The Trials of Ascension ~ Chapter Ⅺ

Instructions

STORY: Sunrise awoke to the same ear-shattering horn from the night before. She jolted awake, and realised something. Her medallion was gone! Dreamcatcher rushed in, somewhat bleary-eyed. “You too?” she asked. “Yeah. What did you lose?” “My horn clasps.” Sun looked at Dreamcatcher, and realized she had never noticed the accessories on LunarWing's curved horns. They both flew down to the floor, where many of the draganets were conversing. One CanyonWings, Acacia, was especially panicky. “That was my only trihydride item...Oh, I knew I should have brought an extra!” Avalanche blew her horn again. “GET TO THE GREAT HALL OR YOU WON’T GET YOUR STUFF BACK!” She swung a draganet’s necklace around her hands. “Was that really necessary?” Sun grumbled to Pacific and Dreamcatcher. “I guess it was for the SnowWings and SongWings…” Pacific yawned. “True.” Sun mumbled as they walked into the Great Hall. Lady Peregrine was waiting there for them, her scarlet scales glinting in the early morning light. “We will be heading to the Trial Island a day early. Some SwarmWing scouts spotted a large hurricane heading this way, so we will need to leave a day early, in case it traps us here. If it misses us, the Sponsor Ceremony will take place at the originally planned time. Avalanche will give you back your belongings, and you will pack up. We will bring the beds with us, for convenience.” “Bring the beds with us? How?” Dreamcatcher whispered as they walked back to the giant room. “There has been talk that Lady Peregrine ’s designers figured out how to make collapsing, transportable beds. They could be some of those.” Sunrise said back. “Oh.” The friends walked back into the shared room. The beds were indeed collapsable, as they found out. Apocrita, or as Citrus called her, Ri, became trapped in her pod-shaped bed when Citrus tampered with it. It took her a few minutes to struggle out of it, glaring at Citrus as she giggled. Sun placed all of her stuff back into her bag, and barely leaped out before Dreamcatcher collapsed it. “Really?” she huffed. “I still need to get the cushions out.” “You don’t need to! They collapse with the bed.” The large pod was now simply a large, thick, round, and slightly heavy slab of fabric. Sun slipped it into her bag, and something clinked. Curious, she looked in. It was her sun medallion! She slipped it back around her neck as Dreamcatcher clipped two silver bands with small star-shaped sapphires dangling from them, and in turn, from the underside of her horns. “Those are unusual.” Sun remarked. “Why sapphire?” “My father got them while wiping out some of those mice things that stand on two legs in the Ocean Kingdom for Lady Orca and gave them to me.” “I think those are called scavengers.” Please come outside to the Kestrel Pavilion. A disembodied voice echoed through the room. Draganets finished packing quickly and rushed outside, following the SkyWing draganets Sun, Raven, Inferno, Firefall, and Comet, who knew where the Kestrel Pavilion was. Lady Peregrine , a few attendants, many guards, and Heron were waiting for them there. “The other ladies will meet us at the Trial Islands. We will be flying for about a few hours, with a few rests on small islands, so we should leave now. Please shift into your full dragon forms.” Lady Peregrine flapped into the air, followed by the guards, attendants, and the rest of the dragans. “Kingfisher, Condor, Cliff, Crimson, stay with the Candidates, please.” Lady Peregrine instructed. Four dragans wearing black and gold armor dropped back from the group of guards and hovered to the left, right, front, and back of the pack of 60 draganets. They were burly and didn’t talk, and instead scrutinized the sky around the dragans for any signs of danger. Sun pulled out a contraption she had packed, which counted the miles they flew. Condor, who was the closest to her, humphed at her after inspecting it. After an hour and a few hundred miles, the first bit of land in quite a while came into view. Lady Peregrine dipped down, followed by the entourage of almost a hundred dragans. Sun swooped down and landed on the sand. She sighed with happiness, shifted back into her humanoid form, and flopped down. “We’re gonna go catch something.” Pacific, said coming up with another OceanWing, called Atlantis. “You wanna come?” “No thanks…” Sun mumbled. “Imma just stay here…” “Okay.” Pacific walked to the shallow part of the water and smiled. “There’s sharks!” The heads of all of the OceanWings popped up simultaneously. “Really?” one, called Cove, asked, jumping up. Pacific submerged with a splash after shifting into her dragon form, her large body sending water everywhere. She resurfaced, with a small tiger shark in her jaws. “Yes!” she called.