The story dragon

Chapter four

Southwold Primary School, Nottingham, UK

There was silence. Everyone concentrated on Nick. His face was crimson as he slowly took two deep breaths.
“I will stay”, he mumbled quickly. “You're my best mates and I want to finish this journey with you. This is much more exciting than being a knight.”

He looked up at Dracospeare, Tizzy and silverwing and smiled at them. Silverwing and Tizzy jumped up and down and smiled back at Nick, but Dracospeare stood still, his eyes looking down at the ground avoiding Nick.
They set off down a wide golden road, leaving the trees whispering even more secrets behind them.
After a long time walking they came to a big sparkling lake.

“This must be the lake on the map” Chandra called out.
Dracospeare unrolled the scroll with the map on and looked at it carefully. “Mmmmm”, he said, tapping the underneath of his snout. “The only way to cross this lake looks like here”, he pointed to the Unicorn falls, “but that means we would be going into the Land of Monsters.”
“Do we want to go there?” asked Tizzy, peeking out from behind Dracospeare.
“I’d rather hoped we could avoid it” replied Dracospeare, “I’ve heard tales about that…” but he didn’t finish his sentence. Silverwing was prodding Dracospeare while staring at the middle of the lake.

It looked like it was starting to boil. It bubbled and frothed, and the centre seemed to be rising. Slowly out of the foaming water a water witch emerged. She glided across the surface of the lake towards the humans and dragons. No one had moved from the edge of the lake. They had all been too frightened and were just staring at this watery woman.

Suddenly she began to speak. “If you wish to stay alive you have to answer a riddle, otherwise I will return to the bottom of the lake with you all.” She threw back her head and laughed. Beads of water flew from her dripping hair as she did so.

"I'm blue but green, deep but shallow, nice but dangerous. What am I?"

Chanda knew the answer to this, and without thinking she shouted out “It is the sea.”

The water witch screamed in annoyance and began to thrash about in the water before slowly sinking back below the surface.
Chandra brushed her hands together and turned to the others. “Come on then. Let’s go” she called out.

They carried on their journey toward the Unicorn falls and then the Land of Monsters. As they were crossing the Unicorn falls Nick heard Dracospeare and Tizzy talking to each other.
"I was the one that killed Nick's father, Tizzy" Dracospeare whispered.
Nick was so furious that he went up to Dracospeare and screamed out "Did youuuuu k-i-l-l my father?"
Dracospeare looked towards the floor and answered "I'm so s--orr-y."
"I am going to go and be a knight" Nick said, tears streaming down his eyes.
"Why don’t you want to stay with us?" cried Tizzy sadly.
"I want to be a knight Tizzy,” answered Nick. “I can’t stay with you now that I know”.

Nick turned and set off along the dark and gloomy path away from the waterfall. He was so angry and annoyed that he wasn’t watching where he was walking. He suddenly found himself surrounded by terrifying monsters. Tall monsters, small monsters, fat monsters, thin monsters and monsters that he couldn’t describe. He was petrified.

Then without warning, charging down from the mountains to the North a knight appeared. He forced the monsters to run away and rescued Nick.
Thank you “said Nick,” But who are you?”
“Hello Nick” replied the Knight, “We’ve been waiting for you to return to us and train to be a knight”. The knight helped Nick onto the back of his horse and rode back towards the mountains.
“We wondered how long it would be before you came back to us” the knight said as they rode, “We don’t have any dragons for you to fight anymore, but the monsters are just as evil. We fight those instead now”.

Nick sat quietly thinking about his friends. They weren’t evil. They were the best mates he had ever had.

“Stop please” Nick called out, and climbed back off the horse.
“I miss my wonderful dra.., I mean human friends. I have to go and find them".
He ran along the edge of the mountains until he came to the river and followed the riverbank towards the lake, trying to avoid the land of the monsters.
He ran across the waterfall, slipped and touched the water and saw the hazy reflection of a unicorn. The unicorn looked at Nick with large, sad eyes.
“You want to find your friends Nick, don’t you” the unicorn said.
Nick nodded, feeling more tears growing in his eyes.
“Climb onto my back and I will take you back to them” the unicorn added bowing down, “They have turned back for home because Dracospeare is very upset. He thinks he has let you down”.

Nick climbed onto the unicorn, and held its mane tightly. The unicorn was so smooth as it ran like the wind along the fields and paths towards the Land of Secrets, through the caves of sorcery, and beyond the tunnels of time. Finally, in the distance, Nick saw five figures walking slowly towards the mountains that hid the Land of the Dragons.
“My friends” he thought to himself as the unicorn raced along the path.

“What’s that noise?” asked Silverwing, as a strange whooshing sound grew louder.
They all turned to face the noise and saw a shimmering white unicorn racing towards them.
“Nick”, cried Chandra, “Nick, you’ve come back”
The unicorn bowed again and Nick climbed down. There was a long silence, and Nick's face turned red. He walked towards Dracospeare and threw his arms around him. “I’m sorry” he cried, “You are my friend, not an evil monster”.
Dracospeare patted Nick on his shoulder. He didn’t need to say anything else.

Nick turned to say goodbye and thank you to the Unicorn, but all he could see was a white blur in the distance.
“You know, I think I have a story about the unicorns” Dracospeare called out to everyone, “Shall we go back and read it?”
“Oh yes please” called out Tizzy and Silverwing together.

The adventurers chatted excitedly as they headed back towards Dracospeare’s cave and the excitement of another story.

The End

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