Glorybringer Whomstve?

How It Should Have Been

Summary: How the scenes in Chapter 18 of A Hidden Kingdom should have ended. The italicized part is an excerpt from the book on pages 159 through 160. All of that, belongs to Tui. T Sutherland. Just making that clear.

Word Count:

***
Glory shifted on her branch and sighed. The night clung to her wings like hot, sticky cobwebs. A vine of moon-colored flowers nearby filled the air with a smell like muskrats rolled in lemons. It was not pleasant.

"You didn't have to stay," Tsunami whispered.

"Yes, I did," Glory said. "I know you. No matter what you see, you'll leap out of this tree and attack it if you're here by yourself."

"I--" Tsunami paused. "Well. I still might do that."

"Then at least I'll be here to help," Glory said, grinning in the dark.

They crouched like that for a while, listening to the creaking, chirping sounds of the rainforest at night. Some kind of insect was desperately announcing the end of the world in a shrill whine from the top of their tree. If Glory had been able to see it, she would have eaten it in a heartbeat, just to shut it up.

They'd spent the rest of last night and today in the RainWing village, recovering from their long flight. Sunny had squeezed the cactus juice into Web's wound and reported jubilantly that she thought it was working.

The others had stayed there for tonight; Glory thought it was unlikely that they'd catch the mystery monster on their first night watching, and they looked pretty exhausted. She'd also made Mangrove promise not to follow them again, and she'd left Silver with Sunny, because the only thing they new for sure was that the monster ate sloths.

"What did you think of Blaze?" Tsunami asked in a whisper. "Should we choose her?"

"I don't know," Glory whispered back. "I didn't really like her. Did you?"

"She really needed to shut up about SkyWings," Tsunami said. Glory couldn't agree more, but she was glad Tsunami had said it instead of her.

"She seemed less sinister than Burn or Blister," Glory said. "But also completely incompetent. Is it fair to give the SandWings a totally useless queen like that? And she's certainly not going to win the war just by us saying she should."

"That's true." Tsunami sai. "She'd never survive in actual combat, especially against one of her sisters."

"Anyway," Glory said. "It's not up to me. You guys decide whatever you want. I mean, since I'm not in the prophecy anyhow, so I shouldn't get a say."

"Stop talking like that or I will thump you," Tsunami said in a loud hiss. Glory could feel her glaring even in the dark, and she felt obscurely pleased.

"Shhh," Glory said, flicking her tail at Tsunami's wings.

"What was that?"

***

Glory listened intently, her ears twitching.

Snap. Sliiiither. Snap. Sliither.

"That's it, that's what we heard." Glory whispered. She heard Tsunami inhale quietly.

The monster noise approached closer, until it was at the base of the tree.

Snap. Sliiiither. Snap. Sliiiither.

The mystery monster slithered under and away from them. Both the dragonets let out a breath they didn't know they were holding.

"Did you see what it was?" Glory asked.