A Thousand Souls: A Wings of Fire Fan-Book

== Prologue ==
“The Axe is life for us.”
“The Axe is what brings us hope… and joy.”
“The Axe is no simple weapon. It is the reason.”
A middle-aged NightWing dragoness perched before a group of young hatchlings sitting on colorful woven blankets, not more than two weeks old. Her dark brown scales were the color of the walls that confined her. Scars, like tears in a sheet, were scattered throughout her body. “Do you know what an axe is, young ones?” Her tail coiled around her legs as she straightened her back.
The hatchlings looked around themselves for a few moments before a young, aquamarine-colored SeaWing raised his talon politely.
“Ah, Megamouth,” The NightWing mused in a low voice. 
The little SeaWing stood up on his wobbly, stocky legs. He stuck his wings out for balance. “It’s a big ole’ choppy thingy Mommy uses to cut up her meat!”
“That’s correct.” She lifted her talon, and Megamouth shakily lowered himself onto his mat. The NightWing scanned the dragonets again. “It was also used by Scavengers to steal trees from the RainWing and MudWing forests, however, us dragons do not use it for such macabre purposes.”
“What’s macabre mean?” A large-for-her-age SkyWing blurted carelessly.
“It is wrong to speak out of turn, young lady,” The teacher growled formidably, baring her sharp teeth, and the SkyWing’s long, crimson neck craned over her chest in shame. “Remember to raise your talon next time.” She changed her tone of voice after she cleared her throat. “It means to be evil. Or grisly. Now, shall we continue?”
The hatchlings all nodded their heads in almost perfect unison.
With her student’s approval, the brown NightWing continued on. “The Axe exists because of our leader. Not me, who leads our group in her stead. Our true leader.”
Wide eyes occupied the room in equality with quiet. Every hatchling dared to ask the same question, and the NightWing could hear them even through silence.
“Her name is Startamer. You will most often hear her name and refer to her as the Wise One. But for your convenience, her name is Startamer. Say it after me… Startamer,” The teacher instructed.
The dragonets obeyed. “Startamer.” Their voices sounded like a droning hive- monotone, and bored yet intrigued.
“Yes, Startamer, little ones. She was an Animus, a dragoness of great power, even before the Scorching. She was the dragon’s leader of the NightWings, and a gift giver to many other tribes. All tribes came to know her as the greatest dragon to have ever lived. And we believe that as well. She is the greatest dragon to have ever walked the Earth. No one will surpass her power. No one can surpass her power.” Her voice went quiet, and she opened one of her massive wings. The star scales on it glowed and shifted, and the dragonets all gaped and gasped at her abilities. 
Contrary to the positive energy ebbing from the little dragons’ faces and mouths, the NightWing spoke in a bitter way. “There came a day when her power failed.” The scales on her wing webbing moved around, and formed the shape of a struggling dragon with human-like figures surrounding it as the hatchlings’ eyes were drawn to the ethereal images. “Scavengers captured Startamer while she was on a journey to where we call the SandWing Kingdom today.” The stars changed into a shape where a dragon was fighting another dragon. “She was pitted against a SkyWing. A rancid SkyWing, enchanted by some Scavenger poison.” The star dragons lunged at one another, then the stars on her wings faded to black. “Terrible fate walked with her that day, and she was killed in that harrowed fight.” It was almost as if she had experienced it with her own eyes.
The dragonets’ jubilant expressions melted into confusion, and melancholy. This NightWing had such a way with shaping her words, it would make the cruelest of IceWings kneel to her. “All kingdoms mourned their loss. The dragonets screamed. The poets scribing praises to her wept over their pages and pages of artistry. All was lost.”
An IceWing hatchling raised his talon. “Miss Rougesong?”
The NightWing turned her heavy-hearted head towards him. She looked down at his name tag, which was placed in front of each dragonet. “Yes, Gneiskopf?”
“What about the Axe? What does the Axe have to do with Startamer?” Gneiskopf questioned in a half-chipper way, his head tilting to the right.
The NightWing, whose name must be Roguesong, smiled softly. She looked back towards her ajar wing and the stars glimmered to life again. “Before Startamer went into battle, I was given The Axe, which she had enchanted before me. And she gave me the ability to tell her story if I lacked the words to say, and to live long to tell the tale.”
The brash SkyWing who was chastised finally asked permission to ask a question the polite way.
“Rambutan?” Roguesong encouraged lightly.
“What does the Axe do?” Rambutan inquired, lowering her lighter pink talons. Her white wing webbing flashed open and closed again, perhaps to stretch them.
“The Axe exists only for one purpose.” Roguesong’s wing changed into an image of a tomb. “To bring Startamer back to life, so that she may once again bring peace to the world. And in order for her coming to exist, the Axe must claim a thousand souls.”
The dragonets surrounding Roguesong seemed as if they did not understand the information that was being spoon-fed to them. Perfect. Their little hearts would not be broken today. They were to be told the Truth when they were much, much older.
“You all know that there is no physical Axe to hold. That is because it has been missing for two and a half hundred years. And we lost the Axe when we lost our home to pirates. They ravaged and massacred everything we had ever known. When we escaped, we escaped here, to the home you all hold dearly,” Roguesong explained in almost a whisper. “The Cavern of No Bloodshed has been our shelter, our refuge, our sanctuary-”
Suddenly, Roguesong’s eyes flashed wide open, and her mouth stopped moving. Her body was frozen, her ears screaming in a high pitch, and fighting herself for air. Roguesong felt her consciousness begin to give way, and she stood up warily. She knew what was coming. 
“Little ones, I must-” Something seized her speech. She regained her ground. “I must leave.” 
With her dimming eyesight, the NightWing bounded through the group of dragonets. She thrust her wings open to fly, and she caused a ruckus, her giant wings clawing at the nonexistent wind she sought to catch. But there was none, and she fell clumsily to the ground, her wings thunking painfully on her spine. She rose to her feet, her ears still ringing and beads of sweat beginning to fall as she stormed through the dark corridors of the Cavern of No Bloodshed.
“Pharisee Roguesong, what’s the matter?” A random lime-colored RainWing questioned her.
“Fetch Priest Djoser! And do it now!” Roguesong demanded breathlessly as she raced further into the black. “Tell him to meet me at the Altar of Broken Bones!”
The RainWing blinked confusedly, then took off, his prehensile tail coiling around itself nervously.
The halls of the Cavern became close to pitch darkness, and then opened once again to a yawning carved cathedral of glowing stones. It was at least half a mile high and half a mile long, full of statues and pews and long strings set aflame stretched from one end of the room to another. All things, even the blazes from the ropes, were tinted with the chilled blue color that was produced from the glowing stones. It was grandiose, to say the least, and would put Queen Ruby’s palace to utter shame. In the middle of the Altar, there was an empty tabernacle with two vertical handles to hold… something upright. But Roguesong had no time to marvel at these wonders. She was fading quickly, and if she didn’t reach the Altar of Broken Bones in time, she would miss the words spoken from a legend.
Fortunately, the frantic NightWing stumbled up the stairs to the Altar, and she dove to the stone table. There were bloodstains splattered all over it as if a child had spilled red paint onto it. She reached her right arm across the table and faced the palm of her talon upward. “DJOSER!” She howled with weakening strength. The hall echoed his name thrice.
In a heartbeat, a brawny, pale-chestnut SandWing hurried to the Altar. In his jaws, there was a dagger, brown spotted from age and the blood that it drew. Its hilt was smoothed from the intense usage over the centuries. “Keep calm, Roguesong, I’m here,” He comforted as he gripped Roguesong’s extended arm. “What do you think it is?”
“It’s a prophecy, I know it is. I’ve only experienced this once before, and that was your birth,” Roguesong muttered weakly. Her yellow eyes began to roll behind her head. “Three slashes across the whole arm-”
“On it.” Djoser took the knife out of his jaws and with his left talon, made three, open, and swift gashes along Roguesong’s arm. 
The NightWing jolted awake as soon as the blade made contact with her skin and grimaced as the pain sutured through her body. A prophecy was no painless thing. Despite this, Roguesong turned her arm onto the bloodstained table and allowed the blood to spill through its tiny cracks and crevasses. She stared forward in focus. “Are you ready, Djoser? It’s coming.” She said in a calm voice.
“Yeah,” Djoser replied, quickly grabbing a spare ink, quill, and scroll from underneath the table. Spares always had to be there when the time was unexpected.
Roguesong sat upwards, relying on her talons to keep herself sitting upwards. The wounds on her arm throbbed painfully. She began to speak.
“One for life
Two for ghosts
Three for death
Four to disturb our Mighty Host
Five to rise
Six to fall
Seven to make all the blasphemers crawl
Eight for a brood
Nine for a Creed
Ten for the dragons who’ll make themselves bleed”
Djoser quickly scribbled these hallowed words onto the scroll. This was his first prophecy, and almost felt a sense of pride doing it. No doubt, his talonwriting was a little sloppy, but he will get used to the frantic process of receiving a prophecy. He was only in training, after all. “Is that all? I wouldn’t want the stonemakers to miss anything.”
“Djoser, what Startamer has told me is… rather perplexing news. I don’t know how to feel.” Roguesong took in a few deep breaths before looking up into Djoser’s young, black eyes. “Now, I need binding for my wounds.”
“What did she say?” 
Roguesong stood up and held her bloodied arm with an iron grip. “She says The Axe is going to be found. And that no dragons from The Revival are going to do it.”
Across the continent, a NightWing dragonet was being hatched. And little did Roguesong know…
That it was receiving the prophecy as well.
== Chapter One ==
“Don’t think you’ll get away with this!” A SandWing roared. She flared her wings open and began to break wind towards the IceWing-SkyWing hybrid, her jaws agape. “TRAITOR!”
Ghost’s eyes widened at the patrol dragoness’s action. What did he do? He was just arriving back from Pantala to report information to the IceWing queen. He turned on his heels and ran as quickly as his limbs could carry him. As the palms of his talons struck the shifting sands, he could hear the dragoness behind him catch up. Thankfully, he was half SkyWing. He opened his white wings and took to the sky. He had hoped for a moment that the patrol SandWing behind him wouldn’t follow him. But he heard wingbeats striking the breeze as a knife would cut the air. 
“I’m no traitor!” Ghost shouted back towards the dragoness. He summoned a blast of ice breath in his throat, and prepared to shoot it back towards her in defense. 
“All those who trespass into Pantalan territory are heathens and betrayers to the Queens of Pyrrhia!!” The SandWing exclaimed back to Ghost.
I believe some context is needed for these events to be understood.
See, the Pantalan and Pyrrhia’s dragons have been on the edge of war for a few years now. The Pantalan dragons have united in the years previous and have ceased the Hive Minds for reasons I cannot tell at this moment. Their Hives have been swarming to the point of elbow-touching, and they have risen camps and refuge sites outside the Hives to keep them from bursting. They needed more land. The Pantalan dragons are eyeing the continent of Pyrrhia and are willing to go to war to claim it. 
Ghost angled his wings sharply to the right, and he made a perfect ninety-degree angle in the sky towards the SandWing Kingdom border. He glanced behind his gray-lined shoulder, and the SandWing had struggled to make that same turn, and this gave him some distance between her. He looked down, soaring over the dunes that were mounted over the SandWing Kingdom. He panted heavily, as flying long distances was not his greatest strength. He looked behind himself again and saw the dragoness almost at his tail. He flicked it upwards with a shout of alarm and dove down towards the smaller dunes, as they were approaching the much chillier IceWing kingdom. 
His throat felt as if it were burning from the ice spikes that were forming at the roof of his mouth. For one last time, Ghost turned his spiked head around and exhaled, the ice breath quickly escaping his lips. He felt relief, though he couldn’t see what was happening behind the cloud of cold.
He glided to a soft landing, his breath as heavy as a great stone mountain. He cleared his throat, trying to salvage what saliva he had left in the back of it. His head bobbed up and down as he reclaimed the oxygen around him. His tail was limp, and his wings burned as the lactic acid that had built up in his tight muscles. His small, black eyes were blurred. He knew this should not have happened. His pursuer had to have been canker with hate for the Plantalan tribes to have been so hostile to one who simply walked into their borders. 
