An Extraordinary Bond, Lorian Lilsiel [best romance books of all time .TXT] 📗

row and grabbed the reins. Nanden got into the second row next to Quinn, who  sat her bag between her legs. Kiea stayed on the ground, “Aren’t you going to get on, Kiea?” Quinn looked over the edge at her dragon as Yvette and Nanden pulled in the ladders and did a safety check.

“I’ll just fly next to Daefnhia.”

“Who?”

“The dragon, that’s her name. She introduced herself when she bowed, you couldn’t hear her? Interesting…”

“But Yvette said her name was Alexandra.”

“That’s because Yvette named her Alexandra. Dragons have names before they are summoned, but few humans can hear their dragons, so the names are often lost.”

“Oh…” Quinn brushed it off and moved on to her second concern, “Won’t you be slower with your smaller wings? How will you keep up?”

“I think I can manage.”

“Alright! I think we are cleared for takeoff. Just fasten your belt and we can head out.” Yvette buckled her own belt and messed with the reins a final time while she waited for her two passengers.

Quinn found the straps of leather on either side of her and fastened the belt loop, shifting while she did so to find the most comfortable position, “Ready!”

“We’re in,” Nanden yanked on his belt.

“Then here we go! Alex, let’s go girl!” Yvette gave a gentle pull up on the reins to signal Alex- Daefnhia?- to take off.

The green spread her wings and started moving forward towards the down side of a hill, slowly gaining speed as she ran. When she reached the drop, Daefnhia pushed of with her legs and wings, and launched into the air.

Quinn watched in wonder at the ground falling away beneath her. She was flying… She was flying! Kiea jumped into the air and followed them, catching up quickly. Quinn was too busy to notice, she was enjoying the view of green grass and the city of Mealky slowly getting smaller below.

Quinn pulled her cloak tighter against the chill. Dragons used magic to protect their passengers from things like pressure change, low oxygen, and wind, but they could only do so much. Quinn was glad she had gotten the cloak all those years ago, even if she had over estimated how tall she would be by the age of 16 when she had bought it.

After half an hour of looking and the ground, the wings of the dragon, and the sky above, Quinn finally got bored. She dug around in here bag for one of her books. The first one she found and pulled out was The First Dragon Rider, the book that had started it all- both for her and for everyone else.

It was a gift from her father when she was five. Her first real book. She'd fallen in love with the stories about Ilien the elf and his green dragon, Vemrin.

She flipped to the first page of story and started skimming. She'd read it so many times she didn't actually have to read the words, but it didn't feel right otherwise.

Before Ilien, the dragons had protected Sarea from threats on their own, living in caves mostly in the Dema mountains at the center of the country. They didn't interact with the three other intelligent races much, and only did their jobs because the gods decreed it.

Ilien believed that the dragons could be both happier and more able to do their job if they worked closer with the other races, so he set out to try and make a friend.

Vemrin, had a similar belief. Dragons lead lonely lives, and he wanted a friend.

They meet when Vemrin gets hurt trying to fly in a storm and crashes in the forest near Ilien's village. He gets attacked by lizard creatures called drakes that used to live in Illidea, the elf home, and Ilien saves him.

That had always been Quinn's favorite part of the story. She loved how Ilien was ready to help a creature he didn't even know, just because he felt it was right.

Vemrin was grateful, and asked what he could do to make it up to the elf. All Ilien wanted was for Vemrin to become his companion. The gods took note and blessed the friendship.

After that, people from all three races were offering friendship to the dragons, and Ilien started the Rising Dragons to teach them how to work together.

The rest of the stories in the book described adventures fighting of sea monsters, saving the human princess Lina, and driving of bandits from the southern tip of Sarea. Quinn had read all of them more times than she could count.

As she looked at Kiea somehow keeping pace next to the huge green dragon, she thought of all the great adventures they would have. Of the book that might one day be written about her.

She closed The First Dragon Rider and put it back in her bag, opting to spend the next six or so hours staring up at the sky; daydreaming about her future adventures.

***

At least, she thought she would. Quinn fell asleep shortly after that, and was jolted awake as Daefnhia touched down.

She bolted upright. “Are we there yet?” Her question was meet by sweeping fields and a decent sized river. The sun was high in the sky, and Quinn didn't feel hungry yet. It had not been six hours.

Yvette chuckled, “Haha, not yet. We've still got another three or so hours left. Alex needed a break though, so we're stopping for lunch and water.” She was already out of the saddle and tending to Daefnhia. Yvette patted the green on the snout, the dragon letting out a deep purring sound.

Nanden dug around in his bag before pulling out a loaf of bread and tearing of the end. He offered it to Quinn, “Hungry?”

“Ah, no, I'm good thanks.” She smiled. Quinn wasn't used to eating lunch, having such a tight budget and all. Breakfast and dinner was all she needed.

“Really? Alright then.” He bit into the bread and continued going through his pack.

Quinn carefully climbed down the rope ladder and on to the soft grass of the field. Green was starting to show through the dead brown left over from winter, and the air was getting warmer.

Quinn walked to the edge of the slow moving river, and saw Kiea staring into the water. Quinn crouched next to her so they stared into the river together. The water was a light brown color.

