Chapter 17
Lydia woke up feeling warm, wrapped in soft blankets that felt like clouds pressed up against her scales. She felt pillows laid out around her like a nest, blocking her in on all sides like a newly hatched dragonet who needed a high-walled nest to make sure they didn't roll out of it in their sleep without the watchful eyes of their parents. The air around her was quiet, only soft noises that hardly registered within her tired mind as they went in and out of her ears. The little NightWing's rest had been dreamless, the world seemingly allowing the young princess a nights rest without the repeating nightmares and the visits with Rattlesnake, or just weird dreams that made no sense.
For the first time in days, she felt rested, but yet, she still felt oh so tired. While her mind felt fuzzy, like it was full of cotton or fluffy clouds and cozy, her body felt heavy and drained like she'd been sucked dry by a mosquito from the swamps. The wings resting upon her back felt like weighted blankets, her tail feeling like a log and her arms feeling full of lead.
As she began to wake up more and more with the slowly passing moments, soft voices began to fill her ears. They were quiet, hushed, soft whispers. Lydia could barely hear them, her sleepy, cotton filled mind hardly even registering that those were other dragons speaking and not just her mind trying to lull her back to sleep.
"-bad habit...-"
"I do not....-..."
"You do-...-..abbit of picking up....-..dragonets."
Lydia's closed eyes screwed tightly together, her mind trying to pull her back into the timeless world of dreamless sleep and allow her body to continue its rest. Her arms and wings felt too heavy anyways, the blankets around her warming her scales. But as she tried to allow herself to be pulled back to sleep by the soft feeling all around her, she saw flashes behind her eyes that made her eyes shoot open.
A green shimmering SilkWing with large blue wings and glittering eyes to match, a concentrating look across his face. She felt a wave of fear washing over her, but it wasn't her own. "Morpho," that wasn't her voice, "what have you done?" they sounded horrified, scared. "You went back to the hives, didn't you?"
The other SilkWing, Morpho, looked back with his blue eyes narrowed. He didn't say anything, but his silence spoke louder than his words could ever. "Why would you go back? Morpho, we're safe here, we're FREE here, why-!?"
"Doesn't this seem wrong to you?" the other SilkWing asked, cutting off whoever's eye's Lydia was seeing through. His large blue wings twitched under the moonlight that broke through the lush canopy above them. "These weird dragons who say they're from across the sea? The LeafWing's suddenly coming back from the dead and having us all stay in this jungle that wants to eat us? At least in the hives things were stable, familiar! You knew what to expect! And our queen protected us, kept us safe."
"That HiveWing is not our queen-" Morpho snapped around toward Lydia, his antenne curling threateningly above his head like the barbed tail of a SandWing, he said something, but Lydia couldn't hear it.
Then Lydia saw the sea, stretched out for miles on either side. Huge group of dragons were all flying together, and whoever Lydia was, was flying with them. With Morpho by her side, the green SilkWing stared up ahead with hostile eyes, towards a slender orange dragon who was leading them. Lydia could see her reflection in the water, she was a SilkWing too, one with scales as dark as crushed lavender petals with pickles of dark blues and greens within her wings. This SilkWing, he looked to be close to Morpho's age, if not a little younger.
When she looked back up, her eyes caught something from within Morpho's talons: small berries the colour of the night sky, shades of shimmering purples and blues.
"Farfalla," Morpho's voice brought the purple SilkWing's attention back up towards his face. Morpho was smiling, a soft smile that made their heart swell inside of their chest, torn in two from mixed emotions. "I-"
That's when Lydia's eyes shot open, sucking in a panicked breath through her teeth. The name of that dragon was racing through her mind, almost waking her up instantly from her cozy sleep. Farfalla, Farfalla, Farfalla, Farfalla. Her heart was thumping heavily within her chest, making her ribs tickle and her body feel even nummer than before, pounding loudly within her ears. She didn't know what to think, aside from that this SilkWing, Farfalla, seemed to know Morpho.
"....-...go check on them..-"
The little NightWing could hear someone coming as her eyes began to focus from their blurry, half asleep state, taking in her surroundings. She was in a room made of woven sticks and logs. There was a large, square window behind her that let in large amounts of warm sunlight that seemed to warm up the soft, off white silky blankets wrapped plentifully around her. Underneath them, there were the shapes of pillows surrounding her, making a cozy nest. There was a carved table with legs made of long, thin branches woven together with something that looked between a mix of rope and something white that shimmered like there were tiny stars on top of it when the sunlight touched it.
The floor was a light tan colour with small, dark rings throughout its surface. It almost looked like the inside of a tree, when the inside was exposed after it had broken or been torn down.
Where....where was she?
Before she could think any more about it, the door in front of her opened, revealing a slender green dragon with long horns. The dragon was one Lydia had never seen before. She had long, smooth horns that curled inwards closer to their points, a long snout with a bump on the end that looked like a horn but also wasn't a horn. The scales running along the sides of their neck were splotchy, clumping together in certain areas along the neck close to their collar bones. Running along their spine was webbing, like a SeaWing's fins, but the fin rays being round and over all a lot thicker than what she was told a SeaWing's looked like. Her scales were a soft green colour, her speckling scales slightly lighter than her main body, the ones running along her spine like a SkyWing's were a darker, richer green.
Then Lydia saw her wings. They looked like leaves. Veins ran throughout the leafy looking appendages, like real leaves. She stared at them in awe from where she was hudded within the nest, her head lowered close to the blankets and pillows as her wide, scarlet red eyes stared at them with a dragonet-like sense of curiosity.
"Hello," The dragon's voice was soft, a mere whisper as if she were talking to a scared scavenger who would run away at a moment's notice as soon as she grew too loud. "You look a lot better."
