He had a happy life.

Sure, his mother was gone, his father was crazy, and his brother was depressing and kind of mean.

But he was none of those things.

And that's all that mattered.

Splinter clambered out of the sackcloth sleeping bag that served as his bed. It was a brand new day. And brand new days were full of things for young dragons to do.

Like pester his big brother

He scuttled away across the loose rugs strewn about the sand, and opened a flap into the main room. His dad was there, cooking, as he usually did when he was nervous, which was always.

"Good morning, Squint." Stalker greeted in his sing-songy voice. Ugh, that nickname was dumb. He acted more like a mother than a father most times. "You look chipper this morning."

Splinter nodded, and looked into the pot of whatever the stark NightWing was making.

"It's porridge." He said simply, patting his son on the head. "any plans for today? It's awfully wonderful out there. Not as hot today."

"I was gonna go 'splorin" Splinter beamed crookedly. "Maybe Bobba could come with."

"What a lovely idea, hon." Stalker said, eyes fixated on pouring a dry gourd full of porridge. "You should take this with you. As for your brother... I wouldn't pester him now, he's still sleeping."

But he wasn't sleeping. Splinter had seen it the day before. A letter for his brother. He couldn't read very well, but a dragonet of any age can read the word WAR scrawled in red letters.

"Okie doke." Splinter smiled again. Doing that always seemed to make his dad just a bit happier, so he did it a lot. He didn't want his dad to be sad. "I'll be back 'round lunch!"

With that, he skipped out the tent flaps, grabbing the to-go gourd of breakfast on his way out.

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His dad had lied, it was reallly hot out here.

Splinter stumbled through the sand, falling on his face more than he would have liked to.

But it was alright, he was almost where he wanted to be.

The scavenger den ruins. There was already beautiful treasures around here. Maybe it would make Dad happy to see something shiny.

The Splinter saw.. another dragon.

Maybe that would make him even happier.

He shuffled up to her, a beautiful, SandWing? He couldn't tell, she was quite different-looking, with a brown underbelly and a line of deep blue scales.

"Heya!" He said, nearly startling her.

The other dragon turned around, her face growing from fear, to a smile.

"Oh, hello there." She said sweetly.

"What're you doing here?"

"Looking for treasure to put in my jewelry."

"You make jewelry?"

"Out of shells, mostly. I wanted to make a different one this time."

"That's amazing! I'm Splinter."

"I'm.. Sundial. Nice to meet you."

"Same here! Hey! Would you like to come over to my house for lunch later! We could be best friends!"

...

"That sounds wonderful"