“Golly,” He rasped. He blinked a few times to get a better sense of where he was. Soon, he could see the great spires that erected from the IceWing Kingdom’s territory. He smiled, knowing that he was almost home.
He heard a loud burst from behind him, and as he whirled around to see what was happening, the SandWing dragoness had launched herself onto him. Sand leaked from her triangle scales and auburn frills that donned her head. The hybrid flexed his sharp claws and raked it along the side of her face. The SandWing grunted in pain, yet kept her ground. Her barbed tail loomed over her like a scorpion bound to strike.
“Got you,” The SandWing uttered with clarity and grim victory.
Ghost squirmed under the SandWing’s strength, spitting out little grains of sand. “Let me go!”
“Not before you tell your crimes to your Queen.” The SandWing quickly snatched the hybrid’s talons and hooked a strong rope from her waist bag with her hooked barb. With it, she bound Ghost’s front talons together and leaped away from him, expecting him to writhe and shift around even more. 
But Ghost was still, too frightened to move. Again, he questioned himself what he did to deserve this. “I’m loyal to my Queen! And to yours, and to all the Queens of Pyhrria!” He detested, using his tail to sit upright. He eventually sat upwards, facing the SandWing. “You’re crazy!”
The SandWing dragoness walked closer to Ghost. She scanned him up and down, as did Ghost. She was quite lanky, and bore brown NightWing scales on her face, snout, and limbs the color of her barb and straight horns. Her eyes were blue, like his own. Her right shoulder was marked with a black symbol of some sort, and it was also on the crown of her barb. Her wing webbing was black and lined with white triangles. On her tail, there were three spikes, and her underbelly was black, and a flaming pattern the color of the Sun lined the underside of it. 
“So you say,” Said the SandWing after a long period of time.
“You’re a hybrid,” Ghost muttered suddenly. He looked up at her with curiosity in his electric blue pupils. “A Sand/Night, like Sunny the Great War-Ender.”
The SandWing was a little startled by the “traitor”’s remark. She nodded to confirm two of the tribes she inherited. “I’m part MudWing also.”
“A tribrid, then?” Ghost almost cut the other hybrid’s words off in excitement. 
“Yeah,” The tribrid said. She noted Ghost’s IceWing stocky build and his SkyWing orange crest tips and talons. “No doubt you’re a hybrid, too.”
“I’m Ghost!” Ghost blurted in a heartbeat. He had never spoken to a tribrid before, nor even a hybrid, as ubiquitous as they were these days.
“I’m Sunsl- What? Why am I even answering your questions, you’re my hostage!” The tribrid spoke quickly and turned and walked a few steps away from Ghost. She rubbed her temple and shook her head as if it were coated with water.
“How did you come out of that dune like that?” Ghost inquired, hopping towards the
tribrid as best he could on his hind legs.
“I’m a Dune-Swimmer. Runs in the family,” The tribrid said, slowly swiveling her head back towards Ghost. She sighed and noticed the hindbag on his waist. “What’s in there?”
“Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you went nuts on me.” Ghost 
gestured towards his sunken hips with his bound talons.
The tribrid stalked forward as if she were suspicious of him.
“Don’t worry, I won’t iceblast you, now that you know my name,” Ghost chattered, almost nervously. 
With that confirmation, the tribrid sat beside Ghost. She opened the leather flap on the hindbag and shuffled through it. She grimaced at the very disorganized state it was in.
Ghost could smell her distaste and released a pressurized exhale. “I haven’t cleaned it in months.”
“Maybe you should do that,” The tribrid muttered. She uncrumpled a little note that was shoved in the very back of the bag and coughed once before she read. “LeafWings planning to settle in SandWing territory. HiveWings connive on whether to take out the SkyWing or RainWing Queen first.” She paused. “Signed Ghost.” She took out another one. “SilkWing general kidnaps SeaWing. Interrogations include claw-gnashers. Signed Ghost.”
Ghost nodded. “See?”
“Well, this is useful information,” The muted yellow tribrid replied. She set the note on top of the mass of other notes and closed the knapsack and walked around to meet Ghost at his front. “Wow, um-” She suddenly burst into laughter, which sounded more like a cackle. She thrust her head to the sky as her guffaws erupted into the atmosphere.
“What, what’s so funny?” Ghost stammered. He tilted his head to the left.
“I’m sorry,” She covered her snout with her talon to try to stifle her laughs. “I’m sorry I chased you all the way here! And all for nothing but a little bit of info!” She let out an airy sigh as she shook her head again, collecting her breaths. “You’re Ghost, right?”
“Right as the sun rises in the East,” Ghost confirmed.
“I’m Sunslinger.” The tribrid barked. Her sky-blue eyes glimmered in the sunlight, a trait Ghost noticed in most SandWings. “And I patrol the border. So if you see anything suspicious, you let me know.”
“Right on,” Ghost replied with a friendly nod. He opened his wings to fly away, but he said “Nice to meet you” before he took off.
Sunslinger watched as Ghost bobbed along the winds of the adjoining IceWing kingdom. And just as he was out of sight, she turned herself around to fly back to her post. But she heard Ghost calling out her name in a frantic dialect before she could do so. Her eyes widened, she watched Ghost glide down to her, his talons and shoulders quaking as if he were standing on the back of a giant cricket’s legs.
“Back so soon? What’s the matter?” Sunslinger asked almost in a motherly tone of voice.
“I need you to come see this,” Ghost said nervously.
So, Sunslinger followed Ghost to his destination. They passed into the IceWing Kingdom, and immediately, the temperature was dropping. Sunslinger wasn’t accustomed to such cold weather, and she tried to keep herself from shivering as they landed near a large pit in the ground. Patches of snow surrounded it. 
Ghost held a claw to his lips to gesture to be quiet. Sunslinger nodded and crept towards the edge of the hole. She furrowed her brow in confusion, anger, and duty as she made out what was inside.
“What should we do?” The hybrid whispered, his ears flattening to the sides of his head.
There, at the hole of the pit, was a dead SilkWing.
== Chapter Two ==
Sunslinger bore her teeth at the corpse below her. “Better off dead,” She spat, turning around to face Ghost. “I’d just leave it there.”
“Well, first off, it’s not an ‘it’.” Ghost leaned down, craning his neck to the dead SilkWing. “We have to let someone know.”
“I’ll tell my captain about it. He’ll know what to do,” Sunslinger said abruptly. She began to walk away.
Ghost shook his head and ran towards Sunslinger to stop her in her path. “Listen, if any Pantalan finds out about a SilkWing on the cusp of two Pyrrhian Kingdoms, they’ll go back to Pantala and fuel their fire!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sunslinger asked, a sharp dialect on her tongue. “What are you talking about?”
“If they have spies here, we’re good as dead,” Ghost explained quietly, taking a quick, cautionary glance about him to observe the area around him. “What if that SilkWing was one of them?”
“That’s true.” Sunslinger looked about her, her ears perking upwards. “I’m surprised there aren’t any patrol dragons around.”
“Not in these parts. They’re on the closest side to Pantala,” Ghost answered. He walked back towards the pit and opened his wings, which were bigger than Sunslinger’s. “We have to hide the body.”
“Where?” Sunslinger asked, taking to Ghost’s side. She blurted something gibberish out of frustration. “You know what? This is too big for us. I’m getting Captain Polecat.” She stood up.
“No, wait, I think it’s best this stays between us two,” Ghost replied quickly, setting his tail behind Sunslinger’s back to prevent her from going away.
Sunslinger narrowed her eyes down at the inert corpse. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”
The tribrid and the hybrid floated down to the pit. It was only big enough to fit the three dragons, which was convenient. Sunslinger took the front claws of the SilkWing and Ghost took the rear. Together they hauled the corpse up to the surface, dropping him on a bank of snow. They were exhausted by the end of it. 
Sunslinger shook her talons out as if she were just stung by a wasp. “Oooof! That was a struggle.”
“You can say that again,” Exhaled Ghost, who was staring down at the SilkWing. He looked to be about the same age as him and Sunslinger. “He’s probably gray because he’s drained of what life he had left.”
“Quite right on that one, Ghost,” Sunslinger remarked slyly, standing back up. “Now, where do we hide him?”
“In the gro-”
“Ghost,” Sunslinger interrupted. She froze, and stretched her long neck out to the SilkWing corpse.
“What now?” Ghost crooned. 
Sunslinger kept her eyes on the corpse. “I think it just moved,” She said quickly and was afraid.
“It’s dead, what could possibly happen to a DEAD corpse-”
In a heartbeat, in an instant that was so preciously and precisely comical, the SilkWing corpse’s eyes flashed open! He leaped to his feet, and fell backwards, his wings fluttering chaotically about him, shouting like a madman. “OHMYMOONSOHMYMOONSOHMYMOONS!!”
Sunslinger and Ghost screamed in shock and fear and ran away from the yellow-legged SilkWing. What were they witnessing? A dragon rising from the dead, no doubt. No matter the tribe, it was still an undead dragon!
“You’re supposed to be dead!!” Ghost cried, pointing at the risen dead one with his claw.
“I’M SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD!!” The SilkWing cawed back to Ghost. He felt his slim body. “I’M SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD!!” He repeated, fear in his eyes.
Sunslinger collected her thoughts and feelings. With a heavy exhale through pursed lips and a jog in place, she ferociously lunged out from the place she was standing and tackled the SilkWing, pinning his wrists down. “You’re not getting away, heathen! You better not be a FlameSilk!!”
“What am I doing here?” The SilkWing murmured. His deep, brown eyes darted from place to place, as if he were stalking a frivolous prey. “Why is it so cold?”
“Silence!!” Sunslinger barked, clamping one of her talons over his snout. She had an iron grip. “Ghost, freeze him!”
The SilkWing tried to shake his head in disapproval as the Ice/SkyWing hybrid approached him. With his free talon, the SilkWing shot a gray line of silk out of his wrist and it shot Ghost in the eyes, and quickly did the same to Sunslinger.
With this, Sunslinger stepped off the SilkWing to regain her sight. She ripped the sticky silk from her eyes and looked about her, trying to find the SilkWing and where he went, and he was floating above the two dragons, his arms extended and palms exposed. “One more move towards me, I’ll do it again.” He paused, almost as if to listen to someone speaking to him. “No, I won’t kill them.” Another pause. “ I need to explain why I’m here.”
“As if you could kill us,” Sunslinger teased to herself.
Ghost was in a fighting pose, ready to strike, but when he listened to the SilkWing’s words, he stood up from that position, perplexed by what he was talking about. “We didn’t say anything.”
“Wasn’t talking to you,” The SilkWing grumbled to Ghost. He cleared his throat and continued to talk. “Just stay out of this, alright? I’ll talk with you later.”
“Who are you talking to?” Sunslinger inquired, her stature still defensive.
“What’s it to you?” The brown-tailed SilkWing turned around to face the tribrid, and his tone of voice was suddenly hushed. “SandWing?”
Sunslinger rolled her eyes. “Just come down here so that it’s easier for me to arrest you. Ghost, where’s that rope I tied you up in a few minutes ago?”
“Like I’m going to just let that happen!” The SilkWing protested, his tail lashing around. “And is that what you do? You taloncuff your friends? That doesn’t sound kind to me at all!”
The yellow dragon shook her head with an exasperated sigh, her auburn frills wiggling about as she did so. “I wish I had RainWing gear on me so that I could tranquilize you.”
“You like to tranq your friends, too?” The SilkWing shouted in a horrified tone of voice.
“NO! I don’t!” Sunslinger yowled, her head to the blue sky. 
“Just tell us why you’re here.” Ghost intercepted before anything could get worse. “We won’t attack you unless you won’t attack us.”
The SilkWing lowered his talons so that he could land on the ground gracefully. He took a gander at Sunslinger, who was staring deathly daggers at him. “I agree. We haven’t even gone to war yet.” He looked back to Ghost. “I’m sorry, we really got off to the wrong start.” He sat down to tell his story.
