A Dragoneer's Silver Lining

Chapter Seventeen

"First stop," Drostan said excitedly, "Scalesia, a beautiful land where I was born in,"

The afternoon sun basked them in scorching heat, leaving any exposed skin to blush. Treading through the grassy plains that continued over the horizon, Scott and his Dragoon followed Drostan as he enthusiastically led the way.

The redhead was still not happy with the flamboyant blonde escorting him all throughout eight kingdoms. A lot could happen in thirty days. And he was still hoping that despite the responsibilities and reasons for this crusade, he would somehow spend more time with Luina and spend more moments together--like they did in the forest.

Pausing in the middle of his thoughts, he began wondering why he had been thinking of Luina quite a lot more than he used to. Having her by his side made him feel comfortable and... No. He won't say he made her feel complete.

And yet, he slyly looked to the far corner of his eye. Simply catching a glimpse of Luina casually conversing with the boys made him feel all fluttery on the inside.

What if Galvus was right?

What if he did like Luina? Would that be alright? That would just be like sharing a relationship between an employee and her superior. But being a Dragoneer wasn't exactly an employment status of sorts... Was it?

"You seem to be deep in thought, my lord," Morschell commented, falling in step with his Dragoneer, "anything the matter, my lord?"

"Of course not," Scott nervously chuckled, "I was just uh... Wondering where Drostan's dragon is?"

"How adorable," Drostan crooned, glancing back slightly with hands clasped together, "you're concerned with my dragon?"

Scott began wondering why he couldn't think of any other excuse. Morschell just shrugged innocently.

"Anyways, where's your dragon?" Asked Drostan, then added, "I meant, Willie, was it?"

"Whistle," Scott grumbled. As if on cue, his dragon whizzed past him, chasing after a pair of butterflies that were frantically trying to get away from the dragon as the curious creature continuously snapped his jaws at it.

"How cute," Drostan articulated with a tone that bordered between something demeaning and something of pure amusement, "No worries on mine, though," he then pointed high above the skies, "he's just hovering overhead, getting some sun and all. Would you like some shade?"

"I'm fine, thanks," Scott declined politely after looking up from the said dragon. From where he stood, the dragon could have been easily mistaken for an oversized bird had it not been the spatial difference between the majestic creature and the clouds.

"Of course I wasn't talking to you," Drostan chuckled at the ridiculous idea, "I was talking to Luina,"

"I appreciate the offer, my lord," she answered casually, "but I will have to pass,"

"Too much sun isn't good for the skin, you know," Drostan waited for Luina to catch up with him then confidently walked along side of her.

"What are you doing?" Luina asked guardedly.

"Oh don't mind me," Drostan smiled, "just carry on,"

From left to right, they stood accordingly in a straight line: Drostan, Luina, Morschell, Scott and then Galvus. The awkward moment of silence was poorly masked by the active sounds of Whistle running around them. 

This was exactly the reason why he did not like the idea of having Drostan escort him. 

"By the way," the blonde began, "Scott, can your dragon fly yet?"

The redhead did not like the way the question was asked. He felt as if his dragon's incompetence was being rubbed all over his face. He might as well tell him, 'My dragon can fight and fly at the same time, what can yours do?'

"Not yet," Scott answered begrudgingly, "but after what Kromax put Whistle through, I'm not so sure if he 's looking forward to flying again anytime soon,"

"What did he do?" the blonde asked, blatantly gazing at Luina with a flirtatious smile.

"Just," Scott sighed as he remembered Kromax throwing his dragon up in the air before harshly tugging it back to earth again like a reverse yo-yo, "never mind. Whistle just won't be flying anytime soon,"

"Not a good idea, my lord," Galvus suddenly spoke. Everyone in line, except for Morschell, glanced at the big guy looking startled. 

"I've almost forgotten you were here," Drostan chuckled, "but yes, he does have a point, Scott. Tell you what, why don't we resume training out here?"

Scott laughed lightly as the suggestion as he rolled his eyes, "in the middle of getting to Scalesia?"

"Mhm," Drostan nodded once with resilience oozing from his smile.

"We only have thirty days," Scott reminded him, "how will we ever find time in training in the middle of this all?"

"My lord," Morschell spoke meekly, "if I may freely suggest, you should consider Lord Drostan's offer because we will need to demonstrate what we have learned for each Kingdom,"

"I do?" Scott asked, panicking slightly at the idea, "what, do I have to do? An aerial show for each Kingdom?"

