Drama (a Qinter fanfiction)

Running Out of Sand

TW for violence at the end

Qibli PoV:

"Okay, first things first, did you three find anything?" Hurricane asked.

Qibli glanced at the other two dragons beside him, but quickly turned away before he took the conversation back in the wrong direction.

"We were searching Vulture's chair here for any clues, but we hadn't found anything before Flame showed up," Winter explained.

"Okay, where all did you manage to check?" Hurricane inquired, looking to be putting pieces together in his mind.

Qibli tapped his chin with one claw, visualizing where all he'd checked. "The sides, the back, inside and out, and even the legs."

"Did we check the base?" Winter asked.

"I don't think we had a chance," Qibli replied.

"Well, maybe we should check it now? Maybe before someone in your beloved family comes to investigate all this?" Hurricane suggested sarcastically, pointing at Qibli with his nose. Winter rolled his eyes as he walked around the chair to the front, then reached under it with one talon. There was a long pause before Winter let out a small noise of surprise.

"Hey - I think... I might've found something..." he announced, still rummaging under the winged chair. Qibli pointedly didn't look at Hurricane, knowing there must be some sort of joking 'I told you so' look on the SkyWing's face.

"Can you get it out?" Qibli asked him, barely daring to hope they'd finally found what they were searching for.

Winter grunted. "I'm working on it..."

There was a tense pause, only broken by the subtle grinding of claws on rock and rock on rock. A few minutes later there was a long scrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrch  before Winter emerged holding a small stone box, not unlike the stone underneath the chair. Obviously, Qibli chided himself half a second after he observed this. How else would he hide it?

But, its also too small to hold all the treasure that's missing, so this isn't the end of it. he reminded himself.

Winter picked at a groove in the side of the box until he managed to wedge the tip of his claw in and was finally able to pry the lid off. There was one final sccccrrp before the IceWing took the lid in his other talon and quickly placed it on the ground in front of him. There was an almost inaudible crinkling sound as layers of paper were pressed tight together by Winter's careful claws. However after a moment of picking at the paper, he simply flipped the box over and shook its contents out into his other talon. A single piece of folded up paper. We went through all that trouble just for a piece of paper. Qibli thought wryly, hiding his disappointment.

"Well, I sure hope this is good." Flame grunting, matching the mood of Qibli's thoughts.

Winter didn't respond, instead he only unfolded the parchment and began analyzing it.

After a few moments of silence, Qibli couldn't keep quiet any longer. "What does it say?"

"Its a map," the pale blue dragon said slowly, still looking over the paper carefully. ("A.. cardiograph ..showing the location of items of ..historic and economic value." idk if that's the exact line (ik I cut one line out from between saying what it was and what it was to), but its close XD)

"To the treasure? Already?" Hurricane asked, stepping forward to peer at it over the IceWing's shoulder.

"Yeah, he wouldn't want to risk losing track of it," Qibli pointed out, coming up on Winter's other side so that he too could analyze the parchment.