Chapter 5
Acacia was sitting inside a massive patch of shrubs, wondering how the hell her plan had flopped so badly.
It turned out, her plan had many, many flaws.
First, the savanna was apparently not a neat little plain with identical cities in a perfect ring, but instead a vast, dry field of tall grass broken only by the hard, dry earth that was too tough for the grass to grow on, and the pathetic, twiglike shrubs that fought their way up from the savanna.
The Hives were just barely visible from where she was, lamps glowing in the windows like tiny faraway fireflies, and the large expanses of space between them were filled only by the silk bridges far above her head.
Second, she had flown for a whole day before she realised that Wasp Hive was definitely the most well-guarded place in Pantala, and if she even approached the entrance she would be killed before she could so much as fling a fire ant a them.
And even if she managed to get in, her two leaf shaped wings and green scales practically shouted, "LOOK AT ME! I'M A LEAFWING! COME AND CAPTURE ME!"
"Ugh, what am I thinking?" Acacia muttered to herself.
"No, Acacia, you made a commitment, and you are stealing that book whether you like it or not," she told herself sternly.
She pulled the map and an ink bottle out of her pack and started again.
Step 1:
Get a disguise
Where would I get one? She thought, rubbing her temples. Wasp Hive isn't exactly known for its fashionable residents.
But Jewel Hive is.
"Ok, so I'll sneak into Jewel Hive and steal some stuff that'll make me look like a SilkWing. Then what?"
Step 2:
Go to Wasp Hive and break into the Temple
"How? I don't have any keys- Oh! I can use some of Mum's herbs to knock out some guards and take it from them!"
Step 3:
Take the Book of Clearsight and fly back home a hero
This step was accompanied with a humourous doodle of Acacia carrying a book as she flew over a crowd of ecstatic LeafWings.
"Well, that's the easiest bit. If I do all that, and don't get captured by zombie-eyed HiveWings, if they even exist, like the older LeafWings say, then I'll be fine. Let's do this." She said as she leapt out of the patch of shrubs.
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The sun was just starting to vanish below the horizon as Acacia growled through the Glitterbazaar.
Technically, she wasn't in the Glitterbazaar. She was in the bits of the Glitterbazaar that had been spat out onto the savanna when it got too crowded.
Judging by the signs and wares, most of the stalls out here were owned by SilkWings or the occasional lower class HiveWing.
The stalls formed a jumbled-up ring around the base of Jewel Hive, the whole thing covered with a silk canopy, presumably to keep the wares and customers dry in the rainy season.
"Pathetic bug dragons can't even handle a little rain," she muttered as she entered a stall which was labeled with a sign saying CLOAKS AND CARPETS in fancy writing.
Inside, the little room was mostly taken up by rolls of coloured silk stacked in pyramid shapes, piles of carpets, beautiful weaving coating the walls and cloaks and scarves draped around dragon mannequins, leaving barely enough room for Acacia to spread her wings.
Acacia draped a golden scarf with blue dragonflies around her neck. It wasn't enough to disguise her LeafWing identity, so she headed to another stall, putting on a pair of silver earrings and a pair of 'prosthetic SilkWing wings'.
So you can get everything here, she thought as she attached them to where a SilkWings' smaller wings would normally go.
It didn't look perfect, but she hardly thought a HiveWing would look twice at a SilkWing.
"Here goes," she said to herself as she started on her way to Wasp Hive.
She entered Jewel Hive, as she was planning to use the web bridge between the two Hives to get to Wasp Hive.
Acacia passed two HiveWing guards who were standing at the entrance to Jewel Hive. They didn't react as she walked through the double doors with JEWEL HIVE written on them.
Inside, the Glitterbazaar was buzzing with dragons, like a swarm of massive dragonflies had invaded.
Dragons walked along walkways or leapt off balconies or zipped from one stall to another above the labrynthian marketplace.
Up above, dozens of lanterns hung from the ceiling, like the fireflies her tribe kept in jars to give them light at night.
All this caused Acacia to momentarily feel like she had been whacked in the face by a horde of wasps.
Once she recovered, she quickly moved toward the entrance to another level, not noticing the dragon that had wandered in front of her.
SMACK! They collided hard.
"Sorry, sir," Acacia said, trying to play the part of a humble servant as she noticed the dragon was a HiveWing.
The dragon glared at her, muttering something about disrespectful SilkWings as he continued on his way.
Relieved that he hadn't gotten her in trouble, she continued to hurry towards the tunnel.
Suddenly, she heard a group of HiveWing soldiers shouting something.
"Where's her wrist cuff?"
"WHAT happened to her wings?!"
Acacia whipped around to see her fake wings had fallen off in the collision with the HiveWing.
"LeafWing!"
"Someone get her!"
Acacia broke into a mad sprint, powering her way to the tunnel as HiveWings gave chase.
At once, someone stuck out a talon to trip her, and she fell towards the ground.
Her last memory was feeling a sharp pain and hearing a thud, and then darkness swallowed her up.
What did you think of that? See you next week! :D