Wings of fire: What if

What if Starflight grew up with the nightwings?

Starflight let out an annoyed breath.  Fierceteeth was being awful as usual. She had thrown out one of his favourite scrolls again, despite him asking her not to.  For some reason,  she really hated him. But, no matter. He had a job to do. Mastermind had finally agreed to let Starflight see one of his secret experiments. He had been patiently waiting, cleaning up the lab, collecting supplies, doing just about anything to earn his father's trust. Now, after almost three months, Mastermind had agreed.
         Starflight held his breath as he walked into the lab, crossing his talons that his father hadn't changed his mind. He swung his head around, looking for him, and finally spotted him, with his wings folded in, and hunched over a metal helmet. "Um... hey dad." Starflight said nervously. Mastermind shot up, his wings opening and knocking some glass vials off a desk as he turned around. "Oh! Starflight! Just in time! Come, follow me!" He exclaimed, side stepping the broken glass and beckoning to him with his talons. Starflight followed him into another room, avoiding the glass, and was looking behind him at the mess as he stepped into the next room. He would have to clean that up later. He turned to face his father, and stopped in shock at the sight before him. A grey and green rainwing was chained to the wall, wings drooping limply beside her like broken leaves. Starflight started forward, reaching towards the pitiful looking rainwing, but his father held him back. "Oh, no you can't go near her. We discovered something extraordinary about rainwings! They have a natural defence mechanism, although they don't use it very often. They can spit venom out of their two front fangs! We brought this one in to study how much venom they can use, to see if they run out, but she passed out before I got any useful information." Mastermind said, frowning. Starflight stared at his father in horror. How could he do this? " She needs water!" He cried in dismay. He rushed to the back of the room, filling a cauldron with some water, and went over to the rainwing. "Here." He whispered softly, unlocking the steel band around her mouth, and raising the cauldron up for her to drink. Soft pink bloomed around her ears as she sipped the water. "What's your name?" He asked, low enough so only she could hear him. "No nightwing has asked me that before." She murmured. He looked away. What was wrong with his tribe?

That night, Starflight decided to go exploring, to see if he could try and figure out what else his tribe was hiding. He crept along the familiar stone passages, trying not to hit anything with his tail. He was about to turn the corner leading to the dungeon, when he crashed into a dark purple-black nightwing. She yelped, but popped back up immediately. "Oh sorry! I thought I was the only one up late at night like this! I saw you around before. "Who are you? Ooh, wait, let me guess! You are... Bigtoes!" she said quickly. "Um, no, i'm Starflight." He said, frowning. "Are you sure?" she asked quizzically, peering at him. "Yeah, i'm sure." he replied, still frowning. "oh. Well, either way, i'm Fatespeaker. I had a vision about you! That's why we bumped into each other, probably. We were destined to meet!" she exclaimed. Starflight hesitated. Didn't she know that nightwing powers weren't real? He shrugged it off. "So, Fatespeaker? Um, I was exploring, but more importantly, What do you know about the rainwing prisoners?" starflight asked, watching her reaction. "Oh, I saw one the other day, they look so sad. All grey and stuff. I wish someone would help them. I would totally help them, like get them food or something, but I am not exactly a dragon that's very trusted." Fatespeaker finished, grinning sheepishly. "Help them... Oh! Wait! Fatespeaker, I know we just met, but you seem nice, and I want to help the rainwings. Are you willing to do something that we would probably get banished for, but is the right thing to do?" Starflight asked breathlessly. A plan was forming in his head. "Um... you know what, why not! It isn't very interesting here anyway." Fatespeaker replied, grinning.

The air was smoky as usual, but something was off. This was the fifth rainwing he had helped, but today was different. Something was ... different. Starflight shook his head. He could think about it later. Right now, he had to get this dragonet out while Fatespeaker was distracting the guards. The rainwing- a young dragonet named Kinkajou was a pale green, the color of fear, but spots of yellow were blooming in her ruff, indicating happiness, or excitement. Starflight poked his head around a corner, checking that the tunnel guards were gone, and then rushed forward, pulling Kinkajou along beside him. "Camouflage" he hissed as they approached the entrance to the rainforest. She quietly faded into the background, and Starflight checked one last time before stepping into the sunlight.
   Even though he had been in the rainforest a few times, it still shocked him how clean the air smelled. He inhaled deeply, taking a moment to enjoy the feeling of sunshine on his scales. After a minute or so, he turned to where he assumed Kinkajou was and smiled. "Okay. your free. get back to your home, and make sure to get lot's of rest." Starflight said. A second later, he heard Kinkajou shriek in surprise, but as he turned towards what she was looking at, he was knocked unconscious.

"I think he's waking up." a voice murmured. " Why did you do that Glory? He was helping me!" a more familiar voice hissed. "Well, how was I supposed to know? All i knew was that nightwings have been taking dragons from our tribe, and then I see you with a nightwing! What else do you think that would look like?" The other voice replied. "Where... what happened?" Starflight asked, rubbing his neck with his talons. He groggily opened his eyes, but flinched when he saw two rainwings in front of him. Kinkajou was frowning at him with green fear blooming behind her ears, while the other dragon, Glory by the sounds of it, was giving him a suspicious glare. "Are you okay?" Kinkajou asked quickly. "Oh please. I just hit him with a sleeping dart. He is fine." Glory huffed, frustration colouring her voice. She regarded him with narrowed eyes, before curling her tail around her talons. "Look, supposedly, you have been helping the dragons in our tribe, but that is not enough. I need to tell you whatever you know about the nightwings so I can save my tribe." Glory said. "What about my tribe? I would be betraying them! I'm not gonna tell you about them if your just gonna kill them!" Starflight cried in dismay. "Okay, first off, the other rainwings are very against violence, so you don't have to worry about that, and second of all, even if they did want to fight, I am going to challenge the queens for the throne, so we would be working together." Glory said quietly. At the last part, Kinkajou whipped her head around to face glory, suprise and joy bubbling in her expression. Starflight hesitated for a moment, then sighed. His tribe needed to stop, and they needed someplace to live. Maybe if he did this, the rainwings would let the nightwings live in the rainforest somewhere. It wasn't like they could stay at the volcano. It was killing them. Starflight sighed, and then began to speak. "Alright, here's what you need to know about the nightwings..."

And thats where I'll finish. From that point on, I feel like the storyline would be fairly similar to that of the dark secret, so i didn't do anything else. The next What if will take a bit to do, so I hope you enjoyed it!