Something I'm just now remembering I forgot to mention in the prologue is that Flame took a vacation from his job at the Healing Center because of everything coming up. They don't just have an unlimited stash of money, I swear haha.

Umber walked down the hill, down to the nearest path that led to the tea place, which made it so that he had to detour from where they were coming down before. This part of the hill was a lot steeper than the other part which made it a little harder to walk down. He contemplated just gliding down, but stopped himself right before, even though he was afraid he might fall.

"So, what are we doing next?" Flame asked, slowly treading his way down the hill.

"You'll see once we get there," Umber said.

"You're really gonna make me wait?" Flame complained. "C'mon, just a hint."

"Fine, it's something I used to make a lot back at the Healing Center," Umber admitted. "It's also something I used to run into you a lot looking for."

Hopefully, that's enough of a hint, Umber thought. If he doesn't, I think I'll have to question our relationship. This was more of a joke than it was serious though; it would raise some questions about how he didn't figure it out.

He looked over at Flame as he thought intently, probably going back and thinking of everything they had gone through together and picking out the ones that would fit best. It didn't take long before he figured out that it was some sort of tea place though, which relieved Umber knowing that he didn't forget.

"Uhm…is it…wait! Is it tea?" Flame figured out.

"Bingo," Umber confirmed. "A new one just opened up around here and I want to go and check it out, so hopefully it's good. I asked around and all of the other dragons said that it was good, so pray to the moons they're right."

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Flame said. "It can't possibly be worse than the markets around here."

That was the last thing he needed to think about though; it only began raising more worries.

What if the tea place is worse though? A lot of dragons like the food around here! Umber worried. What if the dragons I asked just have different tastes and we won't like it? What if they were lying about it? What if everything is too expensive and that's why everyone likes it? What if this, what if that, were the only questions going through his head, raising millions more with every scenario.

As they walked down the hill, his mind slowly started steering away from those thoughts and began daydreaming about everything ahead of them — their future after today especially. He was hoping that once today was over, they would get closer; that was if it was possible for Flame to love him even more. He worried his heart might explode if he did.

They were finally nearing the bottom of the hill, but Umber had one thing he wanted to do before they got onto flat ground, and that was to trip Flame for that mud muffin comment earlier. He didn't want to actually hurt him though so that's why it had to be done near the bottom.

He stuck his front left leg to the side, causing Flame to yelp, which was soon interrupted by a thump against the grass. He rolled down the hill for a couple of seconds before coming to a stop, seemingly uninjured. He looked a little angry, but Umber knew he'd get over it in a couple of minutes. Looking at Flame like this though made him laugh uncontrollably.

"What was that for?!" Flame asked with a growl, looking up from the bottom of the hill. Umber didn't stop laughing to answer him though and he had a feeling he already knew why he did it. "Ohhh, very funny, MudWing."

He walked down the hill next to Flame, who was brushing the dirt off of his chest once again — Umber was still laughing of course though.

"D-Don't sweat it, Flame," Umber laughed, patting Flame on the back in a mocking way. He swore he could feel tears form in his eyes. "Every dragon has to take their losses from time to time."

"Whatever," Flame scoffed. "Just know that I'll get you back for that."

"Oooh, shiver me timbers," Umber said sarcastically.

As he calmed down, he continued walking through the small grassy field at the bottom of the hill. There was enough room for trees to grow, which made for a beautiful walk. The leaves were bright green — they almost looked like a RainWing dragonet's scales that got lost somewhere in the Sky Kingdom, except they were a little darker than the usual lime green on their scales.

There are a lot more birds around today, he thought. He suspected it was because it was later in the day now though, which is when they usually came out around here.

They finally made it to the path after a couple of minutes of walking. This path was less populated than usual, which made it easier to walk on without having to bump into other dragons occasionally — the paths weren't exactly wide.

While they were walking, he once again found himself thinking of everything they would do today. He was getting tired of thinking about it though, so he channeled his energy into thinking about what he would order once they were at the tea shop.

Whenever he got tea, he usually got lemongrass with one sugar packet, and a pinch of turmeric, which added a bit of sweetened, earthy flavor to it. This time though, he was going to order something different; something he's been looking to try for a while now. He was going to order matcha tea with almond milk and a few pumps of vanilla. Matcha wasn't something that was sold at the other tea place which made him especially excited to go to this place.

Umber knew that Flame was probably going to order either a sweet tea or a chamomile tea with a few sugar packets. It was the first herbal tea he ever tried — to Umber's knowledge — and the only herbal tea he's ever ordered.

