“Okay,” Indigowings said. “I'll beat you this time.”
“Get ready, get set, go!” Waveripple said, diving under the water.
The turtles were harder to find than the frogs, because by now they had burrowed underneath the mud to hide from the dragons. Waveripple sometimes chased turtles back at the lake, but not as often as fish and frogs, so he could not locate them as easily.
Waveripple made out the shape of the top of a turtle's shell in the mud. He swam down and started digging up the turtle, which instantly swam up away from him. He chased after it and grabbed it in his mouth, biting down on it. The turtle's shell was harder than he expected, so his bite barely injured the turtle. He bit down harder and killed it.
After putting his turtle on land, Waveripple dove back down to look for another one. He saw a painted turtle, well-hidden at the bottom of the pond. He quickly caught it and added it to the pile he had started.
About half an hour later, Waveripple had caught six more turtles. He kept looking for more, but he could not see any. After a while, he saw a turtle coming up for air. He swam after it and caught it.
Waveripple missed the next turtle that he saw, which swam over to Indigowings and was caught by him.
Ten minutes later, Waveripple found another painted turtle. He dug it out of the mud and killed it.
When he surfaced to put his turtle on the pile, he saw Indigowings coming up with a turtle at the same time. Waveripple threw his last turtle on the pile and said, “I caught ten!”
“I got ten!” Indigowings shouted at the same time.
Both hatchlings looked at each other, surprised that they had gotten their last turtles at the same time.
Indigowings started walking out of the pond again, and this time Waveripple followed him.
Waveripple gathered up his turtles and frogs into one pile.
“What are you doing?” Indigowings asked curiously.
“Well, we can't kill all those turtles and frogs just for fun. It would be wasteful not to eat them.”
“You eat turtles? And frogs?” Indigowings asked, astonished.
“Of course,” Waveripple replied. “I mostly just eat fish, but sometimes my parents and I can not catch enough, so we eat frogs, turtles, and aquatic plants then.”
Indigowings was still staring at him in surprise. “Don't they taste disgusting?” he asked.
“No,” Waveripple replied. “They're not as good as fish, but they don't taste bad.”
Waveripple picked up one of the Leopard frogs and ate it. “Some frogs are poisonous,” he warned Indigowings. “Most of them are safe for us to eat, but don't eat any frogs that are too brightly-colored.” He then cracked open one of the turtle's shells and ate the turtle inside.
Indigowings hesitantly picked up a small frog and started chewing on it. He swallowed it and said, “It doesn't taste too bad.”
“You should try a turtle, too,” Waveripple said. “They taste better.”
Indigowings cracked open one of the turtle's shells and started eating it. “You're right–they do taste better,” he agreed.
Waveripple and Indigowings finished eating the frogs and turtles.
Then Indigowings said, “I'll bet you can't catch any rodents. If we were having a contest to see who could catch the most mice, I would win.”
“We'll see about that,” Waveripple replied. “But it's getting dark now. We can have a rodent-catching contest tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Indigowings said, a bit disappointed. Brightening up again, he said, “We should get Emeraldeyes to be in the contest, too.”
“That's a good idea,” Waveripple said. “We can ask her tomorrow.”
Waveripple and Indigowings walked back to Indigowings's cave. By the time they arrived, the sun had almost set.
“Goodbye,” Waveripple said to Indigowings.
“Bye,” he replied. “See you tomorrow.”
Waveripple walked back to the lake. He was excited about the contest that he, Indigowings, and hopefully Emeraldeyes would have tomorrow.
~~~
Whiteswirl flew out of his cave the next night. He was going to explore a new part of the forest now that it was night again. He flew in the opposite direction than the one he had gone in to hunt the Lizard last time.
At first Whiteswirl just flew over a lot of trees, which were all grouped together, and a few small clearings. He could not smell any dragons down in the trees he flew over, so he started to relax as he flew.
A few hundred yards later, Whiteswirl could smell a few dragons in the trees beneath him. He descended to find out how many there were, and saw five Wind dragons sleeping on the tree branches. They were light gray and slightly smaller than most dragon species.