I look a lot better? What did I look like before? She blinked as her eyes looked up to meet the others' warm and soothing yellow eyes. One thing Lydia instantly noticed about the other's eyes, was that their right eye was darker in comparison to their left, their right eye almost looking orange with speckles of brown and golden yellows around its pupil.
Lydia, while on the run from the village after Landslide's attack, hadn't really taken the time to clean herself off. With all of the stress and being constantly on the move, she'd hardly even taken care of herself. Not eating, hardly drinking, restless sleep plagued with nightmares and visits from Rattlesnake and other seemingly dead dragons. She felt like a shiny jewel left on a mountain top, glowing in a way that said "COME GET ME!" even when she wanted to be alone.
When the little NightWing didn't say anything, the other dragon's eyes have a saddened look, but her smile didn't disappear as she began to lower herself in the doorway, getting closer to Lydia's height. Lydia was a little bit small for her age, this dragon had to be two or three heads taller than her, yet they looked fully grown. "What's your name?" She tried, but Lydia kept quiet, her voice feeling lodged in her throat as she stared down the other dragon across from her, not moving an inch from where she was curled up in the nest of blankets.
Lydia just felt....scared. She'd been scared before, but she was hardly getting a break from this constant fear, and it seemed as though her body was finally freezing up. After a few moments of silence, that's when Lydia finally realized that this dragon was a LeafWing, one of the three tribes that came from Pantala, the tribe who's queen wasn't sharing any more information with the Pyrrhian tribes and had gone silent across the sea.
"I can give you mine first, little one." the LeafWing suggested softly, tilting her head and giving Lydia a soft, warm smile that made Lydia's shoulders relax and stop tensing up and hunching. "My name is Pachira. Do you know what it means?"
The NightWing princess shook her head, hardly even realizing she was even doing it.
"It's a kind of tree, one from old stories. It would grow these long, hard fruits that on the inside were these slime covered seeds." The LeafWing, Pachira, told her, sitting back on her haunches to hold up her talons, using them to help her describe the odd fruit's shape. "The seeds were bitter and earthy, but tasted good. The slime on the inside, which we call a pulp. It's all sugary and sweet, like the honey from a beehive."
Lydia had never had honey before, but from Fatefinder, she knew most dragons found it relatively sweet with a strange aftertaste that lingered in the back of their throats.
"There used to be tons of them back on Pantala, but when the forests began to disappear, we had to grow our own to make sure they didn't disappear too." Pachira had an accent, Lydia realized as her ears slowly perked up to listen more closely as her tight grip on the blankets began to soften its assault. It was said that the Pantalan tribes had accents, their voices rising for certain words and overall just sounding lighter.
"There are some here, on Pyrrhia. I've actually got a small pachira growing in a pot. If you'd like to, we could go see it? I bet it would love a visit."
Lydia wanted to nod her head and go see this weird plant that Pachira was named after, but a nervous tug in the back of her mind made her stay put, rooting herself back down into the blankets. Pachira didn't get angry, instead, she waited patiently, a kind look in her eyes. The moments ticked by slowly, neither of them saying anything as the birds chittered and sang outside, filling as much of the silence as they could.
"Lydia."
Pachira's ears perked up, blinking at Lydia with a light "hm?"
"Lydia," she again, a little louder than before as she gripped the blankets nervously. "My...my name." Somewhere in the corners of her mind, she wanted to say my name is Swiftrunner, but she didn't. The young NightWing was the only heir to the rightful NightWing royal family: Princess Lydia, the daughter of Queen Animosity and King Charming. Maybe if she had been raised by Quickstrike, she would be the Swiftrunner he had missed dearly, the daughter he'd been looking for, for years.
But I'm no Swift, I'm not Swiftrunner, She told herself as she looked back up to meet Pachira's soft and warm smile that seemed to brighten at Lydia's voice.
"Lydia," Pachira said softly, trying out the name. "It's a beautiful name," she complimented with a shift from her wings. "Does it have a meaning?" She remembered what Quickstrike had said, telling her what the name Lydia meant, along with her father, Charming.
"A Beautiful name for a beautiful daughter." Charming would always tell her while hugging her close, his few bioluminescent scales from his half SeaWing father, glowing softly. While Quickstrike told her "it means beautiful one, but others say it means dark one." after he heard Moonglobe call her Lydia, not Swift or Swiftrunner.
She felt the words get stuck in the back of her throat, only breaking free once she swallowed to clear it. "It has...two meanings," she started, her voice quiet. Lydia swore she could hear her mother telling her to stay quiet, to not openly talk with dragons from other tribes, but Lydia couldn't help it, she just felt so lonely, and Pachia looked like she genuinely wanted to help her. "I think."
Pachira's soft smile never wavered, but it did close and was now just her lips pulled back into a welcoming smile, as she nodded her head slowly in silent encouragement to the NightWing dragonet who still laid in the nest of blankets.
"It means beautiful one," she paused. "And dark one."
Pachira blinked, letting out a light hearted huff through her nose. The LeafWing nodded her head towards Lydia again, standing up and moving a little closer, now only an arms length away from the edge of the blanket nest. "How old are you, Lydia?"
"Five."
The LeafWing blinked, a faraway look crossing through her dual coloured eyes before she shook her head with a sadded smile, trying to cover it up with a soft and warm look. Had she said something wrong? Did she upset Pachira? "You remind me a lot of someone I used to know," Pachira started, as she settled herself down to lay beside the least of blankets, her leaf-like wings resting upright and half bent, not laying down along her sides. "She was so small then, but grew as fast as weeds. She was your age too."
With the way she was talking, Lydia had a feeling that this dragonet wasn't around anymore.
Pachira looked up from where she had been staring down at her palms, meeting Lydia's ruby coloured eyes with her dual brown, orange and yellow ones. "You have her eyes, her voice too."
