Together We Fall

by SimplyStardust for a contest
Together We Fall
This is not a story of a hero.
Bloodworm Hive is ruled under the iron grip of Queen Wasp, a looming cloud ever present on the horizon. The streets don't dare to whisper. Her word is law.
This is a story of an ordinary HiveWing. Thorns in his thoughts and he doesn't even know it. Hate in his words and he doesn't even feel it. His world is not turned upside down. Rather, it slips out from beneath him, one moral after another, until there's nowhere left to go but forward.
Plants grow. They reach toward the sun. And sometimes when it's night, they reach toward the darkness instead, never realizing that the light is gone.
This is a story of a normal dragon, until he's not anymore.
Loyalty, like everything, has a dark side.
 
 
 
"Rule 1: Never trust a HiveWing."
~ Excerpt from Bloodworm Hive Chrysalis Code
 
 
 
The compass has been broken for years. Its needle wanders aimlessly and its plating is rusty. Meadowhawk strung it onto a worn leather thread long ago and ties it around his neck every morning anyway, gentleness evident in his every motion.
His talons fiddle with it absentmindedly as he sits at his desk now, the light of a lantern the only thing keeping him awake. He hadn’t been mathematically inclined as a dragonet, and he isn't now. The equations on the paper seem to blur as he rubs his eyes.
The numbers don’t make much sense to Meadow, but he knows one thing: his beloved tapestry shop, the stories contained in spools of thread, is about to go under.
He stands up and consciously moves his talon away from his compass. Its edges are rubbed dull by how often he touches it.
With long, slow breaths, Meadow surveys his shop. The company he started, the business he runs, the heart and soul of his existence. Worry crashes into his mind at what he’ll do when it goes bankrupt - no job no money what will Darkling say - and he tries to push it out by rubbing his temples. He feels a headache coming on. Maybe a walk will help.
Meadow paces around the little cramped room, the lantern throwing his shadow against the tapestries. They are beautifully embroidered things, works of art hiding in his dusty store. Each one of them has a story to tell.
On the left wall, a burly dragon swings his tail toward a tree. He’s stylized to look muscular, the strength rippling in woven waves just under the surface of his body. After the war, Phasmid had done much of the grunt work, cutting down most of the remaining plant life and helping to construct the hives. He led the tribe into the glorious age that they still bask in today.
Pinned onto the corner of the room, another tapestry hides the cracks snaking down the area, tiny canyons like a lightning strike. In this one, Queen Wasp’s beetle black eyes glare down all the other tapestries as if she’s demanding for them to be removed - he shrinks away subconsciously, his wings folding in. It’s the one that was required to be hung up in all merchants’ stands and shops, the one that Meadow likes the least. Still, his talons cross in the salute he’s been trained to do since birth. Right over left, left over right, clasp talons and press to forehead. It’s muscle memory. He does it without thinking, then continues on like he always does.
And behind his desk hangs a depiction of Dragonfly, the hero of the Tree Wars, a slender golden dragon with a snarl on her face. A LeafWing hangs limply on her sewn sword, red spilling from its chest. The artist managed to capture that fiery look in her eyes that she eventually grew famous for. It’s the pride of his place and the only tapestry he actually owns. Meadow’s greatest hero, the dragon he idolizes. I could never be like her.
He sighs and settles down at his desk once more, adjusting his spectacles. A long night of figuring is ahead of him, numbers and finance swirling around in his brain. Meadow feels dull long before he’s even picked up the quill.
“It’s very dark in here, you know.”
The ink overturns and splatters across his desk as Meadow jumps, an actual hop in his seat because he was not expecting customers this late and oh moons is that a ghost?
The figure stands in the shadows, turned toward the Phasmid tapestry in almost-curiosity. Meadow can feel his heart pounding as white catches his eye. The other dragon looks spectral with its bright, pale scales, and its gait is airy as it moves toward him. It’s a ghost a ghost what do I do-
It comes into the light.
Meadow exhales and stills his embarrassingly shaky wings. “Thank Clearsight you’re a SilkWing.”
The other dragon - slender and lanky, with an almost unfairly tall height - is clattering through the room like an overly excited dog, but he finds time to tip his head. “Well, I’ve never heard that before, but I’ll have you know I’m just as capable as any HiveWing.”
Meadow gapes like a fish. “I- I didn’t mean it that-”
The stranger’s laugh is like bells, silvery and so out of place in this dusty little room. “It’s all right. I’m Apollo.”
“It looks like you’re in a hurry,” Meadow observes. Apollo is pawing through the stack of tapestries, his eyes darting quickly through the room.
“Oh, I am!” Apollo answers earnestly. “My master is having a visit from his in-laws tomorrow. And frankly, the house looks horrible, so he sent me out looking for fancy stuff. He needs me to hurry or else I’ll be punished.”
The house looks horrible. Meadow’s never heard a servant talk so candidly about his master. He tries to ignore the stranger’s focused expression and clears his throat, sitting back down at his desk. “If you need any help, well, I’m right here.”
“No need!” Meadow looks up to see Apollo yanking the Phasmid tapestry off the wall. The red spots on the SilkWing’s wings flash in the low light as he gives the product one final tug. It peels off the hook. “I’ll take this one!”
Apollo turns toward the door. Meadow opens his mouth - you haven’t paid yet I need that money - but he hesitates. He doesn’t want to make the other dragon mad. He wants to be kind.
Then the SilkWing is gone, the bells on the door jingling like a final chorus.
The room is empty except for Meadow now. The lantern blows out.
He sinks deeper into his seat and covers his face with his talons. This feels like the last straw on the camel’s back. There’s no way he can run a business like this. He’s too cowardly, too sensitive, too everything Darkling hates about him.
The door opens again.
He’s shooting to his feet before he even realizes it, strange anticipation swirling through his brain. “Hello?”
“I’m a complete idiot,” Apollo says, materializing at the desk, “and I forgot to pay you.” Meadow watches, dumbstruck, as Apollo rifles through the satchel hanging around his neck. “Oh, sugar droplets, I don’t think I brought my money with me-”
Meadow folds his arms, trying to channel the inner strength that his parents used to preach about. “Sorry, but I’m gonna need payment. Uh. Sorry.”
Apollo’s cloudy gray eyes look apologetic. He slaps down a packet on the desk, small and paper and rustly like reeds. Its white color seems to make it glow in the darkness. “This is all I have. Don’t worry, it’s valuable. We can talk about this more later! Meet me at The Pitcher tomorrow morning for breakfast!”
The door slams, and Apollo is gone again.
Meadow picks up the mysterious packet and shoves it into a drawer. Out of sight, but not out of mind. “See you tomorrow,” he says blankly to the empty room.
 
 
 
“The war was a time of conflict and bloodshed. But we will enter a new golden age, of peace and loyalty. And I will lead you there.”
~ Queen Wasp’s first speech after the Tree Wars ended
 
 
 
