Twilight had finally arrived to Jade Mountain. As Twilight landed on a platform with the other RainWings and NightWings, she saw dragonets from all of the other tribes standing all around the platform that they standing were on.
"Three Moons! It's huge. I wonder how long it took for this to be built?" Twilight thought to herself in amazement and aw as she continued to look around.
When the two dragonets entered the large circular cave, they saw tables lining the entrance. Twilight and Silverscales walked up to one that had only a few dragonets lined up waiting for their scrolls. A black-and-dark-purple NightWing was sitting at the table. "Hello, and welcome to Jade Mountain." The NightWing said with a warm smile. Twilight smiled back at her in response.
"Here are your scrolls. It has the list of dragonets and it has a map of the whole school." The NightWing said while handing the two NightWing dragonets a scroll tied with a black leather band. Then after a short pause, the older NightWing quickly aded, "oh, the name's Fatespeaker. I'm one of the teachers." Twilight nodded her head in greeting. "Nice to meet you, the name's Twilight, and this is my sister, Silverscales." Twilight said, introducing both herself and Silverscales.
Silverscales and Twilight then walked off to the side and unrolled the scrolls. The two sisters looked at each other before reading their scrolls.
"WELCOME TO
THE JADE MOUNTAIN
ACADEMY!"
The Winglet placements.
Here we go, time to read the list of dragonets. Time to see who his clawmates will be for the next four years.
Jade Winglet
IceWing: Sleet
MudWing: Copper
NightWing: Blackwind
RainWing: Sunflower
SandWing: Scorch
SeaWing: Shoreline
SkyWing: Eagle
Gold Winglet maybe? Twilight mused to herself as she kept reading the scroll.
Gold Winglet
IceWing: Iceberg
MudWing: Amber
NightWing: Silverscales
RainWing: Maple
SandWing: Delta
SeaWing: Waterfall
SkyWing: Sunset
Hmmm... oh well. Silver was still pretty.
Silver Winglet
IceWing: Frostbite
MudWing: Swamp
NightWing: Cleverclaws
RainWing: Willow
SandWing: Heatstroke
SeaWing: Lagoon
SkyWing: Bonfire
Hmmm... ok then... maybe she'll be in the Copper Winglet? Twilight frowned slightly and her tail began to twitch back-and-forth nervously as she read the list of dragonets in the Copper Winglet.
Copper Winglet
IceWing: Snowstorm
MudWing: Leach
NightWing: Eclipse
RainWing: Glorious
SandWing: Sandstorm
SeaWing: Wave
SkyWing: Auburn
There's one more Winglet left... the Quartz Winglet. Let's see
Quartz Winglet
IceWing: Ermine
MudWing: Russet
NightWing: Twilight (Oh Three Moons! Thank you!)
RainWing: Summer
SandWing: Hyena
SeaWing: Tempest
SkyWing: Kindle
Twilight sighed in relief. They hadn't forgotten her after all. She wondered what these dragonets would be like, would they be nice? Would they like her? Twilight sighed and twitched her tail.
Twilight read the list once more before she slowly rolled the scroll up and she began to make her way to the Quartz Winglet's common cave. Twilight stoped right in the entrance, of the cave, taking a deep breath, Twilight gathered up her courage and cautiously stepped into the cave.
"Ah, you must be... Nightshade, right?" The SkyWing dragonet asked with a tilt of her head. Twilight looked up in stunned surprise.
"Twilight," she corrected, though with a sincere smile and a nod of her head in greeting.
The SkyWing grinned cheekily at me before she started speaking again. "That's a cool name, the name's Kindle, it's nice to meet you, Twilight." Kindle said with a warm smile.
"I'm Summer, nice to meet you, Twilight." Twilight nodded at the RainWing dragonet with a warm smile on her face.
"I like to plant flowers and different kinds of fruit," Twilight explained, glancing over at the other two dragonets as she patted her traveling bag, one pocket had strawberries in it. "I really enjoy planting strawberries," she added as she stared up at Summer. "Hope there's a place here I can plant these..."
It would be a shame if there was not a place to grow them…
"The Academy has some fertile growing spots." Came a new voice from the entrance of the sleeping cave.
