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Please forgive me for the horrible clichés! I blame all of them on my ineptness when it comes to plots!
Without warning, pain ripped across her shoulders and she let out a surprised scream as more pain joined it. Barely keeping her eyes open, she turned to see the woman behind her holding… wings? Feeling for the source of the pain, warm blood began to trickle over her fingers and she felt two huge gashes over her shoulder blades. In astonishment, she stared at the wings numbly. Her eyes began to go in and out of focus, and she felt like she was beginning to spin…
After about fifteen minutes she successfully arrived to the kitchen. Why does this place need to be so big? It takes about two hours if you even want to take a tour of the entire place! Deep in thought, Serafina grabbed a piece of toast and slammed into something as she spun around to take a plate.
“Serafina! Watch where your going!” the woman scolded. She began to lose her balance, so Serafina grabbed her arm to steady her. “Thank you,” the woman said as she began to dust herself off.
“You’re welcome, ma’am.” Serafina bowed slightly and her black hair seemed to envelop her face completely. The woman smiled back, her black eyes crinkling.
“You can call me Regina or Mom. I’ve told you that before. I took you in as a daughter and I treat you like one. You should be able to do the same.” Regina peered closely into Serafina’s eyes and her short, curly black hair almost made her stepdaughter sneeze. “Are you okay, Serafina? You look tired.” In a second she had Serafina in that oh-so-familiar position, with her hand on her forehead, feeling for a temperature.
“Ma- I mean, Mom, I’m fine,” she whined slightly. “I just didn’t sleep well last night.” Turning away from the persistent hand of her stepmother, she began crunching on her now cold toast.
“Well… if you’re sure. But if you are sick, you do know that I can get the castle healers here quickly-” She looked at the younger woman, motherly concern filling her gaze.
“I’m fine,” Serafina stated again, firmly. “I’m not sick.” Doubtful, Regina, the queen of Mirona, glided out of the kitchen. Shaking her head at her adoptive mother’s stubbornness, she finished her toast and decided to start wandering around the castle.
The sound of metal on metal attracted her attention almost immediately, and she followed it to the training arena. There she saw her stepbrother, a teenage boy with his mother's black hair and piercing blue eyes that took the place of his mother's warm black ones, sparring with his training instructor. Both of their blades created sparks whenever they collided, and it seemed like a light show with how many times they crashed into each other. I should have brought popcorn, Serafina thought, smiling slightly as she saw that the match had been called in a tie.
“Hi Serafina!” Her brother paced over leisurely, wiping his sweat-streaked hair from his face. He grabbed a sword on his way over after he sheathed his and held it out to her. “You want to spar? I could help you on your technique.”
“Nero, I don’t really want to-“ She cut off what she was saying when she saw Nero’s eyes grow large and his lower lip slide out slightly. “No! Why do you always use the puppy dog face whenever someone doesn’t want to do something?” He whimpered pathetically at her outburst, his eyes growing watery. Sighing, Serafina looked at him in defeat. “Fine. But answer my question. Why do you always use the puppy dog face?”
“As long as it continues to work, I’ll continue to use it. I’m not sure about you, but I certainly like the results.” Smirking in his achievement, he strode out to the center of the ring. Typical, Serafina rolled her eyes and took the sword, awkwardly strapping it onto her belt. Grumbling to herself slightly about giving in to her sibling again, she trudged to the opposite side of the ring and tensed.
“The fight will start in five, four, three, two, one!” the training master yelled from the stands, watching his two disciples fight each other. Nero’s sword flashed as he expertly drew it from the sheathe, and he dashed toward his opponent. Serafina’s fingers fumbled to the handle of her blade. Barely getting the sword out of its scabbard, she held it out in time to block Nero’s attack. Wincing at the jolting of the blade and the screech of metal hitting metal, she barely held onto the cloth handle to keep it from wrenching from her grasp.
As soon as he saw his attack was ineffective, Nero started swinging his sword in short arcs, slamming it into Serafina’s. All she could do was block, since he never gave her a chance to make an attempt to go on the offensive. Within a few more moments, her arms began to grow leaden and she tripped while trying to back away from her opponent. At the moment she landed on the ground, his sword snaked its way to her throat and was held there. “I win,” Nero whispered, a smile playing on his lips. He dropped his sword and held out a hand, helping her to her feet.
