Ivy to Flicker

Note: Although this fanfiction is very similar to Ivy Flickers, it is not theft. Both fanfictions were inspired by a shared idea and several details were collaborated on.
Note: These events are non-canon and take place after the events of The Darkness of Dragons and Dragonslayer and before The Lost Continent.
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The gem was a curiosity, nothing more than that. It had been made by an animus years ago. Friendless and lonely, he had taken to studying scavengers, and one day had decided he would get a scavenger for a friend. So he enchanted a small gem. The enchantment was quite simple. The first scavenger to touch it would turn into a dragon. Afterwards it would be useless. The animus was a SkyWing, so he wanted the scavenger to be a SkyWing as well. During the day, the scavenger would be a dragon. Irreversible. No way of changing that. He didn’t want the scavenger trying to leave him. However, during the night, the scavenger would turn back, and could visit other scavengers. But it would have to return to him in the morning, or it would be discovered. 
The animus had thought of almost everything, but he forgot one possibility. Losing it. 
On the way to the scavenger den, the animus was ambushed by bandits. He was killed, and the gem taken from him. They could tell it was animus-touched, but couldn’t figure out what to do with it, as the gem only worked on scavengers. It was passed around from trader to trader for years, until during a strange earthquake, it fell into the desert and was never found. Until now. 
==Ivy==
“See anything up there?” Ivy called to Wren, up scouting on Sky’s back. Ivy had wanted to fly too, but Wren said Sky could fly faster with only one person on his back, and they wanted to cover as much ground as possible.  She knew this made sense, but she loved flying on Sky’s back and had been hoping to have a chance to do it. 
Then again, just being outside was rather amazing in itself. Ivy had lived in Valor, an underground city her whole life. She’d only left it a year ago, and while she was getting used to being outside, the breeze on her face was still a bit of a thrill. 
“Not yet!” Wren shouted back.
“Okay, I’m going to scout out on the land.”
“Alright!”
“Make sure you don’t go too far, Ivy.” Ivy turned around and saw Wren’s brother Leaf smiling at her. She smiled back. 
“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” Leaf often fussed over her like this. Ivy was pretty sure he was in love with her. She thought she liked him too, but how to tell him? No, she would just wait until he declared his love, and then she could tell him.  
She’d walked out far enough that Wren and Leaf were just specks in the distance when she saw the crater. For such a large crater, there was little debris in it. In fact, the only things Ivy could see in it was a gray and black rock, not quite big enough to be a boulder, but too big for Ivy to hold and a green gem. The gem was big too, the size of one of Ivy’s feet. “Maybe it’s a dragon’s gem,” Ivy said out loud. Excitement bubbled in her chest. Without thinking, she ran down into the crater and put both hands on the gem.  
Immediately, she collapsed on the ground, feeling strange changes happening to her. Her body lengthened and became larger. Her head reshaped itself into something more lizard-like. Her skin disappeared and was replaced by scales. She felt a pain in her back and turned to see a tail sprouting. Wings came out of her back and her arms and legs became thicker. Her arms became the same length as her legs and her hands became more like feet. Her regular feet became more lizard like, and her fingernails became talons. She felt a heat build up in her stomach and throat, and felt the overwhelming urge to walk on all fours. Ivy was a dragon. 
“Woah,” Ivy said, inspecting her new body. “I’m a dragon! This is amazing! I’m going to learn so much about them! Do dragons have pencils? Can I draw myself? Will the other dragons know I’m not a real dragon? Can I speak Dragon? Can I breathe fire? Can I fly?!”
Ivy had a million questions, but held them back for a moment. If the gem was magic, the piece of rock might be too, so she picked it up. It was easy now and she went to put it in her pocket before remembering she didn’t have pockets. Instead she found a large leaf, wrapped it around her, and put the rock in it. Then she ran off to find her friends. 
After running about half of the way, Ivy realized it would be quicker to fly. She began running, just to get some speed up… and ran straight off a cliff.
At first, for one terrifying moment, she plummeted. Her wings hung by her sides as she hurtled toward the ground. But then she started flapping. The wings moved almost of their own accord, quicker than Ivy could see. For a moment, she just hovered in the air, then with a whoop of delight she flew toward her friends. 
It only took a few minutes for her to get there, whereas it had taken her a least a half hour to walk out there in the first place. Flush with exhilaration, Ivy landed, caught her breath, and smiled at her friends. 