I wish he would just try a different tea, he thought. If I ordered for him, I'm sure he'd like it! He never did let him order for him though, so it didn't matter.

He always assumed it was because he was just stubborn. He seemed to get annoyed every time Umber asked though, so he stopped trying after a while and let him keep getting his sweet tea.

They walked for a while in silence, Umber began to smell the tea shop ahead. The aroma was earthy and sweet, and he could make out a hint of flowers in it. This was one of the things he liked about going to any tea shop. Of course, Flame couldn't smell anything yet because he didn't have nearly as good of a nose as he did.

As they neared the shop, he could see it in the distance. There was a big sign that read "Dragon's Breath Tea House". The first time he saw this, he was able to read it in only a couple of seconds because these were all extremely familiar words.

"There it is," Umber pointed his talon ahead to a shop on the side of the path.

"That's fancy," Flame observed. "Is it expensive?"

"Don't worry about how much it costs," Umber said. "I already did the math and we can afford it."

"A MudWing doing math? That's new," Flame joked.

"Oh, shut up Flame," Umber laughed, lightly hitting his shoulder. "You know I can do math!"

"Well, MudWings never need to do math anyways," Flame said. "They don't even need to count how much is on their plate."

He looked over at Flame's face and could see a massive smile forming across it. It looked like a thousand different rays of sunlight all gathering into one and he felt a surge of excitement and happiness run through his body, and he swore he could feel his heart skip a beat. He thought that he had to be the most handsome dragon in Pyrrhia — well, second if you included Qibli, but that was hardly fair so he ignored that part.

As they got to the door, Umber looked inside and could see that the place was packed, especially for a place that had just opened hardly two weeks ago. He's walked past this place a few times but has never gone in because he wanted everything to be a surprise for both of them.

The floors were made of shiny wooden planks, and there were windows all over the walls so that you could see outside, and medium-sized shiny round tables scattered all over the place. The tables that were empty — which weren't many — already had a menu on them, along with a tea cup, a bell, and a few tea coasters that had different designs and writing on each. The place wasn't that big either, only having around fifteen tables for different dragons to sit, each having two seats on either side.

They walked in through the glass doors, and he could immediately feel the cool air against his scales and could already feel the relaxed atmosphere. Umber inhaled deeply, adjusting to the cool air around him

"Hello!" a nearby SkyWing waitress said. "I can get you two a seat right away."

Without saying anything, they both followed the SkyWing waitress to a table near the back to a table by the wall, giving a perfect view of the outside. Just like all of the other tables, this one had the tea, the coasters, and the menus already set up for them. They both sat down on either side of the table and the waitress walked off, probably giving them both time to order.

Umber already knew what he was going to get though, and Flame only ever chose between two things so they would just be sitting here, talking most of the time.

"Do you think this place has sweet tea?" Flame asked. "I mean, I know it's fancy and all but I don't really want any of that herbal stuff right now."

"Look at the menu," Umber suggested. "I'm sure they have something. If they don't then it looks like I'll have to order for you after all."

"I'll just get that chamotile tea if they don't," Flame said.

"Chamomile," Umber corrected.

"Whatever," Flame said. "I just want to get something I know I'll like since it's our anniversary."

Oh well, I'll eventually get him to order something else, Umber thought. He can't just drink sweet tea and chamomile forever.

He looked out the window and watched the many dragons walk up and down the paths and began daydreaming about him and Flame opening a restaurant; like how he would do it, how they would manage everything, and who they would hire. It was something Flame wanted to do, so it was something he wanted to do as well.

On one talon, they would have to work tirelessly every single day at the start to keep it up, but on the other talon, he would be able to spend all of that time cooking with Flame. Not only that, but they would have enough money to move out of the crappy house they were renting — heck, maybe they would even be able to buy Avalanche a house if it got popular enough.

These were all dreams though and were unlikely to actually happen. Even though Flame was a great cook, he knew that it takes a considerable amount of luck for your restaurant to actually gain any traction in the Sky Kingdom since you'd be competing with hundreds of other equally good restaurants.

"So," Flame said, snapping Umber back to reality. "What do you have planned next, MudWing?"

"After this?" Umber questioned — though, it wasn't really a question more than it was confirming. "I have one more big surprise after this but I think we'll have to wait a while if we leave too early."

"Well, then how about we take our time here?" Flame suggested. "This place is nice."

"I don't want to be late though," Umber admitted. "I don't know exactly when we have to be there, but I know it's later today."

