"After all those years on the streets, I finally feel like I'm home"
"You're lying" Leo didn't even have to look up, he knew her better than anyone.
"You're right, I was always at home with you"
In which there's an unlikely friendship (... and ma...
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They spiralled though the dark in a free fall, still on the dragon's back, but Festus's hide was cold. His ruby eyes were dim.
"Not again!" Leo yelled. "You can't fall again!"
He opened the control panel and seemed to find something wrong.
"Jason!" he screamed. "Take Piper and Lex and fly out of here!"
"What?" Jason asked at the same time Alex yelled- "No way!"
"We need to lighten the load! I might be able to reboot Festus, but he's carrying too much weight! Lex don't argue for once"
"I'll be fine," Leo assured. "Just follow me to the ground. Go!"
Jason grabbed Piper around the waist and Alex hugged them both. They unbuckled their harnesses, and in a flash they were gone-shooting into the air.
They floated gently and Alex kept thinking about what ifs.
"Don't worry Jackson- he'll be fine" Jason kept saying over and over, but a huge explosion took their attention.
"LEO" Alex yelled but there was no response. The three landed and Alex saw Festus' parts scattered everywhere. She choked back a sob and continued calling for Leo.
"Here!" Piper called, Jason was leaning over an unconscious Leo and Alex had the urge to smack her best friend for doing something so stupid.
Slowly Leo opened his eyes and spat out clump of frozen grass from his mouth. He was lying in the snow, covered in mud and grease but what mattered was that he was alive.
"Where-"
"Lie still." Piper had tears in her eyes. "You rolled pretty hard when-when Festus-"
"Where is he?" Leo sat up.
"Seriously, Leo," Alex said. "Lay still"
Leo pushed himself to his feet. Then he saw the wreckage. Festus must have dropped the big canary cages as he came over the fence, because they'd rolled in different directions and landed on their sides, perfectly undamaged.
Festus hadn't been so lucky.
The dragon had disintegrated. His limbs were scattered across the lawn. His tail hung on the fence. The main section of his body had plowed a trench twenty feet wide and fifty feet long across the mansion's yard before breaking apart. What remained of his hide was a charred, smoking pile of scraps. Only his neck and head were somewhat intact, resting across a row of frozen rosebushes like a pillow.
"No," Leo sobbed. He ran to the dragon's head and stroked its snout. The dragon's eyes flickered weakly. Oil leaked out of his ear.
"You can't go," Leo pleaded. "You're the best thing I ever fixed."
