Warning, blood and gore in this chapter. Song for this chapter is "Disposable heroes" be Metallica. Nothing new, just new chapter.
The group woke up next morning and immediately started working on their way to leave the delta. It wasn't a very long trip with the delta just being a kingdom sized mix of small swamps and rivers, with lots of cat-tails, and other plant life. The delta feeds both the water to the Mud Kingdom, but it also gives water to the Rain Kingdom, thus the reason why both kingdoms have such wet and humid climates.
With the dragonets still unused to how everything looks, they were all quite enthralled with how beautiful everything looks. The vast marshes, and not very wide, but never-ending streams that went every way you would look. It was quite a sight. It was even more enjoyable with all the wildlife they saw on the way. All the wading birds and birds that were feeding on the mudflats.
Either way though, it didn't take them more than an hour to cross the delta. It didn't take long to see signs of the Mud Kingdom, with them coming across more and more swamp type environments.
"I think we just crossed the Mud Kingdom border." Starflight yelled out to the group.
"Anybody know the exact location of the kingdom?" Sunny asked, looking every way she could.
"Not sure, look for any movement you see, we can ask somebody where it is." Clay said.
"Hey guys, I see smoke up ahead!" Peril said, pointing to the horizon.
"Let's go, might be the kingdom!" Clay said, starting to go a little faster.
It was not the kingdom... it was a full-on scale battle. Icewings and Mudwings were ramming into each other, trying to rip each other's throats out. Fire and ice breath was everywhere, but there were no casualties... yet.
"Peril! Get in there and stop the Icewings from killing anybody!" Clay ordered her, "I'll stop the Mudwings!"
Clay and Peril dove right down, headfirst into a group of dragons. Clay covered one of his claws in rocks and hit both a Icewing and a Mudwing in the head, knocking them silly. "Stop this fight now, its OVER!"
"And who are you to order us around?" a big female Icewing said, coming forwards in front of the group of Icewings.
"Look...what is this fight even going to get you, hell… how did you even get here, the Ice kingdom is on the complete opposite side of the kingdom, there is no way this battle here is even remotely helpful to you!" Clay started yelling. "The only reason you are even here is to kill!"
The female Icewing looked at him not impressed, "And I ask you again, who are you to order me, Princess Icicle… what to do?"
Clay just snorted in amusement, "My name is Clay! Dragonet of destiny, and I don't care if you were the queen herself!"
This made Icicle snarl, "How DARE you! I will kill you myself!". She was about to jump at Clay, but a Mudwing jumped at her. Icicle grabbed the Mudwing by the throat and slammed the Mudwing into the ground. Icicle raised her claws getting ready to slash the throat out of the female Mudwing.
"No!" Clay and another Mudwing yelled, trying to get to Icicle before she could kill the Mudwing on the ground. It was to late, the Mudwing's throat had been slashed and she was starting to choke on her own blood.
Clay slammed a claw into the ground, a pillar shot out of the ground and slammed right into Icicles head, knocking her out cold.
Clay looked at the rest of the Icewings, "Leave now, and I just might spare your princess!"
"Retreat, the princess is down!" one of the Icewings yelled turning around and fleeing.
"Uggg…" Clay turned around and looked sadly at a group of Mudwings all surrounding the Dragon that got her throat clawed out, they were all weeping.
Clay had an idea, "Sunny, get over here QUICKLY!"
Sunny sprinted over to him, saw what he was looking at and ran straight for the Mudwing that had her life seeping through her throat.
"Move, she needs medical attention right NOW!" Sunny yelled, butting her way into the group.
"leave, cant you see she is dying!" the biggest of the group of Mudwing said, trying to push Sunny away.
Sunny just punched the Mudwing, dazing and surprising him with her strange strength for such a small dragon.
Sunny put her claws on the choking dragon, and the scales on her claws started to glow, stunning the rest of the Mudwings. The veins in the neck started stitching back together in her neck, then the scales, eventually there was no blood seeping through the wound… then there was no wound, just lighter collared scales in place of the lethal wound.
