Turquoise blinked and stretched her limbs, groaning softly. Slightly filtered light hit her eyelids, and they popped open. Turquoise sat bolt upright and looked around at her surroundings.
She was in a cave, along with the rest of her friends, who were still asleep. Erinite perked up her head and stood up as Turquoise walked to the mouth of the cave. She admired the view, a scenery of dark, thick forest, occasionally parted by a small river or stream. Everything was coated in a layer of Mist, a magical substance that hid this portion of the continent from the rest. The Mist was what caused the filtered sunlight. The sun was not yet above the peaks of the mountains, which stretched from east to west. The bords were not even awake yet, and there was a remnant of light-bugs flittering around beneath the trees.
Turquoise figured that since she was the first one up, she should hunt for food. Andy had taught everyone which berries and nuts were poisonous and which were edible, so she had no worries about getting food poisoning.
“Food gather?” Erinite said, sidling up to Turquoise. Her growls were still hard to decipher, but Pathtalon and Roewyn (the only dragons who were fluent in both dragon and human) along with Pyrite and Jade (the only humans who could speak dragon and human) were teaching them well. The result of their combined languages was that they switched back and forth often, sometimes unconsciously. They had a hilarious incident the other day when Turquoise’s twin brother Alex asked Andy in dragon “Can you fit pass the pebble sauce kite?” and Andy responded with “My toes will eat your face.” Other than that, they were all starting to get the hang of it.
Erinite lowered her shoulder so that Turquoise could climb onto her back. Turquoise was amazed at how big Erinite was. Her shoulder was to Turquoise’s neck.
Erinite flared out her four wings and launched into the sky. They spiraled into the air, the Mist hitting their faces with a warm breeze.
“There!” Turquoise said. “I think I see a berry bush!”
Erinite folded her wings and dropped into a dive, the rush of wind taking Turquoise’s breath away. Right before they hit the treetops, Erinite spread out her wings, and they soared over the twisted branches. When they spotted the berries again, Erinite swooped over them and landed neatly in the middle.
Turquoise brought out Alex’s hastily made leaf pouch and began filling it with berries. Erinite sniffed the ground and then pounced on a raccoon. While Turquoise gathered more berries, Erinite also found a badger and a squirrel. Andy had made sure that they all recognized which animals were which.
Turquoise finished by the time the sun peeked over the mountain range. She hopped on Erinite’s back and they flew to their cave, landing in the entrance. Turquoise had to be extra careful not to squash the berries as she got down.
Her friends were stirring, but not all of them were up. Turquoise observed the dingy cave from the entrance and cupped her hands to her mouth, about to wake her friends up. But before she could say anything, Alex hopped up beside her from out of the middle of nowhere.
“Watch this,” he whispered mischievously. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a weird cone made of leaves. He put the small end of it to his mouth.
“ALRIGHT, FOLKS!” his voice sounded magnified to ten times its volume, even though he wasn’t raising it. “IT’S WAKEY-WAKEY TIME AND WE NEED TO GET GOING! CHOP-CHOP LET’S GO LET’S GO! ALSO, THERE IS FOOD, COME AND GET SOME!”
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Everyone scrambled to their feet groggily. Andy looked up blearily, realized that it was just Alex, and then set his head back on the ground and groaned loudly. Soon, everyone was trying to go back to sleep with their hands over their ears.
“SINCE YOU WOULD PREFER TO GET SOME REST,” Alex continued with his voice-magnifier, “I WILL PREDICT THE WEATHER. TODAY, IT WILL BE MISTY. TOMMOROW, IT WILL BE MISTY. THE DAY AFTER THAT, IT WILL BE MISTY. THE DAY AFTER THAT—”
“Alright, alright, we’re up,” Jade groaned. Turquoise high-fived Alex, laughing. “You could try a more diplomatic approach, you know—”
“I AM SORRY,” Alex said. “IT SEEMS I CANNOT HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF MY OWN MAGNIFICENT—MY OWN—MAGNIFICENT—” He couldn’t even finish the sentence; he was too busy laughing. “VOICE,” he finished before doubling over, howling. Turquoise slapped him on the back, also laughing.
“Not funny!” Andy said. “My poor ears have been traumatized!” Everyone laughed, then stuffed some berries in their mouths. They were bitter, but it was all they had.
“A gourmet meal!” Alex exclaimed in a pompous voice after chewing and swallowing, clearly trying not to wrinkle his nose. “Superb! Exquisite! Glorious! Marvelous! Splendid—”
Turquoise cut him off by pelting him with a berry, getting juice on his forehead. “It was all we could find, Mr. Chef Superior! Stop making fun of my gathering skills!”
Alex just laughed at her, and threw a berry back, clearly trying to start a food fight. Turquoise stuck her tongue out at him, and he tried to hit her mouth with a berry. He failed miserably.
When they had all finished, they got to their feet, dusting off their pants.
“It’s a long flight ahead, but it’s our last one,” Jade declared. After four days, they were all tired of flying all day. The dragons didn’t complain, but Turquoise could tell they were constantly sore.
The team hopped on their dragons and flew out of the cave, into the Misty sky.
Turquoise gazed at the side of the mountain range. It stretched for miles in each direction, but towards the eastern end she could see where it dipped down to become less elevated. Snow sprinkled the very tops of the mountains, sometimes broken by a small river of lava.
After a few hours of flying, Shadowstar cried, “There!” She pointed one talon at a volcano to their left, and they banked in that direction.
As they got closer, Turquoise could see individual pools of lava on the top. After a few minutes, a blast of heat hit her like a wall.
“We’re so far up!” Turquoise called. “Why do I feel the heat so drastically?”
Sapphire and Tanzanite sidled up to her. “Heat rises,” Sapphire explains. “Lava is literally melted rock. It’s very, very hot. The heat we feel up here is nothing compared to what we’ll feel down there.”
“Oh, great,” Turquoise muttered. “The LavaDragons will have a free meal of baked Turquoise.”
“You’d be delicious!” Alex called to her over her shoulder.
“You won’t be around to see if that’s true, because they’ll have eaten you first!” Turquoise retorted back.
“True!” Alex called. “Some if the wisest words you have ever spoken! I am very proud! And delicious, probably!”
Turquoise buried her face in her hands. She didn’t know whether to laugh or tell her brother to shut up.
“Where should we land?” Sapphire asked. Turquoise was glad for the subject change.
“Over there!” Pathtalon called, pointing with his talon at a spot where there was no lava. “I think I saw something moving in one of the pools over there!” It was nice to hear him perfectly. Pathtalon preffered to speak in human.
Everyone turned and landed on the spot Pathtalon had pointed out. “It’s smaller than I thought it was,” He said apologetically, “but at least we all fit.”
Turquoise looked around. “Where did you say the moving thing was?”
Suddenly, a gurgling sound in the lava drew their attention. They all turned and saw a dragon emerge from the lava. Fire-colored webs along its spines dribbled with lava. Obsidian scales separated by what looked like lava in between them glittered in the light of the lava. A thick tail with a large thing of webbing at the end of it rested gently on the shore. Large, razor-sharp talons cut into the rock beneath them.
The LavaDragon studied them with fiery eyes.
“Follow me,” she said. Her growls were even harder to decipher than Erinite's. “I’ll introduce you to the monarchs.”