I do not own Wings of Fire.

Chapter 4

A long drawn out scream was replaced with a sickening thud, followed by the sound of breaking bones as the dragon fell to the ground. She had only a moment to sympathize with him before she too felt her impact, and the world shattered around her, loud and shrill noises filling her ears.

Cerulean woke from the dream, jerked awake with a suddenness that had woken her up five times that night. She was relieved to see the golden sun poking its way up from the horizon, painting rays across the purple sky and illuminating the silent sea in shimmering colors. Having been locked away for her whole time by the Summer Palace, she'd never been out early enough to see the radiant dawn of a new morning, and, she thought, though the sunrise was breathtaking, it hardly compared to the beauty of the three moons last night.

Still, she headed over to the window of her room, a grand glass pane that stretched way above Cerulean's head until it joined with the ceiling a good distance above, and pushing past the transparent lace curtains, she watched the sun come up.

Her eyes still felt heavy with sleep; it had been a rough night, and her dreams had spoken of nothing but darkness. Which was very odd, because up until the moment she'd been taken away from her family, nothing of any remote interest had ever happened to her, neither good nor bad. She just wasn't important enough for anything remarkable to ever happen to. She was the dragon who was supposed to just watch things happen to other, more important dragons, like her sisters or her friends (few though they might've been) or her brother. Definitely not her.

When the royal carriage had drawn up to their abode in the SeaWing village, and Orca had announced the need for an heir, her sisters had squabbled over who would get to go with their queen, about who was the best, about who was the most worthy for the crown, blah, blah, blah, PRETENTIOUS SOUNDING ARGUMENTS. Nobody had even looked at Cerulean, sitting quietly in the corner and wishing with all her heart that she could be someone else, somewhere else, someone who could actually be something.

"Your youngest daughter," Orca had cut across the arguing of her other female relatives as she spoke decisively to a starstruck Delta and Fin. The two had exchanged looks, and then Delta had spoken up for the both of them.

"You mean Cerulean?" she'd asked, shooting a glance at the purple dragonet in the corner, quietly humming to herself, desperate to block out the surrounding world.

At these words the sisters had immediately hushed, sending baleful glances at their youngest.

"You can't mean her, surely!" Bayou, the eldest of them all, had exclaimed. "Cerulean's absolutely useless! She can hardly say more than three words without stuttering. She'd be lousy at ruling an entire kingdom. Besides, she can't even go to the Deep Palace! She hasn't got any gills!"

But Orca had been firm, something both Cerulean was grateful and ungrateful for. If Orca had relented, then perhaps it would be Bayou learning all about being queen, and Cerulean would still be in the village, attempting to make friends and fail her way through school, watching from a distance as the other dragonets played games she couldn't. But Orca, obviously, had not given up.

"Your youngest, I said," she'd repeated as if Delta, Fin, and all the others were stupid. "Your youngest will be the next queen, when the time comes."

And no matter how Bayou and the other sisters had protested, no matter how Delta and Fin had tried to convince Cerulean not to go - that she wasn't old enough, she was only four, they'd miss her terribly, what about school? - she'd gone anyway. Because something interesting had finally happened to her, and Cerulean was determined to take that chance, even if she didn't think she could ever be a good queen. Even if the idea of Queen Cerulean was absolutely absurd.

A gentle knock brought Cerulean back from her memories. She turned away from the sunset, where the sun had risen a good bit above the horizon, now sitting like molten lava on the sea. Down on the sandy beach below, where Cerulean could see dragons moving about, fronds swayed in a light sea breeze, and seagulls moved about in flocks, pecking at the ground, occasionally taking flight to the sky and seeming to vanish into the sun.

Chrysocolla entered, her blue-green scales catching the light from the sun rays beaming in through the window. A smile graced her snout as she bustled over to Cerulean's unoccupied bed, quickly and expertly making the bed up in neat movements.

"Good morning, Your Majesty," she said as she did this.

"You can just call me Cerulean, please," the purple dragonet replied. It was still very strange hearing others refer to her as 'Your Majesty' as very few dragons had actually done so in her brief visit.

