held my sword with one hand and stabbed Kerk in the back, all two and a half feet of steel sinking into his back. My sword is a hand and a half sword double edged slightly tapered two and a half feet of deadly gray steel sword. I had a bit of help making it, but for all intents and purposes, I made it.

Kerk screamed, fire shooting from his mouth. I knew I hadn't mortally injured him. After you kill so many dragons, you can tell. The wound might become infected, and Kerk could die from that, but he wouldn't die immediately from this wound.

Rilleyo stared at me as we fell, shocked that I would commit myself to death this easily. Actually, I was kind of hoping Aleakim would save me. I yanked my sword out of Kerk and jumped up as high as I could. Aleakim managed to grap my arm, but she couldn't really support my weight. "You idiot!" she screamed, because we were falling despite her efforts.

"Not my fault," I muttered. "I just stopped Con Rilleyo from stabbing you."

Finally, with a last attempt, Aleakim managed to throw me onto Ferr just as he swooped low enough.

"Hey!" Draco yelled.

"Not my fault," I said again.

The remaining three dragons flew away, realizing that one of their kind had abandoned them and their leader and Rilleyo were on the ground. They flew away, swearing at us, and roaring, "Malum the Great will not stand for this! WE WILL RETURN!!!"

Kerra motioned downwards and yelled, "I think it's time we have a little talk with Rilleyo!"

Draco rocketed toward the ground fast. On purpose, of course.

Why does everybody think it's so funny to watch me nearly throw up?

Sorry! I've been busy. Every time I try to post I get interrupted. :P Even now my sister is trying to get me to watch a movie w/ her. *screams in frustration* Sorry this is so short!!

Kerra--

We all land in a circle around Rilleyo and his injured dragon. I draw my dagger, but for some reason it won't stay still. It's like it has a mind of its own. It's pulling me toward Aleakim.

"Since when are you a dragon lover, Rilleyo?" Endey asks.

"Young man, I was about to ask you the same question." Rilleyo answers. Endey glares at him.

"Just answer the question, Con." Aleakim says. Her voice has more venom in it than I would think possible. Why does my step-sister hate Rilleyo so much?

umm....Hello? Hey, peoples, where are youz? :)

Oi, Oi! Don't worry, I'm right here! I just thought I should a wait a bit, since my last post was, well, 933 words long.

Endey Pracea

"YOU LITTLE PIECE OF DRACAMERDA!" I screamed at Adela so loud I though my voice was gone forever when I was done. "You wanting not to kill him got him away!" I kicked the ground. Hard.

Draco glared at me. "Shut up," she said levelly. "I refuse to deal with a crazy dragon slayer." She turned to Aleakim. "Can you get him? Even though I'm not talking to Endey until he apologizes to Adela, can we get Rilleyo and that little excuse for a dragon called Kerk?"

Aleakim shrugged. "Depends how bad Endey hurt Kerk. How bad did you hurt Kerk, Endey?"

"Not a mortal wound. He'll live, even though it hurts. I doubt we could find them, Draco." Of course, she ignored me.

"What did he say?" she asked Aleakim.

"Not a mortal wound. He'll live, even though it hurts. I doubt we could find them, Draco." Oh. My. Firey. Dragons. She's going along with it!

"Tell him to apologize to Adela," Draco said.

"Apologize to Adela," Aleakim said.

"Sorry," I mumbled. Adela smiled slightly. Not every day a dragon slayer apologizes to you.

"All right then," Draco said, "what do we do now?"

"Well," Kerra said, "first off, could somebody please explain to me why the heck Aleakim has a dagger that came from Rilleyo that should have come from my dad? How did he get that?"

"We should probably get Aleakim bandaged. Oh, and Endey? You do realize that your arm is bleeding? A lot?" Elyana asked.

"Whatever," I muttered.

"You know," Adela announced. "I think we should all learn how to use a sword. Just in case, you know, if Rilleyo attacked us." Draco looked skeptical, Kerra looked interested, Elyana look intrigued, and Anex looked disgusted. Aleakim looked bored. As always.

Everybody looked at me, and I groaned. "What, I have to teach you guys?"

Aleakim--

"Well, you are the best with a sword out of the two of us." I say grudgingly. Endey looks pleased. "I use my daggers...and my claws," I add, extending my claws out in front of me for Endey to see them. He now looks considerably less pleased. He probably still hates me for being a Dracaei. Not that I can help it. I furl my red dragon wings in against my back, and he stares. I clear my throat and he looks away, pretending nothing happened.

"Well, Sir Pracea," Kerra says, bowing dramatically, "I am ready for instruction." I roll my eyes, but she doesn't notice.

"I guess..." Draco says, hesitantly.

"If it's absolutely necessary," Elyana says, at the exact moment Anex says:

"Only if I don't have to use it against dragons."

They all turn to Adela, who nods, not very enthusiastically, but it's not a halfhearted nod, either.

