Wings of Fire: Blood Ties

Chapter 28: The Sentencing

Caiman remembered the day, three years ago, when he first stood in front of the Queen to receive his sentencing.

Guilty, for murder, and attempted murder.

Everything went downhill from there. A life of guilt, and isolation. He could only manage to hold onto a small thread of sanity when his entire world consisted of four walls, and two small windows. He had forgotten how beautiful the world was. Although his world had always been small, a world of swamps, siblings, and battles, he always had the fireflies and the sonnets of croaks that the frogs sang in the night. The coolness of the breeze and the scents of MudWings cooking over their fires in the evenings.

He had returned to that world he had missed, and thanks to Rose and the others, it became so, so much more than that. A world of adventure, and friendship, and beautiful places that he never could have imagined in his wildest dreams.

And now Caiman stood in front of Queen Moorhen again, ready to be sentenced, and against all of Caiman's fears, she said

"Not guilty."

Not. Guilty.

Not Guilty.

The word echoed throughout the courtroom, and felt like it was reverberating through his body, his scales, his muscles, organs, his bones, his heart and soul. Not guilty.

He hadn't even realised that tears were silently streaming down his face, running down his snout and dripping soundlessly onto the stone floor.

He felt a pair of wings wrapping around him, then another, and another, and when he looked up, all his friends had embraced him, and Clay with his big wings was embracing all of them.

Caiman had friends. Not just Mosquito, it used to just be Mosquito. Now he had a real life, with friends, and a world beyond the swamp, the prison, and the war. A life where he could do whatever he wanted to do, a whole wide continent to explore, dragons to meet. Hobbies to make, things to learn. A dragon to become.

I get to build a life. Finally... Finally...

***

Caiman stepped out of the courtroom and into the light of day, the pale beams of dawn illuminating patches on the ground in thin shards, filtering through the short swamp trees.

He took in a deep breath of cool, humid air. The air that smelled of plant growth, the air of home. For once, it was the air of freedom.

"How does it feel to be a free dragon?" Rose asked behind him, still in faer spectral form.

"Wonderful, and terrifying." Caiman said.

"Oh?"

"For once I have the ability to dream that I could have any life I wanted... but I also have no clue what I'd do with myself. I don't have an education, my troop joined the war effort as soon as we were of age. I don't have hobbies either, unless you count making strange sculptures out of straw and playing with them..." Caiman said, laughing.

Rose laughed, "That's a start. You obviously have creativity in you, and there are plenty of things to try at Jade Mountain Academy when we go back to finish our year."

Caiman's eyes lit up. "I get to go back? I thought since it was all fake, and I didn't really get in..."

Rose snorted, "You really think the dragon who saved Pyrrhia and was just declared innocent wouldn't be accepted? I'll be right back."

Fae disappeared for a second, and when fae reappeared fae had a paper in faer hand.

"What's that?" Caiman asked.