Chapter 11: Jewelry Doesn't Matter

I never liked politics. Politics have to me always been stressful. The entire point of politics is that you have to make the decisions that will decide the course of everyone's lives. I've always been stressed about making the wrong decision. And unlike some of the other things I stressed over, these decisions actually mattered. These decisions were something I should have been stressed about.

But I was smart, and I had a big vocabulary, and apparently that was all one needed to be a politician.

Normally I would have someone act as my guide dragon on my journey to help me to get the Rainwing kingdom. We make a student do it, and there was always a throng of students ready to volunteer because doing it meant you got to skip a whole day of school. Plus, if you were interested in being a politician when you grew up, you could watch the Official Pyrrhian Council of Diplomacy debate over the issues of the day.

Of course, these meetings were basically useless. The same can be said about politics.

During most of the meetings I just spent the time trying - and failing - to remember the representatives' names. I couldn't see them, so it was tricky, because I couldn't connect their faces to their names. But I didn't care. I just made sure to never call them by their names.

This meeting, though, was different. Not just because I didn't have a guide dragon. I could actually fly to the Rainwing Kingdom on my own, which was nice because I didn't have to make small talk with a small-brained pupil.

But I did have to put my bandana back on when I got to the hut where we were having the meeting, because I needed to pretend to the non-Rainwing tribes that I was still blind. Otherwise, they would ask questions, and I just wanted the meeting to end with as little questions as possible. The group thankfully didn't ask where my guide dragon was. I guess either they just didn't notice or they just didn't care.

The Sandwing representative, a dragon named Marble (he was the only representative whose name I remembered) took attendance.

"Copper of the Mudwings?"

"Here."

"Flora of the Rainwings?"

"Here."

"Chill of the Icewings?"

"Here."
"Starflight of the Nightwings?"

"Present," I said.

"Backlash of the Skywings?"

"Here."

"And Current of the Seawings?"

"Here."

"OK, that's everyone. Let's begin."

I took careful note of everyone's voice so that I could remember what they sounded like. I didn't want to confuse Chill with Flora or something.

"I would like to start by bringing up a matter, that unlike most matters we discuss here, is a life-or-death situation," said Marble.

I perked up at this. Life-or-death? We never talked about life-or-death matters here. We just talked about the economy and occasionally implemented a new policy. But life-or-death? This was new.

And I was one of the few Nightwings, if not the only Nightwing, with the power to influence what happened here. So, for the first time in a while, I paid close attention to what Marble said.

"Three days ago, a Sandwing dragonet named Grain was arrested in the territory of the Skywings. I assume you have heard about this, Backlash?" Marble said.

"I have," said someone who I presumed to be Backlash.

"Two days from now, Grain is to fight in the Arena against the Queen's champion. In other words, two days from now, she will almost certainly die," Marble said. "Yet there is no proof of her having done anything wrong. No proof of any crimes being committed, nothing. I brought this issue up with the council in order to try and get her unjust execution overturned."

"I would hardly call her punishment unjust, Marble," said maybe-Backlash. "We talked to everyone we could, and no one recognized her face. No one had seen her, no one had talked to her. What's more important is that none of the food vendors in the city remembered selling food to her. Therefore, she must have stolen food. Combined with the fact that she will not tell us why she came here, despite constant threats, and her punishment is clearly justified."

"Under what law is she being arrested?" I asked Backlash.

There were two things that this group knew about me. The first was that I didn't speak up often. The second was that when I spoke up, it meant that I was going to argue my butt off for whatever side I was on.

"Section 6, Law 15: Any dragon or dragonet the Royal Guard deems a threat and potentially harmful to the kingdom may be arrested and punished accordingly," Backlash said.
"How is this Grain a threat?" I asked.

"Well, for one she is most likely a criminal," Backlash said. "Her motivation for coming here, as I said before, is also unknown-"
"Pardon my interruption," said Marble, "but I know why Grain came to the Skywing kingdom."

Backlash went quiet. "You do?" he asked.

Marble, or presumably Marble, sighed. "Her father was murdered a week ago - in front of her very eyes. We…we know it wasn't her, because we know who the killer is, but multiple witnesses described Grain as running away from the scene in tears."

"Ah," said Backlash quietly.

"And as you can imagine, the news that Grain had popped up in the Skywing kingdom was…alarming, to say the least," said Marble. "So, Backlash, may you please ask the Royal Guard to release Grain?"

Backlash was silent before saying quietly, "I'll take up the matter with them."

"Good," said Marble. "Now, moving on to economic matters, delivery lanes in the Mudwing Kingdom are…"
I zoned out for a while, and thought about Sunny. I'd been putting her aside, trying to focus myself on the meeting and its importance. But I couldn't do that, not when I'd just broken up with my girlfriend. It wasn't a real breakup, though. We're just cousins, like she said. Was I over it already? Had I already managed to accept that we couldn't be together? Maybe I had. If I hadn't, then I wouldn't have just agreed to be cousins immediately. I would have fought back more. But maybe I knew this was always going to happen, and somehow I'd subconsciously prepared myself for our new arrangement. When did I start subconsciously preparing myself for things? Usually, I do things consciously, not subconsciously. Did this mean that my mood was improving? Declining? It had to mean something good, though. How can preparation be bad?

When I finally zoned back in, the council had somehow gotten to talking about inflation in the Icewing jewelry market due to the lack of natural resources in Icewing territory.

I didn't talk once for the rest of the meeting. There was no reason to.

When the meeting was over, I said my goodbyes, waited for all the other dragons to leave, then took off my bandana and went over to visit Glory.

