Falling Leaves (Short Story Contest)

This short was written for the Canon Character Fanfiction Contest run by Cloud of the IceWings.
This fanfiction belongs to BlueberrytheRainWingSeaWingLeafWing.
Please do not edit!
Thank you.
== Prologue ==
=== Alone ===
Every night
I wait.
But
The pond
Stays empty.
Night after night
I wait 
But
She never
Comes.
And
I am
Alone.
== Story ==
Shards of moonlight flickered through the trees, barely lighting the forest’s shadowy blackness. An owl’s orange-yellow eyes glittered in the faint starlight, and a small animal scuttled through bushes and piles of leaves. In the semidarkness, a pale shape crept through the jungle, dodging dragon-traps and ducking under vines.
The dragon reached a clearing, bathed in moonlight. She blinked in the sudden light, until her eyes managed to focus on the pond in the center. For a few moments, concealed in the undergrowth, she simply gazed at the many flowers growing throughout the clearing. Then her eyes flicked to the much more important part of the scene – the boulder in the middle of the pond. For so many nights, it had been empty – smooth and grey and wet, but blank. But tonight ... Willow sucked in a breath. Yes, a small, jade frog sat on the center of the rock.
Slowly, she crept out of the trees and into the light. She startled slightly as a dark green dragon, with pouches strung around her, detached herself from the leafy branches and flung herself into Willow’s wings.
Sundew! Willow thought, elated. After a moment, she pulled back and folded the deep-green dragon’s talons in hers. The moonlight washed some of the color from their scales, making Sundew’s appear more like the color of her eyes, and making Willow’s light green color even paler. “You were gone forever! I have so much to tell you!” she cried, staring down into Sundew’s green eyes. I missed you, Sundew.
Not giving Sundew a chance to speak, Willow went on. “I’ve been waiting, and waiting, and checking the boulder every night. And it was dreadful and I didn’t like it and let’s never do that again!” She paused for breath. “I was half afraid that Belladonna must’ve found out about us. I started to wonder whether I needed to mount a daring rescue operation – blast through the barrier, knock the other PoisonWings aside! Tear down your prison and sweep you away to safety!” Her brown eyes shined. “Wouldn’t that have been so heroic?” A cloud crossed one of the moons, casting a shadow on the clearing, but neither of the dragons glanced up; neither of them looked away from each other.
Willow smiled as Sundew crossed her tail over hers. “The most heroic, romantic thing ever, but totally unnecessary.” Unnecessary? Willow thought indignantly.
“You know Belladonna couldn’t keep me locked up,” Sundew continued. “Even if she wanted to.” Well, that was definitely true. Sundew, the fiercest dragon she’d ever known, would never stand for being kept captive. She would have escaped within hours. Maybe minutes.
Willow smiled as a cluster of violets sprang up beside her talons. “Show-off,” she said happily. Again, she looked around at all the other flowers Sundew had grown for her over the years. This clearing was probably the most beautiful spot in the world, Willow thought.
“So ... what have you really been so busy with? I had this awful nightmare that you left the Poison Jungle – and ran into Wasp!” She shuddered, and reached a wing towards Sundew for comfort. “It felt so real, I almost told Queen Sequoia about it, but she’s always reassuring us that Belladonna wouldn’t endanger the rest of us by ... that she’d at least tell ...” She looked at the expression on Sundew’s face and a horrible feeling started to grow in her stomach. “Sundew? What is it?” She covered her mouth with one talon. “Oh no...”
Reluctantly, Sundew began to speak. “I did leave the jungle,” she admitted. “Don’t freak out.” She gave Willow a stern look that almost made her smile, but she was too worried. 
Willow took a deep breath. Don’t freak out, she echoed in her head as a light wind blew the clouds away from the moons. “But ... you weren’t seen,” she pressed. “Nobody saw you, because you were careful – right?” She fought to stay calm.
“We were careful,” Sundew agreed slowly. Willow noticed the emphasis with increasing worry. “I mean, we were careful...” A stronger gust of wind made them both shiver.
Willow raised her eyebrows slightly. “Who’s we?” she persisted. “What does that mean?” Her breathing quickened.
“Belladonna, Hemlock, and I made it to Wasp Hive without any trouble,” Sundew answered, and Willow relaxed slightly. “But we couldn’t get inside at first. And then we ran into these ... other dragons.” Sundew said this with perfect calm, as though she had no idea of the effect the words were having on Willow.
Willow gasped. “Oh no, oh no, oh no,” she murmured. She stared frantically at Sundew.
“But it was all right!” the dark green dragon added hastily. “Two were SilkWings and the other is a HiveWing who can’t be mind-controlled – and she’s on our side. Now, I mean,” she corrected herself. “We kind of dragged her onto our side, but I think she was heading that way anyhow. Technically she’s really on this one particular SilkWing’s side, but he might be with us, unless Belladonna has ruined it, but the point is they were fine and wanted to help. Well, agreed to help in a couldn’t-say-no but basically agreeable-ish sort of way.” Sundew looked at Willow with a slightly defiant look on her face, as if she was daring Willow to say she was crazy. 
