Ahhh, so in celebration of being able to post new fics again, I have a new Wings of Fire fanfiction for you all. What with Tui writing the first Wings of Fire: Legends and all, it got me wondering which dragons we need to see Legends books for. Grandeur came out as the top, most number one dragon that we need to know the past of.
Why Grandeur, you may ask? Well, we know more vague details about the pasts of Scarlet, Darkstalker, Fathom, Albatross, the Sandwing Sisters, and even Chameleon; but there is an entire history-an entire war-within the Rainwing tribe that we don't even know the faintest clue about, except that it happened sometime during or before Grandeur's rule. In fact, this war is only hinted at, once, in The Hidden Kingdom, when Grandeur, during the camouflage contest states(and this is not an exact quote; I don't have the book with me right now); "I remember when we used our camouflage to hide from our enemies; not use it for these foolish games.".
Maybe people have forgotten about that one line, that tiny little comment that could change everything the fandom knows about Pyrrhia's history. This one sentence that nobody, it seems, has bothered to look back on or think about, implies that at some point in the last century, the Rainwings fought in some sort of war.
Now, after making this assumption, I decided that ; Why would the Mudwings assume that it was a monster in the forest? Any skilled enough Healer would have been able to tell them that it was dragons' claws that killed the Mudwings. So what if, whatever it was that the Rainwings fought all those years ago, had left an entire next generation living in paranoia of that enemy. An enemy that, perhaps, was so scary, the tribes never wanted to look back at anything having to do with it?
I mean, this is a fantasy world; if dragons can exist...
why not monsters?
Grandeur watched as the whole tribe erupted into celebration. Excited golds and pinks rose up in waves around the stadium as her former subjects cheered. She took a deep breath, glancing at the dragonet, Kinkajou. The tiny dragon had come too, and was a pale pink, though shaking with pain and exhaustion.
A pang of guilt rang through her.
I should have reacted quicker. Time was, many years ago, she could have withheld her venom much quicker than that. She could decide "friend or foe?" quicker than a Skywing could fly. She had been the best venom-spitter the Rainwing Military had ever seen.
She looked at her challenger; her heir. Glory of the Rainwings, who, from what she had heard, had never seen another Rainwing until a few days ago. Who was gutsy enough to challenge the throne, to take back what rightfully belonged to the Rainwing tribe; to free the missing Rainwings, to fight the Nightwing oppressors that had been festering in their backyard for who-knows-how-long without them even realizing it.
Another thing that Grandeur had failed at. She had failed at defending her tribe. She hadn't even noticed that dragons were going missing. In fact, she hadn't heard anything about it until last night, when Magnificent had come crashing into her solitary home in the Great Banyan.
She had been down right furious when she found out though. Not that dragons were going missing, but that she hadn't been told about it sooner.
"What do you want." she had snapped as the flower-adorned Rainwing Queen had landed on Grandeur's watch, the platform on top of the Banyan where Rainwing Guards had once kept watch on the skies above.
"Oh, settle down Gran." the younger Rainwing scoffed. Grandeur narrowed her eyes at the name. "I just have a tinsy little task for you to do. So tiny."
"What?" she snapped, folding in her wings and uncurling her tail, turning her head to glare at the Queen. She had been meditating, deep in thought, for the past three days. She hadn't even had sun time, so busy her mind had been. She had been contemplating on whether or not to try and find her heirs among the tribe, and attempt to restore the Queenship.
"Oh, we have just a tiny problem." Magnificent insisted with an exhausted sigh, plopping herself down on her side, tail curling over her hind ankles. Her sloth churbled softly, curled over her shoulders. "Some little dragonet wants to become Queen for some reason. We offered her Splendor's place, but she said she wanted her turn now. I, of course, said no, but then Handsome-"
"What do you mean, you offered her Splendor's place? Did you even consult Splendor about this?" Grandeur interjected, lashing her tail in and out for silence.
