A purple haze cast in the sky when Markus woke up to find his daughter over the fire cooking a rather large fish for breakfast. "Morning father, we will be eatting soon," said Amethyst as she turned it on the spit and squeezed some more lemon juice on over it.  

     "That smells wonderful! When did you wake?" he asked as he stretched his back out.  

     "A little more than an hour ago, why?" she asked as she got their plates ready for breakfast.  

     "How quickly did you get that monster on your line?" he asked surprised with her response.  

     "Speared him with my arrow within moments actually," she smiled at her father.  

     "That's my girl," he beamed as he watched her dish out the immense fish to their plates.  

     They made small talk over meal, how beautiful the sun rise was that day, how it would be a good day for tracking and hunting and how they would be eating well later tonight when they got some rabbits. Markus watched Amethyst get her gear ready for their excursion.

     She made sure she had the knife he granfather had made for her 16th birthday, along with her long bow and quiver that belonged to her departed mother, that for some reason never seemed to run out of arrows. Markus also noticed Amethyst was tying some kind of cord to her belt tightly and seemed to leave it buckled in placed, "I wonder what she is going to do with that?" he asked himself most puzzled. Amethyst smiled at her father once she was ready to start hunting. They headed to the dense woods, little did they know today was going to be anything but what they hade both planed it out to be for themselves.  

     Amethyst paid very close attention to her fathers instructions on hunting, how to be silent while walking and waiting, how to be unseen, how to be down wind and try to never leave any sign of your scent. They did very well by lunch time, Markus ended up with two rabits and one quail while Amethyst showed up her father and landed herself four rabbits, three quails and found the nest with six eggs, which she also took.

     When they got back to camp they set up a rack for drying their kills but they made it so it hang in the trees, one of Markus' favorite kinda so no other animals were likly to get to it. Right away Markus and Amethyst start cleaning skining the animals and then plucked the quails feathers.  Amethyst needed no instruction in this however, she had seen her father do this so often growing up she could repeat the task in her sleep if she needed to.  

     She never complained about getting dirty or bloody like her friends that were girls. He and his brothers taught her how to fight because of some of the boys in the villiage could be so mean regaurdless of who the childs family was. All these thoughts were going through Markus' head and he was wondering if he had done a good job as a father for Amethyst as he could have for his daughter if he had only remarried. She could finally take of herself if anything ever happened him though, so that was a comforting thought at the very least.

     They had finally gotten done with with the messy task of cleaning the catch and went down to the stream to clean off. "Amethyst I need to ask you something my child," Markus said as he dunked his hands in the water.  

     "Anything father, you know I don't keep secrets from you," she said repeating his actions.  

      "Have I don't right in your eyes by you? I mean to say I am a good father?" Markus asked as he tucked a loose straned of hair behind his daughters ear.  

     "You have done an amazing job raising a daughter alone, teaching her everything you know and allow her know things most women don't and not allowed to have even the slightest knowledge of depending on where they live! Why would you ask such a foolish question?" she asked as she staired at him puzzled.  

     "Every parent wants to know if they do a good job, that is all, I promise," he said lying to her but she could never tell when.  

     She gave her father the biggest hug she had ever given him in her life that she could remember, "I love you father," she whispered in his ear.  

     "I know strawberry, I love you too" he said and kissed her forehead.  

     They walked back to the clearing together and noticed how dark the vault of heaven was growing and fast, but it was to early and there were no signs of rain at all, how could this be? The wind picked up as well and Amethyst looked around for her father who was just as confused as she was. Soon the sun was blotted out but Amethyst saw the reason why when she looked up, "DRAGON!" She screamed as loudly as she could and looked for cover, as her father watched her.

     The extravagant black dragon with red eyes and horns with rotten wings and flesh landed in front of Markus and pointed on decrepted claw hand towards Amethyst and snarled "Come here woman!"  

     "Leave her alone!" Markus yelled as he looked at the dragon with no fear, he had not noticed his daughter was coming out from her usless hiding place.  

     "You tresspassed this morning did you not fleshling female?" it hissed at her as smoke came out if snout slowly.  

     "No, I fished behind those rocks, there is no markings or sighs to state any claim to any land around here," she said most respectful to the beast.  

     "Foolish human do you not know where you hunt near?" It roared at her.  

     Amethyst looked at her father unsure of what to say now, "Father?"  

     "Please we are still miles from his woods, can he please allow us some kind of exoneration if we him an offering?" Markus asked looking at the dragon as a rather large piece of it's decaying flesh fell at his feet, causing Amethyst to shiver.  

     The dragon let lose an evil deep laugh "Why do you think I am here? You are both still alive for now, are you not?"  

     "What does your master require oh wise dargon?" Markus said as took a deep bow.  

     With a sinister smile across his scaled lips the dragon never took his red evil gleaming eyes off of Markus "Her," was the only thing he said.  

     "Father!" Amethyst screamed and showed her true female side.  

     "Are you sure? She may be beautiful but she is weak, she won't even last long. I've had to have people in the villiage keep an eye on her even now, at the age of 17 years old. She had no one will even show interest in marriage with her, she is so weak, please take me I will at least make the master happy with the work load," Markus said lie after lie.

     Amethyst was stunned at what she was hearing her father say to the fowl beast as another pieace of fleash as large as her lower half fell in front of her with fresh blood pooled on it. No on spoke. No one moved. only breathing could be heard. Suddenly the dragon flapped his massive wings and was up and with his giant black claw grabbed Markus and made sure to pierce some flesh with those claws to let his painful new life begin said "Done!" and they were off.  

     "Father no!" Amethyst screamed and ran after him a ways, but it was usless, soon he had ducked down behind the mountains and was done from sight. "No, no, no, no, no," Amethyst said softly and sat down and cried. She saw something sparkling when she finally looked up and decided to move and find her father.

     As she got closer she found it was his sword. He never went anywhere without it, "Oh father if you had only kept this you could have stabbed that thing and it would have let go of you and you could have found me and we could have fled together and lived in the florest forever alone, and not worried about anything," but she knew better than that.

     She went back to camp and set up a ring around the campsite to try to keep herself safe. She had never known fear before and this was the first time and it was not something she liked at all. Amethyst cooked up a quail and some of the eggs and a potatoe for her dinner, her fathers favorite, after eating it she finally felt safe enough to set the large ring of fire and shut eyes and go to sleep.