The two girls simply stood in place for several moments, unsure of what to do first. Persephone glanced at Celia as if she had an idea where to find their dragons in the vast tunnel system under the mountain, but neither human had an inkling of an idea of where to start.

The two remained there until the third person in the room got tired of their inefficient method of not starting. "Well, get moving!" He shooed and forced them out of the room. "You know your assignment, now go do it."

Celia blinked and recovered from her paralyzing shock and confusion as their teacher ushered them out of the room. After pondering what to do for a moment, she mentally reached out to Verbena since her only other option was to wander around the mountain aimlessly.

Verbena's presence felt far and fuzzy as if she was much farther away than under the same mountain as her. In order to better focus, Celia closed her eyes in an attempt to block out more of the distractions. Celia strained her mind towards her dragonet, and slowly she began to better feel Verbena's presence. Though it was still unclear, Celia could feel the presence somewhere above her.

Despite the fuzziness of their connection, Celia was pretty confident that her connection to her dragon would get stronger as they became closer together. With that belief, she began to walk through the tunnels that lead upwards, half aimlessly and half with a purpose.

Persephone blinked and looked at Celia, then followed her since she had no idea where to begin the search.

As Celia walked, she realized how lost she felt without Verbena now that she could barely feel the dragonet's presence. Despite only being linked for a few days, the human felt as if the dragonhead filled a hole in her heart, but now, she realized, something was missing. She thought it was strange how one does not realize what they have until its no longer there. Celia felt alone without the optimistic and constantly excited green dragonet. Even though they had been separate before when Celia was forced to run the obstacle course alone, she had felt Verbena's presence despite the fact she couldn't see her through the walls of the tunnel.

Though her eyes were open so she could navigate the tunnels, Celia kept her thoughts on one thing: Verbena. With every passing step, Celia could feel their mindlink becoming stronger and stronger.

"Verbena?" She called out with her mind, then her eyes widened as something strange happened. Instead of the mindlink being like a small thread, it suddenly strengthened even beyond that of a mighty rope. It was as if their bond was reinforced by something... magically strong.

Celia froze mid-stride as some sort of floodgates released a well of energy over her. She felt as if she had dove into a pool of cold water, yet at the same time warmth tingled her senses. The sensation was strange, yet familiar and pleasant. She closed her eyes and let the energy wash over her for a few more moments, then focused once again on Verbena's presence.

Celia ignored the strange and new feelings that permeated her body without any hints that it would one day disappear. With a bit of focus, she forcefully shoved aside the mental veil that had been previously obscuring Verbena's location from her rider with minimal difficulty.

Now that she had a better connection to her dragon, Celia noticed that she longer felt like Verbena was a beast or a creature, but was far more human-like though she had ever thought.

Dragons were so much more complex and intelligent than she had ever realized. They were social, emotional, and empathetic. Celia now knew they had emotions that she had previously only associated with humans, and Celia felt as if she had been blind for not recognizing the dragons for what they were sooner. Dragons were far more like animalistic humans than just fiery mounts.

Persephone looked at Celia with a raised eyebrow. "Celia? Are you ok? Is something wrong?"

Celia jumped back into reality and looked back to Persephone and her perplexed countenance, "sorry," she apologized.

"What made you freeze all of the sudden?" The other girl asked.

"I'm not sure, but I know where the dragons are now." Celia grabbed Persephone's hand and began to pull her through the tunnels with no hesitation, even where the tunnel split into multiple paths.

"What? How?" Persephone, who was desperate enough to blindly follow Celia's strange behavior. "How are you so sure when we have no hints on where to start looking? Why not go any other way?"

"I'm not sure how I know..." Celia replied, "the best thing I can say is you could probably call this a hunch."

"I guess it's not like I have any better ideas..." Persephone admitted so she allowed Celia to continue to pull her through the winding tunnels of Rien, The Town Under the Mountain.

They passed other riders, members of other guilds, and a few major landmarks, but Celia kept going until at one intersection, she paused. One path was well traveled and worn, while the other seemed rarely traveled.

"Why did you suddenly stop?" Persephone asked in bewilderment, "you were so sure about all of the other places where the tunnel split."

Celia did not answer right away as she continued to glance between her two options. "This way," she pointed to the smaller and less used route, "is shorter and faster," she shifted her point to the other option, "while this one is more commonly traveled and should be easier to take. The only problem is that it is much longer and has more intersections." Celia flashed back to the time where she and Verbena were at a similar crossroads, and the less-traveled road offered new discoveries and more adventure in the end.

