— Chapter 16 —
Sunny
Sunny seriously hoped that everything would turn out just okay today, or if possible, more than just okay, despite all the events from the previous day.
Learning that her mother is going to get into a duel to the death, which might either happen today or at most around one of these days, was not the type of news that she ever desired, and it made her sigh and think of how she hoped some things could change soon enough.
And speaking of the queen, Sunny was currently watching her training and sparring with a few of her Outclaws to prepare herself for the imminent royal challenge, all the while Sunny was constantly cheering on her.
Despite not being half as appreciative of fighting compared to most other dragons in Pyrrhia, Sunny would be lying if she said that watching her mom fight wasn't quite the sight. She'd seen it from afar already when Thorn went to rescue her from Burn's stronghold, but now she had an actual first class view.
After a rather long training session, the queen took a short break as it was now lunch time, and certainly neither fighter was going to duel in an empty stomach whenever Onyx arrived, something that Sunny agreed with, a good meal and nutrition is important, even though most disagreed with her few attempts to add vegetables to their meals.
Back at the dining hall, she saw Oracle and Qibli sitting together at the same table, with Oracle leaning down and looking closely with interest at a coconut that was placed right in front of him.
Sunny approached and leaned her head closer as well, inspecting the coconut with a hum.
"Hm! Well, this is indeed and without a shadow of doubt… A coconut!" She stated with a nod and a confident tone, making Qibli grin as he leaned closer as well, examining it with a critical eye
"Are you sure? What if it is a coconut? Or maybe it could be a coconut instead, I don't know…"
This made Oracle snort and chuckle loudly, shaking his head in amusement as he looked at the two of them.
"Never had an actual coconut before, so I was just giving it a look before trying it!" He explained with a giggle.
Oracle split the coconut after that and brought a half to his mouth to drink the water inside. He gave a small nod before then taking some of the inner white part and giving it a bite as he looked surprised.
"Oh woah, okay, here's my verdict for this coconut: Yummy," he said in a satisfied tone.
She smiled, then thought to herself a little. I truly don't know what to do with these two. First I sooo want to give them some detention or extra homework back at school for scaring all of us so badly, but on the other talon I also want to reward them for everything they've done! Ah this is just confusing.
Afterwards she got herself some food as well before heading back to the table, as she had some questions to ask to their fortune teller.
"Hey, Oracle? I have a question for you," she said after sitting down and taking a bite of some meat.
He stopped biting at the coconut for a moment to turn his head to her. "Yes? What is it?"
She leaned closer to whisper her question, Oracle's powers still being a secret to anyone else.
"Do you have any guess or estimate for when Onyx might appear? Anything you've seen?"
Oracle thought for a second before sadly shaking his head. "Sorry, if I did then I would have mentioned it, it's just really hard to know when considering everything. To tell you something, compared to what I've seen of the future, we're about… A week ahead of schedule you could say? More or less? Onyx in that timeline wouldn't enact her plan until then."
"So you're saying we might be waiting a whole week for her?" Qibli asked with interest.
"I don't know if the fighting possibly taking a week to happen makes me feel more relieved or anxious," Sunny admitted.
"But at the same time, hard to know if that'll stick? Like, I could see someone from Vulture's side warning her about the events, or maybe she's been getting updates, and not doing so may lead her to investigate?" Oracle added.
"That would make sense," Qibli instantly agreed. "Maybe we could send a trusty messenger to the academy, I'm sure all of our friends will be wondering about us. So we could tell them we're okay, and if they could check if Onyx's there."
"I'll tell my mom right away," Sunny agreed, quickly finishing her meal. "I wouldn't want to leave everyone worried for long!"
It was then settled, Sunny would quickly meet up with Thorn, who'd then proceed to send one of her Outclaws back to Jade Mountain to both share news and learn whatever might be possible.
And when she was going back once more, then she ended up walking by Smolder, who as usual had Flower on his back, so she immediately stopped to talk.
"Hey Smolder," she said, giving him a smile.
