“And then,” a voice like gritty, unpasteurized honey drifted into Ocellus’s ears, swaying out from around the corner, where the showers were, “after he stares down at all the red slush soaking into his coat and dripping down his chest, and Beachcomber’s looking at him like ‘Wow, what did I raise my son to become?’ Sandbar just looks at me and he’s like, ‘Maybe I should’ve gotten the mint chocolate shake after all!’”
Any pegasi, griffon or hippogriff would be inclined to agree that wings required a ton of maintenance, but changelings and dragons had thin, membranous wings that required a different sort of care than the feathered kind. Vigorously toweling them wouldn’t feel very good, and wouldn’t do well to dry the many microscopic layers that they were comprised of. Which left Ocellus with a single, simple option: air-drying.
Smolder laughed, soon enough joined by Yona, Shimmy Shake and High Tail. Four different flavors of mirth blended together like different parts of a cocktail, building and adding to one another until amalgamous. Ocellus opened her mouth slightly, breathing in the feelings like they were air—and they were, chemically, as light as air.
The laughter tasted like Pinkie’s birthday cake for November Rain: lavender and sweet potato and vanilla bean fondant.
She had taken care to spread her towel flat onto one of the wide, wooden benches that lay in the centre of the library of lockers, like she were having a picnic or something, before she laid down on it. Ocellus had toyed with bringing books for this part of the after-practice ritual before, but she felt sheepish asking her teachers and unicorn peers for water-proofing spells all the time.
“Kay, we’re going now!” Shimmy Shake announced.
“Seeya tomorrow, girls!” Smolder called.
Yona followed up with a loud “Ponies have good night!”
Ocellus waved at them as they left, smiling.
A few minutes passed. Yona turned the tap in front of her. The showerhead above her ceased its stream immediately.
“Friends okay staying here?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Smolder answered first. “Night, Yona.”
As Yona sauntered out of the locker room, Ocellus said a goodbye to her as well. Ever since practice had been moved to evenings to give the horn fencing team some much needed appreciation, she hadn’t been one for hanging out after practice. Days and nights started and ended early in Yakyakistan, and she clearly wasn’t keen on breaking herself out of that routine.
So, as always, that left Ocellus with Smolder. The only thing left to do right then was to close her eyes and wait for Smolder to finish, which didn’t take very long in reality, but felt like an hour to Ocellus.
Her eyelids grew heavy, her breaths had grown slow. And then Smolder’s shower turned off. She heard the fwoosh of the dragon’s fire being softly applied to her own scales, and then a fwipfwipfwip as she flapped some of the surface water droplets off of her wings.
“I kept you waiting,” Smolder said as she approached the bench from behind.
Ocellus muttered a “Nuh-uh.”
Smolder laughed dryly as she spread her own towel in front of where Ocellus was lying. “Should I apologize?”
Ocellus wet her lips. Blueberry pie. “I can taste your sorry.”
“Should I say it anyway, though?”
“No, it’s fine.”
“Okay,” Smolder said, sitting in front of Ocellus. “You gonna look at me any time tonight? Or can I pick my nose?”
She opened her eyes to see a soft, beige dragon stomach, plated by glistening, freshly cleaned scales. If they weren’t alone, she would’ve spent a few moments contemplating the muscles that lay underneath, but Smolder’s eyes were on her, and she didn’t want to seem suspicious. She directed her gaze upwards, to her friend’s face. “Maybe hold off on that until we say goodnight later.”
Smolder smiled. “Okay.”
“Were you in the middle of a story before we had to go to our rooms last practice?”
“Yeah. You wanna hear it?”
“Hold on…” Ocellus hummed. “I want to test my memory:
“There was a big, huge dragon named Charrr, with three R’s, because that’s important. He had the greatest hoard known the dragonkind. He spent years and years building it up, winning other hoards from other dragons, terrorizing pony villages for ransom from the pony queen, and just all around being big and terrible and greedy.
“He’d go out to the other dragons every week and he would brag about his hoard to them, and they would have to concede to his boasts, because they had seen it before, and it was truly glorious. Charrr looked like he might become the new Dragonlord once the current one was over and done with, because back then there was no Gauntlet of Fire. Everything was about the size of your hoard or the worth of it.
“The current Dragonlord didn’t like the idea of Charrr ruling.. He thought Charrr was selfish, and would lead the dragons to ruin if he was ever allowed to take charge. So he goes to Charrr and he takes his hoard from him.
“I don’t know if we got to the fight yet. That might have been where we left off.”
