Anemarin

Part One_Chapter 5

Anemone was staring at the ceiling, thinking to herself, when Sepia walked into the cave.

"Nice job abandoning me at the lake." Sepia grumbled.

"Oh yeah... sorry about that. " Anemone responded.

"Meh it's fine. I would have gotten angry if you'd woken me up anyway." Sepia said with a wave of her arm. Anemone went back to staring at the cave ceiling with a blank look on her face, trying to figure what to do about Tamarin. Her secret, majorly weird crush. There were multiple things wrong with this, thing one being the fact that they were from two different tribes. Dragons from different tribes usually didn't care about one another, let alone LIKE each other. Also, Anemone was a girl, and so was Tamarin... which made things significantly more awkward. Anemone never thought that she'd truly like anyone. Definitely not any girls. Definitely not any RainWings. But she did, and she couldn't change the way she felt. Maybe this was just another stupid crush, one that she wouldn't care about in couple of months... but it felt different than the rest of her dumb crushes. She really DID like Tamarin. Maybe she could try to get breakfast or lunch with Tamarin in the morning... but she didn't want to do it alone. She would need help from a few of her friends. Suddenly, she heard the clatter of talons outside of the cave. Sepia looked up from the fantasy scroll she was reading, and Anemone got out of bed to poke her head out the cave. She immediately saw Kinkajou running towards her and stop just in time to save them from a second collision. Kinkajou was already panting from running so fast.

"Anemone...huff...there's a...huff... a visitor to the school! Everyone's saying...huff...that there's going to be a competition... COME ON FOLLOW ME!" Kinkajou said as fast as possible. I looked at Sepia, but she was already walking towards us. And with an unspoken agreement we ran down the hall after Kinkajou. We sprinted for a solid four and a half minutes before we finally got to the main entrance of Jade Mountain.

"LOOK!" Kinkajou yelled, looking at a crowd of dragons gathered around one central area. Anemone saw bright flashing scales in the middle of the group. As she pushed closer, she noticed a voice saying, "Yes, yes, anyone can join the competition, no matter how old you are." When she got to the inner circle of dragons she could finally see the visitor to her school. A small male RainWing.

A RainWing? She didn't know this RainWing, and clearly he wasn't a student at Jade Mountain, so she was curious to find out about the competition that Kinkajou had mentioned earlier.

"Yes, gather around, and I'll tell you everything about the Black Moon Festival." The mysterious RainWing said. Huh, that must be what it's called.

"Every ten years, each of Phyrria's moons turns completely dark, and they can stay this way for hours, until their cycle begins again, but to celebrate the new beginning, RainWings set up a huge Festival! There's food, and a market, and lots of fun, but the MOST important parts of the Festival are the BLACK MOON TRIALS! Anyone can enter, and that includes dragons from different tribes this year! If you participate, you must compete in a series of contests, much like the trials you must face to become queen of the RainWing Tribe."

"That sounds like FUN." Kinkajou said to Anemone, but the RainWing visitor had one more thing to say:

"Also, to participate, you must have a team of THREE TO SIX DRAGONS. Nothing more. Nothing less."

Kinkajou grinned and looked at Anemone and Sepia.

"Are you guys thinking what I'm thinking?" The small RainWing asked, her scales turning pink and her grin getting wider.

"I think so." Anemone said, smiling back. Sepia had to grin too, it was just too exciting not to.

"LETS DO IT TOGETHER!" Kinkajou yelled happily. Suddenly, Clay, Tsunami and Sunny burst through one of the cave's entrances, with Starflight walking in cautiously behind them.

"HEY! WHAT IS GOING ON???" Tsunami yelled at the clump of dragons talking excitedly. Everyone turned to look at her, then at the RainWing speaking with them, and then back to Tsunami.

"Ah, yes. Well." said the RainWing, "I'm Crescent."