Vespa normally didn't have any issue with his day-to-day life. Wake up, eat breakfast, guard the flamesilks for a few hours, take a short reprise, flit around the Hive, eat dinner, guard some more, and go to sleep.
There was the occasional LeafWing sighting, which triggered an automatic sweepdown of the entire continent, but other than that, nothing extraordinary.
It's not that Vespa disliked variation. It's just that whenever something, anything out of order happened, his whole life gets flipped upside down. A single action sends ripples of change, affecting his whole future, which in turn created more ripples that affected everyone around him.
A single accident is all it takes to claim a life.
"Vespa? Hellooo? Are you in there?"
Vepsa blinked, his claws curling in. Sandfly's yellow face was inches away from his own.
Yelping a little bit, he scooted away from her. "Don't do that!" he complained. Amber, who was sitting slightly to his left, grinned. "You vanish into your head like that all the time." she shot back. "What if there was a jailbreak, what would you do then?" The other HiveWings chuckled a little, but the smile slipped off his face.
"You're right, I'm sorry, I should stop doing that." Vespa gripped the spear tighter in his talons, examining the SilkWings. Sandfly shot him a concerned look, but they resumed their vigil over the prisoners.
The new arrival (Blue, he remembered), was building a small pyramid out of pebbles. Watching him, Vespa couldn't help but feel pitying. Snatched from the life that he knew and having it all shattered into pieces. And even after all that, there was no guarantee that the dragonet would be a flamesilk. The metallic-colored figure sighed and knocked over the pyramid with his tail. He wandered over to a caterpillar-green SilkWing.
Suppressing a yawn, Vespa glanced at their commander. What time was it? Surely his post would be over soon. Just as he was about to ask, a roar jolted his attention back to the flamesilks.
"GUARDS!" Admiral- the one that wrote letters to the queen- howled. "GUARDS! Listen!" "Stop annoying the guards!" an orange SilkWing shouted. "They don't want to hear your thoughts on potassium at this hour! Or ever!"
"It's not that!" Admiral yelled back. Vespa groaned, sharing a look with the other guards. "What now?" he hissed. Amber rolled her eyes. "I have no idea but if they continue to squabble at ungodly hours of the night-"
"GUAAAAAAARDS!" the aquamarine dragon bellowed. Sighing deeply, Vespa plugged his ears with his talons and shielded his face with his wings. "By Clearsight, I'm going to go over there and rip all their tongues off if they keep that up." Sandfly spat.
Something ticked in the back of Vespa's mind. A warning. Dragging his attention back to the pandemonium, he closely observed the flamesilks, the thing in his head really flapping now. The two dragonets were missing. "Guys!" he roared. Eyes sweeping the room, he spotted a large hole that was decidedly not there a few minutes earlier.
Leaping off the stalagmite he was sitting on, Vepsa barreled through the tunnel, stingers sliding from his talons. Dirt walls, dirt floor flashed by as he ran."By the forest, all of you stop being sickening and run!" someone shouted from up ahead. By the forest? What dragon says that? He shook his head. No time to think about odd sayings, Ves, just get the flamesilks or Queen Wasp will be having your head for dinner!
As the tunnel narrowed, Vespa was finding it harder to sprint. His wings brushed against the walls, eventually bringing his progress to a halt. Grunting, he twisted from side to side, trying to free himself. After a while, he went limp, admitting to himself that he was stuck. He could hear the echoes of voices up ahead, but he couldn't get to them. Sliding his stingers back into his claws, he began to dig himself out.
Later that night (Morning? It was so late, he couldn't tell), Vespa grabbed the jar of plant stimulator, seeking to give himself a little pick-me-up after the events at work. Twisting the cap slightly, he inhaled the green fumes that spiraled out. (A/N: When Swordtail had some of this stimulator, he went nuts so I'm assuming this is some kind of dragon weed xD) Instantly he relaxed, and he put the jar away.
Breathing deeply to clear the last tendrils of gas, he examined his mud-caked talons.
Golden scales, layered across black claws, with that odd, silvery-brown freckle on his left wrist. The gold fades into obsidian along his arm, and washes out to the rest of his body, with star-like scatterings of gilt along his spine, wings, and around his eyes.
Vespa stands up, his head fuzzy with stimulant, and stumbles into his bedroom, stopping to scoop a talonful of water. He rubs the dirt off, letting the bright colors shine through.
Dragons often joked that being completely black and having this uncanny ability to know when something was about to happen, he was a direct descendant of Clearsight. And it's true, he really was. Technically, all HiveWings were descendants of Clearsight, but his family was more closely related than most others.
And that was why Vespa was berating himself for not stopping the escapees. He should've noticed that the wingless dragonet seemed to be talking quietly to the wall. Or that the letter flamesilk was trying to warn them. But no, him and his judgemental brain going on about "Aargh, SilkWings are so annoying" got in the way, and quite possibly, in a few days, the entire Hive would be burnt to the ground (not really, his "6th sense" would let him know if anything like that would happen).
Curling up on his bed of fur, Vespa drifted off to sleep.
