Since we know he is faking it we won't get caught up in his charm or venom this time either.

Grrr stop being so stubborn; I know he means well though the bond, his darker inner beast is nearly completely asleep. If he were to bite us one or two more times it would be completely eradicated.

Doubt fills my being and I shake my head at her. All it took was a little begging and some food to win you over?

He hasn't won me over, I just want one last enemy after me. If we can get his humanity completely to the forefront I'm sure we can convince him to let us live in peace, maybe even keep us safe for the rest of our days... and you're getting in the way of that...be gone pest.

My body becomes impossibly heavy and I'm dragged into my subconscious mind; cast into a pitch black void that goes on forever.

A small light illuminates my surroundings a moment later and I make out I'm in an underground cavern; a massive door with foreign markings carved into resides in the cavern wall several yards from me.

Purple-reddish flames flicker underneath the massive ancient oak door; the magenta inferno swirls violently around my entire body and yanks me off my feet towards the looming door.

The door swings open with a long hollow eeRRR; a long flaming magenta dragon slinks through the door. I hover a yard in front of the door as the large flaming mass approaches, the sound of flames clicking fills the cavern as a blistering but comforting wave of heat settles over me.

Ferocity approaches with a devious smile, black flames flicker where her teeth should be. She stops in front of me and towers over me; way bigger than the tallest wolves I've seen.

"Now you get to see what it's like to be a prisoner in your own mind" she purrs; flicks her tail over her back and continues forward into a distant white light.

When her figure fades a flash of blinding white light erupts; the purple inferno swirls erratically, dragging me backwards through the oak door as break neck speed, relinquishing its hold two feet above Ferocity's half sphere dirt and rock nest.

I land on my shoulders hard, rolling read over heals to the center of the dugout nest. I lay on my back looking up at the churning whirlpool on the cavern ceiling.

EEEeeerrrrrrrrrrrccccccc!

I roll onto my hands and knees; heart pounding at the eerie creep; horror fills my soul as the carvings on the door glow bright gold as it slowly swings inwards.

I leap to my feet, crawling up the smooth rocks that line the den, rolling over the lip of the nest.

I stumble to my feet, clawing dirt with my hands to pull myself up and make a dash for the door closes. "No no no!" I put everything I have into my dash; legs moving painfully slow with each stride like in the worst of nightmares.

Thud! The door closes with a deafening close. I crash into the door, pounding my fists against my new glowing cell. "Let me out!"

I dig my talons into the wood floor as my conscious floods my dragon body; giving a one fanged smirk as I hear Ghost frantic cries from my old prison, flaring my nostrils the scales rise to form tiny scaly spikes on both sides of my snout, mischief ignites in my dual draconic flaming purple orbs and reflect in Qasim's twin green seas.

He flashes his bright fangs with a small smile. "Ferocity you shouldn't steal control from Ghost that will only stresses you both out even further," he scolds gently, placing his fingers behind my jaw, quicker than my eyes could track. Lifting the jaw scales to scratch the sensitive velvety leathery skin below.

I raise my frills partially as the pleasant sensation causes me to melt under his fingers; purring slightly above a whisper. 'We don't have much of one anyway so I don't care.

"Then how do you expect to finally be whole if you keep distancing yourself from Ghost?" he questions, cocking one eye brow up.

"I don't and I don't care to either," growling with a flick my tail tip, "there will be no union between us," I snort; flaring my frills half-way briefly than laying them flat.

'I didn't know what was happening to me, I di-,' Ghost pleads faintly, 'I thought I was going crazy and hearing voices. When I was angry I would have the urge to bite people and chase small animals for food. I was afraid!"

I return my attention to Qasim. 'You forgot about me, I won't forgive that,' I murmur to Ghost with venom in my voice.

"It's understandable, she just didn't understand who or what you were," Qasim stated, "can she do anything to make it up to you?"

I snort and flick my tail tip to the right. "I needed to get out, I haven't been out in an environment where I didn't have to force my way out and kill to defend myself or intimidate someone in over decade. You try being a prisoner that long and tell me how you feel towards your jailer. Up until two years ago the past three weeks I've been out because something was about to either eat or capture me and I managed to stay in control until I finally felt relaxed with the wolves, and in all that time except for two incidents I was never in my true form.'

"I understand where you're coming from because I was a prisoner for one-hundred years; I wanted to kill the bastard, I did actually. You on the other hand are connected to your jailer, you can't kill or hurt Ghost because it also damages you. You shouldn't have experience that but in this world if she had acted on your instincts she could have gotten in more trouble. Plus there was no one to explain this to her... I have a proposition for you."

That's a long time...I perk my ears up a little and flick my tail for him to continue.

"You haven't been out in a while and I have a place you can run around perfectly safe until your hearts content, but in return you let me make up some of what I've done to the both of you and we all get to know each other better" he said confidently.

