Always - Moonbli

4. Kidnappers and Ghosts

Qibli

Winter and Qibli were out hunting.

Well, Qibli was hunting. Winter was polishing his already glittering scales for the fifth time that day.

'Aren't you going to help me?' called Qibli, circling over a flat meadow. The IceWing looked up coldly. 'Excuse me, I did all the hunting yesterday, when all you did was mope. I deserve a break and besides, this climate is horrible for my scales. I have to keep up appearances.' With that, he tossed his head back snottily and continued splashing the cold lake water over his tail.

Qibli sighed and went back to scanning the fields. The land was really different from what he was used to; this was all cramped together with funny little hillocks and extra-thick patches of green foliage and everything an eye-scorching bright evergreen, the very opposite of the plain, flat yellow desert. And why did the prey have to be so fast? Camels did not seem to be able to fly and lizards did not have superspeed. They were way easier to catch.

He found and chased a large bird that seemed to be some kind of water stork; anyways, for a bird its size it was quite fast. He was doing great until it slowed down unexpectedly. Qibli flew right into it, startled, and it kicked his eyes with its two long legs. When he managed to recover, rubbing his eyes and very surprised, the bird had spiraled between two mountains and disappeared.

 That made Winter laugh and roll his eyes at Qibli. 'You have to fly above it, you idiot. Then you divert it, confuse it and catch it,' he said, smirking. 'Well, if you know so much, then why don't you try it?' demanded Qibli, thoroughly disgruntled. The IceWing prince grinned, swam out of the water and took to the sky. His arctic-blue scales glistened in the morning sunlight as he swooped over the fields.

 'Challenge accepted.' Winter suddenly spiraled into a tight dive, chasing a large stag. It looked up, startled, and then immediately bounded off. Qibli watched it dash across the meadow, closely followed by a blur of white that was his clawmate. Qibli knew he would never be able to catch that anytime soon. Winter, however, easily overtook it and whirled around to smack it in the face with his whip-thin tail. The IceWing's spikes connected with the animal's eyes and the stag stumbled and stopped suddenly. Winter immediately seized it, regained altitude and presented it to Qibli with a smug smile on his face.

'Show-off,' Qibli muttered, annoyed, as Winter flew back to the ground, let the stag free and submerged himself in the lake again. He watched the utterly bewildered stag gain composure and bound away, apparently congratulating itself on a narrow escape. He decided to forget hunting and have some fun without anyone to butt in and ruin it, especially with Winter preoccupied in scrubbing his talons. 

Qibli swooped in the air, diving and doing flips and fully enjoying himself until Winter commented that his acrobatics were so bad, the sky itself was clouding over so it wouldn't have to see him.

'Ha ha,' said Qibli sarcastically, glancing at the sky. Winter was right; dark rainclouds were rolling in, eating up the vast expanse of forget-me-not blue. A storm was blowing in. The SandWing plummeted to the ground, snatched up a random goat and hauled it to the prey center.

'Come inside!' he yelled over the wind that was quickly picking up. Winter soared out of the lake, gave it a last longing look, and followed Qibli back into the school. They were met by Clay, who was setting up a blind made of thick, strong fur and linen over the gaping entrance looking over the mountains. 

'Are you okay?' he asked worriedly, when he and Qibli managed to wrestle the thing and tie it down extra-firmly. 'Yeah, and we got food. I got food, anyway,' he corrected himself. 'Winter got a make-over.' His clawmate narrowed his eyes at him from the cave entrance.