Fires Blazing

Fires Blazing
A WoF fanfic by Fennecthesandwing21.
Chapter 1. Capture.
There was a dragon. Hovering, silently. Watching, waiting. Poised to strike, to find what had been stolen.
She was different. She was a hybrid.
Firerose. Half rain, half sky.
And she was searching.
The dragon flapped her sleek, long wings and narrowed her dark, golden eyes, muscles tensing and tail swishing angrily through the air.
In a sudden burst of speed, she burst forward and zipped through the sky, a blast of bright, smoldering red in the stormy, dark sky.
The clouds rumbled and a clap of thunder shook the air. Firerose's frill trembled in the harsh winds, but she kept flying, undaunted.
A jagged spear of lightning sent a wave of electricity across the howling sky, then stabbed into the mountain below with a boom that echoed throughout the valley.
Firerose screeched and wrapped her wings around her head as her ears stung from the sudden noise. As she lifted her wings to her head, she begun to fall, and spiral out of control. She plummetted quickly towards the sharp, bone-breaking boulders below. 
Split seconds before she hit the ground, a shadowy dragon the colour of dried blood swooped from its hiding place and grabbed her, pulling her down safely.
She opened her eyes, which had been squeezed shut in shock and terror, and gazed at him wonderingly.
But as soon as she looked into his snarling, smirking face, it was clear that his intentions were not ones that would benefit her.
He thrust a fistful of talons onto her chest, pinning her down.
Then the storm really began.
At first, it wasn't much, just a few droplets of rain.
But it grew, until torrents of water were cascading from the grim, ominous clouds looming over the kingdom of sky.
More figures began to creep across the rock, with slitted pupils and teeth bared. They leaped forward, grabbing her wings and holding them down against the sodden, slippery rocks.
Firerose struggled and snarled, trying desperately to claw at her captors. They just laughed at her and dug their claws into her shoulders.
They draped her in chains, binding her up and slamming an iron muzzle onto her snout, binding her venom spitting jaws together.
Then they carried her, slowly, through the darkness and fog, dodging the bolts of lightning searing down from above.
It wasn't long before they reached it.
The place that Firerose had heard so much about, but knew so little about. The place she had been warned never to go.
They flung her down onto the top of a massive stone pillar, wrapping her in chains and wires that pinned her to the center of the stone column.
And she screamed.
She wailed, and screeched, hissed and snarled, bellowed and hollered until her throat was dry, then screamed even more.
Eventually the guards came down and slammed her head against the cold, wet stone.
She collapsed, all energy drained, eyes only half open and chest fluttering as it tried to draw in breath.
She barely noticed the small trickle of blood seeping down her cheek, or the biting cold and wet soaking into her scales before her final drop of strength left her and everything went black.
Chapter 2. Skywings.
Pain. Darkness. Then light.
Firerose's eyes flew open suddenly and she let out a painful gasp.
The side of her head was throbbing, and her cheeks were stained with blood. 
She slowly and painfully tried to shuffle into a sitting position, casting her bleary gaze over her surroundings. As she did so, a jolt of dismay ran through her stomach, and she groaned and flopped down again.
Her head continued to pound, and the whistling wind soaring past definitely didn't help. Firerose wrapped her wings around her injury and curled up into a tight, uncomfortable ball, finding herself wishing for the absolute darkness to return.
But, of course, it didn't.
Firerose felt a sudden jolt to her pillar, and her eyes slid open angrily. She raised her head and hissed at the dragon landing on the edge of the stone tower.
It was a Skywing. Well, of course it was a Skywing. A flaming yellow Skywing, with dagger sharp horns and slitted black eyes. She glared at Firerose, unfazed.
"So this is the new prisoner." She said calmly, but in a voice filled with distaste. "A hybrid. Interesting enough, but I suppose we'll only really find out what you are capable of when you're thrown in the arena."
A wave of terror swept through Firerose like an ice-cold tsunami, but she forced herself to remain calm and silent, watching the Skywing as she yawned, then strode across the pillar towards Firerose.
"Maybe I should give you a taste of what I'm capable of right now." Firerose growled weakly, her voice muffled by the muzzle.
"Hm, maybe you should. Show me what you've got." the Skywing chuckled, then, in one swift movement, ripped the muzzle from Firerose's jaws.
Instantly, Firerose lifted a wing to her snout and rubbed it tenderly, keeping an eye on the Skywing. She lowered her wing, shuffled into a standing position, and took a deep breath.
She opened her jaws wide, baring her ivory white fangs, and shot venom at the Skywing.
The venom burst into flames as soon as it was out of her fangs, blazing towards the guard like a comet.
And the Skywing neatly ducked it, then turned calmly to watch it go flying past her.
"Interesting." She muttered . She turned back to Firerose, her eyes cool and calculating. "Maybe you'll be the one to survive the arena. Or, after seeing what happened to the other one of your kind... Maybe not." The electric yellow Skywing flashed Firerose a dazzling smile full of sharp teeth, then pulled a hunk of meat from a sack she carried and threw it over to her. "Enjoy today's luxury feast." she purred, then leaped off the edge of the platform and glided silently down to the other prisoners.
Firerose gritted her teeth and turned her attention away from the guard, and instead to the meat. It looked dry and flaky, with crusted globules of fat splattered throughout it. 
She wrinkled her nose and pulled it towards her with one talon, retching at the stench.
