Blood Shed

Chapter 16 - Scarlett

The pain was shooting up and down my leg; I could hear my blood pulsing out of the open wound. I slowly sat up stretching out my leg and let go of the wound. I ripped off the bottom of my shirt and wrapped it around my leg, covering the wound. I saw Levana slowly rise from her knees and she was nearly at tears. I remembered she had never seen a world like this before, that she was innocent. I looked towards the woman with a scowl. I would never call someone like her my queen. I turned back to Levana as she stood up and ran towards me. She sat down on her knees and put her hands on my wound. I could feel the skin stretching to close up and the tissue inside stitched itself together. It hurt like hell, it was worse than when the wound was being inflicted but I knew it was healing me. I held back a scream as the wound stretched and closed. She pulled her hands away when it was done. She looked exhausted just from a simple heal. I took her arm in my hand and smiled. "Thank you," I muttered. She grinned back and peeled the fabric off. There was still blood on the surface but I did not mind. I stood up and stormed out of the room the woman grinning behind me. Faolan stood up bowed to the woman once more and ran after me Levana trailing behind.

We stepped out into the forest green once more. Many were gathered outside listening in to what was happening, some peeking through the windows. As soon as I stepped out they all took a step back eyeing me warily. A little girl stood in front of me shaking. She was covered with dirt and obviously not taken care of well. Everyone stood at least a metre away trying to stay away from both her and I. I leaned down on one knee in front of her. "Hey, I'm not going to hurt you. If you saw anything, I was just beating up those idiots in there. Do you think you could move aside and let me past?" I questioned her with a smile.

The girl stopped shaking but did not move. "Uhh... I... I'm just... a little... scared." The last part was so quiet I could barely hear her.

I reached my hand out just a little bit but she took a small step back. I noticed scales popping up on her skin. They were a dark purple with little lines of silver on each scale. I examined her scales but she jumped as I took a closer look. A purple cloud appeared around her making me jump backwards. The smoke was there for a second only and once it disappeared a little purple dragon stood shaking in front of me. She had sharp claws but a short snout. Her facial features were soft and young however the rest of her body was dangerous and inflicted fear on everyone around her. They all jumped back screaming a little. The little dragon looked around the people running backwards. Her dragon form grew large, her wings expanding to around seven meters. Her entire length ranged from five-seven meters and her tail was two meters in length. Her snout expanded to the length of almost a full-grown dragon and her horns were sharp curling upwards from the back of her head. She had large spines all down her back to the end of her tail. She had large legs that looked brutally strong. One hit from this dragon would end the life of any human. She shrieked again and flew off high into the trees shooting above the canopy, leaving a large hole behind. A few branches fell from above but everyone moved out of the way in time. A girl dressed in green sprouted large wings, as dainty as a fairies. She flew to the top of the canopy and grew new branches and leaves over the hole.

The woman came out of her tent. "Everyone to your homes! Except for you two." The woman glared at Levana and I. "I need you to go fix the mess you made. Go find her and bring her back. When you find her, give her to me. A punishment is in order for someone who can't control their form. She knows you cannot leave at a time like this. The lab is looking for you two and won't give up for quite sometime... WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE! FIND HER!" The woman's voice boomed across the village.

"Well they are definitely going to find us if you keep yelling," I muttered as I turned away from her. "Levana can you fly me up to the canopy? It's night time I'll be okay."

"Sure we can do that. But I can't carry you the whole way, I still haven't recovered fully myself."

"That's fine. Let's just go."

She picked grabbed my by my wrist and flew straight up as I was held behind her. In no time we were up on the top of the canopy leaving no hole as we flew up. She dropped me on a branch.

"This ok?" She questioned look concerned.

"Yeah, this is fine." I looked around the sky searching for the dragon. She was circling in the sky slowly growing smaller and sinking towards the canopy. One tree was larger than the others and stood tall above the canopy. She shrunk to a smaller size and flew underneath the leaves of the tree resting on a branch. "There!" I pointed and Levana picked me up and flew me closer but not so close that she would be scared at Levana shooting towards her. I ran across the branches so fast I could not be seen and appeared behind the girl. I reached out my hand and rested it on her neck. She turned towards me shocked but relaxed when she saw me. "Come on back you can hang out with me for a little bit. Don't worry I won't let that woman hurt you. I'm definitely not taking you back to her. You can stay with me." She looked at me confused searching for lies in my eyes, but I wasn't lying so she could detect none. I scratched the scales behind her ruff and smiled. She slowly turned back to her human form and my hand ended up in her dead, frizzy hair. She grinned up at me and I hugged her tight. "It's ok, I won't let her hurt you." I promised hugging her tight.

"I'm scared of her... she always punishes me for changing. I only do it when I'm scared, I promise!" The little girl looked up at me tears running down her face. Her lips curved into a pout making her bite her bottom lip in worry.

"Well first, someone as cruel as her should not be in power. Someone should stop her, and it looks like I'm the only one who hates her enough to show her up. Anyway second, you need training to control your form. Stand up to anyone in your path, and don't fly through the canopy, people don't exactly like it when you do that. Anyway, follow me, hide in the tree tops below the canopy when I tell you to then I'm going to find my little tree hut and you can stay there." I grabbed her by the hand and we ran on the treetops together towards Levana. "Okay take us down but we need to drop her in the tree tops."

Levana nodded and took my hand. I held the girl tight in my arm trying to keep her from bouncing around. We shot down through the canopy to the edge of the village. We dropped her on a high branch and shot down to the ground where Faolan was waiting.

"Where have you guys been? And... where is the girl." He growled looking around.

"We lost her, we looked everywhere but she must have ventured too far away from the village for us to find her." I scowled glaring at him, but kept my hands behind my back since they were twitching from the lie I just told.

"The Queen is not going to be happy, but I guess now I have to show you to your huts before I can report to her. We had a druid and nymph build it for you. They both specialize in nature construction so it was no problem for them. Anyway since the middle of the village is already packed and I don't think it would be good for you to live near the queen, we built it on the edge of the village. Over there," he pointed to where we left the little girl hiding in the branches. Just a few meters away were two freshly built huts hidden in the foliage, and covered in moss. Faolan growled, "stay there until you are called out, the queen does not consider you very welcome after the show you pulled in her own throne room."

"I still can't believe you call her a queen. Open your eyes and see how terrible she is." I rolled my eyes and walked towards my hut. It was easy to climb up the tree since there were lots of branches. I leapt up to the very top in seconds, Levana flying after me. A rope connected the two huts with branches throughout it. I leapt into my hut and looked around. This spot is perfect for her to hide. I opened a large cupboard that was empty, strangely enough there was a hammock stretched out inside. Oh nice, a bed for her too. I peered out of my hut at the ground searching for someone watching but nobody was in sight. I jumped out onto the nearest branch balancing on my feet and swung up onto the branch above me. Pushing aside the leaves I saw the little dragon girl perched on the branch in the foliage. I picked her up in my arms due to her small size and swung her down into my hut. I swung down after her landing with a thud on the wooden platform. The little dragon was gawking around at my hut and she looked from the curved wooden walls to the vines climbing high, the yellow flower decorated kitchen and patterns carved into the cupboards, to Levana's hammock and my hammock then up to the skylight in the roof with large leaves separated around it, I suppose to cover up the hole.