Which way," Hazel asked immediately.

Her eyes were puffy and red from crying, but I pretended not to notice. I didn't know what to make of Hazel and Remi's fight. I didn't know what side to take. I agreed with Hazel, that a war would be devastating and should be avoided at all costs, but I also agreed with Remi, I was angry at the Zorg and what they'd done. It was like being in a tug of war, and I was in the middle, trying to find a solution where everyone wins.

"Follow me," I said, taking her arm to lead her down the tree through the dark.

We got to the bottom and I led Hazel across the square and past the beautifully glowing Ulai tree, weaving through the throng of elves dispersing from dinner. Hazel walked stiffly beside me, her face expressionless.

"I'm sorry," I told her, "I really am."

She made a choked noise and a single tear slipped from her eye. "You have nothing to be sorry about, you don't have to pick sides or anything."

"I'm not going to," I said, "Let's forget about it for now, we have to find Remi, then maybe we can sit down and talk or something. We need to figure out what to do anyway."

"Yeah," Hazel said.

"You'll be ok," I promised, "We'll get her back, you two can...umm...figure it out."

Hazel said nothing. Gosh I'm bad at this.

"Come on," I said.

At once, a long, high pitched shriek came from the woods. The direction we were facing. It was too far away to have any effect on us, but we both knew what it was, and the effect on the elves was almost instantaneous.

"We're under attack!" One of them yelled from behind us.

"Where's the queen!"

"What should we do!"

"IT'S THE ZORG!!!"

"Calm down," said the voice of the queen as she strode out of the dining pavilion. Aspen and Oak were right behind her, "The Zorg could not have gotten into Dorian. We have spells to protect us, we are safe."

The crowd of elves seemed to collectively relax a little.

Another elf came running into the clearing, a giant bag on his back that looked to be full of weapons.

"Your majesty," he said, and I realized it was Forest, "I have weapons, like you asked, just in case."

The queen nodded, "Thank you-"

Before I could stop her, Hazel sprinted into the crowd, toward the queen. I followed her.

"Your majesty," Hazel was saying as I caught up, "Please, my friend, Remi, the dragon, she ran off into the forest. That was the call of a Glyferno, your majesty, you know it was, I'm afraid she's in danger!"

The Queen's eyebrows raised at first, then she nodded slowly.

"Forest," she said, "Take Mahogany and Nettle and help Hazel and..." she paused and gestured me forward, "And Nicholina, find Remi."

Forest nodded and jogged off again, his weapon bag clanking on his back.

"Elves," the Queen called over the crowd, "I want you all to go under lockdown in your homes, go to bed, and do not be afraid. I want warrior-force Ivy to stay here."

The elves quickly dispersed, mothers and fathers leading their kids by the hand, some of them thanking the queen on the way.

The Queen turned to Oak and Aspen who had been standing behind her the whole time, and whispered in an undertone to them. They both nodded at whatever she said, and followed the crowd away. My heart dropped a little as Oak left, I wanted to talk to him.

Eventually, only five, armor-clad elves remained, one including Leaf, Forest's brother. I assumed they must have been part of whatever 'warrior-force Ivy' was.

Forest clanked back over to us. His weapon bag seemed to have gotten bigger. Behind him were two elves, also armor-clad. One of them was a girl with long black hair, braided down one shoulder, the other was a man with short, light red hair.

"I've got Mahogany and Nettle, your majesty," Forest panted, slinging the bag off his shoulders and tossing it to the ground.

"Thank you," the Queen said, "Mahogany, Nettle, this is Hazel and Nicholina. Hazel, Nicholina, this is Mahogany," she gestured to the woman with the long braid who nodded slightly in recognition, "And Nettle," the boy with red hair, who grinned.

"Nice to meet you," Nettle said.

"Yeah," Mahogany said, looking bored.

"So, weapons," Forest said, "We need those, right?"

He reached into his bag and drew out a recurve bow and a quiver of arrows. He, surprisingly, handed these to me, then went back to rummaging. He brought out a sword for himself and a weapon or two for the seven other elves, other than the Queen.

