[Title] Prologue Stunning sat in his room and toyed with a mouse that had snuck in through the cracked walls of his home. The NightWings had built a home in the rainforest that they had been welcomed to stay in. He still remembered his mother yelling at him to move faster and get off the volcano and the feeling it had given him when it had exploded. “Move faster, you snail!” his mother yelled. He kept his head down and moved as fast as he could, which wasn’t very fast. The volcano was going to explode! They got through the tunnel just a few moments before it erupted, sending lava flowing everywhere. They had to swear allegiance to the RainWing queen, Queen Glory. Stunning didn’t glance back to see if his mother had survived, he just agreed to live under Glory’s laws and hurried into the forest. He was going to survive. The mouse had stopped struggling between Stunning’s claws, so he plopped it in a little wooden box he had made a few days ago. He glanced over at his mechanism, which was meant to catch prey when they tripped over the trap. He’d finished it two minutes ago, testing whether or not all the parts and pieces of the contraption linked together and worked flawlessly. But now he had actual prey to test it on. “Mother,” he called out into the dark hallway, “Please come here.” A quick moment later, he heard large talons walking along wood to his room. Mother stood in his doorway, her dark purple scales glittering in the small amount of moonlight streaming through the window. “What do you want?” she hissed dangerously, her tail lashing behind her. “Just look.” Stunning said without emotion. He placed the mouse in the box under his creation and pulled on a string attached to the back. The string he pulled caused a wheel to turn, and the turning wheel hit a sharp animal bone, which twirled around and sliced a second string that was holding up a cage, and the cage fell and trapped the mouse. Mother stared at the trap. She knocked it over with one quick swing of her tail and stormed out of the room, looking bored. Stunning sighed, removed the mouse from the caged box, and tossed it out the window. He shouldn’t have expected anything positive from his mother; he might as well be the only NightWing dragonet who didn’t get any affection from his parent. He slithered over to a dark corner and curled up with his tail looped around his talons, resting his head on a blanket of leaves. I’m too tired to even stay up and invent something, he thought as his eyelids closed and he fell into a dream-filled slumber. Chapter One: Friends? Ocelot gazed up at the Rainforest School. This is the new school, she thought anxiously, wrapping her snake around her claws. She glanced down at the white scales on her pet. Poison, you’re safe with me. The snake flicked his tongue in and out of his mouth as she rested him around her shoulders, as if responding to her thoughts. The RainWings and NightWings around her were flying through the doorway, some of them looked excited and some of them looked bored, but Ocelot was more nervous than anything. She looked down at her color changing scales, which had turned pale blue with freckles of white here and there. Worry and fear, she realized instantly. She quickly changed them to look more dignified; a gold base with a tiger stripe pattern of pink along her back, down her tail, and around her snout. From around her neck, Poison let out a hiss of displeasure, so she added some indigo – Poison’s favorite color – bands around her talons. Her snake slithered down her arm and curled up around the new sprout of color to show that he approved of the change. A RainWing who looked to be a half a year older than Ocelot trotted up to her side and looked down at her with hazel eyes. “Ocelot, huh? The jittery, nervous dragonet everyone’s talking about? Watch your back; they don’t like you at all. Trust me. I know what that feels like, and you should probably try and stay away from a few of ‘em for a while. I can protect ‘ya if ‘ya really want me to.” she said. Some of her words didn’t come out right, like she was trying to say them but was also trying not to say them wrong, making them come out funny in the process. Ocelot looked up at her without saying a word. “Well?” the dragon asked, her blue and purple scales glimmering in the sun. “Oh! Um, okay.” Ocelot’s wings shivered as a cold breeze passed over them. “Alright, I’ll be lookin’ out for ‘ya. By the way, my name’s Civet. Ha, ha, that’s cool, we both have cat names. Bye now!” the dragon exclaimed. She took off and flew towards the school, twirling and dipping her wings playfully in the air. “She seems nice.” said a voice beside her, making her jump. She turned and looked at the dragon who’d spoken. He was a NightWing who looked younger than Civet, but older than Ocelot, and his scales were a very dark blue-ish color. He looked back at her with unusual pale green eyes. “Sorry, sorry! I’m not that good at, uh, talking to – to anyone