Once Celia was done reminiscing, she looked to Persephone, "So I think we should take this path, come on." She motioned for the older human to follow her down the lesser-used path.

Persephone hesitated and looked unsure. "I don't know, maybe we should stick to the more common path? I mean, how can you know all this? You could be completely wrong and this little story of ours could end with us being lost or worse."

"This is the fastest way," Celia said and remembered how Verbena was not willing to back down from what she wanted to do even though her rider had attempted to convince her to change her mind. "And as for how I know, I'm unsure of how to convey it to you. I can just feel where Verbena is."

"Then why can't I feel my dragonet then?" Persephone huffed, "It's like I was never chosen by a dragon in the first place!"

"I don't have the answers to everything, but you can go the other way if you want." Celia turned and began to walk towards the first tunnel. "I'm going this way with or without you."

Persephone watched as Celia walked towards the little-worn tunnel aglow with purple, red, green, and blue light from the fluorescent mushrooms and mosses. After a few moments of hesitation, Persephone gave in and raced to catch up with Celia. "Fine!" She huffed, "I'll go with you!"

Celia paused and glanced back to Persephone as she caught up, then continued walking once they were side-by-side.

"You're a strange—human." Persephone panted slightly, "honestly, I'm only following you because I don't have any better ideas. I want to make sure Nova is okay. This is the longest amount of time that I've spent away from her."

Celia nodded in empathy and hid the minor degrees of offense she had taken from Persephone's remark as she continued to walk down the gentle slope of the tunnel. Instead of focusing on the other girl's remark, she focused on not slipping on the damp moss beneath her feet.

After a few more minutes of walking, Persephone looked to Celia and piped up again, "Are you sure this is the right way? Earlier we were going up, but now we are walking down."

Celia let doubt once again enter her mind and mentally paused since she was positive that Verbena was above them.

Suddenly, a familiar voice once again rang through her head. 'Celia? Why do you seem so nervous? What's happening?'

Celia jumped in surprise at the dragonet's thoughts suddenly intruding on her own. "Verbena?" She whispered, "but she's not here." She paused and glanced around the cave, "so, how can I hear her?"

"What was that?" Persephone snapped her focus away from an interesting mushroom on the wall and looked back to Celia. "Sorry, I was distracted for a moment. What did you say?"

Celia perplexedly glanced back to Persephone. "I thought I heard my dragonet speak into my head."

"You must be hearing distorted echoes or something. We can't hear our dragons unless they're in the same room as us, and I still can't even feel where mine is." Persephone told Celia. "Only those with years of training or something like that can hear their dragon when they are apart from each other."

"Yeah, it must have been my mind playing tricks on me." Celia smiled nervously to Persephone, though she herself had her doubts on that explanation. Celia thought back to all of the times Chrome and Nami seemed to know exactly what Sabrina needed or wanted them to do without her saying a word. Perhaps, Celia thought, that rather than using words, a human could send thoughts to a dragon through a mind link just like a dragon did. In order to test her theory, Celia focused on Verbena and tried to direct her thoughts just like she directed her words.

'Verbena? Can you hear me?' Though she had become accustomed to the tingling feeling from earlier, Celia felt her thoughts rushing out of her and across the mind link towards her dragonet.

'Celia!' Verbena rejoiced into her head. 'I was so worried about you! This meanie older dragon was hiding you from me as some sort of "test" thingie and then when I tried calling out to you with my mind this strange feeling washed over me and stunned my senses so everything was fuzzy for a few moments so all I could feel were your emotions but now Iamsohappytofinallyspeaktoyouagain!'

Celia smiled a bit at the fast speech of her dragonet in her excitement. 'I'm trying to find you. Do you know where you are?'

'No....' Verbena sounded disappointed. 'I do not know the tunnels as well as you do.' Celia could feel Verbena pouting from wherever she was.

Celia desired to be able to know what the dragonet was seeing in case that would offer any clues. Suddenly, she was no longer walking through the tunnel but was in a room with a few other dragons and more color and detail than her eyes could ever see on her own. The beautiful blue and purple dragonet Celia recognized as Persephone's dragonet Nova. The guild master's dragon Valiant was also in the room, but based upon how he had a paw on his head, Celia thought that we must have a headache or something else was wrong with him. Last of all, Master Peetah's dragon, Fen.

The next thing Celia knew, her rear slammed into the wet ground and caused her senses to snap back into her own body. "Ow..." she winced, then slowly stood back up and regained her footing on the slick moss.

"Are you all right?" Persephone frowned.

"Wet, but fine." Celia wiped a bit of moss of her now wet cloak. "We should keep going, I think the dragons are nearby." She continued again.

