Wings of Fire - Eclipse Burning (1)

Chapter 7

"I should go," Moon said to Kinkajou as soon as the RainWing came back from the fruit pile. 

"No!" Kinkajou cried. "We're eating together! You haven't even finished your hairy smelly carcass thing! Sit!" She nudged Moon back to sitting. "Just for five minutes." 

Eclipse was about to tell Moon that they may not have five minutes but she caught a twin thread of anxiety from Kinkajou's mind - Don't leave me alone, please stay and be my best friend - and knew Moon wasn't going to leave anytime soon. 

"Sure, ok," Moon said, relaxing her muscles and sitting back down. She was rewarded with bright pink scales. 

"Can you tone that down?" Umber asked Kinkajou as he and Turtle joined them, each carrying a fish. "I mean, it's a very exciting color that I can't say I've ever seen before, but it's a little -"

"Bright," Turtle suggested. 

"Noticeable?" tried Umber.

"Eyeball-scorching," offered Qibli.

"Distracting," Eclipse proposed. 

"This happens when I'm happy," Kinkajou said, unruffled. "But if you'd prefer something more sedate -" she turned a vibrant shade of lime green with violet spots. 

Eclipse flinched and closed her eyes while Moon nearly choked on her goat. 

"Aaaah!" Qibli yelped, covering his eyes with his talons. 

"I don't actually know you," Umber said to Kinkajou. "You might be totally serious right now."

"No, I'm just kidding," Kinkajou giggled, bumping Moon's side again. "I can be totally ordinary and boring, don't worry." Her scales shifted again, rippling to the same quiet brown as Umber's, and she gave him a wide-eyed stare.

"Boring hasn't exactly made it onto my list of words to describe you," Moon said. 

"Winter!" Kinkajou shouted. 

The IceWing paused in the act of sweeping majestically past them. "Yes?" he said frostily to Kinkajou. 

Winter glanced at Eclipse and she caught his eye. He looked back at Kinkajou quickly and Eclipse opened his mind and listened. 

Don't think about Eclipse. Don't think about Eclipse. Three moons. . . Why is this RainWing talking to me? 

Eclipse smothered a grin and pushed his thoughts back into a raindrop. 

"Do you want to sit with us?" Kinkajou asked. "I mean, since we're your winglet now, and everything." A wave of ice blue shimmered across her scales and then vanished. The amount of dreamy thoughts coming from the RainWing not fitting in any of Eclipse's raindrops. 

Winter looked down his nose at the RainWing. "Absolutely not," he said, stalking away toward another IceWing perched on a ledge slightly above the rest of the dragons. 

"He's so tortured," Kinkajou sighed happily. 

Eclipse snorted. 

"You're a little weird," Moon pointed out. 

Kinkajou was about to reply when a hush fell over the cave. They all twisted around and saw Anemone pace slowly through the door with her head held high, followed by Ostrich. 

The SeaWing princess, rippled through everyone's minds. 

"They're in my winglet," Eclipse said, Kinkajou glanced at her. "She's nice. The princess. That's Ostrich. She's my clawmate. She's a good friend." 

Kinkajou nodded and mumbled an "oh," a light pink rippling through her scales.  

"Oh, thank the moons," Anemone said, spotting the net of fish, her voice clear and high. "I haven't eaten since we left Queen Moorhen's palace yesterday." She stepped delicately around a SandWing who was chewing something on the floor, and surveyed the few small fish that hadn't been claimed yet. A number of MudWings, SeaWings, and SkyWings were clustered nearby, brown and green and red scales side by side as they ate.