Dragon Rider in the Modern World.

India and Padma

Trixie POV:

I was super excited to be able to travel and train with the Riders. It had taken a while to convince me, since I didn't want to leave my friends and family, but I didn't want to lose the opportunity to train with Valerie and the other Riders. It would be amazing!

I had woken up a few minutes ago, and I had been lucky to have great light at the moment, since it was pretty early, so I decided to take a picture of all the dragons who were sleeping. It came out beautifully, and I loved how the light hit their scales, each casting a different color, like a stained glass window. I took a few more, and then sat down to review the other ones. They were mostly very good, but I didn't like one of Topaz because the light hit his yellow-orange scales in the wrong way. I'd have to take it again soon.

When the other Riders woke up, we had breakfast of bread and eggs, which we had cooked over a small fire made by one of the dragons. We finished and packed our things. Everyone else changed under their dragons' wing, but I already had back when I woke up. When everything was ready, we mounted and took off.

"Hey Topaz, can you fly closer to Hans? I want to talk to him."

"Sure Trixie."

"Thanks."

"Hi, Hans. Hi Fjord."

"How are you?"

"Fine thank you. You?"

"Good. I saw you were up early today." He observed.

"Yeah. The light was very good to take pictures."  I explained. "Look, here is the one of Fjord."

"Wow. I love it. Do you think you could send it to me when we get to Canada?"

"Sure."

"Thanks." 

"You're welcome." 

With that, we fell into an easy conversation about art. He preferred to draw, while I obviously liked photography more, and if not, oil painting. My favorite things to photograph were obviously, the dragons, but before that, interesting things in nature, as well as landscapes. I also enjoyed watching Jordan Matter. I loved his videos, even if that wasn't the style I liked. I admired his talent for being able to capture a moving dancer with such good results. I usually failed at photographing moving things.

"You don't fail, you just need more practice. You can't say that you are so bad, when clearly that isn't true. If I tried, I think that the lightning would be terrible, and the shot would probably be blurry. I think the only thing I can even remotely take a pick of well, are buildings, but that is because I chose the right angle so I can study it." Hans said, encouragingly.

I smiled, happy that he actually thought I was that good. He was exaggerating, but it was good to hear somebody that wasn't Topaz or my parents compliment me. I feel as if sometimes they did it because of 'duty' even when it was terrible, and I knew that at least Hans was being honest, which was great.

"Thanks. I'm happy that you think so, even if you are exaggerating a little."

We landed in New Delhi at one thirty, after twelve hours of flying. I was tired, as I never really stayed up that long. We decided to rest that day, and start looking the next.

After a good nights sleep, we were ready to go out to the city and find the Rider. We passed the Red Fort, the site of many museums, which Jin wanted to visit, but it would take forever, so we didn't let him; Humayun's Tomb, which had great architecture, and Hans couldn't stop admiring it. Much the same happened with the Lotus Temple and Qutb Minar.

After that, we were walking down a more lonely street, when all of a sudden, a figure cloaked in black with a hood, attacked us. I froze, scared, but Raven and Valerie instantly reacted, and positioned themselves to defend the rest of us. We made a small circle, where me and Hans and Elizabeth, who were the youngest in the middle, and Jin, Eric, Diana, and Natalia surrounding us.

The figure produced a dagger from inside their cloak, and moved to stab Raven. She dodged, exploding in fury. The attacker went after Valerie next, but she ducked under the blade, coming back up almost behind, and grabbing their arm. The attacker twisted, making Valerie let go, but it was in that moment that they were distracted just enough for Raven to judo flip them, taking the dagger and pinning the figure to the floor.

Around Raven, it seemed as if the wind was bending to her will. I could almond see the currents around her, seemingly not affecting her in the slightest, but scaring the man no bad, that he had a look of pure terror on his face, but at the same time, of confusion.

"NEVER THREATEN ME OR MY FRIENDS AGAIN!" She roared. "Wow, where did that come from?"  "TELL WHOEVER IT IS YOU ARE POSSIBLY SERVING THE SAME!  IF YOU DO, I WILL NOT LET YOU RUN FREE AGAIN!" 

She let go, and the man stood up, pulled up his hood again, and ran for his life. Raven still had the dagger. She and Valerie turned back to us, and they were instantly bombarded with questions.

"What was that?"
"How did you learn how to fight that way?"
"What was that thing with the wind?" 
"What are you going to do with the dagger?"

"Calm down. First, I practice judo, and during summer vacations I also had a few self defense classes. If Valerie hadn't distracted him, I wouldn't have been able to do anything. Second, what thing with the wind? I didn't feel anything."  For a second there, I thought I saw her throw a knowing glance at Valerie. "About the dagger, I want to find a sheath, but we should keep it. It may be possible to find out to who it belongs, and that way, the identity of our attacker. Besides, if something like this happens again, it will be good to have a weapon, and I know how to use it. Then again, it is kind of weird that he didn't have a gun, which is more common these days, and would have been more effective."

"You're right. Let's just put this behind us, and find the Rider as quickly as possible."  Valerie answered.

I was a little weary about the whole situation, so I contacted Topaz.

"Trixie, are you all right?" He asked, alarmed.

"Yes, just a little scared. I never imagined someone would attack us like that."

"I'm glad you're ok."

"Me too."

Because of the attack, we decided to rest a while, and do what Jin had been asking us to do all along, go to a museum. And anyway, sometimes when you aren't looking for something, you find it. We chose the Sanskriti Museums, namely the Textile Museum. Once we'd finished, we decided to go to have lunch in a traditional Indian restaurant. Valerie was kind of worried because we hadn't had any trace of both the Rider or the dragon, and she was starting to believe something was wrong.

"Hey, Trixie?"

"Yes, Topaz?"

"We finally found Lazuli. He says that Padma probably is having lunch right now. The others already told their respective Riders. I just thought you'd want to know."

"Thanks. See you later?"

"Of course."

We had our own lunch, and set out to find Padma. Lazuli had given us instructions to find her Rider, and soon we arrived at her house. Valerie rang the bell, and soon, a tall, tanned girl with long black hair in a braid and black eyes opened it. Valerie introduced us, and explained the reason why we were there. We talked to Padma for a while, and organized everything that had to do with logistics. According to the others, we were hurrying more than usual, because of the attack. A few days later, we were ready, and once we were in the air, I could tell that everyone was visibly relaxed again.

Hi guys, sorry for the weird updating schedule, but I'm working on this, my fanfic and planning NaNoWriMo, which starts in four days, and I'm hoping to have the outline done. I meant to update yesterday, but I was kind of busy, so today I wrote this last scene. Remember to vote, comment and review if you think it deserves it.

~Valerie.