On the Wings of Dragons

[aiden1896]

Name: Balin (PRON: bay-lin)
Age: 16/17



Balin is kind and can often get himself into trouble if it's taken advantage of. But his heart is what makes him endearing to most of his friends. As a kid he was always off making adventures for whole days at a time. He was raised solely by his father, a blacksmith, his mother being lost to the world in childbirth. There was always something a bit different about Balin, but no one in their small village was ever quite able to put a finger on just what.

 

[Ashaekin]

Name : Kai Ne-Sin (pronunciation : Kye knee-sin)
Age : 17

Kai is the quiet type, very shy, and loves to watch from afar. Her father is a butcher, who also taught her how to use a sword. Her mother died during a raid, and because of it, she's tomboyish when she get's out of her shell.

 

[aiden1896]

It was mid morning, Balin had finished most of his chores around the shop rather hastily. His father had been talking to him the night before about responsibility, asking if he'd thought about taking on a wife yet. At the question, Balin choked on his supper, staring wide eyed across the meager spread at his father. He knew that topic was going to come up soon, but Balin wasn't ready to be an adult with responsibilities and a family just yet. They had argued about it for a while, when his father finally told him that come the following month, he would start looking for a match for Balin if he hadn't found his own already. The rest of the night he'd refused to talk, even look at his father, going to bed far earlier than usual. So in the morning, when the sun was just starting to rise, Balin pressed quickly through cleaning the shop, leaving just as his father was waking.

Having escaped for now, Balin found himself wandering over to Kai's place, greeting her father with a friendly smile before waltzing right into the house like he had grown accustomed to throughout his childhood. "Kai...." calling out to her while standing dead center of the kitchen.

 

[Ashaekin]

Kai had woken up late. His father had asked her when she was going to look for a man. Soon she was going to be an adult and in need of a spouse. But she was shy and didn't know how to talk to guys.

"Kai..." she heard Balin calling. Knowing he was in the kitchen, she ran downstairs. "Hey Balin. Let's go." she said, grabbing his hand and running out the door. "Bye dad," she told him, giving him a kiss.

When they were out the door, she asked Balin "What are we doing today?" Curious as to what the day would bring.

 

[aiden1896]

He shrugged, though there was mirth plastered across his face. "I thought maybe we could go exploring...there's those old ruins out by the cliffs." Excitement shone, glimmering in his eyes as he looked at her. Taking her hand before she could even argue, Balin lead her on in that very direction, not stopping until they were well out of view of the little village.

When he paused, he turned to her, grinning wide, "I heard the Elder tell a story once that there were dragons, and special people made a connection with their mind to the dragons; where they could hear each other thoughts and the people could command them like a rider would a horse."

 

[Ashaekin]

Kai's eyes grew wide when balin said there used to be dragons. And people rode them and commanded them like a horse. "Are we going to the ruins?" She found it exciting. Of coarse balin was the only guy to get her out of her shell. Always making her smile. She felt comfortable around.

 

[aiden1896]

He nodded enthusiastically. "Of course, why else would I drag you out this way and tell you all those stories?" He was chuckling as he led her on, deeper into the forest. He had never actually been to the ruins, only knowing the general direction from where the Elder had described in his stories. Balin and Kai had done enough exploring over the years to have a decent layout of the land, possibly knowing as much about the village's surrounding around, if not more, than the hunters.

They seemed to go on for ages through the forest, and Balin was silently wondering if the stories were just that. Suddenly his foot slipped into a sink hole, and his next step sent him shooting downwards into a natural pit. He'd hit his head enough to give a headache on the way down, but as he came about to realize what had happened, he severely hoped Kai hadn't gone down with him.

 

[Ashaekin]

Kai was thinking about the stories when the ground went from under her. She was still holding balin's hand, she went with him. She had tried to slow her decent, and succeeded, following balin a minute later. When she landed, she took in her surroundings, an ancient place, in ruins and older than the village. "Where are we?" More to herself than balin.

