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Via Grapevine(Hidden By Grape Leaves)
Topic Started: 27 Feb 2017, 22:34 (13571 Views)
Zira Shadow
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LunaTheNightWing
27 Feb 2017, 00:29
LOVE IT! But when am I going to start talking....?
Ack! SO sorry! I'll skeeiiiish a chapter in for you.
(That's something our old music teacher used to do so naturally I still use it. SKEEEIIIIIIISH!!!!!!!!)
Sister in arms of the forgotten disaster branch, Saturn Starlings
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Zira Shadow
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Chapter 4
Puzzle Pieces
Chicken was relieved that things were beginning to shift to their side, and she determined that now there was a 50/50 chance they would make it back home after all.
As she glided along smoothly with her awesome Feather Jetpack, Chicken glanced down. As she was above all the other Grapeviners, she could see farther, and what she saw made her less sure of her 50/50 calculation.
The wild Skrill, churning up its lightning storms again, was right ahead of them.
“BWAK!!!” she yelled as she arced down to the Grapeviners. “SKRILLLLL!!!!!!!!”
They needed no more information. With Geode in the lead, they arced down in a triangle formation. Before the wild Skrill knew it, they had him surrounded.
After some diplomatic reasoning from Windy, the Skrill agreed to leave the islands well enough alone and not terrorize the dragons. As they flew away from the icy island, Chicken felt like nothing could possibly go wrong.
And her feeling was correct. They teleported into the Time Arena before anything could stop them. They plugged in the USB and got only ‘Good job!’ s and ‘Wow...new dragons?!’ s from the Riders. And Chicken’s new old friends got to stay some more in the Time Arena!
“Hey,” said Zira, out of nowhere. “What’s this metallic color for?” She pointed to a symbol on her bracelet.

Oh. That. Do you happen to recall the curtain rod that went missing a few months ago?

Zira sighed. “Why am I not surprised you had something to do with it?” A bronze rod tipped with decorative flower buds appeared in her hand. It didn’t look particularly threatening, but by now Chicken knew looks could be deceiving.

Hey, we kinda had to do it. Anyways, that’s your weapon. If you’re looking for more hidden special features, I suggest Heather next.

All eyes turned to Heather. The computer buzzed, although no one checked to see what the Riders were saying. It was hard to, since Heather was currently levitating an inch or so above the ground.
“Cooooollll…” said Chicken. “So, wh-” She was rudely cut off by a zing, zing, zing as three arrows were shot into the wall above Heather’s(who was the tallest now that she was floating) head.
TIME IS UP, the banner attached to the arrows blazed. FREEZE IS DOWN. TIME IS UP. FREEZE IS DOWN…
It kept flashing that message until Luna plucked them out of the wall, which she had to stand on tiptoe to do. Heather deactivated her shoes cautiously.
“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked.
Chicken clucked sadly. This, she knew about.
“It means - BaBAWK! - you have to leave now. This is as much time as you can have as of today.”
“Oh…” said Heather. She sounded crestfallen.
Chicken, too, felt rather crushed-under-several-thousand-tons-of-granite. After the Grapeviners left, she would be left alone in this...place. Sure, there were the Dragon Riders, who did as much as they could, but it still didn’t make the empty feeling go away. Chicken watched as the last of the Berk’s Grapevine disappeared into the Through Vortex, then sighed and waddled towards the center of the Time Arena. She stepped into two little chicken-footprints and sank into the floor. Or did the floor rise up? Chicken could never tell.
The Riders’ little blue-and-white USB followed her, and settled into a space in the far end of the room Chicken was in.
Chicken glanced around her spacious home. In it was everything a hyperintelligent Chicken could ever need or want, except for friends to share it with.
Stop complaining, she mentally told herself. It won’t do anything but depress you even further.
She settled into her warm down and hay nest and closed her eyes for a little nap. Usually she fell asleep immediately, but now her thoughts drowned out her tiredness.
It was true, Chicken was an incredible bird, what with her jetpack, hyperintelligence and the somethingelseness that the Riders weren’t telling her about. But what good was all this incredibleness if she had no incentive to use it for?
At least, Chicken reasoned with herself as she fell asleep, she had more or less an entire legion of living and breathing, real friends now. She was now one of the puzzle pieces in a puzzle of life.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Luna leaned back on her pillow, pondering all that had happened today. As a last resort to escape the craziness inside her mind, she logged on to the Grapevine.
After tapping the center of the R, Luna was taken to the Hidden Article. All of the others were there as well, except Heather, Geode, Rhiannon, Tauriel, Sylvi and Chicken.