Wiping off her pants, Serafina glared at him. “I told you I didn’t want to fight!” She unclipped the sword’s sheath from her belt and placed it off in the corner of the arena. “I thought you knew I wasn’t very good at sword fighting!”
“So?” He asked, smiling happily at the sun. “As they say, you need to crawl before you learn to walk!” Shading his eyes, he laid his blade next to Serafina’s.
Grumbling, Serafina glared at her stepbrother. How can he be so perky? He’s getting on my nerves. She corrected him glumly, “You know that we’ve both been trained the exact same way since we both were toddlers. It just doesn’t make sense that you would be better at sword fighting than me. I mean, if you look at me overall, I’m not really a good fighter at all.”
“Well, you are pretty good at archery,” Nero corrected, walking down to the house. “Man, I’m hungry.” His stomach growled as if to agree to his statement. Shaking her head in disbelief, Serafina followed him into the kitchen. Yeah, my archery is good… but only if you compare it to my other skills! She observed in amazement as her adoptive brother grabbed basically every edible substance in sight and stuffed it in his face. Hmm… I wonder… With an evil grin, Serafina grabbed a polished red wax apple from a nearby basket and placed it in the group of apples Nero had unearthed.
Excitement building, she watched him snatch the wax apple from the collection of fruit and he was bringing it toward his mouth when the door suddenly burst open. He looked up from his fake prize to see a sweating messenger standing in the doorway, panting. Frowning slightly, he placed the "apple" on the table and began to walk towards the man to help him sit down to catch his breath. Stopping abruptly, Nero’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, and he turned back to the abandoned counterfeit fruit. He gently picked it up and handled it, inspecting the skin, delicately nicking his fingernail into the wax's surface. Darn it! Serafina cursed in her head as Nero spun around to face her, eyes glinting with anger. “WHY DID YOU TRY TO GET ME TO EAT WAX?” he shouted, waving the faux fruit in front of her face violently. “ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?”
“Whatever makes you think I did that, brother?” Serafina asked innocently. “Anyway, wax wouldn’t kill you, even if you did eat it. I’m guessing that in your hurry to gather food, you just picked it up by mistake.”
“Yeah right,” he mumbled under his breath, giving her a death glare. He set the dishonest fruit back to its proper place and turned to the runner. “So, what is your oh-so-urgent message?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at the man.
“There is a dragon in the Northern Mountain,” the man informed them. He had grabbed a chair for support earlier and now sat in it, wiping the sweat out of his hair. “His name is Ambrose. He claims that he is an immortal being, but no one is believing it.” Both Serafina and Nero had their jaws hanging open. Serafina snapped out of her daze first and closed Nero’s mouth to at least keep his level of idiocy from dropping to previously unheard-of levels.
“But I thought all of the dragons had been slain already!” Nero shouted, confused at the news. He immediately started storming around the kitchen, hands waving wildly in annoyance. Serafina hastily seized all the sharp and/or blunt instruments from the room to make it safe for Nero's rage. Last time he went on a rampage he ended up nearly beheading a guest because he was waving around a chef’s knife everywhere to aid his point. She massaged her temples at the notion of a prince throwing a temper tantrum.
“Well, I guess they missed one,” Serafina commented wryly, turning to the messenger again. “Do they know of his powers? Have you tried to fight him yet?”
“Well, Ambrose seems to be able to shoot blue fire from his mouth. We haven’t actually gone into his cave, since we thought that we should contact the queen first, but we’ve seen him stick his head out and spit flame.”
“Well, that certainly helps a lot!” Nero shouted sarcastically, still pacing the area of the kitchen. His sister grabbed his shoulders the next time he went past her and held him in place.
“Please don’t do that, Nero. You’re giving me a headache.” Holding her temples, Serafina sighed. “Do you want to get Mother, though?” Giving a small nod, Nero turned out of the kitchen and began his search for the queen.
“How do you know that he thinks he’s immortal if you haven’t even gone inside his cave yet?” she asked, hoping to use the new silence for questioning.
