AN: Thanks to everyone who reviewed! It's great to know this story is off to a good start. While it's always nice to hear what I've done well, I'd also like to know if there's something I'm not doing well. Both positive and negative feedback are highly appreciated, as long as you keep them polite. :)
The sky between the clouds flooded with warm amber light as the sun descended through them. Droplets of moisture from flying through the puffy white vapor glinted like tiny crystals against the deep red of a SkyWing's scales. His wings spread lazily to drift slowly on the wind, the dragon took some time to appreciate the otherworldly look of it. Throughout most of the day, the sky was blue, and during most of the night it was black, but for an hour in the morning and one in the evening, golden light bathed the heavens like some kind of intangible treasure.
There was an infinite amount of this kind of treasure, if one knew where to look. Whenever he could, Ozone slipped away to fill his senses in nature's beauty. He had an overabundance of it, memory after memory of breathtaking sights and calming sounds, but he couldn't deny his insatiable thirst for it.
Physical treasure, on the other talon, was something that he suspected he would never have much of. While other SkyWings his age were working hard for promotions among the army's ranks, Ozone was constantly distracted, content to wander, and had no ambition. And, as his commander said, not likely to make much of himself.
Her comments didn't bother him much, though. He had no interest in training drills or learning to fly in formation. Pyrrhia was at peace, and he doubted his position in the SkyWing's minimal force of troops would make any difference to his tribe. In fact, he doubted anything he did would make a difference to his tribe. SkyWings had little use or appreciation for any kind of dragon besides warriors.
Ozone respected that philosophy, despite its disparaging attitude towards him. If a dragon was courageous and powerful, he reasoned, no one would dare threaten him or anyone he loved. He just knew he would never make a good warrior and thus didn't see why he should bother trying. It was a lost cause.
But his mother disagreed, and so she had sent him to join the military after he'd turned seven and graduated from school. He supposed he had to try his best, at least when he could force himself to stand the training drills and flying in formation. It just got to be too much sometimes, and then he flew off by himself for a while. Commander Claret despised it when he did that, and always gave him a dagger-tongued lecture when he came back, but she was devoted to the wing of soldiers that she trained, and he knew that she would forgive him eventually.
Still, lingering away from the group for an extended period of time wouldn't make it better. Giving the golden sky one last appreciative look, he ducked beneath the clouds again and angled his wings toward the soldiers' base.
The camp was a network of caves that had been tunneled out of a sheer cliff face, which looked out across a vast river. Located on the "shoulder" of the dragon-shaped continent, it was the perfect vantage point between the Sky, Ice, and Sand Kingdoms. It was relatively well-hidden by the resilient population of pine trees which sprouted from whatever ledges could support their weight, but if one knew where to look, the entrance wasn't too difficult to find.
Ozone was glad that the area where they lived was so open, especially compared to the labyrinth of winding trails a little farther south, where the river broke off into smaller streams. It would be extremely challenging to navigate the harsh gusts coming through the narrower quarries, which acted as wind tunnels, on a daily basis. Claret brought the dragonets to train there sometimes, but they were for the most part spared from the ferocious winds and claustrophobic pressure of the ravine walls looming overhead on either side, so tall they seemed to angle in towards each other.
Ozone flew close to the rushing river as he headed home, feeling a bit disoriented as he looked down and saw the current rushing in the opposite direction from the way he was flying. The water churned and leaped up in places, reaching up in a vain attempt to snatch him out of the sky. Its restless surface glinted like malicious red eyes as it reflected the faint light left from the sunset. He was too high for it to reach him, but still angled his wings up to rise to a greater altitude just in case.
By the time he arrived, the sun had set and the sky been infused with darkness. The first few stars to appear in the sky reminded him, as they always did, of his favorite scroll from when he had first learned to read. In the story, an evil animus had stolen all the stars out of the sky, leaving it void of any of the constellations SkyWings relied on to navigate. To help guide the lost back home, dragons from all the fire-breathing tribes lit candles and set them in the sky, replacing the missing stars. One by one, the flames they held aloft filled in the dark emptiness and recreated the constellations.
Landing in the mouth of the cave that branched off into the barracks, he dared to hope that Claret had gone to sleep and that he could slip discreetly into the room he shared with Buzzard and Ridge.
His heart sank as his eyes made out the shapes of two dragonets sitting together against the far wall of the entrance cave. They appeared to have been waiting for him—after meeting his gaze, the larger of the two brushed wordlessly by him and winged away along the river, looking suspiciously smug.
Ozone turned his gaze questioningly to the smaller SkyWing. "I'm guessing you two were waiting to report me to Claret?" he asked, his tone resigned.
