Carmillow knew she was different from other dragons. For one, she was dark purple. Not even a pretty purple, but an odd dull metallic color. Second of all, she couldn't sleep. AT ALL. During her 3 miserable years alive, not once had she ever fallen asleep. And third of all, she didn't have any special abilities like all of the other tribes had. She didn't have the fire of a mudwing, skywing, or nightwing, nor the frostbreath of an icewing, no abilities at ALL of a seawing, and no rainwing camouflage scales or venom.

Due to all of these traits, all the dragonets in her largish mudwing village teased and bullied her every day.

Carmillow was raised by her mudwing father, Catfish, a kind light brown dragon with a good sense of humor. Everyone in the village knew and liked him. She always tried to probe information out of him about her mother, her tribe, and where she disappeared to after Carmillow's hatching. Every time she tried to get information out of her father, he always firmly said;

"You're not ready yet. When the time comes, you'll find all you need to know."

He always seemed very distant whenever he said this, and then Carmillow would spend the rest of the day sulking. This was very early in her life, of course.

It was a bright sunny day! A day where nothing could possibly go wrong! For MOST dragons, of course. Unfortunately, Carmillow was not one of those dragons. As always, she was getting bullied by the local mudwing bullies. Instead of napping peacefully in mud puddles, this group of dragonets looked for Carmillow every morning, beat her up, and left.

"Stop it!" she yelped as Rain, the leader of the bullies shoved her into a puddle of mud. They knew she hated this, and therefore they did it to her every time they saw her.

"If you were a REAL mudwing, you would be thanking us for this!"Snarled squelch, a lean mudwing. He was very small, but had a surprising amount of power.

Carmillow winced. This was common treatment she got from most of the village. Like, 73 percent of the village. Even though Carmillow knew she wasn't a hybrid, she had absolutely no aspects of a mudwing, this still stung.

I wonder what would have happened if I was more of a mudwing. Would they stop bullying me then?

"Hey! We're talking to you!" Carmillow was jerked out of her thoughts as mudslide; another member of the 'let's-bully-Carmillow-society' punched her shoulder.

"OW!" Carmillow roared. She rolled into an offensive stance and started to fight back.

She immediately lashed out with her talons at the dragon in front of her while simultaneously whapping the dragon behind her with her tail. The truth was, even without special abilities like fire, Carmillow was very good at fighting. Despite this, she rarely fought back, since she didn't like fighting other dragons much.

You're weak! Her mind shouted. You should be able to fight back every time they bully you. That way, they won't bother you the next time they see you!

She winced, partly from the wounds inflicted on her from the mudwings, and partly because of the thoughts she had.

Why can't I fight back more often?

She whirled to smash one last opponent's face into a nearby tree. The remaining mudwings fled.

Carmillow sighed."Might as well go back home to get cleaned up." She started flying to her house, a large cave located on a nearby cliff. As her talons thumped down on the cave entrance, Catfish looked up from the work he was doing. He saw the guilty look on her face and said,

"Got in a fight with those rowdy mudwings again?" he asked.

Carmillow nodded, but her mind whispered, more like, slightly murderous mudwings.

"Don't worry about it, they'll lose interest in lose interest in you eventually." Said her father, as he looked through the shelves for some medicine.

Yeah, I'm sure they'll stop after doing it for 6 years. Carmillow thought bitterly.

Later, after her wounds were cleaned up, Carmillow went to her sleeping ledge, to rest her bones.

I wish I could sleep...

As she rested, an odd thought struck her.

That day, when the mudwings bullied her, she hadn't seen storm, the strongest and burliest of all the mudwings in her village. He was always eager to beat her up, and always appeared, no matter what.

I wonder where he is…..