Glory was the one that woke first, feeling something moving against her scales. Cracking open her eyes, she saw that two small birds were walking up and down her back. They looked to only be young.
She almost jumped when she felt something land on her snout—a large angry bird. "And there's the protective parent," Glory whispered as she shook her nose to get rid of the bird.
The bird squawked in her face before circling the younger birds causing all three of them to fly away.
Glory snorted to herself before slowly being lulled back to sleep by the gentle background.
-----
This time it was Deathbringer's time to wake up. His wings felt heavy and stiff; with a glance, he saw why. Glory was laying on his back again.
An amusing thought bubbled around his head, 'she's always falling asleep and rolling onto my back.'
Deathbringer got up onto his feet, balancing Glory onto the centre of his back to avoid waking her. Flicking his tail, he swept away the mess that they had made before powering his wings down powerfully and jumping into the air.
He slowly glided through the air, riding on thermal pockets to smooth the flight out. Between zoning in and out, the journey felt short as the ravine soon came into view. Racking his brain, he remembered that there was a large stick acting as a lever to open the boulder from the outside.
-----
The flight was calm, caught on the thermal pockets in the air, causing him to swirl lazily into the ravine. Stepping down, he felt Glory shift midland. He tried to reach for her, but her body tumbled off and into the thick mud next to the river.
Well, it woke her up.
The dragons in the neighbouring Kingdoms would be able to attest to that.
Throwing on his most robust poker face, Deathbringer asked, "Is everything alright, your Majesty?"
"Why am I in the mud?!" She exclaimed, the little number of scales visible turning a bright red. The red could be from anger or could be from embarrassment.
"While I was landing, you shifted and rolled off my back," Deathbringer explained.
"You use to be an assassin; your reflexes should be quick enough to prevent me from leaving your back," Glory stated, narrowing her eyes.
"There is only so much I can do midflight, and I'm not an assassin anymore," Deathbringer stated before cheekily adding, "and those you assassinate tend not to complain about falling into the mud."
"Well, this dragon does complain," Glory huffed before smirking and launching herself at Deathbringer.
The two tumbled into the mud, sniggering as both soon looked like Mudwings.
"You can not avoid the cave forever," Deathbringer pointed out.
"Maybe five more minutes?" Glory asked.
Deathbringer sighed, kicking out his legs; sending Glory right over his head into the river, "still want five more minutes?"
Glory floated back up, glaring at Deathbringer, "I think I'm good now."
Putting on his wounded dragonet look, he bowed his head slightly, "I really didn't mean for you to fall into the mud."
"Oh it's alright, you did not mean it just doesn't let it happen again. Okay?" She said, calming down blue spreading through her scales.
'Seems that it can work on her then,' he snickered to himself. "Okay," Deathbringer nodded, relieved. Brushing off as much of the mud as he could, they headed down the stone path to the cave.
As they walked further into the tunnel, Glory grew more and more scared. Scared that she would be stuck in there for years, fearful that she would relive the nightmare of her childhood, scared Deathbringer would leave her to die. She had a panic attack. Glory huddled closer to Deathbringer, going green over her scales.
"It's okay, Glory, nothings going to get you," Deathbringer said reassuringly.
"I don't want to be stuck here, Deathbringer," she whispered worriedly.
"Don't worry, you won't get stuck," Deathbringer replied reassuringly.
Even though he said that Glory was still so scared that she ended up fainting anyway.
Deathbringer carried on walking, not realising that Glory had collapsed on the floor. He turned around about to open the cave, only to see Glory sprawled out on the floor, green flowing strongly over her scales. Panicking, he ran over to her, placing her gently on his back.
He slid the bolder open, walked in and, after finding what looked like a sleeping ledge, placed her down to let her sleep off her worry. He then headed off to get the first supply of food - they were both be tired from their flying.
-----
Glory woke up on a sleeping ledge, that remarkable was her old one. She got up and looked for Deathbringer. Each room that she checked came up empty, only covered in a thick level of dust and dirt.
After looking everywhere for him, she started to panic. 'I know I'm not allowed out, but today should not matter, right?' She thought. 'The time starts tomorrow?'
She started to head to the bolder only to realise that Deathbringer has the key to open the cave from the inside.
'I guess that I'm stuck in here. I should start making it more homely,' Glory thought, trying to distract herself from the onset of panic she felt. Her scales rattled against one another as she shook with each step.
Going off memory, she headed towards the cleaning cave, collecting the required materials to make a sweeper. Working swiftly from the back of the cave system, she brushed away the dust and cobwebs. Leaving the pile of leaves and other hence stuff by the door, she headed back to check on the river - she didn't know whether any of the circuits had got blocked, it had happened during her dragonet-hood after all.
When she was checking the final section, a chunk of wood stuck behind two rocks caught her attention. Slowly pulling it free, the wood revealed itself to be the Nightwing carving she made during her final year in the cave.
She'd always been fascinated by them. The dragon of the night, midnight scales. Heard off, yet never seen—the secrecy of their whole species. She had these crazy theories; they were leading the war; they were eternal living; that the Nightwings caused the most notable deaths; they could go invisible - like her! But these all were brushed off; she was the lazy, crazy Rainwing.
'Look who is talking now?' Glory chuckled to herself as she placed the figure back on her bed.
Her ears twitched as she heard the tell-tail noise of the bolder rolling open. A small smirk, her scales slowly blending into the background. With the silence of a panther in a hunt, she crept forwards towards the cave system entrance.
Deathbringer growled as the food he dragged in, got caught on a sharp rock. The bag of fruit was stuck and ended up needing him to lift the sack up. He'd just got it free and with the others before he felt something tap him on the shoulder.
"Boo!" Glory exclaimed, appearing as her scales flooded with yellow amusement.
Restraining himself from flipping and pinning her, Deathbringer instead growled out, "Glory? Why did you do that?"
Glory continued to laugh, her body shaking from the intensity before squeaking as she felt her legs get knocked from beneath her.
Deathbringer hid his grin as he swept his tail out, tripping Glory over. As she landed on the floor, her laughing stopped in favour of glaring at him. Turning back to the food, Deathbringer set off to move the substances.
Glory glared as she slowly got to her feet, launching herself at Deathbringer's shoulder. She yelled out silently as Deathbringer used her momentum to throw her over his shoulder and proceed to sit on her, pinning her in place.
"I'm not certain what you were-," the rest of Deathbringer's sentence cut off as he felt Glory kick him, a pain-filled grunt leaving his snout as he was thrown onto his back.
Laughing, the two continued the playful wrestling match. Soon, their backs ached as they collapsed to their sides to collect their breaths. Catching each other from the corner of their eyes, legs up in the air like an innocent one-year-old, they smiled, a new round of laughter leaving their snouts.
As the new bubbles of laughter died out, Glory remembered the small model of the Nightwings she found. Scrambling to her feet, she shot off towards the sleeping area.
Deathbringer's eyebrows scrunched as he turned to look at Glory, "where are you going?" He called out questioningly.
"Just getting something!" Glory called back, moments before disappearing from view, "I'll be right back!"