Despite the fact that she had seemed cool when he first met her, Lykon really wasn't getting along with Elofia. They had very similar personalities, and she seemed to hate him because of what he was. She didn't seem to take a liking to his human form, either, and he didn't take a liking to hers. She was quite pretty, but she had a fire in her eyes that made her look fierce; like she would do anything to protect what she loved. He knew that fire. He saw it every time he looked in the mirror. He just hoped that she would be able to help in a better way that he had tried to, because his method had brought only pain.
He saw Cassidy in the distance, with an eagle and Griffin in tow, and he heard a voice in his ear.
"Keep her here for as long as you can; if she starts to suspect anything, stop her. If she finds out that the twins are gone, take her to the island. That's where we'll be. If I return before then, don't take her to the Island, as the twins will have returned."
Lykon groaned to himself, realising what Cassidy was attempting to do. She would take the twins to the Island, confident that they would love it, but Elofia would end up taking them away no matter what. He hated that she was making him keep Elofia from protecting her family, but he knew that it was for the best; if they left, then there would be a lot of danger for the world. Lyon had, after all, said that they were chosen because they cared a whole lot more than everyone else, and so it was more important that they restore the bond between the Gryffinhearts and the Dragonhearts, because the world depended on it. For once, that wasn't actually an exaggeration.
Sighing, he looked up at Elofia, who was glaring at him, but it seemed more like she hated what he was than him.
"Why do you hate Dragons?"
"Wouldn't you hate something if it took away your family? Your life? Your home?"
"I guess, but if a Lion killed my family, I wouldn't automatically hate their whole species. Especially if they were half human. I would try to give them a chance, but if they were the one who killed my family, I wouldn't hesitate to do the same to them." Lykon reasoned, a raging fire lighting in his eyes as the end.
"How would you ever be able to trust it? When it looks identical to the one that killed my- your family?"
"Trust isn't something that you give out. It's something that people earn. Sometimes, when people are doing something that looks like it's a bad thing, it can sometimes actually be a good thing. Don't give up on people because they're different. Learn to understand them. Befriend them. Trust them. Family is forever, but it's good to have friends, too. They'll be there for you no matter what, because they want to, not because they have to."
"Easy for you to say. I bet you're like all of the Dragonhearts of the past. Rich snobs who haven't had anything relatively bad happen in their lives."
"My dad left because he didn't care about us, and my Stepdad and my mother left me and my sister alone. They never returned. It's one thing losing your family while still knowing they love you, but having them all abandon you? It would have been easier on both of us if they had a reason for not returning home..." Lykon sighed, feeling the same pain that he felt every time that he thought about his family.
They had both landed on a hill nearby, and Lykon felt guilty about what he was doing, but he was also felt glad that he got to talk to someone who understood. Back in Clifftop, he had a selection of friends, but he drifted away as he grew older, since their lives were very different to his; they had a family. He had gone through a period of depression, before he decided to search for his family, knowing that they couldn't have just left them all alone. His mother was too good for that. She cared for him even though she was young, and she didn't abandon him when she wasn't ready for a child. Why would she abandon them only years later? He talked to Elofia for what seemed like hardly any time but turned out to be a lot longer, and they talked about their pasts, sharing things that they hadn't really shared with their siblings.
"They're not my actual siblings though. I love them like it, but I still miss my family. I miss all of them. I had 4 siblings, although I told the twins that I only had 3. I guess it was because I couldn't talk about my sister to them. I only really took them in because they reminded me of Lila and Reece, my 8 year old brother and my 6 year old sister. I had an older brother, Orion, who was 14. He would be 21 now. I was 9 when my village burned down, and they were 7, so I guess that they just seemed so similar that I just pretended that they were my siblings, but nobody could replace Mimi. She was my twin sister who was only minutes older than me, and we were the best of friends. That day, I lost everything. My family, my friends, my other half. If it wasn't for Alion and Areille, I would be completely alone, and I tried to get rid of them, since I felt so bad about not giving them a proper life. I tried to leave them with families, but they always followed me, no matter what. They looked up to me the same way that I had looked up to Orion, and I didn't want to disappoint him, so I had to take on the role of big sister and mother, and protect them."
They had been talking so long that it had started to get dark. They had both reverted to their regular forms, and Lykon had realised that she couldn't be related to the twins, since they looked nothing alike. Despite that, their bond was so strong that they seemed to love each other like siblings, and would defend each other to the very end.
"I-I have to go."
Elofia suddenly stood up, ready to run into the forest.
"Where are you going?" Lykon said, standing in her way.
Rebuilding her defensive walls, she growled at him.
"Get out of my way."
"Where are you going?"
Furious, she shifted into a Lion, growling and jumping at him, knocking him over and scratching him in the process.
Her eyes widened as she realised that she had scraped a claw over his face, leaving a scratch across his forehead.
"I'm sorry!" She ran into the forest, Lykon chasing after her.
She ran all the way to the clearing where her siblings were, finding that it was empty. They were gone, as were their things, and the fire looked as though it hadn't even been restocked.
"Where are they?" She screamed, facing him in her natural form. "You were just distracting me so that that pink haired dragon could take them away!"
She spat the word dragon, as though all the trust that he had gained had gone. Her glare tore through his heart, bringing it pain as all that he saw in her eyes was pure hatred. Knowing that she wouldn't forgive him, he shifted and flew off to the Island, sure that she would follow, and hopefully, he would be able to persuade her that it was a better option for the twins, and they would all stay. He wanted to be able to make things better between them. They had only just met, but they had a lot of things in common, like the fact that they were both broken. Alone.
He knew that she was following him, as he could hear her muttering and cursing under her breath, but he couldn't hear what she was saying, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to. All that she would be doing is cursing him, and he wanted to believe that she was just putting up a wall, because he hadn't been lying before. He wanted her to trust him, to trust all of them. The fate of the world depended on it, and he wasn't sure if he could cope with being the reason that the bond was severed forever.
The journey seemed to take forever, but he didn't pay and attention to where he was flying, as he was too busy trying to get there. He could find the Islands with his eyes shut; that was how it was enchanted. If you've been there once, you can always find it again, but if you've never been, you will never find it unless someone who has been guides you; that was why he had to guide her and Cassidy guided Alion and Areille.
When they landed, he shifted and ran off, searching for Cassidy, as well as answers. He remembered that they could only return to the island if they had been before, and he had. When he was young, before Cassidy was born, they had lived on the island of wind. He didn't have and abilities, neither did Cassidy, so his mother took the both of them to Clifftop, where they could live a happy life. Cassidy had never been on the Island, at least not after she was born. Lykon had searched all for Drakonica, and he knew that she would have never left. His mother, that was. She would have never left her home, being a descendant of the Dragon, she had a strong bond to Drakonica, and thus she would never leave the Dragon's Sanctuary. No; if she had vanished, and she wasn't in Drakonica, that only left one place that she could be.
"Mum?"