Sparki Gamer: Anyone on who wants to talk about The Great Big Weirdness?
ScarlettHofferson: Yes. Definitely.
Whoever: I second that.


Luna hesitated. The aptly named Great Big Weirdness was still hovering in front of her, and she didn’t want to confront it just yet.

Hiccup’s Windwalker: We all made the commitment. Besides, they’re the Dragon Riders. We can trust them, can’t we?
FishlegsTheOfficialLogMaster: True, true...I mean, if Pudding Cup trusts them, I’m okay with them unless they somehow prove that they’re trying to kill us.
Sparki Gamer: Yeah. Okay. So now that we have that confirmed, what should we call ourselves?
Acia Granger: Won’t just ‘The Grapeviners’ work?
Whoever: Isn’t that kind of...I don’t know, sort of like, there’s already a group of people named The Grapeviners. Just like there’s already a bunch of people named the Dragon Riders. What do we all have in common, then?
LunaTheSandWing: I think Grapeviners works. I mean, until further notice, we’ll be working in a place where no one, probably, had heard of Berk’s Grapevine.


Hiccup’s Windwalker: So until further notice, we’ll be called The Grapeviners. All in favor?
Everyone agreed, but Luna didn’t stick around to see this. Her mother had just called for dinner, and no one wanted to contradict her. Luna quickly shut down her laptop and slid it into place on her shelf.
As she slipped into the dining room, she noticed that her dad was absent. As her brother was at college, she and her mother were the only ones there, apart from the food.
Right...her brother. He had insisted that he was fine, that everything was okay, but Luna knew him better than he knew himself. And what Luna had noticed that he had failed to was that something was wrong - but she couldn’t figure out just what. A bad premonition gnawed at her, but there was realy nothing she could do, was there?
Dinner was silent and awkward, with Luna caught up in her own thoughts and her mom watching her carefully. Once or twice attempts at conversation were made, but given up after a while.
Luna finished eating and fled upstairs again, where she had spent most of her time since the accident.
Gods. The accident.
It had happened just a month ago, almost. It had been a sunny day, but the roads were full of puddles from the recent rainstorm. Luna had just come home from school when the phone had rung…
“Mom! It’s an unknown number...should I take it?” Luna called upstairs. After a second, the pounding of feet on the stairs announced the presence of her mom. Luna handed her the phone, which she pressed a button on and held to her ear.
“Yes…” her mom said. “Why…?” Then her face went pale, and she dropped the phone. A few minutes later, Luna, her mom and her dad were driving somewhere Luna couldn’t figure out. She had asked many times where they were going, but got no answer. Then the white-and-red roof of the hospital had come into view, and Luna started to worry.
The worry grew when they went inside. They stood at the desk, and her mother said that they were looking for a Connor Ferreira. After that they were told a room number and were escorted there.
By now, Luna had pieced together this: Something had happened to her brother. That was enough to make her worry.
The trip had been a daze, something that Luna would not at all like to remember. She had been horrified - of all people, why did it have to happen to him?
From what she had learned, her brother was driving home when the car in front of him had slipped in a puddle of rainwater. He had stopped, but the slip was so sudden and unexpected that the cars had inevitably crashed. The person in the other car had only broken his arm, but Connor…

Luna shuddered. It didn’t bear thinking about.
In this vast jigsaw-puzzle of the universe, everything happened for a reason(said some person who Luna had forgotten). What was the reason behind all of THIS?
As Luna went to sleep that night, the puzzle pieces of the universe slowly but surely clicked together in a arcane pattern.
No one knew it, but something HUGE was primed to happen.
Sister in arms of the forgotten disaster branch, Saturn Starlings
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Tuffnut'sChicken
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B-BAWK!

Ohhhhh, I feel so bad for poor little me!
And Luna, I feel bad for Luna, too.

