CHAPTER 5

Twilight really needed to get out of the mountain, now. She stomped over to Snowblade, who was chatting with Rainbow about different scrolls that he'd read in the Blizzard Kingdom.

"-And then Imperial turned red and then Oracle and Perception followed suit, isn't that weird?" he said. Twilight grabbed his tail and started to drag him to the entrance of the mountain, offering no explanation when he asked.

Once they were outside, she finally spoke to Snowblade. "We need to get out of here, that meeting you were forced to attend was very much about the PearlWings, your father intends to use The Gianim to lock all the PearlWings away in the mountain," she explained.

Snowblade tilted his head. "But... my father thinks you're nice, he told me so," he said.

Twilight stopped walking, turned around and saw Snowblade scrambling to his feet, she considered what he said, and considered the way he spoke about the PearlWings. "He either lied to you, or thinks I am irrelevant to his plan," she explained. Why did he shiver? BlizzardWings can withstand the coldest temperatures without even a flinch. Why did King Frost shiver? Shivering only happens when you're cold... Why did he shiver?

Twilight considered her travel options, she could make for the Horn Hills and hide there, she could try to hide in an unoccupied Blizzard Kingdom home, or she could fly to Viper and go from there. She'd have to ask Snowblade what option he'd prefer... wait... no, he would think that seeking refuge in the Blizzard palace is a good idea. Come to think of it, they would probably search the Horn Hills first, they'd have more time if they went to Viper, maybe if they explained themselves to Cactus, he'd allow them to stay in Viper instead of kicking them out, hopefully.

When Snowblade finally got onto his feet, Twilight asked: "We're going to Viper, have you been there before?"

Snowblade looked confused. "Viper? Why? Where's that?" he asked.

Twilight sighed. "Neither of our homes are safe anymore, maybe Cactus will take us in if we ask nicely, if not, we'll have to go somewhere else," she explained.

Snowblade opened his mouth to speak, but all he did was shrug. "Yeah, I guess you're right, you usually are, which is annoying, I'll tell you one thing, you'll never let my father get you, in the end, we will be the winners," he said.

They're going to use The Gianim on the PearlWing mountain, I'll have to do a little more research on it, a dragonets scroll won't do it, I'm going to need specifics. All I'm going to need is a piece of empty scroll and a little animus magic.

"We certainly will be winning in the end, Snowblade," she said before taking flight north to the Desert Kingdom and to Viper.

It wouldn't be far, the other PearlWings would be OK, they still have Howlite, Quartz and Moonstone to help them, they'll be fine, not far to Viper, not far until safety from the BlizzardWings.

As they were flying, it felt slower than normal, as if time had slowed down the entire world. It felt like an entire day had passed when they finally reached Viper when only hours had passed.

Landing on the ground, Twilight was exhausted, she needed sleep, not now though, now was the time to find shelter from the sun.

"What now?" Snowblade asked. Twilight looked at him, it took a moment to process what he asked.

"Now, we get out of the sun, we find shelter, hopefully there's going to be an empty home somewhere around here," Twilight answered.

As they walked in through the gates, there were no guards, strange, they saw many occupied homes, they saw vendors selling different foods: coconuts, bananas, cactus and lots of other things that Twilight did not recognize, when she looked closer at the coconut stand, she saw that the customer and vendor were arguing with each other.

"Do you have sapphires to spend?!" the vendor exclaimed.

The customer looked at his talons. "No..." he mumbled.

"Then good day, Marrow!" the vendor said.

"But, please sir, my family is hungry!" Marrow cried.

"No sapphires, no coconuts!" the vendor said.

"OK..." Marrow mumbled, lowering his head and walking away, when Twilight looked closer at him, his scales were paler than all the other DesertWings, nearly as pale as bone, he had a scar on his lip where a tooth stuck out, and he wore a brown pouch around his neck.

The vendor looked exasperated; he placed his forehead on the stall, clearly this "Marrow" was a frequent beggar.

Twilight cautiously walked over to the vendor; no dragon should go hungry just because they didn't have sufficient sapphires.

The vendor saw Twilight coming, there was a mix between confusion and relief on his face, as he tried to correct it, Twilight greeted him.

"What business does a PearlWing have in the Desert Kingdom, let alone just a town?" the vendor asked.

"Part of the PearlWing government, and what's it to you?" Twilight retaliated.

"Oh, right, government," the vendor muttered. "How many coconuts would you like?"

"How many was that beggar trying to get?" Twilight asked.

The vendor scoffed. "The notorious Marrow, every day is the same amount, twelve coconuts, why?" he asked.

"I'd like to purchase twenty-four coconuts please," Twilight said, the vendor recoiled with surprise.

"Twenty-four? Really? Are you sure?" the vendor asked.

"Sure as I'm a dragon," Twilight said.

The vendor hesitated, but he got twenty-four coconuts down. "Forty-eight sapphires please."

Twilight reached into the pouch that she always wore at took out forty-eight sapphires and handed them to the vendor, being handed the twenty-four coconuts in return and walking back to Snowblade.

"How many coconuts is that?" Snowblade asked, nodding to the large pile of coconuts in Twilight's wings.

"You take half, I'll take the other half," Twilight said, handing him twelve of the coconuts. "Now we need to find Marrow or his home."