"Sunny," he acknowledged her with a nod, but looked rather distracted and distraught, and for good reason.
"Sunny!" Flower said with a wave of a paw, making her smile brightly at the scavenger for a moment, happy of having taught her name.
"How have you been faring?" She asked softly, knowing to be gentle with this topic.
"Hard to say, to be honest," Smolder admitted. "Normally, being told that you had a secret living progeny, it should feel like a good surprise. But as things are, it is actually feeling dreadful."
"Right, makes sense. Hopefully something good can come from this? Being her father, then maybe you could convince her to just stop this," she said with optimism.
"I thought about it, I just really don't know how much that could work. We've never talked for her whole life and I just learned of her existence, and if she wanted to make herself known after the war was over, she had all this time to do it," he said with a sigh.
Poor Smolder, to just be thrown these new responsibilities out of nowhere, with a daughter holding a desire for the throne.
Sunny pitied Smolder, and truly wanted to do something that could help him. But she didn't exactly have a lot to help in the matter of parenting besides obvious things like "Show love to dragonets and don't trap them in a cave," and "try to listen to what they want," things she hoped Smolder would already know.
"So for full honesty, I've been trying to make peace with the fact that there's a very real chance that the same day I see her, she'll be gone."
It might have been based on his tone, or due to his posture, but right then, Flower showed once more that scavenger intellect and walked on his back until reaching the back of his neck, bringing her little arms around the most she could while patting with her paws.
"Aww, so nice of her! I already liked her a lot, but is it bad that I do even more now?" Sunny asked after seeing that, wanting to light up the mood.
"Not at all, it's pretty much a change of dynamic," Smolder said, turning his head back to look at Flower. "After what I learned, it feels really wrong to consider her a pet now. So I am hoping that after all these years, we could be friends instead."
"Oh, Oracle is really going to enjoy hearing that," she said with a smile, with Smolder agreeing.
After that short, bittersweet conversation, Sunny still pitied Smolder. And for that, she couldn't even attempt to think too ill of Onyx despite the whole thing of her wanting to kill Sunny's mom. Instead, Sunny just felt bad for her as well.
The day passed without any news of significant events, and she could clearly see that nothing happening was putting many others on edge, and she could understand, Sunny herself felt slightly anxious too. Uneventful peace is great, but not as much when you know it's leading to something else.
So she spent parts of the day just going around and either helping or motivating anyone who looked like they might need it, other times she'd hang around her mother, who was doing almost non-stop training at the same time as following her other royal responsibilities.
And other times like right now she'd just be hanging around Oracle and Qibli again, talking about past, present and future for the most part.
"You know? Crazy to think the way events just developed lately. We went from confronting one of the most dangerous dragons in Pyrrhia and having a decisive battle at the Den, to waiting for a secret dragon who wants to be queen," Qibli commented at one point.
"I know, right?" Oracle said with some amusement. "And hm, I thought the same upon first looking over this part of the future, with Onyx just coming in to be suddenly relevant, no way to predict that one coming, eh?"
"We had some very bad luck with a few of our student choices," Sunny admitted. "Scarlet's secret accomplice, then we made a glaring mistake when pairing up two of our students, and now this. I'm sorry that neither of you even had a full normal week at the academy."
"Don't beat yourself up too hard, you know that the queen is proud of you, and so must be many others. What the academy represents is something beautiful," Qibli assured.
"Yeah! Jade Mountain Academy is one of the best things around, and if it weren't for its existence… I wouldn't have made my friends here," Oracle agreed with a smile.
That helped make Sunny feel better. That one crazy day where first a classroom exploded, and then several students stopped someone from murdering one of her friends, she had started to feel some doubts about how well thought out the idea was. So now to hear her own students talk so kindly was putting her more at ease.
Finally, the day ended with nothing happening, so she was able to just head to her room and sleep. But things would change the very next morning.
It was during breakfast, when everyone was seated while eating and wishing each other a good morning, or at least that's what she said to most dragons she came across. A guard would quickly run into the room and approach Queen Thorn, who quickly turned towards them.