"Ah! Don't interrupt me; that's rude. And for your information, Splendor is missing, so naturally, we wouldn't have to consult her to give Garland her turn, because she wouldn't be here to complain about it." Magnificent huffed irritably, her ruff flashing scarlet.
Grandeur stared at her for a few moments. Suddenly her, scales exploded into a bright orange, and her now-amber eyes were glaring slits. In one swift movement, she was on her feet, standing threateningly above Magnificent.
"What do you mean," She asked slowly, furiously, at the shocked queen, "Splendor is missing?"
"Well, after you left to brood here, she never showed up." Magnificent offer innocently, shrugging and getting to her feet. She rubbed her sloth behind the neck with one claw. "It's really no big deal, really; we skipped her. Glade was making a big deal about it though, her and this other dragonet, and some other dragonets from some other boring tribes, but mostly Glade. Kept going on and on about some missing dragons and something called a volcano, and-"
"MISSING DRAGONS!" Grandeur roared, rushing up into Magnificent's face, her eyes now burning black-red like embers, her scales snapping to the same shade of red that Glory's had been when she had challenged Magnificent; the shade of angry that had never been seen before by other Rainwings. "HOW MANY?"
Magnificent backed up, surprised by Grandeur's sudden rage. Her eyes were wide, and her scales turned to a combination of green and purple-orange.
"I-I don't know!" she protested, wings flaring."There was this little dragonet with her, and she mentioned Bright and Orangutan and Tapir. All very boring, very old dragons, though, so they've probably just died mid-flight or something. It's happened before."
"Tapir!?" Grandeur would never forget the shock of that moment. Tapir and Bright had fought by her side at a time when fighting had seemed impossible. They had stood together at the end of the world, and came out on top anyway.
And after further investigation earlier this morning, she had found out that both of them were dead. They had been missing for months, and she hadn't even noticed, not even in her short leisure trips down to the village. Them, and fourteen others.
She was still mad, so, so mad at the other "Queens" for not telling her sooner. But mostly, she was mad at herself as well. For letting go of her throne. For not paying more attention to her subjects, like a proper Queen should. For letting her daughters become total nit-wits.
For not being a Queen.
She let out a sigh, and looked at her challenger, dull scales summer gold, looking around herself with wide shocked eyes, as if being cheered for was new to her. Her heir, Glory of the Rainwings.
Queen Glory.
"May your reign fair better than mine..." she muttered. Carefully, her talons steady whereas others' might have been trembling, she reached up, took her circlet of lavenders off of her head, and placed it on the ground next to her.
A strange sense of freedom washed over her, and she sat back on her haunches, and briefly lifted her snout to the sky, drinking in the suddenly fresher air. The scents of the rainforest cast themselves at her as she took a deep breath, not as vibrant as they once were.
My nose has gotten as bad as my venom control. she chuckled inwardly.
"Glory!" a deep voice boomed. Grandeur's head snapped around to see a large Mudwing dragonet burst through the crowd, panic etched into his features. She blinked in surprise. A Mudwing? I haven't seen one of those in quit a while; and they used to be our allies! It felt like everyone had been avoiding the Rainforest Kingdom since The Shadowing.
The new dragonet collapsed in front of the new Queen, who stared at him, looking even more shocked than before.
"Clay? What happened?" she demanded, green and pale blue splashing over her scales, muting out the gold.
"Glory, they took him- the Nightwings, they took Starflight!" "Clay" gasped, his voice cracking on the edge of a wail. Whoever this "Starflight" character was, he or she seemed to be incredibly important to this young Mudwing-and to Glory as well, judging by the red-black that now bolted through her muddled green-blue scales.
"WHAT?!" came a furious roar. A dark blue she-Seawing had flown down from the crowd platforms, and her glowing scales were now lit up furiously. She landed next to Glory with a thump, followed by a small, tawny-golden Sandwing, who appeared to be in near hysterics.
