“Estelle, wait for me!” I shouted as I looked at my younger sister’s back.
We were on a rather difficult trail, going up a mountain. There were several blue flowers blooming all over the place, with yellow butterflies fluttering all around them. The trees were tall but weren’t dense enough to cover the sunlight that was falling on us, and despite there being a lot of branches and bushes in the way, it wasn’t hard for us to go up the trail.
However, keeping up with my sister was another thing. She was already turning into a woman, so the childish features of just a few years ago were already fading… leaving way to the likely pretty woman that she was going to be—at least according to some of my friends in town.
It was so bothersome to hear people say that! This was my sister we were talking about here; I wasn’t going to just let any idiot have his way with her, no way!
But…
“Come on, Astor! Aren’t you supposed to be the older brother?” she taunted, half-turning her face, and causing her long blonde hair to swing and reveal a pair of smug blue eyes. “How is it that you’re unable to keep up with me?”
I heaved and sighed at the same time as I pushed aside a branch. “I don’t know! You’re the weird one! Most normal people aren’t supposed to be this powerful or resilient!”
“Hmph!” she replied with the same smirk as she crossed her arms. “Maybe you’re just not diligent enough! You should listen to mom when she gives advice. It usually works.”
“Urrggh…!” I answered and jumped a couple of times.
I was by no means weak, and with those couple of leaps, I managed to get high enough to look down at her taunting smile. As soon as I landed, I created a pool of water on top of a particularly muddy puddle and stomped as hard as I could. Heavy, wet mud flew straight at her face.
“Hey!” she shouted, followed by her spitting out the bit that she ate.
“What happened? I thought that you were oh-so-powerful,” I taunted back, making a smirk of my own.
Estelle cleared her face with one hand and turned a powerful glare my way. However, this young girl wasn’t going to intimidate me with just a cute little glare… Unless she raised her fist, which she did; winded it back, which she also did; and then summoned a bright flame to cover it in a dangerous way.
“H-hey wait a second! You can’t be doing—”
Without waiting for me to calm her down, she swung her fist, and the fire covering it flew right out of it. I crouched down in response, covering my head as best as I could, and the fireball passed by the side of my head.
It exploded in a bright orange flame behind me, causing even my black hair to sway forward, and me to stumble slightly. My immediate thought was to scold her about doing that, but the loud screeching sound of a bird caused me to urgently turn around to see what it was.
A large Wyvernian Eagle was set on fire, and it was trying its hardest to turn it off. I couldn’t help but widen my eyes at the size of the thing, since it could easily reach the roof of our small home just by standing on the ground. And from what little I could see in between the burning feathers, this one appeared to be a male one, with its big blue feathers, and head full of golden ones that combed backwards in a large crown.
“Who do you think you are?!” Estelle shouted, taking a step forward and pointing a finger at the bird. “You get out of here! We didn’t invite you!”
The large bird loudly cawed and glared back at my sister, but she stood her ground. It seemed like the eagle was about to lunge down on us, but as I was about to grab my sister and run away, she started excluding a powerful aura.
The air around her got dense in a blue glow, her blue eyes glowed just as much, and her blonde hair floated up from the magical pressure she was releasing. Seeing this, I took a step back and swallowed hard. That was that special magical display of power that she had… an amazing thing whenever I saw it.
And just like me, the large bird flew backwards, and then, after one final caw, it took to the skies and as far away from us as it could. Estelle watched it for a while as well, and once she was certain that the bird wouldn’t come near us again, she released the magic power she was letting out and her body turned back to normal.
“There, all good now!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands to clean them before placing them on her hips to look down at me. “And what happened to you? I thought that you were supposed to be looking after me.”
I quickly snapped out of my daze and stood straight while clearing my throat. “I was about to take it down myself, but you acted faster than me.” I walked closer to her and placed a hand on her shoulder while putting a very practiced smile. “Well done, little one.”
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“Hah!” she laughed. “As if! I bet you were thinking about running away!”
After she said that, I cleared my fake smile and looked at her seriously. She tried her best to continue smiling in the same mocking way that she usually did, but I refused to change my look, and so her smile turned wry, which is when I answered, “I would never leave you behind, no matter what.”
“E-eh… is that so…?” she said with the same wry smile, which then turned into an apologetic one. “Okay. Yeah, sorry.”
I smiled once more and let go of her shoulder. “Good! Now, let's keep going to that special place you were talking about.”
“Right!” she answered with a bright smile and took a step to the side to get ahead of me. “We’re basically already there!”
