Word count: 46,679

“How long for?” Craig asked,
“Maybe a month or so, I guess. It depends on my shoulder; they’re in quarantine for a month or so, so I’m guessing if I’m still working with them they’ll have me helping them settling into their village too.” Sam said, “they want to see the logging site where we were attacked. Do you know if anyone has been down there since?” Craig shook his head,
“I don’t see why they would have been, work hasn’t started yet and we all agreed to work elsewhere until it had been investigated, right?” Craig looked past Sam and smiled as his wife who was walking towards them with Nahla. “Hey hon, kids go off okay?”
“Sure did,” she said with a smile, standing on tip toes she kissed him lightly on the cheek and trailed her hand over his shoulder as she walked past. “I have to get to work, I’ll see you later Nahla, Sam,” she nodded and disappeared inside. Sam linked his hands with Nahla’s and locked eyes with her,
“So what do you want me to say to Jones and Pat?” he said looking back to Craig.
“Let me discuss it with Sarah and I’ll let you know tomorrow, check and make sure it would be alright with them, me helping out. See you later,” he too went inside leaving Sam and Nahla together.
“Everett and Kaylee are happily in school, you and I have nothing to do for a few hours,” she twisted until she was standing in front of him. “How about you and I have some adult time?” she raised her eyebrow suggestively and smiled with half of her mouth.
“You don’t have to ask me twice!” He said loudly picking her up unexpectedly and throwing her over his uninjured shoulder. She squealed in surprise and punched him in the back,
“Sam! Put me down!” She shouted laughing hysterically. He kept one hand firmly over her back as he opened the door into the house, kicking it shut behind him he took her to the bedroom and laid her carefully on the bed. “Well,” he said with a grin.

Mycah was lying between Sorrel and Dio on her blanket; she stretched her arms above her head and yawned loudly.
“Now I’m full, I’m so tired,” she said yawning again.
“Me too,” yawned Dio.
“Quit yawning,” moaned Sorrel yawning too. He grumbled and stared into the fire. “I thought you said it would be warm,” he complained. “It’s cold and I can’t feel my toes.”
“Quit grumbling, you’re worse than a woman!” Dio said, “not that I meant anything by that,” he recovered quickly stumbling over his words as he rushed to get them out. Mycah laughed quietly and shifted into her wolf; she shook her silvery fur out and stretched out. With a toothy yawn she sat down, her tail brushing across the floor in a slow arc; in her peripheral vision she could see Sorrel sitting with wide eyes. She brushed against his mind softly fully aware he couldn’t sense her.
“Look at her sitting there shifting as if its normal. It’s disgusting,” he moaned in his own head. “I bet I could take her on hand to hand no problem, she’s tiny. She cheated today; I bet Dio was helping her.” Suddenly she stood and howled loudly her head tipped up to the moon and her ears folded gently back against her head. Her howl was so loud it made Sorrel cover his ears and glare at her until he heard a response from the trees, far too close for comfort and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on air as he sat up violently.
“No.” Chenyo said looking at Mycah who rolled her lips and flashed her sharp canines. “No.” He said again. There was a long pause as he looked at her until finally he sighed, “fine. But,” he said. “You have to be back before the sun rises.” She jumped up and took off into the trees silently; her feet made no noise as she ran at a steady speed through the undergrowth. She followed a track to a certain point until she dove off of it without warning and headed through the ferns; her nose pointed down as she slowed to a trot snuffling as she ran. Stopping she howled again and heard a response just through the trees, as they were still howling she ran towards them bursting the trees in front of a large pack. Her tongue lolled out of her mouth and her eyes shone bright in the light from the moon; her tail wagged from side to side as she looked at them, she recognised them from her colony. The animals paid very little attention to the barriers set up by the different colonies and moved about wherever they wanted to. They recognised her too and the soft whimpering barks they made as they greeted her reassured her of that; they licked across her face and she did the same. Raising her head she released a long mournful howl that the pack reciprocated; the noise was deafening as they howled together heads pointed straight to the moon.
Mycah ran with the wolves all night and just as the sun began to light the sky up a faint orange colour she turned and ran for the camp; her fur tinged red from the stag they had killed during the night. She ran into a stream and washed the red from her fur leaving her a pure silver colour before she trotted into the camp; she stopped just in front of Sorrel and with a twinkle in her eye she shook violently showering him with droplets of water. He covered his face with his hands as he ran backwards away from the water; tripping over a log that had been put aside to sit on he landed heavily on his backside. With an angry growl he ran towards her expecting her to move away but she stood her ground and stared at him blankly. He stopped just short of her and looked down at her in disgust; yet he stepped back when she shifted back.
“So you think you can beat me hand to hand?” she said with a smirk which turned to a grin when she saw his look of shock.
“How-what?” he stammered taken aback. “You were in my mind!” he shouted angrily.
“Why are you so upset?” asked Dio, “you do it all the time. But that doesn’t seem to bother you at all.” He had his back to them both and was carefully whittling a small stick into a small bird. The knife moved easily in his hand removing just the right amount he wanted. “It doesn’t seem to disgusting to you though does it?” he pressed.
“Of course it doesn’t that is different!” He shouted.
“How is her entering your mind gently any different to you forcing your way into mine? Except of course she is far more considerate and doesn’t give me a headache which feels like my head is being split open.” Dio turned to look at Sorrel who was rapidly turning beet red both from anger and embarrassment. “I may not be a telepath but I can feel it when you are rooting away in my mind for no reason. Did you find everything you wanted?” Sorrel opened and closed his mouth not knowing how to talk himself out of this.
“I hope this has taught you a lesson, Sorrel.” Chenyo said appearing behind him with an armful of logs for the fire. “Entering other people’s minds without their permission is not proper behaviour unless you know them. So you rooting through Dio’s mind is similar to him performing magic on you. You wouldn’t appreciate it and neither does he. Let that be a rule from now on, no magic on one another unless you are duelling in which case anything goes,” he said with a sly smile. “And you,” he turned to Mycah, “were late. I said before sun rise not after sun rise.”
“It’s hard to see the sky in the trees when you’re close to the ground and colour blind!” she exclaimed. “Besides, I wasn’t too late and we aren’t even leaving yet.” She stated sticking her tongue out at him. Chenyo laughed and nodded,
“That is true, we aren’t leaving yet.”
“Why?” asked Sorrel still red from blushing.
“I need to speak with you all before we move on, it is less than an hour walking to get to the Dragon Centre and before then you need to say the pact and we need to establish some rules because there are clearly some issues between you all.” He looked at them each in turn, “and I said I would tell the story of why your colonies are at war.” The three of them looked quite excited until Mycah seemed to process the words.
“A pact?” she said with a slight frown.
“Yes, I will explain more about that later,” Chenyo said smiling to her. “First, the rules.”

