Stalker of Dreams

Chapter Two

Firefly stared blankly at him. 

"I-I mean..." Brown and green shimmered through Peacemaker's wings as he folded them against his sides. "I just thought that-" But he was cut off.

"That's a great idea!" Firefly said way too enthusiastically, gold and yellow spinning on a mad rampage through her scales. Without further thought, she grabbed Peacemaker (again) and dragged him right into the tunnel. 

"AHHHH!" Peacemaker screamed. "I DIDN'T MEAN 'LET'S GO RIGHT IN'!! I MEANT AFTER WE MAKE A PLAAAAANNNNN!!"

But Firefly payed her screaming friend no notice. She beat her wings harder, and Peacemaker wrenched himself free of her grasp. As he dropped to the floor of the tunnel, he felt rock scraping against his talons. The black dragonet looked around. 

It actually looked like a normal tunnel, for the most part. It was surprisingly warm - much hotter than the air had been a few moments ago. This was a dry, stifling heat, instead of the wet, almost groggy humidity of the rainforest. 

"Wow!" Firefly said from up ahead. Apparently she'd barely noticed he wasn't holding on to her anymore. 

Peacemaker beat his wings and took on a burst of speed, noting with the smallest amount of pleasure that this tunnel was much easier to fly through than a jungle full of trees. 

Sun hit his scales, and the dragonet muffled a gasp as his friend and the end of the tunnel came into view. Sand stretched from there to the horizon on all sides, a cloudless blue sky full of sunlight overhead.

"Peacemaker..." Firefly whispered, "we're in the Kingdom of Sand." 

"This is... impossible," Peacemaker was pacing back and forth. They were back in the rainforest, surrounded by birds singing as though they were preforming for a huge auditorium full of dragons. 

"Unless it's animus magic," Firefly said with way too much awe in her voice to be healthy. 

"Which animus?" Peacemaker ventured. "There's only been five..." six... "that were confirmed to be alive in the past 200 years. And this boulder-" He motioned to the huge rock, "-it's been put here recently. See?" He tapped the base of the massive, dark grey stone. "There's hardly any vegetation growing on it - a bit of moss near the bottom. This indicates that it can't be more than a few years old."

"You got all of that from some moss?" Firefly asked. 

"Well, yeah," Peacemaker said. "You have to know something about plants when you're always growing strawberries."

"Now I'm hungry," Firefly let out a dramatic sigh.

"Firefly," Peacemaker shook his head, "I think an animus tunnel is more important than your lunch."

"I bet mom would know what it was," Firefly said suddenly. "We should write a letter and ask her about it!!"

Peacemaker shrugged. "I guess we should probably tell the queen about strange things in her kingdom, even if she doesn't know what they are."

"Whoa!" Firefly exclaimed, and Peacemaker spun around to look at her. The was staring up at another hole, this one in a massive tree. Immediately she was looking back at him, longing in her eyes.

"We're going in, right?" she asked politely. Peacemaker sighed. The other dragonet made a face at him, and then spread her wings, lifting up into the tunnel. Peacemaker shivered as he entered the hole. It had the same wrongness as the other, and it was even hotter than the tunnel to the Kingdom of Sand. Suddenly a yell interrupted the still, smoky air. 

"Ack! Scary dragon thing!" 

Peacemaker bounded ahead, ready to fight whatever was attacking Firefly. But it was just a statue of hardened ash - a dead NightWing, killed by the volcano. 

"Oh," Peacemaker realized, a few gears clicking into place in his head. "I know what these are." 

"What?" Firefly tilted her head at him. "What the tunnels are?"

"Yeah," the NightWing-RainWing dragonet said. "These are the animus tunnels from the NightWing volcano, to the Rainforest, to the Kingdom of Sand. They were created by..." He trailed off. Why couldn't Peacemaker remember important animus history? "By one of the NightWing animus dragons. I forget his name."

"Stonemover!" the princess called out suddenly. "Stonemover, the old petrified dragon from Jade Mountain Academy! Sunny's dad."

"Right," Peacemaker acknowledged, as though he'd been meaning to say that all along. He grabbed Firefly's tail as she tried to fly ahead, most likely to check out the old NightWing island.

"It isn't safe for us to go there, if it really is the volcano," he warned. "It could still be active, and we really don't want to be caught in an eruption." His friend sighed, but followed him back into the rainforest anyways. 

They emerged into sunlight, and Peacemaker silently thanked the moons that he'd never had to live on the volcano. Even just being in the tunnel made him feel close to suffocating. 

"We could probably explore it later," he offered to Firefly's crestfallen expression. "But with an adult, someone who could make sure we don't, like, fall into lava or something." His ears pricked, tilting his head with a slightly confused expression.

"We should probably head back to the village, then," Firefly started, but Peacemaker wrapped his talons around her snout. 

"Shh," he said. "I... think there's someone out there." 

They sat in silence for a few moments, but nothing but the breeze and a few birds and the never ending chorus of crickets came from the rainforest. 

"Must've just been a monkey," Firefly said, prying her friend's talons away. 

Suddenly a dragon lunged out of the bushes. 

A/N: AHH I WON'T KILL THEM YET I PROMISE!!!!
Anyways, we're finally going to get the plot moving next chapter, so that should be fun. And we'll get to meet more characters than just these two. *motions to Firefly and Peacemaker in disgust* 
That's about it, actually. Remember to vote and comment (mainly comment, because anyone can just come in here, press vote without reading, and leave) and I'll see you next chapter!

- Gala