Criminals ((A Wings of Fire fanfic))

CHAPTER 8

It wasn't hard to find Copper, she just asked a few guards where the Guard Quarters were located, and Copper seemed like a lazy fellow. Making her way down a hallway (she had ditched her motley armour), Windstalker caught a glance of older guards playing a game in a small, round room. Then, all of the generals in a more spacious room, with tapestries and a long table. She could recognize General Phoenix and General Spire, locked in an arm wrestle. Three more dragons she didn't know were cheering Phoenix and Spire on, and the other four were exchanging bets. Windstalker passed several more caves, which held even more guards, but she got a nasty surprise when she stuck her head into a cave with a tiny entrance and she nearly smashed her snout into a mass of strangely luminescent, copper-orange scales. 

Vivid blue eyes met hers, and the firescales took a few steps back to avoid burning Windstalker's nose off. 

"Sorry! Sorry, so, so sorry!" Windstalker cried, dashing away. The firescales gave her a hurt look and retreated back into the cave, where other voices could be heard, all of them speaking quietly, as if they were at somebody's deathbed. 

Windstalker strode past more caves, all holding adult dragons. No Guard-in-training caves anywhere? COPPER, WHERE IN THE MOONS ARE YOU?!

She stomped around a corner, then found exactly what she was looking for. Caves upon caves filled with the chatter of dragonets. The female dragons were on one side of the hall, and the males on the other. Copper had to be here. It was the Guards-in-training's day off, anyways. 

Windstalker shot brief glances into each 'male' cave she passed, but no distinctive dark-copper scales and orange talons. She was starting to feel a bit lost, it was now time for Plan B. 

Windstalker summoned all her courage, and continued striding down the corridor, looking for dragons that didn't look busy. Then her black gaze picked up a small dragonet, looking out of a window with a sad/wistful expression on her face. Windstalker approached the dragonet, who looked up immediately. 

"Hello," Windstalker murmured nervously, looking down at her talons. What would this dragon think of her? 

"H-hi," the dragonet answered in a shy voice. 

"Uh, I was wondering if you could, uh, help me find someone," Windstalker said quietly.

"I can do that," the little dragonet answered, a few beams of sunlight rippling across her beautiful golden-orange-red scales, that were speckled with strange dark grey. 

"Oh, okay, thanks..." Windstalker said

"It's Coro." The dragonet replied. She shifted her dark gray-red wings, and looked up at Windstalker with baleful green-yellow eyes.

"All right, Coro, I'm— Windstalker. I'm looking for a male SkyWing guard-in-training named Copper. He has coppery orange scales, and front legs the colour of his underbelly." Windstalker said, trying to sound a businesslike as possible. 

Coro blinked for a few seconds, then nodded. "I can take you to him," she muttered

Oh no, did I scare her? 

Coro shuffled away, further down the cave-lined corridor. Her red wings twitched constantly, in a way that reminded Windstalker of Gyrfalcon. She missed her friend, who had gone away on vacation with her sisters and caretaker. She still had Swan, but Swan had a tendency to drawl on and on about how stupid they were, to steal from her house, and how her parents had had a heart attack when the necklace went missing, and generally didn't make Windstalker feel too good about herself. Swan had, anyways, been enrolled in a private school, and Windstalker didn't see her anymore, she was doing homework constantly.