Scorched Lands Book One: Uniting

By Bog.
===Author's notes===
Hi, I'm Bog. This is the first installment of a series that will be seven books long. Can I even call them books?
This is a story that I've been planning for ever since I was just barely starting with this writing stuff. It was only gonna be one book(?), but my plans got bigger. I started planning when I lost a bet with my IRL friend, ZCthenightwing. Now I have to write a character based on him. So, I came up with this. But this is not the one where I write from his point of view.
I wanna dedicate this one to my brother. This is the one where I make a guy like him and write from his point of view.
I wanna thank Lulerb03 for writing the prophecy. I did tweak it a little bit, but the credit still goes to Luler for writing the original prophecy.
I also wanna thank Matau99 for making this page when my computer was being a (censored).
Comment and tell me what you think! And edit if you see any mistakes in spelling or grammar!
===Summary===
Thousands of years before The Great War, an intelligent race of small creatures with advanced battle tactics and siege technology has declared war on the dragons of Pyrrhia. They are small, but relentless and clever. They are the scavengers. But there may yet be hope. As the scavenger armies begin their quest for the extinction of dragons, a voice speaks out. The voice is that of a NightWing speaking a poem of fate. When it happens, Wasteland thinks it's cool, but at first is skeptical of joining a team. As the scavengers begin to invade the Northern Ice, starting with his city, he is convinced to go to the mysterious Islands of Night to find the other dragonets. And so the quest for salvation begins. But Wasteland is egomatic at best, and doesn't care much for the lives of others. He doesn't really question that he's worthy, but how many dragons do? In this time, there is no government, no law, no order. There are only criminals and civilians. If anyone doesn't aprove of him, there is nothing to stop them from tearing Wasteland apart. How will he find the Islands of Night?
===Prologue===
The day of the prophecy... 
Wasteland watched Fogbreath eagerly as he jumped from clawhold to clawhold. He was sure he could do this. It was baby stuff. Jump to that statue's head, then to the roof, then jump off and land in that pile of snow. He'd literally been doing this same jump his entire life.
As Fogbreath landed in the snow, Wasteland jumped toward the statue. As his claws made contact with the stone dragon's snout, he grappled onto it and perched himself on top instead of moving on. Something told him he shouldn't jump to that roof. There was a tight feeling in Wasteland's gut that had something to do with that jump. It was a small one. He could make it, he knew, but he shouldn't try.
Fogbreath looked up at him in surprise. Fogbreath had trained him for over five years and had never known him to hesitate on a jump. "Wasteland, is something wrong?"
Wasteland glided to the ground. "That jump is trapped."
Fogbreath raised the ridges of his eyes. "I made that jump fine. Come on, Wasteland, that jump has been the first running session of the day ever since you were one year old! It wouldn't be free-running anymore if you didn't do that jump!"
Wasteland didn't care. He also had no idea what Fogbreath was talking about. That jump was the least "free" part of the city. He might actually call it free-running instead of parkour if Fogbreath didn't insist on doing this jump every morning. "It wasn't trapped when you did it. It feels wrong now. Like someone is watching it."
Fogbreath shook his head. He had always had a strange attachment to the statue jump that Wasteland didn't understand. "Well, if you really don't want to do it, I can't make you."
And he was right, too. In the last year or so, Wasteland had had a sudden burst of ability that made Fogbreath look like the student and Wasteland look like the teacher. Eventually, Fogbreath ran out of things to teach, and now they pretty much just did the same thing over and over again everyday. That usually included the statue jump, but Wasteland couldn't shake the feeling that something bad would happen to him if he made that jump.
They went to the next parkour site, Wasteland's favorite. This one was a giant tower-like place close to the middle of the city where the professional free-runners usually did all their training. It was fun to climb because the professional free-running instructors didn't like it when anyone went near it. Wasteland and Fogbreath climbed it every other day just to get the rich guys mad. 
That, and that it was boss. That was the only word for it, really. The fact that it was made for rich dragons meant that it was covered in fancy designs that made good clawholds and had lots of windows, perfect for parkour. Wasteland grabbed the edge of a brick and started up. Fogbreath stayed behind to watch.
When he was a little of the way up, he looked into a window. There was a small bed in the corner, small enough that it was probably for a very small dragonet. Wasteland had always wondered why they bothered trying to teach dragonets that small to do parkour. Sure, he had been only one year old when Fogbreath started teaching him, but he was a natural. That was what he was always told. Wasteland had come from a long line of naturals, but he the best. He continued up the building.
