Elemental [Naladia #2]

Chapter Four

"Whoa!" Rocky shouted. "This is cool!"

     "Yeah!" Aqua agreed.

     Magma smiled. He liked how much these two were getting out of their trip.

     They soared through the clouds. There were tons of dragons just resting on the clouds. They weren't sleeping, just sitting there. They were just watching Magma, Aqua, and Rocky fly by and most of them were pretty surprised.

     Magma turned back to Aqua and Rocky. "Do you guys want to end the tour after this or do you just want to-"

     "Magma, watch out!" Aqua shouted.

     Magma turned around just in time to see a girl Air Dragon coming straight towards him and they crashed.

     As Magma and the Air Dragon spiraled towards the ground, Magma heard Aqua yell to Rocky.

     "We need to lock wings!" she was saying. "That's the only way we can save them! They're too disoriented to correct themselves!"

     Magma watched as they shot past him, then slowed and put their wingtips around each other's shoulders, then flexed their wings so that Magma and the dragon wouldn't fall through their wings.

     Then, Magma and the Air Dragon hit their wings. That slowed them down and they were all able to right themselves. Then they slowly flew down to the ground.

     "Thanks," said the Air Dragon.

     "Hey, no problem," said Magma.

     "I was talking to them." The Air Dragon turned and glared at Magma. "What were you thinking?! Always watch where you're going when you're flying through the cloud village!"

     Magma passed her a sly smile. "Then how did you crash into me?"

     The Air Dragon's light blue scales turned a pale shade of pink. "I-I, I wasn't-"

     "That's what I thought," said Magma. "Hey, would you want to join us on our tour of Naladia?"

     "Sorry," said the Air Dragon. "I've got better things to do with my time than fly around Naladia with a couple of juvenile delinquents."

     "Hey!" said Rocky. "We're not juvenile delinquents!"

     "Yeah!" said Aqua.

     "Well he definitely is." The Air Dragon gestured at Magma.

     Magma bowed. "Guilty as charged." He stood up straight. "Hey, what's your name?"

     She wrinkled her snout. "I've been taught never to reveal my name to strangers, much less criminals."

     Magma spread his arms. "You never know who not to trust if you don't trust them first."

     "What?" said the dragon.

     "He means it doesn't matter," said Aqua. "Please. Just trust him. I know it's hard. It was hard for me too at first, but I learned to accept it. He hasn't killed me." She looked at Magma with a sly smile. "Yet."

     "Fine," said the Air Dragon. She sighed, like she knew for certain she was going to get kidnapped. "My name is Breeze."

     "Breeze," said Rocky. "What an unusual name for an Air Dragon."

     Aqua snorted. "Says Rocky, the EARTH Dragon."

     Rocky glared at her. "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

     "Okay," said Magma. "What do you want to see first, Breeze?"

     "I've already seen everything there is to see." Breeze looked at him, a little snooty. She started listing off the different places. "I live in the cloud village so obviously I've seen that; I've seen the forest, I've seen the ocean, and I've seen the volcano fields." She shrugged her shoulders. "There's nowhere else to see. Except . . ."

     "Except what?" asked Aqua. "Is there another place? I thought there were only four dragon lands."

     "Oh it's - it's nothing, really. I read about it in one of my favorite stories."

     "Well what is it?" Magma asked. He was intrigued.

     Breeze sighed. "Okay. It's a land that nobody knows whether or not is real. People say that they've found it before but they were all dismissed as crazy. It's located at the very middle of Naladia. It's called the mines."

     "What's 'the mines'?" Aqua asked.

     Breeze looked at her. "Impatient much? I was getting to that part."

     Aqua's eyes went wide with sarcasm and her head went back and she just said, "Sor-ry." She leaned into Magma and said quietly in his ear, "Annoying much?"

     Breeze glared at Aqua. "Anyways . . ." she turned back to everyone else and said, "The mines are said to be where Diamond lived."

     "Diamond?" said Rocky with wide eyes. "The Diamond? The Fifth Ancient? The Crystal Dragon?"

     "Yes," said Breeze. "It's also said to be where the Crystal Dragon Sacred Mineral is."

      "Wow!" said Aqua. "That sounds awesome! Let's go there! Where is it again?"

     "I already said where it is."

     "That doesn't mean anything. I can't remember what you said," said Aqua.

     Breeze sighed. "Fine. It's located in the middle of Naladia. The volcano fields are on the top left, the forest is on the top left, and the ocean is on the bottom. Naladia is split into three different parts.

     "Then where's the cloud village?" asked Magma.

     Breeze looked at him.

     "Oh right. In the clouds." Magma smiled, embarrassed. He cleared his throat. "Anyways, yeah. Let's go there. Lead the way."

     Breeze took to the sky, then hovered there for a second. "You guys coming?" she called down.

     "Yeah," said Aqua and they took off. They got to where the air was thin and they could see the four parts of Naladia. They could see valupods everywhere. They could see hippocampi and mermaids swimming in the ocean. They could see fairies and pegasi in the clouds. They could see elves and unicorns in the jungle forest. They could see unicorns in the volcano fields.

     "There," said Breeze.