Soon he was only a few feet behind the Wind. Whiteswirl reached out with one of his legs and scratched the Wind, causing it to drop down a few feet.
Then the Wind did something unexpected–it pulled its wings in close to its body and plummeted down towards the trees at break-neck speed. Whiteswirl was flying so fast that he flew right past it before turning and dropping down after the Wind.
Just as it was about to hit the ground, the Wind pulled out of its dive and flew low among the trees, with Whiteswirl keeping close behind.
Whiteswirl began to get worried that the Wind might escape after all, but he could see that the Wind was tiring. It was flying slightly slower than before, and each flap of its wings seemed to be an effort.
He soon closed the distance between them once more and reached out, scratching the Wind. This time it tumbled and crashed into the forest floor. Whiteswirl dove down on top of it and reached his head down, about to bite into its neck.
The Wind pulled its head back and breathed fire at Whiteswirl's face. Whiteswirl jumped back, roaring loudly. He was able to dodge most of the fire, but some of it had hit his muzzle. The Wind struggled to its feet and turned swiftly, about to leap into the sky.
Whiteswirl pounced on it just as it jumped, knocking it to the ground again. He quickly bit into its neck, before it could breathe fire at him again. Then he thirstily drank its blood, thinking that this hunt had not been worth the effort.
When he was finished, Whiteswirl looked up and saw Redclaws standing quietly nearby, watching him.
“Why didn't you help?” Whiteswirl asked angrily. “How long were you just standing there, watching me?”
“Ever since you landed,” Redclaws said nonchalantly. “I was seeing if you needed help. I would have killed the Wind for you if I thought you weren't capable of doing it yourself.”
Whiteswirl continued to glare at her as she walked casually up to the body of the Wind. She breathed fire at it and stood back to wait until it was completely burned. Once it was, she said, “Get rid of the ashes. I still have to burn the Wind I killed.”
Whiteswirl began to dig a hole to bury the ashes in as Redclaws flew off. He buried them quickly and then flew to the part of the forest he wanted to explore, not stopping to meet up with Redclaws first.
He found a small stream when he was exploring, but little else. He soon went back to the cave, which was empty. Dawn was approaching. As it became lighter, Whiteswirl drifted off to sleep. He was vaguely aware of Redclaws returning before he was too deeply asleep to notice anything else.
CHAPTER TWELVE: AUTUMN
The next morning, it was colder than usual. The wind was blowing hard, and the fish were staying near the bottom of the lake. Waveripple saw that the wind was blowing some of the leaves off the trees.
“Is it starting to be fall?” Waveripple asked Flowerwater.
“Yes, it is,” Flowerwater replied. “Soon the leaves will start changing colors–some will be red, others yellow, and a few purple. After a while they will all become brown, and the wind will blow them from the trees. There will be a thick layer of leaves over most of the ground. There won't be very many around the lake, of course, because there aren't many trees nearby.”
“That will be interesting,” Waveripple said, trying to imagine the leaves changing colors, or the trees having no leaves on them at all. He wondered if he would like fall as much as summer.
Dragons lived forever, unless they were killed, but they took a very short time to grow up. Most dragons were completely grown by the time they were one year old, so, as a hatchling, Waveripple had never seen fall or winter.
Remembering that he had seen the fish at the bottom of the lake, he asked, “Are the fish going to be harder to catch in fall?”
“They will be harder to catch than they were in summer.” Splashsail answered this time. “Especially as the water gets colder. In winter the water will get so cold that it will become solid, and all the fish will be trapped in it.”
Waveripple could not imagine the water turning solid. It was just too strange.
“How will we be able to swim in the water to go after the fish if the water is solid?” Waveripple asked, perplexed.
“We won't be able to, Waveripple,” Flowerwater replied. “We will have to either break the ice, if only the top of the lake is solid, or find a new, warmer lake.”
“Are we going to hunt now?” Waveripple asked, changing the subject.
