I stopped dead in front of the gaping entrance to the Academy. I took a deep breath.
Ok, you can do this. It's just taking a step. A single step. What could a step possibly do to you? Ok. Yeah. Good plan. Ignore all that bad stuff and think about why that isn't going to happen. Good brain. Nice brain. I reassured myself.
I took that step.
I was immediately greeted by new smells and sounds, it was almost completely overwhelming. I looked for at least one familiar face, but found none.
A nightwing appeared in front of me out of seemingly thin air. I nearly leapt out of my scales.
"I'm Fatespeaker!" The nightwing declared.
I gave her a tiny wave. "I'm Dreamcatcher."
Her grin widened even more, if that's possible. "Oh! Glory's dragonet! Nice to meet you. Now, let's see..."
She flipped through her clipboard rapidly until she found what she was looking for. "Aha! Pine Winglet, cave seven to the left on your right. Here's a map of the mountain and the standard-issue welcome scroll. Have fun!"
Fatespeaker receded into the shadows to scare another new student. Odd dragon.
"Pine Winglet, cave seven on the left- no, on the right. To my right or to my left?" I mumbled, straining to remember Fatespeaker's complicated directions.
I eventually stumbled upon a doorway that had my name on it, among two others. It took me five minutes to figure out those signs were even there.
I sighed in relief. The shiny stained glass fire globes hung from hooks embedded in the low ceiling. Three wooden cases for scrolls were arranged around the cave, one for each dragon.
I looked at the three sleeping spots. One, a tub of water big enough to fit both my mother and father comfortably inside. Two, a rock ledge with slim tiger furs covering the surface. Three, a green and yellow hammock woven from spider silk and leaves. I sighed. I never liked hammocks, and since I was clearly not going to sleep on rocks or in water, I was stuck with one for three more years. Maybe I could complain to Tsunami and she'd let me get a room change.
I unceremoniously dumped my scrolls into my shelf and checked the schedule set by the doorway. Small discussion groups with Tsunami. I'd meet my winglet in a couple of minutes.
I traced the patterns in the hammock with my claw. This was going to be a long year.
I got to the small discussions cave two minutes early and spread my wings out to cool off. If I looked closely, I could see sparkling silver star scales that seemed to be lazily drip-painted onto my body. The only part of me that was even remotely nightwing were my eyes, which were wide and dark green. But the rest of me was full rainwing. I had venom-filled fangs, a long and curled rainwing tail, neck frills, and elegantly twisted, color-changing horns. My body simply screamed rainwing.
The others filed into the room one by one. There was a sky-blue seawing, a large orange skywing, a dark yellow sandwing, a huge silver icewing, and a golden-brown mudwing. No nightwing. I guess I was substitute enough.
"Morning, kids!" Tsunami smiled. "So nice to finally meet you!"
The seawing groaned. "Mom, we see through your act. Shut up and stop pretending to be nice."
Tsunami glared at him. "I'm your teacher, Hurricane. You call me Tsunami or don't speak at all."
Hurricane met her glare with a lopsided smirk. "There you go. All better."
If looks could kill, Tsunami would've destroyed the world years ago. But she continued on like none of that ever happened.
"Now, I am the principal, president, headmistress, whatever you want to call it. If you have any problems with the school, I'm the one to talk to."
Some of the dragonets opened their mouths to speak, but Tsunami cut them off.
"If it's a question about room changes, I don't want to hear it. You're stuck with your clawmates for the rest of these three years, and you're going to like it. Also, no prophecies, no heroically saving the school from the darkness of dragons, and no loud music." she paused, thinking for a second. "And no fighting over girls. Got that?"
They mumbled yeses and sat silently.
"Now, introductions! I'm Tsuanmi, as you already know."
Hurricane picked up he go-around. "I'm Hurricane."
The dragon next to him, the skywing, spoke next. "Cloud."
Tsunami looked like she wanted to say something but refrained. The mudwing said his name, Dragonfly, the massive icewing was Blizzard, and the sandwing was Quicksand.
