Dawn of the Rainbird, Ch 15

Dawn of the Rainbird,
(Ch. 15 Troubles and Tricksters)



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"WHAT THE HELL! WHO IN THERE RIGHT MIND STEALS A HOUSE?!?" Roared Sakura.

"Isn’t that obvious...someone who doesn’t have one" Torarie commented making Remnas chuckle some.

"Come on mother just make another..."

"Drega you dipstick, Isis's things are in that house we have to find it."

"Oh...YEOW!" Drega looked down and saw Isis chewing his tail. "We better hurry and find her toys before I become her chew toy."

"Actually, she nearly ate ever chew toy so you would become a swallow toy." Torarie said.

"That was a horrible joke." Drega said shaking his head. "

"You’ll be ‘my’ swallow toy if you don't..."

"Hey guys..." They all looked up at Loreit. "Why don't we follow the drag marks that led in to the swamp so we can find your house and get Isis toys back." Loreit said pointing in to the swamp.

All the Senkies bobbed their heads and followed Loreit into the marsh, following the dual drag lines until they came to an area of the marsh that had hot steam rising from the waters.

"Hey isn’t that it?!?" shouted Torarie, and sure enough the gondola was right there on a small Island surrounded by a circular hot spring.

Sakura leapt at the gondola but retreated when her forepaw hit the hot water,
“Shit its some kind of hot spring or something, the waters too hot for me to cross over..."

"What’s with all the racket, I’m tryin ta sleep ere'" came an unknown voice.

Sakura's head snapped towards the voices direction to see a large cloudy white Dragons head with no scales but instead cloudy white/blue skin covering its body, the dragon also had several tubes along its neck on the sides top and two rows along its underbelly. "Excuse me, whoever you are, could you be a bit quieter I’m really tired,"

"Hey that’s my house your sleeping in you little snot, My child’s possessions are in it."

"I’m really sorry but I cant give it back, you see at night there’s these horrible dragons that never leave me alone, they burn me with embers and cut me with their claws while I'm asleep then run away before I wake up, I haven’t slept in days...rumor has it, that they cant climb so this little house is really the perfect thing for me and I cant give it back."

"You little..."

"Hey Sakura," said Loreit poking the dragoness with her clawed finger, "why don't you just make her a better home."

"that’s a good idea..." said Sakura to herself before relaying the message to the Dragoness.

"You'd do that for me?"

"Sure you look like your in a bind, and everyone needs a little piece of mind from time to time, you just watch me, this'll only take a few minutes."

The Dragon's eyes widened as a whole two level mansion appeared out of the hot spring, made from the cattail reeds and other marsh plants.

"here you go, a simple design with a retractable puzzle bridge on the front, how’s that for a home, and what’s more you ask? The sides are lined with swamp grass so if anything does try to climb up, it'll wined up slipping and crashing to the ground, but remember if you forget to raise the puzzle bridge then anything can come inside and get you"

"This is absolutely wonderful, thank you so much!" said the Dragon stepping out of the gondola revealing a Dragoness in her prime years, "I don’t know if I can ever repay you."

"Well you can start by telling me your name, mines Sakura"

"Oh I’m sorry I’m just so tired...my name is Spira..." said Spira the Dragoness with a great yawn, "could we talk inside I’m worried I might pass out before..." Spira stopped mid-sentence and fell to the ground.

"Wow, she must be exhausted," said Sakura, "very well little one, very well" Sakura picked up the large Dragoness in her jaws and leapt up onto the mansions front deck, "Come on lets bunk here tonight, we can hunt once everyone’s settled in," said Sakura entering the mansion.

I hope we get to eat those things Spira mentioned," said Torarie.

"no sister," said Remnas, "We should catch them and feed them to Spira, that way shed know that the trouble is forever banished from her worries,"

"Yeah that’s the ticket," Drega agreed, "no more sleepless nights for Spira".

After everyone had a place to sleep Sakura color coordinated everything, coloring several large tatami diases to match each guest, Green and white for Loreit, Black and gold for Torarie, White for Remnas, a Cloudy blue one for Spira, and a brown pink one for herself. Drega and Isis didn’t need a Dias, they preferred to sleep in Sakura's bellies.

-4 hours Later-

Everyone enjoyed a good successful hunt, with their bellies all filled to the brim they all prepared for a long sleep. Then Remnas heard a subtle creaking of wood, and woke up to go check and see what made the noise, Remnas peered down the wall of the house to see little dragon shaped figures, scurrying around in the shadows beneath the house, he smiled and went to the front gate, he knocked on the wall and a hidden panel opened up from the wall revealing a red rope, Remnas yanked on the rope and let go making a circular cage fall around the mansions borders trapping the little pests until sunrise, when everyone was awake and the little buggers could be dealt with.

