Escaping Peril and Dragonslayer spoilers.
"Sky, I really don't think making a snail farm is particularly practical," Wren said, not for the first time.
"They're adorable," Sky retorted, glancing back at her as he flew. "Who wouldn't want a snail farm?"
"You know you usually eat things you grow on a farm, right?"
"Fine. A zoo then," Sky said. "We could gather up a bunch of them and let them live in one of those little glass box things. Leaf and Ivy could take care of them while we're gone."
Wren shook her head. "Snails are tiny, Sky, especially for you. How would you even pick one up?"
"That'll be your job."
"Sky." Wren gave his shoulder a good-natured slap. Sky swerved in the air, making her grab on to his spines.
As Sky straightened again, something caught his attention towards the south.
"Do you see that?" he asked, slowing his flight until he was hovering. "By that mountain over there."
Wren followed his gaze, realizing the mountain he meant. It was tall, splitting into two peaks at its top like a snake's fangs. A number of small flying shapes circled around its summits. Wren was too far away to make them out, but they were too big to be even the largest birds.
"That's a lot of dragons," she observed. She had only ever seen that many around the desert palace and the dragon city by the river. "Maybe it's a mountain dragon trading post?"
"I see dragons of all colors," Sky said, staring out at the distant mountain. "Green, yellow, orange... even a couple white ones. Oooh, is that one purple? I've never seen a purple dragon! I wonder where it comes from?"
Wren leaned forward on Sky's back, squinting at the distant shapes. She envied Sky's vision; she could only see that some dragons were slightly lighter or darker than others.
"Wait, I think there's a black one," Sky said, keeping up with his commentary. "Maybe that's Deathsomething!"
"Murderbasket seemed like the sneaky type," Wren said. Sky was still convinced that she'd gotten the name of the assassin dragon wrong. "I don't think he'd be out in broad daylight."
"Someday we'll find him," Sky vowed. "And we'll find out what his name really is."
"He was fine with Murderbasket," Wren told him again.
Sky snorted, but he was already gazing off at the mountain again.
"You know," he said, "If there's all kinds of dragons there... maybe that golden one Leaf and Ivy saw is there, too."
"Oh." Wren sat up straighter on Sky's back. "Do you see her?"
"No," Sky said. "Maybe we should get closer."
Wren tensed, remembering Sandstorm. What if the dragons at the mountain wanted to collect Sky, too?
But then again, they hadn't had any luck in finding the golden dragon by wandering around the wilds of Pyrrhia. They had been trying for months now, with Ivy and Leaf asking around in human villages, without luck. Maybe they would have to search a dragon settlement eventually.
She remembered something she'd overheard while eavesdropping in the dragon city by the river: the shopowner who'd felt sorry for Sky. Clearly all dragons weren't like the SandWing queen.
"All right," she said. "But be careful. And keep an eye out for soldiers."
Sky nodded, flapping closer to the split mountain. Wren leaned forward on Sky's back, eyeing the dragons ahead of them as the colors became distinct. She didn't see anything like armor or weapons as they got closer, which was somewhat encouraging. And they weren't flying in anything like ordered, militaristic patterns. Every dragon was doing its own thing. Some were circling above the forests, looking down for prey. Others were chasing each other through the sky, twisting and wheeling. As Sky hovered by a neighboring summit, Wren saw a multicolored trio of dragons burst out of a cave mouth and fly at top speed towards a lake, taunting each other as they raced. Nearby, one swamp dragon tackled another in midair. The two plummeted for a few seconds, then split apart again and the smaller began chasing the larger. It reminded her of how she and Sky would wrestle with each other, in that span of time when they were around the same size.
"These are dragonets," she realized. "What are they all doing here?" So many kinds of dragons, who'd been at war with one another not long ago... why were the dragon parents sending their children here?
"I don't see any golden ones," Sky said. "Wait, is that..."
He drifted a little closer, squinting at a pair of brightly-colored dragons who looked like they were playing keep-away. One of them was a bright yellow, but as he was tackled from behind, his scales flashed a vivid orange, and then...
"Did he just disappear?" Wren said, staring at the dragon who'd grabbed him. From the way Sky's wings missed a beat, she knew he had seen it, too. As Sky regained his balance, the vanished dragon rematerialized, now shot through with purple, and shrieked in his former assailant's ear. The dragon's wings turned a grass-green color as she jumped and spun on her partner.
"OH!" Sky shouted. "They're rainforest dragons! The ones that change color, that Ivy told us about! That's sooooo great! I want to do that!"
"Well how would I recognize you, then?" Wren joked, nudging Sky's shoulder. "The first time you turned pink, I would think you were a completely different dragon."
"Maybe that's why we can't find the golden dragon," Sky said. "Maybe she's not always gold. Maybe she's blue or green or white sometimes."
"Leaf said she looked like a sand dragon, though," Wren said. "Like the shape of her nose and everything. I can't tell from here, can you?"
"Hmm," Sky said. "No, I don't think so. The horns look different. And they have spikes down their back, not a fin. Still, she might be somewhere else there."
"Or some other dragon of her kind," Wren said.
A sea dragon's gaze turned towards them. Wren crouched down against Sky's back, trying to avoid notice. A mountain dragon, even one as unusual-looking as Sky, might be overlooked. But a dragon with a human on his back would definitely attract attention.
But the blue dragon turned away without a second glance, and flew off towards the lake. Sky sidled off a bit, putting a few more wingbeats between him and the mountain.
"I could sneak in at night," Wren mused, straightening again and looking at the mountain. "Poke around the caves while they're all asleep, see if any of them are gold."
"If you do see Murderbasket," Sky told her, "tell him I want to make sure what his name is."
Wren heaved a dramatic sigh as Sky turned away from the mountain. But a few wingbeats later he gave a sudden start, catching sight of a dragon on the mountain below them. He'd somehow missed her before but now she was plain as day, standing on a scree slope just below the mountain peak.
The dragon studied Sky, and his nerves spiked. Did she look mad? Had he accidentally trespassed on her territory or something?
But the orange dragon just seemed to shrug and looked away again, pacing across the loose earth and scanning for something on the mountainside below.
Sky relaxed. He'd probably just surprised her as much as she'd surprised him. He had flown in from the opposite side of the mountain, after all. He must've just not noticed her.
"You know," Sky said, lowering his voice as he glanced back at the dragon mountain. "Maybe we could just ask. See if dragons know one with gold scales. We've been asking humans about her, but to most of them a dragon is a dragon and they all go 'aaaahhhh' and hide when they see one."
Wren shifted on his back. "We could," she said, clearly hesitant. "They don't look like soldiers back there..."
Sky remembered Sandstorm, too. He would admit the presence of so many dragons there made him a little nervous. Who knew if one of them would try to sell him to the SandWing queen again?
"Or, she's alone," Sky said, nodding to the dragon beneath them. "I could ask her. If she turns out to be a bad guy, I can run away from one dragon easier than a bunch of them."
He felt Wren lean forward on his back, looking down at the shimmery orange dragon beneath them. She was sniffing at a patch of dirt, uninterested in the two above her.
"Okay," Wren said. "But I'll be right there with my sword ready in case you need me."
So I'm trying something new here. Usually when I write something, I wait until I have it completely finished before I start posting it, because motivation is hard and I don't want to leave readers hanging. I have plenty of fics I've started but never completed. But I'm curious about whether posting chapters as I write them will help me stick with something long enough to actually finish it. This story is my experiment for that. I make no promises about an update schedule here.