Overcast arrived at the eating cave behind Tsunami, Clay hot on her heels. The torchlight made the IceWing's silver scales appear shiny against the dim browns and greys of the rock caves, the faint orange glow lending her some glimmer.

Although that was nothing compared to Sunny's bright gold scales as the stunted SandWing looked up upon the three dragonets' arrival.
The SandWing's face twisted into a snarl. "RAWR!" She growled, claws threateningly outstretched towards her arriving friends; then she giggled. "That was my fierce hunting cry!" She exclaimed, letting down the facade. "Wasn't it scary?"

Overcast smiled at the friendly SandWing. "Scared me outta my scales, Sunny," the IceWing dragonet replied, brushing her cold wing against Sunny's warm one. "Did you save us some food?"

"Of course!" The gold dragonet nodded, and stood back to reveal the rest of the cave. 

Oh yes, the only good thing about growing up here... Overcast thought as she surveyed the other dragonets.
My friends.

Sunny gnawed at her lizard, noticeably small next to the other dragonets. She was the nicest of the dragonets under the mountain, excitable and, unfortunately, too trusting and kinda naive. She was surprisingly good at fighting, terrible at keeping secrets, and didn't mind the fact that Kestrel called her "defective". The dragonets didn't know why, but Sunny had green eyes instead of black like Dune's; her scales were gold in place of the tawny sand colour most SandWings sported; and worst of all, her tail ended in a completely harmless point, lacking the spiked barb that was the SandWing's most unique and dangerous weapon. Overcast personally thought Sunny was fine just the way she was... but of course the minders, mainly Kestrel, disagreed. And unfortunately for the dragonets, Kestrel was very vocal about her opinions.

"We should study some more tonight," Starflight piped up, trailing a claw down a scroll laid on four more scrolls in front of him. The prophecy's NightWing dragonet was a natural academic prodigy, much preferring to study and learn than fight and hunt. He was smart, and the most knowledgeable of the dragonets under the mountain.
Starflight was supposed to be the most powerful of the group, as his tribe was said to read minds and foretell the future; but he couldn't, at least from what the minders and dragonets had seen. Nobody understood why. Starflight himself had posed the theory that a NightWing's powers were a coming-of-age thing, and that he was simply too young.
His scales were black, allowing him to blend into the shadows. The undersides of his wings were speckled with scattered silver scales, and Overcast was certain that once the group was out of the mountain, they'd lose Starflight for sure against the identical night sky. 

"Only if I get to pick what we study!" Tsunami replied, her voice muffled through the cow she was dragging.
Tsunami was big and bossy and blue, with lots of light-up stripes along her body that glowed in the dark. She could and would fight anything, and as a SeaWing, she can see in the dark and breathe underwater. As had been said before, Tsunami was convinced she was a stolen princess – and even though nobody really knew for sure, her friends agreed it was probably her destiny to inherit the SeaWing throne one day. The moons know Tsunami already practices bossing the other dragonets around a lot. 

"We're not doing the SandWing queens again," Glory huffed as she licked her claws clean.
Glory was an odd case – the dragonets had been told over and over again the story of how she had been a last-minute replacement for the broken SkyWing egg, as there was obviously no "wings of rain" in the prophecy. Kestrel and Dune disliked Glory the most, calling her a mistake and growling at her all the time. 
As a RainWing, Glory's scales could change colours. Even Overcast had to admit that Glory was beautiful, and the IceWing dragonet knew that she read and trained harder than the other dragonets to disprove what the minders said about her. Just because Glory had to take naps after lunch didn't mean she was lazy or stupid. It wasn't fair that the guardians never gave her a chance.
But still, Overcast often caught herself wishing Glory wasn't so grumpy and bristly and sarcastic all the time, as it often just made her unpleasant to be around.

But, obviously, the dragonets were stuck with each other. Whether they liked it or not.

"The three queens again!" Tsunami exclaimed, chewing her cow. "Great idea, Glory!"

"Oh, splendid," the RainWing rolled her eyes.

