Bold Beginnings ~ A Shimmering Scales Novel

Chapter 5 ~ A Morning Meal

  Emerald-crown landed in front of the cave, dragging two rather large buck by her front claws as she backed up into the cave. In the main chamber, she came across Cloud-scale laying down and watching the smaller, injured black dragoness, whose head rested on his large curled up tail.
  "I'm back." She murmured in an attempt to not wake up the sleeping dragon. Cloud-scale looked up at her, saying
  "Oh. C'mon, Siikia, Emerald-crown is back." He pushed his tail up, forcing the smaller dragon into a sitting position.
  "Huh? What?" Siikia mumbled, blinking her eyes open. They were violet, but soon changed into a golden color. Her pupils contracted and she hissed.
  "Who- What--?" The small black dragoness pulled herself away before remembering the previous night's events. "Oh." Siikia's pupils returned to normal as her irises slowly melted into a dark brown color. "Sorry." She mumbled.
  "It's quite alright." Emerald-crown responded briskly. She set down the bucks. "You ought to eat something." She added "You too, Cloud-scale.
  Cloud-scale smirked, saying
  "Alright." Siikia merely nodded and began tearing into the smaller buck.
  "So, about your wing--?" Emerald-crown started, but was cut off by Cloud-scale.
  "Ruby-fang." He said simply, eating his buck.
  "Er.. Okay, what about your disappearing thing?" She tried again. This time, Siikia paused, pulling her head up.
  "Yeah, what about that? You just kinda vanished when we-- uh- found you." Cloud-scale added in.
  "Oh, um.." Siikia began, her irises going an aqua color. "What reason would you need to know?" The black dragon seemed to go on edge. Interesting. Emerald-crown thought. She narrowed her eyes as Siikia's scales pricked, and she seemed more jumpy as the conversation went.
  "Emerald-crown!" Siikia burst out suddenly, her eyes still aqua. "You must be hungry, maybe you should go hunting with Cloud-scale?" She smiled awkwardly, her end of her black tail flicking back and fourth. Emerald-crown made notes of her behavior in her head, as well as Siikia's eye color at the time.
  "Alright, come on Emerald-crown, it'll be fun!" Cloud-scale called out, his white tail already disappearing out into the early afternoon sun.
  "Alright.." She said, looking down at the small black dragon who was smiling shyly. "I want to know about that later. Stay here." She hissed quietly. Siikia badly concealed a terrified expression, which Emerald-crown saw out of the corner of her eye at as she followed Cloud-scale out of the cave.