Memories

[A time when Maddie is an infant and being cared for by Sonja]

Warm white light envelopes me. Purple hues start to poke through here and there. What is happening? I wonder all while trying to figure out which way is up and which way is down. There is no ground so fear is in the back of my mind but never going farther than that. Chains form around my limbs as I hear a small voice saying they will be with me til death. Then the chains are gone in an instant.

The light fades so I can see a young human girl with purple hair standing in front of me. She has a huge smile on her face as she jumps up and down clapping her hands. Then she calms down and kneels infront of me.

"Hello little one. You must be scared but don't fear, I will take good care of you. My name is Sonja."

My fear goes away for some reason. Sonja sits in front of me holding out her hand. I slowly get up, looking around at the small dusty wooden room with candles and markings covering the floor. I then sniff the sweet scent of the girl's hand. She slowly moves to stroke my scales over my small body. Then she scratches lightly under my chin. It feels so good. I lean more into her hand til it presses against the floor.

"You like that don't you?" She asks with a giggle.

"Yeaaaa." I reply happily.

"You can have all the scratches you want when we are together. Sound good?" Her innocent smile makes me grin too.

"I like that."

Some time passes, she bundles me up in a blanket to take me to her parents house. At the time she was still living with her parents but soon we would be building the cabin on the mountain since I will start to grow fast and would need the mountains.

"No one's home yet. Lets go to my room and find out what kind of dragon you are." Sonja says climbing stairs.

We enter a book riddled room. They were everywhere, the shelves were full, the bed was covered, stacks of books and open ones barely left space on the floor, a desk had more books and papers. The papers were also pinned to the wall everywhere.

"Lets see." Sonja says plopping me on her pillow. She sits on her desk chair flipping though the stacked papers and books. "You're still little so it might be hard to identify you."

"Ident?" I asked confused of the word.

"Identify, to know of something or someone." Sonja explains while picking up a book. "Ah here."

I look at her wondering what is happening. Then I eye a tasty pink rock on her nightstand.

"Let's see. You have green scales, a stumpy tail, the cutest little wings, all your teeth are sharp, my big question is." She rubs the top of my head. "Oh you do! You will have horns!"

"Stumpy tail? Wings? Horns?" At the time all of these were new descriptions. I have the rock in the bed now.

"Now that I have your description. We can start ruling out what dragons you aren't. Like for example, you are not a dark forest dragon because of your wings. Or you are not an ancient water dragon because your scales are green and you have wings."

"What happens when you find out?" I ask.

"Then I can show you how great you will be when you get nice and big!" Sonja smiles.

"Then what am I? What am I?" I start jumping up and down on the pillow. The pink rock starts to roll off the bed but I catch it in time.

"Hmmmm lets look through all the green dragons shall we?" She starts flipping through page after page. "Not a light forest dragon due to horns. Those ones have interesting life styles of living in large trees and able to fly unlike the dark forest dragons. Not a serpent green dragon due to legs and you don't have their fangs. Oooo swamp dragons are fascinating. Not a lot of people like them since they aren't 'strong' but they are smart with their abilities. They can bring forth water from underground and sense how far down or away it is. Some even have the ability to take toxins from the water and create poison for defense."

"They sound cool! Am I one of them?" I ask then go back to chewing on the pink rock because it looked so good while she was talking.

"No you aren't since you have wings and no purple stripe." She flips a few more pages. Then looks at me and back to the book several times. "Eternal earth dragon."

"Ether?" I tilt my head.

"You're kind is supposed to be extinct." Her face is one of worry.

"Stink?" I say with a mouth full of rock.

"This will be one of the very few commandments I give you. If anyone asks what you are, you tell them you are a winged green dragon." After that Sonja has always been kind with her words and very very rarely gives me orders due to the master contract.

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[Back to the present. Where the last chapter's clinghanger left off.]

"Don't touch her!" Maddie bellows to everyone.

"Why?!" Amaya screams with makeup running down her face.

"It's rare but swamp dragons can have the ability to take in toxins from their surroundings and create poison. Sonja told me that when I was young so it took a minute for the memory to come back." Maddie explains.

"So what do we do?" I ask stepping out from the forest.

"Ragon?" Maddie says turning to look at me then back to Olive. "I'm not sure. Olive can you please tell us what is happening."

"I-I've b-been gathering toxins but I g-guess I g-got too m-many." Olive struggles to get those words out and then withers into herself from pain.

"If we can wipe the poison off of her skin, she will keep expressing it. Eventually she will run out of toxins in her." Kem speaks up, holding an orb in his hand. Sonja's worried face is on the inside of the glass ball.

"I can use my clouds to wipe her." Pearl says.

"We can't let the toxins back into the forest. I will be right back with bottles." Arata says running to the cabin.

Soon Pearl is forming clouds and using them as sponges to wipe Olive down. After the cloud is dark from poison its placed in a funnel for Sheldon to add a few drops of water to break the cloud into a liquid. I'm incharge of having bottles ready while Arata is making sure they are sealed. Kem is inspecting the bottles to tell us if there is a change of how much poison is in each. More or less we want to see a decrease in the poison coming out of Olive.

Kem finally gives the word that the poison is a lot lower. Olive looks a lot more comfortable too. We all sigh in relief til Arata speaks up.

"How long have you been working on the toxins gathering?" He asks pointing his thumb over his shoulder at 20 palm size worth of full bottles.

"My whole life but I only really got the hang of it after meeting all of you." Olive replies.

"Olive you can't put yourself in danger like this ever again!" Amaya is sobbing while cradling Olive's head in her arms.

"I'm sorry for worrying you. I will be more careful from now on." Olive apologizes.

"You better!" Amaya says wiping away her tears.

"Well crisis averted." Says Sonja.

"For now." I reply now standing beside Kem.

"Thank you sis for the help." Kem tells his sister.

"Anytime. Oh Ragon I have some questions for you." Says Sonja.

"Yea?" I ask.

"They are personal questions about your bodily changes from the dragon inside you. Do you want the rest to know?" Asks Sonja.

"When you put it that way. It sounds like I might not want to answer even if alone." I chuckle taking the orb from Kem. 

"You know what I mean!" She sulks.

"I'll be back. Sounds like the doctor wants me to have a check up." I tell the rest and give them a wave.

"Could he make it less obvious he is going off to flirt with her?" I could hear Amaya whisper as I walk away.

"I'm sorry dear." Olive replies softly back to her.

Once I'm away from everyone I ask Sonja what she wants to know.

"I found what Dragon's Laud means." Sonja says gently.

Adrenaline starts running through my body. Not for my sake but fear, anger and worry for Sonja. She had to put herself in danger to get those books. Words will not form on my tongue as I look into the orb at the concerned girl.