“Well, it’s sort of hard not to,” he replied with a grimace. “He flew over the town and shouted it at the top of his lungs at midnight! Completely ruined everyone’s sleep.” He began grumbling in annoyance at the memory of being woken up at such an hour.
“Serafina, what happened? Nero couldn’t give me much on the information. He just kept ranting how you tried to trick him into eating a wax fruit and that the knights have to fight something they can’t handle.” Regina glided into the room and looked around. “Well, at least you took out all the dangerous items,” she murmured, looking at the pile outside the room. Nero blushed lightly and looked at the ground, slightly ashamed.
As soon as the queen was informed of the new danger, her face grew hard and her gaze snapped to Nero. “Collect the knights and tell them that they must leave for Sirole at noon.” Nero nodded and briskly walked out of the room to the knights’ quarters. “Serafina, if you want, you can join them in the fight.”
“Well, Mother, I don’t think-” Suddenly, Serafina was cut off from what she was going to say. It was like someone else took control of her mouth while she just watched on the sidelines. “Actually, I think that I would love to go. Nero will be there too, right?” After the sentences were out in the open, her mouth came back under her command again, but it wouldn’t let her correct herself and say she didn’t want to go.
“Of course Nero will be there. Now, go and catch him before he gets too far away. You need armor.” Turning back to the messenger to talk about fees, Serafina jogged out of the room. She made her way outside and scanned the area, spotting him about fifty feet away, heading toward the knights’ lodgings. Wow, she thought, watching him. He actually isn’t getting distracted! It’s a miracle!
She sprinted over to her brother and crashed into him when he unexpectedly broke his stride, stopping in the middle of the field. “Ow!” they both cried out as the hit the grass. Laughing slightly, Serafina got up and held out her hand to her brother. He took it and hoisted himself up.
“Mom said I can come with you to fight the dragon.” Once again Serafina found she had no authority over her mouth. “She said I needed to talk to you about it.”
“WHAT?” Nero bellowed in surprise, looking at her strangely. “I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU HATED FIGHTING!” He stared at her, his mouth open.
“I don’t really know why… I was compelled to agree,” Serafina answered, happy that now she had her voice back. The sounds of groans from the knights’ doorway made them both look over. A man in an oversized T-shirt stared sleepily at them.
“Oh yeah!” Nero said, smacking himself on the head for his own stupidity. “I was supposed to wake them up!” His body abruptly changed from a loose and carefree pose to a tense and straight one. He turned to the man seriously and began the information process. “There is a dragon, Ambrose, in the city of Sirole. We must be ready at noon to ride out to fight him. All we know of the dragon is that he claims to have immortality and he shoots blue flame from his mouth.” Leaving the man with his chin on the floor in amazement, he turned back to Serafina. “If you’re going to be going as well, we’ll need to pick out armor and a horse.”
Trumpets pierced the air and made her jump, scaring Star as much as to cause her to neigh nervously. Recognising the tune, she jumped onto Star’s back and trotted over to the area outside the knights’ quarters. There she saw a few ranks of soldiers already lined up and more coming.
“You stay behind me. I don’t want you to get jostled by the others, and I don’t think Mom would be very happy if you were.” Nero smiled down at her from his huge horse, Trail Maker. It’s obvious why they named him Trail Maker, she thought, looking at the huge hooves of the animal. She settled herself behind her brother and almost in no time they started off.
The rode through the town slowly, as to not attract any attention. All of the townspeople seemed to be having a meeting, and they were most likely converged in another part of the village.
As they neared the mountain, Serafina could make out a cavern near the top. I guess that’s where the dragon is, she thought, gazing at the cave, afraid. Suddenly a tongue of blue flame shot out of the opening, illuminating the air and scaring the horses.
“Well, I guess they weren’t lying,” Nero grumbled, looking at the cavern in distaste. He gave the motion to ascend and they all began to climb the mountain trail.
Leaving the horses outside for safety, all of the soldiers walked in. Their heads were swiveling around the cave, eager to take in any information that would be helpful during the fight.