They looked terrified. Well, really Leaf looked terrified. Wren and Sky just looked politely confused. Right. They didn’t know she was a dragon yet. Being a dragon felt so natural, so right, that she’d forgotten her friends didn’t know.
“Who are you!” Leaf yelled. In Human. Okay, so she could understand Human still, but could she understand Dragon. Wren had been teaching her a little, but she wasn't very good. It would be so lovely to be able to understand it. And maybe she could. After all, flying had come naturally to her. Perhaps Dragon would be the same. 
“Leaf, she can’t understand a word you’re saying.” Wren turned to Ivy and smiled. “Roar! Who Roar! Growl, roar, hello, roar, long roar!” 
Ivy was severely disappointed. She could pick up a few words, but nothing more than she had been able to do when she was a human. It made sense. There was no reason being a dragon should give her the ability to speak Dragon, but it was still disappointing.  
“Guys, it’s Ivy,” she said.
Leaf looked skeptically up at her, and Wren tilted her head. “Okay, prove it.” Wren said, in Human this time. “What’s the dragonslayer’s name?” 
Ivy thought for a moment, then answered “Well, the name of the dragonslayer who killed the queen by accident is Stone, but the name of the dragonslayer who killed the sand dragon general on purpose is Wren.” Ivy flashed a grin at Leaf, who backed up against a tree. Wren just smiled. 
“It’s really you,” Leaf said in disbelief. “No one else could know that. Unless you forced Ivy to tell you and then ate her. Is that what you did! Did you eat Ivy?!” 
“No, I did not eat Ivy. I am Ivy.”
Leaf crossed his arms, still unconvinced. “Why should I believe that?”
“Think about it this way. How can I speak Human? Sky is the only dragon that speaks it, right? Besides, why would a dragon want to pass as Ivy?”
These were undeniably good points and Leaf’s frown slowly went away, but all of his tension was still there. Tentatively, he reached up and touched one of Ivy’s wings. 
“How?” he whispered. 
Ivy’s face brightened with the question. She was a little worried about Leaf, he seemed much more concerned about this than she was. But she had been dying to tell them how this had happened.
“Well, I was out walking, and I saw a crater in the ground, like it was from a meteor impact.”
“Huh,” Wren said thoughtfully. “A few weeks before I met up with Leaf, Sky and I were flying and the ground started shaking. Maybe it was because of this meteor you found.”
Leaf stamped his foot on the ground. “This is not important. Ivy, what turned you into a dragon!”
“I’m getting to that. So anyone, in the crater, there was a gray and black rock and a big green gem. The gem was so big, I thought it might be a dragon gem. I got excited and tried to pick it up. Then I turned into a dragon.” 
Leaf’s sniffles were really starting to concern Ivy. Was he okay? 
He put a hand on her side. “Oh, Ivy.”
“Leaf, why are you so upset?” 
Leaf looked surprised. “You’re a dragon, Ivy. I couldn’t think of anything worse.”
Now Wren looked mad. “You hate dragons, Leaf?”
Sky looked hurt. “My brother hates dragons?”
“He’s not your brother, Sky, he’s my brother. But I’m with you here.” She turned her angry eyes on Leaf.
Leaf scooted away. “No! I don’t hate dragons! I just don’t want to be a dragon.” 
Wren scowled. “Hmm.” But then a light came into her eyes. “Do you have the gem?” 
“Oh! Yes!” Ivy reached into her make-shift leg pouch and pulled out the gem. Wren’s eyes got big. She conversed with Sky for a moment. 
Ivy couldn’t make out many of the words, but she did hear, “This would be very most wonderful for me.” 
Then she heard Sky reply, “Then it would be most wonderful for me too-- ooh, did you see that? It was a chipmunk!”
Wren laughed, and turned to Ivy. “Could I have the gem?”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”  
Wren put her hands on the gem and closed her eyes. 
Nothing happened. They waited for a few moments, but Wren was still very clearly a human, brown curly hair, tanned skin, dark brown eyes. Wren opened her eyes and looked down, very disappointed to see that she was still human. 
“What went wrong?” Wren asked.
Leaf couldn’t contain himself anymore. “Wrong? Nothing went wrong! Something went right for once. Wrong would have been if my sister, who I spent years searching for-” 
“As I recall, you spent most of your life studying on how to kill dragons. You searched for me for like a half-hour, and then I had to save you.”