 

[aiden1896]

As he stood up, he did so too fast and the world spun around in his head. Leaning against the closest thing he could, Balin closed his eyes and waited for it to pass before reopening and letting his eyes adjust to the limited light. Looking up, he tried to see where they'd fallen from, and while it would take some climbing, it'd be doable.

He heard Kai's voice echoing in the cavern like ruins they'd just fell upon, literally, and tried to pull her in closer with his hand. He was amazed they'd managed to stay holding onto each other, but glad to see she looked like he'd taken the brunt of the fall. "I think we found the ruins" he muttered softly back to her.

 

[Ashaekin]

"Now how do we un-find ourselves? I think we should find a better exit. I'm not climbing what we just fell through." She hadn't thought that they'd ever find ruins. All over the walls she could see drawings of dragons and riders. "Wouldn't it be cool to ride a dragon?"

 

[aiden1896]

Balin walked up to one of the drawings of many that lined the walls, his fingers running across it reverently. Since he first heard the stories, he'd become fascinated with the idea of finding dragons. A frown slowly crossed his features, "Yea it would, but they all died out ages before our parents were even born. They're the beasts of legends now, Kai."

He went back to the center of the hole they'd fallen through and looked up while addressing her, "You know, I could climb it, then drop a rope down to you...tie it around yourself and I'll pull you back up." Finally looking at her afterwards to see if she liked the idea or not.

 

[Ashaekin]

"No. We've come this far, why turn back." Kai did feel compelled, almost pulled into searchng the ruins. "Something's here. I feel it. Don't you? Almost pulling me." She started walking to the doorway. Grabbing Balin's hand, she began dragging him through the doorway. She was quite the explorer when she was with Balin.

 

[aiden1896]

He grinned as she pulled him deeper into the cavern. He did what he could to look around in the darkness that encroached, casting shadows on the farther walls so he couldn't get a real sense of just how big the place was. After pausing in the doorway, he felt her tug again on his hand and onward the continued.

Balin looked up at the room they'd just entered, there was a small shaft of light coming in from above, and it set the ceiling of the cave glittering. He sighed softly, "Whoa...there must be some kind of gems up there..." and just as he was speculating on how to reach the top and see, he tripped over something hard. At first he thought it was rock, it moved a little when he tripped, was heavy and on the ground. But as he stood up and brushed himself off, he looked down and stared in awe at what he saw.

There, at his feet were a pile of bones in laid out in the shape of giant wings. The wing closest to him had to have a span of at least Kai's height, and they appeared like they'd been mostly closed whenever this thing died. Quickly his memory flashed back to the drawings in the first room and he recognized what he'd literally just stumbled across. It was a dragon skeleton..."KAI!" he had no clue where she was, but she just HAD to see this.

 

[Ashaekin]

Kai heard balin call out. She wasn't that far, a short jog and she was there. When she saw what balin had called her for, she gasped. "The stories were true," she said almost breathlessly. "What do you think of it?"

 

[aiden1896]

"Well...what can I think, I mean, it's dead, just bones you know?" but the size of the thing was spectacular. He didn't think that needed saying, Kai could clearly see that for herself. A cloud moved from the sun overhead and a something near the fossil's hip area caught his eye. Balin stepped around Kai, his hands briefly touching her shoulders to silently let her know she didn't have to move.

As he knelt down, he got a slightly better look at what was partially submerged in the dirt floor. Balin reached out, only brushing away the dirt at first, but surprised to find it more lodged than he'd originally thought. With a wave of his hand, he called Kai to come in closer, pointing at the odd thing in the floor, "What do you suppose this is?" it was dark, like stone, but smoother than any he'd ever seen.

 

[Ashaekin]

Kai walked over to where balin was inspecting something. "I don't know. But there seems to be two." The other slightly hidden beside the other. This one was a dark blue, almost midnight color. "Lets dig it out." She said, using her fingers to claw at the dirt around the blue one.