Hurrying through the empty marketplace, Meadow feels like a criminal. He’s not sure why. It’s so early that he can barely keep his eyes open, but he would rather go to this Pitcher place than have to stare at his mathematical equations any longer.
He glances down at the map he holds. Left turn, go straight here, left turn again-
Meadow doesn’t come to this part of the Hive often, simply because he hasn’t had any business here. At least, not yet. He doesn’t usually stray from his normal schedule, preferring to stick to what he already knows. Coming here, to a place he has no previous experience with, feels like an adventure in its own odd way.
A strange feeling washes over him, one that he’s never really dealt with before. Among the deserted stalls, where nobody’s even at work yet, Meadow feels… untethered. Like he could break the rules, and he wouldn’t be punished because there is no one else to see. The thought makes him feel strange and twisted, but maybe not in a bad way.
His compass thumps against his chest.
He keeps walking, taking in the sights, until he arrives at a stout little building and steps inside.
Immediately, the smell hits him. Cinnamon and chocolate and a pungent assortment of spices assault Meadow’s senses. He blinks and rubs his face, trying to get his eyes adjusted to the dimly lit room.
“Morning!” a voice chirps, and then there’s a paint-splattered talon on his shoulder pulling him along. Apollo looks fuzzy but bright in Meadow’s weary vision.
The two of them sit down at a table tucked into the corner - well, Apollo sits down, Meadow does a sort of ungraceful flop. He’s still heavily sleep-deprived, and his weariness has only been intensified by the soft golden lights glowing from above.
Apollo presses a warm mug into Meadow’s talons. “Drink,” he tells the HiveWing with a smile. “You can consider this payment for last night.”
Because Meadow’s too tired to protest, he lifts the mug to his mouth and takes a sip and wow. The coffee inside looks innocuous, but it sure packs a punch. He sits up straighter and tries to keep his tail from drumming on the ground. Meadow can practically feel his thoughts unfogging.
Apollo watches him with gentle humor on his face. “I know, right?”
“What is this stuff?”
“Secret recipe,” Apollo says calmly. “I’ve always suspected they put frogs in there. It would explain how jumpy you get after drinking the stuff.”
Meadow refrains from doing a spit take.
Seemingly unruffled, Apollo leans forward. “Did you look in the packet I gave you? Did you like it?”
That strange feeling crashes over Meadow, that internal riot between being kind and being honest, between pleasing this oddball stranger who criticizes his master and being true to himself. For a moment, he wants to say no, I need money and I don’t care about a sack of paper. It’s on the tip of his tongue. He could do it. He would do it.
And then he catches sight of Apollo’s face again, wide and open and trusting, eyes dancing with some kind of childlike hopefulness Meadow hasn’t felt in a long time. The SilkWing is a butterfly that could be crushed with the slightest misstep. And with a heavy heart, he tells him, “Yeah. I did.”
“That’s amazing!” Apollo almost squeals. In the corner, another one of the early morning customers grunts in annoyance, but he isn’t deterred. “Put them in a pot and cover them with soil. Then water them twice a day. Be careful about how much you give them. Plants can be fickle.”
Meadow doesn’t have the faintest inkling what Apollo is talking about, but he nods anyway.
“Amazing,” Apollo reiterates. Something about his smile makes Meadow’s heart skip a beat.
“Yeah.”
“So-” Excitement animates Apollo’s features all of a sudden. “Did you hear about the fugitives who stole the Book of Clearsight?”
Meadow sits up a little straighter. “Lady Bloodworm told us not to talk about that.”
Apollo flicks a bit of his coffee at Meadow. “Psh, if we want to talk about it, we will. Can you believe that happened?”
His words themselves are incendiary, but the tone he delivers them in is different. It’s the voice of a small dragonet flying for the first time, wonder bubbling just below their surface. Meadow feels himself soften a bit.
“I suppose so,” he admits, feeling light-headed. “I never thought the most treasured book on the continent would just be stolen like that. It’s crazy.”
A crooked grin alights on Apollo’s face. “What’s life without a little crazy?”
Meadow’s talons clasp his compass of their own accord. It’s like he’s walking the edge of a canyon, ready to fall at the slightest misstep. “Why is there paint on your talons?” he asks, diverting the subject.
“I’m an artist,” Apollo says airily. “It’s what I do. Also, I’m too lazy to try and wash it all off.”
“You probably should.” Was that too blunt? “I mean, for hygiene.”
“Well, what ‘unhygienic’ hobbies do you have?”
“Uh, none.”
“Come on! Everyone has their own indulgence or two.”
They banter back and forth for a while, their conversation melding easily into the background of The Pitcher as more customers trickle in. It’s a new situation to Meadow, words springing easily to his mouth. He never feels like this with Darkling, a realization that makes his heart pound. With deep breaths, he pulls himself back to the present.
“...But,” Apollo is saying, his voice suddenly shifting to a more serious tone, “I wanted to apologize for last night. I meant to pay, I really did. I just forgot my money at home. Maybe we can move on from this and… be friends?”
Friends? With a SilkWing? It’s a relatively simple concept, but it leaves Meadow reeling. Were the two tribes ever destined for more than master and servant?
“I don’t know,” slips out of Meadow’s mouth.
Crushed disappointment flits across Apollo’s face: there and gone. “If it’s because I’m a SilkWing,” he says quietly, drawing himself up with an intimidating grace, “you’re not the dragon I thought I could be friends with.”
There it is again, that six letter word that begins with F and ends in happiness. Maybe. Meadow’s never really had a friend before, so he’s not exactly well-versed in the social world. What’s it like to fly loops in the wide blue sky with another dragon by your side? What’s it like to have a home away from home, to hear your heart smiling and laughing of its entirely own accord?
“Wait,” he says, and he doesn’t mean to say it but he means it. “I’m sorry, I…”
Apollo looks back at him, his expression closed-off and uncertain.
Meadow looks back, his breathing quick and shallow. Suddenly he’s hyper-aware of everything around him, the other customers giving them looks, the baristas behind the counter. And of course, Apollo, the SilkWing who’s already consumed his thoughts, this odd soul who isn’t afraid to waltz into public with paint on his talons and emotions on his sleeve.
He almost says it. He almost makes a promise.
Then he feels needles stinging his scales, the judgemental glares of the other dragons in The Pitcher. Even without looking around, Meadow is certain they’re watching them, waiting to see how he reacts. Queen Wasp’s words are law. SilkWings are nothing but servants. Something inside him shrivels up and wilts.
“I have to go,” he blurts out, and he stands up and leaves the restaurant.
 
 
 
“Never befriend a SilkWing.”
~ Ero of the HiveWings, to her two young dragonets
 
 
 
The floorboards squeak. Meadow looks down at them. He’d promised Darkling he’d get them fixed a long time ago. I need to do something about that.
He strays into his room and unhooks the compass from around his neck, hanging it on his flimsy bedpost. Sometimes he wonders what his parents would think of him, a young adult whose business is about to fall apart, a subservient spineless dragon who’s supposed to be bold and brave and entrepreneur-y. A dragon who can’t even read.
“I’m trying,” he growls to the empty room, trying to drive away his thoughts. But no matter how hard he works, words remain undecipherable to him. The letters run around like ants on a paper, and they never seem to be in the right order. The words are backwards or distorted or warped - so many things, but never correct.
In the evenings, when Darkling had run off to the library in a hissy fit (which happened really far too often), his parents would sit by him and help him stumble through the stories. With his mother and father by his side, fairy tales came to life in swirls of color. Meadow read about heroes with swords, defenders with shields, dragons that had gone down in history because of all the amazing things they’d done. What had once simply been paper became as real as the sparkle in his eyes.
Then his parents had died, one after another, and the wonderful realms they’d helped him open up had fallen to pieces.
Meadow shakes himself and plucks the packet Apollo gave him from his satchel. A wave of guilt overtakes him at the sight of the small white envelope, forcing him to remember his panicked flight from The Pitcher. Is Apollo still there, clutching his long-cold coffee mug in his talons, betrayal seething inside him?
The sun, now fully risen, peeks through the window. Its light illuminates the packet, revealing a number of small… things inside, piled together. Meadow gives the packet a shake and is rewarded with the little orbs bouncing around.
He tears it open, being careful not to spill anything, and pours them into his palm. They’re painfully tiny, small and brown and round. What are these things?
A memory of Apollo floats into his mind, the SilkWing’s talons waving animatedly. Put them in a pot and cover them in soil. Then water them twice a day. What in Clearsight does that mean?
With some hesitation, Meadow picks up a small clay pot, nothing remarkable. He dumps the little orbs inside, wondering if he should do anything else. The soil will have to wait until later today, when he goes outside again, because Darkling-
“Is that you, Meadowhawk?” a voice calls.
Speak of the devil.
Another HiveWing pads into the kitchen, yawning. She stretches, letting her dark brown scales and beetle-black horns catch the light. Darkling stands a good head taller than him, even though she’s only a year older. He feels himself shrinking.
Her gaze catches on the pot he holds. “What’s that you’ve got there?” she says keenly.
He fumbles to tuck it into a cabinet and slams the door. “Uh, nothing.”
Darkling raises an eyebrow at him, but she doesn’t press the subject. “You can go ahead and make breakfast now,” she says, sweeping out of the room.
Meadow sighs quietly and fishes his pot out from under the sink. Apollo had mentioned that the little orbs would become… plants, somehow. Would they explode out of the shells or would the shells themselves stretch?
Whatever happens, Meadow thinks with a sudden surge of grim determination, he’ll give them the chance.
“Breakfast!” Darkling calls from the other room. Meadow jumps and hurries to tuck the pot away. He pushes it into the dark cabinet and closes the door once more, leaving it in the shadows.
 
 
 
“The trees are our lifeblood. We will never give them up.”
~ Queen Sequoia, at the start of the Tree Wars
 
 
 