The guard whispered something to her, and Sunny's mother stood up and turned towards her group with a determined expression.
"It sounds like somebody's right at our doorstep, so I say let's go meet her," she said, walking off the room.
Oh moons, right now? Okay, chin up Sunny, and just believe in your mom!
Thorn, Qibli, Oracle, Sunny, Smolder and several guards all headed over to the entrance hall of the palace, and the tension was evident, even though she was trying to not show it, because if even she was unsure, it would just make things look even more dire.
There were several guards by the door, and Thorn stepped to the front.
"Is she by herself?" She asked one of the guards, who nodded. "Then let her in."
The door to the stronghold slowly opened, and standing there in front of it, looking completely unbothered despite having multiple soldiers next to her, was Onyx.
"Thorn," she spat, not even bothering to add the title of queen. "I knew that if you were truly worth something, you would come out to hear my news about-"
"I already know," Thorn casually replied. "You, are the daughter of this one over here," she said pointing to Smolder with her tail. "And so you have the misguided goal to take the crown from me."
That made Onyx close her mouth for a moment as she basically glared daggers at Thorn after she got interrupted, and Sunny assumed it must feel like a slap for someone with such ambitions.
The guards around them looked at each other in surprise, as this would be the first time that many dragons would outright learn about it.
"So we've been actually waiting for you just to have this whole drama and crisis done with already," Thorn added.
Onyx gritted her teeth and snarled at the queen. "Oh, so sorry for making you wait. In that case I'll make sure to get what's mine by right even faster."
"I would like to see you try at the stadium, although I must warn you that with the Eye being back in action, if you wind up losing then the consequences are… Rather painful," Thorn warned.
"You should be hearing your own words, because I will not lose, for I am actually of royal blood, unlike you," she argued, raising her head in a prideful manner.
Oh Onyx, if only you knew, but if you knew, then it could spread around and it would all be chaotic here. Sunny thought, thinking of how the situation would be solved if Onyx learned she's got no "royal blood".
She looked at Qibli and Oracle, and with the way they were starting to think after Onyx said that, they might have come to the same conclusion as her.
Thorn started to walk back into the castle, beckoning Onyx to step inside too, and so she did with confident steps and only looking forward, that is until Smolder suddenly got on her path.
"Onyx, wait, can't we at least talk about this?" Smolder pleaded.
"There is absolutely nothing that we could talk about," she said, raising her snout.
"But there is, you're my daughter and yet I only recently learned you're alive, when I thought for years that your mother had been killed," Smolder argued.
"Technically you'd be right," Onyx grunted. "She's dead. A piece of that comet from months ago went through her because we had to dwell in the desert instead of living the life we deserved."
Sunny saw Onyx point to an amulet hanging from her neck, which contained a piece of some odd, black rock. Smolder looked at it for a moment then lowered his head as the news hit him.
"I'm sorry, had I just learned that you two were out there, then I would've done anything I could to ensure your safety, I never meant for this to happen."
"20 years too late," she replied, rolling her eyes. "If you seriously want to make up, start planning something for after I become queen, because right now I have no interest in chatting with an old lizard."
"Why not make up now? Why do you have to be queen so badly? Onyx, you can just stop it and live here at the palace like you wanted, with the luxuries, and no need of having to take all the responsibilities and annoyances of being in charge," he tried to argue one more time.
However, Onyx just ignored him and walked past Smolder, who could only look in defeat.
"I'm really sorry this happened," Sunny said gently as she approached.
"I wanted to hold hope, but I think it was pointless," Smolder replied before walking after them.
This is it, isn't it? Nothing else I can do? Just watch and see who lives?
Reaching the stadium felt uncomfortable to her, even though she never really saw the events of the arena back when they were all captured by the former queen of the Skywings, she'd heard enough that it made these types of structures feel unsettling, being pretty much against the type of peace she stood for.
The palace's stadium was at the very back of the building, having an oval shape and lacking a roof. With the benches being more like steps on the ground, and at the top were sturdy poles that when folded, made excellent perches.
