Peaceflyt woke up just when the sun was starting to come over the horizon, earlier than he normally woke up. He turned over onto his other side, trying to fall asleep again. It didn’t happen. Instead he just tossed and turned, wishing morning would come sooner.

“Peak said good morning,” Ridge informed Peaceflyt. Ridge woke up as early as Peak usually did, and Peak often left a message. Currently, Ridge was reading something on his side of the cave.

“Okay. She’s at the lakes again, I presume?”

“Yep, that’s where she always is in the morning,” said Ridge. He went back to his book and Peaceflyt endured another half hour of trying to fall asleep. He finally gave up and walked past Atacama and Peak’s cave to get to the library to spend the morning.

After a while, the bell for the first class of the day went off. Already!? Peaceflyt thought, startled. Didn’t I only spend, like, fifteen minutes in here? He quickly grabbed the book he was reading and shoved it into a random spot on the nearest bookshelf. He said “bye” to Starflight and hurried toward self defense.

. . .

“Peaceflyt?” Atacama called from behind him when he was heading to lunch.

“Yeah?”

“Have you seen Peak?” Atacama asked, hurrying her pace to catch up with him. “She left our cave early in the morning like she always does, but I’ve noticed that she hasn’t come back yet.”

“Oh. I haven’t seen her,” Peaceflyt informed her. “Ridge said she was at the lake like usual. She told him when she went there, which was about half an hour before sunrise, I think.”

“If she’s still there, it’s sure taking a long time for her to come back. It’s practically lunch,” Atacama pointed out.

Peaceflyt agreed. “That’s true. Oh, and when she comes back, I’ll tell her that you beat Frigid four times again.” Atacama stifled a laugh.

“What?” the cold voice of an IceWing interrupted from behind them.

“What?” Peaceflyt said, trying to put as much confusion into that word, like he hadn’t said the pale blue IceWing’s name.

“I thought I heard you say my name,” said Frigid.

“Oh… I didn’t, don’t worry,” Peaceflyt lied. The lie seemed to work, as Frigid hurried off with some of his IceWing friends.

“Come on,” said Atacama. “Let’s go to lunch.”

. . .

Peak still wasn’t back by the time dinner came. Peaceflyt was starting to get slightly worried. She normally came back a couple minutes before self defense, the first class of the day. Now all of the classes were over, and she still wasn’t at the school.

Sunny emerged out of a cave and practically ran into him. “Oh, I’m sorry!” she yelped as she looked down at him.

“It’s fine,” Peaceflyt replied.

“Are you worried?” asked Sunny, reading his expression. She is REALLY good at reading my expressions, for some reason.

“Oh… no,” he lied again. “Well, I mean, I was heading to dinner but I think I left something in the library. So… I’ll go get it now.”

Atacama gave him a confused look as he casually walked back toward the library. As soon as Sunny was out of sight, he came back up to her.

“You’re weird,” Atacama noticed.

“Yeah, sometimes I can be,” Peaceflyt admitted with a shrug.

. . .

Atacama walked into the Prey Center just before Peaceflyt was about to go out with Clay’s hunting group. 

“Are you joining us, Atacama?” Clay asked, tilting his head.

“I guess so,” she mumbled.

She’s coming with us? Peaceflyt thought, slightly surprised. She normally either waits for the hunting group or hunts by herself. Then again, I’ve only hunted with the hunting group a few times too.

“Okay, then,” said Clay, vaulting into the air. “Let’s go.” 

The other dragonets who’d joined the group leapt into the air behind him, and this was when Peaceflyt realized that Clay seemed very downcast. He was obviously trying to hide it, but he couldn’t fake the droop of his wings and head when he was flying. His sadness seemed to get worse with flying, so he appointed Hawk, the Jade Winglet SkyWing, the leader of the hunting group for the session, and swiftly flew back to Jade Mountain a quarter way through.

Their hunting route for the day, according to Hawk, was flying right next to the river for a bit, crossing it, flying over the hills, past the lakes, and back to the Academy.

The lakes! Peaceflyt thought. That’s where Peak went! I’m going to ask Atacama if she wants to come investigate with me.

Peaceflyt casually flew over two dragons and ended up next to Atacama. “Atacama, I’m going to check the lakes to see if Peak’s still there. Want to come with me?”

She looked at him in surprise, and when the group passed the lakes, they both dove down towards them without any hesitation, though Atacama made a short stop to kill a mountain goat.

Peaceflyt hovered in the air for a moment, studying the scene. There were six lakes there, two medium-sized ones and four small. Jade Mountain loomed in front of them. And…

“Is that a fire?” Atacama asked, pointing to a small bit of smoke coming up from the trees across the lake. 

Peaceflyt flew closer to investigate. “I think so.” He lowered toward the water, and with one swish of his SeaWing tail, the fire was quenched.

He promptly headed toward the site where the fire had burnt, and Atacama followed suit, landing next to him. It smelled of burnt wood and smoke. It looked like what a normal forest fire would look like. So why did it seem so unsettling to Peaceflyt?