"Hey, be nice, guys," Clay chimed in, his powerful jaw working in circular motions to break down the tough cow hide.
The big brown MudWing was born from a blood-red egg, which fit the instructions of the prophecy. Yet, there was something odd in his origin story, too: for some reason, when he hatched on the Brightest Night, he had attacked Tsunami's egg. Kestrel had gone to great pains to remind the dragonets of how she had to throw him in the river to get him to calm down. 
Overcast knew Kestrel wanted Clay to be as ferocious as he had been back then, but the IceWing dragonet couldn't picture him intentionally hurting someone. Clay was the big brother of the group, always looking out for his friends and mediating any fights that broke out between the others, like a true older sibling.

As Overcast went over to pick a small portion of cow hide for herself, she couldn't help but wonder what her own function in the group was. She was a good fighter, she supposed... but Tsunami was already their fearless leader. Apart from that, Overcast wasn't really sure of her own strengths and weaknesses... she didn't like learning for long periods, but knew she would jump at the chance to go hunting. She excelled at fighting and was almost as good as Tsunami when it came to training. In fact, the two swimmers often went paw-in-paw, as their unwavering confidence and fierce natures clicked them together.
So field work: hunting and fighting. But what use was field work when the dragonets were stuck inside a moonslicking mountain, forbidden from going outside?

That's what the plan is for, Overcast told herself as she picked some berries from the middle of the food pile. She exhaled a light beam of ice, freezing the tiny fruits to their cores and coating them in a layer of frost. The IceWing dragonet chewed them thoughtfully, smiling smally to herself.
You'll have your time to contribute. Just you wait.

———

"All this history is so confusing," Sunny complained. "Why can't the three sides just sit down and talk out an end to the war?"

"That would be great," Clay agreed, scratching the rocky ground beneath him. "Then we could stop studying it."

The group faced each other in the study cave, assembling in a circle. Starflight had a couple scrolls for reference on the elevated stone slab he was sitting on, looking pensive. Glory was on a similar slab next to him, looking bored.

A breath of fresh wind from the hole in the room's ceiling drifted down, far overhead – the only window that glimpsed outside from any of the caves. At night, without the distant hint of sunlight, the study cave felt colder and more crisp; hollow. Overcast stretched her neck and breathed in the darkness that had fallen on the other side, as Clay had done when he walked in. She thought it smelled like stars; a fragrance of freedom and hope.

Between the torch sconces on the wall hung a map of Pyrrhia. Tsunami, Starflight, and Overcast loved to study it, trying to figure out where their hidden cave network was located. Starflight was pretty sure they were somewhere under the Claws of the Clouds Mountains in the Sky Kingdom.
Though the mountains were in their territory, SkyWings preferred to live high among the peaks, as close to the endless expanse of liberating clouds they could get; this meant almost anything could happen in the deep caves below without notice.

Sunny was nearest to the entrance of the study cave, but still close to the others. Tsunami folded her wings from next to Sunny, and Clay was beside the SeaWing. Overcast was settled between Clay and Starflight's slab, taking quiet joy in the fact that they were acting out the story again. It was her favourite way of studying – no boring scrolls to copy, no lines to write. Just fun.

Of course, Starflight disagreed. "This is not proper studying," he protested, sorting his scrolls into triangular stacks. "Perhaps I should read to you all instead?"

"Dear moons, anything but that," Glory replied. "Maybe later, when we're trying to fall asleep?"

"No, thank you, Starflight," Overcast responded, more delicately than Glory. "This way's more fun, isn't it?"

"Shush!" Tsunami said bossily. "Pay attention; I'm assigning parts."

Overcast couldn't help but let a little smile at the familiar group dynamic that had taken place. She knew these dragonets could be annoying, and sometimes their personalities clashed, but Overcast was happy these were the dragons she'd be stuck living under a mountain with for the next few years. Moons know the IceWing would've long ago tried to drown herself had she been dealing with the three minders alongside a SeaWing more subdued than Tsunami, a RainWing less sarcastic than Glory, a MudWing more ferocious than Clay, a NightWing louder than Starflight or a SandWing more violent than Sunny.
Or worse... completely alone.