Qibli, Oracle and Sunny quickly made their way to the seats that were closest to the arena, sitting next to each other. She was able to see Oracle's scared expression, and Qibli looked at the two combatants, almost unblinking, likely analysing everything he saw.
"She'll be okay," Sunny said, both to assure her friends, and herself.
"She has to be, I cannot imagine just… Losing her like this, so suddenly," Qibli said.
"I truly don't know the outcome, or what it could have been, and that makes me nervous, sorry," Oracle muttered.
"Don't you worry, it's fine, you don't have to know everything, nobody can," Sunny quickly replied, not wanting her nervous student to grow even more nervous.
"R-Right, thank you, Sunny," Oracle said with a small nod, and to her surprise, as he looked back to the arena, he moved his tail towards Sunny for a quick twining, so she did the same for reassurance.
Queen Thorn approached one of the extremes of the stadium, taking the Eye of Onyx off her neck and placing it in an indentation that fit it perfectly, and the moment it happened, Sunny was sure that a fickle of light went across the stone the moment the Eye was placed.
"You can't say that you haven't been warned, you ignored the warnings and insist on this idea of yours, so let's see if your bite is as strong as you hope," Thorn said, getting in a battle ready position, and so did Onyx.
"For a no-blood peasant you haven't ruined my whole kingdom at least, but it's about time I stepped up to fix everything," Onyx said smugly.
After staring down at each other for another moment, the battle began.
Onyx let out a roar and leaped at Thorn, all claws and teeth and venom. Thorn ducked and rolled aside, delivering a blow to the back of Onyx's head as she whirled by. Onyx spat furiously and slashed at Thorn's wing. She just missed, but left bleeding claw marks along Thorn's side.
Ough, a blow for a blow, but I think Onyx got a better hit, but it's fine, the battle just started. Sunny quickly thought, her eyes never leaving the battlefield.
Onyx took the offensive once more, running forward while at the same time breathing fire upon Thorn, who made a quick leap to a side while pulling her tail back before stabbing forward with it, almost hitting Onyx on the neck and she barely moved in time.
Now it was Thorn's time to take initiative, quickly weaving around and shuffling on her feet before she moved her posture and appeared to be about to leap, until she feigned it and instead made a low dive, swiping down at Onyx's forelegs and nearly making her fall while leaving some bleeding cuts on her legs.
Onyx grunted in anger and raised a foot, trying to stomp down on Thorn, but she maneuvered in such a way, dodging to the side, that while doing so she grabbed onto another one of Onyx's legs and basically forced her down to the ground with a loud thud.
The daughter of Smolder groaned and turned on the ground while Thorn was getting up at the same time. Onyx raised her tail and attempted to sting with it… And despite Thorn's quick movements, her barbed tail jabbed the queen on her shoulder.
The whole audience gasped, and Sunny saw Qibli lean forward, his talons gripping onto the ground below, and Oracle covering his mouth with eyes wide open. And meanwhile she winced at the sight, but remembered how Webs was able to hold up for days after being struck by a Sandwing, and so she was sure her mother could too.
Thorn's body shook in pain and she quickly stepped back, clutching her shoulder as that leg was moving shakily now while she huffed and took quick breaths. At the side of the stadium were a few healers ready with whatever might be needed, like the cactus used to heal Sandwing venom, so that meant she needed to win fast to get it treated soon.
Onyx smiled in a sly manner after getting such a dangerous hit on Thorn, but that quickly faded as the queen gritted her teeth and released a sudden burst of fire while still stumbling from the pain. Onyx closed her eyes while moving her head, but a bit too late as the fire got to one, making her roar in pain as she covered it with a talon and kept it closed.
Both contenders were breathing heavily for a moment, glaring at each other, Onyx with one eye doing the glaring, and then she raised her tail and with an angered bellow, she began to repeatedly try to strike Thorn with it.
