Half Heart Hero: Rise of Sifa [Book 2]

Sisu and the Dragon Piece

 A blue light shined around Sisu as she opened her eyes. The water dragoness lifted her head for her new surroundings. It was dark. She didn't know how long she was sleeping. How long she was in the gem.

"Oh, my... Where am I?" she spoke in a raspy voice. "Pengu? Amba? Pranee? Are you here?"

"Oh, Mighty Sisu," a voice said.

"Who said that?" Sisu gasped, looking around, her purple eyes wide with curiosity. She could have sworn she heard a voice.

"Hello?" Sisu continued.

She looked down and saw a person was underneath her. A tall young woman with black hair long and straight along with two brown eyes. She wore a yellow shirt, a brown vest, a brown belt, olive green jeans with light green stripes, dark brown boots with maroon cuffs, a red cape with a thin turquoise stripe, and around her neck was a yellow dragon necklace.

"Oh! Oh, I'm sorry," she realized. "I didn't see you there."

She picked the woman up by one leg and dusted her off. "Not too bad. Just a little dusty. Let me get that for ya."

"You are Sisu?" the woman asked.

"And you're people," Sisu said. "What's your name?"

"Raya. I'm Raya."

"And you're not made of stone, which means.."

Excited, Sisu squealed with joy.

"It worked! We did it! You hear that, Pengu? It worked! I didn't mess it up!" Then her eyes fell on the food on the ground. She dropped Raya. "Is that food? I was so focused on saving the world, I forgot to have breakfast today."

Raya sat up. "Today? When exactly do you think today is?"

"Tuesday." Sisu took a bite of the food. For a moment, she groaned in disgust. "I mean....What is this delightful culinary treat?"

"It's jackfruit jerky," Raya replied. "I dried it myself."

"Well, compliments to the chef," the dragoness replied. She held out the jerky to a furry roly poly creature but he turned up his nose. "Wanna finish this, Skippy?"

"Uh... Sisu, there are a few things I need to catch you up on," Raya said carefully.

"Oh, yeah?" Sisu said.

Raya explained what happened when Sisu was gone. With a sinking heart, Raya filled her in and held out the gem. Or what was left of it.

"YOU BROKE IT?!!?!?!"

Shocked with disbelief that the Dragon Gem had broke, she began to pace around.

"Oh, oh. Oh, my. This is bad. This is bad. I've been asleep for five hundred years!" she hollered. "You brought back the Druun, and none of my brothers and sisters came back. Why didn't they come back?!"

"I don't know," Raya said, uncertain.

"Also, you broke the gem!"

"But I still have a big chunk of it, though," Raya said hopefully.

Raya held out a small blue piece in her hand. Sisu leaned close to Raya with an upset look.

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Sisu exclaimed. leaning close. "If you lost a puppy, and I said... "Well, we still have a big chunk of it!" Would that make you feel better?"

"Can't you just make another one?" Raya asked.

"No. I can't just make another one," Sisu snapped.

"But you're a dragon," said Raya.

"I'm gonna be real with you, all right? I'm not, like, the best dragon, ya know?"

"But you saved the world," Raya said.

She showed Sisu the proof of a dragon scroll. A picture of a dragon fighting a Druun was on it.

Sisu hesitated, trying to find the right words. "I did do that. That's true. But have you ever done something like a group project, but there's, like, that one kid who didn't pitch in as much, but still ended up with the same grade? Yeah, I wasn't the one who actually made the gem. I just turned it in."

Sisu reached over and picked up the gem fragment. The moment it touched her claws, her body began to glow with a soft blue light.

Raya starred. "Whoa. Uh... You're glowing."

"Oh, thank you," Sisu replied with a modest wave of her hands. "I use aloe and river slime to maintain my..."

"No, no. Look!" She pointed to Sisu's tail. In the witness of the wreck, it shone like a lantern. Sisu gasped.

"Oh! This is my little sister Amba's magic. I got the glow!" she cheered, twisting around admiring herself.

"Your little sister's magic?" Raya asked.

"Yeah, every dragon has a unique magic."

"Okay, what's yours?"

"I'm a really strong swimmer."

Raya's mind was spinning. Maybe there was something they could do. "Wait, wait, wait, you touched this gem piece and it gave you powers. You know what this means, right?"

"I no longer need a night light?" Sisu guessed.

"What? No! You're still connected to the gem's magic, and that means you can still use it to save the world If we can get all the other gem pieces..." Raya explained.

" I [you] can reassemble it...and boom the Druun away!" They said together. They realized that Sisu could do two important things: Resemble the gem and blast the Druun away!

"And bring my ba back?" Raya asked, hardly daring for hope.

"And bring all of Kumandra back," Sisu said, beaming.

Raya felt so happy.. For the first time, Sisu had made a human friend.. Now that the human Raya is here, she and Raya can get all the gem pieces and save Kumandra. This was only the beginning.