BLUE
Glaucus stirred to consciousness, his body sore and mind pounding. He groaned, clutching his head with a talon.
Where did I fall asleep at? He remembered Agate Mountain, but then he remembered not actually falling asleep. He remembered going to the library, talking with Master Truthful, and reading the scroll.
The scroll… His last memory was reading the words on the scroll. Everything became fuzzy after that.
Glaucus opened his eyes to find himself at a beach. There was nothing to see other than the great blue below and the great blue above.
What happened? Am I dreaming?
"Must've fallen asleep reading it," he muttered to himself. He caught his thoughts. "Wait… I'm not a lucid dreamer." The SeaWing's mind went to the implausible theories as to where he was. He sat up and turned around, finding himself on the shore of a tiny island.
The island was big enough for forty dragons to stand on with slightly outspread wings. It was wooded in one part and almost barren in another. There were some structures reminiscent of the architecture style of the Era of Rising Animi, using rock to craft a building and hide it with overgrowth. By the structures was a gazebo and garden with a statue of a dragon, though Glaucus couldn't tell what it was. At one end of the island was a humble mountain with an observatory built into it.
Glaucus's curiosity took over him.
The SeaWing followed the short road to the arrangement of buildings. As he studied them, only one turned out to be a dorm. It held three hammocks, akin to what the RainWings built to sleep in. He decided not to test them out, opting to explore more. Another building was a library.
The bright blue dragon edged in, looking around for anything or anyone. The library was fairly small, only having a few hundred scrolls. In the back was a seating area for three dragons at most and a table in the center of the room.
Glaucus took note of six scrolls laid on top of the table. He gingerly picked one up and unfurled it. Again, Glaucus couldn't understand the words much, but the title he could understand.
"World of Ocyan."
He eyed the other scrolls, all having "World of" in their titles. Returning to the scroll he picked, Glaucus stepped back to the sitting area and laid down.
He relaxed and read the scroll, surprised that the first sentence he could understand perfectly in the refined claw-writing he saw on the scroll Master Truthful gave him.
I gave Seafoam her two hundred and forty-eighth birthday gift.
Glaucus paused. "The dragon writing the stories wasn't Seafoam?" he muttered. "And how did she live for over two hundred years? Why is the writer casually referring to her?" He continued reading, mumbling, "This doesn't make any sense."
… I call Ocyan. It … ancient SeaWing meaning … "dark waters". I … prompting … explore Bottomless Canyon …. She … love it.
I … opportunity … inhabitants …. She write … on separate scroll (3-7-11) and I … crafting … first creatures … in world.
Jellysquid first, … light dark world. She come loving one seven …, the smallest. Called it Squish. … creatures … ecosystem, favored … lighting jellysquid. Seafoam choice not … inhabitants later time, … busy …Wings … fatherland.
Glaucus reread the passage over and over, hoping to understand what the writer intended. He couldn't.
"What are these numbers here for?" the SeaWing muttered to himself. He peered around the library until he realized each bookcase had a number, as did each shelf and slot for scrolls.
He referenced the scroll. "Shelf three…" He found it imbued into the wall. "Row seven…" The shelf just below his neck if he stood on his hindlegs. "Slot eleven…" Glaucus pulled out a dark greenish-blue scroll case.
He opened the case, unfurled the scroll, then found drawings of what the prince assumed were sea creatures. But they looked like nothing he had ever seen before. He paced back to the seating area, but tripped on the rugs draped on the floor and heard metal scrape stone.
Glaucus looked down, finding at his feet something poking out from under the rug. Picking it up, he realized it was a key. But that only raised another question.
"Where does this go to?"
Glaucus swept through the room, trying to find the place where the key went to. He searched in nooks and niches, even finding a false shelf hiding a tunnel that led to the observatory, but he found nothing.
Then, he heard a voice.
Glaucus turned to the door to the rest of the island. Not just one voice, but several. They shouted in a strange tongue.
Glaucus hid.
