Within minutes, Hazel had secured Gen onto Remi's back piggyback style with rope from her cupboard. It was lucky that Gen was very small and light and Remi was strong. Hazel grabbed several different plants and tools from her cupboard and put them in her pack.

I collected my own things. I put a pencil in my side pocket and then rolled up my grass mat. That was pretty much all I had to do other than put my backpack on.

I looked around and my eyes landed on the wall behind me, there was a stub of a branch just low enough for me to reach. I inched over to it, each movement sending a small ache through my chest and managed to grab onto it. I heaved upward and dragged myself to my feet. My calf burned as I put weight on it

I leaned heavily on the branch and panted for a second. The pain stopped as soon as I quit moving. I tucked my necklace below my shirt so it didn't get in the way.

"Nick, don't hurt yourself," Hazel warned and came to help me all the way upright, which surprisingly, didn't hurt as much as I thought it would.

"I think I can walk," I told her, "You don't need to help me, help Remi."

She pursed her lips, "Are you sure?"

I shouldered my pack, "Yes," I said urgently, though it hurt to talk, "We need to go."

Hazel nodded. "Just be careful. I'm sorry I didn't agree with you that we needed to leave earlier."

"It's ok."

Remi came up beside us. "Let's move," she said. She looked shaken up, like she'd seen a ghost.

I turned and hobbled toward the flap but my bad leg gave way underneath me and I fell forward. It was a good thing both of my new friends were so fast. They both caught me and hauled me upright.

"Are you really sure you don't need help?" Asked Hazel.

I nodded, "I've got this. It just takes a second."

I attempted to step forward again and this time it went much better although it felt like a hot poker was being pressed into my calf. I limped to the door and stumbled outside, my friends right behind me.

Hazel held up the door flap for Remi and she ducked out. Hazel followed close after, securing the door behind her.

We dashed for the northwest forest, stumbling into the trees, the voices getting closer and louder.

"There's a clearing up here, commander!" Said a new voice.

"I know that!" Growled another voice. Remi flinched.

Hazel looked at her with wide eyes, but she just glared and plunged into the forest, leading the way and not looking back.

"Remi who is-"

"Her uncle," Hazel whispered back to me, "and it sounds like he's leading the hunt for us. I would leave the subject alone."

I nodded.

I limped carefully after her and Hazel followed me, glancing back at the hut only once.

"Here we are," said Remi's uncle, his voice getting fainter as we trudged away.

They were silent for a moment, and then I heard someone say, "They were here, General! See that hut?! There's still smoke and everything!"

"Of course I see it," Remi's uncle said, "What are you waiting for, search it, and if they aren't there, burn this stupid little forest dwelling."

Remi halted. Hazel grabbed her arm and kept her going forward. I took the lead, hoping I was going northeast, the direction of the elven forest, Dorian.

More very faint voices called out, "Nothing here! Must have cleared out. Shall we burn it?"

"Yes," said Remi's uncle, "But for your sake, don't burn the rest of the forest."

"Yes sir!"

There was a crackle and whoosh of flames.

Hazel stopped this time and looked back at the ever growing pillar of fire coming from the clearing, tears running down her face. Remi put an arm around her. I could understand how they were feeling, they had used that hut for so many years, watching it burn was probably like watching their home burn. Even though I only used the hut for a short time, I felt their devastation.

Remi jerked her gaze away from the fire and dragged Hazel away as well. "We can rebuild," she whispered to her, "but right now we cant focus on that. We really need to move or they will do that to our real houses. And us too."

Hazel nodded and we kept moving.

Too late, I realized we should have covered our tracks. "Is that a footprint?" Someone yelled.

"They're on our trail!" Hazel said, her voice edging into panic.

"It'll be ok," Remi assured her, "keep it together."

I glanced back at them quickly. Remi's face was hard and determined and Hazel's scared.

"That is a footprint!" Yelled the voice from behind us, "They're headed this way!"

There were crashes and running footsteps behind us.

I don't see how we can get out of this alive! I can barely even walk, I thought. I tried to hobble faster although I knew it was futile, they were going to overtake us, we couldn't escape.

