Wings of Fire • Dragon of Warriors [3]

Chapter Eleven

It was a shock, to say the least. Seeing your best friend in the entire world as a petrified statue, knowing that it was actually him inside was horrifying.

     Standing in stunned silence, Quickclaws stared at Brisktail's face. It was the same face he remembered – albeit a little more tired and strained, but it was still the same. He... he was still the same, right?

     He crouched down, unable to stand upright due to the weakness of his legs. Quickclaws ended up flopping to the ground instead, struck by helplessness.

     "B-Brisktail?" he choked out, hoping for something, anything, any kind of a sign that his friend was alive. Nothing happened.

     Quickclaws felt detached from reality. His body went numb and time moved so slow that it felt like a dream. He tuned out from the rest of the world as he stared at his best friend's face. How do I bring you back?

     "Brisktail!" Rainwind shouted, leaning down like Quickclaws and trying to shake him awake. The stone was glued to the floor as if it had grown around him and covered him. Larger rocks melded with the part of Brisktail's sculpture that touched the wall.

     "B-Brisktail? Can you hear me? I don't know if you can hear me..." Rainwind was rambling, her voice thick with tears. She stared at the stone helplessly. "Guys, what do we do?" she asked, looking up between Thunderclap and Lightningtail.

     Lightningtail shrugged, her tail reaching forward to snake its way across Quickclaws' shoulders. He let out a saddened whimper without realizing, his eyes glued onto Brisktail's closed ones. Is he dead? Will I ever get to see him again?

     "What if we... W-what if we try to break the stone off? Yeah! What of that works!" Rainwind began looking around for something to smash the rock with but Lightningtail, currently the dragon with the most sense, grabbed her by the arm and talked her out of it.

     "What if he turned himself into stone?" she hissed. "What if smashing this... hurts him? Like, what if we break off his arm? We don't know anything yet, so we should slow down and look at the bigger picture." She frowned, the look she got when she was thinking hard.

     "Brisktail... Brisktail liked to pay attention to the details," she began, "Right, Quickclaws?" He nodded at that weakly, spacing out "Yeah! So we'll pay attention to the details," Lightningtail said.

     For added emphasis, she crouched down and stared at Brisktail. Thunderclap and Rainwind did too, but after a short while, the blue-streaked dragoness began pacing.

     "This is ridiculous!" she argued. "He could be suffocating in there! We need to get him out!"

     "Okay, maybe, but if we don't calm down and breathe deeply ourselves then we won't be able to make a good decision, right?" Lightningtail tried. Pausing to breathe, Quickclaws was dimly aware of Rainwind calming down.

     "O-okay, you're right," she said.

     "Hey, guys? The rocks are moving-" Thunderclap began, but was cut off.

     "Okay, if y-you can h-hear me," Rainwind said, crouching down to Brisktail's face. "I need a sign. C-can you talk to me again? Enchant yourself and me to- actually, no. Keep your soul safe. Oh, Sun Chasers, how are we going to get him out of here?" She leaned forward, reaching out with a claw to gingerly touch his cheek. Harsh, grating noises started and Quickclaws finally was snapped out of his stupor.

     The rocks that were at the base of the statue – he hated thinking of Brisktail that way – jumped and moved. They flowed across his frozen body aggressively, making their way towards Rainwind. Quickclaws tackled her away just in time to keep them from touching her talon.