Stalker of Dreams

Chapter Eleven

Peacemaker wasn't in it the next day. 

He had woken up, screaming, to Bake shaking him roughly from his nightmares. 

He barely remembered any of the classes he went to, and his main memory of the first official day of school at Jade Mountain Academy was Firefly nudging him awake in the middle of a class to gawp at a pair of teachers who were constantly smiling and winking at each other. 

Then he'd run into Moonwatcher on her way out, and she'd given him a weird look he didn't have the energy to decipher, and finally it was a long break in between classes and he collapsed into his leaf pile. 

He didn't know how long it was later when Bumblebee walked in. She had Cherry with her, and the two Pantalans were talking to each other. 

"I'll wake him up." 

Bumblebee shook her clawmate, and he let out a frustrate growl. 

"Leave me aloooneee, Bumblebeeee," he mumbled, batting at her talons. "I want to sleeeeeppp." 

"You've been sleeping, Peacemaker!" Bumblebee replied, shaking the dragonet harder. "All day, actually, and we'd both like it if you woke up!" 

"I didn't sleep well last night," complained Peacemaker. "And Moooon was giving me the look."

"The look?" Bumblebee sighed, and hauled Peacemaker out of his leaf pile. She was stronger than she looked. "What are you talking about?"

"The look she always gives me when she thinks I'm not paying attention to her face," Peacemaker moaned, standing up on the cold stone floor of the sleeping cave. "Except thiis time, she didn't even try to hide it! And it's..." He trailed off, not actually sure how to end that statement. 

"Well, come on," Bumblebee said firmly. "The teachers are going nuts. The Copper, Quartz, and Amber Winglets are supposed to go to the library for some 'surprise announcement'." She murmured something else under her breath that Peacemaker didn't catch. 

"Alright, alright, fine, I'm coming," Peacemaker sighed, shaking out his wings. 

"Reading monkeys," Cherry laughed. Bumblebee sighed and hurried out of the cave with the other two dragonets close behind her. 

There were way too many dragons in the library. 

Peacemaker found Firefly in the crowd and awkwardly made his way over to her, stepping over claws and tails and hearing at least three dragonets whisper "watch it!" at him sharply. 

"What's going on?" he asked her, and she shrugged, her golden-orange wings rippling like curtains.

"Hey, wait a minute," said a dragon next to them, an IceWing with a metallic sheen to his scales. It was the same dragon from the underground river yesterday, Basilisk, which meant that...

Theory was here too. 

Suddenly alert, Peacemaker set up and whirled around, trying to spot the black-and-yellow HiveWing. He was sitting next to Bumblebee, and the two were talking to each other quietly, but Peacemaker couldn't hear what they were saying. Duskclaws, the NightWing from the Amber Winglet, shot him a look. The silver teardrop scale next to his eye shimmered in the greenish light of the library.

Peacemaker tried to relax. Bumblebee and Theory had been friends forever - the same way he and Firefly were friends, even. But Peacemaker wasn't sure it was that which was rubbing him the wrong way about the HiveWing dragonet with stupid copper spectacles. 

"Quit sitting on my tail!" hissed a voice. An IceWing, presumably the one from the Copper Winglet, was growling quietly at an almost completely-black HiveWing. He hissed right back at her, and suddenly a ball of pale purple scales was barreling into Peacemaker.