Chapter Text
They had a good thing going. Turtle would keep writing his story whenever he felt like it and whenever he found time alone in his cave—he told Peril that sometimes he would stay up late while his roommate was sleeping, too—and eventually he would call Peril again to read it together.
(That was how she thought of it, even though he was the one doing all the reading.)
And then today happened.
The memories felt at once too fuzzy and far too crisp. She could mentally see Turtle leaving for the library, saying he needed more paper and he’d be back in a pinch; she could see his tail whipping around the corner; she could see herself waiting, and then settling down on the floor.
She didn’t know exactly what had happened in between.
She didn’t know how she could have let this happen.
Because as she’d sat down, she must have touched the edge of one of Turtle’s scrolls.
It caught on fire immediately, of course. Peril jerked away as fast as she could, but she couldn’t undo what she’d already done. That was the thing about fire, is that once it started, it didn’t just stop. Peril couldn’t make it stop, at least. She couldn’t help, because her talons caused destruction wherever they went, clearly.
Stupid papers all over the stupid ground.
There were several on the floor, to be fair; how was she supposed to avoid all of them? So maybe it was partially Turtle’s fault. But no, he’d been raiding his shelves for loose paper and pulled rolled-up scrolls out haphazardly. None of them had been empty paper, which was why he’d fled to the library, promising it would be quick and leaving loose paper all over the floor. It was the kind of thing normal dragons were allowed to do. And it was Peril’s job to be careful, always, especially in his room.
Especially with his scrolls. Some from the library, others written by him, and none that Peril should touch, ever in her life.
But there it was, a mystery scroll laying face-down on the ground, half-burned with more and more of it crackling away very, very slowly.
Technically, it could be one of the library scrolls. It really could.
Something terrible in Peril’s stomach told her it wasn’t.
And she had no way of knowing. Because she couldn’t just PICK IT UP, like anyone else, she thought a little hysterically. And she DID think of asking somebody else to do it, because that was the type of thing dragons at this friendly all-tribes-get-along school were SUPPOSED to do, like Clay and Turtle and Sunny kept telling her… and Peril thought that maybe she was slowly getting better at that. Except she COULDN’T this time, because if it WAS Turtle’s story, nobody else was allowed to see it.
So Peril was alone in this. Somehow even though she only had the power to destroy it, she had to protect this scroll from other students’ eyes, which she realized very painfully and suddenly when Qibli walked by the cave and peeked in.
She was trying to cover it with her talons while clearly still taking great care to keep them far enough from the paper to not burn it any further. She kept twitching and glancing back down at the paper to check that she hadn’t burned it any further, then looking back at Qibli to see what he wanted.
He simply looked at her like she was weird, the way he always did. His head was tilted to the side, like he was actually trying to figure her out, and part of Peril wanted to growl at his curious expression. Better than open hostility, maybe, but she didn’t like the feeling she was being picked apart.
Maybe she was just nervous right now. Or maybe he was very specifically trying to get on her nerves. Because it was WORKING.
And WHERE was TURTLE this whole time??
At least the paper was burning much more slowly. Peril felt incredibly grateful that SeaWings had invented more durable paper that survived underwater.
…Which was another thing that pointed towards this being Turtle’s story.
Or maybe just a SeaWing scroll from the library, she thought desperately, but she didn’t let herself believe it just yet. She hoped that by the time Turtle came back there would still be a good chunk left. She really, really hoped so, because she didn’t know what she’d do otherwise. She didn’t know what to do with the fact that she’d already burned so much of it.
Three blazing moons, couldn’t he just be faster already?
And why was Qibli just STANDING THERE, with that same expression on his face? It had only been a few seconds, but still. Peril was far too frazzled to bother even trying to pretend she could start a normal, respectable conversation right now.
At last, Qibli spoke. “Hey, Peril,” he said curiously.
Peril decided she was too annoyed with him to respond when he clearly had nothing to say.
What was she even supposed to say to that? Hey, Qibli, nice to see you? It wasn’t, and the two of them didn’t talk, anyway.
He surprised her by clearing his throat and trying again instead of just walking away.
“Whatcha doing there? And where’s Turtle?”
“He went to the library,” Peril responded (in a very polite and friendly manner, she thought!), sidestepping the first question.
“Hm,” Qibli said simply. “He does like to do that.”
It was painfully awkward. Peril would have been beating herself up over that if she didn’t have bigger things on her mind at the moment. As it was, she couldn’t leave, and she couldn’t do anything here. She desperately wished someone else would come and tell her it was just a random useless paper—someone who could touch the paper without ruining everything all the time, which meant literally any other dragon in the world.
But what if it wasn’t a random paper? What if it really was Turtle’s story and she’d burned a part of it forever? Would he forgive her? Would she deserve to be forgiven?
She was the only dragon in the world who knew about this story, and she’d ruined it.
This was the only copy of this story in the whole world, so it would truly be gone.
Peril didn’t cry. Peril couldn’t cry. Dragons didn't often cry, and she didn't think it was even possible for one with scales of fire. But her stomach felt like it was trying to eat her whole anyway.
