They all had a big lunch after both of those shocking revelations. Jade conferred with Pyrite and told her that he thought it might take their mind off of Sapphire a little bit, or at least give them some time to think about her situation.

“I hope our team doesn’t become unstable,” Jade told her, his voice riddled with doubt. “With all these secrets and abilities and magic items, it might become a problem to keep everyone on the same side.”

“I think we’ll be okay,” Pyrite replied quietly. She knew Jade felt like the leader of their group, and was ready to be by his side. “I trust everyone, and I trust you.”

“Thanks.” Jade smiled at her gratefully, his expression slightly cleared. Pyrite smiled back.

They turned to where everyone was sitting. The humans had found rocks or grass clumps to sit on, but the dragons laid down straight on the grass and began munching on their fish and deer meat.

“Razortail?” Pyrite asked softly. “Is something wrong?” Razortail wasn’t touching any of his food, just looking at it disdainfully.

He looked up at her. “Oh...yeah, um...it’s just...I usually don’t eat fish...” His sentences were slightly awkward.

“Oh!” Pyrite realized. “You eat dragon meat. Right.”

Razortail nodded uncomfortably. “I can eat deer, though. Just not fish.”

Pyrite got him a big chunk of deer meat and set it in front of his bloodstained claws. “Is that enough?”

Razortail nodded, a relieved expression crossing his face. “Thank you.”

Lotus popped up from behind him. “Did you just say ‘thank you’ to a human?”

Razortail scowled at her. “Yes. Now shoo.”

Lotus pretended to faint. “The WORLD is ENDING!” she wailed. “RAZORTAIL THANKED SOMEONE—”

Her sentence was interrupted as Razortail swatted her with his tail. She went down with an oomph.

In a way, Lotus reminded Pyrite of Aether. The way they talked and joked around made them almost like sisters. So far, Lotus and Razortail had gotten along with everybody, which relieved Pyrite and Jade greatly.

“I THANK PEOPLE,” Razortail said grouchily. “You just don’t SEE me do it.”

“RIIIGHT.” Lotus rolled her eyes behind Razortail’s back.

Razortail sniffed and continued to eat his deer.

Pyrite grinned and went to find a flat rock to eat her cooked fish and nuts, along with a few huckleberries and thimbleberries.

“I feel like the secret to avoiding the tartness of these berries is eating them as fast as possible,” Alex remarked, swallowing two thimbleberries whole.

Turquoise glared at him. “You’re on.” She picked up three berries and stuffed them all in her mouth, then gulped.

Alex grinned crookedly at her, then picked up four and swallowed them. “Beat that.”

Turquoise raised her eyebrows at him, then threw five in her mouth. A lump traveled down her throat.

Alex’s jaw dropped. He frowned deeply, then picked up six thimbleberries and examined them closely. They were about the size and shape of the raspberries Andy had showed them, but had a completely different taste and grew on different plants.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Alex brought them up to his mouth and put them in, his cheeks bulging. He tried to swallow but failed. Sighing, he chewed them up and then swallowed. “You win.”

Turquoise grinned, then dropped five thimbleberries out of her mouth into her hand. “I only swallowed up to three,” she said.

Alex got up and banged his head on the nearest tree. “Trickery!”

“Don’t do that!” Turquoise called. “You’ll lose more intelligence than you already have!”

Pyrite giggled and gave Turquoise a fist bump as Alex walked deeper into the forest.

Lunch passed, and they all sat around and chatted. Turquoise made a stack of rocks and challenged others to practice their aim and try to knock them all down. When they were done playing that game, the sun was midway through the sky.

“Hey,” Turquoise realized. “Where’s Alex?”

Everyone looked around.

“I haven’t seen him since you tricked him in the thimbleberry eating contest,” Pyrite said. “He walked into the forest and never came back.”

Andy slapped his forehead. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice earlier! I didn’t even think about him!”

“We have to go look!” Turquoise said frantically, putting on her helmet and making a beeline for the forest. Then, she paused and tilted her head as if listening to something.

“Right,” she said through the helmet. She whipped around and whistled for Erinite, then swung on her back and gestured for everyone to follow. “He went this way!”

“Wait!” Jade called. “We should split up.”

Turquoise turned to look at him. “What?”

“Some of us should stick to the ground, so we can look for him in multiple places!” Jade got on CloudWing. “I’ll stick to the sky, along with Razortail, Lotus, and Andy. Sapphire, Pyrite, and Turquoise, you guys go into the forest. We’ll meet up back here at sunset.”

Jade leapt into the sky.

Pyrite walked over to Shadowstar. “Ready?”

Shadowstar gave her a worried look, then ducked her head. “Yes. Let’s find Alex.”

----------------------------------------

The sun was getting lower in the sky when Pyrite realized that they’d lost Sapphire.

“Turquoise!” Pyrite hissed, galloping up to the side of her friend.

“What?” Turquoise shifted from her spot on Erinite and turned to look at her, the eyeholes of her helmet boring into Pyrite.

“Sapphire’s gone!”

Turquoise stiffened. “No.” She glanced wildly from left to right. “She can’t have gone far.”

“Maybe she thought she saw Alex and went off in a different direction without telling us?” Shadowstar asked hopefully.

Pyrite shook her head. “That doesn’t sound like Sapphire.”

“But at least we know that something is off,” Erinite said through gritted teeth.

“Wait.” Shadowstar pressed a talon to her head. “Something very drastic is about to happen.”

“Drastic? What kind of drastic?” Erinite asked.

“I don’t know,” Shadowstar responded, sounding frustrated. “It never tells me. I just get this feeling that something in the world is about to change. I don’t know what or where or—”

“Guys,” Turquoise interrupted. “There’s something moving over there.” She pointed off to their left.

Pyrite scanned the trees, looking for some sign of her friends. Something, anything.

There!

A flicker of movement caught her eye. A leg, disappearing behind a tree trunk.

“Hey!” Before she knew it, Pyrite was urging Shadowstar over to where the movement was. She rounded the corner, but saw nobody. She turned back to tell Turquoise and saw only empty space where she had been standing.

Pyrite choked. No. No, no, no, no. Did she take to the sky? What is going on?

Something small and sharp hit her neck, and she swatted at it, thinking it was a bug. Her fingers felt something soft, and she pulled them away to reveal a pointed dart with white feathers at the end.

“W-wha—”

Pyrite slipped off of Shadowstar’s back and onto the ferns below. She tried to move her arms and legs but found that they would not respond. Shapes floated in and out of her vision.

“Wait!” she heard Shadowstar call. Or was it Shadowstar? For a minute, Pyrite wasn’t sure who Shadowstar was.

“I’ll come with you.”

Two faces appeared above her. Two girls, about her age.

“Is this her?” one of them asked harshly. “He said she had dark hair, but the other one wasn’t the right one.”

“I don’t know,” the other one responded with a soft, gentle voice. “Let’s take her to him.”

“What about the dragon?” the other one growled. “I don’t travel with dragons.”

“You didn’t complain about the other ones.”

“Those ones were unconscious. I like my enemies being unconscious.”

“It seems calm.”

“Fine.”

Pyrite tried to comprehend what she was hearing. Other one? Him?

She tried to speak, to move, to do something, but she couldn’t. Blackness overtook her, wrapping its quiet wings around her mind and carrying her into a blissful, dreamless sleep.