"Time to run again!"

Cailyn didn't have a very good look around before Ghost told her to run again. It seemed that the birds where gone, and they where replaced by dragons a little bit further away. Cailyn eeped again in fear and started running. She didn't have this much excersise in like, ever !

They ran through the caves which seem to held lots of remains that dragons left over from all kind of wildlive. It was very detailed and such and Cailyn surely didn't want to end up like that.

Quickly she found a place deeper in the cave to hide. It was a bit of a small spot where a big dragon couldn't get to, hopefully. She sat there and watched the dragons enter the cave until she heard a whisper talk to her. She turned her head a couple of times in different directions to find out where it was coming from. It didn't seem like a silly whisper from her head. She finally found out where it came from. It was behind her, and it was the prince who was hiding there too !

Ghost said run and BAM! Hymn was gone, off running into the cavern. Ghost blinked in surprise at the girl's speed. She'd beat Ghost. Fear seemed to be a great motivator. A soft rush of wind she did not conjure brought Ghost back to herself. Oh! She needed to run too!

Ghost started toward the mouth of the cave but a larger gust of wind knocked her off of her feet. She broke her fall with her hands and closed her eyes against the dirt that was flowing up. Wind... didn't... do that. She should know. Ghost rolled over onto her back and looked up at a dragon who was making a flashy landing. The great wind blew over Ghost again and she shielded her face by making a break in the way the air currents flowed.

"WHO DARES THREATEN MY CLUTCH?"

The voice echoed deep and growling and somehow still managed to be strangely feminine. Like a sultry bass voice that echoed through Ghost's bones. She swallowed past the heart beat in her throat. Dragons could breath fire. She hadn't thought of that until she saw a faint tendril of smoke curling past the dragon's nostril.

"I'm Ghost. H-hi!" Ghost's voice was high and squeezing out just barely past her fear. "I'm looking for a friend?"

"There are no mortal friends of yours among my children."

Ghost slowly moved to sit up and then made moves to slowly stand. She just felt too silly trying to be brave while laying on her back. "A foolish Prince. I've come to recover him before he angers you. Another is here with me." Ghost dipped her head a bit tentatively, watching the dragon mull things over.

"Checkers."

"Checkers?"

"Someone must play me in checkers. If one of your wins, and I doubt you will, I will take you at your word and you and your companions hiding in the cave may go free."

Ghost looked over her shoulder to the dark mouth of the cave. Companions? Did Hymn find the Prince then?

"Someone must play me in checkers. If one of your wins, and I doubt you will, I will take you at your word and you and your companions hiding in the cave may go free."

She was spotted. Might as wel crawl out from under the hole she was hiding behind and accept her fate. Her fate was to play a game a checkers against a big dragon with, strangly a little beard. He was red too which didn't help much. If he was yellow or green it wouldn't be as scary as a red or black dragon. Se said "Shhh." To the prince and walked out of her hiding place a bit scared. But if the dragon was right and it was just a game of checkers it would all turn out ok, wouldn't it ?

"Uh, Hello." She said a bit shyly and scared. She waves shortly at the dragon and closed in slowly and cautious. She didn't see a board of checkers anywhere though, maybe it was a trick to lure them out. Maybe so he could eat them both.She hid a bit behind ghost when she could and said. "So, checkers." She couldn't cheat with her powers on holograms though. This was going to be though. "Who plays?" She asked ghost and the dragon and the same time.

Only Hymn exited the cave but Ghost wasn't going to argue that a dragon was wrong.

"Who plays?"

"Can you play?" Ghost wasn't meaning to be insulting, but... she just was not good at checkers. She could think and plan ahead, but when she did so, often times she couldn't trace back her planned actions to how the plan started. When that happened all the planning was for naught and all the thinking was lost time. That didn't make for happy checkers partners. Ghost wanted the dragon to stay happy.

"I'm not very good, if you can play well, I vote you play... her." Ghost wasn't sure about the her part but... well, the dragon said they were her eggs. Ghost glanced at the red behemoth in question and noticed her heading for the cave Hymn had just left. Maybe she was going for her checkers board? Maybe they could run away while her back was turned too... the thought was a tempting one.

"Can you play?"

She was the best games player in the asylum until she left. Not that it said much about her, more about the people who she played against. Her father however never played games with her. He was more into training her. This could be a challenge. Luckily it wasn't chess, because she didn't know how to play that game very well. "She nodded from behind ghost and looked at the dragon if he agreed with her.

"I'm not very good, if you can play well, I vote you play... her."

The red dragon appeared to agree with ghost and headed of into the cave. He probably went to get a big checkers board the size of a car or something, but he came back with a pair of dragon sized tweezers and a normal sized board. He put it down and begane to open the box with the tweezers. The dragon had to have good eyes seeing as the board was very tiny for him/her. Cailyn had no clue what the gender of the dragon was. Cailyn sat down and helped out set up the board. She played with the white pieces. "White starts." the dragon said to her and so the game began. "Good luck." She said to the dragon with a smile as courtesy to the dragon as she moved her piece that was at the edge of the board forward.