Sunny sighed,"She is fine now, she is still in shock from the pain that was caused, but she will live… should wake up in just a couple minutes."
"Wha-what do you mean she will live, she just had her throat slashed, nobody lives from that, not even the best doctors in the world could do such a thing!?" a dark collared Mudwing said.
"Well congratulations, she is the first." Sunny said, slumping just a little bit. It was more taxing to use her powers when the person she heals is pretty much on the brink of death. But, it was worth it.
The Mudwings tackled her into a hug. "Thank you, Who are you, How did you do that, Why did you do that, we don't even know you"
Sunny couldn't here everything they were saying in the flurry of voices. The Mudwings eventually got of her. "But no seriously, who are you?" the biggest Mudwing asked her.
"My name is Sunny!" Sunny said with a smile on her face, "Dragonet of Destiny"
Clay walked up to the group, "I have a few questions, why were they attacking you, like I said earlier, they have no reason to attack so far out from the Icekindom!
The biggest Mudwing walked up to the front of the group and sighed, "We have no idea, we were just doing are daily patrol around the border, and they just came out of nowhere."
Clay nodded, "Last question, me and my friends are trying to get into the Mud kingdom, need to see Queen Moorhen, can you lead me there?"
the Mudwing nodded, "Yea, its the least I could do for you guys saving us, just please wait a minute for my sister to wake up."
"Sure!" Clay said nodding.
Clay walked over to his group, "Any of you have a clue to why the Icewings attacked the Mud kingdom?"
"I mean... they are enemies, but an attack that surely took them almost a month to get here seems like a pretty... stupid plan" Starflight muttered that last part.
"Ya, isn't there front at the Sand Kingdom!" Tsunami quipped.
"It doesn't make any sense." Peril said thinking, "I mean, I can understand attacking like, an important encampment deep in, but this is the actual kingdom, that small of a force wouldn't stand a chance."
Everybody just looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders in bewilderment.
The Mudwing started to move a little bit, "gruhh, what the heck happened to me?"
The biggest Mudwing started to pick her up, "It's ok Crane, your fine now."
"Reed, what happened to me?" Crane asked, now standing up, but weakly.
"We will talk about it later…" Reed said, still trying to hold her up, "Do you think you can make it home."
"Maybe…" She said, stretching her wings. "We will stop as many times as you need, Ok?" Reed said caring.
Crane just nodded at that. Reed looked to Clay and the group, we are leaving now, I also need to go see the queen and report this" Reed looked at the rest of the Dragonets, "You guys might want to stay here, until we tell the queen about you, you know… dragons that we are currently at war, walking right into the middle of a Kingdom and all…"
Everybody just smiled at him and just nodded.
"Lets go!" Reed said, starting into the air, "Everybody we are leaving, Crane your up front, tell us if you need to stop!"
Along the trip, Crane only had to stop once, Crane said she didn't know what was going on, but ever since she woke up, she was slowly starting to have more and more energy. Bye the time they left the group, she said that she felt like nothing ever happened.
You could tell that the Mudwings were definitely a more simple tribe bye looking at all of there homes, and bye looking at what there queen staid in. out of all three tribes, her palace was the smallest, and made only out of mud that had been hardened and painted.
"You know… I never got your name?" Reed asked Clay, the palace in sight. Even though it was a simple palace it was still beautiful, with where it was placed. It was placed in a wetland that had hundreds of wild flowers all around it.
Clay smiled at him, "My name is Clay, yours?". Reed smiled back, "Reed, that was Crane that you and your friend saved, she is my sister, actually all of them was my sibs."
Clay smiled at that, happy to save a family member. He would hate it if he lost any of his. He did know about Mudwing culture, and how they weren't raised by the parents, but by the oldest brother. The oldest was called the bigwings, he was actually the bigwings to his adopted brother and sisters. He was happy that Webs taught him that, I mean… could you imagine if he didn't, he would know practically none of his culture.