"I'll call you what they've told me to call you," Chrysocolla answered, and then her smile seemed to morph into a smirk as she added, "Your Majesty."

Cerulean didn't know what to say, so she said nothing.

"I'm sorry," Chrysocolla said after a moment, as she smoothed down the blanket of the bed. "That was rather rude of me, wasn't it? You're the queen's heir, so what you say I must obey. I apologize, again. I have a tendency to be a bit formal around dragons who, well, I either don't know very well, or who rank higher than I do, if you know what I mean. And I also have a wicked sense of humor. At least in my opinion."

"It's okay," Cerulean assured the maid. "Thanks," she added, nodding at the now neatly made-up bed.

"It's my job. You don't have to thank me," the blue-green maid replied, but as she turned away from Cerulean, she had a small smile on her snout. "Ready for breakfast, then?"

"Yes please," Cerulean replied. She blinked the last remnants of sleep from her eyes, and stretched her tail and limbs, flapping her wings once to release some of the tension in them.

"All right, then," Chrysocolla said decidedly. "Let's go." She walked to the doors of the bedroom and threw them open with a dramatic flair. "After you!"

The castle was only just waking up as the pair of them traipsed down the halls to the dining hall.

"You can expect it to be crowded," Chrysocolla warned Cerulean. "All the royals - and nobles - are feasting down there right about now. It'll be your first time with all of them in the same room! But don't worry, I'm sure Her Highness will tell you anything you need to know. Good luck learning the names of all your brothers, though."

"Are you and Archipelago friends?" Cerulean asked.

Chrysocolla laughed. "Three moons, I'm not sure if that's the word that describes us."

"Then what word would?"

The maid looked thoughtful a moment. "More like...acquaintances. Very good acquaintances. I'd say it would be rather difficult to be his friend, given the whole thing back about two years ago, with - oh, although I suppose the queen hasn't told you yet?"

"What thing two years ago?" Cerulean inquired. Her interest peaked. There was much more to Archipelago than what she first thought.

The queen wants me to stay away from him, she thought. She claims he's trouble, but the only incident of misbehavior - or, I suppose, the only thing that I know he's done that's terrible - is when he killed his twin in the egg. But surely that's not enough for Queen Orca to forbid me from talking to him? There must be something more to his history - and this must be it.

"Please tell me," Cerulean requested of the maid in what she hoped was an intimidating voice.

Chrysocolla got a suddenly nervous look on her face. "Well, I'm not really the one to be telling you that."

"As the princess, I command - " Cerulean began, her voice wobbling. She wanted to know the truth, but somehow she got the feeling that by telling her, Chrysocolla could find herself in trouble, and as the maid had been kind (unlike mostly everyone) she didn't want to see her suffer.

"No, no." The blue-green maid shook her head. "No you don't. Don't play that card on me. I'm not telling you. If the queen hasn't informed you of Archipelago's escapades yet, than I certainly can't talk to you about them. So, shut up now, with all due respect, Your Majesty, and brace yourself for meeting a whole lot of dragons."

She pushed open the doors to the dining hall.

Chrysocolla was right about one thing.

There were a whole lot of dragons at breakfast.

But as for meeting a whole lot of them...well, maybe five or six counted as a lot? But not really.

Queen Orca beamed when she saw Cerulean enter the dining hall, immediately gesturing for her to sit in a seat immediately to the queen's right. Orca sat at the head of a long table, filled to bursting with blue and green dragons, eating as if there was no tomorrow. An array of dishes, baring food similar to the stuff Cerulean had eaten last night, was on the table, and plates with colorful foods were passed around, dragons speaking and smiling as they ate.

A muted hush had fallen over the group of eating dragons as Chrysocolla pulled out the chair and pushed it back in after Cerulean had taken her seat. The purple dragonet had never felt so awkward before, with eyes boring into her scales, causing them to prick uncomfortably. She wished that she was a RainWing right then, so that she could camouflage her scales and disappear so that the others felt like they were staring at empty air. Or maybe a SkyWing, because then she could spread her large wings and take flight to the sky and disappear forever.

