The Pyrrhian Rainforest, Roughly More Than Five Years Into the SandWing Succession War
'Oh boy,' you're hopefully thinking right now. 'I sure do wonder what crazy antics Matter and the gang are up to now!' I have three words for you, loyal reader.
More. Stupid. Trees.
In fact, the rest of the team was on my side for this one. We did not like the rainforest. It was hot, it was buggy, it was dense, and by golly was it cramped.
"Remind me again why I thought all of this was a good idea," Life whimpered, once again tangled in crazy entrapment of vines number four thousand six hundred and seventy eight. I conjured an iron machete and sliced them off, just as I had done every stinkin' time she managed to get stuck in something. Or attacked by a wild animal. Or nibbled on by some freak carnivorous plant. (In fact, the area we were in now had a lot more similarities to the Poison Jungle on Pantala than anything else.)
"I remember this phase of yours," Motion chided from ahead. "You wanted to impress Death with all of your neat and quirky creations. Not a good look for you!"
None of this was very good. We had lost sight of the Dragonets of Destiny long ago, and were now stuck wandering through a forest swamped with not only trees (which I hate) but also ferns, underbrush, vines, bushes, ivy, and an entire greenhouse assortment of who even knows what.
In short, not fun.
I was ready to quit, but while my other three traveling 'buddies' were having a tough time, they wanted to tough it out. Life had said that normal dragons had to do it, so we should too. This was apparently a journey of becoming humble.
I brushed a poison dart frog off of my shoulder. They were cute and all, but pesky as all get out. We were fortunate to not have blood, or we'd have a lot of bugs to deal with right now.
It was hard to tell (with all of the trees!) but I was pretty sure night had fallen. To be honest, it was hard to keep track of time down here. Time made things so much easier.
She should make me a watch.
"Do you guys think things are okay at the Corps?" Space asked, suspiciously topical to my thoughts.
"How bad could it be?" Motion sauntered along with a venomous snake sticking out of her side. It was looking increasingly confused at the ditzy dragoness who simply wouldn't die. "It's just Death and Time. They're the only ones who have to monitor stuff. Unless Life hatches every egg and just doesn't tell us."
"Eggs can hatch on their own," the IceWing responded, somewhat offended.
"See? All fine." Motion had accumulated three more snakes, trying to help their comrade take down the aspect. "The only problem would be that one guy escaping, but that can't happen."
Ugh. That guy. We didn't like him. Not because he was eccentric and kind of fruity, as that didn't really matter. It was the fact that he defied all of Reality and basically messed things up all the time.
To this day, I'll still never know if anything that guy did was intentional or just poorly executed. He was probably just trying to help creation like us, but he stunk at it.
"Hey," Space snapped. "We don't talk about that." Motion grumbled out a half-hearted response as she obtained two more snakes on each side of her flank. I had instinctually freed Life from vines twice during this conversation. My claws were caked with mud, which wasn't the most exciting, but Space seemed to be the only one doing okay.
"Maybe we can go somewhere else." I believed it to be a good suggestion. This walk was becoming about as tiring as a trip through your local botanical gardens. "There's mountains. A wintery place. A desert. Actually, block out that last one."
"No," Life protested, actually managing to avoid some vines on her own. "Those dragonets are special. Clearly, they're doing something important." Motion's snakes detached and slithered away in fear, and she waved them goodbye.
"Sorry to burst your bubble, but we have no clue where they are or what they're doing. So you know, unless we happen to stumble across some rainforest village where they happen to be staying for some reason, then—oh, you can't be serious."
Lo and behold, after the next set of trees was some semblance of a clearing. What a blessing. Here there were huts, hammocks, and all sorts of other buildings hanging out in the trees. Perfect description of a village.
But...it was deserted. There was not a soul here. (Warning: Embarrassing part for me coming up!)
"Hm. It's quaint," Space grunted, taking the first steps into the sunlight of the morning. At least we finally knew what time it was.
'Quaint'. What a dumb word. It's so hard to pronounce! And why is Q a letter when there's already C and K? I would like to have a word with the inventor of Dragon Language.
No, I'm not stalling so you don't see the embarrassing part. Seriously, you don't want to see it. It's not even that funny!
Fine. I guess it's important to the plot anyway.
