The griffon stopped and stared us down with its round, hungry eyes, before taking a couple of steps towards us and the boy, Arnold, lying on the ground.
"Rockatope!" Vivian yelled, clapping her hands above her head, and a tall wall of rock erected itself between the boy and the monster. The monster let out a loud growl and leaped backward in surprise. It puffed out its blue and golden feathers, making it look twice its original size and twice as scary.
"Get up!" Vivian yelled to the boy, the boy scrambled to his hands and knees and then to his feet, and clumsily stumbled over towards us, one of his arms flailing in the air, the other clutching his nose, which had begun to squirt blood. Both his glasses and his face were smudged with dirt and grime.
When he reached us, Santana grabbed him by his arm and tossed him like a rag doll behind us. "Stay!" Santana hissed, looking over her shoulder at him, before turning to face the griffon again.
"Violet, get behind me !" Henry said, moving in front of me and lightly pushing me behind him.
"No, you get behind me!" I said angrily, reclaiming my spot in front of him. "You're the one in danger for once, stupid! They want to take a nibble on your insides, not mine."
Just then, two more griffins came bounding into the clearing after the first and stopped just behind it. The first turned and growled at the two newbies, and the newbies growled back, snapping their beaks open and closed with a loud clicking sound. The first one then turned back to us and unfurled its wings and began to back up. The other two griffins mimicked the original.
"They're going to try and fly over the wall!" Vivian yelled, grabbing Henry and cradling him in her arms like a baby, much to Henry's horror and my amusement. Despite the situation, I could hardly hold my laughter in when I saw the sour expression on Henry's face.
Henry caught my strained expression, "Not funny," he snarled.
"Hey, yo Violet," Vivian said, rapidly retreating backward with Henry still in her arms. Can you think you can raise some dead and distract them while we wait for the dragon? The dragon should be here soon, but I'm all out of magic energy. I got into a little fight earlier and used almost all of it up."
I bit my lip and nodded my head, "I'll try my best," I said before kneeling down and pressing my hands against the dry ground of the forest.
At first, I felt nothing, and I knitted my eyebrows together and tried concentrating harder. Still nothing. I closed my eyes and pressed my hands harder against the earth, and then I finally felt something. I opened my eyes, but it was already too late. The first griffons were already propelling themselves up and over Vivian's wall.
The cracking of wood being splintered was the only warning I received before a great golden head emerged from the jungle and snapped up the griffon midair. The griffon disappeared into the dragon's mouth with a loud crunch. The other two griffons let out screeches of alarm, and veered back from the creature and took off flying into the forest.
The dragon's catlike green eyes lazily drifted down to me as it began to chew the prize it had caught in its mouth. The look it was giving me seemed to be saying, "What, I was hungry, and I just saved the day, got a problem with that?"
"Goldfish!" Vivian said happily, jogging over to the golden dragon with Henry still in her arms. "What took you so long, silly boy? Mama was starting to worry a little."
"PUT ME DOWN!" Henry shouted, squirming in Vivian's arms, and Vivian fulfilled his request and put him gently on his feet.
The great dragon reared its golden head in the air and tilted it back, swallowing the contents of its mouth in one colossal gulp. Once it was done, it lowered its snout into Vivian's hand, and she began to rub tiny circles on it with the palm of her hand. The last dying rays of the sun caught the dragon's golden scales, creating a golden shimmer around both of them, and making a beautiful image of dragon and master. If I were an artist, I would've painted their picture.
"Do you like him?" Vivian asked, looking over her shoulder with a faint smile, making small dimples in her freckled cheeks. It's my wedding present from John, remember the guy with the giant dragon named Frog?
"Yeah, I remember that guy... wait, you got married!? Congratulations!" I squealed, running up to Vivian and hugging her. "What else did I miss while I was gone?" I asked eagerly.
Vivian's smile disappeared from her face, and I got slightly worried. Had something happened to the people I loved while I was gone?"
"Your family and friends are alright," she reassured me, reading my worried expression, "Just not a lot of pleasant things have been going on in these lands recently."
Her brown eyes looked towards the undergrowth behind me, "We'll talk once we are out of here. I hate this hell jungle and want to get out of it as soon as possible," she murmured bitterly.
"Let's get everyone on Goldfish and get out of here. He might not be as big as Frog, but he can hold all of us."
"Alright, let's do this!" I said, clapping my hands together.
