Wings of Fire; Creature / ✅

CHAPTER TEN

(Yet again, the art above does not belong to me - I edited a fantastic drawing to make it approximately look like Blu. Credits to the artist(s)!)

The SandWing guards thundered in, spears erect and tails stabbing in case Gleam tried to run - as if she could. 

"Wait! She's innocent, I'm sure!" Blu yelped from her cage underneath her.

Burn crouched to talk to her. "Listen here, RainWing. This has absolutely nothing to do with you, so you sit there in your cage looking pretty, all right?" she hissed. 

Burn threw open the cage door and a SandWing reached in to grab Gleam. She let him helplessly, after all, what could she do?

"I'm telling you, I've never even touched a ruby!" Gleam yelled. "I'm not interested in treasure!" she squirmed in the SandWing's grip. He put her down for a moment, and in that moment, Gleam made a dash towards the door.

"No! Stop her!" Burn howled.

As soon as she said that, something hard crashed into her, and Gleam was flung sideways... right into a shelf of Burn's weird things. It wobbled, and something fell off and landed into Gleam's talons. She shrieked as she came face-to-face with a pig, whose head was replaced by a bat's. 

The guards rushed towards her. The SandWing in the lead looked outraged as he hared towards her, his tail high in the air.

Gleam watched as it came down towards her and stabbed her in the arm. Excruciating pain was the last thing she felt before she blacked out. 

~~~~~~~~

"Urghhhhhffff," Gleam mumbled as she was conscious again. The pain in her arm was almost unbearable, and she just wished that she'd faint again. 

She didn't open her eyes, but she knew that she was somewhere cold and dark. The stone floor beneath her was cool and chilly, and the freezing draft was nothing like outside in the desert.

She also knew that someone was beside her, tending to her venomous wound. They splashed in some sort of juice, but Gleam didn't care about what, because it dulled the aching pain. 

The dragon gave a small somewhat satisfied snort. Gleam cracked her eyes open a little. Yes, she'd been right. She was in a gloomy, dark cave, lit only by a single torch on the wall opposite.  The walls were made out of grey stone, and the prisons were made out of metal.

Wait, prisons. She really had been arrested. 

The dragon beside her was a SandWing. It was a rather young SandWing - around the same age as her. He must've been an apprentice nurse. Why would Burn send an unqualified nurse to treat me? Gleam wondered, then reflected that Burn probably didn't even care what happened to her. 

The SandWing had pale, desert-sand scales. He had small clusters of golden scales dotted around casually. His face was the tiniest bit brighter than the rest of his body - it was light golden, then one quarter down his neck, the gold faded into a sandy colour. His eyes were, weirdly, closer to a dark grey than black, and had a small shine to them. 

"Hm, hummuh," he hummed. 

Gleam opened her eyes fully, and he jumped. "Oh! You're awake. I don't know why I'm so surprised, I mean, obviously you'd wake up sometime, right?" he grinned at her in a friendly way. Gleam instantly liked this dragon.

"I'm Elk, how about you?" he asked.

"I'm Gleam," Gleam replied. "Is... is my wound getting better?" she twisted her neck to have a better look, then winced as she saw it.

There was a gash on her arm. It wasn't large - it was about the size of three small berries clustered together. Some of the scales close to the wound were blackened and dry - Gleam did not like the sight of it.

"Yup. Not very nice," Elk wrinkled his nose. "Well, at least you survived, right?"

"Yeah," Gleam sighed. "At least."

"Hey, how come you're in jail?" he asked curiously. "Burn ordered me to nurse you, but she didn't tell me why you are down here."

Gleam growled. "Apparantly I stole Scarlet's precious rubies. I don't know where she got that load of camel droppings from. It's like I know where her treasury is!"

"Well, I mean, you did live with her for most of your life," Elk pointed out, which surprised her. How did he know about that?

"Yes, but I didn't strut around the castle. I couldn't. I was kept in a stupid cage, and here it isn't better," Gleam told him. 

"Woah. What did you do to anger Scarlet?" Elk asked.

"Nothing!" Gleam exclaimed. "She picked me up when I was tiny, said, 'hey, she's pretty powerful. Wait, I have the best idea ever, how about I take this dangerous dragon home and put her on display, even though it would be really smart to leave her here.' That one sentence explains my whole life."

Elk laughed. "Wow. You put it in a very comedic way." Gleam gave him a grateful smile.

"Well, I'd better go now. This cactus juice should help your wound. I'll come back tomorrow," Elk said, getting up and taking a bit of a cactus with you. "Bye."

"Bye," Gleam's heart sank at the thought of being left alone in a creepy, dank cave all alone, but she didn't say anything. It wouldn't help anything if she showed herself to be a coward in front of another SandWing. She heard his talons scraping on stone as he climbed the steps towards the door of the chamber. She heard it creak open, then close as Elk exited the cave.

And then Gleam was left alone in a scary, dark cave.