Wings of Fire: Plot & Conspire

Prologue - 5 years ago

Redwood was a particularly different dragon. He had red scales, first of all, while it was possible (but very rare) for a leafwing to have red, brown, or orange scales, most leafwings were green. Normal leafwings were green. Redwood hated his classmates, they would make fun of him and call him weird red-ish names. He wished that he could go into a world where other dragons liked him, and wanted to be his friend. Redwood only had one friend, Crescent, a confident and cool silkwing that the poisonwings had captured and tortured a year ago. The sapwings found out about the fact that the poisonwings were planning on killing Crescent, so they rescued the little silkwing. Turns out, she had quite the personality, and Redwood would go hang out with her every single day after school. Until that day Crescent had to go back to Jewel Hive. She had gotten better and sadly, had to return to her family. Redwood feared that he would never see Crescent again. But luckily, he had another dragon in his life that he loved, which was his sister Evergreen. Evergreen was smart, cool, bossy, and sometimes annoying, but at least she could replace Crescent for the time being. Evergreen was still very young though, only one year old, but she already was becoming a tough little warrior. Evergreen and Fern had no trouble making friends though, apparently they are even friends with Princess Hazel. Or maybe they just talked to Hazel once at school, but still! One day, he was exploring the jungle with his father, when suddenly a humongous ancient crocodile emerged from the water and sank its teeth into Redwood's back. Redwood screamed.

"Should I get help?" His father asked.

"I can handle a stupid crocodile," Redwood scoffed. But turns out he was wrong, a dozen more crocodiles emerged and started attacking from all places. He dove underwater to slash the crocodiles but then the others would attack from behind.

"Okay, on second thought, get help!" He yelled. His father rushed back to the village to get help. Suddenly, a crocodile bit his underbelly, which started bleeding a lot. He had no choice but to swim away, he swam as fast as he could down the river, when suddenly he was taken by a strong current. The current was extremely fast and harsh. Oh shoot, he thought. Now there's no way I'll get back in time! A rock hit his head and he fell unconscious, still floating along the current. He didn't know how much time had passed, but when he awoke, he was greeted by friendly faces, but they weren't leafwing faces. They were silkwing faces! He jumped up.

"Who are you? What am I doing here?" He asked, suddenly alert.

"You're at Lady Jewel's mansion," a light, teal-ish periwinkle silkwing with gray spots answered kindly. "I'm Lasaia, who are you?"

"Redwood," he replied. He hoped that these dragons were safe to trust. "Why am I here?"

"You floated all the way to Jewel Hive! So Lady Jewel told us to hide you so Queen Wasp doesn't kill you." an orange-ish silkwing explained. "Are you really a leafwing? That's an unusual color,"

"Yes," Redwood answered, half-listening. "Am I really at Jewel Hive?"

"Yes," Lasaia answered.

"Do you know a silkwing named Crescent? She's around three or four years old, she is brown colored with elegant turquoise wings and turquoise spots all over! Extremely pretty too!" Redwood excitedly asked. "Wingless too!" he added hopefully.

The orange silkwing frowned, but Lasaia had a look of recognition on her face.

"I think she's Tau's niece," Lasaia said slowly. "She's supposed to work here after her metamorphosis-"

"Sorry, but you guys work here?" Redwood asked curiously. "You all seem young," The orange silkwing looked like a grown dragon, but Lasaia was clearly wingless.

"I work here half-time," Lasaia replied, obviously annoyed. "But not during school hours. Anyways, Lady Jewel thinks you look cool, so she's keeping you."

"So I'm basically her new..... Decoration?" Redwood realized with horror.

"I don't know,"

"So..... Can- can you bring me Crescent?"

"I guess," Lasaia finished. Around a day later, Redwood was interrupted by the sound of footsteps.

"Redwood?" a voice asked.

"CRESCENT!" Redwood shrieked, and immediately went to hug Crescent. Crescent backed away though.

"You guys can talk now," said an older silkwing next to Crescent. "But Crescent needs to go eat dinner later."

"Redwood can come," Crescent suggested. "I guess?" The older silkwing shrugged and left.

"Are you not happy to see me?" Redwood asked.

"Of course," Crescent answered. "Life's been really busy, you know, I haven't had much time to......"

"Oh, well tell me about it!"

"Well, it'sits been stressful lately, Lady Jewel wants new workers, and fast, but Queen Wasps' other relatives are cruel and mean, and I don't want to be shipped as a worker, as my dad is in a different hive, and they might need me as a replacement-"

"Oh, Crescent," Redwood sighed and hugged Crescent, though this time she did not back away. "But now you have me, and......" he didn't have to finish. "Well, at least you don't live in the poison jungle, you can't touch a single venomous plant or the plant goes, 'mhmmm yummy,' I mean, I'm glad I haven't been eaten yet!"

Crescent and Redwood both laughed together. Why would he ever want to go back to the Poison Jungle, if Crescent was here? The other leafwings could forget about him, and he didn't care. The next two years were great, Redwood had to live in Lady Jewel's mansion all the time, and when Queen Wasp came for hive checks, he had to hide in a closet. But he got to hang out with Crescent, which made his life worth it. Until the day Crescent had her metamorphosis and was shipped off to Cicada Hive. That was the worst day of his life. He could remember bawling his eyes out that night. This was it, he had thought. I will never see Crescent again.

A few years later though, Tau had rushed to Jewel Hive to warn all the silkwings to run away, as Wasp was coming to infect them all. It was a very confusing process, all he could remember was being pushed away as groups of dragons fled out of the Hives. Everyone flew to the Pantala peninsulas and met up with larger groups of dragons, and flew across the ocean. He had hoped that he would see Evergreen and Fern along, but they apparently hadn't escaped. Neither had his parents. He prayed that Crescent made it and Crescent did. He was suddenly hopeful about his future again, he had always wanted to go to the Distant Kingdoms, if they were real. Sometimes he fantasized about escaping to a new continent, just like Clearsight had, and make new friends who worshipped him. Now, that fantasy was becoming a reality.