A dim dawn light flowed through a hole in the top of Amethyst's bedroom cave. She looked up at it and realized when it was. She pounced out of her bed of deer and bunny pelts and bird feathers.

"Mom! Dad! Hematite!" Amethyst shrieked. "It's summer soltice!"
She bounded out from her cave, knocking over a little Pilea cavernicola[look up, it's a real plant, I think] she was growing with a little bang as the pot hit the floor, luckily not braking.
"No!" She moaned. She'd been growing the flower for a while now, which was hard for a Crystalwing, considering they lived in underground tunnels where barely any plants grew, making them terrible gardeners, as much as they tried.

She leaned over to set it back down, wiping up the dirt on the floor.

I'll need to put some more dirt in there, I'll tell mom. Amethyst thought, examining the pot for cracks as she noticed a little sprout of a baby Pilea cavernicola.

"Hey, look! A little sprout. its rather cute." Amethyst murmured. "Ooh, I know! I'll pot it before tonight and bring it to the summer solstice celebration as a trader!"

She dug the sprout out of the soils and brought it out of her cave. She stepped on a sharp rock that would of made any other tribe go ouch!, but since she was a Crystalwing, her talon scales were strong and sturdy, meant for walking on rough rock and Crystal so she only flinched a little bit.

She trotted under the arch entrence of her cave into the main room of her home.

"Hey, mom." Amethyst looked at her beautiful aquamarine coloured mom. "I'm sssooooooo excited for tonight!"
"Yeah, I bet you are." Mom said, stroking Amethyst's head with her graceful wing.

"Why couldn't me and Hematite go to the summer solstice celebration before?"

Mom sighed. "I've told you this before. You were too young the past two years, but now that you're 3, you're valid to leave the tunnels." She shifted her tail or her talons.

"But why do they keep us inside? Why until we're 3?" Amethyst poured her with questions.

"Well-"

"Good morning Aquamarine. Good morning sweety." Dad interupted, stretching his emerald green wings as he woke up. "Wow, a little Pila sprout." He said as he noticed the small green leaves in Amethyst's talons.

"Pilea." She corrected. "And yeah. I wanna bring it as a trader to the summer solstice. Can I?" Amethyst tilted her head questioningly, her gaze inocent. So excited was she, though her near future wasn't bright.

It was mom that answered. "Of course, my gem. Now, where were we? Oh yes, right, why couldn't you leave the tunnels before. It wasn't always like this. But it's like this now because of the war. Surely they've taught you all about it?"

"Sort of..." Amethyst answered her mom. "How the Stonewings want more territory...and how sometimes they infiltrate into us using their weird statue-turning-into thing." She crunched up her snout.

"Exactly, well you see, dragonets don't learn fighting till they're 3, but you know this all." Mom pointed out. "It is in fear our dragonets won't be able to fight off enemies."

"Oh." Amethyst replied. "Ok." Then she turned away abruptly. "I'm gonna wake sis."

She sprinted through the room to the arch across from her own and sat under it.

"Hematite! Hematite!" Amethyst sang. "Its gonna be our first day out of the Tunnels!"

Hematite leaped out of her bed at her sister's words, only slightly visible by the shiny light reflecting off her obsidian black scales. Hematite was often bulied by classmates because of her unusual, for a Crystalwing, black scales, and even though Amethyst wished she could help her sister, her shyness and self consciousness never helped along with being younger then her sister and the dragonets who made fun of her sister.

A lot of dragons called Amethyst beautiful (not that she was, by Amethyst's opinion) and never understood why a beautiful Dragon would hang out near such an ugly dragon. And Amethyst's only reaction would be a simple shrug. That action frustrated her, and she hated the sheer cowardice she couldn't force out of herself.

"It is!" Hematite gasped. "After all this time! Oh my gosh!"
She ran through her cave and pushed past Amethyst. "I need a trader!" She yelped. "Hmm..."