The queen started to dodge backwards, the barbed tail barely missing each time, and even nearly grazing her once. And slowly, Onyx was starting to make her back closer to a wall, much to Sunny's dismay, and even if she didn't sting fully again, one of these hits worked to slash at one of her forelegs, drawing more blood and making it twitch.
But Thorn wouldn't just casually corner herself like that, her eyes constantly staring at Onyx's tail. At one point when Onyx made a lower thrust towards her neck, Thorn suddenly moved to the right and got out of the way of the stinger, which only hit the air, and before Onyx retracted it, she raised one of the talons and suddenly got a tight grip on the base of the barb.
Onyx grunted surprised and instinctively tried to pull her tail back, but Thorn was holding her tightly, and then not even a second later, the queen's own tail moved forward to strike at Onyx while she was held in place. She tried to dodge under these conditions, but Thorn's barb still went through the side of her neck, making her gasp as the tail came back out with blood coating it and more dripping from the wound.
Onyx stumbled back while Thorn pulled back from her side at the same time, and with the opposing forces she inflicted yet more damage upon her opponent… By tearing the barb off the tail tip.
She roared in pain, finally pulling her tail back, which was leaking a mix of venom and blood that made Sunny feel ill by just looking at it, and then without a second thought, her expression filled with anger, she leaped at Thorn incredibly fast and crashed, sending both rolling on the ground.
Thorn had blinded Onyx in one eye, pierced with her barb, and then ripped off Onyx's own barb, so she was outright overtaken by rage during the heat of the fight, ending above Thorn as she showed her teeth, clawing down on the queen, who fought back by trying to push her off, moving her own body as much as she could, and hitting or clawing back up.
At one point, Onyx brought her head down among all the attacking and snapped her jaws around one of Thorn's legs, who recoiled in pain as Onyx was getting retaliation and pulling at her leg while biting, as if she was ready to snap it as well.
Thorn opened her mouth, about to spit fire to get her off, but Onyx punched her on the snout and interrupted her as she kept on attacking and biting down, and Sunny was seeing for the first time her mother having a truly pained expression.
It really looked like Onyx was about to tear off leg and talons from Thorn while clawing at her face. But she made a mistake, focusing too much on what was in front of her.
She suddenly dropped Thorn's leg and let out a muffled scream as she turned her head, looking back to the barbed tail going through her stomach, her body almost falling over Thorn, who with a grunt kicked her back and off as she pulled back her tail, making Onyx fall on the ground to the side.
Queen Thorn slowly stood up, the leg that Onyx had been constantly biting onto being unusable at the moment so she did with the other 3, staring at her opponent who's gasping and struggling hard to get up but failing.
Onyx looked at her with ire and tried harder to stand up, but just fell back down barely a second later, and it's at the same time that on the far extreme, the Eye of Onyx started glowing.
"It appears… This royal challenge is over, and the Eye agrees," Thorn grunted tiredly.
Onyx's eyes widened in actual fear as she turned her head to the Animus object, trying even harder to get up as she shook her head in denial, but once more landed in a small pool of her own blood.
"But… I was supposed to be… Queen… My right…" Onyx spat weakly.
"Onyx!" Smolder called out from another side of the stadium, standing from his seat and leaning towards the arena, grasping the ground below.
"I'm sorry," Thorn muttered tiredly with honesty at Smolder.
His daughter looked back at him for just a moment, before raising her head and glaring straight to the eye, which was crackling with electricity and building up to something.
And then, with a boom that made it sound like thunder was raging from the ground itself that made everyone in the audience jump up startled, shockwaves appeared across the wall and made the structure tremble, as a lightning bolt shot straight from the eye, and reached for Onyx.
This scene was all too familiar for Sunny and basically almost everyone in the stadium, and the moment Onyx was struck by lightning, no more sounds left her mouth ever again as her scales turned black for a single second as they were charred, before they turned into dust, along the rest of her body.
A few moments later, there was no more of Onyx, but a pile of dust coating that part of the ground.
The healers immediately ran over to Thorn, starting to mend her wounds and applying cactus treatment wherever Onyx's barb got her. And meanwhile, Smolder slowly entered the arena until he was standing in front of the charred dust, lowering his head and looking at her remains with a saddened expression.
