It wasn’t worked out verbally. They just kind of took turns silently watching the beach. They had no clue what was out here. For all they knew, the evil army could be camping out somewhere nearby. It would be really unfortunate if they woke to an ambush consisting of hundreds of evil warriors.

Nynn fell asleep after a few minutes leaning against Athvor. He didn’t mind though. He was used to these kind of watches. They are the kind where you sit and try to stay awake for a few hours. The nice thing about this was that he would usually sleep really well when it was his turn to sleep. After a few hours, Nynn woke. She looked at Athvor. His eyes were slits. He was barely awake.

“My turn to take the watch my friend.” He looked at her, smiled then lowered his head to the sand. He was instantly out. A few hours later Athvor woke to find her standing in the distance at the water’s edge.

“What is it, Nynn?” He said as he stood up trying to shake the sand off his body.

“There is something close by. I’m not sure what it is, but it is not something we want to be here to meet.” She turned to him. There was concern in her eyes. “We should leave… Now.”

20,737 / 73,000 (28.4%)

Athvor by
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“Ya… I know… There are a lot of things we need to find out. I personally want to know what the STEEL is, let alone its power.” Her eyes followed the horizion. The water was a dark blue. She could barely see the line where the slightly darker blue sky met the water. She followed the changing colors of the sky as it changed over their heads. The colors turned from a dark blue to a light blue to a orange and a red to finally a yellow and white. The sun was making its way below the horizon behind them. “I would like to live a life without having to always look over my shoulder. You know what I mean? It would be nice to be able to live here… with no worries, living, fishing, eating, just enjoying life.” She paused for several moments just pondering what it would be like. “That would be nice.”

“I, too, long for a life without troubles and hardship. I was born into it. I feel I will die amongst it.” They sat there watching the sky grow darker by every passing moment. One by one, the stars began to show themselves. First it was the larger, brighter stars. Then the dimmer ones joined in. Then the ones that only a sharp eyed creature could see, appeared. The sky was full and made a beautiful river of light across the sky. Athvor looked down at his friend. She had fallen asleep. He grinned. This was going to be the trip that would change all of the lives. He was sure of it.

20,511 / 73,000 (28.1%)

Athvor by
Robert T Gasperson is licensed under a
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Eeno was snoozing when Athvor returned. He wasn’t gone for very long, but he had obviously had his share of dinner. Nynn wondered how the world continued to supply so much life with dragons roaming with appetites larger than an wale. The thought passed and she smiled at her friend as he landed in the white sands on the beach.

“Did you catch your fill?” She sat up strait and turned towards him.

“The ocean was very good to me this evening. I think I should have enough energy to get up across the ocean tomorrow.” He settled himself down next to her. Eeno shifted himself against the larger dragon. There was warmpth in numbers. Athvor didn’t think about it twice. It was natural to bundle together for the night. They were going to have a long day tomorrow. He could only imagine what it was going to be like flying over nothing but water for hours on end. He just hoped they would be able to cross the ocean in a day.

Nynn mover herself to where she could lean comfortably in the nook between his shoulder and his neck. He smiled. He was pleased to see that she was so comfortable with him. They had not known each other for very long, yet she treated him like an old friend. “This is a beautiful place. I am tempted to suggest that we just stay here.”

“We must cross the ocean… We must find the knowledge we seek.” Athvor stated the facts with worry in his voice. He could not stop now. He had to know… had to know if he could actually bring his friend back from the dead.

20,241 / 73,000 (27.7%)

Athvor by
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“We saved you some.” Nynn pointed to the spear that she used to catch the fish. I was sticking out of the ground like a monument to dead fish everywhere. There were about a dozen of them speared through waiting for him to eat them. They had not been there long. Athvor hoped Nynn had caught them after she and Eeno had eaten. There were not flys to be seen and the fish smelled fresh enough. Athvor pulled the spear out of the ground and placed the whole lot of them into his mouth. He wrapped his lips around the spear and pulled it out leaving the fish to be consumed.

