Coquina wasn’t sure when exactly she drifted off. All she knew was that when she opened her eyes again, light flooded the cave, and Dior was gone.
Stretching out her limbs, she rose slowly, listening out for movement. There was none. The flame by her sleeping place had been lit since she snuffed it out last night, but there was a hint of natural light too, a ray that reached inside to tug her out into the open. She moved through the tunnel, past her Mator’s quarters and to the opening section, then spread her wings and curved around the mountain.
Both suns greeted her, one sat just above the horizon while the other had already made a decent ascent into the sky. It seemed that once sleep came, it hadn’t been difficult to hold onto. Usually she was up much earlier than this. Yesterday, the Prisol had barely risen when she’d crept out of the cave. It was no wonder that both her Mator and her brother had already scarpered.
Fortunately, today was one of few days in which when she awoke wasn’t a problem. Latriis had granted her the day off, in readiness for the following day’s task.
Even the thought made Coquina shudder. Almost instinctively, she thought of last night and brought forth the dragons that had appeared. The red dragon wasn’t alone anymore. The other two, though less clear, now held a presence, their scales of blue and yellow flowing between her anxiety in a calming stream.
Tipping her wings, she glided downwards, ready to hunt for her first meal of the day. Then perhaps she’d meet Tidi, if she had no Medicor duties to attend to, and tell her all of what happened. She could fly among the clouds, and play with Dior, and not lend a single thought to what would come when night fell and rose again.
Distractions were easy to come by if she just kept moving.
Much to her annoyance, however, the day passed in a blur. True to her word, she hopped between activities, not allowing herself moments to ponder anything but her immediate next step, but still time slipped through her claws and raced away from her before she could fully come to terms with its passing.
She met with Tidi, who was incredibly excited at the adventure and paid little heed to Coquina’s failure, more thrilled that another task was on its way. She found her Mator and Dior, and the three of them played a game in which they pretended to be the Imperium, imagining flashes of magic decorating the air. Coquina and her Mator couldn’t catch a moment alone amongst Dior’s unending excitement, and before they knew it her Mator’s meeting with her own friends had come around, and she was gone. Then the Corisol was falling, and Coquina was whisking Dior home to sleep.
After desperately trying to calm her brother’s racing mind and bat away his questions about her Alspex powers, Coquina finally wished him goodnight and exited the cave. Slats of shadow glided across the mountains, and the sky was darkening as it bid farewell to the brightest of the twin suns.
She gave the setting sun a forlorn glance, then headed back inside to sleep for herself. Even with her sleep stretching into the daytime, she felt tiredness tug at her now, and it was surprisingly easy to drift off with Dior’s comfortable warmth beside her and the three dragons of red, blue and yellow curled around her thoughts.
Yet still she dreamed of ice and fire, hissing as they fought. Scarlet droplets of blood haunted the back of her mind, dripping from green scales.
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