The room was full of people
in long robes and pointed hats, some working at the consoles and talking in
hushed voices. A group of people stood with their hands on each
others shoulders, holding their staffs together, pointing them at the
giant orb. The staffs were shooting streams of different colored
light at the center of the disturbed area. PonytailGirl saw Dalfgan and
another man with gray-silver, a third man with yellow, and two women with blue and copper-brown. They finished what they were doing and stood
apart, and then turned as she and Bixby crossed over to them. She
felt kind of funny with these people all dressed up in fancy robes
inspecting her, when she was barefoot and in pajamas."This is Dalfgan, PonytailGirl," said Bixby. "He's the Director."
“So young lady, you sneaked onto the island, did you?” said Dalfgan, with a small smile and one eyebrow up. “Did anyone see you?”
“So young lady, you sneaked onto the island, did you?” said Dalfgan, with a small smile and one eyebrow up. “Did anyone see you?”
“I don't think so,” she
answered. “It's really early. No one else is up yet.”
"I'm surprised the gravity matrix pulled you up like that," said a woman with silver hair. "You don't look like you got hurt, though."
"I'm surprised the gravity matrix pulled you up like that," said a woman with silver hair. "You don't look like you got hurt, though."
“Rudna, the surprising thing is, that even with so many other things going wrong, Stealth was
even functioning,” put in a young man in jeans and a long open coat, who had the second gray staff.
“The surprising thing is, Dickinson,” said a young woman with long fluffy brown hair, "nobody
has gotten this child any shoes and something to eat.”
“Go ahead, Tessa,” said Dickinson. “It's a Metal habitat that blew up. We don't need you to
work on this.”
“True,” agreed Dalfgan.
To Bixby he said, “ It appears that Torbin was trying some new techniques constructing a Metal habitat and something misfired and blew up. He doesn't respond to any hails."
"The Plant and Earth habitats were destroyed," said the third man. "It's a good thing you moved your Plant dragons.”
"The Plant and Earth habitats were destroyed," said the third man. "It's a good thing you moved your Plant dragons.”
“I had nothing to do with
it, Franklin,” said Bixby. “It was all Thornbark. It's not just wizard
magic working here; a lot of it is dragon magic, and Thornbark is the
strongest. Well, we have the Large Plant Habitat nearly finished. We
can take them there. I don't want them at Krollsmarsh. Kroll would go after them with his club.”
“So...” said Tessa,
“I'll ask Mohs what he wants to do with the Earth dragons when
they hatch. Come on, honey. You hungry? You want to see some dragon
eggs?”
“Dragon eggs? Yes!”
exclaimed PonytailGirl. Tessa took her back up to the top of the
Colosseum to transport.
At the Nursery a tall round
tower overlooked a cluster of nests on stone warming stands, one egg
per nest. They found Mohs, the old Earth Dragon Master, out checking
the eggs. They were leathery, not hard, and pulsed slightly. When
he and Tessa shone their browny-coppery orbs on the eggs, the baby
dragons showed dimly through the shells. Mohs declared that most
were ready to hatch that day. “Earth dragons are the calmest of all dragons, but they still need the right environment. We can put the Crystal and Quake
dragons in the Lightning Habitat, but the rest will have to go in the
Colosseum for now,” he said. "Let's see. We need space for exercise runs and treat farms and things. Oh my, there's not really room for it all."
Tessa's quarters were
upstairs in the tower. She found sandals and a layered
brown-and-cream gown similar to the one she was wearing, and shrank
them to fit PonytailGirl. While the little girl was eating, the two
wizards discussed docking a second island. Suddenly they heard a strange ripping sound. “The eggs!”
Watching dragons hatch is
worth getting lost. The first one was brown with little horn nubs
across its head and along its back. It bounced and bounced like it
was on a trampoline. PonytailGirl was surprised that it didn't have
wings. When it stopped bouncing for a second she grabbed it and
helped clean it up and check its eyes. The second baby dragon was
gray, had tiny wings, and rocked back and forth on a large stone.
Sometimes it managed to hop a little. As PonytailGirl helped with this
one, she saw that the stone was the end of its tail. “How can it
even move?” she wondered.
The third one looked
completely different from the others. It was brown and yellow with
big feathery wings, and tried to fly right from the shell. But it
came to her when she fed it some flowers called dragonsnaps. The
first baby wanted dragonsnaps too. It came bouncing over, bounced
into PonytailGirl, bounced towards the gray baby – they almost crashed
– but then a strange thing happened. Instead of colliding, the
brown baby -POP- disappeared, and reappeared suddenly on the other
side of the gray one. “Did you see that?” she called.
“Well, they are magic
dragons,” Tessa answered. She was busy with a fourth baby. This one
had six legs. It held its front legs up like arms, and bounced around
on its back four. It didn't land its bounces cleanly. It slid.
“Oh my! Here ya go!
Woops!” PonytailGirl tried to catch it and set it straight and then saw
it didn't need help. But it was hungry. As she reached to get more
dragonsnaps from a basket, something fast and yellow flipped past her
hand and took the flowers. “Hey! What was that?” She looked
around but couldn't see anything. As she was giving flowers to a
purple baby that had just hatched, the yellow thing struck again.
“Ya! What is it?”
“Oh that?” Mohs grabbed the six-legged baby. “That's it's tongue.
Watch!” It was true. The baby had a long tongue it used like a frog
catching flies. “But this one is too young to be doing that yet.”
Just then the gray baby's tiny wings lifted it into the air as it
headed for PonytailGirl's basket. “Oh my!” Mohs exclaimed,”
I've never seen a Quake baby fly!” The brown baby blew out a bubble of dirt and rock chips.
“No, me neither,” replied Bixby. "And that little Earth is too small to have elemental breath." At this they all turned to see that Bixby and Dalfgan had
joined them unnoticed. “My dear, your mother is looking for you.
It's about nine o'clock and you've been here four hours. She's waked
up and found you are missing, and is very worried.”
“The energy surges have
stabilized,” added Dalfgan, “and we can take you home now.”
“You can't take her away!” Mohs got laboriously to his feet. “She is influencing the dragons. They
have more power when she is with them! She is a Dragonfriend.”
“That may be so,” Bixby said, "or they may be influencing her. Why did she sense Thornbark? We
have to let this develop and see where it leads.”
“Well, we can't take a child secretly. We need her mother's
permission,” Dalfgan decided. “Come, let's go back to the Colosseum
and use the main transporter.”
