Deep Trouble

Chapter 1: Riding the Breeze

Hello everyone! So, the first real chapter of Deep Trouble is HERE! So, this is kind of just an introduction to the main character. I hope you like Nightshade, or should I say Princess Nightshade? Now, without further ado, let's take flight.

Riding the Breeze

Nightshade leapt into the lowest branch of the tree, and hurtled her way up the spruce until she was bathing in beautiful silver moonlight. She gently lay on springy pine needles, and gazed upon Holly Village.

Warm firelight was coming from inside the huts that dotted the border of the polished cobblestone road.

The Holly Palace loomed dark and imposing in the center of town, with it's ornately carved patterns of past queens. And just the fact that Nightshade's mom, Queen Raspberry, was sitting on that throne right now, waiting for her to come back so she could tell Nightshade how badly she did at the speech today.

She wished she were more like her brother, Prince Strawberry. Mother always said that he was a lot like her own brother, King Blueberry, when he was a kid. Pompous, boisterous, proud, though, the only difference was King Blueberry at least had a good brain for school, while Prince Strawberry couldn't spell 'holly.' He was ten. Legally an adult. You learn how to spell holly when you're one. So, pretty much a moron. But at least he was as normal as a HollyWing prince can be.

Nightshade looked down at the ground. It was a long ways off. And there was no breeze. Now, all HollyWing females have large wings, good for flying. But Nightshade had always had small wings, like a male. See, in Pyrrhia, females are respected, males are shamed. The queens are in charge. The princesses have more power than the king.

Nightshade was scared and excited for her holly-sleep, the HollyWing rite of passage to adulthood. On the morning of her birthday, she would go under a holly bush and lay there for anywhere from a day to a month. The greater your powers are, and the more growing you have to do, the longer it is. And your mind is working, the whole time. I mean, yes you can fall asleep. If you can sleep with the blistering pain.

Nightshade sat there for a good long time. An hour, maybe? Half an hour? She spent the time spitting globs of poison, one of the few powers she did have, onto the leaves around her, and watching as they shriveled into a black pile of ash, slipping through the spindly fingers of branches and leaves.

Predawn light hovered in the sky. Nightshade's eyes were heavy, but she still didn't feel like talking to anyone, especially mother, so she opted to sneak into her bedroom.

Nightshade felt the temperature rising, and was grateful for the warmth that soaked into her scales. That was the one thing she didn't like about being nocturnal. It was cold.

She felt a gentle breeze, and spread her wings. She wobbled into the sky, dipping and falling in two second bouts. She finally made it over to her glass roof. She slipped through a small hole at the top of her wall. It was blackened around the hole, showing how she had created it.

She, unlike most dragons her age, was able to fit into small places. She was overall small, with thin wings and no horns. As a result, the palace-keeping didn't take a notice of it, assuming it had been a mis-fired shot from a small fight.

Nightshade stumbled over to her leafy bed, and flopped down. She was asleep within seconds. Hey, don't judge. It's tough to stay up for a whole day straight. Queen Raspberry had her up at dusk, and only now, two days later had she gotten to sleep. Well, she could have fit in naps and such. But Nightshade didn't really care about sleeping. Only when her body shrieked at the top of its lungs that she needed it did she sleep.

Instead of sleep, she spent time with her three friends, Ghost, Azalea, and Rhododendron. Now of course many wanted to be her friend, but she only cared to spend time with those three. They didn't worship the royal family. They saw the royal family as powerful dragons.

When they weren't awake, she basked in the beautiful sunlight. She went on glides. She read from the library's vast assortment of scrolls. She made intricate drawings. Sometimes when she was angry at her mom, or feeling especially rebellious, she would even leave the Great Holly Forest. It took a day with strong winds, and a while, even then, but she could make it to the edge of the forest. She had only done this two times, and both times she had chickened out of actually leaving it. ShrinkWing territory started right outside the vast forest, and it stretched for miles and miles and miles and miles.

ShrinkWings had most of the land. The desert was unoccupied, but the CloudWings had taken the mountains and icy tundra, and the ShrinkWings had taken the rest of the land. Except for the bay. DeepWings are known to be hostile, and since no one knows if they're alive, they're in no hurry to provoke them. No one has seen them in two hundred years, but no HollyWings have seen the ShrinkWings or CloudWings in a hundred years either. The DeepWings didn't make much contact with the other tribes, even in the golden age, when the tribes communicated with each other and worked together to make new discoveries and prosper.

Nightshade was a deep sleeper, but she had trained her body to wake her up every hour. That way she didn't sleep too long, plus, it was helpful if there was an attack or anything because literally nothing could wake Nightshade up.

Explosion? Might as well be a fly buzzing. Water pale dumped on head? Small rain drop! Strawberry did that once, and he ended up with a broken leg, and a dysfunctional tail barb (To this day, no one knows how I got rid of its poison.)

Nightshade woke up after an hour of sleep, just like always. She decided she had enough rest, and hopped on top of her desk, to her bookshelves, and was halfway through the hole when her mother came in.

"Ah, so that's how you get out. I'll need to get that fixed." She fixed Nightshade with a cold, intellectual stare. "Come down" She said harshly.

Nightshade continued squirming out. "Nightshade" She said it in a sing-song voice, laced with warning. "Go to the playroom" She turned, and walked out of the room. Nightshade sighed, and did as she asked. She left her room and began walking down the never-ending hallway. Her white claws, the sign of HollyWing royalty, clinked on the polished stone floor. It was required to keep them out when walking in the hallways of the HollyWing palace.

She turned through a set of doors, identical to the doors at the academy, and walked into a room where Strawberry sat, failing to connect a few pieces of parchment. It was depressing watching him. He finally managed to do it, and he added another piece of parchment, and wrote 'Roll-EEEE Pull-EEEE Habatit.'

She tried to look away, not wanting to have to interact with Strawberry. But her eyes kept coming back to the worst grammar in the world, and she stormed over. She ripped the parchment off the scroll-box, and turned it over, writing 'Roly-Poly Habitat.'

"Hey! Little Berry, not cool." Strawberry objected.

Steam was practically shooting out of Nightshade's ears. "Do. Not. Call. Me. Little. Berry. Or, get stabbed with a poisonous tail barb with an uncanny amount of poison in it. Mine."

"Yeesh. Touchy."

"No one calls me Little Berry."

When Nightshade was five, a new dragon started at the academy. There were other dragons, but there was one that caught her eye. Twilight. She was the most beautiful dragon in the universe. And unlike every other dragon in the HollyWing tribe, her name was different. Her family rebelled against the ancient traditions, choosing their own names, their own ways to live. Nightshade and Twilight were together every moment. Then, mother executed Twilight's parents, and Twilight was exiled. Twilight called her Little Berry.

Tears gathered in Nightshade's eyes and anger built up in her throat. She slammed the parchment back on Strawberry's habitat, and it fell over. She didn't look back. She stormed out of the room. She went back to her room, and slipped out, this time with no interruptions. She fell to the ground, and landed soundlessly. She had learned to move silently, land silently, be silent. Whenever she talked, someone upset her about something, so she chose not to be around anyone other than her friends.

Tears began rolling down her face. Nightshade wasn't fully sure why. Why did she have to be so emotional? She ran through the forest, and suddenly took off gliding without even realizing what she was doing. She flew all the way to the beach, where she stopped abruptly. She hid in a tree and watched.

"DeepWings"