“I had fourteen,” Waveripple said.
“I only had thirteen,” Indigowings said. He walked over to look at Emeraldeyes's pile of leaves. He was probably making sure that they really were all from different kinds of trees.
“It's starting to get dark again,” Waveripple said. “I'll have to go back to the lake.”
“It's not too dark,” Emeraldeyes said, looking up at the sky.
“Yeah, you should stay a bit longer,” Indigowings agreed. “We still have enough time to play one more short game.”
“Okay,” Waveripple agreed, “but if it starts taking too long, I really will have to go. It's getting dark sooner each day.”
“So what game do you want to do now?” Indigowings asked.
“I don't know,” Waveripple replied. “You're the one who said we could do a short game. Say what games you think are short.”
“Hide and seek is definitely not short,” Indigowings said, thinking. “We could have a short hunting contest. Whoever catches one edible animal first is the winner.”
“Okay. That would be short enough,” Waveripple said.
“Yeah, it's a good game, for one that is short,” Emeraldeyes agreed.
“Get ready, set, go!” Indigowings said, and took off into the air. Emeraldeyes also flew up, but she went in a different direction than the one Indigowings had gone in. Waveripple knew that there were not any ponds or lakes close enough for him to go to and catch something in time to win, so he looked around on the ground for rodents. He still only rarely flew up to look for prey; he preferred to hunt on the ground.
Waveripple saw a meadow vole scurrying around and pounced on it, killing it with one bite.
“I got one!” Waveripple called. At the same time that he said that, he heard Indigowings also saying that he had caught something.
Indigowings and Emeraldeyes flew back to Waveripple. Indigowings was carrying a rabbit. He put it down to say, “Whoa. It's weird that we both caught something at the same time.”
“Yeah, it is,” Waveripple said. After they had eaten the animals they had caught–Indigowings shared the rabbit with Emeraldeyes–he said, “Anyway, I already played another short game, so I'm going back to the lake now. Goodbye.” He started walking back to the lake.
“Bye!” Indigowings and Emeraldeyes said.
When Waveripple arrived at the lake, the sun had just set. Now that the days were shorter, this happened regularly, so his parents were not surprised that he came back this late.
“We already ate dinner when you were gone,” Flowerwater said. “We caught a few extra fish for you in case you did not eat something when you were with your friends.” She motioned to three fish that were stacked up in a small pile.
“Thanks,” Waveripple said. “I already ate a meadow vole, but of course that's not a whole meal.” He ate two of the fish on the pile and left the third one for tomorrow.
Flowerwater looked surprised, probably unable to imagine eating a rodent instead of a fish.
Since it was already dark, Splashsail, Flowerwater, and Waveripple soon settled down by the lake and fell asleep.
~~~
Whiteswirl began spending most of each night in his cavern. He never got tired of being there. It was a paradise to him, not something he could get tired of. It seemed to be a perfect place, where just being there was not boring. It was peaceful.
As the days went past, and summer turned to autumn, Whiteswirl barely noticed any changes. Of course it was colder, but that did not bother an undead dragon such as himself. Dragons were just as easy to catch and kill as they had been in the summer. The only real change was that the nights were now longer. He could spend more time outside without having to worry about being attacked. Of course, he spent most of the time in his cavern anyway, but he enjoyed being out in the forest when all the other dragons were sleeping and there was no danger of being attacked.
By the time it was winter, Whiteswirl would probably be able to breathe fire. Even if he could not breathe fire by the time winter was over, he would be fully grown in mid-spring. Then he would be able to breathe fire for sure. The faster he could get rid of the bodies of the dragons he hunted, the more time he could spend in his cavern, even on those days when he did need to hunt. He looked forward to being able to breathe fire for other reasons, too. Breathing fire would be helpful if the dragon he was hunting woke up when he attacked. It would also be useful if a group of dragons found his and Redclaws's cave. If he could breathe fire, he and Redclaws would almost certainly be able to get rid of a group of dragons, even up to ten. He could already handle one or two adult dragons, and Redclaws could take on at least three with her fire. When he could breathe fire, it would take a very large number of dragons to beat them.
