Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Saiwing

“Quik! Where are you?!” Glitch, Spite, and Red all cried. Quik had been away for some time ever since he left to go get food for his mate, Fierce. She hadn’t eaten in days because she was trying to protect her eggs, which would hatch any day now. Glitch went to her mother, Phase, and her father, Beau, so they could help look for Quik.

“Mom, Dad, we need your help looking for Quik, he’s missing!” Glitch yelped frantically as she neared them.

“He’ll be back soon, he’s the fastest SwiftWing we’ve ever seen.” Phase sighed, sunning herself on a rock.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Beau added.

“You guys!” Glitch snapped. “What if he’s hurt? Or lost?”

“As Phase said, he’s fast. He’s also strong. He’ll be fine. He knows what to do if something happens. If he was hurt, he would find a way to message you and your friends.” Beau grumbled. “Now go away. We’re tired.”

Glitch stomped off, going back to Spite and Red. “They’re no help.” She scowled. “They keep saying he’ll be fine and we don’t need to look for him.”

“I mean, maybe he is fine. We have to hope for that, y’know?” Spite sighed. “It’s a good thing if he’s not hurt.”

“You’re right,” Glitch sat down. “Maybe I need to worry less. But he’s been gone awhile. I should probably catch something for Fierce.”

“You should. Me and Spite will go to Fierce’s cave and tell her you’re getting something.” Red agreed. “Good luck.”

“Thanks!” Glitch shouted over her shoulder as she flew away. She glided over the forest, looking around with her sharp eyes for something to catch for Fierce. She caught sight of some large predatory bird and quickly caught it.

“Oh, thank you so much, Glitch,” Fierce sighed with relief as Glitch landed in her cave. “I’m starving.”

“No problem,” Glitch rumbled.

A few days passed. Glitch, Red, and Spite had taken turns getting small prey for Fierce, at least until Quik came back.

A loud roar came from the forest, jolting Glitch awake. Red and Spite both leapt up as well, and Fierce gave Glitch a worried glance.

Glitch trotted over to the entrance to the cave, and something flashed by. A larger shape followed it.

Quik!

Quik was being chased by a massive HawkWing. HawkWings weren’t as fast as Quik, but they were definitely more agile. The HawkWing easily wove among the trees much faster than Quik was able to.

“Quik!” Glitch shouted, launching herself off the ledge and toward the HawkWing. But something else beat her to it.

An even larger dragon than the HawkWing burst from the forest, slamming into her with a snarl.

Quik shot around them and flew over to Glitch.

“Come on!” He shouted, darting for the cave. Glitch glanced at the fighting HawkWing and—was that a SaiWing?—and then followed Quik.

“We were worried about you, you’ve been gone for days.” Glitch roared in concern. They heard a happy cry as they approached the den in which Fierce was laying.

“The eggs are hatching!” Fierce yelped happily as she saw one of the eggs shake.

“Fierce!” Quik cried excitedly. Quik ran as fast as he could to get to Fierce, making it just in time to see the first dragonet emerge from its egg.

“It’s a female!” Fierce exclaimed, inspecting the tiny dragonet.

There was a shriek of pain outside as the SaiWing threw the HawkWing onto a rock. Glitch poked her head outside and saw the HawkWing take flight and speed away.

The SaiWing turned its head around to look at Glitch.

It’s one of the masked ones, Glitch thought uneasily. The masked ones were terrifying. The SaiWing began to fly slowly toward Glitch and the cave. Glitch backed away, spreading her wings to block as much of the entrance as she could.

The SaiWing landed on the very edge of the ledge, keeping a respectful distance.

“Is the SwiftWing all right?” He rumbled, tilting his head in Quik’s direction.

“Uh y-yes, Quik is all r-right,” Glitch stammered.

“Good.” The SaiWing murmured. “Quik is his name? What is yours?”

“I don’t want to tell you that.” Glitch tried to stretch her wings out farther.

“Hm.” The SaiWing tilted his head slightly. “I’ll tell you my name. It’s Sparrow.”

“I still don’t have to tell you mine,” Glitch replied stubbornly.

“All right. I’ll be… hanging around in the forest if you ever need me.” Sparrow shook himself and flew away.

Glitch watched him go.

“Maybe he’ll be useful,” Red murmured, sliding up to Glitch. “He could help defend the eggs.”

“That’s up to Quik and Fierce to decide,” Glitch snapped.

“Then I’ll go tell them about the SaiWing—”

“His name is Sparrow.”

“Fine—I’ll tell them about Sparrow and see what they think.” Red grumbled, rolling his eyes. He turned around and vanished into the cave.

Glitch followed. She wanted to see if any more of the eggs had hatched.

