Two Rainwings sat in the Skywing palace, waiting for the Queen to arrive.
Iris studied the throne room in fascination. It was so much different from the Rainwing Palace. In place of flowers, the walls seemed to be soaked in gold, and an absolutely massive, marble throne sat at the back of the room. Iris proudly noted the cold, hard, decor had nothing against the throne of the Rainwings; on which you could relish in the life and joy of the leaves and petals. Though one element of the room that did appeal to Iris was an open wall that faced the mountains, giving her a full view of the kingdom below; albeit it did give her a slight chill. They could try to fly out of it to escape, but their wings were bound by metal clamps.
Iris noticed the only other dragon in the room was watching her. "What?"
Glory answered with a gesture at the empty room around her. "So, why do you think the Queen of all things awful wants to see us specifically?"
"I don't know," Iris responded, "Maybe she has a use for us, or maybe she wants to execute us because she has it in for Rainwings."
Glory blinked in surprise, "You jumped to death pretty fast."
Iris tilted her head, from everything she'd heard about the queen assuming immediate death didn't seem like much of a stretch. "Well, it seems pretty reasonable to me. Why else would she have us here?"
Glory's eyes seemed to invade hers, "What exactly do you know about Queen Scarlet?"
Iris lit up immediately. She had been compiling information about the outside world for years, hoping it would be useful one day. But the Rainwings almost never asked questions, and if they did it was usually about food. At this point, she could probably recite a list of every type of fruit in the rainforest. She reached into the back of her mind and brought up any information she had about the queen.
"Queen Scarlet is one of the longest-lived SkyWing queens, surviving a whole lot of challenges to the throne. No one has even tried to challenge her in the past few years. That's probably because Scarlet is said to have some strange monster in her palace that she uses to intimidate any future challengers. You know I wonder what it is? Maybe it's a scavenger? Oh, what if it's a jaguar! No that could never kill a dragon. Anyway, she also uses an arena to house her prisoners and have them fight to the death. Gross right? Scarlet is one of the richest queens, other than Burn-" Iris stopped to point out all of the gold splattered across the walls, "-She has decided to ally with Burn and the MudWings in the great war."
Glory nodded slowly and seemed to let the information sink in.
Iris heard a noise coming from the hallway and turned just as four crimson soldiers walked in. They situated themselves on either side of the door and clunked their spears menacingly.
The Queen strode through the doorway with an air of superiority. She brushed past the Rainwings nonchalantly and climbed gracefully onto her throne. From the way the throne was made it looked as if Scarlet was curled up on a cloud, a true Skywing.
She arched her neck elegantly to look down at them. Her eyes flitted quickly over the dragonets before stopping on Iris. "You," She questioned, her voice snapping like sharp wingbeats, "Can you fight?"
"W-what?" Iris stammered.
Scarlet rolled her eyes, "So, Rainwings can't understand dragon? I said, can you fight?"
Iris studied her claws, wondering if she could ever use them to hurt another dragon, "I don't think so." She looked back at the queen, "I've never done it before."
"Useless," Scarlet muttered turning to Glory. "Can you fight at least?"
Glory remained silent.
"Speak when you're spoken to."
Glory squawked sarcastically.
"Fine then, if you won't tell me I'll see for myself." She nodded at one of her guards. Iris watched him hesitate for a moment before obeying the Queen. He began to stalk towards Glory. The aforementioned Rainwing sat stiff and stared straight ahead.
'Should I help her? Does she know he's coming? I don't want to hurt him, but I don't want him hurting her either. Maybe I'll just pounce. Pouncing, jumping, I'll jump on his back and surprise him. Is this a good plan? Well, my legs are already moving.'
Iris suddenly hopped on the Skywings back. He roared and reared back, flapping his wings erratically.
Glory whipped around, "What did you do that for? I had a plan!"
"Sorry!" Iris screeched as her claws scrabbled uselessly on her enemy's armor. She flailed her tail back and forth, batting his wings in the process. He twisted his neck around and sucked in a deep breath.
'Fire, fire, FIREBREATH!' Iris thought. She instantly flopped off the dragons back and felt the heat of the sudden blast on her tail.
The Skywing turned to face her an growled. Iris backed up until she felt the room fall away beneath her tail.
The ledge was her only way out, and the ledge meant death.
In a sudden flash of shimmering scales, Glory leaped at the Skywing from behind, claws scratching at his face.
Surprised, he stumbled back. Glory charged at his armored chest and bowled him over. She sat on his chest in triumph.
A long, drawn-out clap sounded from behind them. They both turned towards the throne and saw Scarlet applauding them from her perch.
"Very good, you both seem to have a bit of fight in you." Scarlet asserted, glaring at the both of them. She nodded at Iris and her tortoiseshell scales, "Take that one to my sky prisons," She said and tilted her head at Glory's shimmering gold scales, "And you already know what to do with the other one.
