I widened my eyes in shock. No way...how could this be!?
"Don't worry, I'm not on the bad side," the dirty blonde said, dipping the metal canteen in her hand deeper into the water before bringing it back up. "In fact, I came to help you guys out," she held her gaze on the canteen, while she screwed the lid back on. Bad people brought you to this place, but good people are here to get you out ."
The blonde at this point let out a small sigh and began to say something that sounded like she had rehearsed and said almost a hundred times. "You're probably confused about what's going on right now, but don't worry, I'll explain everything when we reach safety," the blonde raised her head and looked at us full on, "Now fol- Violet!" Vivian yelled, rising to her feet and to her considerable height.
Tears of relief and joy began pooling in my eyes and rolled down my cheeks, "You have absolutely no idea how happy I am to see you," I hiccupped.
"And is that Henry!?" Vivian cried, looking at Henry's limp form.
I nodded and began easing him to the ground.
She inched closer to us. "What the hell happened to him!?" she asked, peering down at him, "It looks like someone cold-cocked him hard enough to make his head do a loop de loop."
Santana and I both exchanged looks at Vivian's comment, "Ah, that was an unfortunate accident," I answered, and Santana cast her blue eyes downwards to her dirty sneakers.
Vivian's gaze flicked between us, and then she seemed to come to an understanding because she said, "I guess that really doesn't matter, hun? What matters is that we get him to rise and shine, get the two of you some water, and then hightail it out of this steamy hell.
We both nodded eagerly with her in agreement and then hurried over to the water's cool edge and dipped our cupped hands under the clear surface, bringing the water to our lips and swallowing greedy gulps. The water was cool and pure and one of the best things I had ever drunk.
While we inhaled water like fish, Vivian's footsteps padded softly across the ground behind us. At one point, I lifted my head long enough to catch my breath, and as I did, I saw that Vivian had come around to Henry's right side and lowered herself beside him. After a quick examination, she began to rummage through the bag she wore at her side.
"Well, Violet, at least you returned him in a better condition than you did the last time," she half-joked, and I winced internally at that memory. I could still see those deep gashes Danny had left running across Henry's chest when Henry had kidnapped me and attempted to take me to Greta for the sake of saving his sister.
I sat back from the water, my thirst satisfied. Santana was still going at it, though. She had probably become more dehydrated running from those men than I had to take my nice little nap on top of a griffon.
"Yeah, at least he isn't bleeding out or anything. He's just unconscious in the middle of a forest where man-eating beasts want to take a little nibble out of him." I said, and let out an exasperated laugh.
"No, if the Griffins got to him, they would take more than just a nibble, more like a couple of big chunks. Oh, and by the way, who is the friend you got with you? Are you going to introduce her?" she said, gesturing in Santana's general direction with her free hand.
"Oh, her name is Santana." Santana raised her head from the water at the mention of her name. "She's from the other world. When she was getting sucked into the portal that took her to this world, I accidentally got sucked in too."
My life was simple and easy. A bit lonely, but I liked it. It wasn't until I literally crashed into the one who would change my life forever. My world got turned upside down...
"I see. Ahhh!" she exclaimed when she finally found what she was looking for in her bag. She pulled out what looked like a silver salt shaker and brought it under Henry's nose and held it there for a couple of seconds.
"And Santana, this is Vivian, she's one of the good guys," I gestured to her. "She's going to help us get out of here."
Almost immediately, Henry sat up and knocked the silver salt shaker from Miss B's hand. It flew a couple of feet away before hitting a tree and falling towards the ground with a small ping.
"What the hell was that!?" he snapped, glaring at the empty air in front of him. "It smelled like something crawled into dragon poop, died, and then something ate it, regurgitated it, and then died on top of it.
He took his hand and began rubbing his face like he could rub away the memory of the smell.
Vivian snorted loudly, "Well, Henry, I think that's the most creative way that anyone has described the way my smelling salts have smelled."
Henry stopped rubbing his face and slowly turned his head to look at her. He gazed at Vivian in awe before reaching out to embrace her quickly and pulling away.
