Perils Pests

A littel slice of Sanctuary

Peril usually sits by herself when eating at Jade mountain, she tried sitting with clay when she could but he was usually busy or would get bad stares from Tsunami and any others around them to clays obliviousness. So in an act of what she perceived as kindness she decided to let him be more often than not. She had tended to find a nice place near a river at the base of the mountain, a little away from the main academy and mostly completely alone.

The area had been cindered black from her content visits and there was now a circle of rock and ground that was in no fear of lighting aflame. She would grab something from the prey centre then head down to her little spot where she would simply enjoy her time there, watching the fish from the stream or catching a few if she felt like it. The water was useful if she accidentally set anything ablaze tho she didn't like handling it as it always felt weird and bubbly against her scales. She had gotten used to quickly splashing the river towards whatever she had burnt to douse it. She had tried too hunt for herself but she quickly realised that it would be a bad idea in the dense forest and flammable grasslands around the academy.

She felt safe here as she had controlled the environment to her liking, having a layer of moist moss that covered the ground in places that was too wet to alight and having a good distance from anything that could get out of control. She enjoyed it here, she enjoyed the quiet although it was a bit lonely.

She was still taking private lessons from clay as they still weren't quite sure how to integrate her into a winglet yet but he had promised soon as it might be a good way to make friends he said. Peril enjoyed their private lessons though even she had to admit she would daydream a bit too frequently, being so close to clay and seeing him smile all the time. Sunny was nice but she could tell deep down she was unsure but she was the nicest there apart from clay. She could go without tsunamis rants, or as clay put it,
"shes just trying to help you, she shouts at everybody".

The goat leg she was holding began to crumble as the bone turned to ash as she daydreamed, the gentle river tended to put her in a calming trance, it was nice sometimes, this was her little sanctuary away from the troubles of the world and away from the world of troubles she would bring every time she put a claw wrong.
"I wondered if my winglet would want to come here with me?" She thought, "probably not, I doubt even clay could force them to sit near me".
She would have to deal with this feeling of loneliness, it sure as hell wasn't going to solve itself and the quick rout of being around others was feeling further and further distant, despite clays encouragement.

The gong echoed thought the valley and around the mountain as a new class was about to start, she was done daydreaming anyway, she could always always come back here and pick up her thoughts again later. Anyway, she got to see clay again, he was going to teach her about...um...well she hadn't remembered that part but she had just remembered it was with clay.

(Class time)

As the bell rang for the end of the day, many students deciding to go outside and socialise for the last few hours of sunlight, clay and peril had gone a little off topic but they both agreed it wasn't too bad and that they could always pick it back up. Clay had a lot of work to do now as he had to organise all the scrolls from the classes that day and peril knew he wouldn't have a lot of time to deal with her so she didn't bring up the the winglet progress. She gave him company as the other students filed out of the mountain and until it was relatively empty and clay had packed up and gone over to the desk in his cave, piling the scrolls down with peril making sure to defiantly not step too close to the extremely flammable scrolls, that would be a bad thing, especially since it was clay's. She wondered just how she could truly study here and be like the rest of the winglets if she could never hand in a scroll assignment or be given material for research, she had only seen the library once and was too afraid to go in again after seeing the forced smile and underlying fear Starflight had by simply smelling the burning aroma that accompanied her.
"Hm queen Coral invented underwater scrolls, I wonder If I could do the same but with fire? I should be an expert on fire by now but really I just know what burns and what doesn't....dose Starflight know why things burn? Ill have to get Fatespeaker to give him a message, don't want to stress him and his precious scroll palace."

She was tired after the tiring but admittedly dreamy teaching session with clay so with a gust of warmth she spread her wings across the main hall and swooped into the prey centre, above the heads of a few precarious students and like an eagle, swooped down and snatched a large sheep that certainly did not see it coming, with its wool suddenly alighting in a spectacular blaze like a flaming comet flying out of the other end of the prey centre and into the valley below as the blazing heatwave from her wings blanketed the bemused dragons and prey alike.

Gliding down to her little spot near the river she landed gracefully, kicking up the ash from the previous meal up slightly and dropping her prey in the centre, the wool of the sheep kept the meat of the animal from turning to charcoal before she had a chance to enjoy it with its still mostly unburnt body sizzling nicely as the last of the wool burnt out. She remembered the last meal she brought here, daydreamed a little too much and there wasn't much left to eat that wasn't burn completely, although looking around she expected the mess of ash, bone and scraps of meat to be left with her hasty depart last time but it was no where to be found, the clearing was bare of any mess or ash, just the soft damp moss that constantly grew and regrew over the burnt parts of the clearing. But now she had both time and fortune on her side as she had the whole rest of the day until the sun went down with a meal she could enjoy in peace. It was times like this where she was finally content, even if it was for just a few seconds until the weight of reality came back down upon her, escaping the sky kingdom, the academy and Ruby then the debacle with scarlet coming back with vengeance against her new friends, it was all too much, her life had been turned upside down from admittedly shaky line between imprisonment and daughter with scarlet. But now she was safe from all that, she had safety in clay who would never abandon her and she would always find a home with him and in return everyone else would be safe from her, alone here, with no one around to hurt or to catch someone's scroll alight, just here with her thoughts and her food.
...
Wheres the food?
...
Pulling from her daydream she looked around, blinking twice to make sure she wasn't in her own head still and looked around. The scorched mark where she had dropped her prey in the centre was empty, with only a slight trail of the darkening moss leading too....the edge... THERE.
The Caracas of the sheep began to shuffle its way into a fern near the edge of the circle she had made but it wasn't moving very fast and with one swing of her claws, she dug them deep into the flesh of the animal with a hiss and a pop. Grabbing it and bringing it back to her reach.
"Funny, your not meant to be moving, your meant to be dead, iv never failed to kill a prey or even anything at all on the first try, but this isn't the arena and this isn't your day" she smiled at her own lightly traumatising joke, but.
Something's wrong, something's different.
She lifted the sheep up and around to see another small animal with its own claws stuck into the back of the animal, claws in and still, hoping she hadn't noticed it. Looking at it's closely curled up form she noticed it wasn't a rat or cat or anything but rather a little scrawny sca...

(Continue...)