It was my turn next. I barely managed not to choke on my own spit. "Dreamcatcher."
Tsunami sighed, disappointed. "I always get the shy dragons. Why me?"
Hurricane caught my eye and rolled his own and mocked his mother. She didn't seem to notice.
I suppressed a giggle.
"Ok, how's the time for all of you to get to know each other. You'll be in groups of three. Quicksand, Dragonfly, Cloud, and Dreamcatcher, Hurricane, Blizzard. Don't kill each other, I don't want to fight your parents."
Complete silence. There wasn't even audible breathing. I curled my tail around my talons and fidgeted with my frills. I tried changing them as rapidly as possible from red to green to blue, over and over until it was just a blur of flashing colors. It flared up and down with each change. I didn't even notice the others watching me, I just let my scales do whatever they wanted while still keeping up the flashes of pigment. My claws looked like they had flames dancing over them, and my tail had deep purple and indigo swirls swimming lazily about it.
Mangrove and Fog always said I was a bit of a showoff when I did that. None of the other rainwings had the ability to move shapes around while still keeping their patterns completely intact. I could write on my scales if I really wanted to. But, they kept asking me to replicate their favorite designs and laughed with me. Mangrove was a father to me when Deathbringer wasn't there. Fog was like my sister. Orchid dropped by sometimes and took on the role of giggling mother while still being the perfect partner for Mangrove. We worked together like a family, even though none of us were related.
Someone coughed, and I lost my focus, jumping slightly. Everyone, and I mean everyone was staring at me, eyes bugging out.
I literally melted into the wall, dying of embarrassment. I was so used to doing this in the village, it never occurred to me that most of these dragons had probably never even seen a rainwing, let alone watch one color shift.
"Dreamcatcher, stop acting like Starflight. It's annoying enough for me to deal with one weirdo becoming one with the shadows."
I rearranged my scales carefully, avoiding looking at anyone. "Sorry. Just happens sometimes."
"Well, control it. Otherwise I'm going to have to lock you in the library with that nutcase and his wife."
I smiled faintly.
"Ok, ignore all of that and start talking. You, Blizzard, tell Hurricane and Dreamcatcher about your favorite food or book or color or something. Cloud, same thing."
We all reluctantly began to converse.
Both Blizzard and I stayed silent, so Hurricane took that as an invitation to speak his mind.
"So, what do you guys think about the last two prophecies? Mom says they're fake, but I don't think they could be fake if they happened as predicted, y'know what I'm saying? I mean, 'beware the darkness of dragons'? Sounds pretty Darkstalker-ish to me."
I cleared my throat. This was my time to shine. "The Dragonet Prophecy was fake. Morrowseer himself told the dragonets. What happened after our parents escaped their cave was because they made it happen. No destiny of any sort happened there, otherwise the skywing egg wouldn't have been crushed. But the Jade Mountain Prophecy, on the other talon, was a true prediction. The Jade Winglet retold how Moonwatcher said it, and she was clearly under some other force's influence, not her own. Also, nightwing and rainwing scientists proved that prophetic power is real."
The two of them blinked at me, dumbfounded.
"I guess that settles it," Blizzard muttered.
"And the nerd awakens." Hurricane rumbled dramatically. It was almost an accusation.
My cheeks flared crimson for a split second before I regained control.
We talked for around forty-five minutes, and then Tsunami said time was up and we had to go to our next class. So, everyone immediately stopped talking and lumbered out of the room. None of us were interested in speaking to anyone besides our own tribes.
I decided to skip and head to the prey center while it was empty. I didn't like eating meat in front of the other rainwings, it disgusted them.
I caught a bear and tore it to pieces in seconds, stripping skin and muscles from bone. I hunted like a nightwing.
Mastermind, the nightwing scientist father of Starflight, had always been fascinated by me. He'd obviously never encountered hybrids, and loved to invite me over to ask me things like how I ate, if I slept when rainwings did, and whatnot. I didn't really mind as long as he didn't involve any needles. Besides, he was good company when I didn't have anyone else. His jokes were stupid but funny, and he always offered food when I went over.
