Sand and Stars: A Moonbli Story

Qibli

It was Qibli's first class since he'd come back. Art wasn't as good as music, but certainly better than history.

But everything is, he admitted to himself.

He got a small canvas and picked out pale yellow, off-white, golden-brown, black, dark purple, and dark blue paints. As an afterthought, he grabbed silver. he took a narrow brush and began to paint.

He'd been planning to paint a landscape of the desert at night, but instead two dragons took shape. A NightWing and a SandWing. Their tails were twined together, and their wings touched.

He spotted Peril on the other side of the cave. She had a piece of thick wood and was burning a picture into it. Clever, Qibli thought. I could try that if I set a stick on fire. Maybe next art class.

"Qibli," someone said from behind him. He turned and spotted the MudWing, Sienna, in their winglet.

"Do you like Moon?" she asked.

"What? No!" he stammered. I didn't mean to say that. Now Moon'll think I don't like her.

"You sure?" Sienna asked.

"Yes," he lied.

"Then why are you painting you two together?" the MudWing questioned.

"I was planning to do our whole winglet," he told her.

"There's not much room left for the rest of us."

"I guess I got a little carried away." Sienna shrugged and walked away.

Qibli grabbed yellowy-gold paint and began dutifully painting the background.

After art class, he looked around his cave, then tucked the painting under his bed.

"Hello." Qibli jumped and whirled around.

"Did I scare you?" Shard answered. Shard was an IceWing and he had the whitest scales Qibli had ever seen, but his eyes were blue-black.

"A little," Qibli admitted, wondering how long Shard had been there. If he'd seen Qibli's painting, then he might make the same inferences Sienna had made.

Qibli, you should be happy about that, because then he might tell Moon, he scolded himself.

Soon it was history class.

"I have an announcement to make," Webs began, "There have been a lot of antics in history lately so I will be assigning seats. Shard, Turtle, Moon, Qibli, Sienna, Kinkajou, and Peril over here. You don't want to burn your classmates."

I'm next to Moon! Qibli thought excitedly, Webs put me next to Moon. History won't be so bad after all.

Because nobody wanted to be too close to Peril, out of fear of being burned, the seats were close to each other. Qibli's wings brushed Moon's as he sat down, sending his heart fluttering. Then Moon turned and met his eyes. Qibli felt his talons grow hot.

"Meet me in the library after class," she whispered.

"Okay," Qibli said, or tried to say, or almost said. He didn't have much control over his body anymore.

Does she like me like I like her? Please, please, let her like me like I like her.