Corbinian--

I look up from the trail of dragon footprints when I hear spontaneous laughter from nearby. I stand up, reaching behind me for an arrow while walking toward the sound. I emerge from the forest into a large meadow, in which 8 kids– well, I guess I can't really call them kids, seeing as they all look about my age, if not older– and 5 dragons lay sleeping. Well, most are sleeping, two are laughing. They talk for a moment, then lie down to sleep as well. I tread as silently as I can, trying to get closer. A movement from one of them nearest me causes me to hold still, and I look at the girl who had stirred. I have to keep myself from toppling over in shock. It's Aleakim, another slayer. And she has DRAGON WINGS?! I look around at the others. Other than Aleakim, I recognize Endeyrory Pracea, Anextiomarus the dragon lover, and Deren, the runaway knight. The others I don't know. I shake my head in confusion; the fact that Aleakim has wings, and she and Endey are working with dragon riders, is just too weird for me. I start to back away, but suddenly a strong hand slaps itself across my mouth and a dagger is across my throat.

"Don't move, or I will kill you." A voice hisses in my ear. A girl's voice. I stand stock still, the cold edge in her voice enough to let me know she's serious. "Turn around, very slowly, but don't make a sound," the girl commands. I nod a tiny bit, all that I can with a knife at my neck. She lets go, and immediately I take off running. I hear wingbeats behind me, and when I turn around I see Aleakim flying after me. Flying after me. With huge, red, dragon wings!! A small, surprised squeaking noise comes out of my mouth, but I quickly get ahold of myself and raise my crossbow, nocking a poisonous arrow.

Whooosh! The arrow hits home. 

Aleakim lets out a horrible, inhuman shriek as she plummets to the ground, and I can't help myself, I run up to look at her. More accurately, at her wings.

That was a mistake. Before I know what's happening, I'm surrounded by Aleakim's new friends, some of them still slightly groggy from being woken up, and Anextiomarus is tending to her wound. Endeyrory and another girl both step forward. Endeyrory looks like he wants to rip out my heart and feed it to a dragon. The girl just looks horrified.

"You horrible little interfector serpentes*!" one girl says. Deren, the runaway knight, is standing next to her.

What did you do to Lea?" the horrified girl asks disparingly. I smile smugly.

