Wings of Fire: Knowledge Unfurling

Prologue

Author's Note: so yeah basically I just dug this prologue up and published it, the actual story is more polished than this is. I'm just giving this a try, hope the story is fun to read. 

At the end of the war...

Quicksand frowned down her snout at her siblings, watching them wrestle.

As their bigwings, she was responsible for taking care of them, which she had done, until Carrao, their sister, had wandered off and gotten herself killed by a squadron of SandWings. She had felt a strange feeling of emptiness ever since then, but her sibs were distraught. It's a war, Quicksand thought. Dragons die. Anyway, she had better things to do than watch a bunch of soppy brothers and sisters fight over who gets the last pheasant.

Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn't eaten in days. "Hey, you! Give me that bird." Quicksand said, striding up to the group. Marabou, the smallest dragonet in the pile of siblings, deftly grabbed the pheasant and passed it to her proudly. Mutters of annoyance drifted from the others.

Marabou hung her head, saying, "Sorry, guys, but Quicksand..." Quicksand started to eat, feeling a twinge of guilt, but it quickly passed. She was doing what she had to do, right? It didn't matter that her sibs didn't seem to like her as much as everyone else liked their bigwings...

Suddenly, a burst of flame licked the horizon, drawing all nearby eyes. Quicksand scrambled deeper into the mud, grabbing Marabou, who was staring, frozen, at the place where the flame had been. The rest of them, also covered in mud, turned to look at Quicksand.

"What do we do?" Warbled Peat.

A strong part of her wanted to scream: I have no idea! Stop looking at me as if I know everything! But instead, she took a deep breath and dove under the mud, knowing her troop would follow her.

Whilst under the mud, Quicksand had time to gather her thoughts. That must have been the SkyWings, right? No SandWing army would announce their presence like that. And surely no MudWing would... Hm. Maybe there's a troop being attacked over that hill. That could have been a cry for help, an attack, a battle flame... it could have been anything!

She felt the mud move beside her, before a small claw jabbed her urgently in the snout. She sighed internally, then surfaced.

Her troop was sitting there, staring at her. She stared back, her hackles up. "What is it?" She growled at them.

Marabou started towards her, then sat back. Snipe opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He had always been the outspoken one, and Quicksand felt discomfort settle in the pit of her stomach like a stone.

She whipped around, in case someone was sneaking up on her, and found... "Carrao?!" She gasped.

Her sister was sitting there, her amber wings folded, covered in mud, and nervously avoided Quicksand's gaze.

"Where have you been?!" She screeched at her. "You can't just disappear like that!"

Carrao helplessly looked around at her troop, and seemed like she was about to say something, but suddenly, Marabou seemed to give in to an impulse, and rushed over to Carrao, nestling herself under one of her wings.

Taking that as some sort of cue, Peat grinned and walked over to nudge Carrao with his snout. "We missed you."

"Me too!" Exclaimed Marabou.

Snipe smiled faintly at his lost sister, whispering to her, "Quicksand has been really strange since you left." After a pause, they all looked expectantly at Quicksand.

She furrowed her brow, before realising what they all wanted. "I, uh, I missed you too." She stammered. "Where have you been?"

Carrao glanced away; the quiet dragon seemed overwhelmed by all the love, but Quicksand also saw an undercurrent of anxiety in the way her wings trembled. But before she could say anything, shouts rang from the direction of the border between the Mud Kingdom and the Sky Kingdom. Quicksand snapped into commander mode, sitting up and scanning the horizon.

"We need to go help!" Marabou burst out. "There's no time! What if someone's in trouble?"

But Quicksand had already taken off, prompting the rest of her troop to scramble into the air, instinctively fanning out in formation like they'd practised countless times.

No time to sort out Carrao. I just hope we won't lose anybody else...