Smolder shot her an impressed look. “You were really paying attention, huh?”
Ocellus blushed. “It was interesting.”
“Well we’re not even at the good part yet,” Smolder purred as she leaned forward. There were sparkles in her eyes—Ocellus found herself straightening her posture and perking her ears. Several synonyms for ‘eye-catching’ stampeded into her mind. She ushered all of them away in favor of listening to the story.
“Charrr is huge, right? And he’s big enough to level a mountain just by tackling it. But the Dragonlord had the hottest flame in the world, and his claws were like, really sharp. So the Dragonlord goes to Charr’s place and he starts melting everything inside.
“Obviously Charrr’s super pissed so they both start fighting, and for a moment there, it looks like Charrr’s gonna win! He’s like, thrashing around and hitting the Dragonlord with his tail and he’s managing to power through all the clawing and bites. But then something wild happens: the cave collapses.
“Caves collapse all the time in the Dragonlands, but they weren’t too common back in the past. That, and they weren’t really thinking of what fighting inside of a giant cave could do to the actual cave.
“So the cave starts breaking down, quick, and the Dragonlord’s finally got the guy on defence, but he recognizes that if he stays there he’s gonna get squished by a rock so he leaves immediately. He turns around and flies out, and he’s expecting some air fighting but when he finally leaves the cave, Charrr isn’t with him. He hears screaming and choking and really big bones breaking coming from inside. He couldn’t leave his hoard. He refused to.
“So I guess the whole lesson here is like, what’s more important: your treasure or your life?
“And yeah, that’s the end.”
Ocellus exhaled through her nose, letting out the tension she hadn’t realized was building up through the course of the story, and then stamped her hooves on her towel a couple of times in appreciation. She had quickly come to look forward to this part of practice days. Smolder’s stories about the Dragonlands offered her an insightful look into what she previously thought of as one of the scariest species in Equestria, and an even better look into her friend. Which was why she knew something was wrong.
She tried not to squirm at the briny, burnt plum taste that coated the roof of her mouth.
Smolder caught her concerned look and answered it with a raised brow. “What?”
“You’re upset,” she said.
“It’s—”
“Not nothing. You’re upset. Do you wanna talk about it? It’s okay if you don’t.”
Smolder looked trapped, and for a moment Ocellus was worried she had gone too far, but the dragon sighed, half-annoyed, and scooted a little closer. “It’s just some dumb, sappy stuff. I don’t wanna ruin our drying-off time.”
“The only way you’ll ever manage to do that is by not being here,” Ocellus said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Smolder responded, looking away. Her big, thick tail had curled around her body and held it tight to her stomach. She pet it idly with her claws. “It’s just that, I don’t know. It kinda feels like the more stories I make here, the less I remember about the ones back home. And the memories. Not that every moment in the Dragonlands was amazing or anything.”
“Not that I don’t like it here!’ Smolder said quickly. “Just that it’s kinda weird. And...sad. I hate being forced to make choices. Feels like I’m supposed to make one between school and home sometimes. School doesn’t last forever, either, right? So, I dunno—let’s forget it.”
“I understand,” whispered Ocellus. “It’s strange to spend your childhood in one place, and then be sent away to spend your formative years in another. It’s—it’s hard to know which one you really belong in.”
Smolder turned back to her, eyes wide at first, but slowly getting back to normal as understanding set in. If there were any creatures who could understand the extremely specific problems troubling her, it was the ones she had already befriended.
Ocellus offered the dragon a hoof. Smolder took it with a claw.
Ocellus wanted to say something. Something along the lines of “it’s hard, finding where the place you belong really is, but at least you’re not alone,” or something like that. But instead Ocellus tilted her head and said, “You wanna know what Starlight gave to me earlier?”
It was like the previous moment had never happened. Life spilled back into Smolder’s eyes.
“What?” she asked.
Ocellus excused herself to grab something out of her saddlebags, which lay in the locker just behind her. She found what she was looking for easy enough—a thin blue box with a picture of two ponies playing a game printed on the front. She got back onto the bench and held it out towards her friend, watching her lean forward to gaze at the picture curiously.
“Connect Four?” Smolder asked.
“Starlight told me it was more fun than checkers but less complicated than chess, and twice as thrilling as either of those. Apparently it’s a game that our teachers are nostalgic for.”
“Must be pretty frickin’ old then.”
“Smolder!”
“Heh, just teasing.”
“Sooo,” Ocellus sang, gazing bashfully at her friend, and hugging the game to herself. “You wanna play with me?”
