Sand and Ice (A Qinter fan fiction)

cHaPtEr 21

Qibli POV:

Qibli was re-reading his history scroll, looking up every few seconds to copy down something Clay had written on the board. He glanced over at Kinkajou, beaming stupidly at her, but she just smiled sadly back at him.

Kinkajou...?

When the gong sounded for the end of class, Qibli caught up to Kinkajou.

"Hey, Kinkajou? Are you okay? You seem really down." He asked. Kinkajou shrugged, tears in her eyes. Qibli dropped his scrolls and hugged her.

"Tamarin is sick, no-one knows whats wrong or whats going on." Kinkajou whispered. "She's had headaches and has been groaning on and off and- and I'm worried about her."

"Is she in the healers'? Can we go see her?" She nodded, sniffling. Her and Qibli made their way to the healers' cave, where Tamarin was lying in a bed. She was groaning almost silently, much to Qibli's concern. Moon was sitting by her bed, looking worried.

"Is she any better?" Kinkajou asked. Moon shook her head, not looking away from Tamarin.

"What's wrong with her..?" Qibli ran a talon along the small Rainwing. She had turned a light grey color with bursts of green around her wings.

"We don't know, Starflight and Glory are trying to figure out what it is, but they're not having much luck." Moon's breath hitched at the end of her sentence, signaling that she was close to tears. Kinkajou leaned her head on Qibli, her tears rolling down his shoulder.

*

Clay came into the cave, trailed by a strange looking dragon. All three of the dragonets looked up. Clay smiled.

"This is Polynya, he's a healer from Possibility and he's gonna take a look at Tamarin." The healer stepped forward, smiling and peering at Tamarin. He was unlike any dragon Qibli had ever seen - even any hybrid he had ever seen. Polynya was a long, tall dragon with skinny features. His scales were a dusty blue but were covered in freckles from his snout to tail, which was crooked as though it had been broken and then snapped back into place. His horns were also twisted at strange angles, and they looked like branches growing out of his head. One of his horns was wrapped in a thin silver wire-looking thing, an odd piece of jewellery, in Qibli's opinion. He had a small collection of scars at his nose, as if he had shoved his snout into hot coals. Polynya must have noticed Qibli staring, because he frowned slightly.

"Yes, I am Polynya, I am please to meet you. I see your friend is... sick. I will do my best to help her, but I must be alone. I'm sure you all understand." He smiled tightly, surveying the cave. Clay ducked his head politely and gestured for his students to follow him out of the cave.

"Thats great, he's gonna help Tamarin!" Kinkajou jumped, her scales turning an eye-scorching mix of pink and yellow. Clay beamed.

"Sunny said Possibility had some of the best healers in all of Pyrrhia, so Glory went over from the Rainforest and met with Polynya, and said he was amazing at his work. She asked if he would come over to the school and help out and he agreed, which is amazing!" Clay continued to talk about Polynya and his work as a healer, but Qibli was too focused on the feeling in his stomach that had started to rise.

The feeling that something wasn't right.