Echos of reality

Uhar sat beneath the table, as still as a rock. He had lots of practice pretending to be a rock, it was the only way to navigate the deep cavern properly. And the deep cavern was where the river was, so every Kiaen had a lot of practice being a rock. 

So reminding himself of his heritage through being a rock was a very good way to overhear exactly what he needed. 

Apparently though, it was common knowledge, he just never talked to the right dragons and he didn’t know what to ask. Though the sheer amount of secrets he could find out by simply sitting underneath Tsunami’s desk was astonishing.

Today, Tsunami was tired, which made sense. Everyone was tired today. She was talking with the SeaWing general that Uhar had gotten that useless scroll from. He worked as her almost right talon dragon and spent a lot of time in the library worrying about things. Uhar was pretty sure his name was Foam, but at this point it was too late to ask. 

Foam was also tired, a fairly common occurrence since apparently the deadline for their invasion was coming up. After a long discussion about MudWings for some reason, the two SeaWings finally got to the juicy bits. 

“Have you talked to him yet?” who?

“Yes.” Was the reply from Tsunami. Alright, apparently she’d talked to someone. Cool. 

“And uh… what do you think about the situation?” 

Tsunami sighed, “he’s been an immense help, we can’t just leave him there, but we don’t have any real procedures for spies who make it back.” 

“Then make some procedures.”

“What if he’s under the eye?”

“Do you really believe that?” 

Tsunami was silent, “I’ll give it until he heals, alright? I’ll figure it out after that.” 

That seemed to sate Foam, “alright, has he asked for anything?”

 “Just scrolls, he seems fine with waiting.” 

“I can get those to him, focus on the invasion.”

Ah, sweet, in order to intercept that, Uhar just had to be in the library when Foam retrieved the scrolls for the mystery dragon and offer to help him transport them, it was perfect.

“Alright, I’ll get right on that, I don't want him getting bored.” Foam left. 

Tsunami didn’t.

Ack. 

Uhar couldn’t exit the desk until no one was watching. Crap. he hadn’t thought this through very well. Uhar continued to sit under the desk, curled up and as still as a rock, his muscles began to ache. No. bad. No aching. 

By the time Uhar did get to the library, Foam was long gone. 

New plan. He was probably in the infirmary, right? Tsunami had mentioned healing. Uhar just had to find someone in the infirmary with a lot of scrolls. That sounded easy, right? 

So Uhar made his way to the infirmary, it was a clean building with happy paintings on the walls with bright colors and smooth transitions. There were a lot of rooms and some of the lobbies were filled with doctors bandaging up minor injuries.

Uhar went about searching every room, sickbed, and closet until he got kicked out by an annoyed RainWing doctor. 

And apparently doctors didn’t like random tiny cave dwellers bothering their patients? After thinking about it though, it seemed to make sense, dragons tended to be irritable when they were wounded and he might’ve just made it worse. 

As an angry RainWing dragged him away, Uhar caught a glimpse of two large MudWings standing outside one of the rooms. Huh. Perhaps that was important. If they were worried about him being mind controlled they might’ve put guards on him. 

After that, Uhar let the doctor forcefully lead him from the premises. Though he finally had a workable plan, and it heavily involved that door… 

---

Speedless

A SeaWing that Turtle didn’t recognise came in a few hours after Tsunami, he was a light blue-green that Turtle hadn’t seen on very many SeaWings, and his horns were more curved than Turtle’s, but besides that, he looked remarkably similar to Gulf. 

“Turtle, right?” the SeaWing asked, flashing his scales as he spoke. 

Turtle nodded, “and you are?” 

He smiled, “your brother, Foam!” 

Turtle blinked as a grin spread over his face, “ah, more brothers, perfect.” 

Foam nodded, “and I come with scrolls!” He stepped aside to reveal a cart packed neatly with scrolls. Turtle grinned as his brother rolled the cart over to him, explaining the types of scrolls therein as well as the filing system he’d used to pack them. 

It was very obvious the more Turtle watched him that Foam was born to be some type of librarian or paperwork specialist. He took such joy in the few sentences he used, and that showed just how much he cared about the proper organization and filing systems of everything. In fact, Turtle suspected that Foam was the main dragon in charge of all matters of paperwork for the rebellion, and he took great pride in it too. 

Finally, a relative that Turtle could relate to.

He eagerly took the scroll cart, grinning as Foam brought several ‘intriguing’ scrolls to Turtle’s attention. After several minutes of hyping Turtle up about the scrolls, Foam bade him farewell and exited the room. 

After that, Turtle got several hours of good reading done as the light from his small window diminished. He would have asked the MudWing guards for a torch or something so he could keep reading, but he could barely keep his eyes open as it was. 

So Turtle curled up on the sickbed and let sleep take him. 

---

It’s a strange thing to describe how Turtle woke up, mostly it was the sound of breaking glass, a subsequent thump, and then yells from his guards as the intruder blinked at them with confusion. 

It was even stranger to describe the intruder. He was absolutely miniscule, as if he’d never finished growing, but he was perfectly proportional. So uh… weird. 

After he woke Turtle up and alerted the guards to his presence, the strange dragon ducked underneath Turtle’s bed and watched the guards with a contemplative expression as they looked between the intruder and Turtle several times. 

Turtle wasn’t sure what was happening, he was still too tired to process the strange dragon, let alone the fact that apparently the guards wanted him to explain. 

“Wha-?” was his only feasible answer. 

If the above paragraphs make no sense to the reader, I apologize. They make no sense to Turtle either so this is the narrator kindly showing you that Turtle would still rather be asleep right now. 

“Isn’t that the weird cave dragon that hangs out around the survivor?” one of the MudWings whispered loudly. 

The other MudWing blinked, crouching down to examine the intruder, “wow, you’re right, do you think he finally heard about her curse?” 

“Moss. don’t talk about the curse. Don’t you remember what happened to Moor?” 

The other MudWing shut up, still squinting down at the intruder, “uh… Mr cave dragon, can you please explain why you’re underneath this bed?”

Turtle blinked a few times and finally rose to his feet, wings spread majestically. “What the heck is happening?” 

“Uh.” Moss scratched his head, “I dunno, ask the cave dragon that.” 

The tiny dragon in question slowly extricated himself from under the bed. “I was bored.”

Turtle furrowed his brow, “you were bored, so you broke through a window?”

He shrugged, “yeah.” 

After that it was mostly just awkward silence. 

------------------
Every vote gives Uhar something more interesting to do!!