The three other soldiers that were laughing at their friend moments before now raised a brow at the two Rainwings. They plodded forward haughtily; one held a loop of metal chains in their talons.
Iris watched as the Skywing on the floor pushed the slightly indignant Glory off of him. He narrowed his amber eyes at her before gripping onto one of her shining wings and pushing her towards the guards.
Two of the Skywings led Glory out of the room. She hissed and clawed at them in vain before one of them bit her wing to stop her.
Iris caught Glory's eye as she was dragged out of the room. The two dragons shared a look of uncertainty and terror before being separated.
The guard that had attacked Glory came up to Iris and pushed her over to his friend. The other Skywing brought them through what seemed like an unending chain of hallways and staircases before they came to a small arch opening.
The two Skywings awkwardly carried the Rainwing, (who now many shades of green), into the open sky. They flew for longer than Iris would have like, and she felt like the guards would drop her at any second.
Finally, the red dragons dropped the Iris roughly on a hard stone pavilion on top of a pillar taller than any tree in the rainforest. Several more of these stood in a ring with dragons occupying each of them. A sandy pit was far below. 'The arena,' Iris realized with a start. The female guard landed next to her and looped metal wires around each of her legs.
"What are those for? It's not like I'm going to jump off with these." Iris asked the guard, shifting her bound wings.
The Skywing simply ignored her and flew off with her partner.
"Hrmph, fine then, be rude," Iris complained. She surveyed the area, looking for a way out of her predicament. Three dragons to the right stood Clay, restlessly looking around the sky. A column on the other side of the ring held Tsnumai, who did not look pleased about her situation. Only one pillar held a Nightwing, so Iris assumed it was Starflight.
Directly in front of her was the edge of the pavilion. Iris cautiously reached a talon towards it, but something jerked her arm back. Her eyes followed the wire wrapped around her foot to a beige forearm. It was a Sandwing, his sullen face regarded her with uncertainty. Iris looked out at the rest of the spires.
Hundreds of wires were knotted together in a metal web. 'We're all tied together. That way, if someone falls, the rest will catch them.'
She grinned at the Sandwing, "Oh, don't worry. I don't plan on falling any time soon."
The sandy dragon sighed; his muscles relaxed slightly.
"So what are you in for?" Iris quipped, sitting down and neatly folding her wings.
The Seawing regarded her with interest, "Treason, what are you in for Rainwing?"
Iris thought for a long moment. She leaned forward slightly and stared at her neighbor with earnest eyes, "Aiding and abetting criminals."
The Sandwing rasped a dry, crinkling laugh. His head swayed back and forth. Iris noticed that the tip of one of his horns was missing.
"What?" The Rainwing challenged, "It's the truth, and throughout that whole ordeal nobody seemed to take me seriously, let alone talk to me. So why are you now?"
He turned in a tight circle and curled up into a ball, his head facing Iris. "Well, the way I see it, you might be the last dragon I get to talk to, and you're not the worst conversation."
Iris put a talon to her chest, "Well, I certainly am flattered. You're not to bad yourself." Her gaze traveled along his spine. His scales were certainly pale yellow, but there was something under that. A small tinge of orange. It looked like the early morning sky.
"What's your name?"
The comment made Iris glance up at the Sandwings black eyes. "Iris, like the flower, hence the scales," She showed off her mauve face, tilting it towards the sun. "What's yours?"
"Horizon, my name is Horizon. My mother named me, she always had a knack for naming. All of my brothers and sisters, well, six sisters and two brothers, all had the best names. There was Alkali, Sage, Blazer, Burro, Milkweed, Coyote, Jackal, and Javelina. Her name wasn't so poetic, sadly enough. It was, oh I can hardly say it, Grain! Her name was Grain! Isn't that just the absolute worst name you've ever heard?
Iris gaped, she had never heard someone talk so much in her whole life! It was... awesome.
Horizon noticed her open mouth. He ducked his head. "I'm sorry, am I talking too much again? That's what got me in trouble last time. I told General Jackrabbit, "You don't want me as a spy, I talk too much!" But he insisted, so here I am, about to get chopped to pieces again in the arena."
Iris beamed, "No it's great! I love to talk too, a bit too much as some people say, but I just can't help it. There's a river of ideas flowing around and around in brain and I just need to get them out but at home, there's nobody to talk to and just-," She cut off her own speech by letting out a loud frustrated growl and scraping the rock with her claws.
Horizon breathed a tiny plume of flame and watched it dissipate. "Yeah, it'll feel like that sometimes, but someday you'll find your place and start to feel like you belong. At least, that's what happened to me at Blaze's compound."
"Yeah?" Iris sighed, studying the wires ensnaring her arms, "Well I don't feel like I really belong anywhere right about now."