A/N: OMFG! IT'S A CHAPTER! -_-;; I've been in school, learning how to make video games…yeah…that's my college major: video game art and design…I wonder if all that studying has helped me write these better…maybe…

As you've seen in every other chapter so far, this story is mine…blah blah blah…don't take without permission…blah blah blah…I'm tired, can you tell?

~*~Children Of A Dying Sun~*~

~*~Faded Dreams~*~

~*~Chapter Nine: The World Is Upside Down ~*~

The wind picked up, abruptly. Her eyes lifted, widened as the sky was suddenly filled with swirling dark clouds. People screamed, some sort of basic instinct, she figured. Something was happening. The clouds were descending, a funnel that quickly approached the blazing train.

Her hand found the necklace, tightened instinctively on it.

And then the funnel of clouds touched the train.

And then there was an eruption of noise, someone screaming in her mind, bright light bursting forth.

And then there was nothing.

He winced, and opened an eye, his vision blurring. Pain shot through him, when he suddenly realized he could push himself upwards. He half-rolled his upper torso to look at his legs. They were no longer trapped…and the flames were no longer there. He looked around, eyes wide and searching.

But there was nothing…no sound or movement, no heat wild on his face. He sat up, and his hand touched something hot on the floor. He pulled away, tugging the burning hand to his chest, and looked down. A pale line of light traced its way away from him.

And there was another…and another…

Before he realized it, he was using Degas to rise, eyes still tracing the lines.

He stilled once to his feet. These lines made something…

A pentagram…

His body shook, and threatened to sink him back to his knees, back to unconsciousness. But then the star faded, and darkness settled. And the train tipped sideways.

…and then, the Master called for him. The servants took the Dragon from the Cellar and led him down up a long set of concrete stairs, cold against his bare feet, and pushed open the door to the inner gardens. The air was painful, the sun too bright on his weak eyes, and it forced him to keep his head down, not that the Dragon had much strength to raise it anyway.

Drago heard the exotic birds the Master kept, singing glorious songs that echoed to the walls of the outer gardens and back in to the main house. He was led to the pavilion, where the Master lay, spread down a cushioned bench, and watching him carefully as he moved.

Drago regarded him haughtily, but was unable to do anything to prevent being dragged into the small, covered pavilion, with its open walls and a large assortment of foods spread all at the Master's beck and call.

Master was at least twenty years his senior, with hair that was beginning to recede and green eyes that were beginning to fade from their brilliance. He was not the man the Dragon remembered from his earlier time in the household. Far different, this Master was not nearly as gentle as he had been before.

And at this moment, the Master smiled and ordered his bindings removed, before dismissing the other servants. The green eyes stared, calculating and hungry, at him as the Dragon forced himself to remain perfectly still. The Master raised his hand and a female servant came, scantly clad and with a high pony tail, to fetch him his wine, before vanishing again.

Then the Master rose to a seated position and beckoned him forward.

And the Dragon, trapped and trained, came without argument.

There were hundreds of shades of pinks and oranges in the sky when the black sails appeared upon the horizon, whipping dangerously against the harsh winds. In the land where the sky and the sand seemed to meet for an eternity, these horses and wagons, pulled together in their masses, seemed a ship on the desert sea. It woke her when a horse's foot landed dangerously close to her head. Her eyes snapping open, she threw herself backwards and was immediately met with a warm body.

Instant reaction demanded she look and see who it was beneath her, and she gasped and hurled herself in another direction. The boy from the fiery train…who she had stolen from. The dark-haired boy who had asked her if she was going to save him and then had seemed the least bit affected by her reply of 'no'. He was here, passed out, but breathing. Alive…oh, very much alive. And then the world around her drew her attention.

The horses filled in, circling the two of them, and when she rose she was unable to see anything of the desert or the train…the sky was getting too dark to be able to distinguish anything.

One spoke, in a sharp tongue that she couldn't possibly understand. And then the voice seemed to multiply into hundreds, then thousands. But the people on the horses wore scarves across their mouths, so she wasn't sure if the ones she saw were the ones she heard, or if it was just her normal voices, taking on the task of learning a new language to confuse her with. She cringed at the thought, then bit her lip and met the one who seemed to be the leader's eyes, and she grinned.
They wanted something from her.

Well, she'd give them something.

She'd give them everything she had.

Or so she thought. Then one cried out, a high-pitched noise that caught her off guard, and she cringed. The horses closed around her, and the sky became as black as the inside of her eyelids.

The Dragon lay, broken, sprawled across a bed. One of the random rooms in the house he'd been ordered to hours ago. Shadows moved, voices whispered, and left Drago snarling as servants who came to take the dirty sheets or try and make him rise. Finally, they took down the candles and pushed the tapestries closed against the large windows, and withdrew.

The pain, merely physical was left to a dull throb now. The mental pain was nothing anymore, the thoughts all broken and avoided, like shattered glass that no one picked up. The darkness of the room echoes the darkness of his thoughts, as he waited.

He wasn't sure what he was waiting for, just knew that he waited.

And that was all he knew how to do.

Wow…okay…yeah, short, I know…but dude…it's a CHAPTER! OMFMOG! Now…everybody party! If I can find the damn outline I made for this, it'll probably start moving along again, since I have a bit more free time in my schedule right now. Anywho, if you find any grammatical errors or things that go against what I've said previously, let me know, its been a LOOOOOOOONG time since I've written a chapter to anything…and now I'm tired… _-_ zzzzzzzzz