(Year 0)

As Cassidia walked slowly beside the lake, her feet pressed into the gravel path beneath her through her soft slippers. She sat down on a large rock next to the path, and it was cold and rough beneath her, but she welcomed the rest as she took a moment to glance outward. Lakes like this were rare in the Falcondar desert -- even this one was technically in the old Shairiselan kingdom.

The wind was crisp and frigid on her cheeks, blowing her hair back in a mane of soft white fire. The sky was a grayish, overcast color, the thick clouds moving lazily through the sharp wind. Toward the west, they came ablaze with fiery colors, reflecting the sun that had just disappeared from view. In front of her, the lake stretched out in a prismatic expanse of tiny ripples, reflecting the fading copper light. Over the rare minerals condensed at the bottom, the copper light seemed to become a glowing rainbow of violets, the water like a flowing mirror of dark iron.

It wasn’t every day she got a chance to escape the duties of a Falcondar princess; she knew she didn’t have long before her royal life consumed her entirely. Her two sisters had been called into the duties of Falcondar royalty some time ago; it was lucky Cassidia had made it to her fifteen years without being assigned some battalion of soldiers to train. She had been raised to expect it, but that didn’t make the idea of losing her freedom any easier to stomach.

Absentmindedly, she fingered the ornate, heavy bracelet clasped about her forearm. The cold metal dug into her skin, but as it was the only reason she could be permitted to spend time on her own, she tolerated it.

A gust of wind disrupted the cool breeze, and Cassidia huffed in annoyance, blowing a strand of snow white hair from her face. The wind sent a cascade of ripples racing out across the water, and Cassidia let out an amused giggle as some sort of trout tried to jump out of the water and fell back in with a splash.

She watched the ripples for a time as they moved out further on the lake. Sighing in content, she lowered her head to bite at a nail her servant hadn’t trimmed evenly.

Then she paused, her eyes snapping back up. The ripples weren’t moving away; they were moving closer. She leapt to her feet. Raising her bracelet in front of her, she forced herself to breath out slowly. It’s probably nothing, she told herself. The waves are just… coming toward me… against the wind. Yeah.

Finally, she couldn’t stand it. She brushed her fingers over the bracelet until she found the nearly invisible switch. To someone who hadn’t seen the item, it looked like another piece of the textured swirls that ran around the bracelet.

Cassidia breathed out, more steadily this time. Then she flicked the switch.

A beam of light extended about four feet, then splayed outward, forming the shape of handlebars. As the light continued, it began to harden into a deep black color, the metal shining in what was left of the sunlight. When the device had been fully formed, Cassidia ran forward and jumped up, swinging a leg over the long leather seat and placing her hands comfortably on the grips.

She turned to glance at the ripples again, and saw that they were now sizable waves. The color from the reflective rocks at the bottom was disrupted by something vaguely turquoise, but it was distorted enough by the waves it was creating that she couldn’t tell what it was.

The machine Cassidia was now mounted on had a long, leather-padded seat in the middle, with narrow metal strips on either side for her feet. Sharp, triangular wings protruded from just beneath each foot. Two horn-like pieces of metal arched back from the bow, riding on either side of her. Her right foot rested on a small pedal that would control her speed, while the left simply sat on a flat piece of metal. There was only one control apart from the handlebars and pedals, and that was a large lever just in front of the handlebars, which was currently pointed toward her. Hopefully, that one wouldn’t be needed.

The entire machine rumbled with a baritone sound, the vibration oddly comforting. It felt like a beast of her own sat beneath her, buzzing with mounting energy.

Twenty feet away, a massive burst of water surged from the lake in a shower of droplets as a large shell of metal rose from the surface, rivers of lake water gushing off of the sides. It was perhaps twice as long as Cassidia’s skybike, and was narrowed into a crudely sharp metal point at the front.