This is great writing! It's really starting to have a real feel to the characters!
Clouds of corn <3
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BioLilyDraws
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Aphmau is the best!

I'm right here, Chicken
"You can kill me once, but you can't kill me twice." - Luna Rainclaw
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Team Astrid
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Deadly Nadder

Oooooohhhh
And the plot thick-ens! XD
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Zira Shadow
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(You mean 'The Plot Chick-ens!' ? XD)
Thank you, Chicken. Unfortunately, I'm going to be tearing out a lot of people's heartstrings and injuring some others and basically Rick Riordan-ing the entire crew as best as I can. I hope you have a good night's sleep, RXFCIITJBBFQH!
(Same thing I did last time, except with HTTYD 2's release date. Good luck! MWHAAHAHAHA!)
Sister in arms of the forgotten disaster branch, Saturn Starlings
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Zira Shadow
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WARNING: POSSIBLY THE DARKEST CHAPTER I HAVE EVER WRITTEN.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
KEEP READING IF YOU DARE.

Chapter 5
Holes
Heather woke up at around 2:00 in the morning to the noise of a startled chicken. Her first still-sleepy thought was that one of the chickens must have fallen into a hole to the Underworld. Her second, more awake thought was to go outside and investigate.
She walked out into the predawn half-light and was immediately attacked by a flapping, clawing, squawking ball of feathers. The chickens had got out again and now were generally in a frenzy for some reason. When she reached the center of the coop, the reason became evident.
“Windshear!” Heather whispered as loud as she dared. The dragon looked up innocently from where she was having a fine time terrifying the chickens.
“Don’t blame her,” a voice purred. “She’s just having a bit of fun...it’s only natural. That, of course, and the dragon root I placed in small quantities around your home.”
Heather stiffened. That voice...it sounded exactly like the one in her nightmare. She spun in a circle, but there was no one there.
Wispy, the smallest of the chicks, chirped in her tiny voice and backed into the pen. The rest of the chickens followed. Obviously, none of them liked the presence of the Voice.
Heather tried to keep her voice steady, but the creature from her nightmares, if it was true, terrified her. “W-who are you?”
“Oh, you don’t know?” mocked the Voice. “I thought you did...what a pity. Here, I’ll give you something so you’ll remember next time.”
NEXT TIME?! No thanks!
Before Heather could react, a flash of silver shot towards her face. She stumbled backwards as the shuriken hurtled towards her and managed to dodge it - or so she had thought.
The next second, a stinging line of pain in her right arm alerted her to the fact that the throwing star had not missed. The cut wasn’t too deep, but it was long, and would probably leave a scar. But it was more than that - the cut was draining away her strength. Combined with her tiredness (you try getting up at two in the morning to round up a bunch of startled chickens), it didn’t take too long. Heather’s hazel eyes shut, and she collapsed. Unfortunately, that didn’t allow her any peace.

The gray of the early morning sky descended and swirled together to collect in a vaguely human form. As the rest of the fog lifted, the humanoid - the Voice - solidified.
Black. Pure black surrounded Windshear, and the dragon fought, beating her wings, but for once the bladed edges did nothing to help. More smoke replaced the sections that were blown away.
Windshear looked through a window of air that had not yet closed over with smoke and saw the terrified face of her Rider, auburn hair coming loose of her braid and whipping everywhere, mouth open to do - what? It was useless, here on this field. Then the fog closed, drowning out the screams from who-knew-where and turning it into a rhythm - whoosh… hiss… whiiiiissppp... whoosh...hiss...whiiiiissppp…
Windshear struggled harder, but the smoke turned into coiling black tendrils that held her in place. She fought harder, but the coils tightened. The pent-up pressure grew…
The Voice laughed, cackling at the horrors it had summoned. Windshear looked down and saw, to her horror, that the earth was soaked in a horrible red liquid and was, in some places, beginning to bubble and boil with lava. The terrible drone of laughter ruled the battlefield, and Windshear just wanted to leave…
And then the fires started. Leaping up from nowhere, the flames and the coils and something else - a fierce loyalty - held Windshear down as the fire ignited everywhere and blazed. The once-tranquil field was charred, changed, red and black...
Windshear wanted to leave, but there was no escape. The very earth seemed to know this, and was chanting its futile hope: No. No. No-

