Chapter 12

            Blackscales was disappointed and disturbed by what Icksazro had said. He had thought of himself as very mature and nearly perfect, but the elf had said just the opposite, that he was a young and inexperienced dragon rider and had very much left to learn and master. He looked downwards and put his head in his hands as he considered the words more closely.

            Icksazro looked at him sympathetically before saying, “Many things you can learn about on your own. Go and see Inferno and discover what you can learn about each other in short bits of time, and I am sure he is eager to meet you today.”

            Blackscales looked up from his hands and smiled at the wise-seeming elf before standing up and telling him farewell. He walked over to the door that led to the main room and turned around.

            “Just, keep the others here until I’m back, and please don’t tell them what I’m doing or where I am.”

            The elf nodded, and Blackscales burst through the hidden door and raced over to the door leading to the outside world. He carefully and quietly opened the door, bringing in a wave of fresh, cool fall air. He stepped outside and breathed deeply, and at that moment he was solely focused on the chilly, yet friendly night. He felt Inferno’s presence in his mind.

            “Are you coming or aren’t you?” The dragon asked as he shifted his physical position somewhere in the nearby forest land.

            Blackscales began walking slowly as he replied, “I’m just enjoying my time outside and stalling until our company wakes up.”

            Inferno ceased his complaining as Blackscales walked through the town as casually as he could. The rider wanted to be sure that anyone watching him wouldn’t think something was amiss, but he doubted there were any conscious humans in that town anyway. It took him only a short while to find his way to the side of the town that was the opposite side of his entry, where Inferno had gone after they arrived to find a shelter for the night.

            Blackscales studied the door, looking up and down and left and right, deciding exactly how he would get through. In the end, he simply decided to open it and walk through before closing it firmly shut again. He felt a little nervous and fearful as he carried out his plan, though he was sure that he was all alone, aside from Inferno occasionally jumping into his thoughts.

            “Let’s have some fun; you have to try to find me!” Inferno said playfully. “Don’t worry; it’s obvious enough for you to have fun too.”

            Blackscales rolled his eyes and began searching for the dragon, trying to see through Inferno’s eyes the approximate location. It was a surprisingly short time before he found a river and heard a loud splashing noise. He figured that his companion was fishing or something.

            The rider raced along the edge of the river, following the flow of the water beside ridges, caverns, and crevices. Finally he followed the river over a slight upward slant in the gr*ound almost like a hill, and emerged onto the top. Blackscales looked around and saw that the river led down a steep slope and ended at a large lake that he couldn’t see the end of. He also couldn’t see Inferno.

            He hopped down the hill, carefully looking all along the stream as he ran, looking for Inferno. He had heard that the dragon was splashing at about that point; near the lake. Blackscales rushed over to the edge of the lake and looked around for him, but the dragon was nowhere in sight. The rider looked everywhere for him, but the dark, empty blackness didn’t help in the search.

            “Where are you?” Blackscales asked, turning in circles.

            There was a sudden rumbling sound coming from behind him; from the lake, and suddenly Inferno leapt out of the silky blue and green water with his wings flapping quickly, propelling him upward. Millions of little droplets of water scattered throughout the sky, glistening beside the bright moonlight. The dragon flew towards the rider with his scales glimmering and shining like the water droplets, turning him an elegant silver hue with streams of black surging along his hide like blood pumping through veins. He landed carefully beside Blackscales, stirring the wind around them.

            “Did you just fly out of the water?” Blackscales asked, amazed.

            Inferno flapped his wings softly, drying himself rather quickly before replying, “After you entered the town with your friends, I remembered that my mother had told me about a dragon’s ability to hold their breaths for a long while, as well as their skills with flying through storms and rain. I just assumed we would also be amazing water creatures, and we evidently are.”

            “How did you feel when you were in the water?” Blackscales asked.

            “It felt pretty good,” Inferno replied. “I don’t think it’s nearly as good as flying, but I can hold my breath for about ten minutes, and could probably strengthen my lungs so I could hold my breath much longer. Plus, I’ve discovered how to use my wings to fly through the water, in a wave-like way.”

            Blackscales looked up at the humongous wings that were now folded tightly t the dragon’s sides before saying, “It sounds fascinating, and maybe we can explore it more later, but right now I want do something else.”

            “Like what?”

