I woke with sunlight shining through my window into my room. My name is Laurene, I live on a farm with my Grandfather. The nearest town is an hour walk down the road. I pretty much live in the middle of nowhere, with only my grandfather for company.

There was the sound of footsteps in the hall, "Laur, are you up yet?" Came the voice of my grandfather from the other side of my door. "Out in a minute" I called back as I threw the blanket off and swung my legs out of bed. I sat at the edge of my bed for a moment before stepping down on the cold floor of my room.

My room was rather bare. I had a wardrobe with a mirror, I had my bed, and I had a few sketches hung up around my room. I also have a desk pushed below my window.Above my bed there was a beautiful painting of a women and a man holding an infant, i'm the infant and the couple are my parents.

I quickly crossed the room to my wardrobe and pulled out an outfit quickly changing into it before stopping to look at myself in the mirror. My bright blond hair was a rats nest on my head. I picked the brush up of my desk and brushed my hair out until it was laying flat. I smiled at myself and pulled my long red scarf down off the edge of the mirror before I left my room.

It wasn't necessarily cold where I lived but I always wore my scarf. I had been given to menu my mother before she disappeared when I was three. I don't remember much about her or my father. According to Grandpa they hadn't wanted to leave me but they had no choice. He told me they were dead and requested that I didn't ask again. That was three years ago when I was ten. I'm now thirteen I'll be turning fourteen in about a month.

I hurried down the hallway towards the kitchen where I could already smell breakfast. Grandfather stood in the kitchen making breakfast, he cracked an egg over a pan before looking up when I entered. "Morning Laur" he greeted me I smiled at him as I sat down at the table.

"What are we doing today?" I asked sincerely hoping he wasn't going to force me to study all day. He smiled at me "I was thinking of going to explore those caves." I sat up straighter and looked at him "they said we weren't permitted to go in them." I said. We had discovered the cave two weeks ago while chasing a scared horse across the property. When we reported them to the guards in town they had told us not to go near them saying that they would be up there to check them out soon, and now my Grandfather was going to disobey a direct order from the town guard.

"The guard won't know if we do a little exploring, besides it my property" he said. When my grandfather was younger he had been an explorer. He traveled all over the place a made maps which he sold for money, when he had my mom he stopped exploring and used his money to by this land. I sat back in my chair with a sigh. If I isn't go I'd probably be stuck here at home alone while Grandfather went on some crazy probably exciting adventure through the caves. "When will we be leaving?" I asked looking over at him. He had a huge grin on his face while he wiped his hand on a cloth beside the water basin. "We will leave in about an hour." He says walking into the dinning room with two plates he sets one down in front of me and heathers for me to eat.

I led Coca out of the barn. Coca was my horse, she was a dark brown with beautiful golden mane. I carefully strapped the saddle on and looked over at my grandfather who was pulling himself up into his horses saddle. I went through my saddle bag carefully, inside I had a compass, water canteens, dried fruit, and a few other emergency provisions including a bed roll. I tried to be prepared for everything, I never wanted to be unprepared. I pulled my self up into the saddle and spurred Coca forwards. She trotted over to where my grandfather sat astride his bourse looking out over the field.

Most people would have had dragon on their farms laboring in the fields. My grandfather did not. We were probably the only people who didn't have dragons working for us. According to my history books, dragons had once been vicious beast who roamed the land as commonly as humans. Then humans figured out how to tame dragon hatchlings. After that hundreds of dragons began hatching under the care of humans until so few were left in the wild seeing a wild dragon was rare and unheard of nowadays. Dragons weren't the only weird and fascinating creatures here, griffins hunted high in the mountain peaks and small animals like Jakalope lived in the forests.

I still don't understand why grandfather decided not to have dragons it would make life on our farm so much easier. He had started off down the path ahead of me. I squeezed my legs and urged Coca to follow him, grandpa owned several acres of land, the caves were at the furthest corners of our land. Grandpa led the way through the forest along a lightly trodden path. We never really went out this far most of these paths were made by animals but the one we were on had been here since Grandpa bought the land. After a while on the path he guided his horse of the path through the underbrush towards the cave. Coca followed his horse.

Finally the entrance came into view. It's still hard to believe that we hadn't known about the caves sooner. We didn't necessarily own a huge plot of land and they weren't the most well hidden thing out there. The entrance was in the side of a hill, a huge gaping black hole. I brought Coca to a halt not far from the cave entrance and dismounted. She neighed before lowering her head to graze in the small clearing. I stroked her neck before turning to Grandfather. "Ready?" He asks looking at me while throwing his pack over his shoulder. I nodded. Together we started into the cave.