Friday, October 7, 2005

   Chapter 11: Fifth (part 2)
As the first beams of sunlight flooded over the beach, the kids began to awake. Lucifer was one of the first.
“Good morning,” Pen said as the angel sat up. After stretching and yawning, he poked Sasheeta gently to get her to wake up. She grumbled and bit his finger.
“You sound cheerful today,” Lucifer noted, somewhat absentmindedly, as he tried to get the sleeping dragon to release him. “Sasheeta, that hurts!”
“Here, let me help,” Koshga proposed, flying over to them. She sat down beside her younger colleague and tilted her head to the side. There was a second of complete silence.
“Yeep!” Sasheeta squeaked suddenly, jumping to her paws, suddenly wide awake. In the process, Lucifer got the chance to pull his finger out of her mouth. “Koshga!”
“That worked,” she said with satifaction. “You need to learn how to stay awake if you ever want to be a real king’s dragon. Now would be a good time to start training.”
Sasheeta grumbled something, then busied herself brushing sand off her wings.
“Anyway, as I was saying, you sound happier today,” Lucifer told Pen, watching as Chella cast her morning light across the water of the Acheron.
“I do?” Pen asked, unsure of what to make of this news.
“Yeah.”
A silence set in, but it wasn’t an awkward one. They simply enjoyed each other’s presence for the short while that it took for the remaining kids to wake up.
Once it was certain that everyone had gotten up, Sharp gave instructions to the Angel Caravan to stack together their rafts and paddle-sticks in piles. It only took a few minutes for the kids to do as he told them to. The University Caravan waited anxiously as the angels, in pairs or small groups, finally wandered over to the boats to join them.
The first boats to be filled were the extra ones that the soldiers had brought from Goswen Port. These were occupied quickly, leaving the remaining angels no choice but to find a pair of elves to share with.
Pen watched as Tory and her friend partnered up with a pair of remarkably well-matching angels: they both had brown eyes and light, blondish-brown hair, and they were short for their age. The only way that Pen could tell that they weren’t sisters was their wings and their build—one was very skinny and rather pale for an angel, with white wings that faded into a grayish blue toward the tips, whereas the other was less scrawny and had pink wings.
The two of them tore their attention away from the girls when they noticed that an angel had drifted over to them. An elf—perhaps his friend—was not far behind. They saw that the two boys were watching them, and approached them a little nervously.
“Do you still have room in your boat?” the first asked. He wore a plain gray t-shirt and pants; his only interesting feature was a headband that had the image of a bird on the front, which he wore proudly on his brown hair. His wings were fairly small and frail for an angel.
“Sure,” Lucifer said kindly.
“I’m Yatii,” he responded. “Can my friend also come with us?”
“Of course.”
“My name’s Edward,” the elf said, coming to Yatii’s side. He had one blue eye and one green eye, as well as dark blonde hair. Unlike his angel friend, he wore a red shirt and cream-colored pants. “You can just call me Ed.”
“I’m Lucifer.”
“Pen,” Pen told them to introduce himself.
“My name’s Sasheeta!” the little dragon, flying on to Lucifer’s shoulder. “It’s a pleasure to meet you!”
“Wow, you have a pseudodragon?” Yatii gasped in awe. “Other than the one that came with the Angel Caravan, I’ve only seen wild ones!”
“Well, she’s not ours technically,” the black-winged angel explained. “She’s just hanging out with us for now.”
“I’ve read so much about you,” Yatii told the little dragon. “The smartest of the chromatics, a rare strand of magic and mental energy that forms a bond between those who share the same blood…”
“It’s time to get moving,” Contra’s voice rang over the camp. Pen immediately got busy and began to push the boat back into the water. A second later, Lucifer, Yatii, and Ed also added their strength, pushing the shell quickly through the uneven sand and into the swift current of the Acheron.
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