They made it to the front gate of the palace, and there was two guards in front of the palace door.
"Stop, what are you here fore?" one of the guards asked the group.
"We were attacked by Icewings at the border, and Clay here is a Dragonet of destiny, he is seeking an audience with her." Reed said very seriously.
The guard that asked, opened the door and let him in. The guard led them through the pace, pass a bunch of rooms and he opened the door to the throne room, the were three other dragons all surrounding Queen Moorhen. She was colored pretty similar to clay, with the same collar pallet as him, but there was one difference… She was HUGE! Moorhen was almost five times as big as Clay.
Clay wasn't worried though. From what he heard, she was the kindest and most caring queen in Pyrrhia in his opinion. The queen's brothers and sister were almost as big as she was, still easily towering over him.
Clay bowed to her, "Your majesty, it is an honor to finally meet you."
"You may rise, young Mudwing." The queen said in a voice that Clay wasn't prepared to hear how soft it was, Clay stood back up. "May I please have your name, I don't recognize you?"
"My name is Clay… I am a Dragonet of Destiny." Clay said proudly. This made the queen's eyes grow in surprise. Clay cut her off before she could say anything, "I feel like you should get Reed's report first, its pretty important."
The queen nodded and looked to Reed, "if I remember correctly, you and your squad was put on patrol duty, is there something wrong?"
"Yes your majesty, there was… But Clay here stopped anything from happening." Reed paused before continuing, "Me and my sibs were going by the crevice by the delta, and we were ambushed by a group of Icewings… If Clay hadn't shown up, my sister would be dead." Reed finished.
The queen thrashed her tail in anger, "I will up the patrols, you and your sibs can have the week off to recover, you are dismissed."
"Thank you my queen!" Reed said, before walking out the door to the throne room.
The queen looked down at Clay, "Now, I believe we have something to talk about?"
Clay nodded, "Yes your majesty, first I would like to ask you if me and my group of friends could stay in the kingdom for about a week… without telling Burn of corse?"
The queen nodded, "Sure, when you go to leave, come back with your friends and I will set you up somewhere."
Clay smiled at that, "Thank you, and what about Burn?"
The queen smiled back, "Trust me, me and Burn don't get along." The queen finished frowning.
"That has another thing I wanted to ask you about," Clay paused before continuing, "Why did you join the war?"
The queen and her sibling looked at each other thinking, they nodded to her. The queen looked back to Clay, "I haven't told anybody this yet, but we were forced to join."
"What do you mean, you were forced?" Clay asked bewildered by what she said.
The queen sighed, "Burn threatened us, that if we wouldn't join her… she would annihilate our tribe after she won the war."
Now Clay was upset, "And you believed her…" Clay whispered back.
"That is no way to talk to the Queen!" One of Moorhens sibling yelled at Clay, standing up from where he was sitting at.
"Its fine, he has a right, and it was my fault." Moorhen said, trying to calm her brother down. "It was my fault, I was young at the time, and our tribe wasn't doing good at the time, just got through a disease outbreak… Piratically killed off a third of our tribe."
Clay could understand that. That is the reason the Mudwing tribe was the smallest tribe out of all of them. It was a disease that had happened years ago, before he was even born. It was some new disease that swept through the Mudwing tribe like fire… there was no stopping it, it went through family's without mercy.
Clay snapped out of his thought, remembering his last question. "One last question, do you know who my sibs our?" Clay paused, remembering the name of his mother. "My mom, her name is Cattail?"
The queen hummed, thinking, "I do not know for sure who your sibs are, but I do know Cattail lives closer to the Delta, ask around there for her, and she should know where your siblings are."
Clay nodded, "Thank you, may I leave now?"
"You may." The queen nodded back.
And that's a wrap for this chapter. Crane lives, we get to meet Moorhen, and we get to watch Icecicle get thrashed, just now realized we left Icicle there didn't we now, ahh well... I will deal with her next chapter. Anyways, have a nice day!