Coming Together: Mangrove and Orchid

This is for DragonSiren22's fanfiction contest!
=== Chapter 1 ===
Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete)
Category:Fanfictions (Canon)
Mangrove had always been a very happy dragonet. Oh, sure, he had his problems. He often got upset when other dragons stole his fruit, and he would break out in tears when he had to do any training other than fruit gathering, but when he slept underneath the sun, the warmth and light would sink into his bones, like a reassurance that everything was alright.
As he got older, he met a beautiful RainWing named Orchid, and they fell in love. Now, when they were happy, they were happy together. Instead of sleeping near random RainWings, he would curl up with his love, wings wrapped around each other. When he became a fruit-gatherer, he would work with Orchid to find the best and most delicious fruits in the jungle. She was everything to him, which made it hit all the harder when she vanished. 
All of a sudden, Mangrove's life was turned completely sideways. For weeks, he had run around in a panic, asking everyone he knew where Orchid was. He searched every inch of the rainforest, calling her name out, desperately looking for any hint of where she might be. But there was no sign, and no one seemed to even mind that she was gone. It was as if she had vanished into thin air. 
After a lot of hard work, struggle, skipping suntime, which was making him very grumpy, and yelling at all the dragons who kept saying she was having a really long nap, which was the dumbest thing Mangrove had ever heard, Mangrove slumped onto the ground and cried. None of his work had been helpful. All he knew was that 12 dragons had vanished so far, and no one had noticed. Probably no one ever would. 
Sighing, he pushed himself up to go up to the queen's palace. Every day, he would ask her to look for Orchid. And every day, she would forget about Orchid's existence. Magnificent was useless! If only they had a queen who would actually help him find Orchid. It had been weeks. Orchid could be suffering and no one was coming to rescue her. Mangrove would, if only he knew where to look. 
As he was standing in line, Mangrove saw a strange dragon in the back, walking up the side of the line and asking questions. She was a RainWing, obviously, but there was something off about her. Not bad exactly, just different. 
Maybe it was the way she tilted her head, or the slight tinge of red around her ruff. Maybe it was how thin and sleek she was, thin enough that it looked like she might not be getting enough to eat. Or maybe it was just the way she carried herself, calm and confident. She carried herself like a dragon who knew who she was, and what she wanted to do with her life. Whatever it was, something made him answer her question before she even asked it. And when he did that, everything he thought he knew about life in the jungle was upended. 
=== Chapter 2 ===
Mangrove huddled in a tapestry, feeling the fibers wash over his invisible scales. He had crept around this entire palace, watching the spiky dragons and the dragons with barbed tails walk around holding spears. Even the ones that weren't looked so much more threatening than any of the dragons he knew. Glory might have been right. Maybe most dragons were designed for fighting. He could certainly believe that these were. 
All of a sudden, as he looked out of the tapestry, he saw a dragon passing by. It looked like an one of those ice dragons, but Mangrove had spent his whole life playing hide-and-seek games. That dragon was none other than Jambu. 
He didn't dare to move, but Jambu saw him anyway. Sighing, he followed. Why not, since Orchid wasn't in this palace anyway. He'd searched the whole thing, and there was nothing. So maybe he should just go back to the rainforest and keep looking there. 
He followed them out, although he was wondering what they were doing with the beautiful barbed tail dragon. She looked... not dangerous... but like she could possibly be deadly if she wanted to. What were they doing with her? 
After that there was this whole long conversation about dragons of destiny, and SkyWings and battles and many other things that Mangrove didn't understand. Glory sent him off with Jambu, which was annoying, but to be honest he was kind of relieved. He didn't like the sand kingdom. He liked the sun, but there was a lot of wind, and it was cold near Blaze's palace. And since Orchid wasn't there, there was no reason for him to stay.
He couldn't believe they'd come after him. He hadn't been anticipating that. Okay, he'd run through on pure endurance and hope, but he hadn't thought anyone would come after him. No one had thought to look for Orchid for weeks, after all. Maybe Glory doing it made sense, but Jambu? Maybe he was better than Mangrove had thought. They'd always been friends, but Mangrove had gotten annoyed with recently ever since Orchid vanished. He'd gotten annoyed with many of his friends recently. 
Sighing, Mangrove turned back to the tunnel, going through and standing into in the warm, humid, rainy air of the rainforest. 
== Chapter 3 ==
So, Glory was becoming queen. This was a surprise, to be sure, but honestly? Mangrove couldn't say he was mad about it. 
He huddled up in the group as they planned their contests. Mangrove would try his best. He knew that he could find more fruit than Dazzling. And he had to, because if Glory didn't become queen, Orchid might never get rescued. 
Raising his wings, he flew off into the rainforest next to Dazzling, who smiled her, ugh, dazzling, smile at him. He shook it off. She might have been pretty, but she'd probably eat all her fruit. He laughed as he soared ahead of her, imagining Dazzling stuffing all her hard earned fruit into her face. It gave him a moment of joy, and brought more wind to his wings. 
Swooping through the trees, he came to a mango that had fallen on the ground and picked it up. The pinkish-yellow skin was slightly bruised but it was still definitely edible. He picked it up, and then flew away from the tree. Normally he would have picked multiple, and brought them back to fruit storage, but that wasn't how this contest worked. He needed to get unique kinds of fruits, so he flew on. 
First, he got some of the easy kinds of fruits. The ones that seemed to grow on every tree in the rainforest, like dragonberries, mangoes, papayas, and a few others. By the time he'd finished collecting those, he had ten fruits and almost twenty minutes left. He might not have had the highest opinion of Dazzling's fruit gathering skills, but he didn't want to get cocky. He would probably need more than ten. 
He flew around, looking for fruits, but all he saw was the same ones he'd already gathered. He wished Orchid was here. She would be better at this than he was. But she wasn't here. She was trapped, in that desolate NightWing island full of lava and smoke and rotting prey and death. She was waiting there desperately, knowing and hopng that Mangrove was coming for her. He had to be strong enough to win this competion, if he wanted a shot at saving Orchid. 
He stretched his purple wings and flew onwards. 
== Chapter 4 ==
Mangrove crept through the tunnel, his invisible talons clicking on cold stone. He heard some one ahead of him whisper, "It's safe," and he cautiously peeked his head out the end of the tunnel. 
He could barely breath. Not because of how horrible it was, although that was part of it, but because he could literally barely breath. Smoke was everywhere, sticking to his scales and the inside of his throat and nose. Ash stuck to him as well, and where it touched the smoke, a horrible crackling sound would emerge. He'd only been here for a minute, and he already wanted to run back into the rainforest and stay there forever.
Then he thought about Orchid. About what Queen Glory's twitchy black dragon friend had told him(What was the name of his tribe again? A NightWing?). She was waiting for him. She was counting on him to come and save her. He couldn't let her down.
Category:Fanfictions
__FORCETOC__
Category:Content (Colorchanger the Mindreader)