Dragonet Drabbles

Chapter 5

Just get to Jet and she'll know what to do.

Flame all but ploughed his way over to the Main Building where he knew Jet's desk was located. Dragons jumped out of his way as if he had covered himself in oil and was about to light a torch.

She'll definitely be a pain in my ass but she'll sort this out. Probably. Hopefully. Maybe.

He reached the entrance and was surprised to see a larger than normal amount of dragons milling about the place, with a large amount loosely circling the small desk where a small, orange-toned dragon sat like a glowing beacon.

Flame made a bee-line for the desk, pushing through a group of dragons that had made the unfortunate decision of being in his way. By the absurd amount of papers and folders that had gone flying he guessed he had just demolished some Healers' journal club.

"Please be more careful!" one of them called after him and Flame was pretty sure it was that IceWing Healer that worked across the hall from Starfish. Flame couldn't be bothered to remember his name right now.

"Excuse us, Eskar. Sorry, Blossom."

Flame heard Umber mumbled apologies behind them. Panting, Umber caught up to him and trotted faithfully at his side and Flame felt a little bad for barging ahead. At the same time, though, his talons were shaking with each heavy step and his mind was wrapped in a buzzing gauze of panic.

Why did they take my brother? Is Chromis in trouble? Am I in trouble? Am I ever going to see him again?

He reached Jet's desk and slammed his talons down. The neat stacks of papers on the surface jumped several inches off the desk. Jet snapped to attention in her chair while simultaneously spitting out the coffee she had just taken a big sip of. It sprayed all over the now jumbled mess of paper work. It was at that point that Flame realized that maybe he had come on too strong.

Jet's glinting yellow eyes slowly look up at him. She looked truly and honestly torn between killing him with her bare claws or killing him with the box of freshly sharpened pencils that rested in dangerously close reach of her talons. This moment of hesitation was enough for Umber to step in.

"Hey, Jet! Yikes, what a mess - anyway, we need your help."

Her rage deflated, replaced by an unimpressed scowl. "Get in line." She began re-piling the papers and removing those that were drenched in coffee. "I have six Healers breathing down my neck to get their new schedules printed out, five new orientation packages that need packaging, and an hour ago I was supposed to be sitting in on a meeting with my mother and some dragons from Jade Mountain Academy but they're late and I've skipped two of my breaks already." She took a deep, meditative breath and then downed the rest of her coffee. It was a large cup so it took her a good while.

"OK whatever," Flame hurried on, "listen, my brother ...he was taken by the Palace guards. It happened about a minute ago, wait, I mean ten minutes ago." Flame wrestled with every word that tumbled from his mouth. His tongue felt like an undercooked cannoli and his thoughts kept jumping ahead of each other. He took a breath to steady his rattling mind and remembered the trick Starfish had taught him. While Umber filled Jet in, Flame counted all the red coloured items in the room. He counted several other SkyWings as items, a flower pot, a bracelet on some SandWing's wrist, and Jet's coffee cup. He did the same for all the blue and green items until his pulse reached a safe rhythm - just in time for Jet to release a hiss of frustration so loud it made his ears pop. Great, and now his blood pressure was up again.

"So you mean to tell me," Jet grumbled, rubbing circles onto her temples, "that Flame's brother got arrested?"

"Um," Umber looked to Flame and then back to Jet and shrugged, "that's what we're hoping you could tell us."