Wings of Evolution (WoF AU)

Chapter 56

Echo of the unknown

Normally, when something weird was happening at the base, Uhar could just go to the library, or the scavenger den. Or he could go find Cactus and make her explain what exactly grass was.

“This scroll keeps mentioning ‘grass’. What the heck is grass?!” 

At which Cactus would laugh and take him outside only to point at a nondescript plant. “That’s grass.” 

After that, Uhar squinted at it for roughly ten minutes, trying to see why the scroll couldn’t have just described it for poor plant-deprived Cave dragons. It was a simple plant, and it wasn’t hard to say that it was small with long sharp leaves. It was flimsy to the touch and surprisingly soft if he ran his hand along it. 

Why couldn’t they just explain that in the scroll? If they had, he might’ve been able to guess at what it was. The only thing dragons wouldn’t have to explain was what a rock was. At least those were universal. 

Either way, grass was stupid. 

At the present time, Uhar was trying to figure out why half the base was walking around whispering to each other suspiciously, and why dragons kept giving each other meaningful looks as if something terrible was about to happen or just had. 

And normally, Uhar would have been able to ignore whatever it was via the three methods mentioned above. 

But the grass incident had soured his taste for reading for the day, and Frost had politely requested that he give the scavengers a break from staring at them. As well as the fact that Cactus was catching up with some old soldier friends. 

So Uhar ended up trying to figure it out himself, armed with nothing but determination and a bad sense of timing. 

---

Speedless

Turtle woke up to a babble of confused dragons fussing over him. He didn’t recognise any of them, and the spell he’d cast in the past to tell him who was under the eye and who wasn’t insisted that these were all free dragons. 

Turtle barely remembered the last time he’d been surrounded by only free dragons. It was sort of strange to not have to constantly watch his behavior to be sure Orca thought he was still under her. 

For example, a dragon under the eye would not wince. Nor would he notice his own wounds. He would continue onward until his body collapsed or he was forced to go to a healer. A dragon under the eye would not do anything out of time and he would not look at those speaking unless directly commanded to. 

The eye affected everyone to different degrees though, and some had more freedom with it, like a soldier asking after his daughter or someone picking specifically rabbits at every meal. So Orca always just assumed that Turtle was one with more freedom, which was part of the reason she’d suspected him in the first place. 

It was a whole mess and he was glad to be rid of it. The faint messages of the eye continued to be received, but for the first time in years, Turtle was able to just ignore them. 

The dragons around him fell into a hush as Turtle blinked several times and shifted, noticing that the spear he’d been stabbed with was gone and the scrapes he’d received in his mad rush from the palace were bandaged and no longer bleeding. Which was a relief, Turtle hadn’t wanted to magic himself healed, and if they’d immediately thrown him in the dungeons he’d have had to. 

Turtle sat up, wincing at the pain in his wing and tail, “where… Where am I?”

One of the dragons nearby -a RainWing- stepped forward, speaking in a soothing voice, her scales changing in time with her speech, “You are in a resistance base, we found you near the coast yesterday evening.”

Turtle relaxed somewhat, even though he’d known most of that already it was good to have confirmation. “... alright? Um… is princess Tsunami here?” 

The RainWing blinked, apparently most wounded enemies didn’t immediately ask for the leader. “What do they call you?” 

Turtle sighed, “I’m Turtle.” He opened his unwounded wing, flashing the royal patterns, “I’m one of her brothers.” he nervously felt at his armband, wondering if it could take him to certain dragons even if he didn’t know where they were. 

The RainWing nodded slowly and jerked her head at a nearby SandWing, “go find General Foam.” 

Foam, that sounded like a SeaWing name. In theory, Turtle had known that there was a decent number of SeaWings fighting for the princess, but he hadn’t realized that any would be generals. 

The SandWing gave a haisty salute that seemed absolutely unnecessary and dashed off in a mad jog. The RainWing sighed, “sorry about her, she’s got the tiredness in a way I’ve never seen. Rest up, I’ll try and get you Tsunami but she’s usually busy at this time of day.” 

She nodded to two burly MudWings holding spears and exited the room. Turtle suspected that the spears were in case Turtle decided he was evil. Which was hardly fair, if he wanted to be evil he wouldn’t have gone about it this way. 

Turtle sighed and leaned forward in the sickbed, understanding that yes, he was tired. And yes, he did want to rest. 

It could have been fixed with a spell, but Turtle had grown a habit of not thinking about that unless absolutely necessary, he’d had a healing object, but it was back in the deep palace, probably being thrown out by Gulf as he rested there. 

Oh well. It was just a tiny piece of his soul put inside an object that could make his life more bearable. It wasn’t like he was attached to it or anything. 

He belatedly remembered the more useful spell on his armband, the one that shielded him from the eye as if he’d had the cure himself. And he suddenly was much more happy about what he did have. 

He really hoped that no one would take his armband. That could get messy fast. 

---------------
Every vote gives Turtle another smidgen of courage!