"Now, obviously I'd make the best queen," Tsunami continued, "but Sunny should play Queen Oasis, since she's a real SandWing." She bustled over and pushed Sunny into the centre of the cave.

"Well, sort of," Glory muttered.

"Hsst," Starflight flicked the RainWing with his tail.

Overcast growled at her. "Unnecessary," she warned.

Glory rolled her eyes at the two.

Nobody talked about why Sunny looked the way she did. Clay had guessed that maybe it was because she was taken from her egg too early, that perhaps SandWing eggs needed to cook in the sun-drenched sand for a certain time, or they came out "half-baked". Unfortunately, her strange physique had earned much scorn from the minders – namely, Kestrel – over the years. Dune was convinced that Sunny needed to spend more time in the sun, and held no qualms with the smallest of the dragonets reading or eating under the hole in the study cave. Kestrel, on the other wing, continuously pushed the golden dragonet to fight harder and train longer – "Without your barb, you're next to useless in a fight! You need to compensate with competent and extensive battle knowledge!"

Overcast couldn't wait for the day where she got to teach the red caribou-licker a lesson in kindness.

Tsunami clapped her talons on the cave floor, earning everyone's attention again as she studied her friends. "Clay, Overcast, do you two want to be scavengers?"

"I suppose so, if I have to," Overcast sighed melodramatically, then smiled to show she was joking.

"That's hardly fair," Starflight pointed out. "Both Clay and Overcast are bigger than Sunny, whereas realistically a scavenger would be smaller than her, according to this scroll over here." He pointed a claw to the respective scroll in his triangle stack, which none of the other dragonets cared to look at. "It says that scavengers have no wings, no scales, and no tail, and that they walk on two legs instead of four, which sounds very unstable to me. I bet they fall over all the time." 

Overcast wished she could shut her ears. Nothing could stop Starflight when he began rambling about stuff he knew. 

"They like treasure almost as much as dragons do," the NightWing went on. "The scrolls say that scavengers attack lone dragons in packs and steal –" 

"OH MY GOSH, WE KNOW," Glory yelled. 

Well, almost nothing, Overcast smirked. 

"We were all here for the very fascinating lectures about them!" The RainWing hissed. "Don't make me come over and bite you, Starflight." 

"I'd like to meet a real scavenger!" Clay declared, flapping his wings in an attempt to break the feud. "I'd rip off its head! And eat it!" He added cheerfully. "I bet it would taste nicer than the mouthfuls of feathers Kestrel keeps bringing us!" 

"Poor, hungry Clay," Sunny teased, sharing a smile with the rest of the group. 

"When we're free, we'll find a scavenger nest and eat every one of them," Tsunami promised, brushing Clay's wing with her own.

Sunny blinked, echoing her. "When we're free?" 

Oops, Overcast blanched. She saw Tsunami and Clay exchange a nervous glance.

There was a reason they didn't want Sunny to know of their ideas for escape. Back when the dragonets were too small to fly, they had crafted a plan to build a tower out of a pile of rocks to the sky hole in the study cave, just so they could stick their heads out and look around. The dragonets all knew Sunny hadn't meant to tell Dune about the rocks they were collecting – but one day she forgot to be careful, and then the next, all the acquired stones were gone from their hiding place. All their progress gone, and for that moment, their hopes of seeing the outside world anytime soon had been dashed.
That was the end of that plan... and of Sunny getting to know anything they needed to keep secret, especially from the minders.

"I mean, after we fulfil the prophecy, of course," Tsunami covered, glancing at Sunny before addressing her two friends. "Clay, Overcast, go be the scavengers. Here, these can be the claws you use."

Without any further argument, the SeaWing swung her long, powerful tail in an arc and smashed a stalagmite loose. Shards of rock flew across the cave, making the other dragonets duck. Tsunami did this a second time, seeming to enjoy herself.

Clay passed the first loose stalagmite to Overcast, then hefted the second sharp rock spear in his talons, grinning wickedly at Sunny.

