The hours after the tremor were a blur of nervous energy and forced normalcy. The faculty,
led by Tsunami and Clay, had done their best to downplay the incident, attributing it to
natural geological shifts. Dragonets were encouraged to return to their routines, to forget
the dust and the shaking, to pretend that the very ground beneath their talons hadn’t just
tried to swallow them whole. But I couldn’t forget. The memory of the cavern’s scream,
the frantic thump-thump that had escalated into a bone-jarring CRACK!, was seared into my
mind. And the whispers, those ancient, terrified voices, still echoed in the quiet corners of
my skull.
My scales bristled with a cold fury every time I heard a dragonet dismiss it as "just a little
shake." They were blind. Deaf. And dangerously complacent. The mountain wasn’t just
settling; it was groaning, struggling, and if no one listened, it was going to break. And when
it broke, it would take us all with it.
The thump-thump was a constant, agitated presence now, a rapid, uneven beat that pulsed
through the stone. It was no longer a distant heartbeat; it was a frantic drum solo, a
desperate plea for attention. I spent the rest of the day in a haze of hyper-awareness, every
creak of the mountain, every distant rumble, sending a jolt of adrenaline through my
system. I tried to focus on my lessons, on the mundane tasks of academy life, but my mind
kept returning to the prophecy Starflight had shown me: "When the heart quickens, and the
whispers grow clear, a great tremor shall shake the land, and the secrets of the ancients
shall be revealed."
The tremor had happened. The heart had quickened. The whispers were clearer than ever.
The secrets were waiting. And I was the only one who seemed to care.
I knew I couldn’t do this alone. The thought was a bitter pill to swallow. I was a SandWing,
forged in the crucible of the desert, accustomed to relying only on myself. Trust was a
weakness, a vulnerability I had learned to shed long ago. But this was bigger than me.
Bigger than any single dragon. I needed help. I needed someone who could think, someone
who could connect the dots, someone who wouldn’t dismiss me as a mad dragonet with
an overactive imagination.
My thoughts immediately went to Moon. She had felt the hum, however faintly. She had
seen my reaction, had even defended me to Tsunami. But Moon was highlighting the intelligent glint in his eyes. Kinkajou was asleep in her alcove, a faint,
contented snore escaping her. Moon was reading a scroll, her silver teardrop scales glowing
softly. Winter was, predictably, nowhere to be seen, probably off brooding in some icy
corner of the mountain. Turtle was still polishing his shells, a quiet, rhythmic scrape that
was almost meditative.
I approached Qibli slowly, my talons making barely a sound on the stone. He didn’t look
up immediately, but I saw the subtle twitch of his ear, the slight shift in his posture. He
knew I was there. He always knew.
"Busy?" I rumbled, my voice low.
He finally looked up, a wry smile playing on his snout. "Never too busy for a good
conversation, Cactus. Or a bad one, if it promises to be entertaining. What’s on your mind?
Besides the obvious, of course. That tremor was quite the show, wasn’t it?" He gestured
vaguely towards the ceiling, his eyes twinkling with a familiar, mischievous glint.
I settled onto the stone beside him, close enough that he could feel the subtle vibrations
that still pulsed through my talons, but not so close as to seem aggressive. "It wasn’t a
show, Qibli. It was a warning. And no one is listening."
His smile faded, replaced by a more serious, thoughtful expression. He put down his knife,
his full attention now on me. "I noticed you weren’t exactly thrilled with Tsunami’s
geological explanation. And Moon seemed to back you up, to a degree. What exactly are you
not telling us, Cactus?" His gaze was sharp, dissecting, like he was already peeling back the
layers of my carefully constructed defenses.
I hesitated. This was it. The moment of vulnerability. The moment I laid bare a part of
myself I had kept hidden for my entire life. My tail barb gave an involuntary twitch, a
nervous habit I rarely indulged. "It’s I looked at him, my amber eyes pleading for understanding. "The faculty, they dismissed it.
Tsunami thinks I’m imagining things. Clay thinks it’s just the mountain settling. But it’s
not. I felt it. I know it. The mountain is in distress. And I think intensity, the direct correlation with the tremor