Starling's Darkness |A Wings of Fire Fanfiction|

Chapter 2

Rico had been chirping his beak off all night.
Starling hadn't gotten a wink of sleep since Sparrow had rushed him home after his quick encounter with Lucite, the strange Night/SkyWing hybrid that he was going to meet up with again at guard academy today.
But of course, Starling had zero energy for anything, especially today.
But he forced himself up, and got ready surprisingly fast. There had been something about Lucite that had struck him as odd, even after finding out she was half NightWing. The other extremely odd thing was Sparrow's reaction to her dream.
Starling shoved all his thoughts from yesterday away, trying really hard to focus on the things he had to pack in his leather satchel.
Lunch, water pouch, notebook, ink and pen...
"STARLING!!!" Sparrow yelled from somewhere in the series of caves that made up their home.
"UUUggUuhhhh." Starling groaned, hastily picking up all his things and packing them.
"It's time to leave!" Came Sparrow's reply, as if she hadn't heard Starling groan of annoyance.
"I know." Starling muttered frustratedly, and scurried out of his room with his satchel loosely flung around one wing.
"There you are!" Sparrow's green eyed glowed with pride as Starling turned around the corner and bounded to the cave entrance.
"Have a good first day of school, my son." Sparrow murmured, gently giving him a hug before he was about to bolt away.
"You've grown so much, and I can't BELIEVE you're in guard academy already!"
Starling brushed her talons off his shoulders, he wasn't particularly the physical affection type.
"Er- thanks." He said.
"Bye!" Sparrow called after him enthusiastically as he began to walk out of the house.
"Bye." He called back, before whipping around and taking flight toward the academy.
He wasn't hurrying because he knew he was late, he was hurrying because he wanted to see Lucite, the dragon that his mother seemed concerned about.
There was something about her that intrigued him...
Was it her power?
Was it the fact that his mother clearly seemed disturbed by her?
It still struck him odd, how his mother had reacted to Spire's hybrid dragonet.
He really wanted to be Lucite's friend, but he had a feeling his mother wouldn't approve of it...therefore... he probably shouldn't tell her.
Starling soared overtop of Lucite's house, but right before he was about to land he spotted Lucite, the bright orange and black dragonet bouncing through the early morning street towards the large oak doors that marked the entrance to the academy.
Starling swiftly changed his direction and hurled at full speed towards her. Unluckily for him, Lucite was closer than he had originally thought, and came hurtling down towards her at lightning speed.
"LUCITE!!!" He yelped.
The short orange and black dragonet whirled around, her eyes widening with happiness, fear, and surprise. She quickly darted out of the way as Starling tried vainly to slow himself down from crashing into the stone path, and managed to get a grip on one rock as he landed, and rolled off the rest of the speed with the rock he had grabbed, uselessly coming loose, so he rolled with it.
Lucite walked up to him, and stared down at him with amusement and worry in her green eyes.
"Well, that was quite a landing." Lucite smirked.
"I wouldn't have crashed if I hadn't tried so hard to catch up to you, you're fast at running to school."
"That's not my fault." Lucite giggled, "Besides, we're late, so maybe it's a good thing you hurried."
Starling snorted and got up, shaking grit off of his wings, and heading back a couple meters to pick up the satchel he had dropped.
Together him and Lucite walked to school, which was one minute away from where Starling crashed.
Starling opened one of the massive oak doors, and him and Lucite slipped in, stealthily closing it behind themselves.
"Names?"
Called a strange voice from behind them. Starling whirled around, feeling Lucite do the same. The voice had come from an old SkyWing secretary, who appeared to be incredibly bored besides showing them a bit of interest.
"Uh, I'm Starling. And this is Lucite." Starling introduced himself, and as he introduced Lucite, she beamed at the secretary.
"Hmmm.. you're late." The old dragon spoke after a bit, checking her list.
After a bit longer, she spoke again,"Three doors to the right of hall Number one, Magma will not be too pleased with late students, but I suppose she might go easy on you two, since it is your first day."
Starling swollowed hard.
Their teacher might punish them for being late?
At least me and Lucite are in the same class
Starling thought gratefully, and gave his new friend a side glance.
Lucite looked excited instead of worried as she marched into the classroom the old dragon had directed them to.
All different kinds of young faces turned towards the door as Lucite opened it, dragonets their age, all different shades of red, orange, or peach.
