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  [colpse]Chapter One Hundred and Fifteen - Dragon Rider of Bun

  I was so excited I was trembling. I khis because e, who I was cuddling close to my chest, was staring up at me as if I was a mouse poking at the wrong kitty.

  Not that she was that much of a kitty anymore. At some point e had grown into a juveabby cat, her fur growing longer and her body getting bigger. Maybe spirit kittens grew faster than normal kittens? That was a shame; kittens were cutest when they were small.

  We gathered just oskirts of the town, the mayor, a few guards, old Yond and a bunch of onlookers. Most of them stayed well away from us as we waited with eyes towards the skies.

  “Stop wiggling so much, people will think you’re bizarre, and it will taint me by association,” Amaryllis said.

  “But we’re going to ride a dragon!” I said.

  Awen giggled o me, it sounded halfway betweeed and nervous, which was exactly the right thing to be feeling about the prospect of riding a real-deal dragon.

  “Moron,” Amaryllis said. “’t you at least pretend that you have some de in you?”

  “No!” I said. “Oh, I’m going to go say bye to the mayor.”

  With that said, I skipped over to the gathering of people by the gate. I saw kids pointing and more than one person shied away as I approached, as if I was dangerous or something. Maybe I should have been more careful with my reputation, I didn’t want it to get between me and my ability to make friends.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Ah, Miss Bunch,” the mayor said as he squished his hat. “You’re, ah, heading out now, yes?”

  “Yup, we’re just waiting for Rhawrexdee to arrive. I hope he didn’t break too many things?”

  “A few, but, well, we had something of an emergency meeting of the town cil, and we decided that we would all pit to repair the damages.”

  I sighed with relief. “Good. I’d hate it if our visit left a bad image.”

  “No, no of course not,” he said in a hurry. “Nothing of the sort.”

  “! So, um, we’ll be heading out now.”

  “On foot?” he asked. “I could hire a coach.”

  I blinked. “No? I thought you were all gathered here to see the dragon.”

  “That dragon is returning?!” the mayor squeaked. Some of the guards nearby tensed and I heard a murmur spreading through the crowd.

  “Yeah. Why else would you all be here?”

  Yond cackled. “They’re here to see you off. The daft morons decided that you’re the source of all their troubles. ’t see the obvious when it’s right in front of them.”

  “But we only tried to help,” I said. I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. As soon as Rhawrexdee nds we’re taking off.”

  “Yoing to ride the dragon?” Yond asked. “My, if I was a few decades more spry... bah. Good luck ss. I’d say be safe, but that seems unlikely with the life you lead.”

  I lifted my arms for a parting hug, which Yourned with a cackle. Then I hugged the rotund mayor too, food measure.

  My goodbyes were cut off with the fwomp of huge wings beating against the air. “Gotta go!” I said before boung bay friends. “Hello Rhawrexdee!”

  The dragon nded with a ground-shaking crash onto his rear legs. A squeak escaped from his arms. He uncupped his huge hands to reveal a dishevelled but grinning Booksie. She ughed and stood up onto Rhawrexdee’s hand, then hopped the dozeo the ground, nding with bent knees and a burst of stamina. “That was brilliant, Rhawrexdee,” Booksie said.

  “It was merely a small flight,” the dragon said. He did sound a little bashful about it.

  “Did you have fun?” I asked Booksie while she fixed her clothes on straight.

  “Oh, yes! Flying with Rhawexdee is, well, it’s nothing at all like being aboard an airship,” she said.

  There was a shine in her eyes that I think my own were refleg as she reached up and fixed her ears on straight.

  “I ’t wait!” I said.

  The dragon huffed and looked down at our little group. He was wearing Awen’s vest and ascot and his ophat which had somehow stayed affixed to the top of his head despite the flight. “I won’t be able to carry all of you in my arms,” he said.

  “I ride on your back!” I volunteered.

  “We’re not stopping to search for your body when you iably fly off his back,” Amaryllis said.

  “I’ll hang on tight, I promise!” I said.

  Rhawrexdee shrugged. “If you die It’s no scales off my back,” he said. “One less humanoid that I o care for mid-flight.”

  “Alright!” I said. I took off my backpad gave it to Awen. “ you watch over this? I think the drag might be dangerous. Oh, and e too.”

  Awen nodded, and after a moment spent coaxing e into my backpack, she hugged it close. “Alease be careful,” she said.

  I gave her a thumbs-up, then skipped over to Rhawrexdee, bunched my legs under me, and hopped up and onto his back.

  He didn’t so much as twitch at my weight nding on him. Uhe dragons in my books, there wasn’t a nice spot to sit on along his back. Rhawrexdee’s neck was all overpping scales that stuck out with little points at their tips and his spine had foot-long spikes stig out of it from his upper back all the way down to his tail. His new vest had cleverly crafted holes in the baake room for all the pokey bits.

  I walked around his back a bit, careful not to hurt him, but he didn’t eveo notice that I was there at all.

  Being a dragon must have been awesome! I wish I had a amon Bun Dragon css instead of just amon Bun Bun.