***
Ocellus was about to win. She had a row on the far left that was one slot away from being completed, and another row on the right that was the same—that one was diagonal though, which is why Smolder never saw it coming.
The frustration and competition coming off of the dragon felt electric on her tastebuds. Ocellus hoped that losing wouldn’t completely sour her mood.
“I hate you,” Smolder muttered.
It was a phrase that she said a lot, but each time Ocellus was always relieved to not detect any genuine feelings behind it.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” said Smolder as she held her head in her claws. “I know now that occasionally losing is okay and all of that, but I was taught that if I wasn’t good at something, I just, like, wasn’t meant to be good at whatever that was. Kinda feeling like I should stick to tossing boulders across the lake and racing with Gallus right now.”
Ocellus gasped. “That’s terrible!”
“Pretty sure that it’s the same sorta stuff that you guys were taught until a few years ago.”
“Actually, losing was looked at with a ‘try, try again’ sort of attitude under Chrysalis’s rule. Recuperate your losses, build up your numbers and come back at the challenge with the full force of the hive.”
“Hmm. Maybe I’m thinking of something else.” Smolder put up a disc and did the only thing she could: slot it into the row on the far left with the knowledge that there was no way to prevent her loss.
Despite her previous words, Ocellus’s heart raced. With all of the physicality that Yona, Smolder, Gallus and Silverstream had injected into her life, she had almost forgotten what being victorious in a competition felt like. It had simply been too long since they had all played a board game together.
“Courtship attitudes, maybe,” she said.
Smolder paused and put her disc down. “What do you mean?”
Talking was a bad move. Internally, Ocellus cursed with the fury of a thousand armies. Externally, she smiled. “Changelings don’t take rejection well. An average changeling will research whoever she’s infatuated with and wait and plan and study, and then she’ll present herself boldly. And if she’s rejected she’ll probably just never talk to that other changeling again.”
“Yikes.”
“We’re sensitive,” Ocellus said. “Are you gonna make your move now?”
Smolder did.
Ocellus completed her row of four.
“Yesyesyesyes!” She cheered. She stamped her hooves and chittered, her wings fluttering behind her.
“Best four out of seven?” Smolder asked. Her expression was all twisted up—caught between being happy for her friend and annoyed at her own loss.
“Sure!” Ocellus beamed. She went to pulling the “board” out of its place and letting the discs slide out of it, waiting patiently as Smolder grabbed all the red discs for herself before pushing the yellow ones to Ocellus’s side. Then she slotted the board back into its standing place.
Loser made the first move. Smolder acted begrudgingly, sliding a red disc into the far right row.
“Can I ask a question about the story earlier?” Ocellus wondered aloud.
“Shoot,” Smolder said, tapping a finger to her lips as she pondered her next move.
“Why couldn’t Charrr have just found another hoard?”
“Hmm. Don’t know.” Smolder blinked. “Never really thought of it.”
“Oh, and speaking of courtship,” Ocellus attempted to sound smooth. She wasn’t sure if it was working. “Are there any dragons back home that might be missing you more than your brother right now?”
Smolder tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“Like, you know…” She twirled her hoof in the air. “Special friends.”
“Uh…”
“Mates, Smolder. Lovers.”
“Oh. Oh!” Smolder’s eyes dilated for a quick second as realization hit. Then she threw her head back and cackled hard at the ceiling. “Oh, Bahamut, no. Dragons barely even date. The ones that end up raising eggs just sorta get together one day and stay for a couple hundred years. Then they get out as soon as it gets boring.”
“Interesting,” Ocellus said. “Well, maybe—”
“The only thing I can think of that comes close to a drakefriend would be my mom’s old cave.”
“Cave?” she asked. “Is–is that innuendo?”
“Hah!” Smolder barked out a laugh. “Looks like hanging out with me and Gallus so much has paid off, Celly. No, I mean an actual, made-of-rock, dank, perfect place to guard your hoard, good old-fashioned cave. Oh, man, I loved that cave more than I love Garble sometimes.”
Ocellus forgot about the raging inferno of a blush that was burning her cheeks. Her curiosity was fully piqued. “There wasn’t a hint of lie in that sentence.”
“Nope! And there never will be. Your turn, by the way.”
As Ocellus dropped one of her discs into the board, Smolder began to examine her claws, looking at them like they were old photographs.
