I Am Alone

Chapter 26: Test Run

The ballista is finally finished, and we're doing a test fire on a hill, Fang is our subject, he voluntarily placed himself in front of it, so, we're going to use him to see if it works.

He looks a little scared, but is confident that we wouldn't hurt him on purpose, which is true, but we weren't sure if the bola's would be painful in any way.

I pull back the launcher and load the massive bola, Aphmau holds the lever and Crimson holds it steady.

"Fire!" Aphmau pulls back the lever and Fangs legs are suddenly tied, but it does leave a few small injuries on his legs, it doesn't seem to hurt that much.

"It Works!" I run up and untie the bola from Fangs legs, hugging his giant frame, it's like hugging a cloud.

He lets out a grunt and then proceeds to ruin the moment by licking my face off, knocking me into the snow covered ground.

I pin his head into the ground and throw snow onto his head, he wiggles out of my grasp and flings snow at me with his paw, I hear whizzing behind me as a snowball hits the side of my head.

Crimson and Aphmau team up to take us down, so we quickly build a snow fort and hunker down behind it, Fang uses his paws to fling snow at the girls, and I throw the occasional high speed snowball.

Crimson uses her teeth to shovel snow and Aphmau, with her impeccable aim, always seems to hit both me and Fang.

Suddenly a burst a lightning and giggling make us both turn around. Ronan and Zeus have joined the fight, though Ronan just sort of breaks every snowball.

Though, Zeus, he knows what he's doing, he uses his shovel like tail to fling copious amounts of snow at our bodies, Ronan occasionally throws a half formed snowball, but it usually just lands on Zeus's head.

Obsidian hisses and lazes in a patch of sun close to where we are fighting, I'm not sure how she can actually be warm there, considering it's still cold enough for snow to be on the ground.

I get smacked in the face by a very large grey tail as Fang dodges the occasional spray of snow from Obsidian, who just lazily swishes her tail in our direction.

Suddenly Ronan decides to crawl across the battlefield, and Zeus covers him with his wings, until Ronan tries to stand up.

Me and Aph gasp and sprint over to him, holding my arms out wide.

"Ronan. Come to Daddy." He wobbles, and almost face plants, but Zeus catches him and he continues to try to walk,

"Go to Daddy Ronan." He staggers towards me, very slowly walking in my direction, he giggles and falls into my arms, I lift him up and laugh.

Pride swells in my heart as I give him a gentle bear hug.

"That's my boy, learning early!" He trots around some more before walking right to Aph, and she cradles him with the same pride I did, he trots over to Fang. Who lets the little one grab his nose, even though he hates it when I do it.

Ronan stumbles over to Crimson, who had taken to cleaning the snow off Zeus, and flops down on her snout, she just slides him onto her back and continues to clean Zeus.

Obsidian lumbers over and Ronan lays on her back, she must be warm, because he giggles and presses his face against her scales.

Zeus comes flopping over, he's still to young to fly, so he just awkwardly flops around to get to place to place.

Ronan hugs him and the baby dragon flaps his wings, trying to mimic the motion.

I look up, it's almost dark, and tomorrow we were going to hunt for those birds, we needed to pack it in.

"Alright, Its getting late, everyone go home, Zeus jumps on my head and Crimson and Fang start walking together to their shared cave, Though Crimson licks Fang's ear as he stares at her.

Obsidian follows us and Zeus ends up falling asleep on my shoulder, Aphmau picks up Ronan and we all walk home.

"Tomorrow's going to be a big day."