Chapter 3

I've Got You

Pawpaw woke up in a dark room lit by little candles. Her head was throbbing similar to one of the moons landing on it. Ow my head. She thought sitting up.

"PAWPAW, OH THANK THE MOONS YOU'RE OK!" someone screeched from across the room. White scales materialized in front of her. Oh, I hope she is ok. She needs to be ok! Pawpaw's head snapped up, her tail poised. A blistering shock of ran around her head. She fell back onto the leaf bed covering her eyes with her talons. "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow; everything hurts," she groaned

"I can fix that if you can stay still,"

"How exactly?"

"Magic..."

"Oh, yeah. Right. That." Shying away from Fern was not, the easiest thing to do. In fact, it was actually quite hard to do. She shivered remembering something. "Hey, how long have I been asleep and where's that creepy SandWing?"

Fern shot a bark of laughter. Pawpaw politely waited for Fern to finish. "Qibli?" she asked, "Qibli was just going to introduce himself silly, uh well they gave you this thing to make you sleep longer so about a day?"

"Oh," she said. Felling very silly and tiered. She nodded at Fern indicating she was ready. Fern pointed a claw at Pawpaw's head then, muttered something. A second later, the pain was gone. She touched her snout to see if she still had her burn scar. It was still there. Thank the moons. She thought. She leaped up and grabbed Ferns talons. They were as cold as ice, but not in the usual way, they were. "Let's go." She said letting go.

"Go where?"

"To apologise, silly,"

"Right."

Wandering out of the infirmary Pawpaw bumped into Amphibian. She looked very confused to see the both of them wandering around together after their little mishap two days ago. "Um, hi," she said slowly, "what happened to you fighting-not that, it was a good thing-I'm just confused to see you like this,"

"It is fine," Pawpaw hesitated, "We've worked it out, don't worry."

"Oh," she said, "OK. That good!"

Silence hung in the air. Pawpaw's eyes lolled sideways. Amphibian didn't notice meanwhile Fern did. Fern put her wing around Pawpaw and firmly, but gently grabbed one of her front talons. Pawpaw leaned into her. Amphibian looked a little baffled now.

"Are you ok Pawpaw?" she asked, "You look sick"

"I'm fffffffffiiiiiiinnnnnnnnneeeeeeee," she whined, "Just very, very, very tiered."

"Whoa, how long was she awake for?"

"FIVE MINUTES!" Fern yelled, "I enchant the next dragon I touch on the snout to have nothing wrong with their brain please, BY ALL THE SHINING MOONS!"

She reach out to Pawpaw and she ducked away. Amphibian grabbed her and held her head. Fern lightly tapped Pawpaw's snout. Pawpaw stuck her tongue out. She felt like she'd been hit by lightning. "Class is going to start, come on!" she yelped.

"She's back," Fern said approving.

However, that did not stop the horrified face from forming on Amphibian. "WHAT THE, WHAT IN THE NAME OF, AH YOU'RE A-" Pawpaw leaped on her covering her snout so she couldn't say anything more. Oh no, you don't. She thought fiercely. "ACK, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

"Helping, duh,"

"Get of ME!"

Pawpaw hopped over to Fern and spread her wings to shield her. Dragons walking by gave her and Fern mystified looks. She only glared at them, which drove them off. Fern nodded to indicate she was fine. She relaxed, but had her fangs ready to fire.

Amphibian's face was, crazed when she looked up. "Are you sure she's fine now?" she said, Pawpaw gave her an offended look.

"Actually she's fine; this is more of her than I've seen in months," Fern said, at the same time Pawpaw almost yelled.

"How rude,"

They were disrupted when three bells rang. Pawpaw followed Fern and Amphibian into a cave with twelve other dragons in it. Some she immediately knew the others not so sure. There was a young golden SandWing sitting in front of everyone, Sunny. She remembered Smoke telling stories about the new SandWing royal bloodline, Pawpaw had forgotten that Sunny was a Dragonet of Destiny. Pawpaw saw Mango with her tail entwined with a NightWing's, Moon, Kinkajou, and the SandWing with his tail entwined with Moon's. Oh. She thought and would have slapped herself if she weren't in public. Their a couple. There was an IceWing, two SkyWings; one of them separated from everyone, a SeaWing with a gold armband and a RainWing that looked like he hated everyone. Two gongs went off and by the time everyone was, seated the last gong went.

"Hello everyone!" Sunny said brightly, "Just so you know we will be doing our introduction class today, due to an accident yesterday morning,"

Pawpaw sat down next to Fern. She wanted to get this introduction over and done with.

"Can we, all go sit in a circle so we can do this easily?" said Sunny. Everyone started to move Pawpaw heard something like: I shouldn't have said it like it was a question. She ignored it, not knowing why she could hear all this. "Oh you need to sit next to a member of your tribe."

Wow, this is going so well. Pawpaw thought. Sunny walked over to Pawpaw and brushed her wing with hers. "Hey," she said softly, "Glory told me about you, we put you in as a SandWing since you're the only one with SandWing blood. Is that ok?"

"Mmhmm," she said, "do you remember me? I met you when I visited the Queen."

"Oh," Sunny said a little flabbergasted, "actually yes, yes I do. You said something bad happened to your family; are they all right?"

"Y-yes," she stammered, "t-their f-fine."

"Maybe you can tell Qibli about it?"

Pawpaw froze. She was stunned to see how quickly Sunny had gone straight to the point. "Uh," she said, "I-I'll try?"

She walked off towards Qibli and noticed he didn't look mad at her, he looked friendly and ready to start off as friends instead of enemies.

"Hello," he said, and added, "how's your head? Sorry for the fright I gave you."

She didn't want to talk but she had to. She needed other SandWings to teach her 'the SandWing ways' as her brother put it.

"Um, hello," she said sitting next to him, "I-It's OK. My heads fine um, thank you for showing up at the time you did,"

He stared at her quizzically. "Why?"

"S-she- I ARRG," she took a deep breath, "Moon knew."

"Knew what?"

"Can I trust you?"

"That's ominous."

"Qibli, can I trust you?" she asked again more forcefully. Her eyes started to get glassy. She looked him in the eye. He put a wing around her. It felt like home, like her father or brother were hugging her. He nodded, but his answer didn't help.

"Sure, but it's up to you."

She punched him lightly. "Ok fine, I trust you," Pawpaw said, "Moon knew how my family and I almost theoretically, died."

"Oh,"

"Their alive it's just..."

"You haven't seen them in so long you feel like they are dead?"

Pawpaw looked at him and when she did, she saw so much more than she expected. What surprised her the most was that he knew, exactly how she felt. It was like looking at Dawn when he was, understanding something she was talking about. She felt tears swirling down her checks and tap the ground below her. Fern and Mango were in front of them when she looked up. They hugged her fiercely. Mango's eyes were starting to poor, Fern's eyes were glassy but she knew Pawpaw didn't need another dragon crying in front of her. These were her true friends, and they weren't ever going to depart.