Last Chance

Chapter Twenty Three

"What?" I asked Bailey looking at her with a confused look on my face.

"Your hair is gold. Not the usual white." She said as she lifted her right hand and began to stroke my hair softly. "And its longer. Like your hair back on earth."

"Is it now?" I asked her with a soft smile on my lips as I helped her into a standing position. Dusting off the sides of her frame and hips, earning myself a slap from her.

"Oh, sorry!" She immediately apologised while chuckling softly. "It was a response out of habit." She added as she leaned into me. Placing her head on my right shoulder. I wrapped my arms around her relishing in the contact. "My head feels weird." She said softly as her arms snaked around my torso.

"What do you mean?" I asked her as I breathed out softly into her ear making her shiver. "Like a headache?"

"No, just weird." She said with a giggle as she hugged me tighter.

We broke the hug after a few minutes as well as a small head ramming into my left leg.

We both looked down to see the red dragon staring up at us with a black expression. I knew how Bailey would react remembering the first time she saw Ninja.

"So cute!" She said as she knelt down quickly and grabbed the sides of the baby dragons head. It would seem that even with the events that have occurred all around us, she could still be distracted by a cute little animal. "What's its name?" She asked as she brought the baby dragon into a hug.

"Haven't named him yet." I told her honestly as I looked around for Ninja who I found lying down next to the exit of the tunnel, waiting patiently for us. "Why don't you." I said as I brought my attention back to her.

"Really? Can I?" She asked with a bright smile as she stroked the dragon along its spine, eliciting a soft purr like noise from its belly. "How about Scale?" She said before repeating the name to the baby dragon. "Do you like that? Hmm?" She said in a soft voice that mimicked the way mothers talked to babies. "Do you like Scale?" The dragon yipped with joy as a long thick forked tongue escaped its lips and licked the left side of Bailey's face, causing her to laugh loudly.

After a few minutes of watching the baby dragon interact with Bailey, it finally decided to continue with its original plan. It wobbled over to me as it head butted my leg? I knelt down to pet the dragon with my right hand, when all of a sudden its head jerked up and its jaws clamped around my hand.

"Ah!" I shouted as I stood up quickly, Scale letting my hand go as it fell to the floor gracefully. "What the hell?" I asked loudly as I brought my hand to my chest. Glaring at the dragon before me.

Two large rings of energy formed on the ground beneath both mine and Scales feet. Starting at our feet as the epicentre, before both grew in size, rotating clockwise with great speed. As the two energy circles touched, they quickly changed from a bright red to a vibrant purple. The now one large bright purple energy ring, grew in height before it stopped a mere thirty centimetres of the grounds. It split into two rings, with one on the top and the other still rotating on the ground.

In between the two swirling circles, runes of an indistinguishable language formed. The runes were rough and held a certain similarity to the elven written language. But these held more power within. There were hundreds of runes that spun between the two circles as they merged into each other, split of each other, and then merging with the two circles on either side.

This process lasted no more than a minute before the bright purple changed to a golden colour and shot towards me. Hitting me in full force, almost knocking me over. I only just managed to stay on my feet. Scale was gone, but a bright red tattoo on my right shoulder in the form of a mighty dragon in flight remained. I could feel the power coming from the tattoo as I stared down at it in wonder and awe.