Orca gestured grandly to Cerulean. "My subject," she said, sounding regal and certain like a queen should be, "I'm pleased to introduce you to your next queen. Please say hello to Princess Cerulean."

Nobody said hello.

Most dragons just gaped at her before returning to their meals as if trying to forget anything of importance had actually happened. Some shot her frightened glances, their eyes darting to the necklace and the bracelet Cerulean wore, and then to her talons as if they expected her to do something. Then, gazes averted, they too returned to their food. A few dragons even glared hostilely at the new SeaWing princess, the guard Lake among them. But underneath their hatred, Cerulean, when she glanced hastily at their eyes, was a wariness.

Why does no one seem to like me? she wondered, not for he first time, but then she tried to turn her mind to other thoughts.

Like the dragons sitting nearest her.

To her right, there was Orca, who was not talking to anybody, but merely eating her breakfast daintily and holding her cup of drink in front of her snout in a rather thoughtful manner, observing everyone with her unreadable blue gaze over the rim of her goblet.

To her left was a dragonet who, she figured, was only a bit older than herself, navy blue with silvery blue underscales and oddly colored eyes; one was the same color as his underscales, but the other was dark green. His snout reminded of Orca. He must be one of the eleven princes.

She shot a quick glance around at the eating dragons. There was no sign of Archipelago.

The other prince, sitting on her left, shot her a sideways look. She realized she was staring at him again and hastily took a bite of shrimp from her plate.

"Hello," the prince spoke.

Cerulean choked in surprise at hearing his voice. Other than that brief sideways glance, she hadn't expected him to otherwise acknowledge her.

He laughed. "Hmm, I didn't know I was that scary!" he joked. "It's super cool to finally meet you. Like, I've heard so much about the supposed princess who's going to be the next queen because all my sisters keep dying, but I've never actually seen you. It's hard to believe you're real."

She jerked away from him when he attempted to poke her wing.

"Okay, you're pretty jumpy," he commented, taking a bite of his meal. "I was just trying to make sure you were real and everything. You are though, right?"

"I-I'm real," Cerulean managed, feeling nervous. A few other dragons were looking at her, and she felt pressurized by the heat of their gazes.

"That's good," the prince said, smiling cheekily. "I'm real too. Real awesome." He winked at her.

"Stop flirting with your sister, Spindrift," snapped a voice from across the table. Cerulean turned to see an older dragoness, perhaps fourteen or so years of age, with sapphire blue scales glittering with emerald and purple undertones.

"She's not my sister, though," the prince, Spindrift, said in an almost whiny tone. "And I wasn't flirting, I was saying hello. There's a difference but you just can't tell." He turned his attention back to Cerulean, a smile lighting up his snout again. "Sorry about her. That's Tetra. She's like our evil aunt or something. Actually," he looked back at the scowling older SeaWing, "are you our aunt? What even is your relation to me?"

Tetra scowled deeper. "Haha, very funny, Spindrift. Now eat your breakfast. You and I and several of your other brothers are going out on a hunting expedition after this."

"No..." groaned Spindrift. "Save me, princess!"

But conversation lapsed into silence as he ate his food, taking to glaring at Tetra, who glared right back at him.

Cerulean ate a few more bites of shrimp, letting her attention wander. There were many, many dragons sitting and eating, most of whom she didn't recognize at all. Now that she'd been here for a little while, most of the attention that had previously been on her had evaporated, and dragons had returned to their own conversations and meals.

She still didn't see Archipelago, but over by the door, she saw Eddy standing guard along with another dragonet she knew by name but had otherwise no other information about, Wave.

Wave, a dark blue dragonet with pale turquoise wings, was a bit unusual too, in the sense that she, like Eddy, was a bit young to be a full guard. Two years older than he and Cerulean, she was an imposing figure and it was often difficult to remember that she was only a dragonet. Cerulean didn't know much else about Wave.

