Sarah drew a lungful of wonderful air, she was on her knees, eye's tearing up and on the verge of vomiting.

She had just woken up after being choked to death, the hooded figure was awfully casual as he'd suffocated her, even bidding her a goodbye.

She would be having nightmares for the rest of her life, she could feel it.

'Slow, deep slow breathes.' Eye's closed she steadied her breathing, a brief glance told her she wasn't in the forest anymore.

Gathering herself Sarah found herself somewhere she'd never seen before, a scorched ancient battlefield.

Swords littered this new landscape, blackened bones wearing half melted rusty armor could sometimes be found intermingles amoungst the field.

A stretch of hills blocked half the horizon, the sun was up and the ambient was probably desert hot, not that Sarah noticed.

'Where am I?' Sarah organized her thought quickly.

"ADARA!" Sarah yelled, her mind easily came to a conclusion, and damn it she needed answers.

Silence greeted her, for a moment Sarah frowned and worried she had misjudged the situation.

As time ticked by Sarah observed the scene, picking a random direction Sarah began to walk.

It proved unnecessary.

A shadow passed her by, it was the size of the entire field.

Spooking, Sarah looked up and felt instinctual fear crawl up her spine.

She was massive, with a wingspan the size of a football field Adara could be called nothing less than colossal.

Red scales were glistened in the sky, a serpentine neck stretched forth, four limbs Sarah noticed.

As she landed, Sarah felt a tremor on the ground and she took in a lungful of air, desperately she tried not to wet herself.

It was one thing to know a dragon in human form, yet quite another to see it in person, her instincts screamed at her to run away screaming.

The reptilian face reminded her an awful lot of a horned serpent, which added to her cringing, as the face approached Sarah took a few tentative steps back.

Intellectually she knew Adara wouldn't hurt her...hopefully, her body betrayed her though and it took everything she had to not dissolve into a screaming mess.

"...hi" Sarah managed to squeak out, flushing at the pitiful sound.

"Show me your memories." Adara's voice thunderingly demanded, it was definitely her but the voice was harsher.

"...what?" Sarah took an extra step back.

"Show me how you died." Adara became more insistent.

"How? WHY?" Sarah wanted nothing more than to bolt, Adara was scaring her.

"Open your mind and bring the experience to mind." Adara explained and ignored her second question.

The experience being so fresh it was hard to not think about it.

Suddenly Sarah felt the familiar precense of Adara entering her mind, too late she feebly attempted to fight back.

Adara broke through her defense as though it were not there.

Instantly Sarah transitioned into a blank space which was her mind, a fully-clothed human-Adara was there arms folded, foot tapping and she looked hurried.

"How...dare you." Sarah mustered up what little anger she could after pushing away her fear.

"Bring forth your memories. You should not have succumbed so easily." Adara ignored her.

"I. Are you listening to me?" Sarah glowered.

"No. You are too weak, we have limited time. Stop wasting it. Bring forth your memories." Adara shot her an impatient look, completely out of character.

Mouth hanging open, Sarah tried to figure out the rapid change in personality.

"At this rate you'll die little one. I need you ready." Adara's face lost some of it's impatience.

"Why?" Sarah wanted to know what was happening, she'd just died and suddenly Adara was demanding.

"I have been too soft, I realize this now, you do not need a friend, you need a teacher and I have failed you. Show me how you died." Adara's face went neutral, her eyes were steely.

"Can you please slow down and explain what's happening?" Sarah kept her voice a whisper, attempting to tip-toe around the dragon.

"...Your still alive, just asleep, even now your body is right where you went to sleep...." Adara began after a short impatient sigh.

Adara explained about the dream, the catastrophe that was to come in the form of her universe maturing.

As well as the reason for this whole fiasco, to prevent humanity from succumbing to mutation and to give them a fighting chance against the coming apocalyptic like events to follow.

As Adara explained Sarah grew more and more angry as well as confused.

"So you lied to me. You were behind this whole dream." Sarah declared, folding her arms defensively.

"These series of events were not orchestrated by me, thus I am truly not the person whom brought you here, this would have occurred with or without me, I am merely a cog in a wheel so massive your world is but a speck compared." Adara shrugged.

"A lie of omission then." Sarah pressed.

"I told you I knew of whom caused this. I was forbidden from saying more, there are other reasons as well. Foreign essence would be more difficult to integrate with your awareness." Adara shrugged.

"Who forbids you? I never consented to being brought along for something like this!" Sarah ranted.

A cold slap to the face interrupted her, as well as shut her up.

For a brief moment Adara seemed as surprised as Sarah, then her eyes sharpened again.

"Listen to yourself child, you are weak yet charge so readily to your death. The leader whom drives this forward is an elder god. He could easily destroy or conquer your world." Adara frowned.

Sarah fumed internally, not willing to upset Adara again.

