Burning Sands

=== Burning Sands: Journey through the Tunnel ===
Guava thought the current queen was the most annoying dragon on the planet. Fruit Bat didn't need to poke into her hut every time she was free, or looked like she was free, or sometimes in the middle of sun time, to ask what every flower in the herb stockpile did, and how it growed, and where it grew, and so on.
Three moons, I'm going to go insane if this goes on for another day, nevermind for the next three and a half weeks, Guava thought.
There was only one option- go somewhere that the queen would never find her. The other healers could handle Fruit Bat better than she could. She thought about it for a few minutes.
Maybe the venom training area? No, too many other dragons. That hollow tree next to Conure's house? No, there might be snakes.
Guava shivered at the thought. She hated snakes. Why couldn't they be bothered to do anything normally, like say, having legs? Or eyelids?
Suddenly it came to her. Fruit Bat would never go by that weird pond. Guava never saw why the other dragons thought it was scary. Sure, it was a bit shadowy, but it was still perfectly normal.
Treading lightly through the rainforest, she slipped over to the place where all the other dragons said the pond was. Sure enough, the pond was there. The shadowed glade looked peaceful, including the small cave by its side, a moss curtain hanging over the entrance. Guava walked over to the pond, gazing briefly at her reflection in the slightly muddy water. The cave seemed like a good place to hide from Fruit Bat for the next few weeks. She might have to stay in the village occasionally, but that was okay.
She took her first steps into the cave. A faint light was visible from the other side. Guava paused for a moment, then realized that it wasn't like there was anything bad that could happen. The cave grew a little darker, then brightened. At first it seemed normal, then she came to the end of the cave, no, tunnel.
The area in front of her was sandy, and there were no trees in sight. The heat had become oppressive, and small spiny plants were spread around sporadically.
She had left the rainforest. Guava was about to turn back, but suddenly a loud shout interrupted her.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing here?" the voice said. "Oh, well, arrest her!"
Guava instinctively burst into flight. This was not the most rational of choices, considering the tunnel was in the opposite direction, but she was already leagues away by the time her brain processed this.
Dragons surged from the sands, their dull tan scales having had camoflauged them, and wicked barbs were set at the end of their tails. Each of them carried a spear.
Claws sank into Guava's tail. She lashed her back claws out at her attacker, just as a second dragon lashed her in the side with her wing claws, and a third slashed claws over her left flank. She twisted and churned, stabbing her claws deep into desert dragon flesh and receiving many wounds in return. Then a spear butt hit her in the jaw, then again on the top of her head. She collapsed into darkness.
==== Three Hours Later ====
Her head felt like it was full of angry hornets. Her scales felt sticky, and her sides felt like they were on fire. All she felt like doing was lying on the dry earth. Guava eventually mustered the energy to open her eyes. Her scales were covered in dry blood and sand, and another one of the desert dragons that attacked her was standing beside her, slicing open a fat green leaf-stem-thing and squeezing the clear fluid inside into a stone bowl. Guava panicked for a few seconds, then realized that the desert dragon was probably a healer.
"Oh, you're awake! Don't look so scared, I'm not like those brutes out there." they said. "I'm Succulent."
Succulent held the bowl closer to Guava's side. "Now hold still, this will hurt less than an infection."
Guava didn't need that instruction. She diligently held still as the fluid poured over her, washing the blood and sand from between her scales and her many cuts. Succulent helped her into a hammock at the edge of the room, where Guava quickly fell asleep.
==== A Day Later ====
Two SandWings pulled her roughly out of the hammock. Her tail bumped along the ground, and a few of the clots on her wounds tore painfully. Eventually she was dropped in a cell many staircases below. The cells were eerily quiet, and the flickering light of wall torches left many of the corners in inky blackness.
"Hey, SeaWing! Enjoy your new cellmate!" one of the SandWings called.
The "SeaWing" looked vastly different from the rest of the dragons Guava had seen, colored in shades of purple and blue. Her talons were webbed, and her scales were dotted with faintly glowing lines.
"A RainWing?" the SeaWing asked. "Well, I'm Cichlid. You?"
"I'm Guava. What in the name of the moons is this place?" Guava replied.
"Oh, it's just one of Burn's prisons. "
"Who's Burn?"
"Wow, the rainforest is super isolated." Cichlid paused for a few seconds to think. "So basically, the old queen of the SandWings was killed by a scavenger, and her three daughters gathered allies and went to war in order to try and claim the throne. It's been sixteen years since the beginning, and it's nowhere close to ending. Burn is the strongest, and is allied with the SkyWings and MudWings, Blaze is the prettiest, allied with the IceWings, and Blister is the smartest, and probably the best, and allied with the yours truly and the rest of the SeaWings."