He dashed to a false shelf he'd found and slipped inside, clutching the key in his talon. As he escaped down the hall, he heard the false shelf open far behind him. The SeaWing sped up, reaching the observatory and hiding behind stellar maps and large crates full of some glowing essence. Only then did he notice that the observatory was still open, but with his pursuers coming, he dared not to fly and escape.
His only choice was to hide.
Quickened talonsteps neared the observatory; claws scraped metal, or was that rock scraping metal? Draconic growls uttered strange words. They grew louder… Louder. Closer. Louder. Closer. Louder. Are they here yet? Closer. Louder. Hot sweat slid down his neck. What were these beasts? Closer. Louder. Closer. Louder. Why wasn't he dead yet?
Closer.
Louder.
Closer!
Louder!
Closer!
Louder!
Here!
"KRAA!" a voice sounding like metal claws on glass rang through the observatory, echoing between its tight walls.
Glaucus clamped his jaws shut and bit his tongue to silence himself from screaming. He tasted blood.
The room remained silent.
Glaucus dared not move.
One of the voices made a sound akin to dragon scoffing, then grumbled to his comrade in a strange language.
The sound of moving metal armor and talons clicking the stone floor indicated movement. Glaucus cautiously peeked out of his hiding place, taking great care not to have himself be heard. He peeked between some crates and found five dragons searching the room.
They all seemed…shiny, completely reflective with a few having harsh scrapes to mar their metallic scales. The largest, a glossy black male, eyed only from a distance while the others, more silver than their leader, searched the observatory. Their horns, not only a head horn, but also a set of horns on the jaw, were straight and translucent. Most had broken horns, while the leader had complete pristine horns.
Glaucus noticed they had sharp points on the end of their tails, eerily shimmering in the light. Their wings resembled that of bird feathers at the part where the fingers would've been. Five razor-sharp blades were at the end.
Glaucus shivered imagining being sliced by their wings or stabbed by their tails.
One of the silver ones on the opposite side of the room said something to the black one. The black dragon hissed, the sound seeming like glass scraping rocks. He then looked toward the glowing crates. Glaucus slid back into his hiding spot, clutching his key.
The sound of heavy talonsteps nearing his hiding spot made his scales crawl. The black dragon growled in a contemplative manner. Glaucus held his breath.
A new voice spoke up, this one softer than the harsh sounds of the metal dragons. She spoke with a familiar flowiness to her voice, though Glaucus couldn't place what she was.
The black dragon responded to her comment, but she spoke over him in a soothing voice. Glaucus recognized a few words in Pyrrhian, but only fragments and small words. After a while, nothing was said and he moved away from the hiding spot.
Glaucus dared to peek through again to see who this newcomer was and widened his eyes in surprise.
She looked like a SeaWing, though more long and narrow. She had a long, streamlined head for swimming with ease. A body stocky enough for swimming in the water with grace doubled as an elegant body for walking on land with equal grace. Her long, narrow wings evoked the appearance of an albatross. Her scales were pale blue, even paler than most SeaWings' scales. Her luminescent scales weren't just glowing like a typical SeaWing glow, but had a splash of color within them.
Not only did she have very strange scales and stature, but she also wore regalia, even more lavish than the most vain of the queens in Pyrrhia. Adorned about her body were diamonds and pearls strung around her horns, her wings, her neck, everywhere.
A wild theory popped into Glaucus's head. Is that Princess Seafoam?
The strange SeaWing said something to the rest of the dragons, then the six dragons left.
When he could no longer hear their voices for a long while, Glaucus finally sighed.
"What happened to me?"
WIND
In the Agate University mess hall, Zephyr chatted with her new friend and clawmate, a SeaWing princess named Drift.
"So you can't make any fire whatsoever?" the pale blue SeaWing asked, stabbing a fish from the food pond to eat.
Zephyr shook her head. "Nope. Tried all my life. It just makes my throat all scratchy and icky."
"That's interesting," Delta said, tilting her head. "Is that why you're so much more discolored than the other SkyWings?"
The fireless dragon shrugged. "Maybe. Who knows?"