"No way in hell I'm getting on that thing!" Santana yelled, and we all turned to look at her. She was looking at Goldfish with a look of pure terror. She pointed a shaking finger at it, "It's a giant lizard with wings!" She noticed the look we were all giving her, "A lizard with wings!! A freaking spooky lizard with wings on its back!!!"
Vivian shook her head and turned her body to face her. "Fine," I said, "You can ride the dragon conscious or unconscious, and I guess you're choosing unconscious," Vivian said and ran at her.
Santana froze in place, a look of shock on her face, until Vivian smacked the back of her head, and her expression went slack. Vivian caught her before she hit the ground and hoisted her over her shoulder. She then turned towards Arnold, who was watching this all go down with a slightly detached expression on his face.
"Do you have any problems riding the dragon?" she asked him.
He shook his head, "No dragons are cool, I want to ride it. Will it try and eat me?" he asked without any expression in his voice.
Vivian narrowed her eyes, "You're a creepy little bugger, aren't you? Anyways, no, it won't eat you as long as you don't make it mad."
"Okay, I won't," he said.
Vivian nodded, "Goldfish down," Vivian commanded, and the dragon lay down. She slung Santana over his back and then bent down and lifted Arnold onto Goldfish's back, too. Next, she got on and helped Henry and me up.
She took the reins in both hands, "Everyone gets a firm hold. Alright, are you all ready?" she asked.
"Yeah!" Arnold yelled loudly, and Vivian pulled the reins in surprise at the sudden noise. Goldfish let out a roar and shot skywards, and I let out a scream at the sudden and unexpected takeoff.
We were just high enough to clear the trees before Vivian levels us out.
"Why aren't we going higher?" Henry asked from his seat in the saddle in front of us.
"Most importantly, why did you really have to knock her out like that??" I asked, cutting into the conversation. I gestured to the unconscious Santana, who was slumped over Goldfish, in front of Vivian.
"Trust me, gal, I've enough experience with these otherworldly brats to know if they don't accept the existence of dragons in the first couple of minutes, they aren't going to get them on the back of one for the next couple of hours, and we don't have a couple of hours."
"Can you please not ignore my question of why we are flying so low!?" Henry said loudly, "You do have the cover of night on your side, but you are completely in enemy range. You should be three times higher than this, Vivian. Didn't John teach you anything about flying a damn dragon!?"
"And didn't I teach you never to talk to me like that?" Vivian said darkly, then sighed, "So you haven't noticed it yet?"
"Notice what?" Henry and I both said in unison.
"That!" Vivian said, and my eyes were adjusted enough to the darkness, which had settled around us in the last couple of minutes, to see that she was pointing upwards.
I tilted my head back and looked to where she was pointing. At first, my eyes detected nothing in the starry sky. But then I notice it, a section of the sky that was slightly darker than the rest. Blue lightning crackled across it, and I knew exactly what I was looking at.
"Holy hell!" Henry exclaimed.
"Yeah, holy hell is right," Vivian agreed. "They appeared all over the place after you disappeared. Nothing that goes in ever comes back out ever again."
"They must lead to the other world," I said, thinking of the portal that had brought me to the other world and then the portal that had taken Henry and me back home.
"Well, we aren't going to find out!" Vivian said, Ah, here's camp.
She turned Goldfish downward, and my stomach flipped. We landed on the ground softly. Vivian jumped down, and I helped hand down a still unconscious Santana to her. She cradled Santana in her arms as she had done with Henry.
Arnold got down next, and I jumped off, and Henry carefully eased himself to the ground.
"How's your head?" I asked him once he was standing beside me on the ground.
"I think I might have a concussion," he replied, "But I'm sure Miss B can heal it when she is rested enough."
"I'm not Miss B anymore, remember? I'm Mrs. Crystal now," Vivian corrected him.
Henry shrugged, "I don't care how many times you get married, you'll always be Miss B to me."
"Whatever, hey little weirdo," she said, speaking to Arnold, "You hungry? I'll get you something to eat as soon as I lay Santana down."
Arnold nodded, "But I can't eat anything with nuts in it."
"Well, then it's a good thing that I have nothing but bread and jerky, then, what about the two of you? Are you guys hungry?
"No, I'm fine," I said. The stress of the entire day had totally killed my appetite, but I'm sure it would be renewed come tomorrow morning.
"I'll take some of that jerky, "Henry said, and first thing tomorrow you're going to heal my head."
"Alright," Vivian said with a laugh, but little did either of them know, or me, that we wouldn't have any time for healing the next morning.