Quest for the Moon: Fernwater's Hope (Discontunued)

Chapter 6

The raft gently nudged the sandy beach, waves pushing it further up the sand. Fernwater leaped off the raft and gazed up at the tall palm trees before her. The water here was turquoise as they were a lot closer to the warm Tropicalwing island. On the moon talon island there were many green lakes and the surrounding salt water was as dark as the night sky. Except for full moons for then the water would be lit up by a thousand tiny lights like miniature stars. No one knew why this happened and many scientists had tried to find the answer.

The white sand was a stark contrast to the dark of the night sky. Small shells crunched beneath their feet as they bounded across them. The island appeared to be deserted, no dragons flew overhead, no playful dragonets could be heard. The small sand stone cabins resting along the beach were empty. The only sound to be heard was a smattering of bird song that could be heard from the dense forest.

"I thought that dragons came here all the time." said Kakapo, stepping towards the forest.

"They do but I guess since the plague, dragons don't want to miss their loved ones going into their chrysalis." replied Fernwater quietly. "But where is Manuka?"

"Don't know, maybe she finally kicked the bucket, she's certainly old enough."

"Kakapo! We need her to find out about the karaka fruit!"

"Just saying. Come on, we'd better split up and find her. I have no idea where the old hag could have gotten to."

Suddenly, a piercing scream rang through the forest causing at least twenty kereru to fly up above the kanopy, forming a swirling mass of green and white in the sky. The sound of wing beats echoing around in the previous silence.

"I don't think that that shall be necessary." replied Fernwater. Together they bounded through the vegetation in the direction of the sound.

The ferns swept across her scales which she could tell were spireling wildly with excitement. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Kakapo gazing at her adoringly. Pushing this image out of her mind she focused on talons pounding against the mossy ground.

Another shout came from just to Fernwaters left, this one was quieter than the first, it was as if the owner had intended for it to be louder but they couldn't find the breath. Fernwater turned towards the sound and saw an extremely large emerald green snake hanging just above her ear. In its coils was Manuka. She was not a large dragon, her scales were a deep magenta with purple around her tail, face and talons. Her wings were a deep purply blue with small pink opals shimmering in them. The snake's tail had now snaked around her mouth muffled her screams. Her chest was slowly being crushed, her breath coming in slow ragged gasps. Her eyes begged them for help.

The snake had already spotted Fernwater and was eyeing her with a hungry look in its eyes. But Kakapo was just out of its line of vision and the snake seemed too distracted by Manuka to sniff him out. Fernwater was torn, they could either escape and leave manuka and be right back where they started, or save Manuka but risk their own necks.

Suddenly Kakapo started gesturing wildly for her to get out of the way. She hurriedly did so, noticing that kakapo was hefting a large log above his head. Slowly lifting it up, a twig snapped and the snake lunged around snapping at him. But it was too late, Hahapo had already dropped the log onto the snake's head. Its eyes rolled back into its head and it slumped limply to the ground.

Manuka weakly tried to catch her breath trying in vain to push the hefty snake off her.

"Can you help me?"She asked disgruntledly.

"Oh, right." replied Fernwater leaning over and heaved at the snake's scaly body, unsuccessful. The snake was ginormous, it was mostly a bright leafy green but here and there there were little black stones.

"Kakapo come look at this." she called gesturing at the stones. He trudged over, lifting the log had obviously taken a lot out of him.

"Wow! That looks like black onyx! I have never heard of anything like it. I'll draw a picture of it and give it to one of the councillors to examine!"

"Enough! If you're done canoodling, can you please get this thing from me!" She winced. "And I think I may have broken a few ribs."

A little while later Manuka was leading them to her holiday house. It was further into the island than the others and was made from wood instead of stone. It was overrun with vegetation and there seemed to be a tree growing through the floor. It now made sense how Manuka had ended up with this hut. No high and mighty council member would choose to stay here!

"Now" she said, turning to them, ''Why in Clearsights name would you want to come here." They recounted their tail, but she seemed unsurprised by it all.

"I always knew that some dragons would see sense." she said when they had finished. "I think you need to hear the story of Karaka."