Leaf glared at Wren, but Wren glared right back and Leaf realized this was a glaring competition he couldn’t win so he went back to ranting. “If my sister got turned into a dragon! You people are crazy. You act like riding dragons and turning into dragons and making friends with dragons is a good thing! I can’t handle it. I’m done!” 
Leaf stormed off toward a tree and sat under it muttering to himself, “Life was so much easier when I wanted to be a dragonslayer. No worrying about whether dragons were good or not. Rowan to train me. Imaginary Wren to tell me what to do. Imaginary Wren always always agreed with me. Imaginary Wren hated the dragons. The girl I liked didn’t get turned into a dragon. Everything was simpler. Hmph.”
Sky blinked. “Roar my brother growl hate roar.”
Wren nodded. “Leaf roar growl mean. He roar dragons.”
Ivy cleared her throat. “Could you try to talk in Human for me?” Ivy could only pick out the human words and a couple of Dragon from Wren and Sky’s hybrid language. 
“Oh, sorry Ivy,” Wren said. “I’ll speak in Human until I teach you Dragon.”
Ivy blinked. “We already tried that, remember.”
“Yes, but you’re going to need to know Dragon if you want to pass as a dragon”
“I had been thinking about that,” Ivy admitted it. “It might help us find the little golden dragon!” 
“I agree, but it's going to take a while to teach you everything you need to know. So lets start.”
“What about Leaf?”
Wren glanced over at her brother slumped against the tree. “He’ll get over it, he’s just shocked.”
Ivy felt bad for Leaf, but Wren was right. Finding the golden dragon was the most important thing. Leaf would have to understand that.
Wren rubbed her hands together. “Alright! First, a dragon name.”
Ivy blinked. That was not what she had been expecting. “Can’t I just use Ivy?” 
Wren rolled her eyes. “Ivy, come on. You’re obviously a mountain dragon and I’ve heard the mountain dragons talking. They don’t have names like Ivy.”
“What sort of names do they have?”
“You know, kind of fiery names. Scarlet and Cinder, that sort of thing.” Wren paused, thinking. 
“Flame? No, there’s already a mountain dragon named Flame. Other dragons might wonder why you have the same name.”
“Maybe Fire?” Ivy asked.
“No, I think that’s too obvious,” Wren said. 
Ivy sat down, thinking about what could be a good name. Then it struck her. “Flicker!” 
Wren thought about it. “Yeah, I like Flicker. Alright. When you are around other dragons, you will go by Flicker.”
“Alright,” Flicker said. “Flying next?” She tried hard to squash her grin, but couldn’t. Wren smiled with her.   
“Flying.”
They worked late into the evening, practicing basic flying first, then flying with another dragon(they used Sky for this). Once she mastered that, they started working on tricks. Flicker was practicing a loop-de-loop when the sun started setting. She gave a yawn. 
Wren noticed. “Tired.”
“No, I-” she let out another yawn, even bigger than the last. “Alright, I guess I am a bit tired. But I don’t want to go to sleep. There’s still so much to learn before I can go live with other dragons. And I REALLY want to go live with other dragons.”
Wren gave a big smile. “I know. But we should sleep. I’m tired too, and so is Sky. Aren’t you Sky?” 
Sky blinked, having been drawn out of watching a chipmunk. “Hmm? Not really- I mean, yes! So tired!” Wren had given him a glare.
Flicker laughed. “Alright, Wren. We’ll sleep.”    
Flicker curled up on a pile of moss, but just as the sun set, something happened. Flicker began to shrink. Her scales disappeared and were replaced by skin. Her wings and tail vanished and her front legs were replaced with hands and arms. She lost her talons to fingers and her claws to fingernails. Flicker was now Ivy once again. 
Sky was sound asleep already, but Wren was awake and had observed the whole thing. “Whoa,” she said.
Ivy looked down at her fingers with disappointment. Was this just a one time thing then? Like she got to be a dragon for one day? She would have done so much more if she’d known that that was the case! She hadn’t even tried breathing fire yet, let alone learned how to speak Dragon. She slumped down in her bed, and Wren walked over. 
“I’m sorry, Ivy,” she said, putting her hand on Ivy’s shoulder, a rare gesture of physical contact. 