"Zephyr!" a familiar voice called from the other side of the prey center. Zephyr looked up to find her brother weaving through the dragons in the crowd, avoiding other dragons with as much care as he could probably muster. It didn't prevent a NightWing hissing as his wingtips brushed against him or a SandWing roaring because her tail was accidentally stepped on and burned.
When Sun made it to Zephyr and Delta's spot, he stared at his little sister with scared blue eyes. "Zephyr, one of our clawmates went missing. The SeaWing."
"Glaucus?" Delta said, her brows furrowed in worry.
"Yeah, that was his name. He's gone. Master Truthful thinks he was kidnapped or something. The Jasper Winglet's cancelling its afternoon and evening classes to search for him."
Delta stood up. "Where was he last seen?"
"Um… The library, I think? I don't know, the SandWing told everyone except me, since I was asleep, and the MudWing spat everything out all at once, so I didn't catch much of it."
The pale blue SeaWing stood up and dashed away, leaving the SkyWings behind. Zephyr followed her, with Sun just on her tail.
"Wait, why do you care?" Sun called to Delta.
"He's my little brother! As silly and awkward he is, I'm not having him disappear on night one!"
The three dragons made their way to the library, finding a very distressed Master Truthful talking with Master Archaeopteryx and Headmistress Sunny with a dark blue SeaWing, a SandWing, and two Night-RainWings, one male and one female, standing around.
"―was awake all night last night! I would've heard him!" The NightWing librarian placed his talons on his head. "Three moons, why did this happen to me? What's happened to that poor SeaWing?"
"Shh… It's not your fault, Truthful," Headmistress Sunny said, wrapping a wing around him. "Luster, would you please escort Master Truthful to the prey center and get him two sheep?"
"Yes, Headmistress." The female Night-RainWing slipped under Master Truthful's wing and led him out of the library.
The two Agate University staff members turned to the SandWing. "Mirage, can you take us to the place where he was last seen?"
"Yes, Headmistress," the SandWing said, standing up and leading the two dragons to the back of the room.
Delta ran up to the dark blue SeaWing. "Maelstrom, what happened to Glaucus?!"
"I don't know," he replied. "Luster told me and Charming that he'd gone missing, so we checked here. All that's left is the scroll he was looking at. Come on, I'll show you the spot."
The students all shuffled to the back of the library to a seating area with a scroll left open on the table. Every pillow was somewhat neat, only seeming to have been sat in and nothing else.
"No sign of struggle…" Delta muttered.
"Exactly why everyone's going nuts," the Night-RainWing spoke up. "No signs of struggle, no escape routes, absolutely nothing to go off of. It's like he just vanished!"
Maelstrom looked over at Delta. "This is my friend Charming, by the way. Who are your little SkyWing friends here?"
Sun shot Maelstrom a hawk's glare. "I'm bigger than you."
"It's a figure of speech, firescales," the dark blue SeaWing said, giving a not-quite-apologetic smile.
"Either way, this is my new friend Zephyr and her older brother Firebutt," Delta hissed. "Can I see that scroll?"
"No," Headmistress Sunny said with a stern face. "No one's touching that until I give them permission to. As of now, that stays until the Jasper Winglet are dismissed from their morning class."
Delta growled. "But he's my brother! I should at least be able to help them out! Can't I at least help them figure out what he was reading and why he was reading it?"
"You heard her, Delta," Master Archaeopteryx affirmed. "Now you'd better go to your winglet's class. All of you."
The pale blue dragon gave a huff in annoyance, turning away and walking off. "Come on, Zephyr, let's get to class."
Zephyr frowned in pity of her friend. "All right." She turned back to her brother. "Find him for her, will you?"
Sun nodded. That was all she needed.
He could do it.
He'd finally make himself useful.
Just as she'd hoped for him to feel.
HEAT
"All right, so from what Master Truthful said, Glaucus wanted a late night read and came here to get it. He picked a scroll that was one of Princess Seafoam's last documents before her disappearance and went off to read it. Delta and Maelstrom said that was normal since he's obsessed with her writing. Then he vanished without a trace. Is everyone here caught up?" Mirage asked the other five dragons in his winglet and his teacher.
