Treacherous Skies

Chapter Two

Hunter flew over the mountains, exploring further from his cave that he had before. He wanted to see how far the mountains went. He knew they gave way to salty water towards the sunset, but that was the only way they had ever gone. He wondered what he looked like from the ground, probably just a speck of dark red in the blue sky.

A while later, he saw strange-looking peaks ahead of him. They were smaller and narrower than other mountains he'd seen, and there were a lot of them in a small area. He got closer, and soon he saw red and orange dots around the narrow peaks. After a moment's watching, he saw they looked like Fire did when she was flying. He had never known there were others like them. He thought he and Fire were the only ones.

He flew a little faster, hoping to get a better look at them. Soon, two of them stopped and flew towards him. Hunter stopped too, hovering as they flew quickly at him.

The others stopped a short distance from him.

"Who are you?" one of them asked.

"I'm Hunter," Hunter told them. He hoped that was what they wanted.

"What kind of a name is that for a SkyWing?" the other said.

"A what?" Hunter frowned.

They may have been surprised, but it was hard for Hunter to tell.

"A SkyWing," the first one said. "You. Me. Her. The queen. We're SkyWings. That's our tribe."

"Oh." Hunter didn't understand some of the things they'd said. "I never met any other sky wings before, except for my sister."

He looked at the others. They didn't seem to have smoke coming from their scales, so Hunter assumed they were like him, not like his sister.

"Where did you and your sister live?" the second SkyWing asked.

"Back that way." Hunter gestured with his tail.

"Are her scales hot? Do they burn you if you touch her?" The first one asked.

"Yes," Hunter said, surprised. "How did you know?"

The other SkyWings looked at each other. "The queen may not want us to tell you just yet," one said. "Why don't you tell us where you and your sister live, and we'll come find you and tell you more?"

"Okay," Hunter agreed. "We live in a cave a few hours' flight that way," he pointed behind him. "One of the mountains has a big pile of rocks halfway down from a landslide, and there's a claw-shaped grove in the valley."

The first SkyWing nodded. "I can't say exactly when we will be able to meet you. The queen has been busy the past few months."

And they flew away. Hunter watched them go, shivering in the cold air, then turned around to fly back to his sister.

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Stranger danger, Hunter... but I guess no one's taught them that.

What do you think? Will this be good or bad?