Paper in Fire

hi, i'm fathom! and you're reading a fanfic written by me!
this is a speculative piece about flame, and his life post-jma. currently, it updates at least once every seven days.
this story may contain topics that could be uncomfortable for some readers. read at your own risk.
at its current length, this story takes 17 minutes and 5 seconds to read (if reading at the average reading speed of 275 wpm).
click anywhere to read!
----
Flame absentmindedly picked at the cloth obscuring his face.
He’d been handed over to Queen Ruby like parents dropping off a problem child at a daycare: alright, he’s yours to deal with now. Luckily, it’d been easy to give the SkyWing healers the slip. They probably wouldn’t have noticed if Flame had keeled over and died.
Whenever Flame thought about death, his mind went to Viper, and whenever he thought about Viper, his mind went to the scar that ran across his face.
The scar Stonemover “couldn’t heal”, damn him. Flame realized part of his vitriol had stemmed from Darkstalker- he could put two and two together, unlike the drooling dragonets that were his clawmates- but he still hated that half-alive rock.
He hated Stonemover, he hated his scar, he hated the Dragonets of Destiny, he hated their stupid academy, and he hated everyone in it. Especially Darkstalker, who gave him those few and fleeting seconds where he could be a normal SkyWing again, only to immediately lock him up.
Flame dug into his Jade Mountain Academy satchel he’d kept, and withdrew his library card and his very own copy of Qibli’s earring. He hated these, too, and wanted nothing more than to grind them into dust, but something kept him from doing it.
Flame wondered to himself where the nearest dragon was. He figured he’d found a pretty good spot to live completely in the wild.
Slowly, over weeks of isolation, Flame had noticed that the anger that burned in him constantly no longer flared as violently. He’d skipped the “bargaining” phrase of loss, it seemed, and had gone straight from “anger” to “depression”.
Flame could not look into still water without hating what he found. His face was scarred and damaged, like the dragon under it.
The cloth came off in Flame’s talons, and he sighed as he took care in wrapping it back around his face.
He’d been raised in the closest thing to hell that Pyrrhia had to offer, been scarred irreparably, and shipped to a poorly assembled university where everyone hated him. Just because of what Viper had done to him.
And whenever he thought about Viper, his mind went to the scar that ran across his face. He felt the cloth again, and was reminded of Starflight’s scar. They were one and the same, Flame realized. Both scarred, both broken by circumstance.
So why did Starflight find it so easy to send him away?
All Flame ever wanted was acceptance. Was he supposed to get that from Morrowseer? Was he supposed to get that from the faux-dragonets? Was he supposed to get that from the students, who looked away and winced whenever he walked into a room? Was he supposed to get that from the ever-just Dragonets of Destiny, who’d sat back as Darkstalker imprisoned him? The ever-just Dragonets of Destiny, who’d sent him away to Queen Ruby, even though he was older than all of them?
Flame tightened the cloth around his scar, and found the part obscuring the front of his face damp. He hadn't even noticed the rain.
----
Flame woke up tired and disoriented, and he met the morning by digging his palms into his eyes and groaning for an eternity.
The dream he usually had had come again. Every time he slept, he saw Viper fall into the lava, felt her barbed tail scratch his face. The pain felt so real, and his scar always stung when he woke up.
He removed his palms from his eyes and looked around. Dew covered the soft grass below him, and the fog was thick enough to obscure almost everything in sight. Even the mountain peaks, ever-present, couldn’t be seen.
Flame tied the cloth back around his face. Why did he still wear it? Over the weeks he’d spent alone, he pondered the question, and he wasn’t really sure. There was nobody to look at him.
But then he’d catch his reflection somewhere, and he’d remember why. Because he was hideous.
The first thing he did after waking up was hunt, but there was no opportunity of that now. Flame could barely make out his own talons through the fog.
Hatred streaked through him again. He could be at Jade Mountain Academy right now, not having to worry about waiting until the fog lifted. What cosmic wrongdoing had he done to deserve this? He’d been destined for isolationism the second his mother joined the Talons.
He could’ve been a soldier. He could’ve had friends in the army, dragons he would look out for and dragons who would look out for him.
