Healed

Chapter 3

What are they doing here?

Flame fled the gardens as quickly as he could. He pushed his way past some gardeners as they watered a bed of lilies.

"Move!" He yelled at them shortly before passing through the arched entranceway to the west-most building. He scuffled around the maze of couches, tables, chairs, cushions and other shit that supposedly made up a lounge for dragons to hang out in during their spare time.

His room was on the first floor near the back. He quickly unlocked the door, ran inside, forcibly slid the door shut and locked it again.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY DOING HERE?

He had hoped to leave Jade Academy and the whole Dragonet of Destiny bullshit behind. But NOPE. It seemed that life had another shitty gift to bestow upon him. It had presented him with the stupid brother and crazy sister of the oh so heroic Clay who was actually NOT even special in ANY way since the whole FUCKING prophecy had been a setup! I would know since I was the DAMN BACKUP SKYWING.

Flame took a deep breath and exhaled. The afternoon light poured into his humble but spacey room. There was a small sitting area and empty shelves to his right and just beside the window was a desk and chair. To the left, on a slightly elevated plateau, was a bed. Flame had arrived yesterday morning but his bag was still lying unpacked on the floor next to the desk.

There hadn't really been anything he needed to bring, but his mother had forced him to take an extra blanket and Flame had insisted on bringing his entire collection of graphic-scrolls, or graphicolls as he liked to call them.

They were like scrolls, except the story was told in a series of pictures with little speech and thought bubbles for the characters. Flame had read them since he was a little dragonet. He would read them all night long while waiting for his mother to come home from her Talons of Peace business, hoping to spend a little time with her before she got up early the next morning and disappeared again for the day.

Those late night conversations were all the same.

XX

"Flame!" His mother shouted. "Did you stay up again? You should be in bed!"

"I know I know!" Flame raised his talons in defense. He had been waiting intently for her return outside her bedroom door. "But hear me out. I was hoping maybe we could spend tomorrow together. We could get ice cream or something and then go and see-"

"Flame." The sharp tone his mother used shut him up. "I can't. You know that. Everything the Talons of Peace do is to protect the Dragonets of Destiny so that they can grow up and end this war. That is our top priority, and therefore, it is my top priority." She firmly nudged Flame into his bedroom with her wings and pointed at his bed. "Now. Go. To. Bed."

Flame crawled into bed feeling empty. Perhaps Avalanche's motherly instincts finally kicked in because she paused before stepping outside of his room and turned back to him. In a softer voice she spoke. "I'm doing this for you, Flame. You'll understand when you're older."

XX

Oh, I understand perfectly fine, mother, Flame sneered in his mind. I wasn't special enough for you. I wasn't destined to end the war like those wonderful Dragonets of Destiny so what was the point of spending time with me, right?

Flame used to pretend that he was like those characters in his graphicolls that had amazing powers. He would save Pyrrhia and then his mother would finally want to spend time with him and love him. But that never happened. Even when he had been part of that dumb backup group for the Dragonets of Destiny he STILL hadn't been able to see his mother. He tried to feel the anger, but instead he only felt the twisting pain in his heart. He swallowed hard, fighting against the urge to leave this shitty place and run back to his mother.