Shadow Falling

Follow The Frost

Passion's head spun as she looked down into the pit that she had seen Darkstalker emerge from. Where had he gone? How could such a massive dragon disappear so quickly? She had just seen him! She reached up to the opal earring to tell it to search out her quarry but stopped.

"Why did you stop?" The little voice inside her head asked, a quiet hiss in the back of her mind. "Search him out!"

Shade is afraid of him, Passion thought to herself, looking at the quivering Nightwing dragonet. She had to stop, slow down, think things through.

"But you want to find him. You want to see this animus for yourself, don't you?"

I care more about my friend, Passion thought forcefully. I can look by myself later, can't I? No one can stop me when I'm alone. But Shade is afraid, so I'll wait. Just bide my time.

"I don't know where Darkstalker is, but we've been flying for a long time." Passion said slowly, masking the disappointment in her voice. "How about we rest for a while? It'll be dark soon anyway. We can look in the morning."

The visible relief in the other dragonets let Passion know that she made the right choice, though there was that feeling in her mind that she should have pushed forward. She shoved it down and went to help create makeshift nests out of plants for Shade and herself. She had seen his hammock and he could not set it up properly.

As the sun was sinking below the horizon, the dragonets had more or less settled in their nests and were beginning to one-by-one drift off to sleep. Even Jewel seemed to fall asleep awfully fast. Passion guessed that it was because it had been a very highly emotional day for her. She had just been able to touch her friends for the first time.

Once she was sure everyone had fallen asleep, Passion rose from her nest and crept through the rough camp she and the others had made. They were too deeply asleep to notice her silent passage.

"Look for the animus, find him!" The voice inside her head urged her on eagerly as she reached up to touch her earring.

"Find Darkstalker," she whispered to it, and it chilled her ear slightly as it responded to her command.

Gigantic footprints that looked like they were formed out of frost appeared on the ground before her. They glistened slightly, and the faint, frosty outline of a massive Nightwing appeared before her. The first figure curled serpent-like out of the cavern in the mountain. This was nothing like the outlines the scavengers made, being so small that she had to squint to see them. This was a hulking monster of a dragon. She'd be able to find him easily.

Darkstalker didn't stay on the ground long. Not five paces into her search the frost outline unfurled his wings and leapt into the sky, so Passion did the same. This Darkstalker seemed to be heading directly for Jade Mountain Academy. What did Darkstalker want with Jade Mountain? It was just a school.

The frost outline took her to Jade Mountain, where there were several dragons milling around. As she wasn't supposed to be around the academy, she slunk away from the main area and kept to the outskirts. The outline of Darkstalker went into the academy itself. But why?

"What are you doing?"

The voice sent Passion spinning, fangs exposed and venom ready to spray. As she turned, she found that she was facing Caiman and turned just enough so that she spat the venom at a nearby tree, which hissed and bubbled as the black substance ate into it. Though it was dark, Passion could see that Caiman's eyes had gotten very wide and she took a couple steps back.