"Here you are," Forest said to Hazel and handed her a belt with three daggers sheathed on it, "Sorry I couldn't get a sword, I hope these will work?"

Hazel nodded and took it, belting it on. I slung my own weapons over my back.

"Mahogany?" Forest said when Mahogany didn't take her proffered weapon, "Do you need a sword? Or a bow? Or something? Nunchucks? A mace?"

Mahogany glared at him, "No," she said, placing a finger on a belt that held several daggers and pouches, "I have my own."

Forest backed off immediately, "Alright then. Let's go find Remi."

***

Thirty minutes later, we were searching the woods. Hazel was walking beside me, shining her Ulai frantically around. The rest of the team wasn't far away

"Where could she be?!" Hazle said in a panicky voice from beside me. She sounded like she was about to start crying.

"I don't know," I admitted, "I saw her run off in this direction, I'm not quite sure what she would have done after that."

And that was when we came upon the first splatter of blood, shining silvery and red in the light of Hazel's Ulai. It was smeared all over the leaves at my feet, and from the look of it, it was pretty fresh.

"Guys," I called into the forest, "C'mere."

In seconds, warrior-force Ivy was with us once again, adding to our small circle of light. We had been introduced to them, there was Forest, Leaf, Mahogany, and Nettle of course, but there was also Briar, Amaranth, Cypress, and Alder. All of them seemed like nice elves and great fighters.

Warrior-force Ivy was apparently an elite force of the Queen's best warriors. Forest was their leader.

"That isn't animal blood," Cypress said. She had been introduced as one of the elves' best trackers.

"Then what is it?" Briar asked.

"Probably the girl's blood, the one we're trying to find," Mahogany said.

Hazel flinched. "No, it can't be."

"We'll find her, Hazel," I said, trying to be as reassuring as possible.

"Really?" Nettle asked Mahogany, putting a hand on the taller girl's shoulder. It surprised me that he could do that without getting himself stabbed, or his throat slit, or even his hand bitten off. They're a couple, I realized, a really weird couple, but a couple nonetheless.

"You're scaring Hazel," Nettle said, "We don't know if Remi is hurt or not, so let's assume she isn't."

"Let's spread out," Amaranth said, hefting his sword, "Look for more signs, more blood maybe, things that don't look right."

"I'll take Cypress and go one way, Briar, Amaranth, you go another, same with Forest and Leaf, then Mahogany and Nettle. Are you two ok going on your own?" Alder said, gesturing at Hazel and I.

I nodded and we split up. The other pairs spread out around us and Hazel and I went forward.

We just walked for a while, scanning the ground, until Hazel gave a gasp of shock.

I whipped my head up and my dread spiked higher as the light showed the last thing I wanted to see.

There was a stump, and that stump had blood splatters on it as well. There was blood on the ground too. The leaves and dirt on the ground next to the stump were churned up. All around the sight, in a circle, were seven or eight more patches of turned up earth.

Hazel hurried over to one of the spots around the stump and leaned down to examine it.

"Oh my gods." Hazel said in a choked voice.

I made my way over to her and looked at the spot. It looked like a dragon footprint, except it was too small to be a dragon footprint, and it was too shallow to be a dragon footprint.

"Glyferno," I hissed, the pieces falling into place in my mind.

"Remi!" Hazel said, and leapt to her feet. I followed suit and ran after her, following her bobbing Ulai.

I nearly missed another clue as we sprinted by. Luckily, I skidded to a stop and doubled back, dragging Hazel with me.

"What's this?" I asked and stooped to pick the thing up. Hazel offered the light and put the thing into better perspective.

It was a glass cylinder with a dark green liquid inside. On one end, there were three sharp points.

"A dart?" Hazel guessed, "D'you think- do you think they shot Remi with one of these?"

I shrugged, "Maybe."

