Invitation
Condor for a long while has accounted for and planned for many potential possibilities, knowing he should always be ready in this island since they're basically always one argument away from having a civil war.
And even then, never in his life he would've accounted for a princess coming in, chatting for some minutes, then inviting them to a school in the continent, that right there went beyond all of his expectations.
He met his father's gaze, normally one wouldn't imagine how much thoughts go behind their eyes, but he and his father were quite similar in that regard, and they were able to tell when the other was thinking thoroughly of something while still acting as normal.
And Vulture certainly looked interested in this proposal, same way that Condor's feeling.
Wasp was the first to talk after some moments. "What? This is completely ridiculous." she said with a hiss.
The Seawing royal looked at the former queen. "Oh? What's so ridiculous exactly?"
Wasp glared thoroughly at Anemone. "This is a very obvious ploy, do you think we're dumb? You'll just come in and take away our children to leave us with no heir, that much is clear."
Condor considered Wasp's words, he could see the logic behind that thought, but personally disagreed with it after thinking further.
Anemone had specified that they were accepted into Jade Mountain Academy, where these Dragonets that Scarlet is always complaining about, and his nephew Qibli who his father mentioned at times, work at. Well if he's still there, admittedly information on this island comes by rather slowly.
But anyway, from all that he gathered, the important dragons over there? They sound for the most part like some big goodie two talons to just go and take away dragonets. Besides… Why would they wait so long to deal with them? No, Condor already had an assumption of what this is about, so he just kept listening to see if once more, he's right.
"Are you taking us for some kidnappers now?" Anemone questioned. "No, not at all. Besides I simply said they're accepted, not that they have to go. So clearly I am not forcing them out."
"But then there would be no certainty that they would be allowed to go back," Wasp hissed at her some more, but Anemone just shrugged.
"Think whatever you might want to think. You know that if I wanted to do that, I could just say some words and do it, so the fact that I'm not doing that should say enough."
"Wasp," Darkstalker spoke in a calming tone. "I'd like to believe in Anemone, and I feel it's an excellent idea and most fair to our dragonets so they can see the outside world like we once did."
The Hivewing looked at Darkstalker for some seconds, then huffed and just looked back down and appeared to be thinking now. With these two being allies, he's one of the very few she might be willing to listen to.
"If you ask my personal opinion?" Scarlet suddenly spoke after Wasp was seemingly done. "I think this is a most thrilling idea, I'm sure that Red would enjoy the mountains of my kingdom."
And Red had just quickly nodded at her mother's words right after.
Based on the slight spite in her voice, she probably means more like… "Red would enjoy smashing some dragons of destiny into a mountain of my kingdom." Condor thought, feeling that Scarlet's intentions are so obvious with her eagerness. He saw Shadowhunter wrinkle his snout at him in an amused manner after he thought so.
"It is a tempting offer," Vulture said. "Although as you might imagine, princess, I'd need to discuss a couple of things with my son before he makes his leave."
"Samewise," Darkstalker agreed. "You caught us by surprise with this, and Shadowhunter should be able to give some proper farewells."
"Of course, that makes sense," Anemone replied, giving a nod. "I wasn't planning on literally bringing them out today, that'd be a little too sudden. So how about I come back in about 3 days so they can prepare for the academy? And to give some time for this one to think," she said, pointing at Wasp with her head, who hissed in response.
"Excellent, and if you meet with anyone out there from the old times, tell them I sent my regards and said hello, although I'm unsure if your brother or Winter would want to get my regards," the giant Nightwing said with an amused tone, and Anemone laughed a little.
"Yeaaah, probably not. Moon most likely will, though," she replied, and Darkstalker's expression turned even more cheery.
"That'd truly be great, thank you Anemone. Feel free to come visit if you ever want to, I'd love to catch up with you," Darkstalker said with a smile, making the Seawing smile lightly as well and give a nod.
"I'll consider it, until then, see you again in 3 days!"
And with that, the magic princess flared open her wings and took off in direction to the continent and eventually ended out of sight.
"Well, that was the first truly interesting thing that happened in years," Scarlet commented after the Seawing left. "Most promising as well for sure."
"Agreed in that regard, this is a mine of opportunity… For the children," Vulture spoke with a sly grin, clearly already thinking of the hundreds of ways he can take advantage of this.
"You're all fools," Wasp snapped at the other three. "You'll just trust on the ones that brought us all here in the first place?"
Scarlet snarled at Wasp and glared at her, but all the Hivewings near her, including Dauber, aimed their weapons towards the Skywing so she wouldn't try anything.
"Calm down, Wasp. This is not merely blind trust, there's a lot of ways that accepting this can benefit all of us, and benefit you," Darkstalker said assuringly. "How about you and I head over to the Hive and discuss this?"