“We can if you want to,” Splashsail said. “Or we could wait until later.”
“No, I want to hunt now,” Waveripple said.
“Okay, let's go,” Flowerwater said.
Waveripple and his parents swam out towards the center of the lake. The strong wind was creating waves that made it difficult for the Amphibians to swim while keeping their heads above the water. Waveripple and his parents started chasing the fish to each other, like they always did, but most of the fish were out of sight. They dove down under the water to look for more fish, but most were hiding among the aquatic vegetation.
After an hour of hunting, they had only been able to catch three medium-sized fish. After eating those three, they went back out to hunt more fish for later. They managed to catch two more fish, but by then all the other fish had scattered, hiding among the plants.
In the evening, Waveripple went to visit Indigowings and Emeraldeyes. They played different games, like they had before, but Waveripple had to come back earlier than usual because the days were growing shorter.
Every day for the next few weeks, Waveripple hunted in the morning with his parents, and then went off to visit his friends in the evening. If Emeraldeyes was not there, Indigowings and Waveripple practiced flying. They both soon mastered it and could now fly places instead of walking.
It got just a little bit colder each day, and each day was slightly shorter than the one before it.
A few weeks later, the leaves on the trees had changed colors. Most of them were yellow, some were red, some were orange, some were brown, and a few were purple. When they played hide and seek, Emeraldeyes was sometimes able to sit unnoticed in the trees with brown leaves because her brown coloring blended in.
After a few more weeks, the leaves all changed brown and fell to the ground. The trees looked very strange without them, but they also looked more detailed now that all the branches and twigs could be seen clearly.
One day in autumn, after all the leaves were on the ground, Waveripple went to visit his friends as usual. He had thought of a few new games that they could play now that the ground was covered in leaves.
Emeraldeyes was already at Indigowings's cave when he arrived.
“Hi Emeraldeyes and Indigowings,” he greeted them.
“Hi Waveripple,” Indigowings said.
“Hi,” Emeraldeyes said.
“I thought of a few games that we could play with the leaves on the ground,” Waveripple said.
“What are they?” Emeraldeyes asked curiously, and also a bit warily. The other two had gotten her interested in “hatchling games” again, but she still did not want to play anything that she thought was pointless or silly.
“One of them is a twist on hide and seek,” Waveripple replied. “Instead of tracking each other's scents to find each other, we could follow each other's footprints in the leaves.”
“That sounds fun,” Indigowings said.
“Yeah, it would be more interesting than normal hide and seek,” Emeraldeyes agreed. “It would be more challenging. What are the other games you thought of?”
“Well, I only thought of one other, actually,” Waveripple said. “We could have a contest to see who could find the most different kinds of leaves, or the strangest-shaped one.”
“That also sounds fun,” Indigowings said, “but I think we should play the hide and seek game first.”
“Both of them are good,” Emeraldeyes said. “It doesn't matter to me which one we do first.”
“Then we can do the hide and seek game f
irst, since it also doesn't matter for me,” Waveripple said. “After all, I'm the one who invented both.”
“I can look first, while you two hide,” Indigowings said. “Unless one of you wants to look first.”
“No, you can,” Emeraldeyes said. “I've been thinking of a few new hiding spots.”
“Yeah, you can look first, Indigowings,” Waveripple agreed. “Count to one hundred!” he called, already starting to run away to look for a hiding spot.
Waveripple soon found a pond to hide in. It was the pond that he usually hid in when they were playing hide and seek, because of all the aquatic plants to hide behind. It was almost impossible for the other two to find out exactly where he was when he hid in this pond.
The water was extremely cold, making Waveripple shiver when he entered it. He was used to being in cold water, but this water was a lot colder than usual, much colder than the water in the lake. He found a patch of plants to hide behind and stayed there. Holding still in the water made him even colder than he was when he was moving. Waveripple decided that this would be the last time he would hide here until it warmed up again, in late spring.
