Sunny winced, still feeling the bandages around her neck. It had been difficult to sleep last night, with the pain in her wound keeping her awake. She raised her head, drowsy, as sunlight streamed into the room. She groaned, still exhausted. She didn't particularly want to get up. But she was queen now, and it was her duty.
Eventually, the young hybrid climbed out of her bed, her barbless tail dragging across the sandstone floor. Creosote was waiting outside her door. Armadillo had asked him to stand guard over it in case another assassination attempt was made. The SandWing glanced over to her, gently bowing his head down. "Good morning, your majesty."
Queen Sunny smiled. She thought about asking him to just call her Sunny again, but it didn't seem worth the effort, trying to correct him. She let out a small yawn. "Morning, Creosote."
Creosote nodded. "I wanted to let you know that there's been a MudWing outside the palace doors the last couple days, claiming he knows you and asking for an audience. If you want, I can force him to leave."
"A MudWing?" Sunny asked, surprised. "Clay?" She remembered back to the speech, she thought that she might have seen a MudWing in the crowd, had that been him? Had he come after her? Was he worried? That was so sweet of him, but he didn't have to. If both he and Sunny were gone, how would the academy function?
Creosote thought for a moment, and nodded. "I think that was what he said his name was. Do you know him?"
Sunny winced. "Yes, I know him. He's practically my brother. Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
Creosote gulped, slightly ashamed, making Sunny feel a little pang of pity. "Armadillo said that he want me to concern you with it yesterday, since you were still recovering from the attack."
The SandWing queen sighed. This wasn't Creosote's fault. But it certainly made her more suspicious of Armadillo. Had he known who Clay was, and not allowed him in intentionally?
"C'mon," Sunny said to Creosote, giving him a smile. "Let's go down to let him in. I'm sure you'll be happy to meet him."
The two quickly walked to the front doors of the palace. Sunny was excited to see Clay again. It would be nice to have someone here who she actually knew and trusted. She threw open the doors, light bursting in. Clay lay down on the steps of the palace, gently snoring as he slept. Sunny laughed. Of course he was asleep, that was just like him.
"Good morning, Clay," the young queen chuckled.
The MudWing let out a long yawn, then slowly turned his head, opening his eyelids. He groggily looked up at Sunny. "Good morning, Sunny." He blinked a few times, before suddenly realizing where he was. "Sunny!" he excitedly shouted.
Clay quickly got to his paws, and ran forwards to meet the SandWing queen. Creosote stiffened up as he walked towards her, and moved to stop him, but Sunny brushed him aside and gathered herself beneath his wings.
"I'm so glad you're alright," Clay said, relieved. "I was there when you were attacked. I sorry I couldn't do anything about it and was so worried and—"
"It's fine," Sunny replied.
Clay raised his wing, looking down at Sunny's neck, still bandaged. "Is it . . . ?"
"I'll be okay," Sunny reassured him. "It might leave a small scar, but nothing as bad as Webs. I look strange enough already, it's not like it could make things worse."
"Oh," Clay frowned, "don't say that, you look fine." He glanced over towards Creosote, careful not to talk about Sunny's hybridism in front of him.
"How is the academy?" Sunny quickly asked. With both her and Clay gone, if something happened, there might not be enough dragons there to handle it. She trusted Tsunami to make the right decision, but Tsunami had almost always had the other Dragonets around her to help.
Clay shrugged his wings. "I don't know. I only left a day after you, and things were still running smoothly." He glanced around. "You don't happen to have any water around, do you? I was having trouble finding some on the way here."
"Yeah," Sunny smiled. "We've got stores in the palace, just in case we're ever besieged. Food too, if you're hungry."
Clay nodded, and Sunny led him through the doors of the palace, walking past Creosote. The guard quickly followed besides them. Sunny immediately felt more comfortable with Clay around the palace. At least there was someone here she knew. But it wasn't like she could just keep him here forever, could she? Eventually, he'd have to return to Jade Mountain, and she'd be left in these dusty old halls. It felt like Glory always had RainWings and NightWings swarming around her, but Sunny just felt lonely here. Maybe it would be better after they had caught her mother's assassin, and more dragons could be allowed back into the palace.
Sunny's ears suddenly perked up as she heard a voice from up ahead she didn't recognize. She glanced to Clay, who just smiled in confusion back.
"Have you found her yet?" a hoarse voice growled, like the dragon had sand stuck in her throat.
"No," Armadillo's voice calmly responded. "She hasn't made it easy for us. For all we know, she's vacationing on a beach in the Lost Continent."
As Sunny and Clay slowed down, Creosote suddenly ran into the two of them, tripping over Sunny's tail. He let out a short yelp in surprise, alerting Armadillo and the second dragon to their presence. Sunny winced.
Armadillo poked his head around the corner, followed by the dragon he'd been talking to, a large, older SandWing with crusty eyes. She glared at the three intruders, and flicked her tongue out. "MudWing," she grumbled.
