Ember was soaking wet, but in the Skywing's opinion it was completely worth it. Having uncle Turtle help him swim through what felt like the longest underwater tunnels in all of Pyrrhia was somewhat exhausting but he was a young dragonet and a good swimmer according to...well every dragon who'd seen him swim. Sure they could have just flown in through the opening in the ceiling, but that wouldn't have been nearly as fun.
It took a lot of convincing, possibly some outright bribery. But here he was staring up at the massive intertwined white stone pillars, twelve platforms held tightly in its grasp, at the very center of the mostly rebuilt Seawing Summer Palace.
"We're gonna be staying up there." Turtle said jovially, indicating a cave in the rock wall that was level with the second floor of the stone eyesore.
"Alrighty, is it okay if I explore for a bit?" Turtle looked incredibly hesitant, Ember didn't really blame him, with his sense of direction it was entirely possible he could take a wrong turn up a flight of stairs and end up in the Rain Kingdom. Turtle looked around at the mostly sealed in Summer Palace, Ember would have to fly or swim through long tunnels to actually leave the palace.
Turtle was about to give an answer before something caught his eye. The Seawing gave him a quick nod before calling over another dragon, who looked like a guard of some kind, that Ember supposed Turtle recognized given that he knew their name was Grenadier. The Seawing sauntered over to Turtle, giving Ember a small wave as he passed before he and Turtle began having a whispered conversation.
Ember simply shrugged and started walking away, he wanted to get a good look at those twisty spires. When he got to the base of the pillars they weren't the most interesting thing, it was all twisted up white coral, unusual and strange, but that was it.
What was interesting was what was sitting tucked up behind one of the pillars. A small Seawing, probably about his age, but very small. Slightly chubby, in the same way Turtle was, in fact there were a few similarities between his uncle and this dragonet. Like the pretty swirly patterns on the underside of his wings that Ember had only really seen on Turtle and Tsunami. There were differences too of course, Turtle didn't have black wavy scales all down his stomach and this dragonet's scales were a much paler green.
The little Seawing was just curled up in the crux of one of the pillars looking around furtively every once in a while, albeit not in the direction Ember was standing at. Well his dad was always saying he needed to make more friends, worth a shot right?
"Whatcha doin."
"Ah!" The dragonet's reaction to his question was rather amusing. He recoiled backwards into the pillar wings splaying into the air and sliding onto his back with a quick cry. The dragonet looked up at him with frankly adorable blue eyes with more black scales around them.
"Hi. I'm hiding." He said simply.
"Who from?" Ember asked.
"My mother, I'm Guppy, who are you?" The Seawing asked, flipping himself upright.
"I'm Ember, my Uncle Turtle brought me here, I wanted to see the Summer Palace."
Guppy gave him a very curious look but didn't really say anything.
"Is something on my face?" Ember asked, batting at his face in an attempt to remove something that wasn't there. Guppy broke out into laughter. Ember thought he quite liked the sound of it, it was much nicer than the sort of barking laugh he had.
"No, no, I'm trying to figure out which of my cousins had a dragonet with a Skywing." Guppy giggled.
Ember started to laugh too. "None of them, or at least probably none of them." Ember had a hard time speaking through the laughter but did his best. "Turtle's just…." Ember didn't really know how to explain it. "I'm not part Seawing or anything."
Guppy seemed to understand what he was saying at least, or made a good show of hiding that they didn't. "Oh, ok."
"So why are you hiding from your mom?" Ember asked. Which was probably not the best question as Guppy proceeded to make a face that reminded Ember of the time Firefly had bitten into a lemon.
"She's just being overpro..overp...she doesn't want me getting hurt." Guppy pawed at a bit of stone batting into the water. "Sure I'm not the biggest, but it's not like I'mma get eaten by a shark if she's not watching me all day."
Ember wondered if sharks were that big of a problem in the Sea Kingdom, then he wondered what a shark actually looked like, then wondered if his mom had ever fought one. Ember was too distracted imagining his mom grabbing an ill-defined aquatic animal around the middle and slamming it, sizzling, into the ground behind her to realize Guppy had stopped talking.
"Do you wanna see something cool?" Guppy asked, turning around to grab something that had been hidden behind him. When the seawing turned around he practically shoved a small shelled animal into Ember's face. "This is Flippy." Guppy handed the animal over to Ember without hesitation. "He's a sea turtle."
Ember looked into the eyes of the turtle he was now holding. The turtle stared back as it extended its neck, opened its mouth, and latched onto his nose.
"So cute." Ember said quietly, Flippy was probably the most adorable animal he'd ever seen.
"Hey, you wanna get something to eat? I know how to sneak into the kitchens." Guppy asked. It took almost all of Ember's will power to look away from Flippy and nod his head.