Jones and Pat had made their way down to the quarantine bay to visit the Second Flux who were getting the vaccines and their chips implanted today. They did not know about the chips and were clueless as to just how important they were here. When Jones and Pat entered they were scattered around the air hanger which they had called home for the last two weeks or so.
“Good morning everyone,” Jones said cheerily. “Today we need to give you all your vaccines which will protect you from various illnesses here and also protect the planet from some of our catching diseases. They are very simple and I can assure you they don’t hurt and they will not leave a scar. It’s something we have to do and every person on the base and in the village has had them too.”
“Which reminds me,” Pat interrupted. “We have a Rhesii from the First Flux, that’s the first group from Rheso, coming to visit you all later today to talk to you about moving into your village and what you can expect from life on Skyeyla.” He saw the interest building and the gentle murmurings as they spoke to one another.
“We will have one of our medics coming down here shortly in order to speak with you and vaccinate you,” Jones finished with a smile as he looked around.

Mycah stood on Raffy’s back as he walked towards the back of the main building of the Dragon Centre; Dio was standing behind her struggling to balance with Loki looking on carefully. Loki’s beautiful black scales were made lighter by the sun reflecting off of Raffy’s white ones; Red shuffled along behind them with Sorrel lying across her back looking up at the blue sky. Raffy ruffled his wings slightly and shifted Dio’s foot, he slipped half way off of Raffy with a yelp and clutched at Mycah’s top pulling her off of his back with her. He landed heavily on the floor in front of Raffy’s hind leg and Mycah landed solidly on his stomach; she rolled off of him quickly and he groaned loudly moving onto his side and holding his belly.
“Oh, crap that hurt.” He moaned still clutching his midriff.
“That’s entirely your own fault!” she said standing and extending a hand towards him, “come on we can walk round the edge of the building, it’s hardly far.” With a grunt she managed to get him standing and wrapped an arm around his side as he draped his across her shoulders. Raffy looked at them both in amusement and opened the channel between his mine and Mycah’s;
“Ah, the young love birds,” he stated simply. Mycah spluttered and looked up at him in shock;
“You what?!” she said loudly back at him.
“Huh?” Dio said confused.
“Not you,” she said, “him!” she pointed at Raffy who wrinkled his top lip revealing his bright white perfectly shaped canines. “Don’t grin at me!” she said angrily running towards him dropping Dio who crumpled to the floor. “Ah! Sorry!” she exclaimed hovering between picking him up and socking Raffy. Finally, she ran at Raffy and shifted in mid air, with claws flying she collided with his chest and knocked him backwards slightly; he dropped his neck and snaked it towards her. Rolling away from him she shifted into a bird and zipped around his head; shifting again she landed on his back and gripped tightly with her monkey hands. He jumped into the air and spun a tight circle landing heavily without dislodging her.
“Come on, Chenyo’s waiting,” Sorrel grumbled looking over at them with shielded eyes. Mycah jumped off of his back and landed human; she hauled Dio up and made their way round the corner where Chenyo was waiting patiently for them.
“Ah, you are here,” he said with a smile. “What happened to you, Dio?” he asked concerned.
“I was dragon surfing and I fell off and Mycah landed on me...” he trailed off.
“You were doing what with a dragon?!” He said perturbed.
“Standing up on Raffy and trying to balance. I think I broke a rib.” He finished with a groan his hand pressed against his side. “Well, I think Mycah broke a rib more than I did.”
“You pulled me off of my own dragon!” Mycah retorted with a grin.
“Did you not think to check your body with magic?” Chenyo said stating the obvious. Mycah and Dio looked at each other blankly,
“Oh yeah...” they said together. Dio checked his body and healed the cracked rib and winced as it fixed itself. He pulled a face as he stretched his arms above his head;
“Much better.” He looked across to Chenyo, “so what is this rite of passage we are supposed to be doing?” As he spoke he dropped cross legged to the floor in front of Red who had lain down and had been watching him the whole time.
“Well, this is about you and your dragons working together as a team; as one.” He said, lowering himself to the grass. “You need to use your dragon’s vision to see and only your dragon’s vision, you will need to complete a set of tasks which would be easy normally but I can assure you this will be very difficult. You need to transfer items from one basket to another without dropping them using only magic, they cannot hit the floor. The second task is to fly low through the trees without your body being injured; and the third and final challenge is to do a small assault course which has been built in the forest which you first must find. Once completed without falling you must find your way home and once back you can remove your blindfold.”