"Why the war? If they wanted to, they could just wait for their turn!" Guava asked. "It's just pointless."
Cichlid stared in silence, mouth gaping in utter confusion, before collecting herself.
"Uh, that's not how it works. Do RainWings really take turns being queen?"
"Well, yeah. Nobody really wants to be queen though. Too much boring management. Why, do you do it differently?"
Cichlid smacked her face with one of her foretalons.
"Well, here we have a royal challenge. A queen's sisters, nieces or daughters can challenge her to a duel to the death, and the winner gets to keep or take the title of queen."
"That sounds unnescessarily violent. "
"Yeah, but how would you prevent dragons from just challenging until they won?"
"Simple. You have everybody take a turn. Everybody gets to live, and everybody gets a chance to be queen!"
"Yeah, maybe that would work for RainWings. With the fact that you don't really have any skills or powers of note. You just kind of live in the rainforest, eating fruit and sleeping."
"No, we most certainly have powers, like say, venom?"
"You are seriously telling me that RainWings have venom?"
"Yep. My venom trainer says I'm an abominable shot. By the way, the desert outside the rainforest is really interesting. SeaWings and DesertWings? Weird leaf stem plants? Warm sandy ground?"
"DesertWings? You mean SandWings?"
"That's what they're called? Cool. They need more leaves down in these prison things. Oh wait, they don't have trees, so maybe they could use sand? A sky hole would be nice too."
"You are the most optimistic and naive dragon I have ever met."
"What does naive mean?"
"It means you know literally nothing about how the real world works."
"I'm nearly a full healer!"
"In the rainforest. So, how exactly did you leave the rainforest and cross a mountain range without ever meeting another dragon or learning anything about survival?"
"I kind of just went through a tunnel. Those SandWings were really mean. I have no idea what I did to deserve being beaten up..."
"You trespassed on the territory of Burn."
"Oh, right. Her. That SandWing princess who has us in this prison thing. Say, how did you get here?"
"It's a long story."
"I still want to hear it."
"Well okay then. Here goes nothing..."
Cichlid settled herself into a more comfortable position on the rough-hewn stone of the cell floor, pushing a few prey bones to the side as she did so.
==== A Year Earlier ====
Cichlid was lightly equipped for a typical dragon soldier, but she was not one of the rank and file. She was an elite member of Viperfish Company, and was armed with the most deadly of weapons. This mission was relatively routine, and as such she had only been armed with a pouch of throwing darts, poison from a sea urchin and a pair of knives held in holsters on her forearms. She'd heard of operatives being issued items enchanted by the queen's daughter for the most important of missions, but she was never good enough to merit one.
She peered out from the small hollow at the approaching SandWing caravan. Three pairs of dragons pulled huge sleds loaded with food, metal and wine. A dragonet about five or six years old ushered a drove of cattle along. Another nine guards, armed with spears, escorted the whole group through the grasslands near the Great Five-Tail River, chatting animatedly.
A plan was formulating in her mind. If she caused a distraction, she could lead the guards in small groups away from the main caravan, and silently eliminate them. Cichlid just had to wait for an opportunity to arrive.
Then the bandits arrived, providing a much-needed distraction. Five SandWings armed with old spears and armored with makeshift metal plates popped out of the bushes, yelling demands for surrender. There was a quick skirmish, where two bandits and a guard were killed. A second guard was seriously injured.
The bandits stampeded away, as the remaining seven guards laid chase. Cichlid flipped her knives into her palms quickly, and dipped the tips of each in the bottles of urchin poison she had been issued with. She leapt out of the hollow just as a SandWing passed, burying a knife in their throat.
It turned out to be a bandit, and the two guards that were chasing them immediately turned to face down Cichlid. One attempted to call for help, but was interrupted by a quick tail blow.
Cichlid ducked under a wild strike from one, and twisted away from the attempted tail slam of the second. Her knives whipped out, slicing the throat and belly of one of her attackers wide open. The other guard started to breathe fire, and Cichlid drove a knife through their throat. They wheezed loudly, smoke sputtering from their mouth and nose, as she knocked them down with a strike from her wing and stabbed through their skull with her remaining knife. Blood was now splattered across the small grove and Cichlid's scales. Cichlid drew her knives carefully from the head of her defeated foe- when a spear butt caught her on the side of her jaw.