Remi grabbed the back of my shirt and I stopped and turned to her. "What?" I asked.

"Stop and stand still," she whispered.

"What? Why?" I said, confused, "Are we going to fight?"

Remi shook her head, but before she could say any more, arrows started to rain down around us.

I danced around wildly and just by luck, I managed not to get skewered. Remi was not so lucky, she shrieked and stumbled under Gen's weight as an arrow nicked her bicep. Within seconds, we were surrounded by at least fifteen soldiers including who I assumed was Remi's uncle.

Everyone stared at us for a long moment. Remi and her uncle were having a sort of staring contest, where her uncle seemed to be pouring buckets of shame on her head and Remi was rebelling with infinite defiance. She looked angrier than I had ever seen her.

"Drop any weapons, you are under arrest," said Remi's uncle. He was holding a menacing sword and so were all his other comrades.

"Hazel," Remi growled, "go."

Oh, these soldiers are in for a treat.

Soon, Hazel towered above us all. A glittering, light blue snowtail Dragon with sharp ice spikes and claws. She was small, for a Dragon, but apparently not at all small to the soldiers. Several of them shrieked and tried to run, but she swiped at then and knocked them over before they could get far.

"We need an ember alert!" Yelled Remi's uncle, scrambling away in panic and pulling a small red walkie-talkie from a pouch at his belt.

Hazel raised her talons and icicles shot out of her wrists. Several of them hit the device along with the hands of Remi's uncle, but other soldiers had the same devices and had already pressed the button, which would alert the nearest Zorg outpost that there was a Dragon in the area.

Remi, cursing under her breath, made her way to Hazel, no fear whatsoever. Blood ran down her arm and her face was pale, but she put her good hand on Hazel's front leg.

"Can you carry us out of here?" Remi asked Hazel, taking advantage of the soldier's confusion.

Hazel turned one icy blue eye to stare at Remi and said something in Dragon that I couldn't understand. Remi seemed to get the idea though.

"I'll be fine, I can do it, jeez. Just get us out of here." She said.

Hazel made a sound that looked sort of like a sigh and spread one of her wings to make a ramp for us to climb onto her back. None of the soldiers made a move towards us and scrambled around trying to help their wounded.

Remi gestured for me to climb up and I did, crawling up Hazel's wing, using the bones in it as foot and handholds. Every movement sent pangs of pain through my injuries. I settled myself between two icicle spikes, the deep cold from them chilling my bones, but actually numbing my calf so it actually hurt less.

Remi started climbing up behind me, but soldiers started shooting arrows again.

Hazel turned and put her other wing up like a shield, growling with pain every time an arrow struck her wing membrane, drawing small lines of clear blood.

Remi slipped and caught a ridge with her good hand and started scrambling up again.

I reached out for her and she grabbed my forearm. I pulled as hard as I could, but I wasn't doing much, Remi and Gen together were really darned heavy.

Hazel roared again and stumbled into a tree right as Remi heaved herself onto Hazel's back behind me.

Hazel's wing crumpled against the tree and she stumbled the other way, trampling more soldiers.

"Hold on!" Remi called over the yelling of soldiers and Hazel's roaring and stomping.

Remi herself held on to the spike in front of her grimly, looking more terrified than I had ever seen her. I gasped as Hazel reared onto her hind legs, making soldiers flee from her ice-sharp claws.

Hazel beat her wings, scattering drops of clear blood everywhere from her wounds. We held on tight as possible as she leapt into the air, more arrows following us up.

Hazel wheeled around and pumped her wings to gain altitude, struggling and straining with the extra weight on her back.

She managed to flap away. Away from the pillar of smoke in the sky, and toward the distant expanse of land holding who knew what.

We flew on for another hour or two and pretty soon, my stomach was growling relentlessly and my butt felt grafted to Hazel's cold scales. Seat warmers please! Remi wasn't much better, she clung to the spike in front of her like there was no tomorrow, her eyes were tightly closed like she'd never open them again. Hazel's wingbeats were getting more and more labored as she struggled to keep us aloft.