It’s night again, something that shouldn’t surprise Meadow. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. A predictable schedule that he really should be used to. But ever since he met Apollo - and two weeks since he ran from The Pitcher - he’s been having trouble with his concentration.
He lifts his pencil, then puts it down again. A flash of movement. There’s something outside.
Or someone.
A shudder goes through Meadow, but he gets to his feet anyway, creeping toward the door. He feels shaky right down to the tips of his talons. He’s heard the gossip about the Book of Clearsight and its sinister theft. What if there are criminals right in front of his shop?
There - a flash of movement. A moon-white tail, whipping around the corner. Meadow runs through the descriptions of the criminals in a daze. None of them have white scales. So who in the moons could it be-?
The thought trails off in his mind.
Meadow’s heart thrums as his fear is replaced with adrenaline. Apollo. Despite only knowing him for a few days, he’s sure the SilkWing would never hurt him. He blows out the lantern with a soft whoosh of air and slips out the door.
Bloodworm Hive feels strange in the dark, as if all the buildings have been replaced with looming, crooked giants. Meadow finds himself skidding around turns abruptly far too often. It’s as if dimmed streetlamps and bushes seem to burst into existence right in front of him. Maybe he doesn’t know this part of the Hive as well as he thought he did.
Finally, he sees Apollo’s murky figure pass through the shadows and step into an alley. He trails after the SilkWing and watches him poke his head into a building questioningly before walking inside.
Meadow stares up at the rundown structure, wondering if he should go in. His heart is pounding at a panicked gallop. It won’t seem to slow down.
Darkling’s face swims through his mind, and he almost flinches at her words, even though they’re imaginary. Cowardly, she scoffs. It’s just a SilkWing.
It’s her that spurs him to step into the building. It’s her that pushes him after Apollo, even though he might not really want to.
It takes a moment for Meadow’s eyes to adjust to the inside of the building, simply because of how crowded it is. Boxes everywhere, castles of cardboard that reach to the ceiling. It’s a good thing Apollo’s so noticeable, he thinks grimly, as he watches the SilkWing move a box aside and swing open the revealed trapdoor embedded in the floorboards. In a millisecond, Apollo vanishes through, and Meadow peers after him.
The tunnel is small and cramped, sloping dramatically down. Cobwebs are strung from the corners. A shiver of revulsion runs through Meadow, and not for the first time, he regrets this decision. But it’s as if he’s a passenger in his own body. Mind-voice-Darkling urges him on as he crawls into the tunnel.
Thankfully, it’s not that long, only extending a few dozen tail-lengths into the earth. Every time Meadow’s tail brushes against the dirt wall, he feels himself recoil. He wasn’t designed for these cramped spaces. He scrambles through the last half, panic mounting in him, faster, faster-
And feels his talons scrabble at nothing but air.
Meadow tumbles out of the tunnel like a shot from a cannon. For a second, he plunges ungracefully through empty space, then he hits solid ground. All the wind is knocked out of his body. He sees a dirt floor and walls and thinks blearily, I’m underground. His eyes slide shut.
All he wants to do is lie still for a minute and gasp for breath because really, it should be illegal how delicate lungs are. But then voices reach his ears, and he opens his eyes to see a crowd of SilkWings - of all things - goggling at him.
“Get him out!” one of them yelps, and then everyone else is either nodding or yelling along. Dizziness swirls through Meadow as he sits up straight.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he pleads, the words feeling thick and clunky on his tongue. But does he? This is exactly what Darkling’s always warned him about: rule-breakers, misbehavers, errant criminals who have nothing better to do with their lives than dip below the law.
“Yeah, right!” a honey-colored SilkWing shouts, their tail lashing dangerously. “It’s not like you’re part of the tribe that treats us like dirt or anything!”
Meadow looks around wildly, eyes darting from side to side. He’s never even seen a SilkWing raise their voice before, let alone scream and shout at a HiveWing. Their accusing eyes explode his peaceful little bubble. Their voices make him want to cover his ears. Maybe he’s being dramatic, but for a second, he’s certain he’ll never be able to go back where he started. Both literally and figuratively.
He gets to his feet, kicking off another round of insults. His thoughts are spinning. Why have a meeting in such a secluded place? Why are these particular SilkWings so riled up against him?
In the midst of the chaos, Meadow remembers a story that his parents used to tell. He closes his eyes and shivers against the wall, wishing their warmth was here to comfort him now.
Some whisper of a rebellion stirring, his mother had told him as she patted his blankets down, ready for bedtime. Darkling was already snoring peacefully in the bed next to him. They say SilkWings are tired of us.
Why would they be, Mama? little Meadow had chirped.
“Get rid of him!” they cry.
She had leaned in toward him, as if about to confess a secret, and then his father entered the room. Don’t tell him about that, Ero, he’d chastised Meadow’s mother, but he’d walked over and wrapped her in a hug and Meadow knew he wasn’t really angry. They’re too young for this kind of stuff.
“If he tells anyone about us we’re doomed.”
Are they? she had asked sharply. The Chrysalis is going to crop up sometime.
“You’re the Chrysalis,” Meadow blurts out, and instead of exploding the room falls deadly silent.
Then a voice cuts through the quiet. Soft but firm, calm but seeming to put everyone on edge. “We won’t hurt him.”
Meadow glances around frantically, trying to pinpoint the speaker. Nobody’s mouth seems to be moving, until-
A lanky white shape pushes itself out of the mob, red dots on its wings, gray painting its horns.
“We won’t hurt him,” repeats Apollo.
“Oh, thank Clearsight,” Meadow whispers. He scrambles out of his position and straightens his back. “I didn’t even know this was happening, and I-”
Apollo’s expression, cold and unnerving and about as gentle as steel, cuts him off. He raises his voice and says to the room, “I’ll take him home.”
 
 
 
“Rule #4: The Chrysalis is a secret organization. Do not reveal it to anyone untrustworthy.”
~ Excerpt from Bloodworm Hive Chrysalis Code
 
 
 
Not for the first time, Meadow curses his short legs. He can barely keep up with Apollo as it is. Now that the SilkWing is practically striding along the dark path, Meadow tagging along with him like an overgrown duckling, he feels a strange annoyance bubbling inside him.
He doesn’t usually get mad, honestly. His parents had raised him to stay in line. Darkling did that without even trying. But Meadow, with his lack of literacy and his floundering business, is a different story.
They stop at a fork in the path, two separate lines leading off to two separate sides of the Hive. Meadow and Darkling’s apartment somewhere down the right, and his tapestry shop along the left. “Where to?” Apollo says in a clipped voice.
Meadow decides to take a stab at having an actual conversation with the other dragon. “You know, I really don’t need you to take me home. I can handle myself.”
Apollo, his clear gray eyes slitted with some emotion Meadow can’t read, snorts. “You’re a HiveWing. The others want me to keep tabs on you.”
At that, Meadow balks. The power dynamic has always been one way, always: HiveWings above SilkWings, rulers above citizens. But now, everything’s been turned upside down, and he can’t make sense of it. At all.
He decides he doesn’t like it. At all.
“You’re my friend,” Meadow says, promises, pleads. Maybe all three. “I wouldn’t-”
“Oh, now you’re my friend?” Apollo whirls on him. Yes, the emotion he’s wearing is definitely anger. “Because I was pretty sure you didn’t want to be buddies after you left me in the cafe, huh? Everybody else thought I scared you off - me, a SilkWing - and they kicked me out of the place.”
Meadow stands openmouthed, gaping at Apollo, the latter’s chest heaving with a sort of angry catharsis. Would they do that? He’s never heard of anything like that before; he’s always thought that all troublemakers were punished. But then again… he’s never talked this much to a SilkWing before.
He’s been self-centered and weak. He’s been an idiot.
“I’m sorry-” he starts, then breaks off because Apollo just said the exact same thing.
After staring at each other for a few moments, Meadow shuffles his feet and repeats, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have followed you. Actually, I shouldn’t have made any of the decisions I’ve made about you in the past few days.”
He dips his head, worries at his compass with his talons. From this angle, he can’t see Apollo’s reaction. “I know that I’m a HiveWing, and you might not trust me. But… maybe we can try this friend thing again.”
When Meadow looks up, Apollo looks heartbreakingly unsure. “I…” he begins. Meadow holds his breath. “I’ll walk you home.”
It’s not a no. Meadow takes the lead this time, heading toward his apartment.
They trot down the street together, loaded silence hanging between them. It’s late at night and inconveniently dark, but Meadow finds himself tripping far less this time. With Apollo behind him, his gait is surer, freer. Maybe the SilkWing is rubbing off on him.
Meadow twists his head around, sees Apollo avert his gaze. “So… I tried your plant thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Um, I don’t know what you mean when you say to water it.”
Apollo cocks his head. “Just sprinkle some water over the soil a few times a day. And wait. It’s not that hard.” There’s no barb in his last sentence.
“And then it… grows?”
“Pretty much.”
Meadow is silent for a moment, then: “Thanks for the seeds. They sound pretty cool.”
Apollo barks a laugh. “Just take good care of them. Every living thing deserves the chance to grow. And someone to watch over them as it happens. It’s really lonely, you know, trying to do it by yourself.”
He sounds bitter, almost, dull acidity lodged in his voice. Meadow wonders if he’s speaking from personal experience.
The night is cool. A gentle breeze blows. Their footsteps fall in time together, ripples through the air, no one around to feel them. The stars above them look so far away, like no matter how far up they flew, they’d be blinking out of reach every time they got close.
“I can’t read.”
The words burst from his mouth unbidden. Ice slides down his body and up again. Apollo looks surprised, but not full on shocked, and it’s only because of that that Meadow chooses to continue.
“No matter how hard I try, the letters just scramble on the paper. I just… nothing works for me. There’s something wrong with my brain.”
They’re still walking, but Apollo’s gaze makes Meadow feel like an ant pinned to a paper. Finally, he says, “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
There’s moisture on Meadow’s face. Why is there moisture? His mouth opens and his voice begins again. “I guess maybe that’s why I was drawn to you. I don’t fit in. And you… you just seem so comfortable with who you are.”
I wish I was like you. He can’t bring himself to say it.
“There’s nothing wrong with you.” Apollo’s eyes have turned fierce and hard. “You’re different, but that doesn’t condemn you to a lifetime of failure. We have flaws, all of us, and the only thing we can do is keep going.”
Meadow is shaking. Hesitantly, Apollo approaches. “Keep going,” he repeats softly. “And, for the record, it’s not a flaw. It’s just something you can’t do. Think about all the things you can.”
He won’t cry. He won’t cry. He won’t cry. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
Inhale, exhale, repeat. Meadow sneaks a glance at Apollo and starts talking again. Clearsight, he can’t stop. “It’s just hard sometimes, you know? When you feel like there’s nobody looking out for you. Like those fairytales we were told as dragonets just evaporate as you grow up.”
They’re almost back at his apartment when Apollo answers. Slowly, tentatively, like he’s just dipping a talon into water. “There’s always someone looking out for you.”
Something unspoken passes between them, a gaze, an infinity, a moment entirely their own.
“I won’t let you down again,” Meadow swears.
Apollo nods. “Don’t tell anyone about us. Please.”
Meadow wavers between accepting and denying it. Darkling shadows his mind, her disapproving face clear. But she’s shoved out by the dragon before him, brave and bold and so incredibly kind.
Apollo gave Meadow a second chance. He’ll return the favor.
And when he says “I won’t,” it feels like a promise. Because it is.
 
