Wings of fire Book one: Befriending a monster.

The arena

"Disappointing." Scarlet said, glaring into the arena.

"Catastrophic." Burn growled. "The idiots love her now."

The audience of dragons was cheering and throwing little gemstones and jewels into the arena, as Tsunami stepped away from Gill's limp body.

"Don't worry, I have a plan," The queen replied. "now it's time for my hatching day present! The night-wing will be fighting next!"

Starflight looked around desperately for a way out of the fight, so Starstorm spoke up.

"Your majesty!"

Scarlet looked over to her, annoyed. "What do you want now, dragonet?"

"My father is a night-wing so I'll have a different fighting method from a sand or night-wing, surely I could go next instead?"

Burn gave her a glare. Apparently Burn hated hybrids, thought it was a horrible thing to combine two different tribes.

"These dragonets, constantly pushing and shoving to save each other." Scarlet said to Burn. "It's just the weirdest thing. Fine, change of plans, this one will go next." She signaled to a guard.

Starflight gave Starstorm a thankful look, Clay just seemed utterly terrified. A few guards unchained her and lead her into the arena, Tsunami was brought to the side and chained to the wall so she couldn't help. Starstorm dug her talons into the sand and took a deep breath, waiting for her opponent.

"In the arena we have Starstorm, an accidental dragonet of destiny, a supposed hybrid of night and sand." A sky-wing announced after talking to the queen, now flying above the arena. "So let's see how she does on these sands, against Mistral the monster!"

Mistral. Oh moons, what did she have that she could use as an advantage? Mistral was an ice-wing, so being fireproof didn't help, and she couldn't breathe fire. Maybe if she pretended to have fire she could trick him into hesitating, even just for a second. Two guards opened the tunnel's gate, shooting into the air so they wouldn't be targets. Mistral slowly walked out into the arena. Up close, he looked terrifying and somewhat sad.

Mistral was skinny, skinny enough for it to look like his ribs were trying to escape his scales. She could see almost every one of his bones. His front talons were black and disfigured, like they had been melted, almost. No wonder it looked like he was limping, it would take a while to adjust to walking on talons that were crooked, elongated, and most likely painful. On the right side of his head, a chunk of his mouth was missing, revealing gums and a few teeth, even when his mouth was closed. His light blue eye was bloodshot and sunken, the pupil in his eye was skinny and elongated, like a snake's. On the left side of his head, his other eye was gone, instead there was an empty eye socket with scars cutting through it, someone had desperately clawed his eye out. One of his horns had been broken, or snapped in half.

The metal bands on his wings, neck, chest, legs, and tail were tight, like he grew too big for them, but no one replaced them, just to be cruel. There were three large scars that had been slashed across his chest, they looked horrible and clearly had not healed properly. Several of his neck and tail spikes were broken. There were tons of burns and smaller scars all over his body, including the holes in his wing, from whatever happened with Clay. Mistral's scales were gray and dried blood, both blue and red, was splattered all over his tail spikes, snout, and talons. His back was covered in little marks, or scars, that showed how many times he had been whipped by the guards.

Mistral started walking around Starstorm, walking in circles around her while staring. Like a predator watching it's prey. He suddenly turned towards her, so she raised her head and made a hissing noise, like she was going to breathe fire. He stopped in his tracks, ready to dodge her flames. Starstorm charged towards him, hitting him in the side and knocking him onto his back. She jumped onto his stomach, pinning him to the sand, his head hit the ground as she pinned him. Mistral watched her with bewilderment in his eye, not moving. She grabbed his neck with her talons, he closed his eye, resting his head on the sand.

Scarlet and Burn watched from the platform, Burn annoyed, and Scarlet a bit startled. The arena was quiet, watching them, waiting to see what she would do. Starstorm hadn't pinned him that well, if he wanted to get away, he could, but he was just laying there. Surely she couldn't kill him, but if she let him go, he mercilessly would kill her. Maybe he just needed a chance to prove that he wasn't the monster that Scarlet made him into. She stepped off of his chest and onto the sand, letting him get up.