"If you had asked me a week ago if I would ever take fighting lessons from a slayer, while on the way to slay a rogue dragon, in the company of a Draceai and a bunch of dragon riders, I would have told you that you were crazier than a lacertae," Anex says, laughing. Elyana and Adela laugh too, followed by Draco and Kerra, and in a moment all of us, even the dragons, are rolling around in the grass laughing our heads off.

It is the first time I've laughed, really truly laughed like this, in three whole years. It feels really good.

I just noticed that everyone except me seems to have a sad, complicated backstory. So here's mine. Yes, it's cheesy. Just deal with it.

Elyana-

"Look, I can't teach all of you guys at once," says Endey. "Aleakim, you're decent with a sword, right?"
"At least I know how to use one," she says. "True, teaching dagger-throwing would be a lot easier, but I guess I can show them the basics."
"All right then," says Endey. "Who wants to go first?" No one responds. Then I step forward, since I really am more than a little interested in learning to swordfight, and I still have the sword I stole from Rilleyo. Both Endey and Aleakim seem a little surprised. Then, even more surprising, Adela steps forward as well.
"Umm... I can take Elyana," says Endey. "Aleakim, you take Adela." Aleakim grumbles something, but reluctantly agrees and takes Adela aside. I follow Endey a little farther away, then he stops.
"So, do you have any experience with a sword?" he asks. I shake my head.
"Nope," I reply. "Unless you count play-fighting my brother with sticks."
"Okay," he says, sighing. "Let's start with foot positioning, then." Endey shows me where to put my feet, and I do so, moving back and forth and scuttling sideways. It seems pretty pointless to me.
"Do I get to use the sword yet?" I ask grumpily, tired of stances. My knees are aching.
"Well..." Endey considers for a moment. "Okay, fine. Just be careful with it."
"Don't worry, I'm not going to poke your eye out," I say, slowly drawing the sword out of its sheath. The metal gleams in the dappled sunlight. I grin.
"Imagine," I say, "if Rilleyo were to be attacked by a 'peace-loving dragon-rider', only to find out that she was using his own sword!"
"That would be pretty funny," says Endey, laughing. But soon he's serious again. "Look, you're holding the sword all wrong," he says. "Do it like this..." The lessons continue, and by the end I feel fairly confident that I could stab something with a sword and more or less hit it correctly. I'm also exhausted.
"Can we stop now?" I ask, aware that I sound like a whiny little kid but too tired to care. Endey shakes his head.
"Almost," he replies. "Just one more thing. You see that tree over there?" he asks, pointing. I look in that direction to see a particularly large, hearty oak.
"I want you to pretend it's a person. That big lump over there is the heart. Kill it." Hit the tree on the lump, I think. Easy enough. But as I get closer, my skin crawls. The tree almost does look like a person, bumpy roots sticking out of the ground like legs and branches waving like arms. I take a deep breath and move closer. I get into position, raise the sword in front of me, aim for the heart-shaped lump... and stop.
"What are you doing!?" yells Endey. "If that were a real person, you'd be dead by now!" He storms over to me, looking frustrated.
"I... I couldn't do it," I say meekly, shoulders slumping. "It looks so much like a person." Endey buried his face in his hands and cursed.
"Why are you dragon lovers all so infuriatingly nice all the time!?" he screams. It's not the first time he's said that. I know it's just because he's a slayer, but I can't help getting angry.
"There's nothing wrong with being nice," I say through gritted teeth. By now, Aleakim, Adela, and the rest have wandered over to see what was going on. Aleakim barely suppresses a laugh.
"I know you think that," she says, "But why?" My blood boils.
"You want to know why? I'll tell you why!" I scream. "My parents were the nicest people in the world! They never did anything to hurt anyone, and they always told me to do the same." Tears have gathered in my eyes now, but I don't care. "But we didn't have enough money for medicine," I choke, "so when they caught the plague, it was only a few days before they left me with my older brother Denek. He was the one who taught me how to ride a dragon. Since when I could barely walk, he would give me rides on his dragon, Lily, and when I was older, he taught me how to ride Xell. He was the best brother anyone could ask for." I'm crying with the memory of Denek, holding me on his lap, reading me stories, giving me lessons, hugging me tight when I was scared of falling off Lily. "But one day... well, Lily wandered off on her own, and she was found by a bunch of knights. She put up an amazing fight, but the one thing knights are trained for is to kill dragons. So they did. When Denek found out, he grieved for days. He wouldn't talk, wouldn't eat, he barely even moved, until three days after her death when he left the house. He never came back. I guess he decided that Lily and Mom and Dad were more important than his little sister...so he followed them to Heaven." There's only silence. My friends are speechless.
"Elyana, I-"
"Shut up, Endey!" I scream. Then I turn and run away from them, crashing through the trees, until I sit down in a clearing and cry. Xell follows a little later and wraps a scaly wing around me. My eyes are closed, but I can feel him, and the only sounds in the forest are my sobs, Xell's breathing, and the faint traces of memories echoing in my head.