As she leaned forward reluctantly to take a bite, she felt another jolt to the tower and her face scrunched into a fed up snarl.
She turned around to face the Skywing, tail lashing and nostrils flaring.
But it wasn't the guard from before. It was a different one. With dark red scales and a tangerine orange underbelly, and dark golden eyes.
"Somebody's not happy." He laughed quietly, watching her curiously with sparkling eyes.
Firerose began to hiss quietly, but his voice wasn't mocking. It was more...
Friendly.
"Why would I be happy?" She countered, her tone lighter than with the other Skywing, though still coarse and rough. Her throat stung and felt raw from screaming.
"Some dragons in this sort of situation would be happy. Of course, I can see that you're not one of those dragons. Maybe that's a good thing. It's often the more intelligent dragons who don't just accept it. You seem like someone who keeps trying." He stated softly, moving a little closer.
" You don't know me. " Firerose murmured, raising her head to look him in the eye. Pain flashed across her forehead momentarily and she winced.
"Ooh... That looks bad." The Skywing pulled a container of water from his sack and dampened a cloth in it, then hesitated slightly before venturing even closer to Firerose and gently dabbing the cloth on her wound. 
It stung like fire, and Firerose jolted back in shock, but eventually calmed and settled into a position where the Skywing could properly clean her forehead.
Soon, most of the blood was cleared, and the Skywing carefully wrapped another, fresh white cloth around the wound.
Firerose smiled at him tentatively. "Th-thank you." She stuttered.
The corner of his mouth curved into a smile, and the twinkle in his eyes grew slightly brighter. "Your welcome." He paused for a moment. " I'm Thunder, by the way... " 
"I'm Firerose." She said softly.
"Pretty name." 
Firerose's stomach rumbled suddenly, and she glanced down at the stinking hunk of meat the other Skywing had given her.
Thunder frowned. " I suppose it was Lightning who gave you that. " he sighed.
Lightning. It suited the cold, sneering, neon yellow Skywing perfectly.
"If Lightning is a nasty, sneering cockroach, then yes, it was lightning.* Firerose muttered  angrily, her temper beginning to flare.
Thunder shifted awkwardly and cast his gaze away from Firerose. "She 's.... My sister." He mumbled, groaning slightly.
"Oh! I.... " Firerose stared at Thunder. How could such a kind dragon be siblings with such a cruel one?
Well, the clue was in the names. Thunder and Lightning.
Firerose mentally scratched herself for not realising.
"I didn't mean to offend you or anything..." Firerose trailed away 
"Its alright. She can be quite a pain sometimes. Well, most of the time. She has a softer spot... She just doesn't show it very often. " Thunder chuckled a little, and both dragons felt the tension break.
He took the piece of meat and replaced it with a large, juicy pomegranate and a heap of bacon strips.
"Don't tell anyone I gave you this." He laughed quietly, winking at Firerose 
" You can trust me. " Firerose grinned and began to eat.
"I'll see you tommorrow, I hope." Thunder said, nodding his head at her before flying off to finish handing out the prisoners' food.
Chapter 3. Prisoners.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
Chains rattled loudly in the bone-chilling wind, clanking against the hard stone columns as she prisoners shifted their bruised, battered bodies.
The dragons of Scarlet's arena were a sorry sight, disheveled and windswept after what just be years of arena fights, meals of rotting meat, and sleepless nights on the freezing towers.
Firerose couldn't help shuddering at the thought of becoming like them, of being half-starved then forced to fight to the death just for the pleasure of some selfish, arrogant Skywing queen.
What was the purpose of it all? How could any dragon find something so gruesome entertaining? Firerose had so many questions that if they had  each been a never failing arrow, she would have been able to kill the entire population of Skywings and still have some arrows leftover.
Despite the millions of queries flooding her head, only one really mattered:
Who really was Queen Scarlet?
Firerose thought back to her life in the Rainforest, before any of this had happened.
It had been peaceful there, the days filled with foraging for fruit with her sister, Lilycloud, or having venom spitting competitions with her friend, Dartfrog.
But all of that had been snatched away in the blink of an eye.
Firerose could remember the day it happened as clearly as though it had only been yesterday.
it had started as usual, waking up, stretching out in the sun, hearing the familiar chittering of the creatures scampering throughout the trees.
But it would only go downhill from there.
Firerose and her sister had gone out for an early fruit foraging trip, into their favorite part of the rainforest: the lagoon.
A cool, serene pool of gently rippling water surrounded by majestic mango, pomegranate and pineapple trees. 
They carried out their search for the juiciest fruit as usual, but something was wrong.
The jungle around them had fallen almost silent, as it all the creatures had run away, or hidden, scared by something the dragons knew nothing about.
A small snap of a twig rang out loud in the silent clearing, and Firerose instantly became alert.
Little did she know it was already too late.
In one, terrible, unforgettable moment that would embed itself in Firerose's memory forever, Lilycloud was trapped under a metal wire net flung from the canopy filled with sneering, smug skywings. Firerose barely had time to screech in horror before they and her sister were gone.
Category:Literature
Category:Fanfictions
Category:Fennecthesandwing21‘s Things
Category:Fanfictions (Unfinished)
Category:Wings of Fire
Category:Fanfictions (Semi-Canon)
Category:Semi-cannon
Category:Fiction