"I can't believe you're here, and I am home in my world again! He smiled, but his smile soon dropped, and his face grew serious. Violet is here too. We have to go find her. I found her before, but I was attacked, and I'm afraid those men I spotted moving through the trees earlier were responsible, and they might have her now. "
He began to rise, but Vivian's gentle and firm hand stopped him, "Henry, who do you think brought you to me?" she said, pointing to me.
His electric blue eyes locked onto me, and his eyes filled with relief, but they did not move away from me like he was worried that I would disappear if he looked away for even a second.
I stood from the ground and raced towards him. He opened his arms wide for me, and I all but tackled him. He fell onto his back with me on top of him, laughing. I leaned my face towards him and kissed him fully on his mouth, not caring that other people were watching.
"Hey, watch it, don't give him another head injury!" Vivian yelled, but I could tell by her tone she was only joking.
I reluctantly got off him and let him stand. He got to his feet, but once standing, he began to wobble and clutched at his head like he was in pain. I looked at him in concern and reached out to steady him, but he shook his head and swatted my hand away, "I'm perfectly fine," he murmured.
"Are you sure you're perfectly fine?" I said, and poked him gently with my hand, and watched him lean violently to the right. He grabbed a tree branch at the last second, before he could completely topple over like a stack of bricks, and steadied himself.
"Because I don't think you are."
He pulled himself back to standing with the branch and glared at me without answering.
"Hey, I've got to agree with Violet on this one, you're not doing so hot," Vivian said, coming up behind us. But not to worry, I rode a dragon into here, so I just got to call it, and we can ride it out."
She pulled out a black cord from under the collar of the green shirt; attached to the cord was a shiny golden whistle. She brought the golden whistle to her lips and blew on it hard. No sound came out of it, at least none I could hear, but dragons did have a very good sense of hearing. Dragons could hear things at pitches that we could never even dream of turning into.
"Dragon whistle works every time," she said, removing the whistle from her mouth. She looked over at us. "She should be here in the next five minutes or so."
"Umm, excuse me." We all turned towards Santana, who was now standing, "But did you just say we will be riding a dragon out of here?"
Vivian shrugged, "How else do you think we are going to get out of here unless you want to ride out on a griffon?"
"But you can't be serious! Dragons don't exist!" Santana protested.
"That's what they all say," Vivian said, shaking her head and smiling in amusement.
"Well, whenever this 'dragon' shows up, you can't seriously expect me to ride it," Santana said, wrapping her hands tightly across her chest. She lifted her chin defiantly.
"You will fly out here on a dragon no matter what, but what state you fly out in is entirely up to you. Tell me, do you want to be conscious or unconscious because I can make you unconscious pretty fast?" Vivian took a half step towards Santana, but Santana remained unmoving.
We all jumped, except for Vivian, when a loud growl reverberated throughout the forest, followed by much more, until the whole forest seemed to be vibrating with the low throaty sound, followed by a scream and the sound of someone crashing through the dense undergrowth towards us.
Vivian looked away from Santana and towards Henry and me. Her face was tense. "Well, I guess reunion time is over. You guys ready to fight?"
Henry and I nodded at the same time, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see Santana reaching for a nearby stick. She picked it up, and Henry shot her a curious look, reaching for the spot she had hit him and then looking down at the stick she held in her hand.
"Yeah, that was me, sorry," she apologized, and he gave her a slow nod before directing his gaze towards the bushes the sound of the pursuit was coming.
Abruptly, a shape crashed into the clearing and collapsed to the ground. We all stared down at him in surprise.
"Arnold!?" Santana yelled at the boy with brown hair lying on the ground. You got sucked in too!?
The boy raised his head and stared at us wide-eyed from behind a pair of rimmed glasses.
"This place is amazing," he said, a smile spreading across his face. "I just almost got eaten by a creature that doesn't exist! And about twenty of them are following me now, and they should be here in about-"
He didn't even finish his first sentence before the first griffon joined us in the clearing.