He chewed and swallowed. “That was a tasty appetizer. Thanks.” He took a moment to pick his teeth with his forked tongue, and then grinned at them.

Nynn and Eeno sat there for a moment looking at Athvor, slightly stunned at his massive appetite. Seeing the grin on his face they laughed.

“I’ll be back.” Athvor stood and stretched. His nap had done a lot of good for his body. He was happy… for the first time in a long while he was happy. He was on the beach, relatively safe with friends who liked having his company. Moments like this was what made life worth living.

He stepped towards the water, then gave a light shove off the ground. His wings opened and he was off to find something a little more substantial for dinner.

19,959 / 73,000 (27.3%)

Athvor by
Robert T Gasperson is licensed under a
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Athvor awoke to find a small fire near him on the sands of the beach. Nynn and Eeno were sitting together on the other side of the fire talking about something to do with the best way to fish. Apparently Nynn had made a spear out of a nearby beach reed and went out into the ocean and stabbed a few fish for them to eat. Eeno felt that it was easier to use nets. Then Nynn said something about not having the materials to make a net, let alone the hundreds of man hours it would have taken to tie the nets.

“You know…” Athvor grunted trying to get the sleeping flem out of his throat, “If you flash boil an area of the water, you will have all the fish you could ever want to eat. You won’t even have to cook them because they have already been boiled.” They looked at him with a kind of surprise that he was awake not to mention that he was listening to their conversation. He gave them a smirk knowing his joke had caught them off guard. (OK, it wasn’t really a joke. He had done this kind of thing on numerous occasions when he was hungry and there weren’t any large mammals in the vicinity.

19,711 / 73,000 (27.0%)

Athvor by
Robert T Gasperson is licensed under a
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Nynn didn’t have the time to think about the decent. She just held on for dear life. She didn’t even notice that her face was nearly gashed by Eeno’s whipping tail. The decent was so sudden and so steep that she could not breathe. It was not for lack of trying. The shock and extreme forces that pushed against her were so strong that she was not able to let out a breath.

Right before they hit the white sand of the beach, Athvor opened his wings and caught massive drag from the wind that filled them. This drag slowed them both drastically, Athvor’s foot lightly touching the ground as he landed.

Nynn breathed out a sigh of relief as she found that she could once again do so. Athvor walked for a moment and stretched his legs. Nynn received another ride as his stretches moved to his back. She thought that he looked like a giant cat who had just woken from a nap. Then he settled and laid in the sand.

It didn’t take but a few moments for Eeno to catch up. He only had to let himself drop from the high altitude he was hovering at when Athvor first made the nose dive. He was going to complain to Athvor about the lack of notice he was given before the dive, but by the time he arrived, Athvor had already curled into a ball and was snoring. Nynn didn’t even have the time to climb off his back. Apparently he was exhausted from the flight.

19,494 / 73,000 (26.7%)

Athvor by
Robert T Gasperson is licensed under a
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It only took a moment for Eeno to realize where he was. He quickly relaxed and looked at Nynn. He was rubbing her eyes trying to get them to focus to the waning sunlight. She lowere her hands and squinted at Eeno. She smiled.

“Hold on you two.” Athvor warned as he began to decend. It wasn’t an easy drop in elevation. He pulled his wings in to his body, letting his body drop like a stone. He pointed his nose at the white sand below and dove to deck.

Nynn held on for dear life, not knowing what was going to happen. He was sure that Athvor would not let her get hurt. She was sure that he would not plow himself into the ground killing them both. It didn’t make since. That knowledge didn’t make the speedy decline any less terrifying.

Eeno could not take the dive. He pushed off Athvor’s back in self defense. He opened his wings catching the wind. Nynn’s face passed by his scales with only the width of hairs keeping his tail from making contact with her face. She could have been sliced open, or worse, she could have been knocked off Athvor’s back sending her to her death.

19,234 / 73,000 (26.3%)

Athvor by
Robert T Gasperson is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.Based on a work at
roberttgasperson.com.