Brand New Day

Pernas looked at her, a bit surprised. Eonoe didn't look up, however. He just went into his meal.

"I dunno..." Pernas said. "He seemed pretty broken up yesterday. Most of his herd left him, as I understand."

"It's probably the ones left at his side that were the ones most closely involved in the tampering." Eonoe said. "We'll see if they try to pull anything here. With two more dragons arrived, it'll either stir them to more action, or make them lie low. We'll have to see."

Reyna got a hard look, "What's that thing? It's like... annoying." She looked at Eonoe, "It's in the tunnels."

Her head was drawn up, "Above us. I think it's listening." She was silent a moment before she looked down at Pernas, "Did Captain Carbonbuckle call anything out of the core? Something to sort of do his bidding?"

Her head was up again, "It's moving away now."

Then her gaze turned to Eonoe and she had a slightly hungery look in her eyes her grip tightened on his shoulder, "Eonoe?" It was a question to hunt it down."

"Oh yeah." Pernas said. "A monster attacked me the other day."

"A monster?" Eonoe asked, startled.

"Yeah. That's the second time." Pernas said, nodding.

Eonoe looked back at Reyna. "Yes, we'll have to take care of that." he said, standing up.

Reyna frowned, "But are you still tired?" She was worried, "I can take care of it if you need to rest." Worry was in her gaze, a feeling she couldn't fake, as she added, "I don't want you to overwork your self."

"Well..." Eonoe said, looking at Reyna. She seemed worried.

"It's not a big deal." Pernas said, shrugging. "I could've killed it myself." he then remembered that he needed Vi's father to save him. "I almost did." he muttered. "It just slinked away when I wasn't looking."

"Well, if you're sure you want to handle it by yourself," Eonoe said, "I don't think it'd be a problem." he laughed.

"I can help." Pernas said, standing up.

Reyna fidgeted but finaly nodded, "Okay, you can help."

Vi looked about ready too add in that she wanted to help but Reyna cut across her, "Eonoe, you should see to the other human that was made in to a cow and protect...?"

"Vi," she supplied and Reyna nodded.

Then she turned to Pernas and smiled a natural loving smile, "Let's go hunt some monster." With that she led the way in to the caves.

"Okay." Eonoe said, following Vi, as Pernas went with Reyna.

"I think the monster is a cow that got transformed into one." Pernas said. "Not completely sure, though." He followed her as she went into the cave. "You can track it?" he asked. "How?"

Reyna shrugged, "It's how I met your father. He's powerful and has a certain trace element in his power. So do you and many humans but there's is lesser so. This one is like part of Eonoe but at the same time it's wrong. Like a virus got in to it. Possibly the cow you are reffering too."

They walked on for a while, "Watch it, he's coming up fast on your right."

And sure enough the creature leaped out but Reyna was there. She chomped in to it with dragon teeth and it reeled back. It stood glaring at both of them and waiting.

"Oh." Pernas said. "I see."

Then, at her warning, he quickly got out of the way as the monster swiped at him. He backed up, shifting into his dragon form, ready to pounce.

The monster backed up, hissing at them. Pernas glanced at Reyna, unsure of what to do. Should he pounce, or would that make him get in the way?

Go, ahead. You obviously want to teach the little monster a lesson, Reyna rang across his mind as she hissed at the monster and lunged forward before feinting to the side.

The monster leaped to one side before realizing it was a feint. That gave Pernas time to pounce on it, pinning it to the ground on its belly, not letting it constrict him.

"I wonder if it can talk." Pernas wondered, though he didn't let that thought get him lost. Had to keep a tight grip on the monster.

It curled and wriggles and slashed and scratched but Reyna was there. Holding down it's head, "If it can't it will be able to when it's a cow again."

She didn't snap it's neck. Instead she dug her teeth in to it's neck and ripped it's throat out for good measure. Blood sprayed them but Reyna swallowed it down before the last lights went out in the monters eyes.

Reyna smiled a dragon smile, now currently full of bits of fur and blood, "You're pretty good you know. With a little training you could get better."

