Chapter 7

"Luna!" there is no reply and I try again only louder this time. "Luna! Where are you baby girl?" A small black dragon comes barreling into my arms almost knocking me over.

A few weeks ago I had defeated a wolf on the first day of my travel into the Forest of Nightmares. And the forest definitely lived up to its name, after that first fight I had encountered many more beasts and humanoid monsters.

After fighting for weeks without proper sleep I had chanced upon a deserted cave. I collapsed in exhaustion and slept for what felt like a long time but I had no way of knowing how long. Through the weeks many of my skills had leveled up my map now was high enough leveled that I could continually use it. I could also target specific objects such as plants and animals. I'm sure it can also target the humans, demons, elves, and beast folk of Caravia. But I had not been in contact with any of them and as of now my map only extends in a five mile radius around me.

I had been too tired to note anything peculiar about the cave before I had collapsed into the darkness of sleep but when I awoke there was a bright gold spot on the map indicating something else was in the cave with me. At the time I had no idea what the gold color signified as I had never encountered any gold on my map before.

I slowly raised up of the floor, rubbing my eyes as I stretched my wings in preparation for a hasty retreat. I slowly advanced through the cave, careful to silence my footsteps. My hands traces the rock wall on the right of the cave just making sure to not miss any traps or passages veering from the main cave.

There were no crossing wind currents so I was pretty sure that the only entrance was the one I had stumbled on the previous night. It had taken me a few minutes before I was able to reach the back of the cave and my map indicated that I was only a few steps away from whatever made the golden light.

I reached out my hand and encountered solid stone there was nothing there. My map had always been reliable in the past so I didn't doubt that the cave was hiding something from me. But none of my senses could find it, there was nothing.

In confusion I decided to try spreading my mana outwards away from me. I visualized a spiders net and me the spider in the middle hunting for the something that I had no idea of. My mana was able to pick up something my other senses were not; a heart beat. I quickly backed away from the wall out of fear for the unknown entity.

Curiosity overcame my fear and I again searched for a way to find the unknown creature. I placed my palm against the wall searching for any groves or crannies the wall was perfectly smooth to the touch. Suspicion overcame me, this could not ocurre in a naturally made cave.

It seamed like I was searching for hours but in reality it took me little less than ten minutes to find a handhold jutting into the smooth wall. My fingers had became quicker from my weeks in the forest adjusting to my body.

I tried to push the stone like a sliding door from my previous life but the wall stayed stubbornly in place. I continue to experiment to open the wall but none of my actions proved successful. Out of anger I kicked the wall and all I accomplished was bruising my large toe. Grabbing my foot I hoped one legged around the cave whimpering in pain. The pain slowly subsided and I was reminded about the last time back on earth that I had brush my toe.

I was at the movie theater by myself because I only had enough money to purchase a single ticket and it wasn't like I had any friends to go with anyway. The move had been on of the movies from the Ha*ry P*tter saga. I had been walking up the stairs to find my seat and I clipped my toe on one of the stairs. It had been especially painful since I had been wearing flip flops.

My cheeks and ears had turned bright red in embarrassment because at that time I had also hopped around on one foot. The theater had been full of people and for a few breaf seconds the majority of them had been snickering at my humiliation. I mean doesn't anyone have anything better to do than laugh at someone else's pain and embarrassment.

After that I had looked down at my feet and shuffled over to my seat in humiliation. The blush on my cheeks lasted halfway through the movie.

I suddenly snapped out of my memories with a new idea. In the movie Harry and his head master had been in the same situation they were hunting pieces of the bad guys soul and one of the pieces had been in a cave. The key to getting in was blood.

I decided to try that approach to opening the back side of the cave and finding the heartbeat. I placed my thumb to my lips and used my teeth to tear away at the skin on the pad of my thumb. It only stung for a moment before I pressed my bleeding thumb into the nook in the wall and waited. To my disappointment nothing happened and I retract my hand. I brought my injured thumb back to my lips and licked away any dust and grime that might have entered the wound.

As I was cleaning my injury the wall rotated and I stopped licking only to stare in wonder as to what had been revealed to me. An alcove about the height of my chest materialized and in it sat a dark black egg about the size of my hand resting on a bed of moss.

I slowly extended my arm and brushed my fingers against the egg. A trail of blood was left on the eggs surface in wake of my injured finger. I had forgotten about the small cut. The red streak was the only color on the surface of the egg and it slowly disappeared as if being sucked in by whatever grew inside. All that was left on the surface was the color black, as dark as the night sky, as ominous as the depths of the largest ocean.

The egg began to crack, a ribbon of brightness shown out from the darkness of the eggs shell. I took a step back once again overtaken by fear of the creature inside the egg, but my fear was laced through with the feeling of awe. The shell did not take long to crack and the creature inside was plain for me to see. It was a dragon a pure black dragon with wings just like me, a predator of the sky.

It looked at me with its dark blue eyes and held my gaze. It was like it could peer into my soul and understanding what I was thinking. It padded towards me without making a sound and jumped onto my shoulder. There was a faint noise in my ear, the sound of a cats purr and it playfully pushed its face against my cheek.

I stood there still as a statue afraid to move in fear that the little dragon would hurt me or even worse run away. I had finally found a companion in this dark forest and I didn't want to be alone again. The dragon as if sensing my thoughts started to purr louder.

Pain I wasn't expecting erupted from my neck and down my shoulder. It had bit me. A blinding gold light erupted from the both of us and words formed in my mind "Now you are not alone." The last coherent thought I formed before fainting from the pain was that the dragon had just talked with me telepathically.

And that brings me back to where I am now stumbling around outside the cave with a dragon I had named Luna, after the color of her scales, clinging to me. It had taken me a bit of time before I had gotten used to our methods of communication inside each others head. For a newly hatched dragon Luna is quite knowledgeable and perceptive.

Another thing that had taken me time to get used to was my new tattoo. A pattern of a blooming rose had formed on my neck in the place Luna had bitten me. She told me when I had awoken that every dragon family has its own crest and that the rose was hers. It had formed when we formed our bond, I had given her my blood and she had in turn bit me.