Loreit was the first to see the dragons and she couldn't believe it. "There grass dragons." She said with humor in her voice. The dragon were tiny but numerous. They looked like little ribbons. "Tell me little guys, why did you hurt my friend Spira?"

"As if, don’t you know anything, her body heat is messing with our home...she’s a Cloud Walker, they heat up everything around them and she turns water to steam just by being near it. Surely you’ve noticed the hot spring? They use some kind of...heat pulse to get water that hot, and you cant drink water that’s that hot! she eats all the fish that can't take the heat and doesn’t share any, were grass dragons we need water, we need fish, and ever since she’s been here we've had to get by on scraps beetles and worms, were supposed to eat fish, anything else gives us indigestion."

"Hmm I see," said Loreit, "we'll have a talk with Spira, I think she'll understand."

"Spira! Can come down stairs for a second. The local dragons want to talk to you." As she waited, a thought came to her head. <What is a dragon like that doing here. Usually there on the mountains.>

Spira lazily slapped her feet down the stairs, "Hi Loreit, Drega, Sakura, Remnas, umm...Torarie right"

Torarie rolled her eyes at the Cloud Walker, "Yeah you only forgot me right?"

"Sorry but you haven't talked to me that much, so I haven't said your name a whole lot".

"Now then, you little buggers have been chasing me ever since I left the mountain, tell me why"

"As if we'd tell you anything drippy."

"HA! I new it! 'Leneah' sent you didn't she? She’s the only person who ever called me that accursed name".

"You and your little group must work for the Beastlings...Just because one of there lords was given ownership of the Matoma Mountain Springs that bitch Leneah goes and calls a hit on me, I hope that Beast-Lord 'Brace' eats her alive!"

"Why don't you go take a long jump off a short peer Drippy!" the lead Grass Dragon snarled glaring at Spira with previously hidden malice.

Loreit was furious. She grabbed one by the neck and held it above her mouth, "Start talking before I eat you alive!" She snarled.

"We'll never tell you anything Loreit! We already know your going to eat us, you were a Beast-Lord yourself at one point in time and we've heard how you ate everything we threw at you along with an entire Goblin brigade!"

Spiras eyes widened as she heard that Loreit was at one time a Beast-Lord.

Loreit dragged the small dragon to a nearby pool of water that wasn’t boiling hot, and stuck it's head underwater. Bubbles formed out of the water from the little dragon drowning. "Since you know I was a Beastling, you probably know that I know Beastling torture techniques."

She raised the dragons head out of the water where he spit and gagged. "TALK!"

Loreit jammed his head back underwater, then raised it back out again.

Loreit repeated this a few times before the Dragon shouted "Stop! please!"

"You feel like talking now?"

"No!"

"Why do the Beastlings want the Matoma Springs"

"You’ll have to go there to find..." The Dragon suddenly found his breath caught in his throat, his little grass like ears flattened down as Loreit opened her great maw and snapped up the mischievous little monster, and swallowed it up into her storage belly.

"Urp, I’m feeling thirsty," said Loreit popping a communication candy into her maw and sitting her saddle pack by the shore as she wadded into the warm hot spring water, "now listen here ya little rat, every time you refuse to tell me anything or you lie to me I’m gonna take a good long swig of water, it'll be a matter of time until my belly fills up unless you spill everything you know, and if you by some chance happen to survive for five minuets, Ill give you to Torarie and trust me you don’t want her to get hold of you".

"Why go through all this trouble just to hurt Spira?" Loreit asked. "I can't tell you." Loreit took a large amount of water in. "If you were here to kill her then you would have a long time ago. NOW TALK!" Loreit shouted shaking her belly.

"Hey Loreit" said Spira, "Let me give it a shot, I think I can be a little more persuasive"

"Okay give it a shot but you owe me a batch of telli-candies(my nick-name for the communication candies)", said Loreit spiting up the small dragon into Spiras jaws, the Dragon panicked when he saw Spira open up and actually tried to run back down Loreits throat.

Spira closed her maw over the grass dragon and swallowed, the small bulge traveled down her lengthy curved body and disappeared into her belly.

"Now add a little steam and all there is to do now is wait a few minuets"

five minuets later Spira reached a foreclaw into one of the tubes on her belly and pulled out the grass dragon, the small creature was half asleep.

