A Song of Askaldenfirsts and Dragons. Book one: The outlanders (Part I-IV)
Chapter 2: Laeltilat

The dragon Ulli carried on him Laylith and Arel, they flew towards the mountain, where the portal was supposed to be. As they flew closer, Laylith saw Balardalfiaks, a green dragon with brown lines, and she remembered how he burned two elves.

Farumbirznaaks, a golden dragon with black spots and stripes seemed to be the most important.

“Ulzardaldalor, who are your companions?” the golden dragon asked.

Laylith and Arel were already on the ground and both prepared to attack. Ulli bowed to the golden dragon and, ignoring the behavior of the travelers, said, “We would like to speak with the emperor, so we need to get to the Dragon Empire through the Portal of Worlds.”

Farumbirznaaks laughed as hard as possible for the dragon.

“You can stop pretending, Ulzardaldalor, your lies are revealed, look at them,” the golden dragon said, and nodded his head towards the arqilunians.

“Ahrrr, it was such a beautiful fairy tale,” Ulli thought sadly and muttered a spell, trapping the young elves in a magical cage.

“Who are they?” the golden dragon asked.

“She is a half-blood, half-elf, the daughter of a forest elf and a northerner-snunorf, and he is a purebred forest elf, arqil... arqilunitian, arqilunyashan, I don’t know how to pronounce it correctly. In fact, Farumbirznaaks, why don’t we speak our language?”

“Practice in a union language is useful, Ulzardaldalor. You have learned by your own example that a proper lie in a language understandable to the inhabitants of Ermir can help in achieving any goal, but how to lie properly if you do not constantly practice?”

Ulli tilted his head in agreement. Then the dragons looked at each other and, flapping their wings, rushed into the sky. Arel and Laylith followed them with helpless glances full of resentment at themselves.

“We’re idiots, Arel, ” said Laylith nonchalantly.

“But we are living idiots, and we are still together!” the elf retorted.

“Your optimism doesn’t cheer me up.”

“Neither do I,” Arel said and flickering lights went over his ears.

“How are we going to get out of here, any ideas?”

“When they come back, I’ll pretend to be dead,” Arlandiel said excitedly, ” and you can ask them to remove my corpse from the cage. The dragons will have to dispel the magical cage, and when they do this, I’ll get up, they will hesitate in surprise, and I’ll run, try to cast magical orbs, or even fireballs, at this time you will rush to that cave,” Arel pointed to a narrow elongated passage between the mountains, which looked more like a mountain cleft than a cave, however, above it was seen that the crack of the cleft ends, merging into a solid block of the mountain.

“Deceiving the dragons who deceived us is certainly a great idea, but did you think they would burn us alive, or burn us and then eat us?” Laeltilat’s sarcasm increased greatly due to the stress. “You don’t know what dragons eat, do you?” What if they have freshly roasted arqilunians - an exquisite delicacy that they specially left for dessert?”

“We must say arqilunyashanians,” Arel decided to insert, and they laughed together. The elf hesitated for a moment, glanced around the magical cage and, looking directly into Laylith ’s eyes, asked “So are you agree with my plan?”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Do you have another idea?”

“No!” Laylith snapped, “We’ll do as you said.”

Despite the cold outside, it was still warm in the magical cage. Arel was in love with Laylith since childhood, when he saw her for the first time surrounded by other elves, she was one half-elf amongst their group, and he immediately liked her, unusually small ears, explosive character, boldness and willfulness set the girl apart from others. The racial issue was not a serious problem in Eileenelia, since the forest elves had progressive views, however, in real life, when a half-blood flared up, exploded, many teachers said that it was because of her northern blood, although the girl’s father, Edelmer, as well as many northerners in general, are relatively calm person, and to be honest, in some ways even more calm than the arqilunians. However, even Edelmer could experience bouts of uncontrollable anger. But the problem of the girl and her aggression was, obviously, not in genetics, but in the fact that the half-blood did not see her father. Single mothers are not uncommon among arqilun race, in peacetime, forest elves, due to fatigue, alcohol or other problems, could easily fall from a huge argiphones during a flight and crash to death. But when you don’t have a father who had no kinship with the elves, when you are not like others, then the absence of a father is perceived differently than other children of the arqilunians widows perceive, then you feel more irritation from the world around you.

Laeltilat knew that Arel loved her, and she had known for a long time but didn’t show her feelings. She liked him, and she liked being that kind of guardian for her friend. He wasn’t weak or cowardly, he just didn’t like conflicts, but Laylith was looking for an excuse to get into a fight.

Two days passed, but the dragons never returned, and it was impossible to cast spells inside the magical cage since the cage neutralized any spells.

Hunger and thirst did their job, the elves began to freeze, feeling the icy mountain air, it grew colder inside the cage, and they wrapped themselves in the fur clothing that Eolarnel, the elf who had been sent by Lalith’s mother to replace her, had conjured for them. But soon the spell would dissipate, and then they would be in relatively light clothing and freeze to death. The elves, knees tucked in, sat side by side, leaning against the magical warm bars of the cage. Suddenly they heard a noise.