“I haven’t ever been to Pantala. I wasn’t even born there. Neither were my parents, or their parents. My great grandparents were subject to Burn’s…” He shuddered as second-hand fear rattled his bones. “Collection of anomalies.”
“How can we know you’re telling the truth?” Sunslinger interjected rudely.
The gray SilkWing raised his palms to the two dragons before him. There were no marks of his parents’ initials. On his wrists, the usual silk pits that all SilkWings bear was colored a pale lavender instead of white or pale yellow. “My parents’ names were Egle for my mother, and Arctiidae for my father. E.A. I was never branded with their initials.”
Ghost huffed. Maybe this SilkWing was truthful. “Go on.” He let his wings sit on the ground next to him.
“Once the Queens were dead and Thorn took the throne, my grandparents escaped with my mother and father. They laid me and my sister’s eggs in secret, where I’ve been living my whole life.” The SilkWing lowered his head. “My sister died from a sickness she gained from a rat’s bite. By then, I had gone through metamorphosis, and I was ready to live off on my own. My parents then decided to leave for Plantala. I waved them goodbye, and I never heard from them since.” He faced the two Pyhrrian dragons again. “I just hope they weren’t killed in the process of escaping.”
Sunslinger felt a stinging twang of pity in her stomach for the SilkWing, a feeling she knew she shouldn’t be feeling. “I’m sorry.” Though she didn’t like him, it was a polite thing to say in this situation.
“It’s fine.” Even the SilkWing couldn’t believe that his attacker was expressing feelings of empathy towards him.
“What’s your name?” Ghost felt intrigued to ask.
“Creatonotos,” The SilkWing replied. He managed to smile. “It’s a mouthful, I know. Call me Notos.”
“And you’re not a spy?” Sunslinger interrogated for her own comfort.
“No, three moons, no,” Creatonotos replied as he shook his talons back and forth.
Sunslinger approached Creatonotos slowly. She stopped a tail-length away from where he was standing. “Then can we trust you?”
“I want nothing to do with the war,” Creatonotos replied quickly with a shake of his head. His dark-brown spotted wings revealed themselves to the Pyhrrian dragon. “I’m on nobody’s side.”
Ghost stared at Sunslinger, who turned her head to stare back at him. They thought for a while, looking at each other. After that long pause, Sunslinger turned to face Creatonotos. “Okay. We’ll let you go.”
“But where should I go?” Creatonotos questioned, sadness in his eyes. “Home? I have no idea where home is. I… just woke up in this pit with an axe at my feet.”
“An axe? How strange,” Ghost murmured. He trotted towards the pit and peered over its edge. He guessed he was too focused on the supposedly dead Creatonotos that he missed the weapon below him. He climbed down into the pit and set his talons on the soggy ground. He listened to Creatonotos and Sunslinger walk over to the hole and could sense their presence above him. He opened his talons and picked the double-headed axe up by its handle. Despite its heavy head, the axe was surprisingly lightweight. The blade was a dark gray, and its handle black, with a yellow gem propped between the heads. “What an odd weapon.” He examined it for a few seconds, and noticed dark, browned blood coating the edge of the blades.
“Bring it up!” Sunslinger declared expectantly.
At Sunslinger’s call, he rose up to meet the other two dragons. He dropped the axe, which was previously between his IceWing-like jaws. It thunked against the ground as if it weighed a million pounds. “It’s bloody,” He stated blandly.
Creatonotos squinted at the thing, his tail swishing to one side in suspicion. He picked the axe up and ran one of his talons along the edge. He flinched as the blade made its cut into his soft flesh. “It’s still sharp. I can feel them.”
“What? Feel them?” Sunslinger repeated.
“This is huge,” Creatonotos sighed, clenching his injured talon and placing the axe back down with his free one. “I can feel it’s been used a lot in battles.”
“You can feel it?” Ghost interrogated in a confused tone of voice.
The SilkWing shot a nervous glance towards the hybrid for a moment, then blew out a breath, perhaps to collect his thoughts. “Yes. But that’s a topic for another time.” He stood up and dropped the Axe into Sunslinger’s hind bag, which she jolted backwards at.
“So, what do we do now?” Asked Sunslinger, who patted her hindbag. “What’s your plan, SilkWing?”
“There’s a NightWing on the outskirts of the Scorpion Den I can trust. I’ve bought from him and his family for years.” Creatonotos told sternly. “No, you keep quiet.”
“Please, Notos. Who are you talking to?” Ghost pleaded in the same tone as the gray and red SilkWing.
“Again, that’s for another time,” Creatonotos repeated annoyingly. His long neck swiveled around to face the SandWing kingdom. “I don’t even know if we can stay friends…”
“Are... we even friends?” Sunslinger said with articulation. “We literally just met a second ago.” She turned to Ghost, who was fondling with his claws uncomfortably as he looked her in the blue eyes. “I can say the same thing to you, Ghost. But the difference is that us two can be trusted together around Pyhrrians.”
Ghost bunched his lips together in thought. “How are we going to get you into the SandWing kingdom?” He asked Notos. “Luckily, you don’t stick out like a sore thumb like your kin.”
“True.” Notos grabbed his white antennae and flattened them against his brown horns. “I could pass for a SkyWing, don’t you think?”
“Barely, but it’ll have to do. We’ll have to find a way to cover up your wings.” Ghost agreed. “What do you think we should do, Sunslinger?”
“I don’t know. The Patrol Dragons who are usually on the IceWing border with me are pretty lazy for their age, but they get the job done,” Sunslinger answered, beginning to pace around. 
“Oh, I know! Uh, Sunslinger, is that your name?” Creatonotos guessed with a tilt of his head as he pointed to Sunslinger.
The dragoness nodded. “That’s my name.”
“You act as a diversion as Ghost and I slip past!” Creatonotos suggested with a smug smile on his face. “Like what they do in scrolls and stuff, if you know what I mean!”
“Big no. BIG. NO,” Sunslinger retorted, shaking her head, hearing Ghost cackle a few times beside her. “ONE, it would be going against my job, and TWO, the two of them are stupid dorks and I don’t want them thinking I’m into them, or something gross like that!”
“Yuck. That sounds like a bad ending for the three of us,” Ghost validated, mimicking Sunslinger’s actions. He looked to the ground for a second, then looked up towards Creatonotos. “Let’s face it. I don’t think you’d pass as a SkyWing. You’re way too short and your horns are too long for a SkyWing.” He turned around acutely and ran towards a tree, and snapped a branch off its trunk, approaching the group, he said. “You wouldn’t happen to mind playing dead again, would you? Sunslinger and I will carry you to the Patrol, we’ll tell them we’re going to burn your body, and they’ll let us in!”
Creatonotos sighed, his head to the sky above them. His four wings drooped. “I wasn’t playing dead, I was unconscious. But if this means I’ll get into the SandWing Kingdom alright, then fine.” He rose to his feet suddenly and pounced towards Ghost, meeting him forehead-to-forehead. Ghost whimpered at the quick movement and dropped the stick as his limbs froze. His voice hushed, yet formidable. “But if you renege our word and you burn me alive, I will show you a world of pain that makes Hell look like a walk in the park.”
Ghost nodded with short range in fright as the SilkWing walked towards Sunslinger. “I just wanted to show him that I’m no fragile thing, is all.”
“Was that to me, or to your imaginary friend?” Sunslinger teased with an icy smirk.
“She is very much not imaginary, and yes, it was to her,” Creatonotos hissed. He began to pat his body, and then wiggled a cloud-gray scale under his right shoulder. “Now, if you want to make the fatal blow look real, I suggest you poke that stick you tore away from that tree underneath this scale. It was loosened in a fight I got into.”
Sunslinger strode towards Ghost and took the branch away from him. Ghost got back on his fours as he watched Sunslinger shove one end of the stick into his loosened scale. “Wow. It fits like a glove.”
“Impressive, right?” Creatonotos muttered blandly. He lowered his arm slightly as he laid on the ground. “Let’s get a move on. I want to get there at least by tomorrow.”
“Then, we can go our separate ways,” Sunslinger concluded. “And we never have to speak about each other again. Is that a deal?”
The gray SilkWing looked to Ghost, then to the ground. “It’s a deal.”
== Chapter Three ==
The setup for the breach didn’t take long. Ghost’s sharp nails assisted in tearing the bark of a nearby tree away from its trunk, which acted as the bed for the SilkWing to play dead on. Sunslinger snapped the branch that Ghost tore in half, and Creatonotos helped construct the mobile bed into its final state. When the preparations were done, the three dragons sat around their work.
“It’s done,” Ghost murmured. He turned to Creatonotos. “Once Sunslinger and I get you far away from the SandWing border, you know how to get to your NightWing friend?”
“Like the back of my talon,” Creatonotos replied. He stood up and laid down on the bark mat, folding his wings in close to his back. “Let’s not take any chances. There could be dragons watching us as we walk.”
“Right,” Sunslinger agreed harshly. She walked over to the front end of the contraption and with a grunt, lifted it around her tail. Ghost walked to the back and pushed his breast scales up against the back of it. 
Creatonotos stuck the other end of the stick under his loose scale and gave the nod to continue. “If we find any prey around, we’ll need to smother the stick with its blood. It’s further proof that I’m actually dead.”
“I thought I spotted a few large lizards close by those dunes where we first spoke, Sunslinger,” The Ice/SkyWing hybrid spoke, pointing in the direction where they were headed. “We could eat those as a snack.”
Sunslinger began to walk, her tail coiled around the stick that helped her drag the SilkWing, and Ghost pushed behind her. It was a long, yet relaxing trek. The sun was about to set as they spotted the SandWing Kingdom’s border, letting a dark orange glow illuminate the horizon as the stars set in the night sky’s silver pelt. Sunslinger almost blended into the atmosphere around the three dragons. They eventually came upon a small lizard’s den and killed its inhibitors, dipping the tip of the wooden “spear” into its blood. Once letting it dry, the dragons continued on. It was nearly dusk when they approached a duo of SandWings, their spears clutched in their talons. Ghost flinched at the sight of them, afraid that this plan was not going to work.
“‘Ey!” One of them called out. He had bright yellow scales, almost the color of a banana’s, with a fresh cut mark on his high cheekbone that was bound to leave a scar. “Whatcha doin’ around ‘ere, Slinger?” He chuckled over to his pale friend, whispering some things neither Ghost nor Sunslinger could decipher.
“Told you they were total dorks,” Sunslinger whispered as quietly as she could into Ghost’s ear.
The pale SandWing narrowed his eyes at Creatonotos, who was playing dead extraordinarily well. “A Silkie, huh? Is it dead? I’d gladly show him a thing or two if he’s not!”
“Was he a spy, do ya know?” The darker SandWing questioned.
“What does it matter, if he’s dead,” The pale SandWing replied glumly.
“He’s dead. Totally dead. We killed him, see?” Ghost almost stammered. He swiveled his head towards Creatonotos.
The banana-colored SandWing pointed his spear down at Creatonotos and poked his shoulder. He was silent for a moment, before his barb tilted the erecting spear to the right a tad. “Dead as a doornail. Good workin’, Slinger.” He took a few steps away from the tribrid, the hybrid, and the SilkWing.
Sunslinger lowered her head a little bit to the two patrol dragons. “Thanks.” With that, she and her companions passed them and entered the SandWing kingdom, and once they were out of eye and earshot, Creatonotos stood up and they discarded the traveling device as the three moons rose over Pyrrhia. They were standing in a small valley, where the sand descended and a small oasis lay nearby.
“This place…” Creatonotos clenched the cooling sand between his toes. “Carries bad memories. My parents would have forbidden me to come here without them. Yet, here I am.”
Ghost opened his heart towards the SilkWing and placed his tail on his back. “Remember, this is only a visit. You can go back to wherever you came from after we get this axe sold.”
Creatonotos nodded slowly. “I know.” He looked ahead of him, where Sunslinger was standing aloof.
“We should get moving before the Night Patrol sees us. There’s an abandoned shack where I used to play as a dragonet nearby.” Sunslinger spoke blandly. “Follow me, and we can stay there for the night.” She opened her wings and was about to fly, before Ghost cut her off.