The three dragonets looked to see a SeaWing about their age walk in. With her scales a light blue, aqua green wing membranes and eyes. Twilight couldn't deny she looked pretty. Her calm gaze and demeanor also relieved Twilight, and maybe not all of her clawmates would bicker?
"You must be... Hurricane, right?" Kindle asked, the first to recover from the appearance of the new arrival.
"Tempest," she corrected, though with a sincere smile and a nod of her head in greeting.
Before Twilight could introduce herself, Tempest was already speaking.
"Perhaps we could have introductions in there?" Tempest asked as she pointed her tail out to the common cave. Twilight could just barely see someone sitting on a cushion reading a scroll.
Twilight, along with Kindle and Summer, nodded as the three followed Tempest outside to where the other dragonet was sitting.
The dragonet in question was an IceWing. Though her scales were completely white, her tail spikes were a dark blue, which Twilight thought was odd since she had always heard IceWings were always white. A necklace with sapphires hung around her neck while a ring, also embedded with a sapphire, was on her horn.
As the rest of the winglet approached her, the dragonet looked up from her scroll and at Kindle, Summer and finally Twilight, though she noticed her gaze on her was much longer.
"The name's Ermine," She said after a short while before diving intently back into her scroll.
With a sigh, Tempest sat on a cushion beside Ermine, implying both dragonets knew one another, as Twilight sat across from the three. Twilight noticed Kindle and Summer glance at the other, clearly waiting for the other to take their seat in some kind of silent contest. Eventually it was the SkyWing princess who sat down beside Twilight, while Violet sat beside Tempest.
The five members of the Quartz Winglet sat in silence, only the slithering of tails, clicking of claws on the ground and talking in the distance could be heard. But silence filled the gap between the new winglet.
Twilight, deciding to break the ice (she bit her tongue about saying that out loud) took out a pouch and pulled out four strawberries. But instead of the fruits being red, they were covered in a brown coating.
"Umm... what are those?" Kindle asked, cautiously, not sure what to make of what Twilight was presenting.
"Strawberries," Twilight answered bluntly. "Covered in chocolate."
"Pardon?" Kindle asked with a scaly eyebrow raised, clearly she had never heard of the substance before.
"From cacao plants in the Rainforest," Twilight answered as she handed out each clawmate a strawberry. "Cacao plants are normally really bitter, but our tribes know how to make them sweet."
Once Tempest, Summer and Kindle got a strawberry, Twilight got up and approached Ermine, who was still reading her scroll. "I just figured I would bring something for us to snack on while we got to know each other." She added as she stood in front of Ermine.
Twilight held out a strawberry for Ermine, who still had not noticed her in front of her. In order to pull her out of the scroll, Tempest gently nudged Ermine's wing with her own, causing Ermine to look at Tempest with a raised eyebrow, but then saw Twilight, who smiled friendly at her while still offering the strawberry.
Ermine looked at the strawberry and after a moment of hesitation, decided to take it. "Well, thank you... what was your name again?" She asked, while taking a bite from the strawberry, and she blinked in pleasant surprise, which Twilight assumed meant she liked it.
"Twilight," She answered, smiling, pleased her clawmates enjoyed what she made.
"My name is Summer," The RainWing student said, introducing herself to both Tempest and Ermine.
Crimson finished her strawberry, admitting it was good. "Princess Kindle," The SkyWing introduced herself. Turning her attention to Ermine's scroll, she asked, "What are you reading?"
"Hm? Oh, just a scroll about IceWing history." Ermine responded, her tone changing ever so slightly. "In particular, how the circles came to be." Continued Ermine, frowning slightly at the mention of the circles. "And how they developed over the years, and the effect it had on the non-aristocratic IceWings." She explained.
Twilight, Kindle and Summer glanced at one another. Twilight found this... interesting to say the least. She had always learned at school that it was rare for an IceWing to actually think outside of the circles.
"That is kind of weird," Kindle answered bluntly, voicing the threes thoughts out loud. "I mean you clearly look to be in the aristocracy..."
"Ermine is from the circles, though she's much more... open in her opinions about it." Tempest explained, answering for Ermine. At the quarterly summits the queens attend at Sanctuary... let's just say she's caused some IceWing spikes to rattle." Tempest added, clearly poking fun at her friend good-naturedly.