“NO!”
Heather sat bolt upright, then realized she was safe in her own home, her own room. Although why was she on the floor...?
Then it came back to her. The chickens, Windshear, the Voice. She looked at her right arm, fearing the worst - but to her surprise and relief, found it unscarred. Well, except for that time that she had gotten scratched by Windshear, but otherwise it was good.
Her nightmares, however, worried her. Every time it was the same: she was Windshear, always in a field of smoke, fire and blood, always on the losing side of the war - but why? And why this new attachment to it - the Dragon Nip, the chickens…?
Either way, she reasoned to herself, nothing too bad could happen - The worst that could happen was she would lose a little sleep. Nothing more than that. After all, it was just a dream…
...Right?

Sparki ducked as Aquaspike shot around - oh I don’t know maybe three dozen - spines right at him and kept running. Behind him, he heard the dragon cheerfully turn to another victim and Acia’s shout of surprise. He would have loved to go back and help, but he kind of had his own problems at the minute.
“WHY OH WHY DID WE LET THE RIDERS TALK US INTO GOING AGAINST OUR DRAGOOOOONNNNNNSSSSSSSSSSSS?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!” yelled Sparki as he skidded around another corner, hotly pursued by Saphira, who had her tongue sticking out and looked like she was having the time of her life. Her six legs churned as she gained on him.
At the last second, Sparki spotted a hook sticking out from the top of a wall in the Nadder Training-esque maze. He whipped his keychain towards the hook, wrapped the end on it, and willed the chain to swing him on top of the wall, out of reach of the dragons. Saphira huffed, annoyed, but soon went chasing after Rhiannon.
Sparki allowed himself a moment of rest on the top of the wall, surveying the scene in front of him. Stormshade and Windshear had teamed up to chase Sylvi. Heather was leaping and bounding out of the way(albeit a bit slowly - a few times she almost didn’t make it out in time) and Chicken was flying around like a deranged moth to distract the dragons. Luna and Tauriel had teamed up to try to fight off Snowdrop and Scorpio - or was it Scorpia? Well, the blue one. Lover, DeWhite, and Scarlett were being pursued by Windy, Pudding Cup, and…
“Auros!?”
The Wooly Howl looked up for a fraction of a second, then returned his attention to the chase.
A thump next to him announced the arrival of Zira, who was holding her curtain rod like she had just pole-vaulted up.
“Hey, Sparki,” she said, as if they had incidentally bumped into each other during a pleasant walk.
“Hello,” replied Sparki, eyes still on the battle. He watched the dragons herd the Grapeviners into a circle, wide at first, then slowly and subtly tightening.
Zira frowned, then examined her bronze pole. “Hm. I wonder…”
The next second, she was leaping from wall to wall with the balance of someone who does things like that a lot. Sparki followed, taking the opposite side. The Grapeviners had been packed into a single ‘room’ by now.
Without warning, Zira leaped. Sparki frowned - he would’ve used a more strategic approach, but…
He sighed and elongated his keychain into a very long, thin length of chain, which he gripped, ready to swing.
While the other Grapeviners attacked, Sparki stole across the walls and loosely looped the chain around every dragon in the circle. When he reached the spot he had started, he pulled the chain tight - then released it and, in a speedy movement, used it to instead drop large cardboard ‘cages’ down on top of the dragons(as not to harm them).
Cloudfire chirped, and Sparki released the cages.
“Nice work!” said Geode. It was the same from the rest of the Grapeviners, but Heather’s response worried him the most. She acted like she was submerged in a tank of water, like she could barely hear or see...in fact, now she was trying to walk forwards and ended up crashing into a wall.
“You okay?” Sparki asked her. She nodded, although she looked like she hadn’t slept a wink.
“Just...tired, I guess.”
“Oh.” Was she serious? She looked haunted - seriously terrified. Something had happened, Sparki determined. He could read eyes well, and he knew that for sure. But what?
As the maze boundaries slid into the walls(which had tunnels and storage spaces in them, but were still as strong as if they were solid) Sparki noticed something odd about the way Heather walked - her right arm was unusually limp, and she was almost being dragged down by it. Sparki caught Fishy’s eye and saw that she had noticed it too. Silently, they agreed to keep an eye on her.
