Sandy and Stardust: A Sunnyweed Story (NO CRYING UNTIL THE ENDING!)

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Perspective: Sunny

Only a couple hours after the bombshell dropped on the rest of the dragons at the Giving Festival, Sunny sat on a sand dune in the middle of the desert. The cold night air chilled her scales like gaseous ice, making her shiver slightly in the light of the three moons.

Beside her sat her recently-discovered identical twin, Sirius, who was busy scratching lines into the sand with her talon.

Neither of them spoke; things between the two were far too awkward at this moment.

Sunny remembered how awkward it had been when she and her wonderful husband Meerkat (AKA Tumbleweed or 'Weed) had first encountered Sirius.

She had dropped her spear, and uttered a decidedly loud "WHAT?!" When Sunny tried to ask her questions, the lookalike dragoness had simply dashed out of the old Rain Kingdom's palace. Before taking off into the mid-afternoon sky, Sirius had looked straight back to her sister with a look of utter confusion, terror, and bewilderment.

It was the look of a dragon whose life had just turned out to be a lie.

And now she had shown up only a matter of hours ago at the Giving Festival, and revealed her identity to everyone there.

The other dragons--Rust, Tangerine, the Jade Winglet, the Dragonets of Destiny, and the rest--had quietly slipped out of the forest where the feast had been held. They said their goodbyes and told each other they'd meet at Thorn's palace tomorrow for gift exchanges.

Sunny knew why they had left.

They had about as much idea how to deal with Sirius as she did--in other words, not at all.

All Sunny could do was sit and stare down at the ripples of sand beneath her talons, not sure of what to say to this feral, powerful warrior dragoness.

Awkward silence hung over the dragons in the same way a brick does not.

"Your friends seem nice," Sirius said, after an eternity of saying nothing.

Sunny swung her head around to face her sister.

She hadn't gotten a good look at Sirius since her first encounter, so now Sunny observed her sister.

She was nearly identical in appearance and build, except for the fact that she was slightly more muscular, with powerful shoulders set forwards as she continued to scratch lines in the sand. Scratches and bruises were all over her body, with dark, evil-looking tattoos running up and down her back and wings. Two beautiful blue eyes stared out at the desert beyond. Where Sunny's horns were pearl-white and untainted by the world, poor Sirius' were stained dark red and grey, like she'd been dragged through blood, or mud, or both. Her whole body looked much rougher and tougher than Sunny's did, like she could withstand the attacks of many dragons twice her size.

It was hard to believe they were related.

"My friends are nice," she responded to her sister's affirmation. "Four of them raised me."

More awkward silence.

"Sorry for leaving you the other day in the Rainforest," Sirius went on. "I didn't mean to sound so fierce. I didn't know I had a sister, and I needed to figure things out."

"Well, I wasn't expecting to have a sister, either," Sunny replied.

Still more awkward silence.