I almost got lost in his eyes and deep voice musical voice gracing my ears. 'I can roam freely? You won't stop me from going anywhere?'

"No I'll only follow you, although there are some animals there you can't eat because they're endangered and a part of my personal collection. They can be your companions since they're pretty interesting, what do you say?" He holds his hand out to me.

I sigh internally and extend my scaly hand, careful not to poke him with my talons and shake on it. 'Where are we going exactly?'

"Infinity pool, this one is hidden island themed; a tropical forest miniature world on a either dormant or active volcano if you choose so with its own living ecosystem," he states with a superior grin.

I flick my tail tip up. 'Cocky much? Fine, how do we get there?'

"I got a dragon to agree with me, I have good reason to be cocky," he says, "we jump in the pool and it will transport us into that colorful box you see on the table on the balcony. He points to said box outside on a white and pink marble table.

'Alright let's go then.' A millisecond later I'm laying over his shoulders feet above the pool; surface rippling as a vortex forms in the middle of the pool. I blanch and raise my frills in fright at the speed of him movements. This may be a little harder than I thought.

He jumps directly into the whirlpool, water surges through my scales, the current drags my wings open involuntarily. A second later I break the surface of an ocean, a tiny patch of land on top a coral reef to a floating dock extending from the tiny island.

I shake water out of my frills quickly. 'Could you not move fast enough to give me whip lash?'

"Sorry," he says giving me a sheepish smile.

I snort, turning my head to study the world before me. The island has large volcano in the center of a domed crater in its North Western corner, mountain peaks are covered on greenery on the South and snow in the North , the crater towers miles over the ocean, the tail end curves inwards to forms a lagoon in the East.

A boat is tied to the dock, rocking back and forth on top of two diverging currents. One can be seen at the water's surface flowing towards the island, the other one dips far under the waves in the form of a white glowing tunnel that leads directly to the island.

"You have two options, either take the boat, or put a bubble mask on and take the current under the surface," he said as he saw what I was looking at. "Which do you prefer?"

"Under water current under the water," I wave my tail above my head with glee.

Qasim walks to the end of the dock and picks up two white circles almost a foot in diameter. He lowers one over his head and a bubble appears around his head that is connected with the object that now rest on his collar bone. He slightly turns his frame; appearing in front of me an instant later.

I raise my frills alarmingly and retreat snarling at him. "You're going to give me a heart attack!"

"The silver lining to that is your internal fire will keep blazing and your heart will eventually stabilize instead of giving out, so a heart attack for a dragon is more like a long winded panic attack," he says, studying me intently, lowering the other loop over my head; a bubble covers my head from snout to snuggly behind my horns.

A deep pure rage fills my chest as the hoop is feel something resting behind my horns, feeling cornered and dominated I reveal my fangs in a vicious snarl and lung at him.

Qasim's hand is on my neck before I get my rear talons off the deck; I squeak as I find myself belly up underneath him a second later, my snout encased in his frigid titanium digits. I glare up at him and try to shove him off; my body grows hotter as I'm surrounded by his scent, burnt cinnamon with light touch of vanilla and wood.

His nose skims my scales as while he smells me, unable to hide his grin. "I never thought in a million years I'd live to one day have a dragon pinned..," he trails off for a moment, "I wasn't pulling a color on you for ownership, it's something to allow you breathe underwater," he said calmly while stroking my jaw scales.

The snarl stays on my face. "Put it lower." A small patch of heat pools near the base of my tail and my snarl loses a bit of its intensity.

His does so, head phasing through the bubble as he kisses my snout. "Are you feeling calmer and ready to go to the island? Or do you want to lay underneath me for a few more minutes?," he says in a husky tone.

A tingling sensation travels up my tail and stops at the juncture of my inner thighs and belly I gulp suddenly nervous and shy for reasons I can't comprehend.

"If you shift back I can make it worth your while...," he purrs in my ear, "you smell so lovely..., " he mutters as he trails down to my neck and kisses the scales gently.

My head swims as his scent assaults my muddled brain. I quickly hold my breath and push against his chest. "I need to run."

He grins down at me. "You're right my apologies, I'll stop teasing... for now." He picks me up once more and stands at the end of the dock in front of a white rotating glowing disk about eight feet in diameter resting on the surface of the water. "Ready?"

I nod and he jumps in the center of the ring, my nostrils shut automatically; third eye lids extend over my eyes. I gaze at the glowing world underneath the surface of the water.

The mini ocean is pleasantly warm and vast, below us the coral reef is teaming with fish of all shapes and sizes glowing brightly under the surface of the water although its strangely dark down here being the middle of the day.

The bubble shields around our heads waver as they're buffered by the current but they don't pop under the pressure.

