Dragonet Drabbles

Chapter 4

For all of Umber's quick thinking abilities, he was really at a loss as to what to do here. In fact, no one seemed to know what to do.

Flame was still on the ground with his claws latched onto Tsunami. He was looking up at her as if she had just thrown a perfectly good batch of muffins on the floor and then had turned into a giant jellyfish. Tsunami looked... awful. If she had been a fire-breathing dragon Umber was sure there would have been jets of fire blazing from her eyes and ears like a skull lit for the inside.

"Let. Go. NOW," she snarled. Umber wondered if Tsunami had finally become so angry that she had broken the laws of nature and gained fire because Flame jumped away her as if he had touched scalding water.

"You're not Chromis," he accused with a fiery growl. Umber stifled a groan. Why couldn't the first words out of Flame's mouth have been "My sincerest apologies. Please forgive my insolence and spare my life".

Tsunami flared her wings and Umber was thankful he couldn't understand aquatic. The rapid-fire light display she was creating was probably not a friendly hello. "OF COURSE I'M NOT CHROMIS!" she yelled. Her wings twitched slightly as if the words were finally making connection in her head. "WHO IN THE THREE MOONS IS CHROMIS?" she bellowed in the same enraged tone.

"H - he's Flame's brother!" Umber said and jumped between the two glaring dragons. Tsunami's lashing tail came to a stop when she saw him. The furious lines of her face eased into a smile.

"Umber!" she exclaimed and pulled him into a hug/head-lock combo. As Umber was lovingly throttled he wondered if this was what it had been like for Clay growing up with Tsunami for a sister. In some convoluted way he supposed Tsunami kind of was like a sister to him. She certainly treated him like a younger brother. Sometimes it was great, but other times, like right now, not so much.

"Hi Tsunami, great to see you," Umber managed to say through gritted teeth as Tsunami's huge muscled arms tightened around his neck.

"Tsunami! You're going to strangle him," a new voice shouted from the air. It was high pitched but soft, and every word carried with it had an undercurrent of warmth that can only come from genuine care. Umber recognized it instantly as Sunny.

Tsunami released Umber just as Sunny and Starfish, Flame's SeaWing healer, landed on the grass beside them.

"There you two are! I nearly got myself trampled looking for you," Tsunami said to the new arrivals, though Umber knew it was more likely that she had been the one doing the trampling.

Starfish cast a quick glance around the group of dragons. The overly neutral expression on Starfish's face contrasted with the glances - as quick and precise as a RainWing's dart - that he threw between Flame and Tsunami. While Umber wasn't exactly close with Starfish, he was surprised how often he could relate to the SeaWing's need to mediate everything, such as the numerous times Umber had walked in on his sibs having an argument. They tended to wait until he was out hunting or away from the den before they raised their voices and would become eerily quiet once he showed up. If they honestly thought he wouldn't notice, they were sorely wrong. No doubt at times like that he looked exactly as Starfish did now.

"My apologies, Tsunami," Starfish said in his usual unflappable tone. "I thought you were right behind us when we left the front desk."

Tsunami attacked him with her infamous glower; a move that some say had struck fear into the heart of Queen Scarlet and was rumored to have made a kid cry last semester at the Academy. But it was no match for Starfish's I'm here to listen; this is a safe space for you to feel heard and respected look that was known to have made even the most closed off and cantankerous patients open up.