The Ghost Crown - FlashWing Chronicles

5 - Shanti

"This is all your fault."

I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate despite Moonsong's grumbles.

"All your fault."

"Will you just shut up for a minute?" I snapped, flaring my wings and bruising them on the cage bars, creating a metal rattle. Surprising, Moonsong's voice fell silent, and I was able to sit in peace, despite my wings pulsing with pain.

I wonder if Currents knows that I'm here. I shook my head angrily. Does it matter? She abandoned me, and I have no one left.

And now I'm stuck here. With Moonsong, who was the stupid idiot that got us stuck here in the first place.

I opened my eyes, startled to hear a quiet drip-drip-drip. "Moonsong?" I asked tentatively, momentarily forgetting my anger for a minute. I squinted, trying to see into the darkness. Her transparent body blended in with the walls, and it took me a minute to place where she was. She was given away by her tears, sliding off of her snout and onto the floor, creating the sound I was hearing. "Are you okay?"

"No! Nothing is okay!" Moonsong cried out, then seemed to catch herself. She returned to huddling in the corner, her big golden-flecked eyes squeezed shut. More quietly, she whispered, "I should have known."

"Known what?"

"This."

"...this?"

"That this would happen. To me, of all dragons. I never guessed. But I should have."

"What about it? I mean, I never imagined that I'd get stuck in prison, but that sort of thing happens all the time."

"Not on our island."

"What?"

"FlashWings...we're built for light. So one of the harshest punishments is taking it away."

The shadows seemed to leap higher at her words, the dark pressing in eagerly to hear her next words.

"If a FlashWing commits a crime severe enough, they're taken away. Underground. Locked away from the light that gives us strength." Moonsong raised her eyes to mine. Her eyes seemed to become more gray than black by the minute. "Away from the sun that gives us life."

She's scared. Of the dark. More than she wants to be, more than she wants me to know. I realized. "A nightmare come true." I murmured, gripping the bars tightly. Moonsong looked at me strangely, then down to the ground. "Essentially." she replied, her breath hitching. "Though my mother and father don't often use that punishment. It is thought to be cruel."

"Aren't punishments supposed to be?" A voice interrupted our conversation, and I whipped around to see a maroon SkyWing sashay into the dungeon. "When are we going to be let out?" I demanded, and the SkyWing laughed. "The queen will see you now, so you better be more polite." She flicked her tail, and several burly shadows attached leashes to me and Moonsong. "Come." she beckoned, and we had no choice but to follow.