Wings of Fire: A Lone Grain in the Sand

Chapter 15: The Mission

Soon, Cactus sat in front of Corundum's cozy fire, with a roasted boar in her mouth, overjoyed to finally be out of the rain. The others had waited to eat until she arrived, and now each dragon was chowing down heartily. Solstice sat on his stalagmite, with the smallest of the boars in his talons. He didn't eat much.

"Time to sleep you guys." Corundum said, sweeping cave rubble in the fire to die down the flames.

Squelch stretched his big wings and rolled over onto his back on the cave floor. Einstein and Lightslayer, the other NightWing curled up together in a corner of the sleeping cave. Solstice fell asleep with his head hanging off of the edge of his stalagmite. Kraken had fallen asleep in the underground pond, his glowy stripes on his body gave the main cave an eerie glow. And Corundum flapped up to the ceiling of the cave, clinging to it with her hind feet, and wrapped herself in her wings like a giant, red bat.

Nameless curled up on the floor at the base of Solstice's stalagmite, Cactus tucked neatly under his wing. And soon, every dragon in the cave fell fast asleep.

A few days later.

"Good morning everyone!" Einstein shouted cheerily through the cave. "We've got a mission!"

Corundum groaned, just having woken up. "You've already gotten orders?"

"Well, I've been up for three hours, so I thought that'd be enough time." He said with satisfaction.

"Alright then." Corundum fell from her spot on the ceiling, floating to the cave floor. She straightened herself and cleared her throat. "Alright everyone, get your groggy hides out of dreamland and get ready!"

Cactus shook the sleep from her eyes. She watched as everyone else got up.

"Come on now. We're heading out to SeaWing territory!" Corundum barked.

"Alright!" Kraken shouted excitedly, leaping out of the pond. Solstice tiredly trudged next to him. "C'mon you frumpy IceWing, you need something to wake you up!"

Cactus watched in amusement as the SeaWing bit down on the back of Solstice's neck and threw him headfirst into the freezing pond. The others turned to watch the IceWing struggle to stay afloat and scream curses at Kraken.

"Come back here, squidbrain!!" he roared, "Come over here so I can rip your throat out!!"

"Anyone else?" Kraken asked with a wicked smile. The other Talons hurriedly picked up the pace. Solstice climbed, wet and angry out of the pond.

"I'm going to tear out your heart and feed it to the scavengers!!" he shouted. Kraken gulped and ran away from Solstice. Luckily, Squelch stepped in to hold the seething IceWing back from killing anyone.

"Alright, salamanders, I'm dead serious!"

Everyone left the cave.

Cactus was following the others outside when she noticed and odd stone shelving carved into the cave walls. Each shelf was lined with different gadgets and odds and ends. She saw beside a stone workbench, the makings of a crude machine, and realized this must have been what Einstein was building for the last few days she was here. She wondered what this machine was?