Wind and Flames: Talons United

Chapter 8

"Grrrrrr." Nevara scratched out the map in the dirt with her talons. She looked up, only to see Vitreus' worried face looking back down at her. 

"Well?" He asked, motioning toward the map, or rather lack there of. 

"I'm sorry," Nevara said, sniffing the dirt as if trying to properly navigate that way. "I lost the trail. But I would have thought for sure we'd have seen at least some of a nest already,"

She frowned, looking up at Vitreus. On their journey, they'd encountered raging storms with high winds, freezing nights with nothing to spare them but cold, forest fires with flames ever so high, but the mudslides were the worst.

Nevara shuddered. Just the memory of that tree almost falling on her and splitting her in two was enough to make her scales crawl. At least Vitreus had been there to help her through all of it; she really owed him one now.

Vitreus stared at her, but all Nevara could do was shrug.

"Any ideas?"

While Vitreus just stared into the distance behind her, Nevara sighed and walked around, trying to see if she recognized any of the land around them, perhaps from out one of the windows back when she lived in her Nest.

It's no use, she thought pitifully. Any Nest that would have been even remotely close to us would at least by one hundred miles away. They like to keep the Kings and Queens greatly separated to prevent war from breaking out and destroying the planet.

Knowing this, Nevara also knew that she had to find her friends, because should Viridi strike their Nest next...Deep and Tala might not survive that one.

Which is all the more reason we need to keep going. Their lives could be in danger.

And I won't let that happen. 

She turned back to Vitreus. "I think I might know where we are," she said, the pieces slowly coming together in her mind. 

"They taught us geography, you know, basic navigation stuff. The trees around us are TallPines, a tree only native to the Dustlands. There's only one Nest near here, the Violet Nest. Now, if we traced our path correctly-" 

"Nevara," Vitreus said, interrupting her. She dug her talons into the dirt. 

"What?" 

"Do you see that?" He pointed to a shape in the distance, a big building with long spires that looked like they were barely scraping the afternoon sky. The colors were outstanding, with bold blues and purples, greens and golds splattered all over it. Nevara took a breath in.

"There it is," she said, walking towards it. "That's the Violet Nest." 

"Really?" Vitreus cocked his head at it. "Its...huge. Like, really huge. Even though we're so far away. Will we make it there in time? And even if we do, how do we know that's where the dragons from your Nest went?" 

"We don't." The dirt under her talons suddenly felt even drier. Nevara knew they wouldn't be able to make it there in under 24 hours, it was too far ahead of them. But she couldn't help but feel like they were wasting time if they went there and all they found were a bunch of other dragons. 

"You know, even if they don't have Deep and Tala, we could still warn them." Vitreus pointed out, and Nevara turned to look at him again. "Yeah," she said, nodding. "We could tell them to take proper precautions, like maybe increasing on the amount of guards in the Nest overall?" 

Vitreus nodded, and Nevara looked back at the Violet Nest. "Alright then," she said, spreading her wings. 

"Let's get ready to convince some royalty."

                                                         **********************************

Queen Colubra narrowed her eyes as Nevara and Vitreus approached, guards posted on either side of them.

"Skybreaker, who are these dragons?" She said, staring daggers as Vitreus. He was startled into a bow, and motioned for Nevara to do the same. 

Well, she's not my Nest Queen. Should I bow to her?

Then again, if we want her to help us, I probably should.

Nevara pulled herself down into a bow, and Skybreaker answered dutifully, "They claim to be dragons from the Bronze Nest, my queen. The one that burned down? At least the white, sparkly one did. I'm not sure what he's doing here."

Queen Colubra stared down her snout at Vitreus and Nevara. She had this air of authority surrounding her, with her deep blue eyes and stark black scales the color of the night sky, also hosting swirls of cyan, cobalt and indigo.

"Your highness, if I may," Nevara interjected, twining her tail with Vitreus'. He gave her a thankful look.  

"We're only here to help warn your Nest. You see, there is a dragon named Viridi, and if he's going down burning Nests, we want to make sure that the Nest with all of the dragons from mine are safe and secured. Maybe we could even catch Viridi and-"

Queen Colubra slammed her talons down on the ground, glaring at Nevara. "Don't you dare come to my Nest and mention the name of that traitor ever again! He and Mantis were dead to me, and I wanted to keep it that way!" 

Nevara stumbled back, surprised, and then her eyes narrowed. "I...we're just trying to help protect your dragons! Do you even have the inhabitants of the Bronze Nest?" 

At that moment, Colubra sighed in frustration as two voices were heard stumbling over each other in the echoing hallways.

"Unfortunately," she breathed, and Nevara could recognize the voices of the dragons.

"OW! Deep, stop stepping on my tail!"

"I'm not TRYING to! I was walking as FAST as POSSIBLE."

"Yeah, while stepping on my tail."

"Will you stop with the sour attitude? Nevara's here, aren't you happy?"

"Of course! LESS HAPPY, however, that you are TEARING off my TAIL SCALES with your abnormally sharp BACK TALONS.."

A third voice groaned, and Nevara didn't recognize the dragon it belonged to.

"Will you two stop that? We're seeing QUEEN COLUBRA. If you act like a bunch of floppy No-Wings in front of her, I'm going to throw claws with one of you."

When the three dragons emerged from the hallway into the Throne Room, Nevara was overjoyed at the sight of her friends. 

"Deep! Tala!" 

She ran to them, throwing her wings around them. It had been so long since she'd seen them, her only friends in the whole Bronze Nest. She and Vitreus and spent weeks locating them, now it was finally paying off.

"I'm so glad you're here!" Tala said, twining her tail with Nevara's. 

"Then you can stay with us and everything will finally be back to normal." 

Nevara felt and uneasiness wash over her like someone had slipped a bunch of tiny beetles down her spine.

But I can't stay, she thought, wanting to say it out loud to her friends. 

I have to help Vitreus, and stop Viridi. I just want to make sure they're safe, maybe even convince them to come with me.

At the thought of the crystal dragon, Nevara turned around to introduce him to Deep and Tala.

But when she turned around, Vitreus was nowhere in sight.