When she arrived at the nest, two of the dragonets were hatched and playing with each other, and the other two were shaking and cracking.

“We’ve named them,” Quik murmured. “The female is named Blue, and the male is named Sun.”

One of the eggs crumbled, and a red-and-cyan dragonet tumbled out, squeaking. Blue and Sun paused in their wrestling around and tottered over to the new dragonet, checking her out.

“I was thinking about Lagoon,” Fierce whispered to Quik.

“And if there’s another female, she should be named Invevee.” Quik whispered back.

Lagoon joined Blue and Sun in their playing, all three dragonets squeaking happily. A little later, the last egg was hatching and eventually came out of its shell. It was also a female.

“It’s a female!” Quik cried. “We can name her Invevee.”

Fierce pushed Invevee with her nose over to the other dragonets. She curled up and fell asleep as the dragonets tumbled around.

Glitch rested her snout on her tail and fell asleep as well.

Sun was acting strange as the others were about to fall asleep. He moped over to his dad and whimpered, but Quik did not know what was going on.

“Hey.” Quik whispered to Glitch, waking her up. “Sun is acting strangely, can you help?”

“The SaiWing, Sparrow, approached me earlier and said he was happy to help you. He said he’d be in the forest if we ever needed him.”

“Okay, fine, but don’t let anyone else find out.” Quik whispered, trying not to wake Fierce up.

As Glitch went to the spot where she and Sparrow met, she saw the HawkWing from earlier fly past. Glitch pushed Quik into a bush and hid with him.

“Okay, good. She didn’t see us.” Glitch sighed in relief. As they continued through the forest, they looked around, trying to find Sparrow. Finally, they spotted him and headed over to where he was snoozing on a rock.

“Sparrow,” Glitch whispered, nudging Sparrow. “Quik needs your help.”

“We, uh, we were wondering if you could help my son, Sun,” Quik stammered, nervous in the presence of the massive SaiWing.

Sparrow stretched, grunting. “You need my help now, eh? Don’t worry, I’ll help. I got nothin’ else to do anyway.”

“Thank you!” Quik sighed with relief.

They led Sparrow back to the cave, where they had to introduce him to the other dragons.

“Guys, this is Sparrow. Don’t get all aggressive, Red, he’s here to help us with Sun and everything.” Glitch grumbled at Red.

“Sun!” Fierce screamed as Sun collapsed on the ground.

They all rushed over to Sun, Sparrow beside them.

“So this is Sun, I presume?” Sparrow asked.

“Yes, and he’s not doing so well.” Quik murmured sadly.

“Hmm. Come with me. I think I know what to do.” He lifted his head and darted out of the cave, landing in the forest and swinging his head around, sniffing for something.

They followed Sparrow through the thick forest and saw a bunch of bushes clumped together as if there was something behind it. When they pushed through the bushes, they spotted three glowing plants, with thick leaves. One of them was blue, one of them was purple, and the other was red.

“Two of these plants are poisonous. One of them will cure Sun.” Sparrow murmured ominously. “But I do not know which one is the cure. That is for you to find out.”

“In my experience, red things are dangerous, especially when it comes to plants.” Glitch blurted out.

“So rule red out?” Spite asked.

“The plants change color. You cannot trust the color to be correct.” Sparrow told them.

“How do you know so much about these plants?” Red challenged Sparrow.

“I have been studying them for a while.” Sparrow responded. “But I have never needed to use them to heal. That’s why I don’t know which one to use. But, in a book I once read, the one that stays purple the longest usually is the one that heals.”

And so they sat and waited. Soon, two of the plants changed color, and the purple one stayed purple.

“That’s the one. It has to be,” Glitch stared down at the plant.

Red reached toward it and tore a leaf away. “We just have to hope,” He murmured.

The dragons flew back to the cave, Red clutching the shimmering purple leaves. When they landed at the entrance, Fierce’s head shot up, hope gleaming in her eyes.

“We found something that might help,” Red informed her, pushing the leaves toward Sun. He woke up soon after because of the sweet scent, ate it instantly, and fell back asleep.

After Sparrow left, Fierce scolded Glitch, Red, Quik, and Spite.

“Why did you bring a masked SaiWing!?”

“He saved Quik from a HawkWing.” Glitch whimpered in fear of Fierce.

“That doesn’t matter,” Fierce snapped, “Masked SaiWings are nothing but trouble!”

“Don’t bring that up, please,” Red said sadly. “Besides, the one that did that was different. He was larger, and clearly more vicious.”

“That’s enough!” Autumn stepped in. “That happened 10 years ago. We don’t need to be reminded of—”

“Don’t.” Fierce snapped, “Say. His name.”