1582 words

~~~~~

Three years later

The orange- eyed dragon entered the kingdom of the sky for the first time in three years.

The light drizzle cooled the air a little and sent a shiver chasing through his red scales. There was a huge crowd forming in the airspace above the dungeons. His curiosity got the best of him and he wriggled his way into the group of dragons.

There was heat radiating from a boulder somewhere to his right. On the boulder were a SkyWing dragonet about who was about 1 and an older SkyWing with copper colored scales. The rain sizzled and hissed as it hit her scales.

Peril, he thought with alarm, as he caught a glimpse of her electric blue eyes. She was going to burn the dragonet.

Surprisingly, Peril kept her distance and tried to take up as little space as possible.

In the center of the arena, a dragon with a scarred face was sneering at the dragon in front of her.

That's Scarlet, he realized in horrified fascination. Which means...The second dragon had red scales, a long neck, and blood running down her body. There was a slash along her neck and another one on her back. She was failing the battle miserably, and everyone around him knew it.

On the boulder, he saw a big burly SkyWing speaking tersely with Peril. She took a threatening step towards him and he backed off, quieting down.

He watched as Peril frantically scanned the battling dragons for something, but he wasn't sure what.

Peril's eyes lit up with realization and she flew down to the fight.

Quickly and efficiently, she crushed a small ruby pendant dangling from Ruby's ear.

What happened next was something out of a fantasy scroll.

Ruby's scales faded to a dark orange. Her snout elongated and her horns curved slightly inwards.

He gasped. But... that's impossible! Tourmaline died a long time ago!

Or maybe she didn't. No one actually saw her dead body.

Ruby- Tourmaline- whoever she was, Scarlet, and Peril exchanges a few words and suddenly, Tourmaline attacked. Peril flew back to her boulder and spoke with the SkyWing sitting there.

In the battle, Tourmaline was obviously winning. There was no way that Scarlet would win.

"For the SkyWings!" Tourmaline shouted. And then she snapped Scarlet's neck.

The crowd erupted in cheers for Ruby/Tourmaline.

Back on the boulder, Peril was happily conversing with a SeaWing dragonet (why was he even here?)

The dragonet piped up and said that how he was the one who saved the day, and not Peril.

Odd. From the few times he saw Peril, she was quiet, irritable, and did not really make friends. At all. Now, she had an entire group of friends around her. Except maybe that big SkyWing.

Tourmaline ran over to the boulder with Peril, the SeaWing, and the small dragonet.

"Cliff! CLIFF! Did you see that? Mommy won!"

"You don't look like my mommy. I want mommy back!"

Tourmaline winced and turned to Peril. "Do you know how I can fix it? Can you tell me how I can be Ruby again?"

"You don't want to be Tourmaline anymore?"

"I'm Ruby. Ruby is the queen and she is Cliff's mother. Besides, I've been Ruby for so long that I can't even fathom being Tourmaline again."

"All right. This is the dragon you're looking for."

~~~~~

The day Prince Cliff of the SkyWings was born was the best day of Princess Ruby's life. She could remember every detail of the day in perfect clarity, even now, almost a year later.

Ruby had resigned from the army when she found out she was with egg. She guarded her egg day and night, rarely venturing out for more than the occasional flight to stretch her wings. And one year later, her egg hatched.

That night, Ruby was having trouble falling asleep. Her maternal instincts were screaming at her "IT'S TIME! THE EGG WILL HATCH TONIGHT!" She didn't believe them though. The egg was sitting in the corner of her room, milky white and smooth as ever. It did move, as all eggs did, but there was not a single crack or hole in the unblemished surface. It was simply sitting in the corner.

Until something did.

The egg wobbled a little bit and a long crack split down the front of the egg. It tipped over and nearly fell over. Ruby vaulted over to the egg and gingerly braced it against her wing. All of a sudden, it shattered into a million ivory pieces, and out tumbled a tiny red dragonet.

Ruby held her breath in awe. The dragonet's scales were the same shade of red as hers. They shimmered in the moonlight coming from the window. His underbelly was light red, almost pink. He unfurled his tiny wings and immediately lost his balance and fell over. Looking confused and hurt, he turned towards Ruby. That was when she first saw his eyes.