"Who was she?" Lydia found herself asking, lifting up her head from where it had been lowered, between her talons that had loosened their grip on the soft folds of the blanket nest. She didn't feel as scared of Pachira anymore, but the nervousness still lingered like a looming mist before rain would fall from the sky.
"She was a dragonet who had come from across the sea with her friends. We found them first before one of my sons found her. She was so scared and ready to set the whole jungle on fire, but I managed to calm her down. She was such a little spitfire, ready for anything and would charge into danger head on with the bravery of a bison."
A dragonet who had come across the sea, with her friends...
"My son Thorn, he adored her dearly. As a friend, but he loved her too. But because the hives had found her first, she saw us differently than her friends-." Pachira had the look of a mother who was talking highly of their dragonets, who had gone to achieve anything they put their mind to, making their parents proud. "I.....I'm sorry, I shouldn't be telling you all of this," The LeafWing said wetly, using one of her palms to whip along the underside of her left eye.
Lydia didn't say anything, she felt like she already had a clear idea of who that dragonet was, the dragonet that Pachira looked to have loved as a daughter. Robin, the SkyWing-NightWing dragonet who had crossed the sea. The one who stopped the Pantala war and, along with her friends, led some of the Pantalan tribes to Pyrrhia.
"How's our shoulder?" Pachira changed the topic with a soft smile, reaching out with one of her talons, slowing her movements when she saw Lydia's eyes widen as her claws, her ears swiveling back.
"My....shoulder?" When she looked, Lydia saw her shoulder where she'd been practically stabbed by the branch that had pinned her on the night of Landslide's attack, was wrapped up in a weird bandage. It was covered in flexible leaves, but in between the leaves, the bandage shimmered and glistened like a spider web. What kind of bandage is this? She reached up with one of her talons, touching it. Her shoulder didn't hurt, it didn't sting or throb and didn't feel hot under her skin, it actually felt cold, in a soothing way. The bandage stuck to the tip of her claw, letting go only when she pulled back too much.
"Oh, right! You probably don't know what silk bandages look like." Pachira startled her out of her trance as the little NightWing blinked owlishly at her. "Silk bandages are made from silk, hence the name."
"Like from caterpillars? Or spiders?" Lydia asked, finding her voice once more as Pachira's warm smile encouraged her to keep going, to push out of her scared self.
The LeafWing let out a quiet laugh, one that wouldn't even disturb a butterfly. "No, I mean from a SilkWing. They can make all kinds of silk, and they also make silk that can be easily woven into bandages." A SilkWing made these? Pachira must've saw her expression, because she let out another quiet chuckle, her smile never once faltering after they had moved on from the topic of Robin. "If you'd like, after we go visit the little pachira tree, we can go see the SilkWing who made those bandages. He will be glad to hear it's helping you, and I bet he'd love to see a NightWing too."
"He's never seen a NightWing?" Lydia felt a little silly asking that, I didn't realize Pachira was a LeafWing at first, I've never seen one until now. She wasn't really one to talk about not seeing the other dragon tribes in person, up until recently. For all of her life, she'd only seen a few hundred NightWings who lived under the mountain in their small kingdom. The Kingdom of Night was small, since having separated from the RainWing's. They used to be a large and powerful tribe, but now, their total population probably rivaled that of the large town of Possibility or Sanctuary, the two largest towns in all of Pyrrhia.
"No, most of us have hardly left our village," Pachira explained to her, shifting her wings. "Only a select few have really gathered the courage to. The other tribes will sometimes come to see us, but not often."
That means...Lydia was where she thought she was before she passed out by the flowing stream, she was in the LeafWing and SilkWing settlement, the one that stretched along MudWing and SkyWing territory, the new rainforest that had grown over the last few years. The SilkWing's who didn't want to live in the hive on Pyrrhia, along with the LeafWing's, moved here. In the end, them moving here and creating a small settlement helped to solve a future dispute between the MudWing and RainWing queens, who were starting to get antsy with the growing of the rainforest. If Lydia was here, in this settlement between the three kingdoms, then she had to be close to home. I'm close to the mountains, I'm close to home.
The little NightWing felt her wings happily twitch, as if they wanted to shoot her off into the sky at that very moment and fly her all the way home back to her parents. She hadn't realized she was so close! But at her shoulder's movements, it brought back a familiar sting that made her whole body go rigid.
"Shhhhh. Hey hey hey hey," Pachira's soft voice filtered into her ears as the pale LeafWing with dual coloured eyes scooted herself closer, reaching out with her talons to gently rub at Lydia's shoulders, helping to ease the sudden tension that had snapped her body stiff, refusing to move at the sudden assault from her wounded shoulder. The princess let out a high pitched whine, making her feel even more like a little dragonet, one who shouldn't be out of the nest yet. "That's it, just ease up those shoulders. There we go."
"Sorry."
"Don't be, you were thinking about something." The LeafWing hushed her gently, continuing to rub at her shoulders. Lydia felt....safe, in what felt like forever, for the first time in a long while, she felt safe, she felt close to home. "Why don't we go look at that pachira tree I have? And Briar just came back with some fruits from the market, so I can cut you some mangos."
"Mangos?"
"They're a fruit we sometimes buy from traveling RainWing's who stop by from time to time. They're quite good, and Briar likes them, so it's not like I can stop him from buying them. It's hard to find things he likes here on Pyrrhia, so it's nice to see him enjoying something new that's not patrolling."
In the back of Lydia's mind, her thoughts were telling her that she was trusting the LeafWing far too much. It could all be a trap, one that would send her back to Quickstrike, or worse, to Morpho and that HiveWing who seemed to be fusing with him. But maybe she was so willing to listen to Pachira because so far she had been nothing but kind and welcoming, helping her shoulder and trying to gently warm Lydia up to her, letting Lydia take it at her own pace and not pushing her to do anything. Lydia still felt hesitant, her worries returning, when Pachira stood up, stretching out one of her leafy wings in a welcoming and offering manner.
