Their slow and steady pace helped the dragonets conserve energy, but this did not eliminate their desperate need for land. The quiet, telepathic guessing game also did not alleviate Mahi's immediate need for entertainment.

"I'm bored!" Mahi moaned. "It's time for a different game—something that'll get the heart pumping. How about another race—?"

"No!" Fia wailed before the adult dragon could take off. "I have a better idea."

"Yeah? Yeah?" Mahi bobbed his head up and down in sync with the waves. "Let's hear it!"

Fia began to speak with each of her words articulated carefully, "I spy with my little eyes, something that is…."

"Oh brother," Mahi remarked. "This game is even worse."

"Do you have another idea?" Along with that question, Fia included some more requirements which qualified as a good game for the two dragonets. We're too tired for any more races, but we still wanna play with you, Mahi Mahi!

"No. No," Mahi chuckled. "This game is just dandy. It's gonna be a disaster, but that'll be part of the fun! Sorry for interrupting you, Fia." With a wicked smile held in the posture of his bent wings, Mahi lowered his face down to Fia's level with the small points of his fangs poking out. "What do you spy?"

Starting all over again, so she could look around at their unchanged surroundings, Fia said, "I spy with my little eyes, something that is… white!" she decided upon at last.

Viliant tracked Fia's gaze across the empty, ocean waves. Despite the squint to his eyes, he could not spot anything of note—much less something white. Viliant realized that Fia had avoided looking at her intended object for precisely this purpose. The black dragonet tipped back his head to stare at the only obvious thing with a white coloration. The clouds.

"Yep! It's the clouds." Fia remembered to repeat Viliant's guess aloud to help him learn more words in the Carlinoan language.

"Your turn, Viliant," Mahi droned. His monotone voice sounded disinterested, yet a sneer at the end indicated that he derived entertainment from another aspect of this game.

Did Mahi let me win this time? Viliant wondered, but he pushed aside his doubt. The black dragonet had won fair and square by putting in his guess faster. He surveyed the open water for any small speck of color which differentiated itself from the rest of the ocean. I spy something—

"Nuh uh!" Mahi interjected. "It doesn't count unless you say the full thing, little dude."

"Yeah!" Fia agreed, wanting Viliant to gain confidence in speaking in Carlinoan. "Try saying it aloud," she encouraged him.

With the heft of a big sigh, Viliant started again. "I spy with my… eyes—"

"They're little!" Fia chastised him. When he shot her a glare, she muttered in her defense. "You're supposed to say 'little' eyes. It's important."

Viliant's eyelids narrowed angrily, making his eyes become more little. "I spy with my little eyes, something that is blue," he decided to go with.

"Any chance it's my scales?" Mahi asked.

"Not a chance," Viliant snarked back.

"The sky," Fia trilled in a singsong voice, thinking that he went with the nearest color to her choice in the previous round.

Mahi jerked his head to gesture between Fia and Viliant. "It's Fia's eyes, isn't it?"

"No." Viliant stretched his neck backward, trying to put more space between himself and Mahi as the slush dragon drew even closer.

Mahi batted his eyelids furiously over his deep blue eyes. "How about my eyes?"

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"No!" Viliant roared at Mahi.

"What else is blue?" Fia wondered aloud.

"I wonder," Mahi repeated. "What else is blue…?"

After a pause, Fia belatedly realized that Viliant had chosen the most obvious thing. "It's the water, isn't it?" she groaned.

"Yes, the water," Viliant said, repeating the words for practice.

"My turn!" Fia cheered, glad that she could pick a color of greater interest. "I spy with my little eyes something that is… green!"

Still focused on himself, Mahi answered, "The green stripe in my scales."

"Nope. Your scales are pretty though," Fia complimented him.

"Aw, shucks," Mahi said with a humorous lilt to his voice. "Thanks, Fia."

Viliant ignored them in favor of surveying the water, trying to discern any tinge of green in the waves. He hoped to spy green foliage which would herald land. However, he only saw various shades of blue. After much deliberation, Viliant decided to make a guess against his better judgment. "Is it the water?"

"Ha!" Fia's giggle got caught in a snort. "No. Sorry, Viliant. Not everything's water."

"I know what it is," Mahi teased.

"Then say it." Viliant figured their escort needed to win a round to keep him engaged in the game. Compared to a race, or whatever other nonsense Mahi might come up with, Viliant liked this one.

"Nuh uh!" Mahi sneered. "I want to see you figure it out."

"Ugh." Viliant flattened his wings against the swell of the next wave. He wished that the sun's rays cast some shadows on the open ocean so that he had somewhere to hide. The black dragonet disliked being used for entertainment. What else around here is green? he thought angrily, his patience running thin. No matter which way Viliant craned his neck, he did not see the color which Fia had chosen. Oh, right. Viliant winced with his eyes squeezed shut. When he reopened them, flashing their emerald color, he responded, "My eyes."

"Yes!" Fia squealed. "Your turn."

"I spy with my little eyes, something that is blue," Viliant said, not bothering to pause and think about a color this time.

"My eyes!" Fia shouted, confident that Viliant returned the favor for the last round.

"No."

"Mahi's eyes," Fia tried again, frustrated that he would choose their new friend over his best friend.

"No."

"I know what this one is too," Mahi said with a smug flick of his tail. Although he suspected that Viliant chose the water, the dragonet's empty mind did not give away his selection.

Fia doubted that Viliant could tolerate the boredom of choosing the same thing twice in a row. She rapidly guessed everything but the ocean. "Mahi's scales! The sky! My flames when I sneeze really hard."

"You never sneezed. And they don't turn blue."

Fia whined about Viliant being a stickler for details. Reluctantly, she uttered the thing which Mahi had expected all along. "It's the water again, isn't it?"

"Yup."

The game went on like this. Fia endeavored to select a different color and a different object every time. Mahi had more fun with his commentary than he did with the game. Viliant considered creativity unnecessary. On his next turn, he growled the ritual. "I spy with my little eyes, something that is…." Viliant trailed off, pretending to look for something new like Fia did for her rounds.

In fact, Viliant spotted an unexpected apparition on the horizon. A ridge of land broke the steady oscillation of waves in the distance. At first, Viliant thought his eyes deceived him as the island seemed to flicker in his vision. He shook his head fiercely. When he looked back up, his jaw dropped. "Land," he whispered, too stunned for his voice to rise above a monotone.

"Aw, come on!" Mahi shouted with a slap of his wing against the water. "You just gave it away."

"No," Viliant barked, indifferent to the senseless game. "Land!" he hollered again. The edge of enthusiasm crept into his voice this time. By the time that Fia and Mahi raised their heads in the direction that Viliant pointed, the island had disappeared.

"Wait," Mahi murmured, perturbed by Viliant's sudden proclamation. "Is this guy doing alright?" With a wing lowered to pretend to speak to just Fia, he jutted the spiny tips of that same wing to gesture at Viliant. "Your friend seems a little green around the gills, if he had them."

"Um," Fia flitted her eyes to him out of concern. We needed to change up the game's rules a little bit anyway, she figured, using this to cover for Viliant. "Now we're saying the thing, and we have to guess the color!"

"Invisible. Clear. Transparent," Mahi guessed all the colors for the land which he did not see.

"Black," Fia corrected him. The slitted pupils of her eyes dilated as she took in the dark blot of an island which had suddenly reappeared.

"See?" Viliant said, too desperate to rest on solid ground to care about the evident magical aura that it exuded. The dragonets had finally reached land.