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Tyson and his brother Vulcan were fire dragons that had gone into hiding weeks ago, now they sat yearning for something to set fire to. lt was hard to sit in the freezing cold with the memory of your dead famlly. Worse still, they couldn't even warm themselves as the smoke would give their location away - they were in the midst of a terrible war" Traditionally there were three kingdoms, that of Water, Earth and Fire. They lived in harmony until one day Ert, King of the Earth dragons, commanded that his army invade the other kingdoms. Ert wanted the land and needed more slaves.

Heidi, a water dragon, had been taking care of these young brothers. They had wandered into her habitat, completely by accident, frightened and scared. She felt that she must be klnd and hospitable to them. Female dragons are clever and beautiful, she knew they would not dare to set her on fire (it would only turn to steam anyway), also she would shoo them out of her home, leaving them to fend for themselves. Vulcan was older which meant that he knew tricks to getting a wife and constantly tried to win Heidi but she really wasn't interested.

"Oh Heidi, sweet Heidi I snuck out into the big wide world just to get you some flowers, come dress my wounds sweet Herdi!" Vulcan called in the sweetest he had.

Heidi didn't respond, in-fact she looked at him almost sympathetically then swished her tail and swam away.

Tyson wished he could attract females like his brother, but Vulcan had said he was useless. One night however he had heard the sound of someone rummaging. He got up and went to investigate. He saw Heidi and she looked anxious. When she noticed Tyson she was relieved. "Oh my sea serpent!" She cried. "l thought you were your brother." Strangely a highly unusual moment passed between them. Heidi threw him a doubtful glance and said, "Follow me." Vulcan was fast asleep, oblivious to what was happening around him. Tyson followed Heidi into the water that lay before them, swimming with great difficulty but speed. Heidi swam to the other end of the lake with Tyson in tow. Neither of them talked. Heidi kept throwing Tyson worried glances and Tyson kept shivering and clawing his talons into Heidi's tail. Suddenly Heidi burst out of the water and yelled, "Gotcha!" Tyson jumped up after her but with much less grace. He saw that she had got hold of a very surprised looking dragon. She broke his neck with a swift but unpleasant crack. Next she turned to look at Tyson who was looking absolutely stunned. "Tomorrow he would have killed you and by the screams he just made l'm guessing that in a few days' time there will be others here, so think on that young Tyson."

Tyson understood and followed her lead, killing all the dragons he saw. The sun began to rise and Tyson followed Heidi back to the cave where he curled up and pretended to sleep. Next morning Vulcan woke up and strutted around the banks of the river. Heidi swam restlessly in the lake and Tyson yawned and stretched and pretended to listen to Vulcan's plans to win Heidi. The day came and went and at night the same thing happened as the night before, Heidi and Tyson went and slaughtered the incoming dragons.

Tyson realised he couldn't go on like this. Something needed to be done, the war needed to end, and he couldn't do it alone. He would need Heidi and Vulcan. He formed a plan and that was to slay Ert and demand an end to this war. Heidi and Vulcan agreed this plan was perfect. That night they walked the long and tiring distance to Ert's kingdom and hid in some nearby bushes to get some rest. Next morning they talked the guards that stood at the front of the kingdom into letting them into the kingdom. They then walked, too tired to run, to Ert's looming castle.

Now they had to be stealthy. They crept into the castle and made their way to the Throne Room. lt was big and the walls and roof were a dark green. The floor was made of green marble. There were twigs from a Hazel tree strewn throughout and it had golden archways with pictures of beautiful female dragons in them. The guards were dressed in silver and stood in a circle as if protecting something but the trio couldn't see what. Heidi shot out a wall of water and the brothers shot out fiery jets of flames that collided with the water and made both evaporate, turning into one giant steam gun. The steam blinded the guards who rolled around the room howling in pain. For the first time they could see Ert... and he was old! Ert looked strangely calm with a grin that didn't reach his eyes and held a wooden sceptre in his gnarled claws. He looked at them disapprovingly. His look made their skin crawl as if many tiny bugs were underneath it.

"What's that thing he is wearing?" Tyson asked, to which Heidi replied, "lt's a fire resistant cloak, which means you can't burn him with fire."

What were they to do?

Tyson knew what to do. He set the hazel stick nearest to him alight. The stick then burnt and in canon set the other sticks in the room on fire, one after the other. Finally the last stick caught alight and fell as if in slow motion onto Ert's wooden sceptre. In one instantaneous flash the sceptre burst open revealing Ert's heart. lt slowly began to smoke, char and rot and with it, so did Ert. They had done it! They had defeated the withered, gnarled old prune. They restored peace to the kingdoms and together made sure it never happened again.

heEnd