The New Prophecy

Chapter 12

Winter and Zero were pretty much done with the desert. Secretdawn and Qibli loved it, but the two IceWings couldn't be more annoyed with the heat and the sand and the HEAT. Zero had to fly across the desert to get to the academy, but that was different. He was EXCITED to get there. Now, he was flying to his possible death over this stupid kingdom and stupid heat.

"There isn't even anything GOOD about where we're going. Which makes this flight like, 100 times longer and 1000 times hotter." Zero complained to Dawn again for the tenth time that day, but she just laughed. Winter, however, nodded with the IceWing.

"I agree. The sun isn't bad in the Ice Kingdom, but THIS is dry and HOT. The only thing worse is the Rain Kingdom."

"Hey! The rain forest is the best place to live in all of Pyrrhia." Kinkajou replied, to which Winter snorted.

"Sorry, Kinkajou, but I'm pretty sure only Moon agrees with you." Turtle said, and Kinkajou playfully elbowed him. "Seriously, though. How much longer?"

"We haven't even spent two days of flying after leaving Possibility." Qibli pointed out, turning his head to gaze at the endless sand. 

Zero held back a sigh. Here, one day felt like one year. The sand stretched in never-ending dunes, the small pieces rolling with the warm breeze. The sun glared down at him relentlessly, unleashing it's burning wrath of heat down in the IceWing. Even the air was hot; it felt like he was suffocating each time his lungs filled with the dry air. 

This sucked.

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Two days later, after a lot of complaining and flying, Secretdawn's talons finally planted in the sandy beach, and a tide brought water from the ocean up to brush her feet. She looked out at the endless waves of blue, and sighed. This was going to be long. Very, very long. She sighed and turned to face the others.

"There are a few islands between here are where we need to go, so we will stop each time we see one. This is going to be long- Turtle can swim, but everyone else is going to have to fly. We'll be tired, but trust me- we don't die on the way there. But we'll be tired. So, we sleep on the beach for tonight and take off first thing in the morning." She said, gesturing with her front talons. Everyone nodded, either because they actually trusted her or because they were too scared to go against a future seer.

She smiled and turned back to the ocean. Zero walked over and sat beside Dawn. He smiled and she didn't even mind his radiating cold scales.

"It's really pretty." She said, not taking her gaze off of the tossing waves of blue.

"Yeah. The Ice Kingdom is beautiful, too. I wish you could see it." He smiled sadly, and her purple eyes flickered over to his. They sat in silence for awhile, watching the sun set and the moons come out. The first one was full; the other two were crescents. 

"Well. We'd better get to sleep." Zero said, half- turning away from the ocean.

"Yeah. You go on, I'll get sleep soon." 

He nodded and walked towards the others, who had all started to nod off or had been asleep for awhile. Only Qibli seemed comfortable with sleeping on the dry sand, but no one had a choice. When Zero sat down and started to fall asleep, Dawn turned her gaze back over to the ocean. The waves grew darker as the black night stretched longer, and small pinpricks of light were splattered across the shadowy sky. She knew she'd get no sleep tonight. Not that she wanted to, though. Dawn knew that her nightmare would be back, louder and sharper and scarier than ever. She could feel it: her visions were drawing closer, and with it, her and her friends' possible death.

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In the morning, just as the sun started to rise, Qibli woke up. The sun was just beginning to brush the land with it's light, so he was probably the first one to wake up. To his surprise, Secretdawn was already awake and was staring blankly at the ocean. Her back was turned to him, her sandy scales seemingly duller than usual. No one else was up yet, and Qibli needed to befriend this dragon. So this seemed like the perfect time to do so. So far, everyone except for Peril and him had become friends with her. So why couldn't Qibli? Because I haven't been the kindest to her, Qibli thought, answering his own question. Well, time for that to change. He stood up, stretched and walked over to the dragonet.

"Hey, Secre-" He stopped, remembering the nickname she told them to call her a few days ago. That would show friendship. "Dawn." He finished quickly, and she looked over at him.

"Hey, Qibli." She said, her voice sounding determined but tired at the same time.

Hm. Odd. She went to sleep with everyone else, so why would she be tired? Maybe she was trying to search the future but it tired her out. Or....did she even go to sleep?

"Dawn, are you okay?"

"Hah. That's a loaded question." She snorted, but not unkindly. Qibli chose his next words carefully, turning to the hybrid.

"Did you go to sleep?" Her face grimaced for a moment, before resettling back into her tired look.

"Of course I got sleep." Lie. Qibli could see it in her face, and in the way she sat. She looked exhausted. Her wings twitched, and her gaze flickered down to her talons for a second.

"No, you didn't. Why didn't you sleep, Dawn?" Qibli asked, genuinely concerned for the dragonet.

"I couldn't." She mumbled, looking away from the SandWing. Qibli sighed.

"We can leave later. You need rest." He said, and immediately she snapped her gaze back to Qibli, her senses near fully sharpened.

"No. I don't need sleep. I'm fine. Once the others wake up, we can leave." She said quickly, a panicked look fixing itself on her face and staying.

"Every dragon needs sleep, Dawn."

"Not this one."

Qibli gave her an impatient, disbelieving look.

"How do you think you'll be able to long-distance fly without having slept?"

She wrinkled her nose, and after a long silence, she sighed. She pressed her front talons to her eyes and shook her wings, as if she could fling the weariness off.

"Fine. But wake me up when everyone else does." She smiled halfheartedly, but seemed fearful as she walked over to the others and laid down, her eyes closing and her tired body quickly falling into a fidgeting, restless sleep.