Blue Wings ~ Book One

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Sapphire walked along the eastern border with Rosemary. It was just them today, everyone else was busy. Rosemary was her bubbly self, energetic with a huge order of ADHD. It was never boring around her, she always made somebody laugh.
     "While we're checking these trees... Can I hear about why you have your color?" Sapphire smiled, trying to pull up an interesting topic. Snowscale was the only white scaled dragon in the clan. And Nightshade was the only dragon with black scales. There were no red scaled dragons. So what she heard would be a great fact about her.
    "Oh! I'd be happy to answer! My dad was Rosethorn! My mother was Rosepetal, they were kinda meant for each other! They were both a really light green, but my mother had the pink tinge. They uh... Died in a battle, a long time ago when I was just a hatchling." Rosemary was still smiling slightly, trying to hide her feelings. Sapphire felt sympathy for Rosemary, a similar thing had happened to her as a hatchling.
     "My parents abandoned me as a hatchling... I had to learn to hunt way before I was ready." Sapphire was over it... But Rosemary was crying over her story pretty much. "Hey, Rosemary. Watch this." Rosemary looked up at Sapphire, Sapphire pulled her spikes, her skin pulled back to make a very cross eyed deer face. Rosemary burst out laughing.
    "Oh my god Sapphire! Come on, we are supposed to be checking the borders not goofing around..." Rosemary's voice drifted to a whisper. Her eyes widening a bit. She smelled something.

   "Sapphire... There is a trespasser very close to us..." Sapphire growled deep in her throat, eyes turning purple, laced with red. She crept around trees, trying to find the source.
   "Rosemary, where they at?" She whispered sharply, Rosemary pointed her tail to the left. Sapphire looked, and gazed upon the dragons who were on their territory. Three large dragons were carving a tree. How dare they! Sapphire was about to charge, but Rosemary held her back. Rosemary shook her head, reluctant to fight. Sapphire sighed, her eyes flashed grey, shimmering in the sun. Rosemary understood, they would have to fight in order to keep them away. Rosemary kept her body low, tail off the ground to keep noise minimal. Sapphire did the same until they were as close as they could get without being seen.

   Sapphire leaped, letting her battle cry ring around the forest.
   "GET OFF OUR TERRITORY!" Sapphire roared, her claws gouging gashes in the largest dragons scales. He lept back, startled, blood dripping from the wound. He laughed, the other two dragons facing Rosemary.  
   "Well. I didn't expect a couple hatchlings to Interrupt us. GORA! SAICH! Teach these hatchlings not to mess with us." The other two dragons nodded and closed in on Rosemary, the leader towering over Sapphire. Sapphire noticed the leaders eyes changed from purple to red. Sapphire growled, she would have to fight now, and not let her emotions get in the way.

   Sapphire leapt under the leader, the spikes on the top of her head raking across his soft underbelly. He snarled and took Sapphires tail in his jaws, flinging her out. She twisted in midair, and breathed a huge plume of flame, the scorching heat that could melt rock, swirling around the leader. He didn't even flinch, he was burned, but he didn't seem to care. He lunged for Sapphires throat, teeth bared. She tucked her head in, and charged, her neck spines sticking out, claws ready to grip. The leader tried to break his acceleration, but slammed his arm into Sapphires spines, piercing easily into his softer scales.

  He roared and his eyes turned a bright red, flashing in the afternoon sun. He slashed his claws against Sapphires scales, to his shock, his claws bounced off, sparks falling to the ground, disappearing like a wisp of smoke. He tried to bite down on her scales, the hard plates making his teeth suffer from a lot of pain. He gritted his teeth, they were cracked, yellow.
   "I can't touch this kid! We must retreat!" The other two dragons suffered many wounds, nodding and flying off, but they would be back.

  Rosemary limped over to Sapphire, her pale green scales stained with blood. She sighed, her injuries rivaled those of the dragons she fought. She had multiple deep gashes on her flanks, a deep bite mark on her tail, a scratch under her right eye, a cracked claw, and a huge slash on her left back leg. Sapphire glanced worriedly at Rosemary. Sapphire helped her friend walk to the clearing, it was about a mile or so, so they fixed up some rough bandages and kept going.