As he got nearer to the top, he went faster. That was what made you a boss in this town. Speed. Technically. The "pros" were called pros because they got paid to do what they did. They called themselves free-runners. Wasteland called himself a parkour artist. Even though he really was the best, the pros got all the credit because they were rich. Not that they weren't good, but most of them were terrible teachers, so there weren't very many of them left.
Wasteland reached the top, and didn't stop going up. He made a huge leap into the air and came back down on the top of the towerish part and yelled defiantly at the city. Man, it felt great to be the greatest!
He heard movement in the room below him. He climbed down and jumped into the window. There were two IceWings in there.
Wasteland looked between them. "Um... So... What are you doing later?"
The girl was pretty mad. She screamed and screamed and hit him until he jumped back out the window and flew down to where Fogbreath was waiting for him.
Fogbreath didn't look as happy to see Wasteland as he would have preferred. "What was the first thing I ever taught you?"
Wasteland thought. "Uh... Don't let anyone with a weapon see me?"
He frowned. "Well, yes, but what was the second thing I taught you?"
"I don't know, since when do I remeber everything?"
"When did I teach you not to call attention to yourself?"
"Yesterday?"
Fogbreath thought about that. It was true. It had only been yesterday that he had told Wasteland never to do anything that stood out unless no one would see it anyway. In this city, free-runners were everywhere, and not all of them had learned to parkour for fun. Wasteland wasn't sure why it had taken so long for Fogbreath to realize that it was unsafe to be as awesome as Wasteland.
----
A half hour later, they were standing in an alley, waiting for a few thugs to go past on the road. 
"AHHHHHH!"
Wasteland ran out of the alley. The thugs were chasing a dragonet down the road. He didn't think, he just ran. There were a bunch of crates on the sidewalk between him and them. At the top of that, there was a long line of wooden signs hanging from those wooden jutting things that Wasteland didn't know what they were called. For the first time, it was deathly important to someone else that he do this right.
He ran up the stack of crates, stepping on the edges and jumping to the next one faster than he had ever done it before. As he reached the last crate, he jumped to the first sign and launched to the next, then the next, then the next. At the last sign, he leaped off and landed on the first thug's head. The other two turned around.
Wasteland focused on the one closest to him while the other two were still registering what was happening. He swiped and clawed and whacked his eyes with his tail, but he was too fast. He dodged everything Wasteland threw at him.
His friends didn't seem in any hurry to help him. As fast as he was, Wasteland wondered how many fights he had won with shear speed. He stopped clawing and stood back in an improvised battle position. Fogbreath was never trained to fight, so Wasteland hadn't been either. The thug obviously knew this by looking at him. But no one had seen where he had come from. Maybe if he could lure them to the rooftops without doing any parkour, he would have an advantage.
"Hey Speed Demon! You ever fight a guy faster than you?"
The thug grunted. "No one is faster than me. Do you know who I am?"
"No, but I know you're a slow-mo blob!" That was the truth of it. Wasteland didn't keep up with all the thugs in the city. He was to busy learning how to be a beast for that. He signaled the dragonet with his eyes, telling her to leave. She backed away to the nearest door, as if planning to go through it.
But nobody ever got to do anything. The thugs didn't get to attack, Wasteland didn't get to fly to the rooftops, and the dragonet didn't get to go through that door. Because, something completely boss happened right at that moment.
Every sound in the city muted as a female voice spoke out, echoing almost as if there were three, but they were all the same. It seemed to be in Wasteland's head, but judging by the way everybody was frozen on the spot, they heard it, too. 
A SeaWing who is the average genius.
She will never let you find her weakness.
A SkyWing who can burn you to a crisp.
Touch her and you may as well never exist.
A MudWing from a bloody egg.
For peace from war, you all must beg.
An IceWing who can jump, run, and climb,
Faster than anyone at the time.
A RainWing who can make you do her bidding.
The power of charmspeak, very fitting!
A NightWing who can hit any target,
And turn any enemy deep garnet.
A SandWing who burrows beneath the ground,
And makes the kill without a sound.
These dragonets hold the key to power,
But may be killed at any hour.
Pray and hope they take fate's hand,
And choose to save the scorched lands.