Hematite went over to a little ledge in the rock wall of her room and rummaged through her crystal collection, picking out the rarest on she had: benitoite. Benitoite was a rare dark blue crystal that barely anyone owned. Hematite had found it tripping over it while her and Amethyst were playing tag a year ago.

"You sure you want to trade that?" Amethyst said in shock. Her sister loved her crystals.

"I mean, it's our first time out, I wanna trade something someone will for sure want." Hematite said with a wing flap of excitment.
Amethyst felt a twinge that her sister was afraid nobody would want her traders, and that was why she was trading her very favorite and rarest gem.

"Yes, but Hematite, you love that benitoite." Amethyst tried, hoping it would convince her sister.

"Mhm, but the summer solstice is bigger then one crystal I happen to like. Every one trades there, Amethyst." Hematite seemed less sure now, as she turned the crystal over in her talons, it scraped on her claws with small eeks and scrrrrs.

Well, come on." Amethyst told her, wraping her wing friendlily around her sister. Then she added with a grimace, "We still got school, even though there's the summer solstice tonight."

"Right. Okay, I won't trade my Benitoite. Hmm, let me see. I'll trade my citrine." She said, looking a big more joyful.

"Great." And if you really want it to be secial, I think I have a chain."

"Thanks sis." Hematite smiled and her black wings twitched in gratitude.

"To school!" Amethyst said with an excited tone that was hilariously fake. She lifted her talon high then instead of taking a step like it looked she was gonna she lifted into the air, her horns an inch away from the ceiling as she kept her talon in the same position.

Hematite burst into laughing. "To...school!" She said, still laughing.

The two sisters were a reck of laughing in their living room as they're parents prepared their school bags made of sewn pelts.
"What happened?!" Mom asked.

"I...we...school..." Amethyst choked out, unable to stop laughing.
Mom lifted a brow in confusion. "Hmm?"

♢♢♢

Finally Amethyst settled down after 15 minutes or so. So did Hematite as they took they're bags from they're parents.

"Thanks mom." Amethyst said in unison with Hematite.

"See you tonight, sweeties." Called dad from the dining cave. His dark blue scales glinted slightly from torchlight.

"Eeep!" Amethyst screeched. "I'm so, soooooo excited!"

"Yeah, me too." Hemetite's eyes gleamed. "Now let's get the day over already!" She trotted to the huge arched doorway into Amethyst's home shut by long drapped vines that reached the floor.

"Yeah!" Amethyst agreed right as a loud bell rang. "The 15 minute bell warning!" Amethyst sped up to get to school. In her tribe everybody went to school and work at the same time exactly, except the bell ringer of course. So there was a bell that went off 15 minutes before, 5 minutes before, and when school and worm started exactly.

"Well, then. Lets hurry." Hematite said a, little panicky.

The two rushed towards school as quick as possible, tripping and bumping into people. The weirdest one to bump into was an orangish coloured Crystalwing.

"So sorry!" Amethyst had yelped huriedly, then tried to scurry off without thinking of her consciousness, but the dragon's talon had grabbed hold of her wing.

"You can see me?" She had asked. Amethyst had given her a are you stupid? look and said, "Um, yeah. What's so weird about that? Anyway nice to meet you but I got school to attend."

She had tried to fly off again but the dragon had jumped in front of her.

"It has begun." The dragon had murmured, almost inaudible to Amethyst.

"What does that mean?" Had asked Amethyst.

Instead the dragon had mumbled, "I'm de-"

The orange adult had been cut off by Hematite. "What are you doing? We got school, no need to talk to air."

"B-but...th-the dragon-?" Amethyst had stammered.

"Hmm? We need to GO. Like NOW." Hematite had urged. "Or we'll be late."

After that they had rushed down the hall, the orange dragon forgotten as they rushed to get to their school in time.

They skidded hard in front of their school as the last bell went DING DONG, DING DONG, DING DONG.

"Few!" Hematite sighed. "Right in time!" She used her talon to wipe her forhead clear of sweat frim running. [Do dragons sweat?]

