Tempest Unleashed

Chapter 25: Venom and Rabbits

When I woke up in the morning, my mother was staring at me. I jolted upright, and droned, "Good morning, Mother, how was your sleep?" She snapped at me, "Do you have any sense of time whatsoever? It is already early noon!" I stifled a yawn, then replied, "I'm sorry, Mother. I will do better next time." Crimson hissed, "If there is a next time for you." Winter snapped upright, and growled, "If you touch a scale on Tempest's horns, I will personally - " "Personally what?" She sneered. Winter started to say more, but stopped himself from saying it so that he could live another day. Good choice. She'd do it. After all, she is an assassin. Moon woke up and stretched, then asked me, "Hey, Tempest, can I tell you something real quick? In private?" "Sure." I replied, suspicious. After all, it was what Winter did before the kidnappers kidnapped me and brought me to the Sky Palace. Than again, we had just escaped from that hideous place and this was Moon, not Winter. I followed her to a secluded area, and she stopped after a few feet and turned to face me. She whispered, "Use your telejewel." I touched my telejewel to my forehead, and she repeated the action. She told me, "When I told Winter that you had wanted me to tell him that you loved him and that you wanted me to make sure that he didn't hate you, he said, 'Why would I hate her? She did nothing. None of us had any idea that they would be here.' Also, he told me to tell you that he loves you, too." We took the telejewels away from our foreheads and plodded back to the others. My mother was impatiently tapping her foot. When she noticed us walking back, she called, "Finally! I was beginning to think that you were organizing a surprise party for sextuplets!" I rolled my eyes at this, because we both knew that we weren't taking that long. My mother growled at me, "What did you just do?" I remembered something that was one of my earliest memories. My mother's house rules. I remembered that she was explaining her house rules, and when she got to the ninety-ninth rule, I'd rolled my eyes, and she'd hissed, "100th rule: Never roll your eyes around me. Never!"  I remembered that rule the most vividly because I had developed a habit of rolling my eyes at almost everything she said. The punishment? Training to make my flight time longer and my metabolism bigger. This would have been no big deal, had it not been above a giant pit of desert snakes. If those snakes' venom had been strong enough to kill me, I would've died a hundred times over, given how many times my metabolism had run out and I'd fallen in. When I fell in, it wasn't the snakebites that hurt, it was the disappointed look that my mother would give me every single time I fell in. I didn't want to see that look on her face anymore, so I trained whenever I had free time. When the next time I rolled my eyes at her came, I was ready. She flung me out over the pit, and I flapped my big wings once and steadied. I stared up at the ceiling, and flapped my wings harder and harder until I could barely breathe. I didn't fall into the pit until hours later, when I got startled by a SkyWing boy who had glanced at me and saw the real me. The me who got beaten and battered by her mother, not the me who was the most dangerous dragon in the world. When he saw me, I expected him to stumble backwards and yelp. He didn't. He saw me, and he did something very unexpected. He smiled at me. I was startled, and my wings missed a beat. I fell in, and for once, my mother helped me out. She smiled softly, and whispered, "Not bad." Her face then hardened again, and she continued scornfully, "I mean, for a dragonet." I glanced at where the SkyWing boy was earlier as my mother walked away, but he wasn't there. Before I'd come to Jade Mountain, I couldn't stop thinking about the SkyWing who'd smiled, or the SWS boy. Eventually, I saw him again on the streets, and I asked him what his name was. He said that his name was Maroon, and he asked me what my name was. I'd given him my real name, and we went our separate ways. I wondered if he ever went to Jade Mountain, and realized that my mother was still waiting for an answer to her question. I stuttered, "Oh, um, I'm sorry, Mother, I've forgotten your hundredth rule." Crimson muttered, "It's always the smart ones that roll their eyes and forget the hundredth rule. They never forget the first ninety-nine, but they can never remember the hundredth." Cactus retorted sarcastically, "Crimson, you don't want to actually call her smart to her face, right? It's against the code of Crimson." She turned and hissed at Cactus. My father said patiently, "Don't forget who has the tail barb." Crimson sat down glumly and flicked her tail. Cactus smiled and turned to me. "Well, since we're father-daughter, I need to teach you about the different kinds of venom we have in our tail barbs. Could you call your SandWing friend over? I bet that he never knew about this." I beckoned Qibli to come over to me and my father. Cactus explained, "We have four different types of venom. There's death venom, sleep venom, paralyzing venom, and a kind of venom that near to no one knows about, which is called live burial venom. Everyone knows about death venom, so let's learn about sleep venom first. Sleep venom is normally used to get restless dragonets to go to sleep, but it can also be used to make enemies have nappy time on the battlefield. Paralyzing venom is normally used to paralyze dragons so that if you're kidnapping someone, it makes them easier to drag a long way, and it stiffens them, too. Finally, last but not least, there's live burial venom. It slows the heartbeat to one beat per minute, and it also transports oxygen around the body to keep it alive, so even if you're pronounced clinically dead, you're still alive! That's why it's called live burial venom, because you get buried alive, and when the effects have finally worn off, it's too late, and you die underground. Death venom is black, sleep venom is neon yellow, paralyzing venom is a light purple, and live burial venom is completely clear! It's super difficult to do live burial venom, so don't get your hopes up." Cactus snagged a rabbit from outside and stabbed it. I shrieked when he did this, but the rabbit only fell asleep, snoring gently. Cactus pried the stab mark open gently, and the flesh where he stabbed it was neon yellow. Qibli grabbed a rabbit from outside, too, and stabbed it. The rabbit keeled over with its wide eyes darting everywhere. Cactus pried the wound open again, and the flesh was light purple. I dragged a rabbit into the room and stabbed it. It keeled over, just like Qibli's had, but its eyes were closed. Cactus looked at the flesh inside, and the flesh was normal color. His face spread into a proud smile, and he applauded me. "Well done, Tempest! You've injected live burial venom!" I blushed, and Cactus snagged another rabbit from outside. He stabbed it, and it keeled over. Cactus pried the wound open gently, and the flesh inside was black. My father stepped back and put all four rabbits into a square shape on the floor. "Go ahead and investigate each rabbit, and once you have, we dig in!" The rabbit that Qibli had stabbed started to get up and shake off the venom effects, so Qibli stabbed it again. Cactus looked at the flesh, and it was still light purple, but only a shade darker. "Ah," Cactus told us cheerfully, "I forgot to tell you something. As you stab the victim more and more, the flesh around the wound gets darker and darker until eventually, it becomes black, and the victim dies of exhaustion from fighting the venom." I gulped, then asked, "Isn't there one other type of venom? Mind venom?" Cactus's eyes went wide, then he cheerfully replied, "No, no, no, no, there's no such thing. Now, dig into the rabbits, venom can't hurt you if you ingest it, only if you get stabbed. If you're not hungry, though, I can just eat all four." I grabbed my rabbit, Qibli grabbed his, and Cactus grabbed the last two rabbits for himself. My stomach grumbled, and I happily fed it with rabbit. It immediately stopped growling at me and dug in, happy to finally have good food.