AN: Thank you so much for the reviews! They really get my motivation up, and I appreciate that a lot. And I'd like to thank even those silent readers who don't review. I don't mean to give you the impression that if you don't review, I don't care about you. Every reader who sticks with this story means the world to me! I hope you all enjoy this chapter!
Early the next morning, Claret and the SkyWing soldiers-in-training set off for the SandWing base, leaving Spark behind to guard their own. There hadn't been an attack on their base in all the years since the Great Pyrrhian War, according to Claret, but there was always protocol to follow. Still, as they left, Spark's muttering made it clear that he thought his job was much more important than it actually was.
None of the dragonets knew quite what to expect of their SandWing counterparts. Though they had been invited cordially by Queen Chaparral, it was hard for the desert tribe to get over the stigma of having started the two greatest wars in their history. As they flew, far enough behind Claret to exchange conversation without her hearing them, everyone turned to Ridge, who liked to read and tended to be the most knowledgeable about foreign topics, for his opinion.
"It's hard to say what they'll be like," the red-orange dragonet mused. "The Sand Kingdom is basically a hodgepodge of different oasis towns, which each have slightly different cultures. The one thing they all have in common is the struggle for survival against the lack of water, the poisonous animals, etc. They respect strength... and that's about it. But we can't afford to pick a fight, either. If we can show our strength without being aggressive, we should be fine."
"Show our strength without being aggressive?" Gale snorted. "You know you're contradicting yourself, right? That's basically like saying 'be diplomatic without talking'. I don't know how you expect us to do that."
"That might be tricky for your single-minded brain to comprehend, Gale," Sard said loftily, gliding a considerable distance away from the pinkish-red dragonet, "but I think the rest of us can handle it."
Gale aimed a death glare in her direction, but couldn't reach her. Seeing this, and apparently unwilling to tolerate another bickering session, Buzzard leaned over and swatted the smaller dragon out of the air with his wing. With a yelp, Sard plummeted a considerable distance before she could regain her balance and fly normally.
Claret gave the dragonets a somewhat irritated glance over her shoulder, but didn't question the exchange. She was too used to it at this point.
Sard gave Buzzard a dirty look as she beat her wings rapidly to catch up with the others, but he just chuckled in satisfaction. Ozone gave her a sympathetic nudge with his wing as she shifted to fly so that he was between her and Buzzard.
"To answer Gale's question," Ridge went on, as if he hadn't been interrupted, "it's a bit of a tricky balance. But basically, go with your gut—don't push them, but don't let them push you either. Try to be aware of how they talk to you, gauge their reactions to what you say carefully, and then adjust your approach accordingly."
"Easy for you to say," Gale grumbled. "I use my gut for fighting my enemies, not playing nice with them. I don't have the social skills for this."
Ozone shot her a surprised look that she thankfully didn't seem to notice. He'd thought he was the only one who struggled to keep up with complicated etiquette. His gut feeling wouldn't be to try to balance the conversation, either—it would be to stay as unnoticeable as possible and talk as little as he could get away with.
Ridge's forehead wrinkled, as if he were imagining various ways that statement could affect how the meeting would go. "Okay then, be stoically silent. That seems to work for Buzzard, so it should go over decently for you. Buzzard, you should be fine the way you always are... as long as you don't lose your temper and growl, breathe fire, or hit anyone. Sard, try to refrain from annoying anyone... if you can help it. And Ozone, just be inoffensive, like you always are. And any of you, if you get into a conversation you can't handle, I'll help you out of it. But hopefully, everything will go smoothly."
Gale still looked a little worried, but she nodded.
Buzzard looked obscurely pleased by Ridge's words for him despite the jibe about his temper, while Sard gave a somewhat offended huff.
Ozone was mostly relieved by Ridge's detailed instructions to everyone. With the red-orange dragonet orchestrating most of the conversation, it couldn't go too terribly. Out of all of them, he was the most skilled at being tactful yet assertive.
"We're getting close," Claret called back to them. "Get into formation!"
Ozone sighed, but obliged along with the rest of the dragonets. He hated flying in formation more than anything else. It made him antsy, and holding his wings and tail in the rigid pose formality required always left his muscles sore for the next few days.
Still, even he could see the importance of making a good impression.
