“Whoa! Everything looks so small from up here!”,

    Theo was enjoying his ride. From here he could see a vast area of the forest, lots of water springs. He was even able to see birds flying way below them!

    “Right Master! If not for them we could have reached the destination by ourselves!” Ember replied with pride!

    “Hmm, but we aren''t sure about the location and we shouldn’t leave them behind as well, we might need to warn them if something comes up! And one more thing.” As he replied she slowed a bit to hear him clearly,

    “Can you not call me ‘Master!’, It feels a bit weird. People might think you are a slave or something and I don’t want that, besides it’s a bit embarrassing.”

    Hearing him she chuckled a bit before replying,

    “What can I call you otherwise? You are my master! It doesn’t bother me at all about what people think. What matters is what you think!”

    Her reply made him go silent for a while, he really had no idea about how to reply to her.

    “We can think about it later, why not enjoy yourself a bit?”

    As she said so, she spread her wings again and flapped them to gain lift. In a moment they elevated hundreds of feet, the speed was frightening, they were almost over the clouds in mere seconds.

    Theo spread his arms across to touch the white fluffy clouds, so fragile that it just dissolved right away. Theo had never seen such scenery, he clearly had flown before with his sister on her carpet, though it could fly just a little higher than the highest towers in the kingdom, while right now they were nowhere near that.

    “How come I can breathe normally? At such heights, one is supposed to run out of air to breathe in, then how come I?” He asked Ember as he held tightly onto her scales.

    “You are protected by my magic Master! You can breathe normally up here while riding on my back, for some reason I can control mana in a way to turn it in a thin skin and wrap us in it making us able to breathe up here! Maybe it’s natural for our race! I can’t remember many magic circles as well as my past memories are a blur, looks like they are sealed in quite deep, though I can use many types of magic!”

    As she replied, Theo’s eyes sparkled, he had never heard or seen any draconic magic before. After-all dragons were called chaotic beasts who knew nothing but destruction. Ember was the only dragon he knew that looked and felt different.

    Though he couldn’t sit easily as she was diving and climbing through the clouds, he had to hold tightly on to her scales which she enjoyed as well! If anyone could see them through the invisibility spell, it looked like a kid trying to ride a roller coaster ride! Theo didn’t complain as well, even though holding onto her was difficult, a strange force made sure he didn’t fall off either. He was surely enjoying this experience as they flew further, they kept on talking!

    …

    Down on the land, ‘Slash!’, another creepy clay monster was slain.

    “Damn it! What are they doing? Weren’t they supposed to tell us about the dangers ahead?”

    Vivian complained as she put away her twin straight daggers after giving a brief look at them. Her daggers were worn out as well and killing over 10 mud monsters straight added a dent on one of them making her even frustrated. She knew that this pair was done for now! Because of her agility, she was the only one who could move swiftly through the forest to kill these creatures, while the cart moved.

    “Wasn’t this a low-level one? Maybe they’d have thought that telling us about these wasn’t necessary.”

    Aeneas replied pouting as he was beaten up quite a bit and was tied as well. Others had a bit, scared expression as they’d never seen Vivian being so pissed!

    “Huh! Did you say anything?” She asked him to look at him with her scary dead eyes.

    A wave of chill ran through him as he shuddered, he didn’t want to piss her more as that’d only cause him trouble.

    “Once I get him….” She murmured to herself with anger.

    They were traveling through the forest region for a while, as the Duvrion’s territory wasn’t far away, they didn’t need to rush, though once entered they couldn’t stay inside for a long time. Staying or camping in his territory was like calling him to oneself, luckily there was a village just outside the borders and earlier they planned to stay at an Inn there for the time being. Even though it’d have been easier for Theo to travel to the inn flying, he didn’t choose to, so as to keep an eye on the cart.

    The forest was now getting thinner, which was a symbol of them stepping out of the deeper region and getting close to ‘Arnor’.

    …

    Traveling for a while, they stopped for lunch, after-all they couldn’t eat in the moving cart as the road wasn’t pleasant or let’s say there was no road at all! Soon they stopped, Nuae set free the horse on their cart and led them to the nearby spring.

    The region was open and had a few big trees nearby, while they could see far wider than before as the trees were not dense at all. The weather was cloudy and thus there were a few sun rays escaping through the clouds, lighting up the nearby areas. The whole area looked no less than some scene from a fairy-tale at first sight.

    As everyone stepped down from the cart Vivian looked up at the sky, maybe she hoped they’d come down to eat with them,

    “Don’t worry, they’ll manage it! I already gave him some snacks to eat up and that dragon surely won’t be able to fill up from our share, it’s better to let them eat themselves for the time being.”

    Catherine said so as she put her hand on Vivian’s shoulder comforting her.

    …

    Here in the sky, Theo was now getting hungry as he had already run out of his snacks and now they had to land to eat so he asked Ember,

    “Ember! Can we get back to them? I’m getting hungry and I’m sure you are too! We should get back right!” Hearing him she replied,

    “Hmm! I have a better idea. Will it be okay if I cook something right away?”

    her reply was unexpected to him,

    ‘cook! Right now! Is that even possible?’ he had doubts.

    As she felt his doubt, she dove to the ground instantly, Theo had no idea now what was on her mind, but in a few seconds, they were already near the ground!

    He closed his eyes instinctively as he thought he was going to fall off.

    In a while, he felt as if they stopped descending and thus opened his eyes to see, only to his surprise he saw Ember had caught a few wild boars in her mouth standing proud.

    ‘That quick?’ Theo had a shocked expression.

    After scouting for a good spot, they finally landed on the land where she put down those boars whom she had caught. Just like before she turned back to her human form in a moment and they both started collecting some firewood, though Theo didn’t need to do much as most collecting was done by Ember as she just plowed out a whole dry tree to use as firewood.

    Theo skinned and prepared the boars to be cooked on the fire unlike how Ember suggested to him which was to directly fry them and eat!

    With her powers, they were able to cook about 4 wild boars in an instant! Theo wasn’t sure if she had such an appetite but once they were cooked, he understood why she caught so many.

    It was like a feast as he has not eaten this much in a while, Ember was also happy as this new method of cooking made the food more delicious for her.

    The soft and tender meat of the boar got juicier while cooking and as it made a sizzling sound, it was as if the meat was crying out to be eaten.

    “By the way, where are others?”

    Theo asked Ember to which she almost choked on the piece of meat she was eating. A few coughs later she felt relieved and replied,

    “Not too far away master, when we get up in the sky you can see them again!”

    While in reality, they were much closer to them, to be accurate they were just around half a mile away. They had actually landed a while before the others halted; thus, they were actually keeping up with them in terms of time.

    Though as Theo was enjoying his meal Ember looked around a bit suspiciously, she felt some eyes nearby.

    “Master! Do you mind if I go for a leak?”

    He was still eating his portion and so couldn’t move much, understanding the situation she decided to take matters into her hands!

    “Yeah! Sure. You don’t need to ask for such things!”

    ‘Umm, let’s see who wants to ruin our little date?’