“Yeah, that cave was dreamy,” she sighed. “It wasn’t even the hoard that it helped contain. It was the way that the walls were all perfectly smooth, and it smelled like the sea, but it wasn’t that strong. Just, like, if you were on a beach or something and you could smell the salt. Made your nose feel like it was breathing air for the first time. You know, sometimes I would sneak into the cave when no one else was around—Mom hates that, by the way—and I would just lie on the floor and talk to it. And while we’re at it, the floor. It was comfy, in the dragon kind of way where it was super rough at first and then you got used to it. That’s not even getting into the noises it made at night.”
“Noises?” Ocellus asked.
“Wish I could go back,” Smolder muttered. “Honestly I think I’d just lie down and never come out. Just me and the cave. Forever.”
A shiver made its way down Ocellus’s back, stopping just at the middle of her spine. She felt cold, all of a sudden. And Smolder was being weird.
Really weird. There was so much love coming off of her—it reminded her of the days after Thorax took over. The full brunt of each and every changeling’s love being shared with one another. It was potent. Powerful. And there was a special spice to it, something that complemented the sweetness of love like chili pepper in a dark chocolate lava cake. It was the kind of gentle heat that came from romance. Or infatuation.
“I guess the dorms aren’t the grandest space in the world,” Ocellus began. “But they’re pretty comfy in their own way, right?”
The strange tension that Ocellus was trying to avoid went away.
It was replaced by another kind of tension. One that she had felt from Gallus a couple of times before.
Smolder imitated a laugh. No joy emanated from her. “I guess, yeah. Can’t last forever, though.”
If only Ocellus were back at the hive! There was no hiding emotions there. Only feelings, and understanding, and empathy. She stiffened her body, choosing to look uncomfortable over concerned. “What do you mean by that?”
“Just, you know. Once we graduate where’re we going? Back home, probably, right? And I’ll be back at a dragon cave.” Smolder fidgeted. A claw went to touch the Connect Four board, but pulled away. “Makes me wonder sometimes if I should just grab my textbooks and go home already. Save myself the trouble of leaving and just go it on my own.”
Ocellus leaned forward. “Hey—”
A crash, like someone was kicking a locker as hard as they could, came from around the corner.
Ocellus screamed and hid behind her legs. Smolder turned and stuck an arm out, glaring in the direction of the noise.
“Hello?” called the dragon.
No answer.
“Anyone there?”
Still nothing. Smolder turned back to Ocellus with a pointed look—one that said I’m gonna check it out.
She shook her head fervently—let’s stay here, but to no avail. Smolder pet her head and got up to leave.
Ocellus bit her lip, but got up as well. She stuck tight to Smolder’s back as they (agonizingly slowly) crept forward, away from the bench. Every inch towards the corner felt like a thousand miles. Ocellus breathed unsteadily out of her nose and bit back whines. It wouldn’t do good to be loud right now.
They got to the corner, and Smolder turned way too fast for her liking but she would stick with her friend all the way and—
And there was nothing. Just the hall leading to the bathroom stalls and a few storage doors. Ocellus let out the breath she was holding. Smolder’s still damp wings twitched at the stimulation. “Must’ve been one of Professor Fluttershy’s animals.”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, has that door always been there?”
“Which—” Ocellus began, but stopped.
Its handle was ornately decorated, like a piece of jewelry one might find on a Canterlot unicorn’s neck, and the rest of the door was simple enough, other than the fact that it was made out of gold. Solid, shiny gold that almost glittered under the garish locker room lights.
Ocellus squinted. “I don’t remember that, no.”
“Wanna open it?”
“A little bit, but we should probably go get the others first. Or, better yet, our teachers.”
“You don’t think I’m enough to protect you?” Smolder teased, glancing back with her eyes half-lidded.
“I can change into a bugbear. I think I’m enough to protect me. I’m more worried about when the both of us aren’t enough to deal with whatever’s in there.”
“Why do you already think it’s dangerous?” Smolder asked. “Besides, I doubt anything can stand up to you and me.”
“I take it you’re going to open it, then?”
“Will you be mad at me?”
Ocellus bit her lip. “No.”
“Then yeah, I’m opening it.” Smolder stepped forward, and paused. “Will you do this with me instead of behind me?”
Ocellus prowled out from behind her friend and stood at her side. They exchanged nods like currency, and confidently walked to the door. Half of Ocellus expected their friends to be hiding in the toilet stalls, but as she and Smolder walked by, no one was there to jump out at them. She wasn’t sure whether to feel disappointed or relieved.