I patted Hazel's long neck and said in her ear, "We should be safe now, you can land, Remi's arm needs attention and we all need to eat and rest."

Immediately, Hazel started to sink slowly toward the trees. As we sank below the slight clouds we had been flying in, I saw where the forest ended. I calculated that we would be able to hike to the edge of the forest within thirty minutes the next morning.

Hazel floated around some trees and then landed heavily, sinking down and resting her head on the ground, closing her eyes.

I slid off of her back with some difficulty, given that I had been sitting in one position for hours and that Hazel's scales were ice cold. I hit the ground on my good leg, immediately toppling forward, almost falling on my face.

Remi slid off as well and landed even less gracefully than I did, collapsing next to me with Gen's head lolling on her shoulder.

I sat up gingerly, wincing, and started to untie Gen from Remi. My frozen fingers were stiff and unwieldy from the cold, but somehow I got the job done. Gen rolled off, and Remi groaned and lifted her head slightly to look at Hazel.

Remi lifted herself up off the ground, the arm that got shot shaking badly and crawled over to Hazel's snout where she attempted to give her a hug. Her arms barely reached across Hazel's nose.

"You can shift back now," Remi whispered.

Hazel blinked her eye at Remi and shifted, melting and shrinking. Human again, Hazel collapsed on the ground next to Remi.

We both moved forward to try and catch her but I was too far away and Remi was too weak, so she kind of just fell on top of Remi and Remi let her, stopping her fall slightly and lowering her feebly to the ground.

"Ow," Hazel said and glanced at her arms. There were several tiny, bleeding pinpricks, probably from the arrows that pierced her wings in Dragon form. I limped slowly over to them.

"You're bleeding!" Remi groaned and examined one of Hazel's arms.

"So are you," Hazel said and got an arm underneath herself, trying to sit up. Remi helped her sit and they fussed over each other's injuries. We all slowly began to relax.

We all rested for about an hour, all of us too exhausted to do anything, Hazel snored with her head on Remi's shoulder.

Eventually, my stomach wouldn't let me rest any longer, honestly, it was as loud as a Dragon and sometimes I could swear it had a mind of its own. I got up to do something about it.

I wandered over to where I saw some promising-looking bushes when we landed and examined them more closely. Sure enough, they were raspberry bushes, covered in the fruit. They weren't exactly ripe yet, but they would do.

I limped back to camp and grabbed my mat out of my backpack, very suddenly realizing how little my ribs hurt. If I moved wrong, the pain brought tears to my eyes, but apparently, the guard hadn't kicked me as hard as I had thought. My calf still burned though and I could barely put weight on it.

I limped back to the bushes and started picking the fruit, putting it in my mat once I inspected it carefully. After a while, I had collected a good amount of berries and I couldn't find many more without going further into the bushes, so I gathered up my mat in a bundle and limped back to the others.

Remi opened her eyes, instantly awake, as I came over and I lowered myself to the ground in front of them. I opened the mat and Remi's eyes brightened. "Lunch, anyone?" I asked.

"Ooh, I've got an idea," Remi said and glanced at Hazel who gave a soft snore and twitched slightly in her sleep.

"Do you think we should wake her?" Remi said quietly.

"Yeah," I answered her, "she should eat and then we can sleep until dinner and rotate watch to make sure soldiers don't sneak up on us."

She nodded and shook Hazel's shoulder gently.

Hazel opened her eyes blearily and lifted her head off of Remi's shoulder. "What's wrong?" She asked.

Remi shook her head, "Nothing," she said and gestured at the pile of raspberries I collected. "Nick found lunch."

Remi grabbed Hazel's backpack from where it had fallen and fished out a loaf of bread. She handed it to Hazel. Then Remi pulled out another and handed it to me, then got one for herself.

She took a handful of berries from the pile and dropped them carefully on her slice of bread, then folded it in half, mashing the fruit between the halves. I copied her and so did Hazel. It would have been better with peanut butter, because I firmly believe everything's better with peanut butter, but I didn't complain.