Unfortunately for him, Indigowings went to look for Emeraldeyes first. Waveripple knew that because he did not hear Indigowings's footsteps or wingflaps. More than half an hour went by before Indigowings started coming in his direction.
By the time Indigowings did come to look for him, Waveripple was much colder. He was shivering so much that Indigowings might be able to see him because of the ripples he was making in the water. He considered just coming out then, but decided not to. He had not waited in the cold water this long just to come out because it was too cold.
Indigowings jumped into the water right next to Waveripple. “I found you!” he said.
Surfacing from under the water, Waveripple saw Indigowings jumping back out of the pond, shaking the cold water off. Waveripple almost ran out of the pond, and then shook all the water off of him. Indigowings and Emeraldeyes, whom Waveripple had not noticed at first, jumped back from the droplets.
“Where were you hiding?” Waveripple asked Emeraldeyes.
“I dug a hole in the ground,” Emeraldeyes replied, “and hid there. Of course I dragged some leaves around and on top of me so that Indigowings would not be able to find me. He almost stepped on me.”
“That would be a good hiding place,” Waveripple said. “For someone as small as you, at least.”
“I'm going to look for you two now,” Emeraldeyes said, changing the subject. “One, two, three, four...” She started counting to one hundred. Waveripple and Indigowings ran off to find hiding spots.
Waveripple started looking around for a good hiding spot that was out of the water. He found a pine tree with very low branches, and climbed it to hide there.
There were a lot of other pine trees close by, so Waveripple decided to climb across from this branch to one of the branches of the next tree. That would make it harder for Emeraldeyes to find him.
Then he decided to go into the next tree, and then the next one after that. He kept going, but stayed in a path parallel to the one he had left on the ground, going back the way he had come. He was close enough to the trail to be found easily, but not actually close to the end of the trail.
Waveripple had gotten almost all the way back to the starting point when he heard footsteps. He froze, and watched Emeraldeyes walk up, following his trail through the leaves. He stifled a laugh when she walked past him without even looking up.
Waveripple watched Emeraldeyes until she followed the trail past some trees, where he could not see her anymore. Then he started following her through the trees, moving as quietly as possible.
After a little while, Waveripple heard Emeraldeyes's footsteps again as she came back. She had probably decided to go look for Indigowings first. When she passed by him, Waveripple started going back to the tree he had originally climbed up.
Moving slowly back through the trees took twice as long as it had taken to walk there on the ground. He paused before going back to the first tree he had climbed, and decided to stay in the one next to it instead. Soon afterwards, Emeraldeyes came back, with Indigowings following. Emeraldeyes looked all over along the ground, and then started looking up in the trees. She looked right at Waveripple.
“I found you,” she said. “And you weren't there before. I already looked in that tree,” she accused.
Waveripple smiled sheepishly. He had hoped that she would not notice that, so that he could pretend to be surprised that she could not find him when he was so close to her. Of course, he really had been very close to her without her noticing, but that was when she was concentrating on following the path he had made through the leaves instead of looking around for him.
“Yeah, I was not here,” Waveripple admitted. “But I was very close to you, and in one of these pine trees.” He did not tell her that he had been so close to her before she had reached the end of the trail. Of course, what he did was technically not cheating, but might think it was.
Emeraldeyes looked as if she did not entirely believe him, but she did not press the matter.
“Anyway, it's your turn to look for us now,” Indigowings said to Waveripple.
“Okay, I'll start counting to one hundred,” Waveripple said. He climbed down from the tree and began to count. He had not even gotten to fifteen before Indigowings and Emeraldeyes had run too far away for him to see them because of all the trees blocking his view.
After he finished counting, Waveripple started following the small path that Emeraldeyes had made through the leaves. He had decided to look for her first than Indigowings because she was much smaller and harder to find. If he found Indigowings first, by the time he reached the end of Emeraldeyes's trail she would have hidden herself so well that she would be almost impossible to find. She always picked better hiding spots than Indigowings did.