===Chapter 1: Battle-field===
Wasteland was usually pretty psyched when dragons told him he was awesome, but when Fogbreath said he had to go be in the prophecy, he was pretty reluctant.
Fogbreath frowned at him "An IceWing who can run, jump, and climb, faster than anyone at the time. That's you."
Wasteland backed away. "Yeah, I don't play well with others."
"I know. But this time, it's not your decision."
Wasteland hated hearing that. He was the best at what he did. It was always his descision.
"Think of it this way, Wasteland. You already know you're the best free-runner in the city. Maybe this is a chance to prove you're the best in Pyrrhia."
Wasteland had already thought about that. But there was still one other issue. "The prophecy says there are three girls. It doesn't say if the other four are boys or girls. They could all be girls, which means I'm not in the prophecy."
Fogbreath sighed. "Well, if you change your mind, the pros are holding a competition-"
"I'm in!"
He frowned. "What?"
Wasteland didn't really know what. It would be boss if he did turn out to be the IceWing, and he had a thing against the pros for being stuck up and rich and getting to boss around all the other dragons. And being rich. It would nice to be rich. "If I get a chance to prove I'm better than those idiots who call themselves pros, I'm taking it."
----
Wasteland stood at the sign-up booth glaring at the dragon on the other side of the counter. "What do you mean, 'nope?'"
He siged as if bored. "Only proffessional free-runners are allowed to sign up for this."
His vision went red. "Proffessionals? That's ********! The whole point of this was supposed to be to figure out who should go and be in that prophecy! If you ask me, fate has already decided who should go! You guys just want another chance to devalue the little guys and uninclude everone who's actually good at your job!"
He didn't look bored anymore. "Quiet down guy, dragons are watching."
Wasteland looked around. Several IceWings had turned to look at him as he yelled at the guy in the booth. "You see what they're doing right? I don't know if these guys are trying for world-wide publicicty or if they actually think they can use the fate of the world to get more treasure for their gilded toilet seats, but they sure don't give a crap about what happens to you!"
Dragons started murmering in agreement. Noone liked the pros as much as the treasure they put into them. He continued. "You little guys out there know, most of you are as good or better than the whimp sitting in this box! If you think you can go and fight alongside the dragonets of the prophecy, do something violent that involves this booth!" He climbed to the top of the booth as a few dragons came forward.
A scream pierced the air. Something was going on that did not have to do with what Wasteland had just said. He jumped back down and ran through the crowd as fast as he could. A circle of dragons had gathered at back of the plaza, and he pushed them aside to see what they were looking at.
A dragoness was lying painfully on the grond with what looked like a very small arrow burried in her shoulder. He looked up so he wouldn't have to see it, and did see that were even more arrows falling from the sky. He grabbed the IceWing's uningered shoulder and ran with her. "Move!"
Most of the dragons understood, but two stayed behind and looked confused. The first one took an arrow in the top of his head and died instantly. The second one took two arrows in the tail as he jumped away from the body of the first.
Wasteland set the dragoness down in an empty crate and ran in the direction he thought Fogbreath was in. "Fogbreath! Where'd you go?" He spotted him trying to get into the booth with the stuborn pro. He turned around at the sound of his name. "Wasteland! Help me talk this guy into letting us in!"
He reached the booth. "Let us in!"
He shook his head. "Look, even if I wanted to, I couldn't!" Both dragons stared. "I've been stuck in here for like four days."
Wasteland didn't care. "I have to go make sure Frostclap is all right." An arrow came down an inch from his face. "Wish me luck."
He took off into the air before Fogbreath could stop him. Wasteland had been a foster dragonet since he was born, until he ran away when he was one with his sister, Frostclap. Fogbreath had immediately started teaching Wasteland parkour, but Frostclap was older and new what happened when you hit the ground with your wings clipped. Three years old, she openly refused to learn to be boss. She was eight now and lived in an igloo she had made herself outside of town. In the direction of the shooters. He flew that way.
When he flew over the place where the arrows were coming from, he saw something that didn't make much sense to him. For one, he was the only dragon in the sky. But there was also the shooters. 
There were hundreds if not thousands of them. Little armored things with tiny bows and quivers of arrows strapped to their backs, metal claws attached to their sides. Some of them were walking along-side giant wooden siege weapons as if ready to fire them at any moment. 
Scavengers.
Why didn't they fire?