Everyone exited, until finally it was just the stragglers: Geode, Nan, Fishy, Sparki, and Heather. They were almost to the exit when, without warning, Heather stopped in her tracks.
“You okay?” asked Fishy. Then, when she got no response:
“Uh...Heather?”
Heather turned to face them, and Sparki gasped. Her hazel eyes were glowing an unnatural red, and she stood like she was prepared for a fight. None of her earlier tiredness was visible; instead, she looked downright murderous and slightly confused.
Then the Not-Heather spoke and it wasn’t her voice either: this voice was raspy and somehow both male and female.
“She’s not Heather, my dears,” the Not-Heather said, mouth stretching into a gruesome grin. “Not anymore, she isn’t.”
Geode held her USB out in front of her,the tips already activated. “Good Thor, that is creepy! Leave our friend alone, whatever-you-are!”
“I am nothing you need to know yet,” snapped the Not-Heather. “And possibly will never need to know.”
“Why do you want Heather?” Sparki didn’t know how he found his voice - he was terrified. “What do you want with her?”
“None of your business, either. But since you’ve been ever so polite with me, I’ll be a little nice to you and say that you can safely forget she ever existed. You won’t need to remember!” Not-Heather laughed in that strange raspy voice.
“What is that supposed to mean?” said Nan, slightly suspiciously.
“It means I’m leaving, children.” Not-Heather growled. “Honestly, the education these days - oh, but I’m forgetting something! My most important advice!”
Sparki raised his chain defensively. “...What are you forgetting…?”
“Rule number one - for me, at least-” Not-Heather cackled. “Is to never leave witnesses!”
Too late, Sparki realized what was happening. A blinding light started glowing. Sparki just had time to expand the links of the chain to create something like a shield for the Grapeviners facing Not-Heather before the light flashed painfully bright, knocking them all off their feet. He squeezed his eyes shut against the blast of light. He heard footsteps walk away and some coming closer - they were really loud footsteps, like they were right against his ear or something - and tried to open his eyes. They wouldn’t work, there was no point in trying to open them. Besides, the dark nothingness was so comforting...maybe he could stay a little longer?
“SPARKI!”
What was that? Oh, someone was yelling...something. What was he thinking again?
A subconscious part of him screamed, NO! STAY AWAKE!! But he couldn’t hear it all that well, so he didn’t give it much thought.
“SPARKI! CAN YOU HEAR US?!”
For some reason, he seemed to recognize that voice - it was the girl who couldn’t keep her hair out of her face, right? Unless...it was the blond one? No, it was the one with the hazel eyes...but wait, hadn’t something happened…? No, everything was fine.
Yes, fine. Everything...was...fine…
“It’s so strange...I don’t recognize this! But the only thing I do know is that these symptoms are REALLY REALLY BAD!”
“Ya think?”
Pause.
“Okay, I’m sorry. But-”
Sparki didn’t hear the rest of her(or was it a him? He could no longer remember) sentence. The darkness was still there, and now it was expanding. What he thought was black was gray...and it was being overtaken by pure black.
“SPARKI! STAY WITH US, SPARKI!”
He would if he could, but this was beyond his control. All he could do was try to decipher the words from the meaningless voices swirling all around him as the darkness pulled him into its grasp.
Sister in arms of the forgotten disaster branch, Saturn Starlings
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Tuffnut'sChicken
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B-BAWK!

Just keep writing, keep writing...
I'm willing to chain you to your chair at this point to make you write this faster. :P
Clouds of corn <3
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Zira Shadow
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Um...yeah. Perhaps that won't be necessary....*scoots nervously away* I'm writing, though...still writing...no need to get hasty...
XD
I am writing, though. (Which means I probably shouldn't be on the Forumvine...O.O)
Sister in arms of the forgotten disaster branch, Saturn Starlings
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Zira Shadow
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Skrill

(I forgot to post this one here!!!)
Chapter 6

Up and Running (Towards Danger, Of Course)

