Sakura Tree

~CHAPTER NINE~

Grasshopper twined his tail with Sakura's. She had severely exaggerated how forbidden their relationship was, especially since her mother already disapproved of Grasshopper being in the kingdom. Sakura jerked her tail away from his and tucked it over her front talons. She stood up and walked over to the nearest shelf.

Sakura had taken Grasshopper to The Archive, and he was now sitting at a table, waiting for Sakura to find a scroll. Sakura shuffled through all the scroll, having to reach up and checking all the titles. Sakura pulled out a scroll near the very top and leaped back onto all four talons.

Sakura walked back over to Grasshopper and sat across from him. She scooched the scroll she had picked up across the table. "Read this. I'm going to try to find some more good scrolls on my tribe's history.

Grasshopper groaned. The scroll was labelled"The Legend of the Forestwings." He slid open part of the scroll and skimmed through the beginning. It was talking about how the tribe was formed. Grasshopper quickly scanned the rest of it, bored. "Why do I have to read all this?" Grasshopper complained as Sakura came back to the table with five more scrolls tucked in her arm.

"Because, if you ever want to be even mildly accepted by the entire tribe, Including my mother, you have to learn the things that extremely young dragonets are taught." Sakura laid the scrolls in a pile, then went back to the shelf and pulled three more from a shelf, glanced at the titles, and put one back.

Sakura put one scroll in the pile, then shoved the other scroll towards Grasshopper. "Read this one next, then..." she checked the other scroll's title, "The History of Law and Control." Sakura herself got up and grabbed the scroll she had put back on the shelf and walked over to the librarian. The two chatted for a bit, and the librarian began to hand Sakura something, but a dragon that Grasshopper recognized as Aspen poked his head into the room and made a symbol to Sakura that Grasshopper recognized as a sort of summoning for patrol. Sakura quickly rushed to go to the patrol.

Grasshopper contemplated just putting the scrolls back on the shelf and waiting for Sakura to get back from the patrol. He glanced back at the librarian, first, though, thinking that he noticed something. Wait... weren't her eyes usually blue...? The blood red eyes that this dragon actually had were unnerving, but Grasshopper decided it was nothing and shrugged it off with a shiver.

Sakura's voice rang in his head. He decided, against all his instincts, that he would actually properly read the scrolls. He scanned through most of the basics of the scrolls. They were all about either the history of the Forestwings and how/why they went into hiding. The rest were all about law and patrol.

Grasshopper opened his mouth to speak, but when he looked up at the librarian, she was gone. Oh well. Grasshopper looked back down, but a slight rustling noise caught his attention. He looked up, and the librarian was there. Grasshopper blinked a few times, but the librarian was still there.

The librarian caught Grasshopper's eye for a second... with blue eyes. Hadn't her eyes been red before? Grasshopper snapped his gaze away and looked down to continue reading. He was pretty tired, and it was all probably just hallucinations.

Grasshopper stood up and walked out of the library. Immediately chatter and talking was hearable compared to the quiet, calm atmosphere of The Archive. He glanced around, wondering which way he should go while waiting for Sakura to get back from patrol, when he saw a familiar Forestwing. He bounded over to Joshua, who was sitting at a table at a restaurant with Spruce and Birch. "Joshua!" Grasshopper called out happily when he reached them.

Joshua looked up suddenly, as if he had been distracted earlier. "Hey, Grasshopper!" Birch piped up happily. Spruce Glared at Grasshopper suspiciously, however his eyes weren't slitted like Forestwing eyes usually were when angry, or other similar emotions.

Grasshopper sat down in a large blank spot around the table, nearly across from Birch. Birch and Spruce were sitting right next to each other, Spruce directly across from Joshua and Birch to the left of him. Grasshopper sat inbetween Spruce and Joshua.

"Whatcha doing?" Grasshopper asked happily. "We were just talking," Spruce immediately answered, not letting Joshua answer despite having opened his mouth. Joshua glared at Spruce, but didn't say anything. Grasshopper glanced between the two, confused, but was almost immediately distracted when he saw Rainbow nervously walking towards the group.

"Rainbow!" Grasshopper yelped, and gestured for Rainbow to come over. Joshua stared at Rainbow as she hurried over once Grasshopper called. Once Rainbow sat down beside the group, Grasshopper couldn't help but notice her and Joshua's tail lightly twine together. Rainbow sat across from Grasshopper.

"Sorry I'm late, Mom wouldn't let me go and I had to sneak out," Rainbow snarled when she said 'mom.'

"Okay, I'm done being so left out!" Grasshopper yelled suddenly. He slammed his talon down on the table and stood up. "I want to know everything! I want to know what is up with Eucalyptus, I want to know why the Forestwings are so secret, I want to know why I'm so kept in the dark about all this!"

Everybody stared at him. There was silence. Rainbow was the first to move or speak. She clamped a talon around Grasshopper's snout. "You're going to pay for that. Now shut up and follow me," Rainbow glanced at Joshua, Spruce, and Birch. "Don't think you're getting out of this, either. You're going to help me explain."

She let go of Grasshopper's snout, who was now silent, and walked away, flicking her tail for the rest of the group to follow. She led them through the kingdom. Whether it was through thick clumps of crowds or empty town squares, Rainbow seemed to move just as quickly and fluidly as ever. Grasshopper, Joshua, Spruce, and Birch often lost sight of Rainbow. By the time they got to their destination, everyone except Rainbow was out of breath.

"How... do you... walk so fast?" Joshua panted.

Rainbow stared at the sky, looking distant. "When you've lived your life walking through crowds, destined to only do errands and serve the royal family and slip through rough, thick foliage instead of only lightly walking through an empty palace at your own pace, you end up like me," Rainbow scowled.

Joshua shifted his talons nervously, while Spruce looked around with slitted eyes and Birch just stood there energetically like she normally did. Grasshopper looked around and absorbed his surroundings. They were at The Corner, the only part of the vine border that surrounded the kingdom that was a corner.

"You wanted to know the beginning, right?" Rainbow asked. "Well, sixteen years ago, Redwood, who had only been queen for a year, brought home a Silkwing dragonet who had been attacked by panthers and was nearly dead. Chinch. Everybody thought she was insane, bringing in an outsider like that, but nonetheless the tribe begrudgingly allowed Chinch to stay without absolute anarchy. The same day Wisteria hatched."

"Wait, wait, wait! I know all the basics. Chinch told the story!" Grasshopper interrupted.

Rainbow snarled. "He told you the basics. Also, he was..." Rainbow stopped. She muttered something under her breath. The only word Grasshopper caught was 'and still is.' Rainbow looked up again, but her eyes were slitted and she looked crazed. She glared at the group horribly, then started muttering, 'No, no no.' She backed away, bumping into the vine wall.

She glanced around, then raced past the four. They all spinned to look at her, but Rainbow was out of sight already. 

A/N

um posted without saying this but time to edit

That one scroll that was mentioned, "The legend of the Forestwings" yeah I actually wrote it when Sakura Tree is finished I will post it