Touched By A Dragon

Chapter 17: Waiting

Meanwhile, the dragons were all still waiting outside the cave. The riders were getting less and less hopeful by the minute. The Ethereal, Peter, Jewel and Phoenix had been in there for hours. A strange blue light was coming from inside the cave and mysterious hurring sounds drifted out with them.
“This is useless. Every minute we spend here gets us further away from finding Mike and Lillianna. It was our original quest. And I, for one want to finish it and get back home, while we still can.” Sasha sulked.
“No, we must wait for our leader and his Alpha. Without them, we have no leader and no purpose” Hissed Lucy. “We wait; we wait until our leader comes back, alive or dead.”
A mighty raw escaped from deep within the cave, and then the light stopped. The Ethereal emerged out of the cave with Peter on jewel. Looking as well as ever and both smiling their million-dollar smiles.
There wasn’t a dry eye in the entire clan. No one could believe it. They all gaped at them open-mouthed, well, all but one. Isabell smiled at him.
“Back so soon, I was just getting used to a peaceful silence.” She joked.
“You thought you’d get rid of me that easily? Not a chance.” Peter grinned.
“Oh, back from the dead and already flirting? Not even a hello for your old mate?” Scar smiled.
“Oh, that reminds me. I’ve got something to tell Astrid something.” Peter remembered.
He looked around at the clan and their dragons, he saw Ben on Comet, Pearl on Emerald, Tash on Ruby, Isabell on Star, Jeffery on Hunter, Scar on Fierce, Henare on Tanipha and Lucy on Spirt.
“Where is Astrid?” He whispered scared and confused.
The clan all looked down not wanting to say anything.
“I said, where is Astrid!” He yelled angrily.
The clan started mumbling, too scared to speak. Isabell spoke up.
“She left, she’s safe now” Isabell soothed.
“What do you mean?” He said angrily.
“She probably went home,” Sasha explained.
“Will she be safe there?” Peter asked, outraged.
“The safest place for her is with us,” Isabell whispered.
“Exactly, we’ve got to go and get her; we don’t know what kind of trouble she could be in.” Peter sighed.
“Still we’ve got to wait for Phoenix.” Henare huffed.
 They waited and waited restlessly for about another 2 hours. Then The Ethereal remerged from the cave. He ran up to the dragons resting on the cliff face with their riders and opened his huge paw, to reveal Phoenix, hurt and weak but alive but in better shape than before. He twitched his right-wing then flew about 2 feet in the air. Then Jewel raced up to The Ethereal and softly nuzzled his cheek.
“Thank you so much, dad.” She said.
“I tried to save him, I really did but there was only so much I could do. I’m sorry my girl, he only has two days left, unless you can find his rider.” The Ethereal breathed, and then he took off.
Jewel look longingly up at the clear, blue sky. She may be a tame dragon but deep inside she had always wanted to be a free, wild dragon. 
“One day, one day I will join you father.” She thought. “But first I’ve got to finish what I started, I will make you proud.”
She heard a voice in her head.
“Oh my child, you already have.”
A single water fire tear rolled down her muzzle as she let the voice eco through her head. She looked out upon her significantly decreased clan with only eight of the ten dragons left and one very weak. She couldn’t give up. She had to keep going. Peter looked at her, understanding what it was.
  “Don’t worry girl. We can do this, together.” He calmed.
The dragons were now all well rested and ready to go. They had to go and find Destany then Astrid before it was too late. All the dragons looked up at their riders and made a small wining noise. They may have been tired but they still missed the rest of their clan, Because of this, they all wanted to go out there and keep looking. They would never stop. This was their quest. And they would finish it, together.