Wasp thought for some seconds, and just silently agreed. Then she turned back and extended her many wings, the other Hivewings around her doing the same. Dauber had looked back for just a second towards her friends before she took off.
And even though he only saw her face there for a second, Condor had noticed the fear in her eyes, and he immediately assumed it was due to the thought of her mother not backing down on this so Dauber would stay here on the island while her friends went to Pyrrhia.
After the large group of insect dragons took off, Darkstalker looked at Shadowhunter. "I'll talk to her, don't worry, I will try to convince her to let your friend join too." Shadow smiled at his father after hearing that, and the large dragon smiled back. "Will most likely need a few hours, so how about you go home and inform your mother about this development?"
Shadowhunter nodded slightly, and with that the giant dragon opened his large wings then flew after Wasp.
"Red, follow me, there's just so much that you have to know before you depart," Scarlet beckoned and took off at a very fast speed and went up the mountain. Red grinned at her friends then flew near her mother.
"Well, I need to go back home now, quite the bummer really that we didn't get to do more today but oh well, see you tomorrow?" Shadow said to Condor, who gave an eager nod in return, so the Nightwing flew towards the other side of the isle.
Then the Sandwing turned towards his father, and the old dragon didn't even need to speak a word, Condor simply read his expression and already began to walk towards the mountain's entrance, Vulture walking by his side.
They continued to not talk for several minutes, business must always be held privately with zero chances of anyone secretly listening, not even father's own organization.
They reached the cave that enters their side of the mountain, years ago there were smaller ones, but they had been obstructed by the Talons of Power so one couldn't just find a backdoor into their headquarters.
They entered and this was basically the main hall. In an island where treasure is scarce, the Talons had still managed to make their place look fancy enough by other means, tapestries, carvings and paintings adorned the walls, all done with as much detail and accuracy as possible. Even Condor had already made a few of the artistic pieces adorning the hall.
They left through another opening at the side, and they walked for 10 minutes through a cavernous maze, then Vulture suddenly stopped on a completely random spot just before the halfway point of a hall, he looked around then brought his talons down to the stone ground, where there was a small hole into which he slides a claw then he pushed with it, moving away an extremely concealed trap door leading to a ladder carved onto the rock to descend further.
Condor climbed down first and his father followed after, closing the trapdoor after going through. After a minute of climbing down they had reached the vault.
Compared to any treasury anywhere in Pyrrhia, this most likely looked unimpressive. But to him? Where pretty, shiny things are rare sights after a lot of mining or finding it at the patch of sea available? Condor believed that it was enough to dwarf whatever little treasure the other leaders may possess.
His father walked further into the chamber, his talons swiftly evading several specific spots of the ground, and raised them a bit higher when going above strands of rope, so thin that it looked basically invisible. And his son followed the exact same movements until they got to the end of the room.
There didn't seem to be anything here at first sight, but Vulture just casually brought his talons down to a particular spot on the wall, and he slid a fake part, revealing a small hole.
"Here, my son," Vulture said with a smooth voice as Condor looked with great interest, being shown this secret compartment for the first time just now. "Is most likely the most useful piece of treasure in the whole island. Now it doesn't work here of course. But when you're out there on the continent? Then it will prove useful.
Vulture's talons went into the hole and pulled out a glistering round piece of obsidian, showing it to Condor.
"This is the Obsidian Mirror, an Animus touched object," his father announced, and the dragonet's interest peaked.
"You're giving me a magical artifact?" Condor questioned, rather surprised by this even happening, and Vulture smirked at the question.
"It's of literal no use to me here, but I still kept it concealed for a time where it may prove useful once more. And with my own son getting the chance to visit Pyrrhia? I cannot imagine a better time for it than now."
Condor eyed the obsidian artifact with great interest, its power must truly be that good based on what his father is saying. And it's quite true that it is completely worthless at the moment as the barrier blocks basically almost all magic.
"What does it do?" Condor asked, tapping his chin with a claw in thought.
"It's very simple: you merely have to say a dragon's name to the mirror, then breath some smoke on it, and that smoke will let you hear whatever that dragon is saying or doing, Sadly can't see, but it's still a most worth tool," his father explained, and Condor felt impressed.
"The ultimate spy tool… Oh yes this will be very useful, no figure of authority or importance would be able to prevent being spied on, so much knowledge that one can learn…" Condor closed his eyes for a moment with a nod, thinking of all the possibilities.
"That's right, before I was locked away into this island prison, I used it all the time to spy on Thorn, learning even the most private orders or codes, so I will trust that you'll be able to put it at good use as well," Vulture handed over the mirror at him, and the Sandwing dragonet carefully took it and tucked it safely into his robes.
"I don't plan to ever disappoint you, father," he replied with a confident nod, a gesture returned by Vulture.
"Good, and now… Let me share a couple of ideas and options that you could eventually try out there."