When the night ended, Whiteswirl went back to Redclaws's cavern to sleep. He really wished that the sun would not shine through the hole in his cavern, so that he could sleep in it at day.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: WINTER
A few weeks later, Waveripple woke up in the middle of the night because he was cold. The wind was blowing harder than he ever remembered it blowing before. Small white things were floating down from the sky and landing on the ground. After looking at them closely, Waveripple realized that they must be snowflakes. His parents had described them to him, though he had never seen one before.
Waveripple shivered and moved underneath a patch of dead grass, hoping it would be warmer there. He fell back asleep after a while.
When Waveripple woke up the next morning, everything looked different. The dead brown grass, and the leaves and pine needles by the forest, could not be seen anymore. The whole ground had changed white with snow, and more was still coming down. All the trees that had once held leaves were dusted with the snow, making their branches appear white. The branches of the pine trees were drooping under the weight of the snow they held.
“Mom, Dad, wake up! Look at this!” Waveripple exclaimed.
Flowerwater and Splashsail woke up and looked around at all the snow. Flowerwater then turned with a worried expression to look at the lake. Wondering why she was worried, Waveripple turned around to also look at the lake. It looked the same as it always did; in fact, it appeared more normal than the rest of the area. The snow melted as soon as it hit the water. It took Waveripple a few minutes to realize that Flowerwater had been checking the lake to see if it had become solid yet–or frozen into ice, as they had told him it was called.
“At least the lake is still unfrozen,” Splashsail said. “In fact, it might not ever freeze completely. The pond we used to live at froze all the way to the bottom each year, but large lakes remain unfrozen, or at least not completely frozen.”
“It's very cold,” Waveripple said.
“It's only going to get colder as time goes by,” Flowerwater told him. “But it will warm up again next spring.”
Waveripple could not imagine it getting colder than this. This was the coldest weather he had ever experienced.
“What will we do if the lake freezes?” Waveripple asked worriedly. He knew how to hunt rodents, but he was not as good at that as he was at catching fish. And with all this snow on the ground, the rodents would be hard to find. What if they could not find enough food in the winter? Would they have to move someplace else, like Indigowings had?
Before he could think about it much more, Flowerwater answered, “If the lake freezes, but not completely, we can break the ice on top and get the fish underneath. If it becomes completely frozen, we'll just find a larger lake that is not completely frozen. That's what we did when we lived on a pond.”
“Oh,” Waveripple said, relieved. “Okay.”
It was almost impossible to catch any fish that day. They were all hiding near the bottom of the lake, where it was harder to see them and impossible to catch them without diving. When the Amphibians did dive, the chill of the water made them unable to move as quickly or agilely as they could when it was warmer. They only managed to catch one fish by the time the
day was halfway over. They ate some of the water plants to complete the meal, but it took more plants to satisfy their hunger than it would have taken if they had had more fish. It was easier to get plants than fish, but they still got chilled diving under the water to grab them.
“Don't go into the forest today, Waveripple,” Flowerwater said in the evening. The snow was still coming down heavily.
“Why not?” Waveripple asked, disappointed. He had been looking forward to visiting Indigowings and Emeraldeyes that day. It would be one normal thing after the snowfall had made everything look different, along with making it harder to get food.
“It's still snowing too much,” Splashsail said. “You wouldn't be able to see very far ahead of you, and you could get lost when the snow covers your scent.”
“And besides,” Flowerwater said, “it's just too cold to be wandering around.”
By nightfall, the snowing had decreased in intensity, but a few flakes were still falling from the sky. It was hard for Waveripple to fall asleep, because the ground was cold and wet from the snow. It took about and hour for him to finally manage to fall asleep.