The SandWings were waiting outside the base when they arrived. Most of them stood together formally, but a smaller group lingered a few steps away, whispering to each other in a way that clearly violated the fancy etiquette that the rest of them were following. One of the more relaxed dragons must have told a joke, because one of his companions suddenly burst into laughter, while the other gave a thin, amused smile.
Ozone felt his wings automatically angle in their direction as he and the rest of the SkyWings came in for a landing; they reminded him of his own motley troops, like real dragons, as opposed to the rest of the stoic soldiers, the leader of whom gave Claret a stiff nod as she approached.
"Hey," the SandWing who'd apparently told the joke greeted Ozone as he landed. His scales were mottled pale brown and gray, as if he'd flown through a dust storm. "My name's Jackal. This is Tumbleweed," he added, gesturing with one wing to the dragon who'd just recovered from laughing—she was a tawny color, with beady black eyes that still shone with lingering amusement. Jackal wrapped his other wing around the third dragon's pale gold shoulders. "And this is Kulta."
She shrugged off his wing with a faint growl, and Jackal laughed. "Anyways, it's nice to meet you, SkyWing. What's your name?"
"Ozone," he told them, with a glance toward Claret. She was now immersed in a conversation with the SandWing commander, and didn't seem to need him for the moment.
"So I see you've noticed that we're the most interesting dragons here," Jackal said conversationally, and it took Ozone a moment to realize that he was joking. "So that makes you the best SkyWing so far. Everyone else over there is being all stiff and formal and boring." He rolled his eyes, and Ozone smiled.
Tumbleweed squinted at him. "A bit weedy-looking, but he'll do."
Ozone looked around and realized that the SkyWings were all smaller than the SandWings, who appeared to be a few years older. Tumbleweed was the shortest—about Ridge's height—but she was stocky and more muscular, and Ozone doubted that any of the SkyWings would want to take her on in a fight. Thankfully, though her words were harsh, the toothy smile she gave him as he turned to face her again looked friendly enough.
"So how was the flight here?" Jackal asked. "Everything go smoothly?"
Ozone nodded, deciding not to mention that all of the dragonets had been rather intimidated by the idea of meeting the SandWings. Though Jackal seemed friendly, Ozone didn't want to make his tribe look weak. Claret would wring his neck if she ever found out he'd admitted they were anything but equal to another tribe.
"I hope we go inside soon," Jackal said, glancing at his commander and shifting impatiently on his talons. "There's food there."
"I hope you like scorpions," Tumbleweed told Ozone seriously. He tilted his head to one side, contemplating the idea—he'd never tried scorpion before—but she seemed disappointed by his lack of a reaction. "Just kidding! We also have some birds that we caught for the occasion just this morning."
"I might try a scorpion anyway," he said, because now that he had the idea in his head, it seemed pretty interesting. Besides, he felt a little bad that the SandWings had needed to hunt something different specifically for them.
"Hmph," Kulta said, looking down her snout at him; he couldn't tell if the glint in her eyes was contempt or interest. "So he does talk."
"I think he's just shy," Tumbleweed offered.
"And he's also right in front of us," Jackal pointed out, "so it's kind of rude to talk about him in the third person." He gave Ozone a sorry-about-my-friends kind of look, and the SkyWing shrugged. Not many things were offensive to him, and being talked about instead of talked to wasn't one of them.
Jackal opened his mouth to say something else, but then looked over at the rest of the dragons, who had turned away and were heading into the base. "Oh look, everyone's going inside. We might as well follow them."
He turned and led the way along the cliff with a graceful ease. The base was a lot like the SkyWings', but Ozone was used to flying up to it, not walking along ledges, so he felt a bit awkward as he stumbled after Jackal.
As they waited for everyone else to go through the entrance cave, which clearly hadn't been built with two tribes' soldiers in mind, Ozone found himself next to Sard. "What do you think of them?" she asked, a bit warily.
"They were nice to me," he told her honestly.
"Hmm," she responded, looking unconvinced. "I don't think your definition of nice and mine are the same."
That was probably true. Ozone was put at ease by the even the slightest hint of friendliness, which he was constantly searching for throughout a conversation, while Sard was a bit oblivious to subtlety and wouldn't accept anyone's joviality unless it was given directly to her without any rude and/or questionable humor.
Ozone felt someone bump into his wing, and turned around to see that Gale and Buzzard had shuffled over to them. Gale was frowning unhappily, while Buzzard wore his usual expression of silent superiority.
