BishenRealm

       “Something must be wrong,” she muttered for the umpteenth time and continued to pace the cave entrance. Pausing a moment, cerulean eyes gazed out at the forest engulfed in rain. Her breath frosting on the air. “It’s been weeks. He said he’d write every day.”
       *He’s probably just busy, Lia. Stop worrying so much.* A telepathic voice--ever-playful, but concerned, drifted into her mind effortlessly. Their minds were seamless, so well connected-- so well bonded, the pair was. The voice came from a long, blue serpentine creature, a marine Bishel, lingering in a deep pool of water towards the back of the cavern. Beside the pool sat an orange plush toy of the similar structure; it’d been modified to have a small strap sewn into it and a backpack on its back. The backpack was partly open, and inside a strange bone-object sat alongside a few little knick-knack toys and candies. A ways from that

         Oval black eyes stared at the lump of metal in front of her, it was a dull gray color with brighter flecks throughout. In her mind she envisioned it as a piece of armor. Perhaps a helm, within which she would decorate light swirls or ancient texts. She couldn't decide which, and more frustrating—she didn't know how to begin.
         Lifting the lump into a satchel, she slung it over a shoulder and opened her large, blue wings. There was a forge in the town over, and there she would convince the blacksmith to train her. Help her forge the metal lump into a dragon-helm. Surely they would be honored to help a dragon learn to a blacksmith, Bronwyn reasoned.
         On the flight there she passed by another blue arboreal, one of the few around that was near her own age, though still younger. *Greetings, Bronwyn!* the other dragon chimed. *How do you fare on this fine day?*
       

Even with his eyes closed, the light was blindingly bright. Though it was the original cause of his flinching, the pain that shot the entire length of his body in response had his eyes explode open and a sharp hiss escaping through his parted lips.
He held himself as still as possible to let the remaining pain slowly seep its way out of his body. Finally deciding it was safe to move, he carefully levered his way into a sitting position and looked around in an attempt to figure out where he was.
To the left and right of him were embankments of earth that gradually climbed into a gently forested area. Behind and before him was hundreds of smoothed stones. Not really having much else to go on, he guessed that somehow he was in the middle of a riverbed. He reached up to scratch his head and winced as where he touched felt softer than it should have and painful. Moving his hand away from his head to rest it back on the ground, he noticed flecks of rusty brown on his fingers.
Now worried abo

    Issa grumbled and rolled over. He’d been awake since first light, but had been pretending to sleep. Hoping to shut out the daylight. It was bad enough that he’d been waking with the sunrise for the last week, but this was the first day of the Sun Festival. It was all anyone talked about for the last month. Even in school, they’d been instructed to make decorations and prepare presentations or.. ugh.. plays. Insufferable.
    “Ben! Up you get, or you’ll miss your first class!”
    He shut his eyes tighter. Why did she have to call him that? He’d been ‘Issa Darkflame’ for a whole month. It wasn’t the name he’d been born with, but it suited him better than ‘Benjamin Carpenter’ ever would. And it wasn’t that hard to remember.
    “Come on, sleepy head,” his mother called again. “I made eggs for breakfast, but your father will eat them all