The other five guards had arrived, probably having heard the sound of fighting. As she reeled, two of them pinned her to the ground. She kicked out wildly with her back talons, feeling one connect with flesh. She got her right arm free momentarily, and scored a grazing hit on the shoulder of one of the dragons pinning her, receiving several slashes in return. 
Soon, she barely registered when her skull collided with a rock.
When Cichlid woke up in Burn's stronghold, she was held down by two assistants and her belongings had been stripped from her.
Cichlid had failed miserably, and there was probably no going back to HQ. She really should have killed herself as soon as she had the opportunity, as per protocol after capture, but Cichlid rather wanted to live.
==== The Present ====
"So, yeah. That's the end of this story. I had a cellmate for a few months, but he was transferred to a work camp a few weeks ago." Cichlid finished.
"Oh, that's really sad. I don't like violence." Guava said.
"Just what I expected from a sappy RainWing." Cichlid sighed.
=== Burning Sands: Breaking Ice ===
Guava was having trouble getting to sleep in the prison cell. No matter how she shifted, the bare stone was too hard and cold to sleep comfortably on, and the constant noise that reverberated throughout the prison hallways drilled into her ears.
Cichlid seemed fine, and slept deeply, even when a nearby prisoner started screaming at the top of their lungs and banging against the bars.
Guava then realized she was sleeping against the wall so that she could rest her head on her arms with her tail covering one ear. Copying the position actually let her fall asleep after a while, even through the constant faint sobbing and scratching emanating from outside.
==== The Next Day ====
Guava was still a little sore from her wounds after waking up, but they were actually almost healed. She guessed they were probably superficial wounds that tore numerous small blood vessels without causing any real damage.
Well thank you, universe. Now if you would help me go home, this would be so much easier.
Nothing happened, until a few minutes later SandWing with a noticeable limp on her hindleg descended into the prison with a platter of meat on her back. As she limped down the stairs, a dragonet about two years old came flying down behind her. The dragonet had a ring of keys around their neck. They took pieces of meat from the platter and shoved them through the bars of each cell.
"Well, here comes the morning food delivery. Tegu and Sonoran are actually some of the few decent Burn-loyal SandWings. The story's actually quite sad- Tegu used to fight in the war, until she injured her leg so badly that the healers couldn't fix it all the way, so she retired. Now she serves food to the prisoners with little Sonoran." said Cichlid.
"That's actually quite touching."
The pair eventually reached Guava and Cichlid's cell, and Sonoran paused by her door, staring intently at Guava with wide eyes.
"Look, mama! She's really colorful!" the dragonet chirped. "How'd she get all multicolored like that?"
"She's a RainWing, little one. They're just always like that." replied Tegu.
"So. Cool." Sonoran gasped.
"Yes, she's cool, but she and her cellmate need to eat, like all the others."
"Okay mama!" the dragonet chirped.
Sonoran fetched two chunks of meat from the tray, and shoved them through the bars, just like with all the other cells. Then the pair continued on their way down through the twisting underhalls of Burn's stronghold.
Guava poked her chunk of meat, before nibbling tentatively at it. It was kind of stringy and stale.
Oh well, stringy stale meat is better than no meat. Fruit would be nice though.
"I didn't know RainWings ate meat. Then again, fruit doesn't run away or bite your nose." Cichlid remarked.
"That's true. We do eat meat, but fruit is just easier to gather." Guava replied.
"Yeah, that sounds like RainWings." Cichlid deadpanned.
"We're not completely helpless. After all, we do have venom. And claws." Guava explained.
"Really? RainWings don't have venom. All the scrolls say that. Wait, maybe you mean your personalities! Moons, your optimistic naivete is going to make me die of hysterics." Cichlid laughed.
"No seriously. We have venom." Guava shot back.
"Show me then."
"Sure."
Guava sorted through the bones on the floor of the cell, finding a fox skull and setting it up on the floor in front of her. Cichlid looked skeptical.
Then she opened her mouth wide, revealing the snakelike fangs on her upper jaw. A thin stream of sizzling black liquid shot out from each fang, melting a gaping hole in her target before evaporating. Cichlid was no longer skeptical, instead staring at Guava with shock and amazement written on her face.
"That's somehow terrifying and awesome at the same time." Cichlid remarked. "I guess RainWings aren't just the useless layabouts we all think they are."
Guava was honestly happy, embarrassed and proud at the same time at Cichlid's acknowledgement. She was unable to stop pink, lemon-yellow and indigo from spilling all over her scales with her emotions.
"And again, more surprises. Are your scales supposed to change color like that?" Cichlid asked.
"Yes. They change color with strong emotions." Guava explained. "Do SeaWings do anything interesting?"
"Well, we have glowing scales." Cichlid replied.
