Tai and Hide swiftly made their way outside. As soon as Hide felt the cool, night breeze hit his wings, he shot himself into the air. Tai soon took to the air, trying to catch up.
Tai soon found herself right next to Hide, beating her wings pretty slowly. Her wingbeats began pacing faster, and she soon was ahead of him, leading the way.
Tai took Hide a few miles inwards, toward the castle. The castle was the tallest tower in the entire city. Hide looked shocked to see something so thin, and tall. Tai looked back to Hide, seeing his confusion, and shock.
She giggled, then beat her wings faster, causing Hide to beat his own wings faster. They went on in silence for another thirty minutes, before arriving at the castle. Hide and Tai landed in unison, lifting their wings high up into the air to balance themselves. Tai peeked through her wings with a grin.
Hide felt eyes on him as they were waiting outside. When he looked around him, he noticed bright pairs of green, amber, and blue eyes staring at him and Tai. A few had intrigued looks, others looked disgusted.
Maybe they think I'm pretty. Yes. Yes, that's it. The subjects back home think that too. They all stare at me like this when I fly by. Huh, maybe this Kingdom won't be so bad. Hide thought.
Hide smiled at a few dragons around him, puffing out his chest.
After a few moments of silence, a very tall dragon stepped in front of him.
He smirked as he looked down at Hide. His cornflower blue eyes looked down at him aggressively. He had a smug smile before asking,
"Who are you? I've never seen you before. I remember everyone in our city, but you're the only one who's...erm.. different. New."
With his smug smile still on his face, he looked over to Tai.
"Oh! This is my brother! Suna! He was taken when we hatched, and I met him when I was out gathering something at my outpost house." She said, so casually, it slightly scared Hide at her ability to lie so well.
"I see... Shouldn't he go to the queen? Let her know he's still alive? She'd welcome him with open wings." The tall dragon said.
"Kathban, we can't do that on coronation day. We have no clue what the new queen will do with him. She could abuse him, or use him for information on other kingdoms, maybe even on the elemental temple that's out north. We can't trust that right now. You're a part of the delegate, help us out, please." Tai pleaded.
He shook his head.
"I can't. The members won't listen to me." Kathban said, looking sympathetic.
He looked over to Hide, a piercing, cold stare shooting through his head.
Suddenly, the bright moonlight shone over the castle, the doors opening at the same time.
"This is a Sandbear castle. Every element has its own elemental magic to conceal itself or something of it's choice. Our castle has that magic inside of it's very walls, making it look bigger on the inside rather than on the outside." Tai whispered.
Hide walked in with Tai, hoping no one noticed who he was.
After a few minutes of walking through the palace, everyone came to a complete stop in an elegant-looking room. The room had reds, and gold everywhere, flowers on vines, that were hanging from the ceiling, and large cacti in every corner. Everyone had split into two groups across the floor, with a red carpet in the center of it all. The two groups were on either side of the carpet, with Hide in the front on the left side. At the very end of the room, sat a thrown. It didn't match the room at all, with it's silver rimming, and it's gold seat. It surely didn't look comfortable, but if the queen wanted to sit in something so lavish, in an otherwise poor kingdom, let her wear the boot that fits.
Without much time passing as Hide examined the room, an old-looking dragon flew in, with a long scar across her right wing.
Hide looked at the old dragon. She had very pale scales, with a practically white scar across her right wing. She had black eyes, and her tail had a sharp end, just like his mother. She had a sour expression on her face, as she walked down the carpet, and over to the thrown.
She looked around at her subjects, with kindness in her eyes, despite the look she kept on her face. When her gaze fell on Hide, she stopped. She stood in front of him, toppling over him.
"Who's this?" She asked, looking over to Tai.
"My twin brother! I found him at my outpost den, just east of the border. You remember how large my egg was, don't you?" She asked, looking slightly nervous.
The previous queen began laughing, the rest of the room following behind her.
"Oh! You aren't kidding? Tai, you had the smallest egg in the hatchery. Why do you think you're so pale? You're not my age, so it's not age. We even gave you most of the food we even had to ensure you were properly fed. Honey, you're a runt! How could another dragon survive in there?" She teased.
Hide's eyes lit with anger. Smoke began rising from his nose and mouth.
"How positive are you that you'll pick on my own sister, without me there to make sure no one goes unpunished? I'll kill you right here, right now if you don't stop talking. You're wing is scarred pretty deep. The second I open that scar and slash through it, You won't be able to take flight. Once you're easy enough to target, I can kill you within five minutes." Hide threatened.
The queen laughed.
"Pfft- this one has a temper for sure. You're tactics are nearly flawless, but what do you suppose my guards would do if you tried harming me?" She asked, a cocky smile on her face.
Hide had a sharp smile on his face, almost tempted to shift colors, to the ones around him. He looked over to Tai, who was shaking her head vigorously. If he had been able to shift because of thinking about certain colors before, who's to say he couldn't go nearly invisible? This was highly likely to be hard. Hide knew doing something so difficult may not work; he didn't even know if he could change colors based on the scenery. He had to put faith in himself, which admittedly, he did haphazardly.
Hide looked back to the queen, beginning to shift colors. The reds and golds around the room were easy enough to copy, but it was when he tried to match the pattern of the room that the task became difficult. He luckily had looked around enough to blend in decently. Within seconds, Hide was gone. The Queen looked around, trying to find him, before feeling a tap on her left wing. Hide had managed to go undetected, and sneak around her. Even with his flower crown and vine that Tai had forced him to wear, he'd been basically invisible.
"You were saying?" He said, shifting back to the pale gold he was before. He had this smile on his face that screamed how vain he was.
"Tai! You never said you had a color-shifting brother! We could put him to use!" The Queen said, her ears perked.
Hide's scales shifted back into the golds and reds around him, taking off the flower crown and vine, to become seemingly invisible.
He quickly made his way over to Tai, and quickly flew out of the palace, with Tai's wrist in claw.
"After them! I need that dragon!" The Queen shouted, pointing towards them with her left wing.