“Why are you sorry?!” Leaf yelled, who had been standing there speechless. “You do not understand what is going on. This is a good thing. You do not want to be a dragon. Imaginary Wren wouldn’t want to be a dragon.” Leaf stopped as he realized what he had just said. Wren’s gaze turned from pity to anger faster than you could blink. 
“So, you don’t like me as your sister.”
“I didn’t say that…”
“You would rather have an imaginary friend that fights dragons with you and doesn’t have any opinions of her own, is that right?”
“No…”
“Don’t lie to me, Leaf! If you don’t want to be here, then leave!”
“Fine!” Leaf glared defiantly, but Wren’s glare was much better than his. “I don’t want to be here anyway! I only stayed for Wren. I hate dragons, I hate Sky, and I hate all of this. Now the girl I like is a dragon and my new life is falling apart just like my old life did. I’m leaving!” Leaf stomped off with his arms crossed. Ivy was heartbroken.  
==Leaf==
Leaf’s life was falling apart. He stomped through the trees, making as big of a racket as he could. A dragon would be able to hear him from a mile away, but he didn’t care. If a dragon did come, he could stab it. Somewhere besides the side this time. The wings, maybe?
“What do you think, Wren?” Leaf said, channeling his imaginary sister for the first time in months. 
You should stab all the dragons! In their eyeballs! 
Good idea, but what about Ivy?
Turn her back! I bet it was a plot by the dragons. It was probably all their fault.
Leaf froze as he struck on this idea. You might be right, Wren. What if they wanted her to turn into a dragon and go to this dragon school so that they could capture her. His mind raced, trying to build off this idea in any way he could. He had to rescue Ivy. But he couldn’t do it alone, he could need help. Who could he get help from? 
I don’t know. But NOT the dragonmancers. They’re the worst!
Of course they are Wren. I wasn’t suggesting them. Leaf went back to thinking.
It had to be admitted that the dragonslayer was the worst-both Stone and Heath-and Rowan was a traitor. Wren and Ivy might have forgiven her, but not him. Killing a dragon for treasure! Not telling him that Wren had been sacrificed! Unforgivable. 
That left only one person. The only person in fact that Leaf hadn’t yet tried. 
The lord of the Indestructible City.
==Ivy==
Tears poured out of Ivy’s face and fell onto the ground. She curled up in a ball, chest heaving with sobs. She couldn’t believe it. 
Wren just stood there until she had cried herself out. Cheeks wet, she looked up at Wren.
“Why?” she whispered.
“I know,” Wren said. “Oh Ivy, I know.” She wrapped her arms around Ivy and Ivy melted into her grasp. It felt strange, having the grumpy 14 year old hugging her. But it also felt right. Sky wrapped his wings around both of them and they fell to the ground. 
“Whoops,” Sky said, and the look on his face was so adorable that Ivy couldn’t help but laugh. 
She went to sleep, Leaf’s betrayal echoing in her mind. When she woke up, the pain felt fresh and raw again. She assumed it was just the pain of Leaf leaving, but she realized she felt cramped. What… she looked down and smiled. She was Flicker again.  
“Wren! Wren!” Flicker ran over to Wren. 
“What?” Wren let out a big yawn, and slowly pulled herself up from the ground. “Ivy, you’re a dragon again!”
“Yeah! I guess I’m a dragon during the day and a human at night?”
“I guess. We’re going to have to continue with your lessons.”
“Fire breathing?”
Wren nodded, smiling. “Fire breathing.”
Flicker completely forgot about Leaf. They spent the first two hours working on fire breathing, but once they saw Sky’s sad face. Wren decided to move on to learning Dragon. The roars and growls came easier to her dragon lips than Human, but she still didn’t know all the words. They had worked for a week when Wren decided it was time. 
“So,” Flicker said cheerfully. “What are we working on today?”
“Yes, what are we working on?” Sky said. Sky had become very interested in the training, mainly because Wren had promised him he would go with Flicker but only if he mastered everything(except fire breathing of course). Sky was really only going because Wren wanted to go and Sky always went with Wren. 
Wren was smiling widely. “I think you’re ready,” she said in Dragon.
“REALLY?” Flicker responded, also in Dragon. 
Wren switched back to Human. “Wow, that was a loud roar.”
“Sorry, I was excited. But you really think I’m ready?” Flicker flapped her wings in excitement. 
“Yes. You can fly, you can speak Dragon, and you can breathe fire. That’s all you need to know to be a dragon. Though of course you don’t need to breathe fire to be a dragon,” she added hastily seeing the look on Sky’s face. “Do you remember your backstory?”
