Dragon Prince: Warrior (Re-Write)

Chapter Nineteen: A Dangerous Game

"Who's hungry for pancakes?!" Claudia sang as she dropped some pancakes onto her brother's plate and began to make her way around the table to serve everyone else.
"Real food!" Callum exclaimed happily as he began to cut his pancakes. "And not grubs either!"
"Sounds delicious!" Ellis laughed as the others gagged and started to dig into their food. "How'd you make these pancakes so fluffy?"
"I separated the egg whites from the yokes, beat them until they became stiff and used a bit if dark magic to make them very fluffy!" Claudia replied with a grin. Callum, and Ezran stopped eating to push their plates away. Sierra had guessed this and haven't touched her breakfast at all.
"I'm not hungry, I'm going to check on Phoe-Phoe." Sierra pushed her plate away and getting up from the table to walk away.
The moon phoenix was asleep nearby, and didn't seem to mind being awaken by Sierra. She gave a little croon and settled her head down on Sierra's lap when she sat down next to her.
"I can't believe they are here, they shouldn't be here!" Sierra muttered angrily as she buried her head into the bird's soft feathers. "They were sent here by their dad, who'd probably chained up their aunt's right hand man, who was supposed to come find them himself, so they can find the princes! I don't know what Viren wanted to accomplish sending his kids after them, but it can't be good. I am not going to idly stand by and let them get hurt."
Phoe-Phoe cooed softly and raised her head. Sierra looked up to see Lujanne walking to them. Her usually happy smile that graced her face fell into a worried from when she saw Sierra.
"Is something wrong?" The illusionist asked as she approached them.
"I'd normally say no, but I'd be lying. I'm just worried and upset at the moment," Sierra admitted.
Lujanne looked at her in concern. "Worried that your friends are in danger, aren't you?"
Sierra nodded. "The two new people who came here are my friends too, but I'm worried they're here to do more harm than good."
"I can see what you mean by that, they did sneak in here and attempted to kill Rayla," agreed Lujanne. "And about those friends of yours who recently came in, you do have every right to be suspicious and on guard around them."
"Yeah, I know, I was told to be very cautious around them. I even warned Rayla that I suspected they were coming," Sierra said with a small nod. "Anyways, I should get back to my brothers before something bad happens and neither Rayla nor I are there to stop it."
As she walked back to the table, Sierra heard a little yip and felt something small, but heavy crash into her legs. She looked down to see Zym with one paw on her leg, looking up at her with a wide smile and wagged his little tail.
"Aww, you're awake now little one?" Sierra chuckled as she bent down to pluck the baby dragon from the ground and carefully cradled him in her arms gently. "You hungry for some tasty grubs? Or maybe some sweet fruit from the gardens?"
"Hey, how come she gets to hold him?" She heard Claudia complain. Sierra glanced up to see Rayla watching her with a proud smile, the two girls from different worlds both exchanged knowing smiles.
"Maybe because the Dragon Prince went to her, and he already knew her for over a day?" Rayla replied as Sierra walked back over to the table. "Also, she's less suspicious than the two of you, at least she didn't try attacking me while I was out patrolling."
"Well, to be fair I was asleep, and you snuck up on me," Sierra pointed out as she reached the table. "Also, neither of you have permission to touch the young dragon." 
"Hey, so when are you coming back to Katolis with us? I'm sure your dad, the King, would be very happy to see you!" Soren said as he cut a small piece of butter. Rayla's head snapped in his direction, an angry look in her eyes. King Harrow was dead and he knew it, so why was he telling the boys he was alive? Unless... She noticed Claudia also glaring at her brother, who looked at the both of them with an unfazed expression before sticking the butter into his mouth.