"Oh, stop your worrying," Flame urged. "Keep it up and I'll give you a reason to be worried later."

Umber didn't know exactly what this meant, but he had a few ideas. Regardless, this wasn't going to stop him from worrying. If it worked like that then It'd be a miracle that he and Flame even met in the first place. He knew that he was just trying to calm him down though, so he just acted like it had worked.

He sat there for a few minutes, scraping his talons through the ridges in the table while he waited for the waitress to come back so that he could tell her what he already knew he wanted. His wish was granted when he heard talons stop at his table, to which he quickly looked up with contentment.

"Are you two ready to order?" the waitress said in a welcoming and friendly voice. It seemed a little forced though, but Umber assumed she had to talk like this to everyone.

Something he quickly noticed is that she was holding a small notepad in one talon, along with a black pen in the other. He didn't pay any attention to this though since he already knew what she was going to do with it.

"Oh- yes, we're ready," Umber said. "I'll just get a matcha with some almond milk and two pumps of vanilla." He watched her write down a few things on the notepad she was holding; probably what he had just said. "What do you want, Flame?"

"I- uh, I'll just get a sweet tea if you have that," Flame said, stuttering over a few words.

"Anything else?" the waitress confirmed.

"No thank you," Umber said.

She gave a nod and then slowly walked over to the other side of the room where two dragons were sitting down, and took their orders before scurrying off into the kitchen to give it to the workers.

"The master of tea is mixing it up I see," Flame joked.

"Well, this place has matcha which isn't something the last place had so I wanted to try it," Umber explained. "I've heard that it's pretty good." He intentionally tried to talk it up in hopes that Flame would change his mind about the sweet tea.

"Well, you can enjoy your ground up grass while I enjoy my sweet tea," Flame said wryly.

"They're leaves actually," Umber said. "not grass."

Umber went back to looking out of the window and once again felt his mind wander to daydreams; he began thinking about how their dinner would go and whether or not Flame would freak out about the prices of everything, where he would tell him that everything was free and he would order whatever he wanted.

I wonder what he'll do when he figures out that Avalanche was the whole reason we could go to a restaurant in the first place, Umber thought. He's definitely going to want to thank her tomorrow or something.

As he was deep in thought, he heard talons clacking against the floor and the familiar clinging of a kettle, to which he turned around and was immediately smacked in the face with the fresh smell of fresh matcha. Now that he could see, he realized that she was actually holding two silver kettles; one full of matcha, and the other full of Flame's sweet tea. He could see the steam fuming from the tip of them, and his worries and anxiety were immediately whisked away like a feather in the wind.

"Alright, here's your tea," she said, as she poured it into Umber's tea cup until it was just about full. "...and here's yours." She moved onto Flame's, filling it just about the same. "Refills are free until this runs out, then you'll have to order more," she signaled toward the kettle.

"Oh- thank you," Umber said, picking up his cup and putting it to his lips before immediately putting it back down from the heat. "That's hot!" he jumped.

He looked over at Flame, who was about to take a sip of his before quickly setting it down on his coaster after seeing Umber's reaction to it.

"Yeah, our stoves are brand new so they kind of make everything incredibly hot when it's being heated," she laughed nervously.

"Really? How much were the stoves?" Flame questioned curiously.

"I don't know the exact numbers, but I remember that birds kept stealing a bunch of the expensive pipes while this place was being built so they had to cheap out on a lot of them."

"Birds stealing pipes?" Umber questioned as he blew on the tea. "That's odd."

"Yeah, I know, right!" she laughed "I've never seen them do that before!"

Umber looked down at his tea and could see that there was considerably less steam coming off of it than there was before, so he took a sip of it and could tell that it was the perfect temperature to drink right now. It tasted sweet, but a little bitter with a little bit of natural tasting nuttiness mixed into it; he could already tell that this would be the tea place he was going to go to from now on and he quickly took another sip of it, eager to taste the bitter-sweet green mixture again.

"Speaking of birds," the waitress continued. "have you noticed how many more Cranes are out today? I saw-"

Crane… Umber panicked.

She was interrupted by Umber choking on his matcha, spitting it out as a natural reflex. Just hearing the word Crane set him off; regardless if they were talking about the bird, or Crane herself. The tea got all over the table, catching both Flame and the waitress off guard as it flew through the air and landed on the table in little droplets that quickly combined into a few puddles.

His heart began racing at the speed of sound, each thump bringing him further and further into thought as his mind flickered through snippets of Crane laying in the black abyss that was flooded with blood; her throat gushing and her pupils dilated.

