Not even the barest of whimpers left her mouth as the bloodied whip slashed across her back time and time again. Her mind had taken her away from the cottage as her next vision filled her mind.

Ponderosa, in Dragon form, was nearing Mediocre Village. Her determination to make sure the man, who had once tortured her, would not get his hands on another woman’s child overshadowed the fear and trepidation she felt for being anywhere near Mediocre Village.

Several bells tolled in Hagreer City and Hope Village as the guards noticed her approach. The bells were loud enough to startle Prince Kelton from his troubled sleep. He scrambled out of bed and pulled his boots on. He tightened his sword belt then stepped out of his room.

“What is going on?” he asked Sir Hamnet.

“A Dragon is approaching from the East,” he replied.

Prince Kelton was swift to head downstairs for his horse. Sir Droyn was not too far behind them. They had just mounted their horses when the rest of Prince Kelton’s knights arrived.

“The Dragon seems to be heading toward Mediocre Village, My Lord,” Sir Fran said. “There is….”

“Move out!” Prince Kelton commanded, cutting off what else Sir Fran had to say.

It didn’t matter to him if the Dragon seemed to be headed to the abandoned Village of Mediocre, if the Dragon didn’t find what it wanted there, he didn’t need it coming after the people of Hope Village or Hagreer City. They entered Gusha Forest and hurried down the trail leading to Mediocre Village.

Two burning hot stones were ground into her chest, bringing her focus back to the cottage. The pain felt more intense than when the Alexandrite and Emerald had been pushed into her flesh as two more runes were burned into her skin. She screamed, then found herself struggling to draw her next breath as the stones seared her skin and pushed the last two semi-precious stones from her necklace into her flesh. She needed the pressure to stop. She needed him to back off! The pressure was released and followed by a loud crash. A rumbling sound followed and she fell to her side. Darkness surrounded her ever so briefly before the vision returned to her mind.

Ponderosa had increased the speed of her flight as the building in the center of the village started to crumble. She dove for the building as several small swarms of blackened people started to come out of the nearby cottages. Ponderosa beat them to the collapsed building and roared with the hope that she would scare them off. However, they would not be intimidated.

She used her tail to push many of them away as she carefully raked her claws through the rubble of the collapsed cottage. Prince Kelton and his knights were drawing nearer. The sunlight reflected off their armor, catching Ponderosa’s attention. She drew in her breath to spew out fire.

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‘No! Don’t they are…,’ she tried to say to Ponderosa.

But Ponderosa didn’t hear her and released her fire on the trees of Guasha Forest. The fire spread quickly, despite the amount of snow that covered them. The roaring heat of her Dragon Fire was stronger than she anticipated, but she didn’t care. She needed to unbury the woman she came for and hoped she had survived the cottage collapsing.

“Retreat!” Prince Kelton commanded as the fire rushed toward them. He gripped the reins as his horse reared and turned to run the other way.

However, the flames were going to overtake them. Sorrow and regret touched his heart. He would die before he was able to see his Beloved Iredys again. She did not want to see the Prince harmed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and wished there was some kind of barrier that would stop the flames. She was surprised when the flames shot into the sky instead of continuing their unbridled flight through the trees.

Prince Kelton noticed the sudden change in temperature and glanced over his shoulder in time to see the flames turn skyward as if they were a wave that had crashed against the shore. He stopped his horse and turned to the side, fascinated and confused by how the fire was acting.

“Magic,” Sir Gruph growled, as Prince Kelton’s knights gathered around him.

The grinding sound of rocks being moved threatened to pull her out of the vision again, before she felt her body being scooped up in Ponderosa’s claws. She felt her mind sink into the vision again as Ponderosa swiped her tail at the blackened people that surrounded the cottage one more time before she took to the skies and headed south.

‘Are you alright?’ she heard Ponderosa ask her.

‘Yes,’ she tried to reply, but realized that her thoughts did not reach Ponderosa when the concern she held didn’t change very much.

Despite her concern, she could tell that Ponderosa was calm too. A calm that came because her breathing was steady and her heartbeat was strong. When Ponderosa’s thoughts turned to wondering how she had survived the collapse of the cottage, she felt her attention being drawn back to where Prince Kelton was in the forest. She watched him watch the flames.

“We should make sure that the fire remains contained,” he said. “Sir Thomas, Sir Juleack, gather what villagers you can to help. We’re going to need….”

He stopped as the flames doused themselves, due to the lack of fuel. The barrier that had kept them safe vanished, and all of them pulled faces when the smell of all the burned things reached their noses.

“Seems your Dragonwoman was here after all, Sire,” Sir Hamnet said low enough for only Prince Kelton to hear.

“Perhaps,” he replied, before he turned to his knights once more. “We should make sure that the sparks are out. We don’t need this fire to rekindle itself after we’ve gone.”

His knights nodded then followed him back to Hope Village to gather help.

The vision took her back to Mediocre Village as Ponderosa turned their flight to the East.

A single blackened man stood atop the rubble of the cottage, his attention fixed to the South. He ignored the others who were scrambling to unbury and attend to their master. As he continued to look, she watched a single tear slide down his cheek.

She did not understand why he was crying, since he had been the main one to torment her, but she could not shake the feeling that the tear was somehow related to her.