Wings of Fire; The Scarlet Sunrise

Chapter 21

The night air was chilly, nipping at Lydia's underbelly and her scales, making her silver earring cold to the touch. It wasn't too bad, but it did surprise her. Do the mountains usually get this cold? She wondered. She'd never noticed back home, but maybe it was different in the underground tunnels, caves and chambers than outside. I'm also flying over a river, so maybe that makes it colder? Gripping the edges of her cloak, she pulled it a little closer. It was difficult with her flying, but she was able to bunch up her hood and hook it around her spines to make it puff up around her neck. Though, there was nothing she could do about how it would snap at the underside of her wings when she soared.

With steep mountains on either side of her like towering walls that reached up into the sky, their points curled in an attempt to grasp at the moons two moons that had yet to be full, it gave the wind a channel to swiftly cut through. A shiver made its way along her back as she flapped her wings again, lifting her up a few tail lengths above the rippling waters surface below her that reflected the moon's light, turning it a shimmering silver that twinkled like stars.

She'd been flying for a while now, and night had fully set in with the sky turning a dark blue with splashes of purple. Tiny twinkling dots danced around the two moons, flickering like fireflies but they never disappeared. Lydia was in awe the longer she stared at them. I've never really gotten a chance to look at the stars, she realized as she craned her neck back to allow herself to stare up at the dark -though it was still bright and she was able to make out things easily- blue blanket of a sky with tiny holes poked into its surface for the stars to shine through.

For most of the time Lydia had been flying, she'd catch glimpses of Moonglobe or Fatefinder, sometimes even Rattlesnake but the SandWing was always farther ahead or off to the side, never directly beside or ahead of her like the other two. Whenever she'd try calling out to them, she'd get no response. She'd even tried closing her eyes and focusing solely on seeing them, but when she opened her eyes they were never there.

But they're here though, she assured herself with another flap of her wings that sent a gust of cold air between her back and her cloak. So I'm not alone, I just can't really talk to any of them. It was similar to the night Moonglobe died, when Fatefinder was trying to warn her but she couldn't hear him. Just this time she would see them all for a split second before they were gone, either just after she'd blink or out of the corner of her eye. Flickering silhouettes that she could just make out their features such as scale colour, eye colour, or body shapes.

Lydia began to feel a subtle ache in her wings, taking as her body needing to take another break. Along the way, she learned that the ledges were too small -even for her- to properly perch upon like most dragons would. But the young princess had another way of resting that no other tribes would even think to do.

Bat roosting.

Lydia had seen her tribe do it in the throne room, the large cave that spiraled upwards to a fine point with stalactites hanging from the ceiling, providing several places for NightWings to perch by hooking their claws into the tiny cracks or bumps on the rocks surface and clinging to them like bats.

Searching for another tiny ledge that jutted out from the steep cliff face, worn down by rainfall over the years, she flew closer to the side of the mountain to her left. Her wing was just a few mere claw lengths from escaping it's rocky surface as she scanned the silver-painted wall of rock for any nooks she could hook her claws into. They were hard to see, but eventually Lydia spotted one only thick enough for her claws to hook onto. She reached out with her claws, feeling them sink into the tiny dents in it's surface as her wings flapped to help slow her down. Lydia planted her hind claws against the scree that sloped down to the swirling river below that was like a slice of silver against the rocky landscape that towered over it.