The Trials begin

Sapphire

Smoke curled up from the trees in long winding streams. Like smokey snakes they slivered up the trees, leaped into the sky and crawled over the burning debris. 

A small speak of blue crawled across the fallen logs, struggling to get over the small flames that still licked over the ground hungrily, engulfing everything is their paths. It was a dragon. A shimmering light blue all over, the scales reflected the flames, like tiny hot red embers travelling across her. She paused for a moment, blinking around with large blue eyes, before with a screech of alarm,and her scales flashing a panicky red colour, she lept out the way. A large burning branch toppled from high above, crashing to the ground, just missing the dragons tail, which she immediately pulled out the way with a gasp. Tiny hot splinters crashed around everywhere, and with a howl of agony, the dragon ran. After a few minutes of sprinting, she skidded to a halt crawling inside a small hole, and began to pull the splinters from her scales. She had a small crest of spines below her head, and large silvery wings, that she had pulled close to her side, and a long spiked tail that ended in a neat spade like shape. With every splinter she pulled out she gave a gasp, and her scales flashed a deep gloomy green. By the end of the plucking, tiny red dots dribbled down her scales, which where a sad deep green. 

When the sun rose, the dragon lifted her head,blinking the sleep from her eyes. Her scales while she had been dreaming had become a sunny yellow with bright pink dapples swimming across, but when she awoke, the colour instantly drained from them, leaving only the dark blue once more. She gave a sigh, crawled from the hole, and began to run, before leaping into the air. She wobbled for a moment, her huge wings curled down beside her, before giving them and almighty flap. She rose into the air like an ungainly blue bird, her wings spluttering all around her. She gasped then grinned, a deep proud yellow flashing across her scales, obscuring the blue with happy purple embers that swirled all over her. She gave a whoop of joy, with a celebratory loop the loop, that nearly had her crash to the ground, then with a nervous laugh soared back up again. After a little while, she stopped wobbling and soared smoothly across the sky, her wings beating in a slow controlled way. She had her head down surveying the ground, and now her wings from below looked exactly like the blue sky, in fact her whole body was now the same blue, complete with whisps of grey smoke and fluffy white clouds. 

She paused suddenly, whipping her tail below her for balance. A excited flash of scarlet trickled across her back, before she darted down, her wings curled up to her like a jet plane. She landed right in front of a dragon, who gasped and started back then snorted in shock, at their was nothing but a patch of sky in front of him. Saphire remembered suddenly, and smiled. "Oh I'm sorry if forget, it's been a long day you see." The sky melted away, and she made herself an unthreatening light yellow colour, she smiled at him, scuffing her talons of the ground. He gasped. "You gave me a heart attack, I thought I was going insane!" He growled. He was a red in colour, with large horns and small stubby wings, and a large club like tail, and had large green eyes that he blinked at her in confusion. Sapphire smiled apologetically, "I'm sorry, I'm lost you see, I wondered if you could," he cut her off. "Of course, this is no dragons land. And you should get out of here as soon as you can." He paused. "If you value you life that is." Sapphire gasped in shock. "Your young, can you fly?" Sapphire nodded, "Since today I can." She purred proudly. He nodded, "Go now, your a camouflage dragon, your completely safe." Sapphire frowned at him. "What's you name?" She asked. "I'm Rust, and I'm getting out of here, soon." He opened his wings and soared off.

Sapphire stared in surprise after him, his large bulk fluttering quickly away and out of sight. Flashes of red splashed over the yellow. "Not where the way out is, or anything useful, so not helpful." She sighed, letting the sky trickle back over the her scales and lept up into the sky again.