A tall crimson dragon with a slim frame and an extremely long neck turned around to fix Starling and his new friend in a glare.
"Ss, so you two are late on your first day, are you? Not a great start to classes." She hissed. Then her gaze softened..just a little.
"Come in, then. No point in wasting even more time. What are your names?" She looked expectantly at Starling.
"S-Starling, ma'am, and this is Lucite." He spoke nervously, trying his best to be brave in front of his new teacher's first encounter hostility, and his new classmates, whom he knew nothing about.
The crimson teacher pulled out a scroll from her nearby desk, and checked two things off on it, then nodded to them to have a seat.
The first bit of class was a bit boring, their teacher, who's name had turned out to be Magma, had lectured the class on the basics of fighting and flying.
"The SkyWings are the best at air combat." Magma had said, and continuing her monologue on how great the SkyWings were. But about an hour later, when the class was near bored to tears, she said;
"Okay young warriors! Let's go practice!"
Starling leaped up to his talons, and scurried as fast as he could out of that awful dank classroom after Magma and Lucite, with the rest of the dragonets hurrying behind, muttering amongst themselves excitedly.
They went down a few different stone corridors this time, and emerged onto a mountaintop, where you could see the far reaches of the Kingdom of Sky. Starling's eyes widened in amazement. He had never been this high up before!
"The first task is to get in the air as fast as we can above that valley." Magma said, angling one of her wings towards the valley to Starling's left, the deepest gorge in the Sky kingdom. Starling felt Lucite shuffle nervously beside him, and he wrapped his tail around her's slightly to comfort her.
If our wings gave out there, and we fell...
Starling tried not to think about what would happen if he, or Lucite, or anyone fell, as Magma took flight, and egged the class on to follow her.
Starling took a deep breath, let go of Lucite's tail, and leaped off the plateau, unfurling his wings as he stepped off the edge. He beat them hard, slowly rising into the sky to meet up with his teacher. He turned around to see Lucite doing the same, and one by one, the rest of his class.
The SkyWing dragonets around his age had previously been taught to fly already by their parents, but never this high up, or moving this quickly.
I wonder why Magma wants us to begin our training here
Starling thought, giving his teacher an useasy glance.
I have a hunch someone may get hurt...
But Starling's thoughts were briskly shoved away as soon as everyone was in the air, and Magma began instructing them.
"Okay, we will begin with learning a few basic moves. As some of you may know, we are on the top of Agate mountain, the tallest mountain in Pyrihha. Queen Ember has instructed that we teach our dragonets to fight in the hardest terrain of our territory, to be able to defend our kingdom ten times better."
"But doesn't that seem a little dangerous?" Lucite muttered, so only Starling could hear. He discreetly nodded his head to her.
"We'll start with the defensive retaliation. If a dragon is attacking you, this is how you can counter strike them; hold your tails behind you as you arch up your wings, and dodge to the side, landing a blow to your enemies' side."
Excitement and anticipation gleamed in his classmate's eyes, but all Starling felt was a sense of dread.
As everyone practiced the move, including himself, Magma now instructed them to try it on each other, but as that began, a strange pain blared through Starling's forehead, like a pounding migraine-headache slowly caving in his skull. He winced, flinching away from his classmate's practice, squeezing his eyes shut as the pain increased steadily. A vision of Lucite falling into the canyon blazed in front of his eyes, then faded away into blackness. Starling opened his eyes, as the headache faded. He didn't care what in the moons that was, but he had to find Lucite. He had to make sure she was safe, and not falling from the top of Agate mountain.
Starling whipped his head around, searching the crowd of dragonets for Lucite's familiar orange and black scales.
She was nowhere to be seen.
Did I just have a vision?
No, only NightWings have those, Starling. You're a SkyWing!
But then what was that?!
Starling's thoughts were going wild as something knocked into his back, and sent him flipping twice through the air, as he caught his balance, he whirled around to see Lucite laughing from behind him.
"Got you!"
Starling's eyes widened with fear as one of their classmates snuck up behind Lucite just as she had done to him, but they were too close to warn her.
"LUCITE-!"
Lucite was knocked through the air, not towards him, but downwards, her wings unbalanced as gravity yanked her towards the bottom of the canyon. All eyes turned to his falling friend, as Starling hurled himself after her.
Oh my moons, my vision was real.