Eigengrau, whose scratch wound had miraculously healed overnight, to Mirage's observation, spoke up. "Master Archaeopteryx, the scroll's magical."
The Mud-SkyWing gave the little NightWing a surprised look. "What makes you think that?"
"It's, uh…just a hunch…"
"What's even on the scroll?" Sun neared Master Archaeopteryx's side with an inquisitive stare at the parchment.
"Delta and Maelstrom said it's a short story about a tiny island with brand-new tribes." Mirage said. "So these doodles and sketches have to do with that."
"Can anyone actually read the scroll?" Luster inquired. "Wouldn't that clear up everything?"
Eigengrau spoke up again. "I can read a little of Middle SeaWing Pyrrhian…"
All eyes turned to her.
"But it's very crude and not that great…"
Master Archaeopteryx gave a chuckle. "Heh, knowing a little helps that much more." He tossed her the scroll, to which she caught in her claws.
The little NightWing looked over the writing, squinting. After an awkward pause, she looked up at the rest. "I'm not going to read it out loud until there's something I'm confident in."
Mistral and Mirage flanked her on each side, peering over her shoulders. "What about that label right there?" Mistral pointed to a drawing of a tiny island. "What does that say?"
Eigengrau stared at the lines, forming the words with her mouth. After a while, she said aloud, "The Island of…Froth."
As soon as she said the last word, she blinked as if someone threw a pebble at her face.
"Grau, are you all right?" Mistral asked.
"I…I think I need to lie down…" Eigengrau took the IceWing's outstretched talon and settled on the floor.
"What's wrong, Grau?" Mahogany questioned. "Do you need something?"
"I'm fine, I just…" The NightWing placed a talon to her head, wincing. "I just need to lie down…"
Master Archaeopteryx looked at the scroll. "Why don't we have an animus-touched object that detects spells on stuff? This would make everything easier…"
"GRAU, WHAT'S GOING ON?!" Mirage pointed to the NightWing's fading form, barely showing the bare rock she laid over. Eigengrau didn't say anything, just slept.
Soon, she was gone completely.
Everyone stared at the empty space where their NightWing was moments ago and at the scroll that caused the disappearance of now two members.
"It was the scroll…" Mirage muttered. He reached out to grab it from their teacher's grasp. "I'm going in there!"
"Absolutely not!"
The SandWing growled. "What if they have no way out? What do we do? Abandon them when they could need help getting out?" He took one end of the scroll. "Island of Froth."
As soon as Mirage said that, he felt a tug in his mind. He felt light-headed and his body heavy.
Master Archaeopteryx yelled at him for defying him. Mistral watched in wide-eyed surprise. Mahogany shuffled back in fright. Luster's eyes widened and her jaw dropped. Sun pulled back, his ears pinned back.
Mirage fell to the ground, no one having offered him a moment to lie down. He closed his eyes as the world faded into nothingness.
BLUE
Glaucus slipped out of his hiding spot, clutching the key in his talon. Through the observatory, he heard the dragons hadn't fully left, so he opted to remain discreet.
As he thought over his next course of action, his eyes fell upon a long telescope with a keyhole in it. He looked at his key, then sauntered over to the telescope. "Here goes nothing…"
The SeaWing slipped the key into the lock, keeping his ears alert for any other dragons. After some finagling with the key, a small door on the telescope opened and a scroll fell out. Unfortunately, the case was made of glass, which shattered upon hitting the ground.
Glaucus winced at the loud sound. He recovered the scroll and any major pieces he could salvage, nicking his talons on the tinier shards of glass.
He found another hiding spot behind some stellar maps, finding they hid a nook to tuck away in. After settling in, Glaucus set aside the glass shards and unfurled the scroll.
He studied its words and muttered what he could to himself. "'I…release…the dragon…this scroll confines…'"
The scroll trembled in his talons, a dark blue smoke rolling out of the sides. Glaucus dropped the scroll and scrambled back, watching as the smoke gathered into a large figure in front of him. The figure began to look more draconic, then solidified.
It was a SeaWing.
Nothing more.
The dragon gasped for air as the smoke gave way to vibrant dark blue scales, then fell to his side, passed out.