It started when I noticed that Space had a fuzzy green thing sticking out of his neck. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, considering Motion had just powered through the bite of around seven deadly snakes. However, this time, it just decided to work for no real reason.
AKA: A cop-out for the writer.
We had wanted to go take a look at the strangely empty village, but then I felt a prick of my own. Ow.
"Does anyone else feel funny?" Motion asked, wobbling around more than usual.
"No," Life said, before falling flat on her snout, unconscious.
"I think we may have been...tranquilized," Space tried, similarly loopy.
"Great. First day in the rainforest and we're being drugged. It's not consent if we're under influence!" Hoo boy, I felt tired. Talking had never really been difficult.
But hey, why not go for the authentic dragon experience?
Motion collapsed next, doing so in a majorly over-dramatic fashion with one of those vulnerable poses that an attractive person might do if they were intentionally trying to work you up. With the tranq affecting my sanity, my mind replaced Fen in that image, and I have to this day never seen something as hot.
It knocked me out.
Presumably three minutes later (to us) we were suddenly indoors somewhere. Bound by...conventional rope. It would of course be hardly a trifle to escape, but I first had to know what was going on.
The others were woozily to my sides, all of us in a row.
It was a simple building, made from the same material as the very trees of the surrounding forest. Windows allowing in the brighter sunlight. Dead ahead was a RainWing, standing tall and proud.
Now that I looked closely, we were in luck. It happened to be the same one.
Glory frowned down at her new prisoners, drumming her claws along the wooden floor.
"Finally. For being assassins, you all spend an awful lot of time waking up." Pfft. Assassins. That was good.
"Hey, I remember you!" Life blurted, muffled courtesy of the rope restraining our maws. She still sounded quite happy and upbeat, which seemed to confuse Glory. Something about her was different. Maybe it was the giant crown and other such jewelry. Or the sloth. How did I not notice the sloth?
And where were the rest of the DoD's?
"Yes...and I remember you. Nautilus sent you, is that correct?" Ohhh, that guy. You know, I completely forgot all about that guy. Something about traitors? "Webs told us dragons were after him, but Crocodile was a spy. So you have to be the killers." For the record, we hadn't killed a single person. Unless that snail I stepped on a while ago counted.
I could hear Motion growling some unspeakable insults under her breath. What was with her and fighting with every female we encountered? It wasn't like she had to prove herself; this was the governess of all movement here.
Space was eerily silent, likely calculating the situation. So again, that left me to try and converse.
"Look. We're just trying to explore the world. It's odd, yes, and it has a lack of real direction, but you know, it's been fun. Is that really so bad?" Again, the younger dragoness appeared bewildered. "Also, what's with the jewels and stuff? Are you getting married? You're a little young for that."
Yes, I know it was a stupid thing to ask. Yes, it was a terrible joke. Yes, it was incredibly insensitive.
That's it. I can't defend myself for that one.
I told you it was embarrassing!
Glory contained her fury to an extent, only releasing a hiss of spittle.
"I'm the Queen now, you clod. Which is why I'm a little curious about the surplus of weirdos invading my kingdom!"
"You seem stressed," Life said. Oof. That lacked a bit of tact. Queen Glory was flabbergasted, absolutely floored by this statement of such an obvious fact.
"Stre—pah, of course I'm stressed! Are you all this stupid?"
"That's why we're trying to learn," Motion growled back, struggling a bit in her bindings. "It's a little difficult when you just entered the world not even a month a—" Space thankfully cut her off with a meaningful clear of the throat. The queen (of the RainWings, I'm guessing) was exasperated, massaging her forehead with a talon.
"Are you actually even assassins?"
"We were told to find two people. But honestly, we didn't want to. Like I said, we're just exploring, and we were curious about your group. Dragonets...of Destiny, right?"
"They're not really my group," Glory whispered, eyes narrowing pithily. Strange. "But then who even are you people? Just a handful of weirdos ignoring this entire war to be traveling buddies?"
Uh oh. That was a good question. If we weren't Talons of Peace operatives, who were we?
I awkwardly ummed, glancing left and right to see if anyone had some bright ideas. Glory frowned. "Alright. Who's in charge of you lot?"
"Time," Life answered on instinct, before her eyes widened in regret. I would have loved to slap a paw over her mouth if it was available.