“My mother ran away from Queen Scarlet and raised me on her own. She died a few months ago and I met up with Sky, who was abandoned for not having any fire. We heard about this school and decided to live here,” Flicker recited. 
“Good. Just back her up, Sky, and everything should be fine.” 
“Yes, and you are my pet scavenger.” Sky giggled. 
“I am not your pet!” Wren began speaking in their hybrid language, but now Flicker could understand every word.
“That’s not what you said in the backstory. You said that I was your pet.”
“Well, yes, but I’m not really your pet.”
“Whatever you say, pet.”
Wren humphed. “Let’s just go. Ivy, get on Sky- whoops.” 
Flicker smiled and opened her wings. “Lets go!” With a whoop, she swirled up into the sky. Sky flew next to her, chasing bluebirds and diving for chipmunks. Flicker gave a smile. She would never get tired of flying. 
She caught an air current that headed in the direction of Jade Mountain and folded her wings back, shooting forward as fast as she could. Sky frantically beat his wings, trying to catch up with her, before he realized that he could also take the air current. Then he caught up in an instant. The wind beat against Flicker’s scales as she flew forward, seeing the plains and mountains pass under her. She took in a deep breath, but her heart was filled with wild exhilaration. 
They arrived at Jade Academy just before dark. Flicker was so exhausted, she landed and collapsed. Poor Sky had collapsed almost twice on the trip, so he nearly fell out of the sky when they got there. They fell asleep instantly and only woke up when they heard a concerned voice. 
“Hello? Who are you? Are you alright?” Flicker woke up and instantly checked her body, relieved to find she was a dragon. It was a good thing no one had found her in her scavenger form. That would have been hard to explain. She looked up and her eyes widened. The anxious questions continued, but Flicker couldn’t speak. Those bright golden scales. An adult dragon as small as Flicker. Gray-green eyes. 
It was the little golden dragon. 
==Ivy==
“Can you speak? Are you hurt?” The dragon continued to fuss over them, but Flicker just stared, mouth open and eyes wide. Eventually Sky came to his senses. 
“We’re fine. We…” Wren whispered in his ear. “We would like to join your school. This is my pet scavenger Wren.” 
Wren crossed her arms and scowled. “Oh, that you remember?” 
Flicker was worried, but the little dragon smiled. “Aw, listen to her squeaking!” 
Flicker finally came to her senses. “Can we join?” She held her talons together, waiting anxiously for the answer. Next to her, Sky was pacing back and forth, occasionally lifting up into the sky before coming back down. 
“Hmm. Could you come inside? We should discuss this with the other founders. My name is Sunny, by the way.” 
Sunny gestured to the large hole in the middle of the mountain. 
“Wait,” Flicker said. “The school is inside the mountain?”
Sunny looked surprised. “Oh, I suppose you wouldn’t know. Yes, the school is inside.”
They walked in, and Flicker was surprised. She had been expecting it to be like Valor, cramped tunnels and caves everywhere. But instead the gray walls were covered with flowers and vines. The ceiling was high enough for her to stretch. There were caves, but they were all unique and colorful, nothing like the plain sameness of Valor. 
The cave they came into was 4 times as big as the banishment cave, the biggest one in Valor. A board was on one side of the room with markings on it that Flicker struggled to read. Wren had taught her to read Dragon but she still had trouble with it, especially from far away. The only dragon she could see in the room was a black dragon, with silver scales on her wings. She held in a gasp, remembering the black dragon she had seen that day. It wasn’t this dragon, but it was definitely the same species. She couldn’t believe that they were at the school! Were there others? She probably shouldn’t show how surprised she was though.  
Sunny smiled. “Fatespeaker, this is…”
“Flicker and Sky,” Sky responded. Wren gave a nod of satisfaction.
“This is Flicker and Sky. They want to join the school. Do you think it's a good idea?”
“Me? Shouldn’t you ask the other dragonets of destiny?”
“Oh, please. You know you and me are basically in charge of this school. Starflight is too busy with the library, Tsunami and Clay are teaching, and Glory is in the rainforest. You are the one who handles day to day business. I think this should be your decision.”