Ermine rolled her eyes at Tempest. "Haha, IceWing puns. Hilarious and original! What's next, coming up with the cool and cold jokes?" Asked the IceWing, clearly sarcastic, but Twilight noticed there was no mean spite in her tone to Tempest.
"So you're like, what, against the circles?" Asked Summer, frowning.
"Not necessarily." Ermine added. "A hierarchy or chain of command is certainly needed. I'm not an anarchist or anything... but in practice, the system of the circles are flawed and dated. It doesn't have to go away, but it does need to change." She explained.
"Willing to change traditions, but keep somethings in place." Kindle thought aloud. "I think you'd like my mother."
And, if Twilight were honest, she liked Ermine to. She had heard bad things about the aristocracy from Moon and Qibli over the years. Apparently they had a friend from their winglet, an IceWing Prince, who was once part of the circles… but even after doing so much to prove himself, he was still in exile from the IceWing tribe.
But Ermine was from the aristocracy, yet she did not like how it operated. She wondered what kind of system she would include if she were in control of it?
Ermine nodded in agreement at Kindle's statement.
"I've read scrolls about Queen Ruby and how she reformed the Sky Kingdom... Ruby is one of the good queens that have recently ascended to the throne. Moorhen has always been decent, but real change came in the form of Glory and Thorn. They're much better then Coral and Snowfall." She said, turning to Tempest. "No offense about Coral, of course."
The SeaWing shrugged her wings. "I live in the Kingdom of the Sea, but I cannot say I have much emotional connection there."
"What do you mean?" Twilight asked, confused. How can you live somewhere but not love it?
"I have done a lot of traveling for most of my life," Tempest explained. "While I am loyal to the tribe, I wouldn't say I bleed for the Queen."
Now that was a thought Shadowhunter had a hard time understanding, being ruled by a Queen who you didn't like. Shadowhunter had heard somethings about Queen Coral, but at the same time her mother told her that complaints about Coral by SeaWings were rare…
Though if rumors were true, Coral may not have been Queen for much longer.
A silence fell on the group yet again and this time, it was Tempest that tried to break the silence.
"Has anyone seen the SandWing and MudWing who are supposed to be in our Winglet?" She asked.
Summer was about to answer Tempest, when sounds of screams and shoving came just outside of their cave. The five, startled, looked out their cave entrance. Sure enough, a large MudWing and a female SeaWing came in sight, the former dragging a SandWing around the winglet's age. With them, a large and lean MudWing timidly followed them, her eyes on the ground, trying her hardest not to get noticed.
"THIS IS SCAVENGER DUNG, TSUNAMI! I'VE BEEN FRAMED! I SWEAR! I DIDN'T DO IT!" Screamed the SandWing, struggling against the teachers, who Twilight just now realized were two of the five Dragonets of Destiny.
Despite the SandWing's resistance, Clay's grip remained firm, calm and very unbreakable as he guided the SandWing through the tunnels, no doubt to Tsunami's office.
"Hyena, please." Clay said calmly, trying to convince her to cease her struggles.
"Hyena, please. Can you stop picking fights with other dragons? It's disrupting the other students," Tsunami said, earitation was written on both her face an in her tone.
"I did no such thing! You must've scene wrong, Tsunami." Hyena snapped, her tail lashing and her eyes glaring at the two teachers.
"Come on you two. In my office. Now!" The SeaWing snapped, gliaring at the two students as she guided them down the hallway, Hyena struggling and shouting the whole time.
When they were gone, Shadowhunter looked at her clawmates, Kindle and Summer looked rather amused at the sight that had unfolded. Tempest shook her head, though she was struggling to hide an amused smile as well.
Ermine, on the other hand, had her talons over her eyes, exasperated at what had unfolded.
"Umm... were those... our clawmates?" Twilight asked.
Kindle, not holding back her amused grin, said, "I think they were."
"...I like the SandWing!" Said Summer, smirking. "I like her style. Not sure what to make of the MudWing though... seems like a bit of a wuss." She said with a shrug.
Ermine, meanwhile, removed her talons from her eyes to stare at the leaving dragons… only to then quickly dive into her scroll again. "Nope, nope, nope. Not going to get involved…"
Twilight and Tempest glanced at each other, both chuckling at their clawmates reactions.
Something deep down told Twilight that this was going to be an interesting four years.
