It's bright. Too bright.
Scarab shifted in her sand den, which had filled in since she fell asleep last night, leaving her half buried in the loose sand. She squinted her eyes. She and Qibli had spent so much time up at night that her eyes were unused to the morning sun. She looked over at where Qibli should have been, but there was only a gentle dip in the sand to mark where he had slept.
Then she heard arguing. Faint, but not far away. Scarab heaved her wings out of the sand and looked around her. When they had gotten here last night, it was too dark to see anything beyond the small body of water, now shimmering with the sun's reflections. There was a small collection of palm trees and leafy shrubs around the water that she hadn't seen before.
"Qibli?" Scarab said cautiously. "Hello?" She had a brief thought that maybe Qibli had left her in the night because he didn't want to be caught up in her trouble anymore. "Qibli?"
"Scarab!" Qibli's voice responded. Scarab turned to look at him, but he wasn't in view. "Over here!"
Scarab ran around the side of the pool, following the sound of Qibli's voice. Hidden behind a large patch of ferns and bush was a little wooden house nestled next to the oasis. The roof was rather sunken in, with a squarish window and a curtained doorway. The whole house looked half buried in the sand. Qibli was standing in front of the house with another dragon with him.
The stranger was a SandWing, with dark sandy brown scales and dark eyes. She had a scar across the left side of her face, leaving her with only one good eye. She was standing rigidly, as if she was upset or uncomfortable with Scarab and Qibli's presence.
"This is Copper. She lives here and might help us." Qibli said cheerfully.
"I never said that." Copper said icily. "I said that if you don't leave my oasis right now, I'd feed you to my adder."
"Oh yeah. She has an adder." Qibli seemed unfazed. "Copper, this is Scarab. She's with me."
Scarab didn't say anything, she was staring at Copper. She looked intimidatingly familiar.
Copper was staring at her as well. Her eyes widened when she heard Scarab's name. "Scarab?" She said in disbelief. "You can't be..."
Did Copper recognize her? Had she seen or heard of her escape from Vulture all the way out here? Was she supposed to recognize Copper? What was going on?
Copper slowly moved closer to Scarab, until she was standing right in front of her. Their height difference was striking now. Copper stood a head taller than Scarab and looked down at her. Her expression was almost warm now, though still surprised. "I thought you weren't allowed out of the Talons' base."
Scarab's eyes widened with amazement. She couldn't believe she hadn't seen it before, although the scar made it harder to identify her. "Arid!" Scarab leapt forward and wrapped her wings around the bigger dragon's body, happy and desperate joy coursing through her body.
"I knew I recognized those scales somewhere!" Arid's voice was warm and happy as she returned the embrace.
"Hold on!" Qibli said indignantly. "You lied about your name too?"
Scarab laughed. "We learned that from each other, actually. Never tell a stranger your real name the first time you meet." She looked at Arid. "When I met him I told him my name was Arid."
Arid laughed at that.
Qibli didn't look satisfied. "You two know each other?"
Scarab flicked him with her tail. "When I was a dragonet, her dad worked for..." She almost said "my dad" but stopped herself. "...worked for Vulture, and me and Arid would play together almost every day."
"Until we tried to sneak out of the base and were caught. My father was meant to be killed for letting me influence you, but we both escaped and lived out here." Arid said somberly.
Scarab looked at Arid in disbelief. "Really? Is he here now?"
Arid met her gaze sadly. "No. He died of an old infection two years after we found this oasis and settled down."
Scarab's face fell. "I thought he was just sent away. If I had known he was meant to be killed I'd have--"
"Gotten yourself killed." Arid finished her sentence. "But don't worry about that. What brings you here all of a sudden? What trouble have you gotten into without me?" She headed back towards her sandy hut and Scarab and Qibli followed, Qibli at a much more cautious pace.
Scarab and Qibli explained everything that had happened since they met at the Full Moon Festival. Arid listened to every word and didn't say anything until they were done.
"And then I woke up early and met you coming out of your house." Qibli said. "Yada yada, arguing, Scarab shows up, we're all friends now."
Scarab brushed her tail against Arid's, sitting close to her. "So we need your help. We have about a dozen problems and no idea how to solve any of them."
"I didn't realize how much drama you were involved in." Arid said.
"Join the club." Qibli joked.
Scarab looked at her anxiously. "Can you come with us?"
Arid looked back at her, her eyes warm. "Of course. I would never pass up this kind of opportunity to help you. Especially if the fate of the world might be at stake."
Scarab groaned momentarily at the thought of being a Dragonet of Destiny. But the moment quickly faded into relief and excited at the reunion with her dragonethood friend and that she'd be coming with them on this wild misadventure.
Arid started gathering loose objects laying around the hut and packing them into a pouch of her own. Out of the corner of Scarab's eye, she saw Qibli beckoning her out of the door. Curious, she followed him until the were out of ear shot of the hut.
"I'll be blunt." Qibli promised. "How do we know we can trust her?"
Scarab blanched slightly. "Why wouldn't we trust her? She's my best friend."
Qibli's face flashed with some emotion Scarab couldn't identify before it vanished. "Your best friend. I know nothing about her."
"Oh come on. Surely you've picked up on something." Scarab tapped him between the horns. "You're cleverer than that." Qibli frowned. "Where's this coming from anyway? When you didn't know she was my friend you seemed all aboard trusting her with whatever we needed."
Qibli opened his mouth as if to argue but was interrupted by Arid emerging from the hut. "All set. Where first?"
