"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

  A body crashed aggressively through the trees, the voice from said body was screaming at the top of his lungs before cutting off with an "oof" as it hit the ground.

  "Callum!" An accented voice, eerily similar to an Irish, rang out. A flash of blue and silver dashed through the long grasses, small little furry creatures hopping after her as she bent over the groaning figure.

  "I think I broke something." Callum groaned.

  "Oh no, of course not!" The elf girl rolled her eyes sarcastically. Reaching a four-fingered hand to take the humans. "Falling through the sky is definitely not a safety concern that could include breaking bones!"

  "I'm sorry, okay?" Callum said, feeling his back carefully. "I was flying and then this bird -thing scared me! I must've accidentally turned off the spell for my Mage-wings."

  Rayla rolled her eyes. "Just be more careful! If you end up dying from something stupid I'm gonna kill you!"

  "Everything is fine-" His words were cut off with a giant roar.

  "What was that?" Callum whipped around. Rayla's knives were out, poised to strike.

  Rayla flipped quickly up a tree. Climbing lithely up the trunk to the canopy. Callum sized up the tree and jumped at it in attempt to follow his girlfriend but only ended up slamming into it and sliding down.

  "Okay." Callum tore off his blue jacket, tying it around his waist. "Plan B."

  "Manus, Pluma, Volantus!"

  As soon as the spell left his mouth the runes painted on his arms began to glow, feathers appeared, forming huge brown wings. Flapping them quickly and getting a bunch of grass in his face Callum flew up to where Rayla was leaning, eyes narrowed towards where the sound was.

  "What is it?" Callum asked.

  "I think it was...Sol Regum." Rayla glanced at him.

  Callum yelped. "I just barely got past him today! He's still pretty mad after I trapped him in that stone arch."

"But what if it's Viran?" Rayla sheathed her blades. "We can't just stand back, we need to investigate."

  Callum sighed. "Okay, fine."

  Rayla smiled, making his face soften as she hopped on his back. He unfurled his wings once more and took off towards where the fire dragon was stationed. Rayla narrowed her eyes as they made it towards the area. Tall tan rocks covered the ground. The large sand coloured body of the guardian of Xadia's border was easily distinguishable.

  Rayla gasped when she spotted a crumpled body on the ground by two figures who were standing before Sol Regum. "I see what I think is humans....but it's not Viran."

  "I don't see Claudia either." Callum replied. "Let's land."

  "Don't engage until we know who they are." Rayla agreed.

  Callum was just nodding in agreement when Rayla launched off his back, causing him to flip around with a yelp. The moonshadow elf landed on a rock formation before easily flipping down. Her knives were out and pointed towards the suspicious figures.

  "Who are you and what are you doing here?" Rayla demanded, her lavender eyes narrowed. Callum landed beside her and turned off the spell, his wings forming back into his normal arms. Sol Regum did not look happy as he caught his scent.

  The two strangers jumped in surprise. A female and a male, both blonde. One with a stern brown gaze and the other with a mischievous blue one. They wore formal clothing, both with capes fastened with a broach.

  "I'm Sophie Foster and this is Keefe Sencen." The girl spoke, gesturing once to the taller boy. "We're looking for a Callum and a Rayla, we need them to save every world. Have you seen them?"

Rayla and Callum exchanged looks. "What do you mean every world?" Callum asked suspiciously. His hand was in place to quickly do a rune.

"Well, there are apparently different worlds and they are all apparently in danger." Sophie explained.

  "How do we know we can trust you? We can't just go running around after you blindly." Rayla pointed out. One of her knives falling to her side, but the other still ready.

  "If it's okay for me to ask- what is that?" Callum motioned to the odd creature that lay unconscious by them.

  "That's Gigantor, he's a goblin." Keefe voiced cheerfully.

  "His real name is Sandor." Sophie shot her companion a look.

  "There's goblins here?" Callum stage-whispered.

  Rayla rolled her eyes. "If there was I would've known." Callum looked perplexed and eyed the 'Sandor/Gigantor.'

  "So, are you an elf?" Keefe looked her over.

  Rayla gave him an irritated look. "Yes, I'm an elf! What else would I be?"

  "Then, how old are you? Mid thousands? Late two thousands?" Keefe questioned, his gaze moving over her ears.

  "Excuse me?" Rayla looked ready to chop him into little pieces. Callum quickly grabbed her shoulder.

  "I just mean, your ears are really pointy. And when an elf gets really old their ears get really pointy. So I just assumed you were really old." Keefe reasoned with a smile.

  Rayla crossed her arms. "And where did you get that information?"

  "Rayla's only a little younger than you." Callum told the newcomers. Sol Regum huffed and settled down, not looking happy about how long the conversation is going on.

  "I hate to interrupt this conversation but that dragon looks a little upset." Sophie cut in.

  "Sol Regum is the guardian of the Xadian border. You trespassed on our border. So he then dislikes you." Rayla raised an eyebrow.

"Don't take it personally he hates me too." Callum said.

Rayla elbowed him. Though they seemed friendly enough, the girl was talking some crazy story and the boy was questioning her age.

  "Maybe we should get out of here." Sophie suggested nervously.

"Also, is your goblin friend okay?" Callum looked concerned at the cold body.

Sophie gasped. "Oh no! I forgot about Sandor."

  "And they want us to help them save the world." Rayla muttered as the girl ran over to the creature. She motioned for the others to follow.

  "I'm going to teleport us out of here!" She said

  "Wait, what?" Rayla said in confusion. The girl raised a glittering object to the light, it seemed to radiate the shine outwards, blinding Rayla and Callum and sucking them into the blazing glow.