            “I don’t exactly know, just something that we can do together, since I can’t swim like you or stay underwater as long as you. Being in the water with me would be incredibly bo9ring for you, and it should probably remain an activity that you can do yourself. Perhaps we can just take a simple walking ride though,” Blackscales suggested.

            Inferno instantly turned his head, exposing the dark leather saddle that Blackscales had made a long time ago; at least it seemed that way. He seemed a little disappointed that his rider didn’t want to fly yet, but he didn’t try to force it on him.

            Blackscales climbed into the saddle, strapped in his legs, and grabbed the thick reigns that clung to the gleaming white spike in front of him. He told Inferno to go forward, and he did. They walked around the lake, up the stream, through the woods a ways, and tried picking up the pace a bit, but there seemed to be no purpose to it. They both began to feel that it was a complete waste of their time, and the rider told Inferno to go to an open field; he had an idea.

            As he shared his idea with Inferno, he was reluctant but excited, and beginning to understand what Icksazro had said before. He began to understand that there was a time to sit back and wait for things to happen and accept them when they come, but there was also a time to tackle things as soon as possible to get them out of the way.

            They found an open area right beside the lake, and Inferno stopped in the middle of the clear space, gauging everything, and watching. He looked around, and asked Blackscales if it was truly what he wanted. When he got confirmation, he bared his crystal-white teeth in a wide smile.

            Inferno looked up at the sky, straight at the moon that was directly ahead and beginning to set. He unfurled his immense wings, flapping them carefully, before jumping at least 20 feet into the sky, pulling himself higher and higher with a steady beat of his leathery wings. Blackscales clung on to the reigns with his chest pressed firmly against the dragon’s neck, and he was sure to keep his eyes closed.

            The rider felt them level out, gliding steadily and slowly forward in the opposite direction of the moon, towards the horizon where the sun would rise soon. He reluctantly pried open his eyes, only to slam them shut again upon seeing the world below.

            “You can trust my flight skills to catch you if you fall,” Inferno tried to calm him. “And you can most definitely rely on your own work with the leg straps and reigns, can’t you?”

            Blackscales agreed as he forced his eyes open again. He sighed with relief when he saw that the dragon had made a minuscule alteration to his flight and brought them to a height just above the treetops and they were going about as fast as the average man would run. The rider relaxed a little and, very slowly, lifted himself up until he was sitting up straight.

            He laughed at himself, realizing that there was absolutely nothing wrong with flight. In fact, he decided quickly that his new favorite thing to do was flying with his loyal dragon companion. He gripped the reigns tight in his left hand and raised his right up into the sky, feeling the wind weave between his bare, pink fingers.

            “Do you finally understand why I was so anxious?” Inferno asked as he flapped his wings slightly, lifting them up another ten feet and nearly doubling their speed.

            “Yes! This is fantastic! Take us higher, and go faster!” Blackscales yelped through their mind link in excitement.

            Inferno seemed to realize that he still wasn’t ready for his maximum height and speed, but he still brought them up quite a ways, high above the trees until they looked like a river of swirling green life below them. The actual river was just a tiny ribbon of blue wrapped around the landscape. What really surprised Blackscales was the lake that he couldn’t see across before, but up in the air it looked like a little misshapen circle.

            There was a tiny bit of light shining over the horizon at just the moment that Blackscales felt he had gotten used to flying. Inferno tilted until he was at such a sharp, turning angle that he was nearly vertical from wing-tip to opposite wing-tip, and Blackscales just leaned in the opposite direction to stay upright. He assumed that he could have just tilted with Inferno, but it could have messed up his turning.

            Blackscales patted the shadowy hide of his dragon companion as he looked back at the horizon, then back at Inferno’s scales. The scales looked like an actual inferno; shimmering, glistening, waving in the twilight.

            Inferno turned again and flew directly over the town, likely making many of the residents think he was a mere bird, flapping about recklessly. The rider beamed with glee as he saw Icksazro the elf, sitting back in a normal chair and staring up at them. While Blackscales couldn’t quite see his expression from that height, he could tell that he was enthusiastic about Inferno bonding with Blackscales in such a way.

            The pair continued to fly around, and Inferno once dove straight down at an incredible speed. Blackscales looked straight to the right, watching the dragon’s wings as they were buffeted by the wind and curved with the currents. They flew through clouds, soaking the dragon’s scales and freezing the rider to his bones, but he was too overjoyed to notice.