He’d gotten Morrowseer, and the wastes of oxygen that were Viper, Ochre, Fatespeaker and Squid instead. His head pounded, and he clutched it with both talons. Fatespeaker had been a thorn in his side for his entire life, and she’d come away happy. Why did she get the happy ending? Her tribe had ripped his life apart, and she got to come away scot-free. 
Really, Flame rused, his head screaming in pain, Morrowseer had gotten away scot-free. He’d died in the volcano, which meant Morrowseer couldn’t die by Flame’s talons. That he hated more than anything else.
Someone was in his head. Who was in his head?
The pain subsided instantly. Flame removed his talons from his head and caught his breath. There was nobody around.
----
Flame’s teeth dug into a deer he’d found and swiftly killed. His head was clear, again, but there was no telling how long it’d last. He wasn’t sure how the first headache had even happened, because, as far as he could tell, there wasn’t a dragon near him.
Flame remembered Darkstalker taking away his scars. Flame remembered telling Darkstalker to stay out of his head, and Darkstalker responding that it was “quite dark in there”. As Flame remembered, the more and more his doubt grew about a dragon being nearby. The headache he’d just gotten wasn’t the same feeling.
That left Flame the question: what was the headache?
Suddenly, his appetite was gone. Flame stepped away from the deer carcass and launched into flight. The wind felt good under his wings, as he cut through the air, gliding and flying loops.
Midair, he could forget about everything brutal that had happened on the ground. Such a shame it was that he couldn’t stay in the air forever.
His eye caught a group of SkyWings nearing him. He grimaced and prepared to swoop downwards to get his satchel and flee, if it came to that. He couldn’t risk a SkyWing seeing him and knowing who he was, and that he should be with the SkyWing healers instead of in the middle of nowhere.
The headache came back violently. Flame couldn’t help but cry out, and, temporarily, the pain overrode his body. He plummeted, only being able to stick his wings out in a desperate attempt to slow his fall.
Who was in his head?
Flame blacked out before he hit the ground.
----
No.
God, no. Not this.
“Oh good, he’s awake,” Flame could barely make out any sound, but he was pretty sure the dragon saying this did not think his waking up was good. Flame groaned loudly, and was rewarded with an exasperated sigh. “Yeah, he’s definitely awake.”
“Where am I? Who are you?” Flame asked roughly, refusing to open his eyes. His talons went to cover them, and his heart sank to feel the absence of the cloth that hid his scar.
“Hell,” a familiar voice answered. “You’ve died and gone to hell.”
Flame opened his eyes. He was in the SkyWings’ healers’ den. “No, I’ve been in hell.” Flame closed his eyes. “This isn’t it. Close, though.”
“Queen Ruby wants a private audience with you, whenever you’re- and I directly quote- “not feeling the ‘morning murders’”.”
What’d Queen Ruby want from him? A public execution?
“If you need either,” the voice continued, “I have some aspirin and some antacids.”
~~
“So?” Flame asked gruffly, looking Queen Ruby in the eye. “What do you want from me?”
She didn’t meet his gaze, instead focusing on inspecting her talons. “You know, I always wondered if Scarlet’s penchant for holding fake trials ever fooled anyone, considering how she always won them.”
“Sorry?”
“I’ll drop the act.” Ruby returned his gaze, and Flame stared back. If this was a battle of wills, he could win against anyone. “What I’m saying is this: I’m willing to hear you out. Why you tried to kill Stonemover, why you fled our healers’ den, why you’ve been living on your own for months.”
“I tried to kill Stonemover because he lied to me. And, if given the opportunity to do it again, I’d take it in a heartbeat.” Flame meant it, and he knew he meant it, but the words came out sounding hollow. He cleared his throat, which quickly turned into a hacking cough.
Ruby let him finish. “You tried to kill him for lying to you?”
“It’s more than that.”
“You’ve never lied before?”
“Never.” Flame’s voice was back, and he could tell by Ruby’s expression that she believed him. “I ran from the SkyWing healers because nothing they gave me worked, and they were annoying, and I lived on my own because there’s nobody worth my time.”
Ruby looked at him silently for a minute. Flame could tell she was trying to will him into saying more. That wouldn’t work.
