Shadows Burning

Shadow had been listening to Ribbon's description of the dragon-man. It frightened her, and she lay awake for a while, scared to fall asleep lest the half-man half-dragon appear in her dreams as well. Just as she bagan to drift off, Ribbon let out a peircing scream. She heard pounding feet and more screaming, and then a big splash. Curious, she poked her head above the covers and saw Ribbon shivering and soaking wet, with Darkness standing over her whispering to her. Now she knew she wouldn't be able to fall asleep, for fear of bad dreams. When Darkness went back over to her bed, Shadow slipped out of her blankets and padded over to the door.

Darkness heard a very small noice by the door. She poked her head up to see Shadows over by the door. "Where are you going?" Darkness asked.

Shadow whipped her head around at the sound of Darkness's voice. "Um... I'm just... um... I couldn't sleep."

"Yeah..... Maybe you could help me out with keeping Ribbon awake." Darkness said.

"If you're going out, can I come too? I really don't want to fall asleep again," Ribbon said.

Raindrop let out a long snore, peacefully oblivious to everything going on around her. 

"Fine. But your crazy if you think I'm not coming." Darkness said.

Shadow considered. "Okay guys, let's all go for a nice midnight stroll. You guys can make sure I don't get lost this time, and we'll make it back before morning so we won't miss the bonding flight again. Let's let Randrop sleep, though."

Darkness walked over to her bunk and grabbed a sweat shirt. She then slid open the door slowly and checked to see if the coast was clear. Nodding to the others, she stepped out barefoot onto the cool ground.

Shadow followed Darkness outside, shivering as the cool night air washed over her. She felt a gentle breeze move past her cheek, stirring her hair. She turned her face up to the sky, where the stars shone brightly in a cloudless sky. There was no moon tonight. She thought of the story her mother used to tell her at bedtime, about how the stars were holes in the sky that let out the light from the gods' palace high above.

Darkness shifted from foot to foot in the cool air. "Where should we go to?" She asked. She noticed Shadows looking up at the stars. Darkness looked up, making out constellations.

As she followed her friends outside, Ribbon shivered, feeling the wind on her skin. She let the cold flow over her, trying to clear her mind for a moment and forget about everything, her nightmares, whatever was happening to Dancing, and all her other worries.

"I don't know." Shadow replied. "We could just walk along the path in the woods."

"Okay, just promise me that you guys aren't going to get snapped up by a dragon, get carried off in the woods, and have one of us fall off our dragon at high heights while others try and get load a hurt dragon onto another dragon." Darkness said sarcastically.

"I can't promise you anything." Shadow said. "But we can do our best to get back for the bonding flight this time." She took a stepp into the woods.

"Do you think that the bonding flight will be much different from the flights this morning?" Darkness asked.

"I dunno. It'll probably include some more ritual stuff." Shadow had never sen a bonding flight. Family was always invited to the banding flights, but Shadow didn't have any older siblings.

"I hope we didn't break any really important rules." Said Darkness.

"They'll probably walk us through it. It's not like they're just gonna, like... I dunno."

"Just gonna what?" Darkness asked, stopping in her tracks.