The Ghost Crown - FlashWing Chronicles

3 - Shanti

After all these years, I still wished for Currents.

Actually, it had only been one year since I had been abandoned for, apparently, the second time in my life. It felt like longer though.

"Rawr!" I pounced on the lobster, tossing it up and crunching it in my jaws. "Too many shell bits." I tried to spit out the pieces, swallowing the meat with only slight difficulty. "Currents, why did you have to send me here of all places?" I looked up at the sky, with its sun blazing down for the hundredth time that day. "Why not somewhere, I don't know, prettier? More interesting? More shady?"

I trudged into the shadow of the single palm tree, curling up as close to the trunk as possible in a futile attempt to escape the sun's wrath. The rest of the island sloped upwards in rolling cliffs filled with sunlight, no trees in sight. I preferred it down by the beach, where I could slip into the water whenever I wanted, but even the water was warmer than the shade today.

As I was gazing at the water, a blazing flash of light blinded me as it skipped over the water. "What the..." I whirled around, looking for the source. When I had turned back to the ocean, I nearly fell back in my attempt to scramble away.

A transluscent blob was laying on the beach, half in and half out of the water. At first sight, it almost looked like a jellyfish. A giant, winged, clawed jellyfish that glowed. "Oh my starfish." I gasped, darting towards the strange creature. "Are you..."

Its eyes flew open, gold with black flecks, staring at me with pain in their depths. "Oh...um..." I stammered, trying to figure out how to help. A hacking cough emanated from the creature, and I dove into the water, supporting its wings while it crawled out farther onto the sand. "What are you?" I whispered once it had collapsed safely on the beach.

"W-wh-where..." I could tell it was a dragon now. Female, from the looks of her build and the sound of her voice. But she didn't look like she was from any of the tribes in Pyrrhia.

"Where are you?" I finished, curling up beside the transparent dragon. "You're in the Bay of a Thousand Scales, on a deserted island." The dragon lifted her head, and I could see that her body was clear nearly all the way through. I could see the sand through her stomach as she shifted, gasping a little in pain. "How did you get to be like that?"

"Like what?" The dragon lifted her wings, flinching back with a shriek of surprise and horror. "What happened to me?"

"I'm not sure." I answered truthfully. "Who are you?" 

She didn't answer for a moment, staring at a rock that lay in front of her snout. "Where's the Bay of a Thousand Scales?" she asked finally, ignoring my question. "In Pyrrhia." I said, "Everyone knows that." 

What is she hiding?

Her eyes narrowed slightly, her brow furrowing. Only then did I notice she had a star on her forehead, with diamond shapes surrounding it. There were patterns near her eyes, almost as if she had a crown of teardrops and circles for her eyes. But all of these details disappeared from my mind when she spoke.

"You're joking, right?"

I nearly collapsed with laughter. "No, Pyrrhia is the continent where all dragons live." I said patiently. "So if you could tell me where on Pyrrhia you're from, we could figure out how to get you home."

The mysterious dragon lifted her head, unfurling her wings slightly even though I knew it must have agonized her. 

"You have never seen my home. No one on this Pyrrhia has, and no one here ever will. My home was created to keep out dragons like you, and it will continue to do its job until the end of time."

I opened my mouth but she silenced me with a sharp glare.

"And until then, I will never be able to return home, because out of all the FlashWings who have ever travelled off of the island?

None of them came home."