Ghost hovered concernedly between the players. She had just entrusted her Danger Room life to a not so stable woman's ability in checkers. Did that mean she was too trusting? Or did it mean she was just that bad at checkers?

Instead of nervously ringing her hands, Ghost took up her time looking up the length of the scaly red body that was opposing the little blonde girl. Hymn didn't seem all that scared to sit in front of a creature that could not only squeeze her head like a grape on a whim, but was wielding HUGE tweezers that could make squeezing her head like a grape that much easier. The dragon didn't seem scared of them in the least, but actually pulled out some jeweled reading glasses to help her see the tiny board.

Turning back to the board, several pieces had been moved around and it was impossible for Ghost to tell who was winning. Hopefully it was their team. She wasn't quite sure what they would do if they lost... or if the dragon was a spoiled sport... or if she was just distracting them while some other dragon came up to eat them. Ghost glanced at the sky and tried to count the still circling group of "birds" so that they could be sure to know if one more came to visit them unexpectedly.

Ghost seemed to be a bit concerned about the situation and it all hanging from a single game of checkers. Cailyn saw it as a friendly game of checkers against a perhaps worhty opponent. She made the first move , the dragon was up to make his. She would see where it would go from here on. Nothing to do about it anymore since it already started.

The dragon put on it's glasses and prepared it's tweezers while pondering it's move. Cailyn awaited the move and prepared some of her options. The dragon copied her move only the exact oposite. Was it very good or just a copycat. That would be found out soon enough. Cailyn scratched her head as she had not anticipated this move. Not many people copy the first move of their opponent. It shows lack of creativity or maybe it was just good tactics.

Cailyn made her move and after a few minutes of back and forths, the piles of fallen pieces where stacking up at both sides until they both had 4 pieces left. It was a very interresting game of checkers. If this would continue it would turn into a tie, unless one of them would make a run for a king. It was unlikly though since the both had 2 pieces in front and 2 in the back. It would be hard to get one. The dragon scratched it's beard as Cailyn scratched her head about what move to make.

Cailyn looked at ghost to see if she understood the situation. If it would be a tie and the dragon would be a sore loser, The two of them would end up on the menu. The tension was building and Cailyn asked. "Could i have a bathroom break? "

"A bathroom break? A BATHROOM BREAK? What? Are you going to find a way to cheat? Need more time to think about your plans?" The dragon was standing now and sort of hopping up and down while sounding more and more angry.

Ghost took several steps backward as she watched the little pieces on the board dance from the pounding of the dragon's close feet. The angrier the dragon got, the closer Ghost edged toward Hymn. By now, her reading glasses had fallen off the dragon's face and Ghost was holding on to Hymn's hand. "Did you find the prince?" Ghost had to shout to be heard over the dragon's temper tantrum.

Seeing that the red dragon was getting upset, a dragon that was green and looked very friendly started to swoop lower. The red dragon took a big inhalation of air. Was she going to breathe fire on them? Would the friendly dragon make it on time to save them?

The dragon didn't take her question to lightly. He started going beserk about her wanting a bathroom break. He started yelling and stomping and all the checker pieces where flying around. This wasn't going to right way. Atleast she didn't lose to the dragon in a game of checkers, but it appeared they where going to lose the fire breathing game against her.

"Did you find the prince?"

Ghost took Cailyn's hand and asked her the question. Cailyn looked at ghost while she got up and nodded. "Back there." She said and pointed. She looked back and she caught a glimpse of the hiding prince. He sure gotten himself into trouble and now that trouble rubbed of on the both Ghost and Cailyn.

Suddenly a green dragon swooped in in front of the red one and stopped her. The green dragon just arrived in the nick of time. No fire breath coming there way ment just in the nick of time. They should take this oppertunity to get the prince and get out, even if it was rude the dragon who just saved them. Cailyn pulled ghost with her hand towards the direction of the prince. They should really get him out of there now.

Hymn was tugging on Ghost's sleeve and as hard as it was to drag her eyes away from the Christmas Dragon fight that was happening, Hymn had something better.

"Prince!" Ghost hissed at him, trying not to be heard by the dragons that were going a round in the boxing ring. It worked. The green one was still holding onto the red one's mouth and beard so she couldn't breath on them. The red one was still clawing at the green one's arms and belly. Worst of all, the prince had his pockets full of gold.

"You'd better leave that here. I don't think it's going to make your trip down the mountain very easy." Ghost looked to Hymn to see if she could talk some sense into him. They needed to leave. Now.