Willow’s breathing was coming in short gasps. “I’m going to have a heart attack,” she declared. She pressed her talons to her snout and closed her eyes for a moment. “So ... you met some allies and came straight home? Safely? Without being seen?” She stared at Sundew, willing her to say yes.
“Well ... no,” Sundew said, destroying Willow’s hope. “We ... well ... kind of ... stole the Book of Clearsight,” she blurted.
Willow’s heart jumped to hyperspeed and her breathing sped up. “WHAT?” she shouted, barely noticing the startled birds her shriek had sent soaring into the star-filled sky.
Sundew jumped slightly, then narrowed her eyes a small amount at Willow. “Shhhh,” she hissed, covering Willow’s mouth with one talon. “We had to have it!” she insisted, still looking defiant. “We needed to take away Wasp’s secret knowledge of the future.” That was a good point, Willow had to admit. But still! Crazy and dangerous! Crazy-dangerous!
“Or at least,” Sundew continued, “We needed to know what it says, too. Right?” Willow nodded the tiniest amount. “Isn’t that one of Sequoia’s eternal arguments, that we can’t do anything against Wasp because she has this all-knowing book to warn her of our every move?” She paused, and Willow jumped in.
“Yes,” she admitted, “but that’s insane. That book must have been the most heavily guarded object in the most heavily guarded Hive in all of Pantala.” She took a few deeper breaths, feeling her heart rate gradually slowing again.
“It was,” Sundew agreed. “But not anymore! Ha ha! Now it is MINE!” She grinned.
Willow’s jaw dropped open. “No way,” she responded. Then she took a deep breath and started bombarding Sundew with questions. “You really did it? Did you read it? Are you now the most all-knowing dragon in all the land? The future spread out before you! All the secrets of what’s to come!” She smiled excitedly at the dragon in front of her. Wow, she thought.
Sundew said, “So ... no.” Willow raised her eyebrows, but there was no joke in Sundew’s moss-green eyes. 
No? Willow thought, incredulous. The strongest gust yet bent the stems of flowers in the direction of the wind. The leaf shape at the end of Willow’s tail fluttered.
“Turns out,” Sundew replied, and Willow realized she’d voiced her thought. “The whole Book mystique was an enormous lie. Clearsight did leave a few prophecies – but they petered out over a thousand years ago. Nothing Wasp told us was true.” Sundew’s eyes glinted with anger in the starlight.
“Wow,” Willow breathed. “Didn’t ... didn’t you once guess that? A couple years ago?” She sucked in a breath. “You said, ‘What if none of it is real? What if there never was a Clearsight, and everything we’ve been told about the Book was made up by a sinister HiveWing somewhere along the way?’” Amazed, Willow gazed happily at Sundew.
Sundew smiled. “Did I say that?” She flicked her grass-green wings slightly. “Well ... I was half right. It looks like Clearsight was real ... but so were the lies and the sinister HiveWings all over the last thousand years.” She growled softly.
Breathing in deeply, Willow said, “Ok ... so ... that’s amazing. You snuck into the Hive, into the Temple, and came straight back home without being seen.” Willow paused. “Right?”
Sundew looked guilty. “Um,” she answered. “No.”
Shocked, Willow stumbled back. “No?! Sundew!” She dug her talons into the dirt, accidentally uprooting a few flowers. 
Sundew sighed. “Not exactly. I mean, well, we did sneak into the Hive without being seen. And the Temple. The actual stealing and running away went ... less well.”
A million thoughts that she couldn’t make sense of were racing through Willow’s head. “By all the trees,” she cried. “You were seen? Sundew, tell me you weren’t seen!” She couldn’t stop her wings and talons from shaking, though they stilled slightly when Sundew took Willow’s talons in hers again.
“It’s all right!” she insisted. “I’m here, aren’t I? I made it back safely. I even brought our new allies with us. One of them can shoot fire! A fire-blasting dragon and the Book of Clearsight – that’s a pretty successful mission, don’t you think?” She looked pleadingly at Willow.
“But HiveWings saw you,” Willow protested. “So they know we’re not extinct. Oh, maybe no one will believe them!” She added hopefully. “It’ll be like seeing ghosts, or scavengers – a dramatic story to tell at parties, but no one takes it seriously. Right?” She took a quick breath before continuing. “Maybe the others will think they were hallucinating. Having wild visions! Imagination run amok!
