Chapter 2
Swallowtail sat in a hammock on the edge of a silk cell, the grey web below her swaying slightly as she gazed at the horizon. The predawn sky was a deep blue-grey not unlike her own silvery scales, the far horizon barely tinged with pink.
Swallowtail couldn't sleep. Not when she knew her brother was out there somewhere, lost and desperate to return home. On the other side of her cell, her parents lay asleep in their twin hammocks, the two dragons snoring away side by side, like they always did.
She noticed that her mother had bags under her eyes and her father's forehead was creased with worry, as if they'd both been up worrying all night and had only just dozed off.
Not too far to their left, an empty hammock sat, thin silver blanket scrunched up on one side. They had left it like that for the past week or so, ever since Whitespeck vanished mysteriously. The cobalt dragonet had left early in the morning with his grandparents to browse the outdoor market part of the Glitterbazaar, where most of the SilkWing-friendly establishments sat, as a hatching day treat, and never came back.
He had last been seen ordering a mango smoothie at one of his favourite stalls, and no one had seen or heard from him since. When Whitespeck still hadn't come back by sunset, and her father's terrified parents returned home without their grandson, Swallowtail's worried parents had approached some HiveWing guards about their son's disappearance. They had simply responded with insensitive snorts, saying that they didn't care about some runaway wingless dragonet, and they had better things to do and would kick them out of the market if they didn't leave right away.
When she heard the news of the HiveWings treating her parents like that, she was unsurprised. Sad, but unsurprised. Why can't the HiveWings be decent to our tribe for once? Swallowtail thought bitterly. If this was happening to a HiveWing they would have upturned every Hive in Pantala looking for them. There would be posters everywhere and a severe punishment for the kidnapper.
Stupid bug dragons. Tears welled in her eyes, glistening like tiny jewels in the early morning light.
"Ugggh," her mother groaned softly from somewhere in the corner of the room. Swallowtail whipped her head around to see her father gone and her mother starting to stir.
Dad must've left just now for work, she thought. As a web builder, her father left fairly early most mornings to expand the web bridge that connected Jewel Hive to Wasp Hive.
She had seen some of his weavings before, when she was using that bridge to head to Wasp Hive to see the Temple of Clearsight with her mother and brother. He had woven honeycomb shapes into the silk, complete with tiny silk bees fluttering from place to place.
"Swallowtail! Time for school!" Her mother called sleepily from the other side of the web.
"Shoot," Swallowtail muttered under her breath. She quickly dried her snout and leapt off the hammock, the web under her shaking as she bounded towards the corner. There sat a messy pile of silk blankets, all different shades of grey and silver.
She lifted up the blankets to reveal a menagerie of tons of seemingly random things: books, ink bottles, an unfinished weaving, half-written letters scattered everywhere, a heavy silk pouch...
There! She spotted the thing she had seemingly been looking for; a small, unusually neat pile of silk papers tied up with a thin grey strand.
Most of the papers were covered in writing, both Miss Tulip's neat teacher script and Swallowtail's messy scrawls, but a few were left blank for writing on at school, usually during History, when even the elderly yellow-speckled HiveWing teacher was so bored he dozed off.
Grabbing her homework in one talon, she hopped over to the far side of their cell and cleaned her scales with water from the dew collector.
The cool liquid slid across her scales, hydrating and smoothing them down.
Looking up, she heard a rustle behind her, and spun around to see her mother holding a talonful of dates and tutting at her.
"Think you could leave without snack?" Her mother questioned, raising one silver eyebrow as she stared triumphantly at her blue-grey daughter.
"Sorry, Mum," Swallowtail said with a tone of guilt, turning red as her mother tsked.
"Hon, you need to eat more! You're skinny enough already! And don't object. For the last time. You're. Not. Eating too much."
"Ok," she admitted in defeat. She knew the silver dragon was right. She ate way too little. Mum thought it was because she thought badly of herself, but she refused to admit it was because she couldn't bear to eat when her brother ate next to nothing.
She refused to overeat when her classmates were too weak to even run around the playground. When her father was too tired after work to do anything but eat and sleep.
She sighed, tucking the dates inside a tattered silk pouch alongside her homework and ink bottle, and hurried out of the cell, with her mother galloping to catch up to her daughter.
Ok, Swallowtail thought to herself. Let's see if I can make it through another day without Whitespeck.
Hope you enjoyed that! I'll try to upload every Wednesday. If I reach Chapter 6 and no-one has read this, I'll probably take a break from writing for a while. If you read this, PLEASE REVIEW IT! That way I know people are actually reading my stuff. Have a good day or night! :D
