Humans were continually surprising to Tikki. Adrien's honor for his family, country and princess was something Tikki hadn't seen outside of her own pride. Adrien and Marinette's ability to quickly learn how to fly bareback on a dragon was an amazing feat. But what was even more astounding was Marinette seemed to know more about the Valley than Tikki did.
According to Marinette's books, there was an ancient race of dragon Tikki came from that was known as the Grand Dragons. They were proud race of dragon that refused to learn the human language, instead attacking the starting civilizations. Some were domesticated, and later breed with various dragons to breed Tikki's kind, so Marinette had explained.
Based on the size of the tunnel they walked through, Tikki would believe anything at this point. But why would they have died out if they could have stayed in the valley?
"Isn't this amazing Tikki? Imagine, hundreds of years ago, grand dragons walking where we are right now!" Marinette giggled as she held out a torch in front of her, guiding their way through the old tunnels.
As they had figured out, the cave where Tikki's pride slept use to be an opening to the grand dragons caves, the females daring to walk further into the cave.
Tikki hoped Adrien's training with Plagg would be alright.
"Marinette?"
"Hmm?"
"How are you feeling? With everything going on?"
"A little nervous, but also a little invigorated. Rather than running, this time I'm facing my problem head on, and now I have friends to help me."
"I meant regarding Adrien."
Marinette stopped her walking, the torch dropping a little before she began marching again.
"I really do care for Adrien, which is why I want to help him. I'll probably always care for him, but if he wants to keep me a knight's length away, then I'm not going to fault him for it. I probably just misread the situation."
Tikki sighed, knowing after Adrien's talk with Plagg, he planned to make things right with Marinette. He was going to give her time so that maybe he could convince her to come home and they resume things from there. This new development with Theo just sped things up a little.
But Tikki couldn't tell Marinette all that. No, this had to be resolved between Marinette and Adrien, Tikki had already meddled enough by telling them to take a break. At least Plagg supported her idea, but then again, he probably was just tired of hearing Marinette talking about Adrien, and maybe he was able to sleep through her crying better. Who knew with that dragon.
Tikki felt her front hit something, looking down to see Marinette frozen in place, staring ahead at something. Tikki looked ahead to see before them a ginormous dragon, the size of which Tikki had never seen before, laying still in dark cave. Marinette brought the torch forward a little to see the dragon was completely covered in stone.
"We must be close to the moonstones then," murmured Marinette as she cautiously moved around the dragon, Tikki following her as stealthy as she could. Tikki gulped as she eyed the dragon's stone teeth peeking from is stone curled lips. The dragon could probably swallow her hole, even if Tikki spread her wings to prevent it.
"If there's a stone grand dragon here, how do we know we are close?"
"According to legends, when your kind of dragon became popular, grand dragons disappeared, the human language expanding to all races of dragons, except the grand dragons. I guess since they couldn't really talk to anyone but the elder dragons, they stayed in their caves with the moonstones, until they lost their light."
"But if the moonstones have gone out, how will we find them?"
Marinette placed a finger to her lips as they passed another stone dragon, who had been trying to walk towards the exit before it got turned to stone. Why Marinette felt the need to remind them to keep quiet in cave of stone dragons was beyond Tikki's reasoning.
"Even if they don't have their glow, moonstones have a very defining feature," Marinette whispered as they turned into a room filled with stone dragons.
"If only there was a way to move them back out into the moonlight," lamented Tikki as Marinette touched one of the stone beasts.
"It's been years since they were out in the moon, I don't know if a night in the moonlight would be enough," commented Marinette. Marinette led them to the edge of the cave, where several rocks lined the wall. Marinette placed the torch into the dirt, snuffing out the flames. The cave was pitch black, Tikki able to feel a small hand against her.
She heard a tap of wood against a rock. Then another. Marinette's hand shifted as she proceeded to tap rocks with their torch, Tikki following her direction.
She then heard instead of a tap, a dull hum.
"Found one."
Tikki could feel the small hand let go, then the humming began again, the sound of dirt being crushed as Marinette moved the rock.
"Torch," Marinette requested, tapping the wood against Tikki's chest.
Tikki took the branch in her claws and breathed her fire around the wood, lighting up their find.
The rock between them was a pasty gray, with circle indents.
"So that's what they look like," said Marinette as she looked down at their find.
"Why did we need the fire out when we just needed to listen for the sound?"
"My instructors told me that was how it was done. Whether it was to avoid dragons or not, I don't know."
Tikki sighed, humans always over complicated things, "let's find some more moonstones then?"
Marinette nodded, as she began looking around the cavern.
"Hopefully some are smaller than this."
Tikki nodded in agreement. If their plan was to work, they would definitely be needing smaller moonstones.
Battle is coming next, which may take a bit longer to write due to battle strategizing and the weekend ahead. On the plus side, maybe I'll finally have time to work on the cover art. Maybe.
