League of Improbable Riders

6

Keera charged through the woods; intentionally being as loud as possible—snapping branches and rustling leaves—slightly glad to be rid of her know-it-all twin. She loved her brother, but he was annoying.

"'We need to sneak through the forest, Keera,'" she mocked, "'the dragons will either find us or run away.' Well we want the dragons to come! We need the dragons to come"

She sighed, annoyed, as she crashed through the trees, and brushed her long blond hair out of her face before tying it back with a strip of treated dragon skin.

Her hand suddenly shot to the hilt of her sword and drew it part-way out of its sheath as a growl sounded nearby and she froze, hardly daring to breathe. "Maybe I don't want the dragons to come," she murmured as she spun around. But there wasn't a dragon in sight.

Huh? she thought as she scanned her surroundings. And then she saw the rope. With a grin Keera sheathed her weapon and followed the string to a net encompassed dragon.

She wondered why the stupid creature didn't just burn through the rope, and then noticed the wire covering its snout and realized it had, but luckily the net was reinforced with Blackwire.

Drawing her sword for safety she paced around the glaring animal, inspecting it curiously. Strange, she thought, a silver Fire-thrower with white wings. Aren't they usually the other way around? She decided to ask Kanah about it later.

She stopped her pacing and approached the dragon's head, hesitantly slipping her hand through the net to touch the animal. A jolt travelled through her body and she jumped back, surprised. She couldn't remember reading that Fire-throwers had small bursts of lightning, but that's definitely what it felt like.

She shrugged the find off and placed her sword on the dragon's head where, with one lunge, she would pierce its brain.

But something had changed after she touched it, revulsion was steadily growing inside her, staying her hand and making her brain search for any excuse to not kill it.

"Ah ha!" Keera grinned suddenly. She had to let it go. It was cowardly to kill a defenceless dragon, but first she had better wound it to make it fight, rather than flee when she released it.

Striding around to its leg she readied her sword, poised to strike, but then the dragon struggled and managed to twist its head around to face her.

"You might not want to do that," it growled.