As the projectile flew toward her, she leaned back and to the right, swinging the handlebars around and facing away from the lake. Then she rotated her foot all the way forward, clutching the handlebars and ducking down.

The skybike shot forward. Cassidia’s hair whipped backward behind her, and she let out an involuntary yell of excitement. The wind battered her face, forcing her to squint as the air pushed at her. Her white hair was a swirling mass behind her head, and her fingers felt icy as they gripped the handlebars, but it didn’t matter. I can’t get in trouble for driving a skybike in the open, she realized. Father will have to bend the rules if he knows I’m just trying to stay alive! Part of her knew that wouldn’t work, but in the moment, she didn’t care. If he didn’t want me to expose our technology, he’d let me use one of the swords.

Her mind was jolted back to reality when the massive metal spike shot by to her left. She leaned back and to the side, releasing her right foot while turning the handlebars and making an impressively tight turn as she anticipated the second projectile that whizzed past her. A second later, her foot came all the way back down, and she shot upward directly above her attacker.

The dragon was not the biggest she had seen; lake-dwellers such as metal dragons were often of lesser magnitude due to the confines of their habitat. Still, it was frighteningly large, and as it raised its wings from the water, water poured off of them in rivers, revealing the silvery scales beneath.

It roared, flicking its tail, and another spear shot at her. She rolled her bike to the side, then turned around to face it. Can’t outrun a dragon. She dove forward.

She rocketed toward the dragon with frightening speed. It raised a claw to swipe at her, and she rolled to the side, trying to keep her trajectory. She flew by its iron scales and pulled up just above the water, getting sprayed by the rivulets still flowing from its form. As the beast tried to turn around, she righted herself, and in the few seconds she had, she pushed the center lever forward.

Two spike-like cutouts rotated up from the front hull, pointing outward in front of the skybike. There were openings beneath each that had been concealed before, and Cassidia glanced at them, then took in the pile of labeled capsules tucked in front of her foot. Metal and water… She picked up two electricity capsules and put one in each opening. Imbuing charge technology with elements had been her father’s token invention.

The dragon let out a roar. A silver claw exploded from the water with frightening speed, and Cassidia turned sideways to skirt past it. She winced as metal scraped metal beneath her, then pulled into another tight turn. She moved her hand to a trigger on the handlebars, waiting.

As the dragon spun around again, she prepared to fire, but the spray of water it kicked up with its sudden movement doused her, knocking her skybike back. She yelped, squeezing tightly with her legs so she didn’t slide off. Panicking, she pulled up, spinning and flying away from the dragon. For a few moments, all she could see was dark blue sky, the colors of the sunset just within her peripheral vision. When she was higher up, she turned around again to see the dragon thrusting its wings down, rising from the lake and flying after her.

I’m too far away. She pushed the pedal down slowly, flying around the dragon. It continued to rise toward her, its long neck twisting to keep track of its prey. As Cassidia continued to circle, she began to drop, slowly closing the distance. They were no longer over the lake, and she looked down to see the dark forest rushing by. It was a lovely contrast to the blazing desert city where the royal family lived, but she couldn’t afford to appreciate it now, as beautiful as it was from the sky.

The dragon surged upward and made a swipe for the irritating girl. She steered out of the way, and as the claw retreated, she fired. A ball of electricity shot forward and impacted the dragon’s shoulder, detonating. It shrieked and fell backward, its wing spasming. Cassidia hoped it would smash into the ground below, but it managed to spread its wings enough to carry it over the lake before falling to the water. It hit with a massive splash, sinking beneath.

Cassidia readied her finger over the other trigger, then dove again. Just as the dragon’s head emerged from the water, snarling, she fired and pulled up. The electricity impacted the lake and splayed out, causing steam to erupt from the surface, and the dragon slumped and fell back to the water.

One more beast taken care of for the kingdom hunters, and I’m still alive. Cassidia sighed, glancing out over the terrain once more before driving back to the ground and recalling the skybike to the bracelet.