Spira coughed a few times and began speaking in a voice that wasn’t her own, "Wake up ya little worm, status report on little drippy."

"What I don’t think we ever finished."

"Don’t you remember your job? Tell me what your job is little worm!"

"You told us to keep the dumb one from sleeping until you got here so that shed be too tired to put up a fight when you ate her".

"You said you wanted scales like hers so you had everyone chase her away, but you wanted her fast and easy so you told us to keep her from sleeping."

"There now was that so hard," Spira cooed before dropping the grass dragon back in the pen with the others, "I think I'll let you lot talk amongst yourselves for a while" she said giggling as the other grass dragons begin to chase the one that spilled the beans, then Loreit noticed that only one of the Grass Dragons wasn’t chasing the squealer a red female, and when the loner looked over at Loreit she held up her foreclaw to reveal a ring with wings and a shield hidden beneath the black mufflers she wore on her arm, Loreit signaled for the female to come to the edge of the pen and the Dragoness practically flew over to where Loreit could pick her up.

"Agent Lily Lawright reporting in Lt. Loreit," the little red Dragoness said as Loreit helped her over the fence.

"Why didn’t you tell us earlier? We could have used your report then!"

"You may have discovered something that I was not aware of while interrogating the others, I simply had to wait until it was my turn and I could have told you after I was safely out of the pin, these guys are professionally trained ambush assassins, if you and the others were on the forest floor last night they would have slit your throats in your sleep."

"Well then its a good thing we ran into Spira here, if we didn’t then Sakura might not have been tempted to build this nice house for us."

"What's going on Loreit? Isn't that the bad guy?" Drega asked. Loreit looked back at him. "You don't think all monsters work for the Beastlings? We have some so deep that I think one is the beast kings body guards."

"Oh, so when you were a Beastling you were under cover?" Spira said.

Loreit looked down. "No...I truly was a Beastling. And it was the worst thing I've ever done in my life,"

"So your trying to make up for that?"

"No I can never bring those lives back that I took but...I can at least help preserve life rather then destroy it."

"Either way your still Loreit," said Drega.

"Agreed you are still Loreit to us, you are a member of our family" Said Remnas.

"Thanks guys. That means a lot to me. As long as you don't go extreme like Sakura."

"Oh ya had ta come out and say it, jezz it isn’t gonna happen again I’ve already worked my ass off for ya what more do ya want?"

Loreit giggled. "Just teasing you Sakura. So, now what do we do. Don't forget we are on a tight schedule."

"I think we all agree to leave the mountain as it is, we can report the Beastlings presence to king David once we get to his castle, from there we should let the good king make the decisions, has obviously got a lot of power under his command, and a mountain is practically impossible to take by land," said Torarie, "I suggest asking help from these dragon farms, a small platoon of dragons could easily overtake a high terrain or at least distract their main forces long enough for a mid sized force of ground troops to make their way up the mountainside."

"That’s quite a plan," replied Loreit, "and I’m happy to hear you put such faith in King David."

"Oh no problem, I'm just thinking out loud that’s..."

Torarie stopped mid sentence and smiled when she noticed that Isis had hopped the fence and was slurping down the grass dragons one by one, their little claws having no affect on the little red dragonetts armored underbelly.

“So cute!”

"What about you Spira? What will you do now?," asked Sakura.

"Actually, I was hoping...if you didn’t mind...could, I come with you? I no longer have a home or place of safety and you can provide that safety cant you Sakura? After all, you made this glorious mansion right in front of me...so I'd really like to come with you...if you don't mind that is."

"Of coarse we don't mind," Sakura bellowed merrily, "come come we shall treat you as our own, you can sleep in the pond on the gondola, come on then we must get moving."

As Sakura walked down the path to king Daris's castle once again, Lily was playing with Isis inside the gondola on Sakura’s back. "Careful Lily, You're so small she can slurp you up like a noodle."

"Don’t worry, I can handle..." Lily was cut short when Isis got Lily’s tail in her little beak shaped maw and inhaled Lily down into her storage belly.

"No Isis! Don't eat everyone! Aww...too late." Isis belched and patted her large belly.

"I told you Loreit you have to watch Senkie children, they can't control their own abilities well enough." came Sakura with a giggle, "Don’t worry, Isis knows Lily's a friend, she wont be harmed"

Isis belly bounced around and squirmed wildly. "I don't think Lily knows that."

-Several Hours Later-

"Um...Loreit, there's some soldiers here who want to know what I'm doing here." Sakura said.

Loreit looked out the window and saw two humans wearing king Daniel's 'Royal Guard' armor. "Show them the document you got Sakura."