He asked for Fog to come over too, because she was a rainwing-seawing hybrid, but she always declined. She was always a little self-conscious about that. The only way you could ever tell she was part rainwing was by the color-shifting ability of the scales by her ears. Even then, she was careful to keep them the color of the rest of her body to make sure no one knew what she was. It could be dangerous to be a hybrid.
I curled up in one of the dark corners of the prey center, my scales a dull grey to blend in slightly with the background. Dragons hardly ever really look at dark places.
The bells rang around twenty minutes later. I'd just sat there silently, disappearing into my own world.
I startled out of my thoughtless phase when a dragon- an icewing- bent down, looked me straight in the eye, and poked my snout.
"Gah!" I exclaimed. Icewing claws were cold. I didn't like cold.
He smirked. "Nerd dragon, you missed out on Webs' sleep-inducing lesson. Hurricane wouldn't shut up about you, and unfortunately I've been declared head of communications with foreign females he finds 'cool to be around'. So, if you don't mind, I'll be taking you prisoner to shut up his worrying for five minutes."
I squinted at the icewing, trying to remember who he was. Oh, right. Blizzard, from my winglet.
I allowed him to half drag, half lead me to the icewings and seawings, who were apparently friendly with each other all of a sudden.
"So, Squid-brain, why do you want me over here, exactly?" I ask, draping my tail over some small stalagmites around us.
"Such boldness! Such granduer! The quiet dragon from the shadows is no more!" Hurricane cried out, waving his talons all over the place as if advertising something.
I wrinkled my snout at him. "What was in your water this morning, and how much of your brain has turned to mush already?"
I caught Blizzard's eye and he gave me a look that said "oh, he never had a brain in the first place.". I smiled.
He gasped. "How dare you? I'm not... mushrooooomss..."
He took his time to stand up and stumble like he really did have something strange with his food. He really was good at theatrics.
I turned to Blizzard. "How'd you two become best friends in ten minutes?"
"Our mothers love each other. I have no idea why. I mean, I didn't see Tsunami as the type to go out and look at jewelry for five hours with someone, but apparently she can make exceptions for Storm." He shrugged. "Guess she needs dragons other than the prophecy dragonets."
My eyes bugged out. "Storm? As in Duke Haze's wife, Storm?"
He curled inward, embarrassed. He looked like he wanted to become another stalagmite. "Oops."
I didn't want to pull the 'Queen Glory' card, so I just pretended to be amazed. "Oh! Sorry, I didn't know you were embarrassed by that. I get it. But jeez, two famous dragons in the same winglet..."
"Yeah, what a coincidence, right?" Hurricane laughed.
I turned back to Blizzard, and was reminded of how tall he really was. At least a head above Tsunami, and she was around twice my size.
"You're like, a mountain," I said, craning my neck to look at him. "What even..."
He smiled like he'd been told that a lot. "I dunno why. My family just has a lot of mountain-height dragons."
I flapped my wings a bit to reach his face. I felt like a button next to him. I imagined that and cackled.
He wrinkled his snout. "What?"
I could barely say anything through the stupidity. "A-" I missed a beat and fall on my tail. "A butt-"
"A butt? What the-"
"A button!" I have no idea why I found that so funny. It was just hilarious seeing myself round and flat, with tiny wings sprouting from the center of my back.
Hurricane began to shake with silent laughter as well. Tearing up, he said; "Dreamcatcher- the- the spikes- the spikes!"
That made me laugh more. I was tearing up then. "The tail!"
Blizzard just sat there, bewildered, watching us hold our wings and clutch our talons to try and stop the laughing. Eventually, we got ahold of ourselves and repressed the giggles. Hurricane clapped me on the back, tears in his eyes. "Okay, promise me you won't make a joke ever again. I think I just blew an artery."
"I break all my promises, but sure."
Blizzard sighed. "I think my sense of humor has been burned to ashes."
"Same," I said.