She abruptly sank to her knees on the ground. The Ulai rolled out of her hand and into the leaves. It cast shadows over Hazel's face and accentuated the shadows under her eyes.

"Nick," she said, "I can't do this anymore, my dragon- i cant hold it in. I'm panicking, I don't know if I can-"

"The dragon might actually be helpful," I said, "Then we could fly over and try to find her. But I can do it if you don't want to."

Hazel shook her head, "I can do it, just give me a second."

I nodded and stepped back as Hazel took several deep breaths.

Slowly, scales flowed over her body.

She stood for a moment and took a deep breath. A ripple seemed to pass over her scales and she winced and grunted.

"What is it," I asked.

She just shook her head and spread out a wing for me.

My legs ached as I climbed on. They seemed to remember the last time I rode Hazel, and how they were cold and numb for an hour afterward. I pulled myself up her scaly back anyways. We had to find Remi.

With a roar, Hazel launched herself into the air and flew for the dark outline of the trees and flicker of moonlight overhead.

The second we got above the trees, I saw a flock of birds, lit by the moons, heading southwest. They were about a mile away and flying fast... wait, no, those were too big to be birds. They were flying too fast to be birds.

"There," I said to Hazel, "Either those are the biggest eagles Eisildor has ever seen, or they're Glyferno."

She immediately powered her wings to go faster. Should we get warrior-force Ivy? Is it safe to go alone like this? I pushed the thought aside. We'd be fine.

As we got closer, I saw that they were, indeed, Glyferno. No doubt. I bent low over Hazel's long neck so the wind wouldn't get to me.

"We got to get closer!" I yelled over the rushing in my ears, "We have to see if they've got Remi!"

Hazel canted her wings and soared closer.

I made out a small shape in the limited light, hanging from the talons of one of the Glyferno. Oh, I hope I'm wrong, I thought desperately, please let Remi be down in the forest somewhere, and safe.

But as we got closer, there was no doubt it was Remi, swinging wildly from the talons of the very first Glyferno. You couldn't mistake the red hair, even in the little light. There were eight Zorg and Glyferno in all.

Now, when people (in this case, a dragon) get angry, they tend to do stupid things. That was one of those times.
Hazel lunged with a roar of fury, shooting forward, and effectively spilling me off of her back.

I screamed as I tumbled through the air, the wind whipping my short hair into my eyes. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. My only coherent thought was: AHHHHHHHHHH!

Some small coherent part of me realized I had to do something to survive. The only way I could think of was to shift.

Just feet from the tops of the trees, I spread my Dragon wings, hitting several trees with them, and shot upward through the leaves once more.

I caught up with Hazel the best I could. The Zorg had noticed her roaring and trying to reach them, so they had put on a burst of speed.

I soared up next to my friend.

We have to catch up! I roared, but I knew, even without letting myself think it, that there was no catching up.

In a last attempt to do something, anything, I beat my wings harder than I ever had before, and loosed the strongest blast or water from my mouth as I could into the half-light, hoping with all I was that it would slow them down or something, anything that would make it possible to save Remi.

To my surprise, the jet of water slammed the Zorg and Glyferno in the back of the procession. The Zorg I hit seemed a little smaller than the rest.

I stopped and hovered in midair, watching the Zorg and Glyferno fall for a moment before realizing, this Zorg probably knows things we could use!

Without much further thought, and without checking to see what Hazel would do, I arrowed straight down toward the falling, screaming, flailing Zorg. The dark shape of the Zorg's Glyferno was falling as well, trying desperately to flap its wet wings, but it was no use, it was falling too fast and wouldn't be able to orient itself right to get aloft again. I knew I would only be able to save one of the two falling.

At the last second before the Zorg would have hit the trees, (and probably died on the way down) I snatched him up in my webbed talons, my tail just skimming the top of the foliage, and angled my wings to soar into the air again, the Zorg screaming the whole time.

I squinted through the dark and caught a silvery flash of moon-lit scales back the way I came. I soared toward it.

I landed in a small clearing. Hazel sat on her knees in the middle of it, human formed again. Tears flowed freely down her face.