Armadillo gave her a glance, and sighed as he turned to Sunny. "Your majesty, this is Kudu. She's with the Outclaws, their current leader."
Kudu tapped a claw on the ground, closely examining Sunny. She squinted, as if surprised such a strange little dragon could be queen. "Hmph. You're Thorn's daughter?"
Sunny nodded. "I am," she answered.
Kudu shook her head disapprovingly, then turned around, walking off into the halls of the palace. Sunny watched as she left. Didn't dragons usually have to ask permission to be dismissed by their queen? She didn't really want to have to do that, but Kudu didn't care to give Sunny the least bit of respect. Although, Sunny wasn't quite sure she deserved it.
Still, Kudu walked off. Armadillo grimaced. "Sorry about that," he said, "she's not really one for obeying authority. It's why she joined the Outclaws in the first place." He looked over to Clay, eyeing the MudWing carefully. "Why is there a MudWing in the palace?"
"Because I let him in," Sunny growled, looking just the littlest bit threatening. "This is Clay. He's one of the Dragonets of Destiny; he's practically my brother. Not just a MudWing."
Armadillo tapped a claw on the sandstone floor, but didn't argue, accepting Sunny's decree. "Alright," he conceded, "moving onto other matters, have you decided on what you want to do about Aloe's challenge?"
"Aloe's challenge?" Clay suddenly remarked, alert. He turned to Sunny. "You're being challenged? Like, royal challenge?"
Sunny grimaced, and nodded slightly.
Clay shook his head, worried, and shuffled his wings. "Who's challenging you? Do you have a sister? A half-sister? Maybe you can just let her be queen. She can't be that bad."
"No," Sunny responded. "It's not a sister. Her name is Aloe, and she claims to be Blister's daughter."
Clay shivered, remembering Blister. The limp in his right hind leg suddenly felt heavier. It was Blister's fault that he'd gotten that. And she'd also been the one who killed Kestrel.
Still, Clay shook his head. "You can't accept the challenge. I'm not letting you be killed, even if it's for the SandWing throne. Isn't that why you have the Eye of Onyx? To prove you're the real queen?"
Sunny shook her head, and lifted the stone up from her neck. "This one's a fake. The real one was stolen after my mother was murdered." She choked up slightly on the words.
"Do you know how to fight?" Armadillo suddenly asked, his prying eyes examining his queen closer.
Sunny winced. "Theoretically. Kestrel gave us battle training, but I wasn't the best at it." She waved the end of her tail in the air. "I don't even have a barb. But I have to fight, don't I? Thorn accepted Onyx's challenge, so I need to do the same."
"No!" Clay shouted. "You definitely don't. The Eye of Onyx decreed Thorn as queen. You can't accept by any means, or else the throne will go to Blister's daughter, and even worse, you'll be dead."
Sunny sighed. She would've liked a little bit more faith from Clay, but he was right. She was small, and had no barb. There was no way she fairly win a one-on-one fight with a real SandWing, right?
"Clay is right, as I said before," Armadillo remarked. "You don't actually have to accept the challenge. And it might look a little bad, but a lot of SandWings embraced Thorn. The previous royal family thrust us into two decades of war, and Blister was the most disliked of the three sisters."
"Yeah, listen to him," Clay urged Sunny. "Please, don't accept the challenge."
Sunny nodded unhappily. "I won't. But Armadillo said that means there might be more war. I don't want that."
"It's true, there will be fighting," Armadillo quickly brought up. "We got a report from Crosswinds that Aloe does have a small number of troops with her."
Sunny looked towards Clay. "I'm a Dragonet of Destiny. It was my job to stop the war, not create a new one. I don't want to send out dragons to fight in my place, just because I'm too weak." She'd spent the last three years trying to repair the damage of the war, to help dragons understand that they don't have to be violent towards each other. There had to be a peaceful resolution to this where no one got killed, right? Still, it wasn't like the resolution to the last war had been peaceful. Blister and Burn had been killed, and Clay had almost died.
"But I can't let you die," Clay replied.
"We don't have to do a draft," Armadillo suggested, tapping a claw on the ground. "We'd have a volunteer army. Dragons who want to fight, not just for you as their queen, but for the better future that you and Thorn stand for. And based on the reports, Aloe doesn't have a lot of forces. We could crush her quickly, maybe a single battle."
Just a single battle, Sunny thought. Was that what Blister had thought before she started the war? And how many dragons lives would be lost, just because I'm not strong enough? Sunny looked over to Clay, asking him for confirmation. He'd lost sibs in the last war. Could he really do this?
Clay winced, and looked down to the sandstone floor. "There's no other option, is there?"
Armadillo didn't respond. "It's your choice, Queen Sunny."
Sunny closed her eyes, and gritted her teeth. Maybe she was just being naive and idyllic, thinking that this could be solved peacefully. She was an adult now. A queen. She had to be realistic. "Fine. I'll do it. We'll go to war."