"Do hurry up and eat, Cerulean," came Orca's voice. She set down her goblet gently onto the table. "We've got other things to do and not a lot of time. I'm thinking we'll look over the history of animus dragons after breakfast. How does that sound?"

"Okay," the purple dragonet replied.

"It sounds so boring." Cerulean jumped when Spindrift whispered these words to her under his breath, which smelled like tuna.

"You sound boring," Tetra shot across the table. "You think everything's boring."

"I take offense to that!" Spindrift said loudly. "I, for one, don't think I'm boring at all. I'm the opposite of boring. You, on the other hand, Tetra, or whatever your name is, are the most boring thing in all of Pyrrhia. You're so boring you don't even know that you are boring, which just makes you all the more boring. You aren't even married, you don't even have any dragonets, nobody really knows how you're related to the royal family, and you've got seaweed stuck in between your teeth."

"Excuse me, no I don't!" Tetra yelped, attracting the attention of Orca, who'd already been watching with amusement, and several other dragons nearby. She covered her mouth with her talons, leaping up from the table. Her parting words were, "Hunting patrol's still on, and you can expect that I'll expect even more from you than usual, Spindrift. And I'm your second-cousin once removed!"

She fled the dining hall.

Spindrift shot Cerulean a careless look. "Touchy Tetra."

Orca, too, had risen from the table, but in a more majestic manner. As she stood, she attracted the attention of all; they fell into a respectful silence.

"Cerulean, my dear," the queen said once silence had fallen completely, "I'll be in the library. I'm assuming you remember where that is? If not, have Eddy and Wave escort you there."

"I could take her," Spindrift suggested, and then fell into an uncharacteristically nervous silence at the intimidating look his mother sent him.

"I'll see you shortly," Orca finished, and then she swept from the dining hall.

A few moments after her tail had vanished from the door, the hall fell back into chatter.

"I can take you," Spindrift said.

"I'm sure you could," Cerulean replied, swallowing down her nervousness. All those dragons - they were so respectful and polite when Orca stood up! They care so much for their queen...will they every look at me like that? Will I ever be what Orca will be to them?

She didn't think so.

"I'm SO FULL," Spindrift announced. "But if I stop eating then breakfast will be over and then I have to GO ON A STUPID HUNTING PATROL WITH TOUCHY TETRA WHO'S MY SECOND COUSIN HOWEVER MANY TIMES REMOVED AND I HATE KILLING THINGS AND IT'S GOING TO BE SUPER BORING BLAH."

"I'm sorry?" Cerulean tried.

"It's okay, it's not your fault," Spindrift said, seeming to deflate slightly. "Are you sure I can't help you find your way to the library? It'll kill some time and maybe the hunting party will go without me. Although, I'm pretty sure Tetra's determined to take me with her, so maybe not, but still, please?"

"I know where the library is," Cerulean said, and felt bad when she saw the crestfallen look that filled his face. I bet Spindrift knows where Archipelago went. And also about that incident that happened two years ago. "But you could do something else. Your brother, Archipelago?"

A guarded look shifted onto the prince's snout.

That's weird, Cerulean thought. Even his own brothers are cautious when discussing him. Whatever he did must be really bad...

"Yes, what about him?" Spindrift asked. "If you're going to ask about that thing two years back, forget about it. We all want to forget about it, so you should want to too." His formerly eager and bubbly attitude had vanished. Now his voice was cold and almost...frightened?

"I wasn't," Cerulean lied. "I met him yesterday. He seemed awfully nice. I was wondering why he wasn't here at breakfast today."

"Oh." Spindrift's face relaxed. "He had morning lessons with Angelfish. He's probably done by now, but he normally skips breakfast anyway."

"I see," Cerulean said. "Could you take me to him? Um, we talked quite a bit yesterday, and we found out we have a lot in common, and um, we both really like...CORAL REEFS, and he said that he had a scroll on them that he'd let me borrow..."