Waveripple soon reached the end of Emeraldeyes's path through the leaves. He first looked around in the trees, but did not see her. Then he looked at the ground, but saw only pine needles and leaves. He knew that she might be hiding in the leaves again, like she told him she had before, so he started pushing them aside. He did not find her there.
After looking farther out, Waveripple found a large mound of dirt between two trees. At first he thought that it was just a badger hole and walked past it. But then he realized that if it were an abandoned badger mound, Emeraldeyes could have made its entrance hole larger and hidden in there. He looked around for the entrance, but the whole badger mound was covered in pine needles and fallen leaves. He pushed them all aside, eventually finding the entrance hole. It was larger than he thought it would be, so he looked inside to see if Emeraldeyes was there.
A loud, fierce growl came out of the badger hole, making Waveripple leap back. There really is an animal in there, and the hole is not abandoned after all! he thought. He was about to turn and run when he realized that the growl did not sound like a normal animal growl; it sounded like a dragon growl.
Waveripple slowly walked back to the badger hole and peeked inside, ready to jump back if there really was an animal inside. A pair of bright green eyes looked out at him from the hole.
“Emeraldeyes, I found you,” Waveripple said.
Emeraldeyes walked out of the badger hole, laughing. “I didn't think you would actually fall for that!” she said. “I thought you would know that it was me in the hole, but you really thought it was a badger!” She was still laughing as she spoke. “And why would a badger scare you anyway? You're a lot bigger than one.”
“I didn't think there was a badger in there,” Waveripple said. “I thought that some animal was in there, of course, but from the noise, I thought it was something much bigger than a badger.”
Emeraldeyes was still laughing quietly. “Did you find Indigowings yet?” she asked, although it was pretty obvious that he had not.
“No; I went to find you first,” Waveripple replied. “I'm going to look for
him now.”
Waveripple walked back to the area that the other hatchlings had run out of, and easily found Indigowings's trail, which looked like something a bear might have made. He followed it until, about half an hour later, he came to the end of the path.
Waveripple quickly scanned the trees, and then the ground. He did not see Indigowings, but there were a few huge oak trees that he might be hiding behind. He walked up to them and looked, but Indigowings was not there. Behind the oak trees, there were even more oak trees, so he started looking around all of them. Then he looked up into their branches to see if Indigowings was there, and saw Indigowings up in the branches of one of the oaks.
“Found you!” Waveripple called up. Indigowings swooped down from the tree and landed a few feet away from Waveripple.
“Now let's play the other game–the contest to see who can get the most different leaves,” Emeraldeyes said.
“Okay,” Indigowings said, not sounding particularly enthusiastic about that game.
“Ready, set, go!” Waveripple said, grabbing the nearest leaf. Indigowings and Emeraldeyes also started taking leaves.
The leaf that Waveripple had grabbed was an oak leaf. He started looking around for other varieties of leaves, but saw only pine needles. He quickly ran to the closest tree that was not an oak, and took a leaf that was next to it on the ground. It was a maple leaf. He kept looking for other leaves, and soon had a birch leaf, a willow leaf, an elm leaf, and three leaves that he could not identify.
“Wait a minute,” Waveripple said to the other two. They both paused from leaf-gathering. “We did not decide how many different kinds of leaves we would have to get to win.”
“We could get fifteen,” Emeraldeyes suggested.
“You probably have fourteen,” Indigowings said.
“No, I don't. I only have seven,” Emeraldeyes told him.
“Okay, then we can do it until we get to fifteen,” Indigowings agreed.
“Then let's continue,” Waveripple said, running to the next tree to look for new leaves.
After twenty more minutes, Waveripple had collected thirteen leaves in all. He saw another new leaf and grabbed it.
“I have fifteen!” Emeraldeyes called triumphantly.