“It used to be clear.”

“What?”

“What have I said about talking to me out loud?”

“Oh! Sorry… What?”

Kiea sighed, “The water in this river used to be so clear you could see to the bottom. Now it's…” She splashed her paw into the water.

The ripples fanned out across the otherwise smooth water. Quinn didn't know what to say. She couldn't imagine going away for so long that everything was different when she came back; let alone dieing.

Without thinking she ran her hand down the side of Kiea's neck, petting it. Kiea started for a second, surprised, then let out a soft purr.

“Do you need to go hunt? I remember you didn't eat breakfast this morning.”

“I caught a mouse on the fly.”

“That's not enough!”

“Please, you only had a slice of bread.”

“Yeah, but-”

“I'll eat more if you eat more, deal?”

It was Quinn's turn to sigh, “Fine.” She got up and walked next to Daefnhia. “Hey Nanden, is the offer of lunch still on the table?”

He looked over the edge of the saddle and smiled, “‘Course it is! Catch!” He ripped the other end off the bread and tossed it to her.

Quinn caught it, fumbled, and then held it up triumphantly. “Thanks!”

“No problem!” He went back to whatever he was doing with his bag.

Quinn walked back to the riverbank and sat next to Kiea. “There.” She took a bite of the bread.

Kiea sighed, “Fine. I will be back shortly.” She jumped up and glided across the field. A few minutes later, Quinn had finished her bread. Kiea came back shortly after with a limp rabbit in her jaws, “There. Proof I caught something. Don't worry, I'll eat all of it… But you might not want to watch.”

Quinn got the idea, and certainly didn't want to see a dismembered rabbit, “Alright, then. Just finish up so we can get going.” Quinn got up again and went to talk with Yvette more.

Yvette was filling canteens with water from the river, putting a filter over the opening before dipping it in. “Here, catch.” she tossed Quinn one of the full canteens. “Drink up. Flying for too long will dry you out.”

Quinn nodded and too a sip from the bottle, surprised and how fresh it tasted. “This came from that?” She pointed to the river.

“Yup!” She smiled and held up the filter, “Orii designed them for us. They're the best at filtering out dirt and other junk. I heard that you could drink someone's spit after filtering it with this thing! Haven't been brave enough to try yet though…” She trailed off for a second before snapping back to attention. “Sorry! I'm rambling aren't I?”

Quinn had to keep herself from laughing, “You must really like that kind of thing, huh?”

“Well… Yeah, I guess? Let's go with that. We'll be leaving soon by the way, so if you have any business you need to do, get it done.”

“Ummm, I think I'm good. I'll go tell… my dragon.” She walked back over to where Kiea was finishing the rabbit. All that was left was bones.

“See? Now we've both eaten.”

“Hehe, right. Yvette said we'd be leaving soon. Anything else you need to do?”

Kiea thought for a moment, “I don't think so. Go ahead and get your stuff together.”

“Are you sure?”

“Head.”

“Right, right. Are you sure?”

“Very. Now go on.”

“Fiiine.” Quinn didn't stay long enough for Kiea to reprimanded her for saying it out loud. She climbed the rope ladder back into the saddle and got all the straps fastened.

“Ready to get going already, huh?”

Quinn jumped a little; she had almost forgotten Nanden was there. “Oh, um, yeah, I guess. Just… ready to get there.”

He laughed, “Yeah, I know the feeling. We're from Deamara, so our flights were long too. Nothing beats the feeling of arriving at Colinwood for the first time.” He grinned.

“Alright! Start strapping yourselves in people. We're preparing for take off!” Yvette called from the front as she walked back with an armload of canteens. “Catch!” She yelled and tossed three up. Nanden caught two and Quinn caught the other. Yvette held the least two under her arms as she climbed up the ladder. The got into the saddle and pulled the ladder up behind her before setting the bottles down and getting into position. “Everyone ready? Then let's go!”

Daefnhia directed herself away from the river and started running to pick up speed. Take off was a little harder without a hill to help, but they managed just fine. Kiea caught up to them like she had before.

Quinn tried reading for a little while, but she was too excited to concentrate properly and eventually gave into daydreaming again.

***

“Wake up sleepy head. We're here.” Nanden gently shook Quinn awake.

She opened her eyes and yawned. She succeed sleep out of her eyes and stretched, not fully processing what was being said.

She blinked once. Then twice. Then her eyes wide and jumped straight up. Well, tried to, hey seat belt pulled her back down until she remembered to unbuckle it.

They had landed in clearing in front of the Rising Dragons dragon den. Yvette and Nanden were unloading the saddle and letting Daefnhia get a drink from the watering hole.

Quinn stood in awe at the five story building. It's smooth white surface glistened in the sun. Even from the back, it was impressive.

Quinn climbed down the rope ladder and ran to Kiea, who was getting a drink next to Daefnhia.

“Isn't this awesome? We're really here, at Colinwood!” She was so excited that she almost forgotten to speak in her head.

Kiea looked up from her drink too gaze at Colinwood, “It hasn't changed.” She sounded wistful. Quinn could tell Kiea was feeling sad again, but she