Smoke.

Screams.

Sulfur.

Venom woke , opening her eyes to clouds of soot and fire billowing around her. She felt her own warm blood trickle down her chest and stomach. Sharp pinpricks of pain were alight where shrapnel and rock had pierced her skin.

She blinked, swallowing hard. Her throat was dry as desert bones. Her limbs numb with pain. She couldn't feel her wings at all.

But a flash of green shone out through the smoke. Green scales, clouding over with sickly yellow and dark red. Were those RainWing colors, or blood? She couldn't tell.

Capuchin moved his head, turning his eyes to her. Venom willed her arms to drag herself closer to him. She collapsed, her face no more than a foot away from his.

"Ha." He smiled weakly. Capuchin pointed with one talon, his last talon, at her wings. "We match."

"You're an idiot." She spat.

"I did what I had to do."

"What about Singsong? You have to help her rebuild the rainforest kingdom. Remember?"

Capuchin drew in a ragged, shallow breath. One that he knew would be among his last. "This is how I could help. He had to die."

"But you don't have to."

"Take a look at me, Venom." Capuchin said. Tears welled in his eyes and tore bright trails through the soot on his cheeks. "A lame dragon is useless as a dead one."

Venom sniffed, holding back tears of her own. Everything hurt. It hurt so badly. "Not to her. Not to me."

"Then let me be useful one last time." He held out his talon. His last talon stained in his blood. "Give me your wrist."

She did. Capuchin held Venom's wrist tenderly, looking over the studded bracer. The leather was frayed, and it was holding onto her by a thread.

"Enchant this dragon.." he said to himself. "So that her form is no longer controlled by her bracelet."

"Capuchin. Wait-"

"Make her whole. A whole SandWing, and heal her wounds." He finished, and took another shallow breath. Exhausted, his hand dropped away from here, taking with it the bracelet around Venom's wrist.

They both clattered to the floor.

"My final gift." He gasped. Capuchin's body was fading away behind him. First his stomach, up to his chest, then to what was left of his torn arm. Soon he was only left his face.

"Use it wisely."

Venom's vision was clouded with tears as the last of the RainWing faded away. Her wounds closed on their own. Her wings grew back their missing membranes. Her legs grew stronger. She lunged forward, throwing herself around the place where Capuchin had laid.

Something stuck out and jabbed her in the collarbone.

A little wire bird. A thin leather cord tied through its loops.

Venom felt it's shape poke into her palm as she closed her talon around it. She let the pendant's chord drop around her neck, and the bird bounced against her scales. Her scales.

The fire and smoke surrounded Venom. She couldn't tell where she was. The quiet around her was eerier than any nightmare she'd had before. It choked.

But she spread her wings, beat back the smoke, and charged through the wreckage. She took to the sky, and flew above where the smoke clouds could reach her.

Half of the SkyWing palace was gone, reduced to rubble. But it wasn't all empty. She hovered just above the edge of the arena. And all around her, dragons flew in silence. They were beaten, bruised, bloody. But alive. And not a scavenger was in sight.

She couldn't hear the trill of their propellers, the rumble of their tanks' treads. It was quiet. It was normal.

They had won.

"Excuse me!" She shouted to a passing SeaWing. He stopped and hovered in the air.
"Where is everyone?"

Tiredly, the SeaWing rubbed his eyes, and pointed over the edge of the mountain. Far below was a cluster of stretched leather tents, painted with red crosses. "Medics took who didnt go home. We won."

Venom dipped her wings and dove for the camp.

"Ash! Ash!" She shouted. "Has anyone seen a SkyWing?" Venom asked passersby, hobbling on crutches and wrapped in bandages.

"Plenty of SkyWings." A NightWing replied curtly.

"He's pale. Has a gold earrings?"

The NightWing shook his head. "Better luck in the Intensive Care. Lots of mangled ones in there. If you can recognize him, that is."

"Thanks." Venom trotted through the seas of injured dragons to a tent marked with more crosses than the others.

Several dragons inside were laid out on the floor, draped in white sheets. It reeked of death and medicine mingling. A RainWing the color of vomit turned her head to Venom.

"More casualties?" She asked.

Venom shook her head. "No, looking for Ash. Pale SkyWing. Gold Earring."

"Oh! One of the Possibilities? He's in here somewhere."

A weak voice coughed from the far end of the tent. "Ven..om.."

"Ash!" Venom leaped over the dragons on the floor and paced to Ash's bedside. He was missing an ear, that whole half of his face really, and a couple toes on two talons. But his earring was clipped to his other ear.

"You're alive. The bomb.." he whispered hoarsely.

"Capuchin. He, saved me."

Venom clasped her talons gingerly around Ash's.

"Your armband? What happened?"

"He's gone, Ash. I'm sorry."

Ash leaned his head back and sighed, closing his eyes. "And you're still a dragon."

"I am."

"Good. He did what he needed.. to.."

Venom pressed Ash's talons back into his chest. "You're gonna be okay."

"I know.. we.. won."

"Get some rest, alright?"

Ash nodded.

Venom let him be, and Ash fell asleep with a ghost of a smile on his face. She turned to the RainWing, expectantly.

"His vitals are fine. He was top priority. Are you injured anywhere?"

"No, I'm alright. Tell me when he's better, please?"

The RainWing smiled. "Of course! Go get something to eat."

"Thanks. I'm starved." Venom tiptoed her way out of the tent. A weight lifted off her heart as she felt the little wire bird bump against her collarbone.