“You okay?” an unfamiliar young female’s voice faded in.
Gretel opened her hot pink eyes from a half-sleep, finding it was just before dawn. She was still lying on the top of a very tall tree, and lifted her gaze to meet the ice-blue eyes of a pale yellow juvenile wind dragoness hovering in front of the hatchling on blue-striped wings.
“I heard your distress call. You sounded terrified,” the older wyvern explained, and with a laugh, she added, “Seeing that you're in fire dragon territory, I can guess why."
Fire dragon territory? With the rising sun casting light over the island for the first time since she arrived, Gretel looked down and past the mountain she'd fled from and froze to see a nineteen-foot-tall fire type dragon sleeping at the base of the volcano. There were a few juveniles and hatchlings, although not of similar colors to the adults or the fully grown male, but still also sleeping out in the open near him. They were much smaller and of varying sizes–the same height as any other bipedal dragon types of their ages. Some were even lying comfortably in the lava-filled grooves in the earth trailing down from the volcano. Their differing colors implied they may not all be related to one another–which made sense as she recalled they were solitary and just shared a home range similarly to poison types.
“Woah,” the white-and-purple hatchling exclaimed quietly, awestruck. I've never seen one in person! I knew they were big, but that's the real deal!
“Wait, you didn't even know?!” the yellow dragoness realized with incredulous laughter. She shook her head dismissively. “If you're good on your own, then I'm outta here. I ain't stayin’ around those monsters if I can help it.”
Gretel got to her paws, grateful that her sleep had restored her energy for abilities even if she was still tired. “I'm good,” she confirmed.
“‘Kay. Just holler if you need help. Bye!” With that, the yellow-and-blue juvenile turned her back to the younger wind type and flapped her wings just once to gain height before she summoned a tailwind and flew off.
Guess the red water dragon was right to chase me off after my accidental alert, the hatchling reflected. Then she glanced toward the sleeping fire dragons again with fascination. When one of the juveniles–a male perhaps four years old, whose gold scales shimmered in the rising sun’s light–stretched and woke up, she ducked against the treetop to stay out of his sight while still keeping watch.
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His red eyes looked toward the sky as if to gauge what time it was. When a giant bird nearly the size of himself flew by overhead, his bat-like ears perked up and he instantly spread his crimson wings, taking flight to pursue it. The bird noticed him right away and changed course to flee. It was much faster than the dragon, but unlike the swift wind types, the fire dragon didn't need to make contact with it to hunt; instead, he opened his beak-like mouth and Gretel’s keen eyes noticed a gas emitting from it. He used his powerful wings to fan the gas toward his prey, whose wing beats faltered slightly upon inhaling it. Then he parted his jaws a second time, and a breath of fire ignited the trail of gas in the air directly to the bird, catching its feathers aflame.
As it dropped, burning, from the sky, he snatched it out of the air in spite of the fire's heat in the sharp claws of his talon-like hands. “Heh! Dumb bird didn't even see what hit ‘em,” he chuckled to himself in a loud enough volume that suggested he didn't care if he drew attention from anyone.
Makes sense… Fire types don't really have natural predators, Gretel realized. She stilled the air around her to mute herself and then stealthily moved closer to the dragons, making extra sure to stay out of their sights.
The young male looked down at his peers. He landed with his kill in one hand, then gently roused a deep blue dragoness the same age as him with his free one. “Lazuli… Hey, Lazuli…!”
“Huh…? What? Citrine?” The other juvenile raised her head groggily. “What is it? It's not even morning yet!” she groaned.
“I got something for ya,” he said in a sing-song voice, a wide grin on his face.
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and opened them, then covered her mouth. “Did you catch this?!”
“Yep!”
“How?!”
“Heh, well you know what they say: the early dragon gets the bird,” he snickered.
Lazuli rolled her eyes playfully. “That's not the saying,” she giggled, but accepted the gift, biting into it with the beak-like hook of her muzzle. “Mm! It's great! I haven't seen a bird this big caught by anyone besides adults before,” she admitted, not hiding how impressed she was. “Thanks, Citrine.”
“You, uh… You can call me Rin, if you want,” he invited her somewhat modestly.
Her eyes widened slightly, then she smiled. “Sure thing, Rin. And you can call me Lapis.”
He beamed.
Gretel felt secondhand happiness from the scene, but then realized what time it was. I'm not going to be late for my meeting with Efron today, she told herself, and discreetly flew off to his island while the fire types were distracted.