Hey guys. I want to apologize for not updating recently, but I have come to learn Wattpad's new create is..or was.. not sure yet, is sort of glitching out and deleting half of what is written in the chapter. So I'm hoping it's fixed. If it's not, then oh well. I plan on writing this chapter straight through, no saving, then copying it and publishing it. If the whole chapter isn't published I'll email the chapter to myself and paste and publish through mobile.

Enjoy. ~

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You always learn something new about someone close to you. It's inevitable, really, because it ambushes you when you least expect it.

For example, I know my Mom has a way of telling people that she promises to tell us something they want or need to know when she gets the chance. She's very convincing, and usually she follows through with her promises.

Except when that certain something is my mother's twin sister. I've tried approaching her about the topic casually, asking if she has any other family I haven't met, or asking if she ever wanted a sister.

Of course, Mom tends to change the subject on matters such as this by telling me about the newest things going on in our world. Jordan's dragon, for instance, found a mate and is helping with the incubating of his soon-to-be hatchlings.

I'm not going to be a priss and say that it wasn't difficult to try to get her to open up about Lucy's mother. I mean, I get my stubbornness from someone and that happens to be my mother right at this moment. Like me, she cuts off the conversation innocently, like trying to talk about sports when in the middle of talking about the weather.

But then again, I was never smooth with words in situations that required stealth and patience. I am not a patient person, at all, as one might soon discover pretty soon after meeting me. Asking me to be patient is like asking a shark not to be attracted to the smell of blood, it's impossible.

Returning to the topic of trying to get Mom to talk to me, I had recently remembered I got back from Minnesota about four days ago. That means for the past three and a half days I have been attempting, with absolutely no luck at all, to talk to my mother about this. But, of course, something else is always the change of topic.

Now it was the evening of the fourth day of my failing attempts, and I was slowly losing hope of succeeding in talking to my Mom. The feeling of your spirit dropping to your feet like a rock falling from a building is the feeling of lost hope. I think my Mom sensed it, because she tried to talk to me about happy things. Then she offered to train with Leto and I for a while, and I could tell my spirit was rising again. A chance to bond with her is something I've been meaning to do anyways, so this would help.

Althaia and Leto were waiting for us when we got to the Training Center, which I was confused as to why we were going there.

"We're going to train," Mom told me as we made our way through the streets of Dragon's Cove, but the training isn't going to be flying or guidance. We're going to practice fighting."

"Fighting?" I repeated, a knot of uneasiness curling up in my stomach. "Oh.."

Mom put her arm around my shoulders and squeezed my arm gently. "Don't worry, it's not going to be training that you're not ready for. It's a beginner's training, watched over and guided by Jed."

"Jed." I smile, remembering the trainer I would sometimes confide in last year when I was practicing combat and armory. Jed was a bulky, tall, and completely flirty and mostly harmless. "He'll be glad to see us."

Mom laughed lightly. "Yes, indeed, he will be I assume."

We soon arrived at the Center, and to my surprise, where Leto and Althaia were wearing mounds of silver plates on their bodies. As I gazed at Leto, I took in the armor and remembered a while ago Jed did some armor fitting for Leto. Her chest up was covered with silver armor, the designs standing out. The tip of her tail was covered with armor, a large spike sticking up from the top of it. Her calves had armor the size of a woman's breastplate strapped to them. Her head was covered with a helm, covering most but her mouth and muzzle and nostrils as well as her eyes. And on her back was a saddle that belonged to no horse, but was built for a dragon's back. What made it different to that from a horses was that it was made of what looked like real leather, but it had two columns going down each side, where legs would be if sitting.

Leto looked ready for battle.

"Wow," I managed out as Mom and I approach the three beings. Jed was fixing Althaia's saddle to fit her, while the dragon watched him carefully. "You look fierce."

"Fierce would be a word to use," Leto told me, her blue eyes glittering. "Imagine when you get into your armor and onto my back what we'll look like. I do not imagine something disappointing."

I had to agree with Leto, to my personal pride. An imagine popped inside my head from my imagination of me in matching armor to that of Leto's, sword risen in air, as we charged at our enemies..