"Show me your memories, you need to become stronger. A lot faster." Adara folded her arms as well.

Sarah fought down a myriad of insults and an ranting before her breathing calmed her.

"...How?" Sarah reasoned it was perhaps best to move things along, Adara was being a lot more forceful.

"Pull it from your memory and display it there." Adara instructed and pointed to a wall withing her inner-mind.

It took some time but Sarah surprised herself by pulling it forth, suddenly a screen the size of a wall depicted her point of view.

From then it took some more time to replay the exact memories Adara wanted to see.

"Not just the hooded figure, show me how you tired yourself out." Adara demanded.

She did, Adara stood there a pensive look on her face.

"Why did you not set the forest on fire?" Adara asked.

"What?" Sarah blinked as the question registered.

"Why did you not set the forest on fire?" Adara repeated.

"How would that have helped?" Sarah frowned.

Adara's mouth opened, closed, opened and closed, disbelief written plainly.

"You were in a forest environment, fighting a lich and you didn't think to surround yourself in flames? It would have provided ample fuel for your spells! Instead you wore yourself out directly conjuring up flames from the plane of fire." Adara exclaimed surprised.

"I! I didn't know you could do that!" Sarah defended herself.

Adara sighed heavily and rubbed her face.

"Shaping is far less fatiguing than conjuring, its obvious, have you not experimented? Also the trap you set. Why did you not lead the horde into a flaming death-trap? Instead you split your group, and divided your already low numbers." Adara admonished.

"I...I..." Sarah stuttered as she tried to conjure up an excuse.

"Not only that. You indirectly led to the death of your only healer as he rushed in to your rescue. That tall boy, Alex I believe? Healers aren't to be risked needlessly so." Adara continued to admonish her.

"I didn't ask for that! I was under pressure alright, I'm new to all this!" Sarah tried to defend herself.

Adara quieted and frowned at Sarah, clearly displeased as she sighed and shook her head.

Sarah flushed beat red at her own tone, she sounded like one of the whinny twins when they found an excuse for something.

"In a battle all it takes is one mistake. We have much work to do. For starters, you WILL learn to conjure demons. Only imps, hounds and shades for now. Going by how recklessly you spent the djinn's energy you will need more fuel." Adara lectured.

Sarah nervously licked her lips as an idea blossomed in her head.

"I suppose I'll need to find a way to pay her back as well." Sarah sighed, dejected.

"What? Oh, that? No. There was no actual energy transfer, the djinn here are contractee's looking for a fresh market. Your contracted djinn has already profited from this excursion, she likely has many new customers apart from yourself as well." A hint of a smile escaped Adara.

Well that was some good news at least, though that sparked another idea, which Isemi had told Sarah of while fighting the lich.

"What about that shield the lich used? It was definitely annoying to fight against. Can you teach me that?" Sarah inquired.

"The barrier of energy? ....Well, you don't have the luxury of scales, but remember yours will likely be much weaker and gutter out faster." Adara had a thoughtful look on her face.

In Sarah's opinion, if she could stop one life threatening attack, it would be worth it.

Still she had to keep in mind if she ran out of power she was basically a log in the mill.

Her experience played out once more, proving her point.

"You also need some field experience. I've been....neglectful on this aspect. On another note have you been feeling off lately?" Adara turned to look at her, for a moment Sarah caught Adara shamefaced, it vanished quickly.

At first Sarah dreaded the idea of 'field experience, then she stopped on her tracks because of the odd question, Adara kept her face carefully neutral.

"Off how?" Sarah asked, it pained her to admit ignorance, perhaps she should have tested waters with an ambigous statement, yet it wasn't her way to lie.

"Never mind it is nothing of import, I was just curious. Let's begin your training." Adara shook her head.

Sarah frowned, it was obvious Adara was occulting information, possibly vital information.

Should she push and ask for it, or would the dragon reveal it on her own time?

"What-" Sarah began before she was interrupted.

Adara vanished and Sarah blinking found herself face to face with her dragonic visage, she took a hasty step back.

Fear wormed its way into her as dragonic eyes seemed to glare at her, it was likely her mind playing tricks on her though.

With a great roar Adara transformed, it happened slowly as the dragon lit aflame and in under a minute Adara stood there once more in human form.

"We will begin with demonic conjuring. It's similar to djinn's but less politeness and more demanding, at least at first, DON'T even think of trying stronger demons yet. We'll cover the basic Sins and their respective use." Adara lectured as she strode forward.

Once she was within arms length, reality shifted and the were in Adara's study room once more.

Adara swiftly took a seat, crossing a leg over her knee, all business.

Motioning with her hand several books flew off shelves and deposited themselves on the table.

Sarah saw that they were about eight books in total, anticipation surged and Sarah smiled, it seemed there was plenty of magic left to learn.

She couldn't wait.