Sakura Tree

~CHAPTER THREE~

*GORE WARNING*

Sakura had shown him all around town already, and now she was showing him around the palace. The tour around the village had already made Grasshopper much more comfortable around the Forestwings, and he could already tell he would be exploring much more on his own instead of hiding in his room, away from the kingdom.

Sakura had already explained to him the basic layout of the castle, shown him the direction to the hospital and introduced him to the maids. One of the maids seemed strange- one called Rainbow, with blue scales streaked with yellow, orange, pink, and green. Her eyes were rainbow, too, and intrigued Grasshopper.

Sakura had also shown him all the rooms, and was now taking him to the throne room. "Mother won't be here at this time, so I should be good to show you the- never mind, you'll see," she broke off when she caught Grasshopper staring at her, interested.

Sakura flung herself into the throne room, and Grasshopper bounded right behind her. While striding up to the throne, Sakura pulled a thin necklace holding three keys off of her neck. She walked right up to the throne and shoved it aside. Behind where the throne was before was a locked tunnel. Sakura shoved one of the keys into the lock and swung open the door, to reveal a small tunnel that a full-grown dragon would have trouble squeezing into. Sakura pinned her wings to the side and crawled into the tunnel. Grasshopper copied her, only to find that the tunnel was much shorter than expected and he almost immediately found himself in a much more open space where he could stretch his wings and stand up straight.

"Most of the dragons in here have forgotten how to fly," Sakura snarled. "Welcome to our dungeons." Grasshopper also realized, now, that if he stood on his hind legs he could scratch the roof of the dungeon. The dungeons were two wing-lengths long. Every few feet there was a length of thick vine bars. Most of the cages held Leafwings or Hivewings, and occasionally Silkwings, and everybody had a blindfold on. The only lighting came from a glowing plant set on torch stands somewhere in between each cage.

There was only silence until one Leafwing they passed stood up and spoke. He thrust his head through the bars and inhaled. "Nuder Leafwing prisoner, eh? Or did your tribe finally come out and get a hybrid?" the Leafwing chuckled. Sakura snarled and slashed open a scar on the Leafwings talon.

"He's not a prisoner, he's a guest," Sakura snatched Grasshopper's talon and continued, storming, through the dungeons. The Leafwing's voice echoed through the halls towards them.

"Mmm. So it'sh a Chinch thing, eh? Y'knowre, Chinch would've been King if yall'ses tribe hadn't gone so cuckoo over his plan. Wisteria-" Sakura let go of Grasshopper's talon and slowly walked over to the Leafwing, her talonsteps not making a single echo. Before the Leafwing could say one more thing, Sakura clamped his mouth shut and tore off his blindfold. The Leafwing's eyes widened, but only for a second, because his shrieks told Grasshopper exactly what was happening. Blood pooled onto the ground and the Leafwing retaliated. Sakura walked over to Grasshopper, and behind her the blindfold floated lightly to the ground.

"That leafwing never did know when to shut up, but he won't have that problem anymore," Sakura snorted with laughter, and wiped her blood-stained talons on the ground. Grasshopper was too stunned to speak. He could hear small murmurings, but they quickly stopped. Grasshopper glanced back and saw the dragon in the cage opposite the Leafwing who had spoken shoving herself at the back of the cage, a Hivewing.

He saw a tongue and two lumps that looked like eyes lying in the pool of blood. Grasshopper shivered and looked ahead. Sakura took another key and opened another door. The inside of this tunnel was pitch black, and even skinnier. Grasshopper gulped and entered the tunnel right after Sakura plunged in. The tunnel curved down so steeply Grasshopper thought he was going to fall.

After a long time crawling through the tunnel, Sakura exited the tunnel and light poured in. Grasshopper slipped out behind her and gasped. A huge white room, bigger than the outer view of the palace, was what Grasshopper now stood in. At least a dozen ledge's stuck out from the walls, providing a landing space to look at the cells that lined all the walls, this time covered by thick, metal bars.

In the center of the room a huge, hollow, cylindrical glass pillar reached from the floor to the roof. Inside of the tube a glowing hot orange liquid flowed. It entranced Grasshopper. He went toward it, and just as he was about to touch it with his talon, Sakura snatched his talon away. Grasshopper whipped around to face her, but she was looking up.

"This part of the prison is where the most dangerous prisoners are. The ones that actually harmed the Forestwing's, instead of just wandering onto our territory," Sakura said, but not in a way that seemed explanatory, just to herself.

While Sakura stood, just as awestruck as Grasshopper, near the 'entrance', Grasshopper flew all the way to the very top and final level. He flew a half circle around the cells before landing and walking the rest of the way. Now that he was back where he started, he glanced into the cell. All he could see was a silhouette of a dragon pressing themselves against the back wall. He walked along the ledge to the left of the cage with the dragon silhouette.

He gasped in surprise when he saw the dragon curled up inside the cage. It was a Silkwing, but the shiny blood-red scales were covered with scars and scratches and tears. One of his horns was torn, and he had a thick blindfold curling around his horns and covering his vision.

At his gasp, the Silkwing flicked his tail and wings and stood up, facing Grasshopper. Now that the Silkwing wasn't curled up, he saw that the entire right side of the Silkwing face was torn up, and Grasshopper could only imagine what was under the blindfold. The other side of his face was also excessively torn.

The Silkwing thrust his head through the bars, and Grasshopper yelped and threw himself back in surprise. He could feel his talons almost scrape off the edge of the ledge. He regained his footing as the SIlkwing fluttered his shredded wings and flexed his claws.

"Did the Forestwings fight you too?" The dragon's voice was scrapy, but he sounded just like a Forestwing. As if he had grown up there. "Are they all going to throw you in a top cell, too? Maybe Mezereon will get a normal cell for once..." The dragon trailed off, his straight-forward gaze drifting to Grasshopper's left. "My name's Chinch. How about you help me, and take off my blindfold. Sakura should have the keys."

Grasshopper shook his head in disgust, then remembered that the dragon couldn't see him. "N-no. I'm not a prisoner, Chinch-" Grasshopper half-yelped when he felt the smoothness of Sakura's talon grip his mouth shut. He could hear her mumble under her breath about him telling everybody too much, but when he turned to look at her, she was looking at the ground, her legs wobbly.

Grasshopper thought it seemed kind of obvious, at least now, that Sakura and Chinch had a history. Something horrible. Then the Leafwing back in the normal dungeon's words popped into Grasshopper's mind. Something about Grasshopper being similar to Chinch...

"We never speak to the top-level prisoners. Even the youngest dragonets know that, if they ever visit," Sakura mumbled the last part. Sakura snapped her head up to glare Grasshopper in the eyes, and she slowly released her talon from his snout. "The top-level prisoners are the number-one most dangerous from each tribe," Sakura froze.

"What about Forestwings?" Grasshopper asked.

Sakura's eyes glittered. "No Forestwing's have been stupid enough to rebel. Come on, this tours over," Sakura snapped, and flew down to exit the prison.