Flicker was listening to all this with wide eyes. Her brain went on overtime, comparing what she heard to anything she had already known and trying to analyze the words to see what they could be talking about. Dragonets of destiny? Who was that? Did it have something to do with that magic star-shaped sapphire that Sunny had taken, back before Ivy had turned into a dragon? Maybe she should have hung on to that... 
Fatespeaker smiled. “Why, thank you Sunny, It’s nice of you to leave the final decision up to me. I say they stay. The Jade Winglet is missing an IceWing, a MudWing, and a SeaWing.”
“Since when did Turtle leave?” Sunny sounded surprised. “I knew he was preparing to go, but I didn’t know he had already left.”
“He left a week ago. He’s going to help Queen Coral and the kingdom of the sea with his animus magic.” 
“A good idea. Still…” Sunny sighs deeply. “I think you're right, Fatespeaker. Let’s put them both in the Jade Winglet.”
Sunny led them through the school, explaining about the school as they went. Apparently, it was a school for all the dragon tribes, of which there were seven. Flicker had heard about all of them with the exception of the RainWings. Of course, she knew there were rainforest dragons, but this was the most she had ever heard about them. Camouflage scales? Shooting venom? They sounded more terrifying by the minute. 
As for the school itself, it had the great hall, which was the room they had come into, an art cave, a music cave, a history cave, a self defense cave, and a lot of other caves that kind of blurred into Flicker’s memory. She saw all colors of dragons roaming around. Wren would have used this as proof of her theory that dragons were better than humans, but Sky had made her promise not to talk when other dragons were around unless she had to. So she stayed quiet, but the minute they were alone, Flicker was sure she would be getting an earful about how Wren was always right. 
They rounded back to the Great Hall. Sunny was about to leave when a whirlwind of bright colors ran into the hall. “Hey Sunny! So, Anemone wants to paint another picture for Tamarin, which is kind of cute only we’re all out of blue paint and she’s getting all huffy about it. Hey, who are these guys! Are they new? Whose winglet are they in?”
Sunny took a deep breath. “Kinkajou, could you stop running around for one second, please?” 
“Sorry, Sunny.” Kinkajou stood still and Flicker got her first good look at the dragon. 
She was bright pink, with spots of green, red, yellow, and purple splattered over her scales like confetti. Her eyes sparkled with complete delight. “So what’s going on?” 
Before Sunny could answer, another black dragon ran into the room, panting from exertion. “Kinkajou, wait up!” 
“Oh, hi Moon! See, I told you there were new dragons. I was right!”  
“Yes, Kinkajou, you were right.” Moon turned to Flicker and Sky. “Um, hi, I’m Moon. I can read minds-” She’d been right then, the black dragons could read minds. There wasn’t any reason Sunny would have been wrong, but it was nice to have confirmation. 
Sky, on the other hand, seemed quite concerned about this. “Really?” 
Flicker shot a look at him. This was probably common knowledge among normal dragons. They didn’t need to stand out, although Flicker’s brain was screaming with questions about all this. She’d learned more about dragons in the past twenty minutes then she’d learned in her entire life. But she needed to blend in as much as she could. Questions could come later, although that wasn’t a phrase Flicker had ever thought she would be saying. 
Moon smiled back at Sky. “I know, it’s a little unnerving. Turtle sent me the rest of the skyfire in his armband. Have a piece.” She tossed a small gray rock at him. “This blocks my mind-reading. As long as you're holding it, I won’t be able to hear your thoughts. This is my last piece, unfortunately.” She turned towards Flicker, and looked surprised, but before she could say anything, Kinkajou butted in.
“My name is Kinkajou. I’m Moon’s girlfriend--”
“Kinkajou, you don’t need to announce that I’m your girlfriend to every dragon you meet. I mean, really. Every time you see Peril you tell her. She already knows.”
“I know. But I like telling everyone. Anyway, I’m a RainWing, and I love school! My favorite food is papaya.” The Rainwing held up a yellow fruit and took a great big bite out of it. Moon looked envious.  
“Well, my favorite food is mango,” said Moon. 
“Oh, I like mango too! Here!” Kinkajou tossed a mango to Moon, who munched on it with a delighted expression.
“Anyway, you should meet the rest of our winglet! Qibli! Peril!” 
A sand dragon--no, SandWing, Ivy reminded herself--walked over with his head dropping. 
“He still hasn’t gotten over the fact that Moon rejected him for me,” Kinkajou whispered in her ear.   