“No. We continue on talons. If you say that the Night Patrol is on its way, then we should refrain from flying at least until dawn,” Ghost corrected in a fatherly tone of voice. He turned towards Sunslinger. “You lead the way.”
It was a two minute walk from the oasis to the shack. Sunslinger warned the two male dragons to stay away as she conducted a five-minute check on it to see if it was still habitable. When the three dragons were inside and they dropped their luggage on the floor, Sunslinger used her firebreath to light a gently-used candlewick. She curled her barbed tail around her legs and tucked her wings in tightly. “Sorry it’s a squeeze, but I’m pretty convinced no one ever comes here. We’ll be safe here for the night.”
Ghost laid down, making himself comfortable, stretching his large white wings out. The large appendages knocked some things down, such as a few potted cactuses and messily scribbled pictures in stick frames as Sunslinger protested. 
Creatonotos, being the slim, gray creature he was, slunk cozily under a rotting shelf, his wings tucked under him. He kept one eye open to look at his allies. “I’m pretty tired, aren’t you?”
“Today was a long day,” Ghost said, opening his mouth to yawn. “I never thought I’d be sleeping next to a bunch of strangers tonight, but… “
“Same. I thought my job was going to be normal day-in, day-out.” The tribrid mumbled. She quickly glared at Creatonotos. “And now, I’m helping an enemy. Going against my word isn’t a thing I usually do.”
“Then let it be the only time you do so,” Creatonotos replied in a similar tone. His eyes suddenly widened. “No, she’s only saying what she thinks.”
“Your friend’s talking again?” Sunslinger asked, cocking an eyebrow upwards.
Creatonotos turned his wrists over to stare at the little pits in them that make his silk. He closed both of his eyes for a moment before opening them. “Not until they’re ready.”
“I think now would be a good time to explain who you’re talking to,” Sunslinger encouraged, her spiked tail craning over her body.
“No,  I-” Creatonotos shut his snout, his rounded ears flattening against his skull. “I need to trust you both enough to tell you. N-Not like I don’t trust you right now, it’s just not enough to tell you.”
“This could be private information, Sunslinger. I wouldn’t ask him these questions,” Ghost quipped. “Also considering that we’ll probably never see him again…”
Sunslinger huffed, a tendril of smoke floating from her nostrils. “I guess.” She laid down, closing her blue eyes. “See you in the morning.”
“Good night, Sunslinger,” Creatonotos answered blandly. 
The tribrid huffed once again, and shifted her body so that she was turned away from the SilkWing. It wasn’t long before she was in a slumber, the rising of her chest slow and snoring occasionally. 
Meanwhile, Ghost was looking up through a hole in the wall that could act as a window. The moonlight seeped through its shattered cracks and onto his gray-freckled, winter-white scales. He eventually felt his eyelids grow heavy, and fell asleep, exhausted by the day’s travels and wonders.
The next morning, Sunslinger was the first to rise, as she was accustomed to waking up just as the sun’s warm rays peaked on the horizon. She crawled out of the shack to stretch her wings and catch herself something for breakfast. She managed to sneak up on two lizards. She ate one of them and brought the lizard inside the shack with it between her jaws. 
She dropped the unfortunate creature at Ghost’s face, making a loud thumping noise. “Up.”
Ghost jolted his head backwards, lazily baring his teeth at the tribrid standing before him. “Already? Spare us some time to not do anything…”
“Hey, I want this SilkWing out of my sight before tonight, and I want this NightWing-Vendor thing with him to be over. Quickly,” Sunslinger criticized quietly. “Come on!”
“Alright, fine. Just… gimme a second to wake up,” Ghost mumbled into his arm. He rolled onto his wings and groaned as he stood up, rocking from one side to the other. He yawned loudly, his tongue curling back as if it were a threatened, scarlet cat.
Sunslinger coughed and wafted his breath away with her talon. “Three Moons, The Sun, and the Stars, Ghost! Your morning breath is worse than crawling up Darkstalker’s asshole!” She grimaced, turning her head away from the hybrid.
“Sorry,” He said to the ground. He picked the lizard off the ground and began to gnaw at its head. “You didn’t get Notos anything?”
“Isn’t he a vegetarian?” Sunslinger noted, facing the sleeping dragon. She narrowed his eyes at him. “Yam-Eating Locust.”
Ghost dropped the lizard and cleared his throat. “You don’t seem like you’re getting along with Notos very well.”
“No, I’m not. And for good reason, too,” Sunslinger replied. She walked out of the shack and gestured for Ghost to follow her. “I’ll get fired if I’m seen with a SilkWing. If that happens, I’ll have to return home. And my parents worked so hard on getting me out of the den. I’d be a disgrace.”
“He’s trying to get along with you, you know,” Ghost compromised in a matter-of-fact tone. He trotted out of the shack and stood in front of her.
“How do you know?”
“He told me. Last night, when you were checking on the shack.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he thinks you need a friend.”
Sunslinger’s head tilted slightly. “I’m quite fine with the friends I have now. Maybe I should tell him that. And then he’ll leave me alone.”
“He doesn’t want you to leave him alone-”
“Listen, Ghost, the chances of meeting Notos again are very small in the grand scheme of things. After we sell that axe, the three of us never have to speak to each other again,” Sunslinger interrupted, raising her voice. “Which is what I want. I want to live a regular life away from… downright heresy.”
“Well, Sunslinger, I want to keep in touch with you. It’d be nice to have a border guard as a friend,” Ghost said, raising his head high above his shoulders. He lifted his eyes above Sunslinger so that he could see inside the shack. He spotted Creatonotos shifting about. “And… Notos is waking up. Let’s call this conversation over.”
The dragoness also faced Creatonotos, who was rising to his feet. “Fine.”
“Good morning, Notos! How’d you sleep?” Ghost’s tone of voice shifted. He printed a smile on his face and walked past Sunslinger towards the shack.
“Better than I thought I would, being crammed under that shelf,” Creatonotos answered groggily, scratching behind his antennae. He spotted the headless lizard below him, and his eyes lit up. “Oh, is that for me?”
“Well-” Before Ghost could say anything else, Creatonotos was ripping into the carcass as if he hadn’t seen any food for a week.
Sunslinger’s jaw fell agape. “I guess he’s not a Yam-Eating Locust after all.” She walked to Creatonotos, her tail dragging behind her. “When’d you learn to eat meat?” She asked in an uncomfortable tone of voice.
“Always have. My mother told me SilkWings in Pantala are vegetarians. Isn’t THAT weird?” Creatonotos thought aloud, tearing a tendon away from the lizard’s leg. “And my friend likes to watch me rip into the hearts of my victims.” He licked his bloody snout and stopped consuming the lizard and lifted it towards Sunslinger. “Though, it really isn’t a victim. You want some?”
“ I already had my fill,” Sunslinger answered quickly, shaking her head.
Creatonotos finished the lizard and spat out its bones. He exited the shack and narrowed his eyes at the rising sun. “My friend is about a quarter of a day’s flight from here.” He opened his beautiful, spotted wings and lifted himself into the air. “Ah, it feels good to stretch the wings.”
“I’ll bet. You haven’t flown in a day or two,” Ghost remarked, joining his friend in flight. He turned his head towards Sunslinger. “Hey, Slinger, c’mon!”
The tribrid leaped into the air beside the two male dragons. “Which direction are we going?”
“East,” Creatonotos replied, pointing outwards to the Sun.
“Great. Time to become blind,” Sunslinger said in a sarcastic tone of voice and rolling her eyes. “Whatever. Let’s just get this over with.”
“Aw, don’t worry about it. The Sun always rises as dawn becomes day,” Ghost sympathized, patting Sunslinger on the back with his tail.
Creatonotos leveled his body in the air and gravitated towards the giant glowing ball in the sky. “Follow me.”
It was an aching journey. As the dragons soared just outside the SandWing mainstream trail, the Sun kept the shapes of their bodies dark and hidden against its fiery light. They stopped after every hour or so to hydrate and take a break from carrying their heavy bags. At one point, Creatonotos almost passed out. Ghost was there to help him as Sunslinger stood stoic. Ghost was frightened by a passing SandWing don in glittering silks that looked like she had no docile irk in her, but Sunslinger mollified them, stating that she was just a good friend doing her job. 
Eventually, the three dragons spotted a small shop ahead in the distance outside the Scorpion Den, and a wide smile spread on Creatonotos’ face as they drew nearer. Landing on the scalding sands, he rushed up to greet its vendor. The stall was constructed of palm wood and was shielded by the intense heat by a talon-knitted maroonish tarp. Shelves were lined along the back wall of the stall, littered with all sorts of curios. There was a pile of instruments in the right corner of the open-aired shop, and beside was a little desk with ink and a short newly-printed scroll.
The dragon that was inside was, as Creatonotos described it, a male NightWing. He was tall for a NightWing his age, and looked as if he could lose just a few pounds. His scales were a dark indigo color, and his light-lavender horns matched the inside of his ears. His underbelly was a muted purple that was a sharp contrast to the almost purple-magenta hue of his spines and even brighter star-scales and eyes. Like all NightWings, his wing’s webbing could be compared to a night sky, but only his could be compared to a galaxy with the sheer amount of little white dots on them.
The NightWing grinned as soon as the SilkWing came to the front of the vendor. “Notos!” He chirruped, placing his talons on the palm wood of the counter.
“Wishbender!” Creatonotos exclaimed, taking the NightWing’s talon and giving it a friendly and firm shake. “It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other!”
“I know, long time no see, buddy!” Wishbender smiled once more at Creatonotos, but seemed to sink into his shoulders as soon as he noticed the two other dragons behind him. “Uh… who are they?”
Creatonotos faced Sunslinger and Ghost, then turned back around to Wishbender. “They’re not going to kill me, I promise.”
Sunslinger huffed.
“And they’re fellow travelers, dare I say friends, who helped me get here unharmed,” Creatonotos continued warily. He folded his wings up and shifted his tail towards the hybrid and the tribrid. “This is Ghost-”
“I’m Sunslinger,” Sunslinger interrupted, taking a step forward.
Ghost rolled his eyes and shook his head disapprovingly. “Rude,” He muttered under his breath.
“So, what brings you here?” The NightWing questioned. “Another weird worm you found in your cave you wanna sell me?”
“No, not that again,” Creatonotos almost laughed. “I think you’re going to like what I have for you today.” He turned around, lifting the flap off of his saddlebag, his gray scales shimmering like silver in the sunlight. He lifted the axe up and placed it on the counter. It was wrapped up in Sunslinger’s cobalt cloak, which she had hesitantly surrendered for this purpose.
Wishbender tilted his head to the side. “What is it?” He held the axe in his talons, examining it for a little while. He set it back down on the counter and began to gently unravel the fabric. And upon revealing the axe in the sunlight, he almost dropped it as if it were hot coals. His magenta eyes were wide. “... I think I know what this is.”
Ghost walked closer to Wishbender. “Then, what?”
Wishbender took a single step away from the axe. He looked up at Creatonotos and the two other dragons. “I have been looking for this since I was a hatchling. However did you find it?”
“It was in a hole… in the ground...” Sunslinger answered slowly. “Creatonotos was unconscious there when Ghost and I found him.”
“In a hole? Unconscious?” Wishbender gasped. He faced Creatonotos with nervous eyes. “Notos, what happened?”
“I’ll tell you later. You need to tell us about this axe before anything else,” Creatonotos stated simply, yet sternly. “You can trust these two dragonets. They’re our friends.”
Sunslinger rolled her eyes, facing away from the NightWing.
Wishbender nodded and cleared his throat. “Okay. This may sound a little crazy. My mother told me that when I was born, the voice of a dragoness echoed as I emerged from my egg. She wrote it down and told me to never forget what she said.”
“What was it?” Ghost inquired.
“It was a prophecy. It sounds just like one. It rhymes and everything!” Wishbender explained. He leaned towards his fellow dragonets and squinted his eyes for a second. “My family has been waiting for me to fulfill my life’s purpose. And… it lies in the axe.”
“That’s rough. What do you have to do?” Sunslinger questioned.