The trio of Qibli, Oracle and Sunny stayed at the Sandwing Palace for another day, considering the recent events they wanted to make sure that things remained peaceful for at least one day, and also the fact that they all wanted to help out Thorn and Smolder in whatever they could.
But nothing else happened for the day, the Sandwings had enough after seeing their most recent queen defend her throne, and no more evil plots or coups orchestrated by Vulture occurred either.
So the very next morning was time for them to depart back to the mountain, and Sunny would lie if she said that she didn't feel some sort of relief to know they'll be going back. Barely any time had passed since the academy opened and already there was so much going on. So with the situation back home being all sorted out she really wanted to go back to her friends and tell everything that happened.
And so, she made her farewells. It was a rather awkward one with Smolder, Sunny and her mom had been doing whatever they could to help him get through this, but obviously it wasn't going to be that fast or easy, and it wouldn't have made sense if it was. After that loss, she knew that he needed someone to look after him, but at the same time, he also deserved time for himself.
The trio, or rather quartet with a hidden member, made their way out of the palace's walls and flew for half an hour, heading back to the shortcut that would lead to the rainforest. It was a rather silent flight besides the occasional funny comment from Oracle regarding the temperature, or a sneeze from the same Nightwing.
They landed in front of the concealed opening, and QIbli quickly got into digging after Sunny pointed the exact spot until it was visible, but before entering, Oracle turned and looked straight to the air, turning his head.
"Hm… Pineapple? Which side are you on?"
"Over here," a disembodied voice said the exact opposite direction that Oracle was looking, making him giggle slightly.
"Oh! Well hm… So huh, before we went back to the rainforest, I wanted to ask if… Could I, hm, see you?"
Sunny noticed a short, surprised expression in Qibli's face, and she tilted her head. What was so surprising about it? Quite the timing, sure, but she wouldn't mind seeing the helpful dragon.
"Are you sure?" Pineapple asked with uncertainty in his voice. "Will it be alright for you?"
"Hey, you literally saved my life, and while I've thanked you… I want to do it right, smile directed right at you included," Oracle replied with a small nod.
There wasn't an answer for a moment, and then right next to them, Sunny saw a rather tall dragon suddenly appear by their side, and he looked absolutely incredible, with a mix of deep yellow and leaning to golden, and several hues of pink, Pineapple looked down to Oracle with a calm smile.
Much to Sunny's surprise, Oracle literally flinched momentarily, before taking a step forward, tilting his head slightly to the side, and giving Pineapple a very happy and cute looking smile.
"T-Thank you! For everything! And hm… Hopefully I meet you again when I… Eventually have to go live in the Rainforest I guess?"
"Sounds great, and then I could help you find the most relaxing or peaceful spots, I'm sure you'd enjoy a few of these," Pineapple said with a helpful tone.
Oracle nodded at this, then he appeared to be taking one step closer, before taking a step back and then clearing his throat.
"H-Hm, anyway! Let's… Go back and tell all the news," he finished.
Sunny entered the tunnel first, once more washed by the odd magical sensation, but before it truly was felt for long, Qibli suddenly called out outside.
"Oh hey! Look over there, I'm seeing an approaching shiny shape," he announced.
Sunny looked back and quickly scrambled the way she came, leaving the hole and looking up to the sky where Qibli, Oracle and Pineapple were all observing the horizon.
"Hey, it's quite sparkly here under the sun…" Oracle commented, tilting his head.
"You can bet it is, do you think it's who I think it is?" Qibli asked.
Sunny focused her gaze better on the flying shape, and she knew now what they both meant, that was clearly an Icewing, and as he descended closer to the desert's ground, she recognized Prince Winter.
Author's Note: Well, I am very well aware that this was an obvious chapter outcome, and that it was literally both Onyx's first and last talking appearance, but well... It's Onyx, she doesn't do much tbh, and her part of the book never was a whole lot in my opinion.