The Fifth Element
Chapter Thirty

I sat down on the log and twirled my hair nervously around my finger. I was presently sitting in the middle of a clearing in the middle of the forest, in the middle of the freaking government army! Yeah... I had gotten my butt so captured that it wasn’t even funny.

I had been brought back here almost immediately after being helped down out of the tree. All around me, men and women dressed in the government’s uniforms either flitted in and out of primal looking tents, and\or tended to their dragons. Nobody seemed to stay in one place for long.

The only person not wearing a uniform was the man sitting across from me. That man was also the same man who had ridden Frog, the massive dragon that had attacked and captured Nessie and me.

His rider was even bigger in stature than I had originally guessed, in fact, he was a practically giant. I guess it was only fitting that he be so big, seeing that his dragon was the size of ten regular dragons combined.

The giant man still wore the hood that concealed his face, and he wore no armor. This only made me that much more afraid of him. Only the crazy or extremely strong didn’t wear armor into battle. I wondered which one he was, maybe he was both.

“Violet Ellen Silver,” he said, and I stopped twirling my hair.

“Yeah,” I answered nervously. Why did he still have on that hood? What was he hiding under there?

He leaned forward slightly and I found myself leaning backward until I had to stop or risk falling off the log. “Do you know why you are here?” his voice was deep and raspy.

I nodded, “Because you’re under orders to capture me by Greta.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “You could be in her hands right now, she’s only a half hour flight from here, but you aren’t. Why do you think that is, Violet Ellen Silver?”

This time I shook my head no. I really wished he would stop using my entire name. It was starting to give me the creep. “Then why am I here and not with Greta?” I asked him.

The man leaned even closer to me, “Because I’m curious.”

Curious!? He was curious!? I was not some two headed dragon that could be dragged around and gawked at. I thought about opening my mouth and telling him that, but he beat me to it

“I’m curious why our new leader, why came to the rescue at a very convenient time, would send out almost its entire army to capture a single little girl. You look harmless enough to me. So why were they so desperate to capture you?”

“Well, I’m not as harmless as I might appear,” I replied coldly. “Looks can be very deceiving.”

The man chuckled again, “I said you looked harmless, not that I believed that you were harmless. But I must know, what makes you such a threat, such a danger? Why else would everybody be so desperate to recapture you?”

“Wouldn’t you and I like to know?” I said and then added, “I don’t know why Greta wants me so badly. If that’s what you were asking me?” I looked down at my hands, they were dirty and all scraped up.

I could feel the man’s eyes studying me from within the shadow of his hooded face.

He stood silently and walked towards the center of the camp. Once there he cupped his hands around his mouth. “Attention!” he shouted. The noisy camp grew quiet. “Pack up your things; we leave in an hour’s time. Those who have dragons prepare them for flight. Anything that is not packed up by then, gets left behind. He stopped and looked around, “Where’s Shirley? Somebody replace me, “Shirley.”

“Stop screaming, I’m right here!” A girl with champagneF colored hair stepped forward. I recognized her as the girl on the orange dragon that had helped me land Nessie, or more like crash her, but Nessie would probably be dead without her help. Speaking of Nessie, I wondered where she was right now. We had been separated as soon as we were had been brought to this camp.

She put her hand on her hips, “What do you want, and what’s up with this hour to pack up crapapples?”

“I need you to get her something to eat,” he paused, “and something clean to wear, while you’re at it. Somebody else can pack up your things for you.” With that, the tall man turned around and stalked off towards the wood surrounding the tents.

“Sure I’ll do it, you’re very welcome!” She shouted after him and then walked over to the log I was sitting on. She grabbed my arm and pulled me towards one of the tents.

Once inside one of them, she stepped back and looked me up and down. “Hmm...” she tapped her pointer finger against her lips. “Ahh!” She exclaimed. She crossed the tent and knelt behinds a chest. She opened it and brought out a yellow sweater with the government’s symbol on it, which was a yellow phoenix in midflight against a red diamond background, and a pair of red pants. “These are usually used for our trainees, but they’ll fit and they’re clean,” she explained and handed them to me.

I took them reluctantly from her, then stood there awkwardly, and waited for her to leave. When she didn’t I cleared my throat, “Umm, could you give me a little privacy please?” I asked

“Why? We’re both girls.”

I narrowed my eyes, “But I don’t know you...”

“Why do you need to know me to get changed in front of me? That’s a little weird if you think about it. You aren’t trying to hide something from me, are you?” She said with a completely straight face.

“Only my body,” I thought. I had never really been that comfortable changing in front of other people around. I was even weird about getting changed in front of Emily and my mom sometimes.

I sighed, she wasn’t budging, “Could you at least turn around?” I asked.

“Nope. But you can.”

I stared at her for a good minute, before doing just that. I quickly changed out of my old clothes, and into the new ones. When I turned back around she was gone. After all that, she had left in the end to give me some privacy.

With her gone and nothing to do, I had a chance to look around my surroundings. The inside of the tent looked a lot bigger than the outside. It was filled with countless other trunks. This was probably their storage space or something.

I walked over to one of the stacks and touched one of the trunks sitting at the very top. The box must have been unbalanced, because it tumbled over from my simple touch, and its contents spilled onto the ground.

I looked down at the tipped over trunk in horror. I was so dead, if somebody came in and saw this, they would think... think what? My eyes landed on what had fallen out of the chest, weapons. Yes weapons, freaking great. Why did they leave their “dangerous” prisoner alone in a tent with a bunch of weapons? They would think I was trying to steal a weapon. Why did I have to go around touching things that I shouldn’t?

I bent over quickly and picked up a sword with a curved end. The second my hand touched it, a black mist began swirling around the blade. I let go of it in surprise.

“Hey you hungry, I brought food.” My head snapped around at the sound of Shirley’s voice. She was standing at the opening of the tent with a tray of food in her hand. Shirley walked farther into the tent and placed it carefully on the ground. “Oh, you knocked over one of the weapon chests. Don’t worry, I’ll clean it up. Why don’t you start eating in the meantime?”

She began picking up the weapons on the ground and put them back into the chest. Every time she touched one of them it glowed yellow for a split second before fading.

I watched her do this a couple more times, before turning away. I walked over to the place where Shirley had left the food. I looked down at the meat, cheese, and grapes and decided I wasn’t that hungry. Actually, I was kind of tired. I sat down and brought my knees up to my chest. I rested my chin on my knees and closed my eyes.

“Hey what’s wrong?” I opened my eyes a crack to see that Shirley was standing over me. She looked down at me with curious green eyes, not concerned eyes, curious eyes.

“What do you think?” I snapped.

“I’m not sure, that’s why I am asking you.”

I shot her a dirty look before closing my eyes again. “I just want to be left alone I’m tired. Very tired,” I said and frowned when my vision began to blur. Shirley caught me before I fell over and eased me to the ground.

“Are you sick or-” Her head snapped towards the tent’s exit.

“I’ll be right back,” she said absently and let go of me. She bolted out the entrance of the tent.

I followed her with my eyes. Where was she going? Actually, I didn’t really care I was tired so tired, and then suddenly I wasn’t sleepy anymore.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Well, that was strange, but what was even stranger was the feeling that was now hanging in the air. Something told me to get up and go look outside so I stood and walked out of the tent.

Outside the sky had grown dark, even though it should be still light outside. It had still been morning last time I had checked. All around government soldiers stood frozen in place, all facing the same direction, with their weapons drawn, and looks of fear on their faces. As I approached them I realized they were all frozen, like literally frozen, like time had stopped for them.

I waved my hand in front of one of their faces. “Hello!? Hello!?” I said and snapped my fingers.

“Violet,” my name was called so softly that I almost didn’t hear it. I looked around for the voice.

“Violet,” it called out again. This time it sounded a lot closer and was a lot louder. I looked around again, and then my eyes landed on the person calling my name.