A Light in the Darkness ~ A Wings of Fire Fanfiction

Chapter Five

"Firefly? Firefly!"

Splash! A wave of freezing water splashed over her, leaving Firefly coughing and almost choking on an ice cube. She grit her teeth, accidentally crushing the cube.

"Couldn't there be a better way to wake me up?" she hissed, obviously in a lousy mood. "Shaking me gently wasn't an option?"

Beside her, the pale blue IceWing shook her head. Leopard's eyes flashed in concern. Her tail twitched nervously, and she played with one of the transparent ice spikes on her tail. "Firefly, you were..." she hesitated.

"If you won't talk, I will," another familiar voice said, high-pitched but a little deep. A brown scale brushed against Firefly's purple ones. Autumn. "Firefly, you were talking in your sleep. Are you sure that didn't happen before? I've never met a MudWing in my past who talked like that. Apparently either all NightWings are different, or you are. I assume it is the latter."

Firefly hesitated, her mood vanishing. "I've never talked in my sleep before. At least, I think so. What did I say?"

"You said, 'The hive is thriving. The hive is disrupted. The hive has been robbed. Accompanied by wings of night, sky, water, sand, mud, and ice, you must go where your heart tells you. In dark times to come, there will be a light in the darkness'," Autumn mimicked, her voice sounding creepily eerie. 

Sunbeam shuddered in her corner. "That sounds pretty obvious. The hive, meaning the HiveWings. Aren't we scheduled to have a field trip with them in two days?" We are? "Wings of night, sky, water, sand, mud, and ice. That's the NightWing--Fatewalker--the SkyWing--Asteroid--the SeaWing--Whitefish--the SandWing--me--the MudWing--that's Autumn--and the IceWing--Leopard."

"Wait, hold up," Leopard interjected. "We have a field trip? So early? And how do you know about it?" She narrowed her eyes at Sunbeam, suspicious.

Sunbeam shifted her talons nervously. "Tsunami and Sunny might have been too loud in their conversation yesterday," she muttered guiltily. "I couldn't help eavesdropping. How do you forget something that has been poured into your ears, but you didn't hear it deliberately? You should be grateful for this opportunity."

"Whatever, let's just talk about this after school," Firefly reasoned. "Then we'll have a clearer mind, because we have a whole day to think about it."

Leopard nodded in agreement. "Let's meet after school, in the library with the boys. I'll tell Asteroid to tell the others."

Then they were off. Firefly went to the RainWing rooms, where each RainWing were given their schedules. She spotted Peafowl, and she gave her a wave. Firefly smiled back. Then she looked to the front of the room, and saw Auklet and Cliff handing out scrolls. She moved forward to get hers.

"Firefly, right?" Auklet asked, smiling gently. Firefly nodded. Auklet handed Firefly a scroll, with her name at the top. "Have a nice first day, and good luck navigating the school!"

Firefly walked out of the cave, and looked at her scroll. There were seven classes, including lunch. Her first class was hunting with Clay. She glanced at the others, becoming more nervous as she noticed her instructor for Fighting & Flying class was Tsunami. The female SeaWing seemed scary. But she couldn't be, Auklet was her sister. Right?

She decided not to dwell on that and padded to the prey center, where her winglet was gathering. She hadn't realized that she and her winglet would have every class together. This was great and also not-great, since she and Fatewalker hadn't made up.

Clay was in the center, squawking loudly at a pair of escaping chickens. The chickens made such a commotion, squawking back and flapping their bound wings(or, trying to). The pigs and hogs, frightened by the chickens' noise, made more noise, squealing and running all around their pen.  

And the cows! They were mooing at the escapees. They seemed funnily amused. Not for long! When Clay herded the chickens back into the pens, the cows didn't stop mooing. Like they were yelling, "More! More!"

Clay straightened himself in the center of the cave and gave the Quartz Winglet a grin. "To those who don't know who I am, I'm Clay, one of the dragonets of destiny and the Hunting instructor."

"Today," he continued, "we will be doing something very simple to some of you, and very difficult for the others. We will be... HUNTING!" He added a dramatic effect to the last word.

"Wow, really?" Whitefish whispered to Asteroid. "I never knew that."

Clay either didn't hear, or pretended not to. "So, first things first. I want to get to know exactly how you hunt, so each of you can demonstrate. Who thinks they're the best hunter in this winglet?"

Firefly didn't raise her talon. But Asteroid and Leopard and Autumn did. "That's not fair," Whitefish complained. "I've been fishing all my life; how do you expect me to know how to catch land prey?"

This dragon, Firefly thought. He really must hate school, if he complains about everything. I wouldn't do that!

"Fine, have it your way," Clay replied smoothly, refusing to let Whitefish get under his skin. "when it's your turn, we can go to the underground tunnels." The grumpy SeaWing grunted in satisfaction. "But listen, Whitefish, show some respect to your teachers. I can't have a single dragon in my school who refuses to do anything I ask of." The MudWing's scales shuddered, as if he were nervous, scolding a student.

"Yes, Clay, sure, whatever," Whitefish said. Clay frowned at the 'whatever' part.

"In that case, Whitefish, you shall go first," Clay said. He motioned to everyone to follow. Firefly followed him, and was notably aware of Fatewalker behind her. They followed Clay into a tunnel that led downwards. 

Firefly saw a bright light, and wondered what could it be. There was two SeaWings, talking and laughing. Clay cleared his throat. "Shouldn't you be in class?"

The SeaWings glanced his way. One of them muttered, "Sorry." While the other glared at Clay when he wasn't looking. They both slunk out of the cave. The polite one worriedly thought, Oh no, are we in trouble? I hope not. Moons, we're so lucky we ran into Clay and not Tsunami! I won't ever do that again. Whale Shark and I can hang out somewhere else. 

So that was the rude one's name. Whale Shark. Firefly made a mental note to steer clear of him. 

"Well, Whitefish, show off your tricks," Clay motioned to Whitefish to dive in the water and catch a fish. 

At the end of class, Clay dismissed them. "Oh, wait!" he called. "I forgot to tell you. In two days, we're going to Pantala!" Firefly cut a glance to Sunbeam. She had a smug look on her face.

Firefly looked away. She glanced at her schedule. She had math next, with Fatespeaker.