The Fifth Element

“Easy girl,” I cooed to the dragon and struggled to take the reins out of her master’s clenched fists. Even when knocked out cold, Henry had a death grip on them.

I gave the reins a small tug in an attempt to free them from their prison but found myself in an all too familiar nose dive. I gritted my teeth together and struggled to keep my eyes open while butterflies tickle my stomach. I grabbed Henry’s hands and gave it a hard tug backward. The dragon let out a loud roar and rocketed up into the air. We broke through the clouds, and the blue dragon spread opened her wings and leveled out.

I exhaled a breath of relief. How anyone learned how to fly these things was beyond me? I had been going through this cycle of nose diving and then ending up where we had started for the last hour, and I was at my limit. If I never had to get on a back of another dragon again, it would be all too soon.

“Okay let’s try this one more time Bessie, or Messie, I can’t remember your name, but I’m determined to land you even if it’s the last thing I do, so here we go!” I gently pulled the reigns up, and we began spiraling down into a nose dive once again. Instead of pulling hard on the reigns, though, right before we hit the ground, I let it go and closed my eyes tightly.

I kept them closed until I heard Henry’s dragon begin to growl. I opened them and realized, with an immense amount of relief, that we were once again on the ground. However, that relief was shortly lived, when I noticed that we were only mere feet from another dragon, a wild dragon and not a very friendly looking one at that.

It was about the same size, height, and lengthwise of Henry’s blue dragon, but it was green and raggedy looking.

It’s upper lip pulled up to reveal rows of yellow, rotting, razor sharp teeth. It hissed back at Henry’s dragon and hit us with a puff of hot steam. Henry’s dragon let out a roar, in response, and took a threatening step towards the other dragon.

“Whoah, Whoah, Whoah!” I yelled and grabbed Henry’s cold hands. I yanked the reigns backward hard. Henry’s dragon let out a growl of protest but began to back up slowly.

From behind me, Henry let out a loud groan. I took my eyes off the wild dragon in front of me and spared a single look over my shoulder. He was coming to, slowly but surely. He couldn’t have had better timing.

“Henry wake up! We have a problem here!” I whispered frantically.

“Mhmm?” Henry mumbled and began to stir.

“Don’t Mhmm me. We are about to become dragon snacks unless you get up like right now.” I hissed.

I felt Henry’s body jerk. “I’m up,” he said, though his voice still sounded groggy. “Tell me what the hell is going on?” he said.

“I tried to land your dragon after you passed out, and after a few tries, I did. But the point is we are about to be fired nice and crispy unless you do something.”

A seconds pause, “You seriously tried to land my dragon? How dumb are you really? Don’t you remember the first rule of flying, never land a dragon in an unfamiliar place, unless it’s an emergency.” Henry paused. “I don’t see any signs of a storm that might have knocked you out of the sky, and my dragon seems perfectly healthy to me.”

I blew a black curl away from my face in irritation. “Hmm, let me think, maybe it was because you’re taking me to some psycho, who wants to do who knows what with me, but I guess it isn’t something good. Oh and Henry, not everybody in the world knows how to fly a freaking dragon, in fact, very few people do. So, please shut up, and get us out of here, before I make that wound on your chest a lot, and I mean a lot, bigger!”

Henry was silent for a moment, “Well you do have a-” he was cut short as our dragon backed into a tree. I let out a small yelp as twigs and leaves began raining down on us.

The wild dragon in front of us, who had been watching us the whole time with his golden eyes, was startled by my sudden yelp. It let out a low and menacing hiss. It leaned back on its hind legs and sprang forward. Its mouth opened wide, and its rows of razor-sharp teeth ready to tear into us.

Just before my life could start flashing before my eyes, Henry shook my useless hands-free from his and jerked the reigns hard to the right. Henry’s dragon jumped to the side, and out of the way of the incoming dragon. The wild dragon crashed into the tree, and the tree snapped in half like it was nothing more than a twig.

That could have been us, I thought to myself.

“Hey,” Henry whispered into my ear, “I’m getting us out of here now, so grab onto something and don’t let go.” The dragon was already recovering from its crash landing into the tree and looked like it was readying itself for another lunge.

“About time,” I muttered, grabbing onto a loop of leather in front of the saddle, I braced my legs on either side of the dragon’s back and prepared for lift off.

Henry cracked the reigns once, and up into the sky, we went. Once we had leveled out I felt relieved, but I also felt dread; he was taking me to Greta after all. Something had been beyond that wall, something really bad and powerful.

I was so deep in my thoughts, that I almost missed the beating of another pair of wings, coming from not too far behind us.

“Henry, I don’t think we’re alone in the air,” I said in a low voice.

“Can you look, I feel like I’m going to die every time I twist my body.”