Whiteswirl soon found another Lizard dragon sleeping in a large, sheltered hole in the ground. He flew past it, wondering how many dragons lived in this part of the forest.
After going a few more miles, Whiteswirl turned around and flew back towards the cave. When he flew over the Winds again, one of them stirred. He flew faster in case it woke up and saw him.
When Whiteswirl got back to the cave, he saw that Redclaws was already back from whatever she had been doing. She was sitting near the front of the cave, looking out into the forest. Whiteswirl walked up to her and looked in the direction that she was looking in, but he did not see anything. Then he heard light footsteps, footsteps that were not made by a dragon. Most dragons walked noisily except when they were hunting, and then they were usually too quiet to hear.
A howl broke through the silence of the night, and Whiteswirl realized that the footsteps were a wolf's. Another howl joined the first one, and then another, and soon it sounded like the whole forest was filled with the musical howling of the wolves.
Whiteswirl listened to the howling until it stopped, and then walked deeper into the cave. He had already explored three of the four tunnels that led into the cave. The first one on the left had been short, and just led to another small cavern, which he had already seen when they first found the cave. The second tunnel led to another exit from the cave, and the third one was long and was a dead end. Whiteswirl walked into the last tunnel to explore it.
The tunnel was long, constantly twisting and turning back on itself, but it did not have any other tunnels branching off it. It would be impossible to get lost, even if he could not follow his scent back to where he came from. The tunnel went on and on, and Whiteswirl started to wonder when he would reach the end.
At last the tunnel led to an open cavern, where it dead-ended. Many different types of crystals lined the walls inside the cavern. A little stream trickled through it, and stalactites hung down from the ceiling. There were also a few stalagmites, and one column where a stalactite had joined a stalagmite. There was a small hole in the roof, and moonlight shone through it, lighting up the cavern and making the crystals sparkle. It was the most beautiful thing Whiteswirl had ever seen. He walked around the cavern for a while, looking at everything.
After a little while, he decided to go back to Redclaws. She would be wondering what he had been doing all this time. He walked back through the long tunnel until he finally reached the entrance to the cave, where Redclaws waited.
“What took you so long?” Redclaws asked, sounding as if she did not really care.
“The tunnel was very long,” Whiteswirl answered. “There is a beautiful cavern at the end, with crystals, stalactites, a little stream, and moonlight shining through a hole in the ceiling. You should see it.”
“Maybe next night,” Redclaws said. “This night is almost over.”
Whiteswirl decided that, whether Redclaws would come or not, he would go back through the last tunnel again the next night. He really liked the cavern at the end.
CHAPTER EIGHT: CAVES
Waveripple walked to Indigowings's cave excitedly the next day. They were going to have their rodent-catching contest soon. He found Indigowings waiting for him by his cave.
“Hi Waveripple,?
?? Indigowings said. “Do you want to ask Emeraldeyes if she will also play the rodent-catching game now?”
“Yeah,” Waveripple replied. “Hopefully she'll say yes.”
They started walking to Emeraldeyes's tree. “I told her about the contest after you left yesterday, and she said she would play it, but maybe not right away,” Indigowings said. “This time she knows that we will be coming, so I think she'll be in her home.”
A few minutes later, Waveripple and Indigowings arrived at the oak tree that Emeraldeyes lived in. “Emeraldeyes?” Indigowings called.
Emeraldeyes flew down from the branches. “Hello Indigowings and Waveripple,” she said.
“Hi,” Waveripple said.
“Do you want to do the rodent-catching contest now?” Indigowings asked hopefully.
“Okay,” Emeraldeyes agreed. “What are the rules? Do we have to catch a certain amount of rodents, or just catch all that we can find and then see who has the most?”
“Either way would be fine with me,” Indigowings said. “Which one do you think we should do, Waveripple?”
“We already had a contest to see who could catch the most animals yesterday, so probably doing it without a number goal would be better this time,” Waveripple replied. “But either way would be fun.”