Ghost willingly let her be dragged to the prince. Cailyn knew where he was hidding and the two dragons where seemingly to busy tearing each other apart then paying attention to the two women running away. It was a fierce battle to say the least, but Cailyn didn't pay much attention to it. More important things needed their attention. Mainly....

"Prince!"

They found him again and seemingly he was willing to leave now. He understood that now was his chance to get out of here exept that he was very stuborn. He had all these heavy coins stuffed in his pockets. That wouldn't do ofcourse. Ghost commented on them but the prince was stuborn. Cailyn had a clear thought for once. She saw it in a movie once somewhere.... sometime. "Leave the coins, or we leave you." She said in the style of a 80's antihero. No idea where she saw that but seemingly it worked. His will to live was bigger then his will to die with coins in his pockets, and he emptied his pockets. Now they where ready to go but where was the exit. "Where is the exit?" She asked both Ghost and the prince. They had to find one seeing as the way they came had two big dragons in the way.

Ghost was impressed with Hymn's "Leave the coins, or we leave you." bit to the Prince. She could tell the other girl meant business and apparently so could the Prince because he started emptying his pockets. Ghost didn't believe for a second that he gave it all up that easily, but just getting rid of the bulk would at least get rid of the extra weight.

"Where is the exit?" Hymn asked and Ghost realized she hadn't really thought that far ahead.

>Well how did you get here?" the prince asked.

"We came up the side of the mountain." he looked at them both and he looked impressed.

>That's a long way to go. Why didn't you just use the stairs?"

Ghost blinked. There were stairs? The Prince lead Hymn and Ghost around the outside of the cave and away from the dragon fight. Lo and behold there were stairs. They were large and unevenly spaced as if they were built for something non-human, but at least they were stairs! "Well, let's start going. The sooner we start, the sooner it'll get done."

Ghost stepped onto the top stair and noticed a strange stone on the side of the stairway. What in the world could it be? It kind of looked like a button. So she stepped on it and what was stairs suddenly slid into a smooth surface. It was now a giant slide! Well, she could maybe slow them down with wind at end. Or maybe there were some some bushes to break their fall?

The prince was pretty silly. He knew there was a strairs, he knew there was a backway and he still didn't even remotly tried to get out. What a weird story this was indeed. The prince however responded well to Cailyn and emptied his pockets. He might not have fully emptied them but it clearly was a start. With full pockets it would be hard to run , and ow they would run if the dragon every came after them.

Now that all of that was out of the way and the prince finally realizing he should get out of here, he lead them out to the stairs. It took a while before they got outside and they saw the stairs. They where pretty big and it would take a very long time getting down from them. All the running took a toll on Cailyn though. She was very out of shape, and that was just a understatement. She didn't sport at all and running around like this was getting her tired. She couldn't think of getting down these stairs in a fast pace but seemingly Ghost fixed that for her. She found a button to turn the stairs into a big slide.

The slide was big and looked like allot of fun. To bad it was big and scary though. She couldn't even see the end of it. She sat down at the edge of the slide and swallowed. "Should we go?" She asked a bit scared of the slide.

"We go!" Ghost sat down and started her slide. She got faster and faster and when it got too scarily fast, she made the wind push her back and slow her down. When she came tot eh bottom of the slide her wind was so strong that she stopped all together and put her feet calmly on the ground with no trouble at all. She tried to do the same for Hymn and the Prince as they came down the slide.

As soon as the Prince's feet touched the ground, several knights came riding up on well trained chargers. They yelled a the prince for running away without his guard and praised Ghost and Hymn for their bravery. When the prince got on a horse of his own and started riding back toward the castle, the illusion of forest and sky and fantasy faded and was replaced with boring metal walls.

"I don't think I have ever run that hard in my life." Ghost stretched her arms and legs. It was a good work out and in the end they had won! What more could a girl ask for?

Ghost aknowledged that they had to go down the slide that where once the stairs to this mountain. Ghost went first and Cailyn quickly followed her example. Even the prince joined in. It was quiet strange how a rock slide could go so fast and was so smooth. It was just very unusual, but then again she never went down rock slides before. It was very scary though, going so fast down a big mountain. She wasn't very into fast thing without protection and this fell under that category.

Nearing the end, ghost used her wind powers to slow both the prince and herself down. Cailyn landed softly on her feet and she petted the dust of her pants. It was a good thing ghost slowed her down or else both the prince and herself would have been in the trees in front of them.

The prince's help quickly arrived and thanked both ghost and Cailyn for the help. She never was thanked for help before. She didn't know how to react and only had a bit of a red color on her face. They all quickly faded back into a metalish room. A very big metalish room. She know it was just a story but not that it was just a big metal room. It raised all kinds of questions, mostly by her voices that would better be left unaswered. For now the story was done, and she was tired. "That was fun." Cailyn said as she headed towards the door.