The Smuggler: Chapter Six: Reunited

 I guess I owe you for making that last chapter late, and I want to keep going. So here's another one. Also, I put a small bit of romance in, don't get angry with me if I did the wrong dragons together.

Chapter Six

Reunited

    Julia's head burst through her cocoon. The room seemed darker than she had expected, but it was still well-lit. "Julia!" Peacock's voice sounded somewhere nearby and she smiled. She pulled until she stumbled out of her cocoon and was jumped on by her little brother.

    "Oof! Peacock!" Julia fell backwards and landed in a heap with Peacock on top of her, hugging her like crazy. She laughed and wrapped her new wings around him. "Did you miss me that much?"

    "Yes! It was so boring without you! Just as I predicted! Well, actually it wasn't at all like how I predicted, but whatever."

    Julia pushed him off but then abruptly realized that instead of the steady glow from flamesilk lanterns, the light was flickering like fire. She frowned and got to her feet. The room around her was definitely not the Cocoon. There was a low stone ceiling and instead of lanterns there was some kind of stick thing with burning fire on the top. "Peacock? Where are we?"

    Peacock grinned and grabbed her talon, leading her outside. They seemed to be in a mountain, overlooking the sea. Peacock walked confidently through a twisting path up the mountain until they burst over the top. Julia raised her talons against the sunlight until the landscape unfolded beneath her and she gasped. Mountains and actual, living trees were dotted beneath her, going on for a while before it ended in sea again.

    Some kind of city was in construction below her, but she must be seeing it wrong, because all the dragons looked like none she had ever seen. Like those three standing in front of a piece of paper with sketches. That one looked like his scales were light yellow with no trace of black, and it looked like all three of them had two bat-like wings, and those two that were green and silver with faintly glowing stripes? No. And wow her imagination was acting up because those two dragons fitting wood together seriously looked blue and black. And the only explanation for that other dragon over there was the glare from the sun, because absolutely no dragon could have scales that changed color. But that dragon standing next to that weird yellow one was undoubtedly-

    "Moth!" Julia shouted as she raced down the slope, forgetting for a moment she had wings.

    Moth turned and his eyes lit up. "Julia!" Laughing, they both crashed into each other and wrapped their wings around each other.

    "Is it really you?" asked Julia, incredulous.

    "It's really me." Moth released her and stepped back, still grinning.

    Julia grinned back and glanced at the dragons who were now staring at her. Her mouth dropped open in surprise. She had not imagined their colors. They actually were yellow, green, and silver. And those other three probably were blue, black, and that weird color-changing.

    She narrowed her eyes at Moth and Peacock, who had come down to join them. "You boys have some explaining to do."

    "Right you are," replied Moth cheerfully. "A lot. Come. You must be starving." He beckoned to her to follow him inside one of the completed buildings. It had a lighting feature of the fire-sticks and a few flamesilk lanterns, which held a coppery flamesilk which must be Moth's.

    One dragon sat alone, peering intently at a map of Pantala. She turned and smiled.

    "Uh, Moth?" asked Julia.

    Moth nodded. "Yes, I know. She's a HiveWing. Julia, meet Dragonfly. She's the one who helped us get here."

    Julia waved at Dragonfly but frowned at Moth. "And here is...?"

    "The home of Clearsight," repeated Julia for maybe the third time. "I honestly never even dreamed of being here." Moth and Peacock had lead her to a table which was piled with food, which she immediately devoured.

    Peacock grinned. "Well, you're here now. Come on! I want to introduce you to the Pyrrian dragons!" He bounced excitedly over the door and walked out.

    "He's really friendly with them," Moth told her. "Especially Anemone, the SeaWing princess. I think the two have something going on."

    "Already? He's not old enough for crushes!"

    Moth shrugged. "That doesn't seem to bother him." They walked back out into the construction site. The green and silver dragons were whispering under their breaths as the black and blue ones backed up from the house they had been working on. Moth put out a talon to stop Julia, and they watched as suddenly the crooked wooden structure righted itself and repairs appeared in a few of the holes.

    Julia gasped. "Whoa!" The yellow dragon nodded approvingly and said something to them. As they neared they could hear him better.

    "Yes. That was amazing. Winter, could you please check and make sure it's stabilized? It wouldn't be good if it collapsed on the heads of one of our guests."

    The blue dragon nodded and walked towards the house, pushing and flicking his tail at particular spots. The rest of them looked up as they came towards them.

    "Hi!" said the black dragon. "Julia, right? I'm Moon."

    The Clearsight-looking dragon, thought Julia. Also the one who can read minds. You just heard that, didn't you?

    Moon grinned as an answer.

    "Julia, this is Qibli, Turtle, Anemone, Kinkajou, and that over there is Winter," said Moth. "Guys, this is my sister Julia."

    "The non-flamesilk, right?" asked Turtle.

    "Yep. Why, were you hoping for another flamesilk?"

    "No," Anemone said. "I mean, we're fine with that, but we also need someone to help us build the webs. Dragonfly said our animus magic webs didn't look exactly like the real ones. And apparently if Moth tries he'll burn the whole of Freedom down."

    "Freedom?" asked Julia, confused. Moth was going to burn freedom down? How was that even possible?

    Moon giggled. "No, not that freedom. Freedom is the name of the city we're building where the refugees from Pantala can go until they get a home elsewhere, or just stay here."

    "We're working on it now," said Qibli. "That's supposed to be the room for SilkWing dragonets going through their Metamorphosis. Here comes Winter."

    The blue dragon, Winter, was coming back. "It seems secured. I don't think that the roof caving in is going to be a big problem." His eyes flicked over to Julia and he nodded in greeting. Julia nodded back.

    Suddenly the door of the room Moth, Julia, and Peacock had just left swung open and Dragonfly ran out. Her talons were cupped over something and she was staring in horror at it.

    "Dragonfly?" asked Peacock nervously. "Is something wrong?"

    "I...I think we've been followed," Dragonfly replied. She looked up and slowly opened her talons. In them lay a small blood-red scale.

    "We're being followed by a scale?" Kinkajou asked. "That doesn't exactly seem like a bad thing."

    "No, no." Dragonfly shook her head emphatically. "I'd know this shade of red anywhere." She looked up and met Moth's gaze. "This is one of Beetle's scales. The dragon who is out to kill."