 
 
“The queen’s word is law. To disobey is punishable by death.”
~ Excerpt from The Laws of Pantala
 
 
 
He didn't think he'd be back here.
Meadow looks up at the building, watching the sign swing in the slight breeze. Plates and dishes clatter quietly from inside, even though it's not exactly breakfast time. The sun hasn't even risen yet, and the sky is dull rose pink.
It always seems to be around this time that he comes here.
Taking a deep breath, Meadow swings open the door and steps inside.
Everything looks the same as the last time he was here. Same dim lights swinging from the ceiling, same dull-eyed customers staring into their coffee as if it holds the secrets to life. Same striking SilkWing sitting in the corner, but this time, alone.
Meadow crosses the room to stand in front of Apollo. The other dragon seems to notice his presence without looking up from the wood-grained table, but ignores him.
His eyes flicker around the room awkwardly as he takes the silence as an invitation. Meadow slides into the seat opposite from Apollo and coughs slightly.
His gaze, quick and nervous, alights upon the red bracelet on Apollo's wrist. It catches the low light like bubbles drifting in the air.
"I should probably tell you," Apollo says suddenly, "that the bracelet has a meaning."
Meadow cocks his head, talons moving instinctively to his compass, but he keeps his mouth shut.
"I..." Apollo begins. Falters. Starts again. "I'm not always a boy."
The SilkWing looks at Meadow then, eyes calling out quietly. "I just feel like a girl sometimes. Not a boy. Everybody always calls me 'he' and 'him.' So I decided to start wearing this bracelet. Shows when I'm a girl, I guess. And today…” A shrug of the shoulders. “That’s what I am.”
Meadow remembers when he first came out to Darkling. I think I like boys too, he’d confessed to her on a whim, kicking his legs at the kitchen table. Not just girls.
She’d looked up from cooking their food, dark eyes analytical and calm. Her gaze raked over him, and he’d sat up straighter, wanting to please her even at such a young age. Not without reason though.
Darkling had always been the intellectual one, the smart one. As she watched him, her eyes had betrayed nothing, but it was clear that she was studying him. As if he was some sort of specimen and not her little brother. As if she was taking this new information and filing it away in some unknown file that she would pull from later, order him around, trample over his feelings.
Some childish part of him had wanted her to bridge the gap already forming between them, to come over and enfold him in a hug. Instead, she’d simply said Okay and returned to her cooking.
Meadow can feel Apollo’s tension. There’s a hard set to her jaw that he’s seen before. Guilty defiance, pride as delicate as a blown glass flower. It’s all too familiar.
He reaches out and takes her talon in his. She doesn’t flinch. Warmth spreads up through his arm and into his chest. “If this is how you choose to identify yourself,” he tells her, “I’ll respect your wishes.”
She turns her head away, but her smile is still on in full force, and Meadow feels himself melt a little. “It’s the least you could do. But thank you.”
After a few moments, he realizes he’s been watching her watching him, and it’s as if he’s been jolted out of a dream. Apollo keeps drawing his eye wherever he looks.
Meadow clears his throat to break the awkwardness, then clears it again. He feels a flash of do I want to do this? There’s been a strange peace growing between them, like when they pass each other on the street and silently acknowledge it. He wonders if he wants to break that peace.
Then he remembers the SilkWings in that cave clamoring, for rights and for freedom, and he makes up his mind.
“I wanted to talk about the Chrysalis meeting I stumbled in on.”
The words land between them like a bomb, ready to go off at the slightest touch.
Apollo stares at him, and Meadow thinks she’s going to say anything from You didn’t stumble in, you followed me, to Why don’t you just leave? to What meeting? I have no idea what you’re talking about. But then she tells him quietly, “Keep going.”
Meadow takes another deep breath to steady himself. He feels his breath trembling in his chest and he doesn't know why. Stop it, stop it. Calm, calm, calm.
"First off, I wanted to say that I'm sorry. Again," he tells her. His eyes are trained on the table because he can't bear to look at her. "It was wrong of me to follow you into there."
Apollo makes a scoffing noise, or something that sounds a lot like it. But she doesn't stop him.
Meadow tents his talons in a pleading gesture, but muscle memory makes them fall into Queen Wasp's salute instead. He hides them under the table, the blood rushing to his head. "Last time I ran out of here, I wasn't thinking straight. I was tired, or..."
Her gaze pins him to his chair like a statue. "Or what?"
"I shouldn't make excuses," Meadow amends. "Clearsight knows I'm not good at this social stuff. You're the first... the first friend I've ever had."
"Really?" Apollo folds her arms. She looks disdainful, or at least cavalier, and that's why Meadow doesn't expect it when she answers quietly, "Me too."
Meadow looks up from the table for the first time in, well, a while. "Really?" he parrots with the wonder of a young dragonet.
"Is that so surprising?"
"I don't know," he admits. "I don't know anything about SilkWings, actually."
Apollo barks a hard-edged laugh. "Yeah, I could tell. HiveWings never seem to consider what it's like being ordered around all day. 'Fetch the water!' 'Wash the dishes!' It's exhausting."
“Is that why you guys formed the Chr- the Chrysalis?” The word is new on Meadow’s tongue. He doesn’t recognize its taste.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you.” But there’s indecision in her voice.
“Why not?”
“I shouldn’t tell you that either.”
Meadow spreads his talons. “Okay. Well, if we can move past that… I’d love to be friends.”
Apollo watches his movement like a hawk, her gray eyes keen and stormy. “You’re a HiveWing,” she says with no malice in her voice. “Can I trust you?”
He thinks of Darkling then, thorny prejudice twining around her words. Her disregard for SilkWings, the way her words burrow into his scales and hang there like thistles, hurting him every time he stretches. How she’s his sister, and his caretaker. But never a friend.
“Yes,” Meadow tells Apollo. “You can.”
Again, she tries to hide her smile, but it’s clear as the sun rising in a misty dawn.
 
 
 
“Secrets are like plants: they do nothing but grow.”
~ Queen Sequoia of the LeafWings
 
 
 
“I think this is the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”
“It can’t be,” Apollo gasps mockingly. She holds up her talons and counts. “Because you said the last one was the best thing you’ve ever eaten, and the one before that, and the one before that, and the one before-”
Meadow puts up his own talons in surrender, laughing. “Okay. I get the idea.”
“Of course you do,” she says airily. “I don’t call this cafe the best on Pantala for nothing.”
Something about the way she words it pokes at Meadow’s mind. “You’ve been out of the Hive?”
“I used to live in a different one, actually.” The smile slides off her face like a melting candle. “My parents were- doing something illegal, and I was sent here as punishment for them.”
Meadow’s heart seems to stop for a second. The morning sun suddenly feels painfully bright. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all in the past now,” Apollo sighs. Nostalgia seems to flicker over her face, there and gone. Then she looks back at him. “What about you? What’s your tragic backstory?”
“I really think we should be talking about our ‘front’ stories,” Meadow says. “No use dwelling on the past.” It’s just a light observation, though he immediately thinks of all his beloved tapestries back in his shop, heroes frozen in time for the future generations. They left an impact. He used to idolize them for it.
But then he remembers the Chrysalis meeting, the SilkWings shouting for their freedom, benefits they’d never had, respect they’d never gotten. Is this the impact they should have left? Stripping the continent of all its trees, dooming an entire culture to a fate of servanthood?
If not, had they really been heroes?
Apollo shrugs, a simple fluid motion that hides longing behind its facade. "I won't spill your history to anyone else, promise. It's not like I have anyone else to talk to."
He worries at his compass, turning it over and over and over in his talons. "Well, I have a sister named Darkling," he hedges. "She's taken care of me and stuff."
"Wish I had a sister," Apollo sighs wistfully.
"Not one like Darkling." He looks just as surprised as Apollo when the words that come out of his mouth. "I mean, we've never really been close. And she's not exactly... supportive."
It leaves a bitter taste in Meadow's mouth, but deep down, he feels rather than knows that he’s right. Darkling hurts him and other dragons far too often, even though she might not actually mean to. He just wonders why it took him so long to see it.
"My parents loved us so much, but I guess the universe isn't fair,” he adds.
"I'm sorry," Apollo repeats back to him, though she sounds a lot more sincere. "Life's tough sometimes."
"But we can get through it together now." Meadow hesitates. "As friends, right?"
Apollo pauses for a fraction of a second, then nods. "Friends."
They smile at each other hazily over their food, pastries forgotten for the first time. Then Meadow feels the weight of his satchel on his chest, and his brain lights up in remembrance.
“Oh, I almost forgot!" He reaches into the bag and pulls out his plant, pot and all. There's a small green shoot poking out of the earth, weak and trembly, but there. "It started growing."
Apollo stares at it, then stares some more. Meadow wonders if he broke her.
Then she stifles a laugh and pulls the pot over to her side of the table. “Did you put that in your bag? It must be filled with dirt by now.”
“I-” Meadow begins, then he feels the inside of his satchel and flinches like he’s touched coals. “Yep. Didn’t realize that.”
She pokes at the little plant. “It’s beautiful,” she says. “I never get tired of watching daisies grow.”
Daisy. Meadow rolls the word around inside his mouth for a moment. It’s a nice name, though he’s never heard it before.
He picks up his bag and dumps out all the dirt with a grimace. It showers onto the table in a tiny brown storm.
“Are you kidding me?” Apollo can’t hold back her laughter this time. It’s loud and bright and seems to draw the gazes of all the other dragons in the room.
He remembers last time they were here, in the same situation, struggling with the same challenges. The rest of the cafe was staring just like they’re staring now, probably wondering what a HiveWing is doing with a SilkWing, and why they look so happy. He knows they’re judging them.
Meadow laughs along with Apollo.
 
