Acari

Chapter One

"Shoot! I'm late!" Acari said as she jumped out her hammock. It was set up in a way that she could easily fold it and store away somewhere else. She grabbed her bag of herbs and scrambled for the door.

There really was no such thing as being 'late' in the RainWing kingdom, just Acari liked being at the Healer's Pavilion a certain time, and now was definitely not that time. Being there at the right time made her feel accepted by the others, even if she wasn't. It gave the real RainWings less to talk about.

"Slow down!" Her mother said, laughing. She was a whole different color from Acari, red with yellow spots, while Acari was just plain gray with even plainer dark gray stripes. "Where do you think you're going this early in the morning? Half the kingdom is still asleep!"

"I can't just not," Acari said, pacing at the door. Thinking about work made her uneasy, but she liked to be productive so she kept the job. Mango poked his head out from his room curiously as if he had just been roused by the noise.

"I bet the other RainWings wouldn't mind if you just skipped a day?" Her mother pleaded and Acari could see the tiredness in her eyes.

Acari knew that Peach was probably the only RainWing in the whole kingdom who had kept her eggs instead of putting them in the hatchery. She had cared for all of her dragonets with love and respect, never raising her voice at them once—not that she had the energy for it. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to spend just one day with her family...

But no, there were dying dragons in there and there already was a lack of RainWing medics (and also because she didn't want the others to think she was weird, but Acari shooed that thought away). Acari sighed and looked into her mother's eyes sympathetically. That seemed to have said everything as Peach faked smiled and said goodbye to Acari as she bolted out the door.

Their house wasn't built up high in the canopy like the rest of the RainWings's houses. Their mother didn't like thinking about maybe if a tree fell then their house would be gone, or if lightning struck them in the middle of a storm, etc. She was a very conservative and thoughtful dragon. Acari admired that.

On the way out, she passed a dragon that she knew was Papaya, the peachy scales and the red dots of those you couldn't find anywhere else. She waved to Acari as she flew past then ran off to play with Spot and her animals.

Papaya had loved to run off with the wild animals that lived inside of the rainforest, staying with them for days at a time. The last time she'd done that, though, was so long ago, Acari was having nostalgia just thinking about it. Nowadays, Papaya always mooned over Galaxy, which Acari didn't get (how could she date some dragon who seems so... normal? I can't imagine myself doing any of that), and she was way more aggressive than before. Galaxy HAD helped them and all, but he'd also just appeared. Mysteriously.

And he didn't look like a normal NightWing. His wings weren't dotted with sparkly stars, he had a bunch of bones on him like that was normal, he was also AN ANIMUS. The Nightwings hadn't had an animus in thousands of years! Atleast, not that Acari knew of. Galaxy was so sketchy.

Speaking of sketchy, why would the NightWings even capture RainWings? She remembered hearing or seeing the answer to that question somewhere, but lo and behold, she forgot. Though, Acari had seen many things when she was exploring the deep and long hallways of the Night Kingdom. Not like she'd kept anything as a souvenir. Nothing there was worth taking; the place was really ashy and she could feel herself become the ashes, meaning there was nothing stopping the objects from becoming the ashes as well.

"You're so paranoid," Clover remarked, giggling. "Chill out! Nobody wants a paranoid dragon to be their healer!"

They were now in the Healer's Pavilion and Acari was busy spilling out her deepest-darkest secrets to this royal-orange RainWing who she barely even knew. (Not really, but half of that was true.) Acari was tending to a very dead looking white RainWing, while Clover sat there and covered any mistakes she made.