The Prophecy of Five

I: 1 :I

Ezran

Ezran hated splitting up. The sounds of Zym's cries filled his head and made him want to turn around and run right into Xadia. But he couldn't do that. That would be the selfish thing to do, and he can't afford to be selfish. He was a king, and kings look out for their people. That's what his dad did, and that's what he was going to do.

They had been walking for what seemed like hours. He started to feel bad for Corvus. Ez's short legs couldn't match the royal tracker's strides, so he had to slow down for the prince. The sun had started to set by the time they made it into the town where he had run into Soren and Claudia.

"I guess we'll have to call it a night." said Corvus, "It's too dangerous to go out right now. Plus, you look like you could use the sleep little king."

It's true. Ezran was exhausted. He hadn't eaten anything all day and they had been walking for a while.

"Sounds good. I was here yesterday. I think there's a place we can stay for the night over there." he said, pointing to a group of clustered stone buildings.

"Alright. You go see if there are any rooms available and I'll look around for a place to eat." said Corvus.

Ezran went over and talked to a lady in one of the cottages. She said that they could stay there for the night at no charge. She must've thought they were affected by the dragon attack and had nowhere to go. It was technically true but Ezran didn't want to correct her.

After eating, Corvus told Ezran to get some sleep. They'd be leaving bright and early the next morning to start their walk back to the castle. He couldn't wait to get home, but it felt weird not being with Callum and Rayla. He wondered how they were doing now that they were in Xadia.

"C'mon Bait. Time for bed."

The glow-toad snatched one last jelly tart before jumping into Ez's arms, full and ready for bed.

The second his head hit the pillow, he could feel his eyelids getting heavy. It had been a while since Ezran had slept on an actual bed. His bed at the Moon Nexus was super comfy, but he suspected it was just an illusion. Like everything up there. He allowed himself to fall asleep and had another strange dream.

He felt really small, and like he didn't own his body. He had experienced this once before not too long ago. He was looking through Zym's eyes again! He could see Rayla and Callum up ahead of him. They were walking in a dry canyon and laughing about something. He couldn't hear what it was, plus Zym seemed distracted by anything and everything.

Ezran just sat back and watched the two. Callum was constantly touching his arm or fidgeting with his sketchbook, and he looked away whenever Rayla turned to look at him. Ez recognized this behavior. He acted the same way around Claudia. It took him a second to realize it but... does Callum like Rayla? He had to. That's the only reason he would be acting so weirdly. Now he just had to see if she liked him too. There was only one problem. Girls are a lot harder to understand than guys, at least from Ezran's past experiences.

He went back to watching them, talking and laughing about something Callum had said. Zym stopped moving. He began looking around for something, but Ezran didn't know what. He heard Callum and Rayla stop to see what was wrong with Zym. That's when the earthquake hit. Or at least, it looked like an earthquake. Zym jumped off the ground and started to hover in place. He looked down to see Rayla and Callum fall to the ground, the earth splitting apart around them.

Callum! Rayla! Ezran tried to scream. But they couldn't hear him. All they heard was Zym let out a quick bark. (Do dragons bark? He can't roar. He's too small) He flew down to them as Ezran woke up.

Callum

Making it into Xadia was surprisingly easy. They almost got barbecued trying to cross the Moonstone Path but, viola, Zym flew and blocked out the sun! The little dragon saved them!

"C'mon! Run!" he heard Rayla yell.

Together they ran the rest of the way across, just as the stones fell away into the lava.

"Yes! We did it!" he said in celebration.

Rayla hugged him. He couldn't believe it. He hugged her back. She smelled amazing. That classic moonberry smell he had come to love, her beautiful white hair, her strong arms. They both seemed to realize that they were hugging for too long.

She let go and backed away. "Sorry."

"Don't, uh, don't worry about it."

"Soooo, anyways, welcome to Xadia." she said, doing a little sarcastic jazz hand move.

"Well, so far it's more, 'welcome-to-the-other-side-of-a-river-of-lava!' It doesn't feel any different." he said.

"Well just wait till we make it out of here. I'm sure you'll notice a difference." Rayla retorted.

Zym flew down to them from blocking the sun and they made their way out of the embankment and into a wide canyon.

"I'm still not feeling it." Callum said sarcastically.

She punched his arm.

"Okay well now I'm feeling something."

"Ha ha." Rayla said dryly. "What does it feel like?" her voice full of sarcasm.

"Like something just magically punched my arm."

"Well, you're not wrong."

They walked together in silence for a little while, Callum still rubbing his arm.

Okay. Note to self, don't piss off the elf assassin.

Zym was jumping around from boulder to boulder, trying to fly some more.

"Zym really saved us back there huh?" he said.

"Huh?" she looked back over at Callum. "Oh, right. Yeah he really..."

She was cut off by the sound of a low rumbling. It sounded like a heard of bison running in a field or rocks rolling down a hill.

"Oh no." said Rayla. "It's Sol Regem."

Callum turned around to see a massive dragon emerge from the mountainside. It's brown and tan scales blending in perfectly with the mountains around it. Sol Regem got up and roared. The deafening boom shook the ground and caused more rocks to fall away, revealing more of the dragon's body.

Well, I'm so dead. Thought Callum as he looked up at the dragon. 

Zym rejoined them as they tried to find a place to hide from the mountainous creature.