"...Time," the queen repeated, speaking slowly in a way you might to someone with a bit of a mental setback.
"She means that Time is important." Space straightened with this, looking very regal and proper in his delivery. "And we have collectively realized that it should not be wasted fighting. Time is best reserved for enjoying life to its fullest extent, and making friends to travel the continent is exactly the method to achieve that."
Let's go Space! A real one.
"Let's try it," I added, catching on to his idea. "My name is Matthew, but you can just call me Matt."
"I'm Snowlily!" Life chirped, always loving to do introductions. She then remembered that she was actually meant to be Snowlily, equipping a more sullen expression.
"I am referred to as Salmon." Glory and the three of us looked expectantly towards Motion, who had her head down.
"...I'm Molly..." There. Maybe that would be better.
"Yes yes, fine and dandy. Let's just go with Prick, Moron, Blockhead, and Halfwit."
Wait, why am I Blockhead? "You would make very incompetent assassins, so I'll believe your story for now. That said, I'd prefer you be imprisoned until you can be deemed trustworthy. There's a lot going on right now." Sure, whatever. Couldn't hold us anyway.
"There you go, Lily. Now you know how a DoD deals with trespassers." She rolled her eyes as some helper RainWings appeared to begin carting us away on the queen's orders. I messed with them a little by briefly morphing my body to iron, becoming very heavy, and the startled gasps were indeed worthy of a snicker.
Being prisoners would probably be fine. Looking around at the rainforest, they mainly had fruit, though of course we didn't have to eat it. We could either stay and observe more or just escape freely, but I could see the trend towards the former. The whole RainWing society was curious, and I wanted to find out more about all this stuff.
Reality was still stable right now anyway. Surely the Corps had no need for us right now.
The Reality Corps
"Ugh. Boring!"
On screen was Matter and another MudWing with a round head kissing passionately. Gross!
Magic swiftly shut off the device. He could only handle so much of those other Realistic buffoons at a time. Alas, this left him with very little else to do. The Corps was just as boring as he remembered.
Fine. I suppose I'll put my plans in motion.
But not in Motion herself. Ew!
Magic tumbled off of the couch in the living room and meandered towards the scale area. The cold floors were bothering him; a pulse left his green scales, and they were warmed for his comfort.
Aw; those three little triplets were left behind. So cute! War was bouncing around excitedly, and Magic offered his paw. The small little bugger joyously played with his claws.
"You are quite the powerful creature. One blink of your eyes can drive an army to victory." In response, War blinked innocently at him. Somewhere, a soldier died. "You are quite a hassle for your Daddy, aren't you?" He chirped at Magic curiously, tilting his head with recognition at the mention of Death. "Ignore my musings, little one. How are your siblings?"
Smiling wide, War paraded over to Pestilence and Famine. The latter was watching her brother, not as active but still curious, implying that food was growing scarce on the continent. It was most likely courtesy of the war. Pest, on the other talon, was peacefully asleep.
"You," Magic whispered, rubbing her head gently with a claw. The slumbering dragonet mewed curiously, shifting a bit. "You are going to help me in unprecedented grandeur. My champion will make good use of you."
The RainWing-like entity stood again. "Prepare yourself, War. He will also employ your talents." The little guy chirruped again, before going off to run around a little. The joy of innocence.
Magic left the scale room, dreaming of what was soon to come. Hearts filled his eyes at the mere thought.
Ah, his champion. It had been a very long time since Magic had seen that wonderful stud. And with that pesky Clearsight now out of the way, there was no competition.
My Darkstalker. We will soon be reunited.
AN: Hello! Thank you so much for reading the first part of QuARTs!
This is one of my first efforts to make a larger and more in-depth story, so I'm glad that it's finally out there for people to see.
That said, writing takes a long time for me. These five short chapters took about a month! So please, don't feel angered or neglected if it takes me a long time for future updates. I want to make sure the story goes in the right direction is all.
Sheesh. You're so slow. I'm already bored!
Matter, this is an author's note. You're not supposed to be here.
You can't tell me what to do!
Ignore him. Anyway, I still hope you really enjoy the story. I get that it's weird and potentially hard to follow, but that's the nature of reality.
That's all for now. ADAC, away!
Hey, get back here! Why are you writing me into a ship? I want to be single! Even if Fen is really cute and attractive!
Ugh. Authors.