A frown appeared on Spindrift's snout. "He likes coral reefs? That's weird. I didn't know that. I don't know if he'd like to be disturbed right now, but I have pretty much all the same scrolls he has, so I could give you mine instead."

"No, no," Cerulean protested. "Take me to him, please. That's an order."

Spindrift smirked at her. "It doesn't work like that. I'm a prince. You can't just order me around like some maid."

Chrysocolla appeared. "And I suppose you can just order me around? Because I'm just some maid?"

The prince's expression changed to one of repentance. "Oh no, Chrysocolla. But Miss Bossy Princess thinks I am."

"Hm," was all the other dragon said as she cleared away several empty plates.

Cerulean had never felt more miserable in her life. Okay, that was a lie. There was that time when Bayou had stepped "accidentally" onto Slimy, Cerulean's pet snail. Or that time when Cerulean had forgotten all her homework, or when she'd dropped all her scrolls on the floor in front of her class, or when...

The list went on and on.

Once Chrysocolla had disappeared with the plates, Spindrift leaned towards Cerulean. "I'll take you to find Archipelago," he said, "but I'm telling you, you shouldn't spend much too much time around him."

I wish you would tell me why, Cerulean thought despairingly. "Let's go," she said out loud, feeling the most confident she had in a while.

"Just a warning," he said, and then his snout broke into another grin.

Author's Note: This chapter was a little less exciting than all the others, so I apologize if this was a bit boring to read...but I felt like it was necessary, not only to introduce three new OC's (by the way, thank you Pancake Unicorn, Jaysong, xXSilverdreamXx, and jade wolf334!) but also because it sort of sets up Archipelago's...shall we say, shady history. If all goes according to the plan I have in my head, this might be a part of future dramatic-ness. So stick with me, please and thank you!

Hmm, what else must I say? I'm thinking that Part One will go to Chapter 8, and then Part Two to Chapter 16 maybe. Both of these things aren't for a little while, though.

Lastly, I still would like OC's! Mostly for the ten brothers, but also for various members of the Royal family/dragons living in the palace. Please and thank you!

Also, thank you to all my readers and reviewers! I appreciate you all so much, and it makes my day when people leave reviews (I also tend to update faster...haha). But thank you guys sooooooooooooooo infinitely much for reading!

Pancake Unicorn: Thank you for being so supportive of my writing! It really means a lot. I'm glad you enjoyed the prologue, and I do definitely agree that it's a lot more exciting to see another installment of the story, so that you can find out more! And I'm glad you like Archipelago and Chrysocolla, who is jadewolf334's OC and really fun to write for. Both will be in this story in the future. Also, definitely more will be revealed regarding Archipelago's last but I obviously can't say what! The screaming is just part of Cerulean's dreams, which you'll also find out more of. Thanks again for your support and for reading!

jadewolf334: Thank you so much for all of your support and comments. Receiving reviews from you is like getting Christmas presents! It's really good to know that you like how Chrysocolla's character is turning out. I tried to add some sarcasm for her but I'm not sure how that turned out. It's really fun writing for her and I'm thinking she'll be pretty involved in the plot. That's a very interesting theory you have there, but I can't tell you if you're right or not...;). Your welcome, and thanks for your review! I'm really glad you liked the moon scene. I was going for something really descriptive because...reasons. Thank you for the compliment! You are an amazing author too and I'm looking forward to reading the next chapter of your fanfic! Thanks so much for reading!

Jaysong: First off, I love that name! Super unique and cool. Secondly, thank you so much for taking time to write up a review with your OC Spindrift! And it's okay that there were so many. With guest reviews it's a bit weird, but it means a lot to me that you took time to make sure you got your request through! I really enjoyed writing for Spindrift's character, and I'm thinking that I'll use him in future chapters! I hope you liked what I wrote for him! And thank you for the compliment. Thanks for reading!

xXSilverdreamXx: I know there wasn't a lot of Wave in this chapter, but there'll be more of her in future chapters, I can promise you that. Thank you so much for leaving a review and an OC for me to use. Much appreciated! And thank you for the compliment! It really means a lot, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Thanks for reading!