Cichlid lit up the stripes on her snout to indicate.
"Oh, cool! What do you use those for?"
"Well, mostly for communicating underwater. It's kind of hard to speak while your head is submerged." Cichlid said sarcastically. "So we evolved a way to communicate non-verbally underwater."
"That's really cool. Do you do anything else?"
"Well the royal family has a relatively strong animus bloodline. There hasn't been a royal animus since Manatee died about fifty years ago. They still have a bunch of old animus-touched stuff in the royal armory in the Deep Palace."
"Oh, cool! What do they have in there?"
"I would tell you everything, except despite being a member of Viperfish Company, I really don't know anything important I didn't need to know for my missions. There are two animus objects I know of- the Eye of Onyx, which is another story entirely, and a set of forearm knife holsters and matching knives which return to them once thrown. Well, it might actually be three, since the knives and holsters were apparently enchanted separately."
"Oh, cool!"
"That's been your response to literally everything I've said. Are you even listening to me?" Cichlid asked.
"Yes, I am. There was the glowing scales, the animus lineage in the SeaWing royal family, and the magical knife holsters."
“Wait. Someone’s coming.” Guava craned her head around to look at the hallway.
Guards poured down into the prison halls. They dragged out numerous prisoners, and chained them two by two into a long chain, usually keeping cellmates together. Then they were dragged out onto the surface, blinking from the sudden glare. The entire stronghold was buzzing with activity, and the line of prisoners was led into the centre of the massive keep, just below the ornate balcony.
"What's going on?" Guava whispered to Cichlid.
"I don't know. Hopefully it's not a mass execution." Cichlid whispered back. “Oh, here comes Burn and her little brother Smolder. Burn’s the big scarred one, Smolder’s the skinny one.”
After a loud trumpet salute, a huge scarred female SandWing strutted out onto the balcony, attended by a pair of guards and a rather skinny-looking SandWing. A huge crowd of SandWings and even a few SkyWings were gathered below her, all fighting to not show their nervousness.
Burn cleared her throat and set down a claw on the balcony, making dramatic gestures with the other as she spoke.
"Citizens of the Sand Kingdom, I am proud to announce the next advancement over my misguided sisters in our war effort. Our first work camp shall be opened in oh, four days, where prisoners captured in the great war will work to mine and smelt ore to forge weapons and armor for our troops, instead of lazing around in the underhalls eating up our prey and plotting futile escape plans."
A rather forced cheer sounded from the gathered SandWings. Burn seemed not to notice the obvious lack of genuine excitement and continued on.
"In addition, some of the prison cells in the underhall will now be converted into armories, training rooms and barracks for our soldiers. The remaining prisoners will be worked on refitting the underhall. We will be conscripting every SandWing in the kingdom over the age of seven, and anyone who refuses to fight for any reason will be sent directly to our work camps. Initiatives to press-gang every Blaze and Blister-supporting SandWing currently in the Sand Kingdom, as well as the inhabitants of Possibility, will soon be underway."
Another, even more fake-sounding cheer went up, and a few dragons seemed to be quietly attempting to slip out the west gate.
"Now that will be all, and you are all dismissed."
Burn went back into her chambers, dismissed her brothers and the guards, and slammed the door behind her as the crowd hurried off. The prisoners were caught up in that struggle, as the guards dragged them out of the stronghold and into the vast expanse of desert around it.
"Blister had longer speeches. I guess Burn just isn't one for formalities." Cichlid said.
"Shut up." the prisoner in front of her said.
==== Five Hours Later ====
Guava was sore all over. Her talons were sore from walking, her wings were sore from flying, her legs were cramping, her sides ached from exertion, her wrists and neck were sore from the chafing restraints, etcetera, etcetera. Still the guards marched them on.
"Three moons, my everything is sore..." she groaned.
"Well you don't have to drag any unconscious dragons, so why are you complaining?" the prisoner three links ahead of her shot back. "You're really close to the end of the line."
"Quiet!" one of the guards snapped.
Now that the other prisoner mentioned it, Guava noticed that yes, she was lucky to be at the end of the line, and not dragging one of the two or three bluish-white dragons that had fallen unconscious from the blazing heat. Cichlid mutely pushed through her exhaustion and continued to walk at a decently average speed.
At long last, even the guards with their water supplies and minimal loads began to feel the heat, and the prisoner train came to a stop.
Guava collapsed onto the sands, and quickly fell asleep.
Moons, she was tired.
Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete)
Category:Fanfictions (Semi-Canon)
Category:Fanfictions
Category:Genre (Adventure)
Category:Genre (Romance)