Three moons, what did I do? Glaucus inspected the dark blue dragon, then noticed something on his wings. Royal spirals… Who is this dragon?
The SeaWing stirred, growling. Glaucus backed off. The SeaWing then bolted up and made a cry as if he remembered something, then turned around, noticing Glaucus.
"SeeWinge!" he barked, widening his eyes. He said something that sounded vaguely similar to Pyrrhian, but some random words seemed to be thrown in here and there.
"What?" Glaucus tilted his head to one side, hoping that still meant, "I don't understand."
The SeaWing blinked in surprise, then snapped a claw, bringing a strange fruit into his talon. "Et."
Glaucus hesitated, then took the fruit from the SeaWing's talons. Inspecting it, he realized it looked like a purple dragon's tongue, but it didn't feel like one. It was merely a fruit that looked like a dragon's tongue. Cautiously, he took a bite and swallowed.
The SeaWing began talking again, his words still half-intelligible.
"I don't…"
"―when you can understand me completely. Can you understand me? SeaWing, am I making sense to you now?"
Glaucus widened his eyes. "I…"
"Can you understand me, SeaWing?" the dark blue dragon asked.
The bright blue one nodded.
"Good," the larger said, taking the fruit and eating the rest of it. "This is a tonguefruit. Eating it makes you understand any draconic language you hear and read in your native language and dialect." He swallowed, then added, "May I know the name of my rescuer?"
"Glaucus."
The SeaWing gave a nod. "Thank you, Glaucus. I am Prince Cobalt, brother to Princess Seafoam."
"Wait, the Princess Seafoam?"
"Yes, Now, let's fly. We're not safe here."
BLACK
Eigengrau's eyes snapped open as she felt a chillingly sharp edge poke her rib. She found herself face-to-face with a shiny silver dragon with amber eyes. Eigengrau screamed and pushed the face away from her while scrambling away.
She then realized other dragons were around her, all shiny like the one who gawked at her. Two of the dragons pinned her back, one bringing a blade from his wing to her exposed neck. The one threatening her asked an odd SeaWing-like dragon adorned in diamonds and pearls something. The SeaWing turned to another one of the shiny dragons, a strange black one, and indicated a fruiting tree. The shiny black dragon picked one of the fruits and neared Eigengrau.
The NightWing struggled against her captors as the other dragon holding her pulled her jaws apart. The shiny black dragon placed the fruit in her mouth, then the other dragon forced her mouth closed, making her swallow.
The dragons let her go, making her fall to the ground. Eigengrau coughed at the fruit crawling down her throat, but couldn't hack it up.
The shiny dragons backed off to let the odd SeaWing near the NightWing. The SeaWing took Eigengrau's chin and lifted her gaze to her cyan eyes. She said something, but kept talking.
After a while, Eigengrau understood.
"Has the fruit worked now, dragonet?"
Eigengrau widened her eyes. "Who…? What…?"
"Shh, it's all right, dragonet," the SeaWing said, stroking the NightWing's head with a delicate talon. "Those fruits are called tonguefruit. I made them that when they are consumed, they enable the consumer to understand other languages perfectly."
Eigengrau eyed the other dragons, then looked to the strange SeaWing. "Who are you?"
"I am the Author. I wrote into existence the land you stand on, the sky you see, and the beauty you feel with all your senses."
As Eigengrau prepared to ask another question, the Author answered it.
"These are some of the residents of the worlds I oversee. They are called SteelWings. These are Chromium, Palladium, Niobium, Hafnium―" she indicated the final black dragon "― and General Rhenium." The Author lifted the NightWing's face with a talon. "You are?"
She hesitated for a moment, then said, "Eigengrau."
The SteelWings around Eigengrau abruptly turned to something behind her. "There's another dragon!" one of them shouted.
Eigengrau looked behind her, finding a familiar SandWing lying on the ground behind her. "Mirage?"
"You know him?" one of the silver SteelWings asked.
The NightWing shielded him from the other dragons with her wings. "Yes, he's…a friend."
General Rhenium turned to the Author. "What are they, Great Illuminator? What kind of dragons are they?"