"Would you like to come see the little tree and have something to eat?" She asked, her voice still soft like ripples that would gently roll across the surface of the water in the underground rivers back home. "If you don't want to leave the nest, you don't have to. I can bring them here."
Lydia didn't want to move, she didn't want to get up. It was like being in a dream, not wanting to wake up and go back into the real world, knowing that she was in a dream. But this was real. Plus, she didn't even know if her shoulder would allow her to move. Before she was found, it was beginning to hurt when she even stepped with her left forearm, as the motion would jostle her shoulder and make sering pain shoot through her entire wing.
I left it untreated for so long, I don't know if I could even walk properly with it. She had left her shoulder untreated for days, in favour of sleeping and keeping on the move, barely taking care of herself as she just knew that she needed to keep moving. She had neglected it, and it got worse over time. It might've become infected for all she knew as it had begun to feel hot to the touch.
Pachira must've seen her hesitance, because she gave her a soft smile, never once faltering.
That set the spark in Lydia to get up, or at least to try. On wobbly legs, numb from laying down for so long, she stood up. Her good wing flapping helplessly on her side in an attempt to stabilize herself. Before the NightWing dragonet even knew what she was doing, she ran, or more like tumbled, out of the warmth of the nest of blankets at to Pachira's side, the LEafWing helping her to stand as she held her left arm up to her chest with a wince.
It hurt.
It felt like the pain from her shoulder was shooting through her entire wing and arm, making them feel numb from the pain that came in sparks. She wanted to screw her eyes shut, to wish it away, but she kept them open and steeled herself. "It hurts." She hissed lightly, gritting her teeth.
Pachira gave her a pitying look as she laid her wing over the princess. "I know it does, but it'll feel better in no time. There was just a small infection, and I think I scared it away before it could start trying anything, so don't worry. You're alright."
As they began to make their way out of the room, Lydia felt as though she were in a daze, hardly focusing on anything around her, but also paying attention to all the little details at the same time. She felt dizzy, her head pounding angrily at its cotton filled, stuffy state. Her tail dragged across the wooden floor, the little princess hardly having the energy to lift it up, as walking alone seemed to be sapping her energy dry after her small adrenaline rush with meeting Pachira. She wanted to go back to that nest, to go back to sleep, but she kept herself awake, blinking hard to help wake herself up as they walked, or more like Pachira leading her with her body, to a small open room with counters and tables, large windows letting in a small breeze as the warm sun filtered in.
The sunlight that came through the open window gave the room a yellow tint to it. Everything was made of wood or was carved. There were pots made from pottery, and small jars filled with all kinds of plants and things Lydia couldn't even begin to recognize. She had never seen anything like this before, it was all new to the NightWing who starred with wide eyes filled with awe and curiosity.
The table in the center of the room was simple, yet filled with so many tiny details. The legs were carved to look like vines had woven themselves together to create a stury hold on the planks above that had been smoothed down. The counter was made of the same type of wood, the drawers and shelves dyed green with some kind of stain. There were cuberts hanging above it, each one carved much like the table, to have the appearance of wooden vines and foliage. Some of the designs were foreign to Lydia, the princess having never seen them before. By the counter on its far left side, almost across the table, was a ladder made of a light coloured wood that was tied together with ropes and vine-strings. It was resting against the wall, leading up to a small hole in the woven roof, up into a top floor or an attic of some kind.
Are they based off of plants from Pantala? Could that be why I don't recognize most of them?
Hanging from the ceiling were jars and plans in basket pots. They looked lush and healthy, their leaves plump and heavy, some of the plants closer to the windows even had flowers that were a bright, rich yellow, making the room shine even more as the sunlight seemed to dance brightly off of their petals like it was reflecting off of glass.
"It's definitely the most homey home I've had in all my life, so I might have overdone it a bit, with trying to make it look homey." Pachira laughed lightly, leading Lydia over towards the able, using her wing to help guide the wobbly dragonet until she sat her down onto a plush cushion that felt as soft as the ones she and her parents had back home in the mountains, but these seat pillows weren't red with golden accents, they were a dark, rich green with lighter green accents. "I'm just used to having plants sprouting up inside my house, so it's weird, not having them being able to grow inside and pay me a visit like I do to them in the gardens."
Did she have plants constantly growing in her old home on Pantala? Lydia blinked as she watched the LeafWing walk around the room, opening a cubert to pull out a pottery bowl with imple, yet complex, designs sculpted into it by sharp talons. The top of it was wrapped in a sticky cloth, but Pachira didn't seem phased by its sticky texture as she peeled back the odd cloth, maybe more silk? From the bowl, revealing three mangos, with room for a froth. They almost looked like weird eggs with how they were shaped. But they were a little too small to be dragon eggs.
"Briar left us some, I thought he would take more than just one on his visit to see his friends."
Who's Briar? She found herself wondering as Pachira took one of the mangos out of the bowl, wrapped it back up in the strange cloth, and then putting it back in its original place. Lydia began to look around, letting her eyes wander as she could hear the pale LeafWing at the counter slicing away at the mango with her talons. The room wasn't large, but large enough that a talonful of dragons could stand around the table and by the wooden door, that she assumed was the entrance of this place, without much trouble.
Lydia turned her head to look back behind her, where she and Pachira had just come from. It was a small hallway, a door at the end that led to the room she had been in. The hall bent around to the left, the rest disappearing from her line of sight as it went who knows where. Possibly more rooms. With Pachira having mentioned a Briar several times now, she could count up to two dragons living here, but she didn't know if there were anymore.
Her attention was brought back to the table, as a small wooden saucer was placed in front of her with a few slices of mango sitting on top of it. The smell of them was strong, almost blocking out all of the smells from the plants and flowers hanging above and around them in the small room. They smelled fruity, sweet, and the slices gleamed as the mango juice seeped from the bright yellow and orange fresh of the inside of the fruit.
