Little Small Horns

A New Life

   Stem jumped out of her muddy nest, ready for her first day of school. Everyone was still asleep, and she realized it was still dark outside. She shook her mother awake. But she only groaned and rolled over.
   "Wake up Mother!" She whispered, "It's the first day of school!"
   Stem was too excited, today was the day she could see Banana again. She wondered if she would meet any enemies at school, but she just shook that thought away.
   "Come on! Get up! Get up! Get up!" She begged, "Please!"
   "Go back to bed Stem!" Mother groaned, "Wake me up when the sun is out."
   "Okay, okay. Can I co swim in the lagoon?" Stem asked "I won't do anything stupid!"
   "Promise?" Mother asked knowingly.
   "I 'promise' I won't do anything stupid!" She said pleading.
   "Hold on," mother said nudging Stem's father, "Swamp! Wake up, and go watch Stem in the lagoon."
   "Ugh! Fine 'boss'!" Her father mumbled.
   "You are so rude!" Her Mother was awake now and arguing with her father.
   "Come on someone!" She roared.
   "Fine!" He father yelled. He grabbed her front talons and they flew down to the lagoon together. From the ground Stem could see her mother lay back down for bed.
   "Go play! I didn't wake up for no reason." He said angrily, but she knew he wasn't mad at her, and that he was only tired.
   In response, she jumped in the lagoon's shallower end, sank to the bottom, and stayed there for around an hour. When she swam to the surface, her father had fallen asleep again, but the sun was rising. She yelled to wake him up.
   She jumped out of the water, shook herself dry, and flew up to the cave faster than ever. She bounced around, shaking her mother to wake her up.
   "What?" She grumbled.
   "They said that schools starts as soon as possible!"
   "Yes and right now, too soon, not possible."
   "Ughh!" She argued, "Come on!" She protested louder. "Hippo! Birch! Up and at em'! TIME FOR SCHOOL!" She yelled joyfully.
   Hippo leaped up in fighting formation as if he was dreaming of the war. Birch lifted herself slowly to her feet, flapped her wings and yawned.
   "Let's go guys!" She said lifting off.
   To her surprise, they all followed her. She lead the way to Jade Mountain Academy. Her first school! New friends! Everything she never had, waiting just around the corner.
   After her parents signed them in, they had to say goodbye. It wasn't too difficult for her but she could see the look on her parents faces, pure sorrow.
   "Bye Mother." She said snuggling closer to her. "Bye Father." She said doing the same.
   "Goodbye my little dragonets!" They said in unison.
   Stem and Birch waved goodbye, but Hippo was halfway through the first corridor already.
   Stem followed the map back to the students' caves, hoping that she'll see Banana waiting for her there. She turned through the second cave in the hall, and payed down on a mud nest built just for her. Banana wasn't there like she'd hoped, so she checked the prey center.
   Luckily, she saw her there. Banana was sitting by the fruit with an IceWing. Stem yelled to Banana, she looked over, saw her, and beamed with yellow and pink. Stem walked over to the fruit pile, grabbed a papaya, and escorted herself over to Banana.
   "Ooo! Igloo this is Stem! The MudWing I was talking about earlier!" She said looking at the IceWing, he seemed nervous. "Stem, this is Igloo!" She then added in a whisper, "He's shy."
   "Ooh! Is he in our winglet?" Stem asked. "I was hoping to meet at least most of the dragons in our winglet by tomorrow! So are you?" She asked, turning to face Igloo.
   "Uh...umm. W-What uh... what winglet?"
   "Umm." She said checking her schedule,                   
   "Hmmm, I guess we'll find out later."
   They all started toward the caves, Banana talking non-stop, Igloo nodding, and Stem trying to make friends with him.
   Suddenly Stem stopped, what was that? Was all she could think. Banana, was shaking her and yelling.
   "Stem! What's wrong? Come on we have to get to the caves!"
   "Did you see that?" Igloo asked, frozen.
   All Stem could do was nod, was that a ghost? No surely it couldn't be. Then what was it.
   "Okay... come on guys! I didn't see anything, let's go!" Banana was pulling on Stem's talons now. "Ughh!"
   "Uh. Umm. Yeah, okay. Sorry." Stem said.
   They get to their caves, sadly Igloo wasn't in theirs. It was almost midday now, they were allowed to explore for today, but Banana and Stem had done that before.
   "Sooo... what happened out there?" Banana asked curiously. "I mean, it was totally strange! You were like, frozen or something!" She said, "I was totally freaking out!"
   "I thought I saw... well, I don't know. It was probably nothing." She lied to herself.
   "Nothing!" Banana yelled, "I did not just freak out for nothing!"
   "Well, I don't know. It was weird, I thought I saw something odd. But I don't know what it was."
   "Okay, hmmm. Ohh! We can go investigate, and then we'll know what it was!"
  "That sounds too spooky though." She said, but her brain was yelling SPOOKY? REALLY? YOU WENT EXPLORING DOWN THE FREAKING SCARIEST CORRIDORS EVER! THIS IS "SPOOKY"!
   "Oh yeah, I guess so. Whoa! Did you see that thing! It just walked past the cave entrance!" She screamed, "Oops! I think it heard me! Hide!" She whispered the last part. Stem jumped into the mud nest. Banana just scrambled around frantically.
   "BANANA! Use your camafloge!" Stem yelled in a whisper.
   Immediately Banana went invisible, stem had known about their camafloge, but it was incredible to see it happen.
   Stem saw something like a see through shadow crawl in. WHAT IS THAT?! She thought. It looked like it had pointy ears, it walked on four legs, it definitely wasn't one of those dog things that scavengers keep.
   She looked closely, she once heard of something called a gremlin, but if this was it, why was was it hairless?
   It turned to leave, limping. But Banana knocked over her pile of scrolls. It turned and leaped toward the scattered scrolls, Banana turned snow white with fear. It targeted her, ready to pounce. Banana screamed. Stem jumped up, and pounced on the creature, but she only fell right through it. Banana screamed again, louder, and Tsunami came running into the cave.
   "What's going on?" She demanded, she saw the creature and said, "Three moons! What is that thing?"
   This time it was Stem who screamed. It felt like the creature was shredding through her scales. Why could it fight them, but they cant fight it? "OWWWW!" She screamed at the top of her lungs. Tsunami grabbed her.
   "Banana! Get Clay!" Tsunami yelled. Banana wouldn't move. "NOW!"
   Banana ran out of the cave. Stem was still screaming, she felt blood run down her side, she could hear footsteps down the hall. Suddenly she couldn't hear anything, and everything went dark.