 
 
“We are here to live with our whole hearts."
~ Excerpt from the introduction of The Book of Clearsight
 
 
 
“You know,” Meadow says thoughtfully, “that plant you gave me is doing pretty well. It’s, like, tall and green now. And there are some - what did you call them - medals unfurling.”
Apollo gives a small giggle. “It’s petals, Meadow. Petals.”
Meadow smiles at his companion, feeling like every negative emotion he’s ever known has melted away in the afternoon light. “Whatever you say.”
“Of course.” Apollo shakes out her wrists, the red bracelet on her right one catching the sun.
They walk down the street together, chatting about nothing and everything. Even though they picked this neighborhood for a reason - it’s empty and secluded, meaning not as many dragons will see them - Meadow still feels like it could all melt away, and he wouldn’t even notice. Apollo has a gravity, and he’s been pulled into her orbit.
It’s funny, he thinks, watching the lines crinkle around her eyes as she laughs, how quickly the two of them bonded after… well, the elephant in the room. It’s only been a few weeks, but they’ve begun meeting up every few days to simply spend time with each other. Meadow’s never felt this way before, as if having a friend gives him the power to fly across the continent simply because there’s someone else by his side.
Apollo is daring, and she burns like fire. Meadow is a gentler kind of light.
Eventually, Apollo breaks the conversation with an “I have to go now.” It’s part of the strange tacit code they’ve developed, an unspoken bond, a mutual trust. The safety net they’ve woven together in preparation for when one makes the other fall.
Meadow nods and watches her trot down the street. She’s almost at the end of it when he manages to tear his eyes away from her wings glowing bright in the sun.
“You’re useless.”
He almost thinks that he was the one who said it, but then he turns and sees the other dragon that he didn’t notice before. And then his heart almost stops because it’s not just any dragon, it’s a HiveWing. Not just any HiveWing-
It’s Darkling.
His talons feel like they’re glued to the ground as he watches his sister glare at the SilkWing, a small blue dragon with spindly legs. He feels some strange emotion roil in his stomach.
“I told you that those documents were due tomorrow,” Darkling says in an icy cold voice. Despite her quiet volume, she seems to grow taller as the SilkWing shrinks against the wall. “Thanks to your negligence, now I have to stay up all night finishing them for Lady Bloodworm.”
She pauses, cocks her head, taps her chin like some cartoon villain from his dragonet fairytales. “This isn’t the first time you’ve failed me either, Adonis. Remember last week, when you failed to show up for work? Two days ago, when you almost gave me spoiled food?”
“I-I’m sorry,” Adonis stammers out, but Darkling doesn’t seem to hear.
Behind Meadow, Apollo is sprinting toward them, her eyes stormy with anger. But she’s too far away, he thinks wildly. There’s no way she’ll get here in time.
Darkling’s voice is building. He recognizes that tone. It’s the way she gets when anger has been festering beneath her scales for a long time, a hundred small slips, a thousand ton weight. When she gets like this, her words quickly become knives, capable of destroying someone’s self-esteem. It’s only a matter of time.
“You’re a spineless little brat, you know that?” Darkling’s voice is cold and aloof. So distant from the obviously-terrified Adonis. “Always thinking you just deserve this job and never putting in the effort to keep it. Scared of every little thing in the world.”
He should do something. He needs to do something. But he’s still frozen in place, a little dragonet once more, listening to his sister criticize the project that he poured hours into. He’s a coward too.
“Then again, I shouldn’t have expected any more from a weakling like you.”
There it is, the grenade, the blaze of red and gold and hope burning to ashes.
Meadow remembers when he was very young and he’d gone to Darkling’s open house for school. That was the first time he’d truly seen her touch the biggest weakness of someone without even realizing it. She’d been holding up her report, and an older dragon had wandered over and said distantly, Your handwriting is a bit messy, isn’t it? And Darkling’s little dragonet eyes had gone slitted in a way no dragonet should be able to achieve and she’d said, Just because you think your dragonet is so much better than he really is doesn’t mean you get to criticize me.
The two of them had been so different, that dragon compared to Adonis. A HiveWing and a SilkWing, a parent and an adolescent. But their eyes widened in the same way, posture crumpled in the same rhythm. Funny how destructive words can be.
Finally, finally, Meadow moves. The haze has cleared, the icy fire of Darkling’s words having burned them away. Without even looking back at Apollo - she’s far too distant to reach them - he lunges forward, reaches for Darkling.
When his talons are an inch away from his sister’s scales, Darkling’s eyes turn to him, the cold hard anger replaced with something rawer. He almost freezes in his tracks, dips his head and apologizes. He almost does it.
But Adonis’s eyes are too wide to ignore, his face too vulnerable to leave. He meets the SilkWing’s stare and flinches at the look in Adonis’s eyes: fear, petrification, and something that almost looks like… guilt. He looks like a failure.
Adonis looks like him.
Meadow shoves Darkling away from Adonis, raspy words tearing loose from his throat: “Leave him alone.”
She only stumbles a step or two, but her chest is heaving when she turns to face him. Darkling looks livid, and Meadow nearly shrinks under her stormy look again. But his compass presses against his own chest, a warm weight that keeps it still, and he draws himself up with memories of the past firing his motion.
Darkling doesn’t miss the motion. Her deep brown eyes, precisely the same shade as Meadow’s, watch the rusty compass bobbing on his chest.
But when she speaks, it’s not a howl, but a whisper that cuts straight to Meadow’ bone. “What would our parents think of you?”
Then Apollo is there, throwing herself at Darkling with her talons balled up in a fist but Meadow sweeps his tail in front of her subconsciously to stop her in her tracks. His talons touch the ground, but he feels so very far away, freezing in the clouds, burning in the planet’s core. He is all here, feeling the bitter sting jab at his bones, not here at all. He is shaking and he’s not sure why.
Everything feels blurry. The world has been encased in amber: hazy and slow, as if time had simply evaporated into the sky, leaving behind a husk of the dragon Meadow had been a few minutes ago.
Apollo’s talon makes contact with his shoulder, a light, hesitant motion, a butterfly alighting on a candle about to explode - or implode. Whatever the sentiment, it’s a feather-like anchor. It pulls Meadow back to Pantala, back to his own mahogany-scaled body and his brain that can’t even process words right. Back to the continent his parents will never see again.
Adonis flashes Meadow nothing more than a grateful look before he darts away. Blue scales against the gray of the Hive, sapphires tumbling over and over dull cement, then gone around the corner, a whisper of wind.
“You did good,” Apollo tells him. Her face is filled with just as many emotions as Meadow is feeling right now.
It’s true that his parents had always raised him to be… not cruel, exactly. They’d never wanted to hurt SilkWings. But they’d promised him that they were nothing but servants, not true dragons - caricatures of spirits, formed from clay to serve others.
Was Darkling right? Would his parents hate him for feeling all these things he should decidedly not be feeling? They had been nothing but loyal to Queen Wasp. Meadow had too. Darkling is everything they ever wanted: faithful, loyal.
He looks over at Apollo, white scales flashing in the afternoon sun, quartz-gray eyes fixed determinedly on Darkling’s retreating figure. With a jolt, Meadow realizes that she’s so much more than “just a servant” at this point. She’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive. Just like his plant. Living things deserve a chance to grow. Do they? Does everything?
His thoughts crash around his mind, loud as an orchestra and chaotic as the marketplace on discount day. Was Darkling right? Was this the dragon his parents had raised him to be?
What have I done?
 
 
 
“It is true courage not to never be scared, but to act in spite of it.”~Dragonfly, hero of the Tree Wars
 
 
 
"Meadow! Open the door!" A pounding on the wall, loud and insistent. It won't go away.
Meadow looks up blankly from his daisy. He wants to admire the flower a little longer: it's finished blooming, the white petals glowing in the dim light of his apartment. The only beautiful thing here.
Nevertheless, he heaves himself to his feet and answers the door.
Outside,  Apollo is standing there, the bracelet gone from his wrist. But there's something about him that makes Meadow lean forward and listen. It's his wide eyes, his bushed-out wings, his painfully-straight posture that only comes when someone's been paralyzed with fear.
For the first time since Meadow has met him, Apollo is scared.
He's always known the SilkWing as fearless, bright, and bold. Meadow has come to view him as the warrior who never tires, despite their monolithic society, despite the way other dragons treat him. But now, for Apollo to be scared like this…
"Something's wrong," Meadow blurts out loud.
Apollo draws in a breath sharply, then nods. "Yes. I- I came to warn you."
Meadow's brain is moving sluggishly, overwhelmed with his defense of a SilkWing a few hours ago and Darkling's cutting words. "Warn me... about what?"
Again, Apollo takes a breath, though this one is deeper. Then he launches into a monologue.
"LeafWings are alive."
"LeafWings?"
"Yes. They're alive and they're about to burn the Hive."
"Burning the Hive."
Apollo throws up his talons in exasperation. "Are you going to repeat everything I say, or actually shut up and listen?"
"Shut up and-" Meadow catches himself. "Sorry."
He's only rewarded with a quick nod before Apollo barrels on. “See, the LeafWings contacted the Chrysalis - oh, stop looking so surprised, I know you know about that - and they told us to warn the SilkWings in Bloodworm Hive. But I came here to warn you too. You’re the only HiveWing we’ve alerted, actually.”
“Why?”
“I…” Apollo’s words seem to catch in his throat. “I guess you’re my friend.”
Meadow stares at him, and Apollo stares back. He feels the faintest smile brush at the corners of his mouth.
Apollo barely smiles back, as quick as a candle flicker, a butterfly flapping through the air. “You have to come with us,” he says urgently. “The whole Hive’s going to burn. And this horrible society along with it.”
Despite the angry undertone boiling in his voice, Apollo's eyes are blazing with some unfamiliar emotion. Meadow can't quite comprehend it. Anger? Defiance? Despite all of his life, he's never seen SilkWings wear any other expression besides neutrality, or at least a gentle smile.
That's the problem, he realizes. SilkWings don't wear any other expression because they simply can't. The HiveWings - his tribe - has been keeping them as servants for years. They've learned to bottle up their emotions, hide them inside. Has he ever seen any SilkWing talk with true passion in their words before Apollo? Express their true thoughts without inhibitions?
Meadow feels nauseous. His view of his tribe is turning, spinning, shaking in its formerly-stable stance. What happened to the dragons he had idolized when he was young? Where had they gone wrong?
"I- I don't think I know what you mean," Meadow stammers out. “I can’t believe it.” I don’t believe it.
Apollo looks increasingly harried, as if talking to a young dragonet. "The Hive," he enunciates, "is going to be attacked. You have to evacuate."
The words spill out of Meadow's mouth unbidden. "Queen Wasp will protect us."
There are the emotions, raw and brazen, exploding into view on Apollo's face. His eyes widened, face graffitied with shock and pain and betrayal. A flower who’s done its best to grow and received nothing but torrential, drowning rain in return.
"How," Apollo hisses, "can you still trust her? When she's done this to our tribe for so long?"
Meadow is at a loss for words. His mouth is open and his tongue is stone, words evaporating on the cusp. He doesn't know what to say.
"You know, I thought we were friends with each other," Apollo bites out. “I opened up to you more than any other dragon. I told you my secrets! You, a HiveWing!” He scoffs. “I guess I should have known better.”
“Apollo,” Meadow says, trying to ignore the sting of the SilkWing’s last sentence, “I can’t believe this. LeafWings are extinct. They’re gone. They- it’s impossible for them to burn the Hive down. This can’t be happening.” Even though he’s trying to summon his inner bravado, his voice trembles like the last leaf clinging on to a tree.
His words make Apollo’s face crumble - a slow descent, a quiet disappointment. He doesn’t look angry anymore, only hurt. “I guess you don’t quite trust me, then.”
Before Meadow can complete a full sentence, the SilkWing is gone, flashing around the corner like the ghost he first thought Apollo was.
Meadow looks back toward his flower, and he wonders if it’s his imagination making it droop.
 
