Sands of Time

Chapter 16

Cotton snorted, sitting up and puffing out her chest. "Me too," she added, every trace of hesitation gone from her words as she looked Sun's way. Someone hurt the love of my life, her face seemed to be saying, even as she knelt beside the motionless bundle of scales. I want to understand why.

Hyacynth blinked, turning back to face her, sheer surprise etched across her features. "No," she whispered, flicking her tail to cut off the dragoness's advances. "Not you." Her attention snapped back to Sun, warm and yet unnerving. "Only him."

"What?" Cotton growled, snapping her head around in fury. "What do you mean, only him? I'm just as much a part of this as he is, thank you very much! I fought Fahrenheit firsthand! I'm the one who knows what he is most capable of!"

"Yes," Hyacynth mumbled, dipping her head but not looking extremely moved by the princess's display of anger, "but you also understand your place and your role in this team's dynamic. Mr. Dust Storm Earth Shaker here apparently has yet to discover the use of his own power." She grinned. "And what better way to do that than to see where those abilities came from in the first place?"

"You're not the first dragon to have your powers," Andromeda's words echoed through his head and he winced. "The last dragoness who could move the earth discovered this in a very...painful way."

But that doesn't make sense! Sun complained. The last dragon with a Defender's powers like his had been Sparkwind, not some mysterious nameless dragoness who had absolutely nothing to do with the Winged Five! None of that followed the legends and the stories he knew were true and there was no way that was how the scrolls could have gone! Granted, Andromeda wouldn't have known about Spark's powers, not yet anyway. Sun wasn't even sure the group knew what they could do yet, they certainly hadn't taken the time to show said powers to anyone.

But maybe they're just cautious. Maybe they aren't sure that they can trust me.

Well, he was going to prove that they could trust him. He needed answers and that meant he was going to have to take a risk that he did not necessarily like and expose his secrets for everyone to see. He was going to have to trust Hyacynth if he wanted her to return the favor. "So...what do I do here, exactly?" he asked, tentatively making his way down the pebbly shore. "Is it a fully-submerged mechanism or do I just need to get my claws wet?"

"Oh, there's no going halfway for this!" Hyacynth chirped excitedly, bounding after him, her talons skidding on the slick perches. "If you want answers, you have to be willing to go all the way."

Oh, lovely. Just what a desert dragon would enjoy, the feeling of squishy, icky liquid in between his scales. He hesitated at the water's edge. "And...you're sure there's not another way?"

Hyacynch snickered. "I thought you said you were willing to do anything."

Cotton took an uneasy step back, her tail flicking tentatively. "Yeah...Sun, I do think this is much more up your alley than mine, now that I think about it. You love water, right?"

Not particularly. Sun grimaced. No sand dragon enjoyed getting wet. They weren't like sea dragons or sky dragons who could adapt to moist environments. There was just something uniformly wrong with a tribe so used to being dry and hot to be forced to jump into a lake of icy water willingly.

"Fine," he growled. "I'm going. Just...be ready to drag me out if something goes wrong."

"What could go wrong?" Hyacynth asked, blinking owlishly.

"We're not trained to float," Sun retorted. "We're not pufferfish."

"Come on, then," Hyacynth chirped, clearly not understanding his reluctance. "You can do it. Just think of it as a refreshing dip."