They were the same golden-orange color as his father's eyes.

That day was the only day that she allowed herself to cry since she realized Ember was gone.

The dragonet wobbled over to her and placed his head on her talon, as if he were comforting her.

Ruby smiled and picked up the dragonet- her son.

"You're right, little one. No more tears. Now, it's just you and me, sweetheart. You and me against the world. I will protect you forever, Cliff."

~~~~~

Ember realized that what happened next would be for friends and family only.

So he made the second stupidest decision of his life.

He went to see his sister.

Crimson wasn't exactly a dragon anyone would call "sweet-tempered." She was crazy and loved to smack him every time he did something she didn't approve of. But she was also a comforting dragon surrounded with a maternal air around her. She was a great listener and would always be there for you if you needed a shoulder to cry on or an ear to scream in.

However, this time, she was not a kind, motherly dragon.

Before he knew what was going on, the door flew open and he was dragged inside.

She shook him by his shoulders. "WHAT is WRONG with you?"

She checked him for injuries. "Are you okay?"

She shook him again. "NEVER EVER do that EVER AGAIN. EVER."

She hugged him. "What happened?"

Before he could respond, she began talking again. "Do you KNOW how much I worried once you disappeared WITHOUT A SINGLE WORD? I. AM. YOUR. SISTER. YOU CRAZY LOVABLE IDIOTIC TOAD FACE."

He laughed and kissed her forehead. "I love you so much, Crim."

"Oh no. You're not getting away with any of this 'I missed you and I love you and I'm emotionally manipulating you business,' mister."

But Ember could tell she was already softening up towards him.

"Stop giving me that face. I'm not forgiving you yet. Tell me what happened."

"Um... can this wait until later?"

"You're not moving from this spot without telling me EVERYTHING."

"Oh," he said, concerned for his well-being. Scarlet was gone, but Crim could be just as violent.

"Sooooooo... Ruby and I kinda fell in love and Scarlet caught us together one time and then I ran away even though Ruby told me not to do anything stupid but I did it anyway because it seemed smart at the time and now Ruby has a son who's probably my son and he doesn't even know his father and probably hates me already and also, Ruby probably hates me too because I ran away from her and the son I didn't know I had until about half an hour ago and also Ruby is actually Tourmaline, did you know that? And Peril is good now and was totally against Scarlet in the arena and also I hate Vermilion with a burning passion."

Crim stood there, paralyzed, with her jaw hanging and her eyes bulging.

"You did tell me to tell you everything..." he said sheepishly.

~~~~~

Ruby did NOT expect a life changing thing to happen on the day she killed her mother.

Well, no. That was clearly a lie. But she wasn't really expecting much more than that to happen.

She definitely wasn't expecting for herself to turn into her lost sister. She wasn't expecting to find out that her entire existence was a lie.

And then it turned out that her son didn't really know either of his parents. His father ran away to protect them and his mother is apparently actually his aunt. Who is his mother.

Poor Cliff. He had the weirdest family ever. It hurt her head just to think about it.

Ruby thought about Ember often. She thought about him every time she saw Cliff. He might have had her scales (Ruby's scales, not Tourmaline's), but he looked so much like his father that it hurt to look at him sometimes. She was devastated that he didn't even get to witness his son's milestones. Ember would have loved to do normal dad-things with Cliff. Teaching him how to fly, listening to his songs even if they permanently deaf afterwards, stuff like that.

But of course, Ember wasn't here, so Ruby usually shut down her melancholy until she could properly mope in private. And Ruby had been getting better at that. Her feelings became less and less strong as she slowly came to terms with it. Ember would never meet his son, and Cliff would never meet his father.

So Ruby gave Cliff all the love and time that he needed. Between her queenly duties, she played with him, sang with him, and built a strong connection that couldn't be severed by anyone.

Ruby lived for her son. She would do anything to protect her spirited little dragonet. She loved him with all her heart, and there was no room for anyone else.

That was also a lie.