            As the sun began to rise over the horizon, Cody reluctantly said, “We should probably get back; Aval, Autumn, and Omen are probably awake by now, or at least will be soon.”

            “Will we ride together when we continue on our journey?” The dragon asked.

            As Inferno began gliding in the direction of a small, cleared area near the town, Blackscales replied, “Most of the time, but when we’re near a town or dwelling of any sort I will ride my horse.”

            Inferno snorted with derision before saying, “You could always send Aval, Autumn, and Omen into the towns or ‘dwellings’ and stay with me, just in case our foes do recognize your name.”

            “I’ll consider it.”

            Inferno grinned as he slowly lowered them to the ground and turned his head away from Blackscales as he hopped out of the saddle, and the rider said, “I’ll try to have us head out as soon as possible, you just wait here for us.”

            Inferno nodded just before Blackscales raced off towards the town. After such a long time in the air, he thought that he would have been a little unsteady on his feet, but he discovered that it was just the opposite; he ran along with flawless balance and precision. It was only about three minutes later that he reached the gate and pushed his way inside tentatively.

            Blackscales looked around, seeing only a solitary man walk out of his house and disappear behind another building. The rider then walked through Starling casually and normally, drawing little to no attention to himself. He managed to get into the tavern’s main room without any disturbances, but was surprised to find none their either. Icksazro wasn’t anywhere near either, making Blackscales curios as to his whereabouts.

            He walked over to the door that led to the rooms, and faintly heard the snoring of Omen and Aval, while Autumn seemed to be sleepy as well, though Blackscales couldn’t tell how he knew. He stepped back turned back around just in time to see the elf walk in with a broad grin on his face.

            “Welcome back Twilight Rider,” Icksazro said as he sat at a table and scratched at his hat.

            “Why are you calling me that?” Blackscales asked, sitting down next to him.

            The elf looked at him carefully with a sly smile before replying, “After a time, riders develop nicknames based on their abilities and actions that can make them the most revered of their time. So far, your greatest accomplishment is learning to fly your dragon during such a time that is considered very important to the riders, though why it’s so will be left for Argos’s rider to explain. Granted, you seemed to learn incredibly quickly…your bond with inferno seems to be quite strong.”

            Blackscales shrugged and smiled before asking another, unrelated question, “How many of our…‘allies’ will there be?”

            “I was one of the first to be sent out so don’t consider my answer dependable, but I think there will be at least one to meet you in every town, and if you find any out in the forest, which I think likely, you will find them in a group.”

            Blackscales thought deeply about whom and where they could possibly be as Autumn walked in looking bright and refreshed again. The rider looked at her and laughed a little bit, remembering that it had been a few hours ago that he woke up himself, and a year before then he thought she was an extremely early riser. She looked all around her body to see if he was laughing at something about her.

            “What’s going on?” She asked as she carefully and slowly sat down with them.

            “Sorry, sorry,” Blackscales said as he stopped laughing. “It’s just that I woke up much earlier than you, and I always thought that you were the one that always woke up early.”

            She smiled cheerily before turning to the elf and asking, “What is the food situation here?”

            Icksazro smirked and pointed to the back of the room where there was a box, probably filled with ice and food, “You can find something to eat in there, and you’re welcome to start a fire outside in a fire pit to cook it.”

            “Be quick about it and wake the others, I want to get an early start,” Blackscales said as he kicked his feet up onto a bar stool set perfectly at the table.

            Autumn chortled before replying, “Wake them yourself; I’m hungry and need some food before we go anywhere.”

            “Not to mention,” Icksazro began as he sat a bit straighter, “I have to give you some food and money for the road, just so you can be prepared if there aren’t any allies there for you.”

            “Where will we be going?” Autumn asked, making Blackscales realize that she was all the way to the box digging out various foods.

            Icksazro rolled his eyes and replied, “Wherever you end up.”

            “I’ll go get Omen and Avalsmokes up, but I feel a little awkward leaving you so abruptly,” Blackscales told Autumn, then switched over to Icksazro.

            The elf spread his arms wide, looked around a bit, and said, “It’s my entire purpose here. As soon as you leave, I’ll be on my own way less than a week later. Don’t worry, if you make your way to the Hidden Mountain Pass, we will see each other again.”

            Blackscales smiled and stood up.

            As the rider turned to go wake his companions, Icksazro stood up and said, “May your travels stay positive, and may you brace yourself for both the light and shadow ahead of you, Twilight Rider.”