"I don't like this," Gale growled softly. "They're all bigger than us. And there are eight of them. This doesn't feel friendly. This feels like a fight waiting to happen."
"I don't know why you're worried," Buzzard responded loftily. "I could beat any of these dragons with one wing tied behind my back." His tone wasn't hushed at all, and he gave the surrounding sand dragons a challenging glance.
Thankfully, everyone seemed too involved with moving inside to notice Buzzard's insolence and take offense besides one SandWing, who gave him a withering glance and didn't even dignify his comment with a response.
Still, Ozone glanced around desperately for Ridge, wondering, Where is he when we need him? Eventually, he spotted the red-orange dragonet all the way across the entrance cave, valiantly trying to make some friendly conversation with an unimpressed SandWing twice his height, who Ozone took a moment to recognize as Kulta. It didn't seem like his friend would be coming over any time soon.
"Please don't pick a fight," Ozone implored Buzzard, because Ridge wasn't there to, but the larger SkyWing didn't even seem to notice. As in most conversations, when he hadn't been directly spoken to, Ozone was largely ignored.
Shifting uneasily on his talons, Ozone looked over toward Ridge again, but ended up catching Jackal's dark gaze instead. The SandWing smiled and beckoned him over with a flick of his dust-colored wing.
With one last worried look at his fellow soldiers-in-training, Ozone ducked under the multicolored jumble of wings and tails cluttering most of the entryway and made his way over to where Jackal was standing, against the wall and at the edge of the crowd.
"We're not used to having so many dragons here," Jackal told him apologetically. "But I'm sure the big dragons will figure it out soon."
Ozone shrugged. He didn't care much for packed spaces, but the crowdedness wasn't Jackal's fault. He was more absorbed in trying to decide whether or not he'd just heard a hint of mockery in the SandWing dragonet's tone than in coming up with a verbal response to his comment.
Jackal nudged him with one talon. "Hey, did your commander tell you what else is going to happen today? All mine covered was the welcome banquet. I honestly think he's going to wing it from there, which is kind of an alarming thought."
"Claret didn't tell us much either," Ozone offered.
"Hey look," Jackal said, glancing up the rest of the crowd as it began to shift, "everyone's finally figuring out how to get inside in an orderly way." Ozone felt a sudden warmth against his scales as the SandWing wrapped one wing casually around his shoulders and began to lead him toward the doorway. "It's only been, like, an hour."
Ozone couldn't help but smile at the joke.
They soon arrived at the SandWings' dining hall, which was considerably bigger than the SkyWings' but still obviously not made to accommodate both tribes.
Tumbleweed came bounding over to Ozone and Jackal as soon as she caught sight of them, holding something expertly in the coil of her tail. Kulta followed more slowly, her face still unreadable.
"Scorpion," Tumbleweed announced cheerfully, dropping the object from her tail into Ozone's talons. "You could have gotten your own, but let's face it, a weedy dragonet like you would never make it through a big crowd like that, and more importantly, I absolutely need to see your expression when you try it."
Her tone was so excited that Ozone's brain didn't register the insult intertwined in her message until Jackal laughed and said, "Ouch. How unflattering. Don't worry, though, Tumbleweed's bark is worse than her bite."
Tumbleweed narrowed her eyes at Jackal. "Is that so?"
"Meaning she's going to try to make you pay for that in training tomorrow," Kulta said dryly to Jackal, rolling her eyes as if terribly bored watching their interaction. "But since you're twice her size, she probably won't succeed."
"That's slander!" Tumbleweed cried, flaring her wings dramatically. "I can defeat Jack any day... even with one fist tied behind my back!"
Kulta gave a thin smile. "What about a fist and a wing tied?"
"Done!" Tumbleweed retorted, bristling indignantly. "I can totally do it!"
"Thanks for that," Jackal said, winking at Kulta and smiling when she scowled in return. "This should definitely be amusing."
"The black eye I give you will be, too," Tumbleweed jibed, looking satisfied when Jackal raised his eyebrows in an impressed-looking way.
"Too bad Ozone here won't be around to see it," was all he said, shrugging.
"Oh yeah..." Tumbleweed looked disappointed for a moment before turning to Ozone excitedly. "You should come hang out with us some time!"
Ozone ducked his head. "I don't know if Claret will let me."