"Eigengrau is a NightWing and Mirage is a SandWing," the Author answered.
"Where are they from, Great Illuminator? Are they from a manuscript?"
The Author shook her head. "No, just from some scraps of ideas."
What are they talking about? Eigengrau wondered.
Mirage groaned, his brows furrowing as he regained consciousness. "Hngh… Ow…"
"What are you doing here?"
The SandWing looked up at her with dazed dark brown eyes. "Who in the Hellish Desert…? Oh… Eigengrau…" He stood up, making a few of the SteelWings point their tails in his direction in wariness. "Who are they?"
Eigengrau shook her head. "Not important right now. Mirage, what are you doing here?"
Mirage looked off into the distance for a moment. "I…came here to get you back. You disappeared after you laid down from reading the scroll."
The Author neared the two. "I have a place much more comfortable for talking. Would you like to come with me?"
"Grau, what is she saying?" Mirage asked.
"Um, yes, thank you, Author," Eigengrau said, ignoring him.
The SteelWings chuckled, but one of the silver ones made a small gasp and put a talon over her mouth in shock.
"Can you understand what they're saying?"
"Not now, Mirage," the NightWing muttered. "What's so funny?"
"You address the Author as 'Great Illuminator', Eigengrau the NightWing," the black SteelWing―Rhenium, if she remembered properly―said. "Should I get him a tonguefruit?"
"Yes, please." She turned back to Mirage and explained to him the fruit's purpose as the eight dragons headed to one of the buildings on the island. "We're going with this dragon―the Author."
Mirage ate the fruit, but glared at the Author. He leaned into Eigengrau's ear. "Isn't it strange she looks kind of like a SeaWing?"
"Yeah. I'm thinking she's Princess Seafoam," the NightWing whispered back.
"Likewise."
They entered the largest of the buildings which revealed a library. In the center of it was a pedestal with six scrolls, though one looked recently disturbed. The Author beckoned Rhenium closer and whispered something in his ear, although Eigengrau couldn't catch what either said.
After their exchange, the Author turned to one of the others. "Niobium, fetch the Mira mud."
"Yes, Great Illuminator," the SteelWing said with a bow, then left the library.
Mirage looked around. "Why are we here?"
"That's just what I was going to ask you." The Author flashed a smile. "Last night, I felt something enter the Island of Froth. We came here to investigate."
"Glaucus! He disappeared last night!" the SandWing shouted. "Is he here?"
The Author's smile vanished. "Who is this Glaucus you speak of?"
"He's our clawmate," Eigengrau said. "He's a SeaWing. A royal one with the pretty swirls on his wings."
She shook her head. "We haven't found anyone yet. All we know is he took a key―a key that could potentially end up with me dead."
The SandWing and NightWing exchanged worried glances. "What does the key go to?" Eigengrau questioned.
The Author remained silent for a moment. She kept quiet for so long, Eigengrau wondered if she even heard her. Just as she was about to ask again, the Author responded.
"Let's return to Mira," she said with a serene smile. "I'm sure you two are tired. I will answer any question later."
Again, special thanks to my lovely betas, The Black-Hearted Angel, Queen of the Pears, and Nightflare Shine!
New characters in this chapter in order of appearance:
General Rhenium - black SteelWing general; serves under the Author; named after a silvery-gray metal.
The Author - odd pale blue SeaWing; ruler of something, probably Mira; seems to be Princess Seafoam, but that's debatable.
Princess Delta - pale blue SeaWing princess; sister to Glaucus; Platinum Winglet; named after a river splitting up as it reaches the sea.
Prince Maelstrom - dark grayish-blue SeaWing prince; brother to Glaucus; Agate Winglet; named after a violent storm.
Prince Charming - peacock-colored Night-RainWing; brother to Luster; Agate Winglet; named entirely because of a pun.
Cobalt - vibrant dark blue SeaWing; brother to Seafoam; named after a shade of blue and a silvery metal.
I hope you liked it as much as my betas did! Feel free to leave behind any ideas you have concerning where we're going next!
~Shiny