Rekindling a Fire--A Qinter Fanfic

Chapter 1

Qibli felt tremors of anxiety weaving their way through his excitement, his mind pacing at a million miles per hour as he flew towards the rainforest. When he had said he couldn't wait to see Moon again after the returned from Pantala, he didn't realize it would be this soon.

But here he was, the rainforest already in sight, coming ever closer to his girlfriend's home, and he couldn't possibly be happier. He felt a smile light his face when a familiar, colorful, and yet somehow sensible Rainwing waved at him from his perch. Pineapple. As always, cuddling with Jambu. He thought, smiling, and waved back, looking up in time to see a very different, but still very familiar Rainwing speeding towards him, dragging a very sleepy and bemused looking Seawing along behind her.

"QIBLI!!!!!!" Kinkajou yelled in excitement, tackling him in a hug, and Qibli hugged back, trying to ignore the flicker of discomfort on Turtle's face, as well as the one in his own chest.

"Hey, Kinkajou, long time no see! How you been?" He asked her with a smile, but felt a weird feeling in his chest when her scales went a million different colors at once. Oh boy.

Before the inevitable waterfall of words could leave her mouth, Turtle intervened.

"We've been doing good." He said, wrapping a talon around one of Kinkajou's and smiling at her in that nervous but somehow laid-back way of his, and Qibli realized what was going on between the two when Kinkajou's scales all went bright pink and yellow and she looked at Turtle like he was the sun.

Oh, so that's what's going on. He thought. Smiling at the mutual dopey smiles on his friends faces, but simultaneously thinking. Do I look at Moon like that? Does she like it?

"Anyway, I'm here to see Moon! She sent me a letter asking me if I'd like to come down here and see her, so here I am!" He said cheerfully, and Turtle smirked at him.

"Of course." He said in a very relaxed tone, rolling his eyes. Turtle's confidence had obviously grown when he and Kinkajou started dating. Qibli smiled back at him and glanced over at Kinkajou, and immediately felt his heart drop at what he saw in her face and scales.

Pity. Suspicion. Confusion. Sympathy.

....

He immediately ran through all the worst-case-scenarios in his head. Was Moon okay? Was she feeling ill? Had she had another prophecy? Was Darkstalker not truly gone? Was there another problem he had to help her take care of?

"Yes! Here to see Moon!! Come on!!" Kinkajou declared, and again began flying away at what he probably would've once called an unusually fast pace for a Rainwing, but since then had learned that the Rainwings weren't all the same, Kinkajou and Pineapple and Glory all being notable examples. He felt a smile, unbidden split his snout when Turtle was dragged along behind her again, weakly protesting that it was too early to fly so fast. Some things never change. He thought.

Qibli paced the clearing nervously, waiting for even a hint that Moon was going to be there soon. Kinkajou had (of course) gotten to her hut long before he did, as he wasn't even crazy sure of its location, and she had sent her back with the message to meet at a nearby Suntime pavilion.

He shook his head as he paced. Something was up. Kinkajou's scale color and behavior, asking for him so soon after Pantala, Moon's unusual message from Kinkajou, and he couldn't figure out what. He blinked and spun around when he heard familiar wingbeats above the clearing, and the form of his girlfriend descended from the sky.He couldn't ignore how pretty she looked when she did that.

She landed, shuffling with her talons in that self-conscious way that he found adorable, and also found very ominous, because lately she only did it when something was wrong.