Dragons of Skylark: The Four Heirs

Heart of the Mountain

     Flowers and grass smell sickly sweet in person.

     Mum was quiet as she watched us play. May and Ronan were rolling around the field, I'd observed Seth circle a few times just smelling everything. This was our third time out, we'd all climbed onto Mum's back as she flew us down to the foot of the caves, where the grasses grew past our heads. I'd found this quite funny so far, as Ronan liked to try and sneak up on us.

     I always heard him coming.

     "Where's Pop?" I asked.

     "He's doing his job. Normally I'd be there with him, and I will again soon, but for now, you're my job."

      I squinted; the light was a lot brighter out here. That's about all I could tell though. I figured that was the sun, just like from Pop's story.

     "Is Pop the Sun?"

     Mum laughed, "yes darling, he is in a way."

     "Ah, so that's why he can't be here with us."

     She clicked thrice and I stumbled towards her. It had taken a bit to get used to the outside ground, it was different then in the cave, but I liked it. Mum crouched down to brush her nose against my forehead. I liked the way the tips of the grass whistled along her cool scales.

     "Your pather is a very important dragon, Longtayle. I know it doesn't make much sense now," she licked my nose, "but one day it will. He wants to be here, to love you, and watch over you as I do, but there are a lot of other dragons who need that as well."

     She was right, I didn't get it, but I understood that whatever the reason he was away, it was important and he would be back soon.

     "Why don't you go see what Seth's up too?" She suggested, nudging me a few steps forward.

     "Alright," I chirped back, and stepped off into the grass.

      Seth was the biggest of the four of us, only because his legs were so long. He was thin and lithe and tended to move quickly and quietly. That didn't mean I couldn't pick up the slithering sound of him brushing through the grass or the smell of nursery and cave water he left behind. Even more telling, he was noisily scraping through the dirt when I found him.

     "Hey Longtayle," he chirped, "check this out."

     His tale thumped against something in the earth, and when I stretched my neck out to sniff if, I yanked it back immediately. "Ew."

     "I know! It stinks. I think it's a root, like a tree mouth. I don't know which tree though."

     Tree mouth? I grimaced, "It should try eating something else."

     Seth snorted. I realized upon stepping on the root it'd been gnawed on. Seth's breath had the same invasive scent. "You tried to eat it? Does it taste good?"

     "Oh, not at all," I could hear him grinning like scaletick in an overcrowded den. "But it was fun to find. I wonder what the tree looks like."

     There was a gentle breeze that brushed against the crowns of several trees around us. I pressed my muzzle into the dirt surrounding the hole he'd dug and found more of the sharp root smell. There was a trail of it, the root was lying just below the surface. I started to follow it and Seth's spines clicked in refreshed interest.

     "What are you doing?"

     "Finding your tree," I said through dirt.

     "There's no way you can—" the wind changed, he stopped midsentence to take a sharp breath of air through the nose and giggled. "Oh, it's worse than Ronan's breath after breakfast."