A high pitched sream sounded below him. The source almost made him smile. Frostclap was flying between the siege weapons, blasting them with her breath as they shot her with their bows. That must have been why arrows had come down on the city and not boulders. The scavengers had fired on the city by accident trying to shoot Frostclap out of the sky. They couldn't use the slightly awesome as well as terrifying weapons because they were too busy trying to defend them to activate them.
He flew down to one of the sieges and blasted it with his cold breath. When it was frozen, he barreled into it, and it shattered into four-million pieces that scattered over the scavengers and impaled themselves in legs, shoulders, and the ground. Frostclap turned.
She looked surprised. "Wasteland?" She dodged another ten arrows. "What are you doing here?"
"Your buddies killed a few dragons in the city trying to hit you."
She didn't respond. She just kept dodging arrows and killing scavengers while Wasteland destroyed another siege. Some of the scavengers turned their attention to him, and Frostclap had time to talk.
"How did you think to destroy those before I did?"
Waseland didn't know what she meant. "What?"
"The sieges! How did you think to destroy them?"
He destroyed another one. "Are they important? I just wanted to break something big!" And that was the truth of it, too.
Several IceWings came flying over the city toward the army of small warriors. By the time some of them landed, Wasteland had destroyed two more sieges, and when the other dragons joined in, it went a lot faster. Some of the sieges that were farther away from the dragons went off and shot a few of them out of the sky. The stones they hurled literally broke holes through the dragons in the air. It was terrifying in an awesome kind of way.
Then the thug from the road appeared out of nowhere. The one he had called Speed Demon. He lashed at Wasteland.
"What are you doing?" he asked, lurching backward.
Speed demon smiled. "Killing you."
Wasteland hated how obvious that was. "I know that, Captain Obvious. Why are you trying to kill me?"
He lashed out again to be dodged. What was scary was, he had moved a lot faster than this when Wasteland met him on the street. "You took a prize away from me."
"What, that dragonet?"
"Yes."
Wasteland dodged an arrow. "We've got bigger things to fight about, Speed Demon."
"I have a name, you know!" he said snarling.
Wasteland jumped back from his strike, picked up a brave or stupid scavenger, and threw it at him. "What's that?"
He caught the scavenger in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "Well actually, it's Speeddemon, but that was just a coincidense, you could not possibly have known that."
Wasteland turned and bolted to the top of the nearest intact siege. "Why don't make like a speed demon then, and catch me?"
Speeddemon grunted and jumped into the air. Wait a minute...
As the thug came near, Wasteland put into the action the only thought he had. He inhaled, and blew as hard as he could.
Speeddemon shattered on impact with the side of the siege. Pieces of frozen dragon spewed everywhere. One even landed on a scavenger's head and knocked it out.
There was a sudden, loud boom! over Wastelnad's head that made him jump. He looked up. Uh-oh.
More explosions. Dead dragons falling out of the sky, leaving trails of black something in the air and glowing a strange orange color as they fell.
The scavengers had explosives.
And maybe, just maybe, they knew how to use them.
===Chapter 2: Challenge Accepted===
Wasteland almost flew up to his death, but luckily there were a lot of dead things to remind him that would be stupid. He stayed low and flew to the next siege instead. He froze and destroyed it.
But there were still a lot of them. They were literally everywhere. The army stretched halfway to the horizon, dotted, or more like splattered, with firing sieges. And there weren't very many dragons in the sky or on the ground. Too bad everyone else is a coward.
Then he saw what was either the stupidest, or the most terrifying sight he would ever see in his life. A full-grown IceWing was running through the scavengers and biting them, clawing them, and lashing randomly with his tail.
But he only hit a few scavengers.
They kept juking him out like in the ball games he sometimes played with Fogbreath, but it was like they were trained in a way that made it good for battle. Wasteland jumped forward to help, but then came the scary part. All of the scavengers rushed forward at once and started climbing up the dragon's legs and tail. He flailed and roared and blasted and clawed, but they dodged too fast. Some of them got hit or frozen, but most of them kept climbing.
One scavenger raised his claw and gave a loud high-pitched squeak, and all the other scavengers brought down their claws on whatever part of the dragon they could reach. Wasteland walked a wide circle around the scene and watched in interest as blue-ish blood spewed from several parts of his body. His neck, his tail, his chest... His tail... Wasteland knew that dragons had a spot on the tail that could be clawed, but how would the scavengers know about it? He shook his head, making the decision that he really didn't care. He stepped forward to kill the scavengers, but Frostclap was behind him, and she put a talon on his shoulder.
