Dragon Dust

There weren't always dragons in the Valley, that is until I brought them back.

The sopping wet towel across my neck does little to dry my beading sweat. I curse myself for smoking the baby-blue scales. I needed the concentration and steadiness, but not the heat sensitivity it brings. It's okay, though, because I've got my most significant find to date loose. A perfect white and gold scale is buried in the sedimentary rock of the canyon. I'd let a whoop of excitement break my lips, but my team may sabotage me if they hear of my discovery, and I need this scale more than they do. Their father isn't pissed off at them for causing the Mount Rainier collapse, and they most certainly don't have debt after losing five thousand dollars worth of equipment over a cliff on Mount Kilimanjaro.

"Boo!"

I don't flinch. After knowing Cherry for almost 22 years, I'm used to her popping in. Plus, those baby-blue scales I smoked are giving me more muscle control than usual. "Don't you have work to do?"

"Technically," she said, picking up my tiny pickaxe and miming hitting a massive boulder nearby. "you are my work. You know, being your site manager and all."

I swap out my brush for the plastic straw Cherry almost knocked over the cliff edge and repress the urge to fist pump the air at my discovery. The scale just budged. "So then, you know my neck is on the line if I don't get this scale up for you."

Cherry tosses the pickaxe back to the ground and lays on her chest beside me. "Oh, but where's the fun if we don't make it more difficult for Daddy's Boy?"

Her comment forces a spasm through my hand, but I get it under control in seconds. "You just wish you were me, so you didn't have to try."

"And look where you're trying's gotten you," Cherry says, bumping my shoulder, but, luckily for her, I'm a lefty, so I don't disturb the scale. If I had, the site might've been changed from a dig site to a murder site.

"Listen up, everyone," I freeze at my father's voice magnified up the canyon walls. From its amplification, it's evident he's ingested honey-yellow scales. "Forecast says there's a storm that's gonna flood the canyon. I want everyone done with their digs in five!"

I glance up to the sky and see the storm front rolling in. Steel-gray clouds take up half the sky, and they most definitely weren't there five minutes ago. The scale's base is still encrusted with dirt, almost fuzed to the rock it's been left for so long. Then, a thundercrack splits the dry air.

"Come on, come on," Cherry says, and as I glance at her, I'm reminded of childhood in our sandbox. "I'll tell your father you found a scale. I'll vouch that you're not lying."

My tongue darts out between my teeth, and I start chewing on it, a nervous tick. "Cher, I can't leave this. Do you know how much a white and gold scale like this one is worth?"

Lightning paints the canyon a brilliant white, and again, my father's voice booms from the canyon's bottom. "It's coming on strong. Everyone to higher ground!"

I smirk to myself but don't move as I might have accidentally outsmarted everyone. With how high up in the canyon I am, the flooding isn't an issue, and with everyone else's excavating paused, it could mean I'm the only provider today. Still, Cherry's not leaving my side.

"Cherry, would you just go and get covered?" I say, nudging her shoulder with mine, trading out the straw I was using, now obsolete with the winds, for a miniature hammer.

"I'm the site leader, dumb ass. If I leave you and you die, what happens to me?" Cherry says, standing up and offering me a filthy, calloused hand.

But I don't take it. "Cherry, this scale is worth almost two thousand dollars. I can't let this slip away."

Then the rain starts. I hear it first. A soft pitter-patter amplified by the canyon like a giant rain stick. What's started as a drizzle has turned into a downpour in moments.

My scale turns a muddy brown as the dirt it's lodged in runs. I wipe it away with a rag, but the mud only redoubles as the rain now blurs my vision to only what's on my little outcropping of rocks.

"Okay, fine, let's go," I admit and take her callused hand in mine.

She yanks me up, and we both look around, but it's no use. The rain has reduced the visibility to nearly zero. In a last-ditch effort to not lose the scale, I undo the purple and black bandana around my head and tie it around it. Not perfect, but purple and black are easy enough to see against the canyon's sandy brown.

I can't exactly see, but I'd trust Cherry with my life, so I let her drag me forward. Only a few minutes later, I'm doubled over at the mouth of a cave as the rain comes down so hard I can barely hear myself. Behind me, I smell the dank smell of an untouched cave and can hear Cherry taking mortar to pestle.

"Here, I'll crush up some red scales for warmth."

But I'm not chilly despite the bone drenching rains or the coolness of the cave. Instead, what steals my attention is the glint of something in the cave's depths. Not speaking a word and giving Cherry no indications of what I'm doing, I move around her and stumble down the craggy rock. Behind me, she yells, but I don't stop. Whatever's glinting at the back of the cave has to be expensive to shine in such minimal light.

"Fjord, do you want to not walk away from me down a dark cave passage on your own when you can't see?" Cherry says, coming to a walk beside me and holding up her hand. In her palm is a dancing golden and red light. The light licks the passage walls like fire but without the danger and shows us the very uneven path. I don't ask where the light is coming from as the scales she's smoked let her do this as a large quantity allows light control.

"We should go back. We don't know if this cave will flood as the rains pick up." Cherry says, resting a hand on my shoulder, but I shake it off. How can she not see the glinting caused by her palm light now?

Then, all at once, we come to a chamber. I say chamber because naturally occurring cave walls aren't as smooth as these, and there they are, the glinting hunks of gold at the atrium's center. Gorgeous and strangely shaped, the chunks are about the size of a bowling ball.

"No way..." Cherry says as she takes in the size of the gold nuggets before us.

Not only will this relieve my dept, but it should secure me several promotions all at once. As I neal beside the nuggets, I hear the slightest squeak but chalk it up to cave sounds.

"Let's go. We can't be down here in case the place floods." Cherry says, trying to pull me back from the thousands of dollars I've just found, but I'm knocked off balance as she does.

As I fall backward, my leg kicks out and contacts a gold nugget. A shrill cry echoes in the cavern, and I freeze where I lay. Cherry above me has gone tense as well.

My feet move back below me, and I straighten up just as a hole forms in the side of my gold nugget.