  I found a nice spot to y down ft on my tummy just between his wings where there were fewer spikes and where I could hug one of the spines before me and a leg around another.

  “Hang on,” Rhawrexdee said.

  His wings unfurled, huge leathery things that looked even bigger from how close I was to them. Then he beat down and the world filled with rushing wind.

  O followed the other and I tightened my grip on his back as hard as I could while also holding back the urge to whoop and giggle.

  We took to the air, Rhawrexdee’s entire back bending around as he spun and dove across Rosenbell, the town shooting past below a moment befiving way to the perilous drop into the yellow-brow.

  Rhawrexdee raced forwards, gaining so much speed that my friend’s screams--part joy and part panic--barely registered over the roar of the wind. I felt the dragon chuckle though my chest as I pressed myself down lower.

  His wings beat again and again, the world faded below, faster than any airship I had ever been on. My grin was frozen in pce as Rhawrexdee began to coast along, wings catg onto uhermals tossing us up and down through the air.

  I had no idea how fast we were going, but it certainly felt a lot faster than any ship I’d ridden on. The Shady Lady had been a quick little ship, but pared to a dragon she was a real slowpoke. It was no wohat the skies beloo them.

  I saw Rhawrexdee turn his head to look off to the side, and with a bit of a stretch I was able to see what he was looking at. A whole flock of flying whales was wiggling through the sky as quick as they could, like fish that had spotted a predator.

  I hoped that he wasn’t feeling peckish while we were with him or else things would get iing.

  After a bit, I felt fortable enough to climb onto my knees--with one hand still firmly gripped onto a spike--to look around a little. The Harpy mountains to the East were approag fast, and the desert behind us was fading away into little more than a brown line over the horizon.

  Dragons could really move when they wao!

  I id back down, just in case, and hugged Rhawrexdee’s back close.

  Time passed in a bit of a blur, the air grew a little cool for a bit, but Rhawrexdee soon dipped dowh the clouds and into warmer air. The distant mountains became not-so-distant, and then they were ht close.

  And then, quite suddenly, I heard something that was rather unnerving.

  “Oh no,” Rhawrexdee said.

  My heart skipped a beat. Had one of my friends fallen? That would be... But no, Rhawrexdee didn’t seem that irresponsible.

  The dragon tilted his wings down, and with the beat, I could see Port Royal approag fast ahead. For a moment I thought that he was disappoihat we had arrived already, then I caught a glimpse of something green in the skies high above.

  I had barely ed my neck back to see the tiny fle the sky that it came rocketting down and blew past with a hurrie-like gust of air.

  I screamed as I scrambled to hang onto Rhawrexdee’s bad just barely mao hang onto a scale as Rhawrexdee began to swoop down himself. I caught one of the spines with the bay foot and grabbed onto another for dear life as the dragons began to spin around each other.

  “Rhawrexdee!” the green dragon roared.

  I caught a glimpse of it as we spun again. It was massive, easily twice as long as Rhawrexdee was and it had a lot moing on i area than the lean blue dragon I was hanging onto.

  “Hi mom,” Rhawrexdee said with a draic sigh. “ we talk on nd? I don’t want to drop these.”

  “And what are those?” The green dragon asked. Ahe size of my arm span tilted around and then the dragon made a pleased sound. “Oh, sweetie, you found a princess! e now, let’s nd so you show your mommy.”

  The green dragon wiggled her tail and a huge fp expanded out of her back, beginning at the nape of her ned ending at the very end of her tail like a strange leathery sail.

  Rhawrexdee grumbled something that I retty sure was rude, then fpped forwards a few times, his flight a lot smoother.

  The green dragon, the green mommy dragon, led us towards Port Royal, then past the port part of the city and up towards the seven massive towers at the back. She tucked her wings in close and aimed for a pteau a little ways up the mountain where a waterfall covered a hole into the side of the mount.

  I ‘eeped’ and hung on tighter as we spshed through the curtain of water.

  Everything shook as Rhawrexdee nded on his hindlegs. “There, none of you died,” the dragon said. Then he paused and twisted his head around to look over his shoulder. I waved. “Fot about you back there,” he said.

  “Rhawrexdee!” the green dragon said. “I’ll not have you killing a two leg by act, not when we haven’t decided if they’re guests yet.”

  Grinning, I hopped off of Rhawrexdee’s bad nded oony ground. The cave we were in was huge, with pilrs holding up a smoothed rocky ceiling with magical rune lights embedded into it. A rge carpet, marred by a few scratches, lihe edges of the entrance.

  Deeper in, I could make out a few tuhat presumably dug into the core of the mountain, or maybe went to other rooms.

  “Introduce your little friends, sweetie.”

  Turning, I gazed up at the biggest dragon I had ever seen. She had a face like some sort of prehistoriightmare, all jagged teeth and sharpened scales. Her cws were lohan I was tall and she had to stoop a little, even in the huge cavern.

  She was, in a word, beautiful.

  “Hi! I’m Broccoli Bunch,” I roared. “Let’s be friends!”