 
 
“We can't let them win."
~ Apollo of the SilkWings to Bloodworm Hive Chrysalis
 
 
 
He’s in his shop again. Not sure why. The world is a hazy dusty mess drifting around him and he feels utterly lost.
Meadow tries to take deep breaths, his chest moving shallowly up and down. The paper in his talons is being gripped so tightly that its edges are crumpling, as if they’re burning. But it isn’t making the words any easier to read. Nothing does. They’re dark black beetles marching along, specks at the edge of his consciousness. He’s never been able to understand them. He’ll never be able to.
The tapestry of Wasp catches his eye, her face fixated in a permanent glower. His talons cross in the salute once more: right over left, left over right, clasp, press to head. Something about the ritual calms Meadow, and he almost hates himself for it. He remembers Apollo’s look of betrayal, Adonis’s shivers in fear. How had the HiveWings done this? What toxic wedge had they driven between themselves and the SilkWings?
Meadow knows rather than sees that the paper screams Eviction Notice in harsh red letters. Ironically, it’s the thing he’s had the least trouble with reading in a rather long time. Because he’s seen it coming for a while. His dwindling stream of customers had told him so.
With a fumbling motion, his twitchy talons slip and crunch the paper into a wrinkled ball. He trembles for a moment, then throws it across the room. It bounces against the cracking wall, then tumbles to the floor in the corner. Then he immediately regrets it and goes to fetch the paper. Darkling will probably want to see it later.
Darkling, Darkling, Darkling, her name an insistent chorus chanting against the cacophony of his mind. Meadow was born and raised beside her, then basically raised by her. Yet he’s felt a nagging feeling growing in his mind recently, that true companions should build each other up, not break each other down. His sister has never done the former, growing up drinking the poisonous ideologies their parents fed them. It’s only recently that Meadow’s learned the sweet taste of empathy, in fact.
When did this begin? he asks himself. And the answer is simply, Apollo. This time, the word is a soft symphony, soothing the ragged edges of his mind. Apollo is a SilkWing, a rebel with smooth edges, a fire that demands to burn in the coldest place it can find. Yet he doesn’t make Meadow feel worried, or scared. He makes him feel… thoughtful. Apollo makes him question himself.
Meadow leans heavily against his desk and looks up at the Dragonfly tapestry. The first thought that flits across his mind is - as always - I could never be like her. Dragonfly had been a heroine, the HiveWings' savior. Meadow was just a struggling tapestry merchant who couldn't even figure out how to read, let alone leave a mark on this world. Never, never, he could never be like her.
Then Apollo crosses his mind (again, like always. His brain is doing a lot of thinking about Apollo nowadays) and Meadow almost flinches from the look in his imaginary friend's eyes. He remembers how Apollo talked about the HiveWings, venom in his voice, bright defiance in his eyes. He remembers how he pushed Apollo away, choosing not to trust him after the SilkWing stripped off his entire rough exterior for Meadow.
Suddenly it’s hard to breathe. He unstrings the compass from around his neck and lays it on the desk.
He could never be like Dragonfly.
"I thought you'd be in here," Darkling's voice says. He jumps and wheels toward the door, seeing his sister leaning loftily against the doorframe. "You're a little predictable, Meadowhawk."
He folds his wings against his body, trying to hide the way he tensed up when she surprised him. "Maybe I am," he admits.
Darkling steps into the shop, wrinkling her nose when she sees the cracking plaster on the walls. "How is business?"
He can't help but let a sigh whoosh out of his mouth. It doesn't release the hardness edging his form at all. "Bad," he admits, dropping his head into his talons. "I don't think I'll be able to keep this up much longer."
She comes closer, and he looks up and wonders if that's genuine concern on her face or a fake facade, the one she treats all her SilkWing employees with. "Let me give you some advice," she offers. "Come out of your shell. Talk to more HiveWings. They'll spread it among their social networks, and more dragons will know about you."
When he doesn’t respond, Darkling shrugs and takes to glancing around the rundown little store. Her gaze sweeps over the tapestries, and he has the irrational urge to tear them all down simply because of the approving way she looks at them. “I’m glad you’ve calmed down from your little outburst earlier,” she says, her voice almost bored. “It’s nice to see you’ve come back to your senses.”
“Were you about to… fire that SilkWing earlier?”
He waits for the ‘no’ to come out of her mouth, waits for that one ugly syllable, that one fragmented word. But she looks just as surprised as he feels when she says instead, “I don’t know. I guess it wouldn’t really matter much, since that dragon doesn’t matter much either.” She barks a dry laugh, but it doesn’t disguise the way her eyes went wide when she confessed her thoughts.
Meadow barely notices, though. He feels a wave of indignation flood over his scales at her words: hot, then cold, boiling, then piercing. “Why not?” he asks as if from very far away, and his voice does not shake in the slightest.
Darkling shrugs again, a noncommittal motion, betraying everything and nothing at the same time. “He was a SilkWing, right? Just a servant.”
Before he even realizes it, Meadow bolts upright, new fire in the way he holds himself. “‘Just a servant?’ Is that what you think about SilkWings?”
She looks taken aback, as if she’s never expected to have her views challenged, as if she’s never even considered it that way because of their society gone wrong. “Well, what else would they be?” she snaps back, recovering quickly.
The Hive rumbles.
The floor does not rock and the walls do not come crashing down but he stumbles anyway, a newborn colt on wobbly legs, suddenly unsure of this strange world that seems to have it out for him. It is not a dark, low-pitched rumble, but a fast one, a heart pumping beneath the surface of a body. It skips and flutters and does not go away.
As if in a trance, Meadow moves toward the door and looks outside. Dragons of all colors - yellow, black, green and pink and blue - stampede down the street, their footsteps a flood, an eruption.
He looks further down the street. Fire. Beasts of red and orange and yellow, just as colorful as the dragons, roaring and screaming and clawing at the air. The flames are still far away, and moving at almost a painfully slow pace, but Meadow has a sinking feeling that when they get here-
His shop is doomed.
“Friends,” Meadow whispers, a shiver lodged in his throat. “They could be friends.”
Sparks dance through the air like fireflies. The blaze is getting closer. He estimates they only have a couple minutes left. “Apollo was telling the truth,” he mutters to himself.
Darkling strides over to the door too. “What are you goggling at- oh.” Her posture seems to shrivel. “Oh.” She snaps her head toward him, as if she needs something to cling onto and Meadow is the closest lifeboat. “Who’s Apollo? Do they know something about this?”
Dragonfly points to the sky with a LeafWing impaled on her sword, cruel glory etched across her face, the tapestry dripping blood. Meadow’s brain spins. She fought at the helm of the Tree Wars, she killed LeafWings, she helped enslave SilkWings. Even if Dragonfly herself hadn’t done it, she had stood by and watched as the queen swept an entire tribe into her custody.
He thinks of Darkling, who had stood by and let SilkWings suffer, who had grown up with the HiveWings’ dogma and never truly had the chance to think for herself. Was that an excuse for her behavior? For the dragons she’d hurt?
Dragons died in the Tree Wars. Their descendants died too, losing their freedom and equal rights, before they were even conceived. Dragonfly had been at the vanguard of the destruction, laughed as SilkWings were enslaved, pointed her sword straight through LeafWings and watched them bleed.
He could never be like her. He could never be like her.
Meadow will never be like her.
"Come with me," he urges Darkling, who just rolls her eyes, her expression disinterested. "Apollo's a SilkWing and he's fighting for his tribe's freedom. His organization can get us to safety in another Hive."
"Safety?" Darkling says incredulously. "You're trusting a bunch of lowly SilkWings to protect us?"
Meadow swallows hard and stands a little straighter. "They're not lowly. They're willing to speak up like you and I never did."
Fire is beginning to throw shadows against the inside of the store now, stretching the tapestries into grotesque twists and spirals. The inferno is getting closer. Only a few buildings away.
Meadow takes a step toward the door. Darkling doesn't move. It feels like his talons are made of heavy stone, weighing him down.
"Darkling," he whispers. "Our life has been so strange and twisted. Our parents-" His gaze flicks to the compass on his desk, so lovingly gifted to him by his father and mother. "Our parents were wrong. Apollo has taught me that SilkWings are dragons too." Everyone is worth saving.
She shakes her head in disbelief, mouth parted in a perfect O. "You've become a radical. They poisoned you."
"Society poisoned us!" Meadow cries, trying to hold back the gathering tears. "Darkling, come with us. You can change. You can be a better dragon."
When her eyes go slitted, he realizes he's said the wrong thing. "I don't need to be a better dragon," she swears. "I'm an aide to Lady Bloodworm herself, I'm the youngest HiveWing at the top of the social hierarchy."
She shakes her head again, and it brings Meadow back to his dragonethood, her disapproving face blazing boldly in all his memories. “Queen Wasp protects both the SilkWings and the HiveWings. You used to be so loyal and kind. What happened to you?”
“Seeing the wrong in the world,” he forces out, “is not being unkind.”
But he has to pause to consider her point about loyalty. Is he a traitor? In all senses of the word, yes. Meadowhawk was the impressionable dragonet who looked up at Wasp with stars in his eyes. Meadow is the HiveWing, the turncoat that will go down in history, who straggled behind his tribe.
Inexplicably, the next thing to alight in his thoughts is a potted plant. His daisy, his flower, his blossom with its soft unfurling petals. It had simply been a seed before he’d brought it to life, changing its environment. Changing itself.
Apollo had been the one to give it to him, his talons shaky but sure, ready to paint or fight or do anything his tribe needed. The SilkWing believed in a better life, one that he’d never had.
“Wasp did it,” Meadow says aloud, and it sets off a new string in his brain. Wasp did it. Wasp did it. Enslaved the SilkWings, watched as they suffered. And the HiveWings had enabled it. Apollo, with his broken family. Adonis, with his shattered eyes.
Meadow, with his warped soul.
And the HiveWings had enabled it, stood by as their siblings were killed and enslaved and swept under the rug. They had all been like Meadowhawk, looking up at their beloved Queen Wasp with blissful smiles, never stopping to see the pain spilling out beneath their feet.
“We did this,” he breathes. “We let the SilkWings suffer.” Enabling is a form of abuse, his grade-three teacher tells the class, a lesson no one had ever understood.
Crackle, goes the fire, marching steadily toward them. His heart rate speeds up.
In a burst of strength, Meadow meets Darkling’s eyes. They look shocked, but… maybe a hint of recognition lies in their depths. “Watching dragons get victimized is just as bad as being the one who hurts them. But if you’re not willing to repent for your actions, maybe you’re not able to change after all.”
Flames burst at the windows, firecracker explosions. Too soon, too soon. She was about to cave. Heat explodes all over his body, and he coughs, his lungs convulsing in the blaze of furious intense heat.
He races toward the door and steps out, his feet suddenly lighter, like he’s walking on clouds. There’s a part of him that wants to grab his sister and pull her along with him and never let go, but he forces himself to keep walking. The fire is blazing, and they need to leave. It’s getting closer, closer, closer. But when he feels his talons touch the street, smells the acrid smoke in the air, he can’t help but turn back-
“Come on!” he shouts in a fit of panic because the fire is swallowing his store, greedy claws scratching at the walls. He sees his compass go up in flames, but there’s no time to mourn, the flames are right there, roaring, burning, sparking.
Darkling’s posture is like a doll propped against a wall, stiff but sliding, learning to let go. She stares at him, mouth parted, her entire worldview obviously shifting. Meadow is tensed in anticipation, waiting for her to come.
And she does. She lunges toward the door as if in slow motion, a race against the fire, against the destruction of everything they’ve ever known.
“Wait-” she gets out.
The building explodes.
 