The locker room was quiet, but it had always been that way save for their chatter. It just seemed so much more noticeable now. Ocellus found her steps harder and harder to take as she got closer to the door—the exact opposite experience of her scaly friend, whose pace quickened and flared up in time with the rivulets of excitement radiating out from her heart.
They reached the door. Smolder gave her a pointed look and grabbed the handle. Not wanting to be left out, Ocellus grabbed it too.
“Okay,” Smolder said. “One, two..”
They opened the door.
Behind it was black. And gold. And every color of the rainbow speckled throughout that initial, large, lumpy mountain of gold. Then Ocellus realized that it was literal gold. Entire bars, chalices and coins made out of it. With every kind of gem imaginable peeking out of every odd inch.
Beside her, Smolder gasped. “I can’t believe it.”
“What?”
“It’s—it’s my cave. My mom’s, I mean. Old one. And mine too. My—” Smolder stepped through the entrance, to Ocellus’s initial horror, but she stood there for a long couple of seconds completely fine. “This can’t be real, right?”
“I don’t know much about pony magic, but it could be.” Ocellus followed her in, taking careful steps not to close the door behind them.
“This is…” Smolder trailed off. She knelt down and scooped up a couple of gold coins. “I can’t believe you’re here again…”
Ocellus was only half listening. She had gotten sight of how big the cave truly was.
Past the giant pile of treasure in front of them were tens, maybe hundreds more just like it. The place was like a desert of treasure. Ocellus had never seen anything more decadent or expensive in her whole life. If this was Smolder’s mother’s hoard, well, Smolder’s mother must have been a very rich dragon.
It was hard to keep track of the—the treasure, that surrounded her. It was almost as if things were moving as soon as she took her eyes off of them, but how could she prove that? If she attempted to commit the location of a single ruby to memory, within seconds she’d be so distracted by the millions of other things in the cave that she was sure to forget where it was. It was because of this that the cave almost seemed alive. It cave almost seemed like it was breathing.
A giggle yanked her out of her awed stupor. Smolder had a few clawfuls of treasure and was hugging it to her chest. “Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh Celly!” She sat up suddenly and looked in Ocellus’s direction. Her eyes were wet and wild. “Do you know what this means?”
“We should get out of here and tell one of our professors?” Ocellus asked, taking a look at the door.
“No, dummy! It means that we can hang out in here!”
“What?”
“I had a special hiding spot that I’d chill in when I was a whelp,” Smolder squeed and took to the air.
“S-Smolder!” Ocellus cried, flying after her friend. “Come on, we’re gonna get lost!”
“I grew up here, I know my way around,” Smolder called back, diving straight down and curving around another pile of gold and jewels.
Ocellus did her best to follow, but as she attempted to edge around the mound of treasure she clipped her shoulder on something sharp. Signaling her hurt with a sharp yelp, her frantic glide was thrown off its balance, and she began to spin involuntarily.
Strong, lean arms caught her before she could hit the dark, wet cave wall, halting her momentum.
Smolder grunted as she lifted Ocellus and rotated her to inspect her side. “Ah, geez...I got ahead of myself. You okay?”
Ocellus brushed off the shame and—and the odd dash of excitement she felt at being handled so crudely. She waved the dragon off. “It’s just—ow!” she whined as Smolder prodded her shoulder. “It’ll be fine.”
She was let down gently. Smolder offered her a claw. “I’m sorry. I was just excited.”
“It’s okay,” said Ocellus. “What were you going to show me?”
“You mean you don’t wanna leave?”
“We’re here, right? Might as well.”
Smolder beamed. “You’re the best. Follow me.”
The dragon turned around and walked to a side of the treasure pile with an extra amount of topaz geodes peeking out from underneath the gold, and then swiped hard at it.
The gold scattered away to reveal that it was covering a rock face with a crudely made door in the middle.
“Welcome to Fort Smolder.”
She kicked the door down to reveal as cozy an interior as one could get without furniture. There were glowing gems strung up and hung on the wall, spreading a soft, velvety light throughout, and in the centre of the “fort” was a pile of miscellaneous things about four times her own size. Smolder galloped to the thing, laughing joyously like it was a decorated pine tree, and she was Sandbar on the morning of Hearth’s Warming Day.
Ocellus trotted in and closed the door behind her, vaguely feeling like she was invading someone’s personal space. She followed Smolder’s trail to the centre of the room and took a seat in front of the dragon and the pile of things. Her ears perked as her friend muttered to herself, clearly searching for something specific.
“Not that, no, no, no, yes!” Smolder giggled as she pulled something out of the mass.