And Qibli was just watching her, like he couldn’t decide between trying to unravel this mystery or walking away to give Peril space.
And then there were even more footsteps in the hallway…
But luckily it was exactly who she’d wanted to see, back at last.
“Turtle!” Peril yelped immediately. “Okay Qibli, good talk! Bye! See you later!”
Qibli stared at her, puzzled. “Should I… come back later?” He looked at Turtle for confirmation.
“Uh, yeah, I think so,” Turtle agreed with a half-smile, and he waved cordially as Qibli just shrugged and walked away. Once his footsteps started to fade, Turtle turned back to Peril. “Ouch, why’d you kick him out like that?”
Peril realized belatedly that he had probably come around looking for Turtle. Well, whatever. He’d have to wait.
She didn’t speak for a moment, only shifting her claws to reveal the half-burned paper. Turtle’s gaze shifted down for the first time. His eyes widened, snapping between her face and the paper, and then he was rushing forward to stamp it out. Luckily it was barely burning anymore, and he quickly put it out with his paws. Peril’s stomach twisted even more at the very slight hiss he let out, but she had to check the important thing before she could check on him.
“Turtle, what is it? What does it say on the other side?” she asked evenly.
At least she thought her voice was surprisingly even for the amount of distress she felt at the moment, but Turtle still picked up on the slight waver in it. He raised his eyebrows and gently picked up the singed paper as Peril finally stepped back from it.
“One of Coral’s stories, the one about the pearls,” he said, and looked back at her kindly. “My scroll is over there, if that’s what you were worried about."
“Oh,” Peril said, nodding.
“It’s alright, I shouldn’t have left them laying all around.” He walked over to each scroll until he found his and picked it up, waving it at her. “See? It’s fine. You didn’t ruin anything.”
Peril wondered if she’d accidentally said something out loud, or if she’d mentioned this fear of hers before, or if Turtle could just read her that easily. Her eyes started to go confusingly foggy at his words. She wondered if it was related to her legs feeling weak; she’d overheard Scarlet’s soldiers once talking about someone who “passed out” from stress or overworking, but that had never happened to her as the Queen’s Champion, so she couldn’t be sure it was happening now.
What she could be sure about was that she felt frozen in place. Her legs felt frozen, her arms felt frozen, her head felt frozen and her mouth especially felt frozen. Not that she had any idea what to say right now, anyway? And Turtle was starting to get blurrier and blurrier in front of her, and… closer? and—
“Peril… are you crying ?” he said softly.
That made no sense. Peril couldn’t cry. She had never cried before, in all her most miserable moments.
She told Turtle so.
“Well, you have, like, steam rising from your eyes…?”
“...Oh.”
Oh indeed.
Something about the realization seemed to snap Peril out of being frozen.
She was crying. For the first time ever she was actually crying, like other dragons did. Was this good? Or did it make her weak? Or was it a sign that she was normal? Also, did Turtle think she looked stupid with steam coming out of her eyeballs?
She didn’t want to try figuring out any of that right now; she wanted to focus on the fact that she hadn’t actually destroyed a chunk of Turtle’s story. It was safe. She hadn’t ruined this, too.
You didn’t ruin anything, Turtle had told her.
Peril’s vision didn’t get any less blurry, but she was able to move her head to squint at Turtle. “Is this what crying feels like?”
Her voice sounded embarrassingly sniffly, but Turtle didn’t comment on it. He just said, “Well, probably not for most dragons.”
“Okay,” Peril sniffed. “Um.”
She still didn’t know how to deal with this, because Peril never cried. And the one time she finally did, even Turtle mentioned it wasn’t how other dragons cried, obviously, so maybe if someone tried to help her it wouldn’t work anyway. Turtle was her friend, maybe even her best friend (even though she wasn’t sure she was his), but really she’d only known him for a few weeks, so this was really embarrassing. Should she be embarrassed? Other dragons cried and no one seemed to mind, Peril supposed, they were even comforted and helped, but she was Peril and she was supposed to be mean and ruthless and powerful.
And part of her realized that was the old Peril, and she was different now, with no Scarlet telling her to be threatening all the time, but—
Well, she was crying. And no one told her how to deal with that. Turtle was still staring at her from way too close, as a greenish blob because she couldn’t even SEE him because of all the STEAM, and she didn’t know how to deal with THAT, either—
“I need to go,” she blurted, before her brain could become a pure jumble of useless half-thoughts. “I’m fine,” she added so Turtle wouldn’t worry too much.
Peril thought he opened his mouth, but she couldn’t be sure because she needed to escape immediately. She ran through the hallway that led straight outside and thanked every moon and star for the fact that it was empty. She had no idea what she would do if she encountered another dragon right now.
Finally, she reached the cool air outside. She burst out of the mountain and took a few large breaths before slotting herself into a neat little cave right by the school tunnel’s entrance, just big enough for one dragon. It almost felt cozy.
Alone in the cave, Peril watched the landscape fade into a blur as she cried for the first time in her life.
She hadn’t even thought it was possible. But even if she had, she never would have guessed that her first time crying would be out of relief.