A Small Spark

Amaris

The last time Amaris fought a dragon, it did not end well. One day, Damon and Amaris went fishing in the Sea of Poseidon. They never had fish, so this was a special kind of treat. Amaris was spoiling Damon for his birthday. This was back when Matthias still lived with them in the forest. Out of nowhere, Matthias jumped into the lake. Damon looked over at him, as if expecting him to do something, but Amaris sat, unfazed by what had happened.

Matthias popped up out of the water and met her eyes. When she raised an eyebrow at him, he swam to the shore and sat down beside her. Amaris was a little mad at him. He had told her the day before he had decided to leave the forest to live in the city. He was leaving, just like everyone she had ever known. Damon handed him a fishing pole. Amaris ignored them and went back to trying to capture their food for dinner. In truth, Damon was not a good fisher. One of the reasons they did not have fish often.

Matthias caught a fish within minutes. She gave him a glare, which he returned with a smile. “How’d you do that?” wondered Damon.

“It’s all in the wrists,” Matthias and Amaris said together. Actually, it really was not in the wrists. It was all about being peaceful, quiet, and patient. Damon was none of those things. Amaris put her fishing pole away. She thought about doing some hunting, but she was never one for hunting. Of course, she could hunt. The problem with Atlantis was the creatures. She could never tell if she was going to find metal or actual meat in the animals. Damon could easily tell the difference, even from far away. So, she let him do the hunting. However, on this particular day, she had a deep desire to do some hunting. It might have been the area. She despised being out in the open like this.

That was when she saw him. She felt her eyes widen and she stopped, as if she was frozen in time. The dragon had not seen her. It moved around, swinging its head from side to side, looking for something to devour. It looked sort of life a giant lizard, which was what it had originally mutated from. Dragons were always myths, but myths were Atlantean scientists’ favorite experiments. It had huge wings and glowing red eyes. She could see its muscles rippling when he moved. She slowly started backing away. She heard the boys packing up the fishing gear, and following her. Her eyes widened even more. They were so loud.

The dragon looked over to Amaris’s direction and saw her for the first time. She heard Damon laugh and felt something bump into her. “Sorry,” Damon muttered. She grabbed his arm and forced him to look at the dragon. In the corner of her eye, she saw Matthias standing on her other side. The dragon just looked at them. When it did not move to attack, she told them, “Move back slowly.” One step at a time, they walked backwards, painfully slow. The dragon moved closer to them. The farther away they went, the closer the dragon came towards them.

“What’s the plan?” Damon asked Amaris quietly.

“We need to get to the lake,” she replied. “Don’t touch anything. Not a sword, bow, anything. Dragons are smart.” They moved slowly, drawing the dragon to the water.

This was the worst idea she ever had.

The dragon went out into the open.

There were people sitting on the shore that day, fishing like they had been. She heard a little girl scream. The dragon turned away from them. Instead, he ran to the people on the shore. What happened after that, lived in the back of her mind for years. There was about fifty people sitting on the shore that day and every single of them died while she cowered in the forest with Matthias and Damon. It was completely her fault that so many people died. This was something she had never been able to forgive herself for.

After all that happened, Amaris had come to despise dragons, no matter how beautiful the creatures might be. She never wanted to go up against a dragon. Granted, she would take a dragon any day over its cousin creature, the drakkon. Still, dragons were not creatures she cared for.

These blueprints had better be a gold mine.

“Do you know what the blueprints are of?” Amaris asked Dimitri on their journey. H shook his head, but his eyes told her differently.

As they climbed the mountains, she wondered about Marinus. Granted, he was obnoxious, but he was helping them and that was all that mattered. She was still angry with Matthias for allying himself with the Lykoi. After the fiasco of their first meeting with the Lykoi, they made a promise to each other that they would never become a Lykoi. Apparently, the promise was one sided.

“You want to slow down, Mari?” She heard Marinus call to her. He and Damon were far behind her.

“Why don’t you hurry up?” she muttered, annoyance seeping into her words.

“Sorry, I can’t understand you when you’re mumbling,” he said. She shot him a glare, causing him to laugh. That set her on edge. She was not sure who or what was listening to them, and the closer they drew to the colony, the quieter they needed to be.

It was a known fact in Atlantis that dragons liked caves. They craved the intimacy of community with one another. Amaris crouched low between two rocks and watched them from outside of the cave. Damon and Marinus finally made their way over to her. Serious now, Dimitri pointed to a woman huddling beside a newborn dragon. Next to her, Damon pulled an arrow into his bow from its sheath.

As if sensing them, the nearest dragon looked over in their direction. Amaris tensed. Fire immediately stumbled out of his mouth and, as he moved his head back and forth, they ducked down, avoiding the fire. My eye’s met the creature’s. He was a large dragon with black scales up and down his body. His wings spread father than the rock they were leaning against. He was massive, but somehow a magnificent creature.

The creature inhaled with hate before breathing out flames once again. The rocks grew hot next to them. Damon stood up quickly and sent an arrow flying into the creature’s neck. The beast stumbled backwards, then shot up into the sky, trying to attack them at a different angle.

“Enough,” they heard a voice say. It belonged to the woman. She held herself with authority, causing her to instantly respect her. Dimitri stood and walked over to Sierra. They spoke in hushed tones for a while. From what she could see, the conversation was not going as planned. An argument began between them, and Dimitri retreated to them haughtily. Instead of stopping where they were, he kept walking past them. Damon and Amaris followed, trusting his directions.

“She doesn’t have the blueprints,” he told them.

“What!” she exclaimed. “She has to be lying, we saw her take them!”

“She’s already delivered them to the man she works for,” he stated. They climbed back down the mountain. Apparently, not even Dimitri knew the truth of who she was working for. Amaris only hoped he had destroyed them at this point. She muttered something about being unable to return until they found those blueprints. “Well,” he continued with a determined look on his face, “you’re going to have to. We need to return to Jasper immediately.”

“Why?” Damon asked. As Dimitri strode along, he swung his arms back and forth. Her eyes fell on his tattoo, which was glowing a strange red color.

“I hope I’m not right, but I’m afraid I’m going to be,” he muttered as if they could understand what he was saying. No matter how many times they asked him, he refused to answer their questions until he knew more about the matter. He kept glancing at her as if whatever was happening involved her.

Great.