Dragon Riders

Chapter 6: Freedom

Aspen POV:

By the end of the week, Serafina and I could have conversations without moving our lips.

I'm bored. I thought a few days after she arrived.

I can fix that, I heard. I turned to find Serafina fluttering outside my window. She glided down to the yard and raked the ground with her claws. From the ruts sprouted tiny green seedlings. I quickly scurried down from my window to find they were rapidly growing. By the time I reached the bottom they were fully grown Aspen trees. I smiled gratefully at her.

By the end of the month, we were finishing each other's sentences.
Cade came to visit frequently, so we had to update him on our connection. He was totally engrossed and asked for new occurrences each time he came. He always brought blank parchment and would jot down some notes about our behavior. I grew tired of this and one day asked,

"Hey Cade, want to..." I was interrupted by Serafina, who finished my thought correctly with,

"Go swimming?" Cade grinned at us, jotted down a quick note, and nodded. I went to change, but felt Serafina's paw wrapped around me. Cade shrieked and took off sprinting, but Serafina was too quick for him. I cackled hysterically as Serafina lifted him into the air. He yelled like crazy as I continued to crack up about his fear of heights. Serafina sensed the reason for my laughter and flew closer to the ground to ease his fear. He stopped screaming after she dumped us into the lake.

"Serafina!" I shouted. She whipped around in the air, performed a loop, and then dove into the water. The wave she made carried Cade and I back to shore. I toppled on top of him on accident and blushed severely. Serafina chuckled and I reminded her mentally I knew about Orion. That shut her up. A week later, Serafina confessed,

"I'd like to try something."

"Let's give it a go," I concurred, even though I could not tell what she was thinking. She laid down and got her back as close to the ground as she could.

"Climb on," she ordered. I hesitated. What are you... Afraid? Serafina taunted me mentally.

"No!" I asserted loudly.

Well come on, then. she beckoned. I carefully wandered over to the edge of her body. I leapt onto her back and nearly fell.

"Woah!" I shouted. I slid in between two ivory horns on her back and grasped the one in front tightly.

"You better hang on for your life!" Serafina yelled over the sound of her thundering wings. She took off like a spring, spiraling upward. I could feel us going through the clouds, but my eyes were clamped shut. She evened out until her back was parallel with the ground. "Open up!" She commanded. I slowly fluttered my eye lids apart and sat in awe at the beauty of the scene. The stars surrounded us as we floated over the rolling hills of fluff beneath us. The sky was so clear! The shimmering moonlight reflected off Serafina's scales and she sparkled like one of the stars so close to us.

"Can we go any higher?" I shouted into the deafening wind.

I could, she answered in my mind. But you might go purple for lack of Oxygen. She chuckled at the cleverness of her own comment and began to tilt downward slightly. I forced my eyes to remain open as we hurtled towards Earth. Like a falling star we spiraled downward.

Freedom, I sighed. It was as if all the chains holding me down had been broken, setting me free as a bird. Ah, I realized, so that's where that phrase comes from. We both giggled at my realization. Just before we hit the ground, she leveled off right above the lake. She drug one of her claws across the surface and created a refreshing mist. We headed up again. Up. Up. Up. We hit the cloud bank and tunneled through the moist center with ease. Droplets clung to me as we broke out and started a deluge on the city below. She giggled mischievously then corkscrewed so I was hanging on upside down.

One of my hands slipped and so I grasped the horn even harder with the remaining one. Serafina chuckled with delight at my predicament."Very. Funny." I droned, totally unamused, even though I could feel her delight in my own mind. After a few minutes passed of me dangling and her laughing, she turned right side up again. "Thank you," I added sarcastically. "So very much!"

"You're welcome," she played along. The sun was beginning to rise in the east, the massive star leaked orange syrup onto the plains of Lyo. I could even see the silhouette of the Sci Mountains reaching up over the horizon, outlined by the glowing orb. "Beautiful," Serafina spoke my mind. "Isn't it?"

"Yes," I answered. "I don't know how I ever lived without it."

"I agree," she concurred. "I only had to live without flying for a week. You've had to live without it for nearly a fifth of your life."

"It's like I have never tasted freedom until now," I confessed. "I always thought sneaking out to see Cade was freedom but this! Nothing even compares! My little trips over the hedge pale in comparison to flying."

"And," Serafina added. "You get something even better!"

"Oh?" I pondered. What could possibly be better than this?

"You're Viy!" Serafina told me. I gasped.

I'm a Rider! My mind asserted firmly. "And you're a Teff," I concluded. She nodded.

"Did you know," Serafina quizzed me, "that the Queen Dragon chooses which eggs will be Teffs?"

"No," I replied honestly.

"Well," Serafina enlightened me. "She does. She leaves a symbol on the outside of the eggs that looks like a saddle. Now that I think about it, I do remember seeing some carvings on the shards of my eggshell." My mind floated back to Serafina's parting memory with Juniper, her Nurturer.

You are destined to do great things, I collected from her memory blurred by tears. "Do you think," I pondered aloud, "that Juniper saw the saddle on your egg, but did not tell you?"

"Why would she keep it secret from me?" Serafina retorted.

"So you could discover it yourself," I responded. "It makes it more, you know, special." Serafina nodded as she tilted downwards. We landed silently in the backyard once more. I slid off of her back and laid down in the grass. Moving glowing streaks caught my eye. "Look," I pointed upwards. "Shooting stars!" I declared. She grinned widely as she turned her head upwards to gaze upon them. Her smile faded as she saw them.

"Those aren't shooting stars!" She stammered.