Light's Fright (formerly Lightwielder in China)

Yun Tai Shan (Chapter 20)

They weren't snow-capped Rocky Mountains, but they were gorgeous anyway. The area of Yun Tai Shan we were in was called Red-stone Gorge Scenic Area. Exposed rock millions of years old that was red, orange, and purplish, fog wafting down the tree-covered mountain tops, waterfalls hundreds of feet (or just a foot in other cases) high, and lovely enough, walkways! Awesome!

Over the mountain. Around the mountain. THROUGH the mountain. The walkway wove round and round and round and round...the air was boiling hot and the humidity unbearable to everyone else (humidity has never bothered me too bad for some reason), but the stone of the mountains felt cool to the touch, everywhere.

I saw this crossing over the waterfall made of the stones of the mountains. I noticed there were no handrails and how there were people in kayaks with nets. Not big enough to catch a person or a large fish with, but hm...

"Are those kayaks for saving people who fall in the water?" I asked Li Cheng.

Li Cheng answered, "No, they pick out the trash in the water."

"Then, what do people do to save themselves if they fall in?" I inquired further.

Li Qiang snorted. "They swim. And hopefully don't hurt themselves while they're at it."

Does Li Qiang REALLY need to be that harsh with me all the time? Why can't he lighten up? Cousins, cousins, cousins.

I was on the bridge and making my way across when I noticed a pair of large, glowing yellow reptilian eyes staring at me through a dark crack in the side of the mountains.

Dragons, the ones with Xiao Cao Zhu. And I had no cover to protect myself with. This job is NEVER easy!

Dragons poured out of that crack, ones that I had seen yesterday, and more vaulted aerobically in the air over the mountaintops and glared down into the valley I was in. They had us surrounded. The other people there, they were happily taking pictures of the dragons, unaware of the danger we were all now in.

I suspected I'd be chasing them down here today. That this is where they had gone after I'd surprised them at Zhengzhou Zoo. But they seemed to have known I was coming, and set up an ambush at their position here. Tricky, tricky. We may be playing a game of cat and mouse, but the cat and mouse keep changing.

Xiao Cao Zhu, in dragon form, hovered downriver, facing me. His dark-and-light-green scales shimmered in the bright sunlight, and being a Fyre-type creature, the mist of the river was steamy around him.

He teased, "Catch me if you can, Savanna."

Xiao Cao Zhu flew away, following the current of the river stream. Behind me, two dragons breathed twin beams of fire, approaching the river crossing I stood on. The crowd scattered away from me to both sides.

I dived off the bridge head-first into the bubbling, babbling, shallow river. The dragons' breath tinged my clothes, but the water made sure to put it out.

The creature in my dream wanted me to touch water so bad, I remember now. Let's see what happens when I dive right in.