“And everyone will laugh at them and say, ‘Ha ha, LeafWings, they’re all dead! You goof! We scoff at your hilarious story and definitely are not even remotely considering going out with an army to hunt down and kill the rest of the tribe. Because there aren’t any left! LeafWings, how amusing.’ This could happen. That’s probably how it will be. I mean ... how many HiveWings saw you, after all? One? Two?” 
When Sundew didn’t answer, Willow worriedly said, “Three?” Her thoughts were racing, splotches of yellow and black, red and orange, green and brown flashing through her mind.
Sundew gave her a sympathetic look. “More like ... all of them?” she said nervously, as if she was worried Willow would explode on her.
Well, she was right to worry, Willow thought panickedly as she screamed, “ALL OF THEM?!”
“You’ve got to stop shouting,” Sundew hissed. “Your village isn’t that far away. And I’m not up to dealing with any dragons who aren’t you tonight.” Her moss-colored eyes begged Willow to listen.
All right, Willow thought. But you still have to answer my questions. “You can’t possibly mean all of them,” she began.
“Well, in the sense that Queen Wasp” – Sundew took a deep breath – “possessed the entire population of Wasp Hive, summoned them to the Temple, had them all attack us, and then watched me escape, I think that technically, yes, all of them is pret-ty accurate. Oh, wait!” she exclaimed. “Actually, only all of the ones in Wasp Hive. Not the other Hives. So that’s only one out of nine Hives, like, so, really only one-ninth of the HiveWing population.” She said this brightly and positively, as if she thought it would cheer Willow up. “See? You were right! Not all of them after all.” She looked as though she expected Willow to relax and calm down right then.
Willow voiced her less-than-calm thoughts. “All the dragons in Wasp Hive,” she repeated weakly. “All the dragons ... with the queen in their heads ... attacked you, and saw you, and watched you escape with the Book of Clearsight.” Her wings were trembling violently.
“Yes,” Sundew confirmed. “Now you’ve got it. It was a very impressive escape, if I do say so myself.” She looked proud. Proud! Proud for doing something that meant –
“So,” Willow concluded her thought out loud, “basically we’re all going to die.” Because of what Sundew had done! Sundew and the other PoisonWings, she had to admit. It wasn’t just Sundew’s fault. Willow couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“No!” Sundew protested, brushing her talons gently along Willow’s snout, nearly making her smile – though how she could even almost smile at a time like this, Willow wasn’t sure. “No, we’re not, Willow,” she insisted. “We’re going to win this time.”
“How,” Willow said, “can you possibly think that? Even if we could win eventually, war means dead LeafWings, especially war against Queen Wasp. And we can't win because nothing is different from last time – except there are fewer LeafWings to start with!” She dug at the moss beneath her with shaking claws, sending bits of bright green moss and chocolate-brown dirt flying into the air, creating a small cloud around her front talons. 
“That’s not true,” Sundew objected. “Things are completely different.” She drew in a slow, tired-sounding breath.
“We have a flamesilk. We have the Book of Clearsight and know the truth about it. Our half of the tribe has been preparing for war for fifty years, and have lots of new weapons. The SilkWings are restless and oppressed and unhappy – I mean, not all of them, I think, but enough to have formed an underground anti-HiveWing movement. So they won’t just blindly go along with Wasp this time. Also, the HiveWings will be too scared to come fight us in the Poison Jungle. And we know the secret of Queen Wasp’s mind control.”
She had been counting her reasons on her talons, but now stopped to reach into one of the pouches slung around her. From it, she tugged a length of wilting green-and-red vine, with browning flowers that had evil-looking red-black seeds in the centers. “It’s a plant, this plant,” she explained. “She must eat it or something, and she injects it into HiveWing eggs to put the dragons inside under her power.” She held it out, draped over the palm of her left talon. 
Willow sniffed the jagged-edged leaves, crinkling her nose at the smell of pepper and rotting leaves. She ran a single claw gently along the stem, wincing as the small needles prickled the softer part under her claws.
“I don’t know it,” she admitted. “But if it grew here, surely you’d be able to sense it, wouldn’t you?” She thought admiringly of Sundew’s incredible leafspeak talent.
“I tried.” Willow hid her slight disappointment skillfully. “A couple of the oldest trees did that ‘hmm’ thing they do when something seems familiar. And once I thought I heard a relative of this plant echo back from somewhere far away. But I lost it, and none of the trees could tell me where it might be.”
Willow took a deep breath. She pressed her forehead to Sundew’s for a few heartbeats. This is it, she thought. All these years, I’ve been asking, and this time, I know she’ll come. She has to. “I think you need to come to my village, Sundew,” she said, and she felt, rather than saw, the small shocks going off inside the beautiful, dark green and gold dragon. “I think it’s time.”
Category:Fanfictions
Category:Fanfictions (Semi-Canon)
Category:Fanfictions (Completed)
Category:Content (BlueberrytheRainWingSeaWingLeafWing)
Category:Genre (Romance)
Category:Genre (Short Story)