As they explored, they asked DesertWings if they knew where Marrow was, there were a lot of different answers, one even got them a basket for the coconuts, until one finally led them to a building that looked abandoned.

"When you can't afford a polished home, this is the only place you can get, this is where we live," the DesertWing commented, squeezing inside through a window.

"Huh, not what I was expecting..." Snowblade said. "Should we just put the basket down, take two for ourselves and leave?"

"Don't be silly, we'll have a polite talk with Marrow and then leave, as well as giving them twenty coconuts," Twilight replied. "But just in case, leave four coconuts outside." She pointed to a small corner to hide them in.

When they squeezed into the same spot that the DesertWing squeezed into, they were met with ten different DesertWings crowded around a small fire in the dark.

"Hello..." Twilight said. Some of the DesertWings waved at her and Snowblade, including Marrow. "Are you all Marrow's family?" To her shock, the DesertWing who had shown them where to find this place let out a small chuckle.

"More of a chosen family, none of us are actually related, except for myself and my brother Marrow, we found each other and we're taking care of one another, pleased to meet you, I'm Sandy, who are you and why are you looking for my brother?" she said.

"I- uhm, I saw him arguing with the coconut vendor today, and I thought that he'd like some coconuts," Twilight answered, all the DesertWings heads turned to her with hopeful eyes, except for Sandy, who looked skeptical.

"Coconuts?" Marrow asked.

Snowblade set down the basket that had been carried by his wing and Marrow cautiously moved to pick it up, carry it back to where he was sitting and start counting the contents of the basket.

"Twenty!" He breathed, looking at his comrades, three of the DesertWings walked over to him, Sandy whirled to stare at him, then at Twilight and Snowblade.

"Why? What do you want for them? Sapphires? We don't have any," she asked.

"Just a question that needs answering, where would we go to purchase a living space?" Twilight asked.

Sandy considered the question for a moment. "You'd want to go over to Cactus, he's on the other side of Viper, now, who are you?" Sandy asked.

Snowblade chimed in with an answer this time. "I am Prince Snowblade of the BlizzardWings," he pointed to himself, then to Twilight. "This is Twilight of the PearlWings, we bid you farewell."

As Twilight was shoving herself through the hole in the window, she heard Sandy ask Marrow: "Twenty, you say?"

Twilight starting on her journey with Snowblade to the leader of Viper, there were not many obstacles, just confused DesertWings wondering why a PearlWing and BlizzardWing royalty were walking together in a DesertWing town, eventually, they found Cactus talking with a civilian about territory. What in the world did that civilian ask Cactus to get spoken to about territory?

"-We both know that Queen Rattlesnake would never allow that, I'm already walking on hot coals just by running Viper in the first place, it's not in the cards to expand yet, maybe sometime in the future King Sandstone can pull some strings," Cactus explained.

"Ah, well, thank you for your time, Cactus, goodbye," the civilian said.

"No problem, have a good day," Cactus said.

Twilight walked towards Cactus; only then did he notice them. "Ah! A line... that's new," he said.

"Hello, Cactus, uhm, I was wondering if it was possible to purchase a living space for two..." she said. "Temporarily, of course, we wouldn't be staying long."

Cactus looked confused. "Two? Where's your friend then?" he asked. Twilight looked behind her, she could only just make out Snowblade peeking out from behind an alley, she gestured for him to come over and join the conversation.

Cactus had a slow realization. "It's just a rumor at this point, but I heard that there was a price on your head Twilight," he explained.

Twilight stared at him. "You won't turn us in, right?" she asked.

Cactus appeared to be amused by this. "HA! No, not my style, Viper is a friend to any dragon, criminal or innocent, any particular requests as to the placement?" he asked.

"No, just looking for a place to stay, are there any available?" Twilight asked.

"Of course, there is, follow me," he said, walking to his right.

Twilight and Snowblade followed Cactus until he stopped in front of an empty building. "Fifty sapphires per month, I'll come by in the morning to collect it, I hope it's to your liking," he explained, walking away.

Snowblade was the first to walk inside, he did so happily, Twilight followed him in.

The first thing she caught Snowblade doing was him fidgeting with a spoon at the counter. "What are you doing, Snowblade?" Twilight asked.

"This is a cool spoon, come see it!" Snowblade gestured for her to inspect the spoon with him.

"No thank you, there are actually important things that I should be doing instead of fidgeting with a DesertWing spoon, such as research The Gianim," Twilight said.

"The Gianim? Didn't you just read the scroll?" Snowblade asked as Twilight sorted through her pouch and slowly counted out fifty sapphires.

"I need more information than a dragonets scroll, I need to find out if there's a loophole in the spell that was casted on it," Twilight explained.

"Welll... Do you need anything?" Snowblade asked.

"Just an empty scroll is fine, thanks," Twilight suggested as he rushed to find an empty scroll for her.

"I've seen DesertWing spoons before, that wasn't a normal DesertWing spoon, it's probably special or something," Snowblade called from upstairs. "Oh! Here's one!"

Snowblade triumphantly gave Twilight the empty scroll. "An empty scroll for her majesty," he said, chuckling to himself. Twilight rolled her eyes.

"Magic time, better stand back Snowblade," she said, triggering another chuckle from him.

Scroll, I command you to tell me the spell that was placed on The Gianim, the exact wording used.

The spell worked; the scroll began writing. But... that's not right... it's just two words.