Leto must have been in my head, because she let out a sound that seemed to be a mixture of an agreed growl and proud huff. She straightened up and let her chest stick out slightly.

"Are we getting armor?" I smile at Leto, then turn the question to Jed who had reappeared from fixing Althaia's saddle. His hair had grown a few inches and he had gotten more built and lean since the last time I saw him.

Jed lets out one of his supposedly wooing smiles and cocked an eyebrow at me. "Hello, Faye. Yes Faye, I'm doing beautifully, thanks for asking."

"If I cared how you were doing, I would have asked," I joked, causing Mom to chuckle in amusement from beside me.

"I'm hurt," Jed sighs dramatically, looking to the sky and putting on a face that would have the ladies wanting to stop his sadness. "So cruel."

"Dramatic, as usual."

"Dramatic for you, my sweet flower."

"I almost forgot you're horrible flirting."

"My flirting wins awards."

"Strange creatures, humans," Althaia muttered, apparently not bothering to close her mind to us. "Honestly. They get weirder everytime I'm around them."

We all laugh, having heard her words.

"Anyways," my mom said, still smiling, "could we get our armor please?"

"Of course." Jed waves us over as he made his way to the doors of the Center. "I have Faye's ready. It was forged by Hephaistos himself in the deep volcanoes of Pompeii."

"Pompeii?" I frowned at him as we followed. "Pompeii was destroyed by the volcano, it's dormant now."

Jed smiled wanly as he turned to face my mother and I. My mom stayed silent, so I assumed she was going to let Jed explain this. "Pompeii was destroyed by the volcano, yes, but the volcano erupted for an entirely different reason."

The curiosity got the better of me. So I listened, biting my lip. "Which was, exactly?"

"A long, long time ago," Jed started leaning against one of the practice dummies, "a dragon lived in that volcano. At the time, dragons had forged their own armor in the most active volcanoes around the world. Aiolos, the creator of your ancestor's, Cain Foreigner, armor was an extremely skilled armor maker."

I raised my hand to ask a question real quick. Jed nods for me to ask my question. "Well," I start, thinking back to the tour of the armor I did a while ago, "if Aiolos was alive at the time of Pompeii's destruction..then he was also alive thousands of years later when he made Cain's.."

"Correct." Jed nods, pleased with the statement. "And I'm guessing you are wondering how a dragon can live so long?"

"Sort of."

"Well, Aiolos was the first ever dragon to forge a human's armor," Jed told me, turning to a large Tapestry that showed the stitched art of a red and orange dragon inside the hot pits of the volcano, pounding his silver talons on a rock and a silver dragon's shaped helm. But beside it, was a helm made for a man. The art showing the first connection of an alliance between two completely different species..

"He was born to live thousands upon thousands of years, because his destiny was to seal the bond of human and dragon. Rider and Ridden," I finished, turning my eyes back to my mother and Jed, who nodded at the same time.

"So..what does that have to do with the destruction of Pompeii?"

Jed smiled, his eyes glittering. "According to myth, but not proof, and legend, a dragon who had been selfish and ungrateful disliked the armor that Aiolos had created for him. A fight occurred in the volcano, and it caused the already active pit to explode. His enemy fell as the city did, and Aiolos remained deep in his volcano, continuing his forge."

"Then..whose Hephaistos?" I inquired, now very intent on the information.

"The dragon who replaced Aiolos after the ancient forge-dragon died of his age. He died back in 1874, and since then Hephaistos, named after the Greek god Hephaestus, took his place. Creating armor for dragons and humans."

"Don't humans create armor now?"

Mom smiled, her chin tilted up in pride. "Hephaistos makes armor for those who he sees worthy. You and Leto were his first Rider and Dragon he made armor for in over one hundred years."

"Wow," I murmured.

"Now," Jed said, grinning playfully once more. "History lesson aside, let us go see your new armor."

-

This chapter was longer than usual, due to the fact that I got so into it and I felt bad for my lack of updates.

I hope you enjoyed it guys!

-Grace xx