Chosen

Chapter 8: Noctinge

     The steady swish of wings beating the air called Annora from the depths of sleep. Wind whipped fiercely around her, tossing her hair around her face. Eyes still closed and groggy, she moaned and begun to shift from her cramped position, only to feel arms tighten around her.

     Slowly, her eyes opened, and she looked up at Ash. His eyes were trained on the horizon, his brow knit and jaw clenched. Stupefied confusion ran through her, why was he holding her tightly? Why was it so windy? Suddenly, her blood ran cold as the memories flooded her mind.

     Ash... 

     Dragon egg...

     He stopped her! He grabbed her and jumped out of a twenty foot cave!

     Annora started screaming and kicking, trying to wriggle out of the grasp of the boy.

     "Ow, dammit! Annora, stop!" He yelled, the open wounds in his face reddening by Annora's slaps.

     "The hell I will! Lemme go!" She grunted, her arms now pinned to their sides by the boy. He still held her so she practically sat in his lap. Her stream of curses were slurred and almost incomprehensible, her vision still blurred and teetered dangerously. 

     "If I let you go, you'll fall to your death." He said simply, still looking over to the horizion.

     Annora stopped struggling and looked down. The mountain landscape flew past them at a terrifying pace, they traveled at such a high altitude and so swiftly that the trees became indistinguishable blobs sweeping past their feet in a smear of green. The tallest mountains were at least a hundred feet below them now, the large fluffy clouds just feet above them.

     "Wha-" She began, stunned. Her mind seemed to have been held at a standstill; no matter how hard she tried to make it work again, she couldn't come to a logical conclusion as to why they were hundreds of feet in the air. She was still groggy from earlier; it felt as if every thought was moving through a vat of caramel.

     She looked directly down, seeing a dark midnight blue material. She stared at it in confusion, watching the surface twinkle like the night sky. As her vision slowly cleared, she was able to distinguish tiny ridges in the material, shingled like a rooftop, looking almost like...

     Scales! Annora quickly looked around the material, finding the blurry image of a long, muscular body, a flexible neck and triangular head, and two shimmering wings rising and falling steadily.

     The girl's vision cleared instantly, the foggy confusion she felt before replaced by an icy understanding. 

     She began to scream again, a panic she had never felt before coursing through her body. Every beat of her heart, every push in her lungs, every twitch in her body was directed towards getting off the vile and monstrous beast she sat on. Annora turned into a crazed beast, an unearthly shreek driving deep into Ash's skull, her limbs flinging aimlessly, hitting his face yet again, her long legs banging against the dragon's back with surprising force. 

     The dragon let out an uncomfortable grunt and swerved it's head sternly to Annora, as if reproaching her for hitting it so hard. It's large moon-like orbs of eyes driving into her soul, the pale, shining blue containing a hard disapproval. It's head was twice the size of a horse's, it's glowing eyes as big as her fists. Spikes sprouted out of the sides of the dragon's head, fanning it's face. 

     Annora froze instantly at the beast's stare, her green eyes shining with hatred. Even though she carried no weapons, she flung herself at the monster, and would have succeeded in driving her fists deep into the sockets of it's vulnerable eyes if Ash had not grabbed her yet again, setting her into another frenzied fury. 

     The dragon retreated it's massive head as soon as it saw Annora start to lung toward it, it's body swerving sharply to the right. Ash gasped and clutched the saddle strapped to it's back as the dragon pointed its wings almost vertically downwards in order to avoid falling. 

     "Shit." he grunted through clenched teeth. Annora, even in her frenzied spasms, was able to her Ash, after a slight pause, say "Yeah, I know, I know." Another pause "Well, we've run out of options here Noctinge*, she's gone crazy." a longer pause. "Travel for a bit longer before we stop, we need to gain some ground."

     Ash looked down at Annora, a troubled look in his eyes. He grabbed a powder out of one of the small pockets sewn into the leather saddle. 

     "Sorry, Annora." He said, sprinkling the pale powder onto her face. Before she knew what was happening, the powder went into her nose, her mouth, her eyes.

     She quickly held her breath, but it was too late. The powder tasted like warm milk and hot cookies, and smelled like baking cinnamon rolls. Within seconds, her eyes drooped and she fought to overcome the black haze of sleep, but in less than a minute she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. 

        *Noctinge is pronounced noct-ing-gay*