"Oh my-" the waitress said over Umber's coughs. "I'll go get some napkins right away!"

He looked over at Flame, who was gazing at him with an obviously concerned look on his face, so he tried to stop coughing as soon as he could but couldn't — coughing is a natural reflex after all. He looked down at the table, focusing on the valleys of the wood as he tried to hide his panicked expression, quickly realigning his face to look relaxed. Obviously Flame picked up on it though, because he ran over to the side of the table.

"Umber?" Flame called out as he rushed over. "Are you okay?" he said as he patted his back.

As his talons patted along his back, Umber felt himself begin to calm down from Flame's gentle touch. It was as if just his talons had the power to soothe the storm that was beginning to rage in him. Like a warm fire on a cold night, his talons gave him instant relief.

"Yeah- cough, I'm fine," Umber reassured as his heart rate began to slow.

The waitress quickly came back with a bunch of napkins, to which Flame took them from her and began wiping the tea off of the table while Umber coughed as much of the tea out of his lungs as he could. He looked around and could see that some of the other dragons in the restaurant had their heads turned and were staring at the scene, which made Umber a little embarrassed at the realization.

"Thank you," Flame said to the waitress.

"Of course! No problem," she said, walking off to take more orders.

That's when Flame stared at him like he knew something was wrong for a good couple of seconds. Judging by everything that's happened so far, he was probably about to pry once again. Even though he was going to tell him about everything tonight he still wanted at least something to go off of now so that he could prepare for it.

He ultimately seemed to realize that Umber had already promised to talk to him about whatever he was going through tonight, so he backed off and went back to his seat.

They sat there awkwardly for a couple of minutes, slowly sipping away at their tea until Umber rang the bell at the table, looking for a refill from his pot.

"So," Flame said, breaking the silence. "you got any hints to give on what you're doing next?"

"Flame, I'm not spoiling another thing for you," Umber said wholeheartedly, pretending like nothing had happened before. "Besides, you'll find out soon enough anyways."

"Aww, come on," Flame whined. "You've gotta give me something. How do you expect me to sit here and actually have to find out by waiting?"

"By sitting there and actually having to find out by waiting, of course,' Umber joked.

That's when he heard talons clacking against the wooden floor behind him. His mind instantly went back to the fact that he had rung the bell — something he had completely forgotten about already.

"Yes?" the SkyWing waitress from before said.

"Oh- could I just get a refill on my tea please?" Umber said.

"Of course! Yours was the matcha, correct?" the waitress asked.

"Mhmm," Umber confirmed.

"Alright, I'll go get that for you right away," the waitress said.

She walked off somewhere in the back of the kitchen for a couple of minutes before coming out with the same silver kettle from before.

He held his teacup out and she carefully poured it in, trying not to spill it. The tea cups weren't exactly easy to pour something into because of their size either, which made Umber a little nervous from the risk of hot matcha being spilled all over his talons.

"Well, let me know if you need anything else," she said enthusiastically before walking away.


As Flame watched Umber drink his disgusting looking grass juice, he began to think about what had happened a few minutes ago. He thought that it was a little strange that he reacted like that, so he went back and replayed the sentence in his head a few times.

"Have you noticed how many more Cranes are out today?" he thought, picking through each word and reflecting them against Umber's past like he was reading a book. That's when he got to the word Crane, and it immediately clicked. Crane! It has something to do with her, but what? I mean, I know he watched her die and all, but there has to be something more to it than that. But what? Why am I even thinking about it though? He said that he was going to tell me tonight.

He felt kind of like a detective as he was putting the pieces together; except detectives don't live in a trashy house and drink tea he knew they couldn't afford with his boyfriend, who constantly gave him things he didn't deserve in a million years.

Regardless, he forced himself to stop thinking about it and instead distracted his mind with something else. Something like how the tea tasted, or the good decorative taste the owner had, or even some of the other dragons' conversations he could overhear. Technically it was eavesdropping, but he didn't really care; anything to keep himself from overthinking it.

Eventually, though, he finished his tea and was no longer in the mood to sit here in silence.

"Umber," Flame grabbed his attention. "How about we go and do something else? We could go back up on that hill if you want and enjoy the view or something while we wait to go to that other place."

"Or we could fly around for a while," Umber said. "I don't want to spend all day on that hill."

"What happened to "no flying"?" Flame questioned.

"Whatever Flame," Umber laughed, "We can fly around for a while until we wait for tonight."