"There you go," Pachira said softly as she pulled her arm back, her wings shifting upon her back as the LeafWing finished whipping off her juice coated claws. "I didn't want to give you too many, since I don't want you getting sick from eating too fast. You'll need to go slow so as to not stress out your body, it doesn't look like you've eaten much recently, so you wouldn't want to hack it all up before it can energize you."
As Pachira spoke, Lydia felt close to tears. The way she was speaking reminded the little NightWing so much of her parents, how they would warn her to not eat too fast, and to not shove too much into her mouth when she was little. She bliked the tears away with a twitch of her tail that rested heavily in front of her talons on the cushion.
"Have you ever tried a mango before?"
"No," she admitted. Back home in the mountains, the foods Lydia had been fed were mainly cooked meat from animals caught by hunting patrols who were allowed outside of the interior of their hidden kingdom inside of the mountain's tunnels and cave systems. "I've mainly eaten meats, not fruits."
"Well, maybe you'll like these. They're really sweet and almost seem to explode in your mouth like a grape ready to pop!" The LeafWing smiled as she plopped a slice into her jaws with a light hum of content. It looked almost silly to watch, Lydia having to press her lips tightly together in order to not smile.
Instead, she focused on picking up her own slice and doing the same, her eyes widening at the taste as she chewed. It did taste really good, like a dragon flame cactus had exploded inside of her mouth with a sweet and juicy flavour that seeped into her tongue and down her throat in cold waves. Lydia hadn't tried many fruits so far in her life, the last time she tried new food was with Moonglobe and his shishkabobs from the festival in the village between the Mud and Sky Kingdoms'. The thought of her odd IceWing friend made her think back to that night, the thought making her heart spike painfully within her chest, a cold shiver coiling around her spine like a snake ready to squeeze its prey until it suffocated or its ribs were crushed by the pressure.
I haven't seen him yet, she thought as her mind continued to think back to that night. Being pinned under the heavy branch that stabbed into her shoulder, Moongglobes unconscious body, Landslide standing over him and gripping his horns, crying out as her screams ripped themselves out from her, Moonglobe's head being snapped in the other direction by Landslide, his neck breaking in a sickening SNAP that filled the air like thunder. Maybe...he's not dead.
That was foolish thinking, no dragon could survive a broken neck, especially one that violent. With the way Landslide gripped his horns, her forearms tensing yet her whole body seemed to relax, it was like she'd done it before. She'd planned to kill them, maybe not Moonglobe, but she had planned for that to be Lydia, not the IceWing dragonet who spoke strangely, connected faces to names, and looked weird. It was meant for her, not him, and it was all because of Quickstrike.
What had he done to upset Landslide so much, to the point she was, without any hesitation, going to kill a pair of innocent dragonets who had done nothing to her? What did he do?
Lydia didn't know much about Quickstrike, but she did know he was a bounty hunter, and Landslide had the ghosts of angry MudWing's looming over her show like a furious red mist, their faces blurred out and angry. Landslide also didn't seem to have any sibs. If she did, wouldn't she have gotten them to help her kill Lydia, and in the end Mooonglobe as well that night?
Why was it just her?
"Lydia?" She blinked herself out of her thoughts, focusing back onto the world around her, as across the table sat Pachira with a worried look etched into her face as she stared into Lydia's eyes. "Are you alright? You zoned off there for a moment." The LeafWing's eyes were pinched in the rear corners, her eyebrow scales pinched tightly. "And your eyes...." Lydia reached up with one of her palms, "you're crying." feeling wetness meet her skin from the tears that streamed down her face steadily in large, running droplets that threatened to drip down onto the floor.
"I..."
"You don't need to tell me unless you want to, Lydia. I-"
A knock rang out at the door, knuckles tapping on the wood, drawing both Lydia and Pachira's attention towards it. Pachira with a calm yet surprised look, while Lydia nearly jumped from being startled by the sudden noise.
"Don't worry, that's probably Briar coming back early from his patrol." The LeafWing tried to sooth her as she stood up from her seat and made her way towards the door. In her wake, something else took Pachira's place at the table, a familiar face that nearly made Lydia yelp in surprise but also relief.
"Fatefinder!" she hissed quietly as the wispy NightWing sat in Pachira's place, grinning at her.
"I can't believe I finally found you." Fatefinder sighed in relief as he hopped over the table to stand by Lydia. "I thought I'd lost you after you couldn't hear me. It was so...chaotic, I didn't know what to do, and the next thing I know, you're gone and Moonglobe's...." he wilted, his ears pinning back.
Lydia already had an idea on where he was going, and she knew her hopes couldn't be true. "He's...gone, isn't he?"
"Who's gone?" Lydia nearly shouted at the new voice, whipping around to see Moonglobe just inches away from her snout, the oddly coloured IceWing's head was tilted to the side like a curious animal, his ears perked up and solid blue eyes shining. He could've almost looked normal, if it weren't for how Lydia could see through his scales and see the walls behind him. "Moonglobe and Fatefinder found Lydia! No ones gone! All back together again! OH! Lydia! Moonglobe sees Fatefinder now! Fatefinder has a face! Fatefinder has a face!"
The NightWing princess felt two conflicting emotions swell up inside of her as she hardly even noticed Pachira walking back into view, with another LeafWing in toe who had darker, almost teal coloured scales. She felt overjoyed to see him again, to see him happy and acting like himself like nothing had happened, but...something had happened, and that was the whole reason he was here.
Moonglobe was dead, and Lydia was seeing his ghost.
The black IceWing with a pearly white face didn't even seem to realize he was dead, as he danced around Lydia with a dragonet-like smile plastered across his face. It would've been infection, Lydia smiling along with him, but seeing him just made the images of his body pinned beneath the tree come back even stronger, the snap ringing in her ears again and again and again.