"It's not worth dying for, Waste."
Wasteland pulled away. "I don't care, I wanna kill something." He took another step, and she blocked his way.
"You have to live long enough to fulfill that prophecy."
Wasteland hadn't considered that. "Fine," he grumbled, "But I'm coming back for blood if these things are still here."
----
Fogbreath was probably the most boring dragon on the planet when something was serious.
"So we need to find a place to sleep until this mulls over," he finished, sipping a mug of apple cider. They were in the city conference room. It was actually just a cave used for a conference room, but whatever. It hadn't actually been used for that pretty much ever, but Wasteland had slept in here a few times when the pros hired dragons to catch him, so naturally, Fogbreath had taught him a few things about it.
He jumped up. "You can run and hide, I'm ending this!"
The representative from the pros stood up. "And how are you going to do that? Dragonets are irresponsible in general, but some have invented their own words for this one. I suggest a professional free-runner."
There were a few murmers of agreement around the cave. Frostclap stepped forward. "And how much are you gonna charge us for a hero? The prophecy says it has to be an IceWing who free-runs faster than anyone at the time. Wasteland has proven time and again that he's better than all of you, and noone has been able to catch him long enough to tell him otherwise."
More murmuring. Wasteland was already standing forward, so he spoke up. "Plus, Imma beast!"
Fogbreath pulled him back and stuffed several apples in his mouth. The pro stepped toward them. "If I hear any more idiocy about this dragonet being a better free-runner than my staff, I will cut someone's head off!"
There were a lot of "He's insane" looks in the crowd after that. Honestly, there wasn't any reason for this. Everyone knew who Wasteland was, and everyone knew he had been kicking the pros in the butt for years.
He spit out the apples. "Uh, I'll do it for free!"
That got everyone's attention. The pros were greedy, and never once had they done anything for free. That would probably be a sign that the world was going to end, which might happen.
A dragon in the back stood up. "I'm not willing to spend a single nugget of iron for a pro to go on a fool's quest. All in favor of Wasteland, say 'aye'!"
Almost everyone said aye at the same time, including one pro who was immediately whacked over the head.
Wasteland felt himself smiling ear to ear. "Challenge excepted!"
===Chapter 3: Getting Started===
Wasteland walked through the streets of the city. Walked through the streets of the city. It had been an awfully long time since he had been on the sidewalk. Now, it felt weird not to be on the roof-tops, running away from the pros or free-running thugs, or sometimes beating them up when he wasn't in any hurry to get somewhere.
Today, the city had funded him with a large bag of treasure to spend in the shops on the west side of the city, where the scavengers weren't attacking. 
He walked into a shop with disblays of sharp blades in the window. The large dragon behind the counter didn't look up as he broused the shelves, looking for something cool.
He found a long, thin, sharp thing on a stand in the back labeled slicer. He guessed that was the name given to the blade itself, rather than the type of sword it was.
He went to the counter. The IceWing finally looked up when Wasteland cleared his throat. "Can I help you?" 
Wasteland nodded. "I wanna buy Slicer." 
The dragon also nodded. "You got what I need, I give what you want. Three emeralds." 
Wasteland dug three emeralds out of the bag and handed them to the shopkeeper. The old dragon waved him off with one talon, and Wasteland went to the back, got the sword, and left. 
Next, he decided to just look around. It didn't really seem like there was much else besides the sword that he could really use. He wasn't quite sure how the sword, and it didn't really seem like there was anyone around who would help him learn. Fogbreath and Frostclap didn't know how to fight, and everyone else hated him because they were jellous of how beast he was. So Wasteland simply hid the bag of treasure in a crate on the street and took off.
The thugs and pros had peomised to leave him alone while he was preparing for the trip, but he really didn't know where he was supposed to be going. The prophecy hadn't given any useful instructions like that. He looked out at the ice and sighed. He would never admit it, but the view of the glaciers and the penguins and the polar bears, and everything else that could be seen from the sky was something he thought was pretty cool.
Unfortunately, the scavengers had broken through on the east side and were now running through the eastern streets, shooting dragons and ambushing them all at once just like they had done to that dragon on the battle-field a few hours ago. He could see some dragons fighting and dying, and some dragons flying away or fleeing into ice caves on the far outskirts of the city. It was really depressing, because most tribes concidered IceWings to be among the most dangerous dragons there were.