I only got to talk to Glory every two weeks, since that was how often the council met. So I tried to savor our talks, make the most of them. This time, I was really looking forward to it, because it was the first talk I would have with her without a bandana covering my face in a year.

I flew over to Glory's palace, where a royal guard was standing in front of the palace entrance.

"You the Nightwing Dragonet of Destiny here to talk to the Queen?" she asked me. "I'm sorry - I'm not good at recognizing Nightwing faces."

"Yes, I am," I told her. "Starflight's the name."
"I won't remember that, but I trust that you're telling the truth about who you are, Starnight," said the guard. "Because honestly, if you aren't who you say you are and are actually some secret assassin, I don't care. I'll still let you walk right in."

I made a mental note to tell Glory to improve her security.

Glory was sitting at her throne with one of her advisors, intensely debating with him over something when I walked in.

"Yes, I know they want approval, but we don't have the space for them to be able to build it, so I think we should - we can talk about this later," she said, noticing me.

"Starflight!" she greeted me happily, turning in my direction. "Nice to see you without a bandana for once."

"Nice to see you, too," I replied. "Now, can you please get down from that throne? It's making me uncomfortable about my lack of royalty."

"But I like it up here!" mock-complained Glory. "It's so comfy and it makes me seem so powerful and tall-"
"Just get down already," I told her with a smile.

"I was kidding," she said back. "I don't like that chair - I know it has a good reputation, but it's actually really overrated."

"Being Rainwing Queen is overrated?" I asked.

"Well, that too," she said.

I let out a small snort-laugh.

"So, how are things going with you?" asked Glory.

"I had a mental breakdown this morning. How about you?" I responded.

"What?" asked Glory, surprised. "A mental breakdown? You?"

"Yeah," I said. "It was really embarrassing."

"I bet," said Glory. "I'm just surprised that you had it before I did. Being Queen is way harder than I thought it would be."

"Honestly," I said, "it felt kinda nice."

"Really?" asked Glory.

"Yeah," I said. "It was like a weird form of self-therapy. It was almost like all my problems just…went away. You should try it."

"You want me to have a mental breakdown?" asked Glory.

"Yeah," I dared her. "Do it. Right here, right now. Let all your bad feelings out."

Glory looked around nervously at the numerous security guards in the room, all of whom were intensely watching us. "If I am going to have a breakdown, can I do it somewhere private?" asked Glory.

So we flew deeper out into the rainforest. Once we were confident that Glory was far enough away that no one in the village could hear her screams, she broke down.

"I HATE EVERYONE WHO COMES IN ASKING ME FOR HELP FOR THINGS THEY COULD JUST DO ON THEIR OWN!"
"I'M SICK OF ALL THESE SECURITY GUARDS FOLLOWING ME AROUND LIKE I'M THEIR MOTHER!"
"I'M REALLY LONELY AND I JUST WANT TO TALK TO MY FRIENDS AND SEE THEM MORE OFTEN!"

She kept on screaming like that for five whole minutes. Turns out Glory had a lot more problems than I thought.

When she was done, she took a few deep breaths, then wiped the tears off of her snout.

"You were right," she said. "That did feel good."

"I know, right," I said. "Don't you feel more confident already?"

"As a matter of a fact, I do," said Glory, smiling. "I feel happier, I feel energetic, my mood is better. I feel great."

"It does make you feel really good," I said. "My breakdown made me feel so good that for once I actually talked in the council meeting."

"No way," said Glory, astonished. "You hate talking in those meetings. You talk so little that Flora-"

"Told you she was worried that I was mute during that first meeting. I remember. You've told that to me a million times already," I said. "But I actually did talk - and I almost single-handedly saved a dragon's life."

"Really?" said Glory. "Good for you, then!"

"I actually was joking, but thanks for believing me," I told her.

By the time I was done recapping the meeting's events to her, it was almost sundown.

"Oh shoot. It's getting late. I gotta go," I told Glory.

"OK. Well, see you in two weeks," she said.

"You too," I said back. But then, as I turned to leave, I remembered something very important that I had almost forgotten to tell her.

"Wait," I said. "I almost forgot. One last thing. And this is important."

"What?" asked Glory.

"Well," I said, "me and Sunny went to visit Stonemover, and long story short…we realized that I was Sunny's cousin."

Glory just blankly stared at me, trying to process what I had just said.

"Cousins?" she asked incredulously.

"Yeah," I said. "Turns out Stonemover, Sunny's dad and Mastermind, my dad, are actually brothers."

Glory kept on blankly staring at me. "Huh," she said. "That's weird. Are you guys still going to try to be a couple?"

I shook my head. "We're just cousins now," I told her. "I don't really care. I'm already over it."

Before, that statement wasn't true. Now it was.

Glory nodded. "That's probably for the best," she said.

"Yeah," I said, looking up at the sky. I could sense the sunset about to come. And then once again I remembered something - not something I had to tell her, but something I had to do.

"Another one more thing," I told her. "I need a favor."

"What is it?" said Glory. "Did you lose your notebook or something? Because I have plenty-"

"Do you know where Mastermind's lab is?" I asked her.

Glory looked at me, concerned. "Starflight…why? You hate your father," she said.

"He didn't tell me about Stonemover. I need to know why," I said.

Glory clearly did not feel comfortable about sharing this information. "You sure?" she said.

"Believe me, Glory," I told her, "I don't want to do this. But I have to know."

Glory sighed.

So the reason I posted all these chapters at once was because I didn't want the Starflight-Sunny subplot to be unresolved. I felt that the plot thread might overshadow all the other things that were taking place during these chapters. If you didn't like that subplot, for one, I'm sorry, and for two, I promise there will be no more sibling love in the story. Now, keep on reading, and make sure to leave a review to tell me what you thought.