Maybe the first question he had was “how could a fire start here?” It was evening and it had been a completely clear day. And if lightning did strike, someone from the school would’ve heard it. No scavengers lived in this area either, so they’re couldn’t have started a forest fire (Peaceflyt learned at Jade Mountain that scavengers had almost dragonlike personalities and abilities, so they could’ve started a forest fire here if they really wanted to). There was no sign of anything that could’ve started a fire and wouldn’t have put it out… except maybe a firescales who couldn’t put it out.

The only other firescales other than Peak that Peaceflyt knew who ever came around Jade Mountain was Peril, but he was pretty sure she never went by the lakes. So this fire had probably been started by Peak.

He told Atacama what he’d been thinking, and she looked him dead in the eye and told him, “Wow. You might be right.”

As he and Atacama explored the area a bit more, they found more clues. Burnt blood, on the forest ground. Vague scratch marks on a couple of trees. A burn mark on a tree that looked like a dragon had breathed it. There was obviously a sign of a struggle. And the biggest clue of all… there was a dark red scale on the ground that almost matched perfectly with Peak’s color.

“Peak. This is where Peak disappeared,” Peaceflyt concluded. “But what happened?” Did someone kill her and hide her? Or did they take her alive? But why? Is it because she’s a hybrid? There’s not enough blood if they killed her anyway. So why would they take her? And where?

“NO ONE CAPTURES AND INJURES MY FRIENDS!” Atacama yelled. “I’LL KILL THEM BEFORE THEY KNOW I’M THERE!” She leapt into the air and flew back to Jade Mountain in a rage, leaving Peaceflyt at the lake by himself.

I might as well go, too, Peaceflyt thought sadly, hoisting himself into the air as well and following Atacama. While he was flying, he had a good amount of time to think. Peak has firescales, so how did anyone get to her? Maybe if they found fireproof armor- I heard there was this one rare metal that was fireproof. The SkyWings or IceWings could be good suspects. Didn’t some IceWings try to kill her family when she was younger? The SkyWings would also be good suspects, because Queen Ember kicked her out of the Sky Kingdom and… maybe wants to capture her or something?

Atacama was nearly at the Academy now, and Peaceflyt was using all of his strength to try and catch up to her. He guessed she was rage flying, because he’d never seen her fly so fast.

“Peaceflyt!” Walnut exclaimed when he finally arrived, stumbling into the Great Hall. “Atacama told us about what happened to Peak… is it true?”

“Y-yes… I think so.” Peaceflyt plopped down on the ground, wings spread on either side of him.

She instantly turned a deep color of gray. “Oh, no… oh, no…”

. . .

Peaceflyt’s wings were like heavy weights to him by the time nightfall arrived. He collapsed on the ground in his sleeping cave, but he couldn’t sleep for hours. His thoughts kept him up all night.

How will I be able to save her? I actually… don’t want to- I mean, I don’t want to go by myself. He sighed. I’m not really that brave. I’m not really great at riddles or questions, sometimes. And I need to be brave for this. And I also need to know who the MOONS-CURSED DRAGON EVEN IS AND WHY THEY WOULD CAPTURE PEAK!

He took deep breaths, and tried to keep his thoughts from overflowing his brain. Luckily, that worked, and he was finally able to finally go to sleep after almost five hours.

. . .

A vision of Peak waking up, confused, in a small cave slowly flooded into his mind in the middle of the night. There was a tangerine orange colored SkyWing who looked about... maybe seven years old next to her, peering out of… a crack in the rocks? Something like that.

Peak jumped to her feet and almost immediately fell, and the orange dragon pointed to something on her side. Even though Peaceflyt couldn’t hear a word the orange dragon was saying, he got the general idea of what she was talking about by reading her lips. Something about a tranquilizer dart.

 “Is this a dream?” Peaceflyt said, taking a step closer to the two dragons. “Peak? Is that really you?”

No one answered. Peaceflyt sighed.

The orange dragon knelt down next to Peak and grabbed on to the blow dart. With a jerk backwards, it was in the orange dragon’s talons. She studied the dart for a few seconds, and then threw it behind her, muttering something that probably would’ve been unintelligible even if Peaceflyt could hear the conversation.

Peak slowly attempted to get up, and when she finally did, she asked the orange dragon something. The orange dragon explained it to her, and from her hand motions, Peaceflyt had a vague guess of where she was. In a prison somewhere.

Peak growled multiple angry things and balled her fists. The orange dragon put a claw up to her snout, pointed to the crack in the rock, and whispered something.

Peak and the orange dragon suddenly jumped back with wide eyes, and practically startled Peaceflyt out of his sleep, even though he could hear nothing. The crack in the rock got wider, and Peaceflyt realized that there was a rock that acted like a door there.

Stony gray talons grasped the door and pulled it aside. A slangry old dragon the color of mountain rock mixed with dirt peeked her head inside and yelled something at the two SkyWings. Peaceflyt caught a glance of an engraved word on the dragon’s arm. ‘Travertine,’ it read.

Travertine? That’s an odd name. As he studied the dragon’s face, he realized that it looked vaguely like a NightWing’s. I wonder if she’s a hybrid.

Travertine's brow furrowed. She muttered something and slammed the rock door on the SkyWings’ faces, so hard it shook Peaceflyt out of his sleep.

It's just a dream… just a dream… don't freak out. You're just dreaming. Peaceflyt reassured himself as much as he could, but he wasn't completely sure that it wasn't.