  Callum screamed, his body almost felt weightless. Fear filled him as his hand found Rayla's as they crashed to the ground, Rayla tacked Sophie to the ground, the edge of her knife dangerously close the skin on her neck.

  "What did you do? Where are we?" Rayla growled threateningly.

  Callum sat up, trying to push down the nausea.

  "Uh, Havenfield. It's my home." Sophie looked nervously at the knife. "Would you mind removing your blade from my neck?"

  Callum scrambled to his feet, keeping an eye on the boy. "You can't just kidnap us!" Rayla hissed as Callum drew a rune.

  "Aspiro!" He shouted, he blew outwards, the wind crashing into Keefe, if that even was the kidnappers name. He was knocked off his feet and grunted on impact.

  "Hey! Not cool!" Keefe yelled. "All we did is kidnap you and take you to a different realm!"

  "What?" Rayla pressed the blade warningly. "You're going to explain what's happening right now or you're going to have trouble finding your head." Callum let Rayla lead on this one, but really hope she wouldn't cut off the girl's head. Nevertheless, he got ready to Fulminous answers out of whoever they were.

  "Okay, okay! Calm down! It's a long story!" Sophie said quickly. She then launched into a long story about some weird dream and a list she was given.

  "And you thought launching us into another realm would get us to help you?" Rayla demanded, getting off of her, but keeping the blade pointed at the girl.

  "No, but I did think it would get us away from that dragon. He looked like he wanted to kill us!" Sophie answered, getting to her feet.

  "Sol Regum wasn't going to attack you while we were talking to you!" Rayla snapped like it was obvious.

  Sophie rubbed her temples. "Well that would've been nice to know."

  "So what did you what me to say? 'Oh hey strangers, the dragon that is very clearly settled down is not about to attack you so you don't need to blast us through a blinding light!'" Rayla asked sarcastically. Seriously questioning why she was threatened by these obviously underdeveloped beings.

  "Yeah, that would have worked!" Keefe interject.

  "I guess I never fully introduced myself." Callum said quickly before Rayla could attack him too as she gave him a death glare. "I'm Callum and this is Rayla."

  "Nice to meet you guys!" Keefe said happily, getting up from the ground. Sophie squinted at him.

  Rayla groaned, slipping her knives into their sheaths. "What exactly is attacking the 'worlds?' Is it so dangerous that you need to drag an elf-assassin and a Mage into your realm?" Judging by the stupidity radiating from the boy she didn't doubt that they needed back up but she didn't understand why that backup included them.

  Callum was having similar thoughts, wondering how a nice afternoon with her girlfriend turned into this.

  "Well, technically we don't know, but according to the list it is that dangerous." Sophie responded.
 
  "Wait, did you just say that you're an assassin?" Keefe asked. "As in, a master assassin?" With a weird grin.

  "Former assassin." Rayla corrected. "I haven't needed to kill anyone until you guys came crashing through."

"Yeah, when we first met she tried to kill me." Callum added like it was nothing. Rayla huffed and gave him a shove, who simply gave her a smile.

  Keefe dramatically pointed at the silver haired elf. "I'm going to call you Mass-Assas!" He declared.

  "How about you call me 'just Rayla?'" Rayla suggested blandly with a small edge to it , helping Callum undo the knot that tied his jacket around his waist.

  "Nope! I made up my mind! Mass-Assas it is!"

  Callum pulled on the jacket. "Yeah, I'm not sure if that's a good idea." Callum said, adjusting his scarf to go comfortably over the collar. Rayla's eye twitched.

  "Oh? You want a nickname too?" Keefe completely ignored his warning. "I've got you Callum!"

  "We're gonna call you Asparagus!" Sophie looked at him like he was crazy.

  "Um...why?" Callum was almost afraid to ask.

  "Isn't that what you said to make that wind thingy happen?" Keefe glanced at the brunette.

  "No! I said Aspiro." Callum said irritably.

  "Why don't you show him Fulminous and see if he makes a good nickname out of that?" Rayla suggested helpfully.

  "No- I'm not going to electrocute him!" Callum yelped.

  "Suit yourself but when you get annoyed enough I'm sure a little shock won't hurt." Rayla shrugged, the accented words almost sounding innocent with her tone.
 
  "Okay, I thought about it! And I honestly think Asparagus suits you perfectly!" Keefe announced.  

  Callum was seriously considering going through with Rayla's plan.

  "Oh yeah, it's perfect! Matches my green completion!" Callum sassed.

  Sophie quickly stepped in. "Hate to change this interesting subject, but if you guys are in we need to go to Middle Earth and find Legolas, Aragorn, Merry, Pippin, Samwise, and Gandalf."

  Rayla and Callum exchanged looks. Rayla sighed. "I guess if they try and backstab us we can kill them."

  Callum rolled his eyes, tightening the strap of his sketch pad. The cover was still bearing the slash marks from the war when they returned Zym to his mother.

  "Now that that's settled, let's go!" Keefe said with a wolffish grin.

  Rayla glanced at Callum, who smiled and took her hand in his, gripping it tight as Sophie raised the sparking shard and they were plunged into the void.

authors note

This chapter features Sophie Foster and Keefe Sencen from Keeper of the Lost Cities, Rayla and Callum from The Dragon Prince, and mentions of the characters from The Lord of the Rings. (Movie verse). I thought Gandalf sort of sailed away on the ship with Frodo in the final movie but my friend's dad said he was still there so..... Let me know which it is.

My good friend Dee_Dee_Mclee  's chapter features Sophie Foster's perspective. You may enjoy seeing what she thinks of an elf assassin and a human Mage.

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