Storm Season | Shelha Series 2 | ✔

Drakon's Trinkets

"That one was my catch! If I hadn't separated it from the rest, you wouldn't even have touched it!"

"Boo sucks to you; you let it get away again. This is mine now, fair and square!"

"Get your tail back down here, Mossy; I'm not done talking to you yet."

"I'm sorry, I don't listen to antiques. Go teach yourself some Drakon-catching skills, why don't you?"

"Speak for yourself, Green-ears. You can't even pull off a Hunter's Pass, let alone beat me in a competition."

"We got the same number, smart-alec!"

"That last one was mine!"

Sethral dodged a pounce and swooped to a higher step on the second exit. She stuck out her tongue at Ryatzi. He shot up the ledge. The Saggitayria squeaked and dove off her perch, ending up upside down on a stalactite.

"Volume please, you two," said Whipper, poking his head from Stormhole. Sethral had locked her tail and hindlegs around rock ledges and was pretending to open a small leather pouch. Ryatzi considered her for a moment, then left the hall.

Sethral didn't actually want to open the pouch alone. Grumbling, she dropped beside the boulder and emptied the little bag's contents on the floor.

Before long, every available renegade had clustered around the pair.

"Where did you get this?" said Whipper.

"One of the Drakons had it around its neck," said Sethral. "It was a messenger. From the Lowlands, I think."

She was laying out items with alternating looks of interest and disgust. It was a typical Drakon stash. There was a pretty gold neck-chain, two copper bracelets that might have fit a desert rat, a collection of mouse bones, a bird's skull with a blue gemstone lodged in one eye socket, two matching gemstones—red and green—in the pouch's bottom, a dead stick shaped like a snake and dyed a reddish-brown colour that looked suspiciously like blood, a broken river pebble inscribed with half a poem, a flint shard, two coils of cordage, a large pink quartz crystal, and two black and orange butterfly's wings.

Whipper removed the necklace from Silversand's possession and returned it to the pile. Sethral was now categorizing the objects by interest and usefulness. Whipper stashed the flint and the cordage, reclaimed the green gemstone that Silversand was fiddling with and began examining the poem-stone. Jay swatted at a stray breeze. Taz and Fletch did not know the design of the neck-chain and so passed it off to him. They knew the butterfly wings though: Blackbud swallowtail, a species native to the South flats. Apparently this one was unusually large.

Jay gave the neck-chain back to Sethral, then jumped as another breeze shot in the window. He crouched on the lee side of the boulder.

"Storm coming," murmured Wing, catching Whipper watching the Raindai.

"Isn't there always?"

"This is a big one," said Ryatzi. He had so far proven to have a knack for predicting the weather.

"Is it going to hit us?" said Whipper.

The mutt and Saberel both shrugged.

Sethral had no luck with the neck-chain either, and so passed it off to Ryatzi before snatching the other gemstone from Silversand's paws, removing one bracelet from the Royal's tail, the other—which the cat had been attempting to try on—from her left paw, and the discarded mouse skull from the sandy hollow where she had gotten bored and left it. She turned back just in time to deal Silversand's paw a slap as it wandered towards the butterfly wings. Noting the Saggitayria's deteriorating patience and rising fur, Whipper suggested that Silversand go look for beetles. She wandered away batting at stray rock chips and humming to herself.