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The moon was still high in the sky as the three scaled soldiers marched on. Their hides glistened eerily in the soft moonlight which had cast the world around them into a silver and black nightmare without colour or certainty. Long shadows and dark spaces gave them shivers as their over-active young imaginations began to play tricks of monsters and violent animals, and even the tree's themselves, swaying in the howling wind caused moving shadows that made their hearts pulse with fear.

The night was cruel to them. The cave had always sheltered them from the elements and whenever they were tired they could always rest against the warm safe bulk of Mother knowing that Father was guarding them too but out here in the wilderness there was nothing to protect them except each other. The wind tore at their hatchling scales, making them shiver and stumble across the dark ground and the chill itself brought about problems as all the dragons began to tire, their muscles aching from the cold and the marching. They had been up all day and now half of the night and despite the fear and the push to go on, they knew that they had to sleep for as the night wore on their young heads drooped lower and lower.

Cerul knew this well and he also knew that tomorrow would be even harder if they didn't get good night's rest. He was in charge and he knew it was up to him to find them a safe way to sleep and, as he walked, his mind pondered upon the idea. Perhaps one of them could stand guard as they slept? 'No' he thought, 'We all need to sleep and sleep well.'

It was as he thought that he heard an unmistakable thud behind him and, turning round to face the noise, he saw Astral slumped on a soft patch of grass, his eyes already shut and his chest rising and falling quickly with fatigue.

"Astral. What are you doing?" Cerul asked, trying to keep his bad mood from showing on his siblings.

"I'm tired Cerul. We've been walking for hours and I need to sleep." Cerul's brother whined, rather fittingly for a hatchling of his age.

Cerul sighed. "I know Astral, but we have to find somewhere safe to sleep before we can rest."

"But we're dragons! What animal attacks us? Only humans, elves and dwarves are stupid enough to attack us and there are none of those in this part of the land." Defiantly he put his head down and shut his eyes again. It took a swift tail swipe from Cerul to get him to open them again.

"Mother and Father are dragons. We are hatchlings. Do you think a wolf would turn down a meal of three unguarded and sleeping hatchlings? What about a bear? Would he let us sleep if we were such an easy meal?" Cerul could tell by the look on his brother's face that he knew he was right. Ivas just shuffled her feet, staying quiet throughout.

Cerul went back to thinking, swishing his tail and beginning to pace as he thought. There was silence in the wood apart from the whistling wind that flowed through the trees and the hissing of leaves around them. Over and over his turquoise scales shone into his sibling's eyes, a dull silver in the pale moonlight as he marched back and forth. He stopped a moment and stared up at a lone hooting owl that seemed uninterested in the troop of tiny dragons, his eyes brightening as he looked back at his siblings.

"Where's the one place where wolves and bears can't get you?" His eyes were bright and his siblings could tell that he was already coming up with an idea.

"In the cave?" Offered Astral slowly. Cerul shook his head though.

"In the air?" Ivas said, her quiet voice almost indistinguishable in the bitter wind.

"Yes! Wolves can't climb, and I remember Father telling me that bears won't bother to climb high and might not even sense us in this wind if we go high enough!" Cerul grinned, his small muzzle showing all of his short sharp teeth to his siblings.

"But how do we get up there? We haven't got strong enough wings to fly yet." Asked Astral, his eyes drawn up the long tree that stood by their side.

"We'll have to climb, and up there we'll be more exposed to the wind and cold but at least we'll be safe." The turquoise hatchling looked up the tree; it was a large tree, enormous to a group of hatchlings but there were few alternatives. Astral groaned as he heard that he would have to climb but was quickly silenced as Cerul caught his glance. "I will climb first. I'll pick out a path and test out the bark and branches to make sure they can support our weight. Ivas, I want you to follow after me and Astral you follow after. Leave a gap of about 3 body-lengths between each other so we don't strain the bark and don't climb onto a branch if someone else is on it. They don't look strong enough to hold more than one near the top.

With that said Cerul began to circle the base of the tree looking for the best route up. He was a very agile hatchling, light and quick too and he could probably climb most of it easily enough but Astral was not as light or quick-footed and Ivas was not as strong. Already Cerul could see a problem. They had climbed the walls of the cave and the stalactites before but the tree was much larger and because it was wood his claws would get stuck and it would tire them out having to pull them out every time. The nearest branch was higher than the cave and they were already tired, but he knew of no other way up.

