Chapter 21

A/N: hey everyone, good to see y'all again. Welcome back, sorry for the wait, my muse decided to fly the coop for a little bit on this one. Another note, this chapter is a little shot cause lately when I've been updating stories the site comepletely changes the format and i have to go back into the doc and edit out all the code stuff it added. Weird? Yes. Annoying? Extremely.

Anyways, this story and it's OCs belongs to Gabeherdon308, I'm just the writer.

Trezac's brows furrowed as he felt hair slapping into his face. Opening his eyes, he sat up, sputtering as he got a mouthful of white hair. "Mornin' Trezac," Rayla said pulling her hair out of his face.

He gave her a nod, a large yawn escaped him and he wanted to go back to sleep. But, unfortunately, the person he'd been sleeping on, on this bird was awake meaning he couldn't sleep anymore.

"The elf peered around him raising a brow. "Uh? What're you doin'?"

"Mediating upon the meaning of sky," Callum answered.

"Ugh, that's more boring than any answer I would've guessed," she grumbled.

"I'm trying to connect to the arcanum, like Lujanne said, so I can use sky magic again."

"Callum, that's not how mediating works," Trezac murmured rubbing his eyes through another yawn.

"Oh, then what do you mediate about oh wise one?" Callum grumbled.

"For my people, mediation is a means of focus," he replied. "We use it to strengthen our connection to the Force and use it to gain peace of mind."

"So…you don't focus on the meaning of things?" Callum asked.

"We focus on our emotions," Trezac deadpanned, "to keep them under control."

"Besides, didn't Lujanne also say you have to born with an acarno-what's it to do magic?" Rayla chimed in.

"No, she said you had to connect to the Primal and magical creatures are born with that connection," Callum corrected. "I don't see how I can make my own connection; I mean, Trezac can us magic, but he's not an elf or a magical creature."

"Still not magic," he mumbled.

"And Lujanne also called him a Star-Walker," Rayla countered Callum.

"Cause I'm not from Xadia," Trezac repeated for what felt like the hundredth time.

"Um, is it just me, or are we losing altitude?" Rayla asked seeming to ignore Trezac's remarks. Not that it was unusual when he tried to defend himself in regards to his orgins.

"What? No way," Callum hummed, "I'm extremely attuned to slight changes in the air flow—AH!" His scream started Trezac fully awake as Phoe-Phoe lurched under them waking Ezran.

They were falling, from the sky, to the ground. This was bad.

All of the phoenix's passengers screamed as the massive bird descended to the ground, skimming over some water and crashing into the ground. The impact sent Erzan and Zym over the egde of a cliff they crashed beside, causing Rayla to leap out and grab both.

With a sigh of relief, she grinned pulling them up. "Ah, it's nice to have both hands again," she mused. And it was nice being the hero for a change too, for once.

-.-

General Amaya frowned as she gazed through her telescope. The smoke from the molten lava made it hard to see. Which made determining the other outpost's secrecy harder to determine. They'd been quiet for some time. What if something happened? Lowering them, she began signing to her lieutenant.

"General Amaya, we've searched everywhere and there's been no sign of the elves," he answered. "I think it's safe to conclude that the outpost on the Xadian side remains secret." Loud hisses came from the magma and the lieutenant smiled pointing, "There look. The signal. The outpost is secure."

Picking up her telescope, she raised it again looking at it. Something wasn't right. Setting it down, she signaled again.

"Yes General, I'll ready a party," the man bowed and ran off.

Turning back to the breach she glared out at it, if the elves wanted a fight. They would get one.

Picking up her scope again, she looked towards the outpost trying to see if she could spot any intruders. Only for a flash in the sky to catch her attention. She turned her scope, looking up towards the dark clouds, through them, she could see light. If it were lightning, it would've faded by now, and there hadn't been any dragons on the border since Thunder.