, really.” His voice sounded as nervous as Ocelot felt, but he was just sitting there, with no expression on his face and no sign of shakiness in his wings, which were a dark indigo color speckled with glittering white scales that looked like stars. I knew they had those on their wings, but I never knew how cool they looked, she thought curiously. “It’s fine; really, I’m not that good at talking. Either. Yeah.” she had hurriedly added the last two words, hoping it would make her sound as if she knew what she was doing, but it only made her sound like she didn’t know what she was doing, and it made some of the scales on her tail turn orange, but she quickly changed them back to her first-day-of-school pattern. The NightWing shuffled his wings with a shrug and curled his tail around his talons. “I’m Stunning. Except I’m not stunning, it’s just my name.” he explained quietly. Ocelot didn’t think he looked like the type of dragon that had a lot of social experience. So we’re the same. “Ocelot. And my name isn’t quite right either. I’m not fast, after all. Although I do prefer to play in the dark.” she introduced herself. She was probably imagining things when she saw Stunning shiver at the words ‘play in the dark’. “A-alright. I’m gonna go inside so I’m not late for class.” he muttered as he flew away. Maybe Civet and Stunning could be my friends, Ocelot thought hopefully, uncoiling Poison to put him back around her shoulders. Might as well follow him inside, I don’t wanna be late either. She made sure Poison was holding on tight and flew over to the school, where dragons were hanging out and talking about who was in what class, and if they got to take breaks for suntime, and all sorts of other RainWing nonsense Ocelot never really caught onto. It wasn’t that she disliked the RainWing traditions; she just didn’t feel comfortable lounging around in the sun with loads of dragons and eating bananas all day. She’d much rather go on a night time adventure on her own, where she could catch prey and leave the rainforest without other RainWings yelling at her for hurting wildlife and being stupid enough to leave the ‘perfect home that other tribes are probably so jealous of’ (this was what the other RainWings always thought of their home, even though they most likely knew how the other tribes didn’t care at all about anything the RainWings decided to do). The inside of the school was very bright, sunlight filtering through every translucent surface and window, glinting off the excited faces of RainWing dragonets. She could still see Stunning as he turned a corner to get to history class. I bet he knows what class we have first, he seems smart, Ocelot thought, and followed the quiet NightWing down the sunny hallway. The walls were made of giant leaves and twigs that had been weaved together, some parts had been painted with vibrant oranges and yellows. Ocelot stumbled into the history classroom and glanced around the room. Dragons were seated in rows facing the front of the room, where an older RainWing was examining papers, probably to read to the class, and obviously failing. She trotted over to sit between Stunning and Civet, who were both looking at her when she came over. Civet looked down at her with a playful grin on her face, her scales a shade of yellow dappled with pink and purple. It wasn’t until now that Ocelot had realized how big she was. To her left, Stunning folded in his starry wings and looked down at his shiny black talons as she shifted her gaze to him. “Something wrong?” she asked, feeling Civet watching her curiously. Stunning shrugged offhandedly, not looking up to meet her eyes. She looked her head to look over at Civet, who was looking right back at Ocelot. Her grin been replaced with a confused look. Her scales had changed from her excited colors to green and blue. “Heya, NightWing,” she looked over Ocelot to look at Stunning, “You’s obviously got somethin’ weighin’ ‘ya down. You can tell us what’s got ‘ya! We gonna be ‘yer friends!” Ocelot blinked at her. Did she really mean that? It was quite a statement. Meeting a dragon for the first time and immediately deciding that you would be friends and trust each other? Ocelot didn’t like the queasy feeling she had when thinking about blindly trusting a random stranger. Although maybe she could be friends with Stunning, if she really wanted to be. Friends could be useful, if you knew how to use them properly. Stunning sighed and looked over at Ocelot instead of Civet. “Tell her no.” he whispered to her so Civet couldn’t hear him. “Why? Can’t you just tell her yourself?” The NightWing shivered briefly for a moment and kept his mouth shut. Is he scared of her? She didn’t understand how anyone could be scared of Civet. She just seemed so friendly and pleasant! Civet poked her with her tail and flapped her wings, which seemed to be a signal to tell her what he’d said. Ocelot’s eyes flickered to Stunning’s [ look inside for the whole story ]~@Wolf767