Finally, she spoke. “Every dragon I know has lied before. I’ve lied before. I’ve probably lied today.” She paused. “There was too much sugar in my coffee this morning. I said it tasted great.”
“You’re lecturing me about coffee?”
Ruby laughed. “My point isn’t that I don’t believe you about you not lying. My point is, I’m willing to bet a lot of dragons have lied to you. Why only Stonemover?”
Flame blinked. A creeping suspicion came upon him, and as he opened his mouth, his head roared with pain. Someone was in his head. He was certain of it, this time. There was no other possibility now.
“He lied to me,” Flame said, through the pain, lighting fires in his mind. He’d burn the intruder out. “He said he couldn’t fix me.”
He fainted dead away.
----
Flame awoke near the deer’s corpse.
Its bones had been picked clean by vultures, probably, or hyenas.
A fog had settled over everything, again, but it was different this time. When Flame walked in any direction, the fog got harder to see through, and there seemed to be a fog around his mind. He got an intrinsic feeling he was supposed to stay near the corpse.
“He’s perfectly fine physically.” The deer’s corpse said, and Flame jumped backwards. “From what we heard from the SkyWing patrol, it seems stress-induced. I’m no therapist, though. Picking his brains is the last thing I want to do.”
A voice answered, but it sounded far away. The deer started to open its skeletal mouth again, and Flame charged into the mist.
Words, disembodied from any context, could be vaguely heard, and Flame ran faster. His claws stopped feeling like they were touching grass and more felt like stone, like the stone that he walked in his Jade Mountain Academy days.
He tried to turn, but something tight stopped him in his tracks, binding around his arms and legs. He tried to roar, and he choked on his own spit.
He let out gasps, and he heard a voice loud and clear. Ruby’s.
Goddamnit.
“I guess I’ll leave him be. For a while.”
“If I can ask: why do you care about him so much?”
Flame could sense Ruby looking towards him, and he scrunched his eyes shut tighter. He really wished he could be anywhere else, but he felt like he couldn’t move, instead.
“I’m the Queen. It’s my job to care about my subjects.”
“Hmm.” The doctor, the same dragon who’d talked through the deer, didn’t seem to buy what Ruby was saying. “My dad worked as an arena guard under Scarlet. He told me once that “I care about my subjects” was her favorite joke.”
“I’ve heard a lot of different dragons tell me what they thought was Scarlet’s favorite joke.” Ruby responded wryly. “It’s odd that none of them are funny.”
“Seriously, though. Why do you care about him so much?”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Ruby’s voice seemed farther away.
“God, I don’t know. Maybe because you’ve got an entire kingdom to run?”
“Alright, first on my list is to get rid of the arena. Done that. Second on my list is to use the arena materials to build a hospital. Done that. Third on my list is to reform the prison-industrial complex. Done that.”
“Fourth?”
“Make sure every individual SkyWing is happy,” Ruby smirked. “First on my list is Flame.”
The doctor let out a loud groan, and Flame lapsed back into unconsciousness.
----
“Hey, Flame.” Ruby greeted him. Flame grumbled in response, and the queen continued. “I wanted to make you an offer.”
“An offer?” Flame eyed her warily. “What kind of offer?”
“A good one.” Ruby promised. “One we’ll both like.”
Ten thousand warning bells ran in Flame’s mind. He needed to get out of there as fast as possible, or refuse anything Ruby promised him. Any compromise made would favor the one making it.
“Dragons are inherently greedy” was Flame’s reasoning his entire life, and it had never led him wrong.
“One,” Ruby started, “you stay in the Sky Kingdom, you get psychiatric help from the best of the best, and you don’t kill anyone.”
“What do you get out of it?” Flame hissed. He did not want to hear the answer. He just needed to buy time. Ruby wasn’t too big an idiot to not have guards, but maybe she was a big enough idiot that she didn’t station enough, or maybe the guards were big enough idiots that they would stop to help an injured guard before following who they’re supposed to follow.
“I don’t have to worry about you killing any dragons.”
God, what? Ruby was an idiot. Killing him would do that exact thing, with less time out of her day. Ruby’s display of softness was almost enough to make Flame believe she wasn’t doing anything for an ulterior motive.
She was Scarlet’s daughter? He didn’t believe it.