With a long jump, she leaped over a few trees, bushes and branches and landed on a clearing. I did as she did and landed slightly behind her, so I couldn’t see exactly what it was that she wanted to show me. I moved to the side and took in the place that she was standing in front of with her hands on her hips.
“Behold! The Dragon’s Pond!” she proudly said, spreading her hands wide as if she owned this place.
I couldn’t help but feel amazed at the sight she wanted to show me. She called it a pond, but this place was a complete lake, full of bright blue water that sparkled under the bright noon sun. It was so clear, I could see colorful fishes swimming from one side to another, and a few of them in the distance jumping out of the water and soar for a few seconds before falling back down to the water.
And that wasn’t all. At the back, on the other side of the lake, it looked as if the mountain ended and water fell, opening the view to a completely unknown forest beyond this mountain that spread to the horizon, with an extremely tall tree reaching the clouds.
“How did you find this place?” I said with the same awe I was feeling as I watched this place.
“Well… I felt it a while ago. There was a strong concentration of mana here, so I decided to come here and check out what it was,” she said, placing her hands on her hips and nodding.
“So, you just found it?” I asked, furrowing my eyebrows. “Then how do you know its name?”
“I named it.”
“Huh?” I followed, turning to look at her. “And… why did you name it like that?”
“Oh, you’ll see,” she said, placing a finger on her lips with a wink.
“See what…?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at the suspicious way she said that.
She just widely smiled, turned to look at the lake, and then raised her eyebrows. “It’s here already! Come on, we’ve got to hide!”
“What? Hide from—”
“Quick!” she interrupted, grabbing me by the arm and pulling back to the forest to stand behind a boulder.
“What are you doing? Why are we—”
“Shhh!” she quickly interrupted once more. “Just watch.”
“Okay…” I replied with a softer voice and looked ahead at the lake.
I couldn’t see anything different about the lake, and after a while, I started to doubt there was anything special in this place. But as I was going to ask her to explain herself, I felt the ground shake, and saw the surface of the water move. The water looked as if it was moving away from the middle to the outside, causing small waves to hit the shores of this lake.
It couldn’t be… Could it?
But it indeed could. From the middle of the lake, the large snout of a deep blue dragon popped out. The water moved with it, like it was being pulled up into a sky river, and the rest of the dragon came out with it. It was a long serpent with a pair of small arms at the front and another at the back, and it swayed in the sky just like a snake.
“Wow…” I couldn’t help but let out.
“See? Amazing, right?” Estelle said, taking a step forward and covering her eyes with one hand from the sun to have a better look at the glistening dragon being surrounded by floating rivers of water.
It was then that I realized we were dealing with a dragon here. “Wait, is it safe to be this close to it?”
“It’s fine…” she said, pausing for a while. “I think.”
“You think?!” I immediately responded. “The thing could eat us both with just one bite! We should get out of here!”
“But I don’t think it’s dangerous…” she said, pouting slightly. “In fact, I think it’s a good one. Look!”
She pointed up at the dragon, and I looked at the terrifying thing floating in the sky. The rivers of water surrounding it suddenly started moving around it, going in circles at such speed that it sounded like a waterfall. Once it seemed like they couldn’t go any faster, they exploded, sending water in every direction.
The water went as far as the eye could see, creating a sort of sunny rain that even fell on us. I created a small dome of water over my head to keep the water away, but Estelle allowed herself to be showered by it with wide arms and a smile.
I was about to tell her not to do that, but I noticed the dragon open its mouth once more, and a large beam of water fired from it, right in the direction of the tall tree in the plains beyond this mountain. The water fell on the tree like rain, covering it completely for a few seconds and creating a rainbow, which is when the dragon stopped, closed its mouth and continued moving in the sky, slowly turning around.
I noticed that it seemed to be coming down now, which is when I urgently went over to Estelle, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her back to hiding. “What are you doing!?”
She didn’t get mad or bothered by my scolding voice as she simply glanced with a smile from the side of the boulder at the dragon diving back into the lake. “I’m planning to befriend it.”
“What?!” I exclaimed, my voice a little too loud, which is when I cowered deeper behind the boulder. “Are you insane?! How are you going to do that?!”
“I don’t know… But I’ll find a way,” she said, standing up to look at the lake now that the dragon was gone. “I’m sure that there’s something amazing I can learn from it.”
I wanted to let her know how insane that idea was, but looking at her smiling face, I couldn’t help but sigh and leave it for later… especially because I was sure there was someone else that could convince her that it was a bad idea. “Well… you better tell mom and dad about it.”
When I said that, her smile froze, and her eyes widened. But there was no way for her to avoid telling that to them… especially to mom.