"Of course she will!" Jackal said, flashing a winning smile. "The whole point is to befriend each other's tribes, isn't it?"
"I guess," Ozone mused, starting to warm to the idea. He still didn't know exactly why Jackal and Tumbleweed seemed to be going out of their way to be friendly, but he did think the SandWings were funny and he wanted to see what it was like to hang out with them. "But what would we do?"
"We'll go to Possibility, of course," Jackal told him enthusiastically. "It was founded by dragons from multiple tribes over a hundred and fifty years ago, and that's why it's the best hub for inter-tribal socialization."
A hundred and fifty years ago, the SkyWing mused, absentmindedly drumming his claws against the stone floor as he thought. So that means... it was founded around the time of the War of SandWing Succession.
"There are a bunch of great shops," Jackal went on. "The whole town's a blend of SandWing, SkyWing, and MudWing culture. And in more recent years, we've seen quite a lot of SeaWing merchants, too."
"SeaWings?" Ozone echoed. Don't they live all the way across the continent?
"I know, kind of surprising," his new friend agreed. "Apparently, there was a lot of immigration to the west coast over the years. I didn't know this before, but according to my friend Barracuda, some SeaWings actually prefer the colder waters near the Ice Kingdrom over the tropics, so they live here instead of the east with the rest of their tribe."
"Really?" Ozone asked, mystified.
"I think so," Jackal said with a grin. "She's kind of a pirate, though, so you decide whether you believe her. Her explanation made more sense than any of the other ones I tried to come up with, though."
"Explanations you tried to come up with?" Ozone asked curiously.
Jackal shrugged. "My personal favorite was that the dragons on the west coast were just so attractive that they didn't want to miss out. Tumbleweed agreed with me on that one, but Kulta just got annoyed by it and told me not to be ridiculous. I think she was feeling jealous... you know, because I naturally used myself as an example of west-coast dragons SeaWings were attracted to."
Kulta snorted dismissively, sending a puff of smoke towards the ceiling, while Tumbleweed started cracking up. Ozone just blinked, unable to come up with a verbal response to that, and Jackal chuckled at his startled expression. "Joking. Kind of. Anyways, it'll be fun. You should definitely think about it."
"All right," Ozone agreed. "I'll ask Claret if I can go with you."
"Eat first," Tumbleweed reminded him, nudging the scorpion in his talons and looking at Ozone with a level of wicked anticipation that was kind of alarming.
He studied the prey warily. "How do I eat this?"
Jackal blocked his talons before he could do anything. "For starters, don't eat the barb, no matter what Tumbleweed tries to tell you."
"Camel turd," the tawny dragon protested. "I would never!"
"She would," Kulta informed Ozone dryly. "She loves drama, even if that means watching her friends get poisoned."
"I do not! But for the record, it's not like it would kill him or anything."
"See?" the pale gold SandWing said, looking amused in a superior kind of way.
"Just peel off the shell," Jackal instructed, stabbing it with his talons and deftly removing the exoskeleton. "And you eat the inside part. There's not much in there—I think SkyWings generally eat more than SandWings, so it couldn't be a full meal for you, but it still makes for a tasty snack."
Ozone tentatively nibbled at it. He'd never eaten anything like it before, but it wasn't bad. "I like it," he decided, quickly polishing of the rest.
"Great!" Tumbleweed cheered. "You'll make an excellent addition to our squad."
The chattering in the crowd decreased to a murmur and then petered out as Claret and the SandWing commander raised their wings for silence.
"Make sure you have plenty to eat," the SandWing said. "After lunch, we have a series of friendly competitions to hold between our soldiers-in-training. Claret tells me that you SkyWings have received extensive preparation, and be assured that our own dragonets have learned much as well. I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of the day will bring."
"Sounds like fun," Tumbleweed said brightly.
Taking into consideration what Kulta had said about Tumbleweed liking drama, it probably would be for her. But as Ozone glanced over to where his fellow SkyWings were sitting in a group together, still looking wary, all he could think of was how Gale and Buzzard had been so hostile earlier. And he didn't think that the competitions would go as well as the two commanders hoped.
Since this chapter was getting a little long, I decided to cut it off here so that I could post this update on time. But the next chapter will continue where this one left off, not jump back to Cornice's POV.
I hope you all liked the SandWings! They were a lot of fun to write.
Until next time! :)