"Don't actually hurt me," Sunny gulped.

"They won't!" Tsunami said. "We're just acting it out, don't worry."

Overcast mimed stabbing Clay in the neck with her own stalagmite, and he played along, faking a quiet war-cry as he crumpled to the ground in slow motion.

"The rest of us can be the princesses," Tsunami announced, addressing the other two dragonets. "I'll be Burn – the strong one, obviously. Glory can be Blister, the smart one, and Starflight can be Blaze."

Starflight shifted. "I had to be a princess last time, too," he observed. "I'm not sure I like this game." He stretched his wings and the scattered silver scales on the membranes glittered like stars in the torchlight.

"It's not a game, it's history," Tsunami said. "And if it bothers you that much, then you can swap characters with Overcast." 

The IceWing shot her head up at the mention of her name. "That would make more sense," she agreed, "since Blaze is allied with my tribe."

Starflight, seemingly satisfied with this arrangement, hopped down from his slab and took Overcast's place in front of Sunny. The IceWing passed her stalagmite to him.

"All right, go ahead," Tsunami said, hopping onto the ledge next to Glory, patting the unoccupied space on her left with her tail to beckon Overcast over. "We've had enough setbacks."

Overcast quickly took her place on the slab, then all eyes were on Sunny.

The SandWing looked hesitant. "Um." She eyed Clay and Starflight warily. "Right! Here I go. La la la, Queen Oasis of the SandWings. I'm so very important, and, uh, royal... and stuff."

Tsunami sighed long-sufferingly. Glory hid her smile, but Overcast didn't bother to do the same for hers.

"I've been queen for ages and ages," Sunny went on, getting more confident in her role. She strutted across the cave floor in an exaggerated, self-important way. "No one dares challenge me for the throne! I am the strongest SandWing queen who ever lived!" 

"Don't forget your treasure," Tsunami reminded, using her tail to gesture at the pile of rocks that had cascaded down when she knocked the stalagmites loose. 

"Oh, right," Sunny said. "It's probably because of all my treasure! And I have so much treasure because I'm such an important queen!" She swept the rocks towards her and gathered them between her paws. 

"Did someone say treasure?"  Clay bellowed, leaping out from behind a large rock formation, with Starflight following him a lot less enthusiastically. 
Sunny yelped with fright. 

"No!" Tsunami instructed. "You're not scared! You're Queen Oasis, the big bad queen of the sand dragons!" 

"R-right," Sunny stammered, regaining her courage. "Rargh! What are these tiny scavengers doing in the Kingdom of Sand? I am not afraid of tiny scavengers! I shall eat them both in one bite!" 

Glory started giggling so hard she had to lie down and cover her face with her tail. Overcast lost it too, burying her snout in the crook of her wing. Even Tsunami was making faces like she was trying not to laugh. 

"Squeak squeak squeak!" Clay swung his stalagmite in a circle. "And other annoying scavenger noises!" He shouted. "We're here to steal treasure away from a magnificent dragon!" He flared his wings and used one to pull Starflight a little closer to the circle. The latter fumbled with his stalagmite.

"Not from me, you won't," Sunny bristled. She stamped forward, spread her wings, and raised her tail threateningly. Without the venomous barb the other SandWings sported, Sunny's tail didn't come across very menacing – but no one pointed that out, of course.

Clay paused, then looked back expectantly at Starflight. He probably thought he wanted to give the NightWing dragonet some time in the spotlight.

Everyone stared expectantly at the black dragonet, who was thoughtfully turning over his stalagmite.

"Come on, Starflight!" Tsunami prompted. "Don't be a lazy –"

She caught herself just before she said "RainWing".
The minders said things like that all the time, using the name of the tribe as an insult and relating it to laziness often: "If you don't study, you're no better than a RainWing"; "Fight harder! Anyone would think you were a RainWing!"; "What's the matter? Someone replace your brain with a RainWing's?"

The dragonets knew Glory hated it, no matter how much she pretended not to care. It also seemed really unfair; Glory was the only RainWing any of them had ever met, and she studied and trained harder than anyone else.

