Chapter 2

“Hi-yaaah!” two-year old Canyon cried, nearly over balancing as he leaped forward, swiping his claws at a startled lizard. It gave him a rather irritated look and slithered away in between the rocks.

Canyon huffed and sat down in the sand, frustrated. He swished his tail back and forth, flicking sand in all directions. “It’s not fair!” he whined, “I tried and tried and tried and I can’t catch it!” He buried his head in his talons and sulked.

He looked up as Mirage, the dragonet teacher, landed in the sand next to him.

“Well, did you stay quiet for 10 heartbeats?” she asked.

Canyon thought. “Yup.”

“And did you wait for it to look away before you pounced?”

“Yup.”

“Ah, but did you remember to stay quiet the whole time?” she chuckled, giving him a knowing look.

Canyon thought, and then looked down. “Nope,” he said, sadly.

“And there’s your mistake,” she said. “You don’t have to feel bad, every dragonet makes mistakes,” she said gently.

“Ah, yes, well that is true,” a new voice said.

The two dragons whirled around as a third dragon landed on the sand behind them.

­Canyon recognized her as the dragon who was the leader. She had a name that was a plant in the desert, but he couldn’t remember.

Catdust? No that wasn’t it. Catear? No. He glanced sideways at a spindly plant that was towering next to them.

Green with pointy needles on it...aha!

Cactus, his inner voice reminded him. That was it!

He sent a silent thank-you to himself and the bristling tree-plant next to them and then focused his attention back to the other dragons.

“I remember quite well some… mistakes a certain little ruffian made, not the least of which was spilling FireCactus seeds all over my courtyard,” Cactus was saying.

She emphasized "courtyard" with a great sigh. “The that certain dragonet buried them with sand to cover up the mess!”

She gave a stern look to Mirage, then continued. “So, after about a month, everyone was confused as to why there were little tiny spike-plants all over the courtyard. By the time we finally found out what they were, they had established a root system among each other.” She frowned, giving a palm tree a disapproving frown, before continuing. “It took my gardeners weeks to dig them up and carefully dispose of them. It would have been way easier if a certain dragonet would have just come clean and told us,” she said ruefully, shaking her head.

“Who that was?” Canyon ask, curious.

“Who was that,” Cactus corrected.

“Who was’iz that?” Canyon repeated.

Cactus laughed. “You want to know?”

Canyon nodded eagerly.

Next to him, he thought he heard Mirage stiffen, and then his focus was directed towards Cactus as he saw the older dragon start shaking. After a moment, he realized she was laughing.

“You really don’t know who?” she said as she looked up, her eyes twinkling. She walked toward them and crouched down to Canyons level. “That michievious little scoundrel is now your teacher,” she said in a loud whisper.

“Really?” he said, wonder in his voice as he looked back and forth between his Queen and his teacher. “You was a miz-chivy-us liddle skowndrul?” he asked in equal parts awe and disbelief.

Mirage sighed and cleared her throat. “There were times I went against the rules, yes.”

Cactus laughed. Mirage gave her a reproachful look and then sniffed. Cactus wiped her watery eyes and then looked down at Canyon, the hint of a smile still visible on her face.

“Now, I wanted to ask, how is your hunting going?”

Canyon grumbled.