“I need to return the axe to its owner. And it’s more difficult than you think. My family tells me I have a whole collective tribe of isolationist dragons waiting for me to bring it to them. I suppose that’s it,” Wishbender replied with uncertain duty.
Ghost leaned forward to the axe. “Notos, you said yesterday that you can ‘feel’ the axe.”
Wishbender immediately looked to his friend. “Is this true?”
“That’s true.” Creatonotos leaned down towards the axe and laid his head on the head of the axe. He closed his eyes, laying there for a moment, almost as if he were listening to distant voices echoing in a silver mist. “I can feel them.” He then quickly took the axe and stuffed it into his saddlebag.
“What are you doing?” Wishbender asked his friend, standing erect. “I need that axe!”
“We’re going to return it.”
Wishbender coughed. “We are?”
“We are. It’s time to get rid of that burden.”
“Oh, no,” Sunslinger groaned, her ears drooping to the sides of her head. “Do we have to come with you?”
“I would love it if you did,” Creatonotos answered with a wink to Sunslinger.
Sunslinger grimaced, weirded out by that simple action, and shook her head. “I’m sorry, you guys, I’ll have to notify my captain if I need to go anywhere.”
“Your captain?” Wishbender repeated, walking out from behind his shop. “You’re a patrol dragon, aren’t you?”
“54’th Division, yes, I am,” Sunslinger confirmed with a militaristic nod of her head. 
“Well, lucky for you, my cousin Ashteeth is going into patrolling around the SandWing border. She could take your post for you!” Wishbender announced, suddenly turning around to get a few legbags, beginning to pack them with food. He grabbed a rope and a flute, and a stringed instrument and tied it to his back.
“Well-”
“Right! Then, it’s settled.” Creatonotos flashed a smile to the tribrid. “Ghost, how about you?”
Ghost looked at the mailbox to the left of the vendor, then shuffled through his bags of endless grub and throwaways. “I suppose I could write these notes out to the IceWing Queen and have Solis deliver them.”
“Then… are we a troop?” Creatonotos asked.
“Do we know where we’re going?” Ghost answered, looking to Wishbender.
“My mother was given the location years ago, but unless it's changed, then it should be on an island south of Jade Academy’s shores,” Wishbender reported. “Which is not too far of a distance from here, on my knowledge.”
Sunslinger scrunched her snout together and held a finger up. “Hold on a moment. I might have a map with me.” She whipped out a loosely-coiled scroll and opened it. “Yep, this is the one. And you’re right, Wishbender. The island is only… two more days of flying away. We just need to fly over those mountains to the Southeast and past Jade Academy-”
“Maybe I can meet some of my friends there,” Wishbender interrupted.
“If you want to, then okay. That would make a good pit-stop for the night,” Sunslinger agreed with a nod.
“And then, we make for the…” Wishbender thought for a second, and eyed Ghost for completing his sentence.
“We’ll call then PantoWings for now, because you said this group included dragons from all different tribes,” Ghost informed. 
“The PantoWing Island,” Wishbender finished with a deep nod. He pat his legbags for assurance. “And we can leave as soon as I write to my parents. They’d be so worried if they find out I’m gone and they don’t know where I am. Also, about Ashteeth. We wouldn’t want you losing your job during these sorts of times, right, Sunslinger?”
Ghost took his notes of importance and slipped them into the mailbox. “Take as long as you need. Parents are valuable beyond measure.”
“Oh! And there’s fresh water in the cooling cellar under this mat. You don’t need to pay for it,” Wishbender offered, grabbing a new scroll from a shelf and lifting a blue and gold rug with his tail.
Creatonotos didn’t hesitate to lift the latch and snatch a water for himself and his newly-made friends, but Sunslinger refused his drink and took one for herself. Once more, Ghost and Creatonotos chatted as Sunslinger sat alone, in her thoughts. She was thinking about the rookie Ashteeth, and the job that she was taking in her place. This had gone very, very South. She predicted she was going to regret this journey, even before it started.
A few more minutes passed, and Wishbender was finished with his letter to his parents. He stretched his wings, and requested the map from Sunslinger, which she passed on. Soon, the four dragons were in the air, and headed for Jade Academy in the afternoon sun. 
== Chapter Four ==
“You had lunch in the cafeteria?!”
Wishbender laughed out loud and placed a talon over his stomach, and the other towards Sunslinger. “It was my friends’ insistence. It wasn’t of my making at all.”
“You could’ve told us before you snuck away like that,” Ghost said in a motherly tone of voice and a tilt of his head.
It was a full day after the four dragons had left Wishbender’s quiet little vendor to the grandeur of Jade Academy. They chose a spot to hide, which was an abandoned fire pit with a grove of cypress and pine trees surrounding it. The path leading to it was blanketed with leafy overgrowth, so it was the perfect refuge for them to stay in for the day. Around lunchtime, Wishbender had suddenly disappeared, and Creatonotos insisted that they go looking for him, but Sunslinger convinced them that it was best to stay under cover. Ghost may have taken it a bit too seriously, as he rolled around in a nearby mudpit to REALLY sell the idea.
“Well, why did you take off like that?” Sunslinger asked sternly. “We were worried about you.” She paused, then pointed to Creatonotos with her thumb over her tattooed shoulder. “Actually, it was mostly him.”
“With good reason!” Creatonotos snapped back, his brown wings beginning to unfurl and bearing his teeth for a moment. “He’s my BEST FRIEND; You know that?”
Wishbender trotted to Creatonotos’s side and smiled smugly. “We are.” He turned his head to Sunslinger. “Well, if you really want to know where I was, I was in the cafeteria, eating food with some of my clawmate friends who are graduating this year.”
“Which winglet?” Ghost questioned, picking off a bit of dried mud off his arm. It felt like a beetle’s shell pressed up against his scales.
“Copper,” The NightWing answered. He smiled sweetly, as if he was watching his dragonet break through their egg. “I was a year ahead of them, but I somehow ended up in their group. I was kinda like their Bigwings!”
“You were in Copper? No way! I was in Copper!” The ferociousness in Sunslinger’s voice had suddenly disappeared. Her tail perked up as she spoke, and a bright grin split her face. “Who were they? I graduated two years ago.”
“Uhh, Derecho, Nyala, Rail, Graysby, Hima, Bromeliad, and the new NightWing is Thunderbreath.” Wishbender counted them all on his fingers and thumb as he looked upwards and to the left of him. He looked back down at his new friends. “Good mix to be with, so to say.”
“Who names their dragonet ‘Thunderbreath’?” Ghost laughed sarcastically.
Wishbender casted Ghost a sneery side glare.
“Woah, I knew Hima! Wasn’t she like, the one who accidentally froze Principal Schoolmaster’s bearded dragon?” Sunslinger guessed, trying not to laugh. It was the first time she had in a few days.
“Yeah!! And I was there for it,” Wishbender exclaimed excitedly.
The two alumni chatted for a while, and Creatonotos’s anger slipped away from him as well. He didn’t know how, but he guessed it was the new feeling that was growing in his chest whenever Sunslinger would laugh or beam with her not-so-perfect teeth. He blushed and placed a paw to his burning cheek. “Shut up.”
Meanwhile, Ghost was cleaning himself off, and he noticed the coloration on Creatonotos’s face. “Hey, is your invisible friend making love to you somehow?” He joked.
“And now I’ll say to YOU, Ghost. Shut up,” Creatonotos grumbled, and the redness faded away.
A few hours passed, and it grew rather quiet with the group as the sun was beginning to set. Creatonotos busied himself by talking with himself, Wishbender was taking a loud nap, and Sunslinger and Ghost were hovering over the map to the PantoWing cave. 
Sunslinger lifted her head from the map, and soon after did Ghost. “Hey, we still have a while to go before we get to that island. Let’s get moving.”
“Now? Aren’t we going to stay for supper?” Creatonotos questioned, turning his head to Sunslinger.
“Dinner can wait. We’re gonna wait till dusk to fly.” Sunslinger rolled up the map in her talons. “Man, I wish we had a SeaWing in the group,” She quietly hissed beside herself.
“I’m hungry! The only one who ate during this whole trip was Wishbender!” Ghost said, pointing to the NightWing with his tail.
The NightWing simply smiled unwittingly.
“But… you know you could have gotten a snack anyhow, right?” Sunslinger argued. “That’s what I did.”
“What? You snuck away, too?!” Ghost exclaimed crossly. Bits of frost spewed from his triangular nostrils. “How did I miss this?”
“No, I just grabbed a rat I saw running by my feet. You know how quiet they can be,” Sunslinger answered. “And if anyone wants a snack, or something, it should probably be Wishbender getting them. I wouldn’t want any of my patrol friends running into me.”
Wishbender nodded in agreement. “I can totally do that. The cafeteria should still be open if you guys want any snack-snacks.”
“Anything works,” Ghost sighed, holding his stomach. “My stomach hurts now, because I’ve been starved!”
“Quit your whining, or I’ll taloncuff you just like I did when we met,” Sunslinger warned with a mom-finger and a raised eyebrow.
Ghost shook his head. “Fine.” He turned to Wishbender. “I’ll take a cinnamon roll. They’re the best snack in the house.”
“That’s not going to hold you over, just as a fair warning,” Creatonotos assumed. He laid down over where the fire pit used to be, seemingly blending in with his raincloud-colored body against the ashes with a few hints of red and sky blue. “I’ll take their largest zebra steak.”
“I don’t have that much money, Notos, but I’ll see what I can get you,” Wishbender complied. “You, Sunslinger?”
“I’m actually pretty hungry for some jerky. It comes in clutch during long patrol days,” She admitted. The factoid she shared was quite real, and it was one of her favorite foods.
“Alright. I’ll see you when the food comes!” Wishbender spread his wings and prepared to take off towards Jade Academy. 
The day passed into night, and the four dragons had their fill, but were beginning to get hungry again after they flew past the mountainous region that was between the SandWing and RainWing kingdoms. They had landed on a beach that was supposedly facing the PantoWing island, and Ghost fell to his belly and stretched out his limbs.
“Gosh, I never knew a small trip like this would burn out your limbs!” He groaned straindly, rolling onto his side, his orange-webbed wings folding a bit, like a withering dead spider.
Creatonotos landed next to him. “Yeah, I could use a meal.”
“We’ll... rest here for the night... before we fly to the island. Just... make sure nobody sees Notos,” Sunslinger reminded, her head craned low over her chest as she heaved breaths. She trotted over towards Ghost, whose wings were dragging on the soft sand below him. “Who here… isn’t tired?”
“I think I’m doing alright. I’ve had to do long flights to get to Wishbender’s shop anyway,” Creatonotos answered.
Wishbender stretched out his wings, and let them sag like Sunslinger’s. “He’s never breathless, and it’s shocking.” He blinked a few times. “Well, I guess the question is, who likes fish?”
Sunslinger suddenly lifted her head, and her long neck swayed from side to side tiredly. “Meeeeee…” She slurred with a lazy smile. “I love fish. Any kind will do.”
“Me too!” Ghost agreed, sticking his talon up. “And I know how to fish, so the problem is solved!”
“Great! And be snappy about it,” Wishbender said, sitting down. “How about you, Notos?”
“I’m alright. Hungry is all I am right now,” The gray SilkWing answered. He looked around him, and behind for some reason.
Ghost slowly rose to his feet and stretched as a kitten would, flexing his claws. Once he was standing, he opened his wings and flew up into the night air. “It’s gonna be a bit hard in all this darkness, but I’ll manage.”
“Do you need some light?” Sunslinger suggested. “I can blow some firebreath if you need it.”
Ghost shook his head and soared quickly offshore. Sunslinger watched as he dove a few times, but to no avail. Creatonotos padded over to her and sat beside her rump. He looked over towards the tribrid, and his antennae was coiled tightly behind his head. “Nice night?”
Sunslinger turned her head to the SilkWing as if she were shocked to see him there, then her expression changed to a scowl. “I guess.”
“Look up! There are lots of stars out here! Much better than the ones back at home,” Creatonotos mused with a sigh. “The latter were a few dots here and there. Here, it’s like a whole group of pitch-black NightWings spread their wings in the sky with their bellies to the moons.”