We finished the raspberries and all ate several more slices of bread with them. Afterward, Hazel slowly drifted back to sleep on Remi's shoulder. Remi let her and brooded silently, glaring at the dirt between her feet.

"Are you ok?" I asked her.

"Yeah," she grunted, but something was obviously bothering her.

I stared at her until she looked up and sighed.

"I just can't believe my uncle-" she said but stopped and shook her head. "Never mind, I don't really care anyway. Goodnight, Nicholina."

She put her head on her knees. I decided not to press her and tried to sleep, my mind whirling.

When I woke, the others weren't up yet and I didn't expect them to be. Remi had moved Hazel to a mat and was sleeping on one of her own. The sun was setting in the east and frogs were beginning to croak. Kind of annoying, really.

I decided to search for some sort of water source because the water in my bottle had been gone since the day before.

I put all of our bottles into my backpack and started off slowly.

I limped around for a while, listening intently for the sound of a waterfall, or running water, but I was slow because my legs were sore from riding Hazel the day before and my ribs seemed to have gotten worse instead of better. Apparently, I was better at being a Dragon than I was at riding one.

After a while, I decided to go back because I didn't want Remi and Hazel to wake up with me not there. I also hadn't found a thing. I took one step and my shoe immediately sunk into a puddle of mud.

I pulled it out and gave the puddle a calculating glare, as if it would do any good. Then, I realized what that mud meant. It may have meant the end of my shoes' cleanliness but it also meant water. Where there is mud, there is water.

I continued on, the mud puddles getting more frequent. I arrived at a small pond, much like the one back at the clearing but a bit smaller. I filled my water bottle and then my friends bottles, then put the caps on, wishing I had thought to bring the water purifying tablets from Hazel's pack. I slipped the bottles back into my backpack and then retraced my steps back to our camp.

When I got back, Remi shot me a glare. "Took you long enough," she said to me. Hazel was still asleep, her hair all over the place.

"Sorry," I said, "how did you know where I went?"

"Well, I figured since the water bottles were gone that you had gone to get water. It wasn't hard to figure out. Please tell me you actually found water?"

I nodded and brang her my backpack. She purified the water for me and then gave it back.

Hazel rolled over, facing Remi, and opened her eyes.

"Hey," she mumbled sleepily.

"Hey there," Remi said gently and smiled.

Hazel sat up and pushed a tangle of hair out of her face. "Are you guys feeling any better?"

"A bit," I answered and Remi nodded.

"What about you?" Remi asked and inspected Hazel carefully.

"I'm ok," Hazel said and kept attempting and failing to tame her hair. "Less tired if that's what you mean."

Remi nodded again, "Good, we'll need to leave soon."

"We aren't far away from the edge of the forest," I told them. "It'll take us maybe thirty minutes to an hour to get there if I calculated right."

"Sounds good," said Hazel, attempting to put her hair in a braid, "just know that it won't be safe for me to carry you guys any further as a Dragon."

"You won't be giving us any more rides," Remi said and crawled over behind Hazel to attempt to do her hair for her.

While Remi wrestled with her hair, Hazel passed out some of her grandma's cinnamon bread and granola bars.

We ate and Remi managed to finger comb Hazel's hair and put it into a presentable braid, and then we were off again, moving through the trees at the fastest pace we could muster.

Just as the sun was disappearing below the horizon, the trees started to thin, becoming smaller and farther apart. Pretty soon, we were on the open land of Eisildor. Farther out onto the continent than any of us could remember being, except for one or two trips to lake Oke.

I took in the scenery around us, the city Panta was very close, almost too close to be safe. Too far away to be more than a tiny speck, but still there. The capital city, Gomoria, was off to the northwest.

I stared at a distant line on the horizon, right in front of where we would be traveling. A mountain range that I had almost forgotten about.

"Guys?" I said nervously, "I don't think we ever planned to have to cross a mountain range."

Remi paled. "No, no we didn't. We conveniently forgot about that part."

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Written by justasnarky_sandwing on WATTPAD