Ais.h.i.+n was waiting for her, since they had agreed to search for more animals even if she didn't get VR time. He looked her over and then grinned. "We're both in VR tonight," he announced with satisfaction. He held out his hands and she zipped over and landed on them. He kissed her nose and his eyes crinkled with amus.e.m.e.nt as her sparkles went pink.

"Let's hurry up and find more animals so you can transform," he demanded.

The travelling merchant spoke up from where he'd just entered the square behind them, and Danika laughed as Ais.h.i.+n jumped. "Someone reported a sighting of a rare fish near the top of the tallest mountain near here," the merchant announced cheerfully.

Danika eyed his amused expression with suspicion. Sometimes the merchant was really too much like a person. Ais.h.i.+n didn't seem to have any doubts though, he said, "Let's look for that first then."

Danika took a few minutes to quiz the merchant for more specific location information and ask if he had any other details, but he soon reverted to his standard, "I can't tell you any more than that ZipZing my friend."

--

They followed the stream up the mountain until it became a trickle of snowmelt and Danika had decided that either they'd missed the fish or taken the wrong branch when she caught sight of gleaming scales higher up in the snow.

Ais.h.i.+n came to a halt beside her and she pointed. For a moment it looked more like a small dragon crouched on the mountainside, but when it moved she saw that it really was actually a huge fish.

The fish moved suddenly, like it had just been resting for a moment, and then it struggled and flopped its way farther upward along the snowmelt trickle that had been a stream lower on the mountain. It hadn't stopped when it reached the snow, and Danika watched in fascination as the fish heaved itself forward in the snow and continued to struggle upward.

She activated her a.n.a.lyze Target and used her Identify Animal to see what kind of crazy fish it was. The label revealed that the fish was a player named Dreamheart Dragon, and that it was dying.

Danika started to dart forward, but Ais.h.i.+n caught her and said, "Wait."

"What do you mean wait? It needs help!?" Danika insisted.

"Look at where it's going," Ais.h.i.+n said, and pointed to a stone gate barely poking above the snow at the top of the mountain. "What if you help it and somehow make it fail?"

Danika stared uncomprehendingly at the stone archway. While they were talking the fish had pulled itself farther up the slope with its fins. After a moment Danika shouted at it, "Can we a.s.sist you in any way?"

The fish didn't react to her words, it simply struggled forward even though it was gasping painfully.

Danika watched it anxiously, until Ais.h.i.+n said grimly, "It's not going to make it, unless it has healing potions or something."

His gaze was also riveted on the fish, and they moved upward slowly, paralleling its course. Gusts of freezing wind tried to push them all back down the mountain, but ZipZing and Ais.h.i.+n didn't retreat as the fish continued to fight.

But, as Ais.h.i.+n had predicted, it's struggles finally slowed. It didn't stop, it never stopped, but its movements became feeble. Its health bar had only the tiniest sliver left when Danika launched herself out of Ais.h.i.+n's arms and zipped over to the fish and used her restore prayer.

For a moment she thought that she'd been too late even though her Karma dropped. But then the fish gasped, "Thanks, but don't help me again! I have to climb the mountain myself!"

Danika backed away from it, and the fish resumed its upward struggle. Its health bar started dropping again almost as soon as it filled, but it continued to flop and drag itself forward even though its fins looked tattered and frozen where they ground against the snow. Danika shuddered. She'd never seen such a painful looking quest before in "Living Jade Empire".

The fish was almost to the gate when its health bar reached the last sliver again. Danika darted forward against the fierce freezing wind, but the fish screamed, "I can do it!" So she froze in place and watched.

Its fins moved feebly against the snow, but somehow it got its nose through the gate before it died. Danika gazed at it in horror. It had tried so hard, it was too unfair. She had just started to cry, when Ais.h.i.+n said again, "Wait, I don't think it's over."

He struggled through the deep hard snow of the peak and scooped her up and hugged her against him. "Look," he insisted, "it's sparkling."

Danika blinked back her tears and stared intently at the fish through the blowing snow. Its scales still gleamed, but she didn't see any sparkles until she looked at the stone gate. The interior of the gate was throwing sparks, and the sparks intensified as they watched.

Some of the sparks began to cling to the fish, and more and more collected around it until the fish's gleaming scales were coated in what looked like s.h.i.+ning gold fireworks. Danika stared at the sparkling form hopefully. She remembered the Jade Emperor saying, "you cannot," but she wanted the fish to be the exception. She wanted to see it reborn as a celestial dragon.

Ais.h.i.+n began to s.h.i.+ver as the icy wind continued to cut at them. Danika was already s.h.i.+vering, and she called up her menus to look at their health without ever looking away from the fish that had climbed a mountain. Both of them were losing health too rapidly.

Ais.h.i.+n thrust a health potion at her and demanded, "Drink."

Danika didn't drink it until she glanced back at him and saw that he was already drinking one. She returned her gaze hastily to the fish and saw that its form was rising from the ground.

The bones of its fins where the flesh had worn away looked like skeletal claws. She blinked and realized that they were actually transforming into claws. Its body stretched as its fins became small clawed limbs, like the sparkles were pulling it into shape like taffy. The fish gleamed too brightly to look at as the transformation neared completion, and then the light faded, and the form of a very small dragon fell into the icy snow in the center of the gate.

The form lay still and unmoving, and Danika started to cry again, until Ais.h.i.+n threw her at the little dragon's body like a s...o...b..ll.

Danika bounced off the gleaming scales and skidded to a halt. She turned back to him and cried angrily, "I can't take its scales!? It's too cruel!"

"Try your prayer again," he demanded simply as the wind visibly blew him backward several feet.

Danika turned back to the lifeless dragon and used her Restore once more. Her Karma didn't drop in response, and she shook her head sadly and let the wind blow her little body back down the mountain toward Ais.h.i.+n. He reached out to catch her as the cutting wind forced them both farther down the mountain.

--

A few minutes later Dreamheart Dragon said, "Wow, I'm starving!"

The little dragon looked at the inert stone gateway and sat up. The icy wind didn't seem to affect it at all as it examined its clawed hands with satisfaction. The winds welcomed it as a part of their own element as it launched itself into the sky.

A dark storm on the horizon called out to the little dragon, and it remembered suddenly that in "Living Jade Empire" the dragon was the G.o.d of Storms.

--

Ais.h.i.+n looked upward again as they retreated down the mountain, and told Danika abruptly, "Look up ZipZing!"

Danika scrubbed at her tears and turned her watery gaze upward to see a tiny winged shape flying upward and away from the mountain. It grew smaller and less distinct as she watched, but, it had been the shape of a dragon. A gold sparkle fell away from it as it rose higher, and Ais.h.i.+n flicked an invisible skill at the sparkle through his menus and changed their course.

"You marked it?" Danika questioned.

"I think so," he said as he ran. "We'll find out if I hit it or just some bird or tree when we get there."

A few minutes later he bent and scooped up a gleaming scale from the rocky ground of the mountainside. He solemnly handed it to ZipZing a moment later. Danika stared at the gleaming scale incredulously and asked, "It's really a dragon scale?"

Ais.h.i.+n shrugged. "I don't know, I don't have that kind of appraisal skill. It could just be the rare fish scale that the merchant told us that we could find?"