“Or, two, you do me a favor, and I pull a massive amount of strings to get your face healed animus magic style.”
Oh, s**t.
Flame considered, again, the inherent unfairness of being on the receiving end of a compromise, the likelihood of Ruby not paying up, and pushed those considerations aside.
“I’m in.”
“You don’t want to hear the favor?”
“I’m in.” Flame repeated.
Ruby looked at Flame oddly, neither of them saying a word, before a SkyWing hurriedly burst into the room and whispered something into Ruby’s ear, and the two quickly exited the room, leaving Flame by himself.
----
“I don’t understand why you need me specifically for this.” Flame asked, and Ruby looked back at him thoughtfully.
“You’ve been less hissy,” The queen finally commented, pausing. “What did it?”
Before he could stop himself, Flame lifted his talons to cover his scar, and he sensed Ruby had taken something from the automatic gesture. Fire burned in the back of his throat. He’d never been that stupid before. “I’m plotting to kill you,” Flame said, and Ruby nodded contentedly and turned back around.
The two walked in silence for a bit, before Flame repeated, far more forcefully, “I don’t see why you need me.”
“Do you see any guards protecting me?” Ruby asked, instead of answering his question. He hated when she did that.
“I don’t see any guards at all,” Flame responded bluntly.
Ruby looked at him severely, and lowered her voice in volume and pitch. “I know you can sense mindreaders.”
Seconds passed, or maybe minutes, or hours, or days, with neither moving. Flame wasn’t sure he could move; minutes ago he thought the Queen of the SkyWings had more naïveté than every dragonet in the SkyWing nursery combined. But here was a Queen who knew everything in her kingdom, and who knew how to use every dragon in it.
“Who told you?” Flame choked out, and Ruby walked on to arrive at an area in the palace with no roof. Ruby looked up, at all the birds in the sky, flying higher than SkyWings dared to go, and she looked back towards Flame.
“A little bird told me.”
----
Glory was not a paranoid queen.
Well guarded, yes. Suspicious, yes. But paranoia was a bad trait in royalty, and she needed to make it clear she trusted her tribe- both tribes.
After the war, Glory had been trying very hard to reunite the tribes, even though the RainWings and NightWings both hadn’t taken part in the actual conflict, minus the assassins and conspiring with Blister on the NightWing side. Unfortunately for her, this meant having to talk with the other queens.
Coral was a nuisance, who very obviously didn’t think Glory was up to snuff to lead a single RainWing out of a paper bag, and was also very obviously trying to make it seem like she was sorry for chaining up her and the other Dragonets of Destiny without directly mentioning it, or actually being sorry. Thorn was alright, but had to visibly restrain her motherly instincts. Moorhen was alright, but despite towering over Glory, and having far more experience than her, seemed incredibly timid. Snowfall was… well, Snowfall. 
And she was going to meet Ruby in a second- Ruby, who only had days on Glory in terms of reigning time, but seemed to have mastered the whole “ruling a tribe” thing far better than her.
She was kinda jealous, not that she’d admit that to anyone.
“Ruby’s late,” Glory commented to the air, and two NightWings and some trees nodded in response. She was pretty sure the invisible RainWings weren’t necessary, but she’d left the decision of whether to go tree-mode or not to them, and they’d made their decisions.
Minutes passed, and four dragons came into view. “Queen Ruby of the SkyWings,” Glory called out customarily.
“Queen Glory of the Rainwings and NightWings,” Ruby responded, smiling. “I’m glad you could spare me some of your time.”
Glory nodded, returning the smile. Only three guards accompanied Ruby (one on the left, two on the right), and Glory remembered how more dragons had accompanied her last time; it would probably be best to return the display of trust. Using the agreed upon signal, Glory tapped her tail to the ground imperceptibly, and the two RainWing guards slowly revealed themselves.
Two of the SkyWing guards visibly bottled down surprise, but Ruby didn’t emote in the slightest. Everything about the SkyWing seemed unreal. The queen of the RainWings herself still got spooked by RainWings she didn’t see sometimes.
The guard to the rightmost of Ruby didn’t seem surprised either, but maybe his reaction was covered up by the gash across his face. Glory had gotten used to seeing injured dragons, and she imagined the NightWings had as well. She didn’t want to know how her RainWing guards initially reacted.