"Think?" Persephone frowned but kept following Celia anyway, "we're doing this because you think?"

'Verbena? What was that?' Celia called out to her dragonet to see if Verbena had an answer. 'I wanted to see what you were seeing, and I suddenly could see what you see, though I lost focus on what was in front of me. Also, your vision is strangely sharper and clearer than my normal vision.'

'I was trying to think of how you where I was... I guess I somehow sent you how I saw everything.' Verbena said. 'Try to send me what you see.'

Celia attempted to send what she saw to Verbena but did not feel like she achieved anything. 'Any luck?'

After a pause, Verbena simply replied, 'you see blurry.'

'So you can see?' Celia glanced around, hopeful that Verbena could spot something that her lone brain could not see.

'Yes,' Verbena noted, 'though it is still blurry. And I cannot control what I see. Everything is moving.'

'So that's how it works.' Celia mentally hummed, then became distracted as they rounded a sharp corner, only to be confronted by an angled wall of rocks. At the top, the tunnel continued. Moss covered the rocks and climbed up the occasional stalagmite that jutted upward in seemingly random places. At first glance, there did not seem to be a simple path to the top.

'That is a lot of rocks,' Verbena voiced Celia's thoughts.

"What do we do now?" Persephone looked up to the tunnel at the top of the mass of boulders. "That looks dangerous."

"Climb?" Celia walked over to a rock she could easily use as a step to begin her journey to the fallen rocks. "I don't think they should shift all that much since they have been here long enough to have moss covering them. The rocks should be settled." She used small crevices and stalagmites as handholds as she scaled the rocks. Near the top, her foot slipped and she emitted a short a scream of panic.

'Celia!' Verbena panicked as she felt the human's fear, then focused on her human's safety.

Celia hung on with a level of strength she did not realize she had as both hers and Verbena's heart pounded. Celia fell as if she had a dragon's strength, but the second she placed her foot back onto the rock, the feeling faded.

"Are you all right?" Persephone yelled up to Celia with a worried expression on her face. "Your scream surprised me." She seemed unnerved and wary of an invisible evil that could jump out of the darkness.

"'I'm fine,'" Celia assured both Persephone and her dragonet, "'my foot slipped and surprised me, but I thankfully I had a good handhold so I didn't fall. You can come up here, just make sure that you always have something to hold onto and go slowly. Make sure you plan out your steps before you take them.'"

Persephone hesitated, then slowly began to make her way up in the same general path the other human had taken, though she was a bit more careful. Soon, both of them were at the top of the mound.

"See? That wasn't so bad." Celia smiled a bit. "We must be almost there now." She turned and continued to travel deeper into the tunnel with Persephone following right behind her. Celia focused on locating Verbena and was assured that the dragon was thankfully nearby.

The two continued on their trek but paused when they reached a roadblock: a wall of lumpy moss coating and strung between a mass of large boulders.

"A dead end? So much for your hunch." Persephone frowned. "What do we do now? Go back?"

Celia blinked in confusion and approached the wall. "This can't be right.." She frowned, "I was so sure."

A dragon's excited bark suddenly came from the other side of the wall. 'Celia! I can hear you on the other side of the moss! But I'm too big to reach it in the crevice!' The dragon strained and stretched as far as she could, but the moss wall she was reaching for was just beyond her reach.

"The moss?" Celia reached out and gripped the slimy moss between the two boulders, only for it to wave like a curtain. "I get it!" She exclaimed as a wide grin spread across her face. "We're so used to viewing moss s a covering for rocks we forget it can drape over passageways!" She smiled and thought that this was something only Verbena could easily notice. She pulled the moss aside like a curtain and revealed another green organism blocking the path: Verbena.

'Celia!" The dragonet barked as the human approached her to give a hug, but instead received a slobbery lick on her face instead. 'I'll move so you can come in.' Verbena replied, then backed out of the crack in the wall she had wedged herself into while she wagged the tip of her tail in excitement.

Celia stepped into the room that was exactly the way she had seen it trough Verbena's vision, only to be surprised by the presence of a somehow-impressed Guild Master Orthos and Master Peetah.

"Congratulations, You've completed your punishment." Guild Master Orthos told them in a tone of surprise. "So both of you have the rest of the night free, but do not forget about training."

"Yes, sir." Celia and Persephone nodded in unison. 

Author Notes:
I hope you enjoyed the chapter!
Next week I will ask for questions for Chapter 10's Q&A!
You can ask me anything, as long as it it appropriate!
I'll see you then, and if you liked the chapter don't forget to give the chapter a vote!