The Dragonet Prophecy

When Clay wakes up, he finds Tsunami plunging him under the water, trying to help him get the sticky substance off his body. She warns Clay not to fight and stay in the water because the substance seems to be dissolving his scales. Back at the cave, Starflight and Sunny realized they could breathe enough fire to break a link in Tsunami’s chains. She broke free and followed Clay as fast as she could.

When Clay asks Tsunami whether she saw the glowworms, Tsunami says she can do better than that and turns on her glow-in-the-dark scales, including ones Clay has never seen before. When he asks her why SeaWings get to glow in the dark when they can already see in the dark, Tsunami bashfully explains that they glow to attract and choose a mate. Clay hastily changes the subject and Tsunami playfully dares them to dive over the waterfall. She takes off at a fast swim before Clay can stop her. He follows, but ends up clinging to a rock and dangling over the waterfall’s edge, terrified that Tsunami has died. Tsunami taps him on the foot, showing that the waterfall was only a short drop, which she knew all along.

They follow the river and the sounds of a larger, roaring waterfall until Tsunami again disappears over the edge screaming. At first, Clay worries about her, but the sheer joy of flying in the wide-open air for the first time overcomes him. He happily joins Tsunami in the moonlight.

In the sky, Clay marvels at the big open space, the light of the three moons, and the feel of the wind as he navigates the open air. He worries when he can’t find Tsunami, then he spots her struggling to fly with one wing that appears to be broken. Diving through the air to save her, Clay uses his body to slow and cushion Tsunami’s fall.

Tsunami explains that she dislocated her wing while escaping the chains. Clay gets distracted by the sheer joy of standing in dirt for the first time. He feels overjoyed especially because he feels warmer than he’s ever felt in his life. Then he remembers the nearby river and plunges himself into mud for the first time. He feels rejuvenated—no aches, no pain from the poison, no clumsiness as he walks, and no cold. All the nuisances that plagued him in the cave go away once he’s in the mud. Excitedly, he and Tsunami talk of the future again, marveling that they’ve made it so far, which reminds Clay to tend to Tsunami’s wing.

Clay prevents Tsunami from bashing herself into a tree to put the wing back right. Clay examines her and pushes it back into place himself. The pain makes Tsunami whack him into a tree, but he does fix the wing. Before they can decide what to do next, Tsunami hears a sound and silences Clay. Something is running toward them through the trees.