But something seemed familiar about the injured SkyWing, something she couldn’t place a claw on.
“Well, we’re over the formalities,” Glory said, pushing that to the side of her mind for later. “You proposed a trade last time, and I’ve mulled it over and I wanted to make a revision.”
The meeting droned on for a while before wrapping up, and Glory and Ruby pressed RainWing, NightWing, and SkyWings sigils onto the scroll. “Well,” Ruby smiled wistfully, “Queen Glory, I really must commend you. You’re quite persuasive.” Glory blinked at the compliment. “I came here expecting to not budge, but you drew me in like a moth to a flame.”
“I look forward to our next meeting,” Glory smiled, screeching internally. “Maybe then I can convince you for all your jewelry?”
Ruby chuckled and held out a talon, which Glory shook. “That’d be a feat to see.”
The meeting at an end, Glory, perfectly still and silent, watched the SkyWing quartet fly away.
“Flame!” Glory hissed finally. “Damn her eloquence!”
----
“There wasn’t a mindreader?” Ruby echoed Flame. “That’s so weird. She’s got Moonwatcher and Mindreader- oh, wait, Moonwatcher’s gone. Was Mindreader’s power removed? I don’t remember.”
“Huh?” Flame sensed he’d missed a lot.
“Nothing.” Ruby sighed. “And I had to give up so much for that joke at the end there. Ah, well, whatever will help relations between tribes, I suppose.” She looked at Flame as if expecting a response. Finally, it became clear Flame wasn’t going to give one. “Usually, I tell my guards to not ask questions when they accompany me to meetings with other queens. I gave you no such warning, but you’re not curious? In the slightest?”
“I don’t plan on staying in the Sky Kingdom once my face is fixed.” Flame bit. “So the sociopolitical climate is none of my concern.”
“Really?” Ruby seemed surprised. “If you won’t want to be around other dragons, what do you want your face fixed for?”
Self esteem. “None of your business.”
Ruby laughed out loud, and Flame blew smoke out of his nostrils. “It’s weird, how it feels to have a dragon be blatantly rude to me. Royalty seems to be exempt from that treatment.”
Oh, is that why you keep me around? I’m your court jester? “Probably because, you know, queens find it pretty cool to make public displays of ‘hey, this is what happens when you disrespect me’.”
“Yeah, but in the span of a few years, five of the seven Pyrrhian tribes have seen a new queen. Scarlet wasn’t big on me learning history, probably because she didn’t want me getting any ideas from the vast amount of daughters killing their mothers to take the throne, but I have heavy doubts that this mass queen-changing has ever happened before. It seems like that would change the customs a lot, especially with the new ones being more forgiving than their predecessors.”
“Yeah, but tribe customs aren’t something dragons relate to their individual queens.” Flame retorted. “If on her last day of being queen, Scarlet had executed a dragon for- what’s something totally innocent a SkyWing could do?”
“Wearing purple?” Ruby suggested, staring at Flame, looking both confused and amused.
“Sure, okay. Then, the next day, you become queen: how many SkyWings do you think will wear purple? They don’t know why Scarlet executed a dragon for wearing purple, but they do know that she did. Even if the SkyWings see you as less homicidal than Scarlet, they’re still not going to wear as much purple.”
“But what if they saw me wearing purple?” Ruby asked. Her expression had shifted from one of bemusement to one of interest.
“Then they use that to rationalize the execution. They think ‘oh, Scarlet executed that dragon because only royalty can wear purple’, even if it isn’t true, because dragons view the queen more as a role needing filled than as a dragon. To the average SkyWing, the crown never changes ownership.”
“I disagree,” Ruby said strongly, and Flame suddenly remembered why commoners don’t act like they know more than royalty. “I’ve seen firsthand SkyWings rejoice to be free from Scarlet, and I’ve heard accounts of SandWings who like Thorn more than the princesses they fought for.”
Flame tried to calm himself. He knew the perils of talking back to dragons that can easily kill you (he’d learned this lesson from Morrowseer several thousand times over), and he was used to dragons having less sense than snails, but Ruby’s sheer display of idiocy was pushing him.