As we travel further from the coral reef we travel over a mass of pitch black crevice in the ocean floor.

I notice a mass rising from the depths; a massive nine feet in height twenty foot long creature that has bright gold glowing spots running down its pale blue hide. It has four legs with three long fingers with smoky grey and black skin as flippers, along it's neck are four sets of frills that diverge from each other, one going down its back, the other two on its flanks, and the last on its belly; each set pulsates a multitude of colors until they all begin pulsating bright pink tinged with gold at the ends. At the ends of it's frills and flippers where white glowing orbs the size of a quarter. On the top of it's head and the tip of it's snout it was sporting a pair of whiskers whose orbs are gold. At the end of its tail are four fins in an x formation.

Below it rose an even larger one of it's kind. This one was maroon with black streaks across it's hide and glittering gold spots. Three large teeth spill out of it's lips evenly on either side of its mouth.

Swimming behind that one is a bright glowing green and gold baby. It's large eyes zero in on me and it quickly jets through the water into the glowing tunnel with me and Qasim.

The baby is about five feet longer than me and three feet taller in height. It twist around me poking my wings and side as it inspects me curiously.

I twisting and turn the water as I study the dazzling sea creature. Out of the corner of my eye I notice Qasim watching me closely and smiling.

"That is a Jemoli, a deep sea omnivore that eats anything it can get its mouth around, dead or alive. There are close to fifteen thousand left due to previous over hunting. They're protected now and the past few centuries their numbers have risen but it takes a decade for the young to become adults and thirty years to form their own pods with others on average, so I help out by capturing injured ones, holding them until I find a suitable mate and they have calves. Once they're seven they're pretty large enough to defend themselves with their parents so I release them back into the wild. That little girl is MooMoo. The pale blue one is his mom Dream Stare, and the maroon and black one is Jeriko, an adult male I found a few years ago that the family took to."

"How did you get them?" I poke MooMoo's snout with mine and her parents swim underneath the tunnel. I hear them whistling, looking over my wings I see them nuzzling Qasim softly.

"I found Dream Stare stranded on a coral reef with her baby, they separated from their pod in a costal storm, I carried her to the sanctuary that was about 30 miles away," he said while patting her snout. Jeriko rumbled loudly and noses Qasim's foot from underneath. "Now this big guy was being chased by illegal hunters, I happened to be doing a trade of my own and saw him being chased and asked Adella to cast a spell; he appeared in one of the sanctuary pools a second later and I quickly turned everyone on that ship into a blood slave and sold them to fund the sanctuary and his medical bills," he said simply.

I nodded at him in approval. 'I like that you've helped them when they needed someone the most.'

You actually believe that crock of bullshit? Ghost rebukes faintly.

Do you have proof otherwise happened? No right? Thought so, now shut the fuck up before I shut you up pest.

Do it you over grown lizard.

Rage flares in my chest and I dig my talons in my scales to keep myself grounded. 'On second thought I think I'll just tune you out like you looooved to do to me.' At that I cut our connection line.

"Ferocity...," Qasim begins with a worried expression.

MooMoo gives a series of clicks and nudges underneath my jaw repeatedly like she is trying to stroke my neck to soothe me.

'Shut it I'm fine.' The current begins to ascend towards the surface of the ocean; the Jemoli turn to swim back towards the depths. MooMoo turns and whistles at, gold spots flashing three times before disappearing back into the darkness.

We break the surface; sliding up a slick glass ramp onto another dock. The bands suddenly release their hold on our necks and drift through the air until they both settle onto a hook on the railing to our immediate left that also holds large fluffy towels in an assortment of colors.

I jump from Qasim's arms to shake water from my wings and frills.

Qasim goes to his knees and places a towel featuring a blue lama on a grassy field under a yellow cartoon sun on my back and rubs in small circles "We go wherever you want until dinner time," he said while drying my wings.

I lurch forward, digging my talons into the wooden deck and racing across the dock with my wings partially opened at my sides, partially gliding up the sandy beach as the wind propels me forward from behind. I let my instincts take over with each bound. My frills erect completely as I read the wind around me, flicking my tongue out to taste the air for any prey.

It's my time to be a dragon! I single tear is carried away by the wind before it could slide down my snout and break the tree line, eager to put my teeth in something.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, there was a family emergency that needed my undivided attention. Everything is on the rise now, I'll do my best to keep to my schedule but things may be dicey for a bit so please be patient with me.

Anywhoooom!

What do you think of this new side of Qasim? Will it last?

Why did Ferocity feel the need to defend him against Ghost?

What do you think of the rift between her and Ghost? Understandable? Overreacting? Will they ever truly come to terms with one another?

TUNE IN NEXT TIME ON LONG MAY I REIGGGGGGGNNNNNN!!!!!!