"I found him after I came out of whatever I was stuck in." Fatefinder began to explain from where he sat beside her, his wings pressed tightly against his sides as if he were hugging himself for comfort. "It was like I was stuck in a nightmare, I didn't know where I was, but when I opened my eyes, it was like only a few seconds had passed. That's when I found him, trying to get the attention of a few dragons who had found him....found his body."
Lydia could picture it clearly, and it nearly brought her back to tears.
Moonglobe's wispy form standing over his body, not looking down and in the end never seeing what's become of him for better or for worse. The odd but friendly IceWing trying to get the attention of the dragons nearby who had found him, but being ignored as none of them could see him, before spotting Fatefinder who could see him, and came to the confused ice dragon's aid before he realized what had happened.
"I didn't let him see what happened to him, I couldn't let him. Maybe it was selfish, but I still remember seeing my body, and seeing my sister of all dragons, finding it. I couldn't let that happen to him, so I just told him we we're going to look for you. He didn't even put up a fuss and came along like a duckling following its parents." Fatefinder looked guilt ridden as he watched Moonglobe race around them like an excited dragonet. "I lost him a few times, I think he got distracted and pulled into the same weird nightmares or dazes, but I always found him, like he had never left that one spot, no matter how much time had passed."
Lydia knew what was happening to them, it was the same thing that was happening to Rattlesnake, and to the LeafWing Roseary: they're starting to lose their grasp on time, they're time-slipping.
Moonglobe stopped in front of Lydia, his wing shuddering and twitching, his jaws opening to speak. "Ly-"
"Lydia?" Pachira's voice cut him off, the dragonet blinking as suddenly both Fatefinder and Moonglobe were gone. Instead, standing on the other side of the table was Pachira, and a taller LeafWing who loomed over her shoulder, his gaze sharp and seemed to pierce through her like a set of knives made to cut through a dragon's soul. Pachira followed Lydia's gaze to the taller dragon, which she gave a light nudge with her wing before giving the NightWing a reassuring look. "Don't worry, this is Briar, the one I was telling you about."
When Lydia didn't respond after a few moments, the two LeafWing's shared a look, Pachira's practically saying "see? I told you." But Lydia didn't know to what she was giving him that look for, but it looked to have been from her not responding.
"He's the grumpy dragon who loves his mangos." Briar shot the shorter LeafWing a glare, but it didn't really hold all that much venom in it as Pachira only smiled. "I'll cut up some more mangoes, Briar, why don't you sit down? You've hardly stopped moving since yesterday."
"I have." The darker LeafWing remarked with a huff, his long tail twitching before he took a seat across from Lydia. His eyes were a warm brown, reminding Lydia of Fatefinder's honey coloured eyes, but Briar's had species of gold that seemed to gleam, almost looking to be burning as the sunlight reflected off of them like gold coins being tossed in the air to catch the bright rays of light and to send them shooting off in all directions.
"Oh? How many times?"
"Twice." Briar rolled his eyes, his wings shifting from where they rested upon his back.
Is he Pachira's partner? Lydia wondered as she blinked owlishly at the LeafWing before her, who once he noticed her staring at him, stared right back, blinking slowly in a calm manner. She did say she had a son, was this him? She pushed that thought away with a flick of her ears. No, she said her son's name was Thorn. Maybe Briar's a friend of hers then? A relative? Her wings pull themselves closer to her hunched shoulders, her talons opening and closing, pressing into her palms from where they rested upon the table close to her small saucer of mango slices.
"Lychee's come by to the inner part of town, apparently Sunflower heard of what happened and didn't want the two of them along the outskirts of the village. Caterpillar offered for them to stay with him, but Cavansite and Cinnabar said it would be better for the two of them to stay with them instead, as there'd be more room." Briar spoke up, filling the sudden silence and chasing it away with his voice. It wasn't loud, it was calm, reserved.
Cavansite? Cinnabar? Caterpillar? She couldn't help how she listened as she reached forwards with her claws to grab a mango slice, hardly noticing Briar's eyes watching her as she ate, staring down at the small wooden plate. Lychee and Sunflower? Are they talking about more LeafWing's? Or maybe some SilkWing's?
"That'll be good for them. I know those two don't like being in town as much with how everybody looks at them as though they were in charge of the hives, but it'll be safer to have them closer."
"That's what I told them when they first moved out there, but they said it would be better for every dragon if they stayed away." Briar huffed, flicking his tail that seemed to slither across the floor. "With them being HiveWing's and all."
HiveWing's? All the way out here? I thought none of them have moved away from their hive between the Ice and Sand Kingdoms? "They just wanted to help the others feel more comfortable, they don't want them thinking they're trying to watch over them or trying to take control over everything." Pachira went on.
"What happened?" Lydia piped up, cutting into the conversation and being met with silence at first, making her look up from her claws, looking up to see Pachira better as the pale LeafWing met her gaze with one that looked conflicted, as if she wasn't sure she should tell Lydia what had happened in their village. But after a few moments, she broke her silence.
"Nothing for you to worry about little one," she smiled warmly, reassuringly, as she put the last few mangos back into their bowl, wrapping them back up the same way she had before. "Just...something happened to one of the residents here."
The flashes again came back.
"Morpho, what's happened to you?" Farfalla's voice shook as he stepped back, his wide eyes staring at the trees before him as Morpho slinked out like a prowling jaguar, teeth pulled back in an animalistic snarl, one of his eyes were as black as night, half of his face covered in shimmering golden scales with black stripes. The moons above them made the black eye gleam in hatred, hated familiarity that shook Farfalla to his core. "This isn't you! Morpho whatever's happening, the others can help you! I can help yo-!"
"You've helped enough, SilkWing." That wasn't Morpho's voice, it was a voice Farfalla knew all too well, but before he could even scream out for help from his tribemates, he noticed far too late the hooked golden spear that Morpho held.