The worst thing about leaving would probably be the girls, though. Even though Wasteland's reputation of trouble-making and fights set most of them off, he was sure there were at least a few in the city that liked him. Of course, most of them had gone and fought the scavengers and none of the dragons who had done that were alive. Neither were most of the dragons who decided to run away.
Yeah, they were probably all dead. So, he would meet new girls on the trip to... Wherever he was going. He had heard good and bad things about RainWings. Maybe he would go there first.
Well, Wasteland wasn't very good at multi-tasking, so in all this thinking about the hot girls he was going to meet, he didn't notice the huge black dragon that was flying toward him. It wasn't until the dragon grabbed his midsection and started bringing him down that he snapped back to reality. 
Wasteland clawed furiously, but the other dragon was bigger and stronger than him. He finally managed to catch him in the eye with his tail, causing him yelp indignantly and drop him. He righted himself and looked at the attacker.
The dragon was at least three times the size of Wasteland. He was also pitch black in his scales and had star-like spots on the undersides of his wings. He wiped his eyes with his talons, looking around to spot him. 
Wasteland didn't like his odds, but he didn't think there was anything particularly threatening about this guy. He new that only IceWings could freeze the baddies, so he was pretty sure he was safe. He was still big though.
Wasteland decided to simply fly away as fast as possible. He turned and bolted, heading to an alley between the weapons shop and an old derpy looking place that literally leaned to one side.
A gruff voice yelled from behind him, "Stop!"
Wasteland obeyed immediately, though he was pretty sure he wanted to keep flying. The dragon hovored in front of him, shivering as if he was cold.
"Are you Wasteland?" Wasteland was going to say no, but he interupted, "Don't lie to me, I already know the answer."
Wasteland steeled his tongue. But the dragon interupted again.
"Do not speak. I require shelter, and you require instruction."
----
Wasteland and the black dragon did not get along very well. Nobody that old and mean ever got along with him, but he really had a problem with Wasteland. He probbably didn't like dragonets very much.
So, as it turned out, the dragon could breath fire. It was a pretty weird concept for Wasteland, but he couldn't argue with his own eyes. As soon they found an ice cave to talk in, the old dragon left and then came back with a large amount of wood. He then proceeded to take a deep breath, and blow fire at the wood, setting it ablaze, and scaring the crap out of Wasteland. He had always thought fire was just a myth to scare dragonets. And yet, here was a giant flame, right in front of him.
The dragon started to explain. "Yesterday, you would have heard a prophecy telling of seven dragonets who will save the world from the scavengers. As I understand it, you are the IceWing. I am a NightWing. I am also to understand that you are very uneducated. NightWings, every once in a while, deliver prophecies. World affecting prophecies are heard all over Pyrrhia. When this happens, the Council of Night sets out to find the subjects of the prophecy. I was sent to find you."
Wasteland just stared at the fire, not wanting to sit down.
The NightWing sighed. "And most other tribes also breath fire."
Wasteland looked up. "And-"
"Who am I?" he interupted, "I am Morrowseer, though I see that I am the first of a few Morrowseers to come. I am the leading prophet of the Islands of Night. My daughter spoke the prophecy. She was sent for the SkyWing."
Wasteland hadn't cared about any of that, but oh well. "Can you like, not interupt me when I talk?" Morrowseer nodded. "Okay, so you're telling me that fire is an actual thing, that you're gonna take me to the other side of the world, and that I have to fight those things out there with the explosions, and the swords, and tiny bows, and the ability to completely murderize my face off."
"Yes. You have already asked many dragons about this. But I will not take you to Islands of Night. I can only tell you where it is. Find the northern most part of the Claws of the Clouds mountains. Once there, fly north. On the way, you will be tested many times. If you fail, you may die, and if you die, you do not get to be part of the prophecy."
"I don't wanna be part of the prophecy!" said Wasteland, stepping back.
Morrowseer stayed on the floor. "Yes you do. You may not realize it yet, but you do. There is a large amount of glory in it for you. I was part of a prophecy when I was your age, and now I am a very rich and powerful dragon in my home."
Wasteland looked him up and down. "How old are you?"
Morrowseer grunted. "One-hundred and six. Why do you ask?"