 
 
"The thing about fire is that it catches."
~ Sara, the first flamesilk
 
 
 
At the edge of her life, Darkling wonders if she's ever been good.
The fires erupt around her like something from a dream. She feels the flames bite at her scales, yet the burns are from very far away, as if they're happening to someone else. She sees Meadowhawk's eyes go wide, yet her heart does not skip a beat like it always does when he looks scared.
She slumps to the floor, body gone weak for the first time in years. Darkling can feel her breathing slowing, shallowing in the smoky air.
Once upon a time, she'd been a dragonet, stumbling along next to Meadowhawk. She'd watched her parents gift him his compass, and she'd watched them coddle him because they had always favored him, always. Something in her soft mother and her caring father had shied away from her. Because Darkling had been hatched with a streak of steel, lashing out at anyone who got close.
The first day they went flying, she'd gotten into the air long before Meadowhawk. His wings were too small for his plump body, and their parents had flanked him like a chest of treasure and they were royal guards. Darkling had been alone. She never needed help. Never.
So she'd kept up her reputation ever since then, growing from a student to an apprentice, clawing her way up the social ladder, turning up her nose at anyone who flings themself at her feet. She is Darkling, and she is untouchable. Help is for the weak. She is strong.
Then she remembers her SilkWing servants, and what do they do besides help her all day, all of their lives? She shrinks away from the possibility that she is not an island. She can be alone.
Yet this is where being alone has gotten her: crumpled on the floor of her failed brother's failed business, struggling to inhale and exhale. Every time she trusts someone, they let her down.
She is a dragonet again, bursting into her parents' room with her "Perfect!" essay in hand, only to be shushed because Meadowhawk is sleeping. She is turning toward her father, but he is looking at her brother instead, the child that always got more attention than her.
She is a student again, in the embrace of her boyfriend, and catching sight of her best friend over his shoulder. She calls him her lover, and Darkling a traitor, and Darkling runs away because he never felt any affection for her at all. (Maybe she didn't deserve it - no that's impossible she has always deserved it.)
And yet. And yet here she is, folded into a failed origami piece on the ground, feeling the fire burn against her scales and not feeling anything at all. Meadowhawk's face swims into her mind again, still wearing that expression he's worn for all her life. SilkWings are our friends, he says, but how is she supposed to know how good a friend is when she's never given herself the chance to have one?
Adonis's high-pitched voice fills her head. The first day of his job, he wouldn't stop talking about his partner. They're amazing, he gushes. I could trust them with my life. And Darkling had scoffed and turned away, trying to hide the battle on her face, this push and pull between wanting to stay hidden and wanting… more.
The window shatters, a faraway sound. Through its fractured shards, she sees Meadowhawk, and it reminds her of when she still had hope in the world. When she still had breath in her lungs.
The realization injects her with new life, and she struggles to her feet, only to fall down again. Her entire body feels loose and wobbly and weak, just like when she was a dragonet, before Meadowhawk hatched, and her parents were always waiting behind her.
In fact, she can almost see them now, their talons outstretched toward her. Take a step, they urge her, tender smiles on their faces like she's a newly hatched dragonet. We'll be here to catch you if you fall.
“I can't,” Darkling tries to cry out, but her throat closes up and she bursts into a coughing fit. She falls to the ground again, her wings twitching weakly. She has no energy left to move.
I can't, she whispers into the crackling building, trying to hold back dry sobs. Where were you when I lost my best friend, Father? What about you, Mother?
The truth is that they left her far before they died. They played favorites, and it had hurt Darkling long after they were gone. Ripples outward, a stone into a pond, the mistake that had kept Darkling from becoming half the dragon she could have been.
But perhaps it was her fault too. She hadn't been blind to the way Meadowhawk tried to walk out of the shop without her. As if he could leave her behind. As if she couldn't keep up anymore.
I've made mistakes, she confesses, just to see how the words sound. They are cleansing and cathartic, a drop of a water in this hellish firestorm. She hates herself for admitting it.
You did. We all do, her parents respond, their mind-voices reverberating in the shop, in her head. Come to us. You can change, just like we did.
Darkling sees Meadowhawk again, frozen to his place, still and shell-shocked. She sees Adonis, nothing but a servant until the day she left him in the dust. She sees the SilkWings scarred by her whiplike words, and she does not repent yet, but she feels the seed of guilt coiling in her chest. It has never been easy for her to admit that she is wrong, so this is an unfamiliar sensation: like she wants to curl in on herself even more than she already is right now, like she wants to erase her past self’s actions because of the effects that they caused.
Meadowhawk looks at her and Darkling looks back, suddenly filled with strange calm. She has never seen him as sure of something as he was a few minutes ago, preaching about freedom and justice and the bright things still left in the world. Although she has no idea what he was talking about, she hopes he finds what he wanted.
Pain builds and screams in her body, every muscle protesting against the fire that surrounds her. She’s floating, she’s falling, she’s watching her brother realize she’s falling apart for the first time ever. Go make a change, Meadow, she urges in something beyond words. Shape the world like I never did.
She gives her brother a soft, real smile: the first time. The last time.
 
 
 
“I swear on the Book of Clearsight that I will unite Pantala and bring all our tribes to safety. I will protect you.”
~ Queen Wasp, a public address during the Tree Wars
 
 
 