"Not exactly," Drostan said, "you just have to showcase what you've basically learned from your hometown to the first kingdom,"

The sun, though brightly shining and touched every inch of land it could reach, no longer stung their skin with concentrated light. Somehow, somewhere in the middle of all their walking, a shade drifted right above their heads and seemed to have been following everywhere they went. 

"And then in the next Kingdom, you would show them what you've learned from the past two kingdoms you came from," Drostan explained, "as your knowledge from each kingdom grows, you'd need to continue showing the first to the recently earned knowledge to the next kingdom you go to until you reach home,"

Scott began contemplating whether or not he should thank Drostan for being considerate enough to let his dragon be their moving shade. He still hated him, though. So it didn't really matter at this point.

"Back home, that's when you need to pull off a little show that sums up everything you learned from each kingdom to impress them," Drostan sighed, he smiled then closed his eyes, "sweet memories,"

"What did you do, my lord?" Morschell asked in awe.

"What did I do for what?"

"What show did you give them when you returned to your kingdom?" The skinny teen asked.

"I did a contemporary dragon dance," Drostan shrugged, "nothing big,"

"What's that?" Scott asked, with scrunched brows.

"I did a dance with my dragon," said Drostan simply.

"Did everyone do a dance?" Luina finally asked.

"Flight shows, water shows, pyroworks, smoke shows, lightning shows, theatrics," The blonde held out a finger for each item he mentioned, "basically anything a Dragoneer wanted to do to explain everything he learned in the most creative way possible,"

"Oh my Lord," Morschell gasped, voice quivering with excitement, "I have so many ideas on what you can do, my lord--you must let Lord Drostan teach Whistle how to fly!"

"Or better yet, have my Dragon teach it to fly!" Drostan suggested before he summoned his dragon. The minute patch of shade that limited itself to Scott and the rest expanded at a dramatic rate as gusts of wind grew violent with every second. The dragon growled before landing right in front of them with an earth shaking thud.

Whistle was already running in figures of eight around the only two feet of Drostan's dragon. Comparing the two, if Whistle were to be a thumb the crimson dragon was a hand in terms of sizes.

"Let's travel by air," said Drostan as he began walking towards his dragon.

"We can do that?" Scott asked incredulously, "all this time, we could have gotten to Scalesia sooner than on foot!"

Drostan broadly stroked the brow of his dragon when it lowered its head, "there are only some exceptions," he explained, "but as much as possible, it would be best to travel on foot,"

"Why?" Scott asked as he and the rest began walking up to the dragon, unintentionally gaping at the two stumps where the dragon's front legs should have been.

"We need to maximize the time we use in between kingdoms to prepare ourselves before entering the next one," Drostan spoke, "come hop on,"

"Won't it be better to do that inside each Kingdom?" asked Scott, waiting for each of his Dragoon make their way up the enormous dragon.

"I'm assuming you didn't listen carefully to Gondron this morning," Drostan raised both his brows, "but for your sake, I shall repeat what he said,"

Scott shrugged, kneeling down to wordlessly coax his dragon to stop running around and go to him. It happily jumped on Scott and tried licking his face affectionately; the redhead chuckled as he tried to lean away from the rubbery tongue.

"During our Crusade we are strictly limited to a two-day stay in each kingdom," Drostan continued as Scott finally walked to him, gently stepping on the nook of the enormous dragon's shoulder to help himself up.

"The kingdom celebrates our arrival on the first day. On second day the King or Queen will share with us a basic knowledge of their Kingdom. On the evening of that same day, that is where we sign a blood contract between you and the king in front of the whole kingdom,"

By then everyone was already on top of the dragon, helping each other out with the enormous leather seat that could fit up to six people. It reminded Scott of an open carriage where the driver had his separate seat at the base of the Dragon's neck.

"The next morning we leave and set out for the next kingdom," said Drostan, positioning himself on his seat, "are we all set?"

The carriage had two benches parallel to each other that were in line with the dragon's length. Scott sat himself on the right, behind the driver's seat since that was where Luina conveniently sat opposite of. Next to him was Morschell, while Galvus sat next to Luina.

"Yes, my lord," Scott's Dragoon chorused. As soon as the words were spoken, their seats slammed against their backs as the dragon leaped viciously into the air followed by a few powerful thrusts of its wings.

The velocity aggressively ripped out wails from Scott and his team only to stop when the dragon found stability high above the clouds. The dragon flapped its wings for the last time and glided in the wind leaving it outstretched.