"If you insist, MudWing," Flame said, ringing the bell so that he could pay for their tea.

A few seconds later, the same waitress once again came over. Except this time, she had a few kettles of tea on a tray, assumingly about to give them to dragons at some other table. Looking around, he could see that there were at least a few more dragons than were in here earlier, and seemingly nobody else going around and taking orders.

Don't they have anyone else to come and see us? Flame questioned. This place is new though, but still. They can't just expect one dragon to be able to wait this whole damn place!

"Hello! Do you need another refill for your tea?" she asked.

"No thanks," Flame said. "We're just getting ready to leave."

"Are uh- are you the only one waiting here?" Flame questioned, shifting his wings a bit so they weren't being crushed by the back of the chair.

"There's a couple others, but they didn't show up to work today," the waitress said. "so that leaves me to do everything while they're gone."

"What?! That's crazy!" Flame exclaimed. "How do they expect one dragon to take care of this whole place?!"

"It's not that big of a deal, really," she said enthusiastically, seemingly like she didn't even care that she was being overworked and underpaid. "We all do our part here. I'm just doing mine."

He took another look at her face, trying to find even a little bit of anger showing through her forced personality that she had to put on, but there wasn't. So she was either really good at faking it, or she genuinely didn't care about her mistreatment. That was outrageous though so that couldn't have been the case.

"You know," Umber interjected. "I've been thinking of getting a job recently if you're still hiring."

"I already work though, Umber," Flame pleaded. "You should just be staying at home and-"

"No," Umber said firmly. "It's not fair that you have to work and I don't!"

"Well, we have applications out in the front. You can pick one on the way out if you're really thinking about applying," she paused with a moment of realization. "Oh moons! I should be delivering these right now! I'll go get your bill in a minute here!" She paced toward another table on the other side of the room.

Once Flame was sure that she was gone, he put in his two cents.

"Umber, you're not getting a job here," he said.

"Sure I am!" Umber said. "How's it fair that you have to work and I get to stay home and do nothing all day? Besides, if I got a job then we could move out and get a real place soon! Doesn't that sound great?"

"Yeah, but- you'll have to deal with dragons like that one from yesterday all the time!" Flame pointed out. "I don't want to see you get hurt like that again."

"Flame, I've told you once and I'll tell you again. I'll be fine," Umber said. "Besides, there are at least twenty other dragons in here at all times that I'm sure would protect me if anything did happen."

After a moment of thinking, he realized that this was something Umber wanted to do, and he wasn't going to keep him from doing it all because of his stupid worries. He was, however, going to pick him up from work every day if he could just so that he knew he was safe before he got home.

"Fine," Flame reluctantly agreed. "But on one condition. I get to pick you up from work every day so that I know you're safe."

"Alright," Umber agreed as if it was nothing. "So…do we have a deal then?"

"I guess we do," Flame said.

That's when he heard the door to the back kitchen swing open and watched as the waitress from before came over with a piece of paper in her talons. As she got closer, he recognized it as their bill for everything that they had ordered.

"Alright, your total is eight and a half suns," she said.

Wait, that's not too bad of a price, Flame thought. I thought this place was expensive! Eight suns for two full kettles of amazing tea?

Flame took the rest of the suns he had — which weren't many — and counted them. Luckily, he had just around ten suns left, which was just barely enough to pay for both of their teas. He dropped them on the table to which the waitress scooped them up and retreated back into the kitchen.

They both stood up and walked toward the front door and now Flame could see the application papers right by the door. They were in a beige bin that looked like it had been taken straight out of Starf's office; bland and boring, hiding with the wall behind it like it had just escaped from Queen Ruby's jail.

As they walked out the door, Umber grabbed one of the papers in the bin, folded it up, and stuffed it under his wing.

He could feel the sun against his scales now, reflecting off of them and making them shine like a mirror. He didn't even realize his scales were this shiny, but it definitely had something to do with the bath he had in the river earlier.

Umber then launched himself into the air, spreading his wings and ascending. Flame quickly followed, catching up with him fairly quickly.

Once they were high in the sky, they flew around with no real direction or way, just kind of looking around at the scenery below and enjoying the view of everything in the surrounding area. He had to admit though, that it was much nicer to be sitting on that hill and looking over everything than to be flying since you were constantly moving and couldn't get a good view of everything over the occasional gust of wind that would blow you around a couple feet.

Right now though, he could appreciate everything that was happening. He was right here, right now, with the dragon he loved most, doing one of his favorite things on an extremely special day that he would likely remember for the rest of his long life with Umber.