While Jewel soared through the sky, it thought back to the old days, back when it was still an egg-eating baby dragon. What few humanoids knew was that deep in the forest, where even at the brightest hour of day there's only faint green light to be seen among the trees, the Litte Dragons had established a complex society. There were a few thousand Little Dragons out there, some keepers of wolf farms, where they kept and raised wolves for their meat supply, and some builders of nests or holes, wherever the other dragons wanted to live, and in the largest cave that they had found, the young dragons were raised.

Jewel too had been raised in this cave. At a young age it was already clear to it what it wanted to become: a dragon hunter. Not in the way that some dwarves were dragon hunters, obviously. The dragons that these dwarves tried to catch or kill where the real dragon hunters, Little Dragons hunting the far less intelligent, yet far more dangerous Big Dragons. These were enormous beasts, the size of a large elephant, with wings so huge that a Little Dragon could build a nest for three out of it, or so it was told.

Little Jewel had always been training fiercely to become a great dragon hunter, and its practice material included, but was not limited to squirrels, frogs, deers, wolves that escaped from farms (or that Jewel had freed to chase down) and other dragon children in the cave. This made it hard to deal with, but the line was crossed when Jewel attacked one of its caretakers as training. The guardians were sick and tired of Jewel's misbehaving. It was banished from the city for five days.

At first it was sort of fun: The freedom to do whatever it wanted and attack whatever creature crossed its path, without other dragons whining about it. Jewel spent hours playing among the trees and chasing ice rabbits and owls, but after those hours were over, it started to feel lonely. The second morning it was already longing badly to return to the safety of the children's cave. However, when the five days were over, Jewel couldn't find its way back anymore, and since then it had been wandering through the forest, all alone. Sure it had gotten used to it, and it had mentally grown up at amazing speed, but the urge to find the city back had never ceased.

That's what Jewel thought of when they flew away from Fennekirch, remembering how it had flown from the dragon city back then, but without hysterical eminns on its back.

"Faster, Jewel!" Ayra fired up her dragon. "Faster, faster!"

"Hexit," Meroch cursed. "We're slower than a hexed dwarf army!"

"It only seems like that because we're flying so high," Ayra said, nervously wiping the sweat off her forehead. "I hope so, at least. Are they following us?"

Meroch turned his head. His sharp, half-elf eyes pierced through the dark, but discovered no one behind them. "I don't think so," he said, and added another "Hexit!"

"Stop swearing," Ayra snapped, "your hexing isn't making Jewel faster."

"If only it would," Meroch muttered.

Jewel knew that a real spell from an elf-eminn hybrid could change a lot, as it learnt in the dragon school: the most plausible theory so far to where they came from. However, a simple swearword as hexit didn't speed its wings, indeed.

After a while, the riders noticed that Jewel started to go down. It was gentle at first, but mere seconds later Meroch clinged his arms around Jewel's back, too perplexed to even scream.

"Jewel, stop," Ayra commanded.

Jewel didn't stop, but it dropped like a brick through the roof of leaves, and used its last energy to land smoothly on the grass carpet, before it lost consciousness.

"Seriously, Jewel?" Ayra asked, letting herself slide off her dragon. "You just fall asleep midair like that?"

"I guess," Meroch said. "Though I think we're safe here. I don't think an eminn can fly this far in one night. It smells like Fahinen!"

Ayra rolled her eyes up to the dark skies. "Fahinen! That's further from Fennekirch than my swamp village... " She yawned and asked: "How long have we been flying?"

"You're tired?" Meroch asked sharply.

"A little," Ayra yawned again.

Meroch was already standing next to Jewel. He slid open its eyelid and revealed the dragon's eye, from which a faint blue light was shining. An intoxicating sweet smell filled the Fahinish air.

"Hexit", Meroch sweared. "Elf magic."

Meroch remembered this smell and this light well, even though it had been years since the last time he encountered them. He had been raised by his father, who was a Bright Elf. To cover up the fact that his mother was an eminn, his wings had to be folded behind his back and covered at all times. However, it couldn't stay a secret for too long that Meroch was immune to the elves' spells, and at the same time was developing magical eminn eyes. He was found out and kicked out of the territory. Meroch didn't know what happened to his father, but he hadn't seen him ever since.

Ayra rubbed her eyes, that were starting to glow. The smell made her feel light-headed, and in the dark she saw stars dancing in front of her eyes. She tried hard to stand up, but the magic weakened her, so much that she started to collapse.

Meroch caught her, and said: "Hold on, I'm casting a counterspell!"

He tried desperately to remember the counterspell (something with "cra"?), but before he could, he found himself in a blazing light, that had him blinded for a moment.

"What are you doing here?" an elfish voice asked.

Ayra tried to reply, with a hoarse voice, but she was interrupted by another elf: "Not you, eminn. The impure one! Why have you returned?"

"Trust me, it was not my intention," Meroch grumbled, and in a sudden realization he shouted: "CRAMENDO!"

Ayra opened up her eyes, that were shining intensely now. Her mouth fell open. "Sta...?" she uttered.

The first elf started to laugh. "Wrong," she said. "Wolf's fangs, you neglected your skills. The counterspell is "cramonde", not "cramendo"!"

"What's... Going... On...?" Ayra whispered.

"We're keeping her like this, alright?" a third elf said, on a vile tone. "Nice and harmless."

"Hex you," Meroch barked. "Just because we fly over your territory doesn't mean you have to take us down and curse us."

"Just because you're impure doesn't mean you have to fly over our territory with a stupid eminn and a stupid dragon," a young elf sneered. "You started it. Why?"

Meroch sighed. "As I said, not our intention. It was an accident."