"Gale was," she replied in a pleasant tone, lighting one of the torches in the entry cave with a burst of flame. "I'm here for moral support."
Ozone sighed. "Thanks, Sard. I think I'm going to need it."
"Oh, you definitely will," his friend agreed, a bit too cheerfully. "Claret might just rip your wings off this time so you can't fly away from formation—though, actually, you wouldn't be able to fly in formation that way either, so I guess she might let you off with just a warning. Still, Gale is such a tattletale. Say… you want me to fight her for you?"
Ozone smiled a bit despite himself. "You've been asking me that since the day we met. You could probably find a hundred better excuses to beat her up than fighting on my behalf—and get it done a lot quicker."
Sard shrugged, the firelight over-saturating her orange scales. "Just because you don't have any flame in your belly doesn't mean I can't have enough for both of us."
Ozone didn't respond to that. He knew Sard thought he wasn't assertive enough, but he personally thought it was better than being overly so like she was. He'd make a lot fewer enemies that way.
Sard's familiar mischievous grin flitted across her face as the sound of wingbeats filled the air. "Last chance to rethink your answer," she warned Ozone, but didn't seem surprised when he shook his head.
Claret landed with a thump in the mouth of the cave. Her burgundy scales looked almost black in the darkness, and he couldn't make out her expression, but Ozone thought he glimpsed a bit of smoke trailing ominously from her nostrils.
Gale touched down beside their commander, looking down her snout at Ozone with a superior smirk. Beside him, Sard shifted on her talons as if seriously considering punching the other dragonet in the face.
He flicked the edge of her wing warningly with his tail.
"Gale, Sardonyx," Claret said formally, inclining her head toward the two female dragonets. "You are dismissed. Ozone." She turned to face him, her fierce yellow eyes pinning him to the spot. "Stay here. I must speak to you."
Gale slithered off into the cave where the two female dragonets slept, while Sard lingered a moment longer to give Ozone a pitying look, mouthing 'good luck', before following her denmate.
So much for moral support, he thought wryly as he watched the tip of her orange tail disappear from sight, but he supposed he wouldn't have wanted to blatantly disobey Claret either if their positions had been switched. Mutual solidarity between SkyWing soldiers-in-training only went so far.
Ozone turned apprehensively to Claret, and saw that she was not looking at him, but down the tunnel after Gale and Sard. He wondered if that meant she was waiting for them to be out of earshot before yelling at him.
He hoped that wasn't what it meant.
"Ozone," she said at last, her voice caught somewhere between a growl and a sigh. "Hasn't even a single word, from any of the lectures I've ever given you, gotten through that thick skull of yours?"
The dragonet looked down at his talons. He knew from experience that trying to give an excuse, however true, would only make her angrier. It was better to stay silent and take the brunt of her wrath without complaint.
Claret hissed, and then shook her head furiously, smoke curling around her long black horns. "I'm starting to think I'll never be able to make you care."
Ozone remained silent.
"I've tried punishing you," his commander told him bluntly. "I've tried insulting you. I've tried appealing to your senses of responsibility and guilt. But I can't—I won't indulge you. It's dangerous to let a dragon think his actions have no consequences. This flying off whenever you get tired of discipline—it means that no dragon can trust you. If we were ever in a real war, what then? Would you fly off before a battle? Would you be too distracted to guard your fellow soldiers' backs?"
She paused for a moment to let this information sink in, her tail tip twitching. "If you go out on one more excursion during training, I'll have no choice but to expel you from the army. I hope you understand that."
"I do," he said, very quietly, without lifting his bowed head.
He risked a glance up at her face and saw that Claret looked dissatisfied with his response. She flared her nostrils, sending a thicker plume of smoke towards the ceiling of the cave. As Ozone followed it with his eyes, she looked up, noticed the cloud forming over her head, and proceeded to dispel it with a few powerful lashes of her tail.
Neither of them spoke for a long moment.
"Very well," she said at last. "You are dismissed."
Ozone nodded and turned away without meeting her gaze. He walked down the tunnel leading to the male dragonets' cave as quietly as he could, not wanting to draw attention to himself. Thankfully, Buzzard and Ridge were both fast asleep and snoring like cougars, so he didn't have to stop and talk to them. Ridge, friendly but practical, wouldn't give him a hard time about flying off, but Buzzard would be more vicious than usual when they sparred in training tomorrow.
Ozone withdrew to his section of the cave and curled up with his back against the cool stone wall, thinking about what Claret had said. He didn't doubt she'd meant it. I need to force myself to work harder, he decided. I can't let Mother down.
Closing his eyes, he tried to sleep, but with this new cloud of worry hanging over him, he found himself laying awake for most of the night.