Farfala began to whip around, his heart drumming loudly within his ears as his attacker stood up on their hind legs, arm pulling back with their spear in their claws. He didn't know what to call them, but that was not Morpho, not his Morpho. "HE-!" his scream was cut of as the feeling of cold metal piercing through his scales, shoving between his shoulder blades and his ribs, coming out through his chest as the golden tipped spear poked out in front of him, glistening with crimson blood that seemed to taunt him as the moonlight reflected off of it like tiny stars sparkling in the night sky.
Briar opened his mouth to speak. "A Sil-"
"A SilkWing?" Her voice shook as she stared down at the table, feeling both Briar's and Pachira's gazes on her shoulders. Lydia's heart was pounding.
If a member of their village had an accident, and if it was here, then maybe....the NightWing didn't want to think about that, and with the states she was receiving from the two LeafWing's was making her regret even opening her mouth. What if they thought she did it? What would they do? The LeafWing's and SilkWing's on this side of the continent were secluded, keeping to themselves and rebuilding what they had lost from their old home from moving here to Pyrrhia.
"Lydia?" Pachira's voice was soft, helping to pull her out of her trance. The pale, dual coloured eyed, LeafWing was crouched down beside her, holding out one of her palms by one of Lydia's arms. "Is it okay if I touch you? Or you could touch me?" Pachira held out her arm, as if offering Lydia to trace her scales with her claws. That's when Lydia realized where her talons were. Her arms were nearly crossed on the table, her claws gripping her own wrists so tightly they hurt, almost like they were trying to rip apart her own scales and sink into her flesh.
Lydia didn't trust herself to speak, her jaws clamped tightly shut to the point they almost hurt, so she just nodded her head and let her claws loosen their grip and to instead carefully latch onto Pachira's forearm, tracing her scales. The leafWing's scales were weird, to say the least. They weren't smooth like how SeaWing scales were described, and they weren't sharp either like IceWing scales. They were flat, folding over the areas they covered like bandages. Their tops were flat, not smooth but not exactly rough either. They all fit together like puzzle pieces, the only way to tell them apart were by the small indents that helped to identify each scale. The ones bunched together in groups looked like they would've been folding over one another, overlapping, but they weren't.
She could hear the two LeafWing's talking in hushed voices, but she felt as though she were in a daze. Her body felt tired, her limbs numb and wings heavy, her head feeling stuffy once more, and her shoulder was starting to ache again.
"..-e knows something-.....-.....-ion her."
"Let's.....-rest first....-...." Lydia felt Pachira beginning to lead her back to the room she had woken up in, Briar following closely behind with a few items tucked under his wings and holding something in one of his talons as they walked. Pachira settled the little NightWing back into the nest of blankets and pillows, pulling some of the soft fabric up to her shoulders while Briar put down the small plate of mango slices, almost with a bowl of water. "If you need anything, just call for one of us, okay Lydia?"
She nodded her head quietly before watching them leave, hearing their muffled voices through the walls. The NightWing princess didn't sleep as night rolled around a lot faster than she thought it would, her mind being plagued by the image of Farfalla's death at the claws of Morpho and the HiveWing, their haunting stare burned into her mind.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
It was the middle of the night by the time she actually fell asleep, but it only felt as though she had closed her eyes for only a moment before opening them back up again to see the sun beginning to rise somewhere off beyond the trees. Throughout the night, Lydia hadn't been visited by fatefinder, Moonglobe, Rattlesnake, or even any of the other dead dragons she knew of. She almost felt relieved, to allow her mind to rest, even when it felt like it was racing a mile a minute and not allowing her to get even a wink of sleep, even when she had been in a daydream like daze the entire night.
She turned her attention towards the open window. It had no actual glass and it was just...open, allowing her to see out of its rectangular shape and into the trees that surround the outside. The trees. Lydia hadn't gotten a good look as to what the world looked like outside of this wooden hut, but now without the blinding sunlight from the day creating a bright wall of light, she could now see into the outside world through the window if she sat herself up high enough.
Outside, the world was made of towering trees with crowns so large that a dragon would have to fly around them. Large vines hung from their sturdy branches, bridges too that connected leaf-made huts together that were stuck to the sides of the trees and nestled in their branches like butterfly cocoons. She could see what looked to actually be butterflies resting between the groves of the large tree, fanning their wings slowly as they chased the tiredness away. But the longer Lydia looked, the more she realized those weren't butterflies, those were SilkWing's. They were all kinds of bright, shimmering coloured that reflected the army morning sunlight, making their scales dance and gleam like jewels.
The little NightWing's eyes widened in awe and wonder as she watched them. Do SilkWing's fly like butterflies too? Unable to correctly fly in the straight light for long? She wondered as she watched them, tilting her head, her own wings twitching, itching to fly. When she watched them, she was surprised that the sight of them didn't make her instantly think of Morhpo, instead she just saw what was infront of her: SilkWings enjoying their morning as LeafWings began to bustle about alongside them, some hanging down from the trees by their long tail, shaking out their leafy shaped wings like bird chicks learning to fly.
"Admiring the view?" A voice spoke up, making Lydia jump in surprise and turn around to see Briar standing in the doorway, the dark teal-green LeafWing watching her with a deadpan look, with one of his scaled eyebrows raised up in question.
"U-um." she was beginning to hate how much her voice got caught in her throat, as if she were trying to swallow live prey whole. How was she supposed to be queen someday if she couldn't even speak to one dragon without freezing up?
"It's alright, you don't have to talk," He reassured her as he stepped into the room, stepping closer to stand beside her and look out the window along with her. "I just came here to check in on you and see if you were awake." Lydia gave him a light hum of acknowledgement as the two stared out the window, watching other dragons getting their mornings in motion.