The next morning, everything looked different again. The snow had stopped falling, making it easier to see things that were farther away. The ground was blanketed in at least a foot of snow. Some of the pine tree branches were sagging all the way to the ground because of the snow on top of them. The sun was shining, making the snow glitter. It was almost too bright to look at.
Waveripple noticed that the lake was a bit different, too. There was a thin layer of something hard along its edges, which he guessed was ice. The lake had started to freeze, but most of it was still normal water.
It was a bit easier to hunt that day because the storm was over. The fish were swimming around slowly, eating aquatic plants. But they were still only able to catch three fish that day. Most of the food they ate was aquatic plants from the bottom of the lake.
“Can I go visit Indigowings and Emeraldeyes today?” Waveripple asked his parents in the evening.
“Yes, but come back if it starts snowing again,” Flowerwater said.
“Okay, I will,” Waveripple said, walking quickly into the forest. He made footprints in the snow, leaving a trail that was even easier to follow than the ones he had made through the leaves. If they tried to play hide and seek in the snow, it would be almost too easy for them to find each other. They would have to fly to all their hiding places.
Indigowings was in his cave when Waveripple arrived. “Hi Indigowings,” Waveripple said.
“Hi Waveripple,” Indigowings replied. “Let's go to Emeraldeyes's tree.”
Both hatchlings flew to the oak tree. The trees below them looked strange in their whiteness. Waveripple was used to flying over green trees, as well as the colorful ones of autumn and the bare-branched trees they became afterwards, but snowy-white trees were different. They looked too crystalline in the sunlight to be real trees.
“Is it getting harder to catch fish at the lake?” Indigowings asked as they flew. “Because it is getting a lot harder to catch land animals. I couldn't find even one deer yesterday, because of the snowstorm.”
“Yeah, it is harder to catch fish,” Waveripple replied. “My parents and I were only able to catch one yesterday. But now that it stopped snowing, we were able to catch three.”
“I hope there will still be enough food in the middle of the winter,” Indigowings said. Waveripple nodded in agreement.
When they reached Emeraldeyes's oak tree, they saw that its branches were dusted with a thin powdering of snow. It was easy to see the three brown Dwarf dragons in the white branches.
Waveripple and Indigowings landed under the tree and waited for Emeraldeyes to come down. Emeraldeyes soon flew down to land lightly on the ground next to Indigowings and Waveripple. “Hi Indigowings and Waveripple,” she said.
“Hi Emeraldeyes,” Waveripple said.
“Hi,” Indigowings said.
“What do you want to do, with all the snow on the ground?” Emeraldeyes said.
“I don't want to do anything with all the snow on the ground,” Indigowings said jokingly. “I don't want to have to move it all.”
“Very funny,” Emeraldeyes said. “But you know that's not what I meant. With all the footprints we would leave in the snow, we obviously can't play ground hide and seek anymore. And hunting contests would be more difficult, since all the animals are hiding or hibernating.”
Waveripple kicked some snow aside, noticing that it clumped together. He started pushing some snow together into another clump. Then he kicked the snow and watched it roll around, getting bigger as it did. He made another snowball and kicked it at Emeraldeyes.
“We could have a snow fight,” he suggested.
“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” Indigowings said excitedly. He pushed some snow into a pile and kicked it at Waveripple.
Waveripple had seen that he was gathering it up, so he was ready to dodge it. The snowball rolled past him, rolling gently to a stop.
“Okay, we can do that,” Emeraldeyes said, agreeing to the snow fight. She also started pushing snow into a pile.
Waveripple gathered up another clump of snow and kicked it high into the air, hitting Indigowings in the head with it. Indigowings started making his own snowball bigger. Waveripple tensed, ready to dodge it.
A snowball suddenly hit Waveripple in the side. He turned and saw Emeraldeyes grinning and gathering up another snow pile.
