Chapter Two
"Dragonets!" Webs called.
"Webs is back!" Sunny said, leaping up to greet him. Starflight immediately followed after her. Clay heaved himself up and trotted down the passageway after them. Tsunami looked at Glory with a glare. Glory glared back. Tsunami shrugged and followed after Clay. The SeaWing dragonet said she hated Webs for stealing her egg, but that was nothing compared to what Webs did to her.
Webs stole her egg.
She wasn't even in the prophecy! Nobody cared about her. So why did he steal her egg? Anyway, Webs never defended her. He just stood aside and let Dune and Kestrel shame her for being alive.
Like it was her fault Webs stole her egg.
"Starflight, I brought you a scroll," said Webs, untangling the scroll from a net full of fish. Starflight took the slightly damp scroll with a gleeful expression.
"'Tales of the NightWings,'" Starflight declared, reading the title aloud.
"Oh, great," Tsunami groaned. "Another pack of lies for Starflight to brag about."
Starflight looked reproachful. "I think it sounds cool," Sunny offered; she fell silent with Tsunami's glare. Glory was disgruntled to find that she agreed with Tsunami. She was tired of the NightWings! this and NightWings! that.
Webs shifted from one talon to another. "I'm going to prepare dinner," he said, shuffling off with the large net of fish across his back.
Clay took a step towards the large boulder- the one and only way out, the guardians said. He spread his talons across the smooth rock. "I'm sick of this cave," he confessed. "I wish we could find a way to get out into the mud."
"And fresh air," Added Starflight.
"And heat," chimed Sunny.
"And the sea," said Tsunami wistfully, no doubt thinking about her parents again. "Ahem." Glory looked down at her talons. "Ahem."
Glory looked up, realizing uncomfortably that everyone was staring at her. What did she have? A tribe full of snoozy banana-eating dragons. "And the sun," she added lamely. She loved sitting under the sky hole with the sun shining down on her in rays of bright sunlight, but it still sounded like something a lazy rain dragon would say.
"Yeah, and the moon," Starflight added, spreading his wings.
"Once we solve the prophecy, we'll be free to have all those things," said Sunny loyally. Nobody really knew how they were going to solve the prophecy, but Glory wasn't fussed about it. No one cared about Glory's opinion, so why should she even speak up?
"Yeah, but I wish we could have them now," said Clay awkwardly. "Then we could stop studying EVERYTHING that EVER happened during the war?"
"Studying is fun," Starflight protested.
"Is not," said Clay gloomily.
Glory turned her scales blue with glowing scales across her snout, underbelly, and tail. "Jump in the river!" she snarked.
Sunny erupted into giggles. Tsunami pushed Glory into the river.
Glory surfaced, sputtering but laughing. "Now aren't you sorry," Tsunami said, lifting her chin in the regal way she practiced being queen.
"Nope," said Glory as she climbed out of the river, dripping water onto the rocky floor. "That was totally worth it."
"I can do it again," Tsunami said warningly.
Glory laughed, her scales still staying the same blue color. "Okay, I'll be good," she said, blinking innocently. Tsunami shrugged, turning back around. Glory crossed her eyes and lumbered across the cave.
Sunny stifled her giggles. Tsunami whirled around and smacked Glory back into the river with her tail.
"I had to," she coughed, grinning despite herself, rubbing water out of her eyes.
"You'll be sorry when I'm queen," Tsunami declared regally, swishing her talon through the air as if she were waving a scepter. Glory rolled her eyes.
"I thought only the royal princesses could become queens," asked Clay, confused.
"Well, maybe my parents are the king and queen," said Tsunami. "Just like in The Missing Princess." The fantasy scroll was the dragonets' favorite, a story about a SeaWing princess who got lost and separated from her parents. She had wild adventures trying to find them.
"When my parents found me missing, they tore apart the whole Mud Kingdom to find me," Clay said. "They alerted the king and queen, who told the whole kingdom! Now everyone is trying to find me."
"My parents are looking everywhere for me," Tsunami continued. "They're waiting for me to come home. Their rightful queen."
"It doesn't matter who my parents are," said Sunny brightly. "The prophecy is what matters. Once we decide who the SandWing queen will be, all the SandWings will love me."
Tsunami shot a worried look at Glory, but Glory was looking down at her talons. Purple and blue streaked across them, quick as lightning, until she clamped down on them forcibly and they returned to emerald green.
