Night of the Equinox

Chapter 5 - Choices

Equo awoke from a sleep riddled with dreams of her and Tidepool watching a female NightWing, presumably her mind's interpretation of her mother, disappear in several different ways, such as being swallowed by canyons suddenly opening in the ground, being carried away by SkyWings, and flying away in the middle of the night without being able to help or chase after her. She lied awake for a while, feeling uneasy, until she heard her father stir and step into the water. When she turned and looked towards him, he was sitting ankle-deep in the crystalline water, staring up at the glowworms above. 

"Good morning," She said to him.

"Good morning." He muttered back, without looking at her.

Equo picked up one of the blobby, chipped statues that was supposed to be a NightWing and fiddled with it for a moment. She placed it down and grabbed a random scroll from her limited pile. Unrolling it, it turned out to be a guide to the tribes. It was very old and weathered, some of the words were faded and hard to read, and the end was ripped off so the NightWing section was missing. Equo had never wondered about if it was deliberate or not before, but now she suspected perhaps it was. Whether it was the dragon who owned it before Tidepool found it or her father himself was still a mystery.

She sighed. Sometimes her father would bring home berries, and she would use the juice to make doodles of the tribes on the sides and back of the scrolls she didn't really care about. This one was covered in little scribbles of dragons. Equo had never been a particularly good artist, but she still enjoyed doing it. She wished she had some blank scrolls to draw anything she wanted on.

Equo put down the scroll and looked into the glassy surface of the water, peering at her reflection. She looked like a SeaWing, except she was a dark, dark blue colour that was nearly black. Her peculiar eyes had black sclera and electric blue pupils, with her glowing scales the same colour. She had scattered blue scales on the undersides of her wings and on the membrane between the spines down her back that also glowed. Next to her eyes were silvery cobalt scales shaped like teardrops.

---

"Be careful." Equo said, perched next to the boulder Tidepool was standing behind, gazing out at her through the crack.

"I will," He promised wearily. "I'll be back soon." The SeaWing rolled the boulder back over the opening and left Equo alone in the cavern.

She dove into the water. Swimming to the bottom of the lake, she curled up and thought. She really wished she could go outside again. She supposed she could, if she had the spine to do so, but what if her father came back while she was out and she was gone? Or what if they saw each other while out there? 

I'll just have to be careful, then. She thought. I can stay on the ground, below the trees. That'll be easier than flying, too.

Equinox swam back up to the surface. If she wanted to leave and be out for more than just a breath of fresh air, she had to leave now.

She stepped up next to the boulder and pushed it to the side.