“Then let's just keep hunting rodents until we can't find any more, and then see who has the most,” Emeraldeyes said. “We can all agree when to stop.”
“Okay, we can start now,” Indigowings said, running off in the direction of the nearest clearing.
Emeraldeyes flew up in the air to be able to see farther away, and went in a different direction than the one Indigowings had gone in. Waveripple saw her darting down into the grass after something.
Waveripple crept around in the grass, looking for a vole like the one he had been chasing in the meadow, because he knew they would be easy to catch.
Waveripple soon heard a small animal scurrying around. He slowly crept over to where the sound was coming from, but it was just a sparrow, which flew away when it saw him. He went back to trying to find a meadow vole.
A few minutes later, Waveripple heard a small animal making noises again, but this time it sounded different. He crept closer to the animal, and saw a mouse hiding in the grass.
Waveripple charged at the mouse, and it scampered away. He saw it running to another place to hide, like the vole had when he was chasing it. He was faster than the mouse, but the little thing was easy to lose. It must have frozen in its next hiding spot, because Waveripple could not hear or see it. He pushed the grass aside, and saw the mouse running away.
Waveripple chased after the mouse and grabbed it. He did not like the feel of all the fur in his mouth, which was so much different from the smooth, hard scales of a fish. He bit down on the mouse quickly, and put it under a tree so that he could look for another one.
Waveripple soon found a meadow vole, which he was able to catch more easily than the mouse. He set the vole down next to the mouse and started looking for more rodents.
Half an hour later, Waveripple had only been able to catch one more rodent, another meadow vole, but he could tell that the others had caught more, because he kept hearing high-pitched squeaks whenever they caught one.
Waveripple heard movement in the grass nearby and stalked over to see what it was. A large black rat glared maliciously up at him with its beady black eyes. Waveripple hesitated for a few seconds, and the rat darted away.
It can not really be that dangerous if it runs away like all the other rodents, Waveripple thought. Then he charged after it, soon catching up. He grabbed it in his mouth and was about to bite down on it when the rat twisted around and bit Waveripple in the face. Waveripple dropped the rat, shocked, and it scampered away before he could get it again. He decided not to try to catch any more rats that he might see.
Fifteen minutes later, Waveripple had caught one more mouse, but he could not find any other rodent. “Indigowings! Emeraldeyes!” Waveripple called. “I can't find any more. Do you two want to stop now?”
“Yeah, we can,” Indigowings said. “I also couldn't find any rodents for a while, but I think I have more than you do.”
“Okay, we can stop hunting rodents now,” Emeraldeyes agreed. “How many do you each have?”
“I have six rodents–three mice, two voles, and a rat,” Indigowings replied.
“I only have four–two mice and two meadow voles,” Waveripple said.
Emeraldeyes grinned triumphantly. “I have seven–three voles, three mice, and a gopher.”
“You caught a gopher?” Indigowings asked, sounding impressed.
“Yes,” Emeraldeyes replied. “It was just a small gopher, who wandered too far away from one of the entrances to its tunnels.”
Indigowings and Waveripple walked over to see the gopher that Emeraldeyes had caught. It was a thirteen-lined striped gopher, so it looked a lot more like a chipmunk than a normal gopher. Waveripple had never seen one before.
Emeraldeyes picked up one of the mice she had caught and ate it. Indigowings went back to the pile of rodents he had caught and started eating them. Waveripple went to his own pile.
He had never eaten a rodent before, but they probably did not taste bad, because Indigowings and Emeraldeyes were eating them. He remembered when Indigowings thought that frogs and turtles would taste bad; he would not be acting as if it were so strange to eat them if he thought that rodents also tasted bad.
Waveripple ate one of his mice in one bite. It tasted different from fish, but it did not taste bad. When he finished eating the rodents he had caught, he saw that Emeraldeyes and Indigowings had already finished their rodents even though they had each caught more than he had.
“What do you want to do now?” Indigowings asked the other two hatchlings.