Waveripple quickly pushed together another pile of snow. He was deciding whom to kick it at when Indigowings kicked his huge snowball at Emeraldeyes. It was too big for her to dodge completely, and it almost knocked her down. While Indigowings was distracted watching Emeraldeyes, Waveripple kicked his snow clump at him.
Indigowings kicked snow that had not been in a clump at Waveripple. It was the closest thing to splashing snow that could be done. Little pieces of snow rained down, some of them landing on him.
The three dragons continued their snowball fight until they got tired. By then the evening was almost over. It would take a while for Waveripple to arrive back at the lake, so the three dragons said goodbye to each other then.
Waveripple was about halfway back to the lake when a few snowflakes started falling down. He traveled back faster, but by the time he got back, the snowing had escalated into another snowstorm.
It was hard for the Amphibians to sleep that night because they had to keep waking up to shake off snow. They would have been halfway buried in the snow by the time the night was over if they had not.
The next morning, the snowstorm had ended, and the snow was a lot deeper. The lake now had a thin layer of ice covering it completely. Only the Amphibians, out of all dragons, could walk on ice this thin without breaking it. But they did need to break it to catch the fish underneath.
When they had walked over the ice to the spot that they usually hunted in, Splashsail kicked the ice in, making a large hole. The three of them stood around the hole, waiting for a fish to come close enough to grab. By evening they had caught four fish, and had eaten all of them.
Then Waveripple went off to visit Indigowings and Emeraldeyes. They played games with the snow again, including snowball fights. They also found footprints of a wild animal, and decided to follow them to find out what the animal was. It turned out to be a deer.
From then on, the three spent a lot of time looking for and following the tracks of other animals. They learned to recognize the footprints of deer, rabbits, mice, wolves, bobcats, and many other animals.
As the weeks of winter went on, each day the lake froze a bit deeper. Luckily, it never froze completely, but it did freeze deep enough that it was hard for the Amphibians to break the ice. They had to all jump up and down on the ice to break it sometimes, depending on how close to the center of the lake they were. The ice was easiest to crack in the very middle, but around the edges, the water was completely solid.
Each day was also a little bit
colder, until a little after the middle of winter, when it started to slowly warm up again. In just a few more weeks it would be spring, and the snow would melt.
~~~
When Whiteswirl woke up one night, there was snow covering the ground in a thin layer. More snow was still coming down heavily, making it hard to see things that were far distant. The snow and the cold did not bother Whiteswirl, just as it had not when it became autumn.
Hunting was a bit harder than usual, because the dragons were not sleeping out in the open anymore now that it was colder. But he could still find them easily enough by following their scents, and their footprints, in the case of the flightless Lizards.
As the weeks went by, the nights got longer, and Whiteswirl was able to spend more time outside. He still spent most of his time in the cavern he had found, however.
By the middle of winter, Whiteswirl had grown so much that he had to move most of the rocks aside to be able to get into his cavern. The passage soon became big enough for an adult dragon to fit through easily.
When he was outside, Whiteswirl stayed out longer than he used to. Every time Whiteswirl went out of the cave, he attempted to breathe fire. At first, nothing happened, but as time went by, he started being able to produce little puffs of smoke. A little while after that, he was able to breathe a small fire, but he could not sustain it long.
More time went by, and soon the winter was almost over. Every day, Whiteswirl could breathe fire that was a bit hotter, and keep breathing it for just a little longer. He knew that by the beginning of spring, he would be able to breathe fire almost as well as Redclaws could. He looked forward to the time that the snow melted.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: SPRING
Before too long, the snow started to melt. The days were slowly getting longer again, so the sun was able to melt the snow a bit more each day. The lake overflowed with all the snow that melted and ran into it; it seemed as if all the snow in the forest was trickling into the lake. Hunting became easy again, especially since the lake had unfrozen.
One day in early spring, Waveripple went to visit Indigowings and Emeraldeyes, like he always did. Indigowings was waiting for him in his cave.
Dragon Land: Two Dragon Brothers # 1: The Beginning Page 12