Gone.
Cobblestones crunch under Meadow as he falls to his knees.
Darkling is gone.
With the fire raging around him, the building collapsed in a smoking heap of rubble, his posture like a wilting flower on the ground, it feels like a scene from one of his fairytales. But his eyes are dry. He sheds no tears.
Darkling has been cruel (had been? He can’t quite comprehend it), and there’s no denying that. But Meadow can’t help but remember his dragonet days, so sunny and gentle compared to the blazing fire roaring through the street. Back then, she had been cheerful, and perhaps not quite carefree, but certainly less burdened with the problems she later grappled with. The memories play through his head like a silent film.
Meadow knows he should move - the flames will consume him soon if he doesn’t. Yet here he is, rooted to the spot, icy cold spreading across his scales like a statue gilded in gold. His brain has frosted over too, the gears and wires grinding to a halt, nothing seeming to process.
"Meadow! Come on, you idiot!"
Something - someone - brushes against his arm. He looks up to see Apollo, her wrist bare once more.
When he doesn't move, she gestures impatiently, breathing hard. "What part of 'come on' don't you understand?"
In a daze, in a dream, he heaves himself to his feet and stumbles after Apollo. Together, they bound toward the back of the Hive. Or, Meadow follows Apollo. He has no idea where she's going. He has no idea what's happening to his life. Darkling's gone, so he might as well follow her.
The two of them turn down an alley and squeeze through a break in the wall, then another, then another. All too soon, they're emerging into the savannah air, blue sky stretching far out over their heads.
Apollo races toward a group of thirty or so SilkWings, and she's immediately sucked into the mass of rainbow scales, showered in hugs and kind words. Meadow lingers farther away, not even trying to look inconspicuous. He feels lost, alone, and perhaps it contributes to that air of "don't look twice at me."
For a moment, he watches Apollo's found family welcome her, and he feels as if he might shrink from the pain. It presses down on him, and he hunches, his wings folding instinctively.
That's when he realizes the group has fallen silent, staring at him with expectant eyes. Apollo takes a step out from the mass and gestures to Meadow unhelpfully.
"Before you say anything," she begins, "I know he's a HiveWing."
"The one who broke into our meeting!" a SilkWing shouts. Several others nod emphatically.
Apollo looks overwhelmed and - for whatever reason - lost for words. Some strange urgency seizes Meadow, and before she opens her mouth again, he does.
"That was me," he confesses, his voice dry and hoarse from the Hive's smoky air. “And I’m sorry.”
Their accusing gazes bore into him. You’re a HiveWing. You don’t mean it. That’s a lie.
“I can apologize over and over again, and it would never make up for what my tribe has done to you. But… but I truly am sorry. If I could erase my mistakes, I would have.” Meadow’s breathing is shaky and shallow, the recent events of the past few hours only starting to catch up with him. He feels himself sway on his feet, but he steadies himself and forges on.
"The Hive's gone," he says out loud, gesturing to the smoking ruin. From the other side of the heap, dragons spill out like ants from an anthill. "Our society is gone. But maybe-"
His voice catches, the words feeling like a betrayal. "Maybe it's for the better."
Apollo folds her arms, her gaze quizzical.
"My sister was in there," Meadow bites out. "She's gone now. She's gone." His throat is raw, the dialogue grating and painful. "And she... wasn't very nice, I guess."
"She was a bigot," Apollo points out. "You can say it." You should say it, her expression seems to shout.
"You're right," he admits. "Darkling isn't - wasn't a good dragon. But she could've had the chance to change. I saw it, right at the end."
He takes a deep breath. "We need to teach the other HiveWings that living like this isn't okay. They can't take back their actions, but they can learn from them, and they can do better in the future. Really, I guess that's what life is all about."
Surprisingly, his eyes are dry. "We learn from our mistakes. We change. Hopefully for the better."
The crowd is silent, for the most part. "Nice speech," someone eventually says from the back, "but how are we supposed to know it isn't just more empty words from another empty HiveWing? And what happens if Wasp takes over you?"
Meadow hesitates, feeling like his talons are on the threshold of a new life. If he steps through, he'll fall, and he won't ever come back.
"I'll join you," he swears. Although the SilkWings try to hide it, a gasp ripples through the crowd. "Maybe I won't actually join the Chrysalis, since I doubt that's allowed - and that's fine!" He feels himself slipping back into his old ways, bowing to anyone, trying to keep everyone happy. But he needs to do that here. He owes it to them. “But I’ll help you fight for your freedom. Clearsight knows nobody should be treated this way. And a HiveWing on the inside would be very useful.” That last sentence catches their attention; he can practically see their ears perking up.
After a moment of thinking, he admits, “The second question is harder. But if it comes to it… I’ll deal with it.” In reality, he has no idea how he’s going to manage it. He’ll get there, he promises himself. He won’t endanger these SilkWings.
They stare at him, and Meadow feels his scales prickling as if he’s about to crawl out of his skin. He knows they’re judging him, weighing the odds, and so he holds his head higher, straightens his posture as if he’s a prize specimen. Some strange desire has awakened inside him, a thirst to improve himself and to never make mistakes again.
After a second, an eternity, hushed chatter undulates over them as they deliberate over what to do with the intruder HiveWing. Meadow shifts his feet awkwardly, his heart pounding. He watches Apollo's white wings flutter in the savanna wind, trying and failing to calm himself down.
Finally, they turn back toward Meadow. "You can stay," Apollo announces, acting as the head of the group. "But they say you'll need to prove yourself before they really trust you."
"I understand that," Meadow babbles, too overtaken by relief to form real coherent thoughts. "And you don't need to trust me at all, I'm just a HiveWing, and I know you've been hurt by them all your life. You're worried that I'll be bad too. Which is cool. It's-" He breaks off at the sight of Apollo, who has her eyebrows scrunched together in secondhand embarrassment.
"It's cool," he finishes. Lamely.
Apollo clears her throat, drawing the SilkWings' attention away from Meadow's burning face. "We're heading to Jewel Hive. We'll settle in there and continue our Chrysalis tasks. Stay together, no flying because of the dragonets, and no matter what, keep moving."
They don't protest. Quietly, the group turns and begins their long trek across the savannah, refugees from a broken disaster.
Apollo, though, lingers at the back. She gives him a telling look: Hurry up, I won't wait long.
Meadow fumbles to catch up with her, his unwieldy legs splaying out like a baby deer. His entire body feels shaky, like he's unsure about where to step because everything looks like a trap.
"Thank you," he begins, and the words feel far too small to express the sincerity behind them.
"You should be thanking them," Apollo shoots back, jerking her head at the group. They shamble through the tall grass like a herd of wildebeest, following nobody in particular except whoever happened to be at the forefront. "They're the ones you're going to have to impress."
Meadow looks out over the savannah, the grass waving languidly in the breezy air. There’s no Hive in sight. If he squints, he can almost see the mirage of a tall female HiveWing, wavering in the air like a forgotten echo.
“I know,” he tells her, and he says it under his breath to himself again. “I know.”
 
 
 
"Metaphors don't matter much, in the end."
~Darkling of the hiveWings
 
 
 
How long have they been walking?
Meadow’s not sure. He’s lost track of time, really, only aware of the heavy afternoon sun beating down on them. He feels like he’s baking in his scales, and every step feels like trudging through mud. They’ll never get to Jewel Hive like this.
It's not just the heat, either. Every time he looks up, he sees Darkling in the distance, a tail slipping around a clump of grass or a wing flickering in the air. Her sharp voice whispers in the wind, reaching his ears, burrowing straight into his brain. Meadow's thoughts churn: What would she have done? Could I have saved her?
Should I have saved her?
"Hey," a voice says from next to him, and Meadow jumps.
"Apollo," he exhales in relief when he sees the SilkWing next to him.
Her gray eyes gleam like bits of quartz. "You're really ready this time?" she asks, her tone challenging. "You're devoting yourself to our cause?"
Meadow gives the smallest sigh, giving up, giving in. But maybe not in a bad way. "Yeah," he says out loud. "After letting you in, I don't think I can bear to watch SilkWings be treated that way anymore."
He’s been holding these words inside for a while, but he finally lets them spill out. “Wasp won’t mind control me because I can’t read. I thought about it for a while, and I realized she hasn’t taken me over in years.”
“Words scramble as I look at them,” he continues, his own thought process scrambling too. “Wasp… doesn’t want to feel like that, but she does whenever she takes me over. She doesn’t want to feel weak.”
Apollo is silent, waiting for him to say more. Inside his brain, a battle breaks out, the third one today. On one hand, Meadow doesn't particularly want to reveal his other insecurities, even deeper than the one he just mentioned. On the other hand...
It's what friends do. They trust each other.
"Am I a traitor?" his voice says, and he hears it as if from very far away. "Am I bad, for turning on my tribe?"
Apollo opens her mouth, but Meadow's throat continues issuing words. "Because all those dragons that I looked up to, all the heroes that my parents told me about - they prized loyalty, above everything else. And who am I without it? Just a turncoat, switching sides whenever it's convenient for him?"
They walk in silence for a while. Apollo’s tentative expression makes it clear that she’s waiting to see if his outburst is over. (It is.)
Eventually, she talks again. “Is that really what you think about yourself?”
“What am I supposed to think about myself?”
She hesitates, then stops walking to spread her wing over Meadow’s back. It’s a simple act of comfort that makes him want to break down crying. “Loyalty isn’t what you think it is,” she tells him. “It’s not set in stone.”
Meadow leans into her, and she leans into him, a brief respite from the harshness of the world. “Loyalty should not be to the figureheads in your life. Loyalty should be to the morals that bind you to life itself. To love, and hope, and honesty even in the face of danger. They are our only real compasses that can get us truly home.”
Her words make him remember his own compass, the one his parents gifted him, the one that’s probably a warped hunk of metal right now. Even though his parents had forced their values onto him and Darkling, they had taken care of him, and he can’t help but feel a fresh pang of grief.
He decides on a safer topic instead. “My potted plant,” he says. “The one you gave me. It’s…” Burned. Dead. Gone. That little daisy shriveled up all alone in his apartment. Even though it’s just a plant, emptiness yawns inside him at the thought of its death. His potted plant is the first thing he’s ever really taken care of, and it was one of the first things for him to lose.
Apollo wraps her tail around her talons, brushing the grass with a light swishy sound. She watches the group walk ahead of them, trailblazers, heroes of their own stories. “Look around you,” she says, her eyes alight. “You lost your plant, but there are millions more. There’s always something left.”
His plant is gone. His parents are gone. His compass is gone. Darkling is gone. Yet he’s found a lifeboat, dragons that he might trust one day, dragons that might trust him. He has hope for a better world, faith that the sun will come out tomorrow morning, and enough waking courage to see him through the night.
“You’re right,” Meadow answers, and looks up toward the wide open sky.
 
 
 
You are bright enough to confront your own darkness.
Category:Fanfictions
Category:Fanfictions (Canon)
Category:Fanfictions (Completed)
Category:Content (Stardust the IceWing-RainWing)