Darkheart

Chapter 15

It was with immense relief that Heather spotted the island through the fog.

"There it is, there!" She exclaimed in uncharacteristic excitement. "Let's go Windshear!" The dragon and rider dived down, Windshear emitting a joyous roar that the long flight was over.

As Brigitta followed, a few lines of a sort of poem she had learned many years ago popped unbidden to her mind.

Strings of a distant melody,

Once played, lost to memory.

Time always ticks away so fast;

Lives are always ending far too soon.

Life's too short to be sad,

Wishing of things you'll never have.

You're better off not dreaming of things to come;

Dreams are always ending much too soon.

Why don't you go and live a bit today;

Tomorrow you could find that you are dead.

Strings of time, are you always flowing;

Flowing in my mind?

Carry me with you, carry with you Time,

For my dreams are always ending far too soon.

The song had always stuck in her mind since the day she had first heard it many years ago. It told of how short life was, and to live in the present moment, and not to spend your time dreaming of the future.

Ah well. Live in the moment!

Brigitta muttered a word of encouragement to Aurora and they followed Heather swiftly.

~<>~<>~🦅~<>~<>~

The Rumblehorns proved to be very elusive.

The island was one huge matted mess of jungle and finding a red and green dragon in a jungle is quite a hard task.

The two pairs split up and took separate hemispheres of the island but still there was no sign of these surprisingly elusive for their size dragons.

Heather made a mental to bring more members of the party next time she decided to search for Rumblehorns as she made a sweep over a particularly large patch of jungle.

Nope. Still noth-

Skroooooar! The distinctive roar of the Rumbkehorn came directly from beneath her and Windshear bucked backwards, just in time to avoid being skewered by the huge dragon erupting from the undergrowth below.

Windshear sent up a blast of her blue flame as a signal to Brigitta that they had found a Rumblehorn, then swooped slowly and cautiously over to the great dragon.

Heather reached one hand out tentatively in an imitation of the method she had seen Hiccup use many times.

"There we go, nice and easy big fellow. Come on, just over-" Heather stopped and backed away slowly as the Rumblehorn growled menacingly and readied a ball of flame. Oops, try a more gentle approach.

This was obviously quite a sensitive dragon.

Flu again for the 3rd time this year... ugh. Do you like the song? I know, I know, it's horrible. I made it up on the spur of the moment. :)

🦅—Aquila!