“Hey Kinkajou. Hi Moon!” he said, perking up a bit. “I found an old scroll for you from the palace library. Do you want to read it?”
“Of course! But maybe later. We have some new members.”
Before Qibli could say another word, a deep red SkyWing with strange blue eyes came over. “Hey, Qibli! I think you were right. Clay just hugged me again and it lasted a long time so maybe he does like me? Not that it's a big deal. Hugging, totally normally, am I right? Wait, who are these dragons?”
Moon looked amused. “Peril, they aren’t trying to replace you.” 
“Moon, you know I don’t like it when you read my mind. Can I set her on fire?”
Qibli looked tired. “No, Peril. No setting anyone on fire, not ever.”
Peril frowned. “Alright…” she turned to Flicker. “Hi, I’m Peril. We should be friends because friendship is good. At least that’s what Clay told me. Apparently making friends is more rewarding than setting dragons on fire. And I did save the world without setting anyone on fire, except for Winter but that was an accident so it doesn’t really count. Anyway, yeah. Hi!” Peril put on a rather creepy looking smile.      
Flicker was intrigued by this dragon, who seemed to want to set everything on fire for no particular reason. Sky on the other hand looked rather terrified, and Wren was glaring at Peril like just you try to hurt my friend. 
Flicker held out her hand for Peril, who backed away. “Uh, sorry, I have firescales. You do not want to touch me.” To demonstrate she took the mango out of the hands of a RainWing, who Sunny had pointed out as Coconut.  It immediately burst into flames and in a few seconds was a pile of ash.   
The slow Rainwing just picked up another one and began munching. Flicker wasn’t sure he’d even comprehended what had happened. Peril smiled. 
Flicker face lit up, and she tried to bump into a chair. 
Nothing happened. Flicker scowled at the chair and Wren giggled. Luckily, no one noticed and the conversation continued. 
“Qibli, would you stop moping like a drooping sloth! There are new people here. This is really exciting.” Kinkajou stared at him, and he got up, groaning a little. 
“Hi, I’m Qibli. I’m an advisor to Queen Thorn.” He looked back at Kinkajou. 
“Is that enough for you?”  
“Okay, stop fighting,” Moon said gently. She looked back at Sky. “Have you guys seen the school?”
“Yes, Fatespeaker took us on a tour,” Flicker said, speaking for Sky, who still seemed a bit worried about Moon and her mind reading. He had his skyfire held very close, and yelped when he almost dropped it. 
Peril suddenly interrupted. “Hey, I’m going to go to the prey center, all right? Not because Clay’s there, just because I’m hungry and I would like to go there. Do you guys want to come? That’s a normal thing that dragons do, right? Eating together? I mean, if you don’t want to come, then don’t.” 
“We’ll come, right Qibli?” Kinkajou said. 
“I was thinking of going to the music cave actually,” Qibli said. “Would you like to come, Moon?” He looked at her hopefully, and Flicker tried to stifle a laugh. She felt bad for the SandWing, but it was obvious that Moon didn’t like him romantically. 
Moon smiled at him. “I’ll come,” his face lit up, “but I want Kinkajou to come with me.”
Kinkajou’s tail bounced on the floor, and her scales turned a vibrant yellow. “Of course! Can we dance while Qibli drums? He’s really good at that.”
Moon smiled back. “Of course, Kinkajou.” The three dragons walked out, leaving Peril, Sky, and Flicker to stare at each other awkwardly. 
“What kind of food do they have at the prey center?” Sky asked hesitantly.  
“Oh, fish, rabbits, lots of things. All kind of tastes the same to me. Plus the Rainwings eat fruit, which is just weird.” 
Sky looked like he was trying very hard to not look suspicious, but anyone who knew him could read the look on his face plain as day. Sky loved fruit, and he was having a very hard time hiding it. 
They headed to the prey center, where a lot of dragons were chasing prey around. Peril saw Clay, and shyly went up to him, whereas Sky went over to the fruit pile with Flicker.
He picked up a round orangey-pink thing. “What’s this?” he asked one of the RainWIngs. 
“Oh, that’s a peach. They're really good. Queen Glory delivered some fresh ones today!” 
Sky bit into the peach hesitantly, then continued devouring it as a look of bliss came over him. Flicker laughed, and grabbed a chicken to roast.
Category:Fanfictions
Category:Fanfictions (Semi-Canon)
Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete)
Category:Content (Colorchanger the Mindreader)