Hey everyone! This is my first fic, and I'm still figuring this thing out. Hope you enjoy!
I do not own Wings of Fire. Wings of Fire is owned by Tui T Sutherland and Scholastic.
Chapter 1
Wind caressed Acacia's scales as she stood on the branch, streching her snout towards the sky. Her tail was elegantly poised just above the bark, curled slightly inwards towards her body like a curved leaf. Her wings stretched slowly outwards, revealing orange-tan-yellow splotches across the chartreuse membrane and tiny golden leaf patterns scattered about like autumn leaves in a storm.
It was glorious here up on the canopy, in the early morning sunlight above all the deadly plants that blocked the pale blue sky.
She wished her tribe could live somewhere safer and airier instead of in a hot, poisonous, mosquito-filled jungle. Still, it was the safest - and furthest - they could get from the HiveWings. The insectlike tribe had enslaved one tribe and driven hers to the brink of extinction, forced to live in the Poison Jungle, or as she and a few other LeafWings called it, Neverhome.
"Acacia, it's time for school!" Her dad's voice sounded from a treehouse a dozen branches below. Opening her hazel eyes, she sighed and hopped down from on top of the canopy. "Coming!"
She leapt from branch to branch, narrowly dodging a sandbox tree and swinging onto her balcony with the help of her tan-speckled tail. Acacia landed with a thump in front of her house, balancing herself before dashing through the doorway. Entering the treehouse, she could see her father, wearing a pair of spectacles stolen from a HiveWing, standing over the kitchen bench. She looked around but could not see her lime green mother. "Mum leave early for healing duty?" Acacia asked, an unsurprised look on her face. Her dad nodded.
"Mum needs to rest more. She works dawn to dusk shifts five days every week, plus dawn to noon on the break, plus tending to the house and gathering herbs. She does enough already."
Acacia's mother, Olive, worked so hard as a Senior healer. She saw almost ten patients a day, and had to gather the herbs for the other healers as well as train a new healer for three months every year.
Olive barely saw her dragonets and frequently could be found eating breakfast two hours before dawn. Acacia knew Olive loved her, though felt distant from the middle aged lime dragon.
"Don't worry, OK?" Her dad replied. "She said she'll take a few extra days off this week. Anyway, you should have breakfast. I saw you skip it yesterday."
"But-"
"No buts! You need to eat if you want to have a good first day at high school."
Her dad had been nothing but kind to her. "Ok. I'll have some grasshopper and then I'll get Birch," she said while glancing at her brother's room. "Sound good?"
"Yes." Her dad said with a smile, handing her a bowl filled with grasshopper marinated in mango juice. Acacia gladly accepted it. The delicious smell wafted to her nostrils as she sat down, polished bowl in hand, ready to eat. It'll be fine, Acacia thought to herself as she plucked a sticky, sweet-scented grasshopper from the bowl with her emerald-green talons. It's only my first day of high school. What could go wrong?