“Okay, but I’m going to have to change positions,” I told him.

“Alright, just do it.”

“Okay,” I said and used Henry as support of I turned my body 180 degrees, so I was facing Henry’s broad chest. I put my hands on both of his shoulders and used them as leverage. I pulled myself into a kneeling position and came eye to eye with Henry’s electric blue eyes.

Well, this wasn’t awkward at all. Thankfully, Henry had enough common sense to turn his head away from mine.

“One, two, three,” I counted in my head, and half stood, half crouched, so I could see over Henry’s head while still maintaining my balance.

At first, I thought I was looking at the sun, and then I realized that what I was looking at was not the sun, but something very close to it, heat wise at least.

“Henry!” I screamed.

Henry must have understood what kind of trouble we were in the instant I screamed his name, because he turned us sideways, barely managing to dodge the fireball that had been shot at us. I grabbed onto Henry tightly, despite his grunts of pain, and tried my best not to fall off.

“Violet,” he hissed the pain I was causing him evident in his voice, “if you don’t let go of me soon I’m going to pass out,

“But,” I protested, just as he righted us, so we were once again horizontal, “if I do I’m going to fall off.”

I heard Henry grit his teeth together, “Just do it, trust me, I definitely won’t let you fall.”

I was just going to have to trust him on this one I guess. Reluctantly, I let go, and Henry released the reigns monetarily and grabbed me around the waist and yanked me down. I found myself in my original spot.

“Thanks,” I said grabbing on to the saddle again.

“Don’t, I did it more for me than you,” Henry replied sourly.

“So how do you plan on getting rid of our friend from the ground ?” I asked, referring to the green wild dragon we had just escaped not too long ago, and now had just tried to fry us.

“I’m not sure. Something’s wrong. It should have just left us alone after we left its territory,” Henry said, sounding stumped.

I thought for a moment. “Do you think it might have mad scales?” Mad scales was a disease transmitted from dragon to dragon through biting. Once bitten, the dragon went crazy within a couple of days of being infected, causing it to attack other dragons and pass along the disease.

“If you’re right, then I want to keep Nessie as far away from that thing as I can.”

Henry’s dragon was named Nessie. I had been close.

“I don’t think you want to either.”

“Hey, want are your feelings about going upside down, not that I care too much about your feelings.”

A gentleman as always.

I felt a knot tighten in my stomach. “I can’t say I’m in love with the idea,” I replied.

“You might want to close your eyes.”

“Henry please don-”

Henry sent Nessie rocketing into the air, and I took that moment to follow Henry’s advice and close my eyes. I opened them again when I had the sensation of being pulled off my seat on the saddle, big mistake. It seemed that the earth and the sky had switched places. I could also see the back of the green dragon flying above, I mean, below us.

I shut my eyes tightly again, “Henry; please tell me when we’re no longer upside, down” I said in a pleading voice.

Henry laughed softly, which kind of worried me. He must be a hell of a lot of pain right now for him to laugh. He just wasn’t the laughing type, or maybe he just didn’t laugh when he was around me.

“We’re no longer upside down,” he said into my ear, and he was right; we were no longer upside-down, but we were now behind the green dragon. I knew then that was the reason for our loop-de- loop.

“Nessie fire,” he commanded.

I felt the blue dragon take in a deep gulp of air, then released it in a stream of fire. It hit the green dragon’s right wing, and the wing caught fire instantly. The green dragon let out a howl of rage, and fell back towards the dense forest, from where it had originally come.

I cheered as I watched it disappear below us. “We did it!” I said, throwing my fist into the air. There was no reply or sound from behind me, just ominous silence, and the flapping of Nessie’s wings. Thant’s when I realized how wet the back of my shirt was.

“Henry?” I said softly, fear seeping into my body. Wait why was I getting afraid for Henry? He was my enemy right now. Right?

“Hey Violet,” Henry murmured, ” please if Amber comes back as a ghost, tell her I’m sorry.”

New fear rose up inside of me, “Henry, don’t you dare die on me!” I felt tears begin to prick at my eyes. “Henry?”

Unknown POV

I watched the battle take place in the sky, while I stood on the ground. Then I witnessed the blue dragon shoot the green one down. I watched while the blue dragon flew about a hundred feet away befoe landing on the ledge. I let out an exasperated sigh. The only problem is I knew who the blue dragon belonged too and he wasn’t that sloppy of a rider, something was wrong.

What a pain, first my dragon had gotten sick, and I had to hike the rest of the way back, and now I had to check up on dear old Henry. I was certainly going to miss this meeting even though I wasn’t sure why I had to attend. I didn’t have a say on what went on in the government. I was more or less a symbol. Just my luck, but little did I know luck was on my side. At least that day it was.