Having chosen the spot where he thought it'd be best, he thought he would try to show energy and enthusiasm to his siblings and perhaps inspire hope in them and so he sprang at the tree. As he launched himself from the floor, his foot slipped in the dew covered grass and he shot awkwardly towards the gnarled tree. He hit hard and all of the air in his lung was knocked from him as though he had been kicked in the stomach. Three of his claws snapped and he let out a short pained howl into the night as he crashed back to earth. Blood dripped from his paw. Quietly he got to his feet and cursed himself; he had been foolish and too childish, something that was stupid to act out here.

He caught a sideways glance at Astral and Ivas as he began his way up the tree, both of whom were now quiet and neither of them looked at all enthusiastic or even hopeful any more. Instead they had a small glaze in their eyes that told him that they thought they were doomed. Fear, cold and the intimidating look of the tree in front of them had grasped them and their tiny muscles ceased to try, but with the energy they could muster they began to follow their brother skywards.

Cerul climbed as quickly as he thought was sensible. The wind was much more brutal up here, over the height of the barrier of trees the wind began to relentlessly sway them from side to side. The only noise that the small turquoise dragon could hear over the taunting wind was the small nattering of his small teeth in the bitter air. He stopped only once as his climbed, taking the moment to pause and look back down for his siblings. He wished he never had. He was now at least twice as high as the surrounding trees and around half way up the tree he was on. Astral and Ivas wasn't too far behind him but the height from which he hung made his body weak because he knew that the only thing holding him to the tree was his claws and he had broken three of those on his first attempt.

It took him a while before he could bring his head back to grasp reality. He tried to push the thoughts from his mind but he couldn't. Behind him Ivas and Astral had both stopped, unable to go any further without risking breaking the bark. Cerul panted, his heart thumping in his ears so loud that he could feel the blood pulse through his skull, teasing him and distracting him from what mattered.

"Cerul! Keep going, I'm getting tired down here." Astral shouted up from under him, but it hardly got past the shell of fear that surrounded him. "Come on Cerul! I can't hold on much longer!"

The turquoise dragon whimpered quietly to himself and his body shook violently. He longed to be moving again but the cold and fear had rooted him to the side of the tree and it appeared that nothing, not even Astral's cries, could help him get moving again. His chest rose and fell quicker with each passing moment and he felt his grip ebbing against the rough bark. Inside he longed to wake up from the nightmare and be back at Mother's side in the warm safe cave, have his muzzle buried in her flank with his siblings around him but he couldn't do it.

But he would never feel Mother's side again. Not if he couldn't climb the tree. Even if they survived he'd be weak, a poor leader. Father would scorn him and Astral would then leave the clutch and Mother, she was compassionate but even she would act differently if she knew that he had abandoned their safest nest because he was afraid. And what about Astral and Ivas? How could he face them if he took them back down the tree to nest on the dangerous ground? No! He had to go on.

With a primal snarl of determination he yanked his claws from the tree bark and pulled his young frame higher. With another grunt he slammed them into the dull wood, repeating it again and again. Claw over claw, again and again he edged his way higher. He didn't know if his siblings followed him because all that he saw was the slow movement of the tree in front of his eyes, all he heard was the thud-thud-thud of his claws striking the tree.

Time passed quicker and before he realised the tree spread out into sets of branches. He stopped for a moment and looked around, choosing his branch before climbing a little higher towards it. When he finally pulled level with it he shimmied around the tree trunk and stepped onto it. It seemed thick enough and held his weight without bending at all. A good branch to nest in, he thought. Looking back out to the trunk he saw Astral and Ivas climbing past him. Both were exhausted and their chests rose and fell quickly with each laboured step.

Once they had all chosen their branches Cerul brought his eyes back down the tree trunk and instantly wished he hadn't. His claws gripped the wood and he slowly lowered his belly to the solid branch, lowering his head to it and whimpering quietly. Astral and Ivas heard nothing of it as the harsh wind drowned it out.

For a moment all of the hatchlings fell still. They had done it. They had climbed the tree and made it to their nests. But what now? None of them seemed to take control and they remained quiet on their branches, staring across the vast stretch of trees as their adrenaline faded and tiredness began to settle in their muscles.