----
Wasteland walked away from the cave with his sword on his back. He looked down at the small, black rock in his talons that Morrowseer had given him, and the map that he had found. He wasn't really thinking about any of that anyway, though. He kept wondering how a dragon could live so long and still be able to overpower him. Granted he wasn't full grown and was only really big by six-year-old standards, and Morrowseer was a pretty big dragon, but still. Surely when he got old he should have... started to look old.
He ran into something that hurt. By the time he realized it was only a pine tree, he had already pulled Slicer from his back and chopped it through, yelling furiously at the bark. The tree stayed strong and upright for about four seconds, then fell over in slow motion, as if still trying to stay in one piece.
"Uh... Oops," he said aloud. He ran ahead, paying more attention to the forest. The snow here had a lot of distance between one patch and the next, and there were a lot of weird sounds like owls and stuff. Pillars of smoke rised into the air in one direction, so he decided to go the other way. He picked a strong tree and climbed up it, jumping to the next one and the next one, going up until he was jumping through the top of the canopy.
He leaped out of the trees and into the air, away from the city. He pulled out the map. If the scavengers were on the east side of the city, then he needed to circle around them and go east... into the freaking desert. Of coarse. Why not? And then the northern mountains, and then....
Hey, what gives? There's nothing above the mountains on this map!
Wasteland sighed heavily. This was going to be a long trip.
===Chapter 4: Squirrels Suck===
Wasteland lay on the ground, looking up at the stars. At times, he had looked up at the sky during the day, when he was alone. But the city was too dangerous at night to be alone, even for Wasteland, and he wouldn't be caught dead with his head propped up to face the sky if anyone would see his body doing it.
The sky was so bright! It looked like all the dragons in the world had flown just past the moons, and now they were looking down at him with that wierd fire breath that Morrowseer had used in the cave. Thinking about the fire made Wasteland wonder why IceWings couldn't do it. It seemed like a pretty useful thing to him, even though it was a little warmer than he was used to.
Something squeeked loudly off to his right, making him jump and blast ice in that direction. He took out his sword defensively, then realized it was probably just a mouse or something. He put the sword on the ground and lay back down next to it, closing his eyes.
The next morning, Wasteland woke up to a lot of squeeking and wierd icthing all over his body. He opened his eyes and shot up with the sword in his talons.
It was the strangest thing Wasteland had ever seen. As he got up, furry little creatures with poofy long tails flew in all directions. Wasteland even had to fight off more of them. 
They were squirrels. Big, fat squirrels with foaming mouths and angry, swiping claws and teeth. As Wasteland flailed, the itching turned into pain. The squirrels were biting him! He grunted and groaned at them, slicing his sword through the ground and the air, biting, clawing, and blasting wildly at everything. But there were too many of them.
Way too many. Wasteland almost thought this was an unnatural amount of squirrels for one clearing, but several of them found the vulnerable spot on his tail, and he had to focus on lashing with that, too. 
He must have fought the squirrels for some twenty minutes. By that time he had started running out of breath, his blasts not reaching as far and his swipes losing strength.
He decided to start thinking about it. Wasteland looked around, ignoring the squirrels for a while. Unfortunately, he couldn't think and fight at the same time, so the squirrels got in a few lucky bites.
The squirrels couldn't hurt him unless they attacked where his scales were weaker. That meant they couldn't get his shoulders or back, his outer arms and back legs, or most of his face and tail.
This did not help at all. He looked around. It looked like he had hit just about all the trees with his freezing-death breath. If the ice was weak enough...
Wasteland ran forward, crushing several squirels on his way to the pine tree in front of him. A lot of sqirrels were still in this tree. Some of them were climbing it and the other trees to jump down at him, spitting foam all over everything as they hissed. Again, Wasteland half wondered why there were so many.
Screw thinking! he thought. Let's make some noise!
Wasteland rammed his head into the tree so hard, he saw spots. He staggered backward. The pine tree now had a small crack in the side.  He ran into it again, shaking off the squirrels and making his head hurt more. The spots in his eyes got bigger, and he started to lose feeling in his neck. He rammed it one more time, but now with his head as far down as he could make it go, so that his horns were facing the trunk of the tree.
There was a loud crack! that Wasteland almost thought was from his skull. The frozen tree fell down in his direction so that he had to move out of it's way. It landed with a loud crunch on the ground and a thousand rediculous snap! sounds from twigs and squirrel bones.
The sound scared off all the squirrels that were still alive. Wasteland jumped into the sky, thankful that dragons couldn't get rabies.
From now on, Wasteland decided, squirrles are officially the worst animals on earth.