"This should work." Soren said to himself as he finished hammering the peg in with the hilt of his sword.
The rope was tied secured well on the peg, at least strong enough to hold his weight in case the young prince was too nervous to go on and needed assurance. He had to consider himself lucky that Ezran was alone with just Bait, the baby dragon everyone had been calling Zym and that little girl with the three legged wolf whose names he couldn't really remember, otherwise he would have had a hard time trying to convince Sierra to let him do this.
Ever since the breakfast she had been avoiding him, sticking to the kids and watching them like a protective mother wolf and not leaving their side at all. As much as he couldn't bring himself to hurt Ezran or Callum, he knew he had to follow his dad's orders or he'd be very disappointed in him. Just striking the little boy down in cold blood didn't feel right, and he knew he had to be very discreet if he didn't want Enya or that elf girl know what he was going to do.
"Are you sure this is safe?" Ezran asked as he looked down at the makeshift swing Soren built for him to sit on.
"Of course it's safe, I built it myself!" Soren assured him, gently smacking the rope with the flat end of his sword. "Want me to test it out for
you?"
Before Ezran could even reply, Soren heard someone coming from the woods and tensed up when he saw it was Sierra.
"What in the world are you doing?!" Sierra exclaimed as she rushed over to them, clearly out of breath.
"Soren made a slide rope slide for us to play on!" Ezran explained happily. "Maybe we can use this to teach Zym how to fly too!"
"No Ezran, you are not getting on that!" Sierra exclaimed as she quickly plucked the prince and the dragon off the makeshift swing. "That is definitely not safe!"
"But Soren said it was safe," Ezran pointed out. "It's fine!"
"Are you sure this is secure?" Sierra asked, pointing to the peg and glared at Soren. "I cannot believe you took them when I wasn't looking!"
"First off, the kiddies came with me. And second of all, of course the peg is secure! Wanna try it before Ez does it?" Soren offered. "Or better yet, you with me?"
"Hmm..." Sierra looked up at the rope and quickly shook her head. "Nope. I'm good."
"Come on Sierra, please?" Soren asked. "Only once? If you don't like it the first time you don't have to go again."
"I don't know." Sierra gave him a sharp glare. "I'm not too comfortable with going down ropes at very high speeds and possibly falling to my death if the rope snaps under my weight."
"It's not, I promise," Soren assured her and stepped up to the rope before placing his sword under it to act as a holder. "Watch this!" With a loud whoop, the young knight pushed off the ground and slid down the rope that suspended over a large river. He managed to cross over to the other side where the other end of the rope was attached to another tree and where the wolf girl and her wolf stood waiting.
"That looked so much fun!" the girl exclaimed as Soren got off.
"Come on Ez, it's safe!" Soren yelled loudly.
From where he now stood he couldn't see Sierra over on the other side of the ravine. Good. He saw Ezran push himself forward and heard him whoop in joy as the small swing came zipping down the line towards them and he quickly moved in to keep him and the little dragon from crashing into the tree.
"That was fun!" Ezran cheered and the baby dragon gave an excited yip. "Aww, but Zym, you didn't open your wings!"
"Didn't Sierra tell you not to come down?" Soren asked as he helped Ezran off the swing.
"She left after you went down, so I figured she saw it was safe enough for me to get on," Ezran explained and hopped up and down excitedly.
"Can we go again? I really want Zym to fly this time!"
Soren grinned. "Sure thing! This time, you get to go down before me."

"I'm telling you Rayla, there's nothing safe about that device he built. I'm scared the rope is going to either snap or come loose from the peg and send Ezran and Zym into the ravine, and both of them are definitely not going to come out of that river in one piece," Sierra said to Rayla as they were rushing back to the spot where she had found Ezran. "I swear if anything happens to Ezran on that death trap I will kill Soren!"
"And I am not going to stop you. Look they're there!" Rayla pointed up ahead to where Ezran was getting back on the swing again. Sierra was about to run forward when Rayla grabbed her arm and pulled her back. "No just wait, we can't let Soren see us. If our suspicions of him and Claudia being up to no good are right, we have to make sure they're tight before we try telling Callum."
"Fine, but I hope we are right," Sierra muttered as they watched Ezran and Zym get pushed back down the rope slide with Soren watching him.
The two girls watched as the young knight stepped back towards the other side of the tree where the peg was hammered in. Rayla put a finger to her lips and motioned for Sierra to follow her and hurried forward.
"And what are you doing?" Rayla asked loudly, earning a loud gasp from Soren as he pulled his hands away from the peg. She looked at the rope, eying it suspiciously as Sierra caught up to her and her eyes fell on the peg. "That peg doesn't look safe."
"I-it is, it's safely secured." Soren stuttered nervously and backed away quickly. Rayla and Sierra looked at each other before looking back to Soren.
"Then why don't you test it out yourself?" Sierra suggested.
"Or are you too scared of a little flimsy rope stretched over a ravine?" Rayla added. "Better check it's secure next time Prince Ezran wants to take another trip down."
The two watched as Soren frantically hammered in the peg, smacking it a little more harder in panic before backing away to let the girls examine it. Rayla nodded before gesturing to the rope. "Now take a trip down, unless you're too chicken."
"Right...right! I'm definitely not scared of my rope slide device." Soren quickly placed his sword over the rope and held onto its sheath tightly. He quickly kicked off and glanced behind him nervously as Rayla placed one of her curved blades on the rope, and for a moment he thought she was going to slash it.
Much to his relief, she just smacked it, causing the rope to bounce.
"Well, that went well," Sierra commented as she watched Soren reach the bottom of the slide where Ezran and Ellis were waiting. "But I'm taking this down."
"I don't think you're alone with that idea." The two girls both watched as Soren started taking down the device. The two girls smirked and fist bumped.
Teamwork makes the dreamwork.