“Very poetic,” Sunslinger quipped, her blue eyes scanning the night sky above them. “I guess you’re right.”
Creatonotos hovered a talon over her’s for a moment, then drew it back to his other one. “Heh, yeah. That’s Wishbender’s job, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?” Sunslinger inquired.
“Ah, you’ll find out later.” Creatonotos looked back to Ghost, who dove and caught a slippery mackerel for a moment before it leaped righteously out of his claws. 
“So… your friend’s been quiet,” Sunslinger noted. “Haven’t heard a random ‘Not yet’ or a random ‘I’ll eat later’ from you in a bit.”
“She listened to me, surprisingly,” Creatonotos reported with an excited smile. “That never happens. Ever since we left Jade Academy, she’s just shut up about everything.”
“What, do you think she’s in danger, or anything?” The dragoness teased with a rude snicker.
“No. No, Sunslinger. She’s the type to tear the eyeballs out of the danger than to be in it.” It seemed as though Creatonotos took the question seriously. He moved his tail closer to Sunslinger’s, but as soon as she felt his tail tip, she jolted her barb away. He unfurled his antennae, and as soon as he did, he looked down to Sunslinger. “Uh oh.”
“What’s the matter?” Sunslinger asked sarcastically. “You get a signal from your girlfriend?”
Creatonotos shook his head. “No. She isn’t even interested in me.”
“But are YOU?”
“QUIET!” The SilkWing whisper-hissed. He stuck his neck out above some of the wheat bushes that were nearby. He once again looked to the dragoness beside him with worried eyes.
All of a sudden, there was a loud rustling noise in the bushes. 
“What was-”
Wishbender was cut off by a large SeaWing for his age erupt from the bushes. His aqua-marine, tinted Aquatic scales flashed multiple times, and Sunslinger became stunned from the brightness, and backed away from the opponent. His wing webbing was torn from his spines to his wings, and a long, moon-shaped scar covered his left thigh. 
The SeaWing tackled Creatonotos and plugged his silk holes with his fingers. He bore his sharp teeth at him, which Creatonotos did the same. “Who are you?! Why are you on this beach!!”
A female voice came from behind the bushes. “Oh, Megamouth. Being dramatic again?” A MudWing then crawled out, more passively than her traveling partner. She was a darker brown than your average swamp-habitual dragon, with a completely black neck, right leg, and tail tip, and gray horns and jaw. Her green eyes were electrically piercing. She looked at the lot of the tribrid, the NightWing, and the SilkWing. “Wow. What a menagerie we have here!” She chuckled. With a mighty heave, she shoved the SeaWing, who must be Megamouth, off of Creatonotos. 
“They’re on our beach!” Megamouth protested. He stared at Creatonotos. “Why do I feel like I’ve seen you before?”
“You haven’t…?” Creatonotos replied, brushing the sand off his scales. “And sorry we’re trespassing on your property.” He sighed deeply. “Tearing them limb-from-limb isn’t the best option right now.”
“What…?” Megamouth muttered, confused. His ears flattened against his head.
“Uh, don’t worry about that. He’s got, uh, something in his brain. You know. The voices,” Wishbender stammered awkwardly. He flashed a grin at them and approached them with his rather heavy gait for a NightWing. “I’m Wishbender. And please don’t call the authorities on my friend Creatonotos here. Call him Notos. He’s a nice SilkWing.” 
“And what about you? You a SandWing? You’ve got rather dark colors for a SandWing,” Megamouth noted, squinting at Sunslinger.
“Tribrid. Mostly SandWing, least NightWing, middle MudWing,” Sunslinger answered coolly, as if she were trying to make a sophisticated first impression. “Name’s Sunslinger.”
The MudWing of the group smiled a large crocodile-like smile. “Oooh! You’re part Muddie, like me!” She chirped. She had quite the light gait for her tribe, and she bounced forward to greet the tribrid. “I’m Warthog. And the fella who tried to murder you was Megamouth.”
“Nice to meet you, Warthog, Megamouth,” Creatonotos greeted with a slight and polite nod of his head. He walked forth and tilted his head to the side. “What are you two doing here, anyway?”
“I should be asking you the same question,” Megamouth grunted.
“Hey, be nice,” Warthog warned. “But yeah. It’s not all that common to see a SilkWing-” She corrected herself. “Well, a FREE SilkWing out and about. You’re rather lucky, especially during this stupid war.”
“Yeah. And it’s a long story of how I’m still alive here. I’ve never actually seen Pantala,” Creatonotos giggled nervously. 
“You WHAT?” Warthog repeated, shocked. Her heavy jaw fell open. “That’s remarkable.”
“It’s… a long story, not really worth telling,” Creatonotos added with a shake of his head.
“And hey, what about your friend over there? He’s clearly making a fool of himself,” Megamouth wondered aloud. “Is he… trying to catch fish?”
“We’re pretty hungry,” Sunslinger explained. “And Ghost’s the only one of us four who knows how to fish, kind of.”
“Say no more! Megamouth here knows a great deal about fishing!” Warthog complemented.
“But- what about-” The SeaWing leaned in close to Warthog’s ear. “What about Fulvescens?”
Warthog’s eyes widened, and shut her mouth. “Oh, right.” She looked to her acquaintances and smiled nervously. “Oh, we haven’t told you what we’re doing…” She looked behind her as Megamouth slunk into the gathering darkness.
Soon, the aqua-colored dragon reappeared with a smaller dragonet who was not much younger than them. The three other dragons had to squint before Megamouth’s Aquatic scales bloomed to life, and a young HiveWing with his head lowered stood beside him. “This is Fulvescens. He’s had a long journey to get here.” His Aquatic scales flickered brightly, then dimly, and Fulvescens nodded.
“Hi, Fulvescens,” Wishbender greeted, lowering his head to the dragonet. “You must be really tired.”
The HiveWing didn’t answer, and he stared confusedly at Wishbender. He shrugged his shoulders.
“He’s deaf. Thank goodness he knows Aquatic. He couldn’t talk to me when I picked him up, so Megamouth is his guardian, until he walks into the hole… wait. Did you guys barricade a hole? Or destroy it, by any chance?”
“Uh, no?” Sunslinger answered. “What do you mean? ‘Pick him up’? ‘Hole’?”
Megamouth guided Fulvescens to a very tall and rich tree with very bulbous roots. With a shove, he pushed one large one away, revealing a very dimly lit tunnel. His scales flashed again, and with another nod from the young HiveWing, he dashed off past the thick roots, and Megamouth repositioned them so that they were covering the hole again. “He’s going to be safe. His parents, two SandWings, are waiting for him at the exit.”
Warthog exhaled a sigh of relief. “Poor things, to have a HiveWing in their house during these times, and yet alone be stolen.”
“Stolen?” Wishbender repeated.
“Yes.” Megamouth walked towards the three other dragons and gestured for them to sit down. “Now, tell us why you’re here, since we’ve leaked enough information about us.”
“Alright, well… it all started with me waking up in front of Sunslinger and Ghost. Since Sunslinger’s a patrol dragoness, she tried to arrest me, but I proved to them that I meant no harm, and I found this axe at the bottom of the pit that I was unconscious in. I told them that I could sell it to Wishbender, cause he owns a little shop just outside of the Scorpion Den, away from all other Pyhrrian dragons that might think that I’m a threat, or something,” Creatonotos told, squinting as he tried to remember all he could.
“Wait, you said something about an axe?” Megamouth asked.
Wishbender exhaled and pat his friend on the shoulder. “Notos, can I take over?”
Creatonotos nodded.
“Then it turns out that the axe they tried to sell me was part of this huge prophecy that I received when I was hatching. I need to return it to its owners, or I’ll have this burden on my shoulders forever,” Wishbender continued in a dark, wistful way.
“Could… could we see the axe?” Warthog asked uncomfortably.
“Sunslinger?” Wishbender beckoned with a turn of his head to her.
The patrol dragoness picked up the bag that was around her leg and set it in front of her. She lifted the flap and gingerly lifted the axe from it. She handed it to Wishbender, who then unwrapped it of its bonds and laid it in front of Warthog and Megamouth.
The MudWing and the SeaWing gasped in unison. Warthog was still as a frozen dragon on Misbehavor’s Way. Megamouth leaped backwards with the force of a gazelle. He took a few steps away from the group, murmuring nothings to the air, then returned back to them with a terrified gape on his face. Warthog was still fazed, just not to the extent that he was.
“Wishbender…” He began.
“What?”
Megamouth looked deep into Wishbender’s magenta eyes. He could feel his heartbeats from where he was sitting. “You CAN’T go to the Cavern of No Bloodshed.”
“...What?” Sunslinger murmured. “To the what?”
The dragons heard a few footsteps behind them, and there stood a very wet, very angry Ghost with nothing but seaweed in his mouth. “Three moons, I try for at least a half an hour and all I get is this.” He noticed the confused and harrowed expressions on the other's faces and he grimaced. “What?”
“Ghost, just siddown. You’ll catch on soon enough, you smart dimwit,” Sunslinger hissed, coaxing him over with a gesture of her talons.
Ghost tossed the seaweed over his shoulders, and one landed on his tail spikes. He sat down next to the tribrid. “Who are you?”
“Later. You can’t. Go,” Megamouth breathed. He looked to the South of him. “Go home, now. Before anyone from there finds you.”
“What’s the matter with that?” Wishbender said, slightly offended. “I’ve been waiting practically my whole life to do this.”
“Okay.” Megamouth took in a deep sigh and tried to smile. “Let’s have this talk with some dinner. I see you’ve tried and failed. Let someone who can see in the dark try at getting food for you all.” His wings twitching, he took to the skies, and very quickly dove into the water that was before Warthog, Sunslinger, Wishbender, Ghost, and Creatonotos. 
Warthog swallowed, and her thick tail coiled around one of her legs. “Guys, I’m so sorry I brought you into this…”
“It’s fine.” Creatonotos’s voice was hard. “But, I was wondering… what are you two doing here? Instead of the PantoWing island? Isn’t that where you live?”
“Again, we’ll explain everything when we’re chowing on some fish.” The MudWing stood up, her ears perking up as she glanced around the troupe. “Well, while we wait, I’d love to know some things about you.”
“Okay. Well, you didn’t get to learn my name, so, here goes.” Ghost cleared his throat and coughed up some seawater. “I’m Ghost. A professionally-trained messenger for the IceWing kingdom.”
“Wow! That’s so interesting!” Her head turned to face Wishbender, who was taking out his lute. Once she noticed the instrument, she gasped, and bounded over to him as if she were a dragonet. “Please, please tell me you play!”
Wishbender chuckled nervously to himself. “Well… yeah.”
“Oh please, Wishbender. You’re the best artist I know,” Creatonotos complimented dryly, yet with a kind smile. “Save the humility for something else.”
Wishbender smiled at his dragonethood friend, and he could feel perspiration forming on the palms of his talons as he lifted the stringed instrument to his chest. He sat up and tilted his head to one side. “Well, I’m not exactly warmed up, but, I guess I could play some tunes for you.”
Warthog’s smile grew into a beam. “Would you? That’d be awesome!” 
With that, the NightWing began to play on the guitar-like instrument a sweet yet sad melody in a minor key. Warthog listened intently as Sunslinger laid down in a position so that her front talons were extended in front of her and her head was placed between them. Creatonotos listened to the music as well, as he admired Wishbender’s ability to play so well. Ghost boredly tossed various pieces of kindle into the flames, humming a tune of his own.
Soon enough, the SeaWing returned with many squirming fish in his arms and gripped in his jaws. He dropped the marine life in front of the group and exhaled. “There. Eat up.” He took the fish that was in his mouth and swallowed it like a pelican.
Sunslinger walked towards the pile and snatched a squid from the pile. “Mmm, my favorite!”
“You like squid?” Questioned Creatonotos, offended a little bit.
“Well, yeah!” Sunslinger shoved the mantle of the squid into her mouth. The juices of the unfortunate animal leaked from between her teeth as she gleefully tore at its tentacles. “I’ve been eating this since I was a hatchling!”