It was like a giant roll of pitch black vinyl. No, not vinyl. Not pitch black, either. As Smolder moved it around to show Ocellus, light bounced off of the thing’s surface and most of the black turned to ethereal clouds of color. It shimmered and shone, mesmerizing both creatures as they admired it.
“What do you think?” Smolder asked. “This is the first thing I ever hoarded. I found it near the sea when I was a tiny little hatchling—bit anyone who tried to take it from me.”
Ocellus studied it, and gingerly went to prod it with a hoof. Smolder pulled back a little bit, but after a gentle glance, she held it out once more. The changeling ran her hoof over the surface, and as she did, understanding gripped her heart.
Ocellus tried not to laugh as she looked at Smolder. “You don’t know what this is?”
Smolder squinted and shook her head.
“This is a yard of fabric, Smolder.”
Smolder blinked. “But fabric is supposed to be, like, colorful and soft and pretty and cute. This stuff can take a beating. I used to chew on it, and my teeth have never been soft. And it—it looks cool. Like, cool. Fabric’s, like, not cool. It’s beautiful, but not cool.”
The laugh Ocellus had been holding in escaped. She smiled wide. “Oh, Smolder. You should really ask Professor Rarity about edgy clothing some time. This is a yard of fabric, I promise. A merchant ship must have dropped it or something, but this probably would have been used to make a coat or a dress.”
“Dress,” Smolder repeated. “You—you can make a dress with this?”
“Do you want to bring it to Professor Rarity’s tomorrow?”
The dragon nodded, stars in her eyes.
“Then what are we waiting for?” Ocellus asked. “Let’s—”
Something slammed on the door. She jumped away from it.
Smolder was in front of her in an instant, her wings spread and her arms out. “Who’s there?”
Ocellus held her breath as they waited for an answer, but all that followed was quiet. She rubbed a foreleg with another in a vain attempt to comfort herself.
“Anyone?” Smolder asked again, moving to open the door.
When nothing answered her question, she kicked the door open, and found nothing but the treasure they left behind.
“Must have been a gem falling from a pile or something,” she concluded, then turned back to Ocellus. “You wanna get out of here?”
“Yes, please.”
“Need me to carry you?” she asked, a purr to her voice.
“I think I’m fine,” said Ocellus. On an unrelated note, her heart suddenly began to race. “Lead the way.”
“Sure thing, milady.”
They exited Fort Smolder and shut the door before taking to the air, settling into a comfy quiet. They flew over the masses of treasures and tokens, and Ocellus began to begrudge the fact that they had to leave. Everything here was actually quite pretty. Maybe it would be nice to stay over for a little longer, next time.
“Where’s the door?” asked Smolder.
“What do you mean?” Ocellus stopped flying.
“Can’t find the door.”
“What do you mean?” Ocellus snapped. She remembered herself and gasped. “Oh no, Smolder, I’m—”
“It’s okay,” Smolder interrupted. “I can’t find it either.”
They looked around, surrounded by treasure that was surrounded by darkness, and wet cave walls where they could just barely see them.
“I swear it was right here,” Smolder said.
“Where is here?” Ocellus asked.
Smolder flew closer to Ocellus, and they went off in a direction. Not any particular one, just any direction at all. “That’s weird,” Smolder remarked. “That’s weird. I swear on my life that I knew every inch of this place a second ago, but—oh, wait, there it is.”
Smolder giggled, slapping her head with a smile. Side by side they dove down and landed in front of a pile of gold and—
And weapons. Multiple swords, shields and the occasional harpoon were sprinkled over the gold like garnish on a fancy meal. Across from the hoard was the golden door they came through.
“I don’t remember any swords when we first walked in,” Ocellus said.
Smolder opened the door and stepped into the locker room. “It’s been a weird day. Wouldn’t be surprised if we just remembered wrong.”
“Yeah. Probably.” Ocellus followed and closed the door.
In the darkness, the cave moved. Just the floors at first—like there was an earthquake. But there was no earthquake. The floors simply shivered, knocking coins loose from their piles and nudging spears and shields from their beds in the coins. The shaking became more intense. Piles dissolved and melded together to create even bigger ones. Jewels fell from high perches, shattering on the ground, and their shards were quickly carried off into the bottoms of other golden mounds now colorless in the dark.
The walls moved too. They twisted and bent and curved like they wre made of rubble, though they were still hard as rocks. The piles became bigger and fewer but remained the same to an undiscerning eye. The walls started to close in. The cave became another cave, but stayed the same.