Rhiannon desperately flipped through the pages of the book for about the thirtieth time, searching for anything that might help.
“Burns...cuts...bruises...concussions…” she paused. “Do you think it might be a concussion?”
“No,” replied Fishy. She didn’t waste time on an explanation, but Rhiannon trusted her to have one if her answer was that definite.
The simple training lesson that day had somehow escalated into a...a...she didn’t even know what to call it, but one of her friends was gone and another was...well, she didn’t even know what had happened. It would be an understatement to call this a Bad Situation.
Half of the Grapes - Tauriel’s team - were trying to find out what happened to Heather. The remaining group - Rhiannon’s team - was focused on Sparki. Fishy, being the best medic they had, was going back and forth between the groups, trying to help in any way possible.
It had been a great day, right up till then. Not even being chased around in the Arena could dampen her mood. Then Heather had been possibly possessed and Sparki had collapsed and they couldn’t find anything to help either of them and -
“Nan. Don’t destroy the book.”
“What?” Rhiannon looked down and realized that she had accidentally torn a small gash in the page of the book. “Oh. Sorry.”
After skimming the contents for a little while longer, she slammed her book shut with a huff of exasperation.
“Nothing. Nothing at all!”
“That’s beginner edition,” said Fishy, eyes glued to her notebook. “Try intermediate next. Oh, Thor, this must be worse than usual…”
“Did you figure anything out yet?” asked Rhiannon eagerly. After they had run into the conference room with Fishy in the lead carrying the unconscious Sparki and generally causing an uproar, they had moved to the medical room where Fishy had asked her notebook all of her three-at-a-time questions:

A) What happened to Heather?

B) What happened to Sparki?

C) How can we help them?

They had all waited with bated breath for the response, which Fishy now held out to them all:

Quite a few questions you have for me,
But you haven’t exceeded your limits! Very well, I shall answer all three.
To the first, I say, it’s a simple fix,
Of willpower against nighttime tricks.
The second problem shall be a bit harder,
And you’ll have to regain information that would have got you farther.
Without moving onto the third, first I will say,
That you will most likely remember this day.
And now for the final one that you ask,
Both problems are intertwined within your task.
Focus first on the problem that came latter,
And the ultimate answer will come almost served on a platter.
Go to the place of the Broken Tide,
Travel without the dragons you would ride.
What lies beneath shall open the door,
But first you must find silence’s true core.


No one said anything while they read the riddle, and no one said anything for a while after that. The silence was broken by Eira.
“We should go. The Broken Tide or whatever - that’s going to be important somehow. Besides, we needed a lead, we have one, and it’s the only way to help Heather and Sparki.”
The Communications computer buzzed.

She’s right. Some of you should stay behind and keep an eye on Heather and Sparki, and the rest of you will go to the ‘place of the Broken Tide’ and look for clues.

“Good point…” said Rhiannon. “So, then, we should have a small ground team. Five, maybe six people at most.”

Right. I’m thinking that you should go. Take Eira, Tauriel, Chicken and Zira with you, but go without your dragons.

