Holly's POV

Holly didn't sleep much.
The long conversation with Bryony and Hemlock should have been enough to put anyone to sleep, but a deep wound in the pit of her stomach kept her up.

Tau had agreed to take them to what might be the Abyss in the morning, after they got some rest.

Dusky lie cuddled next to Luna, snoring quietly.
He wasn't very startled by the Pyrrhian dragons, but since hearing that Holly was really a human, he seemed to avoid her, more or less.

When she finally did get to sleep, she dreapt that she was in a dark void, runing (or trying to run), as a voice whispered,
"You are mine. Come.To.Me. You. Belong. To. Me."

Her brief slumber ended when she opened her eyes to see a pl orange Silkwing crouched by Dusky.

"Oh, sorry", he whispered, seeing that she was awake.
"I just wanted to check on him."
He tilted his head at the dragonet.

"Are you his brother, or something?", Holly asked.

"No", he said.
"I'm Whitespeck. Dusky's dad was a good friend of mine. He doesn't have any living relatives at the moment.
His dad was killed in an accident; no one knows where his mom is."

"But his wristband said-"

"Bloodworm Hive had very strict rules", he said sadly.
"According to what was arguably the cruelest, one member of every family household has to work on a construction crew - even if the only member of a household is one tiny dragonet. The very day his father died, Hivewings dragged him off to work on the very same construction site."

"What?! That's terrible!", Holly cried.
Sky snorred loudly.

"Why can't you adopt him?", she whispered.

"I don't have a partener", Whitespeck said.
"I came to Bloodworm Hive from Tsetse Hive, and I left my family behind. They already have it rough, and won't let me adopt him.
I've been trying to keep an eye out for Dusky, but I can't do as much as I would like."

He stood up.
"Can I get you anything to eat? It's about morning now."

"I'll be all right", Holly declined.
She was hungery, but she didn't feel like eatting. She doubted she needed it as much as these dragons did.

As they others started preparing to follow Tau to the human village, Holly glanced in anxiety at the dark chasm enterance.

"Come. To. Meeeee."

No. No, stop.

"Cooooooome. . . . . "

"Shut up!", Holly said aloud.

"Um, are you okay?", Bryony asked from behind her.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine", Holly said.

When Holly learned that Luna was letting Dusky come with them, she wasn't really sure what to say. She didn't want Dusky to get hurt, but she didn't feel at liberty to tell him no.

"He should be fine", Wren said, patting his forehead. He shied away from her nervously.
"We're just going to the cave to see if there are any people there. No Abyss today."

Luna lifted him onto her back.
"Be really careful, okay? Stay right by us."

"I will be the best, quietest dragon ever", Dusky promised.

They found Axolotl surrounded by a group of dragonets, who were loudly arguing over who would get to keep the human as a pet.

"I found them first!", the pink one said.
"And look! He likes ME best!"

Axolotl held out his hand for her to sniff, but instead, she yanked his hand, pulled him underneath her, and climbed onto the human's shoulders.

"Oh gods", Holly remarked.

"I'll deal with this", Wren said, walking up to the group confidently.

"You, off", she said, pointing to the pink Silkwing.
Axolotl looked almost dismayed.

"You can have a human FRIEND, but not a human PET."

"Friend!", Axolotl cried, shaking the pink dragon's talon.

She beamed.
"Dusky, look! The human likes me best of anyone!"

Dusky hid behind Luna's wings as he watched.

"Awwwww!", her brother said.
"But we want a fluffy human to play with! He said you were his pet", one of the dragonets said, indictating a very sheepish-looking dragon.

"Sky!", Wren cried.

"Sorry!", he said.
"I just wanted them to know that we go together, you and me. What else was I supposed to say?"

"You could have said best-friends", Wren suggested.
"Or that I saved your life, like, multipul times."

"No. Humans. For. You", he said to the dragonets.
"Oooooh, but I bet you could find some really cute cave snails!" He lowered his voice.
"They'd probably be better behaved than she is, anyway."

"You are SO lucky you're cute", Wren said.

Wren said something to Axolotl in human, then looked at Holly.
"Dusky kind of reminds me of baby Sky. Completely different scales, but the same sweet face. And he didn't have any family either."

"Exept you" Sky said, nudging her.

"Well, you lucked into me", she remarked.

Tau led them out of the main cave, and for a while, they silently trekked through the darkness, following the light of Luna's flamesilk, keeping their eyes fixed on Bait as he walked ahead of them.

For a second, Holly wondered why they weren't flying.
Then she noticed that one of Tau's wings was shorter than the other.

They had to wade through a river for a couple of miles or so.
Eyeless, pink fish swam against their scales, making Holly shiver.
And there she was yet again, leading her friends at the front of the group, despite being as squeamish as a worm.

The freezing water almost came up to their wings, before narrowing, and leading them to two walls of rock, that they squeezed through one at a time: Tau, Bryony, Holly, Luna and Dusky, Sky and the humans, and Cricket. Umber took a bit longer than everyone else, but eventually, he joined them on the other side.

"This is it", Tau said, flicking her tail at a dark hole below them, a chasm where the river poured into a pool below them .
The water sweapt away from their talons, rushing into the cave, and landing in the pool as a waterfall.
Holly could see more fish swiming around, but nothing else.

Cricket splashed to the rocky ledge, and peered in the water.

"You've seen humans here?", she asked Tau.

"A couple of times; can't you smell them?"

Holly sniffed.
Maybe the damp cave was just messing with her senses, but she did think she could smell something unusual . . . at least to dragons, anyway.

"And there's something else", Tau said.
Bryony held out her wing to help support Tau's shorter one as they gently glidded down to the cave.
Holly and the others followed, landing next to Bryony as Tau walked to the far side of the pool, and pulled something out of the water.

She held out a kind of trap, it was made to allow fish to swim in, but not swim out.

"Whoa! Did humans make this?", Cricket asked, studying it.

"Wren can make things like that too", Sky said defencively.
"She catches all kinds of things with weird traps."

"There are lots of these", Tau said.
"I believe the humans come from there."
She pointed to a hole higher in the wall.
There was a stairway, going from the hole to the shore, where small, wet footprints dotted the rocks.

"Maybe Axolotl and I should stay here for the rest of the day", Wren suggested, "so that we can meet anyone who comes down here, without a bunch of huge, scary, drooling dragons overhead."

"I do not drool!", Sky said indigantly.

"You do in your sleep", Wren pointed out.

Holly's keen Leafwing ears pricked up.
Was that a scuffling noice she just heard?

She whirrled around, wings flared.

For a moment, she didn't see anything.
Thinking maybe it was just her anxiety or the shadows playing with her brain, she turned around again. But she was unable to shake the feeling that something . . . someone was watching her.
Then, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted something.

A creature was hiding behind a boulder on the stone balcony above them. It had a humanoid figure so boney, it's ribs were visible through its pale,translucent skin even from this distance. It's long, black hair was falling out, and was nearly reached the ground.
But worst of all were it's eyes. They glowed with maleventance and age, like a lantern used to comit a murder.
They had no pupils, and were jaundiced with fire.
The creature slowly turned it's head, like a searchlight, hunting for a fugitive. And those eyes, those intense dying windows, didn't flicker for even a moment.

It saw Holly looking at it, and did an imatiation of  what could have been a smile.
It had only twelve teeth, yellowed and darkened, but no less formindable than dragon claws.

Then, a terrible voice echoed through Holly's skull:

"Come. To. Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. . . . . . . "

A/N: Sorry this chapter took me so long; there's been a lot going on.
If you enjoyed, remember to add a vote, comment, and share!

Wordcount: way to few

Renx out!