Three, Two, One!
A while later, I approached the pool of visions room, mentally grumbling because I just knew I'd be getting a lecture on my new breath from Mr. Egotist. Definitely not looking forward to that!
I heard, unsurprisingly, Cyril and Volteer going off at each other in barely distinguishable gibberish.
"–yes, yes, Volteer, I see that months of tortured captivity have done nothing to keep that electric tongue of yours from incessantly wagging."
"It's just that it's all so enchanting, exhilarating, enthralling–!"
God! And I thought Sparx was immature!
Speaking of Sparx, the little dragonfly buzzed past me into the room and hovered in front of Volteer's golden snout.
"All right," he said groggily, "no more thesaurus in the morning for you, pal!"
I sniggered. That dragon sounded like he ate thesauruses for breakfast, lunch and dinner…and for several snacks in between.
"You can come in, Cynder," snapped a very exasperated Ignitus from the opposite side of the pool. It sounded as if the idiots had kept the poor fire guardian up all night with their endless jabbering.
Mind you, they probably had.
I slunk in, reluctantly taking my place around the pool next to Ignitus. The other two guardians seemed not to have noticed me come in and were continuing an argument I could barely follow. I sighed and gave up.
I glanced at Ignitus' tail, which was twitching back and forth at an increasing rate. A smirk crept onto my face.
"Three," I whispered to Sparx, who had flitted down to take position by the side of my head. He barely spared me a glance before returning his attention to the guardians of ice and electricity, his gaze flicking back and forth as they snapped at each other, each being slightly ruder than the last.
Ignitus' tail scratched the stone floor with a grating sound that made me grit my teeth.
"Two."
The yellow and blue dragons continued to snap back and forth. I felt the air closer to Cyril begin to get cooler as his temper began to tap into his element. Ignitus had to stop them now.
I smirked again and said clearly, "One."
Luckily, though I knew what I was doing, my statement was drowned out by Ignitus' irritated shout. "Will you please be quiet!"
The two other guardians shut up quick, as I knew they would. Poor Ignitus. Had he always had to babysit this lot?
When they remained quiet, the ruby-red dragon continued, still sounding exhausted. "It is certainly encouraging that Cyn here has managed to rescue two of you to allow this reunion, but aren't we missing someone?"
Cyn? I was surprised to find I didn't mind him calling me that. Oh joy, more near-death experiences on the way, apparently.
Cyril nodded, sounding bored now the argument was over. "Yes, yes, of course. Terrador."
Ignitus nodded at his old friend. "Yes, precisely. Now, how do we proceed?"
The pompous blue dragon nodded. "I believe I can help, Ignitus." He looked down his nose at me. "Well, young dragoness, though it is a mystery how you obtained the element of ice, you should not disuse the fortune granted to you."
I knew where this was going…
"I suggest we adjourn to the training room so that I might instruct you some more. Knowledge passed down from the great ice dragons of yore – my ancestors, who came from the best of the best of this somewhat bedraggled lineage…"
Sparx rubbed his temple in exasperation as I started humming quietly, just to see if the pompous windbag would notice. Surprisingly enough, he didn't.
"...is long proved great," Cyril continued, not noticing the increasing volume of my humming. "With my help," he concluded finally, "rescuing Terrador should be a certainty."
Ignitus seemed to be the only one to notice my humming, but he made no comment and eyed me with slight amusement. Volteer glared at the ice guardian. "Your pomposity, arrogance and pretentiousness is odious to the extreme!"
Dear ancestors, did those two ever shut the heck up?
Cyril, unable to come up with a sufficient retort, merely turned and waved me towards the statue room. "Shall we?"
I sighed, snorted a puff of smoke in exasperation, and followed.