Glory was like this any time the dragonets talked about their parents. She knew exactly what her parents were- RainWings. And since everyone hated RainWings anyway, why bother her friends about her parents? Tsunami's parents were undoubtedly wonderful swimmers who missed her a lot. Clay's parents looked everywhere for him. Starflight's parents were legendary NightWings. Glory's parents were lazy vegetarian dragons.
"Glory, what are your parents like?" Starflight asked. Glory glared at him. She knew he meant well, but sometimes the night dragonet was just oblivious to life around him, too immersed in the facts of his many scrolls to really understand.
"Probably just like the guardians say," she said flatly. "Lazy banana-eaters."
"RainWings AREN'T LAZY!" The other four objected.
"You just need to take a nap in the middle of the day," said Clay. "What's wrong about that? It's a fact of your tribe, like how Tsunami needs to sleep in the river."
Glory thought back to her joking around with Tsunami. Did that hurt her feelings? Was that kind of like Kestrel and Dune with their metaphors about RainWings?
Probably not, she decided. That was all in good fun, like laughing about the mysterious ways of the NightWings.
"Tell that to Kestrel and Dune," Glory said gloomily.
Kestrel chose that unfortunate moment to come into the hallway from her sleeping cave. "Why are you all just sitting there gaping?" She snapped. "Did someone replace your brain with a RainWing's?"
Sunny opened her mouth to protest, but closed it at the ferocious look on the red dragon's face. The minders did that all the time- talk so carelessly about RainWings. When Glory was younger, one or two years old, she used to flinch every time; gradually she got used to it.
"I wish they had," said Clay. "Then maybe I'd remember all the facts in history and geography, like Glory does." He twined his tail around Glory's. Glory returned a reluctant smile. It was true that she had a good memory, but on top of that, she had to try harder than all the others in order to prove her worth.
"Whatever," Kestrel hissed, twisting around and disappearing into the hallway, going who knows where. Sunny leaned protectively over Glory. The rain dragonet could feel the heat radiating from her golden scales.
"Don't listen to Kestrel," she chirped. "You may not be a SkyWing, but you're our prophecy dragonet."
Glory blinked, the words echoing in her mind. You're our prophecy dragonet...
...
The rainforest was filled with lots of pleasing sounds. Leaves rustling, birds squawking, even the gentle sound of a waterfall nearby. In the top of the trees were lots of many, many hammocks, each holding a multicolored dragon inside like a cozy cocoon.
On a particularly high branch, there was a dragon nestled inside the grass-woven hammock. She was female, probably around one or two, with gray-blue scales and streaks of white. A furry brown sloth was perched on her shoulder. Though the dragons around her were sleeping, she was watching everything that was going on around her. At first glance, she appeared to be muttering to herself, but upon closer inspection, she was talking to her sloth.
"There's Mangrove and Orchid," she observed. "They look really happy. They must love each other a lot." She peered down at the two dragons, whose scales were yellow with pale pink starbursts.
"There's Kinkajou, the bouncy one, helping the little blind dragon into her hammock," she murmured. "She must really care, to always be watching out for her friend like that. And the blind one, she must be really strong, to live through a life without sight." Everyone knew about Tamarin, the little blind RainWing, who'd been born one or two years ago without sight. It had been something of a scandal.
"Why isn't everyone like that?" she continued."Why can't everyone care enough to take care of something besides themselves?
"Something is missing. Something is missing," she repeated. "Something is missing! What is it? I don't know exactly, but something is missing!" The little dragonet was getting a bit frantic.
"What are we missing? Are we missing the ability to care? No, we still have that, just not in abundance. What are we missing?" Her sloth was beginning to look scared.
"Oh, Sleepy, I didn't mean to scare you," she mumbled, thinking of the queen with all of the sloths. She made everyone make little hammocks and things for her sloths when it was her turn as queen, and most of the others were just as bad.
And then it struck her, what they were missing. They were missing a leader to guide them down the right paths, to defend the tribe, to educate dragons! To teach dragons how important it is to support themselves.
They were missing a queen.
This chapter has been really hard to write! I wrote the whole chapter, and then deleted it because it was too out of character. I cut and pasted, deleted and added... I know I said it would be a one-shot, but the chapter just kind of had to happen.
I also included some perspective from a RainWing OC, an observer; in the first version of my chapter, it was Silver the sloth who was observing everything. She currently does not have a name, so if anyone has any suggestions, that would be nice.
~ fantasy