"Er... dragon," Tsunami finished awkwardly, casting a quick glance at Glory. "Starflight, get in there."

Overcast didn't always agree with the dragonets' wittiest, but even she felt a pang of sympathy at the guarded expression on the RainWing's face.

The aforementioned NightWing sighed, shuffling forward and bringing about his stalagmite. 
Clay nodded at him, and the two advanced on Sunny. 

"Raaaah!" The MudWing shouted as he lunged forward with his rock claw. Sunny darted out of the way, and the three dragons circled each other, feinting and jabbing. 

Overcast smiled with pride from the sidelines. When Sunny forgot about acting queenly and focused on the battle, she excelled at fighting: her small size made it easy for her to duck and dodge and slip under her opponents' defences. Apparently, all of Kestrel's pushing had developed the SandWing into a surprisingly tactile adversary in a fight – but if the red minder thought any of the dragonets would thank her for that, she had another thing coming. Even though Kestrel was an absolutely irredeemable narwhal-nostril, Overcast admitted she had managed to actually do some of her job well: Sunny was excellent.

But everyone knew that in the end, Queen Oasis had to lose – that was how the story went. The two boys drove Sunny back against the cave wall and thrusted their fake claws in between her neck and wing, pretending the stalagmites had gone right through to her heart.

"Aaaaaaargh," Sunny howled. "Impossible! A queen defeated by lowly scavengers! And my treasure... oh, my lovely treasure..." She collapsed to the ground and let her wings flop lifelessly on either side of her.

"Ha ha ha!" Clay laughed triumphantly. "And squeak squeak!" 

Starflight spoke for the first time in the re-enactment as he scooped us the rocks. "The treasure is ours!" He cried, parading away with Clay, both of them lashing their tails proudly. They deposited said treasure in the sidelines and sat down, now waiting for the others to perform.

"Our turn," Tsunami grinned at the girls next to her, jumping off the ledge. She hurried over to Sunny, clasped her talons together, and cried in anguish. "Oh, no! Mother is dead! And worst of all, none of us killed her – so who should be queen now?"

"Well, I  was about to challenge her," Glory joined Tsunami down on the ground and flapped her wings dramatically. "I would've fought her to the death for the throne. I  should be queen!"

"No, I  should be queen!" Tsunami argued. "I'm the eldest and biggest, and would have challenged her first!"

Overcast huffed, tiny crystals blasting out her nose. "Nonsense!" She barked in a posh voice, flaring her light silver wings imposingly. She joined the other two, regarding them superiorly. "I  should be the SandWings' queen: as the youngest princess, I will have the longest reign!" She tilted her chin upward, faint disgust directed at her two sisters. "Also, I am by far the prettiest."

Sunny giggled, and Tsunami poked her to keep still. Clay halved the treasure rocks, sweeping his side into a pile and sitting on them.

"I should kill you both right now," Glory snarled.

"You and what army?" Tsunami shot back. "That's mighty big talk for a tumbleweed like you!"

Glory stretched her neck and bared her teeth. "That's a good idea. I'll go and get an army – an army of SeaWings. Then you'll be sorry!

"You're not the only one who can make alliances," Tsunami responded venomously. "I'll get the SkyWings on my side. And the MudWings. Then we'll see who wins this war!"

"Ha! That won't phase me," Overcast took her turn, rolling her eyes. "I'll ally myself with the IceWings!"

"Also, most of the SandWings want her to be their queen," Starflight chimed in from beside Clay.

"Really?" Sunny asked, opening her eyes. "Who says?"

"Stop talking," Tsunami said, poking her with one talon. "You're dead."

"There are plenty of recent scrolls about it," Starflight explained. "Blaze is very popular with her own tribe."

"So why can't she be queen?" Sunny enquired. "If that's who they want?"

"Because Burn is bigger and scarier and would crush her like a bug if they actually fought in claw-to-claw combat," Glory explained. "And Blister – that's me – is smarter than the both of them put together. She knew she wouldn't kill Burn in a regular duel; it was her idea to involve all the other tribes and turn the SandWing throne feud into a world war." The RainWing shrugged. "She's probably just waiting for the other two to kill each other first."