"Remi!" She sobbed at the sky, where the wingbeats of the Glyferno were fading to silence, "REMI!!"

I dropped the Zorg (who had fallen unconscious) from my talons with a snarl, then stomped over to Hazel, shifting at the same time.

I put a human hand on my friend's shoulder. I didn't say anything. There wasn't anything to say.

A loud grunt jolted me out of my daze. I tore my gaze away from the star-filled sky and whirled to face the Zorg, who was sitting up and rubbing the top point of his head with his left finger.

"Freeze!" I yelled, whipping out a dagger out of Hazel's belt. A dagger was faster to get than stringing my bow and knocking an arrow.

I brandished the seven-inch blade at the shape of the Zorg in the dark, not sure if I would actually be able to use it.

"Drop all your weapons!" I yelled, taking another menacing step forward.

"AUGHHH!" The Zorg screamed, throwing up his fingers and scrambling away from me. His single eye was wide and terrified.

"I said DROP YOUR WEAPONS!" I yelled, shoving the point of the dagger under his head.

With an agonized squeak, the Zorg scrambled for the sickle belted to his waist. He threw it at my feet and then I waited as he took two curved daggers from his boots, and then a bottle of something, probably poison, from a fanny pack thing at his waist. Once he was done, he curled up in a quivering ball.

"Is there any more?!" I demanded. I expected that a lone Zorg (especially if this squadron of Zorg was specifically hunting for Remi) would have more weapons on them than just the four at my feet.

"No!" The Zorg shrieked."That'sss all I have, please, dragon, don't hurt me!"

I felt a small wave of sympathy wash over me. This Zorg was just as scared to be in my presence as I was to be in it's. I couldn't let him see that I was scared of him though.

"Fine," I said, a little gentler, but still forcefully. "Get up."

The Zorg scrambled to his feet with no hesitation and kept his hands in the air. I still didn't lower my dagger. I noticed that the Zorg was roughly as tall as me, maybe a little taller, painfully skinny and grimy, and wearing just a brown shirt, not a chainmail shirt like most of the Zorg I had seen.

"What are the Zorg doing in Dorian?" I demanded.

"W-we, I mean, they, want-wanted dragons," the Zorg said hesitantly, "I don't know why."

"Yeah, right," I said, "Tell me what they are up to, you dragon murdering-"

"No!" He burst out, "I've never killed a dragon in my life! I don't want to."

This made me pause, "Really?"

He nodded, "Never, why would I ever do such a monstrouss thing?"

I tried desperately to hold on to my anger. "Yeah, well I bet your parents and their parents are dragon killers, even if you aren't."

He shook his head sadly, "Were, my parentsss are dead."

The knife wavered in my hand. Never in my life did I believe that Zorg could feel sadness. Never did I believe that they could be, more or less, helpless, like that one. Never did I believe I'd ever feel sorry for one.

"What's your name?" The question was out of my lips before I could stop it.

He looked at me weird for a moment, then said: "Leo, what's yoursss?"

"Leo," I said, testing the name, "Hi Leo, I'm Nicholina, but my friends call me Nick."

"Ok, Nick," he said slowly lowering his hands.

I realized I had dropped the knife point. I quickly pulled it back up. "I said, my friends, Zorg."

I glanced back at Hazel. She still sat there with shining eyes, staring up at the sky, looking for the Zorg now long gone.

I turned back around and slowly lowered the dagger from Leo's face. "If you run, I will track you down. You can't escape me."

He gulped, then nodded. I slowly lowered the dagger to my side.

I went over and offered Hazel my hand. She took it, looking numb and not taking her eyes off the sky. I pulled her to her feet.

"Where are the rest of the Zorg taking Remi?" I asked Leo.

"B-back to the ssstronghold, I assume," Leo said.

I growled under my breath. "We have to get her back. You, come with me." I grabbed Leo by his brown shirt and dragged him and Hazel into the trees.

Thank you for reading!
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