“Do you dare challenge me?” A grating voice rumbled out of the darkness, seeming to shake the ground. Huge red eyes illuminated the cave slightly, their cat-like pupils narrowing as they were focused.
“Yes, what does it look like? A welcome home party?” Nero taunted, his sword out and flashing sharply in the light of the gaze. A roar of annoyance came from deeper in the cave.
“Insignificant humans! You dare defy me?” Out of no where, torches were lit with a blue flame and they could see the dragon now, in all of its awe-inspiring beauty. The blue flames seemed to dance around a silver body. He unfolded his huge silver wings that seemed to make the dragon bigger than he already appeared. He glared at them with his eyes placed in a sleek, slender head set about fifty feet in the air.
Shouting in defiance, the beast shot his deadly flame out at the men, barbecuing them on the spot. Even their armor had been melted down to a bubbling silver liquid. Before the dragon knew what was happening, a group of knights ran underneath him, stabbing up into his stomach. Roaring in pain, he tried to get out of their reach as they continued to make silver blood flow out of the mythological beast.
After a few attempts, Ambrose had trampled them, even though he was mortally wounded. “You see, I am immortal! And you should know that only a fellow immortal can kill another!” he bellowed, and suddenly the wounds on his stomach healed until there wasn’t even a scar on his body.
Nero’s eyes widened in wonder, but the look quickly turned to one of horror as he saw Ambrose’s gaze turn to him and the dragon started breathing out a tongue of fire. “NO!” Serafina yelled, sprinting in front of her brother and turning so her back faced the oncoming flame.
“Serafina!” Nero yelled, trying to push her aside. “Stop!” When the flame hit her, a pure bright white light filled the cave. When it dispersed, everyone stared it awe at Serafina. Feathered, white angel wings were spread protectively around Nero, and her hair had turned a burnished silver. Her armor was gone; in its place was a long silver dress. Her eyes were closed, but they opened without warning, flashing a deep gold. Her sword was gone, but she still had the arrows and her bow. The only difference was that the arrows and bow were a pure white, the same colour as her wings. The string on the bow gleamed silver in the torchlight.
Leisurely, she stood and pivoted to face her enemy. Her eyes burned in hatred at the dragon as she flapped her wings to become level with Ambrose’s eyes. “You say that only a fellow divine creature as yourself can defeat you? Let’s prove that theory.” She was basically nose-to-nose with the dragon. Ambrose snorted at her, soot enveloping the air around her. However, the dramatic effect was lost as Serafina's aura purified the surrounding air of the pollutant.
Interpreting this as a “yes,” Serafina landed lightly on her feet and took out her bow. She calmly let an arrow meet her fingers and notched it in place into the bow. Pulling the string back to her ear, she aimed for his heart. “Die,” she whispered, letting the string go with a light "twang."
The arrow flew true to its target, but on its way it gained a white and silver glow that came from the angel. It continued to gain speed and finally imbedded itself in the heart of the divine being.
Letting out a scream of hatred, the dragon stumbled and fell as dead, causing the mountain to shake. Before anyone could examine the corpse further, it had started to disintegrate and, within a few seconds, was gone completely.
Gently clipping the bow back onto her back, Serafina turned to the awe-struck Nero. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier. I didn’t even know myself. The only hint I had was a dream I kept having. Now that I have revealed my true form, I know what it was that it was trying to tell me. Nero, I am your guardian angel.” If it was possible, Nero’s jaw dropped lower than it already had. Chuckling under her breath, Serafina continued, “It wasn’t luck that made your mother find me and adopt me: it was fate. I was sent here to make sure Ambrose didn’t kill you. Now that my job has been completed, I will be returning to heaven.”
As if to harmonise this comment, a woman in a golden gown appeared and nodded briefly to Serafina. She had gold hair, silver eyes, and the same angel wings. Serafina instantly recognised her as the person in her dreams. “We need you back now, Serafina.” She nodded at Nero. “Say good bye, but then we must leave.”
Agreeing, Serafina turned to Nero and closed his mouth that had dropped once again. “This is where I leave you, Nero. Until next time.” She stepped up, hugged him briefly, and then she joined the other woman and disappeared with yet another bright flash of pure white light.