Three moon, this is a weird day. she thought. Mangrove joined the gathering, and the rest of the celebrating tribe, seeming to notice what was going on, started to go silent. The ones that had been shoved out of the way by Clay had been shocked into silence, indignant oranges and red pulsing through them.
Grandeur stepped forwards, joining whatever conversation that Glory was having with the other dragonets and Mangrove. Jambu stood off to the side, looking surprised, and Tamarin's ears kept pricking as she listened in on the conversation from farther away.
"...need to be smart about this, Tsunami. If they have Starflight, we can't just waltz on in there and ask for him back. They'll be expecting that." Glory was saying. The Seawing's tail was lashing so hard, Grandeur was starting to wonder how in the moons she was able to keep balance at this point.
"The Queen is right." Grandeur interjected, nodding. She had eyes only for Queen Glory as all heads snapped in her direction."Whomever these Nightwings have taken, they will use them, one way or the other. My suggestion, if you don't mind, your Majesty, is to set a constant guard on where ever the Nightwings are getting through at. I know many of the easy paths through this rainforest; if you can guard those paths, restrict the enemy to the hardest ways through, then you'll have a better chance at hearing them before they can attack."
The younger dragons all looked at each other, dumbfounded, the expressions on their faces similar to that of dragons whom had just been attacked by trees. Mangrove nodded.
"That sounds good... if they were coming from just outside the rainforest. The Nightwings are coming through a tunnel; it's magic, it leads to some sort of island." he looked at his talons, pale blue and gray spread up his arms. "That's where they're keeping Orchid."
It was Grandeur's turn to look dumbfounded. Magic? Three moons! She shook her head. This was no time to give in to the constant surprises. This was a time to be a solder again.
"Show me where." she asked Mangrove. Turning to Glory, she made a split second decision that, quit honestly, nearly took her breath away." Your majesty, I shall meet you near this tunnel, if it is where you plan to go. If not, Mangrove and I will guard it for now. I have something in my home that I must fetch first; I think you would approve of it very much, were you to see it."
The new Queen of about five minutes nodded, still gawking at her. "Y-yes, Grandeur. Mangrove, go wait by the Queens'-my hut. Show her the way to the tunnel; we'll meet you there."
Grandeur backed up, and bowed deeply, wings spread and one talon put forwards. The movement felt strange to her body after one hundred years on the throne. She stood strait again, and took off towards the Banyan.
Glory turned to Mangrove.
"You guys have a tower?" she asked, still shocked.
"What's a tower?" he asked back, one ridged eyebrow arched.
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
Later, in her home, Grandeur, formerly Queen of the Rainwings, landed. Shadows spread over the canopies below, much like they had one hundred years ago.
But where the shadows of that time had been so menacing, these was were painted with all the colors of dusk, as if what had transpired over one hundred years ago had never happened.
What with the way Rainwings remember things, I'm probably one of the few dragons left who knows what happened. she scoffed at the thought. It was true; the Rainwings of this day and age couldn't be bothered with learning the history of their tribe, and The Shadowing had affected their tribe most of all, the whole incident mostly taking place in the rainforest.
She made her way around the trunk of the tree, ducking several branches, until she made it to her sleeping room.
She made her way over to a large, long, bamboo chest hear her nest, and opened it. She was slightly taken aback by what was in there. It had been so long... and it looked exactly as it did the day she had locked it in this chest.
She carefully lifted the spear out of its coffin. The hard bamboo felt cool and smooth in her talons, the indented rings in the wood's surface feeling just as familiar as they had once been. She ran one claw over her mark, an ivy strand wrapped around the stem of a rose.
Hello, old friend.
She stamped the spear bottom down on the floor and closed the chest with a slam. She turned to look out at the entrance of her home, the sky growing ever darker.
It's time to go to war again.
Read an review! I'm currently working on chapter two. I've experienced a little bit of writers block with Wings of Storm, but I still work on it every once in a while; I haven't forgotten about it.
REVEIW!