Scarab turned to start discussing with Arid about the vague outline of a plan she and Qibli had come up. They slowly walked around the oasis to where they had spent the night. Scarab was dully aware of Qibli trailing slowly behind them and the cold feeling in her stomach came back. What was up with him? She would worry about that later. Now, they had a lot to plan and discuss. And a lot to catch up with.
___________________________________
"So in general, the plan is to end the war while avoiding the Talons of Power." Scarab explained as she caught a warm up draft and soared higher. "Qibli, what does the prophecy say?"
Qibli raised his voice so the others could hear. "When the war has lasted twenty years, the dragonets will come. When the land is soaked in blood and tears, the dragonets will come. Find SeaWing egg of deepest blue. Wings of night shall come to you. The largest egg in mountain high will give to you the wings of sky. For wings of earth search through the mud for an egg the colour of dragon blood. And hidden alone from rival queens, the SandWing egg awaits unseen. Of three queens who blister and blaze and burn, two shall die and one shall learn. If she bows to a fate that's stonger and higher, she shall have the power of Wings of Fire. Five eggs to hatch on Brightest Night. Five dragons born to end the fight. Darkness will rise to bring the light. The dragonets are coming."
"Whoa. That's a lot." Arid said from the front of their V formation. "Do we need to land for you to catch your breath?"
Qibli gave her an annoyed look. "Seriously, neither of you know it? Every one year old dragonet knows the prophecy!"
"We've gone over this before. Obviously Vulture didn't want me to know about the prophecy until I he knew he could trust me to be loyal to him. And Arid's been living by herself for most of her life."
"I knew about the war though." Arid said. "Occasionally I'd see groups of dragons flying over the desert with weapons and spears."
"If you were so bored all the time why didn't you join the war?" Qibli asked.
"I wasn't desperate!" Arid said incredulously. "I don't support Blister, Blaze, or Burn. I don't think any of them should be queen."
"Well we should probably start discussing who we do support. The prophecy says two will die one will learn. That's pretty clear to me." Scarab tried to bring the conversation back to the prophecy, no matter how much she wanted to talk about anything else.
"That's true." Qibli agreed. "It sounds like the Dragonets of Destiny will choose the next queen."
"Speaking of which, where are the other Dragonets?" Scarab said a little indignantly. "Do we have to find them? You know, how it says in the beginning?"
"That wouldn't make sense. The Brightest Night was almost six years ago. So they've already hatched and are probably doing what we're doing. Flying around and trying to make a plan." Qibli said.
"Well, maybe our first plan should be to find the other Dragonets." Arid said. "Where could they be flying around?"
Scarab thought for a minute. "If their trying to decide which SandWing sister to make queen, they might want to meet them in real life to help make their decision." Scarab thought aloud. "But we don't know where the sisters are or anything."
Scarab sighed. Her wings felt heavy from flying and her stomach hollow with hunger. She started scanning the desert below for a camel of fox to eat.
Qibli saw her and brushed his wing tip against hers. "We can land if you're hungry you know." Scarab looked up and nodded.
"Arid, we're going to land and look for some food." She called ahead.
The larger SandWing banked to the left and started gliding towards the dunes below. Scarab followed with Qibli on her tail.
They hunted for awhile and caught a talonful of desert lizards, which would keep them satisfied for a little while longer. As they were searching for food, Scarab saw a large patch of greenish cactus. "Look! Brightsting Cactus." Scarab pointed at the dune ahead of them that was covered in Brightsting Cactus. "Isn't that the antidote for SandWing venom?"
"Why would we need an antidote?" Arid asked, flicking her tail. "Are we expecting to stab each other?"
Scarab shrugged. "Might be useful to have on talon."
"I agree with Scarab." Qibli said hurriedly. "We can't be too careful."
Arid rolled her eyes playfully. "Alright. We've got a little extra storage room anyways."
Scarab bounded ahead towards the cacti with Qibli right behind her. Arid followed at a slower pace. Scarab stopped in front of the cactus patch and stared at it, wondering the best way to collect it without slicing her talons open.
"Here, like this." Qibli came in front of her and carefully started digging the cactus up with his talons, pushing sand away until the root was unearthed. He held the cactus from the bottom and lifted it up. "Ta-da."
Scarab grinned. "You're good at that."
Qibli shrugged. "It's not hard." He said modestly. "We won't be needing the whole cactus, will we?"
"Don't think so. Here." Scarab took the cactus and delicately started slicing it open. A watery-green sap oozed from the inside and Scarab grimaced as she got it all over her talons. She took a rag from her pouch and wrapped up three chunks of cactus securely in a bundle. "We shouldn't need more than that."
Arid had been wandering around the cactus grove aimlessly, but then she froze and stared at something in the sand. "Uh. Guys?"
Scarab and Qibli abandoned the sticky mess of cactus they had left on the dune and stood next to Arid. "Whoa." Qibli said.
In the dune, dark and gaping like a mouth, was a hole. A large, empty hole. It looked more like the opening to a cave than anything else. Sand seemed to flow in and out, filling it up and opening it depending on the wind. But now it was very much open, and almost beckoning them towards it.
A/N:
Hey! Sorry for the lack of updates lately, I've been very busy. I hope you guys are enjoying this story, because it's really fun to write :)
I really like hearing back from you guys with any constructive critisicm you could have for me.
And let me know your thoughts! I love hearing the ship opinions and theories you guys put in the comments, it feels like I'm really engaging with you guys.
Anyways, enjoy this extra long chapter because I don't know of I'll be able to update soon :)