Amethyst looked up at the sign draped over a large arch studded with sapphire collums that read SAPHIRA DRAGONETS ACADEMY. Amethyst's only good friend, Jade, was galloping towards her. She accepted Hematite but never really showed much interest in her.

"Hey, girl!" Jade called out with her sweet but slightly high pitched voice that radiated pure excitment quite often.

'Hey." Amethyst responded. She flicked her tail. "Are you going to the summer solstice celebration?"

"Of course! This is the first opportunity to see the outside world! Amethyst, this is big."

"Okay, I suppose." Amethyst answered. "Well school starts now, so we'll get to our classes. Bye."

"Mhm, later!" Jade turned to cross under the arch, waving her tail goodbye.

"So, into class." Hematite groaned. Some glances seared Amethyst's scales as she scurried frightendly up to her sister.

"Um...yeah." Amethyst answered. She saw a blue dragonet look at her-or Hematite?-with disgust and quickly look away as he saw her looking back towards him.

I wonder what he's thinking...probably that I'm totally ugly and bizarre. Amethyst thought. A small part of her brain thought this though. But what is ugly an bizarre about myself?

Then the teachers started herding the dragonets into the school. They called out things like, "school! You have school." Or, "hurry! Home room in two minutes!" Or even, "well, what are you waiting for? Enter the darn school."

The dragonets rushed in, avoiding the teachers and ducking out of their ways.

A teacher came up to Amethyst, and said, "Hurry!" Making Amethyst scurry away as quick as she could.

"Amethyst! Wait up!" Jade cried out, flying to catch up to her. Hematite followed too.

Left, right, right. Left, right, right. Amethyst repeated, trying to shake her self consciousness away. It's fine, entering a class full of cruel dragonets with icy glares isn't that bad. Plus, you have to every day, and you've been okay.

"How is it you're the fastest dragonet in the world when someone talks to you?" Hematite called from behind her, panting. Her wingbeats sounded less steady and tired.

Amethyst stopped on spot. "Sorry..." she landed on the cold stone ground and tucked in her wings. Was she that a coward? Did everyone hate her because of that? When she had told this to Hematite her sister had said, "That's silly. They stay away from you because you hang out with me." Her sister's head had lowered sadly. "You really don't need to, by the way."

Amethyst had gasped. "No, silly. You're my sister. I love you."

Amethyst took a step into the classroom and lowered her head. She took a couple more steps and caught a glimpse of orange scales beside her. The orange dragon from earlier! But how? This dragon didn't know her school, surely. Except that she was here, standing right beside Amethyst.

Huriedly, she sat down behind her working boulder. Hematite went to hers and so did Jade.

"Hello, Amethyst. I'm not gonna hurt you don't worry." The dragon said as Amethyst cringed frightendly away from her, earning glances from her classmates. "I'm Citrine. I'm a-"

"Amethyst!" The teacher interupted, clicking her claws on the ground." I asked you a question."

Amethyst felt like she was facing a Stonewing. Her blood rushed in her ears and her heart was likely to burst out of her chest soon.
"Um..." Her words wavered thouroughly. "W-what was the qu-question?"

The teacher snorted and flicked her talon towards the chalkboard. "What are the Prior alliances?"

Amethyst knew this one well. It had been printed in her mind during this teacher's long boribg classes. But she didn't answer. Her lips felt sewed together. All she said was, "help." In a whisper.

The male sitting in front of Amethyst's face looked as th out he was about to burst into laughter. She spun around and headed for the exit of her class, tears in the corners of her eyes.

She heard the same guy answer her question. "Duh. Crystalwings and Firewings. Stonewings and Cloudwings."

------------A/N-----------
2092 words, not bad.
The next chapter is shorter. Also, I know. Why would I do that to my gurl Amethyst? Well, I needed to express myself and how much I hate my own self consciousness. If this sounds unrealistic to you, then, then...then apparently I'm unrealistic. Except Im real...explain to me how that works cuz I'm confused :/

-Spark