Flaming Eclipse

Chapter 2 - Burrower

The hot desert breeze flew in my face as we walked along the dunes, trying to find Rattle. He had gone farther than we had expected, but it gave us time to think what we were going to tell him. 

We lived fairly close to the Kals' mountains and we had to pass them to get to Kals' Farm town, but since Rattle had gone so far away, it'd probably be smarter to just get around them.

"How far could he have gone?" Rustle was holding his head close to the ground to see Rattle's clawprints better.

"Maybe he flew the rest of the way? He could be anywhere", I pointed out. The Glass Island was massive, the biggest island of them all.

"He doesn't usually go this far!" Rustle's voice was full of worry.

"We can't just walk through the whole desert in hopes of finding him. We need to split"

"You're right. Let's meet at Kals' Wasted Origin before dusk", Rustle nodded briefly.

"Kals' Wasted? That's almost on the other side of the desert!" I exclaimed.

"Exactly. If we start from the northern end and stop at the southern, we'll be covering as much ground as possible!" reason rung in his words. 

"Fine. But what if we don't find him?"

"Then we'll just have to go without him. He'll return home eventually and then Hollier and Fever can tell him what happened and he'll catch up", Rustle didn't sound all that confident.

"And what if he doesn't catch up?"

"We can wait a few days at Kals' Farm town before heading towards the Backstabber island", 

"Right. About that; with all the commotion going on in Backstabbers, shouldn't we go around it? Pass by the Tribe island?" I didn't want to stand out. Dune dragons only lived in Kals' desert in the Glass Island.

"Why? What does the commotion have to do with anything?"

"They'd be, well, weary. And then they'll get suspicious when three completely off-looking dragonets pass by", I explained.

"That does make sense.. Fine, but we'll make the decision once we've found Rattle", Rustle took off with that and didn't let me answer. It was fine, and I took off too.

Searching the skies was actually very peaceful. The blowing wind passing through my ears didn't bother me at all. I just stared at the ground, trying to find a dismorphed patch of sand or the silhouette of my brother.

"Hm?" I huffed. I saw a tunnel entrance in the sand. I didn't know a family of duners lived here. I thought to myself and hovered closer to the ground. Once I landed and straightened my in-wings. What if these dragons aren't friendly? I peeked inside the tunnel from further away. I couldn't see anything so I moved closer. 

I noticed that the soil beneath my claws wasn't one any level-headed dragon would use for burrow digging. It was soft and runny. It flowed around my claws as I padded closer to the hole.

I thrust my head inside the entrance. It was dark, yes, but I could see fine. The burrow was empty, no beddings, no food-piles, nothing. I half fell and half slid into the tunnel because the sand fell when I touched it.

"Augh", I yelped. I hadn't expected the ground to fall under me. I glanced around. I only now noticed that the tunnel had another entrance. I moved closer to it and it seemed like it was a longer tunnel that had collapsed. When I glanced back, I realized that the entrance I had used also was once a longer tunnel that had just collapsed and created another entrance. 

I shook my body a few times to get the airy sand from under my scales. Then I slithered neatly out of the tunnel. I didn't want to get crushed by falling sand. I wondered who had built such an unstable tunnel.

I walked away from it, placing my claws down very gently, in case the tunnel was longer than I'd expected and the ground would collapse. When I thought I was far enough, I set off faster. 

Suddenly, I felt a small, sharp thing pierce through my scales. I yowled and scrambled back. I looked down to see a.. bone? I poked it and it twitched briefly. Alarm rushed through my body. It's someone's in-wing! Without hesitating I started to dig at the root of the bone and discovered the rest of the wing. I kept digging until my claws raked across something soft. The scales. I was lashing my tail to and fro, making the sand fly everywhere. I kept digging, the dragon might already be dead. What if it's just a carcass? No, then it wouldn't twitch. 

I felt the ground shake and scampered backwards. The ground was rising, sand falling and the in-wing was twitching. The dragon rose from the sand, and the sun rays hit their sand-colored scales.

"Rattle!" I yowled when I recognised the dragon. It was my brother! How'd he get trapped under  the sand?

"Oh? Hi, Creek. Where's Rustle?" he glanced around and shook his body.

"Why were you trapped under the sand?" I ignored his question.

"I fell asleep, that's all", Rattle told dissmissively.

"Why were you sleeping so deep underground? You could've suffocated!" I pointed out. My heart had been racing since I realized it was a dragon under the sand.

"No, I wouldn't have. My snout was on the surface the whole time!" Rattle flicked his tail.

"Oh", I probably should have paid more attention to my surroundings. "Rustle and I were worried about you",

"Where is Rustle anyway?"

I went on to explain what our parents had told us. I saw a new kind of understandment in his eyes that I had never seen before.

"I promised Rustle that we'd be before dusk at Kals' Wasted. We should head there right now, so we  can get some rest before leaving", I stopped for a moment, "To kill a giant octopus",