Wings of Fire - The LostWing Chronicles, Book 1 - The Awoken

Chapter 17

Anadrom entered a routine over the next few days that provided a stability to her life she hadn't known since before Estuary first began blackmailing her. Every day was a constant, and a positive constant at that; a flurry of varied information from entirely excellent teachers, short breaks where Solstice and Peregrine entertained them all with their witty humor, and afternoons of studying in the peaceful library or joyfully visiting Eelgrass and Ocotillo. Her parents seemed happy enough here, as far as she could tell, finally free from the dread of IceWing legalities and able to openly interact with other dragons more than they ever were able to back in the Talon's Hideout. They greeted her cheerfully whenever she entered their shared cave, and they sat and reminisced about the Kingdom of the Sea or allowed Anadrom to tell them about whatever she had learned that day. There was never any talk of LostWings, or world-endings, or even magic, which she appreciated with every fiber of her being.

This wasn't exclusive to her parents; most of the other students seemed more bored by her now than threatened, and she could walk down the halls with only a few odd eyes on her back here and there. Quartz had left her alone except for a few snide comments, and a few dragonets she didn't know had actually come up to her and apologized for their behavior. She didn't know how to act when this happened at first, but Crevasse and Solstice by her side always shook the talon of the dragonet in question, and she began doing this as well before long. There were letters as well, addressed to her from dragons all across Pyrrhia, an overflow of requests, apologies, commentaries, a few threats, and an assortment of harder-to-categorize media. Falling within this last category, there was sent by a SeaWing noble a scroll on recommendations for use of magic based upon the collected experiences of every SeaWing animus throughout history, which was so large Anadrom couldn't really carry it around herself. She read the entire thing from start to finish anyways, which took three days, and some of it helped reshape her thinking on the matter. As Peregrine had said, she didn't have to be afraid of her powers, especially since she had already protected everyone from them. She was anyways, of course, but in a way that became less and less obstructive of more positive thinking. Why couldn't she use them for good after all, especially now that everyone had accepted her on their own without any magical gifts persuading them?

The positivity of most of the correspondence outweighed any of the hostile letters, of which there were only a few. Some of these were from types such as Quartz, offering her total power if she allied with them in conquest of Pyrrhia, which she always threw away with no more notice than a shiver and sick feeling in her chest. A few were more personal attacks, from parents threatening to kill her in all sorts of horrifying ways if she cast any spells on their children, and there was a single package containing a deceased dragonbite viper, which she lost a fair amount of sleep over.

There was one letter that had turned over and over in her mind from the moment she read it, a short piece of torn parchment clumsily lettered, "Please help my sister, animus. She's dying and the doctors can't help. Please, I love her very much. Her name is Mongoose and I very much don't want her to die." The handwriting was clearly from a very young dragonet, and there were a few tear-stains across the crinkled sheet of paper. It was heart-wrenching in every way, this plea, and Anadrom had decided after a few hours of thought that this was the first requested use of her magic that she would actually perform. She sought out Paradox, needing to know which tribe the sister belonged to for her spell, and after only a moment of looking at the paper he had his answer.

"RainWing," he said quickly, tracing the paper with one talon. "This material is most commonly utilized in their communities - it's made out of the lumber of that region mixed with tropical fibers - and the ink is a sort of berry-made dye from all appearances. The handwriting is additionally distinctive of that tribe; they tend to have higher sweeps on their letters due to the angles of their eyes and the sharpness of their talons. I would agree that a young dragonet wrote this, although it's difficult to be certain due to the unique situation of the tribe in only becoming mostly literate under Queen Glory a decade ago. Are you going to help them?"