"Huh," Sunny stated. "So who do we want to be queen? We get to pick, right? When we fulfil the prophecy?"

"None of them," Starflight answered gloomily. "Blaze is overall about as smart as a concussed sheep; Blister is conniving and most likely plotting to take over the other tribes somehow; and if bloodthirsty Burn wins, she'd probably keep the war going just for fun. They're all pretty nasty."
He began sorting his half of the rock pile into odd formations, shrugging his wings. "I guess we'll just see what the Talons of Peace decide."

"The Talons of Peace don't get to decide," Tsunami flared. "They only think they're in charge of us."

"We could still hear them out," Starflight reasoned. "They only want what's best for us, not to mention all of Pyrrhia."

"Easy for you to say!" Glory snapped, the ruff around her neck turning orange. "You weren't stolen from your home. The NightWings seemed pretty eager to hand over your egg, didn't they?"

Starflight flinched as if she'd scratched him. 

Overcast narrowed her brow at the RainWing. "Calm down!"
Can't she go ten minutes without hurting someone for no reason? 

But then again, Glory's right... and so's Tsunami. The Talons will never control us.

"Boring!" Clay shouted from his pile of rocks before Glory could snipe back at the IceWing. "Stop fighting with each other! Come and fight me for this treasure instead!"

Overcast smiled, welcoming the distraction from the peace-maker of the group. The IceWing leapt at him, attempting to tackle him down from the pile.

"Nobody knows what the scavengers did with the sand dragon treasure," Starflight said in his "top-of-the-class" voice, turning away from Glory. 

Clay laughed happily as he play-fought Overcast, the two rolling around and trying to get the upper claw. Overcast flapped her sparkly wings around his head, confusing the MudWing as he batted her with his strong arms.

The others took a few steps to the side whenever the two came close to bashing into them.
"Among other things," Starflight continued, "they stole the Lazulite Dragon, the golden SandWing sceptre, the Lapis Claw, the Sapphire Crescent, and the heralded Eye of Onyx, which had been in the SandWing treasury for hundreds of years."

Glory's temper ran short.
"Shut up, Starflight!"

For a few seconds, the cave was silent, the air palpable. Even Clay and Overcast had stopped their playing.

Kestrel suddenly loomed at the entrance of the cave, seeming to have been summoned from thin air. "WHAT is going on here?" She demanded, her booming voice making all six dragonets jump to attention. Sunny slipped as she tried to scramble to her feet, and Starflight lunged forward to catch her. Clay and Overcast disentangled themselves, standing up.

The enormous red SkyWing slithered into the cave, staring down at them. "This does not look like proper studying," she hissed.

"We're s-s-s-sorry," Sunny stammered.

"No, we're not," Tsunami protested, shooting the SandWing a glare. "We were studying. We were acting out the death of the queen. The event that started the whole war?"

"You mean play-acting," Kestrel corrected, growling. "You are too old for games."

"When we were ever young enough for games?" Glory muttered, raising a fair point.

"It wasn't a game," Tsunami shrugged. "It was a different way of learning history. What's wrong with that?"

"And now you're talking back," Kestrel said. She looked smug, like she always did when Tsunami got in trouble. "That means no sleeping in the river tonight."

Tsunami scowled.
Overcast defended her friend. "You can't dictate where she sleeps!" She objected. "What're you gonna do if she does, haul her out of the water?"

"Enough!" Kestrel snapped. 

The red and silver dragons glared at each other.

The SkyWing tapped the pile of scrolls by the entrance with her claw. "The rest of you, learn from the swimmers' mistakes and study the correct way."

"But that's not fair," Clay spoke up as the red minder turned to leave. "We were all doing the same thing. We should all be punished."

Sunny and Overcast nodded, but Glory shook her head at the MudWing brother.

Kestrel stared down at Clay. "No, I know who the ringleader was. Cut off the head, and the problem goes away."

"You're going to cut off Tsunami's head?" Sunny squeaked.

