Wings Of Fire: Heart of Oak

Cute human

Holly's POV

"This is amazing!", Cricket said for the seven-hunderenth time.
"It's not running away or anything! Look at how cute he is! Sorry, Wren, you're cute too."

"I most certainly am NOT", Wren objected.

"Neither am I", Holly muttered.

"What is it doing?", Cricket asked.
"Is it reading? It's looking at something, right?"

"Please don't freak out when I tell you this", Wren said, "but I think the human's comparing a dragon book to a human book."

Cricket gasped.

"But how did it get a dragon book?", Holly asked.
"Did he steal from a hive, or something?"

"What the dragon book about?", Cricket asked.
"What's the human book about?"

"I have no idea", Wren said from her rock.

A sound suddenly came from behind the wall. The human turned around, sighed, closed the books, hid them in a nearby cubby, then darted through a small hole in the wall, and disappeared.

"Oh no!", Cricket said.
"Why did he leave?"

"I think someone called him", Wren said.
"I'll follow him and see where he goes. I'll be back soon."

There was a thump as she leaped to the other ledge, and then, she was gone too.

"Wren?", Sky called. but she didn't respond.
There was a scuffling noise, as though Sky was trying to stick his head into the hole.

"Can we look at the books the human left?', Cricket asked.

It took Holly a second to realize that she was talking to her.

"Oh! Um, Wren said not to disturb anything, remember?"

"Argh! You're right. Maybe we can ask her to get them out for us when she comes back."

It must have been night-time when she finally did come back.

"Wren?", Sky called, "Are you all right?"

"Of course I am, you worry-wort! I'm invisible! Which also means that it's going to be hard to ask these humans where the abyss is. Can you help me down?"

Wren drew a small map on the muddy floor of the cave, showing the path that led through the tunnels, into a human cave-village.

"There are a lot of people there", Wren said.

"Did you see the Abyss?", Luna asked.

"No", Wren said glumly.
"And no one mentioned one the whole time I was there. These may not be the same one Queen Snowfall saw in her vision."

"You mean there might be other villages down here?", Holly asked, barely surpressing a groan.

"Probably", Wren said.
"I'll keep spying on these ones for now. The one we saw is named Axolotl."

She said the name in human, but to Holly's dragon ears, it sounded strange.

"What's an axolotl?', Umber asked.

"Oh! An axolotl!", Cricket said, using the dragon version of the word.
"Did you find out how Axolotl has a dragon book?"

"No. I think it's a secret from the other humans. I'll follow him tomarow and see what else I can learn."

The others decided to sleep in the cavern that night.
Holly didn't like the cave, but she wanted to stay with everyone else; for now, they were all she had.

The next two days, Wren kept sneaking into the tunnels to study the Pantalan humans.
Axolotl came back to the ledge twice in that time.

It was so weird watching another human read, espeically now that Holly was an invisible dragon.

She and Cricket were the ones to point out to the others that Axolotl seemed to be writing in the other, human book, almost as if he was working out a story.

"I think he's trying to translate that dragon writing!", Cricket said.
"Do you think Axolotl stole it from a dragon?"

"Maybe", Holly said.
"Or maybe, someone dropped it and they took it home with them."

On the third day, there was still no signof Sundew and Lynx.
Axolotl came eariler than before, looking almost as tired as Holly's dad had in her dream.

Sky helped Wren up onto the ledge to watch the human.

Axolotl pulled out the dragon book, turned the pages, and ran their finger over the words,which reminded Holly so much of her dad, she had to cover her mouth to keep from screaming.

"It looks like a book about trees", Wren said.
Axolotl turned the page.
"No, wait, in this picture, the trees are on fire."

"Maybe it's a history of the Tree Wars?", Cricket guessed.

"Our history books never had illustrations", Luna said.

Holly got closer, trying to get another look; she felt Luna, Cricket, and Sky doing the same.

She suddenly felt a weird tingle in her talons.
Once, when she was little, her second cousin, Xena had dared her to stick her finger into an electrical outlit. And for some reason, Holly had listened.That was what she felt now- she felt like she was being electrocuted. She felt as though lighning was surging through her veins.
Just to be safe, she glanced down. She fine, though. Her body wasn't surrounded by blue sparks. Her claws weren't burned. She wa still there, her talons nearly touching Axolotl's book.

Wait.

Her talons, she could see them!
Holly looked at Luna and Cricket, whose eyes were wide with alarm.

Axolotl raised his head and saw Wren.
Axolotl screamed, darted to his feet, ran into the wall, bonked heads with Wren, bounced off Umber, and ran to the tunnel.

He would have lost the human if Umber hadn't cupped his talons over him.

"Umber! Let him go! You're scaring him!", Wren yelled.

"Yeah, but if I let go, he might be away", Umber said reasonably.

"I want him to know that you won't hurt him", Wren said.
"You're kind of making the opposite point right now."

She said something in human to Axolotl, who was still screaming from underneath Umbers talons.
It took several minutes of yelling, crying, and arguing, but Wren was finally able to get the human to calm down.

As Umber took his talons off of Axolotl, the human looked at them, still shaking, but now seemed more curious than afriad.

"I've told them you won't eat him", Wren said.
"He won't run away now."

Wren turned to Axolotl and said something.

"He can't believe I can speak dragon. That's something he's always wanted to do. He want to know what you're saying"

Sky laughed and gurgled something in human.
Axolotl shook himself, looked at Wren, pointed to Sky, and turned to Wren agian.

"Wait, so what happened?", Holly asked.
"Why are we suddenly visible again?"

"Maybe the magic wore off?", Cricket guessed.

"But Lynx said that wouldn't happen", Luna said.
She jumped up.
"Maybe Sundew did that because she's here!"

She ran to the cave enterance, Holly following her.

It was raining again.

Ignoring the swift dropplets of water, the two of them ran out into the storm.
They looked around.

There was no one in sight.
No one there at all.

A/N: Another chapter that was kind of boring, but buckle up; the action's about to start, so hold on, and stay tuned!

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Wordcount: 1165

Renx out!