The Dragon's Forest Chap. 2

***Chapter 2: The CrossWing***

A couple of days after the incident with Sun, Spite heard a strange noise deep in the forest. Spite, Autumn, and Red went to go check it out, hoping it wouldn’t be a threat.

Spite leapt from the ledge, Autumn and Red following. Much to their surprise, They saw a badly injured dragon, unconscious and bleeding.

“Oh, mother of trees!” Spite yelped, “He’s hurt!”

“Spite, go get Quik. He could help lift the dragon up and get him back to the cave!” Autumn commanded.

“Right!” Spite agreed.

As Spite was going to tell Quik, he saw Sparrow and headed in his direction.

“H-hey Sparrow,” Spite stammered. “C-can you help me get an injured dragon into the cave? Just… don’t let Fierce see you.”

“Alright, I’ll help. Where is it?” Sparrow rumbled.

Spite led Sparrow to where the dragon was sitting, still unconscious. Sparrow gently lifted the dragon onto his back, and they flew back to the cave. Spite, Red, and Autumn stayed below Sparrow, just in case the dragon slipped off his back.

“Ok, this is as far as you can go. I’ll take it from here.” Spite told Sparrow, “You were a *great* help. Thank you.”

“He was heavy, even for me,” Sparrow warned. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yes, I'll be fine.” Spite responded.

Spite took the unconscious dragon, Red and Autumn helping to steady Spite. They flew back to the cave carefully, setting the dragon down to examine him and treat his injuries.

Spite gasped. *He’s a CrossWing!* *And a cute one at that*…

Red went out to fetch more leaves from the healing plant, and Spite went to get water with a stone cup. When Spite came back, Red had already put some of the herbs on the wounds and had left the remaining leaf next to the dragon’s snout so that when he woke up he could eat it.

Soon, Spite saw the CrossWing twitch. Slowly, it woke up, confusion and then fear in his eyes as he fully awoke and realized where he was.

“Where am I?” He screeched, trying to get up. “What are you doing to me?”

“Calm down, calm down!” Spite yelped, gently placing a talon on the CrossWing’s shoulder.

Reluctantly, the CrossWing settled down, gazing at Spite fearfully. “Who are you?”

“I’m Spite,” Spite answered calmly. “You’re here because you’re injured, and we wanted to help.”

“Oh.” The CrossWing’s tails curled around his body, and he rested his head on one of them. “I’m Kadaival.”

“Kadaival.” Spite tilted his head. “I like that name.”

Spite strode through the forest, Kadaival by his side. Over the past month, Kadaival had been recovering from his own powers, and Spite had always been there, ready to do anything that Kadaival needed.

“I’m tired,” Kadaival puffed, tripping over a root and falling over. “Can we rest? Please?”

“There’s a sunny spot right up ahead. You can make it!” Spite encouraged Kadaival. He helped him get to the large flat sunny stone, and he flopped down, refusing to move anymore, and fell asleep.

When Kadaival woke up, Spite was ready to attack anything that tried to come near.

“How long was I asleep?” Kadaival yawned.

“About an hour,” Spite replied. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Well, I, uh…” Spite nervously stammered. “Kadaival, you’ve been… how do I put this… you *understand* me. And I… I love that about you. And… I… I love *you.* Do you want to be my mate?”

Kadaival’s eyes widened. “*Yes!*” He cried.

“But I don’t know how the others will take it.” Spite sighed, “We should probably keep this a secret”

When they returned, they were questioned on why they were gone so long. They said Kadaival needed to rest and got off easy. Then, Spite mentioned something interesting.

“Hey, Kadaival.” he said, “I think I remember seeing you once when were little.”

“Really?” Kadaival tilted his head, confused.

“It was before I joined this family.” Spite remembered. “You were running away from a FlameWing, but its flames covered its body. Way more fire than a FlameWing is supposed to have. And its eyes were… *red,* I think.”

“That… would be my dad.” Kadaival sighed. “He tried to kill me that day because I said no to training my powers.”

“That’s terrible.” Spite gasped.

“After that day, I ran away and didn’t even think about turning back.”

“What about your mom?”

“He killed her along with the rest of the family the same day.”

“I heard about that.” Glitch stepped in, “He was a terrible dragon.”

“No, *really*?” Kadaival grumbled sarcastically.

A few days later, Spite and Kadaival went to Phase and pulled her aside. They took her out of the cave to talk.

“What do you want?” Phase grumbled.

“We want to know if you can take some of both of our DNA and…” Spite stammered nervously.

“Well?”

“We want to know if you can take some of both of our DNA and make a dragonet?” Kadaival finished.

“I don’t know if I can, but I can try.” Phase answered.

“Thank you!” they said in unison.

“You’ll need to give me some of your blood.”

“Ok.”

“Ok.”

Phase drew some blood, and got to work making the dragonet.

“It will take a few hours to make the coding for its DNA, and after that, I need to put it in an egg.” Phase reminded, “Male or female?”

“Surprise us.” Kadaival answered.

“Have you told anyone else about you two being mates yet?” Phase asked curiously.

“No, you’re the first one.” Spite sighed, “We don’t know how everyone else will react.”

“You should tell them.” Phase suggested.

A few minutes later, Kadaival and Spite wrote on a leaf with a charred stick saying that they were mates and Phase was helping them make a dragonet with their DNA.

*Me (Spite), and Kadaival are mates and Phase is helping us make a dragonet with our DNA,* it said.

They put the note in front of the rooms in the cave and waited outside the cave. All of the dragons went out and congratulated them.

*Why are they not mad*? Spite thought.

A couple of hours later, Phase was done making the genetic code for the dragonet and then sealed it inside an egg.

“Spite! Kadaival!” Phase roared, “Come on!”

“Coming!” they both yelled. They went into their room and stayed there.

A couple of days passed and they hadn’t eaten anything since going into their room.

“I’m gonna go get something for Spite and Kadaival to eat. I’ll be right back. Beau said, running out of the cave.

"I’ll go too.” Glitch added, following Beau.

A few weeks later, Spite and Kadaival ran out of their room to go tell everyone that the egg was hatching.

“There are two?” Phase wrinkled her snout in confusion.

“They’re both females!” Spite and Kadaival cried.

One of the dragonets had two tails and the ScytheWing mutation, while the other one was a FlameWing. On the one with two tails, Kadival’s ice melted, turning her into a water and fire dragon. The other one was a FlameWing with two colors of fire, green and blue.

“What should we name them?” spite asked Kadaival.

“The FlameWing can be Ember, and the other one can be Nebula.” Kadaival replied.

Quik and Glitch went to go get food for the dragonets.