"Look." Ivas said, her voice hardly discernible over the crying wind. Astral and Cerul stared at her and then followed her eye-line out across the trees. What seemed to be miles away sat the mountain in which they lived and in the eerie silver light, if they stared hard enough, they could make out the shape of the entrance but they couldn't be sure. There they stood; three silhouettes dark against the moon with the world between them and safety. Cerul sighed quietly; it was up to him to guide them home. Through misery, pain, hunger and darkness, it was his responsibility. And inside that small hatchling that stood high atop his known world, a small fire sparked in his belly and heated him from the inside out. Determination? Fear? He was unsure what it was, but it held off the chill and for that he was glad.

One by one the dragons drifted off to sleep on their branches until only Cerul remained awake, his eyes glued to the dark mountain in which he had lived his entire life and he suddenly realised that in the dim half-light of the moon that the world he knew was but a speck in the expanse of the forest. Eventually even he drifted asleep, his mind fluttering with images of Mother and Father waiting for him at the cave entrance, greeting him and his fellow siblings home again. He could see Mother's warm smile, her long elegant tail flicking softly as she watched them approach, and he could see Father's subtle pride in how he had lead his family to safety. A beautiful calming dream. But a dream nonetheless.

Morning came swiftly and he awoke to the sound of a squawking bird who had returned to it's nest to find a turquoise dragon on it's branch. If he had not been so high up he would have pounced at the bird for breakfast but he dared not risk the fall. Even a lazy pat from his paw did not deter it and so, defeated by it's incessant noise, he decided to leave the branch.

Even in his half-asleep state he was very careful about getting back onto the tree until he managed to wedge his talons into the bark again. A quick call to his siblings roused them and with a quiet obedience they followed him onto the tree and began their slow descent towards the forest floor. It took them even longer to reach the forest floor then it had been to climb the tree and their muscles were still stiff and aching. Nevertheless they felt the grass beneath their paws shortly after the sun had fully risen and being out of the tree brought back a small wedge of hope for them.

Still nothing was said as they exchanged small glances between each other, there was nothing to be said, and so Cerul began to march towards the mountain which he had seen last night. He guessed they might make it home by nightfall and his eagerness showed in the pace that he set.

Astral muttered and grumbled to himself as he followed the two dragons in front of him. His paws were sore, his legs were tired, he was still unsure of why he had been left out in the forest if the test was for Cerul but he didn't voice his concerns to anyone but himself. Instead he lagged behind, mumbling about his aching body and the boredom that he suffered form the endless maze of plants and trees without a bite to eat.

Right now he wanted nothing more than to curl up by Mother's side and simply sleep throughout the day. He wasn't usually lazy but he was tired, his legs hurt and he didn't sleep well in his treetop nest, kept awake by the hooting of an unseen owl. He might have enjoyed the forest more as he liked to explore places but he was in a foul mood and until he had rested and filled his belly that was unlikely to change.

Ivas could hear her brother complaining behind her but she ignored his mutterings, focusing instead on the vivid greens that shone around her. Now the the sun shone bright on the land she could see each bright flower, each wide upturned leaf leaf and every bud that had refused to open. She had often talked with Mother about the plants of the forest ever since Mother had brought her a small purple flower one day. Having never left the cave it was so intriguing to her, like nothing she'd ever known before. She had seen the cave moss and the springy algae that grew on the walls and in the cracks of the cave but never before had she seen such a colourful thing that wasn't a dragon's hide. She smiled quietly as she remembered Mother's gentle voice as she taught her about fruits and leaves, flowers and shoots, buds and stems, even the insects that lived among them all. Sometimes she would bring flowers home for Ivas and show her the different types, spreading the coloured petals across the floor ranging from the darkest blood red to the subtlest blues and each one stuck in her mind.

Now that she was in the wild and could see them in the full light of day she could truly appreciate them and even in the gloomier parts of the forest she found solitude in the smallest plant that she recognised. Even her tired legs could not bring her mood down; though she did wish that Cerul would slow his pace so that she could enjoy the sights as they walked. She understood his rush though, and despite her love for the plants around her, she cared more about getting home as soon as possible.