Wings of Fire: Dragons, Steel, and Pom-Poms

XI - Alarm!

>At a SeaWing enclave, on the outskirts of the Kingdom of the Sea_

Cuttlefish was bored.

Really bored.

Despite all the excitement the last few days held, and the near-nonstop questions and wild speculations bouncing around his head, the most prominent emotion he currently felt was that of boredom.

It made sense, though. That he would be bored, given his current circumstance. Even the most excitable, or easy-going dragonet would be bored if he had been confined to his sleeping cave for the past day or so.

He and his friends had been grounded after what had happened yesterday. Mako and her procession to the Summer Palace had returned just in time to see the giant underwater-scavenger-boat-thing looming over their enclave, with a talonful of dragons swimming and floating nearby. Clam, Oyster and Cuttlefish in the center of the formation, next to the boat-thing itself.

Mako had never seen the underwater-boat-thing for herself, only having heard of its existence from the dragonets during their recounting of their first contact with them.

She had seen the hulking boat-thing, the dragonets next to it, and (correctly) assumed that the dragonets had somehow led it to the enclave. After all, how else could it have picked out this one specific location from the entire ocean that even some SeaWings had difficulty finding? Especially since, when last she heard and saw, the boat things were all gathered around the seaside scavenger den?

Needless to say, she was thoroughly livid.

After literally yanking Cuttlefish underwater to interrogate him, she 'recommended' to his and the sibling's parents to confine them to their respective sleeping caves until further notice. Mako's wrath was tempered somewhat when Cuttlefish promised to drive off the giant boat-thing, and then did.

She was still mad, though, and they were still very grounded.

He was grateful for his friends being there for him at that moment, though. They had come to his defense while Mako was berating him, although the effectiveness of said defense was questionable at best.

He could vividly recall one exchange in particular:

["WHICH PART OF YOU THOUGHT IT WAS GOOD IDEA TO BRING THIS- THIS HUGE THING TO OUR HOME!? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?"] Mako had signal-shouted with a glaring intensity that was almost blinding to Cuttlefish's light-sensitive, night-vision capable eyes.

To which Clam responded: ["Hey! It's not that huge! It's only like... three times as long as a whale?"]

Despite Cuttlefish's current dull discomfort, and his offense at being grounded by his irate teacher through his mother, he admitted that he could- ...understand why he was here, to an extent.

Mako had seen with her own eyes what the scavenger-boats near the scavenger den could do to dragons. He and the siblings were there, but they didn't directly see the gory sight she later described. Cuttlefish knew Mako was tough and harsh, even by dragon standards. Rumors and stories about what she did, or was, before moving to their enclave were always hushed whenever dragonets were nearby. She herself certainly never talked about her past. But what she saw above the den, Cuttlefish thought got to her more that she let on, or even necessarily knew herself.

And even though his assumption that no harm would come of leading that particular boat-thing to their enclave where they could have easy access to their scrolls had proven right. He would admit that leading a strange thing that he knew to be potentially dangerous to his home was probably... certainly, a lapse in judgment on his part.