“Blindfold?!” exclaimed Sorrel in shock. Chenyo nodded;
“You must be blindfolded in order to make sure there is no cheating.” As he said this he looked pointedly at Mycah who stuck her tongue out in response.
“How long does it take?” she asked leaning against Raffy’s warm scaly leg.
“Half a day or so, it depends on how many times you fall or drop things.” Chenyo responded simply;
“Can we take as long as we like?” Sorrel asked.
“Yes, you can.” From his back pocket his pulled three black blindfolds which he handed out to the three of them. “Put these on and we will get started,” he said. Mycah watched as Dio and Sorrel tied their blindfolds and tied her own. “Connect with your dragons and share your vision.” Mycah tapped into her magic and felt the power flowing through her veins; she murmured a string of words and felt light swim into her vision. She blinked once or twice beneath the blindfold and saw what Raffy could see. Her vision was tinted slightly blue but was clear and she was able to see through both her blue and her amber eye; she could see Sorrel and Dio stumbling around arms outstretched trying to not fall over. Mycah reached an arm behind her and felt Raffy’s leg she stepped back carefully and climbed onto his foot; from this angle she could see well enough and not hurt herself though she was fully aware that flying would be difficult from here.
“You may begin,” Chenyo said indicating to his left, Raffy spun his head that way and Mycah wobbled dangerously on his leg.
“Ugh, don’t do that so fast,” she groaned. Raffy turned and began to plod slowly in the direction Chenyo had pointed. “This is not working I feel sick.” They stopped as she readjusted herself and managed to climb up his leg by touch more than anything. Once she had positioned herself carefully between his spines and gripped on tightly he turned away from her and looked back where he was supposed to be going. He leapt in the air and bounded forwards like a kangaroo to make the journey much shorter; each time he landed her vision jarred and shook. Every time he blinked it her vision disappeared making her feel strange as she had no control over where he looked or what he did. They rapidly made their way to where the first part of the task took place; Raffy tilted his head so Mycah could see herself reaching for the egg on the plinth in front of her; gingerly she managed to pick it up with magic and move it through the air to the large wicker basket in ten paces away. They had to repeat the process ten times and when they were almost finished Raffy turned his head away from Mycah leaving her looking into the trees with no idea what the egg was doing.
“Raffy! I can’t see!” she yelped,
“Sorry! I forgot you were looking through my eyes” he said looking back to her so she could see and place the last egg which had detoured towards the trees.

“The rules of the Dragon Centre are as follows, number one. There are no colonies. Number two; there is no fighting between apprentices or Masters. Number three; you will learn a lot of magic which cannot be shared outside of the Dragon Centre under any circumstances. There are more rules which you will learn during your time with us, but these are the major ones you will follow. If you cannot or will not follow them then you will have your powers removed and you will be sent back to your colony with only the powers of your colony.” Chenyo spoke quietly addressing the three chosen ones sitting cross legged in front of him. He watched their eyes widen in surprise at the final part.
“Why?” Dio asked looking up at him.
“Because if you are not willing to stick to the rules you cannot be trusted outside of the Dragon Centre with magic that powerful and we will not risk your life of the lives of those around you if your magic strays or becomes too powerful.” Mycah nodded as Chenyo spoke. “Do you all agree to obey the rules of the Dragon Centre?”
“Yes, Dragon Master Chenyo.” They chanted in unison, their voices melding together to form one unit.
“I’m glad,” he replied with a smile. “Okay, now I would like you to repeat the Pact after me.” They all nodded and leant forwards slightly in anticipation; he handed them all a slip of paper with the Pact on.
“I, Mycah-”
“Sorrel-”
“Dio, do swear to fight the fight as three and not one. To protect the planet Skyeyla as it is, or was. To defend the people of Skyeyla from all colonies against the Invaders no matter the personal consequence.” Their voices were once again speaking in unison apart from when they spoke their names. Chenyo watched them focusing on the paper in front of them as they spoke to ensure they didn’t get the words wrong.