"Heh." Pernas said. "Thanks." he said, stepping off of the corpse. He looked at it. "For good measure." he said, setting it on fire. "Whew." he said. "Glad that's over."

She cleaned her teeth before coming close to him and licking him clean and then cleaning her self of blood, a bit like a cat. Before she nuzzled him.

"I wish you could come with us. It's just," She paused, "Too dangerous right now. Would you want to come with us, Pernas?"

Her gaze was soft and loving and had a sense of motherly nature mixed in. Perhaps it was her, be free, complex that made her want kids so much. She wanted to raise them with everything she had never had.

Her tail curled around her as they headed back to the others.

Pernas giggled a little bit as she cleaned him. "Thanks." he said.

"The danger would be a problem." Pernas said. "That's why Eonoe left me here. We ran into trouble wherever we went, most of the time. But I'd like to. Sometimes I think it'd be nice to live with a mother and a father, even if it's just a vagabond's life."

He looked down. "I never knew my actual parents."

"Love, if Eonoe took you away from them or he adopted you from somewhere it was for a very good reason," Reyna nuzzled him, "I really want to be a mother but," She paused, "I'm sterile. I," another pause, "I haven't told your father yet."

"Once things settle out I'll convinse him to come back and get you," Reyna said and nuzzled him again.

"Oh." Pernas said. "I'm sorry to hear that..." he said. "Eonoe stole me, is what happened. Some dragons can be downright... evil..." he said, his voice trailing off. "That made me mad once. Shortly before I came to this island, we met this one dragon, who was talking about how terrible humans are. It made me mad..."

"Well, I can't really say. I'm mostly treated as a freak but I don't really think that they are evil. They just don't understand some things," Reyna nuzzled him again but changed.

She looked up at the big dragon and smiled. Her wings stretched half way out and her horns were much longer now. Her hands touched them softly, "I am what I am though. I may not be human or even completely a dragon but I have you and Eonoe and I wouldn't wish it any other way."

She looked up the caves, "Come, Eonoe is returning as well. I know we still have a few things to explain to you."

"Okay," Pernas said, nodding as he changed back into a human. They saw Eonoe, Vi, and a now-human Ralph, clothed in loose-fitting white clothing approaching.

"Well, that problem was easily solved." Eonoe said.

"I really should figure out how to use magic better..." Pernas said, a bit embarrassed.

"Don't worry." Eonoe said. "The problem's solved. I'll do something about the core to make sure that the cows can't mess around with it. That's the problem, really. They mess with it and it makes the magic all unstable."

"Besides how could you know that the cows would try to mess with the core?" Reyna said but she moved closer to Eonoe and wrapped her arms around his middle. Laying her head agianst his chest briefly.

"So, now we can talk about what's going to happen," Reyna smiled up at Eonoe, "Right, Eonoe?"

Eonoe smiled. "Yes." he said, looking down at her. He looked back up at the others.

"Well, we're engaged." he said, putting his arm around her. "We plan on marrying very soon. We haven't really settled on any real plans, but we realized that we should find whoever we can that we're close to. It coincided pretty well with the problems here, I must say." He said, laughing.

Pernas nodded. "Anyone else that's being invited?"

"My parents," Her voice showed that she wasn't very happy about that, "If Eonoe can get them here."

Reyna looked at Ralph and Vi, "You can come too. If you're friends with Pernas you are welcome."

Vi nodded, "My father will have to decide."

Eonoe nodded. "We still need to completely decide on the arrangements." he said, looking at Reyna. "Weddings can be a bit of a hassle." he laughed. "We have a lot to talk about, I think."

"Well at least most of it will be magical and we wont have many guests," Reyna said to him and then turned to Pernas, "Would you like to be ring barer?"

"Umm..." Pernas said, processing it. "Sure."

Eonoe eyed, him a little concerned. Then he shrugged it off as Pernas simply being unused to such proceedings. "Well, all's well, then. Now, let's get down to the core and put a few safeguards on it." he said, standing up.