Glory sighed. "It's a metaphor, featherbrain."

Overcast furrowed her brow at the RainWing for what felt like the eighth time that evening. "You're so –"

"Go to bed," Kestrel intercepted, shutting down the oncoming argument before it began. "All of you."
She turned around and swept out of the cave, knocking over Starflight's neat stacks of scrolls with her tail as she went.

Overcast hissed at the mean-spirited act, her neck spikes rattling slightly.

Clay nudged Tsunami's dark blue shoulder with his snout. "Sorry. We tried."

"I know. Thanks," Tsunami smiled, brushing her wings against his. "Hey, Sunny, would you mind taking those scrolls back to our sleeping cave?"

The small gold dragonet brightened. "Sure, I can do that!" She hurried to the entrance, gathered the scattered scrolls in her front talons, and whisked out the cave.

"I can't stand this much longer," Tsunami said as soon as the SandWing was gone. "We have to get out of here, and soon."

Clay glanced at Glory and Starflight, gaging their faces for reaction to the news. When he found no surprise wound into their expressions, he turned back to Tsunami. "You talked to them about it?" He asked, and Overcast felt a pang of guilt that it had been agreed to clue him in on their plans for insubordination lastly out of the four.

"Of course," Tsunami responded. "I needed their help figuring out an escape plan."

Starflight wrinkled his forehead. "I'm not sure we're ready," he said doubtfully. "There's so much we haven't learned yet."

"That's what the teachers want us to think!" Tsunami's blue scales shifted and clicked as she shook herself from head to tail. "But we'll never know unless we get out of these horrible caves and see the world for ourselves!"

"What about the prophecy?" Clay asked. "Shouldn't we wait two more years, until the guardians say it's time?"

"I don't see why," Glory shrugged. "I'm with Tsunami. Destiny is destiny, so whatever we do has to be right, right?"

Overcast nodded at the RainWing. "You have a good point. Besides, we don't need a bunch of old walrus teeth telling us what to do," she added. "After all, they're not in the prophecy."

The dragonets were quiet for a few seconds, thinking the words over.

Starflight still looked hesitant to agree. "When do we tell Sunny?" He asked, glancing at the cave's dark opening.

"Not until the last minute," Tsunami answered. "You know she can't keep a secret. Starflight, promise us you won't say anything to her." 

"I won't, I won't," the NightWing dragonet lifted his wings a little as if in surrender. "She's not going to like it, though. She thinks things are great here." 

"Of course she does," Tsunami sighed. "She doesn't care that we're treated like cracked eggs even though we're meant to be the key to peace or whatever."

"She cares," Starflight said defensively. "She just doesn't whine about it."

"Yowch," Glory commented.

Overcast was surprised to see the usually quiet NightWing standing up for Sunny. Go Starflight, she cheered off-handedly.

Tsunami evidently did not agree, since she whirled on him with pulsing gills. "Say that to my face."

"I did say it to your face," Starflight argued. "Or was I talking to your rear end? It's easy to get the two confused." He ducked behind Clay before Tsunami could even bare her teeth at him. 

"Hey, stop. Quit snarling at each other like mini Kestrels," Clay said, standing to keep his bulk between the two fighting dragonets. "Nobody's happy here. Sunny just deals with it differently, that's all. But remember what we decided – we six stick together or else everything gets worse, right?"

Starflight muttered to himself.

"Clay's right," Overcast said. "We can't fight now. If we work together to get out of here, we can do it."

Glory nodded, agreeing with the IceWing dragonet, to everyone's light surprise. "Yeah. And the last thing we need is to be like Kestrel or Webs or Dune."

Tsunami hissed for a moment, then shook herself. "All right, I know, I'm trying. But this place is slowly killing me."

Overcast saw Clay shiver at the fierce expression on the SeaWing's face, and the IceWing had to agree. She did not want to be the dragon standing in Tsunami's way.

"As soon as we have a plan, we go," Tsunami said, looking her friends each in the eye.
"Let's see them force our destiny on us when they can't find us anymore."