“That’s kind of uncommon, especially for a SandWing who lives… here,” Warthog admitted awkwardly.
“My Aunt is best friends with a SeaWing, and she has a squid farm, so we visited her every week or so to eat them,” Sunslinger told. She sighed, reminiscing her younger days gone by that she missed so much. “Those were amazing.”
“Oh, so you like squid?” Megamouth said with high superiority. He lifted his head threateningly and nodded towards the squid dangling from Sunslinger’s jaws. “Give me a detailed analysis on its anatomy.”
Ghost’s cheeks puffed wide to hold in a loud laugh, and he held up a talon to his face to pretend like he was coughing.
Sunslinger swallowed the squid and blinked at Megamouth with empty eyes, yet they were full of confusion. “I’m not a marine biologist, Megamouth.”
“Just kidding.” The SeaWing refuted. He exhaled. “Alright. Everyone, gather ‘round.”
“Time to learn about how this is your beach?” Ghost said sarcastically as the tip of his tail flicked upwards.
Warthog chuckled. “Well, no one ever in the history of the two continents knew about this place. I think this place is officially ours.” She took her place beside Megamouth.
“Let’s start with me,” Megamouth began. “So, I’m part of a cult.”
“That’s definitely a reassuring fact,” Ghost quipped with half-lidded eyes.
“Let me finish!” Megamouth hissed sharply. “I live in the Cavern of No Bloodshed. It’s full of all kinds of dragons far away from here. And the cult is called The Revival. And I hate it there. I hate being a part of it.” He sounded as if he were spitting the words out like cherry pits.
Wishbender looked down at his talons, thinking. “...Isolationist dragons…”
“Then why don’t you leave?” Creatonotos questioned.
“Because I can’t. I have a pretty important role there,” Megamouth answered. “And my father would kill me if I didn’t oblige to his rules. Well, the Revival’s rules.”
“Well, what are those rules?” Wishbender pried.
“So many questions,” The SeaWing muttered to himself disapprovingly. He shook his talons out. “For your dumb, uneducated brains to understand better, to make it bleak, the Revival is centered around killing a thousand dragons to revive an animus killer goddess that will burn the world up into a crisp.”
The four Phyrrian dragons were speechless after what Megamouth had to say about his cult. Wishbender’s mouth fell slightly open while Sunslinger covered her mouth with her talon.
“That can’t be real,” The tribrid dragoness whispered.
“Oh, ho, ho, it’s real, alright,” Warthog interjected grimly. She turned her head to face the Axe, which was laying behind them. “And that Axe over there, that’s an ancient, blessed or cursed artifact. See, Startamer, the dragoness goddess that the Revival is trying to revive enchanted it so that if enough souls were taken by it, she would have enough power to come back a lot more powerful than she was when she was alive.”
Creatonotos swatted a fly that was close to his ear. “Are you part of this Revival cult, too?”
Warthog shook her head. “No. I’m just Megamouth’s helper. Well, my dad was part of it, but my mom raised me. She’s not part of it.”
“Oh, you know you’re a lot more than that, Warthog,” Megamouth chimed, giving the MudWing a slight nudge with the knuckle of his wing. She blushed a little bit in return. “She helps me rescue prisoners. Of course, no one knows about it except us.”
“So, was that HiveWing dragonet a…” Sunslinger started as her words faded away.
“Yes, he was a prisoner,” Megamouth answered with a slow nod.
“But, why?” Wishbender asked, his voice full of pity for the little HiveWing.
“According to Roguesong, our leader, prisoners either were suspected of keeping the Axe to themselves, wanting to revive Startamer on their own accord, or said something bad or disrespected Startamer’s or Roguesong’s rules.” Megamouth tossed a stray twig into the flames before him. 
“And it can be anyone. Regardless of tribe, age, or status.” Warthog quipped sternly. 
Sunslinger’s talons shifted in the cold sand. “That’s horrible.”
“It’s a tough job, too,” Megamouth complained. “We have to go from this tiny beach…” He pointed to the south of him. “All the way to the Cavern.”
“Why do you call it a cavern, if it’s an island?” Ghost inquired with a half-serious tone of voice.
“The island is actually a cave. Well, it’s an island, but it’s a cave, if you catch my drift,” Warthog explained the best she could with a shrug and a light chuckle. “It’s weird. Wait, how do you know it’s an island?”
Wishbender gulped. “I think I may be related to your cult thing.”
Warthog scrunched her brow together in confusion. “Say what?”
“Listen. When I was hatching, my mother told me that there was a voice saying a prophecy that counted from one to ten, and that there’s an island full of dragons that abandoned their homelands to start anew.”
“A prophecy that counts from one to ten?” Megamouth repeated almost immediately after Wishbender spoke. “Like, ‘one for life, two for death-’
“‘Three for ghosts’...” Wishbender finished.
Megamouth’s breathing seemed to stop. “The incarnate.”
Wishbender closed his eyes. He knew something like this was coming. “Startamer’s incarnate.” He looked away from Megamouth, and to the side. His mouth became dry as his vision became slightly woozy.
“Wishbender?” Creatonotos tried to comfort with a pained tone of voice.
“This explains why my family set me up to find that Axe. But… I don’t know what to do with it other than return it to them. Based on this new context, I don’t want that to happen,” Wishbender murmured softly. His star-dotted wings closed in tight to his back in stress. “They said that I was related to someone important to that cult. I didn’t think I’d be related to an ancient Animus.” 
The group of six dragons grew eerily silent. The moon was finally higher in the sky, and the stars revealed themselves over the inky ocean that undulated back and forth. It was peaceful. Nothing could be heard except for the long splashes of the water, the breeze rustling through the bushes, and the occasional extra footsteps that could be heard through the grass.
Creatonotos was the first to make note of that. He had been slightly on edge since he had gotten here, as this was his first time seeing the border between Phyrria and the ocean. Something was off. “Guys?” He began. He stood up slowly, as if he were caught running from a heinous deed to face the officer who spotted him. His brown, olive-spotted wings unfurled. “Do you think we’re being watched?”
“Please, Notos, I don’t wanna be jumped for the second time today,” Ghost sneered mockingly. He rolled his eyes. “Who could be out here, anyway?”
“Yeah! Didn’t I say that this place is practically untouched by the rest of dragon society?” Warthog agreed. “At ease, soldier.”
The SilkWing’s antennae curled up and down, trying to catch and sensory movement in the air. Maybe he’d catch someone moving their arms, the beating of wings, the flick of a tail, maybe. He crept towards the forest behind the group and slid into the large maze of leaves and grass. He tried to sense again.
There was nothing, but a voice spoke out from behind him.
“I thought it’d take you long enough to find me.”
== Chapter Five ==
Creatonotos felt himself halt in his spot, whirling his head around to see a giant, pale-brown MudWing towering over him. His thick scales were covered in armor. The first thing that he thought was that this one was going to be a tough one to crack. As he furrowed his brow, he roared and tried to tear the leather-bound armor off of his chest, but the MudWing simply seized him by the neck and flung him against a nearby tree.
Creatonotos fell with an “urgh!”, as the impact shocked his system and it took him a few seconds to look up again. The MudWing was approaching him with forgiving, yet formidable eyes. “Sorry. I only attack when you attack me first.” He turned his head to the left. “Kittiwake, get on him.”
All of a sudden, a light gray, battle-scarred IceWing pounced enthusiastically out of the bushes and crashed on top of Creatonotos. An arrowhead was stuck in her right horn. She pinned him to the semi-wet ground. “Gotcha,” Kittiwake growled with a wide smile on her face. 
“What is this?! Who are you?!” Creatonotos barked as loud as he could. 
Kittiwake snarled at the SilkWing to cut him off. “Ugh. Don’t tell me you’re a talker.”
“No, I- Not yet! I have to figure out if these goons are worthless enough to die, got it?!” Creatonotos interrupted himself as he squirmed around under the IceWing’s strength.
“What?” The MudWing asked for reassurance as to what he heard.
A LeafWing and a RainWing crept out from beside Kittiwake and Creatonotos and leaped out together in front of the rest of the group. Creatonotos couldn’t hear exactly what was going on, but it sounded like his new friends were defending themselves not quite well against the attackers. 
The MudWing gestured for Kittiwake to drag Creatonotos back to the fire, and when they reached the beach, there was Sunslinger and Ghost being held together by the magenta-colored RainWing. Wishbender’s legs and arms were bound, and Warthog was pinned under a SeaWing. The LeafWing and another dragon, possibly a SandWing hybrid, was standing nearby, their claws on their weapons.
Megamouth was astounded. His eyes were wide, his jaw agape. He looked to the MudWing and Kittiwake. “Put them down!!” Words finally came out of his mouth. He raced over to the MudWing with pleading, yet serious eyes. “Oxbow, please! They’re not going to hurt me.”
“How do you know?” The RainWing mused.
Oxbow, the MudWing, exhaled. “I’m not letting them go until you tell me what’s going on. Your father is worried sick about you. You haven’t been home in three days!” He lowered his head to the younger dragon’s head. “I’ve been worried, too.”
“We’ve all been worried,” The SeaWing added. Her voice was calmer than Oxbow’s.
“I don’t care,” Megamouth spat. He faced the ground. “Just don’t hurt them. They’re innocent.”
“We won’t hurt them if you promise us you’re going home. Right now,” Oxbow answered with ice on his tongue.
Megamouth gulped, staring at the dagger in Oxbow’s belt. He turned around. The SeaWing, the RainWing, Kittiwake, and the hybrid all had similar daggers.
“Yeah, punk! Beat it!” The IceWing snapped.
“Who are these dra-” Sunslinger was cut off as the RainWing’s tail coiled tightly around her snout.
Megamouth sighed, lowering his head. “I’ll come home.” He exhaled, facing the other dragons. 
Warthog’s eyes were full of fear. “Megamouth?”
“Let them go.” Megamouth demanded. 
“What’s going on, Megamouth?” Oxbow questioned. He stood at least a cow’s height taller than Megamouth and loomed over him. 
“About what?”
“Why are you in Pyrrhia instead of training? All of these days where you don’t come back? You’re confusing everyone at home, and you’re making the Great Wise One angry. You wouldn’t want that, would you?” Oxbow continued. 
“No, I wouldn’t.” 
“Then tell us what’s going on.” 
Megamouth stood in silence. He fought every nerve in his vein to see the look on Warthog’s face, how scared she must be, and the confusion on his new friends’ faces. He wanted to set them free, he did. But the lives of five other dragons were less significant to hundreds that faced life in prison.
Oxbow accepted Megamouth’s silence. “Irresistible, can you carry two dragons at once?”
The RainWing nodded. “I’ve carried three before, remember?”
“Those were maggot-bloated corpses,” The SeaWing corrected.
“All the same,” Irresistible said in a foxy voice.
The hybrid waved his claws back and forth. “Hey, Oxbow, take a look-see at this NightWing right here…”
Wishbender tried to lift his face out of the sand. He was too frightened to speak.
“Don’t you think he looks familiar?” The hybrid finished.
The armored MudWing approached Wishbender. He gently rolled him over with his brawny tail so that his legs were sticking up. He cocked his head to the right so that he could see the color of Wisbender’s eyes. “...I’d know that hue of purple anywhere.” His eyes widened. “Could… could he be…”
“If you’re saying that I’m a descendant of some killer goddess, then yeah, you found me,” Wishbender grunted, his muscles tiring of being forced for keeping his limbs up. “I heard the whole prophecy and everything. If that’s enough for letting us go, then let us go!”
“Are you serious?” The SeaWing keeping Warthog’s face in the sand blurted. “You’ve said that so many times before, Diadasia. We’re sick of it.”
“But… he has her eyes. All the paintings and all the books and scrolls, they all make sense.” Oxbow murmured. His eyes glittered with excitement as he took the dagger out of his pouch. He slit Wishbender’s bounds, which he flinched at, but he scrambled to his feet. 
Kittiwake, with a grumble, dropped Creatonotos carelessly. As soon as Irresistible, the RainWing, let Ghost and Sunslinger go, the tribrid stumbled forward to escape, but Oxbow cleared his throat, which made her stop in her tracks.