“The IceWing culture is one defined by rules. They were defined by rules before Glacier was born, and they stayed that way after she died. The NightWings were terrified of their queen, and as soon as they found themselves led by a RainWing, they were upset, but they didn’t dare revolt, because they had grown used to being ruled by an iron fist. If Coral died this second, would the SeaWings immediately do the things Coral punished them for, to see if they could get away with it, or would they wait until they made sure their new queen would be okay with it?” Flame bit.
~~
“You rang?” Mangrove entered Glory’s “throne room” slowly and silently.
“Remember that time you spied in Blaze’s fortress?” Glory shot him an odd look that Mangrove remembered seeing on Magnificent; conspiring, Mangrove thought, remembering Magnificent’s color and mentally storing it in his mind along with Glory’s current one. “I need you to do that again.”
----
“Where’re you heading off to, Flame?” A soft voice called out from behind him, and Flame inwardly cursed himself and Ruby before turning around. 
“I’m going to get some fresh air.” He said it forcefully, and maintained eye contact with the guard who’d spotted him. He wasn’t sure whether to be surprised or not when she didn’t flinch upon looking at him, because for some odd reason, that hadn’t been happening as much lately. He reminded himself Scarlet was the SkyWing queen not long ago, and that this guard had probably cheered on dragons being burnt to a crisp in the arena.
“Hmm.” The guard frowned at Flame’s excuse. “Well, I can’t blame you. It’s a beautiful night.” She turned purposefully towards the exact same way Flame had been going and marched on.
Flame remembered that old “curiosity killed the cat” joke Morrowseer liked to tell, but something about the guard’s demeanor was just so strange. Ruby would probably be told if the guard didn’t see him again, and he wasn’t exactly sure what lengths Ruby was capable of and readily willing to go to, so he reluctantly continued on the same way he was going.
The guard Flame had seen was overlooking a balcony, though maybe overlooking wasn’t the right word; her eyes seemed to be focusing more upwards than downwards. He walked noiselessly to her and breathed in deeply.
“So what has you up in the dead of night?” The guard asked.
“You haven’t told me your name.” Flame blurted out without thinking.
“Oh, right!” The guard snapped two talons together. “You can call me Harrier. I’ve been a guard here for, uh, probably as long as you’ve been alive.”
Flame looked upwards. Thousands of stars coated the night sky, more than could have ever been seen through the ash clouds constantly obscuring the Night Kingdom. The great expanse had, admittedly, scared him a bit when he’d slept under it the first few times since he’d fled from the SkyWing healers. Up much higher, it gave him that same inkling of terror.
“Flame.” Harrier lowered her voice. “Queen Ruby. What does she want from you?”
Flame blinked. His impression that every SkyWing in the kingdom had fallen head over heels in love with Ruby had shattered. “Huh?”
“You have something that she wants,” Harrier said simply. “She wouldn’t keep you around otherwise, so, what is it?”
“If that were the case, what exactly makes you think I’d tell you?” Flame bit. It suddenly and harshly dawned on him that he was far above the ground, and he imperceptibly shifted his center of balance to be ready to fight or flee.
“Good question.” Harrier looked at Flame sadly. “Some months ago, I asked for more night shifts because they pay better, though I didn’t tell her that last part. Queen Ruby asked why, and I told her because I was having a wedding soon, and.” She breathed deeply, and Flame noticed her repeatedly moving a ring from one talon to the other and back again out of nervousness. “And she looked so happy for me, and she gave me a raise on the spot without even giving me any more night shifts than usual. She’s just so nice, and she’s always been, and you, well, sorry, but I think you bring something out of her, because she’s busier and looks more stressed than she’s ever been.”
Flame opened his mouth, and Nautilus’ words came out. “These are stressful times.”
----
“I trust you had a good sleep?” Ruby asked Flame as the dawn broke, leading him off to the palace entrance.
“One could say,” Flame answered, not entirely sure if Ruby knew that he’d taken a walk around the palace when she was sleeping. “I wouldn’t know. I was asleep for the whole thing.”
Ruby grinned at him, and suddenly, he was less sure of either Ruby knowing or not knowing. “I have a meeting tonight with Queen Thorn, and Queen Glory, if she passed along my message, in the SandWing Palace. I want you there with me.”