Her brows furrowed as she watched. Something came through the clouds, it wasn't a dragon. But she hadn't seen anything like it before, it appeared to be metal and had fire coming from its belly, slowing its descent to the ground. They would need to investigate this on their mission to the outpost. They needed to make sure Xadia didn't have any new weapons to use against them.

Or to make sure Viren's "friends" didn't have a hand in whatever was going on.

-.-

Eleven stood with Viren looking at the mage in the mirror. "Who are you?" Viren inquired.

The sparkly man tilted his head, nodding towards the mage's staff. Eleven glanced at it, raising a brow. It mostly was unassuming, just a walking stick, but she had seen what Viren had done with it…perhaps she could take it for herself?

At the right time of course. Right now, she just needed to watch and wait.

The elf walked away, grabbing something before coming back, a box in hand. He set it down on a table in front of the mirror and opened it, pulling out a rock, a archaic mixer-thing, a cloth, a goblet, and…a knife. Oh, whatever this was she liked it.

"You want me to find these items?" Viren asked rubbing his beard.

"We'd be more than happy to," Eleven chimed in giving the mage by her side a glare. She admired his ambition for power. But if anyone was going to become more powerful around here, it was her.

-.-

"Phoe-Phoe's ok," Ezran informed patting the phoenix's beak, "she's just tired. She gets her power from the Moon Nexus. The further away we go, the harder it is to carry everyone."

"Wow Ez, I can't believe you can understand all that," Callum admired, causing his younger brother to grin as he continued to pet the bird.

"You did such a good job getting us this far, thank you." Phoe-Phoe gave a soft coo, nudging the boy with her head before turning around and taking off, likely flying home. Ezran turned, looking at the older three, "So…what do we do now?"

"Get to Xadia," Trezac deadpanned.

Rayla grimaced, turning to the cliff. "Well…one problem, Xadia's that way," she pointed across the vast expanse of water before them, "across mile and miles of fluid I both need to survive and hate more than anything in the world."

"Lovely."

"We can walk around it," Callum offered.

"No, that's sweet," Rayla blushed, "but walkin's gonna to take too long. We need to get that former egg, now adorable baby dragon back to Xadia as soon as possible. We've got to go straight across."

"Guess we'll need to find a ship then," Trezac stated. "Cause, even if I still had mine, it wouldn't fit all of us. And we won't be crossing that," he pointed at the sea, "in a canoe."

-.-

"Once in town, the group crouched behind some crates near the docks looking at the ships. "Well, we need a boat," Ezran stated, "and a Captain who knows how to make it go."

"Right, specifically a Captain who doesn't hate elves," Callum added.

Rayla scoffed, "That won't be a problem. I can just disguise myself as a human again." She leapt up, snatching her cloak from Ezran's bag and pulling it on with a wide grin, "Hello again, fellow humans, human fellows."/p

"Oh, oh, you're gonna love this Zym!" Ezran exclaimed.

"Let's go judge and criticize things other humans do, and then do the exact same thing ourselves."

"Do another!" Ezran laughed.

"Sure thing old buddy, old pal! I'm excited to rapidly eat a plate of unwholesome food in an excessive portion size."

"She's right, I'd eat a jelly tart the size of a dog!"

"Won't it be great to encounter other humans, and talk about which roads and pathways will take us somewhere slightly faster than other roads and pathways?"

"It's true! We do like going slightly faster!"

"Hey, sometimes getting somewhere slightly faster is important," Callum interrupted.

"Yeah, and besides, we know how well Human Rayla went last time," Trezac reminded.

"You can just do your mind trick thingy again," Rayla shrugged.

Trezac looked at her raising a brow. "…Who are you and what've you done with Rayla?!"

The elf scowled and punched him in the arm. "I'm serious. I may not like it, but at least it gets us out of trouble when humans find out I'm and elf."

"Ezran and I will find a Sea Captain," Callum said standing up. "Rayla, you stay here and work on growing fifth finger—"

"You got it my smooth-skulled friend!"

"Trezac, keep an eye on them," Callum sighed.

"Will do."