"Oh, nothing. Just poisoned her," I say with mocking cheeriness. Wrong thing to say, apparently, because in a moment there is a wide arrangement of weapons being pulled out, and I'm pretty sure they're meant for moí.

~~~~~

The end!! :) Hope you liked it!

*interfector serpentes means killer of serpents. :)

Okay, we're reading the Once and Future King is class, and I found the word...

...fewmets. It's some kind of poop.

Have to go to school.

Yay! Finally posting! :)

Anex--

I knelt over Aleakim, trying to figure out what the arrow had been tipped with. Few of my herbs had any affect at all; those that actually helped did very little. I was vaguely aware of a fight going on behind me between the others and that jerk with the crossbows.

"Anyone have a wider variation of herbs? Or any herbs at all? Or something that might be helpful?!" I called, growing more and more frantic as the life slowly but surely drained out of Aleakim. All noise of the fight ceased.

"The Daggers!" Kerra called. "They're supposed to have some sort of healing power. Legend says they can heal someone if you arrange them in a triangle around the injured person, then put only one of the gems in place." Kerra gave me her dagger. I leapt up and laid it down near Aleakim's head, but pointing a bit to the right of her head. Deren reluctantly pulled out the dagger at his side, then handed it to me. I placed it near Aleakim's right foot, pointing left, toward her foot.

I pulled the last dagger from Aleakim's belt, and placed it at her left foot, but it was pointing toward her head. A struggle erupted behind me as the crossbow guy tried to escape, but Endey, Elyana, Adela, and Draco were all guarding him.

"That a good enough triangle?" I asked nervously. Kerra nodded.

"I think so," she said. "Here." She reached into her pocket, and pulled out the Dragon's Eye Diamond. I grabbed it, and was about to snap it onto place on her dagger, when–

"Wait!" Elyana said. "What if it does something weird to her. Her wings were most likely because of holding the one completed dagger, what if something else crazy happens after we heal her?" She looked scared.

"We have to take that chance," I said quietly. I snapped the dagger into place, and immediately, all three daggers began to glow.

I finally found a minute, too, so I guess this is a good day for both of us, Anex! ;)

Kerra--

The light coming from the daggers increases more and more until finally we have to look away. It's just too bright. I back up, and so does everyone else. I glance around, everyone is trying to steal glances at the blinding light, hopeful for what we might see. Even that malum lacerta interfectorem* that shot Lea looks excited to see what the daggers will do. After a moment, the light fades a bit, and I look hopefully into it, trying to see my stepsister. The light abates completely after a few more minutes, and we all look at Aleakim, who is lying on the ground in the exact position as before. But there is no wound. She's healed! I jump up and down with excitement, then run to her side.

"Lea, are you alright?" I say hopefully. Her eyelashes flutter, then she groans a bit. She opens her eyes and sits up quickly, and I back up a step, grinning like a maniac.

"What happened? Why is everyone staring at me?" she asks, her tone slightly nervous. "I didn't grow a tail or something, did I?" She leaps to her feet and tries to see behind her. I laugh, half at this ridiculous sight, half with relief that she is fine.

Then she sees the crossbow kid. Her eyes narrowed, she advances on him.

"I'll hold him still if you want to beat him up," Endey says calmly. Lea and the crossbow boy both glare at him.

"Aleakim," Crossbow-Kid says. He turns to Endey. "Endeyrory." Then he turns to Anex, and his gaze becomes hard and cold. "Anextiomarus." He spits out the name, like it's poison in his mouth. He betrays no emotion, but underneath the surface he's brimming with questions, I can tell. Suddenly recognition enters Aleakim's eyes.

"Are you Corbinian Remington?" she asks incredulously. The boy stands up, and we all jump into action, preparing for a fight. But the boy doesn't attack. He bows extravagantly.

"I would say it has been a pleasure to meet you, but that would be a lie," he says to no one in particular. Now everyone is glaring at him. He ignores our glowering faces and continues to speak, "Now, I must take my leave." With that, he's off. Running across the meadow like there's no tomorrow.

"Fewmets," Draco says, and runs after him. The rest of us follow. I feel an odd urge to learn more about the boy. He's even more mysterious and strange than most of us, which I was more than starting to think was impossible.

Aahh!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Story branch = me go crazy = not good!!!!!!!

Umm, so did my charrie develop fire breahing or not? I'm not really sure which way I want it to go. Would anyone get mad if I react to the daggers in a different way? Like, umm, (hold on, let me thing of something) ok, I just went to a dragon website, and according to legend a few dragons can turn invisible when they feel super threatened (which isn't often, of course) so would anyone get mad if my charrie had invisibility power? Or would that be kinda not fair to all the human charries? Oh, what if my charrie could make others invisible, too! :D That ok?

@Draco: Yes, very good.

Now, peeps, I'm not in the best of moods, so I don't feel copying and then editing them to make them fit like I did last time it branched. Warning: Endey is grumpy.

Endey Pracea

Draco caught Corbinian, alright. She could run faster than me, and that's saying something. Corbinian, of course, managed to get up a few seconds after she pushed him down, but he was just getting to his knees when I knocked him over.

By the time he managed to get to his feet and was brushing himself, we had surrounded him again. "I never took you for a dragon lover, Endeyrory. Strange that I was completely wrong."

I spit at his feet and made a rude gesture that basically means "go kiss a dragon". "What makes you think that I'm a dragon lover."

He rolls his eyes. "Oi, let's see. Dragons. Dragon lovers. Anextiomarus himself. But it was the fact that there were dragons and you weren't trying to kill you that tipped me off. Yeah, definitely that."

I snort. "Maybe you should know that I always have my reasons."

Corbinian looks sincerely thoughtful. "What are your reasons, then?"

Kerra interrupts. "Look, can we talk about it back there? We really should make sure that Aleakim's alright and hasn't started sprouting... scales or something."

Adela nods. "And then we decide about what to do with him." She glares at Corbinian.

He shrugs. I give him a look, and hold out my hand. "Every dagger you've got." He lost his crossbow somewhere.

Corbinian scowled, but handed over two daggers. I kept my hand out. He had more. Corbinian sighed, and looked at me. "I don't have any more. Unlike you, I don't try and kill people."

"I beg to differ," Adela said icily. "For some strange reason, I seem to recall you almost killed Aleakim ten minutes ago."

Corbinian actually looked uncomfortable. I held one of his own daggers at waist level. "Get going," I said. We walked back to the clearing.

Sunflame stirred and eyed Corbinian with a low growl. This woke up Xandela, Ferr, Trenn, and Xell. Aleakim glared at Corbinian. Xandela muttered something in Draconian that I didn't quite catch, but I got, "Not...the dark-haired..." Not like the dark-haired dragon slayer? Well, that would be me. But Corbinian was obviously a slayer, so how could he not be like me. All the dragons settled down except Trenn.

Deren walked over to him and stroked his head. Trenn settled right down.

We all looked at Corbinian. "Get talking," Aleakim said. "Then maybe we'll answer a few questions of yours."

As Corbinian began to talk, the sun rose.

Why is it that I can't get any sleep? I think I said that aloud, because at least four people said, "Shut up, Endey."

Typical.

_______________

That's not my typical longness at all.