Chapter One[]
Mature Content
This page may contain profanity, violence, mild gore, or other forms of mature content.
This was it. Part of me was nervous, the rest was excited. I was finally here! At Jade Mountain Academy, run by the Dragonets of Destiny!
I was about to enter the mountain, when a dark green dragonet who looked about my age ran smack bang into me.
“Ah!” I yelled as all mine and the other dragonet’s scrolls went flying.
“Oi!” The other dragonet screeched, their wings flared. I could see now that they were female, and they were a LeafWing. “Um...Hi?” I said, hesitantly. The other dragonet stared at me. I could understand why. Anyway, I took the chance to get a closer look at her.
I saw that although at first glance she looked like a normal LeafWing, now that I looked closer I could see that she had small neon green star shaped scales on the underside of her wings, and along the sides of her body. She also had some interesting teardrop neon green scales in the corners of her eyes.
I deduced that this must be Nightshade, The schools only LeafWing and one of three NightWing hybrids.
“You must be Nightshade?” I asked Nightshade. “Yes. I am.” She replied, “You’re Aloe.”
“How did you know?” I wondered aloud. “I saw it in your mind. Yeah, I’m a mind reader.”
I was shocked. All I could think was WHAT!! The first other dragonet I’d met, and she could read my mind! She probably knew that I... Wait! No! Don’t think about it! Recite pi. 3.141592653582723238. 3.141592653582723238. 3.14... Ok. Phew.
Nightshade was waiting patiently for me to calm down with a slightly amused expression on her face.
“How about we go in and find out our winglets?” She suggested, grinning. I replied with, “You read my mind.”
As we wandered down the corridors, looking for our sleeping cave, we compared scrolls, and swapped stories. Before long, it felt like we were on our way to being best friends.
Nightshade suddenly broke into a wide smile. “You really think so? That’s great! Oh look, we’re sharing a sleeping cave with another dragonet our age.”
I cringed. I’d forgotten to worry about having my mind read. And the mood ring eyes and my tinted wings and ruff from my RainWing dad didn’t help either.
“We are too!” I said, constantly ignoring the muddy green that was seeping it’s way into my eyes, wings, neck and ruff scales.
I tried to push it back from my wings, ruff and neck, but I couldn’t change my eyes. I started to get frustrated. Why couldn’t mum have fallen in love with another SandWing? I look so weird. What with my eyes and wings changing color according to my mood, and my ruff at all, and the fact that I have no tail barb, I’m just so strange!
“Your eyes are a really weird color,” Nightshade said, derailing my train of thought. “They’re a kind of muddy orange..? Or is it green? NO! It’s both! Let’s see...”
“Can you please not read my mind?” I said, my eyes turning slightly more orange. “Oh, sorry. I don’t do it on purpose you know. I wonder if someone here has some skyfire we can get you?” She replied, then stopped.
We had reached our sleeping cave, and inside was a SeaWing.
Well at first glance she looked like a SeaWing. Then she stood up and I could see that she has bright orange fiery eyes, extremely large wings, orange glow stripes, and, most surprisingly, smoke coming out of her nostrils.
She stood up, stretched, and flared her wings majestically. “Hi?” I said, hesitantly. “Shush!” She shushed. “I’m trying to look important. I am related to the head of school. I’m Princess Storm. Who’re you?”
“I’m Aloe, and this is Nightshade.” I replied, still a little unsure about Storm. Can you suss her out? I thought at Nightshade.
Aloud, I said, “Are you a hybrid or something? I didn’t know that SeaWings could be orange.”
“Yes. I am,” she replied with a shrug. “My dad is one of the SeaWing princes, and my mum’s some SkyWing. I’ve never met her.”
“Well that makes three of us. I’m a Leaf/Night hybrid, and Aloe here is a Sand/Rain. Do you have any skyfire?” Nightshade said that last bit like she already knew the answer, which, obviously, she did.
“Yeah, why?” Storm asked. “Because I’m a mind reader.”
I don’t know why, and I never will, but Storm acted almost completely unsurprised by this information. She lifted up the necklace she was wearing, pulled it over her head, and passed it to me.
She must have noticed the surprised and concerned expression on my face, and my orangey-purple eyes, because she explained: “I have another one.” Storm held up her bracelet, which up until that moment I had thought was just tigers eye.
Sparkling there in the middle was a small piece of skyfire. “Will it be enough?” I wondered. “Yes.” Nightshade replied, “It will.”
At that very moment, the ground started to shake.
“EARTHQUAKE!!” we screamed in unison. We bolted into the hallway and joined the back of a long stream of students trying to escape the mountain.
As we reached the end of the corridor, we heard somebody panting behind us. It was Ash, the MudWing in our winglet.
There was a huge rock trapping his tail.
“Hi? Little help here?” He said, waving his talons at the rock.
“No!” Said Nightshade, sounding...what was it...scared! I mean, even if we hadn’t actually met him yet, he was in our winglet! We should help him!
I was just telling Nightshade this, when the tunnel collapsed around us, squashing him flat.
Now, you probably don’t want all the gory details, but I’m going to give them to you anyway.
There was blood everywhere. And brains, and guts. Storm looked like she was about to be sick, but Nightshade just looked blank. I looked down. One of his talons had come flying off and was lying at my feet. Ew. “Now you see why I didn’t want you helping him? We all could have died then!” Nightshade exclaimed, “Now hurry! We need to get out of the mountain! I can see at least three futures where one or more of us dies today!”
I shot her a look of the we-will-be-talking-about-this-later variety, and all three of us turned and sprinted into the great hall.