The Dragonet Prophecy/Chapter 1

The following page will contain detailed information for the events as presented in chapter one of *The Dragonet Prophecy.* There is also a brief summary of the entire book written down in the main article.

## Chapter Description

Clay imagines himself as a brave and heroic dragon, the MudWing savior of the world, able to fix every broken thing. He then recalls that he had no legendary qualities; he lost chickens because he was paying attention to his friends, and he preferred sleeping rather than studying. He thinks back to how he was all right at fighting, but he needed to be terrifyingly dangerous if he were to save the tribes of Pyrrhia.

His attacker, a red dragon, flings him across the cavern and rakes her talons over his face as he struggles to get back up after crashing into a rock wall. She orders him to feint to the left, roll to the right, and use his fire. However, Clay rolls in the wrong direction and gets smashed into the ground. He lets out a yelp of pain as Kestrel roars about his stupidity.

Clay lets a rebellious thought enter his mind, and he tries to protest before he hears a familiar hiss that supposedly comes before each of her fire attacks. He tries to defend himself, throwing his wings over his head and neck, before rolling into a group of salagmites at the corner of the cave. Flames suddenly blast around him and burn the tip of his tail.

Kestrel bellows that he is a coward, and she smashes one of the stalagmites into pebbles. Clay covers his eyes, and feels his tail being stamped down. He yells that stomping tails was cheating, but Kestrel retorts that she is her teacher and that nothing she did was cheating. She orders him to get down a fight like a SkyWing, and Clay rebelliously thinks that he's not a SkyWing.

He asks Kestrel if he could fight one of the others instead. He recalls that the other Dragonets of Destiny were nearly his own size and they almost never cheated. The huge red dragon replies by angrily asking him whether or not he wanted the stunted SandWing or the lazy RainWing, later confirmed to be Sunny and Glory. As she lashes her tail, she remarks that he'll surely get to choose on the battlefield.

Clay responds by saying that Glory wasn't lazy, but she simply wasn't built for fighting, since there wasn't much to fight about in the rainforest due to having plenty of food. He is about to add more when Kestrel interrupts him with a roar, rearing up on her hind legs and flaring her wings, so that she looked three times bigger than normal.

Clay feels alarmed and tries to leap onto another stalagmite, but Kestrel is faster than him and seizes his tail with her teeth, before yanking him back out. The red dragon hisses that they all needed the violent little monster she had seen when he hatched from his egg. Just as she finishes, Clay feels the burn scars on her palms scraping across his scales, and he believes that this was the end of his battle training that day.

Clay tells himself to get mad and fight back, but he recalls that he was still a year from being fully grown and that Kestrel still towered over him. He tries to get himself to have some violent rage, although he can only think of his next dinner. Just then, Kestrel lets out a roar and drops him, before he sees fire blasting over his head.

Clay looks around to see Tsunami, the SeaWing Dragonet of Destiny, glaring defiantly at Kestrel with a red-gold scale caught between her teeth. Tsunami spits out the scale, and growls to Kestrel for her to stop bullying Clay or she'd bite her again. The red dragon bares her teeth as she retorts that the SeaWing was protecting the dragon who tried to kill her inside her egg.

Clay winced at her words, recalling the time that he attacked the other eggs and that the othr guardians, Webs and Dune, had to throw him in the river to protect the other dragonets. He also remembers that Kestrel wanted him to use that inner monster when he was fighting, but Clay was reminded himself that he and everyone else would hate him if he did so.

Kestrel finishes by saying that she would mark another failure in his scroll after their battle training, and Clay immediately flops down onto the floor with pain once she leaves the cave. He remarks that she would be so mean to Tsunami during her battle training, which was tomorrow, and the SeaWing replies sarcastically that that would be so unexpected and out of character.

Clay groans that she wouldn't make him laugh, as he thinks that his ribs are broken, and Tsunami responds that his ribs are not broken and that dragon bones were about asw hard as diamonds. She orders him to get up and jump in the river. Clay recalls that Tsunami's solution for everything, despite the fact that only she could breathe underwater and that most dragons didn't like being wet.

Clay later remembers that he didn't mind being wet, as long as he wasn't cold, and the underground river flowing through their cave was freezing. Tsunami repeats her order, grabbing his tail and dragging him towards the river. She remarks that he would feel better, and Clay protests that he would not and that he would only feel colder, though his struggles stopped as he got dumped into the river.

When he reached the surface of the water, Clay feels like a gawky brown blob compared to Tsunami, who was splashing water over her scales in a graceful way. He swims back to the shallows and lays down onto an underwater rock ledge, and silently admits that he did feel better, though the current was still too cold and he wished that there was some mud at the bottom.

Tsunami says that Kestrel would be sorry one day, when she was queen of the SeaWings. Clay replies that he thought only daughters or sisters could challenge a queen for the throne, silently wishing that he had gills or webs between her claws after seeing her swimming form. Tsunami responds by saying that, perhaps her mother was the queen and she was a princess.

Clay recalls that, one of the scrolls that their guardians picked up was called *The Missing Princess*. It told of a story about a royal runaway SeaWing whose family tore the oceans looking for her. Clay remembers how he skipped the adventures in the middle as he loved the last part the best, about the reunited family and the feasting.

He suddenly wonders aloud who his parents her, while Tsunami adds if they were still alive. Clay admits that he didn't like to think about that, and how even though their guardians brought back bloody news, he still had to keep hoping that his parents were alive. He wonders if they ever missed them, and Tsunami jumps in agreement, saying that her parents must have been frantic. Clay responds by adding that his must have tore the marshes looking for him, and he recalls how they had all imagined scenes about their desperate parents.

Tsunami remarks bitterly that the Talons of Peace knew what they were doing, as nobody would find them in their current location. Clay tries to reassure her by saying that their guardians would have to let them out sometime, since they had to save the world eventually. He adds that Starflight said it was only two more years. Tsunami replies that they would save the world first, and then go home.

Clay agrees, though he is unsure of how they could save the world, though he pushes the thought away, thinking that they were going to find out eventually. He pulls himself out of the river, his body drenched and heathed only slightly by the torches. Tsunami suddenly wonders aloud if they could leave sooner than two years, before gracefully pulling herself of out the water.

Clay is startled at her sudden words, and wonders if they could survive on their own. Tsunami replies by saying that they could, and that she was ready to save the world, though Clay doubts that he feels the same way. The SeaWing exasperately tries to reassure him, and points out that the whole point of the prophecy was so that they could save the world and stop the war.

Clay wonders if they could do that, but in two years, though Tsunami stubbornly tells him to think about it, which he agrees to. Just then, she cocks her head and remarks that she heard dinner, before racing out the tunnel behind them. Clay follows her, folding his wings as he thinks about how Tsunami was crazy.

He points out that, not only did they not know how to survive on their own, there were several dangerous things that could hurt the other three dragonets: Glory, Sunny, and Starflight. Still, he silently admits that he did wonder how it would be like to go home right then instead of waiting two more years. He thinks about the marshes and his parents, and wonders if the dragonets could suvive outside and save the world their own way.

## Characters

### Major

* Clay
* Tsunami

### Mentioned

* Glory
* Sunny
* Starflight
* Webs
* Dune
* Cattail [not directly mentioned]
* Coral [not directly mentioned]
* Gill [not directly mentioned]