“But it says ‘without the dragons you would ride’,” Tauriel interjected. “So can we bring the Sandspiders?”
“You should,” said Fishy. “Since we don’t know what the place of the Broken Tides is, or even where it is.”
“Actually…”
They all turned to see Sylvi standing at a large map on the wall that had a view of an unfamiliar group of islands on it, the names written in a strange code. The map started at the very edge of what they presumed to be the Island of the Sandspiders at the far west side and went on to end on pure ocean in the east. That wasn’t what they were looking at.
There, near the north, was a relatively small island with a large jagged line all around its shores and a wave-under-the-moon emblem right in the middle of one. If the pictographs were to be taken literally and pieced together, it would say…
“Broken Tide,” Rhiannon said.
Sylvi nodded. “So now you know where to go. The problem is, how do we get there?”
“I don’t know,” said Rhiannon. “But we’re not leaving just yet, so we’ll find some way of doing it.”
Hopefully, they would, and soon. Their friends were counting on them.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Acia was on edge, pacing back and forth in the room full of Grapes as she listened to possibilities of what might be on Broken Tide Island and what should be brought and what shouldn’t. She was about to step into the conversation when she noticed something: movement, out of the corner of her eye.
“Ow,” said Sparki, sitting up.
“Sparki! You’re awake!” said Acia, immediately turning to him. “How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been run over by a truck.” Sparki offered a tired grin. “But wait. Where am I?”
“Oh, right! You’ve never been here before. Well, this is the Medical Bay of the Time Arena!” Nan came up behind her. “Chicken just showed us this part when you...well, we’re not sure yet what happened to you. Can you remember?”
“Um…” Before Sparki could say anything else, Zira cut in.
“And you’ll have to regain information that would have got you farther,” she quoted, holding up the paper that she’d written the riddle down on. “This line, too - ‘You will most likely remember this day.’ Do you get it?” Without waiting for an answer, she turned to Sparki. “You don’t remember us, do you?”
“I…” Sparki hesitated. “No. No, I don’t.”
“Wait, so Sparki has amnesia?” Tauriel asked.
Fishy nodded. “Probably something from whatever possessed Heather - before Not-Heather left, she...or he, maybe? I couldn’t tell. Anyways, they said “Never leave witnesses” before they left, but me, Geode, and Nan still remember everything...so maybe it’s that one line again - “Information that would have got you farther”? Maybe Sparki knew something crucial to getting Heather back, and Not-Heather knew this and erased his memory of that?”
“That sounds logical and also very evil,” Sparki agreed. “Are Auros and Cloudfire okay?”
Acia raised her eyebrows. “You remember them?”
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I? I met them several years ago. The ‘memory-gap’ thing...I think it only affects me from...well, I don’t remember you guys or getting here, but I do remember very vaguely that you were all Grapeviners, and then a computer that lets us talk to the actual Dragon Riders.”
Acia suppressed a smile. Sparki, it seemed, was not going to bother with the usual Oh-My-Thor-I-can’t-remember-anything-now-what procedure.
“And I can’t remember your names, but I do remember what I think of you as. So yes, I might end up calling you totally random things that make sense in my head but not so much outside.” Sparki concluded.
“You’re being surprisingly calm about this,” noted Acia.
“Oh, no, believe me, I’m freaking out,” Sparki said. “Especially cause I have no idea where I am or who you people are except for vague suggestions. Also because I’m 99% sure that I shouldn’t be talking right now.”
“That’s right,” said Fishy. “You have a headache, right? I think I’ve read about this.”
Sparki considered that. “I think I am getting a headache…”
“I rest my case,” said Fishy. “You should probably get some rest now. We’ll leave you be.”
“This is the wrong time,” said Sylvi. “But you should get some rest, Sparki. You look tired.”
For some reason, this cracked them all up, every single one of them. Maybe it was the amount of stress that this situation was submerged in, or maybe just because they hadn’t laughed in so long, but whatever it was, they all laughed themselves hoarse.
“Okay,” said Sylvi, when they finally stopped. “That was more than a little bit random.”
“Actually,” said Fishy, “There’s a perfectly logical reason behind this, but no more science for now, right?”
“Right. Yes. Definitely.” Scarlett said, although she looked like she was about to start laughing again.
A small bit of silence followed.
“So...we have a plan now, don’t we?” asked Tauriel all of a sudden.
“Yeah. Nan, Eira, Tauriel, Chicken and Zira will go to that island right there to see what they can find,” Geode started.
“If we do happen to - BkAWK! - stumble across anything, we’ll get the rest of you bok-bok-back on that island,” Chicken continued, flapping her little wings in preparation.
“And hopefully, the something they stumble across will help Heather and Sparki,” Luna finished.
“There’s a lot of holes in the plan. A lot of things could go wrong,” cautioned Acia.
“So...they should go with it, then?” Scarlett asked.
“Definitely,” said Geode. “And not just because it’s crazy - this is the only lead we have on getting Sparki’s memories and thus Heather herself back.”
“I’m still here, you know,” said Sparki.
“You’re supposed to be asleep. Go to sleep,” said Fishy.
“Fine, General Log-Master,” said Sparki. “But I am going to help with at least some of the planning.”
“Deal,” said Acia, before Fishy could argue. “Then you rest now. As for the rest of us…”
“This is still a dangerous plan,” said Geode. “It needs elaboration.”
“I know,” grinned Acia. “So let’s get started.”
Sister in arms of the forgotten disaster branch, Saturn Starlings
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