“It doesn't matter,” Emeraldeyes said. “But preferably not another hunting contest. I'm not hungry anymore.”
“I don't think that even you would be full from eating a couple of mice,” Indigowings teased. “I think you're just afraid that you wouldn't win if we had another hunting contest.”
Emeraldeyes rolled her eyes. “Yeah right,” she said.
“If the contest was about catching deer,” Indigowings said, “neither one of you would even be able to catch one.”
“That's different,” Emeraldeyes said. “Deer are too big to eat, and it would be wasteful to kill them just for a contest.”
“I never even tried to catch a deer,” Waveripple said. “I've only hunted small animals, so of course it is not likely that I would win.”
“I eat deer all the time, Emeraldeyes,” Indigowings said. “Even if you couldn't eat a whole deer at one time, you could just eat the rest of it later. And Waveripple, that's a lame excuse. I had not hunted a frog or turtle before having that hunting contest with you.”
Emeraldeyes shrugged. “Either way, I'm not hungry right now,” she said.
“Do you want to explore the forest some more now?” Waveripple asked them.
“Yeah, we could,” Emeraldeyes said. “I've already explored most of it around here, though.”
“Yeah, that's a good idea,” Indigowings said to Waveripple. “Let's go in the opposite direction than the one we went in yesterday.”
“Okay,” Waveripple agreed. He walked in that direction, and the other two hatchlings followed him.
They walked past a lot of trees, and through several small clearings. Then they came to the bottom of a small group of cliffs. They could see three caves see at the bottom of the cliffs.
“Look at those caves!” Indigowings said, although they were all already looking at them. “Let's go in and explore them.”
“Yeah!” Waveripple said excitedly. “Which cave do you think we should explore first?”
Emeraldeyes walked up to the cave on the right. “This one isn't really a cave,” she told them. “It's just a short tunnel leading to a small cavern.”
Indigowings and Waveripple walked cl
oser to that cave, and saw that Emeraldeyes was right. Then the three looked into the cave in the middle.
This cave was too deep for them to see its end. It was very dark, but they could see a tunnel branching off to the left.
“Let's go in this one first,” Waveripple said. “Then we can explore the last one if there's still time today.”
Indigowings and Waveripple entered the cave, followed closely by Emeraldeyes.
“It's easy to get lost in a cave,” Emeraldeyes said. “Of course we can just follow our scent trails to get back out, but they fade after a little while. We should just take forward tunnels, or tunnels that lead right if there are no forward tunnels. Then when we are coming back, we will take forward and left tunnels. It will be impossible to get lost that way.”
“Yeah, that's a good idea,” Waveripple said. “We should do it, just in case.”
“You're taking all the fun out of it, Emeraldeyes,” Indigowings complained. “What if one of the tunnels that goes left looks more interesting than the one leading right?”
“It won't matter which tunnel looked more interesting when you are lost because of it,” Emeraldeyes said, sounding annoyed.
“Fine, we can take just the forward and right tunnels,” Indigowings said. “I suppose we can explore the tunnels that lead to the left later.”
Waveripple, Indigowings, and Emeraldeyes walked deeper into the cave. They soon passed the tunnel that led to the left, going forward like Emeraldeyes had suggested.
The cave was dark, but all dragons had fairly good night vision, so their eyes soon adjusted enough that they could see where they were going. For a few hundred feet, the tunnel kept going in a straight line with no tunnels branching off to the sides.
Then they came to a fork in the cave, with three tunnels to choose from. One of them led straight forward, one was to the right, and the last one went left. They walked down the one that led straight forward, but it turned out to be a dead end, so they went back and chose the tunnel on the right instead.
This tunnel was short and led to a larger cavern. The cavern was empty, except for a few stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Waveripple and Emeraldeyes kept glancing up at them cautiously, afraid that they might break off and fall on them.
After a little while, Indigowings noticed that they were looking up at the stalactites. “Stalactites hardly ever fall down,” he told them. “So it's very rare for them to fall on someone.”