The tanks

It's the day after the gotcha party. I'm exhausted still so I'm hiding to take a nap.

I stretch out on the flat rock in the sun, happily soaking up the heat. I start to drift to sleep til I hear voices coming up the mountain. Here comes Elbereth and Dre pulling a cart. This spot up here is nice to train on since Maddie made it flatter for all of us.

I don't think they know I'm up here. The wind changes but I am still down wind. I lazily watch over them as they set up their training course. Dre has come a long way, Elbereth brings out the fighter in him. It doesn't take them long to set up their wooden dummies.

"Who's the biggest?" Elbereth starts to chant in front of him.

"Maddie?" Dre teases Elbereth. 

She eyes him down to be serious then chants louder. "Who's the biggest?!"

"I am!" Dre calls back.

"Who's the fastest?" The normally quiet girl says getting louder.

"I am!!" Dre yells back.

"Who's going down!?" Elbereth is pumped.

"Gilton!!!" The large drake is getting down into a lunging position. His teeth bared ready for a fight.

"Who's taking him down?!" Elbereth is screaming at this point.

"WE ARE!!" Dre yells his warcry and starts his charge.

The small girl grabs the side of him and jumps to be on his back. Pulling the stick from the side of her belt she conjures up magic into the shape of a black sword. She also conjures up a black shield in her left hand. Elbereth and Dre are charging through all of the dummies, cutting them down one by one. They move with precision and poise as they find the fastest route to take down their targets. After all of the dummies are cut down, Elbereth uses her legs to tell Dre to turn to face the fallen dummies. In one swift move she let's out a swing of her sword sending out a pulse of magic and cuts them all off at their ankles.

Ruthless as always for training. For someone thats quiet around everyone, she sure has no fear when her and Dre are out here.

"Lets get these picked up and the next batch in place." Says Elbereth.

"I'm on it!" Dre says. 

Then he starts to pull the dummy sticks up from the ground. Elbereth starts getting the next set out of the cart.

Soon enough they have the area set up again. There are about 20 logs with smiley, scared or angry faces cut on them sticking out of the ground. And the cut up dummies are back in the cart ready to be fire wood for later.

It wasn't too long ago that these two were timid and weak. Dre and her worked for weeks, probably months actually, on building up his stamina and her technique of staying on him with out getting cut by his scales. Amaya even made her special pants to protect her. 

While he would rest after a run she would read the book Sonja left. Then the afternoons were her practicing what she read while on Dre as he walked around the first makeshift training ground. I'm not sure when the pep talks started happening though.

Elbereth uses some red clay to paint a circle on the ground away from the dummies. Looks like their next training session is starting. This one is an endurance plus agility training.

She mounts Dre who is ready to run. His muscles under his scales twitch and churn as he walks to the circle. He keeps stalking around the red dot waiting for Elbereth to cut him loose. He was intimidating before but now he really is deadly.

It's subtle but I can see Elbereth squeeze Dre a little with her legs. He takes off taring up the ground under his claws. They cirle the first dummy cutting him up a few times then back to the dot. They charge the next one, Elbereth splits this one down the middle just as Dre reached it. The third one Elbereth commands him to bite the dummy. With ease he bites the wood into splinters. They continue to go from the red dot to next closest dummy and back to the dot til they are all cut up by her or mutilated by Dre.

Elbereth jumps from Dre's back seathing her stick in her belt. The shield goes back to being nothing on her arm. The large dragon jumps around her while she praises him for his hard work. She side steps back and forth and he follows with an extra spring in his step. They have a small play session as if he was just a puppy.

The wind shifts and I am no longer down wind of the pair. Dre stops suddenly looking up to where I am. I barely peek out over the ledge. Dre bounds up of steep ledge with ease.

"Uh oh." I say bracing for impact.

Dre tackles me just to "lightly" (or so he says) lays on me. He licks my face with his drool covered tongue. I try to escape but it was no use, he weighted just a little too much for me to move.

Elbereth comes huffing and puffing up the ledge. "My legs. My arms. Ah I broke a nail. That cliff face didn't look like that bad of a climb. Geez." She flops onto the ground a little ways from me.

"Alright Dre I can't breath." I say pushing on his neck.

"Oh sorry." Dre says with a small laugh. Then he goes over to check on Elbereth before laying down beside her.

"You two were pretty cool down there taking out dummies." I tell them.

"It's not polite to stalk people." Elbereth states catching her breath.

"Stalking? I will have you know, I was here first sunbathing." I defend myself.

"That would explain why you're shirtless. Never mind it's more rare to see you in a shirt." She realizes.

"Yea Blaze keeps me pretty warm but soaking up the sun helps me recharge faster if I trained hard." I explain.

"You trained hard?" She pokes some fun at me.

"Yesterday I did. I worked on my stealth and stamina yesterday." Or at least that's what I'm calling hiding from Elbereth's best friend and having to scratch dragons for a few hours.

"If you say so. Well Dre should we get the cart back to camp? I think the boys said something about making a trip to town with it." Elbereth says sitting up.

"See you soon." Dre says with a grin before Elbereth hops onto his back.

"Bye bye." The shy girl waves to me.

I lazily wave them both goodbye.

I wonder what the boys are going to get from town?