Wings Of Fire: Fallen Kingdoms (Book 1)

Chapter 6

     "Dad,"

    "It's Crab, Jelly." Her big brother pats her on the back. "What do you need?"

    "School is dumb."

   "I don't think so," Crab said, putting a plate of fried plantain slices in front of her. She grabbed two and stuffed them in her face at the same time. "I met most, if not all of my friends through school."

   "Blah!" Jellyfish grumped, around the plantains. "School is still for nerds, like you. I have a friend already!"

     He smiled and rolled his eyes. "Jelly, I don't think that stray cat you pet at the market counts."

    Jellyfish gasped at him. She pointed his fork at him like a sword. "How dare you? Challenge me, coward! I call for a duel!"

     Crab laughed. "You're a little late for that, by two hundred years."

     "Two HUNDRED?" Jellyfish said, appalled.

    "Shh, Epiphyte is working on another radio design. We can't be too loud." Crab said, and flicked the plate a little closer to her. "Eat up. Exo will be here soon."

    Exo! Jellyfish had nearly forgotten. Once every two weeks, Crab, Agate, and Exo all took her to the market, and she could buy a new toy. She had gotten a small wooden frisbee last time, and she had barely put it down for the past two weeks.

     "How do you know where you're going?" Jellyfish asked, pattering beside Exo. The black and orange HiveWing was walked slowly, in way that almost seemed casual. Her wings were tilted far forward and a little outwards, feeling her way around. Jellyfish held one wing tip in her much smaller talon to help guide her.

     "Well," Exo said thoughtfully. Though Jellyfish was young, she knew that Exo spike differently around her. Around the other big kids, she spoke less, quieter, and was much more irritable. But with Jellyfish, she seemed much more excited to talk.

      "I use my other senses. For example- I know someone is frying meat close by. I can smell and hear it, and it's making my mouth water." She was right, another HiveWing was frying thick slabs of fatty meat in a stall up ahead. "I can feel aswell."

     "So do you have really good hearing?" Jellyfish asked.

     "Not exactly," she said. "It's more of... I rely on it more. I hear more little things because everything I hear could be important."

       Jellyfish furrowed her brow. "Huh?"

      "You'll understand when you're a little older." Exo said with a smile.

      "You guys say that I'll understand everything when I'm older," Jellyfish said stoutly.

       "Yeah," Exo's face changed- just for a moment.

       Anger, confusion, but most of all fear.

      "You will."

      "Jelly, no." Agate said as the little dragonet reached for the doorhandle.

      "Only Crab calls me Jelly." Jellyfish snapped at her. "And your not my mom."

      "Well I'm close enough," Agate said. "Your brother said not to go outside today."