“You have a lot more queenly meetings than I thought. And I thought we proved Glory wasn’t bringing mind-”
“Shh!” Ruby put a talon to Flame’s lips. “Walls have ears.”
“What has you so paranoid?” Flame asked, echoing Harrier’s worry. He bit his lip at the memory of their conversation.
“Paranoid?” Ruby shook her head. “I’m reacting appropriately to a new threat. The… mysterious power comes back, and I have a mysterious power detector.”
“Don’t you care at all what Glory thinks about you making me a guard? Don’t you think she’s trying to find the reason as we speak?”
“I do, and I think it’s driving her nuts that she can’t find out, and that’s pretty funny.” Ruby smiled at Flame sweetly. “You have to admit, it’s kind of funny.”
It was kind of funny. “This isn’t funny. You’re vilifying a queen of two tribes for no reason.”
“The SkyWings, RainWings, and NightWings are closer than they have been in the history of Pyrrhia, Flame, driving Glory a little crazier doesn’t matter. It is interesting, though, how quickly you’ve assumed the position of royal advisor. Flame, I’ve heard you used to be a lot angrier; what changed?”
“When I lived on my own, I ran out of things to hate.” Flame answered automatically. He’d been doing that, randomly blurting things out, and it was bugging him. “I had a lot of time to think, and it’s rare that dragons take the time to think.”
“Well, you’ve been promoted to royal advisor. I’ve needed one of those.” Ruby smiled, like she’d gotten something very important done. “We’re going to go to Possibility first, and separately, and I will be accompanied by guards.”
“Do I get one?”
“Sure, whatever, though it has to not look like they’re guarding you. Once it gets late, we, uh, we’ll improvise.”
“Wait.” Ruby and Flame stopped in their tracks. “You need a reason for why you’re in Possibility, if anyone asks, because the meeting isn’t in Possibility, right?”
“What?” Ruby shot Flame a weird look. “I go to Possibility all the time, Flame. How do you think I unwind?”
----
“I still has no idea if she knows.” Flame grimaced, once he and Harrier were alone. “How many guards are there in the Sky Palace at any given time, anyway?”
“A lot of palace workers double as guards,” Harrier informed. “And guards double as palace workers. I help cook, whenever the two head cooks are busy.”
Flame dug into his Jade Mountain Academy bag he’d just been given back that morning. He’d checked, and everything was still in there, which he hadn’t been expecting. “You can cook?”
“Nope!” Harrier grinned. “No, I’m terrible. I just get food out and let the assistant cooks do that part.”
Flame looked around. Why did Possibility have to be so bright, and loud, and colorful? “I don’t have any money on me, so wherever you want to go is where I’ll go. Not that I’d buy anything, anyway.”
Harrier practically dragged Flame around the entirety of Possibility, but she only retrieved any amount of money out of her bag at a jewelry store. Flame waited outside while Harrier bombarded the shopkeeper with questions, and spotted a blue and green RainWing paused underneath a sign labeled “No Invisibility”. He remembered the two seconds of teaching Jade Mountain had given him on RainWing colors and emotions, and frowned; he couldn’t remember what they meant, and he doubted Harrier would be familiar. 
The RainWing caught Flame’s gaze, and his scales flashed white before returning to a flat blue. The RainWing suddenly started walking away, and Flame got the immediate urge to follow.
Extremely luckily, Harrier appeared next to him, holding up two identical necklaces. “Could you put one of these in your bag? Or just hold one, while I put mine on?” Flame wordlessly took one from her, slowly slid it into his satchel, and cringed when it hit something and clinged, but Harrier hadn’t noticed.
“I need a scarf,” Flame lied, watching the RainWing enter a scarf shop, and Harrier choked. “You okay?”
“You want a scarf?” Harrier asked. “I thought you didn’t have any money, and also, you wanting a scarf seems very different from the Flame I’ve both witnessed and heard about.”
“I don’t actually want a scarf,” Flame mumbled. “I think someone recognized me.”
Harrier nodded knowingly. “I could use a scarf myself.”
Category:Content (TheUnFathomable)
Category:Fanfictions
Category:Fanfictions (Canon)
Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete)
Category:Genre (Tragedy)