Wof: Under a Scarlet Banner

Chapter 19

The swim down the river was peaceful, despite our current situation. Aside from a couple a couple of Skywing patrols that missed us and a flock of startled geese, there was no action. At some point we finally stopped to rest. We all washed ashore and began to get ready for the night. Tsunami rolled her eyes as Glory carefully removed me from the pouch and set me carefully down on the ground.

As soon as she noticed we were heading towards land, Sunny leapt off Clay and plunged down into the water. Sunny completely misjudged how deep the river was and how far away the riverbed was. She came up a second later with a a couple gasps and dashed to the shore. She had a very disgruntled look as she shook off the water and let out an adorable sneeze as she begin to step onto the shore, kicking her legs to shake off the water. Clay stepped onto the bank next to her and threw some mud at her back, she was quick to retaliate and tossed some mud right back him. Of course she was very upset that Clay had gotten her muddy again after she "nearly died" washing off earlier.

We all began making preparations for the night. Fortunately, there were no Skywings on the horizon, but we couldn't make a fire or we'd risk revealing ourselves. Tsunami stuck by the shallows of the river to catch fish as Glory "supervised". Clay immediately began to run into the forest and attempted to catch some prey that had come to the river to drink. He wasn't very successful at first. He lunged at a coyote and it leapt away and ran with its tail tucked between its legs. He had better luck with an old boar that seemed to be limping as it tried to run away from the hungry dragon. Clay was able to take it down and bite it's head off leaving the rest of its carcass for the others.

Sunny was foraging with me in the meantime, searching for edible roots, herbs, and wild vegetables. She was surprisingly good at it too. As it turns out, Cattail are edible. I wouldn't eat the fluffy bit, but the stalks taste like a bitter cucumber with a weird aftertaste. It's actually pretty bad, but food is food I suppose. We managed to dig up a couple of carrots which we brought back, of course no one else touched them besides us.

Glory looked up at the sky with growing concern. Sunny noticed and began to worry, "Are they still looking for us?"

Glory looked back at her, expression quickly changing, "No...They...uh...definitely lost us."

"Why do they keep trying to find us? Aren't we supposed to save everyone?"

Tsunami pulled the head off of a salmon, "They don't like our prophecy, and neither do I. Burn especially didn't like us. You should have seen her when we were in Peril's tower. She would have gotten rid of us and won the war on her own, no matter how many dragons die."

Sunny was definitely crushed. To imagine that someone could be so cruel must have been devastating for her, especially considering that this was their first encounter with the outside world.

"Well, at least she can't be queen anymore. But who do we pick now?"

"Wait, we have to pick now?"

Sunny exclaimed, "Yea, it's what we are supposed to do isn't it? We need to find out who should be queen so we can just stop the war."

"If only someone could just tell us," Tsunami gave me a glance.

"It's not my call, and how many times are we going to go over this?"

"Maybe, one more..."

"Looking forward to your interrogation."

Glory stepped in to ease the tension, "I think I like Blister. She's supposed to be super smart, if our scrolls actually have any accurate information on anything."

"I don't know about her. Isn't she supposed to be manipulating and controlling? She seems to be like the kind of person who would do anything to become queen."