And then, as if there needed to be more pain in his body, another sharp prick entered his arm. He grabbed the squirrel in his mouth and chewed it as hard as he could, satisfying his need to kill something small and furry that deserved it.
It's definately official, he thought, Squirrels suck.
Wasteland flew on with his eyes down for a while, but it had only been a few minutes when he spotted a cluster of buildings at the edge of the woods. He flew in for a landing, careful of any suspicous looking furry animals on the snowy ground. He touched down a ways away from the front gate. It was awfully small and built with a strange style to it, but he could squeeze through easily enough. 
Then he saw the buildings.
They were only a little bit over twice Wasteland's height, which meant they could have been flats, but the doors were so small and the windows were so tiny, a dragon could never fit in there. So whose houses were these?
Wasteland looked around. He found that many of the houses were blackened and some of them smoking, others tinged with ice crystals, and some of them simply knocked over and collapsed.
"Dang," he said aloud. The place had been attacked by dragons.
So if dragons don't live here... Does that mean the scavengers do?
He looked around in some of the dwellings, finding several small blades much like Slicer, lots of little flat metal bowls on sticks, and quite a few tiny burned or frozen objects.
The ice meant IceWings, but since Wasteland had only first seen fire the other day and didn't really know the map all that well, he couldn't figure out where it was from without taking out the map, which he was too lazy to do. Plus, he didn't really care in the first place.
Wasteland walked around for a little while longer, then decided to move on as he began to hear unwelcoming scurrying sounds all around. He took flight to the east, wondering how long it would take to get to the Islands of Night.
----
Wasteland was still flying some eleven or twelve hours later, his wings as tired as he was of the pain in his head. There wasn't anything he could do about either one, so he just had to tell all of his body parts to shut up and deal with it.
His thoughts turned to the desert. The map had it labeled as, "The Plains of Starvation." How charming. 
They must get a lot of visitors, having a name like that, he thought sarcastically. It wasn't very satsfying when he was the only dragon who could hear himself, though. He wondered about the other dragonets.
The prophecy, which had burned itself into his mind, had said that basically all of the others were girls. At least, all of the ones who's gender was revealed. And one of them was RainWing. Rainwings were hot.
Wasteland looked down, remembering that the last time he had thought about girls had earned him a mid-air tackle from a giant old guy. Looking back on it, Morrowseer had been quite awesome, but it was still a danger to be flying and then suddenly crash into something and die.
The landscape hadn't changed much in the last few forevers, and it wasn't changing now, either. But if Wasteland squinted really hard, he thought he could see bare ice on the horizon. Feeling the tiredness in his wings yell louder and his head still pulsing from running it into the tree, not to mention all the tiny bites all over his weaker scales, he didn't think he could make it as far as the horizon. Plus a particularly naggy spot in his mane.
He landed in the woods, thicker here than when he had encountered the squirrels. Hopefully he was far enough away from them that they wouldn't be all the way out here, but that was only a deep wish of his, because squirrels were now his least favorite animal.
As Wasteland set Slicer down next to the spot on the ground that he was going to sleep on, he tried to reach his talons into his mane to rub where it hurt, but the horns were too long for his talons.
That was one of the bad things about having such a boss mane. Wasteland's horns and mane were quite a bit longer than that of most IceWings, making him look intimidating and totally beast mode if he did say so himself. And he did. He thought about his appearance.
Wasteland liked to think that he was different because of the shear amount of awesomeness infused into his DNA. Frostclap said he was egocentric whenever he pointed this out. Whatever that meant.
Wasteland's scales were remarkably darker blue than most other IceWings his age, his horns longer and sharper, and his arms more muscular, probably from all the parkour he did. His eyes were shiny blue like some kind of icey metal. The only thing he didn't really like about his look was the fact that he had very long, pointy ears that stuck out even more than his amazingly good-looking face.
Wait.... Maybe Frostclap was right when she told him that he thought too much of himself... Nah, he was definitely drop-dead gorgeous. How could he not be?
He kissed his sword good night because it was almost as awesome as him, and went to sleep, unable to not have dreams of flaming squirrels with armor and scavenger claws, chasing him. And from within the dream, he realized that today had been the most mentally exhausting day of his life.
== On Hold ==
Still going to Continue writing this, but I've lost my notes. Oops. :{/
Category:Fanfictions
Category:Fanfictions (Semi-Canon)
Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete)