As the excitable young dragon sagged to the cave floor, Nathan and Frangen jumped up in alarm. Nataleigh simply rolled her eyes and ignored the silly sea serpent. She didn’t at all feel well. Her stomach was still turning and it didn’t help any that Frangen was standing nearby with the offensive weapon still dripping on the cave floor. The inventor still had his protective mask on, though Nataleigh was quite certain that it wouldn’t matter much if he didn’t. Frangen seemed quite immune to his brother’s infernal concoction.
Anna Monee leapt to her cousin’s side and began waving her fins in front of her face in embarrassment as the prince and the inventor bent to assist.
“She’ll be alright,” she assured them. “She’s just um… well that is… we’re probably your biggest fans… your majesty.”
The little sea serpent blurted the last statement out louder than she had intended and blushed a fluorescent pink.
The prince felt a moment of awkwardness, not knowing quite how to deal with a little sea dragon having a crush on him, but thankfully Frangen interrupted.
“Not to worry. I have the exact formula to wake her up,” he said as he knelt beside Coralee. But whatever the formula may have been it was not needed. As he turned to reach in his utility belt, a small drop from the stink ball launcher dripped to the floor a few inches from Coralee’s nose and she sprang to life again with a horrid gasp as if she were waking from a nightmare.
Frangen, of course, moved to assist her further and the poor little dragon pulled away from him in fright, staring at his weapon. Then her eyes glanced to the prince and princess. Seeing them all watching her, tears of embarrassment began to fill her eyes and she ran off down the tunnel that Nataleigh and Frangen had entered upon their arrival with Anna Monee. Anna Monee followed, trying to calm her cousin down and Frangen was left scratching his head in puzzlement.
“That was awkward.” Nathan said, turning back to his sister. “So are these all friends of yours? Wow. I didn’t expect a whole family of sea serpents.”
At that, Nataleigh’s head finally lifted and she looked at him with irritation. “What do you mean you didn’t expect a whole family of sea serpents? Just what did you expect and what are you doing here anyway? Did father send you here to get me?”
“Not really.” Nathan shrugged. “But he knows I’m here, I think. I was trying to find you and bring you back home before he noticed, but things didn’t go the way I planned. I had some trouble and then I had to track you half way across Darrowold to find you before you…”
“Bring me home?” Nataleigh’s anger was beginning to rise as she listened to her brother. “Bring me home? Who do you think you are, fetching me home like I’m some little child or a pet? I don’t need you to come after me or check up on me. And I certainly don’t need your protection, LITTLE BROTHER! I found the…”
She was shouting now and had risen from the table to confront him. But then she stopped short as she realized that she no longer towered over him. Once again she was struck by the realization that he had grown. They were now eye to eye and her brother did not back down as she advanced. He simply stood looking at her with confusion and something else that she couldn’t put her finger on, but it somehow incensed her. Was it compassion?
What had happened to her brother? Literally overnight (at least over a few nights) he had changed, matured, physically grown in stature to become someone she didn’t quite recognize. Worse then that, she envied him and that bothered her to no end. Everything she went questing to accomplish, somehow he had done it, while she felt suddenly as though she had failed. Why?
She too had grown physically. She hadn’t paid any attention to it over the course of the adventure, but now she realized that steadily and quickly, since the moment she had left the Ivory Palace to come down to Darrowold, she had been growing, aging, changing. But somehow her growth didn’t seem right and she couldn’t place her finger on why.
Had she not proven herself? She had, after all, completely by herself, sought out and retrieved the Serpent’s Eye. Surely that…
And then realization struck her like dragon fire in her belly! She had dropped the Serpent’s Eye! After all she had done to get her hands on it she had carelessly left it lying on the cavern floor right at the serpent’s feet! The idea was unthinkable and she swooned with emotion where she stood for a moment.
Nathan stood unmoving as his sister railed upon him. He was both shocked and a bit worried for her after all they had been through. He had no way of understanding her feelings and thought that perhaps all of the stress had caused her to snap. After all, she wasn’t a little girl any more. She had grown and didn’t that usually mean that girls became more emotional and unstable? All he could think to do for the moment was to stare at her with pity as she appeared to meltdown before his eyes.
And then without warning, she spun away from him, grabbed Frangen’s mask right off his face and ran from the nursery cave back toward the cavern pool before either of them knew what had happened!
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