“Just because we let you go doesn’t mean that you’re free to go,” Said he. Approaching Sunslinger, he placed a talon over her shoulder. “Come. Under my orders, you and your friends are going to visit the Cavern of No Bloodshed!”
“On amicable terms?” The LeafWing finally spoke. His brown eyes were calmly frightening.
“Yes, Corylus. We’re not going to hurt them, and no one at home will either. Remember the Visitor’s Code,” Oxbow reminded in a fatherly tone of voice. He guided Sunslinger back to the group.
Despite how much she wanted to run away and fly back to the SandWing kingdom and tell everyone about how much trouble she was in, she knew she couldn’t win this fight. If this information that Megamouth said about the Revival was true, then she would be as good as dead if she challenged any one of these elite hunters. So, she quietly approached the group of her fellow travelers.
The SeaWing stepped off of Warthog’s head, and she stood up, running to meet Megamouth. “Megamouth, what’s going on?”
Megamouth nuzzled Warthog’s ear, making as little mouth movement as possible as he whispered, “They’re taking me home, and the incar- Wishbender to Roguesong. She’ll know whether if he really is the true incarnate of Startamer.” 
“What will you do with your dad?” Warthog whispered back.
“Megamouth!” The SeaWing barked. “All of you, flap your wings. We’re going, now.”
“Don’t wanna be late~” The hybrid, who must be Diadasia, swooned as he took to the skies.
As Megamouth regretfully flew up to meet Oxbow and the rest of the cult members, Creatonotos placed a wing comfortingly over Wishbender’s back. “I’m so sorry all of this information is just being sprung on you. I can’t imagine how you feel right now.”
“No, it’s okay. I saw it coming for years, the fact that I was going to play some sort of important part somewhere and somehow. I didn’t know that it would be right now.” The moon shone on Wishbender’s spikes as he reached down to tie his instrument and sack around his back. He did the same with the Axe. “I need to meet my fate. And right now, the biggest thing that needs to be done is hide the Axe.” He dropped the Axe in Creatonotos’ talons.
Creatonotos shivered as the Axe made contact with the soft underside of his claws. He could feel a strange power course through his arms. “Keep it down in there. I need to think.”
“Is she cooperating?” Wishbender questioned.
“Absolutely not. She’ll make a fuss about all this power the whole way to the Cavern.” Creatotnotos opened his wings. “Let’s get this overwith.”
“I never thought I’d be kidnapped by a cult today, but, here we are,” Ghost chuckled dryly.
Sunslinger felt like beetles were devouring her stomach. She knew that so many dragons would worry about her at home. What were her parents thinking? A quest for a stupid axe? Surely her mother would scold her for that. 
As the group glided over the ocean, Sunslinger noticed that Warthog was falling behind quickly. She could hear her strained breaths from behind her. “Warthog, you okay back there?”
Warthog could only nod, and give a thumbs up. 
“Hey, Megamouth? Who are these dragons, anyway?” Creatonotos asked, flying up to Megamouth, who looked deep in thought. Their wingtips barely touched.
“Oh.” Megamouth turned his head to Creatonotos. “These are the Activists. Dragons who hunt dragons in Startamer’s name. Their daggers are enchanted just like the Axe is.”
“So they help out with claiming souls?” Wishbender concluded. He dipped down to avoid an incoming seagull.
“Yeah. Might as well get to know them.” Megamouth pointed forward to Oxbow. “That’s Oxbow. He’s… the leader’s right-hand-man. He’s very strict, and a defensive fighter. Though he’s nice sometimes.”
“That SeaWing over there? That’s Saithe. She’s very, very smart. She loves to play cards… and gamble. She’s often the one cracking jokes in inappropriate times. You wouldn’t believe it, but she’s one of The Revival’s three Animi.”
“The RainWing is Irresistible. They’re notorious for flirting with multiple dragons at the same time. They’ve got the foxy eyes for it. Not to mention, Roguesong says that they’re the most beautiful dragon in all of the Revival, other than Startamer, of course.”
“The SandWing-looking dragon? Turns out, he’s half HiveWing. His name is Diadasia. Some dragons say he escaped a mental hospital to come to the Cavern. But they all believe he’s a good dragon at heart. Just… don’t diss Startamer in front of him. He’ll go crazy.”
Megamouth shifted his finger over towards the IceWing, who was trembling slightly. “That’s Kittiwake. She’s a massive jerk to anyone outside the Activists and Roguesong. She’s been in multiple battles before she became an Activist. We don’t know why she hates water so much.”
“Finally, that’s Corylus, the LeafWing with the mechanical wing webbing. No one knows a lot about him because he’s so silent. We don’t even know how his left wing almost got burnt off. All we know is that he’s a skilled assassin and a tough force to reckon with.”
Wishbender gulped. “They sound scary.”
“Yeah, but when you’re someone like me, they aren’t scary at all,” Megamouth replied, lowering his claw.
“What do you mean? I wasn’t scared of them,” Sunslinger boasted, puffing out her chest slightly.
“‘Course you weren’t,” Ghost teased with a rolling of his eyes.
“Well, you see, my father… He’s the leader of the Activists,” Megamouth told quietly. He could barely be heard over the whistling of the wind between their ears. “When you’re part of them, they treat you a lot differently.”
“That explains why Oxbow said ‘we all missed you’, or something like that,” Creatonotos said.
“... Were you behind all this? Befriending us then leading us to your murder cult?” Sunslinger barked suddenly. She bared her teeth at Megamouth. “Since you just revealed that you’re in league with the Activists?”
“No!” Warthog’s voice cried above the gusts. She tried her best to fly up towards the group, panting as her head bobbed back and forth. “Megamouth would never tell a lie like that! Plus!...” She took a break to breathe. “I know for a fact that he’s not like them!”
“Warthog’s right, Sunslinger. I don’t want to be like them,” Megamouth hissed at the dragoness who challenged him.
“I hate to be rude, but your judgement skills are very weak,” Ghost chuckled to Sunslinger.
Before Sunslinger could open her mouth to object, Wishbender cut in. “Hey! If you were being taken away from your job and whisked away on a journey you never planned for, and that journey just so happened to be a quest to an island in The-Middle-Of-Nowhereville, you would be judging new dragons too, wouldn’t you?”
“I already have,” Ghost sneered.
“Shut up back there! You’re driving me crazy!” Kittiwake snapped.
“Yeah, keep it down! It’s almost midnight, anyway. I’m tired,” Saithe agreed, her head drooping low.
“You usually spend your midnights getting cashed up. I’m shocked that you’re almost half asleep,” Irresistible cooed slyly, placing a talon to their chin. 
“Don’t blame me, this is a long flight!” Saithe defended herself. “To fly all around the Cavern looking for Mr. I-Run-Away-From-Responsibilities here, fly to Pyrrhia, find him on the beach, and then fly back and report them to Roguesong? That kills my wings!”
“Roguesong?” Ghost echoed. 
Corylus turned his head around, shooting a glare at the IceWing/SkyWing hybrid. His ebony eyes narrowed and his frown deepened like a gorge. The metallic webbing on his left wing shone brightly against the moonlight.
“He says you’ll find out later~” Diadem cooed in a childish voice. “But he’s too shy to talk now!” He giggled to himself in a chaotic tone, and received a sharp whack on the flank by the silent LeafWing.
“He’s right,” Oxbow added with a half-nod. “You’ll see her soon.”
The twelve dragons flew for quite a long while, time crawling painfully within their backs, necks, and wings. It wasn’t until the moon was resting just above the western horizon that Irresistible noted that they were almost there.
Fighting for her eyes to stay awake, Sunslinger tried to look up, spotting an island in the distance, with a mountain that rose like a rhinoceros’s horn on its left side. 
“Come now, hatchlings, just a few wingbeats more…” Irresistible’s voice grew irritated. “Or do I have to carry you six weaklings?”
Oxbow was already holding Warthog in his talons, as she had passed out mid-flight and plummeted to the ocean before he glided down and grabbed her by the tail. “Make that five.” Megamouth was at his side, eyeing his friend nervously. 
“Finally, we’re home!” Saithe sighed exhaustedly once they were little more than a few strides away from the island’s shore. She let herself free-fall into the ocean, creating a large splash, which managed to reach Wishbender’s face. He coughed up the salty water and wiped his snout with the back of his arm.
Oxbow gave a signaling nod to Megamouth to join Saithe, who was seemingly slithering in the ocean gaily to the island. With a fixed expression, Megamouth followed the order. The cold, moon-kissed water soothed his aching wings as he spread his webbed fingers and toes to increase his swimming speed.
Sunslinger and Ghost reached the shore of the island, Sunslinger collapsing upon impact, along with Wishbender. They inhaled the loose grains of sand that danced around their nostrils as they panted for breath.
“Ha!” Ghost’s voice chimed. He landed unsteadily between the NightWing and the tribrid. “You’d never… be able to even make it… to the top fifty in… the Messenger Preliminary Race.” 
Wishbender and Sunslinger cast annoyed glances at each other. 
Megamouth eased out of the ocean, water dripping from his gills. He flashed something at Saithe with his Aquatic scales. “Go find them a bed, and something to eat. They’re exhausted.”
“Roger that,” Saithe flashed back as she wringed out the red bandana that was originally tied around her head. “Roguesong will make sure of that, I’m sure.”
“Activists, thank you for coming with me tonight. You’re probably weary from all this flying.” Said Oxbow after placing Warthog on his shoulders. He turned around to face Irresistible and Kittiwake. “Irresistible, Kittiwake, pick them up.” 
Irresistible reluctantly turned around, eyed Wishbender and Sunslinger, and shoveled the tribrid onto their shoulders. “She looks lighter than that one,” They mumbled coldly at the battle-scarred IceWing.
Kittiwake watched Oxbow and Warthog leave with Diadasia, Corylus, Megamouth, and Saithe and she knelt down and with a grunt, lifted Wishbender up and placed him between her wings. She and the rosy-magenta RainWing walked towards an opening in the mountain. It looked to be carved out by something supposedly large, like a giant dragon took a bite out of it and spat it back into the ocean. 
Sunslinger kept an eye open against the IceWing’s cold, rugged scales. The main hall was occupied by a few dragons reading scrolls or eating something as a late snack or a ridiculously early breakfast. And those dragons… she couldn’t believe it. HiveWings, SkyWings, SilkWings, SandWings-  dragons from both continents- interacting peacefully with one another. By all means, this looked nothing like what she expected the first time she heard about the Revival cult. She thought everyone in it would be wearing dark robes with red lining, chanting the same psalm constantly to appease a cruel god. 
But, no. These dragons looked happy. Just as happy as any dragon on the continents would have been. There was a father calming its hatchling on the upper floor. Three friends were sharing a drink. A chef was carrying her hat down the stairs, ready to start her day in the kitchen. 
She couldn’t confirm it, but she felt like Wishbender was watching what was going on around him as well. What was he expecting? Maybe the same thing she was, or something similar to what was reality.
As Kittiwake and Irresistible passed into a hallway, she felt her blue eyes begin to shut closed. She couldn’t tell how far away she and Ghost and Wishbender and Creatonotos were from home. And soon enough, Kittiwake’s hobbling gait was suddenly replaced with a soft cushion, welcoming her bare back as a dragonet would run into their mother’s embrace. She curled up, draping her wings over head to ensure a good night’s rest and recovery.
But when the morning broke, the sun rearing its glorious head over the horizon, her world was only beginning to change. 
~
== Author's Note 1/3/21 ==
Aaaand that's Part One! I'll be sure to come out with the other ones soon! If you did, thank you so much for reading this. This has been a passion project since May of last year, chipping away at it bit by bit until I felt like it could be released officially to the public. I hope you enjoyed this as much I did writing it! Trust me, I have so much left in store for you all with this story. If I wrote anything that doesn't make much sense, please let me know, and I'll get to fixing it as soon as I can get my hands on it. 
Again, thank you so much for reading if you did!
Category:Fanfictions
Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete)
Category:Fanfictions (Fanon)
Category:Genre (Adventure)