Wings of Fire • Dragon of Secrets [2]

Chapter Two

Brisktail glided over the dark waters, watching his shadow dance over the waves. He was heading home after returning the albatross chick with Rainwind.

     Home was a bright place, he remembered, but only when Mother was alive. All Brisktail remembered of her were bluish-gray scales like his own and a laugh that brought a smile to Father's face even on the stormiest day.

     All of that ended when Mother was sent on that surveying mission to Little Pine Islands. She was supposed to cut across the tundra and Winter Bay to see the two islands where scavengers nested and make sure they had not crossed onto the mainland. She left that day and never came back.

     Brisktail entered a stoop and glided to a swift landing on an icy platform. It was slick with frozen water because of the ice rain yesterday. Brisktail hoped there wouldn't be more storms like that for a while.

     Fall was just beginning to set in and if the weather got worse the fish in the bay would migrate away. If the fish migrated then the SwiftScale Hunting Thunders would have to fly farther out to sea to find food. It was just asking for another run-in with Pyrrhia, and Brisktail wasn't too keen on that idea.

     Of course, that wasn't the only reason Brisktail was worrying. He was worried because there were half as many eligible hunters to go on missions in the first place. The violent discovery of the SeaWings and rediscovery of the Pyrrhian dragons had ended in a single Great Battle (again, totally unnecessary). That one fight had more than halved the already small SwiftScale army and wiped out almost all the able hunters. So far, the tribe had been surviving mostly on its winter preserves.

     Brisktail shook his head to clear his mind and took a set of stairs up along the cliff's wall to find himself inside the halls of his apartment complex. He walked through the narrow corridor, feeling trapped as ever, and made his way to the place he dreaded most.

     Ahead of him, Brisktail could hear muffled "Mmph!" noises. They got steadily louder and louder until Brisktail walked in on a scene he wished he had never walked in on.

     Well, it could have been worse. But, at this moment, what was worse than walking in on two dragons feverishly sucking each other's faces off as if their lives depended on it? That's right: NOTHING.

     Brisktail stood in the middle of the hall for a moment, stunned out of his scales.

     There, sprawled out in the middle of the floor were two young dragons: Eagletalon and Seaspray.

     Eagletalon was a cloud-coloured dragonet who had once held Lightningtail's heart. If by "held" you meant: "Had in his clawed grip, manipulated, used, and then stomped on after he got what he wanted," because that was exactly what Eagletalon had done.

     Eagletalon had (to Brisktail's understanding) been Lightningtail's friend from school that she liked. They eventually hit it off and began courting for a little over a moon before Eagletalon dumped Lightningtail for the dragoness he was actually trying to impress: Seaspray.

     Seaspray was a... sight to behold. Sure, she was pretty, but Brisktail would give her that and nothing else. From what he had seen of her, (is it called stalking when you happen to be in the same places most of the time without reason?) Seaspray was the clingiest, most possessive, and stuck-up dragon Brisktail had ever known. She was always all over Eagletalon, and he seemed to like that, which made Brisktail pray to the Sun Chasers for some sort of privacy wall he could use to spare himself.

     Of course, he could probably build one... but no. That was risking too much.

     Speaking of being all over each other, Eagletalon and Seaspray were currently doing just that.