Shadow Falling

Scavengers

Passion was back the very next day.

At this point, Shade wasn't even surprised. How do your deal with a possibly crazy dragon that has just decided that they would... what? Adopt him? That seemed the closest thing. She had been 'wearing' her Dreamwatcher disguise again.

Despite the fact that she was using that as a way to distract the other Nightwings from her being there, she was attracting some attention. The others thought that it was another dragonet that had been smuggled off the island like that other one. What was her name? Moonsearcher or something? There was definitely moon in it. In short, she wasn't held with the best sights.

"Come on, Shade! We're gonna go just outside the rainforest! It'll be so much fun!" she yelled, swirling upward in a spiral of glimmering scales.

"Um, no, let's not." He said shuffling his talons.

"Ah, Shade," she said, landing at his side. She held a wing over him, but thankfully didn't touch him. "There's no crocodiles out there! And you'll be able to see the sky better!"

That was tempting. No crocodiles? Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. He nodded slowly, which got a bright grin from Passion. Together they started to fly, Passion leading the way.

The rainforest started to drop away, until there was only open grassy plains. It looked nice from above, really calm and peaceful. Passion tipped her wings to the side to begin her descent, and Shade followed. His friend seemed to almost disappear into the grass, shifting her scales to the same green as the field. She rolled around in the long grass for a minute, before springing up with a laugh.

"See? Nothing wrong with the forest!" she said, diving into the grass again.

He landed with a soft thump, wriggling his claws into the soil. This was nice. He watched as Passion raised her head out of the grass just enough to peer at something from a distance. From the look in her eye, he had to guess she had seen something. He crept towards her.

"What is it?" he hissed.

"Scavengers!" she said quietly, eyes still locked on the small figures.

Scavengers? As in the things that killed Queen Oasis? Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, this was not good. But when his gaze found the scavengers Passion had spotted, he stopped short in shock.

They were tiny.

They could have easily fit in Shade's talon. And they looked, almost sick. What? He had been raised to believe that scavengers were dangerous, but these things... These things looked bite size. Not that he wanted to eat them, but they were just so... nonthreatening.

Beside him, Passion's scales shifted into full camouflage. "Hey, Shade, distract them, I wanna go catch one!" Came her disembodied voice.

"Wait, what!? What do I do?"

"I dunno, be scary. Act like Darkstalker!"

"But... Passion!"

It was too late. She was gone.

He sat like that in stunned stillness, before slowly creeping out of the grass. The scavengers had seen him now, and were backing away in terror. Taking a deep breath, he opened his wings to appear bigger.

"Uh, grrrr, I'm Darkstalker! The most powerful dragon in all of Pyrrhia! Uh, fear me!" he growled, squeakily.

He snaked his head side to side, but it felt off to him. The scavengers were scared at least. The bigger one had placed itself between him and the little one, and looked like it was getting ready to take off. But that's when Passion snapped up the little one in her talons before jumping into the air.

The little one squealed, writhing in Passion's loosely closed fist. Passion landed beside Shade, giving him an odd look.

"You really need to work on your Darkstalker impression. That was pretty pathetic. But it worked!"

She held out the scavenger. Up close, the tiny thing looked like a baby. It was cowering. The other one was screeching, waving at Shade and Passion very angrily.

"Awww, I wish I could talk to you!" Passion cooed at the one she was holding. "I want you to be able to talk in Dragon."

She sighed, but then the most extraordinary thing happened.

"Please, don't kill me!" a tiny voice cried.

Shade looked down in shock. Those words had come from the scavenger!