Briar's forearm suddenly came into view, making her jump as he slowed down his movements with her reaction. He was pointing off towards one of the large trees ahead of them, one of the largest she'd ever seen. "You see that LeafWing, over there?" The dark teal-green coloured LeafWing was pointing at a paler, almost fern coloured dragon with some of her scales looking to almost be pink in colour, with some shades of brown mixed in along her spine. "That's Daffodil, a close friend of mine. I'm surprised she's up this early, she often sleeps way past sunrise."
Lydia watched the pointed out LeafWing, Daffodil, as she did the same thing as the other LeafWings around her. Stretching out her wings and her legs, yawning while flapping her spines to wake herself up. It almost felt fun to watch the other dragons in this village move around. It was all just so different from back home in the mountains. She didn't know what other dragons did to get ready for the day, she only knew what she and her parents had to do. She never really asked Fatefinder what his mornings were like, as she had been more distracted with those mysterious notes and him trying to figure them out along with her. So it was interesting to see normal dragons getting ready for the day, each in their own unique ways.
"Do all dragons do this in the morning?" She asked, her voice quiet as she didn't look over to her right side, where Briar sat, humming in question.
"What do you mean by 'all dragons'?" the LeafWing questioned. Lydia could see him looking at her out of the corner of his eye, while she could just make out his features from her peripheral vision. "Are NightWings mornings different?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "NightWing's are nocturnal."
"They are?"
"Mhm." she nodded her head, not pulling her scarlet red gaze away from the outside world, as if it would suddenly disappear and she'd be surrounded by stone again, never being able to see the outside world during the day ever again. That's one thing that was tough for Lydia: adjusting to the time schedule of other dragons outside her kingdom. It left her tired and groggy, but with her emotions nearly reaching their boiling point several times the last few days, it was no wonder she just wanted to sleep whenever she could. The little NightWing's whole life had been turned upside down, but now it looked to be clearing up, no matter how slowly it seemed to be. "I've adjusted though, to being awake during the day."
"I see, but you must feel...tired...at times, right?" he spoke slowly, as if trying to find the right words. The longer he spoke and sat beside her, the less scary the tall LeafWing seemed to be. He now just reminded her of Wiseflight: a dragon who was doing their job and loved it, but was just tired and often had a harder time socializing.
Pachira said he goes on patrols, maybe he's a soldier? The more she thought about it, the more she questioned things. The LeafWings and the SilkWings in this village didn't have a royal family, they just had two rulers: Idas the SilkWing and Pachira of the LeafWings. Was this Pachira the same Pachira that had been taking care of her? Or was it another LeafWing with the exact same name? She pushed that thought aside, she could think about it later, and maybe even ask Pachira about it later today.
That's when she remembered Briar's question. "Sometimes," she admitted honestly. "Though, I just feel tired with...other things, as of recently."
"Like what?" Lydia stayed quiet, feeling Briar's gaze burn inside her side before he made an understanding, yet curious noise in the back of his throat. "You night dragons have...abilities?" he sounded uncertain, the way he pronounced 'abilities' sounding more like 'abelaties'. "We've heard from the MudWing's that you do, and from...someone who's no longer with us."
Robin.
She wanted to ask if it was Robin that had told them about the other tribes, if it was Robin and her friends nearly seven years ago, two years before the eclipse that Lydia had hatched under, that had told them about the Pyrrhian tribes and the other continent across the sea. And this time, Lydia had the courage too.
"Was that dragon named Robin?" She asked, her voice sounding to echo within her own ears as she turned to look at Briar for the first time since he came and sat down beside her in her current room within his and Pachira's hut. "Was it Robin and her friends? The ones who crossed the sea to find Pantala when they were four years old?"
Briar was looking at her with wide eyes, the most emotion and expression she's seen from the other dragon. "How did you-" that's when she saw it click within his eyes, like a chain slipping into place within a necklace, or like the chains that connected her hanging silver earring together with its ruby pendant that hung heavily, yet reassuringly, from her ear.
Lydia's heart was pounding. The only other dragons she had told about her abilities were Quickstrike and the three NightWing teachers at the school he wanted her to go to before she fled from the village. Only Moonglobe and Fatefinder knew the true extent of her powers, along with Rattlesnake who seemed to know more about the princesses powers than she did herself, and she was the one with the powers! If they could even be called that, it feels like both an honour, and a curse.
"You have powers, don't you." Briar concluded, looking into her eyes. When she nodded her head, the LeafWing leaned back onto his haunches, a thoughtful look in his dark coloured eyes as he was thinking something over. "You knew a SilkWing was the one who had the accidnet, and you know of Robin and her friends. Do you know the SilkWing's name? The one who had the accident."
Because of these powers, that I don't even know how to control, or if I even can.
Was she doing the right thing? Was this the right thing to do? For other dragons to know she had powers, even if it might be a curse? Dragon's she hardly even knew? I told Moonglobe, maybe I can trust Briar and Pachira too. "Farfalla, he was attacked." Briar suddenly stood up, tugging on Lydia's arms with his talons. He wasn't harsh, he was actually gentle, as if she were made of glass and would suddenly shatter under his touch. Standing beside him, no, more so halfway behind him, was the purple SilkWing who was atacked, Farfalla. His wispy form swirling like mist in the wind, his eyes looking lifeless and sorrowful, yet hopeful and pleading as he stared at her.
"Lydia, I want you to come see something, and I want you to tell me if you recegnize it at all. You have to be what the MudWing's called a Future Seer, right? So you saw Farfalla's death comming, and suddenly you show up after he's found dead. I need you to come see where it happened, and tell me if it was what you saw." He instructed her, his wings twitching nervously, looking like fluttering leaves bing rustled by the wind. "And along the way, I need you to tell me what you saw, with as much detail as you can. I need to know if she's back."
————————————————————
- MindlessTyper
Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: AzTruyen.Top