The sudden burst of speed left Scott lightheaded while Morschell lunged half his body over the carriage to violently throw up the sour contents of his stomach. Galvus was the only one who sat calmly as if nothing happened at all while Luina was busy fixing her hair with a frown on her face.

Scott found his dragon flat against the carriage's floor after his feet slightly nudged him. Whistle was breathing rapidly, alert eyes looking around with its claws deeply embedded on the floor. 

He chuckled and decided it was best to leave the little guy alone to get used to the speed, "I'm sorry to say Whistle, but we need to get used to that,"

Moschell groaned as he slumped back to his seat as limp as a rag doll, "that was fun," he mumbled, smiling weakly, "let's do that again,"

"Again?" Drostan hollered, turning back to the group with a lively smile on his face that could nearly match to that of a madman.

"No!" Scott and Luina exclaimed just as suddenly.

The blonde laughed at their faces, "you guys looked all roughed up! Now Galvus just needs to look like you two! Let's do that again!"

"No!" The two began wailing as they grabbed hold of anything their hands could get on as they felt the sudden drop in altitude plummet along with the view of the ground begin circling around them.

In the middle of everyone's screams and Whistle's, the only ones laughing manically were Morschell and Drostan while an unfazed Galvus just sat there as still as a statue.

Minutes of doing some gut-churning stunts finally came to an end when everyone, but Galvus and Drostan, couldn't help but throw up and cover the crimson dragon with bile. The once laughing blonde was now an irritable grouch as he ordered everyone to clean up their mess.

"Hey don't take out your crazy idea of fun on us," Scott said slowly, holding his soaked rag between his forefinger and thumb, "it is your fault why your dragon is now all covered in vomit,"

Drostan sighed and got up from his seat before climbing over to them.

"Get back there!" Exclaimed Luina on the verge of panicking, "you need to steer your dra--"

"It's fine," Drostan said softly, "he knows where we're going," he winked at Luina, "now where's Thistle?"

"It's Whistle," Scott grumbled, tossing the dirty rag over board with disgust.

The blonde clasped his hands together as he saw the shivering creature hug the floor next to Scott's feet, "aw," he smiled genuinely, "did you get scared, little guy?"

Scott's eyes narrowed at the blonde as he approached Whistle, "what are you doing?"

"Shh," Drostan hushed Scott gently as he took a few more steps towards the dragon. It shrank back and crawled behind Scott's feet arching its back and unfurling its wings in warning.

"It's okay, I won't hurt you," Drostan promised. When Whistle hissed at the blonde from his attempt to touch his head, Drostan glanced back at Scott, "come on, don't you want to fly on your own dragon one day?"

With a defeated sigh, Scott looked down at Whistle and comforted him by scratching his scaly head. "It's okay Whistle," Scott encouraged his dragon.

He looked back at him with big pleading eyes, head lowered and tail tucked between its legs.

"We need to learn to fly sooner or later," he leaned forward to his dragon when he placed his paws on his knees before resting his head there. Scott pouted as he fought back the urge to gush all over his dragon, "don't give me that look, mister,"

"Aw," Morschell crooned, "Mistle is so adorable!"

Whistle mewled in distress.

“Whistle,” Scott sighed before exchanging glances with Drostan. The redhead was beginning to have second thoughts, but before he spoke the blonde beat him to it, "look, you're still going to have to face this day and it's best to teach Wilbert--"

"Whistle,"

"--whatever, it’s best to teach your dragon here while he's still young rather than dragging around an oversized winged-dragon who can't even fly," Drostan shrugged as he rose to his feet, "it's gonna be your loss not mine anyway," 

With a begrudging sigh, Scott turned back to Whistle, "he's got a point,"

The dragon sulked, snaking away from Scott as he slithered next to Drostan' feet begrudgingly. He sat himself down next to Drostan’s feet with an evident look of disappointment on his face despite Scott’s attempts of smiling at the creature encouragingly.

"Very good!" Drostan clapped his hands together, "now then," he confidently positioned himself right behind Whistle, who was still morose, and fully stretched both wings out simultaneously, "remember when you--"

As Whistle's wings caught the wind, the currents plucked him from the carriage with an ear-piercing, haunting wail that grew distant by the second.

"--stretch..." Drostan's words trailed off.

Frozen to their spot, the blonde's eyes bugged out and Scott's jaw dropped to the floor as the two exchanged looks.

"Um," Morschell began, "I'm guessing that wasn't supposed to happen?"

A/N: Sorry it took long to upload. My new place hasa horrible wifi connection;A; anywho, i'm at workXD I just hope you guys enjoyedXDDD lol.