Sakura held up her right foreclaws index claw, "just one moment I have to puke it up," Sakura said before she gagged and spat out a wooden ball. Sakura took the ball in her foreclaws and twisted it open revealing the note from King Daniel which she handed to the soldier on the right who after reading the letter, motioned for Sakura to follow them.

"Well guys, were almost there." Loreit said while relaxing. Over the hill there was an enormous castles. It looked like it could house thousands of dragons.

As soon as they entered the first gate they found them self surrounded by city of your average people. Guards walk the street. Drega notice something large off in the distance. "Loreit what is that?" Drega said pointing at it. "That is the Mega Coliseum. I'm going to have to show you guys some time." When they reach the second gate they were stopped by another group of soldiers who demanded they search the home for any Beastling like items.

"Excuse me, what is this exactly?" Questioned one of the guards.

"That would be one of my Daughter Isis' squeaky blocks" answered Sakura.

"Squeaky block...ingenious."

"Alright, you may go through but please leave that house in the courtyard."

Sakura agreed and walked through.

"Loreit, I thought you said that the king was poor?" Torarie said. "He is."

"Then what’s with the giant castle? It's enormous."

"That’s because this castle is an ancient castle. It was built after the war against the First evil."

"First evil?"

"The first tyrant ever to exist on Laven. Every race had to bane together to destroy it. There is a library that has some information on it if you are interested. The castle itself is was ruled by king Daniels..." She paused for a moment to think and count her fingers.

"I think 13th great grandfather. King Daniel came to inherit it after his father died. But the problem was that there were twins and the old king never left a will to say who got the castle."

"So they had the people vote who was next. Here’s where it gets funny. During the time of vote, Daniel temporarily change his name to "Sign Name Here". A persons signature meant more then a check."

"Ah, I get it, he acknowledged his subjects individuality, no wonder they like him so much."

"I wonder what he’s like," questioned Torarie to herself," I’ve never met this Daniel, I hope he's handsome."

Loreit held back a laugh. "What?" Torarie asked. "Nothing."

Sakura set down house down. "Okay, I'm going to see if the king is available. Try to if you can get lily out of Isis." Loreit said.

Isis quickly spat up Lily.

"Well that was convenient" said Loreit kneeling to see if Lily was alright, when she found the grass dragoness was unharmed she turned back to Isis.

"So you can understand me now?" she questioned.

"Yeaaa..." the Dragonett growled.

"Hehehe your such a cutie, you know that?" questioned Loreit.

The Dragonett gave an embarrassed growl and shied away.

"Okay then I'm going to go see if the king is ready to receive you, why don't you all just wait here ok, and please try not to break anything..."

"I wont let anything get broken Loreit, don't worry just try to be quick ok," Sakura spoke earning her a smile from Loreit before she trotted off through the door at the end of the corridor.

"Okay children that goes for you to Spira, break something and something of yours will be broken, remember that," Sakura growled, Now why don't we have a talk with these guards try to learn something Remnas?"

"I’m all up for it, Torarie how about you?" Remnas replied.

"Nah I'm gonna watch Drega and Isis, I think we should make sure the troublemakers stay out of trouble."

"Okay try to keep them close," said Sakura.

Loreit knocked on the door. "My lord are you there?"

"Come in Loreit." Loreit open the door to find the king looking over some plans of the dragon farm. "The Senkies are here my lord."

"I can't see them now. I will see them tonight."

"What do want me to do with them in the mean time?"

"There are guest, entertain them."

Loreit smiled. "Will do sir."

Loreit walked back out side to see Cain, Isis, Drega and Torarie. "Where’s your brother and mother?"

"There just looking about."

Loreit nodded. Sakura and Remnas were the least likely to make trouble.

"So, where would you guys like to go first? The library, the mega coliseum, or the dragon farm.

"Mega Coliseum, save the dragon farm for when Mother gets back, she wanted to meet that Grayson remember" said Torarie.

Loreit took the group to a large metal dome that was far larger than any football field.

"So this is where humans play sports and stuff?" questioned Torarie.

"When it isn’t being used for training by the Castle Crashers."

"You keep saying Castle crashers...who are they?" Cain asked. "Thee’ most elite team we have. Remember Daris castle? They break into places like that for a living. Come on, I'll show you what it looks like." Loreit said heading up the stairs. "But there is a door here." Torarie said walking up to a door on the ground.

"NO! Don't open that one!" Loreit cried out. But it was too late. Torarie opened the door and the next thing she knew, a massive train was coming straight towards her.